dk

I recently watched Randy Pausch’s “Last Lecture” from September of 2007. He died a few days ago.

If you haven’t seen his lecture, I encourage you to take the time (over an hour), and do so. We could all learn a little, or a lot, from people like him.

Timothy Egan wrote this nice blurb on the New York Times.

Religion is like cigarettes for me. It’s your own decision, and I will not chide you for practicing. But please don’t make me inhale your secondhand smoke.

By the way, I am super excited that Barack Obama will be the Democratic candidate this fall. I can’t think of a better candidate to help America’s image overseas (a matter near and dear to my heart). I firmly believe that negotiation and discussions with the rest of the world can only strengthen the United State’s position. Stop going to war. Please. All we’re doing all the time is pissing people off. And guess what? When you piss people off, their kids grow up to hate you even more than the pissees. What a shocker.

Save us Obama. Save us.

Those who know me personally know that I’m a huge science nerd. I love science. I probably inherited this feature from my father, who was also a science nut, math genius, and notable software engineer. Even though I live overseas in Denmark, I subscribe to Science News magazine, a weekly magazine that summarizes and highlights recent scientific discoveries that have been published in various science periodicals.

One of the coolest things about the natural sciences is that new stuff is being discovered all the time. In all fields. Biology. Chemistry. Math. Cosmology. Physics. Just when you think there’s nothing new to be learned, maybe only refinements or tweaking of existing theories, something brand new pops up that rocks the foundation of a given field. For example, in the field of cosmology, there is this article about “dark energy”, which, really, just makes no sense in my head. Trying to understand how and why the universe exists is daunting at best.

I majored in Biology at Harvey Mudd College, with emphasis on marine ecology. Together with my professor, I was co-published in the journal Marine Biology, back in 1997. “Genetic relationships within and between clonal and solitary forms of the sea anemone Anthopleura elegantissima revisited: evidence for the existence of two species.” And I was only an undergrad. Pretty cool.

Anyway, I’ve been a fairly avid reader of Olivia Judson column in the New York Times. She is a total science geek, but her writing puts science within reach of just about anybody. Recently, she posted this article about “bdelloids“. (No, that is not a typo. The “b” is silent.)

It reminded me of my studies from way back when, on those sea anenomes, where sometimes they reproduce asexually, and sometimes sexually. Weird, but true.

For more cool science stuff, check out Paul Doherty’s blog. Paul is the senior scientist at the Explorartorium in San Francisco. A great museum! (I worked there as an Explainer in high school, but hey, I’m not biased.)

My cousin Julia is the online political director at the Courage Campaign. I’m very proud of her. Recently, Al Gore recorded a short for the organization. In it, he champions the notion of investing more in education, not less, especially in times of financial downturn. I could not agree more. It may squeeze the wallet, but nothing can be a more secure investment than ensuring that the next generation has the tools for success. We all win.

Not good.

Everyone is pissed, and I don’t see how this is going to end well. I think everyone just needs to spend a weekend together in the mountains and chill and work out our differences. Real universal dialog is the only thing that will help, at this point.

The latest I heard, Osama bin Laden is calling for attacks against Denmark.

On the one hand, I can understand that the drawings have offended millions of Muslims. I admit, I don’t understand it way down in the bowels of my gut, because I can’t imagine feeling so offended by a drawing, ever. But I can respect that people have been offended.

But plotting to kill people because of a drawing? I mean, I’m sorry. Are you kidding me? How about plotting to hold a discussion and debate, to help enlighten people?

I wish those drawings had never been printed. I of course think freedom of speech and religion is paramount to a free and healthy Planet Earth. But the price for it in this round just stinks.

All said, I must say, I agree wholeheartedly with this statement by Flemming Rose, the editor of Jyllands-Posten:

“It was not about mocking a minority but a religious figure, the Prophet, so it was blasphemy, not racism,” Mr. Rose said of the cartoons. “The idea of challenging religious authority led to liberal democracy, whereas the singling out of minorities, as minorities, led to Nazism and the persecution of the bourgeoisie in Russia. So this distinction is crucial to understand.”

Over the weekend, the dollar dropped to a historic low (as far as I’m concerned). I’ve been keeping track of the good ol’ greenback since sometime in 1997. Today, I loaded all that data and graphed it out. Today, I weeped.

I first moved to Denmark, and bought an apartment, at the end of 1999. The dollar was doing OK. I lived here until early 2004. I sold the apartment later that summer. Not too shabby. The Danish Crown (DKK) was at around 6 to the dollar. I had originally bought at around 7. Granted, that’s a 15% drop in value. But my apartment hadn’t stagnated in value either. In those four years, it had appreciated by around 50%. And in 2001 and 2002, my purchasing power overseas was pretty sweet. Almost 9 crowns to the dollar.

But egads, look at the dollar now. For the first time since I started keeping track of these things, it’s now less than 5 Danish Crowns to the dollar. This means as an American, I can’t buy squat over here. And now that I work for an American company, getting paid in American Dollars, it is starting to get painful. Save me, Barrack Obama!

I’m only posting this so that the date shows February 29. That’s awesome.

OK, I really don’t get it. Why in the world is Congress investigating baseball? What do legislators have anything to do with sports? Someone please explain this to me. I’m begging you.

As far as I understand how the U.S. government works, it is the responsibility of Congress to enact laws that serve the interest of the American people. I don’t recall learning in high school how Congress should lead “task forces” that investigate whether or not professional baseball players use anabolic steroids. I’m… so confused.

It seems like the illegal use of steroids should be taken up by the executive branch of the government (i.e. cops), or by MLB, or by ESPN for that matter. But my friendly neighborhood Representative? Give me a break. For the love of God and Country, go write some laws. Stop wasting tax dollars on your ridiculous witch hunts.

Next up: Senator McCarthy determines that 57% of baseball players are also known members of the Communist Party for the Legal Distribution of ‘Roids.

Oh, and I’ll take the peanuts. And beer. Lots of it.

The Exxon Valdez disaster occurred while I was a senior in high school. It was a terrible natural catastrophe. My mother was vehemently pissed about it. She wrote a letter to the editor of the San Jose Mercury News, which was printed. In it, she eloquently and passionately lambasted Exxon, in part of course because of their indirect negligence in the accident itself, but mostly because as a corporation, they immediately went on the defensive, absolving themselves from (fiscal) responsibility. This ticked my mom off to no end. It ticked me off too. But my mom did something about it. She enlisted a few of my high school friends, as well as myself, to take to the streets of Cupertino with petitions calling for the government to hold Exxon accountable. We had moderate success, I think, but in the end, nobody really listened, or really cared that much.

I haven’t thought back to those days, from 1989, for a long time. But then I saw this article in the New York Times, and it made me sad. After almost 20 years, I don’t think we as a collective society are committed enough to “doing the right thing.” It’s one of those things that is hard to describe, and almost impossible to legislate. But I know and love it when I see it.