Like a nerd on a wire
Sep. 17th, 2009
![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/neko/kaokitty/sad.gif){kind=small}
sadJul. 28th, 2009
08:15 pm - Ofi Watch 2009
After some awfully expensive tests, it appears that, among other things, Ofi has some form of liver disorder. She has also become a butter junky. We're not how that's going to go.
![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/neko/kaokitty/geeky.gif){kind=small}
geekyJul. 16th, 2009
09:12 pm - Ofi Watch 2009
The narcotics seem to be working. There is a lot less late night howling (from Ofi at least). Now we just have to worry about her showing up in a tabloid with headlines about addiction to pain killers.
geekyJul. 2nd, 2009
09:27 pm - Ofi Watch 2009
We skipped a whole year with Ofi Watch, but here we are again. It started this time with late-night howling that kept us from sleeping. A diagnosis at the vet was inconclusive, but showed a very elevated liver protein. The doctors never really say what that means, but the gave her "liver pills" (methionine and milk thistle) and big pain killers. So now Ofi is on daily doses of kitty narcotics. She doesn't howl much anymore. It's possible that she really is in pain as she enters her 17th year in September. Summing up: Ofi, bad liver, stoned.
geekyApr. 18th, 2008
01:06 pm - found something
Looks like JabRef gets the blue ribbon. It lets me do more or less what I wanted eventhough I like the Flickr-style tagging of some of the other options. Huge What-E-Ver on the whole affair.
Thanks for sharing your opinions.
geekyApr. 16th, 2008
04:35 pm - looking for something in all the wrong places
I'm looking for some opinions on software. Here's the deal:
Scientific publications are more and more electronic documents in PDF format. That means that over time I accumulate hundreds of PDF files with names like "PII:3823928376.pdf". That's fine for the big document publisher but I need a little more. What I need is library management on my desktop; something that connects the meta-information of these documents (author, journal, title, keywords, date) to the files containing the text.
I have found Papers to be a really good application for this purpose, but it is Mac-only and I probably need to be running Windows in the near future. Also, it has trouble with getting the meta-data from the publishers that I use and you can't edit the meta-data in PDFs with the program.
What I am looking for: somekind of database front end that allows me to search by author, etc. and is relational AND something that maintains a link to the article text so that I can open the article from the search AND the ability to import the meta-data from PDF headers or from citation files (.RIS types of format). Ideally there would be some amount of automation in compiling a library, but beggars can't be choosers.
So I ask you -- information architects, programmers, and geeks-cum-laude -- what technologies or programs should I be looking at to manage the ever-growing number of PDF articles that I maintain?
other canditates that I have looked at without being convinced: Librarian, ORPAL, JabRef
geekyDec. 6th, 2007
11:30 am - Fly like a Lepidoptera, sting like a Hymenoptera
There is a beetle, native to the UAE, which destroys palm trees. It has arrived in Europe via Egypt with the importation of date palms. This little bug, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus, the Red Palm Weevil or il-Bumunqar Aħmar tal-Palm, is starting to have a serious impact on the palm trees of France, Spain, and Italy.(vide link) This is not so much for the economic aspect of date production, although that is a serious issue in the Middle East; but for cultural and historical reasons such as the centuries-old palms of Palermo. "Eradicating it completely is extremely difficult and experiments are being held around the world on how this can be done." Indeed, there are experiments being conducted here, even in the department where I work. That's how I passed a few hours this week, devising an impromptu system to exterminate these creatures from an infected palm tree. At best, I can say that I made them very sleepy. I doubt that I have actually killed anything, except for the one larva that got cut in half by the chainsaw during the autopsy, but we can hardly consider that my fault since I wasn't operating the saw.
geekySep. 18th, 2007
03:48 pm - something is starting
It's official now, I just sent out my first application for work in the U.S.
(Thanks ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
qiqa for doing the actual sending at the post office.)
geekyJun. 8th, 2007
04:00 pm - Matlock !!!
For all the attempts at being fancy and "modern", why is it that I find Windows more difficult to use than the DOS command-line for moving files or creating a directory substructure? It took me 7 lines in DOS to do the same task that requires 5 minutes in Windows using the GUI. Good god I'm old.
geekyMay. 3rd, 2007
12:02 pm - Oww!
Even the best constructed Boolean search term produces some extraneous results when searching the scientific literature (not using Google). But this is perhaps the scariest title that has ever appeared while I was looking for something else:
Cost-Effectiveness of Laser Ablation of the Prostate
(AORN Journal Volume: 63, Issue: 3, March, 1996, pp. 634)
geekyApr. 29th, 2007
04:45 pm - not dead yet
I attribute my lack of posts to being sick for more than a month -- remember that driving test that I passed, I was already sick then. Atypical pneumonia is a drag.
I have experienced a weird linguistic problem a few times lately. In the middle of speaking a sentence in Italian, one English word will unexpectedly be interjected. The meaning of the word is correct for the sentence but it's in the wrong language. It's not schizophasia, just a weird thing that happens occasionally. I am bothered by it because I feel like my brain is malfunctioning.
In other news, I just volunteered to do all of the work to write the three or more papers that will be composed of my dissertation work. I can do this in my copious spare time. Am I stupid or just driven to take on impossible projects? The theoretical upside to this lunatic volunteer work is that there will be more peer-reviewed articles with my name on them which will be of great help for the entirely theoretical job that I might apply for at an unknown point in the future.
geekyApr. 23rd, 2007
12:58 pm - hey, programmer.
I am reviewing some alpha version software for a scientific instrument company. The program requires the .NET framework from Microsoft. I am not that familiar with .NET and have stayed away from it since its original offering. So before I launch into a harsh critique of their choice I would like to know a little more about this beast.
What I would like to ask you, Programmer, is what do you think of .NET? How is it as a development environment? How do you like programs that are dependent on it?
geekyMar. 31st, 2007
09:15 pm - Barbarino can suck it
As a follow up to an earlier posting:
I am not in driving school anymore.
At the beginning of March I passed the theory part, given as an oral exam. On Monday I passed the practical exam. On Tuesday I received a license which permits me to share the road with the crazies.
It's my only currently valid license. I'm trying to figure out how to keep a valid US license while not living there. Vermont is very particular about these things and it's not worth trying.
Sad-sack story of the driving test: I took my test with a group of 9 people with an average age of 19 years old. The youth who took the wheel after me didn't do so well, in fact when she returned to the car that I was in (following the examiner's car) she began crying. It was so sad.
geekyMar. 4th, 2007
09:44 pm - What's-a matter you
A letter arrived at the house on Thursday informing me that I need to go to the federal offices to pick up my citizenship documents. As it turns out, I'm an Italian citizen now. In the State's first act to me as a citizen, they are taxing me; I will pay €14.62 to receive my document. I have no idea how they come up with a number like that, but so it is.
It has been 2.5 years since I applied for citizenship. The validity of the documents expired after two years, so I had started to think that the application would simply fade away. To my surprise, I was wrong. The effects of being a citizen now include: not having to renew my "green card" every two years, being able to leave and enter the country freely, having a permanent national health system card, voting, not fearing the Bossi/Fini law, not fearing the possibility of being left to languish for days in jail because I forgot to carry my "green card" one day, voting against Bossi and Fini.
This news immediately brought to qiqa's mind the song Shaddap You Face, since I now have license to (ab)use every Italian stereotype that there is. I had never heard of this song, but apparently it was a big hit in the 80s, so much so that it even has an entry in Wikipedia.
So I will foist upon you these gems from YouTube: the orginal artist, Joe Dolce singing his song on some Australian TV show, and a demonstration of how much fun you can have at home after school with this song.
( Lyrics! )
geekyFeb. 22nd, 2007
02:16 pm - Richest man in world no likey
The best kind of evidence is anecdotal:
A question posted on the user-group listserver (OMFG!!! they still have those!!!) for a technical software product that I use to do basically all of my work, asked whether the users anticipated switching to Windows Vista within 12 months. The results were posted by the product manager. Apparently, only 1 in 13 expected to have Vista by this time next year. N.b., the users work at places like Shell, GlaxoSmithKline, GE Global Research, Dow Corning, you know, people who make stuff and have gobbs of money with which to buy things.
And another thing. How will Vista get abbreviated? The string of names has been Win98, Win2k, WinXP. What now? Winsta?
geekyFeb. 10th, 2007
07:26 pm - British TV, it's in the water
I'm not an expert on British TV, but I make comments about it with abandon.
On the other hand, I am on my way to becoming an expert on the Teletubbies.
I find strange similarities between the Teletubbies and other British programs. The way that quickly moving objects are shown reminds me a lot of Red Dwarf. There is a scene of toast flying through the air that is cut in exactly the same way that they would do it on Red Dwarf. Then there is that endemic problem of not knowing how to end a scene or episode. There's an episode that ends in a fast-motion chase, just like the Benny Hill Show, but lacking Yakety Sax.
geekyFeb. 5th, 2007
02:19 pm - Ofi Watch 2007
As predicted, the scary colored swollen bit on Ofi's paw did fall off. And it was just as gross as you might think. On the other paw, that means she has healed. After five days of medication she was feeling well enough to fight us at pill cramming time. By the tenth day, we were all glad that we had arrived at the last pill to shove down her throat. The ten days of antibiotics seem to have adjusted other parts of the mysterious inner workings of Ofi. She seems to be hungrier than she has been in months, thanks in part to another go at the Ham Cure.
Who knows what this means for the furture of Ofi. Courage!
geekyJan. 28th, 2007
04:33 pm - Ofi Watch 2007: completely unanticipated
I'm so lousy at keeping up with this that the first entry of the entirely unanticipated 2007 edition was made by qiqa. None the less, here we are in 2007 continuing The Watch. Vigilance!
In a slightly less vigilant moment, we failed to notice for an unknown number of days that Ofi had an injury on a paw pad which had gotten infected and turned various shades of heeby-jeeby. We really only noticed it after she started wailing pitifully at 5am for a few mornings. Ofi was promptly ported off the the vet the next morning where her paw was checked and the prescription for giant antibiotics1 was given. There was no need for them to shame us since the guilt of Bad Ofi Mommying weighing heavily.
Ofi showed some immediate improvement in mood following the vet visit. Now three days later, the antibiotics have done some work and the paw appears to be improving. It's hard to tell since the scary colored swollen bit on the paw will probably not get smaller. Actually there's a good chance that it will scab over and fall off in a hideous demonstration of Cat Heal Thy Self. In the end, I don't really care how it heals, as long as it does.
The nice side effect of the giant antibiotics is that it knocks down Ofi's other persistent infection. She will never get rid of that one (so says three veterinarians) but any antibiotic makes it temporarily go away. It's just amazing what those antibiotics can do. So, craziest of all, this infected paw pad has made Ofi happier than she has been in a few months.
1 Ofi is taking a half gram per day. She weighs around 4.5 pounds. Consider that for a lot of ordinary cold-related infections we humans would be given the same amount of antibiotics, but we weigh 20 to 40 times more than Ofi.
geekyJan. 26th, 2007
02:19 pm - Again, let's do the time warp
Proposal for entry into the Journal of Everyday Results:
Theory:
In particular locations on Earth, the combination of massive, parallel, ferrous bars and rain causes temporary disruptions in space-time.
Translation:
Even a light rain causes the train service to go completely insane here. At the train station, everything seemed to be running on time however that was only appearance. In fact, nothing was operating at its indicated hour. I rode a train which was supposed to depart an hour earlier. The next was listed as a half hour different. Somehow the trains all transubstantiated into a new, complete schedule which showed no sense of chronological order.
geekyJan. 25th, 2007
01:17 pm - One hand to rule them all
I just got glad handed by one of the candidates for mayor. She1,2 hopes that she can count on my vote if I like the information contained within her nice pamphlet. I didn't have time to tell her that no, she can't count on my vote no matter what her pamphlet says because I'm still not a citizen 3. Strangest of all, this glad handing occurred in the laboratory where I work.
1 yay, finally a woman running for mayor
2 best ask if she is controlled by the mafia before I get excited about her running for mayor
3 my application has been 2 months away from success for 6 months, kind of like the joke about nuclear fusion
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