there are times in one's life where things just all around stop making sense.
I have always been the anti-business science guy. One only has so much time and intellect and it is that person's responsibility to put his/her time towards the betterment of mankind. Now, our friend Midgley showed some of the problems with that and it is okay to admit that science has had a pretty dubious run. Science, the cause of and solution to, all of man's problems.
Anyway, my issue now is that the limited scope of my research has become untenable. It seems to me that it would be more frustrating to be in science and have to spend your life looking at one small part of a the initially larger problem you were first interested in. Of course, this is a new feeling and may pass, or, hopefully, can be diffused by finding a grad program that will encourage my renaissance nature.
I need a future that allows scope. Unfortunately, that term is relative. What I need to be is a journalistic-research-soldier.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Saturday, January 21, 2006
lightness of being
staying with godfrey in rochester, NY.
i expected this town to be tiny. Godfrey is a big liar. it is huge. and, apparently, he is taking me to gay bar this evening. he hates dancing but knows that I like it. but why he is taking me to a gay bar I don't know.
why won't people accept that I am straight?
finally finished the brief history of everything. Science is great, but is damn scary. temperature changes of 15 degrees on average in 20 years (actually happened in the past). we would we screwed. yellowstone is a giant underground volcano, which is definitely shifting (a lake was empties recently). equally screwed.
there is also some thought that the gulf stream will be affected by global warming such that northern europe would experience localised cooling. a colder england would be completely impossible.
i want to be friends with an intelligent bird. you know how you get definite feelings of perspective on life when you go somewhere high, because suddenly you can see how big the world is and how little you are. Well, we only get brief glimpses of that, but birds have it all the time. I bet an intelligent bird would be totally resonable and cool to chat with.
i expected this town to be tiny. Godfrey is a big liar. it is huge. and, apparently, he is taking me to gay bar this evening. he hates dancing but knows that I like it. but why he is taking me to a gay bar I don't know.
why won't people accept that I am straight?
finally finished the brief history of everything. Science is great, but is damn scary. temperature changes of 15 degrees on average in 20 years (actually happened in the past). we would we screwed. yellowstone is a giant underground volcano, which is definitely shifting (a lake was empties recently). equally screwed.
there is also some thought that the gulf stream will be affected by global warming such that northern europe would experience localised cooling. a colder england would be completely impossible.
i want to be friends with an intelligent bird. you know how you get definite feelings of perspective on life when you go somewhere high, because suddenly you can see how big the world is and how little you are. Well, we only get brief glimpses of that, but birds have it all the time. I bet an intelligent bird would be totally resonable and cool to chat with.
Saturday, January 14, 2006
a day in the life of ...
it was desperately cold today. it was also the day I decided not to wear a sweater because the previous days had been so mild. Hume would have laughed.
the area near my house is an industrial complex which is still growing, resulting in half built factories. the ground is frozen and there is a scattering of snow. I cannot walk by the area without imagining "One Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich." Until I turn the corner and see the Tim Horton's sign. where was that when you needed it, Solzhenitsyn?
apparently, UW has a bit more life than the folks at UVic. The student union building at UVic was a pretty boring place to be, only occasionally lit up by protest, but I spent a very pleasant day reading about everything in the strangely named Student Life Building at UW. Over the course of a few hours, I was exposed to the UW Gamers Society performing loud atonal karoke (I believe it was Celine Dion's "I will always love you" that was rewarded with the most boisterous performance) which was subsequently drowned out by hindi dance music blasted over the loud speakers, followed by some interesting couch wars before I was driven out by Disney jeopardy and the titillating promise of both Shrek movies.
I may go back for the shrek movies.
the area near my house is an industrial complex which is still growing, resulting in half built factories. the ground is frozen and there is a scattering of snow. I cannot walk by the area without imagining "One Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich." Until I turn the corner and see the Tim Horton's sign. where was that when you needed it, Solzhenitsyn?
apparently, UW has a bit more life than the folks at UVic. The student union building at UVic was a pretty boring place to be, only occasionally lit up by protest, but I spent a very pleasant day reading about everything in the strangely named Student Life Building at UW. Over the course of a few hours, I was exposed to the UW Gamers Society performing loud atonal karoke (I believe it was Celine Dion's "I will always love you" that was rewarded with the most boisterous performance) which was subsequently drowned out by hindi dance music blasted over the loud speakers, followed by some interesting couch wars before I was driven out by Disney jeopardy and the titillating promise of both Shrek movies.
I may go back for the shrek movies.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
where have I seen these kids?
check out the kids in this link.
I swear that I saw those kids on advertisements in Victoria but I have never heard of Junior Achievement. If I had to guess, I would say bus time table, but that might be wrong.
They are generic benetton kids. They are everywhere. They scare me.
I swear that I saw those kids on advertisements in Victoria but I have never heard of Junior Achievement. If I had to guess, I would say bus time table, but that might be wrong.
They are generic benetton kids. They are everywhere. They scare me.
the destiny of inventiveness
I want to invent things to save the world but I worry about destroying the world by accident.
Take, for example, Thomas Midgley Jr.
He, while working for GM, discovered that lead additives to gasoline would stop engines from knocking. We know now that lead poisoning is terrible and, even though Midgley had to take time off to recover from lead poisoning, he still held a press conference where he inhaled the fumes from tetraethyl lead (the additive) for 60 seconds to convince the world that his additive was safe. Of course it wasn't and eventually banned. Midgley apparently privately admitted that lead was bad in his later years and worked to make amends for introducing it.
His amending took the form of developing a non-toxic and non-explosive gas to be used in the place of dangerous gases that used to fill refrigerators and heat pumps. His extremely successful invention? CFCs.
Midgley is said by some to have "had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in earth history."
I hope I am not a Midgley.
Take, for example, Thomas Midgley Jr.
He, while working for GM, discovered that lead additives to gasoline would stop engines from knocking. We know now that lead poisoning is terrible and, even though Midgley had to take time off to recover from lead poisoning, he still held a press conference where he inhaled the fumes from tetraethyl lead (the additive) for 60 seconds to convince the world that his additive was safe. Of course it wasn't and eventually banned. Midgley apparently privately admitted that lead was bad in his later years and worked to make amends for introducing it.
His amending took the form of developing a non-toxic and non-explosive gas to be used in the place of dangerous gases that used to fill refrigerators and heat pumps. His extremely successful invention? CFCs.
Midgley is said by some to have "had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in earth history."
I hope I am not a Midgley.
Monday, January 02, 2006
trial and error
apparently all the pizza toppings I requested are available at the other pizza joint. many apologies to Waterloo. you are a suitably urban town.
ah, house deconstructionism
waterloo is a go.
I arrived early yesterday. Since I was expecting -40 and snow up to my neck, I was pleasantly surprised by the rather temperate -1. I was supposed to head straight into toronto and visit with negin but i was ridiculously hung over. While I only distinctly remember drinking a bottle of wine plus a little champagne, I also have a slight recollection of Newell striding in with a bottle of crown royal. After that I remeber saying, just once, "wow, my drink is strong."
The rest of the party, for me, consisted of dancing retardedly, fast paced conversations, chanting my mother's name (other people did it with me), and breaking asher's house because I thought (1) someone had already started it and (2) it was funny. I devolved into a frat-boy. I busted a wall with my head.
While this would, in a previously life, have been something I would have been loudly proud of, I am now a renaissance man and, as far as I can tell from extremely exhaustive research, no renaissance men were ever house-breakingly drunk (by the by, that is my new adjective for really drunk. It used to be "retardedly drunk" but "house-breakingly drunk" is much more evocative).
My new house is well located across from two pizza joints and two coffee shops (including a tim hortons which is almost as prevalent as churches here, at least from my observations on the drive in, although the churches are quite a bit bigger. I may have driven through god-district though and godly men have no need for stimulants or crulers).
An initial indication that vegetarianism is perhaps not as popular here occured when I went to get a pizza last night and asked for the vegetarian toppings. There were no sun-dried tomatoes, no spinach, no chevre, no artichoke hearts. What is this, the middle ages? Hello.
The house is sparcely furnished (and no TV currently!) and, supporting the stereotype of lonely engineering types, the magazines in the bathroom are FHM, Maxim and Electronic Gaming Monthly. I think I will fit in quite well. Although I am going to need my educational blogs more than ever. Jump on it, renaissance men.
I arrived early yesterday. Since I was expecting -40 and snow up to my neck, I was pleasantly surprised by the rather temperate -1. I was supposed to head straight into toronto and visit with negin but i was ridiculously hung over. While I only distinctly remember drinking a bottle of wine plus a little champagne, I also have a slight recollection of Newell striding in with a bottle of crown royal. After that I remeber saying, just once, "wow, my drink is strong."
The rest of the party, for me, consisted of dancing retardedly, fast paced conversations, chanting my mother's name (other people did it with me), and breaking asher's house because I thought (1) someone had already started it and (2) it was funny. I devolved into a frat-boy. I busted a wall with my head.
While this would, in a previously life, have been something I would have been loudly proud of, I am now a renaissance man and, as far as I can tell from extremely exhaustive research, no renaissance men were ever house-breakingly drunk (by the by, that is my new adjective for really drunk. It used to be "retardedly drunk" but "house-breakingly drunk" is much more evocative).
My new house is well located across from two pizza joints and two coffee shops (including a tim hortons which is almost as prevalent as churches here, at least from my observations on the drive in, although the churches are quite a bit bigger. I may have driven through god-district though and godly men have no need for stimulants or crulers).
An initial indication that vegetarianism is perhaps not as popular here occured when I went to get a pizza last night and asked for the vegetarian toppings. There were no sun-dried tomatoes, no spinach, no chevre, no artichoke hearts. What is this, the middle ages? Hello.
The house is sparcely furnished (and no TV currently!) and, supporting the stereotype of lonely engineering types, the magazines in the bathroom are FHM, Maxim and Electronic Gaming Monthly. I think I will fit in quite well. Although I am going to need my educational blogs more than ever. Jump on it, renaissance men.
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