14 May 2007
Pseudoephedrine
Each night this week, the pollen fairies have sprinkled their magical yellow powder on my car. It's allergy season, and you know what that means... yep! It means the State of Tennessee thinks I have a meth lab in my basement.
28 April 2007
National Science Bowl 2007
Well, I've been in Washington, D.C., for two days now. Science bowl is a science competition for high schoolers in which I participated back in high school; it was probably my favorite part of all 12 grades.
This year I asked to come back as a moderator -- basically like Alex Trebek, except cooler, and there are a lot of us and we don't have moustaches and aren't on syndicated TV. But it's the same general idea. The actual competition starts tomorrow, although we moderators have spent most of today taking turns as moderators and competitors among ourselves (tons of fun, but still kinda exhausting over an 8-hour time period).
Yesterday and the previous evening we've been around the downtown area. I broke off from the rest of the group on Friday and walked around the museums on the mall. The Hirshorn modern art museum didn't have very good exhibits this time around (when I went two novembers ago it had some pretty cool stuff). I browsed quickly through the new Native American museum; its most interesting blurb was about an American Indian who dressed up in traditional clothes and lay down with his eyes closed in a glass box in a real museum as though he were an exhibit, as a rebellion against the idea that their traditions and heritage are only a thing of the past.
My favorite exhibit of anything in DC is by far the gems and minerals exhibit at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. It is amazing.
Yesterday evening I met up with my friend who graduated and moved up here to work for the NRC -- we had a good time. The day before that I walked around the chevy chase neighborhood admiring the cherry and dogwood trees in bloom; it was pretty. Also, the house two doors North of the 4H campus has a Lamborghini in its driveway.
It's also weird to be around 350 high schoolers for most of each day. Especially when so many of them are so incredibly pretentious. A lot of them are brilliant, but that's still no excuse for the way they behave. The Secretary of Energy spoke to us on Friday morning -- one kid asked him a question about uranium reprocessing. The Secretary gave a very competent answer, but apparently it wasn't what the kid wanted to hear -- he actually started talking back to the guy about U-238. It must have taken incredible patience for the guy to say, "Yes. I know," and to continue unfazed. When you're speaking to someone that important who knows so much more than you do (not only has he been informed from whatever briefings he gets, but also he has a Ph.D. in chemical engineering or something) you need to ask your question, learn from his answer, and sit down. The kid wasted the time of both the Secretary and the rest of the audience, and he made himself look like an idiot in the process. Ugh.
But besides being around those kind of people part of the time (my roommate is sort of like that -- it's obvious he and his accomplishments are the only thing he cares about) it has been a lot of fun. Plus, my friend from high school and A&M is volunteering as well.
This year I asked to come back as a moderator -- basically like Alex Trebek, except cooler, and there are a lot of us and we don't have moustaches and aren't on syndicated TV. But it's the same general idea. The actual competition starts tomorrow, although we moderators have spent most of today taking turns as moderators and competitors among ourselves (tons of fun, but still kinda exhausting over an 8-hour time period).
Yesterday and the previous evening we've been around the downtown area. I broke off from the rest of the group on Friday and walked around the museums on the mall. The Hirshorn modern art museum didn't have very good exhibits this time around (when I went two novembers ago it had some pretty cool stuff). I browsed quickly through the new Native American museum; its most interesting blurb was about an American Indian who dressed up in traditional clothes and lay down with his eyes closed in a glass box in a real museum as though he were an exhibit, as a rebellion against the idea that their traditions and heritage are only a thing of the past.
My favorite exhibit of anything in DC is by far the gems and minerals exhibit at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. It is amazing.
Yesterday evening I met up with my friend who graduated and moved up here to work for the NRC -- we had a good time. The day before that I walked around the chevy chase neighborhood admiring the cherry and dogwood trees in bloom; it was pretty. Also, the house two doors North of the 4H campus has a Lamborghini in its driveway.
It's also weird to be around 350 high schoolers for most of each day. Especially when so many of them are so incredibly pretentious. A lot of them are brilliant, but that's still no excuse for the way they behave. The Secretary of Energy spoke to us on Friday morning -- one kid asked him a question about uranium reprocessing. The Secretary gave a very competent answer, but apparently it wasn't what the kid wanted to hear -- he actually started talking back to the guy about U-238. It must have taken incredible patience for the guy to say, "Yes. I know," and to continue unfazed. When you're speaking to someone that important who knows so much more than you do (not only has he been informed from whatever briefings he gets, but also he has a Ph.D. in chemical engineering or something) you need to ask your question, learn from his answer, and sit down. The kid wasted the time of both the Secretary and the rest of the audience, and he made himself look like an idiot in the process. Ugh.
But besides being around those kind of people part of the time (my roommate is sort of like that -- it's obvious he and his accomplishments are the only thing he cares about) it has been a lot of fun. Plus, my friend from high school and A&M is volunteering as well.
25 April 2007
Graduate school
Last weekend, I visited Texas A&M's graduate nuclear program. It made my decision of where to go a lot tougher than I anticipated. Their team of transport and reactor people is top-notch. After lots of careful consideration, talking with people, and praying, I've decided that Michigan is where I should go. So I'm going to Michigan!
01 April 2007
Industry
I love this photograph. There's something exciting about industry, something powerful and impressive about furnaces and giant steel pipes and their manifestation of the power of Man. I recognize it as being a bit idealized, of course, and admit that ironworks and factories are not the most impressive force in the universe. Yet the love of the power of humanity to shape, mold, create, and transform the world around us can't be denied. My grandfather's friend has spoken about some deeply-rooted love he has for seeing earth moved, for using bulldozers to fill in valleys by scraping off hills, creating land for farming and living. It may seem a little old-fashioned, but I think everyone, at least deep down, has some feeling of this.
15 December 2006
Finished
An hour ago, I received my final undergraduate grades. I walk the stage in 10 hours. Yay!
Our records indicate that you are academically cleared for graduation.
You are graduating Summa Cum Laude.
12 October 2006
Legos rock
Suddenly, I want to find and rebuild all my old Space Lego sets.
It's sad that Legos have been cheapened by stupid Star Wars and Harry Potter franchises. The more custom parts they make, the less genuinely Lego and cool it is.
It's sad that Legos have been cheapened by stupid Star Wars and Harry Potter franchises. The more custom parts they make, the less genuinely Lego and cool it is.
09 October 2006
Nuclear North Korea
Well, it appears that North Korea has entered the nuclear arena. This is not a good thing.
Worst case, according to our resident nonproliferation expert professor, is NK weapons increase --> Japan weapons increase --> Russia weapons increase --> US weapons increase and we have another cold war on our hands.
According to the USGS, the nuke-induced quake registered about 4.2 on the Richter scale. I actually get to use something I learned in my 1-hour survey course about nonproliferation: a formula that converts earthquake magnitude to nuclear device power in kT. Assuming it's "well-coupled" (they're not using a large cavern or anything to mask its magnitude, which would be silly at this point in their program), mag = 4.01 + 0.79*log(yield). This gives a yield of about 1.7 kilotons.
The first U.S. nuclear test, the plutonium-based implosion device Trinity, measured about 20 kT. Maybe North Korea's first test was a fizzle? It might also just be a small test.
Regardless, the world is notably less stable today than it was before the weekend.
Worst case, according to our resident nonproliferation expert professor, is NK weapons increase --> Japan weapons increase --> Russia weapons increase --> US weapons increase and we have another cold war on our hands.
According to the USGS, the nuke-induced quake registered about 4.2 on the Richter scale. I actually get to use something I learned in my 1-hour survey course about nonproliferation: a formula that converts earthquake magnitude to nuclear device power in kT. Assuming it's "well-coupled" (they're not using a large cavern or anything to mask its magnitude, which would be silly at this point in their program), mag = 4.01 + 0.79*log(yield). This gives a yield of about 1.7 kilotons.
The first U.S. nuclear test, the plutonium-based implosion device Trinity, measured about 20 kT. Maybe North Korea's first test was a fizzle? It might also just be a small test.
Regardless, the world is notably less stable today than it was before the weekend.
25 September 2006
Paper ball
Yesterday, one of my AWANA kids re-taught me (it's been way more than ten years at least) the skill of folding those little inflatable paper ball/boxes:
Sweet.
Sweet.
21 September 2006
Mac OS X Voodoo
Every once in a while some annoying glitch will show up on my Mac or my cousin's or someone else's. The examples of mine which I can think of have to do with the Finder sidebar: my "home" folder mysteriously refusing to be removed from it, or one of the folders on it refusing to open when clicked. My cousin once had a problem where he would get a weird and frustrating delay whenever he opened a "save" or "open" dialog box. All we could tell was that it was a problem with one of our preferences. Well, I figured out that they were caused by the same file: .GlobalPreferences.plist.
Moral of the story: if your Mac is acting up, it's not a bad idea to open up the terminal and run this command:
Moral of the story: if your Mac is acting up, it's not a bad idea to open up the terminal and run this command:
killall Finder; cd ~/Library/Preferences; mv .GlobalPreferences.plist .GlobalPreferences-old.plist
05 July 2006
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