The Zeppelin Diaries

CompSci social life!

2012-01-29T21:57:00.000-08:00

I don't know what it is about the compsci degree, but everyone there seems so much more fun than in the Chemistry department.

Actually, I *do* know what it is! They're all massive, massive geeks. That suits me just fine, especially since on like the second day some guy approached me and asked if I'd like to be a part of the newly-formed LAN gaming club on campus, to which I could only respond "Yes. Yes I would." The chemistry students, though equally smart, were far more bro-ey in their pastimes, which mostly involved:

1) Heavy drinking.
1) Ultimate frisbee.
2) Complaining about research.
3) Heavy drinking.

However, the Standard Compsci Psyche DOES have its downside, in that a few of these folks seem hell-bent on proving they're smarter than other people to a degree I never noticed in a Chemistry department. Actually, it's really just one guy in particular. My discrete math class is peppered with exchanges like:

Professor: "X is true."
That Guy: "But isn't Y true under Z conditions?"
Professor: "That's... yes, but that's not really related to the current subject."
That Guy: "Well, I feel like it's important to bring it up. Furthermore, I think it's important for everyone to note that, if we disregard A, B is true. And furthermore...."
Professor:

"Sit back down, please."

Mini-Review RUNNING RIOT

2012-01-23T23:52:00.000-08:00

Mini-review rampage? That's small time, Blake. Gotta think big! Get with the program!

Anyway....

LOST AT SEA

is a story about a girl who may or may not have had her soul stolen by a cat. Also, teenage angst, but in a good way! I found that it gave me my daily dose of pathos without the side-effects of existential depression and angst that accompany me whenever I read anything remotely literary.

Unfortunately, if you were looking for a primer on survival techniques while at sea, or a treatise on deep-sea whaling (as I was initially hoping for on reading the manga) you will be sadly disappointed, as the author RENEGED on the implicit promise made by the title in delivering ALMOST NO technical information regarding protocols for such activities. Not even the general rule of fast fish vs. loose fish! Therefore I am forced to knock it down a unit, putting it at a grand total of three thousand eight hundred and sixteen arbitrary units (AU). Still, I greatly enjoyed it, would read again!

WARHAMMER 40K

I greatly enjoy the Gothic architecture and grimdark grim darkness of the setting-- I really love any sort of artwork involving huge machinery. Now, I don't mean just garden-variety huge-- I'm talking things like

SOLAR-SYSTEM SIZED CATHEDRAL SPACESHIPS

and

MOUNTAIN-SIZED GOTHIC CHURCH ROBOTS OF DOOOOOOM

and Warhammer 40k sates this urge!

On the other hand.... their primary protagonists (the Space Marines) are largely without personality, being modeled on the warrior-monks of old. Plus, they don't have junk. Who wants to play a guy without junk?

It therefore gets from me a rating of four thousand five hundred and three AU.

Does anybody know the name of this meme?

2012-01-08T16:18:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to find the extra-large template for this foul construction (now with more profanity!), BUT I HAVE BEEN UNSUCCESSFUL. Assist me in my quest! Or there will be... consequences.

O_O

The Philosophical Cannibal Hoedown

2011-12-29T23:10:00.000-08:00

(Continued from a couple posts ago.)

An older man in a very professorial-looking tweed jacket hesitatingly stepped up to the podium, while Adelaid and I started on the roast beef. He didn't look like he gave many public speeches.

He took a deep breath. "Hello, everyone! I..." Here he trailed off, looking a bit nervous, and then started again.

"For... for all you who don't know me, I'm Pr-Professor Polycarp, and I know you all should know the purpose of my Society, but for those of you who don't, I... uh, decided to prepare a little song. To make it a bit... uh, more exciting? Also, heh, a bit of autobiography. I hope you all don't mind. Um. So as you all know, I started out in the Literary Theory department. And things... took a turn. Take it away, Johann."

Johann (who had just finished showing in some new guests) took a seat at the grand piano just to the left of the podium. After cracking his knuckles, he rested his fingers on the keys and started an upbeat polka tune. The professor (looking much more animated than before) took another deep breath and burst into song.

"Oh, aye-di-aye-di-aye-di-aye-di-aye-di-aye-di-aye!

Oh, aye-di-aye-di-aye-di-aye-di-aye-di-aye-di-aye!

I did some Deconstruction (and God, it was such a bore,)

And to read ol' Derrida's books was the mother of all chores;

And even Mister Foucalt (though most promising of all)

required me at every chance to murder the fourth wall!

Lit-Crit seemed in shambles--it seemed aimless, sad and tired--

and I thought the field would always be completely uninspired,

but then like a bolt from heaven, I realized my goal--

that every bad philosopher should just be swallowed whole!

I started on my old professor, Pridius L. Slant,

and next went to the head of our great English Department!

(And then I learned on eating two psychologists, alas,

that for whatever reason, social science gives me gas.)

I had to leave my old job (ate the payroll clerk, you see),

and had to look for new work-- but I soon found out with glee,

that if you restrict yourself to teachers all the freshmen hate,

you can get a good supply of meat without too much debate!"

(and here Johann joined in)

Without too much deee-baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate!"

The room filled with applause, and I gagged a little on some of the possibly-roast-beef substance I was currently eating, spitting what was left covertly into a napkin. This operation complete (and the guilty napkin hidden in my pocket, where I resolved to throw it out at first opportunity), I turned to Adelaid. She giggled.

"Hee! Isn't Polycarp great?"

"Yeah, sure. Uh. Adelaid?"

"Yes, Paul?"

"What exactly am I eating?"

"Professor Delwar Prescott Flask."

"Wait, the Delwar Flask? My old ID prof? The one who wrote that unreadable book on copyright?"

"The very same. Is..." she had the look of a puppy about to be kicked. "Is that a problem for you?"

I reflected a moment. "Yes, it is."

"Oh."

"Specifically, he needs more salt."

"Hee!"

The Heretek Hoedown

2011-12-28T23:40:00.000-08:00

Oh, aye-di-aye-di-aye-di-aye-di-aye-di-aye-di-aye!
Oh, aye-di-aye-di-aye-di-aye-di-aye-di-aye-di-aye!

So I was just a techpriest, a man who builds machines,
A servant whose sole duty was to fix, repair and clean!
But the day before I took the Vow of Nurgle 'pon the lou,
I realized those poor viruses all need some lovin' too!

(do dee do dee do dee do, do dee do dee do)

So my first day upon the job of undermining Man,
I got inside a factory and thus my work began!
I jacked myself into a port, and 'ere the day was out,
The cogitators inside thought that they were speckled trout!

(do dee do dee do dee do, do dee do dee do)

I used to go to Schola, a place of quiet grace,
where they calculate trajectories of things hurling through space!
But soon, instead of finding their attractive fields of force,
the only thing that Schola got was twenty Trojan horse!

(do dee do dee do dee do, do dee do dee do)

The propagandist's office is like the Emperor's right hand,
spreading deceit, lies and heresy throughout my lovely land!
So I let my children into their pristine-ish neural net,
And then suddenly-- the Yellow Sign, in every news gazette!
(In every news ga-zeeeeeeeeeeeeette!)

---

Doctor Rhemus Polycarp: That's right, it's "Who's Heresy is it Anyway", where everything's made up and the points don't matter! That's right, the points in this game are like psychic powers on a Khornate Bloodthirster.
Khorne, the Blood God: I FIND YOUR 'HUMOR' DISTASTEFUL AND OFFENSIVE, HUMAN.
DRP: (flees)

In Which I Attempt To Turn My Bizarre Dream Into The Plot Of A Bizarre Story

2011-12-25T21:05:00.000-08:00

"Well, I'm afraid that only members of the Philosophical Society are allowed in." The doorman smiled at me apologetically, and lowered his voice. "Honestly, Paul, I don't think you'd really want in, anyway, unless you were already a member of their fruity club. The stuff they talk about is pretty... uh, strange."

"Well, maybe," I replied. "But I was actually invited as an interdepartmental guest from the Chemistry department. See, my work is on the relationship between retro Diels-Alder reactions and Foucalt's literary theories. It's interesting, because..." Seeing the doorman start to get that stoned-monkey look I too-often found on my own students, I cut off my impromptu soon-to-be lecture and gestured toward the door. "Can I go in now? I don't want to miss the opening speaker-- I heard Doctor Vincent Polycarp is giving a talk in ten minutes."

The doorman frowned. "That's as may be. But I don't--"

A cheerful-looking man waved from inside the lobby. "Don't worry about it, Bob! I know him. You're that Diels-Alder guy, right?"

I grinned. "Yep, that'd be me."

"Great, great! We're having a quick dinner before Polycarp's lecture, and you're just in time to catch the appetizers. I'm Johann, by the way."

He ushered me in, and after about two minutes of walking through the corridors of the Philosophy Department, we arrived at the dining room, filled with tables with about five or six people each. "You know," Johann told me confidentially as we walked, "the normal setup for this room used to be with long, square tables, but one of the professors proved that conversation is 40% less efficient with that setup than with a large number of round tables. And rationality has always been our watchword!" Johann showed me to a seat, and gestured to a mid-20's girl who occupied the table with a pair of older, sour-looking gentlemen. "This is Adelaid. She's a new assistant professor in our department. Adelaid, tell him about your work! I've got to greet some more guests, I'll be talking to you both later."

The girl seated to the right of me smiled. "Hey, new guy! Have you ever been to our Society before?" She laughed. "Wait, no, stupid question. Obviously you haven't. Because you're not in the department! Anyway, we're all Poststructural Neo-hedonists here. Are you familiar with that philosophy?"

I shook my head.

"Well, basically, the deal is that we're launching off the works of Eco, which is based on a theme of the common ground between class and culture. See, Lyotard (you know him from his Discourses, right?) suggests the use of textual neodialectic theory to attack capitalism. However, the premise of textual discourse holds that narrativity is capable of truth, but only if Derrida’s essay on conceptualist subpatriarchial theory is invalid; otherwise, art is used to reinforce sexist perceptions of class. Therefore, to eat man is to become man, and--" I held up my hand.

"Wait, I'm sorry, what was that last bit? I think I didn't hear you right."

Adelaid waved the question aside. "That's not important now. The important thing is, you'll get to hear what we're all about in like five minutes! Doctor Polycarp is speaking, and he's a really great lecturer; I think you'll really like him." Her face brightened as a waiter arrived, with several well-garnished plates of what looked like roast beef. "Oh! The food's arrived! Paul, you really must have some." She giggled, as though at some private joke. "It's like nothing you've eaten before, trust me."

Apropos of nothing: DREAM JOURNAL TIME!

2011-12-24T12:20:00.000-08:00

In rapid succession last night, I had 1) a nightmare about failing all my Computer Science classes, and 2) a nightmare wherein a cannibal, having unsuccessfully attempted to get me and a number of tuxedo-clad party guests to eat a cat, gave us a long-winded Hannibal Lecture about people too weak to follow their desires (which, by necessity, should involve eating cat. I mean, obviously.) To which I could only respond

to which he could only respond by having his cultist minions jam a pencil in my ear, successfully killing me and ending the dream. (Hurt like the dickens, too.)

---
(Yeah, I dunno. I have like a million of these macros. What am I supposed to do-- not use them every chance I get?)

It's pretty self-explanatory.

2011-12-22T23:28:00.000-08:00

And, for no reason, a bonus MLP image macro. Don't judge me.

It's like the Christmas gift you never asked for, or wanted! But perhaps it's what you deserved.

Why, computer?! WHYYYYY?

2011-12-21T16:50:00.000-08:00

Me: Hey guys, hey guys! I found this really interesting new mod for Civ 4, Master of Mana!
Branden: Does it work in multiplayer?
Me: YES.
Branden: And it works on your computer?
Me: Well, single player games work like a charm!
Josh: Sweet! I'll throw it on my machine!
Branden: Mine too!
....
Okay, it's installed. Now let's start a multiplayer game!
Me: Huzzah!
My computer: LOADING...
...
YOUR PROGRAM HAS ENCOUNTERED AN ERROR. WINDOWS IS CHECKING FOR A SOLUTION TO YOUR PROBLEM.
Me: Are you actually going to find a solution, or are you just saying that?
My computer: Just saying that. It's expected of me!
Me: Well that's weird. You've never crashed on me before. Probably wouldn't happen twice in a row, though, right?
My computer: lolololololCRASH, NO MULTIPLAYER FOR YOU
Me: Damn. Okay, what if I tried reinstalling it? Would that work?
My computer: Only one way to find out!
(one hour later)
My computer: LOLNO, TRY SOMETHING ELSE BRAH
Me: Screw it, let's play League.
Branden & Josh: Yaaaaay!

The Worst Book Ever

2011-12-18T13:38:00.000-08:00

I was reminded of this book whilst browsing on Amazon and it suggested I buy something else by the same author. I then asked myself, "where would I have heard of this Paul Saint-Amour?" And Amazon gave me the horrible, horrible answer:

Not shown: Amazon giving good advice.

I had to read this-- all 300-someodd pages-- for my first-year ID class. In this blogopost, I will endeavor to make you share my pain. For I dare you-- I double-dare you!-- to read more than two pages of this monster without wanting to bust out a fountain pen and make impromptu edits. It reads like a parody of how professors write. But it's not a parody, friends. It's serious. Dead serious.

Anyway, you needn't take my word for it; here's a screenshot of the book's introduction. I recommend you have a phone on hand, so as to call 911 in case of bleeding eyes.

This is the first page of the introduction, ladies and gentlemen. This monstrosity (if you didn't feel like unpacking it) basically boils down to five main points:

1) The title is a pun. Copywrights = makers of copyright (like a shipwright). Get it?

2) Copyright means different things to different people.

3) The meaning of "copyright" has been different at different times.

4) "Copyright" is tricky to define because of this.

5) The title is a pun. Do you see?

Here are my suggested edits, combining simplified language with axing portions of pointless wordy fluff:

In conclusion, this book gets my highest rating for professorial trollery: Five abominations.

News front/Lolhammercrafting!

2011-12-18T13:23:00.000-08:00

1) I have bought tickets to Claremont! Huzzah!

2) In LoL, I have developed a liking for everyone's favorite unicorn-drow, Soraka!

Look, I don't like it anymore than you do.

This is in large part because she's got kinda a weird power curve for LoL. But before I go into that, I should explain what the deal is with power curves in LoL! The relevant numbers are Teamfight Influence-- that is, how much you can wreck up the business of your opponents--and Gold Earned-- how much you were able to farm up minions and enemy heroes throughout the game.

The reason the graph looks like this is because support characters tend not to have abilities that scale well-- however, these abilities also have effects like stuns, debuffs or knockups that don't increase in power as you acquire better stats. AD and AP carries, however, have abilities that-- implicitly or explicitly-- act as multipliers for their base statistics, which is to say, multipliers for the gold they earn. Tanky DPS is typically somewhere in the middle of these two extremes.

Check it out. The reason Soraka's graph looks so different from the other supports is that her own primary teamfight-support ability (Starcall) shreds the enemy team's magic resistance for a flat amount. The thing is, unlike for the other characters in the "support" category, the power's short range requires Soraka getting all up in the enemy team's fries, as per Utahraptor in this Dinosaur Comic. Thus, in order to do anything in teamfights without getting immediately ripped apart, she needs lots of HP and armor. However, there is very much diminishing returns to this tankiness, because when she stops getting focused she stops having a really good place to put all that gold-- that's why her power curve falls off later on, to the point where her dInfluence/dGold becomes more-or-less even with the other supports.

(Note that without this added health she really is pretty impotent. So it goes.)

I love Reaction McGonagall.

2011-12-16T12:12:00.000-08:00

So yeah, I spent this week (in chronological order):

Proctoring the Genchem final exam, which involved wandering up and down isles being as generally unhelpful as possible to panicky students.

Student: "Can I use this equation here?"

Me:

There was also a bit where I had to proctor the time-and-a-half special needs students, most of whom have some form of horrific test anxiety. The last girl to leave made me feel like a monster by tearing up while repeatedly asking questions to which I could only respond "Uh. Can't really answer that. Exam, you know." And she'd be all "BUT I NEEEED TO KNOW!" Grim times.
Exam-grading! Most of the time which I spent trying to figure out puzzling issues of student knowledge and psychology, such as

Getting told that the final needed to be graded by noon Wednesday. The combination of studying for my own finals and having to visit the UW Tacoma campus to register for COMPSCI CLASSES WOOOO meant this was impossible.
Get scolded in like three emails within twenty-four hours of the deadline pseudo-politely asking me to turn in the finals as quickly as possible, please. To which I could only respond with a slightly dressed up version of "working on it",while thinking all the while

But now, it's all finished! Never again to be of any account. In fact, as we speak I am discharging my final duty as a TA, which is to sit in a cafe waiting for hypothetical students to get their last two graded labs. Yeah, nobody's coming. Whatever!

And after this? It'll all be clear sailing for Computer Science. Awww yeah.

Knight Templar Chemist

2011-12-13T17:36:00.001-08:00

So, I've got this one guy in one of my sections who's really, really prone to arguing over tiny amounts of points for not-super-great reasons.

This does not make him unique, however.

What does make him unique is that he's got this penchant for typing out long, drawn-out emails wherein he argues that to not give him these tiny amounts of points would be an injustice of the highest order, and that he argues not for himself-- perish the thought!-- but for each and every student quailing under the yolk of tyranny that is the point-scoring system itself, and that, furthermore, the grossly unjust way in which grading is carried out will (if not rectified today!) forever poison the hapless students in our department against the very field of chemistry itself, an outcome which could be averted by granting him his eminently reasonable request of five points for some friggin' reason.

Lolz.

Anyway, he did this to me once, and I was all like "By Jove! Am I truly poisoning the minds of students? I certainly hope not!" And thus I fervently searched for my apparent error, though in the end I was forced to deny his complaint for no more reason than it appeared totally without merit. Well, that was that, I figured.

Turns out he writes these long-winded emails to everyone, though. I actually just recently recieved a forwarded email from the stockroom supervisor wherein this guy (who will remain nameless, let's call him Joe) wrote five separate paragraphs decrying the injustice of a soulless, computerized system of prelab deductions, which the syllabus was altogether too ambiguous about, and which, if not fixed, would effectively blah blah blah. Which concluded with a threat to go to Tracy Harvey (the higher power in the department, whose job is basically to tank student aggro) if we decided to reveal ourselves as the unscrupulous and villainous characters he hoped we weren't.

This displeases me. Thus, I-- with great reluctance-- am forced to bust out the Stamp of Authority.

I'm putting that stamp as a business expense.

2011-12-10T17:04:00.001-08:00

AKA what I've been doing the past three hours:

Assignment Question: Based on your data, what is your measured n(f) value for your most intense peak near 650 nm?

Hapless Student: HERPA DERP MY DATA OBVIOUSLY SAYS 5, BUT LITERATURE SAYS VALUE IS 2, SO I'LL JUST WRITE THAT

My response:

It's especially hilarious when they write the literature value, and then go on to talk about how they had obtained it from experimental data when it's entirely obvious that the procedure they describe would lead them to the EXACT OPPOSITE conclusion. Lololololol

Working on new post

2011-12-09T12:26:00.000-08:00

┌─┐
┴─┴
ಠ_ರೃ

In the meantime, here's a picture of a classy fellow in a monocle and top hat.

I confess, I just wanted to post that.

I'm looking at you, Shattered Mirror trilogy

2011-12-08T22:58:00.001-08:00

So, I'm not going to name any names (although if I was, I'd totally include Alan Dean Foster), but I've noticed that for whatever reason, when a setting includes space aliens as sympathetic or even point of view characters, certain authors seem worried that us readers'll forget they're, like, aliens. You know, from space. Therefore they feel compelled to, whenever an alien feels hungry, have that alien say something like

"By jove! My food-desiring organs are secreting immense amounts of hunger-milk currently! I had better ingest some krill before they undergo spontaneous shutdown, which you earthlings would probably refer to as "starving to death!" Ho-ho!"

Or alternatively,

"Ahh, human, you will never understand the sensation I feel accompanying this particular attractive member of my species' third opposite sex. It is as though my love-glands are filled to exploding!"

It's like the author's super-self-conscious about having the aliens be different, but without actually giving them an alien perspective. Bah, I say! Give me well-characterized rubber forehead aliens any day.

To see an author who averts this quite well, I'll refer you to Eliezer Yudowsky of The Babyeating Aliens. Look, just read the damn thing, it'll take you maybe an hour. I also enjoyed the Animorph's gentle mockery of this trope, where you had a lot of exchanges like

Aximili: "Quickly, move! The alarm is going to sound in just six of your human minutes!"

Anybody Else: "You know, Ax, you've been on earth for like a year now. They're your minutes too."

The Polite Fiction

2011-12-07T16:28:00.000-08:00

You know what bugs me? Those times when you go into a McDonald's or other fast food place, and the server asks how you're doing today. I mean, don't get me wrong-- I'll do the "politely making conversation" thing, and I don't mind it so much for itself. Mostly it's just the fact that, at some point, I've got to be the one to break the polite fiction that we are merely two gentlemen discussing the merits of mercantilism and the trade deficit, exposing the crassly commercial element of the whole exchange by asking for a drink and an oatmeal with no brown sugar.

It just feels callous-- like this guy or girl behind the counter simply wants to connect with another human being, and I, being the selfish sumbitch I am, deny them even this in favor of getting my drink just a bit sooner. The thing is, I also dig that (despite appearances!) this actually isn't the case, and my staying to chat with the server about Germany's up-and-coming Alchemical College will only result in my getting bludgeoned "accidentally" by the guy behind me that just wants to move it along, please.

The free refills totally make it worth it, though.

Emotional Manipulation for Fun and Profit

2011-12-05T15:25:00.001-08:00

So, in playing League of Legends, it has come to my attention that there is a disconcerting number of people who don't know something that should be fairly basic to any team game: how to give advice so that it is taken.

It's harder than it sounds!

So, you're in a game. Bottom lane is losing to Blitzcrank, and horribly. Like, they've got three deaths at the 7:00 mark. Bad times, and this is typically when otherwise reasonable players want to start scolding their fellows. Resist this temptation.

Basically all the advice I'll be giving here, you see, is based off of one simple and obvious principle: Pride is one of the most powerful emotions humans possess. Psychologists have like a million terms for all the millions of ways pride-- the desire to think of yourself as awesome-- influences us to act in ways otherwise contrary to reason. This is encapsulated in some term I cannot recall-- if we're faced with a choice between thinking of ourselves as not-awesome, and literally any other option, we'll pretty much always choose the other thing, with the rest of our beliefs correcting themselves to fit. Let us take a concrete example.

Suppose you told the player in bottom lane "wtf noob, don't u know to hide behind your minions, uninstall ur game and go play tetris. Also noob jungler underleveld lol." This is somewhat more helpful than the option of simply telling him to uninstall and leaving it at that, but even so, by the simple act of insulting him you've made it crazy-unlikely he'll take your (actually quite good) advice to hide behind his minions to avoid getting grabbed. The unconcious calculation is basically as follows:

"Either this guy knows what he's talking about or not. If he knows what he's talking about, I'm a feeding noob who should go play Tetris, and also I should shield myself using my minions. Will crediting this guy imply I'm more or less awesome?"

The rest of the calculation is pretty trivial. Thus, the thing you'll most likely hear in response is

"STFU noob i no wut im doin, also wtf jungler no gank?!?!?!?!??!?!??! noob jungler"

But this is all obvious. What many folks seem not to realize is that even the most politely-worded bits of plain advice send the subtle, but very real, message of "you don't know what you're doing." Thus even if the hypothetical gentleman above spoke thusly:

"My dear fellow, I would kindly recommend you utilize your minions so as to avoid Blitzcrank's rocket grab, which quite assures him of a kill when landed"

The most likely response would be "STFU noob", followed by repeated harassment of the team's jungler as above.

This makes the best advice, I think, take the form of roundabout comments regarding what you've done or regretted not doing in similar situations, preferably in a self-deprecating form so that the other fellow doesn't think you're lording it over him. Thus:

"Blitzcrank's rocket grab is pretty tricky to deal with. Last time I faced him I always got murdered when I didn't keep minions between me and him. Also, wtf jungler nooooooooooooob."

To which bot lane can only respond "ya jungler sucks, gg". But the important thing is, this way he might actually take your advice. And thereby stop feeding Blitzcrank. And really, isn't that the important thing?

This is actually much easier if the behavior you want the other person to perform is something that you, yourself, should reasonably be doing, because then it can take the form of

"Sorry, I keep forgetting to keep minions between myself and Blitz"

which gets across exactly the same information as above, but without any assault-- implied or otherwise-- on the pride of your teammate. (Note that you can totes do this even if you hadn't actually made the error in question. I have never once been called out on this.)

Happy hunting!

*edited for psychological accuracy, courtesy of Blake

Humility is so practical a virtue that men think it must be a vice.

--G.K. Chesterton

Hawkward.

2011-12-04T14:11:00.001-08:00

So I confess to you, though I greatly enjoy the game of League of Legends (or, as we've taken to calling it, Lolitics), the player base... well, I wouldn't say they're all assholes. Some of them would be more accurately described as jackasses, with perhaps a few shitweasels thrown in for good measure. Don't get me wrong, it's easy enough to find someone reasonably polite when the team's winning, but when the team loses... well, it's kind of like a game of Hot Potato. Except instead of a potato being tossed, it's furious insults, typed out by middle-schoolers using every key on their keyboard except for the ones with letters.

So given this, it's entirely understandable that I've really only met one person on there who I've felt like playing with again after the game. Totally a classy fellow, sportsmanlike, willing to admit fault.

"By Jove!" I thought. "What if I introduce this fellow to the rest of my playing group, so that we can all play a game together as a team? It's bound to have only good results! Right? Right."

So then I do, and shortly thereafter, I come to the realization: this guy seems to be somewhat worse than the rest of my team at the actual game.

Hawkward.

Although in his defense, that game was after recent patch changes had forced him out of the jungle (which is where he's best), and into the solo top role (which I am given to understand he's really only sorta-decent at.)

What I listen to while grading exams

2011-12-03T16:13:00.001-08:00

There's the guy who always mixes up his "joules" and "kilojoules";
and the guy who cannot seem to use his calculating tools;
the one who takes three-fourths the page to get an answer wrong,
And the one who very plainly nowhere near a lab belongs;
and the student who to get one point will for six weeks persist,
I've got them on the list-- they never would be missed!

A Dark Confessional

2011-12-02T21:06:00.001-08:00

In relating the circumstances which have led to my confinement within this refuge for the demented, I am aware that my present position will create a natural doubt of the authenticity of my narrative. It is an unfortunate fact that the bulk of humanity is too limited in its mental vision to weigh with patience and intelligence those isolated phenomena, seen and felt only by a psychologically sensitive few, which lie outside its common experience. Men of broader intellect know that there is no sharp distinction betwixt the real and the unreal; that all things appear as they do only by virtue of the delicate individual physical and mental media through which we are made conscious of them; but the prosaic materialism of the majority condemns as madness the flashes of super-sight which penetrate the common veil of obvious empiricism.

For this reason, I do not expect many of you to understand why I undertake such actions as I currently perform; I suspect those who do will be only those who have (for reasons of their own) already have succumbed to the temptations I myself have discovered. Nevertheless, some accounting of my actions is called for, and I will not evade responsibility.

My investigations began my senior year of college, when, on a hunch, I took a computer science course over at Claremont McKenna-- fool that I was to plunge with such unsanctioned frenzy into mysteries no man was meant to penetrate! My professor was an Asian man of fiery eyes and indeterminate accent, one who knew so much of the mechanical gods that he could tell of their comings and goings-- so much so that many of us deemed him half a god himself. It was he, I believe, who first implanted the mad desire in me, to sacrifice the righteous teachings of the Lexicanum Alchemical I had studied for so long, in favor of the lunatic ramblings of the computer scientists.

I resisted, friends! I graduated with my chemistry degree, steeped in the eldritch knowledge known only by the highest priests of my discipline. But this resistance--conceive you-- it came at a price! I arrived three months later at my graduate program, with a determination to see my chemical education through, but I suspected then (even as I know now!) that there would come a time when my willpower would fail me, and as the dog returns to his vomit--as the sow returns to her mire-- I would one day find myself casting off the teachings of the Holy and Righteous, abandoning my self, my honor, my very soul to the dark gods I discovered that fateful year.

Therefore, I relate to you: I have been accepted to the Computer Science program at the University of Washington. For mine is not to become a chemist-- it never was, though in the haze of my delusions I had convinced myself otherwise. No, my destiny is far darker, a horror beyond mortal ken. Yes, friends-- my fate, I believe, is to become a programmer. Your attempts to convince me otherwise (well-intentioned though such efforts are!) will fall on deaf ears. Or not deaf ears, but rather, ears which have opened to the terrible singing of the cosmos-- the Choir of Carcosa-- the opera, if I may so express it, that will end the world.

May God help me. May God help us all.

"Sometimes I believe that this less material life is our truer life, and that our vain presence on the terraqueous globe is itself the secondary or merely virtual phenomenon."
H.P. Lovecraft, "Beyond the Wall of Sleep"

Sometimes, when grading, I get stuff like:

2011-12-01T21:36:00.000-08:00

"Using a 15 percent difference as acceptable, the room temperature Ksp values with and without KCl are the same as the difference between the two values is 10.5 percent which is less than the acceptable 15 percent and therefore 10.5 percent is acceptable and again the Ksp values with and without KCl are the same."

Lest you think this is an isolated occurrence: on a different paper, which I do not have in front of me but which I have, unfortunately, committed to memory, I found this sentence as a description of the procedure of the lab:

"We used the measurements to find the calculations."

Kill me now.

It's a work in progress.

2011-11-30T21:31:00.000-08:00

Several days after the sinking of Venice during the conclusion of the most recent grail war, an evacuated cabin is found in an outlying village, known to be in the care of one Isaac Morganstern. A heavy manuscript is found on Isaac's desk, inside an envelope labeled "WORK IN PROGRESS: DO NOT READ." There have been several titles written and scribbled out; the latest appears to read "PHASERS: THE MUSICAL." Unfortunately, only one page is still readable, the rest having been rendered illegible by water damage. This... is that page.

CAPTAIN JOHANN lays bleeding on the deck of the STARSHIP BELLOWSMITH. The CREW appears panicked. A gaping wound in the hull reveals the cold and unforgiving vacuum of space.

(Trombone intro)

Captain Johann: I’ve been shot by a phaser!

Crew: (He’s been shot by a phaser!)

Captain Johann: Not any normal taser, nor a military laser

but a full-blown, automated science fiction phaser!

The glowing should have warned me,

‘bout the cruiser gunning for me—

A futuristic omen of my hull blasted wide open!

Crew: But sir, sir, how did this happen!

Weren’t you in the mast, watching for piratical captains!

Captain (to himself): I suppose my constant drinking

Harbinge’d a ship soon to be sinking….

Crew (in reprise): (We supposed his constant drinking

Meant our ship would soon be sinking!)

(Band crescendos)

Captain Johann:

A red sky in the morning, is a quite ob-vi-ous warning

But I feeeeeeeeear it haaaas no plaaaace

To a shiiiiiiip that’s allllllll aaaaaaaaaaaaa-spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace!

(Captain Johann dies.)

I should write in old-timey style more often.

2011-11-29T18:36:00.000-08:00

I have heard innumerable times, for innumerable competitive games, the statement that a given change will be bad, not because it will make encourage some strategies and discourage others, or even because it will make the game less fun, but rather because

"It will remove the element of skill from the game."

This is a highly questionable assertion for any game that is fundamentally player versus player, simply because skill can be defined as "the ability to win", and in any given PvP game 50% of players will always lose the match. The skills required may change, and any given subskill may be rendered unimportant by a change, but the level of required skill as such will be unvarying.

I believe I shall start referring to this rather bizarre variety of statement as a "Morgensternism," after its fictional 18th-century inventor, Polonius Morgenstern. An account of this idea's creation may be found in his autobiography:

"One day, after I had beaten my elder brother in a Chess-Match, he declared that he was nevertheless the more Skillful player due to the myriad ways he had maneuvered his Queen into a variety of advantageous locations (and indeed, they were Most Advantageous). As a lightning-bolt, it Entered into my mind that, in positing Superiority over another man in any Sport or other Recreation, it is not necessary to demonstrate facility in Winning; rather, one may fixate on some Point or Sub-Skill involved in said Sport or Recreation, and declare it to be the only Relevant, or Noble Point on which all should hang. A man is thus rendered Flexible in means of finding himself more brilliant than his Fellows, whereas a man fixated on Winning may on such occasions be rendered quite Sterile and open to ridicule."

Oh, I love characters like this.

2011-11-28T18:20:00.000-08:00

An excerpt from the book Mistborn, on the subject of the Morality of Mind Control:

"Well," Breeze said, "let us begin, then. First, you must understand that Soothing is about more than just Allomancy. It's about the delicate and noble art of manipulation."

"Noble indeed," Vin said.

"Ah, you sound like one of them," Breeze said.

"Them who?"

"Them everyone else," Breeze said. "You saw how that skaa gentleman treated me? People don't like us, my dear. The idea of someone who can play with their emotions, who can 'mystically' get them to do certain things, makes them uncomfortable. What they do not realize—and what you must realize—is that manipulating others is something that all people do. In fact, manipulation is at the core of our social interaction."

He settled back, raising his dueling cane and gesturing with it slightly as he spoke. "Think about it. What is a man doing when he seeks the affection of a young lady? Why, he is trying to manipulate her to regard him favorably. What happens when old two friends sit down for a drink? They tell stories, trying to impress each other. Life as a human being is about posturing and influence. This isn't a bad thing—in fact, we depend upon it. These interactions teach us how to respond to others."

He paused, pointing at Vin with the cane. "The difference between Soothers and regular people is that we are aware of what we're doing. We also have a slight . . . advantage. But, is it really that much more 'powerful' than having a charismatic personality or a fine set of teeth? I think not."

A LoL post?!

2011-08-28T21:33:00.000-07:00

So I've started playing League of Legends with Josh and Branden recently (don't look at me like that, California Crowd) and I've been trying to get better with one particular character-- Zilean, the Chronokeeper. Basically he's a support character that specializes in time manipulation. Also, he has a huge damn clock strapped to his back at all times.

A classy fellow, in other words. In that spirit, I present to you: Zilean image macros!

I have no regrets.

Remember that game, Oregon Trail?

2011-08-23T21:31:00.001-07:00

Man, I used to be all about that game when I was younger. I was sorta naive, though. Among the things it taught me:

1) People will commonly die from minor infections caused by gunshot wounds.
2) Do not eat the tiny red berries. They will kill you.
3) Do not give people sparse rations and a grueling pace, no matter how fast you want to get to Oregon.
4) Do not buy Daffy's Elixir. If you do buy Daffy's Elixir, do not drink it.

That fourth one was especially tricky for me, as I was a highly naive and trusting child. Therefore I took the vendor at his word when I saw the following advertisement:

Daffy’s original and famous elixir salutis: the choice drink of health: or, health-bringing drink. Being a famous cordial drink, found out by the providence of the Almighty, and (for above twenty years) experienced by himself, and divers persons (whose names are at most of their desires here inserted) a most excellent preservative of man-kind. A secret far beyond any medicament yet known, and is found so agreeable to nature, that it effects all its operations, as nature would have it, and as a virtual expedient proposed by her, for reducing all her extreams unto an equal temper; the same being fitted unto all ages, sexes, complexions, and constitutions, and highly fortifying nature against any noxious humour, invading or offending the noble parts. Never published by any but by Anthony Daffy, student in physick, and since continued by his widow Elleanor Daffy.

"By Jove!" I thought. "This could be exactly what I need to curb the growing epidemic of (alternately) Malaria, Dysentery, and The Cholera that has been plaguing my wagon train for the last several weeks! Brilliant!"

Which would've have been just fine if I hadn't, in a fit of youthful exuberance, decided that the opportunity to acquire multiple bottles of the marvelous elixir was a higher priority than keeping up my stores of food and ammunition. I'd always end up with an inventory that looked like:

Oxen (4)
Ammunition (2 bullets)
Guns (1)
Rations (4 days worth)
Duffy's Elixir (Five hundred pounds)

For some reason, the people I had conscripted into my wagon train were none too pleased at the development.

Me: "Everyone! I know it's been rough going, but it's time for more Sparse Rations with a Grueling Pace! We've got to get to Oregon before winter, you know!"
Hapless Traveler: "But... but I haven't eaten in two days! I've started having hallucinations where our oxen grow tentacles and try to eat me!"
Me: "Don't worry, we have several hundred pounds of Daffy's Elixir. It'll cure what ails ya!"
Hapless Traveler: "But it burns! And I think it makes the hallucinations worse!"
Me: "That's just the wood alcohol. Now drink up!"
Hapless Traveler: "But I--"
Me: "DRINK. UP."

The moral of this story is that I should never be put in charge of travel plans.

Magical Telekinetic Ellis?

2011-08-18T12:44:00.000-07:00

How can I lose?!

Also, to everyone I'm going to be playing this campaign with: My heartfelt apologies to all of you in advance.

------------

"Man, you can't skimp on the details when you're doin' ritual work. Like, this one time, Paul was tryin' out an idea from an old tome we bought from this creepy old man, and it involved making a summonin' circle, right? So there we were, drawin' one up, and the recipe called for human blood, but then Paul was all like 'Hey, blood's blood, right?' and used some from a chicken instead. So anyway, the spell summoned up a balor, and when the circle didn't work it grabbed hold of Paul and--"
"Isaac, is this the best time?"
"Okay!"

----------

"Man, magical research is tricky. Like, this one time I was tryin' to open up a portal to Yuggoth for the purpose of layin' down some new leylines, right, but just at the apex of the spell Paul tripped on his own shoelaces and fell into the portal. Don't ask how it works, but turns out time in Yuggoth goes about a hundred times as fast as it does here, so when we finally managed to conjure Paul back up that evening he looked like one o' them homeless guys you find raving on the street. Man, I laughed so hard I nearly--"
"Isaac, we really don't have time for this right now."
"Okay."

----------

"Man, you can never have too much protective gear. Did I ever tell you about when Paul pawned off his holy symbols, on accounta his mom kickin' him out of the house? About five angry ghosts possessed him that very night. I thought it was just one ghost at first, but then I brought in this necromancer, and apparently it was his first time seein' ghosts possessin' ghosts possessin' ghosts. Makes you think, man. So we got this tub of water--"
"Isaac, could this story wait?"
"Okay!"

Scapegoat!

2011-08-14T21:36:00.000-07:00

Okayokayokayokayokay

SO!

Today's topic: Team Cohesion in Left 4 Dead!

Now, for all y'all who don't know, L4D is a game where a team of four people kill zambies, and the four zambies try to kill them back. Now, this is a very, very team-oriented game-- if Side One can communicate well and Side Two can't, the former will roll over the latter like a steamroller over a twinkie. So team cohesion's pretty important. But how is it affected by external circumstances? THIS, friends, is the subject of tonight's BLOG POST.

If you know everyone on your team, cohesion's going to be pretty good. That is because, of course, you know your team will be free of the backbiting that goes on in other groups, and because you already have respect for each other's judgement (hopefully.)

Now... where this can go horribly wrong is if your team is losing-- and not just losing, but being crushed by the other team. This is where it can be advantageous to have one person on your team who your group doesn't know! Whereas in a team fully made up of personal friends there is no ready and appropriate outlet for your frustrations, one can simply boot the unknown quantity out of a three-friend-plus-one-stranger team, thereby preserving the egos of all involved. Everyone wins*! Observe the following genuine** conversation illustrating this:

Situation 1: Max, Blake, Jesse and I are on a team.

Me: OHHHH NOOOO, we're losing horrifically!
Blake: Man, we gotta start executing our ambushes all at once. We're getting slaughtered.
Me: Is that a jab at me? IS IT?
Max: I think my problem is to do with lag.
Blake: Well maybe I wouldn't have to jab at you if you went with the team!
Me: How dare you Blake, I will find you, I will hunt you down--

Situation Two: Blake, Max, me and an Unknown Person (UP) are on a team.

Me: OHHHH NOOOO, we're losing horrifically!
Blake: Man, we gotta start executing our ambushes all at once. We're getting slaughtered.
Me: I think it's that new guy. He's terrible.
Max: Agreed.
Blake: Agreed.
(Unknown Person has been kicked from the game!)
All: (general rejoicing and merriment ensues)

---

*I should also note the possibility that I am a terrible person.
**Genuine in the sense that nobody can prove it didn't happen.

Weekend Debauchery!?

2011-08-10T22:37:00.000-07:00

Okayokayokay, so, I haven't blogged in a few days, thereby reneging on my agreement with HTMC to match his blogging pace. But! I've got a good reason for it! Specifically that this weekend I was at Branden's beach house, the one and only place where I actually get drunk. 'Course, this plus the fact that we only go there about once every month or two means that I have the alcohol tolerance of a diseased chipmunk.

Not a bad thing!

Now, some fellas take pride in being able to hold their liquor. Hey, I can understand that a man has to prove his manliness somehow, and we can't all arm-wrestle bears like Jesse does each weekend. So one way of enjoying alcohol is, indeed, the pride of being able to consume large amounts.

Still, I find it convenient to be an uber-lightweight sometimes, particularly:

1) When the alcohol being served is in its purest (read: least drinkable) forms, thereby allowing me to get away with having as few shots as possible, and

2) When it's a Bring Your Own Booze event and I really only need to spend about seven bucks to get entirely drunk off of Mike's Hard Lemonade Light. Awwwww yeah. Also, don't judge me, girly drinks are fantastic. This is attested to by the fact that I have conversations like:

Me: Hey guys! Who's ready to begin drinking-game type festivities?! I know I am. Even brought my own drinks!

Branden: Ahhh, you've just got Mike's Hard Lemonade! That's not like a real drink! A real man drinks vodka spiked with tequila spiked with rum, and follows it with a chaser made of equal parts industrial ethanol and fireball gin. I am embarrassed-- nay, ashamed-- to sit at the same table as a man who plays King's Cup with such a drink as Mike's Hard Lemonade!

Me: I think you mean Mike's Hard Lemonade Light.

Branden: ....

Me: It means it doesn't have suga--

Branden: I KNOW WHAT IT MEANS.

(Five minutes later)

Branden: Hey, mind if I have some of that?

Good times all around.

CSI: Uberwald

2011-08-02T22:35:00.000-07:00

"Well, Jenkins, this is a pretty picture. Two corpses on the ground, one obviously a vampire, the other obviously drained by that same vampire."

"Just so, sir. But what killed the vampire?"

"Ah! A tricky question. You see, Jenkins, this is why they pay me the big bucks."

"...as you say, sir."

"It's clear to me that the dead human here was an alcoholic! You see the unshaven face, you smell the stench of cheap liquor on his clothes? I'd bet this man was just passed out in the alley, and the vampire decided to take advantage of the situation."

"And its death?"

"Elementary, my dear Jenkins. You see, vampires cannot abide alcohol. Their livers are nonfunctional, which is why they need the pure blood of a sober human. So when this he fed on this poor fellow, it went poorly for him."

"But sir, you cannot mean--"

"Yes, Jenkins. The vampire...."

"...died in vein."

Deleted scene from the Captain America movie

2011-07-31T18:40:00.000-07:00

Captain America: Mister Stark, I find myself in need of a certain amount of technological assistance. You see, I'm going up against Nazis armed with laser cannons that can reduce groups of men to their constituent amino acids; turrets powered by some kind of ancient artifact; and tanks almost, but not quite, bigger than your mom. I need some help here, is what I'm saying.

Tony Stark Sr.: What'd you say about my mom?

Captain America: Let's stay focused here, Stark. How can you help me?

Tony Stark Sr.: Well, it took me several years to develop, but I have constructed for you a circular disc that, when angled properly by the user, can deflect projectile weapons and even melee attacks, thereby preserving you from harm. You can attach it to your arm or, in a pinch, hold it with one hand.

Captain America: Did... did you just re-invent the shield? Did you really take millions of dollars in government grants in order to give me the foremost in cutting-edge medieval technology?

Tony Stark Sr.: Please! They didn't have polymers in the middle ages.

Captain America: So.... it's a plastic shield, then.

Tony Stark Sr.: "Polymers" sounds more scientific. Plus! You can also, I dunno, throw it. Don't think they did that in the middle ages.

Captain America: So what did you use the rest of the money on, out of curiosity? This thing must've cost all of twenty bucks.

Tony Stark Sr.: Eh, going out clubbing. Scoring chicks. You know how it is.

Captain America: How... why... but clubbing doesn't cost several million dollars!

Tony Stark Sr.: Depends on if you're doing it right.

Where Are They Now? Part 2

2011-07-29T02:36:00.001-07:00

Ceinlys, for the next several decades, continued seeking glorious death in battle, only to be defeated at every turn when legion upon legion of advancing Necrons crumbled before his might. Deeply frustrated as he was, when rewarded with a commemorative heavy bolter by the Deathwatch, he tore his clothes, gnashed his teeth, and fired his bolter in rage up at the sky (which, due to an earlier mishap with his medicines, he currently believed to be the emperor's literal home.) Thankfully, this was mistaken for religious zeal by his brethren, earning him the name of "Shinkicker the Holy." He continues to seek his death to this day.

Unsuccessfully.

Ceros continued making wagers with Taros regarding number of opponents killed. These wagers became more and more elaborate as time went on, involving specific styles of killing and trick shots, and eventually culminated in Ceros inventing an elaborate system of points whereby each space marine could quantify exactly how much better he was at killing than his counterpart. At the moment, Ceros and Taros each think the other owes him five hundred heavy bolter rounds. Inquisitor Silberthorn refuses to adjudicate.

Veer continued his work for Inquisitor Silberthorn in his capacity as a sniper. As the Inquisitor's trust in him and his abilities grew, Veer quickly advanced from assassin, to elite assassin, to diplomat, and then back to assassin when the Inquisitor realized that Veer's open and trusting nature made him perhaps the worst possible choice for any sort of diplomatic post. Veer kept the monocle, though. And the sash.

Deathwatch: Where Are They Now? Part 1

2011-07-28T17:41:00.000-07:00

And so the day is saved! (WARNING: fluff heresy ahead)

Inquisitor Silberthorn went on to become Inquisitor Lord Silberthorn after the previous Inquisitor Lord was killed in an industrial accident involving several turbo-penetrator rounds impacting various parts of his body. Silberthorn then named several planets after himself, one upon which he later ordered an Exterminatus.

The left side of his face was burned off in a battle with a troop of Chaos Space Marines. However, with the assistance of extensive reconstructive surgery costing upwards of several million Thrones, his left eyebrow is making a full recovery.

Taros went on to fight in many wars, and also to replace several of his fleshy bits with shiny metallic bits. During the Sixth Tau Incursion he became famed throughout the sector for accidentally becoming warboss of a neutral ork tribe, thereby obtaining enough green-skinned meat shields to get his own men into close combat with few casualties.

Infern continues to drift through the warp, scheming revenge upon Veer and also maybe the others (but especially Veer.) Plus, he's channeling the Emperor as well as ever.

I mean the Warp.

Only a song remains to mark his passing:

"your heart was a swarm of bees

And they don't and they will never leave

I hear them buzzing there invisibly

And now it's just you and me."

A roller-coaster ride of vexation

2011-07-26T16:52:00.000-07:00

DAY 1:

Me: "So, I hear you're working on Interesting Research!"

The Professor: "I am indeed! I actually just got here, and am hiring grad students right now."

Me: "Excellent! And I could start immediately?"

The Professor: "Just so! I'd like to meet again next week. Have sixty pages of analytical literature, it's on the house."

Me: "Excellent!"

DAY 5:

Me: "So, I've read the stuff, and I feel like I'd be a good fit for your group! What say you?"

The Professor: "Well, thing about that is.... I actually only have one additional spot in the group, so I have to make the hiring decision very carefully. Also I have to chat with the Grad Program Coordinator. I'll get back to you in a couple days with my answer."

Me: "Excellent! And you'll get back to me at that time?"

The Professor: "Just so!"

DAY 7:

Me: ....

The Professor: (absent)

DAY 9:

Me: "So how's that hiring decision coming along?"

The Professor: "mmmmmmmmmmMMMMMWorking on it. Don't worry, I'll get back to you tomorrow with my answer."

Me: "..."

DAY 10 (today!):

Me: (compulsively refresh email)

Email: "Nothing new to report!"

(repeat)

(Clock strikes 5:00 PM)

Deathwatch: A Choose Your Own Adventure: The Vision Quest: A True Story

2011-07-23T23:17:00.000-07:00

A warped landscape surrounds our hero, the pastel-colored trees twisting in on themselves in a hideous mockery of the natural order. A great, spherical being, almost too bright to behold, floats before him. It has either eight or sixteen wings, precessing around themselves in a fashion casting doubt on which direction it faces. The space marine tenses, waiting for the thing to speak, or attack, or... well, something.

IF YOU ARE GENRE-SAAVY, TURN TO PAGE 44.

IF YOU ARE INFERN OBLINIUS, TURN TO PAGE 111.

PAGE 44

The luminous entity brightens further. "Hello, human-- I am your human lord, the God-Emperor of Mankind himself! I offer you power and blessings beyond your wildest imaginings, if you pledge yourself to me!"

"You are very clearly a daemon who wants to eat my brains. Or whatever it is you guys do."

"What? Of course not! I am the very model of your puny human emperor! Why, my very corpse is dessicating in Holy Terra herself! Also, you're thinking of zombies."

"My answer is still no. Go back to hell, I guess is the general thrust of my message here."

"Well... it's a fair cop, I guess. But it is funny you speak of thrusting, for Lord Slaanesh--"

"Gonna ride right past the part where you finish that sentence."

PAGE 111

The luminous entity brightens further. "Hello, mortal-- I am your lord, the God-Emperor of Mankind himself! I offer you power and blessings beyond your wildest imaginings, if you pledge yourself to me!"

"I dunno... if you're a demon, pledging myself to you would be pretty heretical."

"But consider! If I am the Emperor, NOT pledging yourself to me would be even MORE heretical!"

"Fair point."

"Plus, I have a great many unhol-- er, hallowed gifts which I can bestow on my unwitting vic-- ah, worshippers! Would I be able to do that if I WASN'T the emperor?"

"Well... no. But what exactly is the nature of these gifts, if I may ask?"

"ALL THE TENTACLES."

"That sounds... pretty unholy, actually."

"Look, I don't exactly have all day here. What would YOU choose as a gift?"

"Some more effective painkillers would be nice."

"Excellent! I shall then equip you with five syringes of a painkiller so powerful, so terrible in its glory, that I had to consume seventeen individual planets in order to make them! A narcotic so potent that to even comprehend its true purpose is to become hopelessly addicted, a willing slave to the doom of the universe, and servant to the Lord of Pain himself!"

"I'm pretty sure you meant the God-Emperor right there."

"Yes. Yes I did."

".... sold!"

A very hypocritical blog post

2011-07-21T00:24:00.000-07:00

So in my perhaps UNWISE quest to write a substantive blog post every two days, I have run into the difficulty of not having anything in particular to say for today. I find that this dilemma can be solved by the following methods!

1) Strong, yet formulaic post builds (my CSI Puns series, for example)

2) Doing ACTUAL WORK and coming up with a REAL TOPIC of discussion (NOOOOO)

3) Linking to stuff!

4) Cannibalizing the work of my fellow bloggers by providing supporting commentary to their laborious... labors.

5) Meta! (DO NOT DO THIS)

I favor #1 when #2 proves fruitless, as it generates original content while making few demands on the ever-fickle Muse. In that, I find it's a bit like drunken college hookups: quick, easy, but with the potential to accidentally create something of lasting value out of a half-hour of awkward, yet occasionally enjoyable shenanigans. I'm not sure what contraceptives are in this metaphor.

Of course, I can do #4 and go all recursive with it a la Inception, a film so memetic that I can quote from it without actually having seen the movie. I like to think of this as a bit like #2, but I also kind of view meta-posts as being sort of like first-date discussions where the topic is the awkwardness of first-dating: okay, as far as it goes, but nothing arises from it. At the end of your comedy bit about the horrors of first-dating, you're still on that first date, and have to deal with this fact just as you had to earlier. It's a strategic dead-end, is what I'm saying. On the other hand, it does buy you some time with which to think of other good stuff to talk about, such as your research project on shooting monkeys with lasers.

In other news, I'm very tired! I shall speak to you all again in a couple days, when I should be working in my new Analytical Chemistry-oriented research group. Awwwww yeah. Incidentally, soliciting topics for future blog-o-posting right now!

A Game Of Thrones-- TV/Book comparison, pt 1

2011-07-19T01:05:00.001-07:00

Spoiler warning: I WOULD NOT ADVISE JULIA TO READ THIS UNTIL SHE GETS, LIKE, SEVERAL MORE CHAPTERS INTO THE BOOK. Also anybody else who doesn't want minor first-season/first-book spoilers for the series.

So I've now both watched and read A Game of Thrones, and I thought it might be neat to investigate how the transition from book to TV series was done. For the most part the lines were kept the same from the book to the screen, which makes any differences cropping up particularly illustrative. I'll be focusing on just a couple of the differences for now, but I'll likely be throwing in a few others later as I notice them.

Difference #1: A Lighter and Softer Stark Family

Catelyn and Ned Stark are much softer and gentler in the TV show than in the series. Catelyn, for example, clearly despises Jon Snow (Ned's bastard child), and this manifests itself in her really, really not wanting him around during times of stress. When Bran gets hurled out the window and Catelyn is sitting at his bedside, Jon comes to say a few words to him before he leaves Winterfell.

In the show:

Catelyn barely tolerates Jon's presence, glowering at him as he speaks to Bran, until finally she tells him "I need you to leave."

In the book:

Catelyn threatens to throw him out of the room, but doesn't actually follow through on her threat. When Jon finishes with Bran and begins to leave the room, Catelyn says "It should have been you (laying in the bed dying)". Definitely the harsher Catelyn, by any standard.

Reason: The show can't let us in the main character's heads like in the books, so they get less automatic sympathy from the audience-- the protagonists have to show that they deserve our sympathy. This means they can't be overly harsh, or the audience will just stop caring what happens to them.

Difference #2: Roz.

Roz. In the show, she's an extremely popular prostitute hired by several of the main characters and... well, she's not actually in the book. As far as I can tell, she serves three apparent purposes, two of them obvious and one of them (I believe) less-obvious.

Reason the First: FAAAAAAAAAANSERVICE.

'Nuff said.

Reason the Second: Interactive thought bubble.

The book series is told in third-person limited, meaning that we basically live inside the point-of-view character's head. That means we get to hear their thoughts as they're having them. Unfortunately, there's not really a non-awkward way to access the important thoughts of main characters on camera; since the perspective rotates between characters, it would feel incredibly awkward to use voiceovers for this purpose. This is doubly true when the book's narrator is performing exposition, rather than the characters themselves.

Roz The Prostitute is a rather elegant solution to this; without really intruding on the main plot, her own character can act as a sounding board for the other characters to, uh, "sound off" on. (I did not mean that to sound as dirty as it did.) For example, look at the scene between her and Theon Greyjoy. The discussion between Theon and she clarifies the complex relationship (a mix of "adopted son" and "hostage") between Theon and the Stark family-- a bit of exposition that would be difficult to do otherwise.

Reason the Third: Greek Chorus

She acts like a sort of greek chorus, putting the actions of the characters in perspective and more-or-less telling the audience how we should feel about them. Lemme use the Theon Greyjoy conversation again as an example. The conversation basically goes:

Roz: Heeeeeey Theon. How's being a hostage treating you?

Theon Greyjoy: I resent that! I'm a Greyjoy, you know, of the Most Noble And Ancient House of Greyjoy-- you've got to treat me with more respect!

Roz: LOL

Theon Greyjoy: No, but seriously, I'm not taking that from a prostitute. I'm a tremendously important individual, you see, worthy of--

Roz: OLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

This is an important function, since in the books it's very clear, from Theon's private thoughts, that he's a very whiny and self-important individual. His conversation with Roz puts this into greater focus, letting us observe this while Roz, the audience surrogate, belittles him. Hilarity ensues!

Whoo shipping!

2011-07-16T11:48:00.001-07:00

Okayokayokay. So there's one thing that bugs me about the new HP movie. And that would be this:

Specifically, why would JK Rowling use a shallow love interest when there's an actually-developed character, like, right there:

These two characters I will subject to the well-known test of "describing her personality if she had never met the love interest." I guess this might not be quite fair-- of course Luna Lovegood would pass the test, because she doesn't actually end up as a love interest, which means without any sort of concrete personality she would just be "extra #14" and probably get eaten by a griffin during the climax of the film.

At any rate, Luna Lovegood is:

Probably insane
Believes in all manner of bizarre conspiracy theories
Maybe psychic (or possibly just got lucky a couple times with her bizarre conspiracy theories)
Basically, a female, magical Dale Gribble.

Just imagine this in a dress and witch's hat, and you're basically there.

Ginny Weasley, without Harry, is:

Good at magic
Ginger?
...
Good at magic

My main point being that the movies (and possibly books) would be much improved by merging Luna Lovegood and Ginny Weasley into a single character, named Luna Lovegood. Of course, there are other possibilities for non-shallow alternative love interests. In ascending order of interest, they are as follows:

CSI: Flotilla

2011-07-14T21:33:00.000-07:00

"Commander Shepard! Commander Shepard!"

"Dammit, Jenkins, this'd better be important. Legion's beating the pants off me in Call of Honor."

"Well, sir, the ship Ludkrig just got hit by a missile volley. Blew it to smithereens."

"What?! From what source?"

"The missiles appear to have been shot from the Ludkrig itself. I don't know why."

"Intriguing. Who's flying this ship? I have a hunch."

"Let's see... that'd be Johann Gunneson, sir. He performs well piloting transport ships, but it's been a long time since we've had him flying anything with armaments."

"Hmm. Well, seems to me ol' Johann forgot all he knew about computer-guided missiles. But I guess..."

"...it all came back to him eventually."

Computational Chemistry!?

2011-07-12T23:49:00.000-07:00

Ah! I very nearly reneged on my promise of another post today. And every two days thereafter. Hrrrrrm. Perhaps I was being overly hasty in making that declaration... or perhaps, just hasty enough?

But no matter. The important thing is, I'm searching for a new research group-- in computational modeling of chemical reactions, no less! This is actually quite a bit more viable than I suspected at first, and I've got an invitation now to go to group meetings for one of the groups I'm interested in. This is a very good thing, because if you're being invited to group meetings this means there's actually a chance you'll be joining the group.

Downsides of computational chem:

Requires taking a couple more courses in quantum mechanics next year.
It doesn't use any of my painstakingly acquired Organic Chemistry skills.
Funding? I dunno.

Upsides of computational chem:

I get to program! Wheee!
It doesn't use any of my painstakingly acquired Organic Chemistry skills!
Involves ingratiating myself with our silicon soon-to-be overlords; this will be useful when THE SINGULARITY arrives, and my programming experience helps me to avoid the attentions of the Flesh Recyclers.
Apparently computational chemistry types are all hardcore/raging nerds, whereas other chemistry fields are populated primarily by boring, garden-variety-type nerds.

Although I gotta say, the interview I had with one of the professors today was a bit awkward. He spent quite some time explaining the intricacies of various types of quantum mechanical calculations to me, and I suspect he didn't realize that-- being as I am a former synthetic chemist whose main responsibilities were pouring things into other things-- his discussions of the pros and cons of different electron modeling systems went over about as well as my attempts to teach my dog Dixie how to play chess.

No matter how many times I tell her, she always forgets to castle.

There's often a point in these interviews where I realize I'm in way over my head, but realize also that this has been true long enough that any questions I could ask would instantly reveal that I had only understood about 20-30% of the discussion. Typically my best case in these situations is to smile, nod, and bide my time until I can move the discussion onto safer ground. It's an acquired skill, much like curling your tongue or wrestling honey badgers.

Yeah, that's right, you maul that puff adder.

The important thing is, don't wrestle honey badgers.

2011-07-10T22:07:00.000-07:00

Man, I haven't written on here in like a month. You know how long that is? That's like thirty days. (Varying, naturally, from month to month. Dammit, Gregorian calendar.)

Anyway! Feeling inspired by HTMC's and Tropegirl's recent forays back into regular posting, I have decided to blog every other day because so help me, I will not be outdone by HTMC. Also, because I always seem to get roped into the trap of waiting for stuff to happen that I want to blog about, and then deciding "eh, not good enough" when I finally consider writing it. As I may have mentioned earlier, in my experience the Muse comes when you call her, but never otherwise!

Therefore, I present to you: a tale from a recent family reunion-type deal in Idaho this weekend! I hadn't heard it, and neither have you!*

So a guy's in a plane, right? And this ancient Buddhist monk is teaching him to skydive. (Look, I don't know why. It's because of, like, enlightenment or something. Anyway, are you telling this tale or am I?)

(Ingrates.)

So the monk tells the budding skydiver, "Remember, when you jump out of the airplane, count to ten, pull this cord to your right, and your parachute will open."

The skydiver replies, "Supposing it doesn't, what do I do then?"

"In the extremely unlikely event of the parachute not opening, we have a backup parachute you can open by pulling the cord on your left."

"And if that doesn't open?"

"Pray fervently to the Buddha for your safety."

"Got it."

So the Moment of Truth arrives, and the man jumps out of the airplane. He counts to ten, and pulls the cord on his right-- nothing happens. He pulls the cord on his left-- the parachute completely fails to open. Finally, believing all hope is lost, he yells "Save me, Buddha!" And a giant, golden hand swoops down from the heavens, plucking him from the air and bearing him gently down to the earth.

On reaching the ground, the man sighs in relief, muttering "thank God!"

Then the hand squishes him.

--------------

*if you know what's good for you. I'm looking at you, Stormshrug.

True Blood'd

2011-06-05T16:43:00.001-07:00

Hey! So I recently tried watching a bit of HBO's True Blood, on recommendation from a reviewer comparing it to The Sopranos and A Game Of Thrones, and I gotta say, I'm not impressed. For a couple of reasons, first of which is that...

Everyone Has Lots And Lots Of Sex

Okay, so basically the way all of the male-female interactions work in this series is:

Partner A (can be male or female): I'm feeling sad!

Partner B: Aww, I'm sorry.

Partner A: Can you help me resolve these emotions with sex?
Partner B: Okay!

A and B: PANTS TIME!

But that's perhaps the least of True Blood's failings! For you see, it also features...

Oddly Mixed Aesops

One of the main characters, Bill, is a vampire who chooses not to subsist on human blood for moral reasons (opting instead for the titular TruBlood, a synthetic blood-alike that vampires can subsist on, in much the same way that humans can subsist on an all-turnip diet.) So we've got a very clear, very predatory vampire culture here, right? And the main character's deviation from this (as well as his backstory) clearly indicate that the hideous evil of vampires in general is more of a cultural thing than a condition intrinsic to vampires. Anybody familiar with Drizz't knows the type of thing I'm talking about here.

Except it's inconsistent. Minor spoiler time: at the end of the first season a girl is turned to a vampire. Basically the transition is:

Girl: "Oh dear! Do not turn me into one of you unholeh bein's! Mah church will nevah think the same of meh if you do this thang! I could nevah hurt a flah, much less--"

Vampire: Om nom nom nom

(one scene later)

Girl: "SO WHO'S GOOD TO EAT IN THIS TOWN LAWL" (I swear this is ripped verbatim from the next scene you see her in. Well, 'cept for the lawl bit. But you can tell she was thinking it.)

It's just minor things like that which disrupt suspension of disbelief-- far worse, however, are

Characters Who Don't Ever Learn Anything, Ever

Drug Pusher: Hey, guy! Wanna buy some vampire blood? It's an aphrodisiac!

Hapless Mark: I dunno... the last time I bought vampire blood from you I ended up with a raging, twelve-hour case of priapism culminating in a scarring, anasthesia-free trip to a hospital wherein a team of highly skilled surgeons went at my junk with scalpels and needles the size of your hand, during which I was fully conscious and in such pain that all I could hope was that the doctors would allow me to bleed out and thereby hurl me into the sweet embrace of nonexistence.

Drug Pusher: Oooh, that's rough. Would it help if I gave you a free sample this time?

Hapless Mark: ...

Drug Pusher: Two free samples?
Hapless Mark: Well.... okay.

Viewer: FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUU--

This is the only song I remember from Pippin. No joke.

2011-05-27T21:39:00.000-07:00

(Hapless grad student SAM JOHNSON, the famous PROFESSOR THOMAS JANE, and ASSORTED STUDENTS sit in a conference room. The PROFESSOR stands at the head of the class.)

Professor Thomas Jane: Well, gentlemen, we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. This is where we are: SLIDES!

(projector turns on.)

Professor: Tomorrow morning we shall receive a brand-new DPI, a Delwar-Prescott Interferometer.

Sam: Sweet, a DPI!

Professor: Sam, sit down. Now, a primary difficulty in operating this instrument is its calibration. So look at this diagram—study it—remember it!

Sam: But Professor! Why can’t we just head in and collect our data?

Professor: You spoke, Sam?

Sam: Since we’re smarter and better-funded than other labs… and I’ve had a little experience with instruments like this… can’t we just throw in our samples, damn the torpedoes, and get our data?

Professor (scornfully): Science is a process, Sam.

Sam: Well that takes half the fun out of it right there.

Professor: There’s plenty of fun when you publish.

Instruments are tricky,

With rules to be applied

Which good students appreciate

Recall and recapitulate

Before they go to calibrate

The DPI!

Now, gentlemen, study this chart—this is the loading process for the body of the DPI!

Injection is a process that requires certain skill

We must get our sample in there, and this is how we will

The Gel Tube newly cleaned (that’s the area in green)

Will rise up from the body where it plainly can be seen

And the sample shill (in blue)

Should be knocked slightly askew—

For that’s what you depend upon a sample shill to do!

And to guarantee precision

We’ll bring three clamps into play—

We’ll have two on this incision

And the last one on Point A…

And then…. And then… and gen-tle-men, and then!

Sam: And then we’ll jam our sample into the IR!

Publish our conclusions and then light up a cigar!

Hark, I’ll have my doctorate so soon…

Academia—I’ll be with you by the coming moooooon!

Professor: SAM, SIT DOWN IMMEDIATELY.

Sam: Uh, sorry.

Professor: Now, where was I… Ah, yes.

Machinery is tricky,

A breeding ground for brains

For since “Doctor” prefixed my name

This mastery has brought me fame—

The skill of running instruments runs through my veins!

Now when the DPI's been running for an hour, two, or three,

You’ll see the button light up on the point I’ve labeled B—

Then you must check the System Gauge (in magenta on the chart)

And if you find the pressure dropping you should quickly hit Restart

Or the gas will reach the next chamber and very soon you’ll find

That it and your own sample are explosively combined.

And if you press the blue switch at that time,

I tell you this young scholars:

The inside will be turned to slime,

and you’ll owe us many dollars!

And then…

And gen-tle-men, and then!

Sam: And then we’ll jam our sample into the IR!

Publish our conclusions and then light up a cigar!

Hark, I’ll have my doctorate so soon…

Academia, I’ll be with you by the coming--

Professor: SAM! I WILL NOT WARN YOU AGAIN!

Sam: My bad!

Professor: In conclusion, gentlemen...

Now listen closely to me

I’ll endeavor to explain

What separates an undergrad

From a Thomas Jane

A rule confessed by scientists

Illustrious, but underpaid

Though as roaring as a Roerich

Or as far-flung as a Faraday

A rule that every great man learns by heart—

That it’s smarter to be lucky than it’s lucky to be smart!

And if editors aren’t kind to us

And at our results they sneer,

Well, suppose that we don’t publish?

We’ll just try again next year!

And then…

And gentlemen, and then!

Sam: And then we’ll jam our sample into—

Professor: σ_σ GET OUT

---------

I make no apologies.

Victory!

2011-05-18T12:09:00.000-07:00

I confess, I've not been blogging recently as much as I'd like. There are a couple of reasons, foremost being that I've been stressing out over schoolwork. There's this biochem assignment tripping me up, see-- basically, we just have to come up with a viable research proposal. Which sounds easy, until you realize that you have to come up with a problem which

A) hasn't been solved yet, and
B) you can solve, and
C) is worth solving.

Which is very tricky, since low-hanging fruit on the ol' scientific tree tends to get gobbled up right quick by various well-funded research groups. I confess this was the problem I had to deal with last quarter while working on a similar assignment-- the primary difference being that I had to come up with a viable proposal for a natural product synthesis, which was both easier and harder. Easier, because I didn't have to have any sort of in-depth understanding of biological systems, and I had my last biochemistry class two years ago. Harder, since I had to find a natural product that hadn't been synthesized yet. And do you know how I typically find out about interesting natural products?

If you guessed "by reading articles about various groups having synthesized them," congratulations! You win all the internets.

Thankfully, I realized a little bit ago that biochemistry is filled with small, finicky problems of various levels of trickiness. You can sorta think of biochemistry as a verdant woodland chock full of squirrels and chipmunks-- larger things, too, but you won't go hungry even if you're not an apex predator. *

Natural products synthesis, on the other hand, is a planet of nothing but dragons. And half the dragons look like chipmunks, and you don't realize they're actually dragons until you get hungry and try stabbing one with your sharp stick and immediately get set alight by its fiery breath, but instead of running away like a sane person you have to fight it because your professor is making you.

Compounding this is the fact that I have to do TA work, which got considerably easier since a conversation a week ago, wherein Blake gave me a great deal of helpful advice.

Blake: Hey Aaron! Hey Aaron! Wanna play Starcraft?

Me: Sorry, but I have to grade stuff.

Blake: I can think of a way you might do it faster.

Me: But Blake! What if one of my students complains about getting a C grade for A work?

Blake: Well, I'll tell you:

Me: You have a fair point, Blake. But you know, we kinda have to grade on a curve here. How do I ensure that the students get assigned different scores when their reports look so similar?

Me: Gee, Blake! You sure have a lot of good suggestions! But surely grading tests won't be so easy, will it?

Me: All solid suggestions! Still.... I can't help but feel like students have it too easy in lab, even still. Got any suggestions on that score?

It just goes to show: you've got to work smarter, not harder.

*In this analogy, the squirrels and chipmunks are those little studies probing what the function of particular amino acids are on different proteins. I'm a fan.

Ethanol Procurement

2011-05-13T22:41:00.000-07:00

So I was on the chemistry department requisition website to get some cobalt catalyst, when I noticed that one of the headings on the sidebar was "Ethanol Procurement".

So I clicked on it out of curiosity, and it turns out that--among all the deadly poisons and high explosives the Chemistry department has to offer-- the only one that actually requires special authorization to purchase is ethanol. The rule came into being a few years ago. This amuses me because it means that, at some point, some enterprising individual was all like

"Wow. Alcohol is incredibly expensive! Wouldn't it be easier if I could use just use the ethanol from the lab to mix my drinks?"

And this thought probably percolated in said individual's mind for a while, let's say about a week. And then he gives it a shot. He hosts a small party with all of his chemistry friends, and among the Mike's Hard Lemonades and Coors Lights, there sits a huge vat of pilfered absolute ethanol, mixed with, I dunno, fruit punch or something. (Fill this in with something more plausible if you actually mix drinks yourself.) Anyway, this party is a big hit, and nobody in the chem department really notices the missing ethanol, because chemists use tons of the stuff each day. And then the parties grow... and grow... and before the year is out, the chemistry department is unknowingly hosting wildly successful parties each week. And it's at that time that the stockrooms start to notice the fact that unusually large amounts of ethanol are being requisitioned on Friday evenings.

So the students are all like :D :D :D and then the administration's all like σ_σ and the students are all like ;_; and the stockroom's all like NO U and everything goes back to sad, slighly-poisoned-ethanol-less normalcy.* And the chemistry department requisition website bears the Ethanol FAQ as a small token in memory of the occasion.**

*The process used to make lab-grade absolute ethanol causes it to contain traces of methanol and benzene. Fun fact!

*the website itself claims to restrict ethanol on account of its being explosive, but the fact that it's regulated when other, far more dangerous chemicals go unrestricted makes my explanation seem more likely.

Saturday in the Lab

2011-04-30T19:17:00.000-07:00

Ahoy! So I've been working at the lab today since 2:00, and man, I'm feeling good about it. It's like one of the first times I've felt like a real graduate student since I've gotten here. Perhaps a large part of the reason for this is the fact that grad students really like to complain about long hours in the lab, and I haven't been able to do that yet. Somebody'd always be like

"Man, I just left the lab, and did you know it's autumn now?! Ridiculous how much they have us work."

And I'd always mumble something vaguely affirming in their direction, just so they don't realize I am a massive slacker who, in fact, does things entirely unrelated to chemistry in his spare time. But now? Now, whenever a fellow student complains of working weekends, I can nod knowingly, basking in the bond of shared suffering all grad students theoretically share. But that's not all-- If I'm feeling especially successful, I could instead peer at him over the rims of my lab glasses whilst saying nothing, as if to say "Surely this is nothing to complain about, lazy person." And then I'll swagger past, head high, while the unfortunate fellow I've just shut down thinks to himself,

"Now that's a graduate student."

The possibilities are limitless.

Reviewing Articles in Biochem Class: A Parable

2011-04-29T08:35:00.001-07:00

Professor Heron: All right, what does everyone think of this toaster? Useful? Important? It appears to make delicious toast.

"That Guy": Well, Professor, that may be so, but I'll have you notice that it does not scramble my eggs.

Professor Heron: I don't--

"That Guy": Hapbupbup! I'm not finished. Nor does it assist me in driving to the mall on weekends, or-- and this is the final straw-- give me back massages when I arrive home in the evening. I pronounce this a mediocre device, worthy of nothing but rejection and belittlement.

Professor Heron:

-------------

tl;dr: Toast is delicious.

On the one hand, I've got stuff to do... (part one)

2011-04-24T18:46:00.001-07:00

On the other, I have blogging to do! And the blogging gets much harder the further I go from the event on which I am blogging. Which, in this case, is Sakuracon! I have thus compiled a step-by-step guide by which you, too, can live the Con experience!

Step One:
Find a bus going from your own location to the Con. Step outside, wait for bus.

Step Two:
Realize that you are attempting to catch the 2:00 AM bus, while Father Time, despite your elaborate and strongly-worded threats against his person, stays resolutely in the 2:00 PM area.

Step Three:
Go to Google Maps again after reacquiring access to a computer. Find a separate bus going to the Con.

Step Four:
Realize that you had the wrong stop, and that the bus did, in fact, go by ten minutes ago on a parallel street right next to you. Venting your rage on a nearby trash can may assist you at this stage, but this step is purely optional and can be taken at your discretion.

Step Five:
Go to Google Maps again after reacquiring access to a computer. Check and re-check time and location of the bus, including days of service. Print out a detailed map. Go back to bus stop. Wait.

Step Six:
The bus doesn't come. FOR SOME REASON.

This is you. Trufax.

Step Seven:

Realize the fundamental truth of Murphy's Law, and the ineffable cruelty of the universe. Realize that your own pitiful existence is as naught when set against the terrible, icy void between the stars. Realize that you need to check Google Maps again.

Step Eight: Arrive at Sakuracon! Recall the fact that glomping is an entirely acceptable form of greeting here-- especially of greeting Captain Hammer! Which is you.

Above: Sakuracon.

Step Nine: Compliment other cosplayers on their costumes. This act actually loosens you up considerably, drawing you further into the camaraderie of the Con, enabling progression to...

Step Ten:
Burst into song at the slightest provocation. Join a group doing Caramelldansen. Get many more friendly glomps by attractive womenfolk.

Step Eleven:
Find someone cosplaying from the same show (in this case, a Doctor Horrible.) Decide on impulse to conscript said congoer for the cause of obtaining more photographs. Wild success ensues, particularly after conscription of a second Doctor.

Depending on the size of your group at this point, you may or may not be able to pick up the larger congoers, and eventually the Convention Center itself.

Step Thirteen:

....

...

(click)

"What the hell, Aaron! Why would you even have a flashlight out now?!"

Step Fourteen:

Learn that no matter how skilled you become in the vocation of your choosing-- no matter how many hours you've sunk into achieving perfection-- there will always be someone better than you. Learn that this fact, though it is painful at first, is actually quite beneficial; for as CS Lewis said, to love and admire anything outside yourself is to take one step away from utter spiritual ruin.

2011-04-17T18:14:00.000-07:00

Man, I haven't written in a long time. Too long of a time, in fact! So here I am, rectifying the situation. Nothing too much has changed with me since last quarter, except that the OChem class is less intense than last quarter's. Well... there is one other thing.

I'm actually starting work in lab!

And I don't mean what I've been doing last quarter, which really amounted to preparing to start labwork. I mean I'll actually be beginning my research now. Crazy. I've got mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it means I can stop bugging Natasha whenever I want to get something done, because now I know how to use most of our lab equipment in a fashion not likely to get myself maimed, burned, or horribly scalded. Plus, I'll actually feel like a member of the lab now, not a random outsider that keeps showing up to lab meetings for some reason.

On the other hand...

I've never performed any novel chemistry without the guidance of a professor or a more-senior student. There was my senior thesis, it's true, but that was actually very limited in scope, and mostly just involved me, some proteins, and the QCM-- no real, honest-to-God chemistry required. So replicating reactions from journal articles alone will be a novel experience for me. And a good one, I think! It'll be neat to really, truly start doing some chemistry research. Particularly since I've just gotten to the point where I can understand what's being written in journal articles germane to my project, and why it's significant, and in what ways it's indicating areas of potential progress in my field.

So on balance, I think I'm looking forward to getting this show on the road! If nothing else, it might mean a decrease in those dreams where I'm several weeks into the semester before suddenly realizing that I've missed several lectures from the really brutal engineering class which I absolutely need to pass in order to graduate, and then I realize the finals are tomorrow and tomorrow is now and I can't find the finals building, also I don't have any pants, where are my pants WHERE ARE MY PANTS.

Bootstraps Synthesis

2011-03-20T19:56:00.001-07:00

One student actually did this for the OChem final, which I had the dubious pleasure of grading.

------------------

TEST QUESTION:

STUDENT RESPONSE:

MY RESPONSE:

---------------------
Footnote: I realized after writing this post that I made a subtle mistake in transcribing the problem in this blog which makes the synthesis impossible. Too lazy to change it. My bad!

Inspiration

2011-03-15T21:51:00.000-07:00

You know, the further I get in grad school the more I realize the value of starting problem sets and projects way ahead of time. This isn't just because these things inevitably take longer than you think they will; it's because with truly difficult problems (like complex syntheses!), you can't just conjure up complicated solutions on-the-spot like some kind of scientific magician. Much like unicorns in some magical forest, they have to come to you, and they won't necessarily do it while you're actively looking for them. So inspiration tends to strike at odd moments, after your brain has had some time to unconsciously shuffle around the possibilities.

Cashier: Welcome to McDonald's, may I take your order?

Me: I'd like a small chocolate shake, please, and also a medium drink.

Cashier: All right. Will you be having anything else this day?

Me: A RETRO DIELS-ALDER REACTION.

Apparently some chemists have even been known to think up crazy new ideas in their sleep. I aspire to one day join their ranks!

So about that final project I've been working on...

2011-03-14T21:33:00.000-07:00

So I'm not finished with my proposal yet (due this Wednesday.) BUT!

I have figured out how I'm going to go about it. The breakthrough came early this afternoon, when I realized that in order to do what I'm going to do, I'll have to go about the whole problem in a way that all the other researchers working on it hadn't attempted. I would have to go beyond the impossible, perhaps even to the extent of kicking reason to the curb. That's not to say there aren't a few details I haven't worked out yet, but I'm well on my way to finishing this bad boy, and I am really quite happy about that.

I don't care what grade it gets; I'm proud of what I've accomplished here, and I don't care who knows it. In it, I've successfully walked the line between what the useful and the possible, and soon, I shall reap the rewards of my glorious ingenuity.

Feast your eyes, ladies and gentlemen!

My professor's gonna be so impressed.

More of an obsession than a fear, I guess

2011-03-10T10:33:00.001-08:00

So very many adults seem to view childhood in general as a halcyon period of carefree splendor, where we frolicked in the rain and where our main worries were getting found out in neighborhood games of hide-and-seek.

But this was not so.

I'm pretty sure most of us as children had some kind of odd, morbid fear. Some kids were afraid of the dark, and some were plagued by nightmares. Some were afraid of the school bully. Some kids felt dread at the yawning chasm of deeper mathematics, afraid that the inhuman truths residing within make a mockery of all our mortal fears and hopes. But not me; I myself had a particularly active imagination, and found something even more horrifying than that:

The fear of gravity itself.

I'm not sure how this came to be, but I have really vivid memories of staring up at the Space Needle here in Seattle, and thinking that if gravity suddenly reversed itself, I'd be utterly boned. Best-case scenario, I'd be able to hurl myself into the side of the space needle, scrabbling madly to control my descent (ascent?) enough to land on the underside of the disc at the top of it, whereupon I could wait out gravity's temper-tantrum, like it was some sort of capricious fairy who'd get tired of toying with me eventually. To me, of course, these speculations of what might happen after The Event were purely academic-- the important thing was to make sure that when it did happen, I could find a way to not fall eternally into the endless sky.

I never spoke up about it back then-- even as a kid, I knew this fear was kinda ridiculous-- but during each of my outdoor excursions, I always found myself calculating in a coldly rational fashion which way I should try to angle my imminent fall upwards so as to possibly survive the impact.

On the plus side, theaters were rather comforting. They felt like little safehouses where the worst that could happen is that I'd get a little bit banged up when I hit the ceiling. Bring it, gravity, I'd think, while the actors frolicked on stage. Give me your best shot. I want you to hit me as hard as you can. Gravity never rose to the bait, though. Coward.

Curiously, even though this fear (like most of my other childhood fears, such as of giant arachnids and of nuclear warfare culminating in my instantaneous annihilation) died away at some point, I still on occasion find myself staring up at high ceilings and calculating what the most comfortable landing point might be. I'm sure you readers are all like, "P'shaw! Science has shown us that gravity never reverses herself." But no, don't you see? The more I'm exposed to science, the more I realize that science can only ever claim that we have not seen Gravity reverse herself, in a replicable fashion and in a laboratory setting. Science isn't taking into account that maybe Gravity's just biding her time. Waiting for me to let my guard down. Well she can just keep waiting.

O_O

CSI: New Haven

2011-02-28T20:17:00.001-08:00

"Sir, sir! Commissar Johann's dead!"

"What! How?!"

"Sir, he was at a nightclub chatting up this pretty girl, sir, and suddenly her, uh, décolletage just exploded with this vile green stuff, and he melted, sir! Commissar Johann melted!"

"Oh, I see. Well then, any bystanders injured?"

"Nossir; it seems to have been a targeted strike. If I may say, sir, you don't seem very surprised at this development."

"Well.... no. At the risk of seeming callous, Jenkins, Johann's not the first Terran to fall to a..."

"Baneling bust."

Distillation/The Attraction of the Gothic

2011-02-27T23:57:00.000-08:00

So I was freaking out today about doing a distillation on Monday (ridiculous-sounding to all y'all chemists in the audience, what with me being a grad student and all, but bear with me-- it's been a few years) and then I realized that YouTube would almost certainly have an instructional video on how to do said distillations. And then it did, and I watched it three times. Awesome.

Different Topic!

So I'm a big fan of Adult Swim's Robot Unicorn Attack. Specifically, the Heavy Metal Version, aka the hilariously macho version of the regular robot unicorn attack. Exactly the same gameplay mechanics, but instead of fairies and stars there are pentagrams and imps flying around a landscape whose primary features are tentacled mountains. But really, aside from the obvious Lovecraftian overtones (of which I'm a big fan, obviously) what really draws me in is the music. I'll give you the chorus, which is rather representative of the song as a whole:

War and anger shall reign /The clash of iron can be heard/ By blindness you're driven insane /I'm lost in anguish and grief/ Sorrow won't wane 'til you die/ A shattered body deeply hurt/ And darkness will cover the light/ It's gone forevermore

Gloomy stuff, right? Thing is, I'm not entirely sure why, but I've got a really intense attraction to moods that could only be described as Gothic.

Wrong kind of gothic.

That unicorn knows it's hopeless. Standing in his way are innumerable imps, pentagrams, and flying hellfish, and the only possible result is eventual death via hurtling into an inanimate object. But you know what? He does it anyway. Just to show 'em.

Here's to you, Robot Unicorn!

CSI: Mass Effect

2011-02-27T01:31:00.001-08:00

"Commander Shepard! Local cook, murdered. Blood everywhere. Should never have docked in Omega. Biotics involved. Repercussions-- possible."
"Hold on, now, Mordin. I'm told that random deaths happen all the time on Omega-- it is, after all, a hive of scum and villainy. How does this concern us?"
"Tavern chef. Indulged in drinking games with Jack. Decision... inadvisable. Heated argument. Death occurred six hours later. Jack's whereabouts unknown. Circumstances-- suspicious."
"I see. In that case, Mordin, we'll have to investigate; hopefully this isn't how it looks. Put the crew on alert-- Jack's not at her most stable, and I can't be sure what she'll do. And take anything you need from the armory; after all, the ship medic should never be without his..."

"...anti-biotics."

Team Roles

2011-02-25T00:01:00.000-08:00

So Starcraft 2 doesn't have classes. Nobody's actually designated as The Tank, or The Deeps, or the Healer. But somehow, things just kinda line up so that our personalities shine through, and we take on one or two responsibilities for the whole team. This is particularly true in 4v4 and 3v3 matches, where I find that people tend to fall in a few roles:

The Reaver: Early game this player does nothing-- just watches, and waits, and works on his economy. Then, when all seems lost for his teammates, he bursts onto the scene sporting void rays and all manner of high-tech weaponry, like some kind of deranged alien Koo-Aid Man, and lays waste to all around him (including potentially his teammates "for the lolz.")
Common Players: Will, Blake.

The Trollface: This player doesn't generally build much of a conventional army; typically, he goes for the fastest, most irritating air units he can find. And then he runs around the back of each enemy's base, killing workers and forcing them to babysit their mineral lines for fear of heathens running amok, rapin' their churches, burnin' their women, knocking over everything. Just a bad deal all around. And this player tends to be the scout, which can be worth it all on its own just so everyone else knows what to build.
Best Candidates: Protoss with their Phoenixes (vs. Zerg); Terrans with their Reapers (against non-Zerg); Zerg with their mutas (vs. everyone)
Common Players: Blake (vs. Zerg), Branden (vs. non-Zerg), me (when I'm underdroning)

The Scout: Overworked. Underappreciated. This is the guy who's always looking to See What They Are Up To. Not very glamorous, highly APM intensive; and for that reason much of the time we just get one scout in the beginning of the game, and that's it. But he's valuable, oh yes. Without one of these guys, your team's a bit like a blindfolded matadore: not gored yet, but by God he will be. The Trollface will often play one of these implicitly, since while rampaging through undefended mineral lines you're bound to see a tech building or two.
Common Players: Any trollface; otherwise, Jesse.

The Punching Bag: This player is the first to be targeted for early-game rushes (typically a Zerg, since they can't wall off.) His one and only role in such situations is to drag out his defeat for as long as possible; if he holds off the first wave of zerglings and marines, anything else is basically a bonus. A very, very common game pattern I've noticed is

Step 1: Get 6-pooled by multiple enemy Zerg players.
Step 2: After 3-7 minutes, crumble under the combined might of their 6 pools.
Step 3: Watch as your high-tech allies surge into defenseless enemy bases and take allllll their apples.
(Damn, but I could go for an apple right now. Where was I? Ah, yes.)
Common Players: Any Zerg at the beginning of the game. Particularly Jesse. But particularly MEEEEEE.

The Frenchman: So called, of course, because French folk love their cheese.
Common Players: You know who you are. (Also me, but only when I'm playing Protoss.)

The Economist:
"Ahhh, the start of a new game. Time to macro!"
"Ohh, an attack starting. Looks like a good time for an expansion."
"Sorry, guys, I'd like to help with the battle, but these mineral lines aren't gonna saturate themselves."
"Fine, fine, take some Corruptors. Leave me alone, I'm expanding again."
"What? The game's over?"
Common Players: Me, Jesse.

The Commadore: The player whose job it is to ensure the armies of our disparate factions don't get too far separated, who leads first strikes and last-ditch defenses, who reaps the glory of victory, and the agony of defeat; whose brow hangs heavy with the fancy hat of command, and whose job it is to ensure that, if we die, we at least die valiantly! "SC stands for SHARE CONTROL!"
Common Players: Blake.

To stare DIRECTLY INTO THE SUN

2011-02-23T12:35:00.000-08:00

So I just got my topic paper reviews back, and I seem to have bombed completely. Not hugely surprising, in retrospect; in a synthesis-oriented class, I wrote up a paper about polymer chemistry, which didn't exactly lend itself to the purpose all that well. I brought up my concerns to the professor beforehand, to which he suggested I just try writing the topic paper, and see how it goes. Which I did, and it went very badly.

But oh, man. Seeing the professor's comments was not fun at all. It's always kinda painful to get dinged as "below average" on any assignment; but to really understand the effect of it on me, you've got to know that this project has assumed a peculiar status in my mind for the last month. Even to think about it was agony, due to my ever-worsening suspicion that it would not lend itself well to a proposal; I would keep it locked away in the recesses of my brain, letting even the idea of it out only as absolutely necessary (such as to do the topic paper), shooing it back in immediately as the need was passed, convinced that it would be-- like my senior thesis-- one of those things that I was worrying needlessly about, and that would work itself out eventually.

So to find out that these worries were quite true and valid-- definitely a shock. But you know, there's a certain clarity to gazing directly into the abyss, directly at the horror I had been mentally shying away from. A comfort, even. Now that it's out, I can do something about it-- that something, in this case, being a change from my topic of "polymer synthesis" to "total synthesis of a complex molecule." A topic that I think lends itself quite well to the class, and that I think will work out pretty well. There will be a great deal of work involved, yes, but with that work will come a banishment of the fear I've known for these past few weeks.

Can't say I'm actually all that sorry about writing my failed topic paper; even if it doesn't work well for this class, I learned quite a bit about my research in Luscombe's lab from doing the legwork necessary to write the thing, though it does mean I'll have my work cut out for me over the next couple weeks to get another topic paper in.

Good end?

Reviewing papers!

2011-02-18T17:25:00.000-08:00

So you know that topic paper I talked about yesterday? I'm actually reviewing four of them right now, at the behest of the Good Professor. However, I've run into a bit of a snag because of two facts:

1) We have to rank the papers we reviewed from best to worst. I strongly suspect that the professor is going to use these rankings to grade the topic papers.

2) Some papers are all about ORGANOMETALLIC REACTION MECHANISMS! While others are all about the TOTAL SYNTHESIS OF NATURAL PRODUCTS! While others (like my own) are about CLASSES OF COMPOUNDS, AND METHODS OF MAKING THEM! And I gotta tell you, an awesome paper of the first kind looks and sounds veeeeery different from an awesome paper of the second and third kinds, making any sort of direct comparison very tricky.

It's a bit like being asked to rank apples against oranges, while having to control for the fact that you happen to really like apples, and also think that listening to an orange go on all day about reaction mechanisms is basically a one-way ticket to Snoozeville, and then you start worrying about the low grade forcing the orange to drop out of grad school just because you hate hate hate theoretical studies of organometallic catalysts, but that's not the orange's fault, now is it?

No. No it is not. It's your fault. How can you bear it?

This is what I got from a Google Image Search for "badass orange." Feel his tiny rage!

I'm not sayin' anything. I'm just sayin'.

Research!

2011-02-17T23:44:00.001-08:00

So over the past couple of weeks (prior to Monday) I was working on this topic paper, wherein I was trying to figure out the current state of block copolymer syntheses related to one specific polymer called Poly-3-Hexylthiophene. (P3HT, if we're being less formal.)

It's really difficult to use scientific literature to learn about things that you don't know much about. The reason for this, I think, is that every paper that's out there builds on the ones before it. Which makes it a bit like joining a very complicated and reference-filled conversation several hours in, and trying to puzzle out what all the participants are talking about. (Also, the conversation is in some crazy moon-language, and is being filtered through tinny loudspeakers while a crazed Swiss man yodels in the background.)

Actually, I'm gonna say it's a cross between that, and trying to learn a made-up language by reading a dictionary that's partially written in that language:

Text: "We subsequently found a hijarabab increased the rate of reaction by 40%..."

Me: ?

Dictionary:
Hijarabab. n. 1) The stopholoctus of a ministor.

The nice thing, though, is that once you finally figure out what the key reactions and goals are (those ones that everyone's referencing) the rest just kinda falls into place. I think that I've gotten to that point with this polymers topic paper; I gotta say, though, I wish I'd looked into Chemical Reviews articles far earlier than I did, because those are really excellent for just starting on a topic.

Philophical Hydralisk's thought for the day!

2011-02-16T14:53:00.000-08:00

The roads to macro perfection and moral perfection are quite similar. Allow the Philosophical Hydralisk to demonstrate!

"A hivemind is a terrible thing to waste."

In Starcraft, the way to get better is to

1) play a bunch (naturally), and
2) figure out how to get better by watching your replays. Specifically, your losing replays, because while watching your winning replays it's tempting to think

"By Jove, what a fine player I must be to have won that game!"

But when you're watching a losing replay, you're forced to come to grips with inconsistencies in your build order, and the fact that you forgot to vomit on your hatchery for like a whole minute while you were microing your gigantic army of tunneling Roaches across the map. Day9 did this bit where he talked about "triggers" for errors in Starcraft-- like, watching your replays while asking questions like, "What are the circumstances that make me forget to vomit on my hatchery?" The hope being that when you're back playing an actual game, you'll be able to think to yourself-- "Okay, now I'm microing an attacking force, so that means I'm probably forgetting to vomit right now, so I should go do that." And in ingraining this mode of thought as a habit, we make ourselves a better player.

And while chances are good that we won't ever achieve anything like perfect macro-- I'll bet even the pros have moments where they momentarily forget to spawn larvae-- perfect macro is an ideal forced on us by the sort of game Starcraft is, so even our failures in this can't stop us from picking ourselves up and trying again. Because of course, every instance of bad macro will do us harm-- probably in the present, and definitely later on (specifically when our Protoss opponent 4-gates us.)

In conclusion, banelings.

ART IMITATES LIFE!

NMR training!

2011-02-14T12:58:00.001-08:00

So today I was trained on the NMR machine! I'll spare you the details, except for a little anecdote the supervisor was sharing with us while showing us how to shim:

Okay, so NMR spectroscopy (for those of you who don't know) depends on having a really, really even magnetic field over a certain space. It's this field that fundamentally allows us to analyze molecules to see what they are. Now, this field can be disturbed pretty easily by even something as simple as tapping your foot on the floor or a door closing (which jiggles the machinery), but these smaller disturbances can be damped out by floating your NMR in just a liiiiiittle bit of water. So that's good, as far as it goes. Except this works only on high-frequency vibrations. Low-frequency stuff-- like trains going by, for example-- can't really be dealt with effectively, and are basically guaranteed to screw up your measurements.

So there was this huge uproar when Seattle wanted to have the Amtrak line going by the UW Physics department. Which the city didn't particularly care about until all the Nobel Prize winners started gearing up to leave the UW, at which point the city was like "FINE, FINE, you guys win" and moved the planned Amtrak line...

...right by the Chemistry and Chemical Engineering departments. As you can imagine, basically the same scenario occurred-- the famous Nobel chemists BAWWWWWWW'd, the city caved-- at which point they shuffled the Amtrak line...

...right by the Nanoscience department. Who apparently didn't quiiiiite have the clout to get it moved out of their backyard. Poor guys. No precision instruments for you, Nanoscience!

The moral of this story: Chemistry always wins in the end.

The Rather Mild Bane of My Current Existence

2011-02-09T19:55:00.000-08:00

Engineers. Don't get me wrong, I love engineers. The culture-- at least to judge from Harvey Mudd's wild and crazy ITR events-- is totally my bag, and I share with the engineers and mathematicians their love of gratuitously graphing commonplace events. Plus, they're the members of society whose sanitary systems ensure I'm not going to die of The Cholera. So I'm grateful to them, on the whole.

Still, I find the mechanical engineers with whom I'm grouped with in my interdisciplinary Nanoscience class to be an odd bunch. We're doing this project, see, where we're supposed to write a 10-page paper on three applications of organic thin films. For some reason, two of my three (engineering) group-mates feel like we have to include a table of materials and their properties at the beginning of the paper. We had this dialogue:

John: So we should include a table of material properties at the beginning, before we start talking about applications of the materials.
Me: Wait, why would people care about the materials' properties if they don't know what the applications are yet?
John: They can choose which ones to care about.
Me: (blank stare)
John: (blank stare)

I'd think this was just an idiosyncrasy of John's, except both my group-mate and my professor appear to like the idea for reasons unknown to me.

Engineers.

MINECRAAAAFT

2011-02-05T19:01:00.000-08:00

GENTLEMEN! And LADIES! All of us tower/Washington folk are joining a Minecraft server, run by Branden!

IP: 67.185.186.103

JOIN US

Starting In A New Lab: Day One

2011-01-30T18:40:00.000-08:00

"So," Natalya said to me, as we walked down one of the chemistry building's many long corridors. "First thing is to remember that Professor Luscombe is a stickler for lab safety. That's why you're to wear a lab coat, goggles, and at least three different holy symbols at all times when you're doing an experiment. The stockroom can provide some if you didn't bring any."

I nodded approvingly-- given my paranoia about lab equipment, I definitely prefer a healthy dose of caution with my experiments. Hearing that Luscombe had the same attitude was a good sign.

"You can use any of the equipment here that you're trained for, also. Do you have any NMR experience?"

"Er... not exactly." I coughed. "My undergrad thesis was in biochem, so I honestly don't have much practice in synthetic techniques."
"Hey, no problem. You've actually got a couple months before you're required to have any real results, so that should be plenty of time to get acquianted with the techniques we use here. Oh, although do remember that you can't use the NMR in this building. You have to go down to Chemical Engineering and use theirs."

"Yours isn't working right now?"
"Oh, it works just fine. It's just that the room, right now, happens to be the den of a very ill-tempered Tsathoggua."

"A what now?"
"Oh, you know. A Tsathoggua."

"I actually don't know."

"Well, let me break it down for you: Don't go into our NMR lab."
"Got it. Um, do you guys have a quartz crystal microbalance here, by any chance?"

"We sure do! Although you should probably read over the instructions, first. It might be operated differently from the one you're used to."

"Um. Any chance I might borrow one of your quartz crystals?"
"No."

I remember beginning in GenChem lab...

2011-01-28T17:33:00.000-08:00

It was hammered into us before each lab that precision was really important. This is because at the end of each lab, a large part of our grade would consist of how high a yield we got (if our lab was synthetic in nature) or, for those that involved measurement, how accurate our measurements were. I can't speak for any other students; for some, those warnings probably were useful reminders that you can't just throw "about a tablespoon-ish" of reagent into a reaction mixture and expect good things to happen to your grade. However, this was not good advice to give me. See, I've never been one for working with my hands. I heard once about an engineering college, where a crucial part of the interview was that the would-be engineer is asked what some obscure gizmo in front of him does. The engineer is considered to have "passed" if he grabs the gizmo, fiddles around with it, maybe opens it up with a screwdriver, hits it a couple times, and comes out with at least a moderately good idea of what its purpose is. I'm not gonna lie-- I would fail that shit hard. My instinctive reaction when confronted with a tool I don't understand is to leave it the hell alone and don't touch it.

Get it away!

This is particularly true in chemistry, where (to take an example at random) forgetting to periodically vent glassware during certain types of reactions will cause said glassware to explode violently.

So with this fact firmly in mind, and with my grade riding on my diligence, I resolved very early on that, no matter what, I was going to follow the procedure EXACTLY and TO THE LETTER. When I got instructions to put 20 milliliters of dilute sodium hydroxide into a flask, I would measure that shit out with ultimate precision, carefully and painstakingly ensuring that the bottom of the miniscus exactly touched the 20 mL mark in my graduated cylinder. And after, I would very gingerly, very slowly, after double-checking the procedure to make sure I was doing the right thing, actually pour that 20 milliliters into my flask. The whole process took about three minutes. Which might not sound too bad until you realize that I haven't even begun the experiment yet. I've just been measuring things. And God help you if I was instructed to add 2 grams of reactant to a mixture, because our lab's scales measured down to ten-thousandths of a gram.

Therefore it came as absolutely no surprise when I would always be the last person to leave the lab. In fact, the resulting strain, between having to be precise vs. having to be quick, made me a little bit neurotic for that first year. Each time I'd go to a prelab lecture, I would start obsessing over tiny details of the procedure that the instructor glossed over. "Wait, how do we tell if the reaction is done?" "How exactly does one use a buchner funnel?" "How can we tell if we vented properly?" And while I'd obsess over those, the instructor would continue in the lecture, oblivious to the fact that my mind was now racing over an endless sea of possibilities, each more glass-explodingly horrifying than the last. The actual lab would find me a twitching, paranoid mess, spurred on by the dueling horrors of "leaving lab at 7:00" and "ruining the product."

Basically, visualize this guy in a lab coat.

How did I survive GenChem, you ask? THE WORLD MAY NEVER KNOW. Thankfully, OChem actually gave us lab groups, which meant there was some kind of check on my neuroticism. (This, you may gather, is when my lab grades started going up. It's also curiously much easier to learn and understand how to use equipment when you have somebody willing to verify that you're doing things right.) And now I'm in Grad School! No idea how that business happened.

My Pet Peeve

2011-01-16T12:56:00.000-08:00

So, question. Too snarky to mass e-mail out to the students? It bothers me SO MUCH. (Also, I've been seeing bunches of students doing this. I'm not just being nit-picky, am I? It's just the geometry is SO WRONG.)

The Path!

2011-01-15T17:31:00.000-08:00

So, I've finished Amnesia. I feel all accomplished and stuff, and also quite relieved that I no longer have to keep playing the game. (It's weird-- I found it compelling and interesting, but can't say I actually enjoyed it. I... respected it.)

Anyway, so I decided to go looking around for another game in the horror genre. I'm not sure why I am so entranced by that genre currently-- but regardless of why, I decided to give the Path a shot.

Oh man, it's so bizarre. I like it. So this game is based on the Little Red Riding Hood story-- a mother sends her daughter off to deliver bread to Grandma's house, which is waaaaaay out in the woods. Regardless of which character you choose (minor spoilers ahoy!), the goal of the game is to meet that character's "Wolf", which is to say, the person or thing that will cause their death. (Generally not a literal wolf.)

And after you do, the payoff of the game becomes evident. Because each time you arrive at Grandma's House, if you meet your Wolf you're treated to bizarre nightmare imagery and impossible geometries based off of (1) who your character is, and (2) what you did and found in the forest. A lot of these rooms are clearly symbolic of something, but I found most of it impenetrable to my tiny intellect. I think that's half the fun of the game, really-- figuring out what each room in Grandma's House means and then constructing massive Epileptic Trees to fit them all into some coherent whole.

My theory: Grandma needs to hire an interior decorator. Those curtains are clearly too big for this room.

Interestingly, none of the deaths are shown explicitly-- even the manner of death is more implied (via creepy imagery and split-second pictures) than actually stated outright. One highly enjoyable activity is watching people on forums come up with their own ideas as to what it all means. Some of these conclusions are highly questionable.

Theorist: "Okay, so. In this first room we see a bird. Birds fly up in the sky. The sky is often said to be "heaven-ward." The bird therefore represents Jesus. Your character is in Purgatory. Your character walks away from the bird, representing the Fall of Man."

"And then there's, like, a million toilet stalls. I don't know what that's all about."

The Panic Button

2011-01-05T12:36:00.000-08:00

I've noticed I tend to get very pessimistic whenever the subject is something about Grad School. It's like there's a squirrely fellow in my head, ever-poised with his hand over the Panic Button, just waiting for a chance to spring into action.

This particularly comes into play at the beginning of a given semester, when I'm skeptical that I know everything I need to for a given class. This was especially true of the current semester of Advanced OChem. At first I was okay-- everything seemed pretty much straightforward-- but then the professor, who I'll call "Mister F", said:

Mr. F: Okay, this reaction uses a Dean-Sullivan Trap. I assume everyone understands what a Dean-Sullivan Trap is?
Class: (nod nod nod)
Mr. F: So we plug that into the reaction, and...

Well, this was slightly unnerving because I had never heard of one. I would've spoken up, but (and I admit this as a character flaw) I strongly dislike publicly appearing ignorant relative to other graduate students. So, I just resolved to ask the professor about this after class. Crisis averted!

Well, anyway, later on in the class the professor got around to asking:

Mr. F: Now, who all here is taking organometallics this semester?
Class: (2/3 the people raise their hands, not including myself.)
Mr. F: Excellent! Then you all will recognize...

But really, a third of the students aren't taking the course, so I should be fine. Right? Right.

So I caught up with Mr. F right after class, and asked him a few questions about the stuff we were learning, and also this group project where we are supposed to propose a novel synthesis of a compound we'd decide on. And it was going pretty well, I'd say! Until at one point he mentioned:

Mr. F: ...and in fact, Aaron, you actually should be able to draw inspiration from all the journal articles you've read last semester.
Me: I see.
Mr. F: Heh. You know, confidentially, I kinda made the outline due a week from now to punish those students who didn't do much reading last semester for their labs. I mean, really, you guys should have been doing quite a bit of in-depth study when you were investigating which one to join.
Me: Ha ha ha! Of course! Foolish students. With their slacking.

Building a pathfinder character: IN PICTURES!

2011-01-02T23:32:00.000-08:00

So, I'm starting a Pathfinder campaign. Pathfinder, for y'all who don't know, basically means 3.5 plus a few changes. Also they have new classes. WHICH ARE AWESOME. Particularly the Summoner, who's main shtick is conjuring up a creature called an Eidolon (which can be bipedal, no-legged, or quadruped) that gains "evolutions" as you level. Evolutions can be taken in any combination, and include such gems as:

"Burrowing"

"Flying"

"Tentacles"

"Mount" (you can ride the thing.)

"Swallow Whole"

and many, many others.

Inspired by the Rage Bear Next Door, I have decided to investigate possible Eidolon builds on this blog WITH PICTURES! Also their respective names. We'll start with the first, which I refer to affectionately as

"The Blind Horror of Deep Earth"

5-point evolution build: Burrowing , Serpentine, Bite, Reach (Bite), Grab (using Bite), OM NOM NOM
-----------

"The Dark Mother From Beyond Space And Time"

Evolutions: Tentacles, Tentacles, Tentacles, Tentacles, Mount (YEEEEEE-HAAAW)

----------------------------

"The Personified Void of the Space Between Worlds"

Evolutions: Proficiency (Simple Weapons), Constantly On Fire, Ability Bonus (Strength), Skill Bonus (Scrapbooking)

Which to choose...?

Amnesia!

2010-12-29T11:42:00.000-08:00

I think I may have been converted to horror games. Y'know... things like Dead Space or Silent Hill or the topic of this post, Amnesia: the Dark Descent. (Also the only one which I've played, though Blake grabbed Dead Space for me this Christmas. Huzzah!)

At any rate, nice thing about Amnesia is that it relies less on cat scares and scare chords to achieve its peculiar brand of horror, and more on the specific feeling of vulnerability it instills in you. Because, you see, your character-- an English fellow named Daniel-- has no means of self defense. That means your sole means of not getting killed by the thing stalking you are

1) Running

2) Hiding

3) Barricading doors so you can do more of (1) and (2) while the thing tries to bust through them.

But honestly? Hiding is your only real method of not dying, because the thing is just as fast as you are. Running is just a temporary measure.

Therein lies the trick! Anybody ever read the Cthonically-flavored the Holder series? Something you'll notice as you go through the various Holders is that there's always a point at which the Seeker is forced to rely on luck/fate/destiny to get through. Here's an example:

In any city, in any country, go to any mental institution or halfway house in you can get yourself to. When you reach the front desk, ask to visit someone who calls himself "The Holder of the End". Should a look of child-like fear come over the workers face, you will then be taken to a cell in the building. It will be in a deep hidden section of the building. All you will hear is the sound of someone talking to themselves echo the halls. It is in a language that you will not understand, but your very soul will feel unspeakable fear.

Should the talking stop at any time, stop and quickly say aloud "I'm just passing through, I wish to talk." If you still hear silence, flee. Leave, do not stop for anything, do not go home, don't stay at an inn, just keep moving, sleep where your body drops. You will know in the morning if you've escaped successfully.

And then it goes on from there. See what I mean? No matter how clever or quick-witted or brave you are, there's still a chance your quest will end in failure-- and gruesome, terrifying failure, at that. So it is with Amnesia! It's all about that feeling of helplessness.

Let me give an example. When you barricade a door behind you, a lot of times the room you're stuck in with the thing trying to bust inside is rather cramped. It's all you can do to get behind a couple of crates and hope for the best before it finally kicks in the door. And I gotta tell you, it feels like a really long time (though probably only about 30 seconds) where the monster just shuffles around the room, trying to root out the location you're hiding in. At that point, there's literally nothing you can do to help your survival-- the dice have been cast, and whether you survive the encounter or not depends on how well you chose your hiding spot. The monster could get bored and wander off; it could also find you and kill you.

There's also a difficult decision you're forced into when you're wandering around darkened corridors: if you walk around with your lantern on, then if you run into the thing stalking you it will see you and you'll probably die.

Onnnnn the other hand, if you wander around with it off, your sanity will slowly drain and eventually your legs will give out, leaving you crawling across the floor with your arms. At which point if the thing finds you, you're basically a sitting duck, and you'll probably die.

On a secondary note, I've noticed that in most genres, when game developers try to make a "meaningful" experience, they tend to start emulating movies, with cinema scenes and plot rails and the like. And a lot of times, this makes sense-- game mechanics work extremely badly for most types of social interaction, since when you're talking to somebody there's any number of things you should be able to say. Which causes games to become movies at such times, since movies are good at dialogue.

But one thing games are great at is immersion, and that's something which lets horror games beat horror movies hands down. A list of reasons:

1) You'll identify much more strongly with a protagonist who you're controlling at all times. It's not "Oh no, the monster's going to get the Attractive Female Protagonist", it's "Oh no, the monster's going to get me." The desperation feels real in games because it is real-- you're freaking out that the monster might bust through the door before you can barricade it properly, you're freaking out because it's chasing you and you're trying to push a door that has to be pulled, you're freaking out.

2) You can't look away during particularly intense moments, because that would just cause you to die horribly. Immersion!

3) You know that the possibility of failure and death exists at all times if you aren't constantly vigilant. This is in contrast to horror films, where you know that the main character's probably not gonna die until the 2 hour mark or thereabouts; and furthermore, that this will be true regardess of whether you're paying attention or not. Immersion!

In conclusion: Damn, but Amnesia's a well-constructed game.

Grad Student Horror Stories

2010-12-13T10:57:00.001-08:00

So I was playing Audiosurf the other day. Fun times! Now, Audiosurf, when it displays high scores at the end of any given song, also gives you comments people have left about those songs. As luck would have it, the comments for One Night In Bangkok are all disgruntled graduate students. I'll give it this-- it has a higher class of commenter than Youtube does. But anyway, I'm not sure if this is the norm, or if it just happens to be the disgruntled ones who comment, but the section was just filled with complaints like:

"Man, my advisor's a slave-driver! We have to work weekends and everything!"

"You think yours is bad? Mine has started restricting the purchase of safety equipment! I have to work with toxic chemicals wearing half a lab coat because of him! And I think my glovebox is leaking toxic gases, but I'm not sure because I've lost my sense of smell."

"Oh yeah? Well, mine has us work 25-hour days, and makes us use our vacation time for restroom breaks!"

"Oh yeah? Well mine..."

I wonder why I haven't heard more reports like this coming from the UW. I know we've got a graduate student union, which makes me wonder if that's the cause or the result of the UW's lenient attitude. I strongly suspect someplace like Caltech would not tolerate union shenanigans.

Students: Hey professor, hey professor! We're forming a union!
Caltech Professor: OLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL you're all fired.
Students: Nyo~ron ;_;

Not that I haven't heard of ridiculously long hours, mind. Organic synthesis groups from what I've heard seem especially fond of having students work nights and weekends, though I'm not sure why this might be. (This is actually the main reason I didn't want to work with my otherwise-awesome Advanced OChem professor-- I'd like to do synthesis, but I'd also like to have a life, thanks.) That said, the Luscombe and Goldberg groups (which I've applied to be in) seem to be on the saner side of things, with having their students work roughly 40-60 hour weeks. We'll see how it goes!

In other news, dapper pokemon.

My Hypochondria

2010-12-07T13:56:00.000-08:00

Anyone who knows me knows I have certain... quirks. For example, I am extremely particular about what food I eat, as according to the following diagram.

I have regulated my diet by these standards for many years! But, this is nothing special-- many people have such standards. No, where my true food-madness manifests itself is in standards of hygiene. It's as though a highly sincere yet psychotic nun has barricaded herself in the larder of my brain, and has taken it upon herself to vigorously expel any food items thought "unclean."

"Unclean" items include, but are not limited to:

Expired food
Food about to expire
Milk that has sat outside the carton for more than ten minutes
Milk that has been defiled by the touch of cereal
Milk that has been defiled in any other fashion
Warm food that was once cold
Cold food that was once warm
Wet food that was once dry
Too-brown bananas
Food that has sat in strong-smelling environments for long lengths of time.

This has led to certain... difficulties when my friends and I hold beach house parties. Most of my friends have extremely different standards for food cleanliness. They will-- and this is just an example-- place open packages of new and wholesome food next to a casserole which has been stewing in its own grease for two days straight on a countertop smelling of stale beer.

This, you may gather, causes my inner Battle Nun to flip her shit. You may also guess this leads to certain... frictions.

Aaron: Im'ma just throw this casserole and this butter and these muffins away, that cool with you guys?
Branden: What? But that's only been there for--
Aaron: TOO LATE IT'S DONE
Branden: But that was our only food for the weekend!
Aaron: IT WAS FOR THE GREATER GOOD!
Branden: NOOOOOO
Kate: ;_; GODDAMMIT AARON
Aaron: I REGRET NOTHING

To all those who think my actions excessive: all I can say is that if I was just a trifle more unstable in the ol' brainpan, I would have purged the kitchen with beautiful, cleansing fire. So y'all should be putting this in perspective!

As Monty Python says....

Solium Infernum Update!

2010-12-01T20:43:00.000-08:00

Well, the plan to do a night a week of SI appears to have failed, for which I will suggest an alternative plan: Everyone submits a turn a day, and if two days go by without a person submitting a turn, he gets turned into an AI. We'll be starting this Friday.

THIS IS THE PLAN!

On the recycling of Wikipedia

2010-11-23T19:43:00.000-08:00

(Just for reference, I've spent most of the day grading about a hundred 3-page-long Chemistry assignments. Hence this blog post as well as my last one.)

So....

One question asks the students to define "conformational isomer." I have found that a large, large chunk of my students were making very similar and (to me) anomalous mistakes, using language that I hadn't heard in either Boydston's or my own Organic Chemistry class.

Among the more common mistakes I found were:

"Conformational isomers is a form of stereoisomerism in which the isomers can be interconverted exclusively by rotations about formerly single bonds"

"Conformational isomers differ by rotation about only one single bond."

"Conformational isomers require the breaking and reformation of chemical bonds."

Then, upon a spark of inspiration, I checked Wikipedia:

--------
In chemistry, conformational isomerism is a form of stereoisomerism in which the isomers can be interconverted exclusively by rotations about formally single bonds.^[1] Such isomers are generally referred to as conformational isomers or conformers and specifically as rotamers^[2] when they differ by rotation about only one single bond. Conformational isomers are thus distinct from the other classes of stereoisomers for which interconversion necessarily involves breaking and reforming of chemical bonds. The rotational barrier, or barrier to rotation, is the activation energy required to interconvert rotamers.
---

The Peculiar Hell of Grading Short-Answer Questions

2010-11-23T15:42:00.000-08:00

TEST QUESTION:

"What color is the sky?"

CORRECT RESPONSE:

Blue.

SAMPLE STUDENT RESPONSE:

The sky is the part of the atmosphere or of outer space visible from the surface of any astronomical object. It is difficult to define precisely for several reasons. The sky is sometimes defined as the denser gaseous zone of a planet's atmosphere. At night the sky has the appearance of a black surface or region scattered with stars.

During the day the Sun can be seen in the sky, unless obscured by clouds. In the night sky (and to some extent during the day) the moon, planets and stars are visible in the sky. Some of the natural phenomena seen in the sky are clouds, rainbows, and aurorae. Lightning and precipitation can also be seen in the sky during storms. On Earth, birds, insects, aircraft, and kites are often considered to fly in the sky. As a result of human activities, smog during the day and light radiance during the night are often seen above large cities (see also light pollution).

In the field of astronomy, the sky is also called the celestial sphere. This is an imaginary dome where the sun, stars, planets, and the moon are seen to be traveling. The celestial sphere is divided into regions called constellations.

The sky is green.

The Plan

2010-11-21T21:51:00.001-08:00

So! We've decided to attempt to get Solium Infernum underway tomorrow. If any disagree, say "Nay!"

I feel like the ideal situation would be us blocking out an hour every two days or so to play, probably from 9-10 (or thereabouts.) Any thoughts? (Mind that this game takes quite a long time to play--probably take us about two weeks to get through a game even at this pace-- but I've got testimony from 3 sources other than myself that says it's totally worth it!)

On starting up, everyone should have access to the "Solium Infernum" dropbox folder with instructions written by our own Josh Williams.

Now then, gentlemen! Install your games! For it's a battle royale-- CAN YOU DIG IT?

A Message To: Josh Williams

2010-11-17T11:43:00.001-08:00

Get a blogspot account, you lazy SOB! I will also require your email, which has been lost to the mists of time, so I can send you a dropbox link.

In other news, we have for Solium Infernum six people, which is actually the maximum number the game can support! Excellent.

Me
Blake
Jesse
Chris
Branden
Josh

I actually have plans to give the multiplayer game a test run this weekend, since Josh, Branden, Chris and I are actually going to be in the same place for a period of time. I'll let you know how it goes!

Good times all around!

2010-11-15T18:54:00.000-08:00

So my Advanced OChem professor is a pretty cool guy, eh. Very friendly, and is probably the best Chemistry professor I've had, but asking him questions almost always results in exchanges such as:

Me: Hey, professor, are these two reactants in Problem 3 in a 1:1 ratio with each other?
Him: Ha ha! I ask you, what in this question could possibly have made you think that?
Me: O_O (....)

But, like, in a friendly way which does not translate well to paper-- I'd say it comes out as 40% scorn, 60% playfulness. Surprisingly, this hasn't caused me to stop asking questions. I suspect that it's because I know that whichever question I ask, it will be mocked in front of the class. It's like I can accept this mockery beforehand, since I know it's coming, and I can therefore get over it before it happens. It's kinda zen when you think about it, if you don't think too hard.

Oh, also, an update!

2010-11-13T20:19:00.001-08:00

Oh yeah! I forgot to say a bit about how I'm doing! Currently Branden and I are trying to find a gaming group; both out of a desire to game, and a desire to find somebody to hang out with that is not technically several hundred miles due south.

I've been trying to get something together with the Official University of Washington Pencil and Paper RPGs Group, specifically by way of the forums. Sample conversation:

Me: GENTLEMEN!
Forum: (Vast, gaping silence)
Me: The time is upon us for D&D, Arkham Horror, and assorted Cthonic shenanigans disregarded by mainstream society! JOIN ME, and I promise you times of great merriment and camaraderie, the likes of which never have been seen by human eyes!
Forum: (A limitless void of inactivity)
Me: Truly! You must only bring yourselves to the domain of the University, and all the riches and amusements at my command will unfold themselves before you, like a tremendous and vibrant forest! Nay, the greatest of redwoods shall not compare in splendour to even one of the extravagant entertainments I offer to you, this very fortnight!
One Forumer: Anybody wanna buy a set of D20's?
Me: σ_σ GET OUT

So that hasn't worked out incredibly well. Following a lead now, however. I'll let you know how it goes!

Also-- solium infernum! DO IT!

Solium Infernum!

2010-11-13T19:40:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone! So I'm trying to round up enough folks for a game of Solium Infernum. This is a very singular game, wherein Lucifer has disappeared and you're now competing for the throne of Hell against various other interested persons, shadies, and gentledevils.

Gameplay-wise, I like... well, I'll repost an email I just sent to a few people.

Basically, I like that it kills off three of the big problems we keep running into in our free-for-all type games:

1) Stalemates-- the end of the game is set at a specific time, with whoever has the most "prestige" winning.

2) Everyone cuts down the tallest poppies, leading to nobody wanting to be tallest-- this is prevented via a system where you allocate one player as your nemesis, which reduces the cost of actions against that player. You can switch your nemesis, but it's not free, which makes it somewhat more difficult to just go after whoever happens to have gained a small lead.

3) The structure of the game is such that turtling is generally a bad strategy.

It also features deception, backstabbing, and political dickery. My favorite kind of dickery!

Anyhow, I can put this game up on Dropbox if anybody is interested. You guys up for it? (Note: I'd recommend trying a game or two vs. the AI so y'all can get a handle on it.)

Short review:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/11/25/hands-on-solium-infernum/

There's also a short tutorial here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23753452/Solium-Infernum-Tutorial-1

Now then! I was wondering if there were any readers of this blog who may be interested in playing a highly cutthroat, highly complicated game of strategery with me and whoever else is interested (I have recently gotten both HTMC and Branden on board, so that's three-- I'd say we could use at least two more for a really good, diplomatic game.)

As for the format, it's a play-by-email game, so it's fairly slow paced-- but this is a good thing, since it means your time commitment per-day is quite low.

Oh yeah, and one other thing I like about the game? The aesthetics. Not the board game-y aesthetics of the main interface, but the art and description accompanying every piece of equipment, each character, and each army in the game, which you can purchase from the Infernal Bazaar as the game goes on. You cannot buy a "Level 2 Amulet of Protection." You can buy an Alien God In A Bottle. (I am not making this up. This is actually the name of the artifact. It protects you from being spied on by your opponents.)

And you don't have any Level 3 Melee Armies. You've got The Beast.

And finally, there's Character Creation, a process that allows you to attach to your avatar such attributes as "Unnatural Prescience" and "Prince of Lies." Anyway, it's classy business. Anyone want to give it a shot? I can allow any interested parties access to Dropbox so as to procure the game.

The Fear

2010-11-02T17:38:00.000-07:00

Or, In Which Writing is Cathartic.

There's this thing that continually infests my thoughts these days, and has since I started research at Pomona a couple years ago. A phobia which, for whatever reason, twirls constantly around my thoughts and feelings regarding lab. Like a kind of whisper; keeping me in an unholy terror that somebody will, someday soon, figure it out that I'm a fraud. I've managed to sneak this far into grad school without any of my professors detecting that I'm not one of them, and a part of me continues to feel certain that when lab work actually starts, things will go okay-- for a time-- until somebody realizes that where others churn out research after research, I can only stare in horror at a reaction mixture that refuses to do or say anything. And then come the ritual sacrifices, and it all goes downhill from there. And I know that of all my fears, this is one of the most retarded. Nevertheless it persists.

....and then, some time after finishing that mini-essay, I looked on Wikipedia, saw Imposter Syndrome, and found the sentence:

The impostor syndrome was thought to be particularly common among women who are successful in their given careers, but has since been shown to occur for an equal number of men. It is commonly associated with academics and is widely found among graduate students.

...huh.

Hubris: the everlasting predator

2010-10-28T22:29:00.001-07:00

5 days before the assignment is due:

"Wow, this is such an easy assignment. Lots of number crunching, though-- this equation I ended up with has like a million variables. Eh, I'll just calculate it all out later."

Night before the assignment is due:

*calculates*

"So this reaction will take.... 9000 years to finish? Wait, that can't be right."

One hour later:

"THESE EQUATIONS ARE ALL WRONG, WHAT IS THIS, I DON'T EVEN"

LERN 2 CHEMISTRY

2010-10-26T21:56:00.000-07:00

A Post of Many Things

2010-10-22T11:52:00.000-07:00

THING THE FIRST:
THE ADVANCED OCHEM MID-TERM EXAM (It's the chemistry that's advanced, not the exam.)

Class average grade: 45/95
My grade: 85/95
My face:
THING THE SECOND:
A dream I had last night. Went like this:

Josh: Hey, Aaron! You doing anything today?
Me: Not really. Anything going on with you?
Josh: Nothing too much. A group of us are just going to do a drive-by shooting. You in?
Me: WHAAAAAT
Josh: Why are you freaking out? You don't even have to really hit anything. Blindfire, for all I care. It's not really even that dangerous; the targets probably aren't even armed.
Me: WHAAAAAT
Branden: Come on, man. We'd help you if you were doing a drive-by shooting.
Josh: I thought you were our friend. What the hell, Aaron?

THING THE THIRD:
The "other" Ochem exam. The one I'm TAing for, to be precise. My God, these things take a long time to grade. That said, much fun was had with mocking those hapless students who made what I am going to call "Chemistry Word Salads." The process leading to Chemistry Word Salads goes like this:

1) There's a question on the exam I don't know the answer to.
2) It's an essay question.
3) Maybe if I jam in all of the buzzwords relating to chemistry I can think of, I'll stumble on the right word and get partial credit!
4) "The SN2 resonance structures for the HOMO and LUMO are highly acidic in nature, which means they are prone to giving up electrons in intramolecular reactions. Meanwhile, the oxygen atom travels around the molecule forming what we call "carbocations." These carbocations are highly unstable, and racemize into carboxylic acids due to the resulting steric hindrance of the molecule."
5) Success! Now to hand in the exam.
6) Receive TA response:
σ_σ

OChem Exam Aftermath!

2010-10-20T16:50:00.000-07:00

You know, there's something about exams-- they're horrifying before you've actually arrived to take the thing, but when you're working on it, it feels more-or-less like a homework problem set. Admittedly, one which you're timed on, but there's that same sense of intense satisfaction when you get a difficult problem right-- I remember there was one tricky synthesis problem on the Advanced OChem exam today which I beat my head against until, like a ray of divine light shining down on me, I had a crazy vision of the reaction mechanism ~~as laid down by my spirit animal.~~* And there's definitely something about OChem exams-- the problems tend to take the form of "Explain why this reaction takes place the way it does," and with that kind of question there's always the temptation to just BS something and hope for partial credit-- give yourself enough time, and you can even half-convince yourself you've got the right answer. But when you actually find the answer, it seems to have a ring of truth about it, because it takes the form of a bunch of obvious statements leading to the then-obvious conclusion-- no convincing necessary. Where you have to watch yourself is when you start writing paragraphs. 'Cuz you can make anything sound plausible if you give yourself a whole page to say it.

That's one infuriating thing about these exams-- all the answers sound so damn obvious after you hear them. Of course the lone pair on the oxygen donates into the sigma antibonding of the carbon-carbon bond, which in turn donates into the sigma-antibonding of our N2 group. Obviously it had to be that way, because the stereochemistry wouldn't work otherwise. Duh. That's why I hate looking up the actual answers when our tests are handed back-- it's just inviting major blows to the ego. Still, I think I did well on this thing! Knock on wood.

*I should mention this test was taken under the influence of near-lethal doses of caffeine.

It basically wrote itself

2010-10-19T19:47:00.000-07:00

AARON sits at his desk in the Chemistry Study Center. A nearby clock reads 9:00 AM, with a sign nearby reading "Organic Chemistry Office Hours". The room is deserted, and he is dozing in his chair, nursing a cup of coffee. A STUDENT walks in. AARON gasps

AARON:

A student! In my section!

Wait, where's your rush, where's your hurry
You gave me such a fright-- I thought you was a ghost--
Wait a minute, can't you sit, sit'cha down, SIT.
All I meant was that I haven't seen a student here in weeks.
Did you come here for advice, ma'am?
Please excuse me if me head's a little vague
But you'd think we had the plague
From the way the premeds
Keep avoiding-- just a sec-- (takes a swig of coffee)

Heaven knows I try, ma'am
But there's no one comes in even for exams
Not for resonance or finding moles in grams,
But I guess I hardly blame them--
for this is probably the worst time, for OChem!

I know why nobody cares to come here,
I should know!
I sit here,
Awake? No...
The worst time, for OChem....
Even that 's polite.
This is probably the worst time, for OChem!
You can't doubt me, amirite?

Student: (grimacing) Yeah.

Aaron:

Is this just, revolting?
You have to concede it!
A weeder, so early...
Here drink this-- you'll need it--
The worst time, for OChem...

SCIENCE!

2010-10-14T19:35:00.000-07:00

So I've been looking into what labs I want to join recently! I've talked to two of the four professors we have to chat with about research, and at the moment I'm really liking this one where my job will be synthesizing plastics with useful properties. Specifically for use as solar cells-- most solar cells these days require lots of expensive silicon, and researchers have already realized they can make solar cells out of plastic much more cheaply.

The only problem being, solar cells made out of plastic right now are woefully inefficient. This professor's research is geared towards making plastics that will do the job better than current ones. SCIENCE! I even got to grill one of her research assistants about the job.

Me: Hey! I was wondering if you could tell me about Luscombe's lab, since I'm thinking about working there.
Peter the Lab Assistant: Oooh.... unfortunately, I don't think she's hiring right now. I mean, unless you're a synthetic chemist who wants to make polymers.
Me: Really!

So that went well. I'm also continuing to enjoy TA work, although I've come to feel sorry for my 8:30 AM group-- they get a woefully unprepared, half-awake TA to answer their various chemical questions. But! Since all my sections have basically the same questions to ask, I can use my experience with the 8:30 AM group to better answer the next students I have come to me with questions. The system works!

That said, sometimes it feels like students assume some kind of psychic TA connection with their professor, illustrated by a slightly surreal exchange I had today with my 1:30 group.

Student: Hey, Aaron! How do we choose between an sp2 and sp3 hybridized resonance structure?
Me: Choose for what? You mean how do you know an atom's hybridization?
Student: I think Professor Boydston said we should choose the one with the most sp2 character, didn't he?
Me: Wait. What are we choosing it for? You mean the most stable one?
Another Student: No, it's just when we get two resonance structures, we need to choose the one with the most S character.
Me: ...
Another Student: Boydston said that's how we choose, but I don't get how--
Me: YOU ARE MAKING NO SENSE. SPEAK SENSE OR I AM GIVING YOU ALL AN F.
Class: ;_; HOW DO WE CHOOOOSE

...and that's how my entire 1:30 section dropped out of OChem.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

To jump on the memetic bandwagon...

2010-10-10T17:21:00.000-07:00

I give you: Prespur Bent, Bee-Druid of the Desert.

Hubris strikes again!

2010-10-09T19:24:00.001-07:00

During TA training, one thing we were repeatedly reminded to do was to not take responsibility for our students' grades. I thought that message was a bit ridiculous at the time. After all, a student obviously is responsible for understanding the material being taught in the course. How could it be otherwise? How could someone even think otherwise?

Well, I was grading quizzes today, and I was quite glum at discovering that something like 80% of the students got a particular question wrong. This question was about "arrow-pushing", which describes the movement of electrons in a molecule-- something which I (being as I am a grad school chemistry major) took for granted as being obvious. And I caught myself thinking, what if this is all my fault? Surely this could all have been prevented, had I did some more examples on this topic during tutoring. Or what if I said something misleading, that caused this common error among the undergrads? Or what if...

I then reminded myself that I'm only one of the resources students have available to them-- they also have the professor/his lectures, as well as the chemistry book which in theory they should be reading. So really I'm probably less important than I'm giving myself credit for. Excellent!

Aaaaand now back to grading quizzes.

This is why I shouldn't blog at 1:30 in the morning.

2010-10-02T22:06:00.000-07:00

The Daret Follies
A Most Entertaining True Historie in Onne Day

Morning

Outside the shop Gizmo Gulch. An ISPEX glitters in the window.

Enter DARET, the techpriest.

DARET:
Hark! An Ispex, newly made,
shining steady in the light--
its careful form of brilliant make,
its monitor so cheerful and so bright!

Enter SHOPKEEPER.

SHOPKEEPER:
Good techpriest, I am most impressed
At the wisdom in your tone--
All this could be yours today
a mere two-hundred-ninety (plus tax) thrones!

DARET: Deal! (aside) Sucker.

Noon

Inside a HERETICAL RUIN.

Enter DARET and company. All are carrying LASGUNS.

THE LINEAR:
Gentlemen, I must urge caution
Let us get some recon 'fore we go!
Our foe's perhaps too crafty, and too strong
We must find out who they are to bring them low!

DARET:
You speak the truth, but you forget
An ability I've had since dawn--
Behold as my new ISpex Plus
illuminates the passage-way anon!

The ISPEX gives a BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH.

CALLIDON: Is it supposed to--

DARET: Shut up.

Evening

DARET and company walk down a darkened corridor, blood staining their clothing.

CANTOR REMSKI:
By the Emperor, we've come so far
A rocker's life is one I've come to miss!
The money grand, the groupies fine,
And kickass techpriests turning--

A HERETIC leaps out of the shadows, impaling REMSKI with a POWER SPEAR.

HERETIC:
Hah! You are surrounded, fools
The agony we'll not prolong!
Behold fellow-cultists, powers great,
perhaps twenty thousand crazy people strong!

SIX:
Foiled in our designs,
We'll be with the Emperor by the morrow!

(SIX, CALLIDON, and THE LINEAR are killed by lasgun fire. DARET flees, ISPEX in hand. The ISPEX lights up.)

ISPEX:
Warning! Acolytes, I must declare
A note before you all continue on--
Her'sy lurks, and shall attack
So please prepare your armaments anon!

DARET:
σ_σ

Science Analogy Time!

2010-10-01T12:13:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I went to this seminar-dealie wherein the faculty presented their research for all of us first-year grad students. A lot of cool stuff, but also there were quite a few lectures where I found my eyes starting to glaze over, my interest in scientific accomplishment becoming eclipsed by thoughts of food and a growing urge to find a restroom. Anyways, I was wondering why it was that some lecturers seemed much more interesting to me than others, and I think it just comes down to my perception of science in general.

So I like to think of all human endeavors and ambitions as taking place on a huge map. Humanity's got a fair bit of territory nowadays-- we've mostly explored the regions of Steam Power and Computation, and we've even made some progress in the fuzzily-defined regions of Applied Psychology and Political Science. Our means of getting from one place to another are tunnels, which we call Theory when they're going down into the earth, and Invention where they're coming back up again.

You can point to basically any newly-discovered region and point to the tunnel (or tunnels) that led there. You might call university professors tunnel-specialists; but to hear some of them talk, it's like they're building tunnels not to get from point A to point B, but because they just like building tunnels. And then they can't hold my interest because instead of saying "we're attempting to build a tunnel to the region of Tumor Removal, and here's how we're doing it", they say "Hey! You guys should totally work on my completely awesome tunnel!" And then they start going on and on about their tunnel, while I'm still trying to figure out where it's supposed to be heading.

Now, I'm not gonna deny it-- some tunnels are entirely awesome. And any of them can be really useful down the line, when what looks like a dead-end turns into the only possible way into a specific region. Just look at how theoretical physics led us to nuclear power. But man, I really wish my professors would give us a concrete destination when they start explaining their research. 'Cuz I like tunnels, but I like them even more when I know where they're going.

It kinda reminds me of my thesis research-- it felt a bit like my profs just sent me down into a random shaft, thrust a pickaxe into my hand, and were all like:

Professors: Hey Aaron, hey Aaron! How would you like to beat the hell out of this rock for a year?
Me: ....why?
Professors: Because you need thesis material. Also, isn't this an awesome tunnel?
Me: Nyo~ron.

EDIT: As I was writing this, I keep having the suspicion that I just assume that a prof doesn't have a practical application in mind if he doesn't talk about it. Which might not be valid. My only worry is that if I ask about direct applications, it'll come out like I'm implying that the research sounds pointless. That said, I have at least found a couple of profs who seem application-oriented, so I'll be in good shape if I can get into one of their labs. Wish me luck!

I just like that image.

2010-09-28T20:02:00.000-07:00

Microteaching.

That's the name of this thing we had to go to today, wherein we'd teach a class for five minutes about a topic that we've prepared beforehand, with a camcorder trained on us all the while. Then they'd play the video back for us, while we get the dubious pleasure of watching ourselves stutter and stumble over explaining basic chemistry concepts. Afterward, our peers would critique our performances. What fun!

Anyway, I'm well aware of the phenomenon of people hating how they look on video. Mine was the last video to be played, and it was slightly amusing watching my fellow classmates cringe over their actually pretty decent lectures. Of course, I knew (beyond a doubt, really) that when my presentation was played, I would be able to watch it with complete objectivity and relaxed self-satisfaction.

Ah, hubris.

Cities always teem with evil and decay!

2010-09-26T14:46:00.000-07:00

So I was on my way to the library today to get myself a card, when I noticed that the back tire on my bike was gone. Just flat-out gone. Now, I'm pretty conscientious about locking up my bike whenever I'm planning to go more than a few feet from it, and so my bike-minus-the-back-wheel is still attached to the bicycle rack via my U-lock. Like it's trying to say "don't blame me-- I did my job."

So, I embarked upon a quest to get myself a wheel. Unfortunately, the bike shop nearest to me (I was informed) does not carry a specialized part that was missing when I found my bicycle this morning. So, it's time to go on a hunt for such a shop!

On the plus side, I've found an underground parking garage which has a fenced-off area specifically for bikes. I suspect it will end up being much more secure than my current spot.

First week of Orientation: COMPLETE

2010-09-25T19:51:00.000-07:00

Hey! So after completing this first week of orientation, I think I'm gonna have fun at the UW. Grad school seems to be divided into three parts: Regular classwork, tutoring students (also known as TAing), and actual research. The research I haven't started yet, and won't for a couple months, but I've got both the classwork and tutoring worked out.

I'll be giving quizzes and tutoring four sets of 25 Organic Chemistry students each Thursday, and will be having office hours at various times during the week so that students can come talk to me and get help with their assignments. I figure this'll be a fun break from actual studying; I've always enjoyed helping folks understand complex concepts, and I'd enjoy having a chance to review my OChem materials (most of which I've forgotten by now. Sad face.)

Most of our orientation was just on TAing, which is a lot more complex than I figured it'd be. Since we have so many TAs for a given class, a lot of what we do is just focused on not giving the students any sort of advantage based on what TA they have-- that's why we're not allowed to talk about upcoming exams, or give arbitrary extensions on papers. Also: no canoodling with your students. Okay, that one's obvious, but even chumming around with them outside of class is bad news, since it's a lot harder to tell a student "No, I won't take your late paper" if you've got a game of Starcraft with him that weekend and really want him to be in a good mood. Best to keep things impersonal. But on the other hand, you want to develop a rapport with your students so that they're comfortable with asking questions. You have to strike a balance.

It also sounds like there's a certain personality type professors/TAs hate, and that's the type that, after every exam/problem set, tries to badger tiny points of partial credit out of the TA. ("I got a 3/10, but I really think my work warrants a 4/10.") Our prof's making very explicit partial-credit rubrics so that we don't have to have moronic arguments to that effect. Also, we are advised to not hold office hours on the day before exam time, since that's when you get swamped by desperate procrastinators who need you to teach them three chapters in one hour.

Oh yeah! And this professor is one that I'm really thinking about working with come next quarter, so this'll be a good opportunity to get to know him and his group. I met with him before, and he seems really cool-- at this point I just need to 1) verify that his group seems happy and productive via going to group meetings, and 2) make sure that his group doesn't work more than sixty hours per week. Both are very important.

First Day of Orientation: COMPLETE

2010-09-20T17:51:00.000-07:00

So, I've just had my first day of TA orientation. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit-- the instructor not only talked about what policies they had in place, but also the reasons for them, and how the University got to doing them in the first place. In particular, I learned how much the student-teacher dynamics change when you start having fifty people in a class-- the kids start looking less like special snowflakes each deserving of your time, and more like a pack of hungry wolverines each wanting just a little bit of your flesh.

Like, she advised us not to give out personal email addresses, or else the students will be emailing us all the time, and if you don't respond to any given email the kid involved will feel like you're responsible for his bad grade ("But you said we could contact you through e-mail!") Actually, a lot of TAing appears to be the art of helping out the students without taking responsibility for their grades.

Fun snippet gleaned from the lecture, not necessarily related: Contractors are terrified of doing any kind of work in chemistry labs ("But... there are molecules in there!"). So are firemen, with probably more reason. Different fun snippet: Honors chemistry students tend to be a bit more reckless than average in the labs, particularly since sometimes you get precocious 13-year-old chemists who are (in some ways) very smart, but who you need to keep an especially close eye on when they're working with dangerous chemicals.

Productive use of leisure time

2010-09-18T16:22:00.000-07:00

I was reading The Screwtape Letters, and ran across the following passage:

"Nothing is very strong. Strong enough to steal away a man's best years... in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off."

This struck a chord with me-- sometimes, when I've got a bunch of time to kill and don't want to do work, I default to doing things which suck up time and attention, but that I don't really enjoy all that much. EXAMPLES!

1) Browsing news aggregators.
2) 4chan.
3) Several other miscellaneous websites that I will file under the heading of "undirected intarwebs activities." (Man, it surprises me how much the internet is a culprit here.)

As opposed to the things I actually enjoy, and feel good about after I've done them:

1) Reading good books
2) Social gaming (like, Left 4 Dead or board games, or Starcraft.)
3) Writing
4) Bicycle-riding.
5) DDR!
6) Fine mexican cuisine.

I suspect that the big lure of Undirected Intarwebs Activities is that it takes absolutely no energy to click on a link; with bike riding, or book-reading, or writing, you have to spend about 10-15 minutes getting into it before it starts to become fun. And in fact, I decided to make my blog daily because I realized that the Muse doesn't just come and go as she pleases, despite what it feels like when I'm writing; rather, the more effort you put into summoning her, the more easily and often she'll come bearing gifts. And if you cease calling on her, then she'll get all huffy and stop coming around at all.

I think that's the reason that schedule slip tends to cascade on itself-- whenever an artist or author decides to only write when the Muse is there, rather than on a fixed schedule, this is implicitly a decision to stop making an effort to conjure her. It's not unlike figuring that since successful fishing requires the fish to come to your boat, you may as well doze off and wait for them to flop into your bucket of their own free will.

But yeah! Back on topic, I'm going to make a resolution: Whenever I'm not doing work, I'm going to do an activity that I actually enjoy. Hopefully this will compensate somewhat for the lack of leisure time I'm going to have during grad school.

HEY GUISE

2010-09-18T16:01:00.001-07:00

So I got back to my University of Washington apartment, and it looks like everybody's moved in! Good times, particularly since I was feeling a bit uncomfortable with the idea of slacking off while my housemate (who started class a couple of weeks ago) was busting his ass at labs. Make no mistake-- he's still working nose-to-the-grindstone, but I do feel somewhat less guilty now that not-working is the current norm.

Not that I'll have much time to enjoy it, since orientation starts on Monday and appears to run from 9 to 5. It'll be a good transition into grad school, since I had a meeting with one of the professors I wanted to work with a few days ago-- his advice was (and I'm coming near as I can to quoting):

"Okay, so most students who drop out do it their first year, and that's because you probably learn more in your first year of grad school than you do in your entire stay at college. It gets a bit more relaxed your second year. So yeah, be prepared to work balls-to-the-wall for a while, but if you feel like you're going to burn out, say something and arrange for some vacation time. Important thing is, wait until your second year to drop out, if you think you're going to."

So I'll let you know how that goes. Although on the other hand, the UW gave me a 2,000 scholarship on top of their normal stipend to attend, so I guess that signals some amount of confidence in my abilities.

In other news, I arrived at the apartment this morning to see that one of my housemates has bought a bottle of Crown Royale (a moderately-priced hard alcohol.) A harbinger of things to come? WE'LL SEE. Although I have to say-- I'm not overly sanguine about the prospect of heavy drinking with a group I don't know well. I'll go for it once so that I don't get a reputation as a loner, but I figure I'll probably sit out of most drinking sessions after that. More time for crafting stars, y'know.

Taking Advice: Big hassle, or biggest hassle?

2010-09-16T18:57:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the lack of bloggery-- my internet was acting weird last night for some reason. (The night before that was just, uh, laziness.) At any rate!

A couple nights ago, I had a 1v1 game going against Rome, wherein Blake stood to the side and did a running commentary on how we were doing. And I began to notice that I have a weird contrarian streak when it comes to accepting advice (even when I explicitly ask for it), which causes this kind of exchange to occur more or less constantly:

Blake: Hey Aaron, hey Aaron! You should do X!
Me: LIIIIIES
Blake: Nyo~ron.

This, despite the fact that some of his advice was rather good, and even inspired me to create this flowchart for the advanced management of your Starcraft 2 economy:
This chart is also applicable to void rays.

IN OTHER NEWS: After attempting to make a Let's-Play of Europa Universalis 3-- a couple of times, actually-- I concluded that making a decent LP of that game would be incredibly difficult due to the intense, oppressive boringness of the title. Particularly in a peacetime game, because basically any peacetime game of EU3 devolves into a five-step process:

1) Set your nation's budget and sliders into something sustainable and economy-improving. Set game speed to "high".
2) Get a book. I recommend a Jim Butcher title.
3) Read said book.
4) ???
5) PROFIT!

Even warmongering games are pretty bad, since it's damn near impossible to inflict significant casualties on an opposing army (they fight for like a minute and then one person retreats with 10% casualties), and thus it takes about a half-hour to finish a war that you will inevitably win anyhow. The reason it takes so long? Because not only can you not kill the enemy troops, but when you vastly outnumber the nation you're making war on, they'll just ignore your minions and base-race you, forcing you to backtrack from whatever sieges you're laying in order to resecure your homeland. And the enemy armies will keep running, except instead of retreating back to their nation, they'll just retreat further into yours.

Okay, I know that this probably sounds all strategic and "clever" and stuff, but I guarantee you it contains roughly the same strategic content as a Yakety-Sax-style chase scene. It's not a good deal, folks!

IN OTHER NEWS: I have re-installed oblivion with like twelve mods. EXCELLENT.