mr. flea does mathematical/computer modeling of complex systems, but he works with built (water distribution network) and natural environments. Clearly environmental systems modeling is not as cool! Though I think the math and programming is a lot alike.

It's the same thing from the scientific perspective! It's just easier going when chatting up new people if your application of those techniques is how cells self-assemble into organisms, or how internet users self-organize into communities, or how neurons know which other neurons to connect to, or why there are traffic jams. Electrical and water distribution systems are more of an acquired taste.

I'm a clinical psychologist who collaborates with math modelers, and they all think it's very unfair that normal people are intrinsically interested in clinical research but not in their more abstract work. They are always telling their students "You need to do a project with Rick, so you will have something to talk about at cocktail parties!"

But this new complex systems stuff is cool enough to interest anyone.

(Edited for complex yet unsystematic spelling)

The best 'shop I've seen yet of that particularly bad McCain photo: [link]

From Wonkette: What Monster Did McCain Become Last Night?

Rick's making me think PhD thoughts. Bad Rick!

Graduate school is a great place to sit out a recession. Three squares and genteel poverty.

Resist, amych, resist! Or at least wait until you finish the current degree, eh?

I just used the last kleenex.

This week is going GREAT.

PhD thoughts follow me everywhere I go...

Am I an awful person for not getting DD a card and gift for Boss's Day? I don't think anyone got him anything. I wonder if it wounded his over-inflated ego.

How weird is this, y'all? I just took a taxi home from work - and it was the same guy who drove me home on Tuesday. (Yes, I take too many cabs.) Different time - Tuesday night was after an event at the Joffrey so an hour or so later - and from a spot several blocks away, so not like just from the cab stand outside my office. I mean, how many taxis are there cruising the loop at a given time? Totally random.

SERIOUSLY PEOPLE?

[link]

Story: [link]

Her defense:

Diane Fedele, the president of the responsible organization, Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated, says the image was distributed without any racist intent. "I never connected," she told a local newspaper. "It was just food to me. It didn't mean anything else."

So, you just randomly selected fried chicken, watermellon, and kool aid? Just randomly? Not asparagus, steak, and a lemonade? Really?

Come here so I can beat you with a shotgun.

You know, some days there really aren't enough opportunities to call people lying racist fucks.

This is not one of those days.