Author: Gene

I’m officially done updating on this blogspot thing. I’m a google fan and all, but Vox wins for now. Come join me. If you don’t, I’ll still read your blog, but comment less. 😛

Eight’s edit of Six’s post because they’re still really cool friends like that even though they don’t hold hands when they walk anymore–

I’m actually not really switching to Vox. I’m really just done with the Internet. It was nice and I had fun. Bye Public Diaries! Thank you for not complicating my life further.. and now we’re done.

-Eight
PS Six, I fixed your broken link.

Bah!  I cannot sleep.  I went to bed a bit early and fell asleep for like 20 minutes.  That little nap apparently is good enough according to my stupid brain.

So I got added to the neighborhoods of two random people.  I say random because I don't know who they are.  They aren't truly random.  They have to read English and have excellent taste in content.  Anyway, Vox is cool like that.  So I thought I'd make an unnecessarily big deal out of it.  You can go check them out if you want.  The girl is sorta a sex fiend who plays PSU and thinks I have pretty eyes.  The guy I know less about because he didn't actually message me, but from what I can gather he is in the air force or something.  He has cool pictures on his blog.

I took Kait out to Thai for our 3 year anniversary that was.  It was fine, I think.  I think we're both doing ok.  She got called and messaged and waved at through the window by "Makers".  He's some random townie guy that she likes now.  Supposedly not "like" likes, but whatever.  He wanted to meet me but I'm not interested enough to go into a smoky bar. 

I got my RSA encryption program to work.  I decoded the secret message thing that's due on Friday.  I am awesome sauce.  We're still having trouble with our shifting decryption for some reason, but we have plenty of time to work on that.  It seems like it should work.  Whatever's wrong is tricky.  I have to make my RSA code look prettier, too.  It's kinda messy atm.  It's always nice when you get an actual answer from the computer, though.

Mother edited another lab report for me.  We used gtalk and gdocs in tandem for maximum efficiency.  I knew she was lying when she told me she wouldn't always be able to edit my papers for me back in middle school.  😛

My friend from elementary school has updated her facebook page to say she's in an "open" relationship and looking for "random play".  Is kinda weird.  I read her wall and the people are talking about "silver heaven" which is either unknown innuendo or they know way more about the Lawful Good aligned planes of D&D cosmology than I thought they did.

I'm going to try to sleep some more.

I went to a science colloquium today entitled “The Fascinating Properties of Water Surfaces.” It was pretty cool. The lecturer’s team were using two laser beams to do absorbance spectroscopy at the top 10 angstroms of a water surface. The found stuff out about the way molecules were oriented at the surface and how gases dissolve into the surface, and how acids affect things. It is kinda important because of the environmental implications.

Ok, done talking about that. I won the mycoblog contest. Apparently I’m going to get a dollar. He didn’t technically use my entire caption, which I personally think is slightly funnier, but his blog, so whatever. So, that’s cool.

Remember when I said I bought pizza. Well, it cost $4.99 but the pizza place had run out of pennies so I didn’t get my change. They asked me if that was alright. I dunno what they would have done if I had said no. They probably would have given me free pizza or something. Why didn’t I think of that? So anyway, I got totally ripped off. Yesterday however I went to Winco to buy groceries so I won’t starve and the check out lady got lazy and instead of giving me $.24 in change she just gave me a quarter. What a coincidence, eh? Maybe the penny should just be phased out.

Well, I wasn’t particularly productive today. Kinda didn’t do much at all. Luckily I didn’t really have to do anything. Should really get moving on some work though. I’ll start tomorrow maybe. lol. I crack myself up.

So the whole break up thing is still kinda shadowy and elusive in my head, so I’m not going to talk about it much. Just so people don’t freak out too much I’ll state for the record that I think it is a good idea and will ultimately prove to be best for everyone. However, nothing really official or final and stuff yet, so we’ll see.

It stopped raining yesterday, pretty much all day, and gave me a chance to go get my mail. I got some chocopeeps from mother, you can see them appearing on my vox. I also got a card from grandma. I need to get her internet. Then I got a bunch of grad school stuff… /sigh. Work.

I woke up this morning at like 7. I did the whole lay in bed go in and out of sleep thing. I woke up at 8 all agitated that I was late to class and jumped out of bed and put on my pants and was struggling with my shirt before I realized class is at 9. That was weird. Normally stuff like that doesn’t happen to me.

I also messed up the lab on Monday. I put ethidium bromide (carcinogenic) in our cocktail when it didn’t need to be there. I don’t actually remember doing it, but musta happened. That sort of mistake I don’t make either. I think I’m malnourished and my brain isn’t functioning correctly, as suggested by 8 earlier. I bought a pizza, but I’m not sure that’s going to fix it. Soon Keston will go shopping and I’ll buy some vegetables or something. I don’t have any tests or anything, so that’s good.

My messing up of the lab didn’t really affect anything. We just had to re-pipet things, which was a minor set back, but nothing crucial. My independent lab work is still going well. I recently ran a new protein gel from my giant column. Apparently that UV absorbance detector machine thing knows what it’s doing cause I totally have bands again. I checked this morning. So all is going well on the real science front.

I’m pretty sure there were other things to write about, but I dun remember them now. So how about them Democrats. I hear they are winning the World Cup or Series or whatever. (If you’ll check my facebook you’ll see my political view is “apathetic”) And Rumsfeld is getting canned. (did you know spell checker wants to change Rumsfeld to Feldspar?) My naive young mind is hopeful that the changes are more than superficial. Isn’t that cute? Prolly that malnutrition acting up again.

I’m going to eat some pears.

sucks. This is retarded. The Linfield site is retardedly slow. Beyond that, even though I had the prerequisites and labs and discussion groups I needed, the stupid site wouldn’t let me register for anything, except Understanding Music in Jan Term, which doesn’t require any such things. So, now I’m going to have to do what I have to do every semester which is run all around campus bothering people with Ph.D.’s so I can hand a stupid little slip of paper to a overworked secretary so she can type in the classes on her magic computer that never doesn’t work. /sigh It’s going to be raining for the next millennia too so I’ll be getting a cold while I do all this junk, as well.

I’ll probably actually get into all the classes I wanted… hopefully. Not necessarily. /sigh

Update: well, now I’m officially registered for everything except comp sci. So that’s cool.

Greetings blog readers. I guess it’s time for a weekend update.

Friday was pretty chill. We had an impromptu LAN at my house, small, but entertaining for a couple hours. We played AvP2. I played as a face hugger some which is cool. 8 was at some Frat party things, apparently only for like 20 minutes, but after that she went to a concert or something with the infamous Taylor (see post below) and her bf.

Yesterday we played Eberron 1. Sal got a critical hit on a dread wraith and got killing blow. Yay Sal! It was all very exciting, for me anyway. Nobody in the party is dead yet, although we’re working on it.

After D&D there was some PSU. Ody, bmills, Keston and I, and Pedro even for a bit, ran stuff, trying to get bmills up to level 15. We failed, but made significant progress. What a strange game. I don’t understand it. By it I mean why I’m playing it. I bought a new wand for 15k . /shakes head

Anyway, today I did my stats homework. I need to do grad school stuff but I just don’t. /sigh It’s lame. I need to check my mail too, but it’s raining all the time. Anyone been looking at the weather for McMinnville. It’s been raining for 4 days, and it’s not going to let up for at least a couple more. We’re under official flash flood warnings currently. Weee.

This leads me to my riding my bike in the rain story. Well, not really story, but description. It’s pretty exciting. I rode over to 8’s on Saturday (football day, mucho traffico) when it was pouring. I rode through a puddle so big that my water deflector thing created a wave that covered my right shoe. I rode through another puddle of similar size but lifted my legs up in the, “Look ma, no feet” pose. It was fun. I was wearing my coat, but the hood is such that when I turn my head, the hood stay in place, blocking my vision. This makes it difficult to check for traffic. Kinda a guessing game… specially when my glasses are all covered with rain drops as well. The final challenge is breaking. The brakes on this bike already barely function, but with wet wheels and ground it gets hairy fast. I have to ride fast on the road that connect to 8’s driveway cause it’s a busy street and I can’t hold up traffic, but then I have to make a 90 degree turn at high speeds. So I did that, and did this awesome fish tale skid thing. Wheee. Totally was perfect. Like in those racing video games. I don’t wear the coat hood anymore, so don’t worry. I’ve been wearing my beanie that makes me look homeless according to general consensus.

I register for classes tomorrow. Everything is as stated previously except for Jan Term. I’m switching from woodcarving. I know, after all my touting of woodcarving. Well, I didn’t tout much on the blog, but irl I was pushing it pretty hard. Anyway, I’m switching to Understanding Music. Woodcarving has a prerequisite, which I could prolly get waived, but I dun really care that much. Plus, Understanding music will be way nicer. I’m taking Jan Term as sorta my last hurrah of college, since Spring Semester is going to be fairly busy academically. Jan Term I’m just going to LAN and D&D as much as possible. 9 hours a week I’ll listen to music. It’ll probably be more useful to me when I’m on Jeopardy, anyway.

Check out my Vox if you haven’t been. It’s got some posts that aren’t on here. That’s because Vox actually prompts me and gives me ideas. Cool huh.

Also, people should be aware of this typing game. Cause I found it and it’s cool.

Oh yeah, and I fixed the archives. Had to republish the entire blog. I read that in the help section. Go figure… reading help helped.

I get all my best blogging ideas when I’m trying to fall asleep. This is like my 3rd one, so I decided I would just write something and perhaps that would make my ideas stop. By the time I get the whole blogger window up my ideas are already done anyway.

So my mind was wandering and I transported myself to the future where I’m being interviewed as an expert in computer enhancement of the brain along with a colleague of mine. The colleague used to be my mentor, and we pioneered the field but currently are on opposite sides of the a hot button political issue, should the development of computer chips for enhancement of normal healthy individuals be pursued. Chips for helping Alzheimer’s patients, the mentally retarded, schizophrenics, amputees, and many other diseases and disabilities have been available and in use for years, and continue to improve and help millions of the world’s citizens. Recent advances in the field, thanks to the work of my company, C cubed, Cranio-Chip Corp., the technology is available to safely and cheaply give average people modest boosts to their cognitive abilities. Most notably the ability to perform mathematical calculations would be enhanced, but a general speeding of thoughts is also achieved.

The chips have not been approved by the FDA, but millions of people are clamoring for the devises. Opponents to the technology say it’s the top of a slippery slope (which reminds me) and will lead to a loss of humanity, and morality. So in the interview I neatly point out that this is ridiculous. The best chips available can only increase a persons IQ by 10 points, but I naturally have an estimated IQ of 168, and my mentor has an IQ of 177. Higher than normal intelligence does not someone inhuman. If you make it illegal black market… Blah blah blah. In my head there was a bit of an actual argument and a male interviewer with a nice baritone. Plus we have to enhance ourselves or the robots will take over!

The point is math! Wouldn’t it be nice if people could actually do math. I think there would be some surprising effects. People would be able to accurately asses polls, understand scientific information presented to them, digest and assess threats more accurately, make intelligent financial investments, determine efficient courses of action in various circumstances. Of course, these statements are over simplifications. People would just be better at all the things listed, not perfect, and not always. I dunno, I just had the thought of someone spending half their life pursuing a task, like guess a key code, that they would know is essentially impossible if they could just do a little math.

I should be asleep. I’m pretty tired, and I’m all in bed and stuff, but it’s ok. I think I operate pretty well on slightly less than 8 hours.

8 discovered that there is a thermostat on my wall today. It controls this vent that’s in my room. She turned it on and now my room is all warm. I never would have turned it on. I have a blanket. Oh well, now I can walk around with my shoes off and prop up against the wall with my shirt off like I am right now and not be freezing.

So, I was also thinking that science is the highest and most rewarding pursuit ever. The idea kinda collapses a little bit though. There is a circularity to this thought, at least in my head. Well, not circularity. Just I keep having the thought, reasoning it away, and then having it again. Here’s how it goes.

Science will matter on the big scale. Scientists add to human knowledge, and lay the ground work for the next generation of scientists. 10,000 years from now science that is being done to save the sun, or whatever, will only be possible because of the work of scientists today. Other professions are so petty in comparison. You can make a difference, but only on the short term. You can be president, and make some laws, that will be undone in 4 years when you’re replaced. You can be a CEO, and build a fortune 500 company, that will be forgotten 10 years after you retire and your successor runs it into the ground. You can be a teacher, and have a minute effect on a few kids that might alter their courses in life ever so slightly for the positive. But all of science is building itself ever bigger.

See… this is the problem though. Science is not all building itself. Some science will be totally worthless in the future. That problem is tiny compared to the next one though. See… all those small insignificant examples I list above, they affect things in the long run to, theoretically, approximately as much as science. A CEO can spend money on R&D that develops science, or hire an employee who uses the money to send his kid to college. A teacher can teach a kid what he needs to know to become a useful member of society. A politician can make policy that helps science progress. It’s arbitrary where the line of worthiness is drawn, so I can’t really say scientist is the best profession ever.

I can say that VP of marketing is the worst, however.