Author: andy

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The Extent of Education

I’m not really sure what made me think about it today, but my head was spinning around the idea of education and the process of learning. You start out in primary school learning the absolute basics, and things get a bit more complicated in high school. At the end of high school, you decide what interests you and what you want for a career. Let’s say you want to learn about cancer…

Well, then you go to the Harvard of the Midwest and you get a biology degree, taking classes that will teach you about general science, but also a little bit about cancer. Assuming you still love cancer (well, learning about it…), then you go to graduate school to concentrate only on cancer…

…here’s the dicey part… Eventually, you reach the end of education…as in…all education as you’ve known it for the previous 20 years… Because now, you realize that, hey, this stuff I’m learning isn’t in textbooks. The answers to a given question aren’t so easy to look up and find anymore… You can’t ask your parents or teacher a question and have them reply: “why don’t you go look it up?”

Why is this? Because no one knows… By the time you hit graduate school, you’re really hitting the “nitty gritty” of the extent of all human knowledge in that specific subject that you were interested in back in late-high school. There is no more that you can learn from a person, a textbook, or even a primary research article… That’s it.

I dunno…it’s just kinda weird knowing that you could be asked a question and it isn’t simply a issue of not knowing the answer: it’s not knowing the answer because the answer hasn’t been discovered yet by anyone on Earth. Once in graduate school, you’re really at the “final frontier” (insert Star Trek reference here…) of human knowledge on a given subject. So when you’re called an “expert on cancer,” it’s really true because you’ve learned just about 95-99% of everything that can be learned about it.

These are the thoughts I have when studying for exams… 😛

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People are stupid…

Now, I get confused sometimes. Like. I see a plane and think it’s a boat. Occasionally, I mistake cows for iguanas…

…but rarely do I mistake beagles for dachshunds…

It has happened four times now when walking Edie. Twice to Brooke, twice for me (all of mine this week…). “Look at the wiener dog!” is the usual exclamation… Never “dachshund,” specifically…simply “wiener dog.”

Now, I realize Edie has some brown and black coloring in her. And floppy ears. And, because there’s some bassett hound in her, she’s perhaps slightly longer than your typical beagle. But in no way does she at all resemble a dachshund.

Just wanted to clear that up…

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Review: Ghost Rider

So, I haven’t gotten to see any movies, since Casino Royale…and that was many months ago… Anyway, I’d been looking forward to a good escapist story at the theaters…yet I’m not sure I can say Ghost Rider is what I was looking for…

The story is based on the relatively popular Ghost Rider stories from Marvel Comics where a man, Johnny Blaze (Nicholas Cage), sells his soul to the devil to save his father’s life… The devil betrays him (surprise, surprise…) and Blaze gets rather pissed… Anyway, in selling his soul, he now has to do the devil’s bidding to get his soul back. In the movie, there are some power hungry fallen angels who want souls on Earth, so the Ghost Rider is called upon to take them out.

…predictably…

As in, there are four baddies, each of which has a different elemental power, of sorts. So do all four attack the Rider at once? Nope. He fights one while the others get away. He fights another one, while the others get away. The final two find out that Blaze has a girlfriend, kidnaps her, then lures the Rider to the climactic battle at the end of the movie.

So yeah, the movie wasn’t surprising in the least, which wasn’t really unexpected, but at the same time, I would have liked to see a bit more creativity in the story. The effects were relatively decent, but the CGI flaming skull that replaced Nic Cage’s head just looked fake the whole time. Perhaps lighting his head on fire for real would have been better? 😛

Anyway, the movie wasn’t terrible, and was alright to see in theaters, but I certainly won’t be buying it. It was a formulaic story with halfway decent acting and effects. Nothing to write home about…

…guess I’ll just have to wait for TMNT and Spider-Man 3… w00t!

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Evil more fundamental?

So, an intriguing perspective, as pointed out by “ST: Voyager” in an episode titled “The Darkling“… The episode basically centers around a malfunction in The Doctor such that he goes all Jekyll and Hyde on the crew and attacks people…

…anyway, here’s the important part… The Doctor goes on this rant about evil, essentially describing evil as more “fundamental” than good. The argument went from a physics perspective such that light involves photons, which is made up of particles (yes, light has mass…weird, eh?), yet there is no corresponding particle for dark. So, if there were no particles of light, there would only be dark. There is no corresponding force to go against light, at least as far as particle physics goes.

I guess it’s just an interesting idea, ’cause I’d always heard the argument that you can’t have good without evil, and vice versa, because our notion of “right” and “wrong” requires that opposing force. How can one define “evil” without a “good” to counterbalance it? Our notion of “evil” requires that you know what is bad and what isn’t, and to know what isn’t, you have to have a sense of “good”…confused, much?

Well, using the argument from physics, actually, light (i.e. “good”) is the force encroaching upon what would be there otherwise (i.e. “evil”). If there were no light, there would only be dark. You can’t not have dark (w00t!, double-negative). But you can not have light.

So, thusly I ask: is evil more fundamental than good?

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Wii-tastic

I saw this link at a Wii “fanboy” site and just had to mention it… Apparently, the Wii has sold 5 million units world wide since its release last November (so, approximately 3 months). That calculates out to one console sold every 2 seconds!!! In the other console’s lifetimes, the Xbox 360 has sold 9.3 million (in 1 year and 3 months…) and the PS3 has sold 1.9 million (in 3 months). That also represents a net profit for Nintendo of ~$400m (assuming that it costs ~$158 to make a Wii, then sell it for $250, while the retailer gets $12.50/unit) while Microsoft and Sony are losing money in making their systems.

So yeah, the crazy thing is that the Wii is still so hard to find, as I mentioned in an earlier post…

For the record, I’m getting pretty good at Wii Sports, and I’ve got Super Mario Bros. (NES) and Mario Kart 64 (N64) downloaded to the machine…about ready to buy another Wii game to make use of the controller(s), though… Any suggestions?

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Where did all the time go?!

Well, you can tell when classes start up again, you have less and less time with which to waste on television and video games…grrrr…  We had our first exam on Monday (right after Mardi Gras, no less…) and I was in there for a little over 3 hrs; everyone was out by the 4 hr mark…  We probably won’t get the grades back until next week, but I’m told that, so far, I’ve only missed “a few points”, so that’s promising.  Regardless, I’ve got another exam next Thursday already and will have one more just prior to Spring Break.

Speaking of which, I got tickets yesterday to fly down to Texas over the Break, between March 13th and 18th.  Andy S. and Brett have been complaining for, well, years that I never visit, so I’m finally gonna do it…  The sad thing is: this will only be the second time I’ve flown anywhere in a plane…  😛

Anyway, class/lab work is keeping me rather busy…  The weather is improving, at least, so I can take the dog on a decent walk when I get home every day.  Edie and Sam are getting along a lot better now, by the way…  I don’t think they realize that they’re supposed to be enemies…but whatever…

So yeah, just figured I’d update this for once…  I’m hoping to get caught up with the hours upon hours of television saved on the DVR this weekend, ’cause we may plan a trip to Hannibal or Columbia the following weekend(s)…  No time!

(all i wanna do is play my wii…grrrrrr… :-()

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So three months later…

…I finally scored a Wii… I got up at 5:30 am Sunday morning, headed out to a Target north of Saint Louis in Jennings, MO, and read a book for a few hours until the store opened at 8:00. Only one other car showed up early (around 6:30 am), and otherwise, other people showed up within 15 min of the store opening. Anyway, I “easily” got one…that Target was only alotted 8 units, while the Florissant one was given 14 (and the people who couldn’t get one at Florissant had to come to Jennings…). So I grabbed an extra controller while I was there and headed home… They were sold out by 8:08 am… One per minute…

Sadly, however, this week is rapidly getting crazy and I have no clue when I’ll really get to spend “quality time” with the Wii… We got to play for a good 2 hrs yesterday, but I won’t get to play much tonight ’cause I have a brief presentation tomorrow (that I’m not prepared for…), and I have an exam next Monday…but since Mardi Gras is this weekend in Soulard, I’m not going to get much studying done over the weekend, so I’ll have to get it all done this week…

Anyway, I’m glad I finally got my new toy… Pity I suck horribly at Wii Golf and Wii Tennis… 😛

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Meet Edie

Meet Edie!

So, we’ve been looking for a dog for a little while now…  Preferably, a somewhat older one so it would be more mellow, yet energetic enough to go out on walks, etc.  Also, a breed that wouldn’t bark too much and that would get along with a kitty cat…  We’ve checked out various on-line venues, including the pound, and various groups around the state.

Well, we found Edith Ann at the Humane Society here in St. Louis yesterday…”Edie” for short…  She’s a 5 year old 13″ Beagle that was owned by an older lady who had to give her up to enter a nursing home.  We brought her home today and all is well so far!  She’s a sweetie…haven’t heard her bark yet…although she does whine a bit…  She’s a little overweight, so we’ve gotta limit her food for awhile and be sure to take her on frequent walks, but that was the plan, anyway…

So far, Sam isn’t a fan of his new roommate…  He spent most of the day hiding under the bed, but finally came out around 8:30 to see what the deal is…  He’s checked Edie out a few times, but has yet to really “make friends”…  I’m sure it’ll work out, though…

Anyway, there are more pictures on my Google Photos page…check ’em out…and come visit if you want!

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Oh no! A bomb!

Mooninite

Seriously. Please, Boston. Tell me how exactly a Lite-Brite image of the Mooninites depicted above in any way says “bomb threat” to you.

I’m all ears…

(By the way, for those of you who know not what “Aqua Teen Hunger Force,” i.e. Mom and Dad, it’s a cartoon on Cartoon Network that features a talking milk shake, french fries and meat ball. Yes. Very scary.)

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Disturbing-ness…

“Has any human being always been there? As any scientist always been there? Who’s always been there? God! Who should you always trust first, God or the scientist? God!”

The quote above came from a guy speaking to a stadium full of young children, asking the kids questions and having them yell responses back. And yes, they were the responses you expect.

So, Crooks and Liars, an admittedly left-wing blog, highlighted a documentary on HBO called “Friends of God.” Sadly, as I don’t get HBO, I haven’t seen the documentary, but Crooks and Liars linked to a downloadable video (“right-click” and choose “Save Link As…”) of a 7 min section of it that is a bit disturbing to me. I mean, these are things that I knew were going on, but to actually hear and see it is…well…”disturbing” is the only word…

The scary part is, and as this video highlights, what the kids are being taught, and how they’re being taught to think. One kid says he wants to get a Nobel Prize becoming a Biochemist and working for the Institute for Creation Science. Sure, a noble pursuit (hah! so “punny”…), but at the same time, the blindness that I see in the next generation is frightening. Another teenager referred to how “one-sided” public education is, and there is some definite truth to that…but at the same time, if the sides were reversed, would it be any different? Shouldn’t the separation of church and state be protected?

I guess I’ve tried telling myself that “things will change” once the current generation in power ages on, and once my generation and later ones take over…but things like this make me think it’ll be more of the same. And it’s not something I look forward to…