Not dead yet

Though yesterday I thought I would come close. I had some sort of flu or virus and ended up losing six pounds over 24 hours. For those who know me, that's a pretty big deal. I mean, I'm worried about lost brain matter at the moment, because I really don't have many other places to lose the weight. Chop off a foot, maybe, because that's about an equivalent amount.

Anyway, I'm feeling much better today, but still really weak and annoyed. I hate being sick, and Houston seems to have made it a much more regular occurrence than anywhere else I've lived. Damn dirty city and it's abhorrent air quality.

Haven't updated in a week

... and I don't know why, really. Lots has been going on, but I'm not really in a mood to recap. Let me just make this a promise to blog about the new things that are happening, then. And a recommendation to go see Thank You for Smoking. It was really good - entertaining and still made you think - and while I'm just about as anti-big tobacco as you can get, I can honestly say I don't think it was over the top in either direction.

So I'll try to blog about some more interesting stuff from now on. Lots is happening, though I'm beginning to wonder what to share and what to keep to myself, since I probably know most of the readers here, and certainly most of the regular readers. Site Meter is good for that, though it's still a guessing game.

Plaques for ridiculous things

This morning I got to read a letter originally sent to the principle investigator of my research project (Nanocars,(.pdf) as I've mentioned before) from the publishers of my first paper, the American Chemical Society, or just ACS. Among more than thirty other journals, they also publish the journal Nano Letters, where we submitted our paper in October. Apparently that article was downloaded more times in the two months it was available in 2005 than any other article in any other ACS publication for that entire year! Now that's just ridiculous. And so is the fact that I got a plaque because of that. Still, it's kindof cool, partly because I haven't gotten a plaque for anything in yearly 4 years, and partly because now there's something to hang on the walls in my office. Click on the pic for a higher-resolution image.

Good Weekend

Sunday was a great day. Went to an Aeros game with a bunch of people from BioE. The game itself was really great - down to the last 16 seconds in sudden death overtime and the home team won! It's obviously minor-league (not that I could even stay upright on ice-skates) but still a bunch of fun, especially with a rowdy crowd insulting the other team. I hope the goalie couldn't hear everything, or else has developed a very thick skin to that sort of thing, which he undoubtedly has. Still - funny as hell. A bit of pizza afterwards at Two Rows was a good time, as well.

Yesterday and today involves writing and revising a rough draft of another paper I'm putting together for publication. I'll get back in the lab eventually, I swear.

Lazy Saturday

Not much going on today. I sat out by the pool reading for about an hour - probably 15 minutes too long, judging by the pink hue of my chest. Still, it was perfect weather, so it was hard to come in. The TV's gone kaput - can't even call for a repair till Monday - so I'm doing more than just watching the tube all day, which is good. It's way too easy to just get sucked into a video game or show and throw away a perfectly good weekend.

There's a party tonight that roomie and I will probably go to, and it seems like it will be populated by a bunch of the people we saw out last night. Fun night all in all, but apparently I dodged a bullet since 3 or 4 people have come down with a stomache virus and been out of commission all day. Hooray for not being sick!

100th Post!!!

Throw me a party! Not that this is any great milestone, so I'm putting up something completely random from my early days online (1996, actually) just to show that the irrelevance of my postings hasn't changed in ten years.

An old man once stopped me on the street and asked where I thought I was going. After getting over the initial shock of this total stranger asking such a random and accusatory question, I replied "Home." He looked me straight in the eye and said,"Well, aren't we all?"

That's just something I wrote for an old, old webpage of mine in high school. I googled my pseudonym and found a bunch of this old crap. Gosh, I was a weird kid.

Hooray for the irrelevant 100th post!

Science and Intelligent Design, 1st Attempt

I have no problems with people who think the entire universe was created by some omnipotent being of extreme intelligence in his own image, as a big joke, or in any other way that we mere mortals can't possibly comprehend. It's a theory, and as a theory is just as valid as any other. It doesn't have nearly the supporting evidence or solid grounding in logic as other theories, including the theory of evolution, the theory of the big bang, or many other scientific theories, but then again its like calling a horse a man and trying to make it wear your pants. Okay, maybe not. But it is trying to get a belief-based theory to fit into the lexicon and framework of the scientific method - which is the exact antithesis of a belief-based system.

Beliefs have no place in a process that was specifically designed to eliminate them in favor of factual evidence. That's just the way it is - by definition. There is no inherent value-judgment placed on the scientific method, it was simply designed to do a specific thing for a specific goal, and it does so, by design, without allowance for different methods of interpretation. It is, itself, a strict method of interpreting and learning about the world we live in within a single, rigid framework. I happen to think about most of my world within that framework. I like the idea of being able to make predictions based on gathered data, evidence, and proven hypotheses, as it helps keep me healthy and alive better than any other framework I've considered.


What I do have a problem with is people like Johnny Hart, creator and author of the wildly popular and widely-syndicated comic B.C. While this comic is hardly the most annoying thing for a scientist to come across in the realm of the God vs. Science debates, (an issue that itself is annoyingly narrow-minded, but more on that later) it is yet another seemingly willful attempt to obfuscate and dilute the actual definition and meaning of science in favor of completely non-scientific views - an action that is aggravating not because it tries to undermine my own personal view of the universe, but because it seems to be based in the ignorant and intellectually lazy assumption that the scientific framework erodes the validity of any faith-based system. (Ask anyone who knows me. Almost nothing bugs me more than willfully ignorant people who don't think for themselves.) My main problem with the entire intelligent design push is that it tries to claim itself a position in scientific discourse, particularly in public schools. While its intellectual and philosophical merits may be debated, and I think they should be, it simply doesn't fit within the framework rigidly designed by the scientific method, and by the definition of such, the theory of intelligent design is not science.

A few summarizing points:

1. There is absolutely no need for Science and Belief to be mutually exclusive.
2. Things that have their foundations based completely on faith cannot be called science, simply by the definition of the terms.
3. Varying frameworks for the interpretation and understanding of reality can be logically argued against each other for their effectiveness in a particular task (e.g. the survival of the species,) but theories from varying frameworks can't. It's like trying to argue in two completely different languages, and is equally pointless. (This is the major problem that arises by trying to claim that one religion is the "right" religion.)

Unfortunately, while everyone that I know uses the basic world-view framework of the scientific method, even the most religious of my friends, the illogical and unpredictable aspects of human nature will always throw a monkey wrench in any attempts to live strictly by the scientific method, so the above three points are, themselves, effectively hopeless. That doesn't mean, however, that we shouldn't try to at least understand them.

Hump day

And it's not a bad one, all told. The weather's gorgeous, I've got a great sandwich leftover from yesterday for lunch (which means I won't be spending any money, too) and my boss is out of town. How could it get any better? Hmm... I'll work on it and let you know. In case you don't really know me, by far the greatest of the three things here is the boss being out of town. Hip-hip...

Delay is gone!

Thank God the man has finally stepped down. Delay is representative of the worst kind of poltician, and it's nice to know that sometimes things can be corrected even when they seem so far gone as to be nearly hopeless.

Weekend Update, Archibald Style

So Atlanta was a great time, albeit a bit too short. The CNN center on Saturday was a really neat experience. The tour shows you the actual news-room floors, and the live broadcasts going on below. It's definately a touristy approach, but is still lots of fun. Chris, Marley and I went through for the hour, as Aunt Sue wasn't up to the 8 floors of stairs we had to cover. She's doing a lot better than only a month ago, according to Chris, which is good to know, since she's still having a bit of discomfort with too much walking due to her bulging disks in her lower back. Oiy. The Georgia Aquarium was also a great time - my favorite part was the huge open-ocean tank at the end, with the absolutely gigantic (I'd guess about 100ft wide by 50ft high) clear acrylic viewing wall giving a fantastic panorama of the thousands of fish, and even the two whale-sharks. Awe-inspiring. Sunday was a lazy day reading and chilling by the hot-tub before I had to go pack and leave for the plane. A huge thanks to Chris for flying me out and back in business class - probably saving me at least an hour in the Atlanta airport and untold stress and leg-fatigue. Extra room on a flight is simply devine, especially for my 6'6" frame.

In Atlanta!

I got in yetsteday around 2 and went with Chris from the airport to grab a late lunch at Houston's. Ironic, or just good food? He then had some work to finish up so I got to see the his office and meet a bunch of coworkers, as well as get a quick tour of some of the radio and TV studio space. Pretty cool if you ask me. All I could think was that Emily would really appreciate a bunch of the stuff I saw, and even know what the hell most of it was. After that we headed home through some pretty bad traffic. Chris and Angela's house is fantastic. I've got the run of the basement "man cave," which is bigger than my entire place in Houston. Today we're planning on going to the aquarium, so that should be fun. Aunt Sue's doing much better, Marley's huge, and Chris and Angela both look and seem to be doing great. I don't want to be too antisocial so that's all for now.