Glowing Fish's New Writeups

How Much for just the Planet? (review)

2009-11-27T08:03:26Z

When I was a preteen, I went through phases of channeling my latency into obsessively collecting a variety of things. Lego, comic books, basketball cards, each had a phase of three or so months in which I spent all my energy on it, before moving on to the next thing. And one of those collections was of Star Trek novels. The owners of the Star Trek franchise turned these out in great quantity (and continue to do to this day). Most of the books were numbered. Often, when you are reading a book with the name of a TV show and a number attached, it might not be great literature.

Much like Star Trek in all its incarnations, the books were meant to be the sort of entertainment that was just thought provoking enough to be one grade above pulp. Or at least that was the median: some fell below that standard, and some were above it. Despite the fact that these novels were printed in such great quantity that they are easy to find in even the most…

Thanks. It's a pleasure to serve you. (personal)

2009-11-26T22:09:28Z

It was six months after my twentieth birthday, and several weeks after I had gotten my first real job that I learned the True Meaning of Thanksgiving. Before, like most youths raised in the culture of cynicism, I had heard "we have so much to be thankful" for that the bland benedictions were stopped by my filter before their meaning registered. But, at 20, I had a job doing tech support and I learned the meaning of thankfulness: it was the feeling when the first 15 minute break came, which let me know I was half way to lunch hour. And lunch hour was halfway through the day. And there was one more day down. Life was easy with that short focal length. Because I was a working man, now, I couldn't visit my family that Thanksgiving, but I went to my friends' house, and had a nice tofurkey with their somewhat-traditional Catholic family.

I am sure everyone has a story like that, where they learned that there was a truth behind the cliches of gratitude. A time when youthful…

Your argument is invalid (idea)

2009-11-22T07:53:18Z

After I passed my 30th birthday, I should find myself growing a little bit beyond the latest joke on the internet. And perhaps I am growing a little bit beyond them, since I probably find out about them several weeks or month before the true woodlice of the rotting underbellies of the forums have originated and grown tired of them. And so it is with "Your argument is invalid", the latest catch phrase to set the net ablaze. I don't know when this went from being the flash of a single person, to an in-joke, to a phenomena. It probably happened some time in the odd, sideways time of the internet.

The format of these pictures is to have a picture of something that is slightly incongruous to confusingly unlikely, with a description of what is in the picture, followed by the caption "Your argument is invalid". For example, a picture might have a cat playing a flute, with the caption "This cat is playing a flute...your argument is invalid".

Why the pictures reached popularity is…

Nirvana: Unplugged (review)

2009-11-22T06:58:37Z

In perspective, it could be argued (and it has been argued many times) that Nirvana was much more important as a phenomena than as musicians. This isn't to slight them, since it could be argued that there are many excellent bands, but only once in a while does a band manage to shake the youth of a nation awake.

What Nirvana would do, the Pixies had already been doing for years. But as much as there may have been some cool kids listening to the Pixies and their surrealistic lyrics and punk rock, that is mostly revisionist history. As far as I remember it, as the 1990s begin, this was what was considered cool. Of course, I am coloring this with my own personal view, since I was only a naive preteen when Nirvana hit. When I first heard them, I was still listening to the Oldies Station on a clock alarm radio, and I found them threatening the way that I found the surly older kids around arcades or…

cherry picking (idea)

2009-11-22T03:27:10Z

In science, social science or any other form of endeavor that uses data, especially statistical data, "Cherry Picking" is the term for picking out data that fits a particular hypothesis. Cherry picking can be done through malevolence or accident, and is almost always a bad thing to do. Purposely cherry picking data is usually considered to be unethical. However, it certainly seems to happen often enough.

There are also some times when it is unclear whether a process would be cherry picking or a sensible way to control data. For example, say that a researcher was trying to find correlation between median income and poverty rate in all the communities in a state. In such a case, excluding communities below, for example, 5,000 people might give a better view of the general trend, as well as saving the researcher time and confusion. Or it could be seen as a form of excluding data so that a certain result can be reached.

The other time when it can be acceptable…

Pill Hill (place)

2009-11-21T11:49:35Z

Pill Hill is an area in Portland, Oregon, located south of downtown on the ridge of what is known as The West Hills, or more precisely, The Tualatin Mountains. The other half of the area's name comes from the many medical facilities that are clustered near the top of the hill.

The area was formed around 1917, when some wealthy donors gave some land to the state as a place to build a medical university. the generosity of the donation is somewhat questionable, since the land was in an area that was not very viable for commercial or residential development. (Although there is also some very expensive residential development in the West Hills). The main hospital in the area is Oregon Health Sciences University, and its Doernbecher's Children Hospital, as well as the Shriner's Hospital and the Veteran Administration's hospital. There are also a number of subsidiary offices and private practices scattered over the area. The physical and…