WOOT - Phillies! I'm happy to do a little bit of personal shopping, should someone want swag (and can cover s&h and cost - wish I could, but JavaChik's box will likely run about 100lbs). Profile addy.

also? xkdc this morning - continuing the saga of the Secretary. Now with more Doctorow. Made my entire week.

Hell yeah, there won't be a strike in the Israeli higher education system! The academic year will start as usual! I'll be able, at last, after waiting for an extra year to get some higher education! Yaaaaaayyyyyyy!

(And, of course, I'll be having 30 hours per week in the first semester. Just shoot me now).

xkdc this morning - continuing the saga of the Secretary. Now with more Doctorow.

That was awesome.

(And, of course, I'll be having 30 hours per week in the first semester. Just shoot me now).

Wow. Are you one of those insane geniuses?

I scraped frost off my windshield this morning. Which led to dragging out my winter leather jacket. I love the seasonal clothes transition. When I checked my jacket's pockets I found $2. Yay!

Are you one of those insane geniuses?

No. It's just the dire combination of history and sociology program in the first year, with all of the joy of coordinating between two different faculties. The second semester has only 24 hours per week. I'll score 51 out of the 120 credit one has to have to get his/her bachelor diploma in Israel this year.

New cat still hiding and growling this morning. Must. remain. patient.

Score one point for doggies: Dogs can read emotion in human faces

Dogs are the only animals that can read emotion in faces much like humans, cementing their position as man's best friend, claim scientists.

Research findings suggest that, like an understanding best friend, they can see at a glance if we are happy, sad, pleased or angry.

When humans look at a new face their eyes tend to wander left, falling on the right hand side of the person's face first.

This "left gaze bias" only occurs when we encounter faces and does not apply any other time, such as when inspecting animals or inanimate objects.

A possible reason for the tendency is that the right side of the human face is better at expressing emotional state.

Researchers at the University of Lincoln have now shown that pet dogs also exhibit "left gaze bias", but only when looking at human faces. No other animal has been known to display this behaviour before.

A team led by Dr Kun Guo showed 17 dogs images of human, dog and monkey faces as well as inanimate objects.

Film of the dogs' eye and head movement revealed a strong left gaze bias when the animals were presented with human faces. But this did not occur when they were shown other images, including those of dogs.

"Guo suggests that over thousands of generations of association with humans, dogs may have evolved the left gaze bias as a way to gauge our emotions," New Scientist magazine reported.

"Recent studies show that the right side of our faces can express emotions more accurately and more intensely than the left, including anger. If true, then it makes sense for dogs - and humans - to inspect the right hand side of a face first."

Surprisingly, when the dogs in the study were shown an upside-down human face, they still looked left. In contrast, humans lose their left gaze bias altogether when shown an inverted face.

ION, it was cold today, so I wore a wool sweater under my leather jacket. Now I'm all comfy and warm.

Also, I think my new meds are working. I saw an attractive woman on the train, and managed to make eye contact. She smiled at me, and instead of quickly looking away, I smiled back. (I generally find it rather difficult to make and maintain eye contact.) She got off the train a few stops after I got on, but the event did cheer me up.

Yay tommyrot, eye contact and new drugs!

(Seriously, I'm impressed. I usually don't keep eye contact either, even with friends and family. I think it's weird - the staring to other person in the eye (unless they are really close), not necessarily me on this matter).

I have trouble with eye contact because I can never decide on which of the other person's eyes I'm supposed to be contacting with.