The Mind of My Jake

There are a lot of benefits to marrying a geek. Prominent among them are that he can fix virtually anything and that he can build incredible gadgets that make life more convenient. (He once built us our very own DVR from scratch, but that's another story for another day.)

But one of the things that I love most about my geek husband is that his brain never turns off. He is a thinker who never tires of learning, which is something that struck me at first as a little bit OCD, but which I now find incredibly admirable and hope eventually will rub off on me. Nothing is too big or too mundane for him to tackle in his constant pursuit of information. His mental science and technology database is staggering, but his interests venture far beyond that. He carries with him a baffling knowledge of Greek mythology, thanks to a one-time childhood obsession, and can also give you a brief history of the advent of the hamburger. (The meat patty was apparently invented by Genghis Khan. Who knew?) His vast knowledge base makes him a terrifying opponent in Trivial Pursuit and once prompted a friend to say that if Jake confessed to being an android, he actually wouldn't be surprised.

My point here being: Jake's brain is a fascinating place. That's why I'm recommending his blog, chlorine.tumblr.com, which is less online diary and more stream-of-consciousness snapshot album. He usually updates multiple times a day, and his almost wordless posts offer links to scientific breakthroughs and other quirky and interesting tidbits, scriptural passages, and images he likes ranging from Renaissance art to modern architecture to Rita Hayworth.

One running feature is his slashaikus, which are haikus created from the text of slashdot (a premier science and technology blog) articles. Jake recently wrote a computer program as an experiment that constantly combs the site for five-syllable-seven-syllable-five-syllable word combinations. It automatically compiles the results, and Jake sorts through them and posts his favorites, which are equal parts hilarious and profound — but all weird.

So anyway, check it out. You'll feel smarter. I always do.



JEM

O Canada!

A couple of weeks ago, Jake returned to our home continent to participate in the 2008 Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology conference in Toronto.

The conference, which is put on annually by the International Society for Computational Biology, was held this year in a conference center with all the charm and intimacy of an underground Soviet fallout bunker.

Feeding time for the refugees of science.

During the conference, Jake had the opportunity to present some of his recent research with a poster titled, "Pathway Prediction with eQTL and Gene Interaction Networks". (*shrug* Hey, don't look at me. I just share the man's bed.)

He said it was his most productive conference poster session to date, which means that a lot of people were interested in his research and wanted to hear more.

Can you spot the Jake?

Bing!

Occasionally Jake was able to leave the conference center and do fun things. Like stay in this totally lux hotel room:


and walk down the street where he had previously done battle with Combine soldiers in an academic mod of his favorite video game Half Life 2, which was based in Toronto.


He also visited Toronto's lovely mall:


and saw this great car with grass growing out of it.


Jake sat down with AD to discuss his feelings after his first visit to the United States' sister-land.

American Dresdner: So, how did you find Toronto?
Jake J. Michaelson: My general impression was that I was more impressed than I expected to be.
AD: Can you expound?
JJM: It was by far the most ethnically diverse place I have ever visited to the point of almost being overwhelming. The dynamic range of ethnicity and culture is just wider than anything I've ever experienced before. You almost get the feeling that every ethnicity that exists on planet Earth is equally represented among the whole population.
AD: Did being in Canada feel like being in the U.S. again?
JJM: Almost. For one thing, a vast majority of the people were speaking English in an accent identical to my own. There were American cars. There was an American feel in the way that buildings were constructed. Streets were perpendicular. Lots of parking lots and asphalt.
AD: What was different?
JJM: The fact that everything has to be written in French as well as English was probably the most overtly different thing.
AD: You expressed to JEM that you experienced a degree of "reverse culture shock". Can you explain that?
JJM: For one thing, I was surprised at how few people smoked. I noticed that I looked at things from a German/European critical eye. Many of the buildings looked like they had flimsy construction. There was way too much water in the toilet bowls. The fact that tax is added on top of the advertised price was annoying. And I found people's over-abundant friendliness artificial and off-putting.
AD: Americans are going to hate you guys when you come home.
JJM: We'll hate them right back. Keep the transatlantic tradition alive.
AD: Since you spend a lot of time preparing and presenting posters at scientific conferences, can you explain to our non-scientist readers what the purpose of a "poster session" is?
JJM: You remember your science fair when you're in elementary school? It's basically a glorified version of that, but a lot more boring. There are no live exhibits of experiments. Instead there's much more wordy jargon on the posters.
AD: Can you give us a basic idea of what your poster this time around was about?
JJM: No.
AD: Well, that's terribly accommodating of you.
JJM: It's not my fault, there's just no basic way of explaining it. It's not possible. Here's my short abstract: A network analysis method is presented and applied to expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) data. The method is designed to overcome weaknesses of eQTL analysis, including noise, false positives, and a lack of molecular context. Results show improvement in recapitulating pathway members, compared to conventional eQTL approaches.
AD: I think I speak for all AD readers when I say, "Dazzling." I also understand you brought a couple of surprises back for JEM.
JJM: That's right.



AD: You sure know how to treat a girl.

JEM Performs "Life on Mars?" LIVE!!!

Yet another enlightening glimpse into what it is, exactly, that I do with all my time — Exhibit D: Learn David Bowie songs on the guitar.


Life on Mars from jake michaelson on Vimeo.

OK, now I can move on with my life. And now we can stop talking about '70s glamrock. At least for a couple of days.



JEM

P.S. If you thought Freddie Mercury's spandex jumpsuit was upsetting, you really shouldn't watch this.

Dr. Glamrock

If there was any news last weekend that was more brain-splatteringly awesome than this, I certainly didn't hear about it.


Apparently Brian May, guitarist and founding member of '70s glamrock giants Queen, just published his DOCTORAL THESIS IN ASTROPHYSICS. He actually received his doctorate last August and shortly thereafter accepted the appointment of chancellor for Liverpool John Moores University.


You may now take a moment to scrape up your face, which no doubt just melted onto the floor as a result of learning this news.

Dr. May, this one's for you:

Growing Up

The nurse today had to take "many" blood from me. And afterward nobody even offered me a sucker for being such a trooper. It's times like that I hate being an adult. So I came home and polished off half a carton of lemon sorbet in my underwear.

And remembered that being an adult does have its advantages.



JEM

The Amazing Shoe Goo

Jake's got this pair of sneaks that he loves very much. He's practically loved the soles clean off of them. He has been wanting to repair his precious sneakers with some Shoe Goo, one of his favorite products, but was unfortunately unable to locate any Shoe Goo in Germany. However, while in Toronto recently (post pending on his impressions of the sister-land) for a doers-of-science conference, he picked himself up a tube. Last night he was looking up Shoe Goo application tips on YouTube and discovered this little revelation:



Not only did we find this video to be a particularly convincing testimonial with regard to the virtues of Shoe Goo, but by the end we were both weeping with laughter. I think the part that put me over the edge was the ceramic frog Shoe Goo'd to the rock. By the end, I just couldn't shake the feeling that our fascinating faceless narrator probably bears a striking resemblance to ...




JEM

Baby's First Exposure to Modern Art

Thanks to our pal Caro Leonhardt, the artist responsible for the hovering faces above, for inviting us to this exhibit. It was awesome.

Besides, any excuse to spend more time in this building ...

Dresden Kunstakademie

... is always cool by me.




JEM