This Blog Has Moved

As of 2008, this blog has moved to markci.wordpress.com

Science In Action

I'm not sure why I stopped updating this blog some time ago, and I'm not sure why I'm doing it now, except that I have insomnia and was up reading cnn.com, and on the very front page of that same publication read the following two headlines:


Men want hot women, study confirms

A team at Indiana U apparently came to this conclusion by studying 26 men and 20 women at a speed dating event in Munich Germany. Hmm...I wonder if that trip to Europe was paid out of the research grant.


Study: rock stars more likely to die young


Researchers at Liverpool John Moores University studied 1064 stars from the "rock, punk, rap, R&B, electronic and new age genres in the 'All Time Top 1,000' albums published in 2000." They came to the conclusion that a lot of rock stars die from drugs and stuff.

Headline of the Week

"Shark virgin birth warning to man, expert says." -- cnn.com

Oh crap: shark Messiah???

Interesting, But Maybe I Need A First One First...

A few days ago I came across this news item about a woman who made a million dollars developing land that doesn't exist in a place that exists only on a huge collection of Internet servers called Second Life. Mind you, the million dollars is a real million dollars that does exist, or at least could if she opted to cash out her assets.

I couldn't even conceive how a person would go about "developing" land, because the only, brief, experience I had with one of these virtual worlds way playing Sim City for about an hour several years ago, and as I recall what you did to "develop property" was drag your mouse around to put up a few walls, and dump some furniture inside. So I created a free account to see what in the world Second Life was, and wow. People really get into this stuff.

Essentially everything in the game has been created by users, a lot of them apparently really excellent artists, 3D designers and animators who make money selling virtual artwork, clothing, body parts, animations, vehicles, buildings, etc. There's a real economy. Developers will buy raw "land," which apparently maps to server capacity, create, say, a shopping mall on it. Then they'll sublet space to others, who may use it to sell clothing, furniture, sex toys, prettier eyeballs, etc that they've designed, or just distribute, to customers. Or they'll construct a theme park, or bar or brothel or whatever and charge people for admission or services provided.

The "virtual dollars" function almost as a real currency; you can buy or sell them in a free market with floating exchange rates.

Probably this doesn't come as news to a lot of people out there, but it was to me! What shocked me even more is that I sort of enjoyed playing it, though that may wear off with time.

Then I started thinking about the local fishing pier that they recently tore down to make room for more expensive beach condos. Several just in this area have been demolished in recent years, along with most of the lower-priced motels and campgrounds on Bogue Banks. These places served mostly people of modest income who can't afford a beach condo or a yacht, and it seems like you'll soon need to be rich to enjoy the ocean.

So I wonder if in the future only the wealthy will be able to afford "real" property and "real" experiences, whereas the rest will make do with virtual ones. On the other hand, if the virtual ones are good enough, maybe they'll be better.

Amazon Recommendations

Does anybody ever get anything good recommended to them by Amazon.com? Currently it's recommending I buy Peter Jackson's King Kong Extended Edition. It was at least an hour before we even saw the monkey the first time around (as my niece put it), and it needs an extended edition?

Quote of the Week

“I am not ‘running’ for president. I am seeking to create a movement to win the future by offering a series of solutions so compelling that if the American people say I have to be president, it will happen.” -- Newt Gingrich

Totally hilarious. Will somebody tell this bobble-headed nitwit his 15 minutes ended 8 years ago?

Must Sleep

In my old age I seem to be developing into an insomniac, unfortunately, and right now I have it pretty bad. It's definitely stress-related, and I've always had some trouble sleeping when I'm stressed, as do most people from time to time. But this is far worse than normal.

It started Monday night, when I might have gotten an hour's worth of sleep. I lay there awake until about 4:30, then my housemate woke me up at 5:30 when she got up to do field work, and I never got back to sleep. I couldn't sleep Tuesday night either, even after a dose and a half of Sominex. I had to cancel a seminar I was supposed to give in Chapel Hill because I didn't feel like I could make the drive, or produce a coherent sentence even if I did.

So with the pressure of the seminar off, and being so sleep-starved, I thought I'd collapse easily last night. But I didn't. I did get to sleep eventually, but it wasn't until at least 3:00 AM, and I must have woken up a dozen times between then and 8:00.

If I don't sleep tonight I'm going to try and get a prescription for some Halcyon or Valium or something.

Quotes of the Week

"This is not a violent death, so there is no ground for speculations of this kind.” -- weird comment from murderous Russian dictator Vladimir Putin about the man he had poisoned, Alexander Litvinenko. Litvinenko was at the time of his poisoning investigating the murder (likely on orders from Putin) of the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

"I looked into his heart and I know his soul. He is a good man." -- Jackass, a few years ago, regarding Putin.

Some Exciting Research

Here in coastal NC, the local shrimping industry has been hit pretty hard by cheap imported shrimp. However, we here at IMS believe we can help produce a superior low-fat American product.