前阵子某天突发奇想装了台新机器，intel i7 920 2.67Ghz, ASUS p6t Motherboard, 6G memory, 1T harddrive, geforce 960 gso 768Mb。记得10年前花了差不多的银子，装了PII 400Mhz, 192Mhz，6.4G 硬盘。有人今天在那里感叹Moore's Law，不知道我这两个点fit那条有名的线不。本来用了四年的mac，所以装了OS X leopard在这台pc上，让自己显得不是那么俗，后来发现问题太多，一气之下回归windows了,至今不fan apple家的东西。
p.s. 现在这个机器有8个风扇，哈哈

在北京飘了两个月，要感谢很多人啊，天哥，zt,大黄，Duan Wei,Jintang,Wang Hui,Weidong。谢谢你们收留我~~，走的很急，人情债先欠下了，容我以后再还上。还要感谢Wan Xi,小立，Liu Jia,阿专，Wang Xi以及很多很多帮我，祝福我的朋友们。。。bow~~~
Princeton 想我的各位，我回来了！！不过我要先安抚老板。

Ahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

非常赞！
1.击缶开始不错，很有中国味
2.开始画卷展开，相当的惊艳。水墨画的写意，完美的黑白色调搭配，动感的展开，将中国历史，审美结合到一起，又给人艺术想像的空间，超喜欢。
3.中间的表演中规中举，依然保持中国人在大型仪式上领先世界的整齐划一，活字印刷不错，将古老的智慧演绎的很现代。
4.赞那个地球的舞台。
5.非常喜欢刘崎和rogge讲话的那个讲台，画卷垂落成帆船的样子，平面加立体感，动静一体。我想买一个
6.焰火视觉效果不错，只是在电视里又加上看过太多，印象不深。
7.运动员入场后整体色调非常棒，喜欢那种朴素的蓝色，不艳俗
8.最后一棒，李宁跑在空中跑在长卷上非常震撼，空灵轻盈，很让人有尖叫的欲望。
9.主火炬台形象和长卷结合，加上暖暖的又不突兀的红色，漂亮。貌似我就是喜欢长卷！
总之，我们从来都不会缺少恢弘，这次的张老头艺术表现力也是非常的强烈的，就是貌似缺少一点激情。
不足：
1.主体曲太平淡了，旋律沉闷，歌词和谐，可怜两位牛人啊
2.个别表演长，比如太极。
3.那个太空人是什么啊？
4.摆的那个和字让人觉得开幕式也“和谐”了，太谄媚了。
5.李宁跑的太长，应该在人们的激动被提升到最高点就点燃火炬，他跑到后来就开始担心会不会太累，或是不小心把火炬弄掉，再后来就是李宁果然是牛人，体力真强。
6.最后的火炬点燃太一般了，我都可以想到，虎头蛇尾
7.导播太烂了，频繁播放运动员大腿场面，而且很多改给全景的给近镜头。

打85分吧，要是主体曲添彩就上90， 点火能够眩，就算完美了。恩，先说这么多，太晚了，大家也评评吧。总之，奥运会终于开幕了，北京街头无数激动高昂的人群，振奋的口号。可惜没有赶上唱国歌，要不一定会热血沸腾一把。让所有的非议之声见鬼去吧，我们要在接下来的一个月里，努力拼搏。中国加油！

荒废了很长时间的blog,直到昨天跑上来发了一彪才发现很多同鞋还是很期待我继续下去的，决定今天再写5件，以不负众望。只是不知道还有多少人继续这项消磨时间的活动，还是都早已完成。不管怎样，当初开始的写这个回忆的时候怎么也没有想到自己会在北大宿舍楼里回忆这个园子，这很其实是一种“带者愉悦的忧伤”的思念，就好像一个人在外漂泊多年之后回到故乡。跑题了，今天的叙述就从宿舍楼说起吧。鉴于有人提意见说我靠断句充数，我今天努力认真完成工作。

26. 45甲是我大一在北大住的宿舍，也是当时最新，条件最好的，当然也就缺少了像28楼那样的沧桑或是落破。洁白的墙壁，明亮的楼道和洗手间，崭新的家具，充裕的储物柜，一切都让其他楼的人羡慕。但在那里住的人都还带有着新生的清涩，对自己的期待，北大的学习，同学关系，就如同我们所住的宿舍楼一样还没有完成蜕变，自然的成为北大的一部分。很多人依然没有摆脱自己高三时对大学的憧憬，很多人依然用高中的眼光看待着这里的考试，而很多人依然仅仅生活在高中的朋友圈子，没有在周围找到知己。 蜕变是需要时间的，以至于当北大学生那些共同拥有的郁闷，懒散和老练还没来得及爬到我们身上，我们就不得不打起背包走进军营。而当洗礼之后，伴随着直接流放万柳和很多宿舍的重组，我们甚至还没来得及反思一下过去的一年，第二个365天已经开始，而这个年度的轮回让我们预料之中却又意想不到。

27. 北大01级是特殊的一级，在于他们——除了光华之外——都被贴上了“万柳”的标签。虽然因为万柳，我们四年搬了两次家，没有哪幢楼，哪间宿舍能够为四年的生活提供一个背景，成为记忆的浓缩。但在万柳那一年的放荡不羁也让我们认可了这块围墙之外的土地为自己北大经历一个重要的承载者，也因此似乎并不后悔这次集体流放。有很多客观条件对那时的腐败起到了推波助澜的作用，比如非典，比如通宵供电，比如地下的华润，比如随便出入女生宿舍。于是每个人都有自己的精彩，每个人都挑战过某种意义上的极限。有人连续的游戏，有人连续的灌水，有人连续的看小说...废寝忘食成为这部分而不是所有人的一种生活常态，仅仅因为还有人连续的睡觉，还有人连续的腐败。总之，万柳的堕落非常华丽，我相信多少年之后，当我们回忆依然会说“那时侯在万柳”，而很少用“大二”，似乎下意识里在暗示自己和听者如果不是在万柳，也许就不会有后续的讲述。

28.从万柳搬走的时候很多人还都是恋恋不舍的，面对自己开垦出来的这片曾经荒芜的乐土，对校园似乎产生了莫名的抗拒，怀着这样复杂的心情，几千名流浪者浩浩荡荡地回归了。而此时的我们尽管因流放而特殊，但已经早已完成蜕变，就如同我们搬近的那幢拥挤昏暗的48楼，在校园里不再突兀。大学最后的两年似乎总是在不经意见咒骂48楼种种不好，但北大学生的韧性在这里又体现非常淋漓尽致。这群北大老油条中的60人，蜷在被窝里打电脑游戏，在没有地方站人的狭小空间里打牌，断电之后游荡在校园内外各个小吃摊点，但同时也在这里挺过大三专业课的煎熬，经历大四为前途的迷茫继而奔波的忙碌。这里也许没有万柳那么嚣张，但48楼注定已足够特殊，因为最后这里写着01级力学系男生非常重要的两个字——毕业，一个时代的结束。

29. 在万柳，非典绝对是那幕戏中的一个高潮。原谅我没有对因非典而死的灵魂表示敬畏，原谅不想歌颂那些忘我的医疗战士，原谅我的不知道总结社会灾难教训的无知。我真的只想说，那段时间很爽。尽管，我们不能享有自由咳嗽的权利，穿着防化服的救护人员会把一切发烧的人拖走隔离，每天都要检测体温，忍受消毒水的异味。 但在那段时间里，因为非典，已经堕落者更加有组织全身心的堕落，排除了心中隐约的一丝忧虑；那些堕落不够彻底的人有了一个正当的理由，压榨出心中最后残存的那点自责。这是一段全民“健身”享乐的时光。死亡的威胁似乎就在身边，但又远远不够清晰，于是空气里弥漫的是对享受理想学生生活的满足。恩，我想非典对万柳绝大部分人来说不是个痛苦回忆，至少它让很多许久足不出户的斋男斋女们被迫的走出来呼吸建筑物以外新鲜的流动空气。

30. 第30件不应该写毕业，无论是时间顺序还是逻辑顺序，这都是应该保留到最后的。但是我很担心自己到最后没有勇气写，趁着现在48楼激起的那点欲望，先唠叨两句吧，也算抢了个小整。不知道为什么都三年了，提起毕业还是伤感，尽管已经没有当年伏特加般的强烈。原来以为这不愿褪去的伤感仅仅是因为三年前那场有点如电影般戏剧话的分手，但看着cryingcat's blog上的祭文，想想我最近以来一直重复的话：现在上大一的小孩在我们上大一的时候连小学都没有毕业。。。走在正是毕业时间的燕园，我真的觉得心中的某些东西在我们毕业的时候已经死了，而毕业正是我们为这死去的东西举行的集体葬礼。如小熊所说，毕业只有一次。是的，葬礼怎么会有第二次呢？ 而我也终于明白其实伤感并不是因为逝去，我们都知道当初的相聚注定走向一个不可避免的离别；我们伤感是因为一次美丽的曾经拥有。所以，不要忘了和哥们一起在球场上撒下的汗水，不要你下铺兄弟曾经说过的笑话，不要忘了你和恋人相拥而泣，不要忘了你和朋友的相互倾诉和大醉。也许细节会随着时间而变的模糊，但每当你回忆起来也依然是伤感，而这伤感其实是让人羡慕的幸福。毕业之后三年从未见过面的我和sp，走在上海的夜幕下，依然能找回那份亲切的熟悉，我很满足。

啊！！！突然发现今天的呻吟太做作了，就像恶俗的彩妆口红，而且跟原来的风格极不搭界。我是怎么了？ 休息休息，缓缓心情再写。我只好对各位说，这篇就算是个空荡的架子，各位自己添加有灵气的回忆吧，好在这个破架子还撑起了北大四年。

Maybe it's because I've been trapped in Beijing for 6 weeks, or maybe it's just because it's too hot these days and there's no air conditioning in the dorm I'm living in, I feel annoyed and sometimes even on edge, suffering in the throes of Olympics, instead of being enthusiastic about this event like most residents, volunteers, visitors, and CCTV in this city. 

Things have gone more and more ridicules as Aug. 8th is approaching. The "One World One Dream" slogan has marched everywhere except in my heart. Everyone on the street is wearing a T-shirt with Olympic logo or the mascots Fuwa or the torch, except the security uniform (God, they didn't make special one with five circles) . My ears have been crammed by all kinds crap Olympic news, which turns the sport channel into a dreary and disgusting propaganda. and why the hell those torch bearers are always making those stupid gestures in front of the camera, entertaining yourself ? On the other hand, the public environment have been pushed to the limit by the traffic restrictions, the ID check at every entrance even at the public bathroom. But still a car explosion just attacked the CBD just a moment ago, not to mention the covert cracking down of dissidents and the tougher media control.  The city is turning into a mess.

Am I too old to show my passion?  but why a seventies with an armband on the street would tell you: "We waited 100 years for this moment, so we will sacrifice and endure any hardship" ? I mean even 50 years ago, nobody in this country would express even a scintilla of interest for the Games, and suddenly it becomes the fulfillment of a national dream, which may be actually embedded in our mind by some politicians? Frankly, I was happy about the Olympic in Beijing and I sent out Olympic postcards to my friends. I thought this was suppose to be a great party where people could put the conflicts and ideology away for a while,  just play and watch sports. We get prepared and people from other parts of the world come, enjoy and go. This is what the event ought to be, isn't it? If the game is expected to fulfill something,I believe it is the original idealism of all human beings. Wait a minute, am I too young to learn cynicism ?

I think I'm almost finished with my pathetic complaining here, and suddenly realize that it makes me look like a grinch as those human rights advocates, environmental activists, or dissidents, who are unfailingly buzzing hypocritical argument. I need to draw a line here so that I won't get mixed with them or please these cliques . I don't think holding a banner or spitting out abuses in front of flash light would give any essential help to the issues that you pretend to be concerned with, even assuming that they are valid. Those who are insightful and understanding may forgive you by saying anti-China is a fashion,which earns them glory, so don't be too judgmental. I don't agree, for this would contaminate the innocent "fashion". These kind of practices are just the illusion for the functionally retarded as a therapy, and you hypocrite only need this illusion to produce a false moral euphoria to feed your arrogance. So please stop talking shit on Olympics in China, because you've done nothing positive, and for this reason don't worry the earth would cease spinning without you.

Oh, God, I don't want to see the grand bird nest; I don't want to see the super sport stars; I don't want  to see the dazzling fireworks...I just want a cool place to sleep.

小时候以为联合国秘书长是这个地球上最大的官，长大了才发现任何机构里谁出钱谁说了算
小时候被告之我们要去解放世界上其他受苦的人民，长大了才发现大家都想去那些需要被解放的地方
小时候以为钱乃身外之物，长大了才发现我还tm这么天真过啊
小时候期望自己是可塞，能让时间停止，长大了觉得可塞是真傻x啊
小时候觉得博士很厉害，想当科学家，长大了才发现博士其实大部分都很委琐
小时候觉得女厕所很神秘，长大了知道她们那边还不如我们这边设备多呢
小时候看见漂亮女生会心动，长大了看见漂亮女生会冲动
小时候不知道爱情是什么，长大了也不知道爱情是什么
小时候不在乎自己帅不帅，长大了在乎又有什么用呢？
小时候老师说不让干什么就不干什么，长大了之后发现自己因此变的很土
小时候觉得考试成绩好很骄傲，长大了才发现分数越高越失败
小时候觉得带眼镜很学术，长大了发现带眼镜很悲哀
小时候挨了批评会哭，长大了挨了批评会说fk

小时候以为自己了解整个世界，长大了才发现自己变的越来越无知
小时候觉得自己很了不起，长大了才知道父母很了不起
小时候觉得自己很坚强，长大了自己装的很坚强
小时候自己一个人的时候觉得自由，长大了自己一个人的时候觉得孤单
小时候好奇世界上的其他人都在干什么，长大了只想自己在干什么
小时候想赶快长大离开自己的家，长大了才发现自己很想回家
小时候想自己是怎么来到这个世界的，长大了思考自己会怎么离开这个世界
小时候想长大了会是什么样子，长大了回忆小时候是什么样子
小时候想要长大，长大了想变回小的时候

车窗被人砸了，车里的GPS被偷了。。。就在宿舍前的parking lot。princeton也不安全啊。其实我平时还都是把GPS收起来的，就忘了这一次。又得送多少银子送去修车。

从来肚子都没有什么墨水，只好流水帐记录，而且不会有过渡。
实验进展很慢，没有看到任何research的希望，开始怀疑自己的能力。一个“科研工作者”在90％的时间内不知道自己在干什么，对自己 90％的工作不能给出合理的解释，是不是很失败呢？而且开始对自己以后的出路感到迷茫。。。有点向往evil的finance。

不过老板不在的这段时间里，生活很hi。平均每两周去一次纽约腐败，要感谢在纽约的一帮同学，当然还有可恶的加拿大签证。一场“真TM难忘”的音乐会让我对郎朗点失望；不过名人似乎总是可以挥霍别人的感情。非常推荐韩国城的餐馆，吃的很好，亚裔美女超级多。
Canon L 系列的100－400的头好爽啊——身为用nikon的人不应该说这种话。决定攒钱上长焦。nikon 50mm/f1.8的头性价比很好，依然看到很多有钱人挂着50mm/f1.4。不过无所谓，其实我根本不会摄影，只是再一次向往finance。
体力恢复到可以踢足球小场两个小时而且看见第二天早晨的太阳。不过还是长肚子了，“救生圈”的体积直接反映了我曾经“无处安放的青春”，变成了没有青春可以安放。25岁的生日party，很开心。吃冰激凌蛋糕到撑死；要感谢室友，帅哥小马，还有炼哥；当然还有各位美女前来助兴。那天晚上居然有点醉 ,到了美国后的处女醉啊。
对某些事情依然很脆弱，比如说毕业。这个本来与现在的我无关的词依然在心里占据了好大一块位置。看了wk,xiqian等人的blog, 又想起两年前那段时光，似乎使用任何描写心情的形容词都可以在我心中产生共鸣。不知道那段充满了欢笑，伤感，心痛，空虚，迷茫，酒精味。。。的记忆花多久才会淡去。也许永远都不会？毕竟那是一次把反常视为平常甚至有点不计后果的纪念。
同龄人结婚已经不算新闻，因为已经有人在讨论或者实施生孩子了。我，却被人贴上了感情经历复杂的标签，可是我不想感情经历复杂啊。我非常需要一点缘分。
p.s. 我拼命的时候还是很强壮的，可以滚沙发。

The Worst Jobs in Science 2007

Jason Daley

Number 10: Whale-Feces Researcher
They scoop up whale dung, then dig through it for clues

“Brown stain ahoy!” is not the cry most mariners long to hear, but for Rosalind Rolland, a senior researcher at the New England Aquarium in Boston, it’s a siren song. Rolland, along with a few lucky research assistants, combs Nova Scotia’s Bay of Fundy looking for endangered North Atlantic right whales. Actually, she’s not really looking for the whales—just their poo. “It surprised even me how much you can learn about a whale through its feces,” says Rolland, who recently published the most complete study of right whales ever conducted. “You can test for pregnancy, measure hormones and biotoxins, examine its genetics. You can even tell individuals apart.”

Rolland pioneered whale-feces research in 1999. By 2003, she was frustrated by the small number of samples her poo patrol was collecting by blindly chasing whales on the open ocean. So she began taking along sniffer dogs that can detect whale droppings from as far as a mile away. When they bark, she points her research vessel in the direction of the brown gold, and as the boat approaches the feces—the excrement usually stays afloat for an hour after the deed is done and can be bright orange and oily depending on the type of plankton the whale feeds on—Rolland and her crew begin scooping up as much matter as they can using custom-designed nets. Samples are then placed in plastic jars and packed in ice (the largest chunks are just over a pound) to be shared with other researchers across North America. “We’ve literally been in fields of right-whale poop,” she marvels.

In the past few years, other whale researchers have adopted Rolland’s methods. Nick Gales of the Australia Antarctic Division now plies the Southern Ocean looking for endangered blue-whale dung, a pursuit that in 2003 led him to a scientific first. While tailing a minke whale, Gale’s team photographed what is believed to be the first bout of whale flatulence caught on film—a large, disconcertingly pretty bubble trailing behind the whale like an enormous jellyfish. “We stayed away from the bow after taking the picture,” Gales recalls. “It does stink.”

Number 9: Forensic Entomologist
Solving murders by studying maggots

“One day a local detective called me who knew I’d majored in entomology in college and said, ‘Hey, Neal, we got a body at the morgue with insects on it. You wanna give it a shot?’ The corpse turned out to be a guy I used to have breakfast with, and there were maggots in his teeth. Then I found some in his eyes, and I thought, ‘This is what I want to do. This is just way too cool.’”

Neal Haskell’s eagerness could easily be interpreted as insensitivity. But it takes a unique sensibility to rise to the top of his particular field. Now, 700 maggot-infested corpses later, the former Indiana farmer is one of the nation’s leading forensic entomologists, teaching at St. Joseph’s College, testifying in roughly 100 cases, and co-authoring the first entomology book for law enforcement. His job, like that of the country’s 20 or so other insect investigators, is to estimate the “postmortem interval” (the time between death and the body’s discovery) by charting the life stages of the blowfly, the world’s predominant cadaver connoisseur. Picking through rotting corpses for eggs, maggots, pupa and adult blowflies—as well as the larvae of odd species like cheese skippers, a type of fly fond of cheddar, ham and human fat—FEs can help estimate time of death (essential in a murder case) by determining when decomposed bodies first became critter food.

Occasionally forensic entomologists get a case that requires more participatory research. To help solve a crime in Cleveland, for example, Haskell mimicked the case details by wrapping 17 dead pigs (“they approximate human corpses surprisingly well”) in plastic to determine the order in which flies are likely to colonize bagged corpses. “I’ve done an awful lot of neat things in my life,” Haskell says. “But this maggot work and getting the bad guys off the street is the neatest.”

Number 8: Olympic Drug Tester

When your job is drug testing the world’s top athletes, there’s no way to win

Every two years, the athletes of the world light a torch, gather together, and cheat like crazy. To combat the inevitable underhandedness at the 2008 Beijing Games, dozens of officers at doping-control stations will watch jocks urinate into cups about 4,000 times over 21 days. And even then, testers will still find themselves in a lose-lose situation. If they catch a cheat, they anger an entire nation. If they don’t nab a cheat who later tests positive, they’re berated in the media for incompetence. And even their most sophisticated tests are probably missing the big sins. That’s because in the arms race to make performance-enhancing drugs more powerful and less detectable, the dopers are winning. “By the time a drug is known to testers, it’s often passé,” explains University of Western Ontario bioethicist Kenneth Kirkwood. “Coaches and team doctors scour scientific literature to find cutting-edge therapies and experimental drugs,” he says. “The testers don’t even know what to look for.”

Number 7: Gravity Research Subject
They’re strapped down so astronauts can blast off

Spend time in outer space, and the lack of gravity will earn you the bloated look astronauts call puffy face, as well as atrophied muscles and bone degeneration. Researchers hope to combat these symptoms by developing artificial-gravity therapies for long voyages. But the only way to approximate the effects of weightlessness is by having volunteers lie still—for weeks on end.

Liz Warren, a researcher at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, managed to convince 15 men to spend 21 straight days in bed. They were tilted head-down at a 6-degree angle, which, along with their inactivity, mimicked the restricted muscle use and increased blood flow to the head experienced in space. The subjects showered using handheld hoses, relieved themselves in bedpans, and were occasionally wheeled out to a common area to socialize with other bedridden guinea pigs. What’s more, every day technicians strapped the subjects to a gravity-simulating centrifuge and slung them around for an hour, creating 1 G near their hearts and 2.5 Gs at their feet. Their vitals were then compared with subjects who had skipped the ride.

For actor Tim Judd, it was a life-changing experience; the $6,000 payday gave him enough cash to move to Los Angeles to pursue his film career. It’s a good thing he had such a strong motivation. “Your body cavity is upside down, and after the first day you can feel your internal organs start to shift toward your head,” he says. Although Warren’s study is now complete, NASA is still far from a full understanding of how to mitigate the effects of weightlessness. “We’ve got a whole wing at the University of Texas hospital in Galveston,” Warren says, “and it’s always full of NASA bed-rest subjects.”

Number 6: Microsoft Security Grunt
Like wearing a big sign that reads “Hack Me”

Do you flinch when your inbox dings? The people manning secure@microsoft .com receive approximately 100,000 dings a year, each one a message that something in the Microsoft empire may have gone terribly wrong. Teams of Microsoft Security Response Center employees toil 365 days a year to fix the kinks in Windows, Internet Explorer, Office and all the behemoth’s other products. It’s tedious work. Each product can have multiple versions in multiple languages, and each needs its own repairs (by one estimate, Explorer alone has 300 different configurations). Plus, to most hackers, crippling Microsoft is the geek equivalent of taking down the Death Star, so the assault is relentless. According to the SANS Institute, a security research group, Microsoft products are among the top five targets of online attack. Meanwhile, faith in Microsoft security is ever-shakier—according to one estimate, 30 percent of corporate chief information officers have moved away from some Windows platforms in recent years. “Microsoft is between a rock and a hard place,” says Marcus Sachs, the director of the SANS Internet Storm Center. “They have to patch so much software on a case-by-case basis. And all in a world that just doesn’t have time to wait.”

Number 5: Coursework Carcass Preparer
They kill, pickle, and bottle the critters that schoolkids cut up

Remember that first whiff of formaldehyde when the teacher brought out the frogs in ninth-grade biology? Now imagine inhaling those fumes eight hours a day, five days a week. That’s the plight of biological- supply preparers, the folks who poison, preserve, and bag the worms, frogs, cats, pigeons, sharks and even cockroaches that end up in high-school and college biology classrooms. At Ward’s Natural Science in Rochester, New York, one of the nation’s largest suppliers of coursework carcasses, an 18-member crew processes dozens of species every year. Insects like fleas and cockroaches are the easiest, according to Jim Collins, the interim supervisor in the company’s preserved-materials department. They’re simply preserved in jars of alcohol. The pigeons and frogs, though, come live from collectors and breeders and must be euthanized on-site (usually in a CO2 chamber for the pigeons and immersion in benzicane, a chemical used to treat tooth pain, for the frogs). Once the deed is done, workers embalm small corpses and inject colored latex into their arterial and venous systems to make identification easier for the kids. Then the specimens are packed in 55-gallon drums to cure for a few weeks before they’re ready for the dissecting table. Collins and his team aren’t put off by the job, although the lab does have a high dropout rate. “We have people who come in and work for a day or two and then say they can’t do it,” Collins says. “But most of us enjoy the work.”

Number 4: Garbologist
Think Indiana Jones— in a Dumpster

Archaeologists usually pick through ancient garbage. But William Rathje of Stanford University won’t wait. Since 1973 the self-termed “garbologist” has sifted through at least 250,000 pounds of refuse to analyze modern consumption patterns and how quickly waste breaks down. He typically drills 15 to 20 “wells” to the bottom of a landfill, some 90 feet deep, and pulls 20 to 30 tons of material from each well, which he and his students then catalog. What he’s learned: Dirty diapers make up less than 2 percent of landfills, while paper accounts for 45 percent. Hot dogs can last up to 24 years in a dump, and there is a correlation between cat ownership (litter) and National Enquirer readers (discarded copies). Rathje looks at other trash, too. One project involved scouring garbage cans in Tucson, Arizona, cataloging candy wrappers and used dental floss, toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes to compare survey claims about dental health with reality. The conclusion: There’s far more junk out there than ways to get it off your teeth.

Number 3: Elephant Vasectomist
When your patient is Earth’s largest land animal, sterilization is a big job

What’s one foot across and sits behind two inches of skin, four inches of fat and 10 inches of muscle? That’s right: an elephant’s testicle. Which means veterinarian Mark Stetter’s newest invention—a four-foot-long fiber-optic laparoscope attached to a video monitor—has to be a heavy-duty piece of equipment to sterilize a randy bull pachyderm. Stetter, the head doc at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Florida, created the device to help control elephants in African wildlife parks, where the jumbos have been breeding too quickly and eating up more than their share of the surrounding habitat. The snipping began last summer when Stetter and his team field-tested the device on four unsuspecting bulls at the Welgevonden Private Game Reserve in South Africa. After a pachyderm was sedated with a dart from a helicopter, the team used a crane truck to pull the sleeping beast upright. Four-inch incisions were made, and the laparoscope was inserted into the abdomen near the reproductive organs (an elephant’s testicles are on the inside, like ovaries). When he located the centimeter-thick vas deferens—the tube that carries semen from the testicles to the penis—Stetter inserted a long pair of scissors through the scope and cut out a two- or three-inch section. So far, the method seems to be working. The first four test subjects survived the ordeal with no complications (except the possibility of bruised pride). If things go the way Stetter plans, elephants throughout southern Africa will soon be crossing their legs in fear: He has begun training other field vets to perform the procedure, and hopes to have multinational trials up and running soon.

Number 2: Oceanographer
Nothing but bad news, day in and day out

Scientists estimate that overfishing will end wild- seafood harvests by 2048 and that Earth’s coral reefs will be rubble within decades. About 200 deoxygenated “dead zones” dot the world’s coasts, up from 149 in 2004. Meanwhile, a vortex of plastic the size of Texas clogs the North Pacific, choking fish and birds; construction is destroying coastal habitats; and countless key marine species are nearly extinct. To top it all off, if global warming goes the way scientists predict, the uptick of carbon dioxide levels in the seas will acidify the water until little more than jellyfish can live there. With so much going on, there’s plenty of work for oceangoing scientists—if they can stomach bad news. Carl Safina, the founder of the nonprofit Blue Ocean Institute, is proud of the work he’s done to battle overfishing in the U.S., where some species are actually on the mend. Nevertheless, he says, humans are “poised to remake the ocean into a new kind of environment”—one that might require a toxic- containment suit. Recently, Ron Johnstone, an Australian marine biologist, broke out in boils while studying sediment. He was poisoned by fireweed, a toxic cyanobacteria exploding across the globe in response to pollution.

Number 1: Hazmat Diver
They swim in sewage. Enough said.

“The worst was at a factory pig farm,” says Steven M. Barsky, the author of Diving in High-Risk Environments, the industry bible for hazardous-materials divers. “A guy had driven his truck into the waste lagoon and drowned. Not only was it full of urine and liquid pig feces, the farmer had dumped all the needles used to inject the pigs with antibiotics and hormones in there.” Someone had to recover the body, and the task fell to commercial hazmat divers.

Outfitted with fully encapsulating drysuits, these Jacques Cousteaus of the sewers swim into clouds of waste, inside nuclear reactors and through toxic spills on America’s coasts and inland waterways. When the Environmental Protection Agency identifies pollutants, it contracts with a hazmat team to clean things up. That means using giant vacuums to suck up a polluted lakebed, hoisting leaking barrels to the surface, or diving into the heart of an oil spill or into a sewer to fix a clog. It’s dangerous work—one breach in the drysuit, and a whole stew of bacteria and toxins can fill ’er up. Jesse Hutton, of Ballard Salvage and Diving in Seattle, has seen his share of close calls. “I’ve been on jobs where suits have been breached by rough steel or something sharp,” he says, pointing out that divers must keep their shots up to date.

The divers are generally well-paid, but hey, so are accountants. “To be an expert,” Barsky says, “you need to be a chemist, a physician, a biologist and 10 other things. Not many people are.”

从mitbbs pku 版看来的

1 图书馆前面狮子的秘密是什么？
2 物美的厕所在什么地方？
3 红湖在什么地方？
4 理科二号楼有哪几层可以通往理科一号楼/理教？
5 北招在什么地方？
6 燕南咖啡厅在什么地方？
7 北大北门在什么地方？
8 图书馆新馆地上有几层？
9 北大微电子所在什么地方？
10 理教2056C在什么地

没看过的可以玩一下，不用认真，呵呵

在Princeton Chapel 和 firestone Library 之间靠近Washington Road那边有一个sculpture. 一位老人手拿匕首准备刺入跪在他面前的一个年轻人的心脏。一直不知道为什么会有这样一尊雕塑。直到在跟老板聊六四事件，才知道这尊雕像是为了纪念曾经在 1970年5月4号四名因抗议越南战争而被 Ohio National Guard 枪杀的四名年轻学生的。作者是 George Segal. 用googel找到更多关于这个雕塑和其背后的故事。悲剧发生在Kent State University, 那天午饭时间 一组28人的national guard 连续向抗议的学生人群射击13秒，打死四个，伤九个。最近的20yards, 最远的250yards.这件事到现在还有很多争论 what is the meaning of the event. 后来有很多的艺术品出现纪念这个事件。KSU经过多年的争论，官方终于决定选取一件作为纪念。这尊雕像是其中最有名的之一。雕塑直接刻画的是圣经里的一个故事。上帝让Abraham 杀死自己的儿子Issac作为祭品，表其忠诚。Abraham做了，最后时刻God用一只羊羔代替了他的儿子。Nobody dies. 一个名叫Jane Dillenberger的作家的描写
The father and son are seen at the moment of ultimate confrontation, before the divine intervention, and Abraham's drawn and rigid face looks down into the passionately pleading face of the young man...Segal's Isaac appeals and pleads for his life. Abraham is physically smaller than Isaac. ...The Isaac is robust and larger... Were Isaac to stand, he would tower over Abraham. Physically he could make Abraham cower. But, psychically, Issac hasn't a chance. ...For Segal, the focus in the Princeton sculpture is the clenched left hand of Abraham, wherein the horror of the deed that the right hand must accomplish is expressed. ...By eliminating the angel of the Lord and the ram... the resolution of the story is left in doubt.

Segal自己的说法
"There is a strong connection in my mind between the image of Abraham and Isaac and the killings at Kent State" Segal explains. "It's an attempt to introduce difficult moral and ethical questions as to how older people should behave toward their children." Segal sees the May 4 incident as a "genuine tragedy in that both sides were well meaning, each convinced of its own point of view and unable to see the other's."

可是，KSU后来拒绝了这件艺术品，理由是
the inescapable first impression is that an older person is threatening to kill a younger person who is pleading for his life. ...it was thought inappropriate to commemorate the deaths of four and the wounding of nine others... by a statue that appears to represent an act of violence about to be committeed.

于是这件雕塑来到了Princeton...

最近发现msn上一些好友的昵称前有很诡异的代码，百思不解，先是以为某些人用了高级的表情，或者又是mac和microsoft冲突的结果。后来发现过两天就有人的昵称前多了代码，于是google了一下。原来是microsoft在慈善捐款，这个好啊，以下是翻译过来的代码，呵呵

American Red Cross ---- I'm 准备提供帮助，代码 = *red+u

Boys & Girls Clubs of America ---- I'm 为孩子提供理想的环境，代码 = *bgca

National AIDS Fund ---- I'm 与艾滋病（AIDS）抗争，代码 = *naf National

MS Society ---- I'm 参与到解决多发性硬化症（MS）的运动，代码 = *mssoc

ninemillion.org ---- I'm 帮助9百万流离失所的孩子，代码 = *9mil

Sierra Club ---- I'm 探索和保护这个星球，代码 = *sierra

StopGlobalWarming.org ---- I'm 阻止全球变暖，代码 = *help

Susan G. Komen for the Cure ---- I'm 寻找乳腺癌的治愈方法, 代码 = *komen

UNICEF ---- I'm 救助生死边缘徘徊的孩子，代码 = *unicef 不过这项活动只有 8.1以上的版本才能参与，mac的msn不行。不过我还是加了代码，忽悠一下，呵呵

P.S. 以前我的机器就不能在blog上显示某些人的昵称，比如“拖鞋太少”那位。而显示的是：“此昵称太强，系统无法正确显示”之类的。我汗这个理由。。。