Necker Cube Redux

Looking at the necker cube again, I noticed something cool. There is actually a plausible 3D shape in the drawing; a kind of trapezoial looking structure. Treat the middle rectangle as the top (blackened in the image attached). Treat the trapezoids which share the sides of the center rectangle as side of the 3D figure. Do the same to the triangles which meet at top-left and bottom-right corners.

What do you see?

Maybe I'm juts making this up though...I need to stop staring at this thing and actually study for my finals...

This Spinning Ballerina and Other Curiosities About Our Perception

This is an old optical illusion, which had been erroneously associated with a right brain vs. left brain test. But for the past few days I can't help but constantly think about it and the implications the results have. Here is the image of the spinning dancer:

Of course, the phenomena involved is the same as that of the Necker Cube:

The astute observer notes that our brain is attempting to make sense of visual information before us that is lacking in very crucuial information. In this case, both the cube and the dancer are two-dimensional objects with no real cues on the depth of the object being presented. However, our brains process the given image three-dimensionally since they seem very familiar to us already.

We have all seen cubes before. We expect cubes to have a specific length, width, and height that are equivalent. The necker cube seemingly has such proportions, but it has no means of biasing our interpretation of the three-dimensionality. The front of the cube cube can be either the lower-left square or the upper-right square. Instead of viewing the image for what it is, several rectangles that either share sides or bisect one another, our brain interprets the shape into something familiar.

This is what is happening with the dancer. the dancer does not exist. It is a two-dimensional piece of art that moves. It is really an assimulation of pixels of various shades of grey and black changing with time. You can literally sit here and determine the trajectory of various pixels over time, and consider the motion as oscillatory.

But our brains aren't programed to initial think of the dancer as a collection of composite pixels. We see an image. The initial guess is that of a dancer, and the collective motion of the pixels gives rise to a spinning dancer. But which way is the dancer truly spinning? Due to the lack of specific cues in the image, the dancer can spin either way for an observer. The image possesses an instability due to lack of information, and our brain simply choses a direction of spin.

You can stare at the image and get the spinner to spin either clockwise or counter-clockwise. That is a fun feat. But the real power comes from seeing the motion of the pixels themselves. That is, instead of seeing a dancer that is spinning, you are observing instead the oscillatory motion of the collection of pixels. To do this, you need to consciously trick your brain.

First, stare at the extended foot. When it reaches the extremum on one side of the image, try and follow the foot as if it is returning the way you saw it spin. You may not be successful at first, but keep trying. You should be able to finally achieve the interesting feat of seeing the image for what it truly is.

All images that possess the multistable perceptual phenomena have a real shape and then the percieved shape. The Necker cube is really a collection of two-dimensional shapes. The dancer is really pixels in motion across a screen. But our minds didn't evolve under conditions of being astute geometrists or graphic designers. It evolved under the necessity to process information and to make assumptions. In real environments, such assumptions have utility, such as maintaining survival. In highly contrived environments, such as those available to us through the means of technology, we can manipulate these perceptions and see where the assumptions are created.

This is what has amused me for the past few days. What do you think?

An Update

I almost forgot I had this blog.

A little background story for those unfamiliar with who I am. I am a first year graduate student at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. As a first-year, your goals are to (1) pass classes, (2) teach undergraduates, and (3) find a research group. Actually, the most important one is the last one, but the others need to be accomplished as well.

Objectives (1) and (2) are easy to do, especially when the course you teach is general chemistry and the courses you are enrolled in you have taken as an undergraduate before. In my case, I just had to brush up some more on chemical equilibria[1] and with being a physics undergraduate I have already suffered through enough mechanics (classical, quantum, and statistical) to last me awhile. It is that pesky (3) that is seemingly difficult.

This is the step/level I am stuck on. I came here for several specific reasons, most of which seem to have gone by the wayside due to circumstances beyond my control. I have a couple of options left for me, but they are closing fast. Objective (3) has kept me the busiest. I don't burn the midnight oil on my homework or on grading quizzes. I've been burning it to try and figure out what my next move is.

I came here to do chemistry, but if push comes to shove, I may have to defect to another department/program altogether. Perhaps a masters in mathematical physics would open more doors for me? The future is a blank slate ready to be written on.

-------------
Notes:
[1] Actually, the correct term would be to "dumb down". Apparently, chemical activities are not taught on the freshmen level...

Chemists have a sense of humor

Science is a human endeavor, and so humor tends to be intertwined amongst the seriousness. This webpage with various silly-named compounds is a prime example. I might buy the book for my desk to keep me smiling throughout the day.

Now that the politicking is done...

We should be amused by some weird ads.

My all-time favorite: Chuck Norris supporting Mike Huckabee. Only for the weird punch-ending:



Okay. Giant man in a business releasing some sort of strange liquid on a crowd of peons below while maniacally laughing. Fucking brilliant! Sure, it's "gasoline"...




"San Francisco values" is a keyword amongst conservatives that means "things I ought to hate". But that isn't what's funny about this ad. What's funny is the awkward three dancers that appear at 0:13. Are they supposed to represent the debauchery that happens at San Francisco? Oh well, judge for yourselves the oddity of the three random disco boppers:



This is a really odd collection of stock film that is reminiscent of 1940s French surrealism. But the most hilarious part comes at 0:10. i recommend people to stop the film there to bask in the glory of apparently proverbial butt rape.



This next one should win over voters. Yay, puppies! Oh, wait. Weird close-up of dog feces, and an even more bizare subtitle "Experience" while the candidate cleans the fecal matter off the ground. Gah, no wonder this one lost the primaries:



This is one way to try to get the young vote: remake Johnny Cash's "I've Been Everywhere" with a side-reference to a Bob Dylan classic, "Subterranean Homesick Blues". My only criticism: he obviously didn't hep make the song, since he didn't even strum a real chord in the beginning of his ad.



This is just a very weird ad showing paranoia. Funny historically, because he didn't get this out in time to head-off his associations with oil executives being in ads from independent groups and Al Franken, his opponent:



Very Mac vs. PC like commercial concerning the "Prop 8" in California. I think I will take hints from this commercial on how to pick up progressive, liberal ladies:




Okay, I love Nader. I voted Nader, and I've supported Nader since 2000. But this is a really strange soliloquy to Cardozo the parrot where Nader is addressing his angst about the apathy of America toward the corporate chains latched onto her and whether he should dress up like a Panda. I think he should have skipped this strange video with the cute parrot and just dressed up like a panda.

A pitiful attempt to defend Palin's understanding of the Office she seeks

Already our favorite dipshit is echoing the talking points of the Palin apologists. She "watered down" the explanation since the question was asked by a third grader. To wit, any reasonable person would respond, where was the third grader in the room?

And his deflection to typical rabble is funny. Yes, the Vice President presides over the Senate, as stated in the Constitution. The Pope also shits in the woods, so tell me something I don't know already.

Presiding over the parliamentary procedures as a means to exert power is a dangerous game. To wit, the example of John Adams, who was perhaps the most active Vice President toward his Senate duties in history, but his activity nearly cost him his political career. Since there has been a longstanding tradition of VPs running for head cheese, they tend to relgate their formal duties to the President pro tempore.

Now, onto what Palin actually said:

That’s something that Piper would ask me! … [T]hey’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom.

Err... no, not really. The President of the Senate can make judgments on point of order and other typical rules of order, but they don't "get in there with the senators". Silly gibberish coming from someone who seems to have never been bothered to read the Constitution at least once.

But I expect nothing less from my favorite little dipshit. Keep on defending the worst vice presidential candidate ever.

The GOP is having a cow over ACORN

But something tells me that the same nitwits who clamor on about ACORN will give the same condemnation to Young Political Majors.

Funny how the mind works in crank land.

Irony makes the world go round

While we have some anonymous election lawyer stirring the moonbats into a frenzy over a possibly legitimate case, the FBI is investigating ACORN on potentially aiding in voter registration fraud.

Unbelievable. Something tells me that those self-proclaimed "intellectually honest" GOP loyalists are cheering on the FBI, while the more sane GOP members are bashing them. Say, former US Attorney David Iglesias, one of the attorneys who was fired for not kowtowing to the ridiculous demands of the GOP to prosecute ACORN and other similar programs for voter fraud back in 2006.

Irony makes the world go round, it seems.

I question this anonymous source

PajamasMedia has posted a story from an anonymous election lawyer about the Tan Nguyen indictment. However, I think this anonymous lawyer needs to relook at the history of the case.

For Spanish readers, here is the original letter. For those who lack the education in Spanish, the "damning" portion translates as follows:

You are being sent this letter because you were recently registered to vote. If
you are a citizen of the United States, we ask that you participate in the
democratic process of voting. You are advised that if your residence in this
country is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a
crime that could result in imprisonment, and you will be deported for voting
without having the right to do so.

The backstory, according to the LA Times article previously linked, was that the original letter in English had "green-card holders", which was translated into Spanish as "emigrados", which translates back into English as "immigrants".

Of course, green card holders cannot vote, so the original English draft was correct. However, immigrants can, so long as they are U.S. citizens. It is important to make such a syntactical distinction. An immigrant is anyone whose country of origin is different than the one they currently reside. An illegal immigrant is one who resides illegally in a country not of their origin. A legal immigrant is one who resides legally in a country not of their origin. Legal imigrants include not only people who have green-cards and similar documentation, but also people who have become citizens through the naturalization process. Therefore, the bolded is vague and confusing to someone who has earned citizenship but may have been an immigrant to the country. Therefore, the letter was intimidating to some Latino voters.

It is true that no criminal intent was discovered (archived LA Times article). However, this current GOP case is about whether Nguyen obstructed the investigations. I won't comment on this, as I am neither interested in that allegation nor does it affect me in my current geographical location.

However, what i do find entertaining is the overall conspiracy tone of the article. I note that if it weren't for our favorite knight in tin-foil armor, I probably would not have even noticed it. How much of reality do these sycophants have to do in order to justify their nuttery?

_

It is not worth it, even for the lulz

Embedded video from CNN Video

Fighting an Argument from Pathos with...an Argument from Pathos...

The abortion debate is a pivotal issue for a select few voters, so much so that this one issue is the only reason they are involved with politics. That is an unfortunate reality, but not of interest in this post.

Recall the viral ad that has been circulating about Obama's voting record. Nevemind about how the ad is full of baloney, it is simply a pathetic appeal to emotion. The pro-choice can also appeal to emotion on the issue:

I've never agreed with the tactic of appealing to your audiences emotion. Though this ad touches on only a portion of the debate, which is a woman's right of choice in the matter of family planning, it attempts to blurr the line with the addition of the emotional response to rape.

Talk about rape, in this manner, and talk about "I may not exist" are both examples that trivialize the main concern of the public policy debate. They are both disgusting distractions, in my opinion. But the scientific side of me wonders which scenario resonates better in individuals, and in particular voters who are not particularly persuaded on the issue of choice versus life.

We shall see.

Message to McCain

Message to McCain

It's that time of the year again

The IgNobles have been posted. This year's chemistry recipients are a joint effort on arguing whether Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola are good spermicides. It seems like the verdict is still out (pro, con).

But those are old references. Anyone have any new ones?

I Don't Know Much About Economics

And that is pretty much the only thing McCain and I have in common.

Here is an article at McClatchy that summarizes part of the cause of the recent economic turmoil. Basically, it was not Fannie/Freddie since they did not have the ability to invest much into the sub-prime market. Instead, financial institutions that were able to wiggle themselves into regulatory gaps backs much of these subprime loans on the secondary market, and when loans began being defaulted on eveything went to hell in a hand basket.

I hope you have enough pork and beans to last you through the winter.

Palin' around with terrorists

While our favorite dipshit is preparing his tinfoil hat from the rubbish of Obama-Ayers and the "Chicago political machine", it is time to turn to yet another layer from the onion of old conservatism.

Henry Kissinger is perhaps one of the more detestable men from the Nixonian era of Republicant rule. But despite Palin's ability to claim foreign policy experience as being Russia's neighbor, nonetheless the powers of the GOP decided to further her education on foreign policy with Kissinger as her tutor.

Kissinger, as few people may know/recall, was deeply involved with Operation Condor and other acts of terror supported by then Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

The acts of Ayers and Dohrn from Weather Underground have been linked to a lot of property damage, but not a single instance of life was taken in their terrorist acts. However, Kissinger, who sits as an honorary co-chair of the McCain-Palin campaign, has been sent several summons from various South American countries and France to testify of US involvement in the deaths of Argentinian, French, Brazilian, and Chilean civilians.

Guilt by association is a dangerous game to play. It is like playing with a snake. If you don't do it right, the snake will simply rear its head and bite you. The McCain-Palin ticket is a lost cause if they continue pushing the guilt by association ticket.

But that is all they have left since the past eight years have shown that concentrated conservative policies are the death and destruction of America.

The Danger of Playing "Guilt by Association"

The danger of playing the "guilt by association" is that there is a large probability of blowback being a bitch.

Such is the reality of the McCain-Palin ticket. They initiated the need to stretch the imagination that Obama's presence on an education funding board somehow related Obama to a former leader of a domestic terrorist group.

The McCain-Palin campaign has opened a can of worms. McCain's tenure in Washington is replete with shady characters, particularly his association with Rev. Moon. And though Palin's political resume is less than a page, her career seems to have been born from extremist, anti-government radicals.

Country first? Change we can believe in? I look forward to more ironic mottos from their campaign in the next couple of days.

Analyzing Palin

Our favorite sycophant, with mucho gratis to his favorite kool-ade distributor, has linked to a video of Palin claiming Obama had help starting his political career from a domestic terrorist. For a very entertaining read, I recommend reading some of the comments left by the guzzlers there.



You know, this video and the content of other Palin stump speeches makes me ponder something. For a candidate who is complaining about the darn media filter, she hasn't really talked about how she would run the country. Instead, her speeches and her answers revert all back to criticizing the opposition. That is nice, and indeed in any debate-setting we would expect criticisms to be exchanged. But when you criticize an idea while not providing one to replace your opponents, now you are simply patronizing for the sake of partisanship. Voters are not ignorant to candidates that come to the table emptyhanded.

Now, onto what she actually says in the video. She mentions a New York Times article, so I will presume she means the one I had linked to previously explaining the relationship between Obama and Ayers. She says that we are learning that Obama was not aware of Ayers' background. I want to know where the article states this, because I see the following passages:

A review of records of the schools project and interviews with a dozen people
who know both men, suggest that Mr. Obama, 47, has played down his contacts with
Mr. Ayers, 63. But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr.
Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers,
whom he has called “somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I
was 8.”

She then claims Barack launched his political career in Ayers' living room, which seems to be the mantra on the conservative blog circuit. But the mantra is failing to recognize the context of such coffee calls. As we see in the very NYT article I cited, the meeting wasn't meant to plan strategy but as a social gathering of Democrats. Oh, I know; to the kool-ade drinkers and tin-foil hat bearers that is all they need to hear and think "conspiracy! guilt! terrorist!":

It was later in 1995 that Mr. Ayers and Ms. Dohrn hosted the gathering, in their
town house three blocks from Mr. Obama’s home, at which State Senator Alice J.
Palmer, who planned to run for Congress, introduced Mr. Obama to a few
Democratic friends as her chosen successor.

Now she vomits a list of grub to feed to her base, including

• Lieng about Obama's tax plan (again...and again...and again...)
• Misrepresenting Obama's words on military policy in Afghanistan.

I think the only thing her and I agree on is that it is about time for the candidates to come out and discuss who they are. So far, though, it seems that McCain and Palin are hiding themselves and instead making empty criticisms toward their opponents. But it seems the Obama camp has been sitting and waiting for the McCain camp to issue silly atttacks:

The Obama campaign swung into action immediately. By the time the Sunday news shows were taping, Democratic surrogates were hitting McCain with opposition research on his associations with extremist, racist groups (Begala) and the Keating Five (Emanuel).

Today, of course, camp Obama is pushing a new Keating Economics website, which begins streaming a documentary about McCain’s Keating problem at noon.

Obama’s campaign has never pushed the Keating button before, so this attack carries an original punch–and is clearly salient given the current financial crisis. Because the scandal involved McCain’s actions in public service, it is more likely to arise during the remaining two debates.

McCain’s dredging up of Bill Ayers, in contrast, is not only old news but has no link to anything Obama has done in public life. Patrick Ruffini, a Republican operative who worked on Bush’s reelection campaign, said today that McCain’s Ayers attacks are so old that airing them now “appears desperate.”

The economy is a sore subject, and it is what is contributing much to the soring poll numbers for Obama. People simply believe that Obama has a better grasp on how to handle the economy than McCain and company. The Keating Five association is going to hurt McCain badly, especially since he admits guilt in his own memoirs. The trailer from the site follows:



There is a Biblical parable about how people in glass houses should not throw stones. I think in this case, the mentioned parable is an understatement. People in a house of cards shouldn't speak, because simply their voice makes their house come tumbling down.

Peggy Noonan is a tool

And in other news, the pope shat in the woods.

But seriously, here is another example of a McCain internet gaffe. Before the debate, let's put out an ad that quotes a famous person without telling us who this famous person is:

And then after the debate, wait for some famous person tool to say it, verbatim (like...Peggy Noonan!)

I'm with Radley Balko here. I think the McCain camp is sending talking points to favored pundits. This comes from their previous internet gaffe and this one. The evidence is strong on this one.

And no, it isn't wrong. It's just pretty damn pathetic that you have tell your cheerleaders exactly what to say after a completely humiliating lose.

Huffing and Puffing about Former Associations

So as evidenced by the McCain-Palin recent events, it seems they will begin resurfacing the Obama-Ayers relationship as an attempt to distract voters from the main issues.

And it seems that the preemptive strike from Obama has ruffled some of the children's feathers, though admittedly the AP article does hint at racism, which is a bit odd.

But since the children will be focused on Ayers and Rezko, I suppose it is time to remind them about all of McCain's former associations?

The NYT on Obama and Ayers

For those who believe Obama has strong ties to "radical terrorist" Ayers of Weather Underground fame, then they need to read this NYT article.

And somewhere, the puny head of a conservative nitwit is exploding.

Palin and Kenyan Pentacostals

Remember when the shit hit the fan about Obama's former pastor?

I wonder if the kool-ade drinkers would be appreciative that Palin spoke/speaks highly of a Kenyan pastor that went on a witch hunt.

So, my opinion has and will always be that just because a preacher preaches doesn't mean his flock listens or even thinks he's correct. Obama is a good example when he openly criticized his former pastor's speeches. Not everyone is a blind sheep hobbling along with the rest of the deluded pack. But what does it say when you openly praise and give credit to prayer from a certified fuckwit? It says that you are either willing to create an artificial atmosphere of appreciation or that are just as demented as the person whom you are praising. Either way, the assessment is not in your favor.

McCain's cars

It isn't bad enough that McCain has seven-plus houses. He also has thirteen cars as well.

How many houses does Obama own? One? Can you guess how many cars? One.

Obama's "elitism" is laughable charge every day more financianl information about McCain surfaces. Oh look! Arugula!

Stem Cell Research and the Republican Party Platform

I'm pretty confident that the few readers I have on this blog are well-aware of the ban on federal funds supporting embryonic stem cell research. I wonder though if they are like me and let the change in party platform go by. It seems that the 2008 Republican Party position on stem cell research is for a complete ban (public or private).

Regardless of your position on whether it is "right" for taxpayers to help fund such research, I think it is easy to determine when a political party takes a very totalitarian approach to an issue of little relevance to the daily functioning of a society.

McCain needs to work on his comparisons.

I don't think what he says about what should be done about healthcare would jibe very well with some individuals:

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition,
as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of
innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based
regulation.

So he wants to do to health care what the Repiblicans have been doing with the banking and credit industry. Someone needs to check his email more often before he writes.

Watering Down the VP Debate

It seems that the McCain campaign fought hard to have a strict Q&A-type format for the the VP debate between Biden and Palin. Why?

McCain advisers said they had been concerned that a loose format could leave Ms.
Palin, a relatively inexperienced debater, at a disadvantage and largely on the
defensive.

It’s too bad she couldn’t see Joe Biden from her house. Because then she’d be an expert on him and know just what to say in the debates.

An Obama Campaign Gaffe

An viral ad made by the intellectually devoid and morally bankrupt group known as BornAliveTurth.org has been circulating the conservative blogosphere over the past few days.



The ad, of course, has no problem leaving out the reasoning behind why Obama voted against each bill. Anyone is welcome to read his website on that issue, which isn't the main point of this post. But basically, Obama does support born alive porotections, and he voting against the bill initially because it wasn't worded soundly compared to the already pre-existing bill calling for provisions of care to so-called "failed abortions".

Of course no one bothers to read the history, instead the kool-ade drinkers would rather hit the emotional zinger. "Gianna wouldn't be here today if Obama had his way" claims the site where the video is. But insert any percieved evil person for Gianna, and it can be shown that the emotionally charged statement is moot in this discussion on women's rights.

But an ad from Obama calling out the BornAliveTruth ad is simply wrong on who made the ad:

I think whoever is running the response-ad part of Obama's campaign needs to stop being so trigger happy in blaming McCain for every misleading and despicable ad put out. There do exist some grassroot initiatives that have been putting out erroneous ads, such as BornAliveTruth here and another organization distorting the relationship between Obama and Ayers to the point of beaing nearly libel.

The campaign needs to fire back at BornAliveTruth, not McCain, in this instance. They need to pull out the guns to suppress any doubts on Obama's position on women's rights and how misleading such ads are from these grassroots initiatives.

And I may suggest them looking into any possible connection between these so-called grassroots and the McCain campaign management. I'm not calling dirty politicis yet, but the Republicans have a track record of unethical actions during campaigns. Swift-boating and voter caging: need I say more?

NOTE: According to Ben Smith, the Obama ad hasn't been released to the press but was found on the BornAliveTruth's YouTube account. Here's to hoping that the Obama campaign reevaluates the integrity of the ad and revamp it to criticize the proper disgusting individuals involved.

How McCain twists Biden's words and Lies about Obama's tax plan (again, and again, and again...)

McCain distorting things? If you think he hasn't, then I have a Bridge to Nowhere to sell you.


Where do we begin? Did Biden say that paying higher taxes was patriotic, or that paying taxes is patriotic? When I watch the following and hear his speeches at various campaign stops, I sense the latter intent:

But let's put the word twisting aside. Can somebody instruct the McCain campaign that the tax increase they speak about was for individuals making more than $42,000 a year, and that this tax increase amounted to only about $15? And could somebody tell them that part of the Obama-Biden platform is to increase taxes on individuals making over $200,000 in total income?

But I guess real patriotism comes from not paying high taxes. If that's the case, then it seems Cheney is the best patriot because out of an adjusted gross income of over $3,000,000, he only spent 19% on taxes. Compared to Obama who made over $4,000,000 and spent about 33% to the IRS. It seems Obama isn't a patriot for giving so much money to the government.

McCain lieing about Obama's tax plan, again

The title really isn't shocking. We know McCain has lied before in his ads, such as with his recent one about Obama and sexual education. But let's take a look again at this 30-second soundbite:

I wish the McCain campaign could point me where in Obama's tax plan it states that electricity and heating oil would be taxed? Oh, wait. That's right. Obama is actually wanting to give people a $1,000 tax rebate on heating costs. Did McCain's campaign confuse a tax rebate with an actual tax? Or are they confusing a windfall profits tax, a tax on the coproration, with a tax on the consumer? Wait a minute...maybe they shouldn't go that route, since Palin supported a windfall tax in Alaska. Oops.

Probably not. They are claiming that in order to cover all of Obama's plans, Obama would eventually have to raise taxes. That's not what the ad implies. The ad makes the viewer believe Obama would tax such things now, not later. McCain is welcome to his opinion on the spending Obama proposes, but neither candidate has proposed anything that would cut down the budget's deficit (analysis on Obama and McCain from the Tax Policy Center).

But don't tell anyone that McCain's plans would actually increase the debt by about twice as much as Obama's plans. It may upset the kool-aid drinkers.

Spreading Misinformation in Spanish

In the first half of this political game, McCain has been attempting to use misleading and even completely false ads to gain an edge on the Obama. Now, in the second half and the home stretch, it seems both campaigns are upping their distortions.

Personally, I find it pathetic that the American audience has become so dependent on 30 second soundbites that such misnformation can be given over the airwaves. But that's for another post.

First, take a gander at the following Spanish speaking Obama ad:



For those who speak Spanish, the jest of it is linking Limbaugh with McCain, and claiming Limbaugh said that Mexicans were "stupid and unqualified" and need to "[s]hut up, or get out". Though I disagree with Limbaugh's claims that his quotes were taken out of context and that Obama is attempting to create racial antagonism, I do disagree with the Obama ad misleading viewers into thinking McCain associates with the political drek known as Limbaugh. They are not friends, and probably never will be.

I do think the Obama ad would have done a better job informing undecided voters that it was a Republican-ran coalition that filibustered an immigrant amnesty bill. The very same Republican-led coalition that now supports McCain's campaign, despite the fact that it was McCain's bipartisan legislation they opposed. The very same Republican coalition that McCain has hired to run his campaign and to operate the transition between his campaign and his potential transfer to the presidential office. Isthe new thing to do is to repackage the same-old politics as "reform" and "prosperity"? It seems so in the style of McCain.

And with that aside, we discuss the hilarious misinformation in the following McCain ad:



The legislation had poison pills? Doesn't seem so to me. The list constructed seem like reasonable plans. How does testing the waters with a new program before making it a permanent mainstay a poison pill? The truth of the matter is, though, it wasn't the "11th hour" amendments that did the imigration bill in. In the words of McCain himself, "I just think the opposition to it was very strong.”

But all of this is a moot point. The ad is misleading because it may make viewers think John McCain supports immigration reform still. He doesn't. When asked back in Janurary:

Q: At this point, if your original proposal came to a vote on the Senate floor, would you vote for it?

McCain: No, I would not, because we know what the situation is today. So to say that that would come to the floor of the Senate, it won't.

Maybe that's another thing a better Obama ad should point out? The fact that an ad criticizing Obama on immigration reform is coming from a candidate who has no interest in doing immigration reform. Nice.

Republican Geography 101

I have no itentions on turning this blog into a political discussion blog, but I can't help myself to point out a disturbing trend. The current Republican nominee seems to be lacking in geographical awareness.

I am not certain how many people remember when McCain talked about the problems at the Iraqi-Pakistan border, but we have another potential gaffe (or perhaps a serious foible in foreign policy) from the Republican candidate.

He thinks Spain may not be a friend of the United States. Spain, which is part of NATO and has contributed much in the intelligence gathering to fight terrorism. I guess the name of their prime minister[1] confused the poor guy. Either that, or McCain is very sore that Spain had no intentions to remain in Iraq for hundreds of years. Though Spain was part of the "coalition of the willing", the new prime minister (Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero) pulled the troops back in 2004.

Does it bother anyone else that the candidate who claims to have more foreign policy experience doesn't recognize the name of a current prime minister of an ally nation?

Oh well. I have a feeling that sometime in the near future someone will defend this gaffe/foible by saying something along the lines of "McCain was a POW for five years; so he didn't have a globe then" or something similarly inane.


Notes:
[1] His name does have a potential Latin flare to it due to being a Spanish name...but of course, since Spain speaks Spanish, one would assume it be possible for their prime minister to have a Spanish-sounding name. Is this a potential case of McCain showing prejudice?

Stephen Colbert gets it

Brilliant.

Olbermann talks about the voter caging

Michigan is one of the "swing" states this election, and so the Republican National Convention is doing what they can to gain that state. One method is to challenge people's vote by questioning their residence by the use of foreclosure lists.

The RNC has a long history of caging votes. Such programs have always been proposed as some means of creating equal and fair voting, but really that's a charade. They target minorities, a group that has a large tendency of voting against Republican candidates. It's an unethical attack against a person's right to vote, and it creates unneccessary complications which are easily avoidable once one looks at the law behind voter registration and the ability of voters to vote in Michigan (see previosuly linked article).

Olbermann had a segment on this story:



Does anyone still think McCain/Palin campaign is all about change, now? You can put lipstick on a pig...

McCain's Lack of Defense of Palin's Earmarks

It'samusing, really, to see McCain offer non sequitors and tu quoque responses to legitimate questions about his campaign. For a recent example of such behavior, one only needs to read a recent AP interview.

He was asked about nearly $200 million in congressional pet projects Palin requested for 2009 for her state, despite her boasts that she opposes such projects and his claim that she didn't ask for any. McCain responded by criticizing Obama for seeking more than $900 million in these earmarks, by one count.

"That's nearly a million every day, every working day he's been in Congress," McCain said. "And when you look at some of the planetariums and other foolishness that he asked for, he shouldn't be saying anything about Governor Palin."

I don't recall hearing Obama or anyone on Obama's camp attempting to champion him as some sort of pork reformer. But we do hear ad nauseum about Palin the Pork Reformer. The very Palin who demanded money for a bridge to no where, among other named "pork" projects.

It seems like McCain realized how to use the internet afterall. He is simply regurgitating the same bullshit the kool-aid guzzlers do in the conservative blogosphere.

Palin's email hacked

Doesn't surprise me. This is what happens when you choose to have a private email instead of one built behind a (hopefully) more secure network. People will break into it and post pictures.

Now, I don't condone such activities. But, I do find it funny.

How Would McCain Win a "Key State"?

Do you think McCain could win based off of his personality, like one of his campaign organizers said off-the-cuff?

Do you think McCain could win based off of his policies? You know, the ones he doesn't dare speak about on television but has no problem publishing on the Internet, like the proposed tax on health care?

No, those are what real politicians do. You know, go to town meetings and talk to people. McCain's campaign is all about various ways to vote cage and suppress.

How could one potentially suppress the opposition vote? Easy. Mail a flier to registered voters that pose as an absentee ballot, like the ones being sent in Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, Wisconsin, Florida, Pennsylvania, Colorado, North Carolina, Oregon, and Virginia. Another way to cause confusion is to argue the validity of a vote due to foreclosure listings.

While the McCainiacs are busy complaining about how "insulting" Obama ads have been, maybe they should reconsider their support of a campaign that would rather use Rovian tactics to rob and deceive voters.

Kool-aid drinkers miss premise of Obama Ad

This doesn't surprise me at all. Consider the following ad from Obama titled "Still":



The kool-aid drinkers at Hot Air are stuck on the premise of modern technology, but fail to address the ending message of the ad. The non-tech-savvy McCain comes from an interview done by the New York Times back in July (Politico has the summary about the technology part).

What is the ending message? The same old Republican nonsense of helping corporations over middle America. But none of the kool-aid drinkers would ever be bothered with discussing the issues and policies. Instead, they'd rather talk about their personalities.

Reviving the old blog

To deal with some issues that have sprung up with a certain dipshit and his egregious claims.

The chemists need a big toy, too

What with the opening of the LHC and the test runs on the "Squirrel Smasher", I do believe us chemists are left with nothing to smash together at ridiculous velocities.

Any suggestions? We need to smash something before we are left with nothing to smash together.

Biochemistry shouldn't be this fun

It is a cardinal rule written somewhere that biochemistry needs to be designed to suck the last bit of liveliness from any budding scientist.

How can biochemistry succeed in such a goal when it produces such a fun video game? I mean, that's not fair. Not only are you having fun, but you're learning the amino acid groups.

I think I need to write Congress.

"Chancygate": An Unfortunate Hoax

So it appears that the chancellor's email about Rush is a hoax, according to the Daily Illini and an email from Assc. Chancellor Kaler. Which makes sense from the perspective of certain contributing alum being part of the infrastructure known as Greek life, and it would be terrible to upset the contributors to university coffers.

But in all fairness, I am a first year graduate student, and I have yet to receive an official correspondence from the chancellor (or it was ages ago and I had deleted it, which amounts to the same thing pragmatically). So I didn't know about the typical format of emails from his office. Secondly, I was on my laptop in the union using the CITES express mail, and so didn't have access (nor any suspicion) to the e-mail header, which would've thrown red flags.

But here is a morsel for all you disgruntled anon's that disagree with my position toward Greek life. I know such blanket statements as I've made in person and the email made offend you. But you should ask yourself, did you fall within the roughly (or more) 70% of Greeks that comprise of the "stereotype", as research in higher education shows, particularly with regards to alcoholic intake and GPA? Could you see the concern of those with making diversity work on campus and developing an inclusive community on a university have some initial criticisms of the structure of first-year Rush?

And I know some of you are saying "I am not this stereotype". Of course you probably aren't. This is another instance of the description being a normal (or Gaussian) distribution. A good majority of Greeks have responded on surveys of being moderate to heavy drinkers, listing escapism and the desire for social inclusiveness (or "in-group acceptance") as two major reasons/motivations. Of course these reasons aren't dependent on simply being Greek; it exists in non-Greek social groups as well. However, there is a significantly larger frequency found amongst Greek members.

If you claim you are/were not a moderate to heavy drinker and Greek, then congratulations. You are beyond the normal distribution. But my next question would be when did you rush. This is important, because as time increases between starting college life and rushing, the less influential Greek life has on peer-group exclusivity and impact on GPA. This is also documented in the literature.

These are concerns which float in the minds of administrators when the topic of Greek life comes up in any meeting: drinking, academics, campus community. I have plenty of anecdotal stories about people who became complete failures after they rushed, and I have several anecdotal accounts of people who had great successes as being a member of the Greek community. But you have to ask yourself this: is it a "stereotype" wrongfully placed, or is it an accurate portrayal of the normal distribution of Greek members?

I know my answer. What is yours?

Kudos to Chancellor Herman of UIUC

My undergraduate Alma Mater is heavily influenced by Greek life (eg. fraternities and sororities...not people from Greece). It was nearly impossible to meet someone in one of your classes who was not part of or at one time was part of the Greek community. In fact, student government elections were basically a joke since it came down to voting on either this Greek or that Greek, with student government policies heavily favoring the advancement of the Greek life.

So, it is really shocking to see a chancellor at another university sending a mass criticism of the Greek life to the student body. And, being a silent observer of the activities and antics of the Greeks at my university, I have no problem agreeing with the opinion in Chancellor Hermon's e-mail. It follows (all emphasis mine):

Dear Students,

Many of you may be aware of an event known as Rush. It is my objective to warn you of the potential downsides of Greek organizations. I advise you to not succumb to the aggressive recruitment tactics used by these organizations. It has been my concern over the years, that the Greek culture of alcoholism and lack of respect for the community degrades campus life. These organizations present themselves as prestigious, yet are discriminatory, serve to perpetuate social inequality, especially with respect to the opposite gender, and promote a lack of diversity. Many students have expressed concerns with regards to safety on campus, particularly due to Greek culture and behavior. It is my hope that a student's experience on campus strengthens one's individuality, but the Greek system emphasizes the group above all, without cause or reason. This is detrimental to the purpose of universities.

I hope that you will consider wisely.

GDI Chancellor Richard Herman

Wow. I have no additional commentary, since he wrapped up my sentiments precisely. I know several people who were Greek, and they were cool. But I also have met my fair share of Greeks who fit the xenophobic, close-minded type expressed in the chancellor's e-mail.

Consider his e-mail a general overview of my perspective as well.

Popular Science Book Meme

I haven't been blogging for the past month. Completely uprooting oneself from a place you called home twenty-two years of your life tends to cause large disturbances. And so, my first post from a long hiatus (and so I can say that I posted at least once in August) is a pop-sci meme courtesy of Jennifer Oullete at Cocktail Party Physics.

So here are the rules. In bold are the ones that I have read. The one that is struck out I don't believe should be on the list. And any in italics are ones I added.

Now everyone will know how much of a nerd I am.

1. Micrographia, Robert Hooke
2. The Origin of the Species, Charles Darwin
3. Never at Rest, Richard Westfall
4. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, Richard Feynman
5. Tesla: Man Out of Time, Margaret Cheney
6. The Devil's Doctor, Philip Ball
7. The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Richard Rhodes
8. Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos, Dennis Overbye
9. Physics for Entertainment, Yakov Perelman
10. 1-2-3 Infinity, George Gamow
11. The Elegant Universe, Brian Greene
12. Warmth Disperses, Time Passes, Hans Christian von Bayer
13. Alice in Quantumland, Robert Gilmore
14. Where Does the Weirdness Go? David Lindley
15. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
16. A Force of Nature, Richard Rhodes
17. Black Holes and Time Warps, Kip Thorne
18. A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking
19. Universal Foam, Sidney Perkowitz
20. Vermeer's Camera, Philip Steadman
21. The Code Book, Simon Singh
22. The Elements of Murder, John Emsley
23. Soul Made Flesh, Carl Zimmer
24. Time's Arrow, Martin Amis
25. The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments, George Johnson
26. Einstein's Dreams, Alan Lightman
27. Godel, Escher, Bach, Douglas Hofstadter
28. The Curious Life of Robert Hooke, Lisa Jardine
29. A Matter of Degrees, Gino Segre
30. The Physics of Star Trek, Lawrence Krauss
31. E=mc<2>, David Bodanis
32. Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, Charles Seife
33. Absolute Zero: The Conquest of Cold, Tom Shachtman
34. A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, Janna Levin
35. Warped Passages, Lisa Randall
36. Apollo's Fire, Michael Sims
37. Flatland, Edward Abbott
38. Fermat's Last Theorem, Amir Aczel
39. Stiff, Mary Roach
40. Astroturf, M.G. Lord
41. The Periodic Table, Primo Levi
42. Longitude, Dava Sobel
43. The First Three Minutes, Steven Weinberg
44. The Mummy Congress, Heather Pringle
45. The Accelerating Universe, Mario Livio
46. Math and the Mona Lisa, Bulent Atalay
47. This is Your Brain on Music, Daniel Levitin
48. The Executioner's Current, Richard Moran
49. Krakatoa, Simon Winchester
50. Pythagorus' Trousers, Margaret Wertheim
51. Neuromancer, William Gibson
52. The Physics of Superheroes, James Kakalios
53. The Strange Case of the Broad Street Pump, Sandra Hempel
54. Another Day in the Frontal Lobe, Katrina Firlik
55. Einstein's Clocks and Poincare's Maps, Peter Galison
56. The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan
57. The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins
58. The Language Instinct, Steven Pinker
59. An Instance of the Fingerpost, Iain Pears
60. Consilience, E.O. Wilson
61. Wonderful Life, Stephen J. Gould
62. Teaching a Stone to Talk, Annie Dillard
63. Fire in the Brain, Ronald K. Siegel
64. The Life of a Cell, Lewis Thomas
65. Coming of Age in the Milky Way, Timothy Ferris
66. Storm World, Chris Mooney
67. The Carbon Age, Eric Roston
68. The Black Hole Wars, Leonard Susskind
69. Copenhagen, Michael Frayn
70. From the Earth to the Moon, Jules Verne
71. Gut Symmetries, Jeanette Winterson
72. Chaos, James Gleick
73. Innumeracy, John Allen Paulos
74. The Physics of NASCAR, Diandra Leslie-Pelecky
75. Subtle is the Lord, Abraham Pais
76. A New Kind of Science, Wolfram
77. The Wizard of Quarks, Robert Gilmore
78. Four Laws That Drive the Universe, Peter Atkins
79. The Ancestor's Tale, Richard Dawkins
80. Discarded Science: Ideas that seemed good at the time, John Grant
81. Death by Black Hole, Neil DeGrasse Tyson
82. The Comprehensible Cosmos, Victor Stenger
83. The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design, Leonard Susskind

Attention Walking-Aficionados

Two days ago, Google Maps introduced a new utility that will map a walking path to your destination, given the destination is under 6.2 miles and in a large city. They also fixed the mass-transit feature found in bigger cities. Granted, it's in beta, but it's a step in the right direction.

Kudos to Google. Now, I expect to see more people walking and absorbing their surroundings, especially all you hippies with iPhones or iPod Touches.

(On a personal note, I determined today that from where I am going to live to where I will work at UIUC is about 1.2 miles. At LSU, this distance was ~0.8 miles. I'm excited.)

Comparing Molecular Studies of Liquid Benzene at Constant Pressure

A path integral molecular dynamic algorithm versus Monte Carlo ensemble sampling

Abstract

Several different methods have been developed to study the interaction of matter in condensed phases. Molecular dynamic studies and Monte Carlo ensemble sampling studies are the bulk of molecular simulation studies. A comparative study between a path integral molecular dynamic study and Monte Carlo ensemble sampling is given on liquid benzene at room temperature.

Introduction

The motivation to study the thermodynamic and mechanical properties of matter in condensed phases has given rise to the development of several different methods of study. Molecular modeling has seen rapid development as a promising method due to the increase in availability of computational power. Parallel computing has opened the possibility to rigorously address computationally challenging problems in the numerical evaluation of molecular simulations.

With the motivation to study systems of highly correlated chemical species in fluid phases, it is beneficial to develop a comparative study to determine efficiency and accuracy of methods. Two methods chosen were isothermal-isobaric Monte-Carlo sampling (MC-NPT) and solving the path integral for a system at constant pressure but fluctuating cell volumes (PI-NPT).^1,2 Benzene is of particular interest since it is representative of other planar or quasi-planar molecules, and the isothermal-isobaric (NPT) ensemble is the common condition of experimental settings.

Theory and Methods

The theoretical aspects of both models have been explored thoroughly previously.^2,3 We will only sketch the important theoretical considerations of each model and explain the methodology applied.

For both simulation types, only 100 benzene molecules were considered. This was deemed to be a representative sample to generate general trends in order to compensate for needing less time to computationally evaluate each simulation. Volume changes were considered to be isomorphic, meaning all six points of the cubic box were changed equally.

Monte Carlo sampling: NPT ensemble

In an NPT-ensemble, the number of particles and temperature remain constant while the volume of the container is allowed to fluctuate. Traditionally this is best approached by the Monte Carlo sampling method. Not only can the molecular degrees of freedom be sampled but the volume of the container can be sampled as well. Thus, the two move types are present: molecular and volume.

For benzene, the molecular degrees of freedom involved are rotation, vibration, and translational moves. For moves, the 6-bodied system can be reduced to a two-body system by considering only two points: the center of mass of the benzene ring and the center of mass of the carbon-carbon bond. This "trick" reduces the moves for vibration and rotation to be represented by another translational move.⁴

Benzene has six site interactions at each CH of the ring. The interactions were modeled using the Optimized Potential for Liquid Simulations (OPLS).⁵ Though the benzene quadruple is not explicitly addressed by the model, studies for the liquid phase have indicated the consideration not necessary to achieving physically reasonable results.¹

Molecular Dynamics: path integration for the NPT-case

The Feynman path integral offers a powerful method to simulate molecular systems in the isothermal-isobaric case since the Monte Carlo sampling cannot study phase transitions explicitly nor time-dependent observables. The path integral also offers the link between quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics via the Boltzmann operator being simply a rotation through imaginary time of the time-evolution operator⁶. This connection allows the use of the path integral in addressing problems in statistical physics. The NPT-partition function for the isomorphic case is also a simple integration over the pressure phase space with the quantum canonical partition function in the integrand. This is analogous to the classical statistical mechanics consideration of the relationship between ensembles.⁶

The PI-NPT approach was adopted from Martyna et al.² Molecular interactions were treated using the OPLS representation.

Results

For this study, four temperature points were considered for comparison. These points were chosen based off of the experimentally determined phase diagram of benzene.^7-9 The pair distribution function was determined for each data point as well as other thermodynamic properties.¹⁰ Table 1 and Table 2 gives the results for the two studies, and Table 3 gives available experimental studies.^7-9

T (K)	Most Probable Separation (Å)	E (kJ/mol)	Cp (J/mol K)
125	3.3 ± 0.1	-51.3 ± 0.4	19 ± 2
150	3.7 ± 0.1	-50.5 ± 0.4	18 ± 1
175	4.2 ± 0.1	-49.8 ± 0.3	17 ± 1
200	4.6 ± 0.1	-48.4 ± 0.4	16 ± 2

Table 1. The results from the MC-NPT Simulations

T (K)	Most Probable Separation (Å)	E (kJ/mol)	Cp (J/mol K)
125	3.3 ± 0.1	-51.3 ± 0.4	20 ± 2
150	3.7 ± 0.1	-50.5 ± 0.4	18 ± 1
175	4.2 ± 0.1	-49.8 ± 0.3	18 ± 1
200	4.6 ± 0.1	-48.4 ± 0.4	17 ± 1

Table 2. The results from the PI-NPT Simulations

T (K)	Most Probable Separation (Å)	Cp (J/mol K)
125	3.4 ± 0.2	20.5 ± 0.7
150	3.6 ± 0.2	17.7 ± 0.6
175	4.3 ± 0.2	17.0 ± 0.7
200	4.7 ± 0.2	16.5 ± 0.6

Table 3. Experimental Results^7-9

Discussion

As indicated by Table 1, there is large agreement between the two studies. The agreement indicates that the PI-NVT method would be better spent studying the phase-change phenomena of molecular systems instead of only the thermodynamic properties at stationary points. This is because the MC-NVT method took about a quarter of the time for each point to calculate the simulation.

References

1. Zhao, X.; Chen, B.; Karaborni, S.; Ilja Siepmann, J. J. Phys. Chem. B, 2005, 109(11), 5368-5374.
   
2. Martyna, G.; Hughes, A.; Tuckerman, M. J. Chem. Phys. 1999, 110(7), 3275-3290.
   
3. McDonald, I. R. Molecular Physics, 2002, 100(1), 95-101.
   
4. Serrano Adan, F.; Banon, A.; Santamaria, J. Chem. Phys. 1984, 86, 433-444.
   
5. Jorgenson, W.; Madura, J.; Swenson, C. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1984, 106, 6638-6646.
   
6. Feynman, R. P.; Statistical Mechanics. Benjamin Press: Reading, 1972.
   
7. Bridgman, P. W. J. Chem. Phys. 1941, 9, 794-797.
   
8. Cansell, F.; Fabre, D.; Petitet, J. J. Chem. Phys. 1993, 99(10), 7300-7304.
   
9. Thiery, M.; Leger, J. J. Chem. Phys. 1988, 89(7), 4255-4271.
   
10. McQuarrie, D. Statistical Mechanics University Science Books: Sausilto, California, 2000.