The New Yorker

Here's the link to the article.

Here's a really good article from The New Yorker. It's about a murderer and his day to day life. It's written in the style of a children's story, but has a lot of hidden meaning.

Saturday, I went home for a picinic at my uncle's cottage in Chelea. Here's my sister.

From my apartment, just before we went to Waldo's Thursday night.

A message from Elli

For people who really like The Simpsons and have way too much free time.

MapQuest: Maps: map

There's mattawan.

Recent events

Yesterday was my Birthday, so I went with a few of my to Waldo's (a local
pub). Fortunately it's withing close walking distance. Maya, Ben, Leah,
Josh, Neil, and a few others came along. Thanks guys!

Earlier this week, there was also a computer science dinner. The Physics
department had theirs the week before. We met at Alyce Brady's house and
just chatted for a few hours. There are about 10 senior computer science
majors, which I thought was quite a few compared to the 6 physics majors,
but Maya pointed out that there are actually a lot more of most of the
other majors. Who would have guessed that people don't like physics or
computers? Actually there was a survey at a K recently asking people what
they think are the easiest and most difficult majors. I'm curious to see
the results... At the CS dinner, Maya and her friend Jenny also came
along. They appreciated the free food, but said it was awkward hanging
out with a bunch of nerds :) They're both psych majors. Jenny talked
about "Rat Roast", which was the name of the dinner for the psych majors
the previous week. Get the pun in the name? Jenny said she had never
worked with rats so didn't understand the pun at first either. Alyce's
house is in the little town of Mattawan, and it was actually a very nice
drive to get there from Kalamazoo. There are quite a few vineyards and
orchards along the way.

Also a portfolio from my friend Ryan who is now in England.

I came across Joe's portfolio. The comics are very cool (drawn by Joe).

My own creation. It's the background on my laptop now.

Brandeis University (where I'll go to for grad school in the fall)

Near Yallingup, Western Australia

Pelicans

Poll

Where would you rather live?

east coast west coast midwest south west

Boston - Charles Playhouse

Boston - Charles Playhouse

I'm looking forward to seeing Blue Man Group in Boston next year!

from the K news page

Jan Tobochnik, Physics, and Péter
Érdi, Center for Complex Systems Studies, published
a paper in the December 2003 issue of Physical Review E
titled "Properties of a random attachment growing network."
Coauthors of the paper include Rebecca Warner '04, and
four of Professor Érdi's students from Hungary--László
Zalányi , Gábor Csárdi, Tamás Kiss,
and Máté Lengyel.

In other news, Péter was an invited speaker at the Annual
Sympoisum of the Center for Biological Modeling of the Michigan
State University. He gave a seminar at the Department of Chemistry
of the Western Michigan University. Peter was the co-director
of the Computational Neuroscience School in Erice, Sicily, where
Bobby Rohrkemper '04 also had a presentation. Péter
was a co-organizer and co-chair of a Workshop "Nonlinear
spatio-temporal neural dynamics - Experiments and Theoretical
Models" held in July 2003 in Alicante (Spain) in the annual
Computational Neuroscience Conference. He also has been nominated
to be a Program Co-Chair in the IEEE International Joint Conference
on Neural Networks to be held in Budapest in July 2004.

Péter visited the Hokkaido University (Sapporo, Japan)
by invitation of the Center of Excellence at the Mathematics Department.
He gave a talk titled "Neural Networks, Brain Rhythms and
Computational Neuropharmacology" and met with faculty and
students. Finally, Péter was one of the fives keynote speakers
of the Symposium on Intentional Dynamic Systems to be held at
University of Memphis. The title of his talk was "The Brain
as Hermeneutic Device: Code Generation, Mood Regulation and Navigation".
The other four speakers came from University of California-Berkeley,
University of Florida, EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland), and Nagoya
University (Japan). http://cnd.memphis.edu/IDS_2004/

Speaking of Bobby Rohrkemper (see above), he and Alyce
Brady, Computer Science, attended the Consortium for Computing
Sciences in College-Northeastern Region (CCSCNE), which was held
at Union College in Schenectady, New York. The conference included
workshops and lectures related to issues in computer science education.
Students and faculty associated with small colleges in the east
and northeast attended. At the CCSCNE student poster session Bobby
presented his SIP research as a poster titled "Autocorrelation
and Fourier Analysis for Detecting Periodic Cell Potentials in
a Simulated Inhibitory Neural Network." He was one of three
to win a "Best Student Poster" Award.

HHMI grants

K received a new grant from HHMI. This is the same funding that went toward paying for my research last summer in Budapest.

K news page :

-----------------------------------------------------------
Kalamazoo College Receives Grant from Howard Hughes Medical Institute
KALAMAZOO, MI -- Colleges face a number of tough challenges in teaching science today. New fields that blur the lines between disciplines are emerging, and biologists, chemists, physicists and mathematicians are forging interdisciplinary collaborations. Scientists trained to be outstanding researchers need to learn to be outstanding teachers. More minorities must be encouraged to pursue scientific careers.
To help colleges meet these challenges, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is awarding $49.7 million in grants to 42 baccalaureate and master's degree institutions in 17 states and Puerto Rico. A four-year grant in the amount of $1,100,00 has been awarded to Kalamazoo College. This brings HHMI's investment in undergraduate science to more than $606 million.


Carolyn R. Newton, Associate Provost at Kalamazoo College and HHMI Program Director, who coordinated the writing of the proposal, says: "We are delighted to have Kalamazoo College selected as a recipient of a $1.1 million grant from HHMI for 2004. Our new grant will expand our current summer research program for students using Kalamazoo's established study-abroad infrastructure to connect our students to HHMI's network of International Scholars. In a pilot program, Kalamazoo College student Clara Scholl will work this summer with biophysicist Miklos Kellermayer at the University of Pécs, Hungary.

photo of the Sea of Cortez

Here's where I'll be going:

Google Search: baja la paz

Google Search: baja la paz

I'm going to La Paz this summer in Baja California (Mexico). Anyone want to join me? I'm going to do a Divemaster course with Club Cantamar.

My brithday

Today is my birthday! I'm 22. Already this morning I got an email from
my study abroad director in Perth, Australia. Thanks Ian!

Comments

Notice that it's possible to post anonymous comments and you don't actually have to open an account.

Photos from Sicily

Here

The Onion | America's Finest News Source

The Onion | America's Finest News Source

Another edition came out today.

Yap's portfolio

This is my friend's portfolio. She's graduating as a Studio Art/graphic design major from the University of Richmond this Spring. Click on the black
screen to start.

Yap's portfolio

Microsoft spam

I found it interesting that a message sent to me specifically (not just a
bulk message) by Microsoft was filtered by hotmail into my junk email
messages by hotmail. They're so agressive on spam that they're deleting
their own messages ;)

Audio posts?

What is this funny play button? Blogger now lets you post messages by calling a special telephone number. Read more about it here.

Gay Gene

I thought this was funny ...

BALTIMORE—On Friday, scientists at Johns Hopkins University isolated the gene which causes homosexuality in human males, promptly separating it from normal, heterosexual genes. "I had suspected that gene was queer for a long time now. There was just something not quite right about it," team leader Dr. Norbert Reynolds said. "It's a good thing we isolated it—I wouldn't want that faggot-ass gene messing with the straight ones." Among the factors Reynolds cited as evidence of the gene's gayness were its pinkish hue, meticulously frilly perimeter, and faint but distinct perfume-like odor.

Source: The Onion