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Patrick's LiveJournal:
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| Saturday, November 22nd, 2008 | | 2:33 pm |
Yep
Life keeps on going. Working all week and then all weekend isn't that much fun. Luckily, I have my tickets for flying home for Christmas! Looking forward to that a lot. | | Monday, November 10th, 2008 | | 8:54 am |
Life is going ok
Been spending time with Nicole and reading books while I try and figure out what I want to do with my life. On Saturday I got a blow torch for about $16 at home depot and had some fun bending a glass test tube. Now I need to get some glass tubing to play around with... what things could I make? I'm reading a really good book called "The Physics and Chemistry of Color" all about the 15 causes of color. It is written in a conversational style that is easy to read and only requires a basic knowledge of chemistry. I just love science books that are readable. I got another book on Fourier optics that I can't get through a paragraph without barfing! I really want to do optics experiments so I'm trying to get some background understanding. Just if I had this much interest in my actual research... | | Friday, October 31st, 2008 | | 7:51 am |
Another update
Well it looks like I will be working at night and going to school during the day. That should work out a bit better I think. Also I might fly down to Palo Alto for a long weekend one of these days to see my family an see who is around. My huge order of optics parts comes today! Yesterday I got a box from e-bay and when I opened it the whole room started to smell like cigarettes... that wasn't too nice. I had to put everything outside to air out. | | 7:44 am |
| | Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 | | 7:25 pm |
OK, I have a moment to get on the internet
So, I have been working two jobs and been cooking with Nicole... that is my life at the moment in total... well kind of. It is so strange not really using the internet much. So what has been going on with me? Well, I've been really stress out so I have to quit one of the things I'm doing. I wish I could just quit my research assistantship and work at this company but I have obligations to my professor... so, I have to quit my internship instead... no more money for projects, sadness. ----------- now, what am I really doing? I spent a big chunk of money to get an optics table and setup for my room. most of the stuff I have been slowly getting on e-bay. Now, I'm planning on getting a bunch of glass tubing and a blowtorch to start shaping glass! I want to learn how to make my own lab glassware... if I could I'd make my own lenses too. I want to investigate lasers and see all the interesting things I can make with light and cheep things I can find. I like making stuff... just wish I had time. | | Tuesday, October 14th, 2008 | | 3:37 pm |
Ahh, drugs starting to kick in...
I have had the worst headache all day and I finally took some aspirin to get rid of it. So apparently I can't work full time and be a full time student doing research. I've been rather stressed out all the time... so I guess I really have to choose. I have never been any good at making hard choices and I don't think I ever will be. The other night I went to a really cool game store near down town Seattle, seeing all the games made me a little sad that I don't really have a group up here to play them with. I don't have much time to think much rather socialize. I've been thinking about investing a lot of money in an optics table with lots of optics mounts for my projects. I think that is something I would really enjoy but it is still a shit load of money... think X-box + Wii + a bunch of games cost. But on the other hand I think I would actually use it more then a Wii or X-Box... I just feel so guilty spending money on things for "fun" rather then being practical. I'm one strange cookie... but I really do try my best to be a good person... even if I suck at it. | | Sunday, September 7th, 2008 | | 1:20 pm |
When does life begin?
I always hear people talking about when life begins in the abortion debate, and I think that is an interesting question. Here is my answer: As far as I am aware cellular life started only once on this planet, around 3 billion years ago. In addition, ever cell alive today is a division of that first cell down a very long cross linked chain of meiosis, mitosis, and fusions. Your egg or sperm are divisions of the egg and sperm that created you. So, when does life begin should not really be the question in the abortion debate. What they really mean is when does the soul start or enter the body, or in secular terms, when does consciousness start? Or perhaps, when do we become self-aware? In this framework at minimum neurons are required which start to form at week 4 or 5 and brain activity is not seen till week 6 [citation needed, sorry]. --- What if religious arguments were put into logical arguments, would people follow them more or less? 1) Pigs are a very inefficient food source in desert environments because they require lots of water and eat food you could eat, not grass. Use things we produce so we don't become dependent (Pork is unclean!)
2) Using cows for milk is a more efficient source of protein and calories then killing it for the meat. (Cows are sacred!) 3) Have large families because it will increase the size and thus power of our group/tribe/community. (Don’t use birth control or abortions! Gays should merry women and make babies! Don’t masturbate! ) 4) Having multiple sex partners increases the spread of disease in society. (No sex before marriage) 5) Periodically taking a day off work will stop you from becoming burnt out, and taking time to think about our rules will help you to remember them. (Sunday/Saturday is Holy!)
---
In other news I'm really exited about the Large Hadron Collider starting up next week! The joke of the week: "Two protons walk into a black hole..." Their is a huge problem in physics right now, the problem of gravity not being accounted for in the Standard Model of quantum mechanics. The only cure is more data! Right now the Standard Model accuratly describes all the results of particle physics to date, but we know that something is wrong with it because it is incompatable with Einstein's General Relativity which deals with gravity. The place this really happens is at black holes, gravity and particle physics combine! So we are going to make some black holes to look at! Now why am I not shitting my pants you ask? Well, these black holes will be tiny, on the order of two protons. To give some prospective, collisions like this occur in our upper atmosphere when cosmic rays slam into us... why don't we die all the time? It is the reason why Steven Hawking became famous! it turns out that black holes evaporate and if it can't pull in enough mass to compensate, poof gone! Doom and gloom is a lot more exiting though.
Interestingly enough, if they do find the Higgs boson that has been predicted it will provide a mechanism for creating the entire universe out of nothing... well almost nothing, nothing violates the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. I will write a bit more about that later perhaps... | | Saturday, September 6th, 2008 | | 6:53 pm |
| | Thursday, September 4th, 2008 | | 11:33 pm |
Yep
Today was OK, got some nice work done. I got a replacement plant in the mail today for the one that died in transit. My Kari plant is doing well, I cant use it until it gets a bit bigger... luckily I have a lot of frozen leaves in the fridge. In politics: I think Sarah Palin came off like a total A-hole, by comparison McCain didn't really seam all that bad. Transparency in government is good but not really the biggest fan of creationism or making birth control harder to get. I think they have a really good chance of winning though. The Daily Show has been AWESOME lately, you should see it.  | | Monday, September 1st, 2008 | | 4:30 pm |
yep
I did just about nothing for the last 2 days... I just played with my fiddle and clicked around on the internet. It is really strange since I haven't played with my fiddle or looked around on the internet in a really really long time. I think since I got my new girlfriend really. She went camping for the weekend so I decided to just relax. Got a few chores done, cooked some food, went shopping to restock my Indian supplies. Did I ever mention that I really love cooking Indian food? perhaps I forgot to mention that one. Tonight, I'm making poppy seed and almond potatoes along with my favorite slit peas with yard long green beans. Of course I will have a yogurt sauce and pickle on the side. Now that is how to relax! Now just if I had someone to do my dishes... actually that can be kind of relaxing also. | | Sunday, August 31st, 2008 | | 11:46 am |
Lex Luthier
So, I decided to modify my Violin into more of a fiddle. It is my goal in life to be able to make anything I put my mind to, so this was a good test. The main goal was to lower and reshape the bridge to make the strings faster to finger and to require less movement of the bow when playing. To start I borrowed an extra bridge Nicole had to use as a template. I unstrung my violin and traced the curve of her bride onto mine, a bit lower down. I carved and sanded until I achieved the shape I wanted and made nicks in the top to place set the strings. while I was carving the sound post inside the fiddle fell over so I had to do a lot of research about how to properly place one. To make the proper tools I bent some wire I had into hooks and I bent some cheep needle nose pliers at a right angle in my vise. I fished around with the wire inside the "f-hole" until I capture the lose post and grabbed it with the modified pliers. once I got it into position I rotated it until the grain was at 90 degrees to the grain of the top and reset my new bridge. After a bit of tuning my new fiddle sounds great! And is a lot easier to play. I love making stuff, good times. Chris and Alex stopped by this week and we hung out for a bit. That was a lot of fun. People visiting me is awesome! I got to cook them some of my favorite Indian food... not sure how much they liked it but it was fun anyway. I really love cooking Indian food because the flavors are so interesting and complicated yet logical. Nicole left to go camping with two of her friends this morning, I was going to go but I have so much stuff I need to get back on top of I decided to be responsible for once. Though so far I have just relaxed all morning. I have been following politics a lot lately, McCain picking Sara Palin was really a surprise. I think he has a great chance of winning now, it will be interesting to see if Obama can come up with a counter that will work before the election. I think a lot of people are underestimating her and blowing her off. She excites the conservative base and takes a bit of steam out of Obama and crew. All I needed to hear was 'creationist' to never vote for her but I am not most people. GG. | | Thursday, August 14th, 2008 | | 9:16 pm |
So, what has been up with me...
So I am on campus sitting in the lab right now. I'm debugging some circuits I put together to gather data for my PhD. I got up this morning, drove to work, worked all day, drove home, ate, walked to campus and started working till now. I have to get do a weeks worth of work by Monday because I was busy at my job. After work on my Birthday I went and picked Crab Apples and tried to make jam. that was my special treat for the day. I haven't been emailing, calling, or communicating much since I feel stressed out for work/research all the time. I kind of like feeling busy though, makes me feel useful for once... and that I have "stuff to do." Turning 27 was kind of a huge shocker... I feel so old, like really old. I found out today that the guy that is kind of my boss at work is 23! What happened?!? it all is going by so fast... before I know it I will be 40! I still feel like a slacker and not very mature... I cant write every thing off on being young and dumb anymore. Craziness. Sorry I suck so much... | | Saturday, August 9th, 2008 | | 12:39 pm |
| | 11:23 am |
Longer Italy post
So I went to a NATO conference on land mine detection in Italy. It was a lot of fun and I got to meet a bunch of really friendly people from around the world. Most of the people there were from Europe and Russia... The Georgians were very nice and friendly I really hope they are OK. (Some of them where part of the military so that is kind of scary). The conference lasted 2 weeks and I went and visited Lucca, Barga, Florence, and Pisa along with some hiking. The food was awesome at the resort and I went dancing at the Disco tech! I got Nicole a cookbook and some street art. I also get some art for myself on the black market... that was kind of fun. On my trip over I spent 12 hours in London walking around and riding on the red busses. I talked with two Filipino cross dressers for a bit... they kept putting their hands on my arm while talking to me, I didn't really mind but I would have preferred to have a little more space. They told me all about where I should go and what I should try so that was nice. The conference resort was on the top of a hill out in the country side, unbelievably beautiful... the place was actually exactly like Napa Vally in just about everywhere... besides everyone speaking Italian and everything being made out of stone and being 500+ years old. The place was full of fruit tries and while we were hiking I would eat as I walked. Figs, kiwis, apples, pears, etc.. The bugs at night kind of sucked though, they bite! I mostly hung out with some guys from the Chezk Republic, really cool guys. What really surprised me is that everyone seemed just like Americans but with Accents! Perhaps researchers from around the world are pretty much the same. People don't seem to be all that different after all. Oh and my American room mate hooked up with one of the Russian girls... and so she stayed in our room for about 3 days... and our beds were about 3 inches apart. I Didn't mind though, glad they had fun. :-) Also, I got a calling card to use to call home... turns out, Italy doesn't use the dial tone standard!!! They use the rotatory phone clicks! Crazy. so, Nicole ended up calling me on skype. Though I almost got things to work by playing the tones of my cell phone into the receiver, Bhaha. The trip home took me about 36 hours, with layovers in each airport of about 8 hours. That was fun. At least I got a lot of books read. Anyway, I better get in the shower I'm late to get my day started. Hope things are going really well with everyone! | | Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 | | 8:18 am |
Back from Italy!
So I am back after 2 weeks away in the land of pasta. Good times. I'll write more later... now I am really late for work. | | Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 | | 5:49 pm |
Update
My Internship in Redmond is going ok so far. They have some really cool prototypes that I can't tell you about because I signed stuff. So far I have just been doing new employee stuff which is basicly reading stuff on company policies. not much really going on right now. I was just looking at heroscape again, I really liked that game... just if I had some people to play it with I'd have it shipped up from home. Eh, good times. | | Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 | | 12:29 pm |
| | 10:46 am |
Update
Last night I went to a local park and looked at the stars for a bit with my binoculars. I saw two satellites, a few planes, and what I think was a planet... I have to check on WeatherUnderground to see if I was right. It was down near the eastern horizon... and looked like it had some moons, perhaps Jupiter. I also saw a few star clusters and dual stars, orange to blue in color. I wanted to see a nebula or a galaxy. In other news, I might be starting my summer internship on Friday the company is taking a long time to get the paper work through. That is kind of exiting, my first almost actual job at a real company. good times. | | Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 | | 9:17 am |
Astronomy Fun
So I got my Binoculars for looking at stars yesterday. They worked really well besides the clouds. Today is all blue skies and if that holds up tonight will be awesome! Also, yesterday I was looking on Amazon.com to find the best rated amateur astronomy handbook. Turns out they had it at my local used book store! Awesome, again. So I spent most of yesterday reading that. If I get this summer internship I think I might get a telescope also, not going to count my chickens before they are hatched though. Now that I have access to the physics machine shop I want to go make some mounts and parts for astronomy. I saw a design for a camera holder that has an offset screw so you can take long exposures of the sky as it rotates. you just have to turn the screw at the right speed so things line up. That would be really awesome. I was thinking that I could use that and then take another exposure half a year later to calculate the distance to some local stars using parallax! now that would be a great project. I guess I will have to figure out how much they are going to move to see if that is even a reasonable thing to do with what I have available. good times. | | Friday, June 20th, 2008 | | 10:22 am |
Summer job
So it looks like I will have a part time internship at the company I interviewed with. Suposidly they are doing the paperwork now for a formal offer. That will mean I have to get my butt in gear and work really hard. To celebrate I was thinking of getting a really big telescope so I have been reading forums and websites to see what people recommend. The one I would get is about $300 seems kind of expensive to get before I have even gotten my first paycheck or anything... so instead I got a nice pair of binoculars for much much less. Nikon 10x50 with multi-coated lenses and Bk-4 prisms. So that means that it magnifies things 10 times, has a 50mm appiture (most important for astronomy), and the lenses are coated with a matching layer so they let more light in, Bk-4 refers to the type of glass used. Luckily, if I ever end up getting that telescope I want binoculars are very useful for spotting. The telescope I want is a 6" or 8" Dobsonian Newton Reflector... but then I would have this huge thing sitting in my room... that is already packed with stuff I have too much of. I think for now I will just stick with the binoculars. :-) |
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