Pick your color

I'm not usually one for these Internets memes either, but:

Rick took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test! "Seeks the determination and elasticity of will nec..." Click here to read the rest of the results.

Your Existing Situation
Avoids excessive effort and needs roots, security, and peaceful companionship. May be physically unwell, in need of gentle handling and considerate treatment.

Your Stress Sources
The situation is regarded as threatening or dangerous. Outraged by the thought that he will be unable to achieve his goals and distressed at the feeling of helplessness to remedy this. Over-extended and feels beset, possibly to the point of nervous prostration.

Your Restrained Characteristics
Clings to his belief that his hopes and ideas are realistic, but needs encouragement and reassurance. Applies very exacting standards to his choice of a partner and wants guarantees against loss or disappointment.

Willing to become emotionally involved as he feels rater isolated and alone. Egocentric and therefore quick to take offense, though he tries to avoid open conflict.

Feels that things stand in his way, that circumstances are forcing him to compromise and forgo some pleasures for the time being.

Your Desired Objective
Seeks the determination and elasticity of will necessary to establish himself and to make himself independent despite the difficulties of his situation. Wants to overcome opposition and achieve recognition.

Your Actual Problem
Depleted vitality has created an intolerance for any further stimulation, or demands on his resources. This sense of powerlessness, combined with frustration that he cannot control events, subjects him to agitation, irritation, and acute distress. He tries to escape these by stubborn insistence on his own point of view, but the general condition of helplessness renders this often unsuccessful. Is therefore very sensitive to criticism and quick to take offense.

Green Eggs and Ham, anyone?

Researchers in Taiwan have developed transgenic pigs that glow green under a bluish light. They're a tool for stem cell research, apparently.

This trumps glow-in-the-dark transgenic tropical fish by a fair margin.

More at the BBC (also my photo source...)

New Stephen King novel later this month should be fun

Cell

What happens on the afternoon of October 1 came to be known as the Pulse, a signal sent though every operating cell phone that turns its user into something...well, something less than human. Savage, murderous, unthinking-and on a wanton rampage. Terrorist act? Cyber prank gone haywire? It really doesn't matter, not to the people who avoided the technological attack. What matters to them is surviving the aftermath.

(from Publisher marketing, but I love the story premise)

Holy Frijoles, It's Some University-based art!

N.E. Tempo with Berk

Fridays on WESU, 88.1 Middletown.

High Bandwidth Continuous live 1 1/6/06 7:59 PM

Hyperdrive in five years?

I am a nerd. Despite being up to my eyeballs in science on a daily basis, I spent free time reading the book "Hyperspace" by Michio Kaku on string theory and higher dimensions. It's just enough knowledge to be dangerous... the best kind, really. Might have blogged this book, but I can't find it :( (Update: Ah, yes, mentioned here)

Anyway, the RSS feed for this silly webcomic linked to an article in the Scotsman (reprinting from Sci-Tech Today) about US Air Force and DOE interest in a theoretical propulsion system that could get us to Mars in three hours:

The theoretical engine works by creating an intense magnetic field that, according to ideas first developed by the late scientist Burkhard Heim in the 1950s, would produce a gravitational field and result in thrust for a spacecraft.

Also, if a large enough magnetic field was created, the craft would slip into a different dimension, where the speed of light is faster, allowing incredible speeds to be reached. Switching off the magnetic field would result in the engine reappearing in our current dimension.

This is all based on a recent paper by physicists Dröscher and Häuser [pdf] describing an implementation of Heim Quantum Theory. It's an admittedly controversial approach, but fun to think that there are groups willing to test this stuff.

More on Burkhard Heim and the debate on his science at Wikipedia.

Faction seizes a Housatonic area

There was an interesting article in my Boston Globe feed this morning about the ongoing rivalry between two different groups of Schaghticoke Indians. I can spell 'Schaghticoke' from memory because it was the name of my junior high in New Milford, CT, but I had no idea that the tribe had a res in the next town over...

It's the usual infighting about US recognition and whether to build a casino. That would definitely alter the populous Western section of CT in big ways.

(Globe Article)

Faction seizes a Housatonic area
Dispute widens for rivals in tribe

By Associated Press | January 2, 2006

KENT, Conn. -- A tribal faction has seized the Schaghticoke Indian reservation to develop property near along the Housatonic River.

Members of the faction say they have plans for houses and for unspecified "economic development" in the region.

On Friday, Schaghticoke Indian Tribe members took over the tribe's office and picnic pavilion, forcing out the rival Schaghticoke Tribal Nation.

The two groups, which each claim to represent the tribe that has lived in Kent since the 1700s, have feuded since the 1970s.

"The reservation belongs to all Schaghticokes," Alan Russell, the Schaghticoke Indian Tribe faction's chairman, said Saturday. "We want to start our economic development program here."

Russell's group, which is seeking federal recognition, says it is the true Schaghticoke tribe. Like the rival Schaghticoke Tribal Nation, the Schaghticoke Indian Tribe also is interested in developing a casino or bingo hall.

The reservation, which was once more than 1,000 acres but has been reduced during hundreds of years of land sales, has been at the center of contention over tribal recognition. The Bureau of Indian Affairs in October denied federal recognition of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation.

State politicians and Kent officials strongly opposed recognition, fearing the tribe would try to open a casino.

Schaghticoke Tribal Nation members said Saturday that they were pulling back because they had no interest in clashing with Russell's group. They said they are focused on a court appeal of the Indian Bureau's decision.

"We've got bigger battles to fight," said Michael Pane, vice chairman of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation. "I'm just shrugging my shoulders."

Schaghticoke Tribal Nation Chief Richard Velky said Russell's takeover was "ridiculous at this stage of the game."

"We are looking for federal recognition," he said.

© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Happy New Year!

After an excellent month of relative (read: lots of) sloth following my oral exam, I am ready to jump into 2006:

- I am TAing an introductory class on bioinformatics, which should be a good challenge, but also good prep for the career I am setting up for myself.
- I am jumpstarting my research, too. More on that shortly.
- I am continuing the trend of going to the gym that allowed me to run marathons (only half-marathons this year, though).

Whee!