Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Finals Week
I took the final for my graduate mathematics class on Tuesday. I have to say that taking a class with a full time job requires some dedication (that I didn’t always have). There were times I had to ask myself why exactly I was doing all this. To compound the situation, this stuff doesn’t come back easy. Sure, I’m very comfortable with math but this was the math course to end all others. After just one semester our final included topics on ordinary differential equations, complex analysis, partial differential equations, fourier analysis, tensors and linear algebra. I’ve taken most of these subjects as entirely separate classes, so to take one course with all of them thrown together 5 years out of school was… intense. It was a challenge though and I love a good intellectual challenge. This is all in preparation for a graduate degree in physics that I could earn on a part time basis. I really think I should have been a scientist so this is a way to ease back into it without nuking my engineering career and being broke. It is interesting and challenging which is what I was looking for. There is one thing I’ve notice though, Physics is definitely different from traditional engineering. It is much more formal with its mathematics and uses a broader more exotic swath of it. I like it.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Excellent Book
I just finished “The Greatest Show on Earth” by Richard Dawkins. It was a brilliant, tight, and crystal clear summary of the major scientific evidence in favor of the theory of evolution. It was entertaining and fascinating just as any book would be that aimed to describe the way in which ALL life on Earth developed. I enthusiastically recommend it to anyone interested in ideas and is curious about the biggest discovery in the history of all of the world. Seriously, I would think even vehement creationists would read it if only for the intellectual challenge of understating the theory, because it really is a beautiful theory.
It starts off with a very funny analogy. Dawkins compares his present predicament with that of a professor of Roman history. The professor is eager to talk about the various innovations of the Romans, their literature, art and engineering. He wants to talk about their beautiful language and complicated societies and history of their military and political dominance. Instead though, he finds that a very large group of people (politically and financially backed) come to his class and disrupt it by asking questions like “How can you be sure the Romans even existed?” He is forced to abandon his class and talk about the evidence for the past existence of the Romans. He says that although we cannot see Romans now, the evidence for them is overwhelming. The people in back disagree and think there are various other explanations for the pottery left behind in the ground. The romantic languages are similar only through coincidence and the roads left behind that crisscrossed Europe were always there. Sadly, the Professor agrees to write a book about why he is convinced Romans existed.
So there you have it. It’s a great book. I really and truly do not understand why some people are so passionately against this area of science. For thousands of years most religions have hinted at a vast inter connectivity between all things. Isn’t it amazing that it is true?
It starts off with a very funny analogy. Dawkins compares his present predicament with that of a professor of Roman history. The professor is eager to talk about the various innovations of the Romans, their literature, art and engineering. He wants to talk about their beautiful language and complicated societies and history of their military and political dominance. Instead though, he finds that a very large group of people (politically and financially backed) come to his class and disrupt it by asking questions like “How can you be sure the Romans even existed?” He is forced to abandon his class and talk about the evidence for the past existence of the Romans. He says that although we cannot see Romans now, the evidence for them is overwhelming. The people in back disagree and think there are various other explanations for the pottery left behind in the ground. The romantic languages are similar only through coincidence and the roads left behind that crisscrossed Europe were always there. Sadly, the Professor agrees to write a book about why he is convinced Romans existed.
So there you have it. It’s a great book. I really and truly do not understand why some people are so passionately against this area of science. For thousands of years most religions have hinted at a vast inter connectivity between all things. Isn’t it amazing that it is true?
400 years
Sarah bought a 15 dollar telescope and it’s been a blast to use. It was made for the International Year of Astronomy as a low-cost, high quality telescope to help celebrate the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first astronomical observations. Apparently she ordered it a while ago but it was sent to our old address, so I’m glad the present occupant contacted us. It came in a box all disassembled… and I don’t mean that a few parts weren’t attached. The actual lenses had to be sandwiched together and inserted. The focusing tube and main optical tube had be snapped together too. It was very interesting to literally put a telescope together, all the lenses inside are actually composite lenses, and it was fun lining them all up. The lens up in front is 2 inches wide and not bad at all for astronomical viewing. The eyepieces had smaller lenses that were more complicated to set up. There were two eyepiece types, one that simulated Galileo’s true telescope and one that was a little “better”.
The hardest part of using it is focusing it. It has a focusing tube that is held in place by a friction collar to the optical tube. You have to literally move it in and out to get the right focus, so no fine adjustment knob. I would apply force and get nothing until the whole thing shifted an abrupt half an inch ruining the image and hitting my eye. Ouch. I got better at it and eventually got it pretty sharp. Now I use a spin technique to get fine adjustments. Also, the image goes through 3 lens pairings so all the cues are reversed. That is surprisingly annoying to deal with.
So we put it on Sarah’s fancy tripod and started looking at stuff. It was great! We saw the 4 Galilean moons of Jupiter to start off with. Jupiter is out nice a bright in the southwestern sky so it was our first destination. The orb of Jupiter itself was way bigger than I thought it would be. I started thinking, hey this a pretty good telescope! There was no denying it, Jupiter is a planet. Last night however I went out a little longer, after my eyes adapted and I even saw one band of Jupiter! Of course the little moons had moved too, all strung out fireflies. I saw the faint haze of Orion’s Nebula and the moon looked absolutely amazing. I am inspired.
Viewing became even more difficult when I started using Galileo’s eyepiece. The viewing cues are correct but the field of view is pencil thin. It was humbling to see first hand what he went through. It must have been frustrating, not to mention he built his own telescope from vague reports of the original one built a year earlier… he even had to grind his own lenses. It is amazing to think this little instrument changed the world 400 years ago. In just that next year in 1610 Galileo published his Sidereus Nuncius, The Starry Messenger. He wrote about the phases of Venus, Jupiter’s moons and the mountain and crater shadows on the moon. He is accredited to be the father of modern science, something I think is so embedded in us we take it for granted. He was the first to differentiate science from philosophy and religion through 2 things. First, science and essentially everything in “the real world” can be modeled through mathematics that make predictions about future behavior. These models then are verified through experiment and can be revised to fit the experiments. This change in thinking “revolutionized” (hah) the world forever and I am glad I live AFTER that revolution. I hope this remains a time of reason.
The hardest part of using it is focusing it. It has a focusing tube that is held in place by a friction collar to the optical tube. You have to literally move it in and out to get the right focus, so no fine adjustment knob. I would apply force and get nothing until the whole thing shifted an abrupt half an inch ruining the image and hitting my eye. Ouch. I got better at it and eventually got it pretty sharp. Now I use a spin technique to get fine adjustments. Also, the image goes through 3 lens pairings so all the cues are reversed. That is surprisingly annoying to deal with.
So we put it on Sarah’s fancy tripod and started looking at stuff. It was great! We saw the 4 Galilean moons of Jupiter to start off with. Jupiter is out nice a bright in the southwestern sky so it was our first destination. The orb of Jupiter itself was way bigger than I thought it would be. I started thinking, hey this a pretty good telescope! There was no denying it, Jupiter is a planet. Last night however I went out a little longer, after my eyes adapted and I even saw one band of Jupiter! Of course the little moons had moved too, all strung out fireflies. I saw the faint haze of Orion’s Nebula and the moon looked absolutely amazing. I am inspired.
Viewing became even more difficult when I started using Galileo’s eyepiece. The viewing cues are correct but the field of view is pencil thin. It was humbling to see first hand what he went through. It must have been frustrating, not to mention he built his own telescope from vague reports of the original one built a year earlier… he even had to grind his own lenses. It is amazing to think this little instrument changed the world 400 years ago. In just that next year in 1610 Galileo published his Sidereus Nuncius, The Starry Messenger. He wrote about the phases of Venus, Jupiter’s moons and the mountain and crater shadows on the moon. He is accredited to be the father of modern science, something I think is so embedded in us we take it for granted. He was the first to differentiate science from philosophy and religion through 2 things. First, science and essentially everything in “the real world” can be modeled through mathematics that make predictions about future behavior. These models then are verified through experiment and can be revised to fit the experiments. This change in thinking “revolutionized” (hah) the world forever and I am glad I live AFTER that revolution. I hope this remains a time of reason.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Food
It’s official, I love food. I thought I just liked it a lot, but after really talking with people, I think I love it. I love going to grocery stores, I love cooking food, smelling food and finally eating food. My meals are one of the highlights of my day. Food is one of those special ways we interface with the world and with nature. If you think about it, most everything we eat was at one point alive, therefore eating is an especially rewarding communion with nature. As we nestle away in our buildings and sit in front of our computers for the better part of our lives, it’s nice to think about one of our last remaining portals to the natural world.
So naturally I’ve been cooking more lately and I’ve been enjoying it immensely. It’s funny… when I cook, everything kind of melts aware. Work worries evaporate away in sautés. The smell of onions and sizzling steak put to shame the recycled air of the office. The sound of sizzling is more stimulating than that of telecons.
I’m amazed to hear that people don’t like the cuisines of entire countries. Indian? Chinese? Mediterranean and Thai? I remember the exact restaurants I first had most of these, most were in Boston. The experience was as thrilling to me as walking out into that country personally. It was seared into my brain. Ok enough with the bad puns.
So yeah, I love food. What do I hate? I hate rushing through meals, overcooked food, ground beef and potato salad. I consider potato salad a form of prison food. It is bland, mostly condiment and often served cold. It is the most disgusting food I have ever eaten and I’ve had boiled chicken feet, cow tongue and eel liver soup. As for ground beef, beef is too perfect a meat to be treated in such a horribly demeaning way. Ground beef in the grocery store is a horrible cocktail of animal fat and a few dozen cow scraps. If I need ground beef for some unforeseen reason, I’m going to ask butcher to grind a roast.
My favorite foods? That’s REALLY hard to say. For some reason eggplant parmesan is amazing to me, it is my comfort food. I used to eat eggplant parm subs all the time in college. I love Jamaican jerk chicken, conch fritters from Belize as well as their coconut ice cream. The food in Belize by the way blew me away. Indian food is amazing as well as Mediterranean. Japanese food is great too but after going to Japan I’ve had both the best food I’ve had in my entire life and the strangest. The single best bite of food I’ve had in my entire life is a piece of toro (fatty tuna) in Kyoto. Sarah videotaped me eating it. It was food nirvana, my entire head was a taste bud.
So naturally I’ve been cooking more lately and I’ve been enjoying it immensely. It’s funny… when I cook, everything kind of melts aware. Work worries evaporate away in sautés. The smell of onions and sizzling steak put to shame the recycled air of the office. The sound of sizzling is more stimulating than that of telecons.
I’m amazed to hear that people don’t like the cuisines of entire countries. Indian? Chinese? Mediterranean and Thai? I remember the exact restaurants I first had most of these, most were in Boston. The experience was as thrilling to me as walking out into that country personally. It was seared into my brain. Ok enough with the bad puns.
So yeah, I love food. What do I hate? I hate rushing through meals, overcooked food, ground beef and potato salad. I consider potato salad a form of prison food. It is bland, mostly condiment and often served cold. It is the most disgusting food I have ever eaten and I’ve had boiled chicken feet, cow tongue and eel liver soup. As for ground beef, beef is too perfect a meat to be treated in such a horribly demeaning way. Ground beef in the grocery store is a horrible cocktail of animal fat and a few dozen cow scraps. If I need ground beef for some unforeseen reason, I’m going to ask butcher to grind a roast.
My favorite foods? That’s REALLY hard to say. For some reason eggplant parmesan is amazing to me, it is my comfort food. I used to eat eggplant parm subs all the time in college. I love Jamaican jerk chicken, conch fritters from Belize as well as their coconut ice cream. The food in Belize by the way blew me away. Indian food is amazing as well as Mediterranean. Japanese food is great too but after going to Japan I’ve had both the best food I’ve had in my entire life and the strangest. The single best bite of food I’ve had in my entire life is a piece of toro (fatty tuna) in Kyoto. Sarah videotaped me eating it. It was food nirvana, my entire head was a taste bud.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Books
I just finished a book called “Rocket Men” and it was pretty good. I would describe it as a wonderful jumble of anecdotes.. and I do mean jumble. I like it, I really do, but it is completely schizophrenic. The author jumps wildly as he describes various parts of the program, the astronauts and the hardware of Apollo. Seriously, I think the author fell into a synclastic infundibulum in the 60s and just started writing. (Any Vonnegut fans out there?) Anyway, it was still good and I finished it because I’m determined to start finishing books. My former self may not have. He did do a good job of finding quotes from Neil and Buzz. It was amazing to read how they described the lunar dust as smelling like ashes from a freshly put out fire and how the lunar module jolted and bucked while it guided itself to lunar orbit. There are many more anecdotes like that that made it worth it. Overall the book helps to answer that question that we all ask but NEVER get a good answer from astronauts… what did it feel like to go up into space?
It was good to read a book glorifying space travel for a change. The press seems to be so negative about it lately, or I might just be sensitive about it. The thing about space travel is that it forces us to build basically perfect machines. Nothing else does this. Our cars are very reliable but if they break it is no big deal, we pull over and call a tow. Planes however are manufactured to a much higher tolerance and have much more redundancy. They simply have to be made better. The parts are looked at through x ray machines and tolerances are phenomenal. This is because if a plane breaks you are in trouble, you’ll have to land or you might die. Now spaceships are yet a whole other level. They are incredibly expensive because they are much more complex AND they have to be for all definitions perfect. If it breaks, then you almost certainly die. The outcome is hardware that is only beat in perfection by nature herself. Like some unnamed government official said during the launch of Apollo 11, if just a sliver of this engineering perfection makes its way into the industrial sector, it will have paid for itself. If that is not a practical reason for a spaceflight program, an R&D program that produces historic achievements, I don’t know what is.
All that being said I’m not in it for the practical reasons.
I've started a few more books including a cooking book by Alton Brown. It's awesome. He describes EVERYTHING about cooking. How does frying "work" on the food? What really happens when you cook meat? And how can you use all of this knowledge to become a master chef. It's the difference between just doing a recipe and understanding how that recipe came to be. It is for the curious.
It was good to read a book glorifying space travel for a change. The press seems to be so negative about it lately, or I might just be sensitive about it. The thing about space travel is that it forces us to build basically perfect machines. Nothing else does this. Our cars are very reliable but if they break it is no big deal, we pull over and call a tow. Planes however are manufactured to a much higher tolerance and have much more redundancy. They simply have to be made better. The parts are looked at through x ray machines and tolerances are phenomenal. This is because if a plane breaks you are in trouble, you’ll have to land or you might die. Now spaceships are yet a whole other level. They are incredibly expensive because they are much more complex AND they have to be for all definitions perfect. If it breaks, then you almost certainly die. The outcome is hardware that is only beat in perfection by nature herself. Like some unnamed government official said during the launch of Apollo 11, if just a sliver of this engineering perfection makes its way into the industrial sector, it will have paid for itself. If that is not a practical reason for a spaceflight program, an R&D program that produces historic achievements, I don’t know what is.
All that being said I’m not in it for the practical reasons.
I've started a few more books including a cooking book by Alton Brown. It's awesome. He describes EVERYTHING about cooking. How does frying "work" on the food? What really happens when you cook meat? And how can you use all of this knowledge to become a master chef. It's the difference between just doing a recipe and understanding how that recipe came to be. It is for the curious.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Math Class
I've started taking a math class and it's fun. Yeah I know that's nerdy but what can I say? I can't hide from it. Heck, I have two degrees from a notoriously technical university and work as an engineer in the aerospace industry. To be yourself is all that you can do.
So I was thinking, math is spooky. It is spooky how universal it is. It describes literally everything. The movements of stars, the behavior of light, the development of life, and the production of hurricanes. The whole shebang. I mean think about it, if you write a computer simulation about something in reality and it models it perfectly, what is the difference? It's like that story of the tribesman who got scared when you took their picture because they thought you were stealing their soul. Well seeing the math behind something is like that, it's like stealing its soul.
I started reading Penrose's epic physics tome "The Road to Reality". The first part is a little metaphysical but he basically divides reality into 3 parts; the mind, the physical world, and the abstract mathematical world. They are all connected in a very strange and nested way. It's like the self eating snakes Plato talked about called the Ouroboros. Plato used it as a symbol for something that kept re-creating itself in such a way that it was eternal. It does actually seem that way. The mind is a subset or part of the physical world. And the mathematical world is a part of the mind. But then the physical world seems to be a manifestation of the mathematical world.
What does that mean? Who knows. Maybe they are all connected in a deeper way we can't really see. Maybe they are all the same thing.
So I was thinking, math is spooky. It is spooky how universal it is. It describes literally everything. The movements of stars, the behavior of light, the development of life, and the production of hurricanes. The whole shebang. I mean think about it, if you write a computer simulation about something in reality and it models it perfectly, what is the difference? It's like that story of the tribesman who got scared when you took their picture because they thought you were stealing their soul. Well seeing the math behind something is like that, it's like stealing its soul.
I started reading Penrose's epic physics tome "The Road to Reality". The first part is a little metaphysical but he basically divides reality into 3 parts; the mind, the physical world, and the abstract mathematical world. They are all connected in a very strange and nested way. It's like the self eating snakes Plato talked about called the Ouroboros. Plato used it as a symbol for something that kept re-creating itself in such a way that it was eternal. It does actually seem that way. The mind is a subset or part of the physical world. And the mathematical world is a part of the mind. But then the physical world seems to be a manifestation of the mathematical world.
What does that mean? Who knows. Maybe they are all connected in a deeper way we can't really see. Maybe they are all the same thing.
Friday, August 14, 2009
The Terror
I just finished reading Dan Simmon’s epic The Terror. I consider it a feat to complete any book north of 700 pages! Needless to say, any book that keeps my interest for the long is epic. I loved this book. It was just the right blend of dreary macabre and introspective torment I’ve loved in the horror genre. This may sound crazy but horror is a great literary vehicle to reach true depth.
This by the way was a fascinating blend of history and the supernatural. Simmons chose to recount the experiences of the HMS Erebus and Terror while on their fateful journey through arctic wastelands in search of the Northwest Passage. They were iced in and subsequently spent a grueling few years at the edge of the world with very little provisions and competent leadership. The author adds to their misery but injecting a horrible “bear – like” creature that methodically stalks and terrorizes them. Through the entire book we are really never sure if the thing is just some crazed polar bear or something else entirely but amazingly you end up not caring. The true terrors and evil in the book are wrapped up in the unimaginably hostile environment and the relationships among the crew. The final mutiny and fracture of the crew are where the true horrors surface. This all sounds dark and hopeless but in the end I considered the book weirdly inspirational.
So, this “thing on the ice” is basically indestructible and endlessly able to resist detection. It gets a little old as it mercilessly devours members of the crew so when one man manages to escape from it after MUCH effort, it is moving. These men are forced to endure bitter cold, starvation, scurvy, an evil bear demon, and endless work as they abandon ship and haul their boats all around the arctic circle. I think it is these extraordinary circumstances that Simmons uses to show how noble and inspiring the human spirit can be and simultaneously into what horrible depths it can plummet. And towards the end of the book you realize hell is not that starving wasteland and the devil is not that thing on the ice.
This by the way was a fascinating blend of history and the supernatural. Simmons chose to recount the experiences of the HMS Erebus and Terror while on their fateful journey through arctic wastelands in search of the Northwest Passage. They were iced in and subsequently spent a grueling few years at the edge of the world with very little provisions and competent leadership. The author adds to their misery but injecting a horrible “bear – like” creature that methodically stalks and terrorizes them. Through the entire book we are really never sure if the thing is just some crazed polar bear or something else entirely but amazingly you end up not caring. The true terrors and evil in the book are wrapped up in the unimaginably hostile environment and the relationships among the crew. The final mutiny and fracture of the crew are where the true horrors surface. This all sounds dark and hopeless but in the end I considered the book weirdly inspirational.
So, this “thing on the ice” is basically indestructible and endlessly able to resist detection. It gets a little old as it mercilessly devours members of the crew so when one man manages to escape from it after MUCH effort, it is moving. These men are forced to endure bitter cold, starvation, scurvy, an evil bear demon, and endless work as they abandon ship and haul their boats all around the arctic circle. I think it is these extraordinary circumstances that Simmons uses to show how noble and inspiring the human spirit can be and simultaneously into what horrible depths it can plummet. And towards the end of the book you realize hell is not that starving wasteland and the devil is not that thing on the ice.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Lunch
This is a pretty mundane post to follow up my last but I've decided to start posting more. The new house has a great kitchen and it has inspired me to cook more. Lunch today also did.
I had a Caribbean jerk chicken sandwich for lunch today and it S U C K E D. It was described as a Caribbean jerk chicken Sandwich with black beans and banana mustard on a multigrain bun. Sounds exotic and interesting right? Filled with all kinds of tangy spices and flavors? Sounds like it would add some zing to this engineer’s desk job? Transport him to the island of sun and reggae?
It was the biggest bun of suck I’ve ever had to eat.
The chicken was in big chunks, VERY cold (think ice cube cold) and barely covered with a kind of jerk sauce. By barely I mean I could only taste the sauce my dipping my finger into the drops that fell off the sandwich into my tray. This chicken made deli meat taste like filet mignon. In fact, I’d rather have eaten expired sliced ham.
The roll it was on was way too big, extra dry and bland beyond belief. It had the consistency more of a fabric and I think I remember hearing the sound of fabric ripping as I bit through each pitiful bite. The experience was like taking giant bites of a bready brick that tasted like sand.
The only interesting thing was the “banana mustard” which just tasted exactly like mashed bananas with no mustard. I was lucky enough to taste the banana mash once every 5 bites. Those tiny bursts of flavor were torture. They made me realize there was a world out there of tastes and warm food. I think the coldness of the sandwich made my tongue go numb, that or I had probably swallowed it along with all my taste buds upon starting this suck-wich.
I give it a 3 out of 10. It has 1 point because it was completely cooked and the bread was not rotten. It gets 2 points because I was no longer hungry after completing the sandwich.
I had a Caribbean jerk chicken sandwich for lunch today and it S U C K E D. It was described as a Caribbean jerk chicken Sandwich with black beans and banana mustard on a multigrain bun. Sounds exotic and interesting right? Filled with all kinds of tangy spices and flavors? Sounds like it would add some zing to this engineer’s desk job? Transport him to the island of sun and reggae?
It was the biggest bun of suck I’ve ever had to eat.
The chicken was in big chunks, VERY cold (think ice cube cold) and barely covered with a kind of jerk sauce. By barely I mean I could only taste the sauce my dipping my finger into the drops that fell off the sandwich into my tray. This chicken made deli meat taste like filet mignon. In fact, I’d rather have eaten expired sliced ham.
The roll it was on was way too big, extra dry and bland beyond belief. It had the consistency more of a fabric and I think I remember hearing the sound of fabric ripping as I bit through each pitiful bite. The experience was like taking giant bites of a bready brick that tasted like sand.
The only interesting thing was the “banana mustard” which just tasted exactly like mashed bananas with no mustard. I was lucky enough to taste the banana mash once every 5 bites. Those tiny bursts of flavor were torture. They made me realize there was a world out there of tastes and warm food. I think the coldness of the sandwich made my tongue go numb, that or I had probably swallowed it along with all my taste buds upon starting this suck-wich.
I give it a 3 out of 10. It has 1 point because it was completely cooked and the bread was not rotten. It gets 2 points because I was no longer hungry after completing the sandwich.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Life
I decided a long time ago not to make this blog too personal. Well, there are some things in one's life that you just cannot hide, nor would you want to. They are wonderful things that have the power to change you, mold you and in a sense, redirect you. It's an amazing time for me and I thought I'd like to share.
So here are a few of them.
I married the love of my life two months ago. It was a beautiful day and it has quickly seated itself as one of my happiest memories. A simple thought back to that day and everything else pales. Strangely it comes to me only in bright and emotional bursts like only my most cherished memories do. They are full of wonderful flashes of family and friends, love and laughter, and of course my beautiful bride. I will hold on to them dearly and can't wait to add to them.
We are also about to buy a new house. It is our first house and we have seen it built from the ground up. It's been a long time but tomorrow we go to close on it. It's hard to believe it is almost ours! Especially for me because my family did not have alot of money growing up. I lived with my grandparents and various houses as a child. In fact, I clearly remember thinking I wanted to buy a "nice brick house with central air and heat". Well it has happened and to top it off, my wife and I get to start our lives together in it.
I also changed my job earlier in the year. I moved to a group that I thought I might be able to grow into better. There are transition issues as with anything but nothing too serious. It is challenging and interesting and somewhere where I could be allowed to fully pursue my technical interests.
I am not a religious man but I am spiritual, and I am thankful.
So here are a few of them.
I married the love of my life two months ago. It was a beautiful day and it has quickly seated itself as one of my happiest memories. A simple thought back to that day and everything else pales. Strangely it comes to me only in bright and emotional bursts like only my most cherished memories do. They are full of wonderful flashes of family and friends, love and laughter, and of course my beautiful bride. I will hold on to them dearly and can't wait to add to them.
We are also about to buy a new house. It is our first house and we have seen it built from the ground up. It's been a long time but tomorrow we go to close on it. It's hard to believe it is almost ours! Especially for me because my family did not have alot of money growing up. I lived with my grandparents and various houses as a child. In fact, I clearly remember thinking I wanted to buy a "nice brick house with central air and heat". Well it has happened and to top it off, my wife and I get to start our lives together in it.
I also changed my job earlier in the year. I moved to a group that I thought I might be able to grow into better. There are transition issues as with anything but nothing too serious. It is challenging and interesting and somewhere where I could be allowed to fully pursue my technical interests.
I am not a religious man but I am spiritual, and I am thankful.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Speed and Innovation
I bought yet another video game for the PS3 the other day. It’s called Killzone 2 and it is amazingly fun. One thing that blew me away were the graphics. Now, these are good, some of the cut CG scenes look like reality… but better. Like a brighter more dramatically and visually stunning reality. I am floored by the progress in the video game industry. It’s programmers are running neck and neck with computer hardware processing power and speed. They create an incredibly complex simulation complete with physics and artificial intelligence. They are free to imagine any world they wish, any game mechanic, any situation as long as it sells. No limitations. It’s only going to get better. If I could invest, it would be in this industry. The game I bought was developed for about 30 million dollars. Someday soon, it will rival the movie industry. Even in this economic climate, the game industry has only expanded.
Anyway it got me thinking about computers and the electronics industry in general. There is just no stopping it, the progress in this field is blistering. There are no checks, it’s just the free market running like crazy. No government agency to say this or this is unsafe. No entity to monitor anything really. I mean electronics may control critical things but the electronics industry itself has no resistance from anything. Other high tech industries do… Aerospace and Medical for instance.
Over simplified maybe but that’s the idea. So what is the future full of? Doctors? Pilots? Engineers?
Programmers.
Anyway it got me thinking about computers and the electronics industry in general. There is just no stopping it, the progress in this field is blistering. There are no checks, it’s just the free market running like crazy. No government agency to say this or this is unsafe. No entity to monitor anything really. I mean electronics may control critical things but the electronics industry itself has no resistance from anything. Other high tech industries do… Aerospace and Medical for instance.
Over simplified maybe but that’s the idea. So what is the future full of? Doctors? Pilots? Engineers?
Programmers.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Nightmares and Dreamscapes
My most recurring nightmare is being stranding submerged in the darkness of the deep ocean. I am terrified not because I cannot breath but because I am in a strange environment. I look around and can see deep into the nothingness, there is only a faint glow of bluish sunlight . That and one other thing is there with me, the shadows. Huge shadows roam about, slow and steady below me, below me and away from light. It paralyzes me with amazing fear. They are alien. Not ET alien, ET is a known, seen it a thousand times. No, it’s not a whale or even a menacing shark but it’s something else. All I can see are it’s huge eyes, dead and unblinking.
It gets closer.
Closer and I feel it against my feet. It’s skin is thick and rough. There is nowhere to go, and I try desperately to implode out of my skin. I want to leave. There is a real world out there, and it’s full of light and smiles, not dead eyes and darkness. It’s pulling me further down. The light is gone. It is completely black around me. The blackness of space and nothingness. I wish it was space but I know they are all around me. Another bumps into me, uncaringly, unknowingly.
And I wake up.
These are my subconscious fears and terrors. But what is it really? It’s fear of the unknown. But what is really known? Think of the cuttlefish. Cute name but completely and utterly alien.
The cuttlefish looks like Martian sea life. It even has greenish blue blood. This is because it uses copper to transport oxygen instead of iron like we do in our hemoglobin. It has three hearts, two pump blood to its two gills and another to the rest of the body. It’s eye is totally different from all vertebrates, pursuing its own independent line of evolution. It focuses not by reshaping the lens (like us) but reshaping the entire eye like the focus of a camera. They can change to almost any color, mimic any pattern (even dynamic ones) and imitate even texture. They are very intelligent (by product of the brain power needed to run the skin colors) and can learn from conditioning, even through observation.
Next month we go diving in the Caribbean waters off Belize. I am both excited and terrified. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Miracles
If you think about it, the most interesting place in the solar system is… Earth, hands down. It is home to to a level complexity and organization that is simply unfathonable. I mean compared to the deserts of Mars or the clouds of Jupiter, Earth is like finding a jumbo jet full of ipods in the middle of the Sahara. (Another amazing thing is is it got there because that’s just what sand does given enough time, but I’ll talk more about that later.)
That analogy doesn’t do it justice though, not in the slightest. Biolgical diversity and complexity is.. well it’s unreal. Your brain alone has… get this.. no you can’t, and neither can I but it’s 500 trillion connections. The number is higher at a younger age topping 1*10^15 or 1 quadrillion connections at age 3. This number is over 71 thousand times the age of the universe in years. And that’s the age of well, everything. And it’s more than the number of stars in our galaxy. 10,000 times the number of stars in our galaxy.
We are each a miracle in the truest sense of the word.
That analogy doesn’t do it justice though, not in the slightest. Biolgical diversity and complexity is.. well it’s unreal. Your brain alone has… get this.. no you can’t, and neither can I but it’s 500 trillion connections. The number is higher at a younger age topping 1*10^15 or 1 quadrillion connections at age 3. This number is over 71 thousand times the age of the universe in years. And that’s the age of well, everything. And it’s more than the number of stars in our galaxy. 10,000 times the number of stars in our galaxy.
We are each a miracle in the truest sense of the word.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Science as ephiphany
Ok, I've decided to start posting to this blog again! I got a new iphone so I've been in a very social media kind of mood.
I'm a nerd and proud of it. I bought a DVD of a lecture by Richard Dawkins done in 1991. I saw the first hour of it this evening and it was very good. It's called Growing Up in the Universe and is part of an annual series of Oxford Christmas lectures given first by Faraday. He used the term growing up in the universe to refer both to humanity's evolution over millions of years and to our own personal understanding of science and nature. He does a great job in conveying the wonder of the natural world. He even starts out by using a surprisingly effective metaphor with what else but my favorite man made object... a space ship.
He says imagine stepping into a spaceship bound for some far off star system. You'd go into a freeze or sleep for millions of years and then step out onto the surface of an alien planet. But behold, the planet is brimming with life... countless plants and animals. Birds and fish and all types of extraordinary wildlife. Well, that's kind of like what has happened here, with us. We have been asleep for millions of years only to wake up to a beautiful world. It really is amazing and in all too short a time we have to close our eyes again. How lucky we are to see it, don't you think?
I'm a nerd and proud of it. I bought a DVD of a lecture by Richard Dawkins done in 1991. I saw the first hour of it this evening and it was very good. It's called Growing Up in the Universe and is part of an annual series of Oxford Christmas lectures given first by Faraday. He used the term growing up in the universe to refer both to humanity's evolution over millions of years and to our own personal understanding of science and nature. He does a great job in conveying the wonder of the natural world. He even starts out by using a surprisingly effective metaphor with what else but my favorite man made object... a space ship.
He says imagine stepping into a spaceship bound for some far off star system. You'd go into a freeze or sleep for millions of years and then step out onto the surface of an alien planet. But behold, the planet is brimming with life... countless plants and animals. Birds and fish and all types of extraordinary wildlife. Well, that's kind of like what has happened here, with us. We have been asleep for millions of years only to wake up to a beautiful world. It really is amazing and in all too short a time we have to close our eyes again. How lucky we are to see it, don't you think?
Sunday, February 1, 2009
25 Things about me
1. I could not speak until I was 3 and doctors thought I had a learning disability. When I did start talking it was in full sentences… the first being, “Mom can I have some green beans?”
2. My earliest memory is when I was 7 months old. My mom took me to a new mother’s class at the community health center and I remember the projector and images on the wall. My memory is of a giant cone of light with ghostly women and babies in the air.
3. I am the first person in my family to earn a 4 year degree.
4. The only sport I ever played in was basketball my freshman year of high school, it was a total failure.
5. I was suspected of somehow faking my grades in high school. My first year had perfect scores on every test in every class for the entire year.
6. I’m allergic to bubble bath.
7. I have a pilot’s license and would have pursued one no matter the cost or impracticality of it.
8. I read non-fiction almost exclusively.
9. I lived in subsidized housing for part of my childhood. My mom’s rent was 23 dollars per month at one point.
10. I never close the window on a commercial flight.
11. I helped my mom study for her nursing exams at age 5. I surprised her by remembering the latin names of the anatomy parts she said out loud.
12. I entered a gifted and talented program in middle school. The entrance test was unlike any I had taken and remember describing it as “fun”.
13. I have both undergraduate and graduate degrees from MIT. It was the perfect school for me. I was accepted early and never considered another school.
14. I earned a phlebotomy license (technician who draw blood) and trained to be an EMT in high school.
15. I consider my curiosity to be my most defining characteristic.
16. I haven’t seen my father in 16 years.
17. I find learning to be spiritually satisfying.
18. I love NBA basketball.
19. I’ve never broken a bone.
20. I’m a big fan of horror movies.
21. I don’t understand people who dismiss the cuisine of entire countries.. ie Chinese, Indian.. etc.
22. I hate hate hate potato salad, and to a lesser extent coleslaw.
23. I’m an unabashed music snob. Life is too short for musical potato salad.
24. After talking with people at NASA, I didn’t love Star Trek that much.
25. My most common nightmares are being deep underwater or in a disabled spaceship.
2. My earliest memory is when I was 7 months old. My mom took me to a new mother’s class at the community health center and I remember the projector and images on the wall. My memory is of a giant cone of light with ghostly women and babies in the air.
3. I am the first person in my family to earn a 4 year degree.
4. The only sport I ever played in was basketball my freshman year of high school, it was a total failure.
5. I was suspected of somehow faking my grades in high school. My first year had perfect scores on every test in every class for the entire year.
6. I’m allergic to bubble bath.
7. I have a pilot’s license and would have pursued one no matter the cost or impracticality of it.
8. I read non-fiction almost exclusively.
9. I lived in subsidized housing for part of my childhood. My mom’s rent was 23 dollars per month at one point.
10. I never close the window on a commercial flight.
11. I helped my mom study for her nursing exams at age 5. I surprised her by remembering the latin names of the anatomy parts she said out loud.
12. I entered a gifted and talented program in middle school. The entrance test was unlike any I had taken and remember describing it as “fun”.
13. I have both undergraduate and graduate degrees from MIT. It was the perfect school for me. I was accepted early and never considered another school.
14. I earned a phlebotomy license (technician who draw blood) and trained to be an EMT in high school.
15. I consider my curiosity to be my most defining characteristic.
16. I haven’t seen my father in 16 years.
17. I find learning to be spiritually satisfying.
18. I love NBA basketball.
19. I’ve never broken a bone.
20. I’m a big fan of horror movies.
21. I don’t understand people who dismiss the cuisine of entire countries.. ie Chinese, Indian.. etc.
22. I hate hate hate potato salad, and to a lesser extent coleslaw.
23. I’m an unabashed music snob. Life is too short for musical potato salad.
24. After talking with people at NASA, I didn’t love Star Trek that much.
25. My most common nightmares are being deep underwater or in a disabled spaceship.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
A Different Time
Sarah’s brother gave me the most interesting book for Christmas. It is entitled The Manhattan Project and is composed of various outtakes from history books, primary sources and first hand accounts. It’s all arranged in a vaguely chronological order and is incredibly readable. I even find myself remarking to Sarah after each entry in absolute amazement. My present job is arguably lacking in innovation and creativity so it’s amazing to hear about this amazing development environment. In fact many things I do have been heavily documented and done by many people for many DECADES, so it’s crazy to hear about people thinking up stuff and racing about to make hardware. This is the environment I had always dreamed I’d be in and it’s ironic that it existed in its purest form while creating the first atomic weapon. Despite any moral objections you may have to the project’s ultimate goal the sheer scale and success of the whole thing is a good study in what people can achieve. The management of the whole effort is astounding but the people themselves I think were the reason for its ultimate success. Sure they were given lots of money and political backing but everyone in particular performed outstandingly. From what I can tell everyone was given a project or task they could not immediately see how to complete.. almost everything they did was a first. There is even one story of a woman who created only finely woven quartz bands and was one day asked to work on an a wartime project in an unknown location. She had no idea what she’d be doing or where but she took it and was asked to design and fabricate a micro-measurement scale. She was scared to death, had never even designed anything much less made jigs and used metal working equip … and she did it. They all did. They went from theory in 1938 to a reacting nuclear pile underneath Stagg Field at the U of Chicago in 1942. This reacting pile was created in one of the densest parts of the country and the only assurance that it wouldn’t detonate were the calculations by Fermi himself. To go from that primitive pile of uranium to a bomb in 1945 is beyond belief. This was only after incredible amounts of ambitious and revolutionary engineering on all known fronts… be it chemical, mechanical, electrical and nuclear.
I can’t help to think how exciting the whole thing must have been.. to have been galvanized for a purpose and to work with some of the greatest minds in the country. An article by Feynman talks about how they all worked so well together. It’s funny because you’d think egos and personalities would quickly fuss things up in a room literally full of Nobel laureates. That wasn’t the case, after lengthy discussions he says the entire room would often come to the same conclusions. Self managing groups.. amazing. I guess when you have an ultimate goal in mind, and everybody can “run with the pack” so to speak, great strides can be made.
The way the all talk about it, the labs were bristling with new ideas, revolutionary ideas and they were quickly implementing them… on the scale of DAYS. I wonder if we will see a time like that again, hopefully for a more inspiring purpose.
I can’t help to think how exciting the whole thing must have been.. to have been galvanized for a purpose and to work with some of the greatest minds in the country. An article by Feynman talks about how they all worked so well together. It’s funny because you’d think egos and personalities would quickly fuss things up in a room literally full of Nobel laureates. That wasn’t the case, after lengthy discussions he says the entire room would often come to the same conclusions. Self managing groups.. amazing. I guess when you have an ultimate goal in mind, and everybody can “run with the pack” so to speak, great strides can be made.
The way the all talk about it, the labs were bristling with new ideas, revolutionary ideas and they were quickly implementing them… on the scale of DAYS. I wonder if we will see a time like that again, hopefully for a more inspiring purpose.
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