New volcano simulation

My advisor feels strongly that all scientific publications should be peer-reviewed, so in light of Kevin’s valuable insight into my post about the finite element analysis of a point load on an elastic plate, I refined my model and re-ran the simulation. The result is clearly more realistic and can easily be verified by means of a field trip to Hawaii, or by a viewing the award-winning, critically-acclaimed documentary, Joe Versus the Volcano.

New volcano simulation

Dumb signs

Really? As opposed to prepaying after?

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Back in the saddle again

With gas prices on their way to $4/gallon and beyond, I finally got the old bike out of the garage. One new battery later and I was puttering up and down the road. I had to dig through and under several boxes to find my helmet, and the chrome on the bike has suffered as a result of the damp polebarn, but it seems to run just fine. It’s still leaking fuel out of the crankcase air box, but some research reveals that it needs a new petcock fuel shutoff. So I’ll take it into the mechanic this week to have him do a safety inspection and replace the part. I know the family is not exactly thrilled about it, but it felt great to get back on the bike and I’m definitely looking forward to 40mpg fuel economy.

Real Irishmen don’t call 911

… after drinking, that is. Please tell me that it would be absolutely ridiculous for a person in Ireland to go out to the pub, get completely plastered, and then call an ambulance because they were too drunk. Wouldn’t it be nice if all the St. Patrick’s Day celebrants here in the US wore their big-boy boots out to the bar and either drank within their limits, or decided to man-up and deal with the consequences.

Too many whiny I-think-I’m-gonna-die-because-I-drank-too much barely 21-year-olds calling 911 tonight, I guess.

Knight Rider Three Thousand – skip it

Just sat down to watch the premiere of the new Knight Rider.

Helpless (but curiously intelligent) damsel in distress: check
Hothead, daredevil womanizer in trouble with the law: check
Brainless, shallow villains: check
Brainless, shallow federal agents: check
Shot entirely within 20 miles of LA: check

Lame: check

Hasselhoff was more entertaining, if that gives you a feel for it.

Borders new store not a revolution

Borders opened their new Ann Arbor store to the public yesterday, and I dropped by for a peek at the place. For all the hype about it being a new generation of book store, not much has really changed from their other strip-mall stores that I’ve seen. Sure, they’ve added cool new digital kiosks and spiffy mobile-like hanging picutres of superheroes over their ginourmous comic and graphic novel section. But the layout and decor of the store is much less warm and comfortable than their standalone stores, like the ones in downtown Ann Arbor and Chicago.
So if *I* were designing a hip, trend-setting bookstore, I’d make it feel like the customer’s own personal library… plush and plentiful seating, chandelier and sconce lighting, wood trim, etc. And instead of having people stand at kiosks to buy and download music and books-on-mp3, sell them from interfaces at coffee tables, workstation desks, and reading chairs.

And book signings by teleconference? Lame.

Things that make my managers and supervisors sound like idiots

I have a hunch that this is due in large part to my father’s attention to detail in our use of the english language, but reading professional memos and publications with the errors below makes it difficult for me to have a tremendous amount of confidence in the people who author them. I’ve also noticed that recently, an increasing number of my peers are making the same errors or reverting to IM-speak in environments where informal communication is not appropriate. This makes me wonder whether this is just a failure of society in general to place value in the language, or is it a failure of the education system to do the same? By adopting an attitude of “we each speak our own version of english, and that’s okay” the schools remove any accountability of the students to learn what is correct and what is not. Anyhow, here’s the list off the top of my head. I’ll probably add more as I think of them.

1. your and you’re – This is by far the worst offense!
2. where, were, and wear
3. weather and whether
4. to, too, and two
5. Prefacing each memo with “Be advise”, instead of “Be advised”, which isn’t actually needed either, since the purpose of the memo is in fact to advise me of whatever follows.

Broken

It took exactly ten seconds last night for the talking (air)heads on The President’s Megaphone NetworkFox News to totally ratchet my chain. First the timer in the corner of the screen that was counting the minutes until a Democrat response to the President’s address, as well as the caption “President proposes Iraq strategy, where are the Democrats?” This was obviously in reference to the line in the speech where Bush says, “And all involved have a responsibility to explain how the path they propose would be more likely to succeed.” Normally, I would agree, but let’s be clear… this is more like a guy pulling the pin out of a grenade, releasing the spoon, trying (and failing) to put the pin back in, shrugging and saying “I’m going to keep trying to put this pin back in because I *know* it’s the right thing to do, so shut up unless you have a better idea.” Of course, the better idea is to distance oneself from a live grenade, but that would be cutting and running, wouldn’t it?

The thing that really fired me up though, was the line by which ever windbag-infotainer-of-the-moment that was denigrating those critical of the President’s policy and plan, “The founding father’s were very clear that there is only supposed to be one Commander-In-Chief, not 535 Commanders-In-Chief.” True… and in the interest of being very clear about the intent of the founding father, and in the interest of not slandering their actions or legacy, let’s take a look at that good ol’ Constitution. Specifically, Article I, Section 8: “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;” … “To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;”

Congress has the power to declare war, not the Commander-In-Chief. And yes, I know that the US hasn’t actually declared war on any nation since WWII… that doesn’t excuse or justify the actions of the current or any previous President.

As time goes on, I worry about how far we’ve drifted from the intent of the framers of the Constitution, and from the Amendments which secured for us our rights as citizens.

Where the buck stops

I’m not sure exactly why so many people try so hard to defend Bush when things have gone so badly in Iraq. As the Commander-In-Chief of the armed forces, the responsibility for the results of his orders must be placed squarely on his shoulders. The way I see it, there are only two possibilities for the current situation… either he acted on incorrect, tenuous information, or he had good information and simply chose to deceive the American people with regard to the motivation for military action. If the former is the case, then the deaths of over 3000 American troops (with how many more permanently disabled or wounded?) are due to incompetence. If the latter is true, then it is crimial dereliction of duty. Either way, I don’t see how the person giving the orders can escape the responsibility for the outcome.

Bartender, another please

Whew. As of last night, I survived the craziest, most intense semester of my school career… so far. The two back-to-back Paleontology and Geomorphology exams yesterday evening were pretty much the culmination of my undergraduate career. I have one more class to take in the winter, and it’s online, so aside from the three lab sections that I’m teaching, I don’t even have to go to campus to finish up my degree.
And speaking of degrees… all of my application material for the graduate program at the University of Colorado has finally been submitted. The last of it was faxed in two days before the Dec 15 deadline, so now, as Dad is so fond of quoting, I just wait right here. Tax Day is the last day that grad schools can notify applicants of acceptance status, so it could be months from now, but it definitely a relief just to have it all done. Unfortunately, my GRE scores were far from encouraging, but not horrible, considering that I only was able to prepare for the math section for a few hours ahead of time. Yep… should have done that before the babies were born. (Why do I think I’ll be saying that more as time goes on?)

Oops… there’s a whimper in the background. Naptime’s over and mid-afternoon/pre-dinner meal is about to commence. We’re fortunate though, both kids are getting progressively more able to be awake for periods of time without fussing, both are taking pretty regular naps (except Kasia, who decided she would regress about six weeks and refuse to sleep during my finals.) So the fact that I have time to sit here and update the blog (and only wake up once at night for feedings) is the best Christmas present I could ask for… except the one I got early of course… my two gorgeous babies and those day-making smiles!