Yes boys and girls, I was keeping back writing that Rebecca Black post, but now it’s 4 days later and I can let ‘er rip again, like I promised. This week’s post sort of reflects my week 37: Chock-full of super-dense life nuggets. Hmmm, sounds like a brilliant new high energy meta-physical chocolate bar that would probably be immediately declared illegal by the current conservative and non-thinking (excuse the tautology) batch of spineless politicians (excuse the tautology).

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Probably the most brainless song on the whole of YouTube must be “Friday” (don’t click that link, please) by Rebecca Black. At one stage, she’s seriously singing about leaving home and going to the bus stop on Friday. As if that’s not mentally taxing enough for her, her friends arrive in a car, and, wait for it, SHE HAS TO DECIDE IN WHICH SEAT TO SIT. Heavens. Talk about broody teenager angst. DANGIT I MISS GRUNGE!

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In this week’s Weekly Head Voices, looking back at weeks 33 and 34 of 2011, there are three important topics that I’d like to discuss. For your convenience, I’ve arranged them in order of increasing significance. This has the added advantage of guaranteeing that this post ends, at least technically speaking, with a sort of climax. Oh yes, the theme of today’s post is dry.

One

I turned 37 very recently. This is the last prime number I’ll have the privilege of gracing before shooting past the big four-oh. I remember when I turned 32. Amongst other defects which I believe I’ve gotten more or less under control, I was extremely smug, and I would probably have irritated the living daylights out of 37-year-old me. I’ve been very much desmugged in my search for harmony and balance in life, although I’ve been told that I tend to be self-congratulatory, an observation that I personally think might have been triggered by my extroverted optimism. Whatever the case may be, I’ll take 5 more years to de-self-congratulatorise myself as well. It’s really a small price to pay for harmony with the universe.

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At least part of this post was conceived right on this balcony over here:

Yes friends, that there right in front of us is the beach, and right in front of that the North Sea, and right over that the beautiful setting sun. We will definitely be going back there, it’s just that awesome spending a few days right on the sand.

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It’s traditional around these parts that I write a post whenever I get to welcome a new computer into the family. In July of 2002 it was Dr. Evil, more a brick than a laptop, in May of 2004 it was my beloved 14″ HP NC6000 laptop, in July of 2006 I met my 15.4″ HP NC8430 (employer-supplied, thank you employer!), which in turn led to this Ubuntu-critical blog post of mine that attracted 50000 (yes, fifty thousand) readers over 2 days, in July of 2008 I splurged on a lovely quad core desktop machine, in September of 2009 I acquired an Asus 1005HA-H netbook, and in November of 2010 my employer got me a super-strong Dell Latitude E6410 laptop.

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Dear friends, I was planning to write a nicely focused post, but it’s definitely not going to be this one. There’s just too much we need to talk about, and by “we need to talk” I of course mean that “I need to do my monologue”. Do strap yourselves in, as this edition of the WHV has tea, peanuts, chocolate milk, general nerdery, some ground-breaking science and even some thought-provoking art.

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On Thursday July 14, 2011, it rained for 20.5 hours straight, and it did so from all directions at the same time (yes, apparently also in the upwards direction as my wet socks will attest). The last time it rained this much on one day, was on July 17, 1954, as confirmed by the paper this weekend. I believe I might also have broken several swearing records (in terms of duration, variation, originality and vehemence) whilst struggling through the water on my bicycle, on my way to my work.

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Here’s a photo:

… and here are four things, most of which happened last week:

• I was honoured to be invited by the International Research Training Group (IRTG) of the University of Kaiserslautern to visit their institute and give a presentation on medical visualisation (my field of research, for those of you joining very late). Unfortunately, I was only able to stay an evening and a morning, flanked by two 7 hour train rides. In spite of my short stay, the exceptionally friendly Kaiserslautern peeps managed to put together an enjoyable and especially very efficient program with dinner, a morning of research discussion  and of course my talk, which was only 45 minutes over time, and a delectable lunch outside. It was interspersed with questions and discussions, which I do like, and most of the audience managed to stay awake (!), but I still do have to take a more serious look into accurately timing interactive talks like this. Thank you very much IRTG, it was a perfect visit!
• The Delft – Kaiserslautern trip is just so that taking the train seems to make more sense than flying. The total trip time is greater, but the difference is small enough to be justified by the great deal of work one can do on these long train rides.
• I tried out T-Mobile’s new pre-paid Internet “abroad” option, called Travel & Surf. One pays EUR 4.95 for 50 MB over 24 hours, or EUR 14.95 for 100 MB (which they call “unlimited”, HAHA) over 7 days. Without this active, my mobile internet works abroad, but in the zone 1 countries (Germany, Norway, etc.) costs me EUR 2 / MB up to a maximum of EUR 60 per month, so it’s definitely nice being able to pre-pay and control the possibly nasty surprises. However, an Android telephone sucks down 50 MB of data without even thinking, unless you remember to deactivate syncing and background data, which does help to quite an extent. This is certainly a good development, but T-Mobile and all other mobile providers are probably still making an absolute killing by acting like it’s really complicated providing internet just over the Dutch border.
• On the really good news front, Francois Malan’s paper on measuring femoral lesions despite CT metal artifacts has been accepted for publication in Skeletal Radiology! The full citation (so far, it’s online first) is:  Malan DF, Botha CP, Kraaij G, Joemai RM, van der Heide HJ, Nelissen RG, Valstar ER., Measuring femoral lesions despite CT metal artefacts: a cadaveric study, Skeletal Radiology, 2011. Cite it sesame!

Here’s my final thing, a youtube clip that, to my surprise, I don’t think I’ve shown on this blog before. Pay attention, it’s full of braai-related culture and wisdom:

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HEY!

I’m still here, and it seems I really have to catch up on my backlog of WHVs, all the more as I was starting to notice the beginnings of BPP (Backlogged Posting Paralysis, of course). So I’ve spent a few minutes gathering a selection of life snippets of the past six weeks (week 21 through week 26) and will now proceed blasting them out this old Web 1.0 exhaust. I wasn’t completely idle blog-wise, however. I did write a post about my EuroVis 2011 and my Schloss Dagstuhl SciVis seminar adventures.

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I’ve written before about EuroVis, the most important European scientific conference on visualisation. In 2009, it took place in Berlin, in 2010 it was in Bordeaux, and, an a surprise non-twist of alliteration, the 2011 edition was held in Bergen, Norway. With 216 attendees and a practically perfect organization, this year’s edition has been described as the biggest and the best EuroVis ever. In a bid to save some time (I still owe you a mega-edition of the Weekly (actually Monthly) Head Voices), I’m going to give my biased account in bullet-list form:

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