I have a number of appellations, and I think the origins of all of them are interesting:
Khayah Delaine Brookes is the name given to me by my mother. She chose my forename years before I was born, when she read in article that mentioned some celebrity naming his daughter Chaya or something. She like the name and experimented with spellings until she found one she thought was aesthetically pleasing. It's a Hebrew name, derived from L'Chaim, which means "to life!" (Remember The Fiddler on the Roof? Yeah, like that.) My surname is constructed from my mother's first name: both my brother and I were named after her the same way Leif Erikson was named after Erik the Red. My middle name is my godmother's middle name. I like having a Hebrew first name, a French middle name, and a Welsh last name when I am probably none of these by descent!
repressed_genius was my first e-mail alias. It was inspired by the scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail in which the peasant, Dennis, shouts "Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help, I'm being repressed!" It's self-deprecating, of course.
Zephyr Greene was the nom de plume I invented my freshman year of high school. I learned the word zephyr from a Dinotopia novel, and it began what has become an lifelong affection for interesting words for different kinds of wind: corrado, scirocco, passat, chinook...I collect them as I go along. Greene I chose because I wanted to use colour as well as maintain the same metre as my own name. My mother suggested the final e, which I like because I think it looks more ephemeral. For a few months I pretended to run an underground political group which I referred to as the ZGO, or Zephyr Greene Omission. I thought this was a great joke, because there was, after all, no such person as Zephyr Greene. The July before my sophomore year the ZGO organised one subversive, radical event: a Be-In at Belfair State Park which one other person attended. It didn't make even the localest of papers, even though I called them with a press release. We really showed The Man that day. I still have a couple of the flyers.
BloodyMuse was a name I used for a while, but have mostly abandoned lately. It's simply an anagram of "Moody Blues," a band I particularly liked in tenth grade.
Lastly, I occasionally refer to myself as The Rev. I was ordained by the Universal Life Church on 22 August 2002, and while I seldom invoke any of the rights due to me as a "man of the cloth," e.g. better parking spaces, I like to use the title now and again. When I get my PhD you can sure as hell bet I'll request to be addressed as the Reverend Doctor Khayah Delaine Brookes.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Friday, December 28, 2007
Gmail, fanmail, and letters to your senator: a Call to Action!
I love Gmail. Every time my available storage space increases by 30%, I feel like writing a fan letter. This has happened three times since this summer. It's fucking exponential! I now have 6.1GB. That's like a whole PC hard drive in 1995.
Speaking of fan mail, this guy has the coolest blog I've ever seen. He's developing a Grand Unification Theory on his own, in his spare time, while working some weak day job. I don't know if he's just talking out of his ass or if he's on to something significant; I just like his gumption. He never has any comments on his posts, and I sincerely hope that it's because his friends and colleagues write out arguments by hand or something, then talk to him IRL about his ideas. I hope it's not because he has no readers. Other than me.
It is certain that he has a major beef with Alan Ginsparg, a man who I'm sure never expected to see his own face superimposed on the body of Big Bird on an amateur cosmologists blog.
Cosmology is at a very interesting and awkward stage, while particle physics is really taking off. We're about to shake the Higgs boson about of the WSOGMM (Whole Sort of General Mish Mash), hopefully, which will do a lot for supersymmetry's standing as a valid model (or fuck it over if we don't find it!). I really hope the research we do with the LHC clarifies the weirdness we've been looking at the last couple decades, and helps us drop such mathematical parlour tricks as renormalisation, or subtracting infinities from each other to make the equations come out tidy. String theory--is strange. As charmed as I am by Dr. Brian Greene (quark jokes aside), I simply do not have the math to know whether I should be taking string theory seriously. I'm unnerved by one aspect of it, though: the practise of adding extra dimensions until it comes out right reminds me of the astronomers who kept adding epicycles to the Ptolemaic model. I don't know how we can test string theory, either. (These are the things I'm going to college to find out.) But I think this is a crucial and exciting time, and I wouldn't be surprised by a working GUT within my lifetime.
There are so few facilities at which I can study particle physics in this country. I hear rumours of linear accelerators at Western or Evergreen, but I can't find any references to these apparatus on the schools' respective websites, and I'd imagine that they'd be happy to show and tell. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL, if you remember) has petitioned the Bush administration to not cut funding for high-energy physics by the $88 million proposed for 2008, which both kills domestic HEP research and our participation in international projects. In other words, it makes the US less interesting and look dumber to the other scientific communities, as well as retarding progress. But I bet the Bushies think the only physics they need to worry about is the law of gravity, and only because they need it to bomb.
Please join me in writing to our state reps in urging them to support funding for major physics research projects and facilities.
Email Senator Patty Murray
Email Senator Maria Cantwell
Email Representative Jim McDermott (he's my rep, anyway)
Email Representative Norm Dicks (for my Bremerton homies)
Oh, and by the way: CERN invented the World Wide Web. Remember that the next time you feel like moaning "What has physics ever done for me?"
Speaking of fan mail, this guy has the coolest blog I've ever seen. He's developing a Grand Unification Theory on his own, in his spare time, while working some weak day job. I don't know if he's just talking out of his ass or if he's on to something significant; I just like his gumption. He never has any comments on his posts, and I sincerely hope that it's because his friends and colleagues write out arguments by hand or something, then talk to him IRL about his ideas. I hope it's not because he has no readers. Other than me.
It is certain that he has a major beef with Alan Ginsparg, a man who I'm sure never expected to see his own face superimposed on the body of Big Bird on an amateur cosmologists blog.
Cosmology is at a very interesting and awkward stage, while particle physics is really taking off. We're about to shake the Higgs boson about of the WSOGMM (Whole Sort of General Mish Mash), hopefully, which will do a lot for supersymmetry's standing as a valid model (or fuck it over if we don't find it!). I really hope the research we do with the LHC clarifies the weirdness we've been looking at the last couple decades, and helps us drop such mathematical parlour tricks as renormalisation, or subtracting infinities from each other to make the equations come out tidy. String theory--is strange. As charmed as I am by Dr. Brian Greene (quark jokes aside), I simply do not have the math to know whether I should be taking string theory seriously. I'm unnerved by one aspect of it, though: the practise of adding extra dimensions until it comes out right reminds me of the astronomers who kept adding epicycles to the Ptolemaic model. I don't know how we can test string theory, either. (These are the things I'm going to college to find out.) But I think this is a crucial and exciting time, and I wouldn't be surprised by a working GUT within my lifetime.
There are so few facilities at which I can study particle physics in this country. I hear rumours of linear accelerators at Western or Evergreen, but I can't find any references to these apparatus on the schools' respective websites, and I'd imagine that they'd be happy to show and tell. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL, if you remember) has petitioned the Bush administration to not cut funding for high-energy physics by the $88 million proposed for 2008, which both kills domestic HEP research and our participation in international projects. In other words, it makes the US less interesting and look dumber to the other scientific communities, as well as retarding progress. But I bet the Bushies think the only physics they need to worry about is the law of gravity, and only because they need it to bomb.
Please join me in writing to our state reps in urging them to support funding for major physics research projects and facilities.
Email Senator Patty Murray
Email Senator Maria Cantwell
Email Representative Jim McDermott (he's my rep, anyway)
Email Representative Norm Dicks (for my Bremerton homies)
Oh, and by the way: CERN invented the World Wide Web. Remember that the next time you feel like moaning "What has physics ever done for me?"
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
I've allowed my love of gravy to distract from my prescriptivist linguistic crusade! or, Why I have no use for Mensa
I've said it before: there's nothing like going back to Belfair for a holiday to remind you what a terrible place it it. My aunt's road washed out in the flooding, and her driveway has become a ravine 3 feet deep. It takes four-wheel drive to get to her place now. The next day (25 December) it snowed, trapping me and my mom in the house and unable to attend the Mageop party at Arynn's place I'd been dying to go to. I will never again take for granted that the worst transportation issue I have to deal with here is the 11 running ten minutes late.
On the bright side, the snow did enable me to participate in one Mageop tradition I hadn't expected: I made a pair of snow-boobs in my mother's driveway.
Things I have learned from the Internet: Mensa does not seem to have personal/community pages. How can I find a doctoral student in structural linguistics to rent my spare bedroom? Where do I find somebody to buy my couch for the price determined by game theory and the local microeconomic climate be optimal to both of us? What if my girlfriend and I want to have a threesome with a Nobel laureate? Damn you, Mensa: you have done nothing to make my life easier!
It also irks me that their Membership Benefits page says "a myriad of." "Myriad" is more properly used as an adjective, not a noun: "the myriad forces," rather than "the myriad of forces." I think that the Mensa website should avoid using tertiary definitions of words when the primary one is more poetic and more etymologically correct. But this particular usage has always been a bit of a pet peeve of mine. I should stop bothering with this when there are delicious leftover sweet potatoes to be eaten.
I've made a bunch of stickers that say "W W I B W/O I.B.M.?" to put up around, to share my excitement over the InSoc concert with the world.
On the bright side, the snow did enable me to participate in one Mageop tradition I hadn't expected: I made a pair of snow-boobs in my mother's driveway.
Things I have learned from the Internet: Mensa does not seem to have personal/community pages. How can I find a doctoral student in structural linguistics to rent my spare bedroom? Where do I find somebody to buy my couch for the price determined by game theory and the local microeconomic climate be optimal to both of us? What if my girlfriend and I want to have a threesome with a Nobel laureate? Damn you, Mensa: you have done nothing to make my life easier!
It also irks me that their Membership Benefits page says "a myriad of." "Myriad" is more properly used as an adjective, not a noun: "the myriad forces," rather than "the myriad of forces." I think that the Mensa website should avoid using tertiary definitions of words when the primary one is more poetic and more etymologically correct. But this particular usage has always been a bit of a pet peeve of mine. I should stop bothering with this when there are delicious leftover sweet potatoes to be eaten.
I've made a bunch of stickers that say "W W I B W/O I.B.M.?" to put up around, to share my excitement over the InSoc concert with the world.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Antici...pation!
Inforfuckingmation Society!
Hell motherfucking yes!
I'm not sure what I'm more excited about: the quarter starting in less than two weeks, the InSoc concert on the 6th, or the sourdough starter waiting for me to attend to it in my kitchen. Actually, I am sure. The above are obviously in descending order of imminent awesomeness.
I am also working on a "Tux has a posse" sticker. Look for it soon on various flattish surfaces around town. I first decided to make such a sticker several days ago, but didn't get my butt in gear on making it until today, when running across some of Banksy's art that I'd saved and forgotten about reminded me.
Squigglies of the world untie!
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Old year's revelations
New year's resolutions are notoriously disregarded and eventually discarded: just ask any sales rep at a fitness center. 2008, I believe, is set up so well for me that all I have to do is not fuck it up. This is largely because of things I have accomplished and learned during 2007, which I declared portentously back in January to be "The Year of Me." Hence, I have compiled a list of things I simply need to remember.
1. Don't fucking talk to me about it: do it!
A close relative of "Show me the money!" This applies to myself as much as to other people. Dreams are great, but they're worthless without the deeds to back them up. It's also fun to shout this into the phone before hanging up on people who are taking five minutes to explain why they're going to call you right back.
2. Trust your gut.
If it doesn't seem right, it's probably not. Job seem too good to be true? Boyfriend's story smell of fish? Back away, not today, disco lady! The worst coping skill I learned as a child was to pretend that everything was as good as it pretended to be, rather than as shite as it really was. Now I know to call a spade a spade, or even a muddy shovel.
3. Dump him!
This applies to anybody not at least as awesome as me.
I am frequently envious of people who don't become entangled and/or easily extricate themselves from personal and professional relationships with less-than-excellent persons. Maybe it's the lingering remnants of my grade school dorkiness that permits me to still become involved with marginal people, out of a combination of compassion and empathy. But there are serious problems with picking up lost puppies. I'm currently farming out those I still have and have put a freeze on further applications.
4. Carry an extra pair of socks in your backpack.
I have never regretted doing this. Whether the weather is hot, cold, or wet, an extra pair of socks is worth its weight in Tinactin.
5. There is no glamour in starving.
Money is far from being the root of all evil. It is probably the most useful thing on the planet. I will never again scorn somebody simply for having money. I'm still kind of a socialist, though: my kids will go to public school, but I will ensure that they need never worry about how to pay for college, or a doctor, or a pair of decent shoes. I do believe it's perfectly within a state's responsibilities to make sure the former two are guaranteed. Funny, back when I owned nothing I had a much more Libertarian economic philosophy, but now that I've earned some stuff I don't want anybody else to have to struggle through the same kind of crap I went through.
Merry Mageop, my friends, and many happy returns!
1. Don't fucking talk to me about it: do it!
A close relative of "Show me the money!" This applies to myself as much as to other people. Dreams are great, but they're worthless without the deeds to back them up. It's also fun to shout this into the phone before hanging up on people who are taking five minutes to explain why they're going to call you right back.
2. Trust your gut.
If it doesn't seem right, it's probably not. Job seem too good to be true? Boyfriend's story smell of fish? Back away, not today, disco lady! The worst coping skill I learned as a child was to pretend that everything was as good as it pretended to be, rather than as shite as it really was. Now I know to call a spade a spade, or even a muddy shovel.
3. Dump him!
This applies to anybody not at least as awesome as me.
I am frequently envious of people who don't become entangled and/or easily extricate themselves from personal and professional relationships with less-than-excellent persons. Maybe it's the lingering remnants of my grade school dorkiness that permits me to still become involved with marginal people, out of a combination of compassion and empathy. But there are serious problems with picking up lost puppies. I'm currently farming out those I still have and have put a freeze on further applications.
4. Carry an extra pair of socks in your backpack.
I have never regretted doing this. Whether the weather is hot, cold, or wet, an extra pair of socks is worth its weight in Tinactin.
5. There is no glamour in starving.
Money is far from being the root of all evil. It is probably the most useful thing on the planet. I will never again scorn somebody simply for having money. I'm still kind of a socialist, though: my kids will go to public school, but I will ensure that they need never worry about how to pay for college, or a doctor, or a pair of decent shoes. I do believe it's perfectly within a state's responsibilities to make sure the former two are guaranteed. Funny, back when I owned nothing I had a much more Libertarian economic philosophy, but now that I've earned some stuff I don't want anybody else to have to struggle through the same kind of crap I went through.
Merry Mageop, my friends, and many happy returns!
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Memory Lane is in my ears and in my eyes...
I spent a few hours this weekend at my mom's house, packing up the detritus of my teens that remains cluttering up my old room.
Revelation #1:
I must have been the most insufferable hippie in high school!
To those of you who knew me then, I apologise.
Now, I still lead a fairly Bohemian lifestule (as I write this, I'm naked in the living room of my friends' house in Bremerton, half-watching Ghandi with Zac as we converse about the woeful lack of public outrage at our country's continuing war in Iraq and wait for a pizza). But you can be the hippest, most loose-hanging ultraliberal or whatever without being a fucking hippie. I can understand why I was, but now that I am not so naive I am dismayed that I believed that hippieism is a particularly valid..."path," for lack of a better word, or an attractive lifestyle, or that it is even remotely without pretense. I have some friends who are hippies yet. I hope they grow out of it.
Revelation #2:
I was a fucking awesome kid. Smart as a bowl full of apples (the most intelligent fruit) and clever and funny to boot. I'd totally hang out with me now, which is way more than I can say for most kids.
The coolest relics I came across were the notes I took from the time I interviewed PAt Cashman for Career Day in fifth grade, and a printout my mom must have made of the first e-mail I ever sent. Surreal.
Revelation #1:
I must have been the most insufferable hippie in high school!
To those of you who knew me then, I apologise.
Now, I still lead a fairly Bohemian lifestule (as I write this, I'm naked in the living room of my friends' house in Bremerton, half-watching Ghandi with Zac as we converse about the woeful lack of public outrage at our country's continuing war in Iraq and wait for a pizza). But you can be the hippest, most loose-hanging ultraliberal or whatever without being a fucking hippie. I can understand why I was, but now that I am not so naive I am dismayed that I believed that hippieism is a particularly valid..."path," for lack of a better word, or an attractive lifestyle, or that it is even remotely without pretense. I have some friends who are hippies yet. I hope they grow out of it.
Revelation #2:
I was a fucking awesome kid. Smart as a bowl full of apples (the most intelligent fruit) and clever and funny to boot. I'd totally hang out with me now, which is way more than I can say for most kids.
The coolest relics I came across were the notes I took from the time I interviewed PAt Cashman for Career Day in fifth grade, and a printout my mom must have made of the first e-mail I ever sent. Surreal.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Dot, Bot, Dot, Bot, Red, Red, Red
Be still, my girlish heart: JANE is back! Although, with her partial brain transplant, I suppose I should rename her. 2Jane seems appropriate. It's hard to find good female names for computers.
I'm pretty psyched about the quarter starting. Maths, Physics, Programming and UNIX are on my plate for Winter quarter. In just 6 quarters I'll have ATSs in physics and computer science. Then my bachelor's will be in physics, and my fearsome skillz with computer modeling of high-energy reactions will make me an analytical force to be reckoned with. (Or a reckoning force to be analysed? ...No, the first one's better.)
Still not sure whether particle physics or cosmology tickles my fancy more, but I do know that the next couple decades are going to be full of new opportunities for experimentalists in both of these overlapping fields. (Insert Michael Faraday joke here)
I'm also very excited about the Information Society concert on January 6th. 1,000,000 watts of awesome! El Corazon, all ages, bar w/ ID, $18. I'm bringing Brian Moritz and Sarah Waye.
I found a webcomic called Toonbots. I like it a lot. But I'm not sure if it's funny.
I'm pretty psyched about the quarter starting. Maths, Physics, Programming and UNIX are on my plate for Winter quarter. In just 6 quarters I'll have ATSs in physics and computer science. Then my bachelor's will be in physics, and my fearsome skillz with computer modeling of high-energy reactions will make me an analytical force to be reckoned with. (Or a reckoning force to be analysed? ...No, the first one's better.)
Still not sure whether particle physics or cosmology tickles my fancy more, but I do know that the next couple decades are going to be full of new opportunities for experimentalists in both of these overlapping fields. (Insert Michael Faraday joke here)
I'm also very excited about the Information Society concert on January 6th. 1,000,000 watts of awesome! El Corazon, all ages, bar w/ ID, $18. I'm bringing Brian Moritz and Sarah Waye.
I found a webcomic called Toonbots. I like it a lot. But I'm not sure if it's funny.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
In conclusion, America is a land of contrasts
Florida SUCKS!!!!!
But you can have a fucking great time there!
Richard, Arynn's and my host for the last week, took us to a few awesome nudist places in and around Ft. Lauderdale. Fort Lauderdale was probably the worst place I'd ever been, until we drove around Miami. Drivers are idiots, old people are everywhere, young people look either plastic or dangerous, Jeb Bush is governor. It's fucking terrible. But the local florae and faunae are terrific. The plants all look eerily prehistoric, and the rampancy of tiny geckos and weird-ass birds is equally alien. The geckos are too hard to catch, but I'm sure they wouldn't have tasted very good anyway (for some reason I wanted to eat everything that moved).
We got up early each morning, went out to the nudist destination du jour, swam, sunbathed, hiked nature trails, collected shells or fossils when they were around. Arynn and I battled the Atlantic for a few hours on a nude beach in Hallandale until we grew tired, declared victory, and built a schizophrenic little sandcastle. Occasionally young black Jamaicans or old white businessmen would hit on us.
One resort was full of French Canadians, more than I think I've ever seen before. It also had a pond with an island that had once had a monkey house (this is a real thing!) wherein several monkeys lived. Then a storm came, and all the monkeys left save one. Then the monkey house fell down, and the last monkey left. Hmph. Remaining in the pond were tiny and large fish (I was unsuccessful at eating the small fish) and turtles. One was a peculiar softshell turtle. The other was, as Jim (or Jheem, le manageur) informed us, was "just, like, a water turtle, you know?" We tried to feed them bread, but they were almost too stupid.
Richard himself is fascinating. His Asperger's idiosyncrasies weren't at all irritating, especially since he's such a (compulsively) rational guy and was totally cool talking about it. Waay cooler was his profound geekiness. He's been involved in IC design and FS/OS since before the beginning. The copious art on his walls was about half nudes and half NASA photographs of the Earth from space, the Shuttle on Earth, space from Hubble, etc. His computer hardware was not at all bleeding edge (his ThinkPad must be five years old), but his software was, and his cables were meticulously hidden. He related to us the time RMS (yes, Richard Motherfucking Stallman) telephoned him because his computer wouldn't boot! Richard's first question, he admitted, was "Well, what OS are you using?" RMS was hardly amused. Needless to say, we hit it off like a house afire. I caught him in the obvious fallacy of stating a salt-water pool's density as exactly 1g/cm3, and we had a chuckle. While we were lounging poolside, he said to me, "Hey, I just got some e-mail from someone whose name you might recognise" and showed me his inbox on his BlackBerry. It was Linus Torvalds!
I am so totally a fan. Maybe in a couple years his company'll be needing some SQL-proficient physics grad students to crunch a few numbers?
And in case you were worried, it was a problem with GRUB not recognising the new hard drive the OS was on. They physically removed the drive, flipped it over (because for some reason it would fit in two different ways), stuck it back in and it worked fine. Happy ending!
P.S. I am now so deeply tanned I can at last reasonably invite people to kiss my black ass.
But you can have a fucking great time there!
Richard, Arynn's and my host for the last week, took us to a few awesome nudist places in and around Ft. Lauderdale. Fort Lauderdale was probably the worst place I'd ever been, until we drove around Miami. Drivers are idiots, old people are everywhere, young people look either plastic or dangerous, Jeb Bush is governor. It's fucking terrible. But the local florae and faunae are terrific. The plants all look eerily prehistoric, and the rampancy of tiny geckos and weird-ass birds is equally alien. The geckos are too hard to catch, but I'm sure they wouldn't have tasted very good anyway (for some reason I wanted to eat everything that moved).
We got up early each morning, went out to the nudist destination du jour, swam, sunbathed, hiked nature trails, collected shells or fossils when they were around. Arynn and I battled the Atlantic for a few hours on a nude beach in Hallandale until we grew tired, declared victory, and built a schizophrenic little sandcastle. Occasionally young black Jamaicans or old white businessmen would hit on us.
One resort was full of French Canadians, more than I think I've ever seen before. It also had a pond with an island that had once had a monkey house (this is a real thing!) wherein several monkeys lived. Then a storm came, and all the monkeys left save one. Then the monkey house fell down, and the last monkey left. Hmph. Remaining in the pond were tiny and large fish (I was unsuccessful at eating the small fish) and turtles. One was a peculiar softshell turtle. The other was, as Jim (or Jheem, le manageur) informed us, was "just, like, a water turtle, you know?" We tried to feed them bread, but they were almost too stupid.
Richard himself is fascinating. His Asperger's idiosyncrasies weren't at all irritating, especially since he's such a (compulsively) rational guy and was totally cool talking about it. Waay cooler was his profound geekiness. He's been involved in IC design and FS/OS since before the beginning. The copious art on his walls was about half nudes and half NASA photographs of the Earth from space, the Shuttle on Earth, space from Hubble, etc. His computer hardware was not at all bleeding edge (his ThinkPad must be five years old), but his software was, and his cables were meticulously hidden. He related to us the time RMS (yes, Richard Motherfucking Stallman) telephoned him because his computer wouldn't boot! Richard's first question, he admitted, was "Well, what OS are you using?" RMS was hardly amused. Needless to say, we hit it off like a house afire. I caught him in the obvious fallacy of stating a salt-water pool's density as exactly 1g/cm3, and we had a chuckle. While we were lounging poolside, he said to me, "Hey, I just got some e-mail from someone whose name you might recognise" and showed me his inbox on his BlackBerry. It was Linus Torvalds!
I am so totally a fan. Maybe in a couple years his company'll be needing some SQL-proficient physics grad students to crunch a few numbers?
And in case you were worried, it was a problem with GRUB not recognising the new hard drive the OS was on. They physically removed the drive, flipped it over (because for some reason it would fit in two different ways), stuck it back in and it worked fine. Happy ending!
P.S. I am now so deeply tanned I can at last reasonably invite people to kiss my black ass.
Monday, December 3, 2007
"Boy Pierces Brain with Antler, but is Fine."
Wow. This stupid headline from msnbc.com has kept me laughing since I first saw it on Friday.
I fly out at some obscene time Thursday morning to hang out with Richard Kenner in Ft. Lauderdale for a few days. Richard is a middle-aged, nudist, Jewish computer wizard from Queens who I met through a friend of a friend. I don't know a lot about him, other than that his software used in airport control towers made him a millionaire, he works on the GNU compiler collection, and he is a major authority on VLSI. He works at NYU and eats lots of cheese sandwiches. Obviously, now that I've done some research, we will have loads to talk about--I mean, I love sandwiches too! If not, since it will be only him, me, and Arynn for six days, we will have a very quiet and awkward trip.
What am I saying? There won't be a dull moment.
I plotted out my course schedule for the next two years. Taking 15 or 16 credits most quarters, I'll be on track to transfer in Fall 2010 (god, that sounds like a long way off), majoring in physics and minoring in something that encompasses database development and computer modeling. Yeah, it sounds real sexy, I know. But CERN's Large Hadron Collider will be producing something like a grillion times the data hosted on the entire World Wide Web every day, and someone's got to make some sense of it. Otherwise they're just bashing little things together for the hell of it. As the Bureau of Labor Statistics says:
When I'm not doing the grunt work of analysing the data to see what new particles fall out of the wash, I'll be designing the experiments that could demonstrate or disprove supersymmerty. I'll have front-row tickets to the Big Bang (much harder to get than reservations at Milliway's, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe). My office will be the first set abuzz when string theory finally does something useful--or when it's torn to shreds.
This will make me an experimental physicist, not a theorist. So I won't be able to claim Drs. Stephen Hawking, Brian Greene, Richard Feynman, or Bertie Oneglass as my professional kindred. Experimental physics doesn't seem to produce celebrity quite the same way. Soo...I guess if I still feel the need for hot groupie action, I may need to moonlight as a rockstar after all.
I fly out at some obscene time Thursday morning to hang out with Richard Kenner in Ft. Lauderdale for a few days. Richard is a middle-aged, nudist, Jewish computer wizard from Queens who I met through a friend of a friend. I don't know a lot about him, other than that his software used in airport control towers made him a millionaire, he works on the GNU compiler collection, and he is a major authority on VLSI. He works at NYU and eats lots of cheese sandwiches. Obviously, now that I've done some research, we will have loads to talk about--I mean, I love sandwiches too! If not, since it will be only him, me, and Arynn for six days, we will have a very quiet and awkward trip.
What am I saying? There won't be a dull moment.
I plotted out my course schedule for the next two years. Taking 15 or 16 credits most quarters, I'll be on track to transfer in Fall 2010 (god, that sounds like a long way off), majoring in physics and minoring in something that encompasses database development and computer modeling. Yeah, it sounds real sexy, I know. But CERN's Large Hadron Collider will be producing something like a grillion times the data hosted on the entire World Wide Web every day, and someone's got to make some sense of it. Otherwise they're just bashing little things together for the hell of it. As the Bureau of Labor Statistics says:
Although physics research may require extensive experimentation in laboratories, research physicists still spend time in offices planning, recording, analyzing, and reporting on research.
When I'm not doing the grunt work of analysing the data to see what new particles fall out of the wash, I'll be designing the experiments that could demonstrate or disprove supersymmerty. I'll have front-row tickets to the Big Bang (much harder to get than reservations at Milliway's, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe). My office will be the first set abuzz when string theory finally does something useful--or when it's torn to shreds.
This will make me an experimental physicist, not a theorist. So I won't be able to claim Drs. Stephen Hawking, Brian Greene, Richard Feynman, or Bertie Oneglass as my professional kindred. Experimental physics doesn't seem to produce celebrity quite the same way. Soo...I guess if I still feel the need for hot groupie action, I may need to moonlight as a rockstar after all.
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