Signal Over Noise

while you were singing along, might want to know the lyrics....

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 22:46:16 GMT

MGMT : Time to Pretend"

"I'm feeling rough, I'm feeling raw, I'm in the prime of my life.
Let's make some music, make some money, find some models for wives.
I'll move to Paris, shoot some heroin, and fuck with the stars.
You man the island and the cocaine and the elegant cars.

This is our decision, to live fast and die young.
We've got the vision, now let's have some fun.
Yeah, it's overwhelming, but what else can we do.
Get jobs in offices, and wake up for the morning commute?

Forget about our mothers and our friends
We're fated to pretend
To pretend
We're fated to pretend
To pretend

I'll miss the playgrounds and the animals and digging up worms
I'll miss the comfort of my mother and the weight of the world
I'll miss my sister, miss my father, miss my dog and my home
Yeah, I'll miss the boredom and the freedom and the time spent alone.

There's really nothing, nothing we can do
Love must be forgotten, life can always start up anew.
The models will have children, we'll get a divorce
We'll find some more models, everything must run it's course.

We'll choke on our vomit and that will be the end
We were fated to pretend
To pretend
We're fated to pretend
To pretend"

a decade in boston calls for future migration

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 01:16:09 GMT

10 years ago I packed a trunk of computer equipment into a shared dorm room and sucked university bandwidth dry. I was drawn to this city, an epicenter of technology development, a heaven for misfits, an idea with infinite opportunities.

I had no idea I would find biotechnology, or Manray, or Harvard, or kung fu, or the myriad of sweet wonders in candlelit living rooms, rented dance halls and lecture ballrooms. I had no idea WHAT I would find, but I was convinced I would find it. Boston was the right move. Boston is home.

A decade later that same inertia calls me to unfamiliar places. For right or for wrong, I have to follow gut instinct. as the saying goes "dont freeze when zero hour comes", so I'm writing today to put myself on the fishhook. I'm not saying I will never return to Boston. In fact, I intend to.

Quietly in the background, I've been relocating my life. In august 2009, all the Harvard hospitals will be online. I will be done with my masters training. When my mentor told me SF was the next target city, I knew my time had come. We have collaborators in 18 us cities and its time for me to expand our operations nationally. I have no idea where this project will bring me but I intend to get a PHD along the way.

We are all so young, versatile and capable of so many things. To stay in one place forever seems an error. I will forever love and thank this city. Truly going to miss it. This will be my last Christmas here.

I hope 2009 is among our brightest, I hope to spend time with you before I go.

thank you all for being awesome.
--andy

EXPLOSIVE REACTION

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 17:40:44 GMT

AWESOME

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDw4gk5pYl8

2008 = changes

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 03:13:00 GMT

5 weeks ago I was single, mobile, and partying way too much.

Today I am in a serious relationship, in physical therapy, and going to tons of art shows. Even saw modern dance and traditional ballet. And speaking season starts tomorrow so why am I on livejournal when I should be packing for philly? need a calm little moment before the next storm.

Even my PHD aspirations have changed, as in, I am not sure WHERE I want to do that.
My mentors are still amazing, and I have lived under their guidance for the last 4 years, perhaps it is time for new instruction? I still have great respect for their wisdom and this city. Yet I feel the tug of foreign cities -- even SF -- this feeling has been heavy on me for so long I either need to make sacrifices or shut up about it.

life has generally been wonderful.

Thank you to my friends for visiting, feeding, and entertaining me; even when I insisted I would be fine on my own. My appreciation will be accompanied by something more than a lifejournal memo.

hope all is well for you all,
--andy

ps: +1 change: president, FWIW.

day8://post.operation.check.up

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 02:38:51 GMT

Greatly relieved to learn pain levels are normal (though very intense).

Dr: right quadricep is GONE and I have to retrain the muscle.
Though physically about the same size, after an 8 weeks vacation it no longer works.

Surgeon: greatest risk is that I skimp on the physical therapy.

andy: dedicated perpetual motion @38 degrees.

I am so excited for the healing process that the pain literally feels like less of an obstacle.

I still have the intellectual prowess of a sesame street character. I suspect my humor is increasing, though. Believe it or not, I have taken over 120 percocet in 8 days which is *significantly LESS* than the rate I was prescribed. Unbelievable. and I am still in pain. all I can do is laugh and call bullshit.

Today was a good day.
I might take a walk (*cough* with crutches) to the water fountain in my yard.

post surgical reflections://103

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 03:46:09 GMT

After 103 hours and counting, without mobility and opiated brain function...

Humility and patience come to mind.
Those things that you never make time for yet force themselves into your life anyway.

In exchange I have found immense appreciation for the little things that aren't so little after all--
friends visiting to make me laugh to forget agony, discussions of philosophy over dinner, Halloween costumes and farsighted vacation plans, get well cards made of computer parts, or your friend camping out at your house for an entire day just to make sure you are ok.

Fortunately, I'm all out of pain killers and the offices are "closed for the weekend" unless I want to hobble to the ER & wait to get meds. Yes, I have been using humor to combat all forms of pain, its really the best medicine I can think of.

Not to worry, I am *assured* refills tomorrow. Then I can be a happy pill monster all over again.
cookie, cookie!

recovering from surgery, cosmic debts repaid in full.

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 07:30:23 GMT

ouch. for serious. 3 biodegradable screws. If karma exists I paid my debt from this and all previous lifetimes. seriously that was fucking painful, and still is. 6 weeks until I walk again. what the hell.

For What Its Worth, I'm staying positive. Right now I just woke up in a ton of pain and need a distraction. Have a nice day.

--andy

surgery + school + speaking = silly

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:37:22 GMT

britt starts monday
surgery next wednesday september 17
whacked out on drugs until september 29th

october 5th draft spec, national architecture for clinical and genomics research
october 14-17 philadelphia
october 18-20 mid terms
october 26 major release
november 1 major release
november 8-12 Washington DC
november 16th informatics retreat, conference organizer

will find out how realistic this is. wasn't counting on the surgery part.
already canceled pittsburgh and second DC trip, boo

IAMX * NOT * sold out : tickets@6PM openers@9PM IAMX @10:45

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 23:00:04 GMT

http://calendar.boston.com/cambridge-ma/events/show/83474930-iamx

IAMX 10:45pm
Hypernova 9:45pm
DJ Chris Ewen 9:00pm
Sold out thru Ticketweb, tickets avail w/ cash at TT's after 6pm

:: show organizer if you are reading this please do better job regarding location / promotions / information / tickets / local bands / etc ::

Republican VP choice = as retarded as bush?

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 05:18:43 GMT

Palin: Somewhere in between pathetic and laugh out loud funny.

welcome aboard britt!

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 06:08:22 GMT

I used to spend 3 days a week with britt. It was awesome. We jumped out of planes.
We kicked each other every tuesday at kung fu. oh how I have missed you.

now 5 days a week. score raised to the OMFG.

werd.

Decisions 2008

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:37:13 GMT

1. Finish Masters
Starting 3 classes Sept 2nd. Two are birdy courses, so really its only 1 hard class on Computational Genomics.

2. PHD
Some days I feel like I have the perfect PHD topic, and then I feel the despair of being so far removed from concise definition. I now gather this is the life of any PHD student. I repeat it out loud so that you may remind me to stay focused and not get distracted, NO MATTER WHAT. Please hold me accountable to finish.

3. Focus
More moderation less debauchery. This summer was amazing, yet blurry. Learned that just because you "can" do a thing doesn't mean you "should". Equipped with enough free time, I discovered exactly what it means to take a 3 month vacation in the previously unexplored corners of this city.

4. Live like there is a tomorrow
nuff said.

--whoever I am

Seeking your advice -- I am at a vertex: which path do I choose?

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 19:56:52 GMT

Last year I hardly saw any of you. Grad school + running a team meant that I hardly slept and had almost nothing to say about life except hospitals and computing and whatever I know about biology. In three weeks school starts again. If I chose to go, it will only be worse. Much worse. The size of my team is rapidly doubling and I have more projects and grants then ever. How the hell can I be in class if I am the lead architect on a national project? I’m speaking at two conferences in the middle of the school semester. Actively hiring and training and setting up collaborations is not how one prepares for school.

Conversely, if I don’t go back this semester that pushes my PHD out another year. I need to explore the world beyond this city-- as awesome as boston is– I can't live here indefinitely. I can’t (won’t) leave until I am finished. The feeling of incompleteness haunts me, and I make a better jonny apple seed than gardener. I have started so many things and none of them are finished.

The middle path is to take a semester break and instead start the pharmacovigilance thesis project with my mentors. That would be top notch training and hopefully contribute to graduation. I recognize this is out of order but it fits my history. Could also reopen the genotyping work and try to find the common ground between genomics and public health and call it personalized medicine. I am hoping I could teach myself the methods on the fly enough to publish at least one more paper. I can return to school next semester when I train my team to run these projects without me.

I’m seriously at a vertex and I’m not sure what to do.
If you have any advice, please, I’m all ears.

--andy

ken lee, tulibu dibu douchoo

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:36:22 GMT

already reached Wikipedia folklore.

No one ken to ken to sivmen,
nor yon clees toju maliveh.
When i gez aju zavateh na nalechoo more,
new yonooz tonigh molinigh,
Yon sorra shooo,
yes ee shooo, ooo.
-Ken leee
tulibu dibu douchoo
Ken Lee,
Ken lee meju more.
Ken Lee
tulibu dibu douchoo
Ken Lee,
Ken lee meju more
2.No one ken to ken to sivmen,
nor yon clees toju maliveh.
When i gez aju zavateh na nalechoo more,
new yonooz tonigh molinigh,
Yon sorra shooo,
yes ee shooo, ooo.

couldn't say it better myself

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 13:08:13 GMT

P2P PLAYLISTS

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 05:18:52 GMT

Excluding the obvious, here are my recent playlists. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO???

ELECTRO TRIP HOP
IAMX: This will make you love again
Sneaker Pimps: lightning field
Everything but the girl: single (photek remix)
Halou: Feeling this is like to fall awake
Lamb: Gorecki
Royksopp: what else is there
Sneaker pimps: wasted early sunday morning
Sneaker pimps: low five
Ladytron: destroy everything you touch
Ladytron: International dateline
Delirium: Heaven’s earth
IAMX: The alternative
IAMX: Spit it out
Talvin singh: Traveler
BT: fast and furious
Unkle: rabbit in your headlights
DJ Shadow: stem long stem
Frou Frou: let go
Orbital: halcyon and on and on
Thom Yorke: Cymbal Rush

TEAR YOU APART
She wants revenge: tear you apart
She wants revenge: sister
She wants revenge: these things
She wants revenge: true romance
You shriek: Bella lugosi
Blue diner: The Figurehead
Dead can dance: the arcane
Dead can dance: musica eternal
Smiths: The queen is dead
Smiths: Never had no one ever
Pixies: where is my mind
Placebo: every you every me
Placebo: running up that hill (kate bush cover)
Placebo: meds
Radiohead: videotape
Radiohead: all I need

last night was among the most amazing I have ever experienced

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 22:23:12 GMT

The sound of portishead from the art exhibit in my building,
depictions of love in dystopian futures,
gasmasks and war helmets,
I had to have it all...

After some wine and more portishead, she takes me to this fantastical place I can only describe as urban legend. Upon arrival, we open the waist high metal gate concealed by foliage revealing a secret garden with children's carousel horses, flagstone walkways, someone's food supply, and giant pink stuffed rabbits.

Now thoroughly intrigued, she leads the path to a giant indoor structure that resembles an artist commune's idea of a tree house with mirrors deliberately placed to obscure senses, indoor foliage consuming the house, homemade chandeliers, and 30 years of artists contributing pieces to the corners and walls and every space that could house heads of baby dolls and freakish creatures

Saving the best for last, we climb antlers and door handles to the upper level with open exposure to the moon above. In the apolstered victorian chair, the crescent moon and freak garden in a single view, I suck in the experience and for a solid two minutes I was at a loss for words.

As a guest, I wonder if I'll ever have the privilege of returning. She leaves in three days.
I bought the image of dystopian love as a souvenir. I'll remember this night for as long as I live.

seismic life shift

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 16:14:39 GMT

I was recently promoted to lead-architect for linking all Harvard Med School hospitals for clinical research by way of massive NIH policy change in funding. I'm hoping to extend this to support genomic inquiries as well, primarily through genotyping and gene expression microarrays(for anyone who is interested I'm not a genotyping fanboy its just relatively cheap at 250$ a pop to 'sample-sequence' DNA).

I've resisted posting about this because it is much better described in person. I'm uber excited and still in a bit of shock.

Essentially the idea is that patients are "enrolling" themselves in clinical studies everyday just by showing up to the hospital. However, few studies occur across hospitals with sufficiently sized patient cohorts thereby causing incidental medical "facts" and false alarms. There are so few massive studies published that when they do occur they cost millions of dollars for each study.

We want to change all of that.

By querying all the hospitals in near-real time, we are able to treat large populations (e.g. boston) as a single entity. With access to all that data with strict privacy, we are able to write machine learning (AI) algorithms to search for patterns and correlations between diagnosis(flu, hard attacks) with associated factors (vioxx, co-morbid conditions, etc). And when we identify significant correlations we can correlate these measurements with DNA isolated from routinely collected blood samples.

Looks like I'll be here for at least a few years more.

I feel like someone just told me I won the lottery.
I'll give a more excited post when I fully acknowledge what just happened.

LJ vs Facebook vs MySpace vs MyLJFace

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 01:15:51 GMT

LJ is great for blogs.
Facebook is great for everything else.
MySpace (in my opinion) is epic fail.

I suppose the best of all worlds is Facebook that you can blog from.

The real question is: what is the best way to keep in touch with friends?
Emails and list-serves are a dying breed. The world is 15 seconds of attention, tops.

How does one actually have a discussion?

Cheers to a non-informative 8 second update,
--andy

GO HERE NOW

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:49:43 GMT

getfirefox.com

It is actually rare that a technology blows me away.
Usually I understand how it works so I'm not all that impressed.

Firefox 3 is so fast, I'm stunned. I don't understand how they did it.

I repeat: if you use the internet, DOWNLOAD FIREFOX 3 NOW!

random stranger says

Wed, 07 May 2008 01:52:02 GMT

"this is the end and george bush knows it. His policies are deliberately bringing the end of the world"

who knows, maybe he is on to something....

Drunk Russian sleeps off knifing

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 22:06:19 GMT

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7353025.stm

A Russian man trying to sleep off a night of after-work drinking failed to notice a six-inch (15-cm) knife in his back - until his wife woke him up.

"We were drinking and what doesn't happen when you're drunk?" he was quoted by Komsomolskaya Pravda as saying."

The interwebs knows me after all

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:49:55 GMT

My Personality


Neuroticism	87
Extraversion	98
Openness to Experience	99
Agreeableness	11
Conscientiousness	41

You do not feel nervous in social situations, and have a good impression of what others think of you, however you experience panic, confusion, and helplessness when under pressure or stress. You have a generally cheerful disposition. As a person who is open-minded to new and unusual ideas, you love to play with and think about ideas. You also like to debate intellectual issues and often enjoy riddles, puzzles and brain teasers. You find helping other people genuinely rewarding and are generally willing to assist those who are in need. You find that doing things for others is a form of self-fulfillment rather than self-sacrifice, however you believe that a certain amount of deception in social relationships is necessary. You are guarded in new relationships and less willing to openly reveal the whole truth about yourself. You strive hard to achieve excellence. Your drive to be recognized as successful keeps you on track toward your lofty goals. You often have a strong sense of direction in life, but may sometimes be too single-minded and obsessed with your work.

Take a Personality Test now or view the full Personality Report.

The best Buying Pet Gifts.

PHD thought #2

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 03:08:14 GMT

PHD = 4 years asking one specific question.
That is going to be the make or break.

You can't do a PHD on instrumenting the health care enterprise for pharmacogenomics, drug/disease outcomes, and genome wide association studies spanning SNP chips, expression microarrays, and clinical phenotypes.

That is a 20 year PHD. Picking anyone of those alone while dropping the others seems wrong but necessary for PHD work.

tough decisions to make.
I want to know a little bit about everything.
PHD = everything about one thing.

....ponders.......... .. .

PHD begins (?)

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 23:31:22 GMT

Today I made the first step at starting a full-fledged PHD.

My mentors over the last 4 years fully back the idea while actively reminding me of the sacrifices I will need to make.

Part of me says "you have an opportunity to receive the *BEST* Jedi training by your favorite Harvard Professors"

Part of me says "holy shit ramen dinners and walking away from your empire"

But I believe curiosity is going to get the better of me.
I want the burning insight they have to offer.
They routinely bomb my brain with shocking simplicity.

Granted, I haven't started a PHD yet and I need to finish the masters first (1 more year).
but....My mentors are already assigning me research topics beyond my current capabilities.
I told them I dont have time right now and they reminded me "that is the point- you wont have time for the other stuff, so just drop it".
Of course in practice that means hiring and training more people to take over in my absence.

I have mixed feelings about the whole thing.

If I *DO*, then I get the best training available while eating ramen.

If I *DONT*, then I continue running a team at a director level with the luxuries of candlelit dinner and a sweet apartment.
That sounds nice until I think about all the questions I want answered.... and I love questions.

Either way, its a good position to be in I just have to figure out what's next.

As we were parting, he said "and the part I like is that with a PHD I can finally put you on the Harvard Faculty".
That sorta hit me weird too. All this is so abstract yet strangely available right now.

Lots to think about.

--a