Dune

I have started to read Dune Messiahon the (T). It occurs to me that my friends who dig Robin Hobb should really check out Frank Herbert, if they haven't already. I didn't think of Dune, which I read in late 2000, while I was engrossed in Hobb's Farseer trilogy earlier this year, but easing back into the Dune universe (almost said "Duniverse"... ugh) reminds me quite a bit of Hobb's world. Lots of intrigue, though a notch or two less character-driven, with larger-scale (interplanetary, even) sociopolitical hoo-ha making up for it. (I thought to myself: this is also how Hobb would write, if her hero was, say, a young King Shrewd, and not one of his latter-career field agents.) Masterfully crafted and wonderful fun.

Worth noting: If you've seen the David Lynch movie and not read the book, nothing's been spoiled for you. Seriously. The gap is at least as wide as that between Blade Runner and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? In either case, the book is more of an inspiration for the film than it is true source material.

Knifey Wifey (around 10:45 am today)

I'm sitting at a drug discovery/biotechnology conference thingy that boss took me and two others to. Well, it's just at Hines in the middle of Boston, so he didn't actually take us anywhere; we simply met up here, and he paid for our admissions.

Really, I don't have much to do here. I have no questions to ask of these vendors; I have my job to do, using the equipment and systems available to me. Maybe after another year or two, after I've had a chance to steep in biotech for a while, I'll be more curious about activity in the field, but the most I can do now is pick up interesting swag. I got a shiny pen, some candy, and a periodic table poster. Hey, pretty good.

I did have one intelligent question for the MDL folks, wondering if they published the specification for a molecular compound file format they developed; it's something I've had to deal with at work, and the most I could find about it, at least via Google, was a partial reverse-engineering that someone in Germany had put on the Web. Sure, the MDL dude said, let me scan your card and I'll get that information to you.

Here, I started to get a little embarrassed. When I registered at the door, I automatically filled out my registration form with bogus information. This got recorded into a scannable chip thingy on my conference badge. But of course, instead of admitting this, I say "Sure!" and hand it over to whomever asks, so that their scanners inform them that I live at 123 Fake St. in Somerville, phone number 123-456-7890.

"You don't have your email address here," the MDL guy cheerily told me. So I gave him my goofy personal card, which actually does have my real email address on it.

I continue to be glad that I made those cards two years ago, as they have so far carried me through four different professional identities. However, I would not turn down some HMS cards, for situations like this. I should ask for some.