And at the same time...

My life certainly doesn' t suck.

Just a few weeks ago I hit the top, the most amazing moment in my life. I saw my son on the sonogram at the hospital.

Seriously. That was amazing. Beyond amazing really. I wasn't expecting much. I certainly wasn't expecting to just about explode with joy and giddiness. I mean, he's real. He's right there. And his hand is resting on his chin as if he's thinking about something.

Really no way to put that into words, and I certainly didn't expect the need to, but hey, having a kid is really astounding.


Plus this Ok Go song is really great.

The Crux of my Desire

Ever since I left Winfield I've had kind of a hard time being happy. What follows is basically me thinking aloud.

crux (krks, krks)

n. pl. crux·es or cru·ces (krsz)

1. The basic, central, or critical point or feature: the crux of the matter; the crux of an argument.

2. A puzzling or apparently insoluble problem.

In this case, the crux of my desire is merely finding that which I desire.

What do I desire?

I was once, even as recently as 6 months ago, driven entirely by the twin desires of being happy on a personal level and doing useful science.

Have fun, think hard, solve interesting problems.

Right now, I'm not so sure. These days, I'm not sure what is driving me, but having a child is throwing this whole thing out of wack. I've got new desires. Little Alton is going to need things. Not the same way I need a beer after a long day, but real, genuine need.

And between my wife and I, we've got to figure out a way to give it to him.

Suddenly I desire money. Like, a lot of it, relatively speaking, or at least a constant supply of it.

Shit.

I left graduate school too early for this desire. I intentionally took a job working on stuff I'd never worked on before. That was so that I could re-invent myself into working on questions I actually found interesting. I was really, really sick of working on DOM dynamics.

That's fine, and that works out great if I can afford to slum it for a few years while figuring out and publishing a series of projects that establishes my credentials in this new area.

Unfortunately, we can't keep slumming it. Our expenses are going up, way up. Health care costs alone are going to break us if we don't get more income. I mean, we can live really cheap. We worked it out last month, and our combined rent, car (gas and insurance), student loan payments, all our utilities and all our groceries is less than 50% of my income after taxes.

Yet we still found ourselves confined to our house, eating through everything in our freezer and going without bread and milk for the last six days of the month in order to preserve our budget.
Why? Because we have to spend a ton of money on medical expenses, we eat out too much, we go places, and we just generally don't stick to a budget very well.

So here I am, looking around for another job, one that will be pretty much guaranteed for the next 4-5 years. And what am I supposed to look for? I'm already slipping out of the DOM game. I'm not yet up to speed in toxistoichiometry, and I don't know a fricking thing about fish (which seems to be the job of choice right now).

I'm looking at teaching positions, but seriously who thinks I can teach? Let's see some hands. Oh wait, I'm not seeing any hands. I mean, sure, my CV looks like I should know something about teaching, but I really don't. I'm not bad at it, but I'm not really good at it. The most I can honestly say is that I put a lot of effort into it (I can't even put into words how much work I've done on this invasion biology class). I like outreach activities, but again, the best I can say is that I put a lot of effort into it.

Apparently this is what having a kid will do to you. I have no desires anymore that do not revolve around securing a relatively stable situation for my kid. Science? Really? Science? I'm supposed to still care about frickin' science?

I'm torn apart right now. I do not know what I'm supposed to do, or how.

The Mavs

Ok, see, I'm somewhat torn.

I love the way the Warriors play basketball.

But I love the Mavs.

Ok, now let me just get some things off my chest:
Jason Terry is a terrible player. He's miserable. He can't figure out how to pass the ball. And I know that Dirk isn't playing well, but can the team at least try to pass him the ball?
And I know Dirk isn't playing well, but c'mon. He's still averaging a double double, playing the best defense of his life, and he just can't guard 3's.
Stackhouse did his best impression of himself from 6 years ago.
This is the entire list of players have have been playing well for the Mavs: Howard, Diop.
This Golden State Warriors team plays exactly the way basketball should be played. I love, love their style.
I hate this series.

For the record, unfortunately, I knew this was coming. The series isn't over, but I don't even want to watch anymore.

Where have I been?

Like the fist of an angry god (I like to think Thor), the fierce Oklahoma weather struck down my ability to interact with the world three days ago.

That's right, lightning strike took down our internet connection.

Right now we're limping along on connections in the library and the office, but dang, I hate not having the use of the internet for recreation.

HELLO! We don't have a TV!

Ok, I'm being told that yes, we do have a TV. Apparently its that thing I use to play video games. Wait...really?

Ok, yes. That's a TV. I thought it was an arcade.

Hmm.

See without the internet I can't think. I know, kinda weird.

SO ANYWAY!

Stuff:
- Plaster casting. Ant hills. Scientists. I hope you know where this is going. And need I point out that there are pictures!

- Fark.com. Let me just inform those of you who still visit that sight: IT SUCKS! Not only does the the new site design look awful, but apparently anything you post in a fark comment is copyrighted to Fark (including pics).
Seriously people. There are better link aggregating sites out there. Like, for instance, reddit.com.

- I'm drinking a lambic beer brewed in St. Louis and infused with strawberries. I'll admit, I thought I hated lambics, but this one is pretty good. Plus, we've spent all the money in our budget for this month, and we have no other alcohol in the house except Guiness. Frankly, I don't know if I can handle a Guiness right now.

- All kinds of research spinning up. Toxicity testing with snails and daphnia, snail egg viability, toxistoichiometry with pesticides and pharmaceuticals, and more stupid fish LC50s. Groan. Nevertheless, progress being made. I'm basically just doing whatever I want now.
I'm going to write an NSF proposal. I know, that's bold, and damn near insane. I mean, the odds of me being successful are essentially nil. The effort will be enormous. Plus, I don't really have a great idea that doesn't involve toxicology (which NSF won't fund).
Nevertheless, I need to take a shot at some big-time grants, mostly for my own sanity. I've spent a ton of effort this year writing grants that didn't end up even getting submitted. That's frustrating.

- The NBA- God Orlando is awful. Kirk Hinrich is the best defender in the league under 6-5. Steve Nash is the most important player in the league. The Spurs are in real trouble (although they'll probably make it out fine). The Mavs are in quasi-trouble, only because people will continue to ask why Dirk doesn't put up ridiculous numbers. The Bulls look really good, I can't see them not making the Finals. There's no way the Pistons can beat them, there's no way the Cavs can beat them. Jersey, on the other hand, might be able to beat them (weirdly enough).

- And in case anyone missed it: The universe is a little less empty now. We have, officially, found another planet, outside our solar system, that falls within the habitable zone. That's right, the possibility exists that this planet could support life.
Humanity: You have a goal.

This weekend

“The Wife” and I like to go somewhere at least once every three weeks. Last weekend was 3 weeks, and so we went back to my hometown. This could be considered a ‘boring’ getaway, since we’re just going places we’ve been before, but we needed to get the title for our car, and we needed to not spend a lot of money (our budget is tight).

We ended up having a blast. We took my mom out for her late birthday dinner at a really neat Mediterranean restaurant, I got to watch a couple of NBA games, and we got to see some of our friends.

In particular, we got to see my long-time buddy MH’s new baby girl. Well. Well. I’m just glad we’ve still got a few months to adjust to the idea of being parents. My wife seems to be easing into the idea, while I am less comfortable now than I was before. This baby is almost a month old, and she’s just a few ounces larger than I was when I was born. Oh my god...I feel so sorry for my wife. We both hoping this baby turns out to be a lot smaller.

Other stuff:

- My first-round NBA predictions (I wrote these up Friday night): Pistons, Cleveland, Bulls, Jersey in the East and Suns, Spurs, Rockets, and Mavs in the West. (Note: The Mavs are going to definitely be tested against the Warriors. I don’t understand the many commentators who think that the regular season doesn’t matter: The Warriors are still coached by a guy who gives the Mavs fits. The Bulls are a much better team than the Heat, only poor officiating can save the Heat.)

- I doubt anyone else is paying attention to this, but a few months ago Penny Arcade started challenging the video game industry to ping-pong matches. They won the first one, and, apparently inspired by this, announced the throw-down publicly. Uh, big mistake. As far as I can tell the PA guys have gotten shellacked in every match since that first one. This latest one is particularly hilarious.

- I had a hard time figuring out whether or not the Onion had started covering real news when I read this.

- Wind. Seriously, wind. We drove back yesterday against a strong, constant, driving wind. The kind of wind that blows down small trees. The kind of wind that rips grass out of the ground. The kind of wind that seriously reduced my gas mileage. And on Earth Day no less. I should have driven north! Or just skipped work today. Seriously though, if you’ve never lived out here on the plains, you cannot believe how freaking windy it can be (well, I’m sure it is worse or just as bad on the ocean).

- Also, does anyone know what’s going on with honeybees?

A looong NBA post

- This has been a pretty lame NBA season. Does anyone else feel like we’ve had to endure 8 months of teams intentionally losing games? The NBA needs to get rid of the ping-pong balls and just randomly pick the order for the lottery. I’m serious, if I ever have to see teams blatantly tanking for 3 straight months like the Celtics, Bucks and Grizzlies did, I’m going to quit being a fan. Most people think the Celtics and Bucks were the most blatant (did you realize that the Celtics once benched their starters for an entire 4^th quarter while the opposing team overcame an 18 point deficit and ended up winning the game?), but the Grizzlies were worse. The management used the horrible start caused by Pau’s injury to force out the Czar, traded away the best swing player on the team (Shane Battier) for a guy who hadn’t been very good his first time in Memphis (Stromile Swift), and then had the head of the scouting department take over as head coach.

The Celtics have no excuse, and I will never wish them anything but losing seasons in the future. What they did this year was atrocious. There are only 3 teams in the East with a better top 2 talent-wise than the Celtics’ Pierce-Jefferson (Miami, Pistons, and Cavs), how in the HELL did this team finish dead-last in the conference? This is now, officially, the scummiest team in the NBA. I can’t wait to see Kevin Durant fail miserably with this group.

- The MVP: The formula for NBA MVP goes like this à Team success x exceeding expectations x Individual talent. I know there are a lot of commentators handing the award to Dirk (and he’s played remarkable this year), but frankly, I can’t give it to anyone but....Tim Duncan. Not only did Duncan put in a 20 and 10 (again), but he also added over 2 blocks a game and is single-handily responsible for getting Joey Crawford thrown out of the league indefinitely.

- If you have anyone other than Kevin Martin down for “Most Improved” then you need to think seriously about what kind of fan you are.

- Defensive Player of the Year? Guys like Camby and Marion are stat hounds in this department. Josh Howard has the added bonus of actually playing on a team with a good defense. To be honest I’ve got a tie. Tim Duncan and Shane Battier have both been fantastic for good defensive teams.

- Most exciting young player: Well, Al Jefferson has certainly made strides late in the season, but it is hard to get excited about a guy who leads his team to less than 30 wins (and they were terrible when Pierce was in the lineup too). Dwight Howard is clearly a long ways from being a true force in the league. A.I. Part Duex in Philly is pretty impressive, but he’s been around awhile (relatively speaking). I gotta go with Brandon Roy (who is the Rookie of the Year as well). This guy could get really good. And he cares, so that’s a nice bonus.

- In the West I predicted the 5 of 8 teams in the playoffs correctly. I also had the Spurs winning it all. I’m still convinced.

-Time for me to look back at the beginning of the NBA season and try to figure out why I was such an idiot with my predictions. I only did team-by-team projections for the Eastern Conference, but I’d like to start by pointing out that I got 7 of 8 playoff teams correct (I had the Raptors wrong). Oh yeah.

Philadelphia 76ers

My prediction: 30 wins.

Reality: 35 wins

Why was I wrong? The East was a lot worse than I thought.

Orlando Magic

My prediction: Around 45 wins.

Reality: 40 wins

Why was I wrong? Was I really wrong? Ok, I guess I expected Ariza to stay healthy, Reddit to occasionally play, and Coach Hill to actually play his best players (does anyone realize Tony Battie started 69 games?).

Boston Celtics

Last year: 33-49

My prediction: 40 wins

Reality: 24 wins

Why was I wrong? Well, frankly, I thought this team would try to win games. There’s no excuse for this season. They’ve got good players, they didn’t have much in the way of injury, and they played in the worst conference and division ever.

Toronto Raptors

Last year: 27-55

My prediction: 25 wins?

Reality: 47 wins

Why was I wrong? As I wrote “Sam Mitchell is one of, if not the, worst coach in the NBA.” In other words...I’m an idiot.

Charlotte Bobcats

Last year: 26-56

My prediction: 35 wins

Reality: 33 wins

Why I was wrong? Actually, I don’t think I was. I said the downside was the coach, but in reality it appears the downside is Morrison, who was officially emasculated by Walter Hermann over the last few weeks.

Atlanta Hawks

Last year: 26-56

My prediction: 26 wins

Reality: 30 wins

Why was I wrong? Again, this was within my margin of error. However I did write this: “And hey, looks like they picked up a starting caliber point guard in Speedy Claxton.” Uh...let’s move on to the:

New York Knicks

Last year: 23-59

My prediction: 35 wins

Reality: 33 wins

Why was I wrong? Apparently I’m not an idiot. I did write: “I think Nate Robinson totally sucks.” I think that means I was right about 2 things here.

The Detroit Pistons.

Last year: 64-18, fourth straight appearance in the Eastern Conference Finals.

My prediction: They’re going downhill, maybe 50-55 wins.

Reality: 52 wins

Why was I wrong? Well again, not wrong on this. I said losing Ben was big, and if Chris Webber hadn’t stolen 40 million dollars from the 76ers and then come to the rescue...well...that would have been worse.

Miami Heat.

Last year: 52-30, NBA champs

My prediction: 52 wins.

Reality: 44 wins.

Why was I wrong? Wade got hurt and Shaq got hurt. If one of these guys had been healthy all year they would have gotten 8 more wins (they lost to the Bobcats!!).

New Jersey:

Last year: 49-33. Lost in 5 to Heat.

My prediction: 45 wins.

Reality: 40 wins

Why was I wrong? Nenad Kristic and Richard Jefferson were barely around this year. I wrote: “This team was all smoke and mirrors last year, which makes me think they’ve got a fantastic coach, but that only works for so long.” This team is EVEN MORE smoke and mirrors.

Cleveland

Last year: 50-32

My prediction: 50 wins.

Reality: 50 wins

Why was I right? Because LeBron didn’t care half the year and the Eastern Conference sucked.

Washington.

Last year: 42-40.

My prediction: 42-40.

Reality: 40 wins

Why was I wrong? I think I was right actually (2 wins off?). I should have been wrong, but Caron Butler was injured too much.

Indiana.

Last year: 41-41

My prediction: 35 wins

Reality: 35 wins

Why was I right? Because this is one of the worst-run organizations in the league, that’s why. They hold onto crazy people (Stephen Jackson, Ron Artest), they sign guys and trade them away before they’ve had a chance to do anything (Al Harrington), and they willingly took on 2/5ths of a Golden State Warriors team that spent the last three years playing horrible.

Chicago.

Last year: 41-41.

My prediction: 45 wins.

Reality: 49 wins (as of this writing)

Why was I wrong? Well, Ben Gorden cut back on his atrocious shot selection, Tyrus Thomas doesn’t suck, and Ben Wallace is better than Tyson Chandler was last year. Of course, if they’d held onto Chandler...well...they’d be a force.

Milwaukee.

Last year: 40-42

My prediction: 38 wins.

Reality: 28 wins

Why was I wrong? Oh, could it be because the Bucks have been tanking for 2 months? Or maybe it’s because they traded for a guy who’s always injured? Or because Bogut’s soft? Or because Michael Redd is comically overpaid?

Some things I learned today

I spent my day instructing, teaching, entertaining, and educating (in no particular order) a bunch of 7^th and 8^th grade students. I figured, naively that this would be about like providing content for 9^th graders.

That’s just not true.
Here’s why, I think: 9^th graders are constantly exposed to people (Sophs, Juniors, and Seniors) who are more mature than they are. As a result, their behavior tends to become more mature than their physical age alone would suggest.

8^th graders, by contrast, are constantly surrounded by people (6^th and 7^th graders) who are far less mature. As a result, they act far less mature.

I’m sure it’s more complicated than that, but you get the idea.

Here are some ways that this manifests itself:

1. They never shut up.

2. They do not respect their peers...at all.

3. They don’t care.

4. Even the smart ones.

5. They never shut up.

6. They just want to get done and go ‘play.’

I find that last one to be kind of a cute concept. Does anyone really remember how to play? Jeez, I had forgotten. I can’t imagine being that carefree. There was just a constant barrage of screaming and yelling going on for hours this evening.

Here are some handy tips if you end up needing to create content for a group of middle school students:

1. However much you think you need to have ready: Double it. I figured I’d push 7-8 hours of content easy with what I had prepared, based on what had happened with a group of 9^th graders. No way, I ended up filling about 4.5 hours! Ug. I felt terrible. We ended up spending the rest of the time fossil hunting, which was fun, so I guess it worked out.

2. Remember all those points in your talk where you ask questions? Yeah, that’s not going to work. You need to ask specific people questions. I can’t tell you how many questions I asked today that were greeted by absolute silence. I should have been pointing to individuals and asking them questions.

3. Tell them to shut up. Apparently they always hear “be quiet” or “stop talking”. Telling them to shut up worked pretty well.

4. These guys have the attention span of...well, 7-8^th graders. That means any concept has to be explained in a 5-second burst. You might be able to string together several such bursts, but then again, you might not. Come to think of this, I’ve had this problem with many adults as well.

5. Try not to scream or laugh incredulously when nobody remembers what you said two seconds earlier.

6. Do you remember what you thought was cool in middle school? You do? Good. None of that will be remotely interesting to these kids. So just accept that.

7. Apparently the idea of herding cats could also be applied to middle school kids. I would have gone insane if I’d had to keep track of these guys, but the teachers here just sorta allowed the swarm to move. When I was in middle school, if you’d given us this much freedom, we’d have trashed the Dwight Eisenhower Memorial and gotten our middle school banned from ever returning. Oh wait. That’s exactly what happened. Apparently my wife’s dad (who lead this group) commands much more respect from his charges.

Random fun on the intrawebs

Ok, let's just move on, past last night's semi-drunken post, and discuss the finer points of the internet.

You know, funny pictures of cats and humorous videos of people hurting themselves:

In the former category:

A useless cat.

Cat in a hat.

No cats here, but 2 chickens break up a fight between bunnies. Weird. Not quite as weird as this video response to that video.

And basically, I don't like videos of people hurting themselves, so I'm not posting any here. I know this is crazy. I'm practically waging a war against the entirety of the You-Tube, blogoverse, on-line blagoblag.

You know what? Sometimes somebody's got to take a stand.

Yeah...so there.

(collapsing in exhaustion...again)

Jobs and such

(yeah, a drunken post)

Anyone have a job for me?

I only ask because I hate the world of employment. I don't want to work at all.

This isn't because I don't like to work actually.

I just have problems swallowing my ethics enough to work with some people.

I realize I'm going to have to do that, but at least if I'm going to have to do so, then maybe I can get a job working somewhere that I don't have to work all day long, all weekend long, all the time.

I understand now the appeal to farming. Imagine, working for yourself! Answerable to only yourself, motivated only by your own needs....That's starting to sound pretty good.

Except, of course, that I'd make an absolutely horrible farmer. I can't do it. I know this about me.

So barring my miraculous transformation into a farmer (maybe an aquaculture farmer? Anyone want to help with startup capital/ideas?), I need to find a job I can tolerate.

If I'm going to work with bastards, I want to at least have one of the following two things:

1) The ability to walk away from the job at the end of the day guilt free. You know, like when I worked at a book-store or as a waiter. When you leave work, you leave work! Imagine that!

2) Well-compensated. I don't know if anyone noticed, but graduate school doesn't end up giving you a particularly high reward in terms of hourly wage. You're going to get a job where you work all the time and get paid mediocre wages. Unless you get a tenure-track position, when you'll work all the time an get paid more money than you'll have time to spend.

I'm depressed... Thank goodness the sun was out today or else I'd be really depressed.

So send me those job offers. I'm available for the right price...

And if I can get a job writing, then I'd be infinitely happy.

The Beat and the Blog

The late 1940 through the late 1950s were to writing what the mid 70s were to music.

What am I talking about?

Punk rock and Beat poetry.

These two forms of expression took an established concept (artists create art), and turned it upside down. Jack Kerouac wrote a book that, on its surface, was nothing more than the mad ramblings of a guy who traveled too much and hung out with a bunch of crazy people. The style and form of the Beat writers was a reaction against the main-stream literary establishment of the day, but the message most commonly received was:
”You don’t have to be some academic elitist sitting in the ivory tower espousing the value of Lord Byron and the Bard all day in order to write compelling poetry and prose.”

The fact that these Beat writers were, often, skilled, academically educated, and spent an absurd amount of time honing their craft changed the context of that message, but not what people heard.

The punk rock movement was similar. Bands like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols sent the message that you didn’t have to be (or pretend to be) some kind of musical poet or modern composer in order to have a good time. Like the Beats, punk rockers were reacting against a main-stream, rock n’ roll scene that was increasingly dominated by complex acts, extravagant musical solos, absurd style, and an increasing aloofness suggesting rock musicians were more than ordinary people. People heard essentially the same thing from the Punk movement that they heard from the Beats:
”Anyone can do this. You can do this.”

Let’s call this the Anyone realization.

Let’s cut ahead to the internet revolution. The internet isn’t exactly as cheap as many people think it is (you usually have to buy a computer and procure an internet connection EDIT: or go to a library...whatever), but the ability to publish an idea where essentially anyone with a computer can see it is unique. Compared to the cost of self-publishing books or music, the internet offers a virtually unlimited ability to send ideas out to an infinite number of people.

This medium has been exploited by the same people who started writing spontaneous poetry and random music. You can now go online and partake of a virtually unlimited library of poetry, music, etc. There’s no possible way people like me, who have been surfing the web since middle school, could possibly understand how different this is than how material was made available in the 50s or 60s.

In a sense, the sheer volume of available material has diluted the astounding nature of this revolution. Nobody thinks much of online poetry when a simple Google search reveals 10,000 poems by people who, I’m putting this kindly, have the poetic ability of a horse. The one or 10 of those poems that actually sound amazing is considerably diminished as a result. We’ll return to this in a moment.

The meme that has continued the tradition of punk rock and beat poetry is the blog. I often think of blogs as on-line diaries. Authors are writing about their own experiences, jobs, joys, hardships and anything else to an audience that may number from few to many. These posts may be daily or weekly or hourly and share the common feature that they are updated more often than a book. The whole concept is a little fuzzy, since journals and diaries were traditionally private and a blog is, almost by definition, available to a practically infinite audience. Numerous people who write blogs have not been properly appreciative of that fact and as a result have been fired for saying things online (to the public) that they would never say in person to anyone.

However, when I say that blogs are continuing the tradition of punk rock and beat poetry this is not what I’m talking about.
I’m talking about the ‘Anyone’ realization in regards to news.

24-hour news agencies have always had “experts” who offered their opinion. Newspapers have long had columnists who spoke with some measure of authority regarding the world, the media, celebrity, or humor on a weekly basis (the mere idea seems quaint). Other media outlets paid people to talk/write about the cultural, political, and economic ramifications of everything from daylight savings time to Jennifer Aniston’s hair.

The blog changed the relevance of the “expert.” No longer were you required to have anything resembling a qualification in order to espouse your viewpoint to a large audience. Nobody was vetting Anyone’s ability to say things. You could read an opinion on CNN.com and then head over to randommonkeys.com and get another opinion: They were both being broadcast to the same audience! This is the Anyone realization. Anyone can be an expert.

The exchange of information over the internet further started spreading the ideas of other experts. The guy on NBC who said that pollution-induced asthma was killing babies was now being contradicted by a guy on coal-industry websites who was spreading a very different interpretation of research.

And here we see the difference in these revolutions. With Beat poetry and Punk rock, the elitist attitudes being rejected by the movement were based on a rather flimsy foundation: That the ivory tower of academic criticism was the arbitrator of good and bad.

Who, ultimately, is the arbitrator of ‘good taste’ or talent? Why should Roger Ebert’s thumbs down for Scorpion King really mean anything more than a 17-year-old’s exuberant thumbs up? Why did academic literary critics routinely pan science fiction as the former became increasingly popular?

The emergence of the Anyone expert is a slightly different beast. While ‘expert opinion’ on matters of artistic expression no longer carries much weight within mainstream society (Oprah is far more influential) due to that ridiculous foundation, expert opinion on matters of technical knowledge resides on an entirely different foundation. When discussing the ability of a foundation to support a 30 story building, the “experts” actually have access to an understanding of objective reality that not just Anyone possesses. Engineers, scientists, and doctors do, in fact, carry a special knowledge about a particular area of expertise that does inform the advice and opinions they offer. People without that special knowledge are often not capable of offering better advice. The Anyone realization in relationship to ‘expert opinion’ is not likely to improve the world, but rather likely to cause confusion and poor decision making.

This isn’t to say that blogs are universally bad or inherently unlikely to aid the development of human culture. Another revolution being driven by blogs is something I think of as ‘directed’ news, or news that centers solely on a particular subject or theme. Whereas stories about a particular subject may rarely penetrate the front page or television portion of traditional news outlets, blogs may often highlight all the stories relevant to a particular subject.
Ultimately the Anyone realization in regards to expert opinion on matters of technical expertise will either work itself out somehow, or will fade away. Over the long-term, reliance on unqualified experts will reveal itself to be a flawed premise (if in fact it is the case) and such ‘experts’ will be left to shout to an audience that no longer exists. Even now the emergence of blogs analyzing blogs, or experts analyzing experts, may ultimately lead to popular acceptance of only those experts who can demonstrate the special knowledge that is vital to a valuable opinion. Sports blogs, and NBA blogs in particular, are already doing this, by constantly redirecting traffic to sites with useful and intelligent analysis and opinions and ignoring sites without. Such meta-criticism among the community of experts on more important topics (science, politics, law) seems to have a rich history in journals and print already, and as a result is being translated (in spurts) to the digital realm.

Where am I going with this? I really don’t know. I just started thinking about this and wrote it down as I went. I’m pretty sure none of these thoughts are particularly novel, and I’m pretty sure you’re reading this on my blog. I suspect that blogs will becoming increasingly regulated by advertiser dollars, traffic redirects, and search engine results, and as a result, the role of individual experts for technical expertise will probably be diluted by more experts, but eventually the quality of those opinions will be unchanged.

Busy busy

Well, it's 7 30 and I should really go back to work, but I'm going to take a moment to tell you all what's going on:

- Mouse update: 2 mice down, hopefully no more to go. We've alerted the calvary (the maintanence guys at the station) and we're now optomistic that the problem is under control. I hope so, ***king mice!

- Weather update: Oh my god. Seriously. I...the weather is just astonishingly beautiful here.

- email update: So some of my emails are getting picked up by spam filters. If you emailed me something and haven't heard a reply (assuming it has been a few days) let me know and I'll try re-sending. I have no idea what's happening.

- I gave a talk Update: Yeah, I gave a talk at OU today about Food Quality and Toxicity. The talk went pretty well, except that some prof asked me a confusing question. I had put up a graph of how varying nitrogen:phosphorus ratios in media causes changes in the growth of duckweed, and he said (out of the blue incidentally): "But do you know what causes that change?"
"Sure, nutrient limitation."
"No, I mean, what causes it."
I still really don't know what he meant. One of the graduate students I know there thought he meant that since I only showed the N:P ratio, it could be that the nutrients were so high that we were seeing toxic effects, or so low. But if that's what he was implying, he certainly didn't say so. I was very confused, and, of course, it threw off my timing for awhile. I think I did really well overall however. I really wish I was a more natural public speaker. I feel comfortable speaking in front of groups, but I really need to know what I'm going to say or else I get completely discombobulated.
This time I had a really good idea of what I wanted to say.

- Update on the Newspaper article about me: What? You mean I didn't mention that a reporter for the OU Daily wanted to do a story on me? Really? Well, after my talk I was interviewed by a brave reporter from the OU daily who I'm not sure really understood the distinction between postdoc and graduate student (until I explained it). Hopefully I won't come off sounding like an idiot in the article. There should be an on-line version of the story that I'll link to when it comes out.
I also got to interview her about what it is like working for a daily college newspaper. As I'm sure everyone has heard ad naseum I used to be the editor of our campus paper. That paper was just a bi-weekly, but with our staff of six we ended up having a ridiculously hard time finding enough material to fill the pages. I figured that student-editors/reporters at a big college like OU were essentially full-time employees at the paper receiving credits for that work. Turns out not so much. This poor reporter was getting paid to write at least a story a week, but she was still taking a full-time class load and working a real job. Sounded pretty rough.

- High school students: Tomorrow morning I'm going to be one of two researchers from the station entertaining/educating a group of high-school students from a nearby town. There are 55 students coming! Wow! Fortunately the whole event is only going to last 2.5 hours, so even if it goes badly, at least it will go quickly. And the person helping me out has done this several times before.

- Waking up in the night screaming update: So apparently I have lost my mind. No, literally. Last night (according to my wife) I jumped out of bed and began screaming (at the top of my lungs) and doing that 'brushing off bugs' motion with my hands at 4 in the morning. As I said, this is what my wife says. I was completely asleep. When I woke up I was standing at the foot of the bed, my wife was hollering at me, and I was sweating profusely and my heart was racing.
I have no idea what the hell happened.
My wife claims she will hit me in the head if I do this again. I don't think she's kidding.

- My uncle is coming up from Thursday-Mon/Tues. That means my updates will be probably nonexistant those days. That also means that on Friday I'll be in OKC for the Suns-Hornets game. I can't wait! Two of the best point guards in the league! We've even got front row seats on the balcony! Yay!