Writing my thesis sucks donkey balls.
"I do not know what I may appear to the world;
but to myself I seem to have been only
like a boy playing on the seashore,
and diverting myself in now and then finding
a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than
ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay
all undiscovered before me."
--Isaac Newton
I just got a copy of this awesome book: The Sacred Heart: An Atlas of the Body As Seen Through Invasive Surgery . It contains some of the most beautiful, disturbing images I've ever seen. The photographer spent eight years attending various types of surgeries including spinal cord surgery, cornea transplant, craniofacial reconstruction, mastectomy, penile implant surgery, skin graft, organ harvest, hip & knee replacement, cesarean birth, separation of conjoined twins, and full autopsy.
The 4x5 photos capture every pore, every smear of congealing blood under a merciless light--yet the techniques used cause all else beside the central surgical site to fade to blackness. The surgeons' faces are never seen, only their gloved hands. In removing the personal narrative behind these images (although some case info is presented in the endnotes) and in creating these static moments in what are typically very dynamic processes, the viewer really has no one with whom to identify--except, of course, the body on the table, and therefore oneself. Very evocative stuff.
I have been traumatizing my friends by showing them photos of faces halfway peeled off and breasts being ripped open. Yet what these photos truly speak of is "vulnerability and trust, and a profound love for each other and for our lives on earth, out of which this craft and science grew".
optimistress got me this book because she is the most wonderful person in the world.
Also, my roomate's band played the 40 Watt last night for the first time, so hooray for them. They're called "The Finley Street Project". They want me to play drums with them for their next show, as they currently consist of a guitarist, a singer, and a singer/guitarist.
This week at work I get to use a big robot arm thingy so I can rearray a bunch of bacterial clones from my libraries in order to get the sequence of the bits of sorghum DNA inside them.
Robots are cool.
Unfortunately, you couldn't really command this particular robot to attack people. The best you could do would be to hold them down on the operating surface and then have the robot scrape a bunch of sharp pins across their face. Ooh, I know! You could also suspend the pins above their face and then cause each one to fire individually downward--that would be pretty brutal. Plus, there's a nice camera designed for up-close scanning of bacterial plates, so you would totally have this awesome video of you mutilating some poor bastard's face.
Then I could go grab some sulfuric acid from the cabinet, a little liquid nitrogen from the huge insulated jug, some scalpels and bunsen burners...wow, I could really torture the shit out of somebody at the lab!
I mean, you don't need too much to torture somebody, but there's all sorts of fun toys there to get creative with, which often makes it all the more psychologically traumatic.
OK, that was twisted but whatever.
Allow me to reiterate that writing one's thesis sucks donkey balls.
"I do not know what I may appear to the world;
but to myself I seem to have been only
like a boy playing on the seashore,
and diverting myself in now and then finding
a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than
ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay
all undiscovered before me."
--Isaac Newton
I just got a copy of this awesome book: The Sacred Heart: An Atlas of the Body As Seen Through Invasive Surgery . It contains some of the most beautiful, disturbing images I've ever seen. The photographer spent eight years attending various types of surgeries including spinal cord surgery, cornea transplant, craniofacial reconstruction, mastectomy, penile implant surgery, skin graft, organ harvest, hip & knee replacement, cesarean birth, separation of conjoined twins, and full autopsy.
The 4x5 photos capture every pore, every smear of congealing blood under a merciless light--yet the techniques used cause all else beside the central surgical site to fade to blackness. The surgeons' faces are never seen, only their gloved hands. In removing the personal narrative behind these images (although some case info is presented in the endnotes) and in creating these static moments in what are typically very dynamic processes, the viewer really has no one with whom to identify--except, of course, the body on the table, and therefore oneself. Very evocative stuff.
I have been traumatizing my friends by showing them photos of faces halfway peeled off and breasts being ripped open. Yet what these photos truly speak of is "vulnerability and trust, and a profound love for each other and for our lives on earth, out of which this craft and science grew".
optimistress got me this book because she is the most wonderful person in the world.
Also, my roomate's band played the 40 Watt last night for the first time, so hooray for them. They're called "The Finley Street Project". They want me to play drums with them for their next show, as they currently consist of a guitarist, a singer, and a singer/guitarist.
This week at work I get to use a big robot arm thingy so I can rearray a bunch of bacterial clones from my libraries in order to get the sequence of the bits of sorghum DNA inside them.
Robots are cool.
Unfortunately, you couldn't really command this particular robot to attack people. The best you could do would be to hold them down on the operating surface and then have the robot scrape a bunch of sharp pins across their face. Ooh, I know! You could also suspend the pins above their face and then cause each one to fire individually downward--that would be pretty brutal. Plus, there's a nice camera designed for up-close scanning of bacterial plates, so you would totally have this awesome video of you mutilating some poor bastard's face.
Then I could go grab some sulfuric acid from the cabinet, a little liquid nitrogen from the huge insulated jug, some scalpels and bunsen burners...wow, I could really torture the shit out of somebody at the lab!
I mean, you don't need too much to torture somebody, but there's all sorts of fun toys there to get creative with, which often makes it all the more psychologically traumatic.
OK, that was twisted but whatever.
Allow me to reiterate that writing one's thesis sucks donkey balls.
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[Edited on Mar 20, 2004 8:05AM]