do you know...

I got 2/3 correct on the climate-change quiz.

Basically I knew little about the natural greenhouse effect. The key word is natural. It was a faded memory from junior high. I could not recall what I'd learned.
The human-made greenhouse effect is not natural, which, theoretically (and a-matter-of-fact-ly in my opinion) has caused a dramatic climate change, which endangers all living things on earth.

Another thing I knew little was the numbers. One question was "How much do scientists estimate global sea level would rise if all of Greenland's glacial ice melted?" Of course I did not know. Even if I had read it somewhere, I would not remember. So this question is not fair. And not practical. We laymen do not need to know the exact numbers, for example, of temperature differences. We need to learn the differences between theories on Climate Change and to understand why certain theory dominates.

Overall, nonetheless, I consider this quiz a good exercise. Knowledge is registered through those multi-choice questions.

Do you know what the Keeling curve is? Even after you watched The Inconvenient Truth, you probably do not remember what the curve reflects and indicates. Click on the the image below and see whether you really understand it or just for your curiosity.

half lost

Old Soprano pointed an old lady to her grandson and said "She had a stroke and lost half of her brain."
I, in front of the TV, was a bit shocked by what she said.

On Monday, which was four days ago, I sat in for an experiment. An old lady on a wheel chair was doing the line bisection task. This task requires the viewer to divide a line into two segments in equal lengths. Straightforward enough. No trick.
People who have damages in their right brain hemisphere usually divide the line into a longer right segment and a shorter left segment. It is a typical phenomenon, called unilateral spatial neglect, which is what I am working on currently. Patients have almost no problems seeing things. They have problems in controlling their attention. In this particular case, they have problems in their spatial attention.

The old lady was doing not very well, which was expected because she was a patient diagnosed with unilateral spatial neglect. She obviously could not put the intersect point in the middle of the line.

When I walked out of the lab, I saw a man sitting in the waiting room. Usually the care giver would wait there. I thought he was the old lady's son.

I did not pay much attention to the whole thing later. I just needed some real experience of seeing a patient to perform the task so that I could get some inspirations.
Four days later, which is today, I saw the old lady's brain scan images.
It was unbelievable. She lost literally half of her brain. 80% of her right hemisphere was gone. 20% of her left hemisphere was recently damaged too.

There are two major types of stroke.
One is that some blood vessels break. Lots of blood floods into brain. In this case, the treatment usually is to remove dead brain tissues. I know this sounds not good. I could help but shaking my head when Kim explained the situation.
The other type is that some blood vessels get blocked. Blood cannot go through the brain and thus brain tissues die. In this case, doctors wait for the natural mechanism kicks in by itself. That is, the brain will help itself to recover to some extent.

The old lady had blood flooding in her skull. Half of her brain was cut off. There was an obviously big dark hole, which was filled with CSF. She was not air-headed but water-headed. Seriously. Not funny at all.

Recently she had another stroke in her left hemisphere, which was also very visible on the image. I shook my head again. I could not link those images with the old lady in the lab.

How had she survived?

Labmates told me her husband has been on her side since the first episode of stroke.
The man I saw in the waiting room was not her son. He was her husband.
He actually was older than her. But because of her ill condition, she looked much older. She was actually not that old; 54 is not old.

Where is hope?
A person without half of her brain. Neurologically she is out of her mind too if mind is equal to brain as they claim. But she is not the same person apparently. She will never be apparently.
My job is to provide the hope. But I want to cry.
I am glad that I am not a clinical doctor. I had chosen not to be one. Good choice. Patients do not cheer me up.
Basic research with healthy people is a wonderful world. I should've stayed there.

Can she watch a movie again with this annoying spatial neglect?
Can she enjoy sitting in a movie theater again?
This question keeps popping up in my head just like when I was questioning new parents when was their last time going to a movie theater.

Life has changed. Dramatically. What can I do?

Let's all get geeky.

After the last post, I need to give credits to a funny smart geek, David Pogue. He is a New York Times technology columnist.
At the end of this post, you should see his talk from TED.com (If not, please click here.)
His singing may not be as charming as his speaking, but it's not too bad to bear.
The talk lasts for about 22 minutes. If you don't have time for it, at least watch the last 5 minutes for his great and simple advice to software designers.

It reminds me of the book called The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman.
This actually is cognitive psychology. This actually is an applied field called Human Factors. Nowadays, Human Factors almost, at least from my point of view, becomes the computer science of being good in blending technology into daily life.
Why don't I jump into this money making applied field of cognitive science? The answer is simple. I am a geek, but not in computer science. I am geeky in other aspects of life.

Everyone should be geeky in some area. It's a quality of being special. It's a nice feeling of self-esteem too.
And if everyone is geeky to the extent that everyone wants their geekiness to be helpful for other human beings (like David Pogue and Donald Norman have done), the world will be so wonderful, marvelous, like how Diana Krall sings it.

go away, geek!

This IT person Mr. M came to help Dr. Zane whose desk is beside mine. It sounded like a simple task for Mr. M to deal with.
Of course, it is always simple. It could have been even simpler if we were allowed to deal with stupid simple computer problems by ourselves.
Anyway, Mr. M stood there after he was done with the "problem". He stood there and chatted with Dr. Zane. Apparently, Dr. Zane is a new comer as I am. She did not know the rule of "never start friendly conversation with Mr. M". She was obviously trapped and sounded like "thanks for your help and please go away". Of course Mr. M did not understand social norms and kept sharing his wonderfully boring stories of his whatever relatives or pets.

He had dealt with my problems.
Both times, he did not make it work at the first time. I went to his office on the first unsolved "problem" and emailed him to fix the second unsolved "problem".

Hey, if you are a geek, be professional! At least, do this simple job at your best! You are embarrassing the geek community!

How difficult was it to spell my name? First, he put an "a" instead of "e". When I asked him to correct it, he put "ie" instead of "y". Oh, come on. This is an old old American name that his grandma or his friend's grandma might have. How could he not spell it right?

And then what? I asked for access to a hard drive. I followed his instruction to fill a form and to ask my boss to sign it. And what did he do? He emailed me saying the issue was resolved and I had what I wanted. Well, no. I did not have access to the drive!
A simple act took two precious working days (there was a weekend in between). After I emailed him and complained, finally he kindly gave me access to the drive.

Why didn't I go to his office but emailed him for the second "problem"?
Because I would not give him a chance to chat with me. I had my lesson.

He never stops talking. (Nick confirmed with me just after Mr. M left my hearing space, although I did not express how annoyed I was by Mr. M. I had to keep peace and to be a nice new postdoc.)
Geeks can be funny too. But Mr. M is not at all. And he talks to himself when I don't immediately make comments on his words.
Even worse, I hate the way he talks.
He makes double chin when talking if you know what I mean. His chin is tucked so that his neck is hidden behind the folded flesh of his chin. And he only tucks one side, the right side. I feel his head is so unbalanced and going to fall to the left shoulder.
Because of this unnatural posture, it feels like he is only able to mutter but not to speak.

Oh, I know. Perhaps that was why Dr. Zane showed much more patient with him than I did. Dr. Zane works on aphasia.

廚房跟狂放讀書人不熟啊

part 1 不太重要
part 2

part 3

part 4

好像在看自己在做飯
就是笨手笨腳還會自己笑場

蔡康永的廚藝
他愛看書和書寫
他對於看電影的堅持 (在 part 3 裡)
他愛男人
根本是在看自己上節目

白毛

鏡子裡的我有一根白頭髮，
準確的說是一根銀白色的長在左臉頰的一根毛。

這是我第一根白毛，
居然長在臉頰上，
我笑也不是哭也不是，
小心翼翼的把它從臉上請下來，
大約兩公分那麼長。

還在努力冒痘痘的嬰兒肥臉居然長了一根白頭髮。

到現在，五分鐘過後，
我依然不能相信毛髮非常不茂盛的臉上，
居然長了一根白毛，
怎能對得起稀疏的眉毛和短少得可憐的上下睫毛？

真是不經一事不長一智，
白毛竟然可以隨它高興的長，
長在荒無的臉上，
故意不跟其他的毛為伍，
顏色已經跟人家不一樣了，
地點也要標新立異。

說不定是最近老是在塗抹的美白乳液搞得鬼

villager

"Welcome to the XXX village!"
This kind of signs is easy to see around the South Orange village. I went grocery shopping in the Millburn village. I saw Transformers in the Mapplewood village. My office is close by the Papermill village. I am a villager.

Most Villagers are with light-toned skin. There seems to be an invisible line between a village and a non-village area, which could be just a block away. Within two minutes, I can be the darkest person in a store and the palest in another.
Except for Starbucks, where I am right now, not many chain stores are in villages. Small stores and characteristic diners are at every corner. Starbucks somehow has become a standard neighbor everywhere. Cold Stone has a nice visibility too. McDonald's can only be seen in non-village areas. Bookstores are not favored by people, which upsets me. There is no bookstore in South Orange. The library is okay but does not reach my standard -- I want thousands of new books in display!

Unlike in State College, this is a real world with 90% of real residents who are not college students. Unlike in State College, I can be the only Asian face I see a day. Unlike in State College, my car can be the only beetle on the streets.
This means that I cannot do anything bad in public because I am too easy to spot.

Cannot dance tango alone; otherwise, I could live so happily.
Hey, dancers, see you in New York City every weekend!

Another thing of being alone in a new place again is to find an emergency contact. In the past couple of days, I have been asked for it many times. This is the question reminding me that I am not actually alone. Someone will be contacted when I am in trouble. Trouble makers will be known to their emergency contact. What a great system. I guess true loners can never find a job without lying to the HR who their emergency contacts are.

By the way, Transformers is awesome!

roses

On June 9th, 2007, six of us built a memory together again.
There in 山行玫瑰 SonRose , we were not going for its famous rosy coffee or the newly-developed weekend houses in the countryside, Nanzhung.
We were there because my five best friends love me.

In a month, I saw them all in 3 different days. I met 4 of them on another day. They united together too without me, of course, when I was not in Taipei. But the feeling of this united welcome-home greeting was very intense.
They made home home.

Ten years ago, I went through the Entrance Exam (equivalent to US's SAT) today. TV was playing how Hong Kong was returned to China. Today, TV was playing how H.K. has been doing in the past 10 years.
I went to Yang Ming Univ. I met these five amazing girls.
My college years marked one of the few best periods of my life. The five best friends, Shaun, and Jim were the leading roles playing in the my movie. A picture of my 19th birthday remains on my closet door, which was taken in Yang Ming Univ when we were staying up for preparing a show performed by both the Drama Club and the Hot Dance Club. Ching, Aeo, and Yellow, all in that picture, bought me a Boston pie from Tasters. We ate it with simply fingers.

I found no Boston pie in Boston. You can only have it in Tienmu, Taipei.

Seven days ago, I had a piece of the pie again, with the same friends again.
The word "again" makes me happy again.
Repeating things with old friends is called happiness.　
It is like walking on my favorite street (Dun-Hua S. Rd.) again. It is like smelling the air in my favorite bookstore (Eslite) again. It is like having my mom's food again.

A rose is a symbol of beauty.
Roses have been growing on my memory field because I am not the only gardener.