Scattered

Scattered thoughts:

• Lots of talk out there about blogging and tenure (see Dynamics of Cats and Uncertain Principles). Not too relevant to me...my tenure process was a frustrating, surprising, and ultimately successful process. I'm not sure I see what's so funny about this slam on the CHE's first person columns.
  
  
• Star Trek had their holodecks where people could create an imaginary environment in which to interact. That's pretty advanced though (I know, but play along). Say instead, we only had the technology to implant memories. So instead of going to Las Vegas for a vacation, you simply get memories of an imaginary trip implanted in your brain. That sounds somewhat feasible. Saves the cost of the trip and the time away from work.
  
  My question is: Do the memories serve the same function as a true vacation?
  
  On one hand, I'd think no because you haven't had any real stress relief. But what is stress relief? If you really took the vacation, then when you got back what else would you have besides the memories (say you didn't play tennis or anything, just laid on the beach or something so your muscles weren't involved)? Maybe this is a stupid question that a biologist can easily answer, but I'm just not clear on what the true effects of a vacation are.
  
  
• Apparently rendering blonde hair is quite difficult. These folks found a faster way which compares well with the time consuming method as shown in the picture.
  
  
• Why does Blogger's spell checker not recognize "Google" and "blogging" as words?
  
  
• I have trouble coming up with titles sometimes, but I'm consoled by the fact that Glenn doesn't even have titles!