Shovel, shovel, toil and trouble

Even on a doctor's paycheque, I can still only reasonably afford lodgings in a meager basement apartment. It's not large or luxurious, but it suits me quite well--except in one regard. If it weren't enough that I have to shovel out the driveway every day or two (particularly bad when we get heavily snowed on, like we did last night), I have to shovel a path up around the house to even get to the driveway.

After spending over three hours at it today, I have reached a conclusion: the shovel is not the best tool for the job. A flamethrower would be much quicker, easier, and more efficient at the job. No hard labour, just burning, intense fire. Flooding might be an issue, but water is much easier to deal with than snow!

Given the lack of precision a flamethrower has, not only would I likely not have to worry about shovelling, I would also not have a house left to have to pay rent for! Nor a car to buy gas for! And, I'd have a whole wad of insurance money, with which to skip the country before they find out that it's my fault my house burned down and my car exploded. Once I'm in Mexico, I won't ever have to worry about shovelling snow ever again. No siree, life will be grand; my only worries will be malaria and Hepatitis A&B.

Look out, USA! Here comes DR SCIENCE!

It is official! I will be visiting Amanda from April 25th until June 24th. That's two entire months.

I don't think I could be more excited.

Dammit, Jack. What did I ever do to you?

Sunday past I spent the night at a colleague's place. It was a good time all around, but I intended it to be one night. Nature had other plans, however. On Monday we got the blizzard that had recently torn through the North-Eastern USA, leaving a trail of corpses in its wake. I couldn't leave during the blizzard, and the next day the road conditions were so poor that even the buses weren't running, so I couldn't get home then, either. I didn't get home until Wednesday. WEDNESDAY. Gawd.

The worst part of all? I've become absolutely addicted to Diddy Kong Racing DS. And I don't have a DS. This will be torturous. I have been reading reviews of DKRDS, and they are mostly pretty poor. If they were going to rate it badly for its poor touchscreen implementation, then that would be one thing. But the major complaint seemed to be "it's not Mario Kart."

...

OF COURSE IT'S NOT! I mean, how dare it take a different approach to the kart racer genre, huh?

"This is the iWorld, and here I am a GOD."

I found this hilarious video on The Unofficial Apple Weblog and I just had to share it.




There are enough blogs and other venues covering the Mac vs PC issue, and I don't want to turn this blog into one of them, but while I'm on the topic I have a few things I want to say.

People on both sides of the issue need to relax. They are just computers. It is nothing to get so angry and upset over. And furthermore, any argument over which is "better" is ludicrous. Each has its strengths and weaknesses, and they even out to the point that it all comes down to what you spend most of your time on a computer doing, and which one you prefer. It's just a preference issue, nothing more. I prefer the Mac way of doing things. Other people prefer the Windows way of doing things. Other people prefer the Linux way of doing things (we call these people "geeks").

I would also like to talk a little bit about Apple's "Get A Mac" campaign, with the Mac guy and the PC guy. While these are good for a cheap chuckle, sometimes, in my experience all the seem to do is polarize people on both sides. Mac OS X certainly has enough good points that a successful ad campaign could be made around touting these, and I think Apple is selling their own software short by simply and constantly pointing out (overexaggerated) bad things about Windows.

So, really, in conclusion, PCs are for fart-huffers, and Macs get you laid.

Vampiranity: Nominations for Canonization

Canonization is the process of making someone a Saint. If Vampiranity is to be any kind of religion at all, it needs Saints. Rather than appoint them myself, in an authoritarian manner, I'm going to put it to a democratic, open vote. If you think someone should be canonized in the Church of Vampiranity, leave a short blurb in the comments of this post naming your nominee and giving a brief reason why they should be canonized.

People to be Canonized should adhere to the guidelines of Vampiranity, which I should probably declare, huh? Vampiranity is dedicated to compassion to living things, and the swift and horrible slaughter of the living undead (emphasis on this one). Anyone who follows these is fair game for Canonization.

I'll leave the nominations open until the end of March 2007. That's a long time, but I want to get as much input as I can. And, hey, Rome wasn't built in a day.

So, get nominating!

Hello, Mr. Jackass? There's a nice quiet library right over there.

I've been spending a great deal of time at the university lately. I have a big research report due tomorrow, and I've had to be studying for various exams--all the usual university fun stuff. Usually I have a break at noon, and I'm feeling a little hungry, so I decide to go over to the food court to grab a bite to eat. Noon is a popular time to eat. I understand this. I fully expect there to be few empty tables. Usually it's not a problem because after a few moments one will become available. If not, I can always retreat to some other deserted area of the campus and eat there.

What really gets to me are people who take an entire table (sometimes a table that can seat four people) to do homework. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be allowed to study or work in the food court. If you get some food, you have every right to read or work while you eat it. But when the tables are in short supply as it is, it makes no sense for anyone to be using one just for homework when people with food can't find a place to sit and eat. It makes even less sense when you consider that the building directly adjacent to the food court is the library, which has five entire floors of enforcedly quiet study space. Why would anyone want to study in the noisy food court, anyway? You can hardly hear yourself think.

Basically what I'm saying is that you have the right to take up an entire table when not eating, I have the right to stand directly behind you, read over your shoulder, and chew loudly with my mouth open while I do so. Got a problem with that? Then go to the library!

Valentine's Day: A Guide for the Single Person

I know it's not Valentine's Day yet, but I thought I would get this out the door early so that all you single people know exactly what to do tomorrow.

That sacred, special bond you share with the person you are in love with is almost definitely the most beautiful thing in existence. But, by the same token, a Ferrari is almost definitely the most beautiful car in existence. Would you walk everywhere just because you couldn't get a Ferrari? Of course not. That would be absurd. So just because you don't/can't have the most beautiful thing in existence, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't have something beautiful.

Here are some things that are beautiful and readily available*:

1. Sunsets


2. Rainbows


3. The beautiful and intricate patterns produced by a Spirograph™

These have some extra benefits, as well. Consider someone taking their significant other out for a date on Valentine's Day. It's Valentine's Day, so flowers are an absolute necessity. That will put you back about $50-$60. Chocolates (in a heart shaped box) will put you back another $20+. Then comes dinner. At a fancy, romantic restaurant, dinner will not be cheap. And if you're the type of person who pays for your date's meal (and you'd better be), then that will come to another $70-$80 minimum. This single date alone will cost you $140-$160. And then you have to consider the continued expenses of being in a relationship.

Sunsets are free and you can see one every evening. Rainbows are free and you can see one every time it rains. Amazon tells me that you can get a Deluxe Spirograph™ for $8.99 US. This is a small, one-time fee, and the Spirograph™ will give you beautiful patterns forever.

"But Dr. Science, can't people in relationships enjoy sunsets and rainbows and Spirograph™s as well as I can? Can't they even do it together?"

Yes, they can. But that doesn't diminish your enjoyment of it any less! And the only way that people in a relationship could enjoy a Spirograph™ would be if someone were dating someone with a Spirograph™. And let's be realistic here, they're not.

So in conclusion, just because you don't have that someone special to share your life with, you still have something! So chin up, and keep reaching for that rainbow!


*If you live so far North or South so as to experience 24 hours of darkness, or 24 hours of light, then it's doubtful you'll be able to see a sunset (or rainbows) very often. In this case, I recommend the beauty of igloos and aurora borealis.

If I were a combinatorics professor...

Combinatorics is the mathematical study of arrangements, selection, distributions, etc. Basically it boils down to "counting" how many ways you can do something. For example, how many ways can you seat 7 people in a line of 5 chairs? Or, how many ways can you pick 4 jellybeans from a bag containing 3 red ones, 4 blue ones, and 5 black ones, if you must have at least one of each color? These are the things combinatorics is interested in. These are the types of questions we are given.

These are... boring and lifeless.

If I were teaching a class of combinatorics, my questions would be vivid and funny! They wouldn't be boring.

For example:

1. James's belt is getting a little old. It is a little frayed and ragged. James estimates that he can get only 5 more spankings out of the belt before it breaks. In how many ways can James dispense swift and severe punishment to his 3 children?

2. a) How many ways can you seat 8 people at a round banquet table?

b) How many ways can you seat 8 people at the same table if Mary has found out that her husband Jim has been sleeping with her sister, and because of this she refuses to sit directly next to or directly across from Jim?

3. Brad's dealer has 7 types of drugs for sale. If it takes 5 hits of any combination of drugs to make Brad pass out, in how many ways can Brad stone himself to unconsciousness this Friday? Assume that the order the drugs are taken in matters.

4. Seven couples show up at a swingers party. In how many ways can the 14 people be paired off if at most 2 men can be matched up with their own wife?


Aren't these much better and much less boring?


ALSO: Bonus points to anyone who can answer these in the comments!

Two years.

I've been with Amanda two years now. I can't say this is where I expected to be in my life right now, but I can say I'm glad things are the way they are. It's been the best two years ever.

This may come as a shock to some, but one word can sometimes have multiple meanings depending on context.

"Evolution is just a theory."

If I hear that one more time I am going to scream.

Yes, evolution is a theory. But--hear me out--that's a good thing.

People who use this (very weak) argument are misusing the word 'theory'. They are using it in its colloquial sense, not in its scientific sense. There is a HUGE difference there.

Colloquially, a theory is a guess. In science, we call that... a guess.

Slightly stronger than a guess is a hypothesis. One arrives at a hypothesis after making some preliminary observations on the object of study, and using these observations to make a more educated 'guess' at what is going on. After a hypothesis is formed, one creates an objective experiment to verify or debunk the hypothesis.

Once enough information has been collected, and the experiment has proven to be repeatable (that is, anyone else could do the same experiment and get the same result), then the idea may be approaching the level of theory. A theory must be shown to be consistent, and, what's more, it must have considerable predicting power.

This is the key difference. Colloquially a theory is a haphazard guess about the cause of something. Scientifically, a theory is an explanation of something that is consistent, objectively verifiable, and can be used to predict future events. A scientific theory is a very strong statement.

If you're going to cover your eyes and refuse to see the evidence provided for something, that's one thing. You have every right to refuse to believe what we can see and instead believe something with no evidence for it. But if you're going to try to debunk this evidence, do it scientifically, not semantically. Learn about what you're arguing against, and who knows, maybe you'll find some key flaw in evolution, something that blows the whole thing out of the water.

And if you do? That's great! We'll find a better explanation! That's the beauty of science--if something is shown to be inconsistent or 'untrue', we'll throw it out and find something better.

But of course, that'll be "just a theory" too.

Weekly "Ok Tally" #1

One of my professors (let's call him Dr. Professor) says "Ok?" or "Mmk?" a crazy amount of times during one lecture. He is a great prof, very nice and great at explaining the material. I have no complaints about him at all. I just thought it would be interesting to count how many times he says "ok?" during one lecture. Here is the result! I may do this weekly, maybe not. We'll see.

Vampiranity

Though a doctor of science, I once decided to give religion a try. If some idea has billions of people following it, it must be doing something right, right? Given the part of the world I'm in, the religious scene is predominantly Christian, so that seemed to be the way to go.

Here are my thoughts on it.

If we're going to live our lives by a very old book with no evidence to back it up, why the bible? Sure the bible has its share of action scenes, people being turned into pillars of salt, cities being destroyed, etc, etc, but on the whole it's a little too preachy for my liking. And the boring parts way outnumber the exciting parts.

To this end, I've decided to live my life by Bram Stoker's Dracula. It's an old book, and it has no evidence at all for its claims, so it satisfies the criteria as I see them for a Holy Book. Also it has vampires, something the bible is sorely lacking. What is more badass than vampires?

After meticulously studying the holy text for the religion I am dubbing "Vampiranity", I have composed a list of Three Commandments:

Commandment the First: Vampires exist.
Commandment the Second : Always travel in sunlight.
Commandment the Third: Always carry a stake.

In Vampiranity, we believe that one of two things happen when you die. You enter a restful, endless, sleeplike state. Or, you become one of the living undead. Break any of the Three Commandments and you are at risk of spending eternity sucking blood and never seeing the light of day again. The death that comes from exposure to sunlight after undeath is much worse a fate than undeath itself.

Now, some might argue that we've never seen a vampire. Have we ever seen a proton? I have complete faith that the computer I'm writing this on functions completely without assuming that protons exist. And you can't counter that with evidence because faith means believing in something even when there's overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Also, you can't say that Vampires don't exist, because that's offensive to my beliefs.