Les Bonnes Choses

The lab in which I am presently proving my excellence now holds five postdocs with the addition of a newly minted PhD from Michigan. I remember from my undergrad studies in psychology that the dynamics of small groups was said to depend on the size of the group. For example, in a group of 3, often the members will align 2 vs 1; a group of 4 stabilizes at 2 vs 2; a group of 5: 3 vs 2. I can think of several examples where this holds true. If you're familiar with Axis & Allies, you'll know that the Allies (the good guys) were comprised of the US, Britain and Russia, and the Axis (the bad guys) were comprised of Germany and Japan. An analogous arrangement can be found in our lab where the iPhone Axis (Gill and Jerome) are opposed by the non-iPhone-carrying Allies (the other postdocs). After Gill signed a pact with AT&T and joined the Axis, aggression stepped up when Gill, in a show of Axis power, gratuitously googled something over wireless. The technologically inferior Allies scrambled for a response, but were able to muster only a feeble, "hah hah! Your attempt to 'bump' failed over wifi! Nice app, suckers!." Meanwhile, there seems to be a stalemate in the conflict. I do believe the Allies will soon have the upper hand, however, as I am the only one with a blog, which I guess would be the Manhattan Project of this conflict.



If you've ever seen any sci-fi movie or program, you'll agree that advanced communication devices are imagined to be ubiquitous in the future. There are a number of similarities between Star Trek's tricorder and smartphones like the iPhone. One could even take this as evidence that the iPhone has brought the future to the present day. Could it really be? Is a new age of peace, prosperity and discovery being heralded by this fantastic piece of technology? In a word: no. There has never been an episode of Star Trek in which any members of the away team had to check whether they were close to using up their data plan quota for that billing cycle. I can only conclude from this that the iPhone is not the technology of the future.



I expect the Axis to capitulate sometime early next week.