Saturday, January 30, 2010 Sometimes I have streaming shows on my laptop as I work on my desktop. I could be watching anything from anime, to Community, to Modern Marvels. This time I chose something popcorn-light: Fight Science, the most recent in a long series of shows explaining the physics of martial arts. It turned my head when I heard "Wolff's Law." They were talking about how the bones of these martial artists have remodeled to be stronger due to repeated physical stress from training. It's all connected, people.
Labels: anthropology, dissertation link : 5:24 PM
:
0 Comments
: Links to this post
 |
Saturday, November 28, 2009*Insert Some Witty Phrase Using the Word "Windows"* It took me a day to get Windows 7 back on my computer. There were obstacles every step of the way. I decided to wipe my Windows partition and start from scratch. My Windows 7 update disc would not validate a fresh install: even though there is no technical reason, it wants to see an older version of Windows present in order to do its thing.
The workaround learned from the internets is as easy as it is sad: install Windows 7 twice! On the second install, it sees itself and thinks it's updating an older version of Windows, even though it is itself. Wow. Anyway at least that worked, even though mysteriously, writing itself over a copy of itself takes 90 minutes. Installing my stats program of "choice" (I actually don't have a choice, it is the least crappy program on the market) was the next hurdle. It would crash on launch, even on this virginal install. While it disables the screen and the mouse, the rest of the computer works. I know this because my laptop can access the files on the desktop just fine, whilst the screen is frozen. Bizarre. I am officially out of ideas trying to get the stat program to work. I will resort to an alternative way to use this program, by using VPN to tap in to the University computers and use it remotely. It's not as elegant as running Windows in a window on my own computer, but I kinda really need this done. Labels: dissertation, tech:computers link : 10:58 PM
:
0 Comments
: Links to this post
|
Wednesday, November 25, 2009 With Dustin's help I installed Windows 7 on my external hard drive. I had to reformat, but my data is actually on a different partition than the OS, so forethought ftw. It booted up fine. I ran the stats program and it brought the whole computer down. *sigh*. I've restarted again and things look stable for now. I'm going out to get comics and lunch.
Unrelatedly I'm petsitting a gerbil for a few hours. Labels: dissertation, personal link : 12:08 PM
:
0 Comments
: Links to this post
|
Tuesday, November 24, 2009I Am Not a Crook Last night the power flickered just enough to reset some of the clocks and shut off my iMac. I was very well-saved so I just rebooted it back up. No problem! This morning I was motivated to get an early start on my dissertation. The most important task is to visit the Windows side where my statistical analysis program is, load up the results of data analysis, and carefully document in writing each test I did.
I booted up the Windows 7 side through VMWare, and... Windows alerts me that my copy is "not genuine" (i.e.. I'm a filthy pirate). Well I'm not! Past Microsoft's dirty insinuations I believe the program that sniffs out pirates was corrupted and, finding internal errors, assumed that it had been hacked. Then it locked me out of the operating system. I've spent the entire day (from 9AM to 4PM (curse you daylight saving time!)) trying to find some way to get a Windows 7 boot disc to start up my VMWare Windows partition. I bought Windows 7 through a digital download so I don't have a boot disc in hand. I think Dustin and his computer(s) will help me, so until he comes back from work I have to do other things. I've uploaded a few sketches to my DeviantART. Check them out here. These are mostly from 2001-2003 I think. Flickr also has more vacation photos. Labels: art, dissertation, personal link : 5:58 PM
:
0 Comments
: Links to this post
|
Thursday, November 19, 2009Emergent Layer While in the middle of a large forest it is difficult, if near impossible, to know exactly where one is. Unlike for example, a tunnel, there is no point of light to focus upon to guide one towards the boundary.
It is with great relief that my advisor has told me that I am in fact near a clearing. The analysis I have been working on has been deemed solid and meaningful. Very little more is needed to fill in the gaps. Now the task is for me to write it down and present it to my committee. Another step I have to take is to start applying for jobs. Just as the forest is one of my own design, the clearing (which isn't clear at all) will also be my own doing.  Labels: dissertation, personal link : 2:14 PM
:
0 Comments
: Links to this post
|
Friday, October 2, 2009Thinkin' "Will I Live Another Twenty-Fo'" I just spent all day debugging a script I wrote for a statistical program so that it would find the confidence interval for an individual in a linear regression equation calculated from an average of 1000 other linear regression equations. Now I am fully able to go into 24 Hour Comics tomorrow with an unburdened mind.
Labels: 24hourcomics, dissertation link : 9:14 PM
:
0 Comments
: Links to this post
|
Thursday, September 24, 2009 I'm switching gears from my dissertation to my stature estimation project. I, uh... packed the dissertation data I was to analyze next. But stature estimation is important too!
Labels: dissertation, personal link : 11:37 AM
:
0 Comments
: Links to this post
|
Monday, August 17, 2009Liveblogging My Dissertation I wanted to document my random thoughts as I work on my dissertation but didn't want to swamp Twitter and Facebook with my inanity so I'm putting it here. This started around 10AM.
I wish I could curl up in a ball on the lap of someone writing their dissertation. What a life! Reading about ancient Egypt. Very interesting! I want to go to the art museum in St. Louis even though museum pieces tend to be ill-gotten (ie. not archaeologically excavated). 1 Splenda in my coffee = hmm. 2 = oh my. I declare a Wii Fit break! Ah a nice jog in front of a TV screen. I just turned almost a page on Egyptian dynastic succession into "and then stuff happened." It would've been filler anyway. With rainy weather it looks so dark outside and it's not even 2PM. Oh nuts now it's thunderstorming. Should I turn off my computer or keep working? My laptop is at 5% power. :( Still on obviously. IM from a friend: "i am a magnet for married, engaged, or committed men." Me: "I'm nonferrous metal." Many "awwws" were subsequently exchanged. Gosh I passed out trying to summarize the Persian Empire in 100 words or less. You know what would be nice? Tea. It's interesting how the formation of Old World empires have changed over time. The earliest empires started in several specific spots: the Fertile Crescent, and the Nile River Valley. Then, empires started taking over both of these places, like the Persians and the Greeks. A third shift happened and the land around the Mediterranean Sea became the hotspot for Roman/Byzantine empires. What is now India and China got it's own smaller native empires later which effectively warded away the European/Middle Eastern ones. I'm sure there are technological and ecological reasons for these shifts that have been studied to death. But it was interesting seeing this in my own learning process. Labels: dissertation, personal link : 5:48 PM
:
0 Comments
: Links to this post
|
Wednesday, July 8, 2009"How's Your Dissertation Going, Keith?" Quite good actually! My advisor okayed my introduction a few weeks ago. I dabbled briefly in some data analysis and I have found some very interesting results. So interesting in fact that I'm waiting to discuss them with my advisor before I continue. I'm putting the finishing touches on one of my background chapters, which gives my take (supported by research of course) on the evolution of culture in the Central Andes. Next is a hard chapter though: I'm going to briefly describe all known empires known archaeologically in the world. This is something I know almost nothing about, but it will really help contextualize my own work within what we know about human history in general.
Labels: dissertation, personal link : 8:37 PM
:
0 Comments
: Links to this post
|
Sunday, May 24, 2009Losing My Touch I'm a little ashamed that Wikipedia finally set me on the right path of researching the sexual division of labor in empires after a night of fruitless searching.
Labels: dissertation link : 12:41 PM
:
0 Comments
: Links to this post
|
Saturday, May 23, 2009Working Hard, Todos los Días What a week it has been! The radiography and archaeology students really tore through the skeletal collection at the museum. The students had a lot of new (actually, old) techniques to learn, but they all did very well. It was fun seeing the skeletal collection again, and using it to show a new group of students something about bioarchaeology.
 There were a few technical difficulties but we still got a good representative sample of the collection. On our down-time we toured the museum, which I never get tired of (fifth time for me, I think).  On Friday, Mercedes, professional archaeologist, friend, and invaluable intercontinental facilitator, managed to get us a tour of Peru's largest nuclear reactor since they also do research in archaeometry. We rode the company bus to the outskirts of Lima where the nuclear facility was located, surrounded by the Andean foothills. We were allowed inside the pool-type reactor, right up to the water shielding us from radiation. While most of us left our cameras in dressing room before the airlock, a few in our group had tucked them into their pockets. One of our group asked if he could take some pictures of the reactor. The rest of us thought surely that we would be denied, but amazingly, our guide let him! A few of us got some cool shots of the reactor core. Wow!  Now the students are taking their newfound expertise to Ica where they will work on mummy bundles. I elected to stay here at the Villa Rica to work on my dissertation. I'm a little rusty with the research and writing since I've just taken my longest break in that activity since I started in January. But I got a whole bunch of articles to go over tomorrow.  I went to Miraflores today to pick up some things at Saga Falabella, one of the department stores here. I got Hanny another giant wooden prehistoric animal model (a pteranodon, not a dinosaur). I also got some shirts which were on clearance for around $10 each. No plans tomorrow, except writing and enjoying the local food. Labels: dissertation, personal, peru link : 10:51 PM
:
0 Comments
: Links to this post
|
Sunday, April 26, 2009The Graduate School Experience While doing research on paleo-osteoarthritis, I came across an essay from the Journal of Cell Science by Martin A. Schwartz titled "The importance of stupidity in scientific research". It seems to really resonate with me, so it must be true and I must share it. Here's how it starts:
"I recently saw an old friend for the first time in many years. We had been Ph.D. students at the same time, both studying science, although in different areas. She later dropped out of graduate school, went to Harvard Law School and is now a senior lawyer for a major environmental organization. At some point, the conversation turned to why she had left graduate school. To my utter astonishment, she said it was because it made her feel stupid. After a couple of years of feeling stupid every day, she was ready to do something else." The rest is here, with a handy pdf for download. It is an excellent description of the line between inspiration and total confusion that I dance around every time I read or write (or do) anthropology. I had the sneaking suspicion but I'm glad someone else agrees it's quite normal. Labels: dissertation, science link : 11:44 PM
:
0 Comments
: Links to this post
|
Saturday, March 21, 2009LOLs from the Past I'm still typing up the data the field school and I collected two summers ago. I'm almost done though! Since I originally wrote these notes a so long ago I smile at some of the things I put in. Some of my notes include:
"Biggest. Guy. Ever." The vast majority of my notes are serious in nature, I swear! Labels: anthropology:archaeology, dissertation link : 5:06 PM
:
0 Comments
: Links to this post
|
Wednesday, January 21, 2009A Mystery Around a dozen books were all due the day after I came back from San Diego. Before I left I figured I'd get a head start and return all of those books. But one of them. Never. Made. It. I now have an overdue book, Religion and Empire: The Dynamics of Aztec and Inca Expansionism by Conrad and Demarest. The question is: where is it? Let's examine the evidence.
A month ago, before when I was gathering books to return to the library, I had the foresight to make a checklist, which I still have because my recycling bin is in dire need of emptying. The Conrad and Demarest book is clearly checked off so I must have found it that day. The backpack I used to carry these books to the library dropslot was also used for my trip. It goes without saying that my book was not in my backpack. I checked anyway. Nope. I visited the library today. My book has not been reshelved. Given that it has had a month to get back there, it seems likely that the book never re-entered circulation. So where is the book?! The only conceivable place is that is is in my car. I looked from the driver's seat and didn't see it. My car is messy though so I should do a thorough all-angle search. If the book is not there I may have to concede defeat. Labels: dissertation, mystery link : 10:14 PM
:
1 Comments
: Links to this post
|
Friday, October 17, 2008On Bended Knee My dissertation proposal is done, proofread, second guessed like no paper before. It's attached to a mass email to my committee. All I need to do is hit the "Send" button.
And... here... we... go... Labels: dissertation, personal link : 9:23 AM
:
1 Comments
: Links to this post
|
