cuthbert killed osmium

Aug 8
is it a holiday?  all my trains were empty this morning.
Posted at 9:22am

Aug 7
anyway, the first show of the METAL MASTERS tour was last night. judas priest, black sabbath/dio, and motorhead are on the tour, and i’m gonna see it in jersey saturday night. this morning i eagerly looked up the setlist on metalsetlists.com, which rewarded me greatly. (metal horns up, dude.) i like this site, because when you use the search function, it asks NAME ANY ALBUM BY IRON MAIDEN. if you don’t answer, it doesn’t do your search. if you answer number of the beast, it asks for confirmation what the actual number of the beast is. (awesome photo of judas priest from commenter leglessmoof.)

anyway, the first show of the METAL MASTERS tour was last night. judas priest, black sabbath/dio, and motorhead are on the tour, and i’m gonna see it in jersey saturday night.

this morning i eagerly looked up the setlist on metalsetlists.com, which rewarded me greatly. (metal horns up, dude.) i like this site, because when you use the search function, it asks NAME ANY ALBUM BY IRON MAIDEN. if you don’t answer, it doesn’t do your search. if you answer number of the beast, it asks for confirmation what the actual number of the beast is.

(awesome photo of judas priest from commenter leglessmoof.)
Posted at 12:35pm

sudanese lost boy, newly an american citizen, will be the US flagbearer at the olympics.

(via mia.)
Posted at 12:24pm

i found the email i sent at the time. i’m an idiot. PDFs, what a crock of shit.

Dear Editorial Office,

I submitted a manuscript JES-08-0754 just now.

No matter what I did, the AIP Figure Resolution Checker told me the figures had a warning. I tried submitting as 8x screen resolution TIFFs and then as PDFs.

I went ahead and approved the manuscript with PDFs. But if there is a problem with the figures, please let me know, and perhaps you can help me correct the error I am making.

Thank you,

Josh

Posted at 12:03pm

exactly.  (via garfieldminusgarfield) exactly.  (via garfieldminusgarfield)
Posted at 11:54am

a new paper of mine came out today. (i don’t actually know if it came out today, but today is the day i went and looked for it on the journal’s website and it was there. actual paper bound journal issues are like dodo eggs these days—i will probably never even see it.) i feel out of sorts and squirmy because the graphics i made came out pixillated and shitty. you can see it on the plot text up there (especially visible on the in-graphic text). while uploading all the files to the journal, they have a applet that checks the graphics quality. it kept telling me my figures failed, so i started saving them in different formats—from tiff to png to pdf to whatever—and it always told me they were bad. for two hours, i saved them every way possible. it is my fault—god knows what final files i sent, but i should have just ignored the first warning and used my normal format: 4x screen resolution tiffs. i am now starting to wonder if i didn’t end up submitting last in pdf, which would blow (in agreement with final results). while dealing with the copy editor, he didn’t mention anything about the figures, and they looked like shit on the proofs. i thought, they must be preliminary versions, and they’ll look fine in the final. nope. like shit. i should have said something, but i didn’t want to be a pain. why in god’s name didn’t the dude say, “hey these look like ass, could you re-save them for us?” thinking about the figures makes me a little sick. don’t ever rely on other people—if you think something is awry, say something. good lord.

a new paper of mine came out today. (i don’t actually know if it came out today, but today is the day i went and looked for it on the journal’s website and it was there. actual paper bound journal issues are like dodo eggs these days—i will probably never even see it.) i feel out of sorts and squirmy because the graphics i made came out pixillated and shitty. you can see it on the plot text up there (especially visible on the in-graphic text).

while uploading all the files to the journal, they have a applet that checks the graphics quality. it kept telling me my figures failed, so i started saving them in different formats—from tiff to png to pdf to whatever—and it always told me they were bad. for two hours, i saved them every way possible.

it is my fault—god knows what final files i sent, but i should have just ignored the first warning and used my normal format: 4x screen resolution tiffs. i am now starting to wonder if i didn’t end up submitting last in pdf, which would blow (in agreement with final results).

while dealing with the copy editor, he didn’t mention anything about the figures, and they looked like shit on the proofs. i thought, they must be preliminary versions, and they’ll look fine in the final. nope. like shit. i should have said something, but i didn’t want to be a pain. why in god’s name didn’t the dude say, “hey these look like ass, could you re-save them for us?”

thinking about the figures makes me a little sick. don’t ever rely on other people—if you think something is awry, say something. good lord.
Posted at 11:49am

chinese olympics

i work near, around, and with a lot of chinese people.  they are intensely proud of the olympics about to happen—i have seen chinese scientists give seminar talks with the beijing olympics logo inserted into the powerpoint slides.

every cork board on every floor of every building got a sign yesterday that says LET’S GO OLYMPICS, from the chinese students’ organization—an advertisement to screenings of the opening ceremony and selected games.

outside my door, someone drew a huge frowny face on one, crying, and wrote FREE TIBET.  within hours, the sign had been replaced.

so it goes.

Posted at 10:13am

Aug 6
“the coming debate between john mccain and john mccain.”  (via politico.)
Posted at 3:10pm

maureen dowd says mccain is jealous of obama.  andrew sullivan weighs in.
Posted at 2:16pm

distorte:

What do youse guys think about creative writing groups? Would it be valuable/enjoyable/worth my time to become involved in one? What are your experiences with them, if any?

i did 3 in college, and i feel like it was good, but i got everything i was going to get out of them very quickly.  you don’t want to becoming a writing workshop person—you just wanna be there for a while.  but what do i know?

Posted at 10:02am