Name Your Cow and Drink Lots of Milk

By naming a Cow, it produces more milk. reports Scientific America.

British researchers compared production from the country's National Milk Records with the survey responses of 516 dairy farmers to see if there was an association between yield and cow naming. Dairy farmers who reported calling their cows by name got 2,105 gallons (7,938 liters) out of their cows, compared with 2,029 gallons (7,680 liters) per 10-month lactation cycle. The results held regardless of the size of the farm or how much the cows were fed. (Some 46 percent of the farmers named their cows.)
...
"If cows are slightly fearful of humans, they could produce [the hormone] cortisol, which suppresses milk production," Douglas says. Farmers who have named their cows, she adds, "probably have a better relationship with them. They're less fearful, more relaxed and less stressed, so that could have an effect on milk yield."

This study suggests that milk production is related to the fear factor of humans. Naming the animal reduces this fear, and thus the cow produce more milk. Or, is it because when you name a Cow, the name forces the human to take on a sense of ownership? If you have a stake in the Cow (i am so puny), then you are inclined to care for it more, be around it more, and take more of an interest in its milk production capabilities. All of that adds up to healthier, better fed, and more attended cows that produce more milk.

Along these same lines, I have also heard that talking to plants help them grow faster then plants that don't get talked to. In fact, when I was in elementary school, we did such an experiment. We had two plants, one of which we read stories to daily, and one that was neglected. Both were watered and receive ample sun, and the one that was read to, did grow slightly taller (I make no claims to scienctific validity of a study done when I was 7 years old)

What gives? Well the same principals are at work. We aren't talking to the plant across the room. We were reading right next to it, providing it more attention, and subtly, more care then the plant we weren't in contact with on a daily basis. Under those circumstances, it is more then reasonable for the plant that got a daily story to grow taller then the one that didn't.

Naming your cow or talking to your plants is a good thing for us but it is meaningless to them. What is in a name? Is Bessy better then Steak Sandwiche Jane? Or, do they care what storey you read to them? Do some plants prefer comedy over drama? Of course not. It matters to us humans though. The fact that we take the time to read to a plant or name cow is good for us, and what is good for us, translates into good for the things we care for. By creating an emotional bond, we in essence take care of the cow or the plant because it helps take better care of ourself.

Even if it's mainly for my psychological well being, now I know that what is best for me and my (non-existent) cow is to name it Sh*t For Brains. It is will be even better to pet it's head and say, "How come the sh*t in your head doesn't smell, Sh*t For Brains?" Then, I will have a never ending jokes, and I will have lots of milk to drink. Win Win.

GUIDE: Printing Handouts in OpenOffice Impress 3.0 (linux)

Something that should be easy, turns out to be annoying as crap. It took me like 30 minutes to print handouts in 3.0 version of OpenOffice when it was intuitive in the 2.* branch. What gives? Well it seems that in the newer version of OpenOffice like to fall back on the underlying window managers (gnome/kde) printing dialogue to handle print requests. That's nice and all. You get more control over printer options, but that dialogue has no idea that you want to print handouts vs. notes or the entire slide show. One can go mad trying to figure out how to print the bloody handouts. Thankfully, OO.org is well aware of this because i saw the bug report, but that isn't going to help you out in the here and now. Lets go through the motions. (this may not be an issue in windows or macs, i don't own either so i don't know)

You may have noticed this instruction in the help guide when you search "printing handouts"
Ok that seems simple enough. Let me follow those instructions.

Wait. What the hell. Where is this "Contents listbox?" It isn't there. We need to tell OO.org not to use the default print dialogue. Instead it should use the OO.org print dialogue. Why this isn't setup ahead of time is beyond me, but OO.org needs to make it clear that this can be done in the instructions. I only found out because I read bug reports.

Either way, lets make it happen. Go to Tools->Options->OpenOffice.org->General and check off "Use OpenOffice.org dialogs"


Now, go back to the File->Print, and there we go. We now have the options to print handouts. Yes!!That's how you do it. It shouldn't be that way, but that is how its done.

new colors and fonts

mixing things up

Lost and SciFi

It is now the day after the season premier of Lost, and I am going to get into a little spoiler discussion. If you haven't seen it yet, then don't continue reading. To fill the rest of the page so you don't accidental read anything you don't want to, I present a turkey.
Ok, if you are still there, let me begin. There were two interesting articles that caught my attention on the web rounds today. The first was an article by guest blogger Steve Johnson on boingboing. He wrote about the complexity of Lost, and how it weaves disjoint storeys from the past, present, and future to convey emotion and drive the plot line. It has now taken this a step farther. The Lost writers have figured out a way to make it all seem sane, the island manipulates time "like a record that is skipping." The survivors are lost in time and literally lost. Johnson expresses my sentiments, that maybe, just maybe, things may come together, and we will get our questions answered. I just want to know why that damn statue had four toes. That is all I ask for, but this brings about larger issues about the genre of Lost.

Now that Lost is dealing with time travel, and they even created laws that govern it. There is nothing you can do to change the past or future. No matter what you do, the past has happened and the future will be. They describe it as a stream that is always moving forward. That seems to me very science fictiony. Which brings me to the next great article I read today.

Over at AMC, John Scalzi proposed a way to define science fiction and just plane ol' fiction. This comes about, it seems, because of one film in particular Repo Man.

... I know people who not only believe Repo Man is scifi, they will fight you on the matter. Seriously, man: The spittle will fling. I've seen it. I've been sprayed with it. It's not pretty.

In the earnest desire to avoid further spittle, allow me to suggest a refinement to the "percentage" theory of scifi, which is simply this: Whether a movie counts as science fiction depends on whether the science fiction elements are crucial to the plot. "Crucial to the plot" in this case means that if you pull out these elements, the story collapses; it literally cannot go on because the mechanisms that move it forwards no longer exist. If that's the case, it's science fiction. If your movie is still standing, then what you've got is another genre with some scifi thrown in for flavoring.

I ask, does Lost fit this bill? I mean, the island can manipulate time, and it seems it may be the key to figuring this all out. Lost also has many other scifi elements. For example, it has the crazy smoke monster and the button to save the world, but most of the action and plot revolve around being deserted on an island with a bunch of crazy "other" inhabitants. Then the plot changed to deal with the invaders, and then finally we move into time travel. Hmmm. It seems to me that this whole time travel thing could be the mcguffin that Scalzi refers to, but this is Lost we are talking about. When could we ever predict what will happened? It could just be, as Johnson suggest, that time distortion is the key to this whole crazy thing, and then again it very well couldn't. We will just have to see. Until then, I will watch and enjoy

The 44th President Makes the Best Ninja EVER

F10 at work and dissapointed with Amarok

Some good news, for those who care, I have successfully updated my work computer from Fedora 9 to Fedora 10. I was really worried about this update for a number of reasons, but mainly due to the ATI video card. For those in the know, ATI linux support is mediocre at best, and they usually require you to do a hand stand to get it to work (literaly). The last time I upgraded this machine, it didn't work, and I had to downgrade the Xorg from the 9 repo to the 8 repo. Ughh, it was ugly, so you can feel my aprehension.


This time, however, it went pretty smoothly. There was some little tricks that I had to pull, but the famous leigh123 of the fedorafurom has a most excellent guide for the ATI install. I have a couple of additions to it though:

(1) Make sure you update the kernel, kernel-devel, kernel-headers before running the guide. It may still work, but you won't get the nice hardware acceleration

(2) If it doesn't work on the first try, uninstall the ati and fglrx packages in the guide, and start again. It is likely has to do with a kernel module build error and should work on the next go.

(3) Yes, you have to create a new initrd. Just do it, otherwise the kernel module won't build automatically.

Now for my bitch and moan of the day. With F10 comes the new Amarok. Amarok was a most excellent music player for linux. It handles libraries, podcast, and internet radio with little overhead. But now, with the update, comes Amarok 2.0, and I must say, it sucks. Like really sucks. It crashes all the time. It doesn't import your old settings. There is less functionality. This update has actually gone backwards, and I would suggest leaving Amarok behind.

Instead, check out the newest RythmBox. It is everything Amarok used to be and is actually smoother and better.

I'm in trouble

If coffee and soda make me more prone to hallucinations because of the caffeine, then I am definitely a high risk case. In fact I should be hallucinating right now, and something like 80% of the day in general. What I can I say, I like my stimulates.

From National Geographic:

Among the 200 test subjects, those who consumed the equivalent of seven cups of coffee a day were found to be three times more likely to have hallucinatory experiences than those who consumed less than a single cup a day.

Lead author Simon Jones, a psychology Ph.D. student at Durham University in the U.K, is intrigued but cautious about the connection.

"This hasn't shown that caffeine causes hallucinations, though the data are consistent with that idea," he said.

"It could also be that people who have hallucinations are more anxious and worried, so that causes them to consume more caffeine."

Then again, you should be hallucinating if you drink 7 cups of coffee a day.

Sports and Politics

Believe it or not, CNN wrote a really good article about the BCS and how politicians from the loosing side, like some from Utah or Texas, have tried to dismantle it and install a play off to determine the national championship. So we should all know that Florida won the (air quote) national championship (air quote) last night, even though USC destroyed their oponet and Utah was undefeated ... UNDEFEATED and slaughter former #1 Alabama. It make your head want to burst open. what the hell does Utah have to do to win a nation championship? This is the second time they went undefeated and got left out of the title game. Politicians have seen the injustice and perhaps have heard moans from their electorate and are now answering the call and taking up the fight in the way politicians fight: talk, bills, hearings, and whining. Even the president-elect, Barak Obama, is not a fan of the BCS and wants to "throw some weight around."

I really want a play off, but I really like the bowl setup, just not how the champion is determined. I love all the bowl games, each matchup intrigues me, but we have got to have at least one more game, like Utah vs. Florida, for me to be convinced that the champion is really the champion. If it takes some politicing, or even the president, to make it happen, then make it happen because it's time.

Advice on Graduate Studies

The bloggers over at Cosmic Variance (a discover magazine blog) have been running a series called, "unsolicited advice." Recently they have been talking about education, from undergraduate to postdocs. I found the advice on how to be a good graduate student particularly interesting and applicable, and I would like to share it. My own experience has been similar, but I would add one more piece of advice.

Be self motivated. You got to want it, and if you don't, no one is going help you. In the end, it is all on you, so get your sh*t done.

So check it out.

LINK

Oh and if you are an undergrad looking to apply to graduate school, check out this piece.

LINK

Pluto still lingers on

A great Blog piece from the New York Times recounts the story of how Neil deGrasse Tyson became the #1 Pluto hater. First off, I think Pluto is not a planet in the sense that the Earth and Jupiter are planets, but I also do not think it is insignificant. One thing I do know is that I am not an astronomer, and my opinion makes no difference on the matter. A lot of people do not feel the way I do, and after the article “Pluto’s Not a Planet? Only in New York” appeared, Dr. Tyson was inundated with hate male from elementary school students to jet propulsion lab physicists. One lonely NYT reporter takes claim, Kenneth Chang, and he writes about as a guest blogger in the Tierner Blog. Read on, it's pretty cool.

LINK

Also, Dr. Tyson has a new book out about the matter. I am definitely going to read this one.

Where is all the Money?

According the U.S. Treasury, there is something like $900 billion in cash out there. That's a lot of money, but that would also mean that each U.S. citizen would have roughly $3,000. It turns out, that most people don't actually have that much cash. So where is it?

It isn't cash registers or banks. Turns out that about half of the cash is hoarded overseas, by folks like Argentine farmers and Hong Kong taxi drivers. Why? Our currency is more stable. But even with half the money out of the country, how do we account for the $400 billion or so left? What effect does this have on our economy?

Check out this fascinating NPR story for the answers.

We all Love the Monster

This is one of the coolest pics I have seen.

(From BoingBoing and Flickr)