Flying by the seat of your pants

This article about fruit flies was linked from Scott Adams's blog: "Study hints that fruit flies have free will". In case you don't care to read it, the title should be enough.

Schwunh? My first thought was, "What the heck else would they have other than free will? A teeny fruit fly dictator that tells them what to do? Or is this a study done by a conspiracy theorist who believes that the Commies have implanted microchips in the fruit flies that make them all take up suicide missions diving into the eyes of good Capitalists?" Well, as it turns out, the debate is whether fruit flies are simply reacting to external stimuli, acting "completely randomly" or have the free will. (The article seems to ignore that there could be some overlap between reacting to external stimuli and having free will. Can't I decide whether or not to react to some external stimuli? Also, the scientists ignored that it would be experimentally impossible to differntiate between purposeful and unconscious reaction. How do you test whether or not I "meant" to do it?? Especially if I'm a fruit fly??)

My second thought was, "Isn't this more a theological question? Scientists actually get money to study this???" Then logic kicked in and I realized what the real problem with the study is.

For a moment, let's leave aside questions of determinism vs. randomness vs. free will. How is gluing a fruit fly to a hook a good way to study whether or not they have free will? The article stated that the scientists wanted to "remove all the stimuli which could trigger a response". HEL-LO! I think having a copper hook glued to you so you can't move is a pretty big stimulus!!! Can't you just hear the teeny, tiny buzzing: "Aaaaahhh! GetitoffmeGetitoffmeGetitoffme!!" Where was the control group of fruit flies that didn't have hardware attached to them?

The scientists hypothesized "...if fruit flies were simply reactive robots entirely determined by their environment, in completely featureless rooms they should move completely randomly". Again, copper hook = "feature". Especially if I'm glued to it. And does that hypothesis seem dumb to anyone else? If they are completely "reactive", wouldn't they not move at all in the absence of stimuli? They'd have nothing to react to!

Now comes my favorite bit of the article:

A plethora of increasingly sophisticated computer analyses revealed that the way the flies turned back and forth over time was far from random. Instead, there appeared to be "a function in the fly brain which evolved to generate spontaneous variations in the behavior," Sugihara said.

"Spontaneous variations," apparently, are vastly different than "randomness." And this "evolution" of the function also was completely unprovoked by external stimuli, I guess. The article goes on to state that the variations are consistent with a mathematical formula that is found lots of places in nature...among them, how these "dumb" animals search for food. Intelligent design, anyone? But anyway, I would really like to see the analyses that one would run on fly wings flapping. 'Cause that's all the little buggers could do: flap and "attempt" to turn.

I'm going to start trying to work the phrase "plethora of increasingly sophisticated computer analyses" into my daily work-day repertoire.

Mother Mayhem

The great thing about being married and having both your family and your spouse's family live in the same town as you, is that it's easy to get together with them. This is also, as you can imagine, the worst thing about it. "Holiday" weekends become an around-the-town visiting spree, and instead of getting two days to relax, you get zero. But it's usually fun stuff, nonetheless.

Friday night we actually spent with friends at the Aquarium for "Jazz Journeys". The Aquarium was open until 10, and there were very few people there, so we got some great views of tanks that are otherwise pretty crowded. We spent way more time looking at the fishes than actually listening to the jazz (fine with me ;). The water in the "big tank" was remarkably clear, and we got to see all four of the wobbegongs! One of them was even swimming around (I've never seen that). One of the volunteers showed us a video of the arawana (that's how they spell it at the Aquarium) in the River Scout section jumping about 10 feet in the air! The downside was that most of the mammals were asleep, and I didn't get to see my favorites, the leafy sea dragons. We peered through the fence at the new World of Coke (DH was drawn by the giant glowing Coke bottle, as he always is). I'm kind of excited about the coffee shop (or, for me, tea shop) on property...I just hope they have the cocoas like in Toronto.

Saturday DH had a Session meeting early, then we grabbed sandwiches (and cookies) from our local Italian grocery store and drove out to see his parents for Mother's Day. After touring their backyard garden, we drove out to the State Botanical Garden in Athens. It's really gorgeous! Very different from the Atlanta Botanical Garden...it's mostly outdoor stuff, and I found the outdoor plants very well labeled (a weakness of the ATL garden's outdoor areas, IMO). Also, it's free. =) Too bad it's so close to U(sic)GA. Unfortunately, it started raining about 45 minutes after we got there, so we didn't get to walk any of the trails. That was probably just as well, because I was already starting to suffer from my lack of sleep and the stress of riding in the car with DH's dad at the wheel.... We rounded out the evening with a few rousing hands of Big Two.

Sunday was an early day for us, as DH was running sound for worship and I was singing. I did get to play the djembe again, but Julia was on shaker duty, so it was an easy week. After the service and bidding adieu to our lovely church administrator (*sniff!*), we grabbed some flowers (a lovely pink and white hydrangea; wish I'd thought to take a picture...I've never seen that color before) and rushed off to my parents'. My dad was supposedly cooking lunch for my mom and all the other mothers (my three sisters...I only count as a godmother =). What this really meant was that Dad cooked a couple pork loins (and there was some pork and sauerkraut...I'm not sure if he was responsible for that or not) and heated some green beans, while my three sisters brought side dishes, bread and dessert. Because I'm the baby, I can still get away with showing up and assembling the salads at the last minute. =) I really do like to cook! But I don't think my dad thinks I can cook...that's another story for another day. The best was the dessert my oldest sister created. It had a thin layer of chocolate cake, covered with Moose Tracks ice cream, then a layer of chocolate Cool Whip mixed with peanut butter, topped with chopped Oreo cookies and mini peanut butter cups. YUM!!!! I had a great time gabbing with my nieces and nephews and playing "Countdown" (best I can tell, we play a weird variant of Seven Up, Seven Down, with knocking, but the bids don't have to "work"). I actually came in second in the second game, which is astonishing for me. It's one of the few games I enjoy that I'm not that great at.

When we finally got home, we collapsed on the couch and watched "Zathura", which I highly recommend. I was a little ambivalent towards it at the beginning, because it seemed like a sad rehash of "Jumanji" (which, to be honest, I've never seen). However, I didn't realize that they are both taken from books by Chris VanAlsburg. The interview with him on the DVD is great...basically, at the end of Jumanji they give the game to two kids, Walter and Danny, who "are always starting puzzles and never finishing them". Jumanji was an old, double-sided game board, and on the back is Zathura. In the movie, the game board is this really cool "tin toy" type of board, and they don't address the tie-in to Jumanji. But I love the game board design so much, I don't care at all. The two boy actors are just great. And, as a bonus, MOST of the effects are practical rather than digital. PLUS, Frank Oz as a robot!! It doesn't get much better than that. =)

Now we're cooking...

Today's loft picture is the kitchen. I'm posting this one today because earlier I was fixing lunch and thought delightedly of how much counter space I'm going to have in the new place!! As you can see, the fridge has just been moved in. The counter ("Tranquility" by Corian) has yet to be sanded (and cleaned...yuck!). You can barely tell it's got a slight green cast to it, again due to the rainy day. I'm really happy with the way it turned out. When you're looking at a little 2x2" piece of Corian, it's hard to envision how the variations and little chips in the mix will look on a big piece. But there are lots of them (which is what I wanted). And look at that sexy faucet!! Why is it sexy? Because the sprayer is integrated into the faucet itself and not a little separate cheapy plastic thing! (BTW, I'm using "sexy" in the geeky context here...in which case it means, "a piece of innovation that's exciting and a must-have". It's the ultimate technological compliment.)

To the extreme right, you can see a bit of one of our huge 6x9' (actuall 9'5") windows. There are three on the second and third floors (we're on the second right now). You can also see the weensiest bit of the stairs to the third floor. If you look at the cabinets (by Thomasville), you can see the reeded glass inserts on three of them. And you can see where the missing cabinet door would go.

May Memories, week 2

For week two, I decided to work on Catherine Theron's Quaker Sewing Case. Teresa and I had originally started a stitch-along (SAL) on it last October after ASG. Unfortunately, it fell by the wayside...I did complete October-December's installments, but didn't finish January's once the monthly themes started. I have been working on the outside of the case (which is Florentine worked in wool) on the way to work off and on, so January's installment of that is done.
This week, I decided to work on January's "over one" installment: the pocket. And here is what I have to show for my week! Kind of pathetic. Although, I really didn't have that much time to work on it, and Sunday and Monday I worked on She Maketh Fine Linen instead. I don't have that much to show for that, either! Two over-one initials and four stacked herringbone cartouches. To make matters worse, I was going to get out Magical Night today, and I'm now pretty sure all the fibers and the chart for it are boxed away. *sigh* To substitute, I'm either going to work more on Blackwork Band Sampler or work on Wedding Sampler or even possibly what I think is actually my oldest existing WIP: Summer Carousel Horse. I know I was working on it in college, because it was barely saved when my room in the sorority house flooded. That's a great story....

Finally...

It's a picture of our new place! I'm going to post more in the coming days. This is really just a taste...more of a "mood" picture...since it's a little blurry.

This is the "master bath". It was taken on a rainy day, so the tiles look much grayer than they actually are. I wish DH had taken a picture of the shower...it just looks awesome. The vessel sinks are translucent green glass, and the countertop is Corian "Beach Glass"...it's a nice pale bluey-green (think DMC 504, but a little grayer =). Those lovely lights are from West Elm. We had some from IKEA, but the architect actually decided that they looked crappy compared to all the nice fixtures we picked out. (The master bath in the other unit is much more...spartan than ours. And not in a good, Halo-kind-of-a-way. More in an institutional-way. You pick the institution.)

Doncha love the light coming in the window?? Maybe that will help me wake up in the morning. Nah....