Things are starting to wind down a bit.

Of course, I still have a paper deadline for Friday and about 120 hours of sleep to catch up, but that’s what we call low season around here.

To celebrate, and because there’s only so many days in a row one can justify spending in bed (no matter how good the reasons or convincing the company), I hereby introduce:

Dr Dave’s Eat to the Bleep mix of 2008!

[direct download link]

Don’t look for soothing deep house beats this time around: it’s all moody bleeps, 808 galore and punkish overtones. This is the Sound of Tomorrow, people (which is coincidentally just like the Sound of Yesterday, only with better electronics and more post-modern irony).

Also, this is my first time, ever, mixing entirely in digital format, only using, for lack of better options, my trusty laptop and FastTrack Pro M-Audio box. The result is neither as fun nor as satisfying as a nice pair of decks, but certainly better than nothing (hopefully). Since I still haven’t purchased a new MIDI keyboard either (ohh, grand ambitions of renewed artistic endeavours from last September, where hast thou gone?), there is practically no additional productions to speak of.

PS: if you missed previous installments of the collection (including the less electro-ish ones), they can all be found, neatly labeled and sorted by bleepy type on the mix repository page.

PPS: for those looking for a deepy-house fix, I can’t recommend enough Fleep-san’s near-monthly delivery of such.

Further reason why reading up reference material for your own neuroscience paper is a total bummer:

[...] After neuronal recording was completed, monkey RO was anesthetized with an overdose of Nembutal (90 mg/kg, i.m.) and transcardially perfused with 10 % formaldehyde in 0.9 % NaCl. The brain was removed and consecutive, 50 µm-thick, frozen sections were cut parallel to the recording electrode penetrations in the frontal plane.

“Ooh, my, that’s interesting… and what fascinating data did we get from those frozen sections of the frontal pl… Hey! Wait a minute… You did what to monkey RO?! I was just getting to know monkey RO! Damn you people. He was just an innocent Japanese monkey (Macaca fuscata, male, 8.9 kg): young and promising, with still so much to give!”

[...]

“Oh well, I guess on the upside, we now know that corticostriatal neurons show distinct action-value-related firing patterns when you let monkeys play Pong… You shall not have died in vain (and your brain frozen and sliced to pieces while your heart was being pumped full of embalming fluid), little monkey RO!”

PS: For those wondering: as is commonly the case in such research papers, “anesthetized” is the mother of all euphemisms for “killed the death out of it”.

PPS: I guess this shall simultaneously address a question on everybody’sthree people’s (family and cat included) mind: “What is Dave up to and why don’t we see much of him here lately”.

… four of them at once join a Facebook group entitled:
“This is not a group because its members do not have an inverse“

In a word?

Experiments.

Allow me to illustrate:

Situation 1. Computer science paper:

“Mmn. These graph mapping simulations are really taking a while to complete, maybe I should get a new laptop.”

Situation 2. Cognitive science paper:

“Yes, hello, I’d like to order a dozen rhesus monkeys with proper wiring and electrode setup. Do you deliver?”

This way please…

Thanks to Rita Crane for letting me use her picture on this year’s edition.

A tightly-packed ball of childhood holiday nostalgia just for you…

(more…)

You know you are within sight of the French border when…

If rum and eggnog do not work fast enough to reach that coveted state of christmas-enjoying numbness, try chewing on fresh pine needles.
If all else fails, hit your head repeatedly on a corner of the fireplace on that spot right between the eyes until vision starts to blur.

Don’t thank me.

22nd, 3pm: got all my damn xmas presents
22nd, 3:20pm: hot chocolate and good byes with S.
22nd, 4pm: walking to the station
23rd, 10am: sitting on my bed in a t-shirt, windows wide-open

Nordine, commenting by IM on Mr. Sarkozy’s new glossy romance:

See, there is hope for you: this just goes to show that one can be short, arrogant and, yet, go out with a top-model.

Protein 1: Cytochrome P450-Terp (412 residues)
Protein 2: Cytochrome P450 (Bm-3) (E.C. 1.14.14.1) (457 residues)
Iteration #4: RMSD_c=3.36383

My first α-carbon-based protein alignment!

I’ve got a lump in my throat…

Chopin makes for an uncannily perfect, if not overly original, soundtrack to a quiet evening of sub-freezing outdoor temperatures.

… nothing beats snuggling in front of a fireplace (after paying a visit to an exhibit of very naughty things indeed at the French National Library).

How can xkcd always be so spot-on?

It’s irritating.

Having the opportunity to pick a class slightly outside of my main curriculum, I signed-up for an eight-week pluridisciplinary session on bioinformatics in genetics. I had my first lecture on Friday.

What I’ve learned so far:

1. This particular area of bioinfo (applying advanced AI algorithms to genetic research) is absolutely fascinating. With its mixing of cutting-edge results in biology, mathematics, physics and AI, it’s tough not being sucked in by the way they all combine into truly sci-fiesque results.
2. About 3 month away from graduating into a field I have planned to pursue my researches in, I am suddenly starting to wonder about a switch in research paths. Yes: yet another existential academic crisis. Just what I needed now.
3. During the introductory part on gene decoding patterns, when asked about information entropy in gene sequences, the lecturer: “Oh, it varies a lot between life forms. Viruses, for instance, have an extremely lowhigh entropy: lots of genes are coded using both directions of the helix”.
4. What this means in layman’s term: viruses’ use compression in their genetic code… Yes, your flu virus may come in its own zip archive, just like your e-mail viruses!
5. “Viruses are amazing things”, she concluded with an earnest look of admiration on her face (maniacal laughter did not follow, however).
6. Yes, there is something ever so slightly chilling about hearing a respected biotech researcher uttering such phrases.
7. I think I want to go into bioinformatics.
8. Viruses are, like, totally cool.