Blog Archives 041231 to 040612

Old pointless chatter instead of new pointless chatter.

 

041231 Davis, CA, USA
I added about 50 more books to the book give-away page. Lemme know what you'd like and it's yours. Also, I faded the text on the claimed books so it should be easier to pick out the unclaimed books from the list.

041222 Atlanta, GA, USA
As I travel for Christmas, I find myself still in the grip of an indignat anger at my fellow man. The cowed sheep I chatted with in the security lines are certainly not the legitimate heirs of Patrick Henry.
Poll after poll has indicated that the American public does not want a President who is too smart or too knowledgeable; they want a President who is the sort of guy they feel they can hang out with for football sunday. I have the urge to wander around demanding of them "Do you worry if your surgeon is too smart or too knowledgeable? Do you worry if your airplane pilot seems like an 'insider', having the facts of aviation at his fingertips? No? Then why don't you want the smartest, most knowledgeable guy as President!?!?"
I talked with some people who used the "values" dodge. So what values do they mean? Traditional Republican values include fiscal responsibility (Bush's massive deficit spending rules this out), state's rights (Bush's interference in gay marriage laws and his numerous unfunded federal mandates rules this out), and avoidance of foreign misadventures (nope; Al Quida was in Afghanistan, not Iraq). So what does Bush stand for? Spin, secrecy, and enrichment of his buddies seem to be his biggest platform planks, after pandering to the farthest elements of the religious right.
(History note, since not every one remembers all of the names mentioned during high school American history lessons - Patrick Henry was the author of the famous speech, given to congress on March 23, 1775, which contained the line "give me liberty or give me death" as part of it's concluding statement.)

041219 Davis, CA, USA
Somehow, I let time sneak up on me. I bought Christmas cards, but didn't address them until this evening. I'll be sending some tomorrow, but they are not going to arrive on time. I ordered things as presents, but I didn't do so in advance enough to wrap them and get them in the mail in time for most people to receive them before Christmas eve. Big d'oh! Somehow, I just failed to take into account the extra week or so remailing everything will take. Times like this, I feel like a total idiot.
In better news, I spent the day visiting my brother, sister-in-law, and nephews. Since it is a two hour drive (one-way) from Davis to San Jose, I actually spent nearly half of the visit in high speed intense traffic... Still, going down there is enjoyable enough to justify the drive. I showed up in time for lunch, then played a game or two with Alex, then we had the fourth Advent. Tea and cookies with a four-year-old is a frantic event where there is apparently a contest for how fast a four-year-old can shove sweets down his gullet. Since the watchful parents had already alotted how much Alex could have, he was already finished with his portion and eyeing the rest of the plate before anyone else had done more than taken a sip of tea. No, that's not right; Liam, who is a bit younger, had put a huge mound of rasberries on his plate and in his mouth already. Liam is at a very cute stage. He can produce comprehensible words and definitely wants to converse with people, but for now his conversations are not really sentences, just selections of words which make up the most important bits of the intended conversational topic. A very short time after Advent, we had two little kids quite hopped up on sugar, so it was time for a trip to the playground to let the kids burn off energy while Chris got a little peace in which to make dinner. The kids had a blast at the playground, with Liam doing a good job at climbing things well enough to cause Eric concern and Alex riding his bike well enough to keep up the sort of speed that caused Eric even more concern. When we got back, it was quiet time for the kids and then dinner (Chis always does a really nice job with the meals). After that, I was back in the car for the two hour stressful trip home. I really like visiting, but boy does a four-hour round-trip commute blow a hole in the day.

041214 Davis, CA, USA
OK. I'm not even sure where to start today. Let's see... How about with yuppie values? Tonight, I was walking to Borders to pick up the new Lord of the Rings - Return of the King Extended Version DVD. On the way there, I walked past a Wendy's. I'm in the crosswalk and headed towards the stop sign when I realize that the mammoth SUV pulling away from the drive-up window has gone straight past the "slow for pedestrians" sign and is headed for me with no sign of slowing down. Startled, I look up at the driver. The driver meets my eyes with a shocked expression and reacts with lightning swift reflexes... Having analyzed the situation, the driver was able to get the top back on the shake cup and put the cup into a drink holder before hitting the breaks, thereby not spilling a drop of liquid in the interior of the SUV as it came to a halt with it's front bumper about three feet past the crosswalk. I feel it was fortunate for all involved that I had already made the sort of flat-footed springing leap that should have made olympic judges applaud.
Next up in the rant topic is "family values". By that, I'm using the code phrase that makes a right-wing christian agenda for the nation sound somehow palatable. This is a topic I was originally put onto by reading what Bill Moyers wrote upon receiving Harvard Med's Global Environment Citizen Award. Bill Moyers pointed out a few things that had me hunting up a few more articles and then a few more... The composite picture is cause for concern. A whole lot of concern. I have nothing against people of faith, but some people have crossed the line from faith to serious- nutjob- who- should- not- be- allowed- near- sharp- objects- much- less- hold- office. Two such examples are House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chair James Inhofe (R-Okla.). Both these guys are dispensationalist (apocalyptic literalist) evangelical christians who are not interested in any form of stewardship of the environment or the nation, but are hoping for a coming apocalypse since it will herald the Second Coming. After all, who cares about balloning national debt or environmental disasters, when Jesus is about to wrap the whole thing up. These guys are firmly in the same camp as President Reagan's first secretary of the interior, James Watt, who famously insisted that there was no point in protecting natural resources since "After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back". Now, you may be thinking that I'm just exited about two nutjobs who are anti-EPA, because I'm pro-environment. However, think on this - the two men I just mentioned are not minor politicos. They are both powerful men in powerful positions with a lot of support in Congress. They have not been quiet about their beliefs. They act and vote on their beliefs, which are pro-apocalypse, not pro-national interest. I found a rather interesting article which pointed out some rather worrying things. One such example was pastor John Hagee's 2002 speech in which he announced that "The war between America and Iraq is the gateway to the Apocalypse!" This was not taken as you or I might take it, as a critique of the war. No, this was part of a speech calling on his audience to support the war. Tom DeLay was there and had this to say - "what has been spoken here tonight is the truth from God."
OK, people, pause and think about this for a moment. Our nation's leaders are making decisions based on the idea that they don't have to worry about debte or environmental destruction. They are making decisions from the point of view that famine, warfare, and a dozen other horrors are *good* things because they herald the second coming of Jesus... These people are not only loose on our nation's streets, they are in positions of national power. They are not only in power, but they have been voted back into power for another four years. We are in serious trouble if middle america continues to think having these people in control of the world's only superpower is a good idea.

041208 Davis, CA, USA
I've still been too lazy to update the book give-away list. I promise I'll do it before the end of this week. Anyway, research is going slowly. Sigh. Then again, if you could easily get your answers on the first try, the work would just be called "search", not "re-search". I just have to re-attempt the work, re-run a number of control reactions and re-analyze what I've learned so far. Re-search. Speaking of research, it appears that the popular press is finally noticing what has been apparent to scientists for a few years: the U.S. is falling behind in science. Duh. After a number of years of federal funding being diverted into following the Japanese model (focus on applied rather than basic science), we are getting the inevitable result: a loss of dominance. The Japanese model only worked if 1) someone else were doing the basic research and 2) that someone else were failing to patent the research. For a brief period of time, the U.S. academics and companies were insufficiently patent protecting their basic research. Japanese industry took advantage of that. Once the U.S. institutions realized what was up, the fundamental weakness of the applications-only approach was shown; it was far less profitable to come up with applications when the basic inovation was patent-protected. The U.S. basic research emphasis had another very good benefit; a world brain-drain of excellent researchers coming to the U.S. for the better funding opportunities here. Even those foreign researchers who did not stay in U.S. academia tended to remain in the U.S. as industry researchers. Now, we've had almost a decade of preferential funding for either applications work, industry partnership work (where academics are stuck with grants to work on industry-related short-term payoff problems rather than basic research), or fad science (it's hard to get funding unless you can somehow link your work to cancer, aids, or senator-aged male penile disfunction). It's no frigging surprise that the U.S. had frittered away a commanding lead in science to the point that the brain-drain is starting to go from the U.S. to other parts of the world. I hold no hope that things will be reversed by the current administration. Here's a quote from Bush Jr's science advisor, John H. Marburger III - "The sky is not falling on science, maybe there are some clouds, no things that need attention." Personally, I was surprised that Bush Jr. had a science advisor... The journal Nature had occasional updates for about a year about who the most recent person was to turn down the offered position. Apparently, most scientists felt that associating with a President who habitually makes up facts and misuses data would damage their reputation. Heck, the Union of Concerned Scientists went to the trouble of producing a report on the quality of Jr's appointees... It's entitled "Undermining the Quality and Integrity of the Appointment Process".

041206 Davis, CA, USA
Man, I am exhausted. The trip to LA and the gaming convention was a lot of fun, but I got very little sleep the whole time. The night I got back here (Sunday) was another relatively sleepless night; paramedics and police showed up for a bit of an accident at 3-4 AM. A neighbor got seriously drunk, stumbled outside, fell over a stairway railing and ended up going headfirst into the sidewalk just outside my window. I went to sleep at ~2 AM and woke up at 3 AM to a woman's voice crying out in pain. Grabbing some clothes, I rushed outside to find the sober boyfriend crouched over the poor woman, as she lay in a really contorted position. She was drunkenly whining about how bad she hurt. He was desperately pleading with her "Don't move, please don't move. You may have broken your neck. Oh, god, please don't move." Based on how she way laying, I thought it was a good sign that she could complain about the pain; she was in a contorted mess that had me worried whether she could feel or move much below the neck. I donated a blanket (she was half-naked and the night was cold) and went to guide the cops and ambulance into the right place in the apartment complex maze. I hope she is doing OK. One drunken stumble and a bit of bad luck can really change your life for the worse.

041201 Davis, CA, USA
OK, I'm sitting here updating the web site instead of packing. Well that and listening to a kinda messed up song "Skullcrusher Mountain" by Jonathan Coulton. My friend, Geoff Cohen, pointed out the site and the song... It's a, er, love(?) song written from the point of view of a Bond-style evil master-mind. Anyway, why am I (putting off) packing? I'm leaving right after work tomorrow to drive 425 miles to LA, to attend a gaming convention. A bunch of friends from Utah are going to the convention and that was enough to tilt me into going. The convention runs Thursday to Sunday, but I'm not taking Thursday off of work, just Friday. Here's the fun bit; I'm volunteering to run games so much that I actually have no time to see the rest of the convention. That's right; I'm driving over 850 miles (round trip) and taking a day off of work in order to spend three 15 hr days helping to run a convention in a different city. Why? I think it'll be fun and helping out that much means that the convention is taking care of most of my expenses. I didn't have to worry about hotels or tickets or anything; I just go, run stuff (which I enjoy anyway), chat with friends, and then head home with a free t-shirt and perhaps some swag for the effort. For those of you who are thinking "Gaming? Is he talking about gambling? Some sort of board games? Maybe he means that Dungeons and Dragons stuff... Hasn't he grown out of that?" Well, the answer is that I'm talking about "that Dungeons and Dragons stuff" as well as other Role Playing Games. I've thought a lot about role playing games, why they have the bad reputation that they have, and what is worthwhile about them. Go ahead and follow the link in defense of gaming.

041129 Davis, CA, USA
Okay, I went to post more books on the book give-away page, but instead I ended up reading Terry Pratchett's Feet Of Clay for the fourth time. For now, I've just done a quick update of what's been claimed. I'll list more books another time. It's darn late. Anyway, the next big addition of books to the list will have to wait till next week, since I'll be in LA this weekend. Some Terry Pratchett, David Drake, Orson Scott Card, and C. S. Forester will be in the offerings next week.

041129 Davis, CA, USA
Bleah. Typing up lists of books is... (dramatic pause) dull. I know you are shocked by this, but it is true. Since I'm actually posting what's being offered, with title, author, publication year, series notes, and genre, the whole nine yards, I'm somewhat confused by the emails I've received requesting that I "just send some stuff". I checked the list and "some stuff" is not on the list. As time goes on, more books will appear on the list. Perhaps I'll find this mysterious text.

041127 Davis, CA, USA
I've been meaning to do this for a bit. I'm offering up books to whomever wants them. I have to cut down my posessions to make moving easier and I thought one fun way to do that would be to give things away to friends and family. So, I'm offering up a large number of books. If you want any of them, just let me know. Yeah, I could just take 'em to a used bookstore and get a handful of cash for 'em, but this seems like more fun. I get to give away presents and you get free books. It's a win-win deal.

041126 Davis, CA, USA
I visited my brother, Eric, and sister in-law, Chris, and the mini-herd of nephews for Thanksgiving. The driving was exactly what one would expect for Thanksgiving holiday traffic. Ugh. 'Nuff said. Poor Alex was sick for most of my visit. A nasty fever and no energy at all. Poor little guy. No whining or anything, he was a good little sick kid. Liam was a real ball of energy, much more verbal now than when I'd visited not too long ago. His favorite question is "What's that?". Daniel is still at the little baby-lump stage, but he's very cute. It was a nice visit with a enjoyable hike in the middle. The hike was quite long considering we had Liam along and he was really good for the hike. Eric and I sampled a few whiskies while we visited during the two late evenings I was there. He introduced me to a few new ones... Very pleasant.

041123 Davis, CA, USA
I just got off the phone with my parents. My mom mentioned that I listen to some very odd stuff. I didn't think my stuff was that odd, but then again, I just noticed I'm currently listening to "Outona Omilla Mailla" by Varttina, off their album Aitara... I think I can see what my mom was trying to say.

041121 Davis, CA, USA
I've been telling my nephew, Alex, stories when I visit. The continuing adventures of Monkey Monk. It all started when he asked for a made-up story rather than one out of a book. So, I started telling him a tale loosely based on the epic Chinese folk tale A Journey to the West. It's chock full of Buddhist parables, folk magic, meeting dragons, kings, demons, and spirits. Anyway, each time I visit and often when I call, he requests another Monkey Monk story. I though I was safe at first, having chosen a source which is a massive four volume set, but after stripping out the lengthy poem sections and all the bits which are age inappropriate (violent or suggestive), and primarily hitting the bits where bad behavior is punished (usually in humorous ways) and good behavior rewarded, I've covered nearly then entire text already, except the end. I'm in trouble now, since Alex has gotten used to the idea that the story will go on for a very long time. He has already planned for how long...
During a recent phone call, he told me that I should tell him the ending for his eighteenth birthday, because after that he would be an adult and not interested in stories any more. He's planning on hearing regular installments of new Monkey Monk stories until then, though. Oh, boy. I'm running on fumes in the idea department and he remembers the stories well enough that I can't get away with re-treading the old ones. So, I've taken to finding ways to take each of the few remaining stories and stretch them into mini-story arcs. This may buy me a few more months, but I'm not so sure about making it for as long as Alex is planning.

041120 Davis, CA, USA
I'm slowly putting together a sort of summary list of what I've been up to for the last few years, in case anyone is interested. For today, the only bit is a few articles on the work done in the Fierke lab, from when I was a graduate student there. Eventually, this will be joined by some info on my post-doctoral work in the Winge lab at the University of Utah. I am unlikely to talk about any of the work at my current job, because any of that should be cleared by one of the lawyers to be sure that anything I write is non-confidential information. Bugging a lawyer to ask about adding stuff to a private blog just isn't worth the effort, so you'll just get vague "how my day is going" information.
Today, I did that and I baked a couple of pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving. I was going to make a sweet potato pie as well, but I'm missing one of the ingredients, so that will have to wait until I've gone shopping.

041117 Davis, CA, USA
Today was not that exciting. The biggest news is that I had a job performance review and it was glowingly positive. Yea! Great for me, but not that exciting for you to read about. So, for a bit of interest and spice, I decided to post a bit on a contentious topic... The bible and homosexuality. This is a reproduction of a bit of a discussion I had with a rather (Christian) religious friend. I tend to group gay rights in with the rest of human rights as a good thing, but my friend did not. Click the link if you are interested.

041117 Davis, CA, USA
I signed up for alumni mail forwarding, just to have a spare email address or two. I figured 'hey, why not?'. So here's some random bonus information for you: the motto of the university of chicago is Crescat scientia; vita excolatur. The translation is supposedly "Let knowledge grow from more to more; and so be human life enriched." The motto of duke university is Eruditio et Religio. The translation is, um, supposed to be something about both religion and education, but an early president of the university, John Franklin Crowell, had some strong words about the quality of the latin... Crowell emphatically stated that the Latin was indefensible and that he would not sign a diploma using it.

041116 Davis, CA, USA
Life has no clear scoring system. You can be outwardly very successful (high executive position, prestige, etc.) but still be a failure (unhappy, alcoholic, lonely). And, you can be outwardly a failure (no employment, no money, no prestige), but still be a success (ex. the artist who is happy with his/her life despite any impoverishment). This is, I think, part of why people like games. There is measurable success, there are clear rules, there are clear ways of improving and doing well, unlike life. Rank is similar in that there is a clear measure of success at what you are doing. People seem to have a (perhaps intrinsic) need for a validating measure. Rank is useful for hierarchy, but also useful for motivating people. Perhaps these factors are part of why the on-line games with a level-system (ex. EverQuest) have been seen to be so addictive.
Anyway, it's fantastic to have finally stepped into a full position, and out of that wierd crappy transient position known as a post-doc. However, for the first time in my life, there is no clear next step. Every previous position has been on the way to somewhere else. Now, my position is not necessarily on the way to somewhere else, this could be the end destination. Novozymes is a good company with a very low employee turn-over rate. I can work my way up to managing a research group, but, really, the realization that this is not on the way to something else is wierd to me. One fellow in the company, really smart guy, had worked his way up and was managing a large group and in line for going higher in the management. He took a look at what he liked doing and what he didn't like doing and he chose to step off that path, cut his group down to just a small handful of people and give himself some bench-time doing lab work rather than head up the management path.
I understand the choice and he's a really smart guy to have realized what was important to him. I'm not sure how many people would have been aware enough to have made that choice, which appears to be a down-grade of position but is what he is happier with... Hm. It's just odd for me, after being years on the path to somewhere else to find my self in a position that is within view of my end position.

041114 Davis, CA, USA
In danish, it is not just the occasional "e" that is left silent (like in english), but there are silent "d"s,"t"s, "k"s, and "g"s, too.

041113 Davis, CA, USA
Sometimes you overhear other people involved in an impressively inane conversation and think "Man, shoot me if I ever catch myself pointlessly talking like that. Other times you suddenly realize that *you* are involved in a pointless, inane converastion. Those random, pointless discussions serve a useful socital role; they are social "grease", an affirmation that both sides consider the other worth talking to. The only times these conversations become truely worthy of derision is when they have continued past the point of brief social validation.

041111 Davis, CA, USA
I'm sure reading about web code updates is even more dull than actually doing it, so I'll spare you the details. Suffice it to say, my bro', Eric, pointed out an article on CSS to me that did a really nice job of showing examples of table-free html code, using css. So here's the third overhaul of the site in a week.
Tweaking code makes for really dull blog entries, doesn't it?

041109 Davis, CA, USA
Ugh. It seems that every few years I end up having to re-teach myself the latest version of how to do things on the web... More code-errors found and squashed.

041107 Davis, CA, USA
Page problem found and corrected: it seems that FireFox/Mozilla/Netscape is much less understanding than IE about exactly where you put your "class" tags. I've now been forced to add "div" envelopes around every block of text so that I could add the "class" modifier to the "div" tag, rather than adding it to colspan tags. While this *is* strict adherence to the standards (not allowing calls or modifiers in places where the calls are not specified to be allowed), it is a pain. (My pal Brandon pointed this out.) IE rewards sloppy code by being more forgiving of sloppy code.
Anyway, FireFox/Mozilla/Netscape seems to not handle "colspan" commands too well anyway; I had to add the "valign" modifier to each "td" tag rather than just setting it through "colspan". This is a pain in the rear that I hope future versions of FireFox will correct.
Oh, also, I got a few friends together and had them toss out their opinions about the recent presidential election. You can take a look here, if you'd like. If you want to add your own comment to the Election Debate page, send me an email and I'll include your comments.

041104 Davis, CA, USA
This is the version of the page with which I'm test-posting. The place-holder stuff will be cleaned out and this whole thing will be updated over time. For now however, this is what's going out.

041102 Davis, CA, USA
OK, I've stayed up until 1 AM California time, watching the election results. The main conclusion I have drawn at this point is that (as of 1 am) I am deeply disappointed with approximately 56,136,310 of my fellow Americans. I expect this number will increase as the polls continue to come in.
Examining the breakdown of the votes and the electoral college weight of the votes, I'm forced to conclude that it was deeply unfortunate for the nation as a whole that we won the Civil War. Is it too late to let those states out of the Union?
I'm hoping more people will be able to keep the following quote in mind:
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
- Theodore Roosevelt
(PS the above quote was found by my friend Shula.)

041028 Davis, California USA
The election is coming and I hold little hope for Bush Jr. being unseated. His economic policies are damaging in both the short and the long term, his environmental policies are similarly damaging. His foreign policy adventures have cost the US staunch allies and are costing our military life and limb with no end in sight. Bush Sr. wrote an entire book explaining in detail why he did not go into Iraq when he was president. Those reasons held true when Jr. decided to go to war... When I said "go to war", I should have said "send US citizens to die"; Jr. knows that going to war is for suckers like Kerry or Bush Sr., not for Jr.
Still, minor annoyances like facts don't seem to be having much of an impact on Jr's policies or the likelihood of the voting public getting rid of Jr. The "rambo" mentality of simple solutions in a complex world seems to be a winning recipe, no matter how costly it is turning out to be.

041017 Davis, California USA
Hmm. It is and must be temporary, that my "community" is virtual. For now, this is an efficiency and a very useful step. It will greatly aid in maintaining a wider community and avoiding isolation while in transition, but there simply is no substitute for daily personal contact. No matter how successful my virtual community establishment is, it is virtual, not physical. The plain human need for some sort of contact with another live being is not met.
My current apartment is nearly under control. Computer supplies have been separated into "keep" and "donate" sets. Clothes are being sorted into "keep" and "goodwill" sets. Most books have been catalogued for sorting purposes and the last box has been opened and dumped out. As I look about the place, the only lack is art. The drifts of things can be neatly filed, organized or disposed, but I lack art. I noticed this lack first when looking at my web page efforts; without pictures, they were style-less and sterile. Now that the chaos of my apt has been brought under control, I am noticing that it, too, needs art to soften it and make it less sterile. I have art pieces, but they never moved to Utah with me and so they have not moved to Davis either. I really ought to reacquire my art pieces from storage. Furthermore, I must purchase appropriate display means for the art, once I have it. The silks need to be mounted and the pictures framed. These things I must no longer consider disposable. The chinese scholars, with their traveling cases for "scholar's stones" and such were right; a bit of art is needed to "soften" an environment and bring life into it.

040923 Davis, California USA
There can be a sort of clarity in chaos, a realization of where the center of the storm lies. I have been here-ish nearly three weeks. I know no one outside of work and I seek no one. I am not alone; I am free. Email and phone provide all the contact I need, without the demands of local friends. My energies go toward the future; setting up a web site as a contact source and touchstone for the future, learning danish, and cataloging what I have for the packing and unpacking of future moves. My books are all becoming EndNote references, my CDs are all mp3 files, my past is being transformed into website as I attempt to craft a virtual home. The only blot on my ongoing attempt to go virtual is the death of my Handspring Platinum PDA.
Before the move to Denmark, I should probably get an extra HD for my laptop to virtually carry even more of my life.
I'm thinking of setting up some sort of rotation schedule for contacting old friends; my community is only as far away as I let them move.

Page Last Modified: 2006 04 21, 08:26:24

 

 

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