I am such a geek.....

Which OS are You?

Welcome to the New World

Wow, but if this isn't going to be a fun century. The so-called developing world is starting to show new teeth . The World Court is gaining prominence, everywhere in the world, people are starting to show new life. Well, except for those parts which we seem to live in, or hear about. I mean, I expect to hear about "terrorism in every corner of the known world" from Fox, and "Bush's ability to destroy everything we love and hold dear" from some of the more liberal sites, but I have never seen a story on real construction and growth in any country outside of the West. (unless, of course, that growth was paid for and organized by groups of well-meaning pretty western people)

Its time we started getting our heads out of our asses. For too long, we've thought that the only way to 'solve the third-world problem' is to be good Samaritan and gift people with our wealth. Well, from the looks of it, it may well be the "developing world" that catches us in the end....

Hobbits found in Indonesia!

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=198867&page=1

Next, I'm sure we'll here an announcement that "a tall, grey bearded hominid has been found in bottom of large mine shaft, locked in eternal combat with a prehistoric horned hominid."

An ode to the bad

Quality. Its a word we hear all the time. "that's a good movie. They really know how to write. The song was incredible."

Well, I'm fed up with it. Its time for the invisible minority (thanks Caitlin, this term is amazing) of low-quality producers to speak up. Ed Wood is our unsung hero, and every cheesy cover band a candidate for saint-hood. Where are the B-movie producers of our day? Where are the people writing 25 cent science fiction, with Buxom Ladies as cover art? Where are the small town bar bards with the knowledge of only 1 chord and a song portfolio exhorting their tractors?

So therefore, I declare today, October 27th, Anti-Quality Day. Go rent Enter the Ninja. Read something from Heinlein's later works, or some Chick tracts. Take the time to pat your b-movie film director on the back, and say " thanks for adding more suck to the world."

Now, when I say bad, I'm not meaning vulgar bad (although often low quality stuff is vulgar as well, as South Park so aptly demonstrates) or even artsy bad. While these are both valid forms of suckiness, they often end up being second-rate bad. They don't have the same dedication to the terrible, the same deep-rooted enjoyment of bad, that only the truly "B-caliber" works have.

So I say: Rise Up! Fight the establishment, and Damn the Man for saying every artist must make art! Don't take the high-brow mockings of your "superiors"! Remember, they still need us to make them look good!

Less than 2 months. Must be a record

Two months back to school, and already I'm fed up with acedemia again. The "If you can't test it, kill it, or evaluate it, it ain't worth it" is getting really old. (and this isn't just the Natural Sciences. Far as I can tell, its a plague thats hit the entire damn world.)

Second, this idea that if I can't automatically translate thoughts into writing, I can't think. Hell, I'll expand this: the whole: if you haven't spent your entire life in an ivory tower, you can't contribute to the 'intelligent' dialog. Every day, I hear smart people pay lip service to democracy, then berate the "unwashed masses" for not listening to their pronouncements from on high. Now, I'll be the first to admit that there is a lot of stupid people out there. Far as I can tell, however, the proportion of imbeciles to useful people is exactly the same in the accedemic community as there is in the general public. The only difference is the access to information, and so many of the intellectual elite show no inclination to share unless the world comes begging to them for "expert advice".

Thirdly: What the hell ever happened to actually enjoying your subject, or even enjoying teaching your subject? Why are we letting people who seem to only be in the university to show off their intellectual dicks teach? They're there to just process as many people as they can, so only those who can bend to their methods slip through. They're like god damn prions: one gets bent wrong, and bends everyone else into the same shape. Where's our Darwins, our Einstiens, our Turings and our Northrop Fryes? Where are the educators who love the subjects so much, they can pass that on, they can hand that fire down to a new generation?

University seems to have become just one more fucking hurdle on the way to actual discovery, actual joy.

Well, there's my rant. I might have edited a bit more, but I'm pretty sure that only TJ is still reading this, and he's heard this rant from me before. Well, back to performing stupid human tricks for the PhD's.....

"I've brought a tiny marvel of nature: a single snowflake. I think we might all learn a lesson from how this utterly unique and exquisite crystal turns into an ordinary boring molecule of water just like every other one, when you bring it in the classroom. And now, while the analogy sinks in, I'll be leaving you drips and going outside."
- Calvin

Damn you Robert....

Why is it that every author that was inspired by Robert A. Heinlein chose to copy the crappy parts of his work? I mean, I love Heilein: his interesting politics, his exploration of the future through individuals rather than stereotypes, his ideas on future history and just goverment....

So I ask: why does every Heinlein-knockoff choose to copy the lunatic ravings and rampant group sex? Honestly, One man's facination with group sex, its a quirk. But if every third science fiction writer feels the need to copy it, you know they were getting the wrong ideas from Robert....

Wow

This is why I love science..... every time you think you have the world wrapped up in neat, easily understood package, you find something that drops you on your ass. Seeing the world through a microscope or a fossil can be amazingly humbling.

http://www.scienceart.nl/Frames/HOMEpage.htm
http://www.naturfotograf.com/UV_TRAG_PRA.html


"Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes, where we face it as free beings, admiring, asking and observing, there we enter the realm of art and science."
-Albert Einstein

2:48, lost and wandering

Why is it that the more friends I have, the further I feel from everyone? It feels sometimes like I've built a marble cast around myself, for people to view, without ever imagining that there was anything inside. It feels like every time I temper my thoughts to conform to what people want, another brick goes up. Maybe it's time for a change.


"The unexamined life is not worth living"
-Socrates

What do you do?

Yesterday, I found out about the death of a friend of mine. His name was George Bonsan, and he was father to two friends of mine who I used to be very close to. He made me feel like I was family, at a time when I was suffering a great deal, caught in the middle of my self-doubt and self-loathing.

I hadn't spoken to him in a year or so, but hearing about his death is ripping a hole in me I can't seem to fill. I guess I'm hoping writing about it will help me understand this.

Here's to you George, where ever you are.....

The poetry of the world

Well, I normally don't talk about this stuff, but since I'm relatively sure that almost no one will read this....

I fell in love with biology at an early age, probably because of my dad. My parents are two of my biggest heroes. They encouraged us to think and debate. It was from them that I got my love of argument, but it was from dad that I got my love of nature. He knows damn near all there is to know about prairie plants, and he loves sharing this stuff. He could have made the most amazing professor.... But I digress.

Anyway, as I was saying, I fell in love with biology. Not because there's a fortune in it, or because I really like looking smart. Its, more than anything, because when you really understand what Darwin and Mendel are saying, you start to see a larger glimpse of the world. You start to see yourself, less as an isolate, but more as something vital, a part of a Mosaic, woven throughout everything. No one is born, or dies. We are simply the crests of waves moving unseen across the world. Its like watching a picture draw itself, through starts and fits, never perfected, but always more beautiful.

Well, that was entirely incomprehensible, but I guess I'll post it anyways.... Its not like I make a great deal of sense any other time......

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having being originally breathed into a few forms, or one."
- Charles Darwin

My moment of zen

I just realized: the house next to ours has a door exiting onto its roof. Not a porch, or a deck, or a patio, but just a semi-flat part of the roof. It has to be the oddest thing I've seen all day. It's moments like this that remind me why it's never wise to take the world entirely seriously.


"this morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas.
How he got into my pajamas, I'll never know."
-Groucho Marx

Guilty pleasure

Its truly sad. Other people get guilty pleasure from doing things like eating chocolate, or smoking. Me, I go check out chick.com. It fills me with rage, but I still can't stop.

Maybe I can take up smoking crack to try and break the Chick cravings....

Lets see if this lasts any longer

Well, here goes my second try at creating a blog. Lets see if I'm any more ambitious about this one than the last....

I'm still suffering through studying for my bio lab test. I blame Carolus Linnaeus for all my suffering (mostly because he's dead, but also because he's the one who popularized naming creatures in a language that no one still speaks!) . Ah well, I shall soldier through.

Time to return to the wonderful world of algae....

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"

-Walt Whitman



Note: the following picture is posted so I don't have to use other people's page's bandwidth to display my user pic: