He's the Dick to the Doc to the PhD...

Airport Security and my "Magnetic" Personality.

I've been travelling a lot lately. Some for work, some for vacation. I've been on planes 6 times in the past 7 weeks. Every time I go to the airport, I carefully lay out my laptop, empty my pockets. Take off my belt, and walk slowly through the detector gate.

Inevitably it beeps. Then I get the irritation of having to spread-eagle front and back for the security people as they wand me back to front to see what sort of carefully concealed weapon of destruction I may be carrying. To date, I have had to revmove my shoes three times and have them scanned separately. I have had my ankles carefully checked for concealed weaponry. I have had my butt and crotch inspected (from outside the clothes, you perv's) for "non-ordinary" equipment.

To date I have yet to be found smuggling anything more untoward that Denver Hayes shorts or Happyfeet socks through the airport check.

Its irritating. It bugs me that I have to go through this every damn time I fly because something about my body makes the metal detector beep. Nothing starts off a trip on a happy note like a near-strip-search and a quick check of my jewel-pouch with a detector-wand while other annoyed travelers stand and watch in increasing impatience.

Quote of the Day

"The other thing we evolutionary biologists don't do enough of, and this stems from the previous point, is make an emotional and moral case for the study of evolution. Last night, I concluded my talk with a quote from Dover, PA creationist school board member William Cunningham, who declared, "Two thousand years ago someone died on a cross. Can't someone take a stand for him?"

My response was, "In the last two minutes, someone died from a bacterial infection. We take a stand for him.""

From: http://scienceblogs.com/mikethemadbiologist/2008/03/another_fight_about_framing_an.php

Simple, and concise.

Bullseye on Breast Cancer!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2008/03/12/scicanc112.xml

Breast cancer 'master gene' breakthrough

By Roger Highfield, Science Editor

Last Updated: 6:01pm GMT 12/03/2008

Thousands of women who suffer from breast cancer were
today given fresh hope after scientists announced they had
discovered a way to stop the disease spreading.

Researchers find breast cancer trigger Scraps stop breast cancer in its tracks Aspirin 'can cut breast cancer risk by 20pc' The breakthrough paves the way for the development of drugs which could halt the progress of the disease and help save the lives of some of the 44,000 women diagnosed with the illness every year. SATB1 forms a 3D cage-like structure within the cell nucleus (left) that binds to DNA specific sites in genes The most deadly feature of breast cancer is when it disperses from the breast, causing tumours to develop in other parts of the body. But now researchers say they have found a way of stopping this process, known as metastasis, after pinpointing the gene which controls the spread of the cancer. By removing this gene from cancer cells the American teams of scientists were able to halt its progress and even turned the cancer cell back to normal. The gene, called SATB1, is thought to control the use of around 1000 others to promote the spread, says Dr Terumi Kohwi-Shigematsu of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, California, whose r esearch is published in the journal Nature today.

Simply Awesome!

Around the House: Home Theater nearing Finish Line

Woot! Just got an email from Nic that our custom black ceiling tiles have arrived and will be delivered next saturday. In honour of this milestone, I'm posting an update on the DIY home theater she and I have been building in our home.

-enjoy!

*Apologies in advance for the dusty camera lens in some shots.

Room Size:
20'wide by 18' long (odd shaped room - see floor plan below)

Equipment List:

Optoma HD70 720p DLP Front Projector.
Yamaha HTR-6060 7.1 HDMI Receiver with 2 HDMI Inputs
Sony DVDS43k Upconverting DVD Player
Motorola 6280 HD PVR.

Speakers: on loan. Aiming for Axiom Epic Midi or Epic Grand Master HT Package in the next 2 or 3 months.

The builder insulated and framed the exterior walls, and roughed in plumbing for a full-bath (that would become my wet-bar area). My wife Nic and I decided that 4 bathrooms in the house were just too, and that 3 should be sufficient. We roughed in some electrical, built some partition walls, and hung and mudded the drywall over the course of the first 5 months of the build (Weekend warriors with not enough enthusiasm for mudding and taping I'm afraid.)

We determined early on that we wanted 2 rows of seating.

Floor Plan: Here is a rough layout of the basement footprint with some sketched in partition walls and measurements.




Once all the carpet was down, and the baseboards installed, we could work on some finishing touches to the room. We did hook up the projector which is being projected onto a home-made screen. (Blackout fabric stretched over 1x4 fir frame. No paint) 103" Diagonal.

2 Rows: The 2 rows of seating worked out really well. Here you see our 4 seater sofa and 2 captains chairs providing comfortable seating for 6 people.




Storage: Here is some built-in storage for movies, games, manuals etc...



Bar: Here is the wet-bar "in progress". We still have to hang the upper cabinet (below the soffit) and some bottle shelves into the corner. We're pretty happy with how it's turning out.



Screen Wall: Here is a view of the screen wall from the Bar area. The closed door leads to our electrical panel/recycling closet. The open door (just see the edge of it) leads to the stairs up.



Because we realized a lot of saving through 'sweat equity' by doing most of the work ourselves, we managed to keep the budget for this room very tight. I don't have a fully detailed materials budget, but so far we're at ~$8700 of our $12000 budget (Figure another $1800 for the Axiom speakers we want and a few dollars for finishing touches and we should be right on the money at the end of the reno in May '08.

2008 Facelift

Its been a while since I was regularly blogging. Blame it on my brief love affair with Facebook Scrabble, blame it on my general business with life, or blame it on the fact that I'm a slacker.

All are partially correct.

In honour of my intention to post more brain-pharts, here is a new look and feel to my blarg.

-enjoy!

Slam Dunk for Reason. (PZ Myers)

http://www.kkmslive.com/MP3/15013108-Simmons%20&%20Myers.MP3

Topic of the Debate: “Are Darwin’s Theories Fact or Faith Issues?”

The topic was changed about 1 hour prior to the debate at the request of Dr. Simmons of the Discovery Institute, from the originally proposed topic “the evidence of Evolution vs. evidence of Intelligent Design”.

The MP3 is 1 hour long, but worth the time if these questions interest you.