WellAtMidnight

Well, it's time to go back to suburbia for the family Christmas gathering. Hopefully it won't be too horrible.
When I get back, it'll be time to get back in touch with people up here that I haven't seen for months/years.

Most of the time, I'm all for better international communication. Science and the internet are excellent examples of this (I could go on for a while about this, but I won't right now).
However, this does have some downsides. Like the fact that people from all over the world have the opportunity to try and break into my computer systems. Ok, the lab computer systems are the ones I'm really concerned about; I can be more paranoid with my home systems.

Every now and then, I check my firewall logs. Most of the time it's packets being dropped; I assume this stuff is trying for a windows machine or for services I'm not running. More infrequently (about every 2-3 days), it's somebody running through a dictionary of usernames trying to get in through ssh. After making sure that none of these were successful, I usually look up the IP addresses to see where the attack is coming from.

Pretty much anywhere. Numerous places in the US, Korea, the Netherlands or Australia. Today it was somebody in Germany. For over an hour, this machine was trying a username, waiting for a response, and then trying the next. The total was ~2300 failed login attempts.

Now, this machine is probably not totally secure; most good security people will tell you that you can't completely secure a computer. The principle I use is that it has to be more trouble than it's worth for somebody else to break the security. This applies to security in general, not just computer security. What makes it tricky is that is has to be more trouble than the attacker thinks it's worth. For those of us who can't read minds, this is difficult to judge.

So, in summary: If you're reading this, you're connected to the internet. That means everybody else on the internet could be trying to break into your computer. If you don't know how to do basic security, find your friendly neighborhood computer geek, and give them alcohol and cigarettes* until they agree to help you out. Or look around online and try to figure it out for yourself.


* Computer geeks can become irritable if too many people ask them to do things they take for granted. Hence, the alcohol and cigarettes, which may not always be necessary, but probably won't hurt. Oh, and don't try giving cigarettes to non-smoking computer geeks (man sysadmin).

One of the things I've frequently noticed, with either amusement or irritation, is that online weather reports seem to be confused about the meaning of the phrase "Today's Low Temperature". Now, I've always though that this phrase meant something along the lines of the coldest it would get during the day. Some weather sites apparently don't think so, leading to the interesting situation where the "Low" temperature is warmer than the "Current" temperature.
Part of the reason this gets annoying is how easy it would be to fix:
if (Current_Temperature < Low_Temperature ) {
Low_Temperature=Current_Temperature;
}

That was simple, now, wasn't it.

One mistake new grad students tend to make happens when they go home to visit, after starting research. A friend or relative innocently asks, "So, what do you do in grad school?"
I remember the first time this happend to me. I was naturally excited about research, and x-ray crystallography in specific. It gives you a biologically relevant excuse to use all kinds of cool math, and visit particle accererators. So, naturally, when my family asked what I was doing, I started telling them, in what I though was a very simlified manner.
"Well, you crystallize a protein, shoot x-rays at it, measure a diffraction pattern, and eventually figure out what it looks like"
Mistake.
When your average relative hears the word "protein", the first thing that comes to their mind is nutrition. At this point, they're probably trying to image how somebody would crystallize a hamburger, why they would shoot x-rays at it, and if you've gone crazy after being in lab too long (if you haven't yet, you probably will, but that's another story). The average non-science person things of the dentist or doctor when you mention x-rays, and has probably forgotten everything they knew about diffraction

So how should you explain what you do to non-science friends and relatives? If you can, just leave it at "I do research." Since that probably won't be enough, there are two possible approaches.
1. In general, everybody has at least heard of cells and DNA. Try to explain what your favorite protein does in relationship to those two cells. Don't say "YFP (Your Favorite Protein) is involved in translational regulation". Instead, try something along the lines of "Cells have to make proteins. Cells use other proteins to do this, and I'm trying to figure out what one of them looks like." If you're luck, that'll be enough.
2. Most people (probably everybody) has heard of Nobel Prizes. Just tell your family that the guy who got the Nobel prize in chemistry this year was a crystallographer (don't mention that he works on different proteins, or your work won't result in a Nobel Prize, and even if it does your PI will get the credit).

Oh, and don't mention Fourier transforms. They are damn cool, but chances are it'll just confuse things more.

Well, I've got whiskey and coke, a fresh carton of cigarettes, and a new programming language to learn. It's strangely relaxing. And life is good, because I skipped out on a Christmas (excuse me, holiday) party.
I was contemplating a long rant about adversive conditioning and holidays. But in all honesty, it's not something I want to go into right now...
-Argh- Where's the whiskey again?
Oh, and does having irrational prejudices about programming languages make you more of a nerd than getting over said prejudices?

-sigh-
No posting from me in a week or so. Why?
Well, a friend of mine has been having some personal issues (this is more common in grad school than you might think), and I've been attempting to help out. Of course, this is one of those times when it would be nice to be able to offer useful advice, instead of just being able to listen and commiserate.

Sunday, I was planning to do/have a math binge to try and figure out some stuff about Grobner bases (how to calculate them, and what to do with them when you've got them). Unfortunately, this didn't happen. I'd been drinking Sat. night, and was just a little hung over on Sunday. Note to self: Do not attempt serious math while hungover.

So I cleaned my appartement instead. While it's still a mess by probably anybody else's standards, it's better than it was. I cleaned up a bunch of the crap that had accumulated since moving in (in August), and a little bit of the crap that was left over from the latest move. Of course, I still have boxes of crap from that were packed when I was an undergrad (Generally, there's one or two pieces of paper that I need to save in each box, but I haven't gotten around to finding it and trashing the rest).

For some reason, both my emergency backup cigarettes and camera were in the kitchen next to the ziplock bags. I'm sure I had some reason for putting them there, but I'm not sure what it was.

So, what's it like where I live? In northern NJ, where I grew up, it would be a moderately large suburb. Here, it's a city. Since it's mostly a college town, the population density varies widely. In the summers, and during breaks, it's nice. Not too many people around, and those you meet are generally polite. Drivers actually stop at stop signs, and will usually let you in traffic (which generally only happens at rush hour).

When the undergrad hordes are around, things are a bit different. I'm not taking classes at the moment, so I tend to be oblivious to the academic scheduals. This means that I'm surprised after each break, when after a relatively peaceful time, the grocery store/cafeterial/parking lots are now completely packed. Of course, since there are no undergrads in my lab, this isn't a problem most of the time. It does mean that I always get carded when buying alchohol, or cigarettes (usually by someone who looks like they're 12...16 at the oldest).

In the summer, it's a nice area. Lots of places to go hiking, which I generally don't use because I'm in lab. In the winter, it's fairly cold. Generally it stays above 10F, which isn't so bad (except when it's April, and it's ~15F and still snowing). The presence of the undergrad horde means that there are large numbers of people who aren't used to driving on snow, driving on snow on steep hills. The snow means lots of potholes, sometimes up to a foot deep (well, approximately. I'm not going pull over, and go play in traffic with a ruler and measure exactly).

There are four radio stations that play decent music, most of the time. However, they're all members of the Great Radio Station Conspiracy (TM); they're all have breaks in the music (for commercials, locals sports, or people talking about music instead of actually playing it) at the exact same time.

Well, that's all for Part 1, just for introduction.
Oh, and about the name...

Bumfsck: Combination of several phrases.
fsck-1. the name of a unix utility for checking filesystems, or 2. Use as an obscenity/explitive by people who spend far too much time dealing with *nix systems
Bumfuck- Generic term for a remote location. Generally used to express frustration by people who are used to being able to find something within their city, town, or suburban area, finding out that the nearest one is currently more than one hour's driving away (without traffic, which is usually negligible, or construction/weather/bad road, which are almost always present).

[Edit-markup languages are a pain in the ass. LaTeX knows what I mean when I put a tab at the beginning of a line, HTML apparently doesn't].

Only one, but it may take several days.

A few days ago, one of my overhead lightbulbs went out. No problem, break out the spare bulbs, climb up on the chair. Take the light apart, switch bulbs, but everything back together and turn it back on. Hmm, it's still out. Check the fuse box; no problems. Take out the bulb I put in, put it into another light, and it works. Go back to the original light, and put the (new) bulb back in. Make sure it's all the way in.

This is the step that got me. Like everybody, I've had the interesting experience of screwing in a lightbulb only to have it explode into shards of glass because you've overtightened it. And then trying to get the metal part out with needlenose pliers, if you can find where you put them. In any event, this didn't fix it. I notices that new and old light bulbs were different brands, which shouldn't've mattered. However, things that shouldn't matter sometimes do (this is probably one of Murphy's laws). Ok, so I put light-bulbs, and the brand, on the shopping list.

So, after I get back from shopping, I get out the exact same model of light bulbs. And they don't fit either. At this point, I take a brief break to swear and smoke.

Once I'd calmed down, it occured to me to measure the distance inside the socket. And what do you know, it needed to go another half inch before it hit the contacts.

-sigh-
I can debug your programs, fix your computers, maintain your x-ray generators. But it's probably not a good idea to ask me to change your light bulbs.