An interesting conclusion

So I read this today, and it really got me thinking. Just a couple days ago, there was that video of the octopus using a coconut shell, which is one in a long line of recorded tool use by animals. It's amazing that humans and octopi can still be so similar on such a fundamental level, yet seemingly so differentiated. We are not special.



And we still have idiots who think evolution is "just a theory," which makes them look doubly dumb since they don't understand what "theory" means. I'm not sure what the proper way to react to those people is, other than weeping for humanity, especially since I'm referring to many Senators and aspiring Presidents.

Oh, October's almost over, you say?

I really ought to post more. So much is happening with a quickly growing Lenny, who can now readily roll onto her stomach... in her crib... which is terrifying. And she roars and growls, she sings when Ariane sings. She's awesome. The days flow into one another at this point. By now I've lost all my regular readers, so I might as well write nonsensical things, like anything Tracy Jordan says. I'm at work less than I should be, that I know.

It's been so long since I posted that in the meantime I have:
Had an article published in Microelectronic Engineering (nerdy title!)
Had two (two!) more accepted (one in the Journal of the Electrochemical Society and one w/o revisions, awesome sauce, in the Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology A [super nerdy title, awesome])
Killed one before finishing
Finished my dissertation (first draft, excellent)
Been politely turned down by DuPont (your questions were ridiculous!)
Not heard back from the first interviewer (didn't want to work in the Mojave Desert)
Had another campus interview (still waiting)
Visited Oregon* for an interview (nervously waiting... very, very nervously)

(Quick aside: I left for the interview on Monday morning to return Wednesday - can you believe there are no direct AUS-PDX flights? I know!, so I sent an email to my boss, the building manager, and the other guy on my project [i.e. the guy who now owns the system since I am DONE, BUDDY] saying, and I quote: "I will be out until Wednesday, I am heading to the Oregon Country. Don't worry, I won't ford any rivers. I've lost too many oxen this way." My boss emailed back: "Don't waste too many bullets shooting buffalo along the way." I've always liked my boss.)

You might notice that "have been offered a job" is not listed. Right now, all of my eggs are in the basket for the job in Portland. Got to feed the baby some way.

So that this isn't just about me, here's some pictures (makes for an easy post). As always, click to embiggen.

Lenny's preferred sleeping position once she learned how to get up on her side and rotate her entire body. Her feet are sticking out.


Somebody got a highchair so she can join dinner conversations. She likes to talk politics, and I am trying to teach her that is a faux pas, but since she doesn't speak French she goes on and on about it. She's got interesting ideas and opinions (End Mommy's monopoly on breast milk! It violates antitrust laws!). Still no solids.


And a play thingy. Which has sounds! Loud ones! That's going to be such a regrettable decision!


Hoodies: get them started early.


Sometimes you don't have a free hand when you are walking from one room to the other...



*As obnoxiously noted earlier this week via phone, I have now defeated Zack in the race to visit all the west coast of the US and Canada. He didn't know we were competing, but you snooze you lose. That puts Alaska (Inside Passage + Denali + Fairbanks), BC (Vancouver + Fraser, which isn't a city), Washington (Seattle), Oregon (Portland... but really just Hillsboro), and California (San Diego) under my belt, with Yukon (Carcross) thrown in for good not-quite-Pacific-coastal measure. TAKE THAT, ZACK. Also, I think I'm probably beating you in airports: Fairbanks, Seattle, Portland, LAX, San Jose, San Diego, Anchorage, Dallas-DFW, Dallas-Love, Houston-IAH, Houston-Hobby, El Paso, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Harlingen, Little Rock, STL, Indianapolis, ORD, Minneapolis-St Paul, Detroit, Atlanta, Toronto, Newark, JFK, Albany, Memphis, DC-Dulles, Zurich, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Split, Heraklion, London-Heathrow, Austin, Cincinnati, Raleigh-Durham
Oops: Forgot Vancouver, Calgary, and Cancun.

Self-indulgent nerdy post

It's 2:45 am on what is now Father's Day (whoop de doo! a fake holiday!) and I am still up because Lenny has completely destroyed whatever semblance of a sleep schedule I used to have,* so I figure I'd come on here and write about what I've been having fun with for the last week, and since of the eight people who actually ever read this crap five are involved at least tangentially in science this might be familiar.

If you've never really searched the scientific literature, you might be surprised by how narrow the scopes of some journals are. The best way to do this is simply to list some of the titles of the journals, and you might be amazed that there is an entire journal devoted to that topic, like the Journal of Fluorine Chemistry, which exists and is published by Elsevier. I am starting writing up another manuscript right now, and I am searching for journals that I may want to publish in, because that actually helps me determine which experiments I'd like to conduct (usually you go the other way around, of course, but my situation is different at the moment for reasons that I will spare explaining to you). Some of the titles are hilariously dorky. I have already published in or submitted to Thin Solid Films, Electrochemical and Solid-State Letters, Journal of the Electrochemical Society, and Microelectronic Engineering. The following is a list of titles that have any possibility of me submitting to, excluding those four. I haven't linked them, but you can easily thegoogle.com them if you want to read their oh-so-boring scopes. I hope you find the titles as entertaining as I do. (For those of you not in the know, if a title is followed by a single letter, like Materials Science and Engineering B, it usually means that the old journal had to split as the topics became more specialized.)

Acta Materialia
Advanced Engineering Materials
Advanced Functional Materials
Advanced Materials (apparently different)
Applied Organometallic Chemistry
Applied Physics A
Applied Physics Letters
Applied Surface Science
Chemical Vapor Deposition
Chemistry of Materials
Journal of Alloys and Compounds
Journal of the American Chemical Society
Journal of Applied Physics
Journal of Electronic Materials
Journal of Materials Research
Journal of Materials Science
Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics
Journal of Materials Science Letters (they're all different, apparently)
Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids
Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology A
Materials Chemistry and Physics
Materials Letters
Materials Science and Engineering B
Materials Today (seeing a trend here?)
Organometallics
physica status solidi (a)
Scripta Materialia
Surface and Coatings Technology
Vacuum

Also, I hope to get some collaboration with someone in physics on some magnetic properties of my stuff and get my name on a paper in some magnetism-centric journal, because physics is even nerdier than materials science.

Go ahead and list your favorite journals or titles in the comments!


*Note that Ariane's schedule, however, has not been destroyed. Actually, if anything, Lenny has simplified hers. It's somthing like this:
9 am - 5 pm: Be awake; feed, burp, and change baby as needed
5 pm - 9 am: Be awake; feed, burp, and change baby as needed

Congrats, Dr. Hollish!

Kinderbloggen is not a place that is going to break any news outside the sphere of poop and Sesame Street, but there is breaking news out of Paris that is tangentially related, so I am going to post it here:

Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Andreas Mogensen, Ph.D (2007, Aerospace Engineering, University of Texas at Austin) is (and this is not a joke) one of the European Space Administration's newest astronauts, despite being actually a Californian without U.S. citizenship who happens to hold a Danish passport.



To say "Congrats, Hollish!" is a wild understatement, because this is simply inconceivable. I thought knowing a guy who plays in the NFL was awesome, but that's over 200 people a year. Before today there were eight ESA astronauts. Eight.

A year ago, Ariane and I were in Konstanz, Germany, visiting Andy and his girlfriend just a day before Andy was flying to Hamburg to perform the first round of testing. The first step was some ridiculous memory test, and Andy was convinced he was going to bomb out in the first elimination because he was doing terribly on some practice tests. Yet, after a year, ESA pared down the 8,400+ applications and picked just six or so (I got news Monday - I promptly freaked out in my office and had the people next door worried that I had hurt myself - and am writing this Tuesday night, so I don't know the exact number because they wouldn't even tell Hollish himself), and wouldn't you know it, but Andy is going to space, supposedly to work on the International Space Station. Only about 500 people have ever been in space. That is some elite company, my friends.

Sorry though, Andy, I am still not sorry for laughing at you every time you said you wanted to be an astronaut and go to Mars. It was preposterously silly then, and it still is now... it's just that you might actually get a chance to (I can't believe I'm about to type this) go to Mars.

So now Andy isn't going to have time for the little people from his past nor Earthlings in general (being locked down by gravity is so April 11, 1961). I will prefer to remember him from the awesome times, like when he won (read: lost) a ~15 person, ~$300 credit card roulette game in Phoenix.


Sucka.

I can now tell my daughter that, yes, she can be anything she wants to be. And I can actually mean it.

Good luck, Hollish.

Bingo

I've just solved the energy problem: insert hydro-turbines in pregnant women's toilets so that every time they pee they generate electricity.

My BOTE calculation figures we could generate over 8.7 Jiggawatts (plus or minus 8.7 Jiggawatts). Guess I'll just kick back and await my Nobel Prize, then I'll just hang with Paul and take part in some hardcore beard-growing contests.

RAEG TIEM NAO

Topical Edit: This. Read it all. All the comments, too.

Remember this rant, where I mentioned that Fox News and other right-wing morons love to use cold weather to go "What global warming?" Well, they were back at it again on Sunday with that dolt Sean Hannity pretending (I hope[?]) to deny anthropogenic climate change based on a blizzard in the northeast. I caught about ten seconds before I was able to change the channel and let me tell you that I raged SO hard. And *bonus* he included in his discussion... Lou Holtz? WTF? Why can't intentionally disseminating false information be illegal? This is not First Ammendment-protected speech. This is lying. And the scary part is that there is a significant slice of the population that believes this drivel.

If you get your news from TV (especially, but not limited to, Fox "News"), you are doing yourself a severe disservice. You are actively melting your brain. For example, maybe you have heard that the stimulus includes $8B for high speed rail connecting Los Angeles to Las Vegas? Just one problem, it's an outright lie. Go ahead, read it yourself. Want to know where we might build rail? Here are the corridors of interest. John Boehner is in a tizzy over it, but you know who gets disproportionate rail service? OHIO.

The stupid makes my head hurt.

Also, let me add that there are so many stupid people out there on other fronts, like grasping a progressive tax system. For example, if your doctor who wants to take fewer patients so that he makes less money because he doesn't understand the concept of tax brackets, get a new doctor. (Equally inexplicable is the fact that ABC News doesn't seem to understand.) And these are the morons who are running around screaming "Socialist!" because the marginal rate on the >$250k/yr bracket is increasing from 35% (which was designed to be temporary, so it's not really an "increase" at all) to 39.6%. Well, then I suppose that uber-lefty Nixon was a dyed-in-the-wool Red Commie with his >50% bracket. As John Cole wrote,

39.6% = socialism
35% = capitalist nirvana

I am in the world's lowest tax bracket, and despite no experience with higher brackets even I understand the system. Idiots. Tax brackets do not make the system complicated. If you hear someone say we need a "fair tax" (i.e. flat tax rate) to simplify the system punch them in the face. Tax brackets are the symplest math possible; the IRS provides you with tables showing how much you owe depending on your income, so you don't even have to do math. Complications in the tax code are elsewhere, not with rates. And I haven't even mentioned that the stimulus that passed included tax cuts for 95% of people.

What really frightens me is that these are the morons who decide elections. They are the ones who up to a couple of days before the election hadn't decided between McCain and Obama, who are polar opposites. Listen, if you supported McCain, and in your own mind you have a philosophy that you adhere to, that you believe, and that you can support using empirical evidence, more power to you. I happen to disagree with you, but at least you are justifying your choice. But if you don't understand how progressive taxation works, if you think that climate change isn't real, if you buy into the concept of a flat tax rate because Mike Huckabee calls it "fair," if you think the world is 5,000 years old, or if you're a dumbass like Joe the Plumber and can't understand that your small business is taxed on net and not gross, please I am begging you to never vote. And I think it would be in your best interests to never actually speak. As the saying, often attributed to Mark Twain, goes,

It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.

Christ on a cracker, the only thing that I cannot stand in this world is stupidity. Sadly, it's what humanity creates most efficiently. If you do one good deed today, please inform an idiot that they are stupid and need to learn about things before they open their pie-hole. Luckily, most idiots are fundamentally incapable of and downright allergic to learning. Unfortunately, they will not shut their yap, but you might feel a little bit better. I never fear to inform someone that they are deficient in the neural area.

Oh hey, look! Someone is angry on the internets! I've now gone cross-eyed with rage. I know, no one wants to read my complaining about people, especially if you fall into one of the categories I'm raging against. So that's enough raging for this week or month... basically as long as I can avoid repugnant thugs, like Hannity or O'Reilly or Glenn Beck.

Wat?

Wat?

Updated: Video wat?

Why didn't someone inform me of this?

Wired knows me too well. I feel like they're stalking me.

Kind of meh

Edit: Don't ever treat anything in here too seriously.

Not "meh," just "kind of 'meh,'" which is kind of like waiting just to get into Purgatory. I feel like we are in some kind of holding pattern; something is going to happen soon, I just don't know what it will be. It's just my luck to be awaiting my first child while I am getting close to graduation and looking for jobs at the onset of the Next Great Depression. It'd be nice to be in Canada right now, aside from the freezing weather.


I am 100% sure I could get legal status in 2 minutes, since their immigration policy is (get this!) not insanely retarded like the U.S.'s - Ariane actually had to jump through a flaming hoop to get her final Green Card, I don't know why I haven't mentioned this. Canada: Making even the sane parts of the U.S. look stupid since whenever it was they kind of decided to just be friends with the UK.

I think I am looking at fairly poor options for the next couple of years, at least.

1.) Stay in school until December.
Pros: Economy may begin to get better, perhaps more jobs available? Get an extra publication or two (which doesn't really help). Better chance of staying here, which gives Ariane a better chance to graduate whenever she may get to it. Get some time to work in a relatively low-stress environment while learning how to be a dad.
Cons: Duh, still don't actually have a real job, and no guarantee of improvement. Paid in beans. In the red every month.

2.) Look for jobs with oil companies
Pros: Pays insanely well
Cons: Live in Houston, sell my soul. Really, why does it have to be that the only companies that seem to be hiring are the only companies I have ethical problems with working for? I'm still not even going to look. Luckily I have a wife who is supporting this decision.

3.) Look for a postdoc
Pros: Umm..... uh..... available? Actually, I think if it's not a university postdoc it would pay well, plus it would be incredibly awesome science. (I read yesterday that they melted diamond and found an all new phase of carbon. Excuse me sir? Your badassery is showing.) My advisor may be able to help me get something at Sandia in Albuquerque, since he did a sabbatical there in '07.

Example of badass science

Cons: Not happening in Austin, probably have to work long hours, don't know where I'd go from there



The other options are applying for jobs for which I am unqualified (which I will be doing, and happily accepting rejection notices), look for research positions with the military, and collecting cans and bottles for scrap prices. Seriously, $0.25 per pound of plastic is looking mighty fine right about now...

My baby is taking after me in this regard already: She is a master of poor timing. Maybe one day she'll make her ol' dad proud by picking the wrong check-out line at the grocery store every. single. time.

This is reassuring

I've heard through the years that there were claims that vaccines were the root cause for the uptick in autism in recent decades, I believe that the claim was it had to do with a small amount of mercury required to preserve it, or something of that sort. I've not been quick to embrace the claim, and besides I figured that I'd rather risk that then leave any of my children unvaccinated against virulent diseases, which could hurt others as well as themselves. I'm not sure why the numbers are increasing. Some are working to show that we're just better at diagnosing it, when in the past we would have just considered these children retarded or something else. Some have correlated autism with TV viewing during infancy (i.e. when the brain is still programming itself), but correlation is far from causation. But the one that got the most press was that vaccines were causing it. The problem is that the "breakthrough" study on the topic was faked. The researcher cooked the books. While I wasn't worried about this in the first place, it's good to know the truth. I just hope others who were duped, and campaigned so hard based on the claim (like Jenny McCarthy) will believe the truth and work with it, although they were done a terrible disservice (putting it lightly) by Andrew Wakefield.

As an aside, I can't figure out what it is that is driving so many people to make up the science. Well, actually I know that its the insane pressure to publish and fame - I can't imagine there's much fortune, though. Disproving something is just as valuable as proving something, in my opinion. The whole point of science is to test, observe, report, and explain. Maybe not everyone agrees with your explanation, maybe they think your method was flawed, but this is what I did, this is what happened, here's why I believe this is the case. Yet time after time after time after time they get caught and that's it, career's over. Idiots.

Ultrasound

Face, hands, and a very small foot (click for larger).

Girls and science

I stated it already, but probably like any parent (to be), I would love it if one day Daughter becomes a scientist, engineer, doctor, or something like that. This is not a case of putting the cart before the horse, because last I checked the cart is still four or so months from delivery. Besides, I'm not going to have some sissy horse pull my cart; I am a wealthy banker from Boston, dammit, not some loser carpenter from Ohio, or worse yet a farmer from Illinois. I will tear out of here at mach five with six oxen pulling my cart. I just hope I don't get dysentery.


Crap.

What was I talking about? Oh, right - SCIENCE!

Maybe you're saying, "But Luke, you are having a GIRL. Everyone knows that GIRLS are not as good at science and maths as BOYS." First, it's "math" not "maths." I don't appreciate when Britons read this, move along now. Second, you're wrong. Here's a look at the issue in depth, but it boils down to "If the girls take the courses that the boys do, there's no real difference between them." Basically, if you tell them they can, they can. After nine years of undergraduate and graduate level studies in chemical engineering, let me say that the last statement sums up my experiences quite accurately, some of the best and smartest students I've worked with were women (plus they were way better organized than I have ever been).

I'll gladly steer Girl towards the sciences. That's where the coolest jobs are (and they're the most interesting). Hey, if I liked My Little Pony, why can't my daughter love Tyrannosaurus Rex?*

Topical edit made before this was published: Premier commenter Not Alice notes in the comments that a.) she was once a little girl and b.) she loved Legos as a child and therefore advises that c.) I should get Girl into Legos at a young age. I think this is a super-fantastic idea that I may not have actually considered for some time, probably because I guess I generally consider Legos to be boy toys, which is kind of stupid if you think about it. Although if you look at the products it's kind of clear that's who they're marketing to. It's probably a great toy to get kids thinking in ways that would promote the kind of thinking that would lead to interest in math and sciences, i.e. how things work. Plus there is this. And here's the best part: Legos are mostly not made in China. I consider this suggestion win of the epic variety.


As an aside, when searching for Lego info I found this website which provides an extensive list of non-Chinese made toys. Remember: trust, but verify. It's a good place to start.

*The correct answer is: Because T. Rex is boring. "Oh, your favorite dinosaur is T. Rex? Let me introduce you to literally everyone else in the world, because they all think T. Rex is cool, too." Everyone knows that the Ankylosaurus was secretly the coolest dinosaur.