Random access thoughts

We launched the virus simulation on Tuesday. It's going, although it hasn't gone as smoothly and as fast as I had hoped it might. I think it will help to have some "incentives" to encourage participation, like an iPod or two and a Macbook. Still, it's going and its useful to know how it works without any incentives.

I spent all morning in the ISB updating software in the labs. I updated MacOS, iLife, and Firefox. To build packages that would install reliably across all the labs in the ISB took several hours. I still have to see if they'll install cleanly in Morrill. I still need to install GraphViz.

GraphViz is cool! I think I had seen it before, but I hadn't taken the time to play with it until now. I'm planning to write an output filter for the virus simulation that will create trees in dot that can be rendered using graphviz to make it easy to compare one virus strain with another. Or just from any particular point forward. Unfortunately, it doesn't look easy to install graphviz on the server. But I can just write a script to ouput a file in dot that students can render on a mac to make graphics they can use in their posters.

I've been making philosraptor pictures to amuse myself. I posted one at E-USA and a couple at Facebook. I also made one for a birthday card. Maybe I'll use it for my Solstice card too. Philosoraptor is cool.

This evening, Charlie made calzones for us! He took a cooking class this trimester and had the idea to cook sometime for dinner. It's kind of late for dinner, but I'm happy to eat anything that someone else cooks for me. Or if they bring me baklava as a peace offering.