The world governing body for track and field is deciding whether a sprinter can compete as a woman, if she also has male sex organs. The International Association of Athletics Federations has taken up the case of Caster Semenya, a world record holding South African runner. Semenya, has undergone tests to prove that she is a female after claims to the contrary. Michel Martin discusses the topic with Doctor Eric Vilain, an expert in the field of intersex science and identity.
I never gave much thought to the fact that there's no single definition of male and female. There are people clearly one or the other, but how to distinguish the ones that aren't? Sexual identity is one thing, where it's very simple to say it's up to the person to determine how they'd like to be identified. But I think this is the first time I've heard the issue come up in the field of sports, where it does seem that some sort of fair clear cut distinction will have to eventually be made.
Pharmacies were always a bit of a mystery for me. For some reason I loved the grocery store so I'd always go with my mom, and to the attached pharmacy as well. I guess my mom always did things with time to spare, or was just a very "we're not waiting for this" person, so the medicine always got picked up a few days later on our next shopping trip.
So I always assumed the pharmacies had to order the medicine we asked them for.
Though I guess this might be the case for some cases, the few times I've either filled one for someone who was sick or for myself, it's within 15 minutes to an hour. How to pharmacies have all of this stuff in such a little space? What madness must go on in there? And I overheard them talking...they fill about 120-300 prescriptions a day? Sounds busy. With a lot of room for error.
Today, I offer two disjointed thoughts loosely having to do with the brain and technology.
On the way to the doctor's office today I was reading a Scientific American I had in my bag from my last trip to Boston. For some reason traveling means I can spend as much money as I want, including on newsstand price magazines.
The article is a survey of all of the amazing things done interfacing computers and the brain. The chimp brain controlling the robotic arm to get a banana...the best of cochlear implants turning sounds into impulses that create a sensation of sound in the brains of deaf people, etc...
AND TO THE RANDOM OTHER MUSING ABOUT PEOPLE AND TECHNOLOGY
So my doctor uses a tablet PC and her palm pilot for everything. Instead of charts, she has a file on her tablet pc and she types things up after. The topic of doctor handwriting or just handwriting in general came up and I mentioned a high school classmate of mine whose handwriting was so bad due to a lack of spatial reasoning that he had to take notes on a palm pilot with a keyboard attachment, and his in class essay exams were printed out. Special APs, everything. And she said how one of her sons has good handwriting but the other's is terrible. And that she "doesn't know why printing is so important anyway. They make such a big deal when there's not really a time he can't get around it."
And then I almost said something to the effect of "but we must stay HUMAN!" But really, it does feel weird. What if someone couldn't write? I mean, yes, right now there are still uses of handwriting a note, but I can definitely forsee a time, in a classroom rich enough to have keyboards...where everyone has a Blackberry...when the art of writing in the calligraphy sense is completely gone. Not lost, but simply very easily gotten around. I mean, my classmate did everything on his palm pilot and that seemed weird...it wouldn't take much for it not to seem weird.
Today was slow day at work + pub quiz night + the Olympics are clearly still on so...I have not much to say.
Here's today's link dump! WOOOOO.
Engadget: Another flexible circuit project emerges, carbon nanotubes to blame I have to admit. Pretty much ONLY because I've had to examine a patent app or two that I think carbon nanotubes are pretty cool. I guess all nano stuff is cool in general, but I used to etch these tips in lab that used to grow them and I still didn't care. Anyway the moral of the lesson of the article: small things (like people!) can be surprisingly useful.
Webware: Your gas: it's social This is just STRANGE. Isolated, it's a pretty good idea. You put in how much you spend for gas, when you did it...it tracks your mileage and fuel economy, which might be a good thing. Maybe you're trying a new longer route to work with less stop and go, and you want to know if it saves you gas over the course of a week? But to make it a social site? Get a group a friends and maybe it'll be fun -- but I'll be damned if I go "fuelly" stalk someone to judge and see how thrifty they are. Though it might be good to compare and see if you suck at dealing with getting the most drive for your dollar. :-)
Bonus video today! This is Sungha Jung playing "Kiss From a Rose" on a guitar. If you've never heard of him, or "jwcfree" on Youtube, you should definitely check him out. He looks tiny but he's almost 12 (Chinese Women's gymnastics controversy anyone?) and is a bit of a "Finger Style Guitar Playing Prodigy". (Yeah, not my words.) Anyway, this isn't his best, but I think it's one of the songs I knew well in the first place so I can enjoy it better. Subscribe to him. It's like having a mix CD with all of the random stuff he plays. And he comes out with a new recording every week or usually less!
*edit Okay, I may or may not love this video more. Because he's curled up against a wall with the light hitting in a strange way, and he's gonna break some hearts one day I imagine. "With or Without You"!
NYTimes: A 10 Isn’t Necessarily Perfect in New Scoring System for Gymnastics Whoa. Why do I think this is bigger news than it really is? Shouldn't this have been publicized? The new system is sort of like the one for diving, where you perform a dive with a pre-set difficulty and then the judges score on execution and the two are multiplied together. I first learned this from the Winter Games on the Commodore 64. I should probably be ashamed.
The 100 Most Common English Words Not a post or an article. Just a sort of game. Try and guess as many as you can in 5 minutes. I scored 50, which I think is respectable enough. I got a phone call in the middle and I didn't see a pause button!
Today's bonus video: Speaking of gymnastics, and since my coworker was wasting time watching her videos recently, here's Mary Lou Retton's uneven bars routine from her Gold Medal all-around win in 1984. She performs her own move: The Retton Flip. :-) You should watch her other videos. I like to believe that girls didn't abuse themselves as much back then. That's probably not true due to old timey taboo body image issues. I just don't know about the 80s though. Maybe it was a good time! That's what the parties make it seem like.
So it doesn't fly yet, but I have hopes. Flying cars is definitely one of those milestones that means we're advancing as a people as defined by science fiction. True nuff though, if this thing needs a runway, what makes it better than an airplane? Well, airplanes traditionally have no control over their wheels and their power is generated by the turbines or propellers, which sends air over the wings and creates thrust and lift. So the wheels just spin as they're told to by friction. I asked myself that question not thinking I'd come up with anything. Go me and not asking my brain before I type.
So flying car has power steering on the ground. Yay!
But seriously, shouldn't we be harnessing the energy of more things by now? Someone once told me that the asian flush should be exploited as a renewable heat source.
unrelated sidenote - I'm sick of hearing updates about the new iPhone 3G. But fine. Whatever. I'm sure E3 has been an annoying preoccupation on some sites too.
Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have created a type of nanowire-based information storage device that is capable of storing three bit values rather than the usual two—that is, "0," "1," and "2" instead of just "0" and "1." This ability could lead to a new generation of high-capacity information storage for electronic devices.
Seriously...0, 1, AND 2. It's weird how amazing that is. In the words of the engadget post, we'll see if this gets out of the lab. I will NOT insert a comment here stemming from my job. But yes. We'll see. Maybe soon.
Nano-scale stuff scares me. Look at that picture. Not far off from a creepy crawly.
