Author: Gary

You will notice a section to the right that lists a few books. Its a tool from AllConsuming.net that lets you track books your reading online. The problem is, the tool is pretty crappy and I really don’t like the layout. Xanga has a nice built in feature, but I have no desire to abandon my domain name and start another cookie cutter blog. If anyone has some suggestions for a better tool, I’d love to hear it.

I have a huge backlog of reading I have to do. One book I’ve been wanting to read for a long time, and have finally gotten around to buying it, is The Deep Hot Earth, by Thomas Gold. His thesis (actually, it was first thought of in Russia) is pretty simple: fossil fuels are in fact not fuel made from fossils. Petroleum has been around since the creation of the earth and its why we haven’t run out of it. Oil field get replenished from reserves further below.

I’ll reserve judgement till I’ve read more about it, but its an intutively appealing idea that explains a lot of things: why haven’t we run out of oil?, why do we find helium in petrolium?, why did they find oil when they drilled in solid granite in Sweeden? More than just the abiogenic theory of petroleum creation, he also believes that there is a lot of life below the surface of the earth. He estimates that the total mass of microbial life below the surface is greater than that above it. The life that lives deep in the cracks of the earth use organic compounds (like oil) as food and may be where life on earth originated.

Also, I think I need to write a new Barry Bonds update soon. I also have to write up a thing on ethnomathematics that my friend Sean sent me.

I’ve been pestered to update the site more, so here is an update.

It doesn’t seem like the gaps between posts are that long to me because I write so many that never make the cut.

I’ve started my summer physics class. So far, so good. It seems pretty easy and I’m not too worried about it. I purchased a graphing calculator, my first one ever. There are a ton of functions on it and its going to take me a while to learn it properly. I really like how you can write out an equation before you have it crunch the numbers. A big improvement over my previous calculator (which is like 17 years old). I’ve solidified my opinions more on the subject of using a calculator in school. I never really used one, beyond simple arithmetic up till now. The only reason why I’m using one now is because plugging in numbers into the quadradic equation all the time to get a solution is a pain in the ass. Also, I have enough of a conceptual understanding of the math behind the physics, that it really does become just a time saver. ALL of the Apple Valley kids have graphing calculators and in fact, their textbooks seem structured around it. That’s sad. Everyone should be able to visualize certain fuctions in their head: sine, cosine, e^x, 1/x, tan, the unit circle.

I have a biology class that starts in 2 weeks, and I’m not too worried about that class either. I’m still debating if I should take the differential equations class. I took it at Macalester, but it was a while ago and I could use the refresher. If I do, I think I’ll take it pass/fail.

CFL in Boston was last week. The team overall did well, with Jeff Long making it to semifinals
and Tim “you mean nothing to me now that your extemp career is over” Hogan dropped for the third year in a row in Quarterfinals. Apple Valley placed in the top 5 in speech sweepstakes and over all team sweepstakes.

I’ve been reading a lot lately on the subject of astrobiology. Its a fancy sounding word and a pretty new discipline, and its very inter-disciplinary. Its where astrophysics/paelobiology/geophyiscs/biochemestery all meet up. Physicists have a good idea of how the universe was created up to the first 10^-23 seconds after the big bang. Paleontologists have a pretty good grasp of evolution going back a few billion years. However, there is the period shortly after the formation of the Earth where, somehow, life sprang up out of nothing. The billion dollar question is how exactly did it happen and how easily can it be replicated outside of the Earth.

Anyways, its fun stuff.

Now that my finals are done, I can write a bit more.

My study habits have changed considerably since college 1.0. For starters, I read ahead. This means that the lecture is just a rehash of what I already read, and I can ask more intelligent questions. This is probably old hat to some people, but its new for me. Second, I go out on the web and get info from other places. No matter what the subject, there is some other course at some other college that put its information up on the web in a pdf or in HTML that you can read.

One thing I’m doing for my physics class is watching lectures from the MIT Open Course site. They have a lot of courses with lecture notes and such, but a few have actual videos of the lectures. The intro physics and EM course is taught by Walter Lewin. They are actually fun to watch.

I used to say that anything not math or science could be learned by just reading the book. Now I’m not sure you can make that exception.

If even a fraction of what I’ve written for this site actually ended up here, this would be worthwhile to read.

1) It was a week ago, but props to Mike Bietz who coached this years ToC champ, and of course props to my extemper Tim Hogan who was runner-up.

2) I finished my finals yesterday. There was one question on my math final that I spent most of the time of the test working on. I got the correct answer, but not the way I was supposed to. I’m sure I did well overall, I just need to find out what the curve for the class is.

3) I got a week off, then classes start again. I only have one class for three weeks, then two more start. Physics, differential equations, and biology.

4) The textbook industry is one of the biggest scams going.

From the discussion on Bietz’s site, here are all the states I’ve visited:

create your own personalized map of the USA

A swing through New England and the deep south and I’m set. For good measure, here is Canada:

create your own personalized map of Canada

In the interest of full disclosure, my trip to Quebec consisted of walking over the bridge from Ottawa to Hull and walking back. My trip to Alaska was a stop over on the way to Japan, and my trip to Arizona was a layover on the way to LA. I did drive through a good chunk of Deleware from Philly to DC.

They have a map option for nations also, but some of the ones I’ve visited aren’t very big, so don’t really show up. Here’s a complete list of those:

• USA
• Canada
• Mexico
• Bahamas
• Iceland
• UK
• France
• Belgium
• Germany
• Singapore
• Japan
• Taiwan

Make your own map here.