The need to express personal feelings, dietary habits, travel itineraries, misfortunes and general whereabouts has become widespread. This somewhat egomaniacal urge has spawned from the proliferation of social media websites – facebook, myspace, twitter, linkedin and other general blogs.
But what to do when these social media outlets cause embarrassment, ridicule, or worse…?
What compels me to write this post today was reading this entry on the Huffington post “The Funniest Facebook Snafus Of All Time” and Facebook recent privacy changes. The first article made me laugh for a good 10 minutes, but then hilarity was overcome by a sinking feeling of terror (fueled by the second article): world-wide-web embarrassment could happen to anyone, it could happen to you or me.
What are your feelings about seeing a movie on the big screen as opposed to watching it, say, on your iPod Touch? Well if you think it’s worth going to the theatre there are two film festivals on now playing films that you could easily rent at any video rental shop. First there is the Digital Film Festival playing at ScotiaBank theatre from the 5th to the 11th, which will have classic films like The Godfather I and II, Terminator 2, The Shining, Shawshank Redemption, and more. As well, there is the Best of The Decade, art film festival being organized by Cinematheque Ontario, and being held at The AGO. Here you can find critically acclaimed foreign films that did not necessarily have a large North American release. Tickets are not full price, with the digital film festival costing $5 a show, and the art film festival costing $6.50 for students. I think it’s totally worth the effort to see a film on the big screen, so check out the links if your interested:
Family weekend and Valentine’s Day are approaching. Have you already planned something exciting? If not, here is a great idea: Why not go to Ottawa and celebrate the winter with Winterlude festival?
Winterlude begins on February 5th and continues until February 21st. You can expect amazing winter activities and events. My personal favorite is skating on Rideau Canal. In winter, this historic waterway becomes the world’s largest skating rink! During the Winterlude, the Canal is the site of the Winterlude Triathlon, the Bedzzz Annual Bed Race, skating demonstrations, workshops and much more. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t skate, you can still have fun by exploring the Canal on foot.
My last blog just scratched the surface of the many career options available to graduate students in the department of Medical Biophysics (or most graduate departments for that matter). So I’m going to discuss with you three more options today. Someone mentioned they’d be interested in hearing what a radiation physicist does, so I’ll try my best to answer that question.
Medical Radiation Physicist (Radiation Oncology Physics)
These advanced degree holders (typically a Ph.D. in medical physics) work in the hospital setting. Medical Radiation Physicists are involved in all aspects of radiation therapy. Their day to day responsibilities include ensuring that radiation emitting devices within the hospital are functioning properly, monitoring emissions and recommending safe dosages and treatment parameters. Radiation Physicists verify that the hospital is following established guidelines for the use of radiation. This career will expose individuals to radiation equipment design and enable them to research particular medical devices in order to make policy recommendations based on the findings.
Becoming a Radiation Physicist unfortunately requires more training. The program lasts 2 years and includes both a classroom portion (typically in the first year) and a clinical rotation portion (typically in the second year). Does this sound interesting? Here are some links to get you started.
I promised my next post to be dedicated to the end of Paper Lab Notebooks, but on Wednesday January 27th, Apple released the device that pretty much every geek has been waiting for (to either bash it or adore it). It’s called, the iPad.
Here is the illustrious Steve Jobs introducing this little device to the world:
Instead of posting my thoughts on its’ limitless potential and use-case scenarios, let me do something different ask the people in MBP: what do *YOU* think about the iPad? Where do you see the iPad fitting in with your life? What are your questions/concerns/criticisms?
I’ll collect all your questions from the comments below (feel free to leave anonymous q’s), and try and address as many as I can in Part 2 of this post (as well as my thoughts on where the iPad is going)
…. Fire away!
P.S. Let’s try and keep the comments mature and thoughtful – the internet is full of hate, I’d hate to give a voice to internet trolls!
Join MBP this May as we go see Rock of Ages, a musical that took
Broadway by storm when it opened last April. Featuring rock songs from
the 80’s, this show is making it’s Canadian debut at the Royal Alexandra
theatre in Toronto this spring.
“In 1987, on the Sunset Strip, a small town girl meets a big city rocker
and, in LA’s most famous rock club, they fall in love to the greatest
songs of the ’80s. It’s ROCK OF AGES, an arena-rock love story told
through the mind-blowing, face-melting hits of Journey, Foreigner, Styx,
Reo Speedwagon, Pat Benatar, Twisted Sister, Poison, Asia, Whitesnake
and many more.”
We will be reserving tickets for the night of Thursday May 6th, 2010.
Final ticket prices will depend on the size of our group, but should be
max $40 for seats in the upper balcony. We’ll be taking advantage of
both preview and group pricing to get the cheapest deal possible, so if
you’re thinking of seeing the show, this is the time!
Jorge Cham, the author of Piled higher and Deeper (PhD) comics, is coming to speak!
His comics are hilarious and continually reflect grad school life – if you haven’t read them, then you’ve been missing out: phdcomics.com.
And I’ve heard he gives a great talk as well, so get your ticket to check it out!
He’ll be here on Monday March 8 at 3pm (at MacLeod auditorium, Med Science Building)
Tickets are limited so get them in advance – bring your $10 to either Megan in mars (4-601H) or Vanessa in PMH (10-126), or bring it to seminar and get your ticket there.
He’s also going to be available during the day, so if you’re interested in showing him around the lab/hospital, and maybe getting to be IN one of his comics, then email the organizers: phdcomics.toronto@gmail.com.
You know what pisses me off? The fact that I have no life. And you know what reminds me that I have no life? The fact that I waste my evenings on the internet, paying attention to unprofessional critics’ jackass opinions about movies. Don’t get me wrong, the internet is great; blogs podcasts and flash video have allowed for anyone to become an internet celebrity, and there is some stuff that I can’t get enough of, which wouldn’t get a proper chance through other more expensive mediums. But there is also a lot of self-important dudes on the web who obnoxiously sermonize there opinions as if everyone gives a fat shit. I think what bugs me is that they’re really long, which marks how pointless they are. The trick is to keep it concise, get all the good jokes out and leave people wanting more; less than ten minutes for a video, 30 minutes for a podcast, and 2000 words for an article. With that said here’s my opinion on some films. Is it pretentious and pointless? You be the judge!
As graduate students we have access to many systems, computers and other research devices
Last week, Amichai Shulman the chief technology officer at Imperva (software security company) released the list of most popular passwords among the 32 million passwords stolen by an unknown hacker.
The most striking result of this study? The complete lack of creativity, when it comes to protect the things we most care about. Here’s the list of the 32 most popular passwords:
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