No Poll is Worth Crashing, but It's Still Fun Nonetheless

I've been taking a nice break from science since graduation by laying out next a pool with some friends and reading books from the current events section of Barnes & Noble.

This site which polls people for who they think are the "true patriots" (eg. those who are involved in the political process for their country and constituents) versus those who are "true traitors" (eg. those who are involved only for self-interests) is rather humurous. The humor rests in the irony that the top 10 patriots listed are as follows since this writing:

1. Alberto Gonzalez
2. George W. Bush
3. Michael Reagan
4. Dick Cheney
5. Volunteer Military
6. Fred Thompson
7. Ann Coulter
8. John McCain
9. Dr. Bill Cosby
10. Bill O'Reilly

Quite the funny list. I find irony in listing Bush II and some of his fellow compatirots in his regime since every action can be traced to a personal self-interest and not the betterment of the societal health of this country. This isn't a matter of speaking about policies itself but the way in which policies were enacted and executed, and the overrall general Republican attitude toward the entire political system since the era of Nixon.

Eh, but I am just a recent college graduate with little experience of "the real world". What do I know about our broken government?

This is Quite Foul

I don't know where it's from, but it certainly is quite foul (and funny).

Finals Are Done.

Finals are over. It is now time to sit in front of the television and eat cheetos until something more productive falls in my lap.

A Quote and A Clip

It's finals week. That means I have no life. So here's a motivational quote.

We began with the steam engine... Nature reflects the steam engine, but in a much more elaborate way... We are the children of chaos, and the deep structure of change is decay. At root there is only corruption, and the unstemmable tide of chaos. Gone is purpose; all there is left is direction. This is the bleakness we have to accept as we peer deeply and dispassionately into the heart of the Universe. Yet when we look around and see beauty, when we look within and experience conciousness, and when we participate in the delights of life, we know in our hearts that the heart of the Universe is richer by far. But that is sentiment, and is not what we should know in our minds. Science and the steam engine have a greater nobility. Together they reveal the awesome grandeur of the simplicity of complexity.

~Peter Atkins, The Second Law (1994)

And an unrelated clip, very funny of the Governator.

Learning LaTeX

It's pretty fascinating that I have managed to survive four years of being a physical science major; yet I never learned LaTeX very well.

Now I must learn because I want to use this cool tool to post formulas quickly and easily on blogger. I know LaTeX isn't hard, but I don't think I'll master it until after finals.

The following is just a test of my LaTeX skills. It is the principal equation of the kink-based path integral formulation, and thus is the central equation of my senior thesis.

Q = \int \left(x_0+\frac{\Gamma_0}{1-\Gamma_1}\right)^P dR^N

w00t for being successful! Now to tackle introducing the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics.

Finishing Up My Thesis

I'm finishing polishing my thesis (which is due by 4:30pm today), and I feel like this image empowers me.



Now where can I get a kitty who is good with theoretical chemistry and chemical physics? I want one! Now!

Checklists Help Maintain Sanity

Or so I hear. Thus, I will use this space to keep me on track of things this week and next.

Motivational thinking: It's almost over...and then it's Illinois! w00t w00t!

Now I completely understand why it is called "dead week".

• Finish up synthesis lab reports (due ASAP!!!)
• Make and give analytical presentation (due April 29th)
• Make and give statistical mechanics presentation (due April 30th)
• Write formal report for analytical project (due May 1st)
• Make corrections on senior thesis (due May 1st)
• Complete digital portfolio for communication certification (due May 2nd)
• Write formal report for synthesis project (due May 5th)
• Write formal report for statistical mechanics project (due May 7th)
• Write formal report for special topics in physics (due ???)

Facebook Has a New Chat Feature

Facebook has a new chat feature that allows you to IM your friends who are online.

Like I needed any more distractions this semester?

PhD Comics Sums Up My Life

I don't know how many times my professor has walked in on me dinking around on the internet after I had submitted a job to the supercomputer or did a happy dance for a working algorithm. So, I enjoyed this PhD comic much:

Memory Lane: Circuits

I'm an overachiever a double major in chemistry and physics. One of the classes required of physics majors is an instrumentation course. Basically this course translates into circuit design. The first half of the course was building various circuits using common circuit elements that manipulated the current. There was greater emphasis on the particular designs that gave way to particular outcomes, such as the high pass filter. I remember the professor attempted to teach us circuit analysis using impedance, but he botched the lecture the first day of class and since then no one knew what he was really talking about in the lectures. [1] [2] The first half was ended with designing a circuit that would use a thermal resistor and thus give us an idea of the temperature of the room.

The second half of the course was on microprocessors and designing circuits to utilize the power of the microprocessor. It was two-fold. First, we had to learn the assembly language of the microprocessor used. Then, we had to understand the architecture of the microprocessor. This sequence ended with a project that was to build a circuit with a microprocessor that would determine the current of the thermal resistor and display on an LCD the temperature of the lab.

I have fond memories building rat nests in this class due to the random lengths of wires my partner often had fetched for me. [3] The following pictures I found on my phone are not one of the rat nests, unfortunately. Also unfortunately, I don't recall what this circuit does. Nor am I going to figure it out before I've had my coffee. Feel free to analyze it for me. There will be a bonus quiz after lunch.



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[1] And the seminal book, Horowtiz' and Hill's Art of Electronics, was too intimidating and boring to drudge through just to understand circuit analysis, a concept we were never tested on nor expected to comment on in our lab reports.

[2] When I mean botched, I mean he lectured us for a month one way, and then found out he was incorrect for an entire month. Welcome to my undergraduate career in physics ;-)

[3] My lab partner, who is my best friend and current roommate, was probably the worst lab partner I've had at LSU. This includes the pre-med who stuck a very hot round bottom flask of various organics into an ice bath to "quickly cool down" the reaction so she could make her hair appointment...GRRRR, pre-meds!!!