Just a

Thomas the snowman

2008-01-08T02:48:00.000-05:00

Enough said.

Faith

2007-08-26T22:19:00.000-05:00

...for it is great to give up one's desire, but greater to stick to it after having given it up; it is great to grasp hold of the eternal but greater to stick to the temporal after having given it up. ...
Abraham believed, and therefore he was young; for he who always hopes for the best becomes old, deceived by life, and he who is always prepared for the worst becomes old prematurely; but he who has faith, retains eternal youth. ...
Abraham had faith, and had faith for this life. Yes, had his faith only been for a future life it would indeed have been easier to cast everything aside in order to hasten out of this world to which he did not belong. But Abraham's faith was not of that kind, if there is such, for a faith like that is not really faith but only its remotest possibility, a faith that has some inkling of its object at the very edge of the field of vision but remains separated from it by a yawning abyss in which despair plays its pranks.

-Johannes de silentio [Kierkegaard's chosen persona for Fear and Trembling]

Brahms

2007-08-12T12:08:00.000-05:00

It seems I can repeatedly listen to the first two string quartets of Brahms without tiring. Somehow with four instruments he manages to produce a fuller sound than most composers can do with a full orchestra.

An answer to Sen. Obama's question

2007-06-24T18:17:00.000-05:00

Words from antiquity: His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

Senator Obama, aspirant to the presidency, was recently quoted: "Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and started being used to drive us apart. It got hijacked."

Assuming it is being used as more than a rhetorical device, the phrase "somehow, somewhere" implies that the senator is genuinely uncertain how faith, and specifically Christianity, to which he asserts his adherence, came to such a horrible state as to cause division.

Being the good citizen that I am, I have decided to point this selfless public official toward the answer.

Jesus says (Luke 12:51): "Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division."

Yes, the one you supposedly refer to as Lord himself was the one who made religion divisive.

Senator, you: 1. don't know your own faith 2. don't believe Christianity's holy book (in which case your faith is pointless) or 3. are a lying, pandering fool.

I suspect all three.

Name change / the end

2007-06-19T18:19:00.000-05:00

A mercenary goes where the pay is. He goes to places that he doesn't necessarily want to for the sake of tangible compensation, usually monetary. I originally went to Boston as a mercenary.

However, for quite some time I have been here because I want to be. Yes I am working, yes I am being paid, but this compensation has taken back seat to a personal desire to simply be--here.

In the process of this transition, which was long and began perhaps a year ago, I have learned amazing things. Interestingly, I have simultaneously desired less and less to discuss these glimpses over a medium such as this. I believe this explains my infrequent posting pattern of the last year. Most posts were a result of a sense that I ought to post rather than a strong desire to.

So a name change to this particular place is necessary and appropriate. For now it is mercenary to student, simply because of the amount I have been learning. A more thorough name change might take place, but I have no intention to exert much effort toward that possibility. In all honesty I don't know how frequently future posts will come, or even if they will. Although given recent posting history this may not mean much.

I believe I am entering a personal golden age. This is no doubt due to the many gracious prayers that have been made on my behalf. God is making me more and more his, and the result is an increasing (though still only partial) indifference to both the compliments and insults of others as I find my identity and worth more and more in him.

In keeping with the spirit of this post, I don't feel a desire to be any less vague.

Truth about racism

2007-05-31T07:10:00.000-05:00

I know most people aren't interested in the truth, because it generally conflicts with their worldview. Nonetheless, it is necessary to point out the following.

Occasionally some nitwit asserts that people who oppose amnesty for law breakers, i.e. illegal immigrants, are racist against Mexicans. Aside from the fact that that is utterly ridiculous, reality is quite the opposite. Immigrants from Asia, Africa, Europe--anywhere in the world except Mexico--generally follow the laws, procedures, and rules in their immigration efforts. The result is years of waiting and bureaucratic exercises. The vast majority of illegal immigrants are from Mexico. Therefore, if one were to favor amnesty for this demographic, one would be committing racist actions against Africans, Asians, and Europeans.

Again, those who oppose amnesty, which is in favor of a specific ethnic group, are not racist--the racists, rather, are those who believe the law should discriminate against millions of would-be immigrants who happen to fall into other demographics. Try thinking for a change, you racist. And why do you hate people from Africa so much?

Reality tv

2007-05-17T19:53:00.000-05:00

I've probably already told everyone who reads this, but my boss was on the season premier of the reality television show "Trading Spouses" last fall. His and one other family were the subject of two hours of scrutiny. This is odd because if you knew him at all you would realize that it is completely out of character for him to be involved with reality tv. I recently came across the video on youtube. The first part is here. The other ten or so parts can also be found on youtube, showing the episodes in their entirety. It will be obvious who my boss is.

My boss is the most intelligent person I have ever known. He is so intelligent that he can completely disregard most social protocol and get away with it. I am grateful (as you should be) that his mind is on our side instead of Iran's. He immediately sees what is and isn't relevant in any situation. I am trying to soak up just a fraction of a percent of his insight. That is difficult to do because the man is a genius whose mind operates on a level far above mine or yours. People call others "genius" all the time, so the word has lost a lot of its meaning, but he is the real deal.

NASA

2007-05-03T18:17:00.000-05:00

NASA used to be a good organization. The Apollo program is one of the most impressive engineering feats ever accomplished by mankind. But for at least thirty years now they have been existing solely on past accomplishments.

We had a space conference at the lab this week. Hundreds of scientists from companies, labs, and agencies showed up to discuss their research. One talk I went to was by a NASA scientist. It was really bad. I have now seen a few NASA talks, and they were consistently below par in relation to the work of academic organizations. Granted, much of what we do at my lab is prepare talks, and the preparation process is thorough, consistent, repetitious, and often brutal, so it might not be fair to judge by the same standards organizations that do not have that as a central focus.

That said, when I mentioned my observation (i.e., weak NASA talks) to the more experienced, the consistent response was utter lack of surprise. Apparently NASA has been thought of as an undesirable place of employment within academic circles for quite some time. The PhDs told me that only the "b squad" from their programs went to NASA--the top notch went to tenure-track faculty positions (except for some planetary scientists who thought the access to data at NASA was worth the strife).

I don't expect you to care about this all that much. The only reason I mention this at all is that there still seems to be (or at least, seemed to be, until a certain astronaut decided to stalk a rival while wearing a diaper a few months back) a public perception that NASA is full of crazy-smart, top engineers/scientists. While there may still be some, I thought I would make everyone aware that the top PhD grads view NASA as a weak, undesirable place of employment.

asdfasdf, part II

2007-04-06T09:44:00.000-05:00

I've made the decision. Carlson.

When I began making this decision there were plenty of witty ideas running through my mind on how to divulge it. But the fact is, this decision was difficult and serious enough that I feel no desire to make light of it. Monday I formally accepted at Cornell. I was sure that was where I was going. Some things changed in the following couple days and it became clear that I had to switch. I'm grateful I was able to, but am not excited about having to back out at Cornell. They are nice people there, not to mention they have that whole "Ivy league" temptation and they issued me one of the only 10 offers made to the 500 applicants. Brutally difficult decision I had to make. I don't feel a particular desire to expound on the specifics involved at this point, at least by means such as these.

But I am looking forward to the exciting research at Carlson and feel a tremendous weight lifted off my head, which felt like it was going to explode (literally) the last couple weeks. My goal for the PhD program is to solve all worldly problems our species faces and also to develop piano proficiency.

Thanks for your prayers as I worked through the decision.

asdfasdf

2007-03-22T06:14:00.000-05:00

Gore: The planet has a fever.

Logical response: And the only prescription is more cowbell.

Anthropogenic global warming is one the greatest farces ever propagated among our species. I could write about that, but I have more pressing concerns (with things that actually matter).

It is decision time. I have a matter of days to decide where to spend the next five years of my life. The options: Carlson School of Management - U of MN; Johnson School of Management - Cornell; Medical school at Wake Forest, though I am not really considering this; or none of the above.

Cornell

Features:
-One of the most beautiful campuses I've ever seen.
-In Ithaca, a small college city in the middle of sparsely populated upstate New York.

Advantages:
-Never tried the small college town thing. I expect it would be very refreshing after being submerged in Boston or Minneapolis for so long.
-It's new. I've already spent five years at UMN.
-Excellent reputation, much higher than U of MN in terms of overall institutional respect.
-Ivy league. Would meet lots of future-important people.
-General wisdom is to do grad. school somewhere other than where you did undergrad.
-Not as strong as MN in empirical research but much stronger in mathematical research.
-Better placement upon graduation (i.e., faculty positions at more prestigious universities) for most graduates.

Minnesota

Advantages:
-Not ivy league. Don't have to deal with as much snootiness, probably.
-Within the specific group at Cornell my work would probably be somewhat more unstable than it would be in the group at MN, merely because Cornell's is tiny. Think five faculty, two or three PhD students. MN's is more than twice as large.
-Know more people in the area. But I think this can be a disadvantage too.
-Within the specific department: more mentors doing a variety of work.
-Probably the best department in the world for empirical operations management research.
-Sam's cookies.

Things that are the same either way
-Ithaca has been voted one of the most liberal towns in the U.S. by some. Some say it is more liberal than Berkeley and Cambridge. That said, U of MN is very liberal too, so this isn't a huge concern.
-Financial stuff. Programs are fully funded and stipends are similar enough to not be a factor in my decision. After graduating the initial salaries are about the same from both institutions. Maybe slightly higher for Cornell, but again, not enough to affect my decision.
-Cornell was one of the first universities founded with a godless vision. Whether or not UMN was, it has become so as well.

Ultimately, I will likely spend most of the next five years in either this building

or this one (the one in the foreground, not the crack-stack in the background).

I covet your prayers.

1920

2007-03-13T21:10:00.000-05:00

I.

The good news:
Recently, I discerned one of the chief reasons that socialist economies are incredibly inefficient, or even fail (in part: in capitalism, part II).

The bad news:
Today I learned that a famous economist named Ludwig von Mises made this argument in 1920, referred to as "the economic calculation problem."

It is encouraging that my intuition carried me the right way despite a lack of training in economics (though, I admit, it did help to have an understanding of thermodynamics), but it is disappointing that I am nearly 90 years behind the times.

II.

The good news:
A few years ago I came up with a cosmological theory that seemed different and very intriguing (maybe just to me). Unfortunately my math skills were not sufficiently developed to do some necessary calculations. It popped into my head again a couple months ago and I realized the theory couldn't work for an obvious reason that I should have seen right away. Even though it took me awhile, at least I figured it out.

The bad news:
About the same time that I realized the theory had to be wrong I learned that it had actually already been postulated (and quickly rejected) by physicists around...1920.

Conclusions.

1. It is encouraging to know that I do have some level of creativity within the domains of physics and economics, and that the creativity is genuinely grounded in reality. It is encouraging that I can come to the correct results on my own. That said, it is rather disheartening that I am consistently 90 years late, with consistency being defined by two data points.

2. Perhaps I should read domain literature to get up to date.

Communism

2007-02-21T21:34:00.000-05:00

Utter brilliance: find companies that perform well and then take all their profits away to use for some government purpose.

Here is Her Thighness, SHrillary Clinton, on oil profits:

She wants to take away Exxon's profits.

Hey genius: Why do you think the Soviet Union went bankrupt?

The only reason leftists have a society on which to be leeches at all is because some people aren't leftists. That is why societies of pure leftists invariably fail. A bucket full of parasites would die, because they require a nutrient-producing host body to live and prosper. Even leftists need economic producers, who they loathe so much. While I am not equating leftists with parasites (I'll leave hyberbolic rhetoric to them), I am claiming that in the economic sense the analogy is eerily accurate.

Anyone who is old enough to walk should realize that punishing a company for doing well will certainly lead to companies no longer doing well. This isn't rocket science, which itself isn't even very difficult.

Exxon Mobil had a record quarterly profit. The communists want to punish them. But guess who else had a record quarterly profit: Apple. Why aren't the communists clamoring for the confiscation of Apple's resources? Because Apple makes products that are not vital to national security. Oil production is vital to national security and therefore leftists will do all they can to make it inefficient. This goes back to an observation made by Ann Coulter, I believe: leftists oppose wars that are in our national interest and support wars that are not (e.g., Iraq in the former category and Bosnia in the latter). They won't stop until our production rates fall and unemployment rates rise to values comparable to the traditional western socialist countries like those in Europe.

The ultimate goal is to make the oil supply fail in order to claim a need for government control. This is how power-hungry authoritarians always operate. First, institute policies which choke some industry in the private sector. Then, when government regulation has destroyed it, claim the free market has failed and that government must socialize it.

Passive Aggressivity

2007-02-14T20:43:00.000-05:00

I have decided that the general category of "passive aggressive people" is perhaps the most contemptible I can think of. One aspect in which Boston claims supreme victory over much of the world is the lack of passive aggressive people here. Much of "Minnesota nice" seems to be a front for cowardly action. I have the privilege of knowing a couple southerners, and they have told me of similar problems in the land of their youth. Apparently in the south, the common thing is the loathsome combination of flattery and gossip.

This is why gossip is so detestable: not only does it destroy when revealed, but it is so utterly cowardly, and inherently passive aggressive. If you have a problem, bring it up to the person it involves. This has the benefit of not only being commendable, but it has the potential to lead to resolution, which would remove the reason for contention in the first place. If the problem is such a tiny thing that it isn't worth bringing up with the person it involves, then perhaps you should take that as a sign that it isn't worth ridiculing him behind his back either (or even thinking about), realizing that the problem might actually lie with you. This isn't rocket science: it is basic human decency. Sorry... gossip deserves a post of its own at some point.

Anyway, the point of this post is to highlight two spectactular instances of passive aggressive behavior. The first exhibit was kindly made aware to me by my Aunt Melanie and Uncle Jack (thanks!). They gave me an article describing the extreme tactics people will employ to miss work without having to dialogue with their respective bosses:

If you don't like work but are scared of your boss, here's a service you may find useful: Call-in-sick.com. It allows you to record a message and have it sent to your employer's phone at your preferred time of day. Now you can get home at 2am from a night of partying, set up a "sick" recording, and go to bed knowing that a voicemail will be left on your boss's phone at 5am, long before he gets to work. This is aimed at preventing any need to deal with a curious boss's line of questioning (although I'm not sure what they advocate to prevent your boss from calling you when he gets your message--perhaps they intend to build robots to answer the phone for people who use this service). This doesn't really help me, because at MIT when you say, "I'm not feeling well" they say, "Ok, get well. Come back when you're better...." But maybe some of you will find it helpful.

The second exhibit is the utter epitomy of the detestable passive aggressive. A certain congressman called the police in order to try to get the congressman in an adjacent office to put out his cigar. Not only did this police-calling congressman not make any attempt to kindly ask the smoker to put away the cigar (and let's even ignore the fact that the smoking congressman has express permission to smoke these cigars in his office), but this pathetically passive aggressive complaining congressman had never bothered to meet the smoking congressman who worked next door. Who was this whining congresscritter? Keith Ellison, newly elected congressman from Minnesota, and the first Muslim in the U.S. congress. Between that one, Ventura, and Al Franken (who recently announced his candidacy for the 2008 MN senate race) we are quite the joke.

Capitalism, part II: my favorite features

2007-01-20T12:46:00.000-05:00

In the first part, myths about capitalism, I made an attempt to debunk four common myths: namely, that capitalism causes poor people to get poorer, is based on greed, is pessimistic, and would lead toward corporate dominance of the world. In this part, I approach things from the opposite side, discussing three of my favorite features of a capitalistic system.

Favorite feature 1: Capitalism is the fairest economic system ever devised.

Fair? How can it be!? Some are born with so little, some with so much! Yes, but that happens regardless of the economic system employed. Genetics is the most "unfair" system ever devised--and that is God's doing. Some are born beautiful, some ugly. Some intelligent, some stupid. In addition to genetics, there are countless pre-natal factors through which a mother can enhance or debilitate the starting conditions of her unborn child. We all start out in different spots due to factors completely outside of our control. As a result, we ought to utilize an economic system that allows everyone the freedom to find a way to matter within the heartless context of the widely varying, seemingly random initial conditions of human lives.

The socialist answer to these disparities: make everyone the same height, the same weight, uniform in appearance, and the same level of intelligence. But the laws of nature preclude the possibility of making the short tall or the stupid smart or the graceless graceful. Therefore the socialist solution is to make the tall short, the smart stupid, and the graceful graceless. Is Person A short? Is Person B tall? Person A cannot be lengthened, so cut Person B down to size. Is Person C ugly? Is Person D beautiful? Make Person D wear an ugly mask. Punish the tall. Punish the beautiful. Punish the creative. Punish the intelligent. Punish merit. Destroy individuality.

My answer and the beautiful answer of capitalism, of hope, of humanity: is Person A short? Rather than cutting off Person B's head, let Person A develop his writing talent. Let him be a brilliant author. Is Person C ugly? Rather than making beautiful Person D wear an ugly mask, let Person C develop his propensity for math (that's what I did), or the strength in his arms to wrestle. Let the girl who can't do arithmetic be the best ice skater on the face of the earth (see Tangent 1 below).

Socialism: cut down anyone who excels at anything until he matches the worst of the worst. Capitalism: let us celebrate the unique strengths of every individual, because society will benefit most by allowing each person to work at his best and happiest. If the best apple pickers are the people picking apples, the best musicians are the people making music, the best writers are the people doing the writing, and the most beautiful are the people doing whatever beautiful people do, then society will advance at an optimal rate. So yes, absolutely, capitalism is the fairest system ever devised. The strong can be strong. The smart can be smart. The dancer can dance. The writer can write. The authoritarian tendency of socialism is unfair: it would remove everyone's strengths and feelings of worth.

Favorite feature 2: Capitalism results in the highest rate of efficiency possible.

The notion of "efficiency" needs to be clarified. Too often efficiency is spun as something with a negative connotation: the businessman who skips lunch, a heartless machine with blinking lights, or a mother addicted to her planner, who refuses to sit and enjoy a cup of coffee because drinking coffee isn't efficient. The efficiency I'm talking about here is almost the opposite of that. It is what allows a person to be so productive when he is working that he is able to stop working and sit down to a relaxing cup of coffee more often. Efficiency isn't man turning himself into a machine. Efficiency is man being so productive that he can have more time when he doesn't have to be efficient. It is what results in man having an increased amount of time and ability to sit and be human.

As I mentioned in my first favorite feature, not everyone can be the best at one specific field. But rather than preventing anyone from being the best at a given field, as would be attempted in egalitarian socialism, in a capitalistic society people are free to find what exactly it is that they do best. The result is perfect specialization and a form of, for lack of a better label, comparative advantage on an individual scale (i.e., specialization).

Most of you are probably familiar with the notion of comparative advantage. Example: Country A has ten laborers and each laborer is able to produce three oranges or two apples per day; Country B has ten laborers with each laborer able to produce five oranges or three apples per day. Even though Country B's laborers are better at producing both apples and oranges, it is to the advantage of both Country A and Country B if Country B's laborers focus entirely on doing what they do best (five oranges per laborer per day) and trade the excess of their labor for apples from Country A.

In capitalism, this idea of comparative advantage plays a role on an individual scale. As discussed above, everyone is free to do what he does best. If everyone is working in a position at which he can operate at his peak enjoyment and skill, and is free to trade the excess of his labor for the excess best of others, then the overall economy will be operating at a maximum, and everyone will benefit. The result is that everyone grows "wealthier" at an optimal rate. In egalitarian socialism, where people are prevented from excelling due to fears of hurting the self-esteem of others, the entire economy is weighed down by people operating at a level much below their maximum abilities.

Socialism is all about preventing anyone from ever attaining any sense of self-worth. Capitalism encourages all people to "find themselves," because that helps each individual and society. Just as above, if the best writers write, the best teachers teach, and the best speakers speak, then everyone is happier. But in addition to that, by exploiting this individual-scale comparative advantage, such a society will produce many times the amount produced in a socialist society with identical resources.

Favorite Feature 3: Responsiveness

An economy's responsiveness is truly a subcategory of efficiency, but it is important enough to be mentioned separately.

At the societal level a controlled economy is too rigid for reality. Getting requests from the "little people" to the main planners is a huge bureaucratic chore. In a family, there are few enough people that parents are able to understand what their children do and do not need. But for even ten thousand people it becomes logistically impossible for leadership to know the needs of each individual.

This is why bureaucracies were instituted in the first place--as a means to manage large groups of people. Of course, bureaucracy is, by definition, economic waste because it requires resources to be used for things other than "useful" items and services desired by people. As the population grows in a planned system, the bureaucracy must grow at a higher rate. Necessarily, as this occurs, the government becomes less responsive to individual needs. That is simply because a bureaucracy requires uniformity in its standards to have any amount of effectiveness.

Government cannot be altered for a single individual because there is inevitably some other individual who wants the government to be altered in the opposite way. So a bureaucracy must institute formulaic procedures (i.e., the forms we are all so familiar with). Unfortunately, the more one deviates from "the standard norm" (as defined by the bureaucracy), the more difficult it is for the bureaucracy to be of any help (see future post about HR departments). We all know what it's like to see a form with boxes we are supposed to check only to discover that none of them fits the situation we are in. This goes hand in hand with bureaucratic control.

Not only does a controlled system result in a large amount of waste, but the above difficulties inevitably result in a larger percentage of the population not getting what it wants. Hypothetical example: there is a new bug epidemic that destroys almost all the country's lettuce supply. In a free-market this is immediately seen on price tags in radically higher prices (a simple supply-demand curve) such that those who absolutely must have lettuce can still get it at high cost. If lettuce is extremely important to you, you can pay the high price and get it. Those who do not absolutely need it will spend their money on something more worthwhile (with "worthwhile" being defined on an individual level, according to each person's individual desires and needs).

In a controlled economy such alterations in simple supply and demand are not immediately brought to market. In fact they usually never are, because it requires some bureaucrats to have perfect knowledge of: the quantity of lettuce available, who needs it most, and exactly how that is changing moment by moment. Capitalism makes those adjustments on our behalf, in a distributed manner (see Tangent 2 below). It is too difficult (or impossible) for a lumbering bureaucracy to mandate the correct price and to do so in a timely manner. They know this too. As a result, rather than even making an attempt to get the lettuce to the people who need it most they would just give it to a crony who had demonstrated loyalty to the party.

Socialists, at times, attempt to mimic capitalistic responsiveness through control, but invariably their edicts cause more problems than they solve. A socialist might look at healthcare costs and decide that physicians make too much money. He issues an edict capping their salary. Physicians quit being physicians, causing a large shortage of healthcare professionals. Hospitals begin offering fewer services and are open fewer hours. He issues another edict demanding that hospitals open for longer hours. Hospitals go out of business. This has happened. In capitalism such problems would never get to that point.

It should be clear that the socialization of even a few key industries results in exorbitant inefficiencies--inefficiencies that can temporarily be mitigated by the socialization (i.e., planning) of additional industries. This only lasts briefly before the new steady-state position is reached of further compounded inefficiences. This is a common problem. Socialists partially socialize an industry; when it becomes clear that the industry is experiencing problems they decide they must regulate it even further, dismissing the fact that their original intervention caused the problems in the first place.

Tangent 1: Can someone really make a living as a great ice skater in a capitalist society? Yes, absolutely. People derive enjoyment from such talent. They pay for it. But what if it was a form of art people didn't want? Then it wouldn't do well. But then capitalism damages free art, you might say, because the common people aren't "good enough" to realize they should like (and hence pay for) your weird art. Such cultural elitism is common. When someone doesn't enjoy something you create it is much easier to blame that deficiency on him rather than on the poor quality of your work. But it is very arrogant of artists to think that they are somehow in a unique position in this regard. It's not just art: the "common people" aren't "good enough" to appreciate the greatness (or lack thereof) of the political and economic systems in which they are immersed. They don't understand the amazing accomplishments of science, or even of a wonderfully engineered television--which they enjoy watching so much--much to the chagrin of the underappreciated engineer. Even these free artists themselves do happily use a cell phone without any thought about the talented engineering that makes it possible. Such is life, particularly in a specialized society. No one fully appreciates the intricacies of any other specialty. If you make art that doesn't sell, don't think you're special as an artist. Just as your art isn't appreciated, so the work of the engineer's mind isn't appreciated.

Tangent 2: The idea of distributing resources is increasing in popularity in just about every field. The idea of "robustness," or a system's ability to operate successfully even when unexpected situations arise, demands a distributed solution. Centralization is nearly always directly opposed to robustness. The Army is developing its "future combat system" (FCS), which employs large numbers of small, distributed sensors to provide a robust, accurate situational awareness. If an enemy blows up a sensor it has almost no impact on the overall picture. In the traditional view, situational awareness would be dictated by some central mechanism. The problem, of course, is that if the central mechanism is thwarted then everyone goes blind, unaware of the locations of everyone around. This increases fratricide as well as deaths at the hands of enemies. Another analogy can be found in computer science with neural networks. If you have a word and you want a traditional computer to read it you better hope you haven't spilled ink on part of it, because the computer will need an exact match with something in its memory. Neural networks, on the other hand, analyze the word in a distributed sense, so even if part of it is covered with a ketchup stain, it can figure out what you need. Our brains work the same way: there is no center of decision making. What we decide takes place in a distributed manner. Distributed systems result in robustness. That is what capitalism is. Socialism is going back in time to centralization. Centralization nearly always fails to deal successfully with the unexpected.

Observations on intelligence and physicists

2007-01-08T08:27:00.000-05:00

For years now I have been working with intelligent people. Some few have been at the genius level. Others have been extremely close. But most have been merely intelligent. After getting to know so many people within those categories I have come to a conclusion. The primary characteristic that determines one's placement among those three categories is one's ability to understand relevance when faced with a new problem. A genius is able to quickly recognize what details matter and what details do not prior to conducting a rigorous analysis. As an individual moves away from the genius level to the merely intelligent, he begins to comparatively lose that ability, requiring that he waste time on thoughts and analyses that a genius would never conduct.

Most of us have stereotyped imagery of what an intelligent person looks like. For many people, this image is one of a nerd. What I have come to conclude, however, is that extremely intelligent people do not conform to that stereotype--at least, not at a rate much higher than that of the general population. Those in the merely intelligent category lose sight of what is important, and are more likely to appear nerdy than a genius is. Of the three extremely intelligent or genius individuals I've worked with who immediately come to mind, one looks like an uncle who would make a good Santa, one looks like a good person you'd meet at a synagogue, and the other looks like a former frat boy.

In contrast, everyone I've worked with who really looked like a nerd was much less intelligent than these other individuals. In fact, the nerdy looking ones seemed closer to "average" intelligence (with average being defined as people I know, who are pretty much all well above society's average intelligence). I remember a few physics students who weren't especially intelligent, quick, or able to differentiate between important and unimportant details, yet all of them "dressed the part." From their clothing, to their manner of walking and speaking, these guys tried to display "physicist." Unfortunately for them, the most brilliant physicists I've ever dealt with don't look like physicists. I remember entering some physics classes during my first couple years at the university and being intimidated by the really confident, nerdy-looking guys who were outspoken. It turns out, all of those guys who I would have thought would set the curve were average or below. The curve setters ended up being the relatively normal looking guys who sat alone and didn't answer questions in class. Eventually I learned who I should really be intellectually intimidated by--and nerds aren't them.

Again, all of that stems from my original conclusion. The people who desperately want to be viewed as intelligent focus on the wrong details. They fail to be intelligent but they are infatuated with looking the part. The truly genius-level people I've met know that the appearance of genius is irrelevant to being a genius. E.g., instead of joining Mensa, an organization designed to make a person feel smart, they go be smart, despite greatly exceeding the organization's membership requirements. They realize it is a waste of time to join an organization devoted to appearance.

Conclusion: sheer effort can partially substitute for genius. Most of the people at my lab are merely intelligent people who worked hard. But there are a few genius-level people here of intimidating intelligence. They didn't have to try as hard or waste as much effort on details as the merely intelligent--they can see what matters, seeing through the irrelevancies. The intelligent people here know how to do calculus, statistics, and matlab simulations, but the genius people here, who I respect so much, know which problems to apply those tools to. There is a lot to learn from that kind of person....

Comic

2006-12-13T08:13:00.000-05:00

This sums up so much, so well:

Steak, part I

2006-12-10T22:46:00.000-05:00

My mom and aunt were in Boston this weekend, as part of what has become for them a December tradition. Tonight we went to a steak house called Abe & Louie's. I had the most expensive steak I've ever had the privilege of consuming. Coincidentally, it was also the tastiest. The texture, the flavor, the moisture...the closest to perfection I've yet experienced. You will probably interpret this as a joke, but I am completely serious: to further drive the point home, as I took my first bite I literally heard opera music in my head. I've been on a Brahms kick lately, so not surprisingly the music was his. Specifically, where the soprano soloist comes in at about 35-40 seconds into the fifth movement of his German requiem (Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit), as shown below. An angelic voice accompanied an angelic steak (click to see video):

Advice for the president

2006-12-04T13:03:00.000-05:00

No, the president has not asked for my advice, but here it is. The resignation of John Bolton was the proverbial back-breaking straw, but believe me, there was plenty that went before it.

Mr. President:

You seem to be under the mistaken assumption that leftists won't hate you if you pander to them. Unfortunately, as the rest of us figured out years ago, that is not true. For whatever reason, you have continuously tried to court them. In the process, you squandered the time you had with a congress on your side.

Let's see... in 2000, you won the presidential election and the house was yours. The senate was split, but with Cheney's tie breaking vote it was under the control of your party. What happened in the senate? Well, Republicans decided to power share with Democrats because it would feel nice and warm and fluffy. What was the reward for being a bunch of pansies? Sen. Jeffords switched from R to I, and gave control to Democrats, who were much less interested in the ridiculous notion of power sharing. People thought that was stupid, so they gave you a couple more senate seats in 2002, giving you the majority once again so you wouldn't feel a need to power share. Rather than taking the hint that people wanted conservative policy, you spent most of your time trying to impress Democrats. Just in case you hadn't gotten the hint yet, Americans gave you four more senate seats in 2004. And...you didn't get that hint either.

I still supported you, and not just because you were better than the alternative, Jean Francois "did-you-know-i-served-in-vietnam?" CarrIE. Obviously being president isn't an easy job, and we have to understand there will be some poor decisions along with the good ones. You appointed a couple supreme court justices who look like they'll be good, but I guess even that only happened after conservatives got on your case for wanting to appoint Harriet "maybe-i-could-be-a-judge-because-one-time-
i-saw-a-court-show-on-television" Miers (who was nominated by Democrat senator Harry Reid, by the way). You wanted to be "fair to Democrats" by keeping the balance of ideologies on the supreme court the same as it was when you took office--Rehnquist was conservative, so his replacement, Roberts, should be conservative...O'Connor is "moderate" so replace her with a "moderate" like Miers. That's very kind of you. Unfortunately, Democrats are less interested in power sharing and personal kindness. When they hold the presidency they shift the court left by appointing communists like Ruth "I'm-going-to-take-your-land-for-the-good-of-the-state" Ginsburg. So the result is a continuous creeping of the court to the left. Democrat presidents invariably appoint socialists, and Republican presidents appoint strict replacements (sometimes Republicans even appoint the leftists, as in the case of John Paul "eminent-domain-means-the-government-can-take-your-land-
and-give-it-to-someone-who-produces-more-revenue-for-the-state" Stevens).

That really seems to summarize your presidency and the nature of today's Republican leadership. Rather than assuming that the people who voted you into office actually want you to implement the platform you ran on, you assume that the people who voted you into office want you to become friends with the people who they voted against. And this brings up the fundamental problem with your presidency: a misinterpretation of what it takes to be a good president. It is because of this that, if this nation were to continue to exist for another hundred years, Bill Clinton will be a forgotten president and so will you. Why? Because in both cases the emphasis is placed on attempting to please people rather than an ideal.

Do you think Ronald Reagan won all but Minnesota in the 1984 election because he was concerned with trying to increase his poll numbers? Of course not. In fact, it was John Kerry's focus on poll numbers and being "appealing" that defeated him. The Iraq war was already very unpopular in the 2004 election season, but Kerry was such a panderer that people couldn't stomach him. Reagan won so overwhelmingly in 1984 because he was boldly pushing ahead toward a controversial ideal. Despite the controversy, he led through bad poll numbers, never shrinking from the goal. That is a characteristic of a leader who will have a legacy. A presidency like Clinton's will not have such a legacy, despite his obsession with attempting to establish one. Yours is in a danger of the same kind. History will never respect a panderer.

It's probably too late now. You've had your chance. But still, give it a go. Instead of interpreting an approval rating of 37% as "I must become more liberal," you must realize that no matter what you do, 48% will hate you. You could adopt the entire platform of the Democrats (which is pretty much what you've done) and the same 48% would still hate you because of that R next to your name. Why does that other 15% hate you? Because you've become too liberal. Your interpretation of your approval rating has been the exact opposite of reality. You've become a big government man just like the leftists. A government prescription drug program, an expansion of medicare, Ted Kennedy's "No Child Left Behind", McinSane's campaign finance reform.... If we had wanted socialism we would have voted for the socialists. You've done some good things, but you need to refocus. Consider this tough love: instead of being utterly fixated on the 48% that will permanently disapprove of everything you do or think or say or pretend, perhaps you should spend a few minutes a day thinking about the people who put you in office in the first place.

Of course...there is one alternative to everything I've said: that is, rather than pandering, you actually believe that implementing that socialist stuff was a good idea. That's too frightening to contemplate.

Capitalism, part I: myths about capitalism

2006-11-19T14:38:00.000-05:00

Let me apologize in advance for the length of this series of posts. It is a conglomeration of many thoughts I have had on capitalism and why, in addition to being the most efficient, it is the most equitable economic system yet devised by mankind. I am not a trained economist and have not read all that much about what "the experts" think on these matters, so it could be that I'm restating the obvious. In any case, these are thoughts I have had that seem important, from my limited perspective, to illuminating why capitalism is superior to all other systems.

This is a tribute to Milton Friedman, perhaps the most brilliant of 20th century economists, who died on Thursday at the age of 94. The ideas he developed are responsible for lifting tens or hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, a feat that is orders of magnitude more impressive than anything ever devised by socialists. It is somewhat ironic that the free markets of capitalism have been more successful at accomplishing one of the chief socialist goals than socialism has. (As a tangent, I highly recommend his solution to the problems of healthcare, if you are interested in that kind of thing.)

Part I: MYTHS

Myth 1. In capitalism, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

False. In capitalism, the poor get richer and the rich get richer more quickly--but all classes get richer, just at different rates. Does a gap widen? It certainly can. Does that mean the poor are living in worse and worse conditions? No, of course not. Now even the poor have multiple cars and televisions. To say the poor are getting poorer is an insult to the poor of previous centuries. A free market is the environment in which all of society can advance most rapidly--even the poor. It is a myth that rich, greedy capitalists hold down the poor. Rather, they build up the poor through the creation of new jobs. The rich need people to have money in order to purchase their goods. They do not benefit by creating a class of poor people. They benefit by creating a class of people with expendable income. (As a brief analogy: clearly leftist politicians, who the poor vote for, benefit more by keeping people poor than conservative politicians, who the poor do not vote for)

Myth 2. Capitalism is based on greed.

The consesus seems to be that the basis of capitalism is greed. That is false. The basis of capitalism is self-interest. That may seem trivial, but it is a necessary distinction to make for what follows. The free market consists of countless transactions between willing parties. Those who insist that one party benefits at the expense of the other are wrong. That is an important distinction between a system of free markets and an authoritarian system: in the former, transactions only take place when all parties benefit; in the latter, transactions take place whenever and however a central authority demands--all parties will comply, at the point of a gun if necessary.

In a free market transaction all parties benefit, and the necessary result is that the total sum "value" among all parties increases exponentially since everyone involved is "benefiting" by getting something he wants. When I pay for rent I benefit by having shelter. The landlord benefits by having more money with which to purchase goods or services of his choosing. We are both in better states than we were previously. He will spend the money I paid him in such a way that further benefits him, and by doing so, the person whom he pays will benefit as well. In a capitalist system, personal (material) value increases with every transaction, allowing an exponential beneficial use of society's limited resources. In an authoritarian system in which the government is responsible for the sheltering of its citizens, I could be assigned a place to live. I would benefit by having shelter, but there wouldn't be a private landlord who would benefit and multiply the effects of wealth, as there is in a free market of private property.

But in order to get something from the free market a person must have something to exchange: he must hone a skill to produce personal value, or at least must be willing to bring some resource to the free market. So while, in capitalism, an individual is said to seek his own self interest, it cannot be said that he is being greedy by doing so: he must offer something to get something. A bum, who refuses to become skilled in some way, not only will fail to experience the benefits of a capitalist society (i.e., he will have nothing of value to trade to others in order to receive something in return), he will also rob society of his undeveloped value and the ignored gifts that God gave him. When that bum begins to demand that he receive valuables and resources without trading something in return, and even worse, when someone else begins to demand these things on his behalf, he is consumed with laziness and selfishness to the point that society is damaged.

This is why capitalism breaks down and will inevitably continue to do so in our society as well: because of the greed and laziness of people who demand something for nothing. Capitalism requires an individual to create value in himself through learning a trade or to develop a resource in order to trade the excess fruits of his labor to others. But when this capitalistic self-interest morphs into a consuming, selfish, lazy sense of entitlement, such that the individual no longer feels a need to develop any personal "value" (i.e., a skillset that is useful to society) in order to receive goods, the capitalist system begins to breakdown. That is why socialism is far greedier than capitalism. It does not require an individual to develop any usefulness to society (I hope it is clear that by "usefulness" I am referring to anything that a free market would reward--I am not referring to intangible, moral notions of human life). Those who do not develop usefulness are subsidized by those who do. This decreases the incentive to ever develop usefulness to society, which further fuels the need for subsidy, requiring an ever increasing portion of the labor of those who are useful to subsidize those who are not. A vicious cycle. This increases inefficiency, waste, and eventually rots society from within as the rewards for labor and innovation continue to decline. Greed will be the downfall of capitalism--it is certainly not the root.

Myth 3. Capitalism, or even conservatism as a whole, stems from pessimism regarding human beings, whereas socialism is a bold, refreshing ideal with an assumption of the inherent goodness of people.

No, actually reality is almost the opposite. An axiom of capitalism is that individuals will spend their resources more wisely than government. An axiom of socialism is that, if left to their own devices, individuals will frivolously waste money on hedonistic activity and thus require a central authority to discipline, manage, steal, and provide for the poor. I truly believe, as do other proponents of the free market, that the poor would do better if the government immediately ceased all of its programs aimed at providing for them. It is a myth that capitalists do not care about the poor and those who suffer--rather, we believe that the free will giving and charity of the good common men and women in a free market society will help the needy more successfully than any number of government programs.

According to the research of Syracuse University professor Arthur C. Brooks, who is releasing a book entitled "Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism," conservatives give more time and money to charities than do liberals. This makes perfect sense: those who have faith in government programs do not feel a need to personally get their hands dirty to help those in need (yes, that's a generalization...let's not get into that again). Why would they, when there exist government agencies with the specific purpose of taking care of the poor? If such agencies did not exist then people would give all the more to those in need. This is especially true in the age of the internet, where instances of human suffering are made known rapidly, and the response to alleviate it can come from so many millions of people (example: the overwhelming private response to hurricane Katrina). Additionally, there would be less waste. A much higher percentage of money given to private charity goes to those actually in need than does the money spent by government for this purpose, mainly due to the increased bureaucracy inherent to government spending and the associated salaries of the necessary bureaucrats.

Again, capitalists are the optimists regarding the common man and socialists are the pessimists. In fact, the only pessimistic aspect of capitalism is its very realistic view on power. The capitalist view is that power corrupts, and the more power, the more corruption that will result. Capitalism thus seeks to distribute power equally rather than centralizing it under one authority. All have the power of the free market transaction. It is naive liberals who hold to the belief that giving power to a central human authority will somehow result in less corruption and a better use of resources. Unfortunately for them, all of history shows otherwise.

The primary problem that leftists have with capitalism is the perceived inequality with the distribution of resources. The authoritarian left wants centralization because equality is its god. Conservatives believe that tyranny is a greater threat than any unequal distribution of resources that may exist. History again agrees. Authoritarians don't mind a state of tyranny--as long as they are the ones in control. This is why you can so often find a sense of elitism among leftists. They believe the world would be better off if they were the god of it. If only they were gods...then things would be "equal" and "fair." That is their draw toward tyranny. Leftists would prefer a state of equality in which all people live in poverty to a state of inequality where some are rich, some are poor, yet all are growing richer and society is advancing at a theoretical maximum.

You might think I'm overstating the case, but I'm not. In discussing education policy with some leftists, I pointed out that the only accomplishment of having the federal government involved with education is to allow things to be uniformly bad among all states. Their reply? "At least things will be equal this way." To the leftist, equal squalor is superior to unequal wealth, and uniform failure is superior to varying success.

Myth 4. The ideal of the capitalist is for the world to be run by greedy corporations.

The ideal of capitalism is often mistaken as a vision of transnational corporations ruling the world rather than traditionally elected governments. That is not what it is. Any tendency toward monopoly in the business world is as bad as a government-controlled economy. The results are the same. This relates to another myth: namely, that the capitalist wants no government regulation of anything. False again. One of the (very few) roles of government should be to ensure that the market is a free one. Monopoly must be thwarted so that a large number of separate producers stay in the market to compete with one another. It is competition that is sacred and vital to the free market. Competition can be killed off by government control or corporate mergers. Both must be guarded against. The power of the transaction must be distributed.

Part II: my favorite features of capitalism.

Please offend me

2006-11-16T08:01:00.000-05:00

People want to be offended. I've said this many times and have intended to write it for a long time, but now I'm finally doing it. Whenever anyone says anything that can be possibly twisted, with any amount of effort, into something that is potentially offensive, that is the interpretation that will be used.

People want to be offended so that they don't have to respond to questions for which they have no answers. Example: Person A makes an assertion. Person B counters with a demand for some sort of evidence. At this point it is much easier for Person A to get offended than to actually find evidence. Since Person B has been "hurtful" and Person A is now emotionally damaged, he gets a pass on the need to defend his indefensible position. The inevitable result is that the potentially irrational thoughts of Person A remain in the pool of controversy when they would otherwise have been removed. In that sense, being offended almost acts as an evolutionary defense mechanism, allowing debates to continue on thoughts that would have gone extinct.

This post was one of the several that I saved as a draft long ago. Expect the long awaited post(s) on capitalism to arrive Saturday or so. There is so much to say it is difficult to organize. It will either be one really long post, or potentially a series of three smaller posts.

"The Jordan you know is gone"

2006-11-06T23:28:00.000-05:00

Chris and I were talking a couple days ago and we realized that the Jordan of the last year or two is gone. In contrast to the recent Jordan:

1. I wear a jacket. My hiatus from jacket-wearing of two years and eight months has come to an end. Because of the severe decrease in insulation on the top of my head through the removal of large quantities of hair, my body loses heat much more quickly than it did. Jackets are useful again.

2. I am being social in Boston.

3. I have a lot to do at work. There has been no significant downtime.

4. I have direction in life.

5. I have a bad cold, or maybe just a normal cold for a lot of people, which I haven't dealt with for at least a couple years.

The only possible conclusion is that the cost of direction in life is getting sick.

If any single one of those five things had occurred by itself, it would have been odd enough as it is. The fact that all have recently come about nearly simultaneously would seem to indicate that I may be experiencing a larger shift in life--a change in seasons, perhaps. I have a feeling that more will change before this phase of transition is complete. Thanks for your prayers.

In other news: I will be taking the GMAT soon, which is the admissions test for management schools. That is necessary in order to make it to the path I am hoping for: operations management. Additionally, I was surprised last week to learn that the medical school I'm deferred at wants to interview me for their MD/PhD combined degree program (i.e., potential path #2, as explained in an earlier post). So in a couple weeks that's what I'll probably be doing, making a brief return to the interview circuit.

Finally, I would like to say congratulations to Mike for successfully going to Africa and returning to us. Thanks for doing the Lord's work in a far away land. And since I'm giving congratulations, congratulations to Chris for completing his first solo. Soon terrorists the world over will be shaking their fists into the sky, in utter futility against Chris, the destroyer of their ilk.

Election

2006-11-05T18:20:00.000-05:00

One of the issues that Democrats have used to influence people to vote against Republicans is high gas prices. How many times has Pelosi pointed out high gas prices as a failure of this administration? Of course, as gas prices have tumbled, this has become less effective as a means of attack.

Regardless, from one side of their mouths Democrats scream that high gas prices hurt the middle class, solely the fault of the president, and out the other side they voice their support for raising gas taxes.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-10/14/content_5201711.htm

Perhaps they were against gas taxes before voting for them, like something out of Kerry's playbook.

Advice for Democrats, plus other assorted thoughts

2006-11-02T22:58:00.000-05:00

With the approaching election getting so close, I thought I should offer some advice to the leaders of the Democrat party: I've seen some of your commercials and, to put it lightly, you people are utterly clueless as to how to market yourselves. Because I'm selfless I have decided to help you out with some free consulting on how to change your campaigns.

The first example is a Hatch commercial describing why not to vote for Pawlenty. The topic? Taxes. Democrats: are you stupid? Democrats trying to get elected on their tax policy is like Jeffrey Dahmer running for president based on his people skills. Best not to advertise your weaknesses as your strengths. I believe the temptation to hit Pawlenty with taxes stems from a desire to hit him like Bush Sr. was hit with his "Read my lips: no new taxes" slogan. Unfortunately for Democrats, Pawlenty said he wasn't going to raise taxes...and didn't. What did he do? He added a cigarette fee. He also, apparently, decreased funding toward local governments (as he should have since, gasp, the state government isn't the local government... oh, and tangential newsflash: neither is the federal government). Because of those two things (i.e., "raising taxes") Democrats are trying to get conservatives to vote against Pawlenty. So let's see...I'm mad at Pawlenty for adding a cigarette tax and "for making my property taxes go up" by not increasing funding for local governments, so I'm going to vote for Democrats who openly declare they don't want to merely add a cigarette tax and increase property taxes, but also want to increase the gas, income, estate, import, and breathing taxes. (The last one only exists in CA and MA so far...but my point remains.) That's like the waitress who hates the current mayor, because she heard a rumor that he grabbed some other waitress's butt when he was in college, deciding to vote for a new guy who openly declares he will rape all women when he is elected.

Another example is the Mark Foley "scandal" (I use that word loosely), in which said congressman made sexually inappropriate comments to a page. Let's see...a perverted, messed up, malicious pedophile of a congressman (who, incidentally, was openly gay) was condemned by his party and resigned in disgrace...yet I am supposed to be mad at that party, the Republicans, and to instead vote for the Democrats, AKA the party of "gay marriage," sex without responsibility, NAMBLA, and former congressman Studds (who not only made sexually inappropriate comments, but also openly admitted to having sex with a 17-year-old page and then refused to resign, "serving" for years afterward). That's like me deciding I hate Christians, because one time I saw one of them sin even though they say sin is bad (those hypocrites!), and, instead, throwing my lot in with a group of atheists who openly declare that sin is something to be celebrated. (And no, I'm not equating Republicans with Christians and Democrats with atheists, nor am I saying Christians are not sinners, nor am I saying anything else you're reading into this out of your most intense desires to be offended--that's why I used the word 'like'. it is used to indicate a hypothetical analogy.)

Needless to say, Democrats should also cease campaigning on national defense:
Reporter: How would you have handled the Iraq situation differently from Republicans?
Honest Democrat (humor me): I would have allowed Saddam to ignore U.N. resolutions for 12 years instead of 10, and then when we were forced to enforce those resolutions I would have begged France and Germany to come along, for a total coalition of 35 nations instead of the mere 33 that this administration gathered.

Now, after going through all that--I have to admit that my advice, while theoretically impeccable, is pragmatically unimportant. Why? Because of the "i-hate-republicans-and-especially-bush" mentality that presently exists in this country. Some of it is justified. Federal spending has increased a sickening amount under this administration (although, again, under Democrats, who openly promote increased spending, it would be even worse). There have certainly been some questionable ethical situations surrounding Republicans (although such behavior is perhaps the most joyously celebrated bipartisan initiative that history has ever seen among politicians). But regardless of the cause, this hatred of all things 'R' has allowed Democrats to still poll well, despite their utter lack of a coherent, appealing platform. They happily define themselves as "not Republican" and nothing more. If Republicans were not so hated, Democrats would be destroyed in every election. But since that's the way it is, it may be all that is necessary for a vapid, incoherent party to achieve victory.

In other news, white, post-college males should no longer be listening to gangster rap music--it doesn't make you seem cool. Also, old people shouldn't drive heavily modded ricer cars with tinted windows--those are for teenage Asian males.

My first day of working again at my old job was today. It went really well and it's nice to be working.

One month ago today we had to put Snoopy to sleep. I miss him a lot.

Drivers here are completely insane. In only three months I had forgotten how bad it is. Every day is a fight for your life. It keeps you alert....

The person at the coffee shop remembered who I am, and what beverage I get. I guess it's only been three months, but I was still impressed.

A sincere apology

2006-10-31T00:19:00.000-05:00

This is a formal apology to my friend Aaron. He had a Halloween party, which I'm sure would have been a blast, but I missed it. No excuse is sufficient in the eyes of God or men. The reason I did not go is because I was stressed out. Yes, you read that correctly. I was too preoccupied, desperately trying to find housing in the Boston area, since I'm moving...tomorrow. But no one was returning e-mails or phone calls. Today my stress has been alleviated. I have a place to stay. Aaron, sorry I was too preoccupied to share in the fun. I even had a costume idea: it involved pants that had lots of duct tape on them.

Aaron likes action figures. I do too, but I don't have a good collection like he does. Speaking of action figures and Halloween, I saw a video of a guy who dressed as a transformer. It is a really neat costume idea. He had cardboard boxes cut up just right so that if he crouched down he looked like a cardboard box, but if he stood up he transformed into a robotic-looking creature with cardboard wings.

One time Aaron and I took a class together. The teacher was from a country far away. He had an interesting accent and I don't think we ever figured out where exactly it was from. Target Corporation was referred to as "the Target." The word 'redundancy' was spoken with the emphasis on the...second to last (I was going to write 'penultimate') syllable. This provided a lot of things to laugh about.

Sometimes Aaron lets me hang out with him even though he's really cool. He has already climbed his way to Director of IT at a Minneapolis company. He also always has lots of high-tech toys. One time Aaron got married and even invited me to the wedding. Here's a picture of us at a different wedding.

Aaron, sorry I missed your party.

I'm packing up my computer now and should be somewhere in Wisconsin in 12 hours.

Boston part II, the sequel

2006-10-15T19:52:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I don't take the time to remember that people don't know my thoughts unless I tell them. I'm writing this update to let you know what I'm planning. You can scroll down to the bottom to see the summary if you don't want to know my thought process.

As some of you already know, I've decided to go back to my former job in Boston. After attempting to find a job here for about two months (actually more than that if you consider the small amount of effort I made in my last few months in Boston) and not even receiving a phone call, I've decided it's time.

Anyway, as some of you might remember from my plan from a few months ago, it had been my intention to find a regular job in MN with the hope that I would like it so much that I wouldn't feel a need to go on to further school right away (or maybe ever). Because that plan kind of fell apart through the lack of response from potential employers (there will likely be a further post about HR departments in the near future), and because I actually enjoy being in an environment of learning, I've decided to go to school next fall.

In the meantime, I need income. My former employer was kind enough to bring me back into the same position, in the same group, reporting to the same boss, at the same salary, with the full knowledge that I intend to leave for school in about ten months. They really didn't have to do that. It was reassuring that they were willing to draw up a short contract for me, knowing I will leave before long. (Unfortunately, they sent me all the paperwork as if I had never worked there before, apparent confusion that will probably prevent me from being able to start there before the end of the month. Please see my future post about HR departments.)

So, my next 10 months are taken care of. I will have a decent income again with which to make good progress on student loan debt. But why did you stop looking for a job here?

Because of the fact that I decided to go to school next fall. This would have forced me either: to take a job which is known for having high turnover--most of which are low paying--or to take a job meant for the long term (assuming I could find one--still no leads) and to leave after only ten months. The advantage of going back to Boston is that I can start contributing right when I get there...and can also have another year of MIT on my resume.

So, you've decided to go to school next fall...which means you've decided you want to be a physician for sure?

No, not at all. It feels like I have direction in life now. What I want to do is to enter a PhD program in operations management next fall. This would probably lead toward becoming a professor at a management school, although apparently there is some demand in industry as well. I've talked with many members of the Department of Operations and Management Science at the Carlson school at the U of M. It seems like really interesting work to me. It is the kind of work that applies a mathematical and scientific mindset to bigger picture problems. That is very appealing to me, because most math/science work becomes smaller and smaller in scope the higher you go (like the guy I know with a PhD in physics who spends his entire working life making the heads on hard drives slightly more efficient). That doesn't sound fun to me at all. Professor Hill, yes, father of the naval aviator in training, who we all know and love, has been incredibly helpful with his guidance in this process. Chris, I'm glad you were born.

Hopefully I'll be back in MN in 10 months, preparing to enter the (top-rated, by the way) OMS program here. But it's hard to get into, so you can pray that I will. Additionally, before the idea of pursuing such a program was brought to my attention, I had decided to apply to a combined MD/PhD program at the medical school I'm already accepted and deferred at. If I got into that (also very difficult to get into) and decided to pursue it, I would be entering a seven year, fully-funded program from which I would receive a PhD in physics and an MD. If I don't get into OMS programs or the MD/PhD program, I can still enter the MD program next summer to become a physician.

Summary:
1. No work here, so I'm going back to MIT. It's a 10 mo. contract, with the same work/pay/boss as before.
2. Applying to OMS PhD programs, hoping esp. for Carlson, but open to others.
3. Applied to MD/PhD program. Fully-funded, seven years, results in PhD in physics and MD.
4. If option 2 doesn't work out...and then if option 3 doesn't work out, I can still enter med. school next year.
5. If 4, I need to decide whether to join the Navy to have them pay or to acquire $250k in additional debt.

There.... Does that make sense? As I've said before, the Myers-Briggs says I'm a creator of contingencies--that probably explains the length of my list of fall backs. Sorry, this feels kind of disorganized, but I'm posting it anyway. By the way, I'll probably write a lot more frequently when I get to Boston than I have been lately.

In loving memory of Snoopy: May 21, 1995 - October 2, 2006

2006-10-05T15:19:00.000-05:00

On Monday evening, Snoopy, son of Spencer, adopted into the Raney clan, breathed his last.

He was a peaceful, caring dog, who was greatly loved and loved greatly. Most the time he just wanted to be with people. He was content with simple things. All he wanted was to be with us and to be one of us. He was always happy to meet other dogs and people, but he almost never barked at them. Other dogs would go nuts and want to run toward him, the way most dogs do. He would sometimes look and wag his tail. Other times he would just ignore them and continue to follow whatever scent trail he was on, too busy to be bothered.

His most intense rivalry might have been with the vacuum cleaner. For much of his life he wanted to fight delivery trucks as well, but I believe that later in life he came to peace with them after extensive efforts by one or two mailmen (i.e., they gave him treats). Because of the valiant efforts of those USPS employees, Snoopy seemed calmer and more content around delivery vehicles later in life.

Doo, as he was often called, was a non-conformist his entire life. He would sit, shake, and lay down on command--but only if you had food. He went to puppy training, called puppy kindergarten, when he was young. Instead of learning commands, he decided to poop on the floor in front of all the other dogs. Then he dropped out of the class. Snoop held little regard for formal training. He did what he wanted. But his personality was so great that his untrained, whimsical "what-he-wanted" was exactly what we wanted...most the time. Exceptions include certain actions of the Snoop of the early years, who chewed the rungs on a chair that was part of a completely new kitchen table set, and who chewed on the wall at one point. Such events led to occasional threats...such as the threat to ship him to Siam. We didn't follow through with that.

He loved to greet people, go on walks, eat, and sleep. In his last couple days he couldn't do any of those, except for the weak ability to look and wag his tail when a family member came home. Doo's enlarged heart caused inefficient blood flow, which apparently causes fluid to eventually gather in the lungs. The last couple days he couldn't lay down because of the increase in fluid. This poor dog, who normally laid down probably 19 or 20 hours a day, couldn't lay down at all. He went for hours and hours without sleep, to the point that his eyes would almost roll back in exhaustion as he was still sitting up. He lost interest in food and walks too, even ignoring ham, rice cake, eggs, and cottage cheese, some of his favorite foods. When the vet heard this on Monday evening, he agreed that it was time to put Doo to rest.

Snoopy taught us about the world, about dogs, and about God. In the process, he learned about people, and probably God and the world too. It was an exchange from which we all benefited. He became a member of the family. In fact, he held the sole position in the family of having his own theme music.

This is one of those posts that I can never be content with. It will never fully portray my love for this dog. I don't know how many thousands of hours I spent sleeping in my bed with Snoopy laying against my legs or on my feet. Part of me was embodied in him, and I don't think someone can fully know me without having known Snoopy. It's hard to believe he's really gone. Sometimes I think I hear a jingle that sounds like his tags, or a clicking on the floor that sounds like his claws, but it's not there.

Snoop, I'm glad that life was directionless and unhappy in Boston so that I was led to come back here. That allowed me to spend your last couple months on earth here with you. You were my best, most consistent friend for over 11 years. I enjoyed all of it, from chasing you around the house after you grabbed a sock, to driving you around in the truck, to watching tv together. I hope you're in a heaven of sunshine, open grassy fields, woods, hills, deer and deer trails, rabbits, treat-throwing mailmen, soft blankets to sleep on, and love. Oh, and endless buckets of food.

A history lesson. In memoriam, the victims of islamic terrorism.

2006-09-11T03:40:00.000-05:00

The professor entered the lecture hall. His neck strained left and right as he took in his surroundings. What greeted him was a sea of bored looking students. Up front were the guys who looked smart but weren't, the ones that would be consistently asking moronic questions. Behind them was an assortment of iPod-wielding misfits, from the garden-variety pothead, to the butch-cut, masculine-looking lesbian. All species in the genus college student were represented. He would have made harsh stereotypes about the students in back as well, but he couldn't see that far. Besides, they most certainly fell into one of two categories: unintelligent people who just don't care, or unintelligent people who do care. Most intelligent people would be sleeping in.

He adjusted his spectacles, imperceptibly shook his head in preemptive frustration, and walked to the black board.

If you want a syllabus it's on the website. We begin.

Have you ever heard of the Battle of Tours, AD 732? Some of you have. Some of you have heard me talk about it in other classes you may have had with me, and hopefully some of you have heard about it from other sources as well. The Battle of Tours occurred in France, which isn't interesting in and of itself, but it is when you notice the identity of the forces involved with the battle.

The Battle of Tours was fought between the Franks, that is, the people living in France at that time, who were defending their land, and... and... that's right, Muslims. Muslim armies were invading France in the year 732 AD. Does anyone in the class notice something interesting about that date?

It was an early morning lecture. Obviously he would not receive an answer, except from the know-nothing know-it-alls in front, so he made someone up before they answered.

Yes, girl in the light blue shirt.

There was no girl in a light blue shirt. He didn't care and neither did the students.

I'm sorry, can you speak up, this is a large lecture hall. Yes? Yes, that's exactly right. The Islamic prophet Muhammad died in 632 AD, exactly one century before this battle.

But that was in present-day Saudi Arabia. How in the world were Islamic armies in France just over 100 years after the religion's beginning? Here's a hint, pothead in the yellow pullover, this all happened before airplanes, so they had to walk. Please direct your attention to the map on the overhead. Feel free to take LSD to make it look bigger [or click your mouse on it].

Notice, the golden-yellow color represents Islamic territory in 632 AD, at the time of Muhammad's death. At that time, Islam was limited to the Arabian peninsula. The orange color represents Islamic territory a mere 30 years later. At that time, a unified Islamic empire stretched from present-day Tunisia, in the center of northern Africa, to present-day Afghanistan. Finally, in the several following decades (represented in red), this Islamic empire cut its way eastward, even into India in places, northward into parts of Turkey, and westward, across the rest of northern Africa, across the Strait of Gibraltar, and through nearly all of Spain and part of France.

At this point, two students stood up with fierce looks on their faces, preparing to leave.

You're angry, which must mean you heard me speaking. I'm so honored you turned down the volume on your pretty little devices for my lecture.

To which the fiercer one replied: You demean an entire religious group with your rhetoric. That is just plain irresponsible and I won't sit here and take it. You're a racist.

The professor could not help smiling a sad smile, because right at that moment a peculiar sound grabbed everyone's attention. It began oddly, soon taking on the sound of a strangled turkey combined with a Richard Simmons video, all played through a low-quality sound system. His smile soon broke into an ironic chuckle, which was followed in kind by the kids in the front row, who didn't have the slightest idea what they were chuckling about.

He continued: You two can feel free to run right along now if you wish. After all, that awful noise you hear is the Muslim call to prayer coming from the new mosque they finished over the summer. Far be it from me to stop you from praying. Or...you can remain and hear the rest of chapter one.

They sat.

One hundred years for Islam to conquer all the land from Pakistan to Spain. Yes, as a sidenote, that is the same religion we were assured is the "religion of peace" after the events of September 11, 2001.

In 732 AD, a Frankish warlord by the name of Charles Martel halted the Islamic invasion of western Europe. Oddly enough, few people remember who he was. Yet this man, the grandfather of Charlemagne, is who we have to thank for the fact that we are not at Muslim prayer right now. The Franks were the only power standing between hundreds of thousands of Islamic Moors and the rest of Europe, including the Vatican itself. The Battle of Tours, and other battles between the Franks and Moors in that same year, altered the direction of civilization. We would be Muslims if the outcome had gone the other way.

With this, one of the front-rowers acquired enough courage to ask an annoying question. Wow, Charles Martel is such an intriguing historical personality. Can you recommend some reputable biographical sketches of him?

To which the professor responded: You're missing the point. The rest of you might want to listen now, I'm going to give the summary. It will be on the test.

People often equate Christianity with Islam. After all, Christians conducted crusades and that sort of thing. In fact, it is often framed such that warlike, medieval Christians attacked innocent, peace-loving, enlightened Muslims during the crusades. What no one ever points out is that centuries earlier, Muslims had already invaded Europe, and they continued to do so repeatedly in the ensuing centuries. The reason professors don't point that out is that they'd lose their jobs. That's why I had to tie your professor up and put him in my trunk so I could take his spot today.

Islam is, and always was, a religion of conquest and violence. From its very inception it destroyed. It has converted with the sword for its entire existence. In fact, the only time Islam has not been at war with the rest of the world has been when it has been at war with itself. Thankfully, an Islamic civil war did happen in the mid-eighth century, allowing western Europe to get its act together and to begin developing into the center of civilization.

Western society is expert at ignoring threats. He pointed dramatically toward the mosque. But this threat will not go away. It is bent on the domination of the world. You can choose to acknowledge it and fight it, or you can sit on your hands. But it will not stop until you are its slave. That's what this is about. My history lesson from the beginning of Islam until the Battle of Tours is merely chapter one in a book still being written.

You naive children demand that women have rights, yet support a religion that denies them any. You demand freedom of speech, yet support a religion that prevents it. You demand freedom of and from religion, yet support a religion that wants to make you a religious slave. The events of 9/11/2001 are not abnormalities. It is exactly what ought to be expected from a religion which has been telling us for nearly 1400 years that such attacks are exactly what it intends, with the ultimate goal of destroying our free world. They openly admit that. Perhaps we ought to take them at their word.

And that is the perfect transition I need into the next lecture: in order to be a pacifist in this world you must be either a coward or a fool. But that's for next time. Class dismissed.

The students filtered out unchanged. One had thoughts of his playstation. Another had an upcoming meeting with a professor about research opportunities. Most of the guys were thinking about women, and many of the women were thinking about women too. A few students approached rapidly, with the obvious intent to make requests of the professor in some way. He quickly slipped out the fire exit, leaving the remaining students behind in the confusion of the alarm.

Arrogant humility

2006-08-31T00:08:00.000-05:00

...I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. 1 Corinthians 9:22 (in part)

One of the many remarkable things about Christianity is that it was intended for everyone from the very beginning. Jesus died for all. For that reason, Paul endeavored to be all things to all men, so that some might be saved. Following in his footsteps, many good Christians have humbled themselves and faithfully lived among the roughest, most abused, and most abusive peoples the world has ever seen. They have lived among the rough with the hope that some might be saved. So many Christian hearts yearn to see the downtrodden, the lowest of the low, freed from their shackles.

But what about the powerful and comfortable people?

See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. Hebrews 12:15

How priceless is your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings. Psalm 36:7

God says: see to it that no one misses the grace of God. Both high and low among men will take refuge in God.

At times I have found it irksome to be among some Christians who live among the rough, the people who party, the people who abuse drugs, and the people who are enslaved to physically destructive lifestyles--not because I think these believers are doing anything wrong in selecting a demographic of interest (Paul did too), but rather because many of these Christians exhibit a subtle arrogance.

In Christian circles it is seen as a badge of honor to go to the poor, the rough, and the downtrodden. After all, to minister to such people effectively one must live among them. To do this generally requires a Christian to "humble" himself in some way, often materially. The danger with this is that there may be a conservation of pride in the human soul (see 1. below; yes, I have footnotes in a blog; I hope we can still be friends). A Christian may humble himself to minister to heroine addicts, but far too often that Christian will then inflate himself pridefully when he is among other Christians. They humble themselves to go to those who hurt, yet they come back to Christian circles with a smugness that they have "sacrificed so much more" than the "comfortable, middle class, Sunday-only" Christians, which they label so contemptuously.

I have observed this far too many times to let it pass as merely an isolated condition. This tendency toward arrogant humility (ohhh, that's where the title comes from!) seems to be a common affliction of the flesh. If, despite this sin, Christians continued to minister to all demographics, then I would not feel such a need to point this out. Unfortunately the pride of some of these "humble" (i.e., "humble" in the sense that their humility is situationally dependent humility) Christians is so powerfully insidious that it actually pressures other Christians into ignoring certain demographics.

As Christians hear cultural Christianity praising, nearly exclusively, those who go to the "lower" (lower economically, etc.) classes, they are persuaded to believe that something must be wrong with them if they do not feel the same calling. That is a lie that must be exposed and shattered. I believe that this subtle pride among Christians actually prevents certain worldly-wealthy people from being ministered to. Depending on where you fall on the theological scale with regard to free will, you might even say that some are being damned because of this Christian pride.

Those who have lived through rough times in this world are more likely to see the need for the gospel. Yet we aren't asked to go to just those who are likely to receive the gospel favorably. In western society, most are materially comfortable. Are we to leave godless the comfortable just because they're comfortable? Did God place certain people in high earthly positions because he wanted them to be damned as punishment for having nice things? That would be a rather...interesting...theology, especially given the book of Job.

I don't want to psychoanalyze those who exhibit arrogant humility, but I do have to question the reason behind that particular sin. Some seem to be jealous of those to whom God has given more economically profitable skillsets (or wealthier parents). I don't believe sin, be it jealousy or anything else, should be the guiding influence in our spiritual callings.

This is getting long, but here is the point:
A "humble" Christian who reaches heroine users and wife-beaters (the people the shirts are named after, not the shirts themselves) generally cannot reach governors, generals, and senators. The higher one's position is, generally, the more time one must spend at work (hence Ecclesiastes 5:12: The sleep of a laborer is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of a rich man permits him no sleep). How can they be reached then? Does anyone really think that the Christian ministering to the heroine users will reach them? How about the local bible study? Maybe if you put invitations under their windshield wipers? No. Obviously the way to reach such people as these is to work with them. Their work is their life, therefore their coworkers are their only potential lifelines.

That is the reason for this long, long, long entry. The arrogant humility that is supported in cultural Christianity inhibits people from pursuing their God-given abilities in a career setting. It does this by convincing them that to pursue a career is at worst a sin, and at best a tolerable but unfortunate state for the weak-willed Christian who cannot endure the hardships necessary to reach people (see 2. below). And that view results in an inhibited state of ministry toward worldly accomplished people.

You like to minister to people in prisons? Great, do it. You feel called to reach people at parties? Great, do it. You want to reach the homeless? Excellent, it is my hope that all of them worship God eternally. But do not condemn the "comfortable, Sunday-only" Christians who don't share your calling. Some are politicians who are reaching politicians. Some are lawyers...well, maybe not. Some are architects reaching architects, engineers reaching engineers, managers reaching managers, designers reaching designers, pilots reaching pilots.

When one of my former coworkers found out I was a Christian she was genuinely shocked and exclaimed, "Someone with a brain who believes in the rapture!" It was a new concept to her. She had the stereotype of the backwards, uneducated, illogical Christian in her mind, which I didn't fit. If nothing else, there are a few people at MIT who now know Christians can be capable physicists (even if I am the only one...shhh, don't tell them that).

What I am not saying: we should derive our purpose from our careers. As every mature Christian should know, only a relationship with God can provide the deep meaning and purpose we crave. That said, God has given us talents which we can apply to reach certain people within career groups, while simultaneously deriving our worth and purpose from God.

In general, those leading ministries to the downtrodden, as valuable as those ministries are, are not capable of reaching politicians, lawyers, engineers, physicists, and countless other professions which require a significant level of time and talent. They should not denigrate those who can.

1. As a tangent, I think it is clear that there is a means around the tendency toward this behavior which I have referred to as "conservation of pride." Namely, the process of sanctification. The physics analogy, which probably only Chris will appreciate, is the conservation of mechanical energy. Mechanical energy, as opposed to energy, is only conserved when no friction is present. Sanctification is the friction that is applied to prevent the conservation of pride. As we grow more into Christ's image, the fruit of the spirit increases and the rotten fruit of the flesh diminishes. This brings up the question...is there a conservation of fruit?

2. As arrogance often requires, this view is nearly an inverse of reality. Who has the stronger will and the better ability to endure hardship: a man who reaches drug users for Christ by getting a C average in his degree in philosophy while "hanging out" with these drug users, or a man who reaches theoretical chemists at Johns Hopkins, requiring him to spend his weekends studying through undergrad. instead of partying, to get into the right graduate school, to continue working hard, to get published frequently, to get exposure and credits as an accomplished scientist, to get a great post-doc, or two, or three, in order to land a theoretical chemistry faculty position at Johns Hopkins?

My first political satire

2006-08-13T23:10:00.000-05:00

In the process of going through things in my room I came across something I wrote when Bill Clinton ran against the first George Bush for president in 1992. I was ten at the time, which I think means this is the earliest political satire I wrote. Below I have included all grammatical errors as originally made. Here it is, in celebration of Chris Hill's 25th birthday:

Hi, i'm Bill Clinton. I am better than George Bush because..... because..... well I don't know maybe it's because I want to spend 250 billion dollars on education and road construction, I'm for abortion, I lie, and I'm a hypocrite. Well that doesn't make much sense because I'm for abortion but I want to raise education but how am I going to give kids a better education if there are no kids? I better change that idea. I am a new person and this country needs a new person in control bad. Well getting back to the education issue I probably shouldn't worry about little kids education they have a long time to fix their mistakes but me on the other hand I'm an old geaser and I'm still stupid. And I probably shouldn't spend so much money on America I should use it on slim fast and exercise equipment for my wife and I because we really need to cut down on sweets and we need to get rid of all are flab. Speaking of slim fast and exercise equipment I think we should cut the price in half and have a buy one get one free sale until my wife and I by one. I think they should give free things to the president and pay him a couple thousand dollars an hour (of course that's only when I'm president.) (And of course no privelage like that will be given to any other human being.) I think I'm the best thing in the world. I'm the best candidate for pres. Nobody is better than me. And when I said I was dumb well I changed my mind now I'm smart. I don't like George Bush because he's better than me. I am probably going to shoot him. Woops wrong speech I wasn't supposed to tell you that. (crosses fingers) I love my wife more than anything and some of you say I love another it's not true. I love my wife with all my heart. Woops honey sorry I didn't mean it I like to cross my fingers. I think that Arkansas is the best state. Even though it has one of the highest murder records out of all 28 I mean 37 or however many states there are I don't know.

If only I could still write like that.

The greatest accomplishment of our species, part II: 44 special hours

2006-08-04T16:25:00.000-05:00

This morning I went to bed at about 2:45am I think. That ended a special 44 hour period. About 9 of those 44 hours were spent getting ready for, commuting to and from, and being at my last day of work. About 7 of those hours were spent finishing packing my belongings and loading my truck. About 1 of those hours was spent eating and then laying on a mattress, staring at the ceiling in an attempt to nap. About 26 of those hours were spent driving myself from MA to MN. The one hour that has not been accounted for was spent sleeping.

Previously, I claimed that the fact that I have not worn a jacket for over two years is the greatest accomplishment of our species. Now the question is: is the fact that I drove from MA to MN on one hour of sleep a greater or lesser accomplishment? Regardless, I am proud that two of my accomplishments fill the first and second slots on the list of the greatest accomplishments of our species.

Oh, I would also like to say that the 26 hour drive only required the equivalent of about 4.5 cans of mountain dew and about 40 oz. of coffee. No energy drinks or cocaine were used.

A simple distinction (part I)

2006-07-22T13:03:00.000-05:00

Getting beyond the fact that "homosexual marriage" is a contradiction of terms, the debate is often framed such that those who oppose it are defined as the aggressors. We are not.

For millennia, the institution of marriage has been consistently defined as something exclusive between a man and a woman. This definition has been acceptable to everyone. Only in the last couple decades have homosexuals and their pawns even dared to insinuate otherwise. Yet now when someone says homosexual marriages should remain unrecognized by the government, he is viewed as an oppressor attempting to implement a new set of tyrannical restrictions on a poor, exploited minority group. That's not true, and that is why a simple correction must be made.

Given the historical, traditional, legal, spiritual, societal, religious, and literal definitions of the word marriage, it is an institution limited to a single man and a single woman. In order for homosexuals to normalize their perversions in the eyes of their countrymen they must alter each of those definitions. That is the distinction I am making here. This isn't about backward traditionalists oppressing others, this is about a rabid sect of society attempting to alter the definitions that arise from our history, traditions, laws, spirit, society, religions, and our language. This isn't about preventing two men from buggering each other because it's gross, it's about preventing a politically correct redefinition of our society--and not just a redefinition of the word "marriage."

I'm not going to address marriage from all of those perspectives, but there is value in looking at a few of them.

Already the word marriage is being redefined. Merriam-Webster still defines it as between a man and a woman, but American Heritage Dictionary defines marriage as: 1a. The legal union of a man and woman as husband and wife. b. The state of being married; wedlock. c. A common-law marriage. d. A union between two persons having the customary but usually not the legal force of marriage: a same-sex marriage. Notice definition 1d. The example given is that of same-sex marriage. They are making progress in redefining the word.

But they know that changing the meaning of the word is only one of the requirements. Until 1973, the American Psychological Association, which is responsible for defining and outlining clinically diagnosable mental disorders, defined homosexuality as a mental illness. It is, by definition, abnormal, given that only 1-2% of the population is homosexual. The general population still views it that way. That is why the militant left is attempting to redefine society as well. Turn on the television any weekday evening and you're certain to find a sitcom or "reality" television show with homosexuals in lead roles, being glorified as hip, stylish, and harmless victims. (This, by the way, is the same tactic the left has used for years now to attack fatherhood by making all televised father figures illogical, clumsy, immature idiots.)

"No, you're wrong--society is ok with homosexuality, and the fact that gay people are on so many television shows stems solely from the fact that the lifestyle is viewed as normal now." No. Leftists refuse to allow citizens to decide on this issue because they know that citizens will reject it as an abomination. In 2004, every state that had a referendum banning "gay marriage" on the ballot passed it (eleven states). It is obvious what citizens want. This is why the leftists have turned to their favored tool of redefinition: the courts. The literally God-damned state of Massachusetts is the one state that allows for "same-sex marriage." But guess what--it was forced this way by the courts. The citizens did not vote for it, nor did their elected officials. And now one of the larger controversies going on in this state is whether or not the citizens should be allowed to vote on this topic. Yes, I'm serious. The debate isn't even whether or not "same-sex marriage" should be permitted--it is rather whether or not citizens should have a say in the matter.

Minnesota faced a similar predicament not long ago. Leftists attempt to redefine our laws and our society through non-elected judges and refuse to allow the people to vote on the issue. This, from the self-proclaimed "party of the people" that supposedly wanted every vote counted in Florida in 2000 (for the sake of democracy, no doubt--with democracy being defined as "continue to count all the votes over and over again until we win"). Incidentally, this is the same method that was used to force legalized abortion on the entire country in the infamous Roe vs. Wade decision. The decision, in effect, resulted in nine non-elected government officials adding a constitutional amendment declaring abortion as a fundamental human right (and therefore something that cannot be infringed upon in any way). This is the way of the left: fascism, not democracy.

The movement to allow homosexuals to "marry" requires a redefinition of the word. Much more dangerous than that, however, is this fact: it requires a redefinition of society against the will of the people. Those of us who oppose such a redefinition are not the aggressors in this ideological war. Rather, those in the minority of our society who would redefine our words, laws, and culture against historical precedent and the will of the majority are the aggressors.

A plan

2006-07-15T13:46:00.000-05:00

Just over a week ago I had a predicament. For various reasons I asked my medical school to grant me a two year deferment. They told me they don't grant two year deferments, but they could do a one year deferment. The only catch: a $1000 non-refundable deposit that would apply to tuition when I begin next year but would be forfeited if I decide not to attend at that time. They gave me 24 hours to decide.

I was kind of lost about what to do. The medical school application process is a painful and expensive one. I really didn't want to ever have to go through it again. School starts July 24th, and I could have started...but given my state of mind and my financial situation it would have been challenging. For a while now I haven't been in a state of mind to commit to anything for fifteen years, especially something as demanding as medicine. But I really wanted a two year deferment so that I could work somewhere and commit more than one year to them. One year seemed like not enough.

With a lack of direction I tried to think things through at a coffee shop. Coffee shops have been scientifically proven to increase my thinking capacity by at least a factor of four. In one place the employees know me by name. But even in that environment I could not come to a satisfying conclusion.

So I went back to my place and played Metroid (or Bionic Commando? I think it was Metroid) on the Nintendo emulator on my computer. In fine Chris/Mike/Jordan fashion, I played video games instead of making the life-changing decision that I only had 18 hours to make. A couple hours later I was in the bathroom and a plan came to me--a plan that seemed elegant, wise, and satisfying. But first, two details you must know about me before the plan makes any sense:

1. If you've spoken with me in the last couple months about career stuff you'll know I've thought about scrapping the idea of medicine and instead to pursue a "regular" science/engineering job for a couple years before getting an MBA and trying to get into more of a strategic level of work. That's because details make me sleepy. I've always been more of a strategic/long-term/idea kind of a guy than a details/short-term/implementation kind of a guy. So I've thought about the idea of strategic management lately. Pretty much, I've thought about trying to become a corporate fatcat.

2. If you've known me for my entire life, which most of you have not, you'll know that there has been a desire to strap myself onto a giant container of fuel, with one end on fire, which undergoes a controlled detonation until it arrives in orbit...i.e., be an astronaut. Realizing that goal, however, is as likely as a teenager who says "I want to be a rock star" actually becoming a rock star, so I keep a healthy perspective on it and don't allow it to influence my decisions all that much.

So, when I was in the bathroom, the following plan came to me without intentional thought:
Get the one year deferment. Find a decent science/engineering job in Minnesota at a biomedical company at which I could see myself working for many years. Work there for a year with the intention of being there long-term. If I enjoy my life (work and non-work) in MN for that year, I'd stay with the company, accept the loss of the $1000 deposit, forget a career in medicine, and pursue a path toward management with that company with the hope of becoming a corporate fatcat. If I am not satisfied with my life in MN for that year, I'd go to medical school next year, probably join the Air Force to get financial assistance for medical school, become a flight surgeon upon graduation, and undertake a fellowship in space medicine. Eventually I'd finish my service to the USAF, become a civilian once again, and apply to NASA. By then I'd be close to 40. That's a long time.

The plan has a number of positive attributes. If I'm not satisfied with things in MN in a year I really think I'll have a good sense of closure and peace about moving on to medicine, allowing me to undertake that obstacle with a clear mind and with strong motivation. It gives me time in a familiar setting with familiar people before plunging into a huge, long-term, somewhat life-defining path. It gives me time to explore other thoughts about potential paths I've had. And if things aren't great in MN then I have something waiting...but hopefully it will be great and my medicine route will remain untravelled.

Well, now you know my plan (and you also now might have some idea why I don't talk about my plans in life very often). The plan has a few potential names: the "corporate-fatcat-versus-astronaut" plan; the "Minnesota-has-a-year-to-convince-me-to-stay" plan; the "please-let-me-enjoy-the-year-in-Minnesota-a-ton-because-the-medicine-plan-is-a-lot-of-work" plan...and I'm open to other suggestions.

Anyway, this has been really long, but I wanted to write it all. When this idea came to me I actually felt satisfied with my direction in life for the first time in a while. Although with all this stuff going on in Israel now I really just want to become a fighter pilot like Chris (yes I'm serious).

If you feel the urge to pray there are two things:
1. You can thank God that the med. school granted the one year deferment. That was the first step.
2. You can pray that I find a great biomedical job with a great company in MN--and soon! That is the next step.

Thanks....

You can find me a job if you want

2006-07-11T21:52:00.000-05:00

Here is my resume if you want to help me find a job (or tell me if something's so wrong with my resume that it will prevent me from getting one). The med. school gave me a one year deferment, so I'm pretty sure I'll be moving to MN in a few weeks but I don't have a job lined up yet. The goal is to get a job at a biomedical device company in MN before I leave Boston. Some people are trying to get me to stay here another year and only a good MN job will be certain to prevent that from happening. I'll talk about my plan sometime in the next few days, but I have some other things I need to take care of in the meantime. The bottom line is that I'm looking for a company to be with long-term, not just one year.

The two weirdest sentences

2006-07-06T11:43:00.000-05:00

Here's another reason to use public transportation! A man on a New York subway decided to start cutting people today. In the article describing the attack I came across what I believe to be the two oddest sentences ever written:

A man grabbed two cordless power saws off a subway station workbench and went on a rampage Thursday, swinging the saws at riders and slicing open a man's chest before running away, police said. ... Police were searching for the suspect, described by witnesses as a thin man in his 30s, who had earrings in both ears and was possibly carrying a teddy bear.

The jokes write themselves.

Aaahahahhahahahah

2006-07-04T15:58:00.000-05:00

Cowards and morons have recently announced that they will be holding a "hunger strike" until our troops are brought home from Iraq. There is a very important reason that I put "hunger strike" in quotes. Those of us who actually have spines consider a hunger strike to be exactly what it means--a refusal to eat anything at all, with the knowledge that it may kill us before our cause is realized. Even if I disagree with someone who is conducting a true hunger strike, there is no conclusion other than he must truly believe in his cause. I would not disparage him as a coward since he is prepared to die for that cause (although I reserve the right to disparage him for other reasons).

But the cowards and morons I am discussing here are conducting a rolling fast in which "2,700 activists pledge to refuse food for at least 24 hours, and then [will] hand over [the fast] to a comrade." Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon, and Danny Glover are among these noble idealists. I imagine that, among them and their comrades, some are cowards and some are morons, but unfortunately there is no way to know the exact distribution. Regardless, they must of necessity be:

1. Cowards. This assumes they actually believe in their cause. They would be cowards for truly believing in a cause for which they are too scared to risk their lives.

or (definitely not an exclusive or)

2. Morons. There are two subcategories here. Some of these morons truly believe in their cause but are actually stupid enough to believe a "rolling fast" will affect public opinion. Instead, it is quite obvious that most of the public would put members of a rolling fast somewhere in the "coward" category and will therefore not be swayed (since, as I understand things, cowardice is still not a virtue among the majority of Americans, who believe in God and eat meat). The alternative subcategory consists of those who don't believe in the cause at all but have joined it for other reasons. Those in this subcategory have a good reason for not being part of a true hunger strike: they don't care enough. Unfortunately for them they are still morons because they are willing to be seen with Sean Penn in public.

It is a fitting day to mock the God-hating, America-hating, self-righteous (yet Righteousness-hating) left. God bless the memory of our Founders. I look forward to meeting them in heaven.

A summary

2006-06-27T07:20:00.000-05:00

It was nice to see everyone during my time in MN. It had been almost six months since my last trip there. This is a summary post of various things, in no particular order.

1. I think the wedding went well. It was very classy. Katie was beautiful and Chris was dashing. Tom's message was short but good. Nicole and Chaz did great with music. The bridesmaids and groomsmen didn't trip. Erik was Erik (which is excellent). It's too bad the reception hall was so long and narrow. They need to change the sound system so that people in back can hear. But everything worked out. Also, I'd like everyone to know that I do know how to read, despite my inability to read scripture at the wedding. Unfortunately all the pew Bibles were the ESV translation, but Chris preferred NIV (for consistency) so I was actually reading from the NIV translation on his PDA (which I'd never used before), which I was hiding in the church's ESV Bible. The result was personal confusion.

2. It's not like I've been to tons of weddings, but it seems like you can often have a lot of insight into a couple based upon their wedding. This one was classy, elegant, and exact, which makes sense based upon Chris and Katie. My brother's was pure, self-less, and genuine, which also makes sense based upon him and Steph. I'm not going to analyze weddings any more though.

3. It would have been nice to have spent more time with people at the wedding, but I was doing a lot of running around for people. I hope none of you were offended by my distracted state of mind, because I wanted to be with you. The same thing happened with my brother's wedding a couple weeks ago. There were relatives there I hadn't seen in a really long time who I would have liked to have caught up with but wedding-related things made that difficult. It was fun to rip on the movie Firewall with Laura and Sam and to spend time with Erik, but it's never enough time. Nicole, I am personally unsatisfied with the amount of time I spoke with you as well. Are you anchored to MN now with your Miss MN duties? Does that mean grad. school is on hold? See how I have unanswered questions? Have you started your new blog yet?

4. As of Sunday I officially have lifetime scuba certification. I took the class a year ago during a phase in which I asked myself what skills a movie hero should have and sought to learn them (the only other skill it resulted in at the time was handgun training, but I plan to continue with motorcycle training and flight lessons if I don't go to med. school, with the hope of flying helicopters and being like Jack Bauer). Anyway, after the class you're supposed to do some certification dives but the sessions were all full before I moved to Boston. So I finally got around to it last weekend, just within my one year deadline.

5. The family Nintendo that we've had for almost 20 years seems to be dysfunctional. Despite repeated efforts with the old tricks of getting the thing to work, it appears to be the time to let go. So much for my Zelda intentions.

6. At Chris Hill's bachelor party we went skeet shooting. I am taking this opportunity to proudly announce that I obtained the highest score of the dozen or so of us there. For that accomplishment my prize was a mini hot glue gun.

I think that's all for now.

Wow

2006-06-18T11:56:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to Nicole who, I've just learned, is newly crowned as Miss Minnesota!

Hunger

2006-06-14T09:18:00.000-05:00

I am hungry right now.

Yep

2006-06-06T07:03:00.000-05:00

Well this blog has been around for one year now. You can consider this the official one year anniversary post.

1. Just in case anyone wasn't sure, I'm leaving Boston at the end of July. I don't know where I'm going yet though.

2. "But what about the name of this blog! You can't be just a mercenary in Boston if you aren't in Boston!" Well, aside from the fact that I can change the title at will, even after I leave Boston I think the title still works. The only thing that has to change is the interpretive method. Rather than literally being someone in Boston (as a mercenary, gaining money and worldly prestige), I will become someone merely figuratively in "Boston", where "Boston" symbolizes the fallen world we all dwell in, and "mercenary" symbolizes one who has no relationship with his employer, always skeptical and standoffish toward him, yet working within the rules his employer establishes in order to collect a paycheck and apply it toward his purposes. And one potential purpose for me in life is to be an extremely successful mercenary who grabs all the resources he possibly can away from the world ("Boston"), without becoming embroiled in it, and diverting those resources toward the advancement of the Kingdom...but that's a post for some other time.

3. I agree with Chris that the word "blog" is stupid.

4. Laura, a few weeks ago I said I'd get back to you about your question about why I'd want to be a physician. I actually wrote some about it but now I haven't decided whether or not I want to share the results. Sorry for my tardiness.

5. It's now been over six months since my last hair cut. This is only the second time I've made it six months. My hair is the longest it's ever been.

As you can tell, there isn't a main point to this post.

From the notebook of Jordan, #1

2006-05-30T21:37:00.000-05:00

I came across some old writings of mine today. There are a surprising number of pages full of thoughts, insights, folly, and sometimes observations. Some have dates, some do not. Most of them are for my own eyes only, and should probably be burned in case I ever run for office, but some of them are suitable for all audiences. This one made me laugh while sitting alone in a coffee shop tonight. It was written while I was waiting for class to start a couple years ago. Fourier Analysis (MATH 4567) was one of the most difficult classes I ever took, perhaps the most difficult. Anyway:

2/11/04
Yay back in Fourier again. Waiting for class to start and some dorks just finished singing Gilbert and Sullivan, and have now proceeded to happily discuss encryption schemes. God save us.

This really happened. You be the judge: should I be laughed at for calling people dorks while being in a class like that? Was it legitimate ridicule given the fact that these people were honestly singing excerpts from a musical...before ceasing in order to discuss ways to encrypt information? In any case, God save us. And by the way, I feel like less of a man for having been able to recognize it as Gilbert and Sullivan. That's the unfortunate result of sixth grade music class.

On an unrelated note, if you are reading this pray for Chris Hill as he goes through the final crunch of getting his thesis done.

Chris, this is for you:

Capitalism

2006-05-23T23:20:00.000-05:00

If the free market were a woman I would marry her.

Our eyes would meet and we would both know.... We'd finish each other's sentences and laugh about it. We would spend time together, and I would feel her electric presence at my side. Her smell, her smile, her face.... I would caress her, and soothe her anxieties away. In her presence I would be content. Our offspring would be numerous, strong, proud, and productive. On their shoulders they would lift the world to new heights.

Capitalism, my dear free market, never before has mankind seen such a fair creature. How can I win your love.... Stay with me.

HR Lady and today

2006-05-19T16:21:00.000-05:00

Me: Hi [HR Lady], do you have a few minutes?
HR Lady: Sure sure, ... small talk
Me: small talk
more small talk
Me: I have a question about relocation stuff. I think I'm going to be leaving the lab and going to medical school.
HR Lady: expressions of excitement, joy, etc.

I had to visit HR today to ask about a policy on relocation assistance. They paid to move me here but if I voluntarily leave before one year I have to pay it back...and I'll be cutting it close. They couldn't do anything to help me, but at least I had an entertaining conversation, which continued:

HR Lady: Where are you from?
Me: Minnesota.
HR Lady: Ohhhh, the Land of 10,000 Lakes, right?
Me: Yep, that's the one.
HR Lady: And are you going to medical school with a PhD already?[most people here have a PhD]
Me: Nope, I'm only at the bachelors level.
HR Lady: What did you study?
Me: Physics and computer science.
HR Lady: Ahh! You're a rocket scientist too! My son majored in Party.
Me: Really? That's awesome. I respect it.
HR Lady: When he was born I held him and said, 'my son, the doctor,' but he went to [school name] and studied business instead. So you did physics in Minnesota, work at MIT for a year, and now go to North Carolina for medical school!? That's...it's wonderful...marvelous.... [nearly speechless with excitement at this point]

She went on like that, as if my life has been one brilliant plan. Perhaps it has, but not by my doing. Just in case anyone's not certain, I kind of bungle through life and make it up as I go along. I think I have a life that is more exciting from the outside than from within. I hope that means I'm providing entertainment for people. Certainly the HR Lady was entertained at least.

Unrelated... in the past two days at work I have: gotten sunburned taking data on top of the parking garage, hauled equipment all over the lab, taught a coworker about enzymes, plotted data, setup a large apparatus, taught a coworker about the chemistry of absorption, advocated the free market as a solution to health-care and education problems, been briefed about an amazing system, ... The variety has been very enjoyable. In fact, I think I have Stockholm syndrome since working at the lab is actually really good. It might have helped when they gave me work.

Intolerance

2006-05-17T16:27:00.000-05:00

In his own words, Ian Mckellen is so offended by the Bible's condemnation of homosexuality that he tears out the corresponding page in Leviticus (no mention of other passages is made, for whatever reason--is he unaware of them?) from hotel Bibles placed by the Gideons and other groups (see this link to his official website for his own words on the matter).

Given his open hostility toward the Bible, I find it interesting that he recently said:

"Well, I've often thought the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front saying this is fiction. I mean, walking on water, it takes an act of faith. And I have faith in this movie. Not that it's true, not that it's factual, but that it's a jolly good story. And I think audiences are clever enough and bright enough to separate out fact and fiction, and discuss the thing after they've seen it."

(The full article is available at http://newsbusters.org/stories/dv.html?q=node/5402.)

I included the full quote so as to allow him the opportunity to attempt to mitigate his first two sentences with the rest of his nonsensical babble. It is always funny (sad?) to watch people be offensive and then immediately try to backpeddle when they realize they should probably lessen the severity of their comments for political purposes. Unfortunately for them, the backpeddling often has little or no logical connection with the initial statement. He says the Bible ought to be labeled as fiction--and then proceeds to say that his movie is a good story and people will be able to separate fact and fiction. Those assertions are not logically connected.

The reason for this post, however, isn't the illogical nature of Hollywood activists (in this case, an activist of the militant homosexual variety). The reason for this post is just to point out the mildly entertaining fact that Mckellen labels the Bible as fiction yet is tremendously offended by it; not offended in the disgusted way that a parent is offended at a novel glorifying pedophilia, but offended in the sense that he is actually partly defined as a person by his hatred of the Bible. Fiction can be offensive and tasteless. I think it is rare that fiction can cause such deep-seated, character-defining hatred, however. Follow the link to his site and read more of what he writes if you feel like learning about another Hollywood weirdo in his own words.

And here's a picture of Sir Ian Mckellen celebrating pride in his sin of choice:

In conclusion...

2006-05-15T22:01:00.000-05:00

The medical school admissions process is finally over for me now, as of last week. I received an acceptance at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston Salem, North Carolina. That was the last program I needed to hear from. The process began nearly a year ago with my initial application. In summary:

$50 - MCAT prep book
$200 - MCAT fee
$700 - primary application fee
$650 - new suit, shoes, shirt, tie, etc., for interviewing
$3300 - secondary application fees and interview costs (plane tickets, hotels, ...)

Total: $4900

That does not include the extra year of school I had to take that was almost entirely devoted to pre-med courses. My majors had almost nothing to do with pre-med requirements, so it was a lot of extra time and money. That adds another $15,000 or so (plus an opportunity cost of...a year of salary). If that extra year of school is included then I spent about $20,000 to get into med. school (and if the opportunity cost is included it is more than I care to think about).

Summary:
Finished applications at 15 schools.
Interviewed at 5 schools.
Accepted at 3 schools.

$20,000 for three acceptances gives a rate of about $6700 per acceptance.

That is to get in. Getting in allows me the privilege of accruing $50,000 of debt per year for the next four years and enjoying 80 hour work weeks for the next ten years....

As a tangent, in the comments of the previous post I became "ask-a-physicist" and I would just like everyone to know that I am extending an open invitation to any questions like that here at JAMIB in the future. If at any point you need to ask-a-physicist please feel free to do so...because I may change the last two letters to "an" soon. Is it possible for a physicist and a physician to exist within the same person, or is that like Ghandi and Hitler going golfing together?

A little reminder

2006-05-08T22:18:00.000-05:00

"Get the savings you deserve!"

"Come into our store and we'll treat you how you deserve to be treated!"

"You have a right to have your hunger satisfied!"

"At our restaurant, you'll be given the best service and treated like you deserve!"

This "empowerment" approach to marketing is all too common. It fits well with the mindset of our culture, a culture where consuming the works of others' hands is somehow sufficient for one to elevate oneself to the status of a god. Suddenly the (very few) fundamental human rights which can be defended logically and philosophically have been crowded out by an infinite number of others, thus cheapening the originals (but that's a topic for another day).

"You have a right to not wait in lines! You have a right to 24/7 banking! You deserve to have people catering to your every whim, because you're just that important," screams the television.

Let me set the record straight:

No, you are not important--not in that way. No, you have no right to short lines, perfect service, hunger satisfaction, or any other claims being shouted at you by billboards. In fact, the only thing you deserve is to be nailed onto a cross--any of those crosses next to the one I deserve to be nailed to.

People who think they deserve convenience, new cars, homes, friends, good health, or fast food have a serious lack of understanding of the depravity of our species. The irony of it all is that the people who would agree with these words are of the type who do not need to read them, while those who would disregard them and make excuses are among those to whom these are targeted. Such is life.

Two new accomplishments

2006-05-03T10:56:00.000-05:00

Today I officially crossed the boundary from student-boy to worker-man: I know how to tie a tie. This morning was the first time I tied my own tie without using directions found on the internet. Not only that, I tied it perfectly my very first time and it was just the right length. And I did it quickly. In the past, I never wore a tie frequently enough to make it worthwhile to learn how to tie one. In the last couple months I've had to wear a tie maybe five times, and that is frequently enough to cause subconscious learning to happen, apparently.

(Edit: I forgot to mention that I did not wash or iron my shirt, so I haven't completely arrived. But I did cut the tags off, so that's worth something.)

Yesterday I tied my shoe one handed while talking on the phone. Maybe that isn't a big deal, but I never thought about trying it before because it always seemed like it would be difficult.

A non-controversial post

2006-04-30T21:35:00.000-05:00

After writing countless essays in the comments of the last couple posts, I've decided that I'm tired of dealing with controversial topics for a little while. Unfortunately, even when I write topics about seemingly innocuous topics (like the one about not wearing a jacket for the past couple years, "the greatest accomplishment of our species") controversy often results. That is because I carry controversy with me everywhere I go. At work, in public, among friends, among enemies...everywhere I go debates erupt. Usually I'm not even the instigator. I literally never start debates at work, but they happen every day. That's because when someone says something that isn't true I like to set the record straight. Maybe I should stop that for a while. Maybe this post will be different since it isn't really about anything.

A couple things:

1. If there are any discussions in the future I hope people feel comfortable posting here. I apologize for any unnecessary offense that may have taken place here recently. Like Chris always says (referencing Dennis Prager), clarity is more important than agreement. It is my simple hope that anything discussed here results in clarity of everyone's position. I think this can be done without people being needlessly hurt.

2. A couple days ago at work we had a concert at lunch. That happens every few weeks. This was a bassoon player accompanied by a pianist. Anyway, their music selection reminded me of some thoughts: I don't really like listening to "fluff" music. A lot of Mozart's stuff falls in that category. It's music where there are lots of pretty runs and trills and melodious intervals, but no theme ever develops. Well, I don't mind it as background music, but I don't like listening to it by itself. That's why I do like a lot of Bach's stuff. In a lot of the stuff he wrote, a powerful, beautiful theme develops with a complexity that requires every note. I'm kind of rambling now.

Obedience vs. Revolution

2006-04-25T15:38:00.000-05:00

In the (extremely long) set of comments for the last post, I was reminded of a question that has existed in my mind for a long time. I haven't put much thought into it yet, but I would like to eventually find a reasonable answer if possible.

Renee said:
The Bible also says that we have to obey the government, and not just when it's logical.

And some form of that sentence is generally accepted among Christians, usually with Romans 13 as the basis. My question then:

Was the American Revolution biblical?

Anyone have any thoughts on this issue? I suspect it was biblical, because looking in history I perceive that God's hand was in it, yet it seems difficult to reconcile with the obedience clause.... Thoughts?

One vote against Boston

2006-04-19T16:05:00.000-05:00

Motorcycles are cool. Recently I've become more interested in buying one. Spring is in the air, and it is nice to drive my truck fast with the windows open and to feel the wind in my hair. Driving a motorcycle would be like this except even better. I looked into the rules for Massachusetts a little bit. Not surprisingly, this state requires that motorcyclists wear helmets. Wearing a helmet while driving a motorcycle would defeat the purpose for which I would drive a motorcycle.

Why does a state feel the need to pass such laws? What advantages are there? None. It epitomizes the phrase "liberal elite"--those who think themselves better than the mere commoners, that arrogantly think we need their help; the self-important busybodies who think society depends on them; officious braggarts who think their educational backgrounds are somehow impressive, that they will save us all from ourselves.

If I want to be involved in activities that may increase the likelihood that my skull gets smashed, what is that to you? Here comes the foolish argument they put forward: "But if more people get their heads smashed in then HEALTHCARE COSTS will increase which will divert more of society's resources! We need to prevent that by legislating helmet laws!" No, small-mind, and here's why: if consumer expenditures toward a given industry increase this has no negative impact on society--as long as that society is based on a free market (one reason I'm a capitalist). If the society is socialized, on the other hand, then the small-mind is absolutely correct about particular expenditures negatively impacting society. The reason for this is that in the free market case those expenditures are voluntarily coming from individual consumers (i.e., individual, separate economic pies) whereas in the second case the government is the source of the expenditures (i.e., one giant economic pie). Let me illustrate:

1. The free market case: my clock breaks. I go to Circuit City and buy a new one. The fact that my clock broke is good for the economy. I might not be able to buy the new shirt I wanted, but I get a clock for little cost and without much delay. In addition, I have supported the economy by spending money at a retailer--part of which supports the retailer, allowing them to continue to bring me goods efficiently, and part of which supports the manufacturer, allowing them to continue spending money efficiently, as needed, toward suppliers that make components of their product, and to continue producing their product.

2. The socialist case: my clock breaks. The government has socialized the clock-making industry. I need a new clock. The government now must either: 1. build me a new clock, thus diverting national resources toward undesired uses, or 2. put me on a list for a clock (a list that will probably be ignored, as indicated from the history of socialized nations). In the socialist case, the fact that my clock broke is bad for the economy. In order for me to get the clock in a timely manner the government must have overestimated the number of clocks needed by the citizenry (thus necessitating the inefficient storage of unneeded clocks; this was a serious issue in the Soviet Union with other products). The only alternative is underestimation, requiring me to wait on a list while the government catches up to demand.

(I was writing a tangent here but decided to make it a separate post.)

As seen from the example, the fact that more people might need to pay for medical attention if there are no helmet laws is only a negative in the planned economy of the socialist case. Increased consumer usage of the healthcare system actually helps the economy in the free market case, where people are directly paying for their own care. Thus people who use such arguments are arguing for additional authoritarian regulation (helmet laws) by presupposing that we already have authoritarian (i.e., government planned) policies toward healthcare which we presently don't have (but we're unfortunately moving that way)! I hope no one misses the absurdity of this. They simultaneously argue the need for helmet laws and government provided healthcare while the former would be completely unnecessary unless the latter were implemented. Rules similar to helmet laws are only necessary in societies with planned economies where healthcare is provided by the government.

And that is the danger with government provided healthcare. In such a case it is in the government's best interest to lower healthcare spending as much as possible in order to have more resources for other uses. For this reason, all sorts of laws come about with the aim of protecting people from themselves. It begins with emotional issues such as helmet laws but could quickly develop in other areas as well. Obesity is very expensive and leads to countless disorders. A government could easily make an argument that it should be allowed to mandate an individual's entire diet. HIV is a very expensive disease. HIV is also much more prevalent among gay males. Therefore, a government interested in decreasing its healthcare costs could make a strong argument to outlaw gay relationships.

The conclusion of all of this is that, as I'm deciding what to do this fall, the fact that MA has a helmet-use requirement is one vote against working here another year.

A day in the life of...me

2006-04-14T10:33:00.000-05:00

A relatively typical conversation at work:

Coworker #1: "What? What's so funny?"
Coworker #2: "It's nothing! He's laughing about nothing!"
Me: "Nothing, I'm just smirking because I know you think I'm up to something. But I'm not."
Coworker #2: "It would be odd if someone else did that, but it's ok for you since you're always smiling."
Coworker #1: "I think the hair helps."
Coworker #2: "Yea, your hair actually diffuses anger and bad feelings. It is difficult to be mad at you."
Coworker #1: "People would definitely be angry at you a lot more often if it weren't for the curly hair."
Coworker #3: "That's why you need to be a pediatrician. 'Hey mom, look at the doctor with the crazy hair.' "

[the above was edited for mildly foul language]

I especially like the knowledge revealed by coworker #1, that people would be angry at me more often if I didn't have a large mass of curly hair.

Irony

2006-04-10T18:27:00.000-05:00

Protesters all across the U.S. are wearing shirts that say "Mexico" and are demanding that they be allowed to stay in America rather than being turned back to Mexico.

Toilet paper

2006-04-07T15:18:00.000-05:00

The polls are officially closed on JAMIB's first "choose your own blogventure" and the results are in. The vote of Chris is more important to me than all others combined, because he's Chris, but I've decided to grant Chen's wish in celebration of her completed internship and also because she'll be gone for a few weeks and I don't know if she'll have internet access. It would be cruel of me to not write about toilet paper on her behalf before she leaves. We begin.

For years I have been puzzled by what seems to be an odd placement of a new toilet paper roll. To me it makes perfect sense to place a new roll in such a fashion so as to keep the loose flap of the roll toward the user (see figure 1). This allows easy access to new toilet paper from a wide variety of angles and has the additional benefit of causing nearly no elbow strain.

What has been baffling to me is the placement shown in figure 2. I'm not angry, I'm not ranting...I'm just confused. What is the benefit of doing it this way? I genuinely want to understand. There is no access from the top or the front, and only limited access from underneath. The angle necessary to reach new paper can cause significant elbow and wrist strain. I don't think it's right to force people to injure themselves for the sole purpose of acquiring fresh toilet paper from the dispensing roll. The only benefit of this method I can think of is that if someone accidentally strikes the front of the roll in a downward fashion as he sits down then this method prevents the roll from spinning out of control, unleashing a spray of toilet paper needing to be rewound. This problem can be entirely avoided if you learn to keep track of the locations of all your limbs.

As a final comparison, I led an MIT study comparing the access zones available in each of the two common methods (see figure 3). The green indicates easy lanes of access and the red indicates difficult or impossible areas of access.

As is obvious, even for access reasons alone the first method is vastly superior.

Thank you.

Oh, related to toilet paper (because they're both made out of trees), there is a new addition to this blog: you'll notice on the right I have added a list of books I'm currently reading. This will allow anyone who wants to become more like me to have one route to work toward that questionable goal.

Choose your own blogventure

2006-04-06T13:02:00.000-05:00

Did you ever read any of those "choose your own adventure" books? They were the closest thing to video games to be found in the elementary school library. I think I only read (or played?) one or two because I was too busy reading King Arthur legends and the giant Sherlock Holmes book (you got double reading points since it was in the "classics" category). Anyway, Nicole said something that caused this blog post to come about. This is a blog post about blog posts. Welcome to "choose your own blogventure number 1." Depending on the success of this blogventure, this might be the only time I ask for audience participation or (cue music) it might be the first of countless adventures we share together here on JAMIB.

Below are a few of the ideas I have had floating in and out of my head that I might want to make posts about. Option 5 is your chance to write-in a topic of your choice. Please leave a comment containing your vote. If you select option 5 the only requirement is that you actually make a suggestion.

1. Toilet paper
2. Why I am a capitalist
3. Debate 101
4. Passion and Abilities
5. Write-in

Just remember that I reserve all veto rights so I might arbitrarily choose to not write about any of these at all.

Splinter

2006-04-05T16:00:00.000-05:00

A story from last Sunday:
Once again the sound went out in my left earpiece. The audio cables I was using to connect my computer to the stereo were old and needed occasional adjustments to maintain a signal. Loss of stereo audio was the sign to make an adjustment.

My computer is situated under my desk, so adjusting cables in back requires me to get down on the floor. In the process of moving my hand toward the back of my computer, my middle finger skimmed the floor boards. Unfortunately there was a sharp, thin piece of wood that was awaiting it. This shard of floor board stabbed through my flesh underneath my fingernail and broke off there, in its temporary home. Below is a picture illustrating the situation at this point. The red indicates the location of the shard underneath the fingernail (as verified later, by lining up the removed splinter with where it entered my finger).

I had no tweezers so I tried to make some out of a paperclip. It was unwieldy and would have required two hands to be useful. Since one of my hands was the subject of the operation, no two-hand device was acceptable. For this reason I resorted to a wall tack and nail clippers. Upon shortening the nail and readjusting the splinter's alignment, I was able to access just barely enough of the splinter to draw it out with my fingernails. It was only at this point that I realized how long it was...it kept coming...and coming. I saved it and now it rests peacefully on the mousepad at my place. Thankfully, I had forgotten to cut my fingernails that morning, as I had intended, or else I wouldn't have been able to retrieve the splinter. Then again, if I had cut my fingernails that morning then my middle nail might not have caught the floorboard the way it did, causing the initial impalement. I guess it's a toss-up as to whether or not to ever cut your nails then.

At this point I decided to err on the side of caution and dumped hydrogen peroxide on my finger. There wasn't much left in the bottle so I doused everything in isopropyl alcohol. There was no stinging sensation so either it was ineffective or unnecessary. Sorry you already heard this story, Chen, but there is a new picture for you at least.

CASD

2006-04-03T13:16:00.000-05:00

Citizens Against Self-Delusion (CASD) is an organization I have just founded. Apparently the "daylight savings" switch was Saturday night. I was not aware of this until my arrival at church--an hour late. To me, daylight savings is akin to someone intentionally setting his watch ten minutes fast because of his habit of being late to things. Those of us who don't find such self-delusion useful or desirable are tired of being subject to the willful delusion of society. We're adults. We don't need to play games with clocks. End daylight savings adjustments.

Thank you,

President, Citizens Against Self-Delusion

My calling

2006-03-27T17:10:00.000-05:00

Many of you have heard me say that I don't know what to do, but that statement in itself is not entirely accurate. It needs to be qualified to something like: of the options apparently available in our world none interests me. The qualifier is necessary for the simple reason that I would know exactly what to do if all options of the imagination were available. What would I do? I would be a wizard (or Jack Bauer...but that's a different topic).

The problem with wizardry is that it doesn't seem to be possible. Even if it were it is condemned. It seems that something like it must have existed at some point in history. There are condemnations of sorcery at multiple points in the Bible (one example: Lev. 19:26). If the Bible is taken as inerrant, as I take it, then, based on these condemnations, the only possibility is that either sorcery did exist or it didn't but God decided that even seeking it is wrong. Either way, the human induced manipulation of the supernatural is consistently condemned (note: manipulation is distinct from request, i.e., prayer). For this reason, I wouldn't ever seek it out. Now that I've made that clarification, the wizard I'd like to be would be the kind that probably never could exist--the good kind. Think Gandalf the White or Gandalf the Grey (not Gandalf the Gay, Ian Mckellen).

What do we know about wizards?

1. Physical characteristics. In most legends and myths they are tall and slim. Oftentimes they are tall because they have the blood of some lost race in their veins and aren't entirely human. Presumably they are slim because they think so much that they forget to eat. Tall? Check (though I am human...I'm pretty sure). Slim? Check. I also have that trait of forgetting to eat. Sometimes it will be 10pm and I'll realize I haven't eaten since the morning.

Before point number 2, here is a picture of me wearing a wizard's hat:

2. Study habits and mental abilities. Other than appearance, study habits might be what set wizards apart most clearly. Wizards study a ton. People who lived with me last year can testify that I meet that requirement. Wizards spend lots of time reading really old tomes that no one else wants to see. Most of you know I do that kind of thing. As far as study habits are concerned I am the ideal wizard. The bottom line is that a wizard has to be able to absorb lots of knowledge and information (like a medical student) but also be able to apply that information to daily life (unlike a medical student). Check.

3. Social disposition. Generally wizards are solitary figures. Just like normal people, there is a spectrum of wizards from the most social (e.g., Gandalf) to the least social (e.g., Saruman). One thing you'll notice is that this entire spectrum of wizards is shifted much further to the solitary side on the "normal people" scale, so even the relatively social wizard known as Gandalf is more of a loner than most people. To be a wizard a person has to be willing to go to obscure places where ancient wisdom and knowledge can be gleaned. Wizards have to be willing to spend days in musty old libraries. This is why people needing lots of interaction do not ever become wizards. I really do admire Gandalf in this area, because he manages to do the solitary thing most of the time but is still well-liked and pretty well-adjusted when interacting with others (think about his visit to the Shire at the beginning of the Lord of the Rings...he is amiable, people are glad he's around...yet at the same time there is always an element of solitude to him, even when with others). This is what I'm going for, so I'll put a tentative check on this point. This is an area a person can always improve in, though.

4. Miscellaneous habits. Many wizards smoke a pipe of some kind. I have never smoked a pipe. If given enough time I think I could successfully develop this trait. Regardless, this is my greatest weakness in wanting to be a wizard. A mitigating factor on this point: not all wizards smoke pipes. It is possible to be one without doing so.

I think I fit the above wizard characteristics quite well. When it comes down to it this post is kind of pointless though since being a wizard is not possible. Oh well, at least I'd have firm direction in life if all imaginable possibilities were realizable.

In closing, here's a picture of me aged 50 years, just in case I ever do become a wizard and the authorities need to find me a long time from now:

The greatest accomplishment of our species

2006-03-18T21:28:00.000-05:00

I would just like to say that it's now been over two years since I've worn a jacket. Well, except for suit or tux jackets. Now this might not be the greatest accomplishment of our species but I feel that it is.

The Ides of March

2006-03-15T11:56:00.000-05:00

Today it's the ides of March. I'm not superstitious but from what I remember from Shakespeare in high school bad things are supposed to happen on the ides of March. Please comment here if bad things happen to you today. Also post if something good happens to you. The final tally will scientifically prove whether or not Shakespeare was correct. Yes...scientifically.

Really thinking

2006-03-14T16:02:00.001-05:00

This is a post about thinking. It is not by me it is by Chris Hill in response to something I wrote (and deleted) about thinking:

Yep. There's a verse (I don't care to look it up) that says that it's God's glory to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings to search it out. It also says at another point that God speaks to us in riddles (the verse I'm thinking of is in relation to God speaking about he speaks to Moses face to face, but in riddles to everyone else).

Anyway, I think God wants us to keep thinking, because then we understand things better. But this is NOT - get that clear - NOT!!! - saying that the "process" is good because people have different ideas and no one is right. That is NOT what God wants. He is the author of truth, and wants all men to come to know it. However, He also wants our hearts right, thus He won't just give it to us without us searching for it. Plus, it is more rewarding (i.e., people on welfare don't really appreciate what they get, but those who work hard and make lots of money do... this is a generalization, of course, since that seems hard for people to understand sometimes).

Anyway, I think I told you (Jordan) my strain-hardening analogy. For those who don't know it, here it goes:

When you are a child, things seem very simple. There is right and wrong, and what dad or mom says is true because they said it (childlike faith). Then when one starts to observe the world, things become more complicated, and black and white seems to gray pretty quickly. Most people give up and stop thinking here because this is where it gets really hard. However, for those that continue, the truths of one's youth (black and white morals, good and evil, etc.) often make sense again, only this time with a much greater and deeper understanding. This is just like strain hardening, which is a process by which a material is stretched (and heated), then allowed to sit for awhile (and cool), then stretched again, etc., until it becomes really hard. It's the same material, but now that it has gone through the hardening process (which is a time of flexibility and movement), it is harder than before.

Those are my thoughts. I think this is really long. It will be neat to see it once I post it cause I haven't stopped to read any of it.

love,
Chris

Don't worry Chris, you have my love.

Love,
Jordan

Let me spell this out for you

2006-03-07T20:06:00.000-05:00

Recently I received a fundraising letter from the U of MN alumni association for the purpose of procuring funding for the university. This is interesting for several reasons. So if anyone from the administration of the U of MN should ever read this, let me spell things out for you:

1. Since I began working in Boston, a few months after graduating from my five years at the U, I have been paying roughly $1200 per month toward my undergraduate debt acquired while attending there. Only $60,000 left until I'm done.

2. Shortly after this fundraising letter was sent I was rejected from the U of MN medical school.
2.a. From an emotional standpoint it seems somewhat ridiculous to ask someone to fund an organization which has just spurned him in such a fashion.
2.b. By applying to the medical school I was, in essence, offering them somewhere between $130,000 and $140,000 for tuition beyond what I gave them for my undergraduate experience, but they declined.

3. Because of the diversity initiatives of the university, a pleasant route to government funding, I have decided they must not need my help. One of the requirements for receiving government diversity funding is the adherence to certain policies purported to deliver such diversity. If the university is so eager to acquire such funds let them do so--but do not have the gall to come crawling to me. I've already funded you with my tax dollars. I've already been pre-disqualified for countless scholarships because of my unfortunate skin color. I acquired close to $70,000 of debt, much of which was because of my race. Have I paid enough to society for being born white yet? If not, please let me know how much I have left.

4. The university has attacked my morals. It would be madness to fund an organization that would desire the destruction of all I believe in. This last point became apparent the very first time I was on campus. A story:

I'm not the kind of guy to visit campuses, ask questions of students, bla bla, all that typical admissions stuff. The first time I remember seeing the university campus was the day I showed up for orientation, the summer prior to beginning freshman year. It was a two day unnecessarily long time of politically correct nonsense. The first evening was spent watching some kind of assembly about how rape is bad (wait, I'm not supposed to rape people!?), it's ok to be gay (no, actually it's not), how I shouldn't judge others, etc. An utter waste of time.

Immediately following this assembly we broke into our smaller orientation groups...maybe 25 people each...I think. Anyway, we played this awesome "game" where the orientation leader would make a statement and if we agreed we would go to one side of the room and if we disagreed we would go to the other. Of course the excuse was that this was to show the differing perspectives on issues. It began casually enough with typical nonsense. Probably things like "I am nervous to begin classes" or "I am worried about making my way around campus." Eventually it progressed to more controversial topics. The one that stands out in my mind was something like, "there's nothing wrong with homosexuality." Of course the room was (mostly) full of nervous kids who were in a place where they wanted to fit in more than anything else, and the U did its best to exploit this. Everyone went to the side of the room that agreed with the statement, being the sheeple that they are. Well everyone except me and one girl who I knew from high school. Talk about an attempt at peer pressure. Too bad for them that I get pleasure from doing the opposite of peer pressure. Then the orientation leader wanted to know why it was that we disagreed with everyone else! Hahahah...it's outrageous looking back on it. So I told him it was morally wrong and my religious beliefs led me to my disagreement.

Anyway, the point of all that is that from the very first my exposure to the U was not positive. At that moment I decided I would never fund the U, and they've given plenty of additional reasons not to since then. The barrage against my beliefs has been a constant thing. Even the commencement speaker suggested that one cannot be a scientist unless one buys into evolution. Shhhhhhh! Don't tell MIT! I met some wonderful people at the U and I'm glad I went there, but that isn't because of the institution. I think that's why my degrees lay buried in a desk drawer or in a pile of papers on my desk in my parents' house. I'm glad I spent five years at the U not because of the institution but because of the people who were there despite the institution.

In summary, points 1-4 are, in my opinion, compelling reasons why it is absurd that they asked me for money.

I have a feeling this post was incoherent because:
1. I just ate much of a bag of jelly beans.
2. Over the last few days I have accidentally cut myself a number of times. Last night it was on a rusty object so I decided to get a tetanus shot today.
3. I'm listening to loud music and I think it's making it harder to think.

Diary of a Mad White Man

2006-02-24T09:36:00.000-05:00

What is written below is an entirely factual account of the recent experiences of a mad white man. Mad as in angry. So you could just as well say this is a diary of an angry white man. The angry white man (T.A.W.M) in question might or might not be me. TAWM can be pronounced "Tom" so that is who the main character is in this account.

Tom had a medical school interview in California this week. On Wed. afternoon he began to pack for this trip. Things were taking longer than expected. He needed to print some documents but it was taking longer than one minute per page even though it was just text. This was the start of the exasperation crescendo. There is no reason Tom's printer should have been going that slowly. While his printer was struggling Tom was busy looking for his tie chain. More anger. This took a long time but eventually he won. He canceled the printing because he simply did not have time for it to finish. This began a mad dash to Boston Logan airport. Many traffic laws were broken. Upon arriving, he drove the long distance to the normal parking lots. For some reason they were closed. Anger continued to build with the subtlety of a woman's seductive smile but with the inexorable certainty of a glacier's path. Tom had to drive all the way back to the entrance of the airport and a bit further to an overflow parking lot. Running greatly behind, Tom went to security and was forced to be screened further. Despite the dearth of six foot three inch, blonde-haired, blue-eyed terrorists with U.S. government security clearances, TSA decided it was the best thing to do. So Tom and a classy lady in her late fifties, who looked something like a high school English teacher, were screened. When Tom asked the TSA guy if it would take long since his flight was leaving soon the TSA guy proceeded to grunt at him. Thanks. It's communication skills and a positive attitude like those that cause a man to rise as high as TSA screener. He made it to his flight with only minutes to spare. Tom decided that TSA special screening should be abolished. TSA will never find bombs in the purses of the eighty year old women who seem to be their prime screening target. This would save money and also have the additional benefit of causing certain people unemployment who deserve nothing better. Did I just write that? Oh, why yes...it appears I did.

Tom cannot presently recall if there were additional reasons to rage on his way from Boston to his transfer at Salt Lake City. Regardless, on his flight from SLC to Ontario Airport (that's east Los Angeles) he had the pleasure of being seated behind a child and his father--the worst father to have ever existed, no less. This rotten child deserved more spankings than can be fathomed yet his father insisted on distractionary parenting rather than the correct kind. When the kid screamed repeatedly the father followed the sage path of, "Shhh.... Do you see those lights? That's the runway" or "Hear that sound? That's the airplane engine!" rather than "See all these other people on the flight? They don't want to hear you just like you don't want to hear them. If you make that sound again you will be spanked." or "You are being a nauseating little brat. I am embarrassed to be sitting next to you. You will be severely punished." The kid yammered the whole way there. It is one thing if it is a daytime flight, but Tom was baffled why this kid was even awake during a night flight. Perhaps, Tom speculated, this father had given the kid a bunch of candy at the airport in an earlier attempt of distractionary parenting when the kid was, without doubt, acting the brat. Tom was getting further annoyed. Upon landing, the lady sitting in front of the brat had the gall to turn around and start baby-talking the kid as if he were cute. Thanks, you just encouraged the father and his kid to continue being jerks while they maintain the illusion of cuteness (only in their minds).

Finally Tom was in CA. He proceeded to the car rental area. Every place was entirely sold out of cars. Frustration. Tom had attempted to reserve a car on-line, but he booked his flight with Expedia. Expedia apparently only reserves with Advantage rental--and they close down their counter before Tom's flight would get in (even though Expedia wanted to rent this un-pickup-able car anyway). At one place a lady working was kind enough to recommend another rental place to Tom. She called a number for him and talked in Spanish to a guy named Jose. He came to the car rental place to pick Tom up. He did not speak English well and the car was quite ghetto, but Tom had no choice but to risk death. They drove to Jose's business, filled out some paperwork, and Tom was on his way. Tom reached his hotel a half hour later. If Jose's car was ghetto this hotel was super-ghetto. On his first pass Tom missed the turn off for it and had to make a (relatively legal) u-turn further up the road. Of course a policeman witnessed this, and decided to spot Tom. The policeman followed Tom into the hotel parking lot but apparently decided Tom did not look like a criminal and went on his way (maybe this policeman should be hired to lead TSA?). Tom began to miss him, however, when he approached the "night-business" window to check-in and was followed by a gruff looking man who had clearly been drinking too much. Tom went to his room and bolted the lock. He woke frequently throughout the night to everything from raucous laughter to police sirens. An exasperating ghetto.

The next morning Tom decided not to take the time to eat. He went to his interviews and they went fine. His indifference might or might not have shown through. Regardless, it is irrelevant since he in fact is indifferent as to whether or not his indifference showed. Tom had to skip out on lunch and the tour to make it to his flight on time. Tom was the good Christian and refilled his rental before bringing it back to Jose's business location. Unfortunately, Jose was not there. In fact, no one was there. The business hours were from 8am to 8pm yet no one was there at 12:20pm. Tom knocked on the door and the windows. He called the number. No response, no answer. There was no key drop off and if there had been there still wasn't time to call a taxi to get him to the airport. Anger. In desperation he drove back to the airport car rental area and told someone of his difficulty. "You people recommended this guy to me but he is not there for me to drop off the car." They thankfully took care of things. This left Tom a few minutes to get to the terminal before the arbitrary limit of "30 minutes before the flight," after which particularly mindless, process-needy, intellectual midgets will not let a person check in. Unfortunately the shuttle driver was also an intellectual midget, with a particular deficit in the area of driving, of all things. Due to her ineptitude and incredibly slow pace, what should have been enough time was not. Tom made it to the Delta counter somewhere between 28 minutes 30 seconds to 29 minutes 30 seconds before his flight. They would not let him check in. "The computer automatically locks out the check-ins 30 minutes before the flight." Tom responded: "then manually check me in." The counter-fool proceeded to call the gate and have a long, meandering, largely pointless conversation with the attendant. When finally complete with this folly, the fool told Tom that he could not check in for this flight. When Tom showed annoyance at this absurdity, the gate agent said, "you were really late, you haven't even waited five minutes yet." At this point Tom's anger at this blatant lie awoke the truth-speaker inside: "I CLOCKED IT BECAUSE I KNEW YOU WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO. YOU HAVE BEEN ON THAT PHONE FOR 9 MINUTES. IF YOU WOULD HAVE CHECKED ME IN WHEN I GOT HERE I WOULD BE ON THE PLANE RIGHT NOW." When confronted with truth the agent had little to say, other than falling back on his manager-mandated line of the automatic-lock-out-that-the-powerful-computer-made-30-minutes-before-the-flight.

By this point Tom was full of rage. There was no choice but to rebook. The fool-at-the-counter struggled ineptly for several minutes to find another flight. When Tom told him it was unacceptable to wait until tomorrow, Fool decided to check LAX and found another flight to Boston leaving eight hours later. Tom accepted this as his only hope and left the gate in disgust and wondered how such as these had the mental capacity to continue breathing. Delta airlines, which he will now pay extra to not have to do business with, required a rebooking fee and Tom also had to take a shuttle from Ontario airport to LAX. The combined total was $120.

Tom got to LAX an hour and a half later. He had tried to be amiable to the shuttle driver even though his inside was awash with terrible things--after all, it wasn't the driver's fault. Upon leaving the man a $10 tip on top of the $85 shuttle fee and seeing anger at that amount in the driver's eyes, Tom wished only that he had given the man nothing for his ingratitude. Tom was told he could not check in because he was there more than six hours prior to the flight. Tom waited and writhed.

When the time came, Tom checked in and went through security. The tunnel between gate sections was temporarily closed. Once Tom went through security he could not access any but a few gates. The restaurant selection was quite limited and now at 4pm Tom had still had nothing to eat or drink all day. More stuff happened here I'm too lazy to write about.

Five and a half hours later Tom finally departed LAX for BOS. This was a "Song" flight run by Delta. Apparently Song is some attempt at being a "hip" airline. They had a bright green wall with small grey polka dots. The brown stain somewhat ruined the effect, but they did what they could to be "cool," such as playing loud music while boarding, playing video previews over the PA shortly after take-off, beginning sentences in lower case letters, and using sentence fragments. Of course, given the fact that this was a red-eye due to get into Boston at 6am, most of us were not interested in their "hipness," which included an attempt at being funny with the exit row announcement. It was like being stuck at Famous Dave's with people you hate and after being sleep-deprived for an extended period.

Tom had a window seat. The guy in the aisle seat was as fidgety a man who has ever existed. He was balding, in his forties. He had a weasel look about him. He would not stop moving. At one point he tried to set down a bag and knocked things over. He kept looking at everything. He demanded to know when the tv would start working. All of these caused Tom to label him as "the Tourrete's guy" in his head. This appeared to be bad enough but then Tourrete's guy decided to take off his shoes. The putrid violence that exploded through Tom's nostrils was akin to the odor of the sickle-carrying Death himself. At this point Tom was trying to decide whether to strangle himself or to strangle Tourrete's guy. Tom must have passed out at this point, as a defense mechanism against the trauma. But it didn't last long. Tourrete's guy had finally calmed down and slept, as anyone spending that much energy is wont to do eventually, but now the flight attendants were yacking it up as loud as they could and the doors they open and close have been, apparently, designed to make the most noise possible. Together, these things caused Tom to get maybe one and a half to two hours of oft-disturbed sleep, being stuck in the front row, nearest possible to the clamor.

Tom arrived in Boston four hours ago now. He was never as happy to see this land once again as he was this morning--a land full of people who hate life, hate others, and hate themselves. It may be that Tom fits right in here in that regard.

If Tom or I wrote anything offensive I'm willing to make all kinds of excuses due to the situations outlined above and significant sleep deprivation. The summary is simply: the ineptitude of many was paid for by Tom. And some guy who wasn't at his work when he was supposed to be cost Tom eight hours and $120. OK back to work.

Stages of Maturity?

2006-02-05T12:22:00.000-05:00

I typed the below and then reread it and decided it is a statement of the obvious and that I don't really like it. So I'm sad I wasted my time, but here it is nonetheless:

As Chris mentioned in the comments of my most recent post, I prefer truth to comfort. I think this is a reasonable position to take. We can possibly be comforted by flattery and outright lies ("you're so good at the guitar" when you actually aren't, or "that shirt is so nice on you" when it makes you look like a freak, or "you're always so funny" when you're not) if we choose to believe them. But believing flattery doesn't make it true. If a shirt makes a person look like a freak then he looks like a freak despite what he might be telling himself. It would be reasonable and preferable to be informed that a shirt made me look like a freak so that I become aware of the fact and can proceed accordingly (i.e., continue to wear the shirt if I don't care that I look like a freak, or quit wearing the shirt if I do care). Truth can be displayed tactfully and helpfully. There is no need to say, "that shirt is so ugly, how were you ever so stupid to have purchased it?" Tact is important. Now I'm digressing though.

So I was thinking about how not only is truth better than comfort to me, but in the last few months I've noticed that truth is comfort to me...at least in a lot of cases. This led me to wonder if this might be a natural progression through typical stages of maturity. That's just speculation. Is it possible that in a person's spiritual and psychological development he passes through stages of changing perspective on truth? Such as:

1. The childhood stage. A person wants to believe he is the best at everything. He wants to believe he will be an astronaut, the president, a famous writer, the best fireman ever, the strongest fighter, the smartest student, etc., and the noblest person. This is from the perspective of a man. I'm sure the childhood stage of a woman has similarities but fundamental differences as well (e.g., a desire to believe she is the most beautiful). In the childhood stage a person might have a tendency to flee from truth when truth counters his notions regarding his own stature. He will want to hear people tell him how smart/strong/fast/etc. he is even if it is not true.

2. The adolescent stage. A person might still prefer to hear flattery (in the cases where truth would hurt), but when exposed to truth he does not continue to live in a world of lies in his mind...at least after a while. Despite the pain of a truth he is able to adapt accordingly and to eventually become grateful for that truth which allows him to learn more about himself and to live a better life. In this stage, truth is superior to comfort. Truth hurts, yet a person in this stage prefers it to a potentially more comfortable world of lies.

3. The adult stage. Not only is truth superior to comfort, but in this stage the two concepts merge. Truth is comfort. If a person in this stage were not aware that he was terrible at some action he would be grateful and perhaps even excited to learn of this truth. E.g., "I'm bad at technical writing? I'm glad I've learned that now!" This is the stage where a person comes to fully realize that lies prevent us from becoming better people. Truth is comfort because when we see it it helps us become better people.

Even as I was typing that I was aware of the fact that 'childhood', 'adulescent', and 'adult' are poor labels. My categories could just as well be labelled with numbers. Obviously many physical adults can still be in the 'childhood' category of my list above (over-ambitious politicians anyone?). So my point is that my labels are all in the context of the list above, not in the context of age.

Thoughts?

Rejection

2006-02-02T16:09:00.000-05:00

I called the U of MN and they said my app went before the committee already. Being that I did not receive a call telling me I was admitted, it is my understanding that I'll soon receive a letter telling me I was rejected.

My truck was making weird sounds yesterday so I took it into the shop.

Med. school and the Defiant have rejected me. There are other rejections too, I'm sure, but I don't feel a need to try to think about additional ones. I'm rejected pretty much in all ways in life except for at work--the thing I care least about.

University of Minnesota Medical School

2006-01-31T18:19:00.000-05:00

As many of you know, Mayo rejected me five or so months ago and U of MN has been my first choice medical school since then. I called last Friday to check on my post-interview status and they said that my file is done being evaluated and is ready to go before the admissions committee this week or next. My personal statement was probably controversial because it blatantly shared the gospel. I'm hoping I'll get in despite that (or because of it). My app could have its final review before the committee as early as tomorrow morning, so if you'd like to pray for an acceptance I would appreciate it.

Last week at work I actually had work most of the time and contributed to national security. Conclusion of the matter: getting work to do at work makes time go faster than not getting work at work.

Weird Responsive Listening

2006-01-26T20:37:00.000-05:00

We all know about responsive listening, even if by some other title. When someone is speaking there are usually natural pauses throughout for a listener to interject phrases that indicate he understands what is being said and is still giving his attention to the person speaking. I know a couple people who, I'm assuming, are attempting to be responsive listeners but utterly fail at it. It actually took me a while to figure out what it was that was so weird about talking with them. I found myself avoiding conversing with these individuals--never anything of drastic measures like altering my schedule, but just subtle things like if there were a number of people in a room I would converse with other people in a subconscious attempt to avoid speaking with the odd ones. It is only more recently that I've pin-pointed the specific problem as being with their responsive listening.

It's weird because the two in my head are very pleasant people. The interesting common feature for both of them is that their responses to menial details are exactly the same as their responses to crazy/tragic/funny conclusions. So they'll ask a question about my day. I'll begin to relay what is, to most people, a crazy, bizarre event of human absurdity. Most stories require background material and details that are rather boring in and of themselves. As I describe these necessary details the responsive listeners in question use such phrases as "uh huh" and "ok" and other normal things, but their tone of voice is such that they are waiting for the next step. This is normal during the detail stage of a story, although usually they suffer from using these phrases a bit too often. But I won't nitpick. Anyway, the oddity arises when I get to the end of the story and relay the final "punchline" that the whole thing was building up to. Their responses to the end are the same "uh huh" or "ok" with the EXACT SAME tone of voice as they used previously, spoken as if they are amiably waiting for the next detail. At that point an awkward silence ensues.

A hypothetical:
Me: "I was driving down the street."
Him: "Uh huh" (in a somewhat sickeningly excited/happy/curious/trying-too-hard-to-be-friendly tone).
Me: "I saw some old lady backing out of her driveway."
Him: "Uh huh" (same tone as before, as if expectantly awaiting the next detail).
Me: "So I slowed down of course."
Him: "Yea, ok!"
Me: "Anyway, there was a cool looking dog tied up in the yard across the street."
Him: "Uh huh" (no change in tone)
Me: "And there was a guy driving a big boat of a car coming toward us in the other lane."
Him: "Ok"
Me: "He was looking at the dog and didn't even see the lady backing out."
Him: "Uh huh" (no change in tone again, indicating that he is completely unable to infer the obvious possibilities such as the truck driver striking the old lady, or else that he is completely unable to transmit his knowledge of this inference by a change in tone, or else that he was not listening to anything I was saying).
Me: "So of course he goes full speed into this lady's car and totaled it. There was almost nothing left but everyone was fine, amazingly."
Him: "Okay" (with the SAME expectant tone he used the whole time! He's still waiting for the next part of the story!)

Ahhh. That is where the awkward silence happens. He looks at me with a little smile waiting for the next part of the story and I look at him with confusion. Sometimes at this point I have to say something like, "so anyway, in answer to your question, that was an interesting thing that happened today." And he keeps smiling and nodding at the wonderful conversation he just had...or something else...maybe he's just smiling and nodding at the special happy place in his mind which, at that point, he is occupying with his entire consciousness.

Apparently they miss the fact that the story is done. Were they not listening to anything I said? A normal person usually catches the end, but these guys consistently miss it. I find it hard to believe they NEVER listen. So this would seem to imply that they are incapable of recognizing typical conversational clues. The result is that I don't enjoy conversing with these particular people. It is always so weird. And yes, I'm aware of the irony of writing about social disorders as I'm socially isolated.

And to top it off I'm reading a book a coworker lent me about neurological disorders, often of the type that people don't even know they have...like people born blind who don't feel they're missing anything--after all, they are not capable of fully understanding our notion of "seeing" and just what exactly they might be missing. So it makes me wonder if it really is a neurological disorder of some kind and that they are damaged in the region that would be necessary to recognize the problem. Then the next step is wondering what neurological problems I have that I am not aware of due to the impossibility of conceiving of the absent healthy faculty without having had those portions of my brain working correctly...please tell me if I have any.

Additional Comments

2006-01-16T15:26:00.000-05:00

Yes, two posts in one day, but this is just a brief collection of exciting tidbits.

1. Yesterday I spoke a total of three words to other human beings. It was to a cashier. "Hi" and "thank you." (Don't worry, I used the "speak to yourself" technique when necessary to stave off insanity.) Upon reading through my previous post I believe there is a relation between how coherent my thoughts are and how much human interaction I have. The previous post was rambling and disorganized and now you know my excuse as to why.

2. The time it was posted is wrong. I posted it today at about 1:30 or 2pm. Blogger.com used to allow the time to be changed but apparently doesn't any longer.

3. Before anyone tries to catch me on my contempt for elite institutions with something like: "you said you have contempt for MIT but work for it you hypocrite!" One reason I chose to work for the institution is that the vast majority of the world holds it in high regard. Any contempt I harbor is irrelevant in that I will still benefit from being here regardless of how I feel about it. Call me a sell-out if you'd like, but not a hypocrite.

Belief Systems, Values, Idiots, and Probably Other Things Too

2006-01-16T00:26:00.000-05:00

Definitions first: for my purposes a belief system is a set of principles adhered to by people who hold a certain set of results in high esteem. These results will be referred to as "values." A group of people who hold to a specific set of beliefs should be certain that their belief system is the best one possible to produce the values they hold up as important. This becomes important later.

I was reading some comments made regarding Christian medical missionary organizations. No, for those wondering, I am not feeling a calling that way. Anyway, these organizations send western healthcare professionals into primitive areas that lack such medical extravagances. Because the word "Christian" was involved it was inevitable that there would be attacks against the whole premise. Of course, that is what I found. It would be even more amusing than it already is seeing how so many people get defensive toward Christianity...if it were not for the fact that they will be damned eternally if they don't accept Christ...because their very anger toward Christianity and Christianity alone further prove that it is the sole truth. I'm digressing and it's someone else's fault because I refuse to take responsibility for any of my actions. Most of these Christian organizations heal people free of charge regardless of their religious affiliation. The only sharing of beliefs that occurs happens afterward and it is by no means a "convert or die" type of thing (despite the fact that many of the third worlders being healed do in fact adhere to a religion which has converted by the sword since its invention...irony). It appears that some among the self-proclaimed enlightened of western society believe that these missions are exploiting the people being healed because, "after being healed they will naturally be grateful toward their healers and will be more easily converted than they would be otherwise." Ohhh how profound, glorious thinker. We all know about the unwritten rule that anyone ever converted to any belief system ever constructed must be completely unbiased toward it at the time of conversion. Those last two sentences were thick with sarcasm if you weren't sure.

This paragraph has the same subject as the last one but I have decided to make an arbitrary break. So these glorious thinkers then decided that people should either go heal these people or tell them about Christianity, but that the two should never be mixed. Of course they offered no justification as to why this must be the case. It was taken as axiomatic. I'm rambling at this point. They further concluded that we have a moral obligation to help these people because (the italics is directly quoted from them):

The problem is that we are educated and they are not. To which I ask: why is that?
We have technology and they do not. Why?
We have medicines and they do not. Why is that?
They are needy, and we are not. Why?
And immediately following this list, this particular person had the ineptitude to write: it is wrong to "influence" needy people precisely because those people are so desperate that they might be willing to try anything, to believe anything, in order to be cured or to save their lives.
AHahahahahhah does anyone else find this laughable? Have any of you ever wondered why I have such contempt for MIT, Harvard, Berkeley, and every other supposedly elite institution? This is a wonderful example. Why? Because the person writing the above is one of the elites. She makes (valid) observations about what we have and these other cultures do not. She says that because of these disparities we have a "moral obligation" to help them (of course ignoring what particular philosophy and belief systems CREATE this moral obligation in the first place, but that's a tangent). But then she says that not only do these disparities exist, but the last thing we should ever do is influence these people! And this "elite" doesn't see the contradiction. Let me spell it out...in a new paragraph.

She lists things we have and they do not. To each of her observations I ask "why." Why do we have those things while the other cultures do not? Read the first paragraph again if you must. Why do we have these things? Could it be that we have those things because our BELIEF SYSTEM is better equipped to result in the realization of those particular VALUES? There are two possibilities for the other cultures: either they DO value those things we have that they don't, in which case their belief system does a horrible job at achieving them, and therefore it is vital that we show them ours; or they do NOT value those things we have that they don't, in which case why bother giving it to them? In any case, if the services we render are valued by the culture to which we give them, we have every right (and in fact, every obligation) to instruct them on what beliefs we hold to that allowed us to achieve these things.

None of this needs to be an insult to the other cultures. We happen to hold these things (education, technology, medicine, etc.) to be good things to attain. Therefore we hold to belief systems that result in these fruits. If another culture does not, that is fine! Of course, one could argue that a belief system respecting education and health is superior to one respecting a husband's right to beat his wife and to have sex with his goat, but of course we're biased by our western upbringing.

Romans and Railguns

2006-01-05T15:29:00.000-05:00

I was reading Romans last night and Rom. 12:15 really stuck out to me. Rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn.... Interesting that the former may be of more challenge than the latter. The common presumption seems to be that mourning with others would be more difficult, since it requires some level of sensitivity to others and one's heart cannot be totally hard (assuming it is true mourning and not just an outward act). After all, happiness should be easy, right? But no, our natural state is not happiness; nor is it grief. Rather, our natural state is vanity. If you perceive things to be great for yourself then this will naturally contribute toward a happy disposition, and if you perceive things to be bad for yourself then this will naturally contribute toward grief. The constant factor here is the focus on one's self. That is the natural state. It is easier to look upon someone's misery, see we're better off than him, and then to extend sympathy than it is to look upon someone's good fortune, see we're worse off than him, and then to selflessly rejoice along with him in his happiness. So someone's kid just died--it is relatively straightforward to feel empathy and therefore to mourn with that person. But if he instead gets the promotion, the girl, or the inheritance, jealousy and self-absorption get in the way of (genuine) rejoicing with that person. Yet we are to do so.

Conclusion of the matter: mourning with others does not require selflessness; rejoicing with others does require selflessness; therefore it is harder to rejoice with others in their happiness than it is to mourn with others in their grief.

On a very similar note (?), today I attended a group lecture on railguns. How many of you get to do that at work? "Hey Jordan, it's time for the talk." "What talk?" "The RAILGUN talk!" Then I spent an hour listening to an analysis on the efficacy of throwing chunks of metal at things for the purpose of destroying them. Brings tears to muh eyes. It was actually really interesting.

Prayers

2006-01-02T17:08:00.000-05:00

Last night I was only in bed for a few hours and my mind was spinning much of the time so I didn't sleep much. I got out of bed shortly after 4am and decided that I really wanted to sleep on the plane. For some reason (the busy Christmas/New Year travel time?) I could not select my seats when I purchased the tickets. Since I would not know my seats until arriving at the airport, I prayed in the shower that I could have a window seat so I could lean against the wall and sleep. Upon arriving at the airport I got my tickets and learned I was stuck in the MIDDLE. This, among other things, deepened my frustration and made me wonder why was it that when Hezekiah asked for the preservation of Jerusalem that God answered him by killing 185,000 men but I couldn't get a window seat. After coming to terms with this reality I decided the reason for this is that my prayer was entirely for my own comfort whereas Hezekiah's was for a slightly more important purpose. Besides, God didn't guarantee our comfort. At that time I thought there might even be a reason God wants me in the middle. Maybe I could proselytize two people simultaneously. Right.

I got to my seat and waited. Excitement grew as the rest of the plane filled but the two seats next to me.... Then of course two more people came. A couple of college guys. But they were talking together. I asked, "Are you together?" "Yes." "Do you two want to sit next to each other?" "Sure." I scooted in toward the window.

Despite it all I ended up in a window seat and slept for most of the flight.

Women Call Me "Hon"

2005-12-16T10:30:00.000-05:00

Sometimes women call me "hon." I'm sure this is a relatively common occurrence for many people. After experiencing this for quite some time I have decided that I like it. There is a nourishing quality to it that I appreciate, whether from a waitress or the secretary at work. It might be weird if coming from girls my age though. It gives me a feeling something like, "Even though I cannot take care of myself and don't know how to eat right or dress well, this woman knows the answer to those problems." This might seem sexist or degrading to women, but if you think that then you are either: 1. misunderstanding me or 2. blind to reality and the natural, unique gifts God has given to each sex. Women have a nourishing quality that should be celebrated not hidden, nurtured not scorned, honored not insulted. And of course, a woman displaying those natural qualities induces within a man the mindset of a Man and causes the outward display of his natural qualities: to protect, to provide, and to build up.

Driving

2005-12-14T11:53:00.000-05:00

Let me explain to you the purpose of blinkers, just in case you are unsure. Blinkers are used to indicate an intended change in the path of your vehicle when that path deviates from the particular lane of traffic you are in. What blinkers are not used for: indicating that your vehicle is physically in the process of changing paths. Did everyone catch the distinction? It is sad that this even needs to be said, because I thought it was one of those things that people should be able to figure out on their own--but New England people certainly cannot, so it seems this apparently difficult cognitive leap may remain untraversed more frequently than I would have expected. The New England method: "Alright, I'm approaching a stop light and there are a dozen cars close behind me. Certainly many or most of them will continue straight through this busy intersection. Hmm. That's nice." The person then proceeds to sit at the stop light with no blinkers in action, allowing the whole line of cars to pile up behind him. When the light finally turns green: "Well I'm starting to go, and my car is now physically slightly to the left, it is now time for me to turn on my signal so everyone knows my car is physically moving to the left." Upon seeing this signal, everyone behind him tries to get to the right and around him on the shoulder, often unsuccessfully. Conclusion: if your car is actually in the process of turning it is quite obvious to anyone with eyes that you're turning and the blinker is therefore superfluous. Instead, use your blinker to indicate what you will be doing so others can adjust their courses accordingly. Courtesy.

Another delightful New England habit is lane blocking. If someone is making a left turn from a parking lot onto a busy road he will pull out into the road, blocking the nearer lane, while waiting for space to clear in his destination lane. After all, many of these people have inherited everything they own, why should a whole lane of traffic not be stopped on their behalf? What's funny is that usually the people who are in the blocked lane do not get angry. Apparently it is just accepted that they would have done the same thing the instigator did if they had been in his situation. At least they are consistent in this regard.

Narnia

2005-12-12T14:00:00.000-05:00

I saw the Narnia movie yesterday and would just like to say that it was really good. Of course some changes to the book were made in its adaptation to the screen, but most are minor and none detracts significantly from the story. Things get started a little slowly, but it picks up and turns out to be very enjoyable. Thankfully the producers did not remove any of the symbolism so vital to the books. They didn't emphasize it either, of course, but they let it speak for itself. Good job.

Dr. Raney part II

2005-12-08T16:40:00.000-05:00

I'm bored at work waiting for my computer to do something so I might as well write here. On Monday I interviewed at the U of MN and received more positive feedback in that interview than I have ever received during any other. He interrupted me to tell me that he was astounded by my eloquence and my ability to articulate my thoughts so clearly. Uhh...thanks.... We did have a disagreement about whether or not healthcare is a fundamental human right. Obviously it isn't but I don't care to write about that right now. (I just had a really good thought about that but I'm not going to write it here because it's too good.) It is four to eight weeks before I find out if I get in.

MIT. I work with people who are supposed to be among the most brilliant in the world. If this is the top then the world is in dire straits. But we already were aware of that, weren't we?

Dr. Raney?

2005-12-02T13:57:00.000-05:00

I just received an acceptance to the Saint Louis University School of Medicine for the class entering in the fall of 2006. If I want an M.D. I can now have one. Excellent...! It only costs a couple hundred thousand dollars....

Ranting

2005-11-23T20:13:00.000-05:00

First, a warning:
Never touch a man's hands ever. In fact, never touch anything a man has ever touched, at least not until you know about his handwashing habits. In fact, the first thing you should ask a guy when you meet him is, "Do you wash your hands regularly?" Ask for specifics. I wash my hands a ton, and the frequency has only increased since I took microbiology. The reason for the warning is my unfortunate continual observation of men leaving the public bathrooms without washing. This isn't an isolated problem. In fact after using the urinal, most men either don't wash at all or do the cursory half second rinse without any soap. This is not an overstatement. When I say most men I am really speaking of over 50% of men. It really struck me in the bathrooms at my work. At first I attempted to write it off since these men are already dysfunctional in other ways, but I am convinced it is a widespread epidemic. I had a layover in Chicago today and had the opportunity to witness an intimate moment of father-son bonding. Both proceeded to successfully utilize the urinals before smiling with self-aggrandizing exultation at their achievement. I watched with horror and abject despair as their glee carried them past the sinks without a glance in that direction or even a twinge of guilt wracking their smiles. I only hope that women have better washing habits. It's a wonder society hasn't collapsed yet.

Second, on the distorted semantics of employers and academic institutions:
This has bothered me for years and I've finally decided to do something about it (i.e., complain). When a potential employer attempts to sell their institution as THE place to work it will often describe its salary as "competitive" or, if really distorted, "very competitive." In case anyone has not yet experienced this, I would like to translate for you. "Competitive" should be taken to mean "average." Thus if Company X in Industry A tells you their pay is competitive, feel free to walk down the street to Company Y, which is also in Industry A, and you can be assured to get the same offer, or at least one so close that the differences are irrelevant.

Third, there was a third thing I was going to rant about but I don't remember what.

Priorities

2005-11-18T11:39:00.000-05:00

Last Tues. I interviewed at a med. school in St. Louis. My hair is pretty big but I didn't cut it. Implicit within this decision was the acknowledgment of my priorities. In this case, the conclusion must be that having big hair is more important to me than an acceptance to that school. I've realized I don't like to play the games of job/school acceptances. Thankfully I usually don't have to, for whatever reason. And this makes me question the effectiveness of the games. A lot of people work themselves up silly about interviews. They strategize about how their clothes should look "to project the right confidence," they craft their hair to try to "look the part" of the position they are interested in, they try to figure out when they should send thank you letters and letters of intent and exactly how those should be worded.... Yet these are the people who don't get the acceptance. Why? When I interviewed for an internship a couple years ago most other interviewees had purchased expensive leather portfolios for their resumes and all that...I had a ratty notebook. I got an offer. I wonder if I'll get acceptances to med. school or maybe the games are more important in this case? We will know soon enough.

Here is a summary of my trip to St. Louis, which I already sent to a friend so this was a quick cut and paste job:
11/15/05 at 3:15am: wake up, shower, start to get things together for the trip
4:00am: realize that I need to tie my tie but can't remember how. start computer, go to www.google.com, search for "how to tie a tie"
4:15am: tie is finally tied. This was the hardest and most stressful part of the whole trip
5:00am: get to airport.
6:00am: take off to connect in DC.
11:15am: land in St. Louis. Immediately get a cab to take me to the med. school. It cost me $45.
11:50am: get to med. school, just in time.....
12:00pm: interview day begins. Tour, lunch, etc.
2:50pm: the actual interview...supposed to be 45 minutes long, mine was 15. The guy pretty much just went down my application and I redescribed everything I had already written...kind of pointless...but he said it went well and he also said my app was strong and I should be optimistic.
3:30pm: ask a local to tell me how the public transportation system works so I don't need to pay $45 for a cab back to airport. Go to the public rail system. Out of 25-35 people waiting for the train, I was the only white person. This is fine except for the fact that I'm big and white and wearing a formal black suit with gold chain. And this was after I was warned not to walk around alone. Oh well. The train was supposed to cost $3.00 but no one asked me for money when I got on, while I was on, or when I got off. So apparently I just ripped the city of St. Louis off $3.00 but didn't know how to pay. I think I'm changing from past to present tense throughout this.
6:30pm: leave St. Louis to connect in DC.
11/16/05 at 12:00am: flight in DC was delayed a couple hours, finally leave for Boston.
1:45am: finally get back to my truck at the airport. the main road I needed to get back to my place was closed, so it took me an HOUR to get back to my place instead of the usual 20-25 minutes.
2:45am: collapse in bed after pulling most of the suit off my body.

Oh yea, and at the medical school there was one room with lots of jars of preserved things. Organs of all kinds, etc. There was one big jar with siamese twins who had died in infancy. Picture that and be disturbed. I should be more disturbed than I am.

That's all for now.

My Purpose in Life and Additional Observations

2005-11-02T13:46:00.000-05:00

Driving to work this morning I realized that there actually is a career I would be excited about, passionate about, and would wake up excited to do. It is: driver of get away vehicles. I think I'm pretty good at driving in general. What's more, I like it, especially when breaking traffic laws. If I drove get away vehicles I would be so happy just to wake up and enter another day--another day of outrunning the authorities. The only legal career that popped in my head as somewhat similar is race car driver. That would get boring because you just keep doing the same thing over and over.

Observations regarding the New England experience:
1. Way too many people drive Subaru wagons here. They are always in my way.
2. This one has really bothered me for quite some time: those little tabs on gas pump handles that allow you to lock the gas flow on so you can go do other things...yea, those are all broken here. I haven't seen a functional gas handle in New England. Not one. On my drive out here I started noticing this problem beginning in Illinois or Indiana, and the further east I traveled the worse it became. This contrasts to Minnesota where I have never come across this problem.
3. Every car here has lots of decals on it. Why? I'll tell you. The more decals on a car, the more likely that some of them are permits of some kind. If a permit is required to do something that means that it's regulated. Why so many decals here? Because there are so many regulations. Everyone at work has the Department of Defense registration sticker, of course, but they also have a MA sticker on the windshield. I think that one is related to emissions testing. There are some people with a whole column of permits on their windshield. Some are for parking, others for local laws, state laws, etc. Outrageous.

The Janitor

2005-10-24T10:51:00.000-05:00

The janitor.... The man must have cameras in my office so that he knows exactly when I get up to go the bathroom. When he sees this he obviously sprints down the hall with his cart of cleaning supplies in order to restock toilet paper. This wouldn't be so bad if it were not for the fact that he puts a sign up on the door saying the bathroom is temporarily out of service. Apparently it would be too traumatizing for him if people actually came in to use the facility while he replenishes the supply of paper towels.

It doesn't matter what time I go--we have a conflict once a day. It used to be about 2pm, so I avoided that time slot. It worked for a few days. Then he started coming at 2:30 instead! Now today it was 11:45am. I cannot avoid the man. Sometimes I'll be in there ahead of him and will finish my business as he's walking in. When I say 'hello' he just glares at me with a dark look on his face. Guess what janitor: maybe if you weren't such a jerk-face and had some actual ability to talk to people and to not let life's bitterness consume you, you wouldn't be cleaning the toilets for a bunch of naive youths that recently graduated. So this leaves me with the option of either:

1. Going to a different bathroom.
2. Coming back to my office in despair.

I usually choose the latter unless need dictates otherwise.

This goes along with something my officemate, who is also from the midwest, pointed out to me: service personnel in New England are generally angry people that do not perform well. Sometimes in the midwest you'll get a really nice person serving you even at a fast food place, and usually you can expect to get a decent quality of service. It is not the case here. Please feel free to speculate as to why that might be. (Possibilities: 1. Cost of living here is higher so people earning minimum wage have a more difficult time here. 2. People here are jerks. 3. ....)

Pascal

2005-10-20T15:00:00.000-05:00

Pascal is brilliant. Sometimes I read his stuff and just shake my head in awe at his intelligence. That is not to say that I agree with everything he wrote, just that he makes a lot of impressively cogent arguments. Look at his insight into the typical result of our attempts as Christians to appear reasonable to the world:

"Pilate's false justice only causes Jesus Christ to suffer. For he has him scourged by his false justice and then put to death. It would have been better to put him to death at once. The falsely righteous are like that. They do both good works and bad to please the world and show that they are not wholly Christ's, for they are ashamed to be. Finally, when it comes to great temptations and opportunities they put him to death." -Excerpt from Pensees.

Pilate found no guilt in Jesus Christ. He decided to have him beat only to appease the crowd. This was an abomination of justice since there was no guilt involved. Despite this attempt to satisfy the crowd, they were not satisfied and Pilate ultimately caved into their demands. This is an existential proof that the middle ground is not always right. (And it draws parallels with the lukewarm church described in the book of Revelation that I am presently too lazy to explicitly write about.) Pilate should have either followed the virtue of justice, requiring that he stand firm against the crowd and their baseless accusations, or immediately caved to evil and the crowd. Pandering worsened things.

Likewise, we do not want to be labelled lunatics, so we try to package our beliefs into a concealable package so that we may reveal the truth in pieces that we deem to be more acceptable to the world. In doing so we, like Pilate, cause more harm than good. We flog our Lord unnecessarily before driving the nails through his limbs. It would perhaps be more merciful if we jumped straight to the conclusion of the matter.

Edited to add, as further clarification of my point:
Pilate thought his intentional failure to fulfill the demands of justice--i.e., through the unjust flogging of Jesus--would appeal to the crowd enough to avoid a bigger injustice--i.e., the crucifixion of Christ--but the valuable lesson Pascal points out is that the small failure did nothing to prevent the larger one.

Evil cannot ever be an acceptable sacrifice. In the old testament only pure, spotless animals were used as sacrifices. Jesus was an acceptable sacrifice because he was pure and spotless. Pilate attempted to sacrifice evil (the unjust flogging of Jesus) to prevent a greater evil (the crucifixion). This failed, again, because evil actions are not an acceptable sacrifice for any good purpose.

John Kerry, Employment Benefits, and Bathroom Habits

2005-10-17T10:38:00.000-05:00

I'm still alive, are you? John Kerry was on my flight from MSP to BOS last week. It's glorious he rides like us commoners rather than traipsing around on airforce one.

When I visit Merriam-Webster dictionary from work (www.m-w.com) I get automatic access to the UNABRIDGED version. It is one of the perks of working at an MIT operated institution. This, above all else, is the best part of the job. It says, "Welcome MIT Humanities Library!" Although I'm not at the humanities library....

My office-mate just came in and reported the following from the bathroom: he observed a man proceed from a stall to a urinal. As far as we can tell there is no conceivable scenario that can logically account for this behavior. Going the other way is understandable--e.g., one may determine after urinal usage that things will be more serious than anticipated. But the stall to urinal? It makes no sense.

Chris Hill

2005-09-25T16:35:00.000-05:00

This is a post in honor of Chris Hill. Good job Chris! Your parents are so proud. And for good reason!

Sports, the Cultural Divide, and an Unrelated Prediction

2005-09-20T22:12:00.000-05:00

Here in Massachusetts people bow down at the altar of sports. Man is designed for God, so it is rather simple to come to the conclusion that, having forsaken God long ago, the people of this state had to find something to fill their God-shaped hole with. Some chose careers and others sports, but most chose both. Personally I don't care one bit about sports. They merely provide an excuse for me to spend time with people I'd like to anyway. Whether the Vikings do well or poorly I will lose no sleep. Regardless, sports provide a wonderful conversational tool. From an optimistic perspective, one can talk about sports to create common ground with others where other connections may not exist. This could theoretically be cultivated into something meaningful later one. From a more pessimistic perspective, talking about sports allows one to maintain a comfortable distance from others. At lunch it is easy for me to get the sportsoholics talking with simple phrases like, "The NFC North is really turned upside down this season." They take it from there. This allows me to eat in peace. Whenever questioned about specifics I openly admit I don't have any clue. They don't mind, because this just provides them with additional opportunities to explain and, therefore, to speak more. Of course there are negative aspects of this. I would place sports under one of the blinders Pascal refers to: "We run heedlessly toward the abyss after placing blinders in our way to prevent us from seeing it." That's my paraphrase. Enough.

Living in Boston has provided me with the opportunity to observe the cultural divide from the other side. During the most recent presidential election you may recall seeing photos of John Kerry participating in some outdoor activity looking like a complete idiot. He could be seen biking in complete uniform, with the aerodynamic helmet, the brightly colored spandex, and all the rest of the hideous stuff. He could be seen windsurfing, dressed to impress. He could be seen sipping lattes with his pinky in the air. For most non-coastal Americans he looked like a complete idiot because anyone who is his age and doing these things in the above manner would look like an idiot. What's shocking is that he fits right in here. He was extraordinarily popular in New England. Why? Because it is a normal occurrence here to see people dressed like Lance Armstrong riding to work. It is normal to see even the "tough guys" sipping lattes with their pinkies in the air. It's not John Kerry's fault that he looked so laughable to so many Americans--it's all he knew. He was merely trying to be "one of the guys" in the only way he knew how. And he succeeded. Unfortunately for him, being "one of the guys" looks rather different in most other places in this blessed union of states.

Finally, I am making an unrelated prediction. Many people believe the relief effort for Katrina was slow because of racism. People are managing to say, even with a straight face, that if New Orleans had been made up of all white people then more effort would have been put forth to rescue them. Well now we have Rita coming along, toward Texas. FEMA was bashed so thoroughly for their response to Katrina that they already have mobilized a lot of aid for Rita. Regardless of where Rita hits in Texas, the response will be faster than it was for Katrina. FEMA now has something to prove, and so they will. They will go way overboard in order to prove critics wrong. For this reason, the response will be incredibly quick and successful. Here's my prediction: if Rita hits an area of Texas that is more "white" than New Orleans, the same people who played the race card after Katrina will use the rapid FEMA response to Rita as supposed proof that our government hates black people. After all, slow response to Katrina which affected black people and a fast response to Rita which affected white people...therefore the government hates black people. Q.E.D. to the brainless. Of course, the whole idea of correlation versus causation is lost on such as these...which is amazing to me, because even the psychology department understands it. Maybe I need a post on correlation versus causation one of these days.

Miscellaneous

2005-09-18T22:08:00.000-05:00

It would be nice if I only had to go to work when I had work to do. Unfortunately, I have to be there full-time despite the fact that I could have put in about one hour per day and still have accomplished what I have done so far. Today I looked at job prospects for truck drivers. They don't seem to make very much and that would get boring too, so I don't expect to be driving trucks any time soon. No imminent plans to quit m.i.t. for trucks. Though the latter may require more mental effort.

I got rejected from the Mayo Clinic's med. school last week. It's where I wanted to go. It's good, has cheap tuition, and is in MN. Blah blah.

I had some interesting observations I'm sure, but I can't recall them at the moment.

Interview and Fashion

2005-09-13T22:30:00.000-05:00

Today the University of Iowa School of Medicine requested that I interview there. It is my first interview request. Excellent.

On an unrelated note, I have long noticed an interesting fact regarding the fashion tendencies of too many technical people (engineers, physicists, mathematicians, computer people, etc.). It seems that a disproportionately large number of men in this category think it is OK to wear running shoes or other sneakers with khaki pants. I have never been one for fashions, but it has always been apparent to me that you do not mix the two. Am I wrong? I'm looking for help from the ladies on this one. In addition to the technical people above, this phenomenon has also been observed among those who wish they were technical but were not able to make the cut (e.g., people who love sci-fi but dropped out of engineering school).

Finally, I have one further observation on technical people and those who wish they were. It seems that, when walking down a hallway in particular, a disproportionately large number of these people walk close to the wall and rub a finger or two on it, the whole way down. I first noticed this with a rather...interesting person I observed in middle school. I have never understood it. Is it a superstition thing? Is it a psychological thing, with the wall somehow providing a sense of security? Any ideas?

Thank you, that's all for now.

Grocery Store

2005-09-04T15:00:00.000-05:00

From what I can tell, there are four main groups of people shopping at grocery stores.

1. Single men. You'll see single men congregating in the frozen food section, selecting vast quantities of frozen dinners. This is because most of them have money to spare and have no urge/ability to cook.

2. Women. Single or married, they know where everything is in the store. While they may have some frozen food, mostly they shop for more fundamental ingredients and prepare food themselves. Talented.

3. Couples. When couples shop together the guy pushes the cart and looks extremely bored while the gal walks in front, selecting her every desire from the shelves.

4. Guys shopping alone who have a woman. They are talking on the cell phone asking the woman what it is they're supposed to be getting.

Conclusions: 1. Women, if you are single and are looking for your very own man, try the frozen food section. Warning: most of us are single for a reason, so don't be surprised at a dearth of quality. But that's fine because, dare I say it, most single women are single for the same reason. 2. Women, if you have a man in your life, don't send him to the grocery store. He'll just have to call you and ask what to get anyway.

Justification

2005-09-01T23:24:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Chris for showing me this article:

http://channels.netscape.com/ns/autos/package.jsp?name=fte/dumbdrivers/dumbdrivers&floc=wn-np

It is justification for my dislike of New England driving habits.

On an unrelated note, yesterday I obtained justification for coming to this coast when I received my first paycheck. Because we only get paid once a month, and also because I was given an additional half-month's pay as a moving stipend, this was the largest deposit ever recorded into my bank account other than, perhaps, a loan dispersement back in my college days. It really is better to be writing huge checks to pay down debt than it is to receive huge checks that accrue it.

More Folly

2005-08-28T20:42:00.000-05:00

I started filling out supplemental (secondary) applications for medical schools this weekend. In the process of doing this I decided to look through the e-mails I had received from schools over the past month.... This revealed some additional folly in my person, as if I did not already have enough. It turns out that one of the schools had a deadline for submission within three weeks of my receipt of the e-mail. I discovered this fact about 2.5 weeks after I got it. So I should probably write those essays now. It's like being in school except without the satisfaction of staring at books 10 hours a day and cramming for tests. Wait, what?

On an unrelated topic, I would just like to officially announce that women are much more attractive in the midwest than they are in Boston. By "attractive" I refer both to physical appearance and to personality. (Note: this is a one-on-one matchup between midwesterners and easterners, since I do not have enough data on southerners, westerners, etc.)

Alive

2005-08-21T12:33:00.000-05:00

The drive to Boston was successful, with success being defined as getting here. I still don't have an internet connection (it should be ready on Friday), so I am using my roommates dial-up connection. Not having used dial-up for six or seven years, it has been a sad experience.

Allow me to illustrate the New England experience with the following story:
Thursday morning, on my way to work, something happened that embodies the typical person on this unfortunate coast. I was stopped at a red light, behind a lady driving a PT cruiser with possibly the most obnoxious color (yes color, not colour) choice possible. When the light turned green we began to accelerate, and got up to about ten miles per hour when she decided she should yield to someone in the oncoming lane who wanted to make a left across ours. She slammed on her brakes but I didn't stop in time, so I bumped her. We pulled through the intersection into a service station. Getting out of my truck I was prepared to do the nice thing, i.e., ensure she wasn't hurt, before any other steps were taken. But before I uttered a word, she came running around her car, screaming and swearing at me. This was a sad looking New Englander, through and through, born and raised, etc. A woman close to 60. She said if I hadn't followed so close it wouldn't have happened. At this point I proceeded to inform her of traffic laws which, apparently, she was unaware. Namely, I explained when it was and was not appropriate to yield. Then I informed her that if she would have obeyed all traffic laws then this would not have happened. Confronted by reason, something foreign to these parts, the fallacies propping her emotions began to collapse, as illustrated by her sputtering and, by the grace of God, the lack of further words on her part. We had blocked in another person at the station, who kindly asked whether we would be there for a while. I said I'd move my truck so she could get out, but as I turned to do so, the old PT Cruiser driver decided she had had enough, and told me, "It's fine. It's fine," before entering her, now slightly scratched, vehicle and leaving me in peace. (To those concerned: no worries, my truck was, of course, unscathed but for a slightly bent license plate which may or may not have already been that way.) This was my first vehicular collision while being in the driver's seat. I am glad I had opportunity to share it with such a petty, foolish woman.

Moral of the story: people are generally friendlier in the midwest. But we were already aware of that I think.

Things aren't all bad here. I'll write more later, but not until I get DSL.

Packing up

2005-07-29T12:07:00.000-05:00

Yes, I am leaving the cities in about 16 hours. I am sitting in my room, looking at all the stuff, knowing that I need to begin to pack. The problem is that there's so much junk I don't know where to begin. Oh well. In a few hours I'll probably start getting serious about things.

Progress

2005-07-06T22:33:00.000-05:00

I finally took the time to figure out where to live upon my arrival in Boston. Through the Navigators ministry at the University of Minnesota I got in contact with a man on staff with Navs in the Boston area. He knew of a church that had a website for finding roommates in the Boston area. Through that I found a guy who I'll be sharing the lower floor of a house with, in West Medford. The landlord lives on the second floor and is said to be amiable. I hadn't spoken with anyone at Lincoln Lab for months, so I decided this week that I should probably make sure they remember who I am and that I still have a job with them. It has now been confirmed that I do, and I'll be starting Tues. Aug. 2.

Summer Activities

2005-06-22T22:13:00.000-05:00

My summer activities have, so far, largely consisted of physical inactivity (mostly in the form of reading...and saying goodbye to people leaving town). I have managed to do a little though. Last week I took some firearms training, just because I could. In addition, I took scuba diving lessons over the weekend. I'll have to make some certification dives soon so I can have my lifetime certification. If I don't get that done this summer I probably never will.... So, you can see, I may very well be addicted to school. Now instead of physics and pre-medicine courses I take firearms training, scuba classes, hopefully some pilot lessons soon, and who knows what else.

I'm finally getting motivated with other pressing concerns too. I spent quite a bit of time working on my medical school application today. I've also started to get more serious about finding a place to live when I move to Boston in little more than a month.

A New Blog....

2005-06-06T01:38:00.000-05:00

I will be in the Twin Cities until the end of July. Then, Lord willing, I will begin my work at MIT's Lincoln Labs, in Lexington, MA, 10-15 miles outside Boston. My group consists of about 25 people and has projects in biodefense, radar, optical sensors, and other things. I hope to be involved with biodefense to some degree. They have done some work with anthrax detection and the associated evacuation of urban centers. Other groups do missile defense, optics, and all kinds of other things.

As for the summer, I might do a bunch of things (flying, scuba diving, shooting...) or I might do nothing. I have not yet decided. I am pretty sure I will try to get EMT certified once I'm out in Boston though.