Archives for December 2006:

Dec 31, 2006 3:12 pm | no comments

2046

Saw this film on the recommendation of a friend. It appears to have garnered a large amount of international praise, especially at Cannes and among art-house critics. A reviewer–is Yoda a film critic?–on the IMDB website cautions: “Easily misunderstood or confusing, it can be,” before lauding 2046 as providing “radical new ways of vicariously experiencing [...]

Dec 21, 2006 5:50 pm | 1 comment

You want WHAT in Asia?

The Christian Democratic Party and the Vatican are up in arms again in Italy, after poet Piergiorgio Welby passed away by means of a rather creative interpretation of Italian right-to-die legislation. The NYTimes reports, “a doctor sedated him and removed the respirator that had kept him alive for the last nine years.” Sound familiar? Dr. [...]

Dec 19, 2006 10:47 pm | 1 comment

Drugs, Bombs, and Tools

Asked my roommate P during lunch if he’d do weapons research as a scientist. After he replied, I explained that I find weapons research immoral and not justified as a scientific pursuit. Flash forward to three hours later, having lost a planned afternoon of video games, fun, and napping to a massive, all-consuming debate on [...]

Dec 14, 2006 1:23 am | no comments

Mr. Science, Meet Captain Obvious

The Harvard Gazette is reporting on a new study that shows that “Too many 24-hour shifts worked by hospital interns cause medical mistakes that harm and may even kill patients. ” Apparently,
Interns who put in more than five 24- to 30-hour shifts in a month were involved in 300 percent more fatal errors than [...]

Dec 13, 2006 12:46 am | no comments

On Gays, Dreams, Puns and Punishments

My roommate had a dream last night about chemical reactions. I had one about Soviet Russia in the 1940’s. In his dream, free radicals wreaked havoc all over the place. In mine, they were all imprisoned in Gulags.
Cymbal crash. Har har. Apologies. In my defense, however, the dream was real. Moreover, not only was I [...]