Chances are you've seen artistic renditions of our Milky Way galaxy as viewed from a distant, outside vantage point. It looks like a many-armed spiral, the arms sweeping gracefully away from the center like an octopus on a turntable. Yeah. Just like that.

You might wonder how we figured out that our galaxy looks like that. Well, the truth is that we didn't. It's hard for us to know what it actually looks like from the inside. So our understanding of the shape of the Milky Way has always been conjectured from observations of other, similar galaxies.

Well, it looks like we've been wrong all along. A bunch of astronomers used two big-ass telescopes to take precise measurements of the locations of about half a billion stars in our galaxy. Once you've plotted all those stars in three dimensional space (and assuming they represent a statistically valid sampling of the galaxy), you can view that data from anywhere you like. And when they stepped back and looked at the big picture of the Milky Way, they saw not a classical spiral galaxy, but a more exotic "barred spiral", more like a spinning firecracker spitting out sparks from both ends.

Needless to say, this revelation completely changes my outlook on the world. I don't know how I can go on living my life the same way knowing that the shape of the galaxy is fundamentally different than what I thought. I need to rethink my attitudes, my opinions, my goals and ambitions, everything. Certainly, this makes me feel a little more special, a little more cool. I mean, a barred spiral! We rule. Think of all those losers living in sucky regular spiral galaxies, or worse yet, chaotic irregular galaxies. To them, we must seem so... mysterious. So be proud, stand tall, and if you ever feel down just think of your kick-ass galaxy and smile.

In yesterday's On the Media, a weekly NPR show about the media and its relationship to society, Bob Garfield interviewed Christina Kelly, the editor-in-chief of YM magazine. YM is a very pink magazine. It's targeted at teenage girls, and features articles about clothes, hair, makeup, and boys. But, following Kelly's recent editorial decision, no articles about dieting. That's right, they've dropped all diet and weight-loss related articles, the reason being that such articles simply aggravate teenage girls' self-image problems, particularly when juxtaposed with the waifish hotties splashed across the magazine's pages (though they've adjusted their hottie policy as well, de-emphasizing waifishness). The editor herself went so far as to say , "I don't think a diet article in a magazine ever helped anyone lose weight".

Now, such a move can only be seen as positive (though her comments are perhaps somewhat extreme -- I have seen sensible diet-related articles in magazines, crazy ideas like eat less, exercise more). It is, however, interesting to view this decision in the light of Greg Critser's excellent article Let Them Eat Fat. The article traces the incredible cycle of obesity in the United States, fueled primarily by fast food. One of the points made in the article is that the culture of "fat acceptance" can be just as dangerous as the peer pressure to be a Calista Flockhart clone, simply because being fat is unhealthy. Fortunately, YM's omission of diet articles and inclusion of less emaciated models is not an endorsement of unhealthy diet and exercise habits. It's a small positive step in a long battle. If they feel strongly enough about this issue, maybe they could reverse their editorial policy long enough to admonish their readers to avoid Coca-cola, McDonalds, and Krispy Kreme. It just seems as if their attack on negative body image stereotypes should be balanced by a commensurate denunciation of an unhealthy lifestyle.

Last night, I stood outside in the increasing cold and watched the olympic torch go by. Understand that I wouldn't have gone out of my way to see it. But, as it turned out, I realized at the last second that its official route came within four blocks of my apartment. It's hard to resist that kind of convenience. Apparently they weren't doing house calls, so this was about as good as I could have expected.

The event was marred only slightly by the Coke trucks that preceded the actual torch by about twenty minutes, distributing bottles of Coke and little plastic "I saw the flame" flags. The high point was the spontaneous community that assembled itself at the big intersection in my neighbourhood -- a couple of hundred people milling around, including four of my friendly neighbours (I still can't get over the fact that I hang around with my neighbours).

Our intersection was actually a hand-off point in the route, where the torch was passed from one runner to another. Let's be clear, though. Each runner had their own handy, molded plastic torch-o-matic, and the first runner used their torch to light the torch of the second runner. Also, no runner runs more than about 1000 feet, I guess because too many people wanted to take part. It was still pretty cool though, especially the part where my neighbour realized she knew the first runner from ultimate frisbee.

What can I tell you -- it was a totally random event, like the space shuttle flying over your house. A vague, distant connection to something Big. But it's been a slow thingo week, and it's just the sort of human interest story we love to report during slow weeks like this one. This is Milton Lewis, channel seven, eyewitness news.

A couple of weeks ago, Nath and I went to see Beethoven's first and ninth symphonies performed live. I love seeing performances of classical music at every scale, from solo violin up to symphony orchestra. Beethoven's ninth takes its place right up at the top of that range -- a full symphony orchestra and an enormous choir with soloists. And Beethoven really had them belt it out, too.

Now, most people are familiar with audience protocol during classical music performances. A single piece is typically broken into movements. There is a distinct pause and silence between movements, but no applause until the end of the whole piece. Nevertheless, the audience uses those brief pauses to shift in their seats, cough, sneeze, clear their throats, scratch themselves, or attend to any other base necessities so out of place in the grand concert hall.

Unfortunately, this phenomenon got entirely out of hand at the show. I don't know whether it was cold season, or whether it was something in the air or the overpriced cocktails, but a huge proportion of the audience generally required frequent regulation their respiratory processes. At the end of a movement, where one would normally expect a few seconds of silence punctuated by a stifled cough or two, the entire hall filled with coughing, hacking, throat-clearing, and nose-blowing. The sheer power of it would engender a second wave of sound, the audience quietly laughing at itself. After a good fifteen or twenty seconds, the noise level had dropped to the point where the conductor felt able to continue. Impressively, as the evening wore on, the conductor lost sympathy for the audience and made the pauses so short that they didn't have enough time to begin making noise before the music started up again.

I doubt we will be remembered as one of the Great Audiences of History.

Today is T-day. To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the original, Disney is releasing a new special edition of Tron on DVD. From what I know, the special edition is packed with bonus material, including the famous (and mercifully deleted) virtual love scene.

Say what you want about Tron, for whatever reason it had a profound and lasting effect on my impressionable ten year old brain. Probably it was one of the reasons I got interested in computers. Now that I've discovered that they don't function precisely as depicted in Tron, I feel a certain disillusionment, but I've decided to stick with them a little longer in the hopes that something interesting will eventually happen.

And whatever you may think about the movie, it's hard to deny (as Nath will) that the soundtrack by Wendy Carlos is a masterpiece. For years after the movie came out, I searched high and low for a copy of the soundtrack. I finally found one on vinyl in 1989 in Vancouver, BC (perhaps my brother still has that record somewhere? Heck, maybe it's worth something). One can only hope that along with the re-release of the movie will come a new CD of the soundtrack. That way I can once again saturate my life with Tron.

[update: 17 January at 15:01]: My brother informs me that yes, he does still have my copy of the Tron soundtrack LP. Thank goodness! In the meantime, I discovered that a CD of the soundtrack will be released in two weeks. Finally, Tron will reassert its rightful place movie history. Take that as you will.

This is the busiest time of year for me. The premiere conference in my research area has its submission deadline in early January. As far as my advisor is concerned, there are no other conferences in my area. So I've been busting my butt trying to get my research in publishable (or at least reviewable) form. I'm hoping to be done by Monday, and avoid some of the more ludicrous stories of deadline pushing that accompany this conference. Universities and companies have been known to appoint couriers who fly to the submission address on deadline day with their papers. I swear that a person could make a killing by renting a small office in Colorado Springs, stocked with laser printers and a big 'ole T3 line. You send them the paper electronically, and they print it out and hand it to the committee.

Anyway, I just wanted to explain the reason for this most recent hiatus, which I think is the longest thingo has ever experienced. I guess that too much is going on outside the world of ironic, witty observation. Hm -- how ironic of me to point that out.

Speaking of almost being out of the woods, I believe my parents are returning tomorrow from their sojourn in the jungles of Costa Rica. I look forward to talking to them when they return.

[update: 06 January at 15:50]: Well, they came home safe and sound, and I got to talk to them. I assume that when they read this they'll appreciate why I was looking forward to their return.