Today I'm stealing the iChing idea from a couple of the blogs that I read. There is a key available for transcribing randomized songs off one's iPod into tarot-like predictors. It's a fabulous way to waste time. My question: Will I finish up my GBR 030329 work before I move to Chicago?.

1. The Covering: Tom Waits, Bride of Raindogs (Instrumental)
   
2. The Crossing: Radiohead, In Limbo
   
3. The Crown: the Arcade Fire, Haiti
   
4. The Root: Pixies, La La Love You
   
5. The Past: Pavement, No Life Singed Her[Live]
   
6. The Future: Stereolab, Three Longers Later
   
7. The Questioner: Mission of Burma, Einstein's Day
   
8. The House: Frederic Chopin, Eb Major op. 9 No. 2 - Andante [Nocturnes]
   
9. The Inside: Outkast, the Letter
   
10. The Outcome: Belle and Sebastian, The State I am In
    

Ok, so I don't want to get caught up trying to interpret these things, except to say that the State I am In is a painfully ambiguous Outcome. Or maybe I'm just terrified at the thought of being trapped forever in he sate that I am currently in. Well, anyway, later dudes.

Someday I'm going to go about rewriting this whole webpage deal, but it'll require some html/php study and revision. Who knows when I'll actually get around to that, but at the moment I'm at least a little motivated to put some time into it because I kind of wanted to add one of those interactive polls (which would involve some php, I'm pretty sure). Anyway, the past two and a half weeks have wreaked havoc on whatever work ethic and focus that I had managed to create for myself. Somewhere bewteen drinking heavily, sitting on the beach, and doing some carpentry (badly) in the hot sun I managed to get lost in a pleasant cycle of sleep, reading, and nostalgia. Sleep is nothing to write home about, and reading is a wonderful way to pass a few days at the beach. Nostalgia/reminiscence is something that I'm always a little wary of. So it's time to drop all that shit before it takes hold; I've had my fun - it's time to get back on track with the work. Lastly, if you're reading this and you have beach pictures that you haven't shared then you need to get those to me. Seriously.

Wanted to toss out this link, which I found to be childish but funny. Since the whole evolution/ID debate has appeared, it's mostly made me very angry, so it's nice to laugh a little.

I'm back, more or less, and with a little luck I'll manage to ramp up to the point of getting work done by the end of the week. So last week was lots of physical labor and hanging with some pretty chill high schoolers. All in the low country of South Carolina, 110+ heat index and all. Intense. The weekends were beach time, and against all odds I've managed a pretty respectable tan. It's a rare thing, for me. Oh, and there were some pictures from the beach-weekend-with-friends event. Right now I just have the pictures taken with my camera, which consists of Sam and I squaring off against a giant sea creature. I expect that more pictures will wander my way from other peoples' cameras. Anyway, the latest news with me is that the European Research Training Network's Summer School on Gamma-ray Bursts is looking like a distinct possibility. Sometimes my life is the best.

Summer is here. Atsui-ne, as they might say in Japan. I bet that seems like a fairly random Japan reference, but I can splain: I went to the Nightlight on Friday to catch des ark (who were awesome), and also playing that night was a japanese punk band called Mika Bomb. They weren't bad or anything, but something about a gang of cute Japanese girls playing punk rock just set me to laughing. One just can't help but exclaim "Aren't they adorable?!", which can't be the sort of response that a punk band appreciates. Anyway, I'm coming around to what I was thinking about when I logged in a minute ago. Ursula le Guin and the notion of Plausibility in fiction/sci-fi/fantasy. She wrote a short essay on the subject that I enjoyed. To close, I have Tom Slayon coming into town Wednesday, and I'll be at the beach through Sunday, and then in S.C. building/repairing houses until June 18. It'll be a nice break from the internet.

Damn, I wish. So I wrote this piece of code that fits many-parameter models to GRB lightcurves. It uses a genetic algorithm to sort through the parameter space. No, seriously, it really works this time. I know, I was surprised too. Yeah, it's awesome. Because I haven't mentioned it in a while, I'll go ahead and point out the Dinosaur Comics has, on consecutive days, taught us all a couple of crucial lessons. word etymology and respecting unique world views, and summer is when pretty girls come out. Dinosaur Comics may be the most consistently perfect thing in my life. To quote Turkey Creek Jack Johnson from Tombstone (1993), I ain't got the words.

It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.

Fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face.

I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

On a less serious note, I moved today. Moving is the worst. I can now be found on Basnight Lane(?) (I don't know the number, which places me notably behind most kindergardeners - update June 6: it's 14 Basnight), which is off Cameron Ave., about a mile west of Phillips (sweetness! easier access to my oppressive subterranean work invironment!)

The latest Spoon and M83 albums have been serving as soundtrack to my life the past couple of days. Both bands will be seen at Austin City Limits Festival 2005, along with a big ol' mess of other great music. I don't have much else to say just now, as I've been reading this riveting new book, An Introduction to GCC (for the GNU Compilers gcc and g++). It's at least twice as interesting as it sounds. Also, I took another quiz:

And I thought I had a little "soul" - but the quiz has gone and revealed the mechanical robot heart that beats at my core. It is a sad day.

And if you can't acknowledge John Darnielle's brilliance as a song writer, then we are simply going to have to throw down. I am sorry, my friend, but sometimes a good throw down is the only solution. Special thanks to Cory Rayborn for getting me a digital copy of the limited edition LP with demo versions of the songs contained on The Sunset Tree. But my outrage is not limited to Mountain Goats haters - the blogosphere (in all its glory) has been pushing me steadily toward the point at which I must become politically involved in some way. I mean, what kind of total bullshit is the aforelinked total bullshit? There are first-hand reports of these people's (that's right, i said " these people") conferences. Disgusting.

Now, I'm not saying that no one else is allowed to be a smart-ass. All I'm saying is that if someone else wants to be a smart-ass then they need to understand from the get-go that they aren't going to be as good at it as I am. And it's not about talent. It's a lack of understanding of what it truly means to be a smart-ass. The goal is not humor. The goal is to be obnoxious. Few people truly understand this. That said, I need to get back to reading Kafka on the Shore. If you've never read anything by Murakami, then it's high time you went and did that.

But type 1 songs can, upon the first listen, be easily mistaken for type 3. Or so a wise man once told me. Or more a good friend than a wise man. ... yeah, so it goes like it goes. You'd think I wouldn't login and add text here unless I had something in mind. But you'd be wrong. This must be a humbling moment for you, I'm sure. Anyway, aside from taking up permanent residence in subtle numerical error hell, I've been reading lots of science blogs. There's great stuff available here and here. Of course, Preposterous Universe remains my favorite. Anyway, I'm about to head out on an impromptu trip to das beach. Murakami's latest, Kafka On the Shore, is coming with me, but so is my laptop. Eh, you can't win 'em all. But you can acknowledge that Astronomy Picture of the Day has been on a roll lately.

So what sucks? Numerical errors in your code, that's what. Mostly, I'm just beginning to fall behind the schedule that I've arbitrarily set for myself, and that's resulting in all sorts of stress and unpleasantness. Worse still, is the fact that I've had trouble even focusing on anything lately, but that's another story for another time. Enough of my whining. The world turns. Rory offers his 10 Points to bring peace, love, and understanding to east Asia. Hope springs eternal, right? Oh, and I can't forget to mention Dinosaur Comics. I'm sorry, it's just the funniest thing in the world. I mean, "my mouth was merely occupied with dorito-related activities"?!? It doesn't get any better than that. PS - glancing back over this, it seems a little half-hearted, but that's all I can manage right now.

I need to thank Jim for what may be the greatest picture in the history of photography. Too too funny.

I was recently reminded of what it is about the Once and Future King that means so much to me. It's the persistently tragic morality that makes the characters of Arthur and Lancelot so incredible. For one thing, the two of them are very different, ethically. Yet both are good people. Arthur is an idealist. He is pure, and utterly without guile. Lancelot is a more complicated case; I defer to T.H. White's own words in order to summarize the morality of Lancelot:

What sort of picture do people have of Sir Lancelot from this end of time? Perhaps they only think of him as an ugly young man who was good at games. But he was more than this. He was a knight with a medieval respect for honor. There is a phrase which you sometimes come across in the country districts even nowadays, which sums up a good deal of what he might have tried to say. Farmers use it in Ireland as praise or complaint, saying, 'So-and-so has a Word. He will do as he promised.' Lancelot tried to have a Word. He considered it, as the ignorant country people still consider it, to be the most valuable of possessions. But the curious thing was that under the king-post of keeping faith with himself and with others, he had a contradictory nature which was far from holy. His Word was valuable to him not only because he was good, but also because he was bad. It is the bad people who need to have principles to restrain them. For one thing, he liked to hurt people. It was for the strange reason that he was cruel, that the poor fellow never killed a man who asked for mercy, or committed a cruel action which he could have prevented. One reason why he fell in love with Guenever was because the first thing he had ever done was to hurt her. He might never have noticed her as a person, if he had not seen the pain in her eyes. People have odd reasons for ending up a saint. A man who was not afflicted with ambitions of decency in his mind might simply have run away with his hero's wife, and then perhaps the tragedy of Arthur might never have happened. An ordinary fellow, who did not spend half his life torturing himself by trying to discover what was right so as to conquer his inclination towards what was wrong, might have cut the knot which brought their ruin.

I have the Great Drowse, which may or may not be due to the Great Illness. Unfortunate side effects include the Great Soreness and the Great Desire-To-Do-Nothing-But-Alternate-Between-Laying-Down-And-Taking-Showers. On the badass side of things, however, I have put together an early science GRB observing plan for SALT and my code for applying a genetic algorithm to the fitting of models to GRB spectra and lightcurves is very near completion. Now I get to read over the GRB Target of Opportunity Observation proposal for the ARC 3.5m telescope at APO just because I'm cool like that. That's productivity, suckas!

Alright, so everything can, in fact, hit at once. This week has been pretty much a blur of everything except sleep, which has only made it more blurry. And now I've got ~3 days to actually accomplish a little work before flying to Chicago next week. Flying to Chicago is totally awesome, but sometime soon I'm gonna hit a wall. And I'm gonna hit it hard. I'm kind of looking forward to it, because I might actually get some sleep.

That's one of those subject headings that makes me hope that I don't have a lot of extended family members who keep up with me via this website-thing. Anyway, this weekend+2days rocked. Hard. Pictures are on the way, as soon as I am no longer any combination of the following: drunk, exhausted, painted, sore, and giddy. Other wierd news - I was 2 for 2 Saturday and Monday nights getting hit on by skanky women in Linda's. Skanks bad. No friend of skanks here. Not even a little bit. Also, I have found a very funny thing for your enjoyment..

The wierdest fucking thing happened this morning. I'm waiting for the bus, just bebopping along with the ipod, and this oldish woman (maybe ~50) comes up on a bike and yells out "Outta my way, pig!". I take a look around - I'm the only person there. But I'm no pig. So I'm thinking she's just trying to be funny (and kinda succeeding, when you think about it). So I sort of smile a little, laugh, and get back to my bebopping. Except the woman keeps yelling things as she rides by me. Things like "Stay the fuck away from my kids!", and "Don't mess with my family, you bastard!" (she may have actually said "rat bastard", I don't remember exactly). Her face was kind of rage-filled. Maybe it's not possible for a face to be kind of filled with rage, so let's just say her face was filled with rage. Anyway, she kept yelling back at me for as long as I was in sight. Unfriendly things, she was yelling. But I'm a friendly guy, so I was confused. Strange, huh?

But then everyone's favorite month is the one in which they were born. C'est la vie. I ran across this pretty awesome Photo Essay of the USA, as published in some German magazine that I can't read. There are some badass moustaches on page four. That's just how we roll in the good ol' US of A.

The Final Four looms. This could be awesome. Of course, my workload is really starting to pile up again. It's almost April. Jesus, where does the time go? ... I'd like to put something interesting here, but life's been pretty ho-hum lately. Sorry about that. Once again Daily Dinosaur Comics sums things up more eloquently than I ever could.

Finally working out the kinks (not the band). Finding time to exercise again. Sleeping well. Stress is at a nice low. Spring is on the way. Another hilarious Daily Dinosaur Comic. These are good days. Oh, and damn. How cool would it be to be this guy?

Today is special. It is Saint Patrick's Day. It is also the beginning of the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Good times. Upsets are difficult to predict, but I'm betting on New Mexico, Creighton, Iowa, NC State, Old Dominion, and UCLA pulling it off. Chances I guessed right? Quite small. One or more of UW-Milwaukee, Utah St., UAB, UTEP, and St. Mary's will likely go and win, but no one can guess 'em all, right? Update 11:45pm : So I was 9-7 on day 1. Pretty awful. Ah well.

That's for all you Wet Hot American Summer fans. I was sick this week, but am now mostly over it. Very unpleasant. So much work to get done - more than is possible really. But it is the struggle that makes life worth living, no?

So it's my birthday? That snuck up on me - I turned 24 in a bar in Madison, WI playing pool (badly), and managed to spend most of the actual day traveling. But everything is great because of the outcome of the game. I am muy happy. Also, I am more tired than anyone should ever be. There should be some sort of formula that takes # of hangovers, # hours spent in flight, inverse # hours of sleep, and # of timezones slept in as arguments, and then divides by days or something. My number would be bad right now.

Credit to Lolo for what may be the funniest conference precedings poster ever. For reals. I'd like to believe that humor was her only motivation, but part of me suspects that putting these images of the web is just Lolo's way of proving that she does, in fact, possess Harvard webspace.

More work on PROMPT. Follow the link to try and catch me in the act. Update: the work's going well, but I'm dead tired. Maybe the craziest thing about being up on Tololo for long stretches is the pervasive silence. Someone typing on a keyboard inside a building that you're standing next to qualifies as a loud noise up here. It's a beautiful thing, until it begins to drive you crazy. Also, never forget that we can certainly sexy.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm no expert on these things, but isn't it fair to say that capri jeans on a guy is a little over the line? I think so, but the fop in front of me in the Santiago immigration line definitely does not.

I'll be returning to Chile to do more PROMPT work, from Feb 15 - Mar 4. I have so many frequent flier miles, it's not even funny. Before I step out for a few weeks, I should add the top albums of 2000-2004 that have been submitted by Ethan (list) and Kate (list). That is all, for now.

Lest we forget, there are very good reasons for why we hate Duke.

So Pitchfork Media released their top 100 albums of 2000-2004. An interesting list, and a pretty good place to start for anyone interested in checking out some good music. This list prompted Jim and I to come up with some of our own favorite albums from the same peroid. Jim's can be seen here and mine there. Jim took the time to rank them, while I just grouped them roughly. I would like to add that I am supremely upset that Mogwai's EP+2 missed the cut by just a couple months. That shit rocks.

The Goodman Lab has taken its first step toward world domination by annexing Phillips 140 (from hereon out, "Goodman Lab East"). I haven't been this concerned for the fate of mankind since I first saw the über-disturbing, and totally unnecessary, QRIO Dancing Robots that were built by (surprise!) the Japanese. Anyway, this means that I can no longer be reliably found in Phillips 114, which would be relevant if anyone ever stopped by to say, "Hi", but they don't so it isn't.

Music is a tricky little sonofabitch. You hear it, and it (hopefully) sounds great. And in many cases you understand the lyrics, and they make you smile/laugh/other emotive response. The danger, I've always felt, lies in identifying too closely with song lyrics. We all have music we like, and we all have favorite songs that, for various reasons, mean quite a lot to us. But isn't there a danger in liking a song because you believe that it sums up, perfectly, some particular feeling or event in your life? It just seems like a copout to point to a song and say, "Yeah, that one over there - that's exactly how I felt." Maybe I'm just being neurotic about this, but it's a feeling I've always had. There's always been an element of guarded suspicion in my music fandom. This is why I am highly suspicious of my own affection for Tiny Vessels, a Death Cab for Cutie song.

I have just recently come to realize that there are only two women in the music industry on whom I have developed crushes based solely upon their vocal style. Kim Deal(Pixies) and Karen O(Yeah Yeah Yeahs) should feel honored. To this date, I don't beleive I've ever really seen the likeness of either (though rumor has it that Kim Deal is mroe than a little strung out these days).

Winter is depressing. Winter + C++ is even more depressing. The Shins? Not so depressing. Also not depressing - I've redone some of my photos. I have pictures from Sweden, the Scottish Highlands and the Isle of Skye up, but most of those are scenery, and at least a few of them are kinda underwhelming until I stitch them together (assuming I ever find time to get that whole panorama thing down).

So Chris bought, on eBay, the biggest laser that I've ever seen with my own eyes. We're talking Real Genius caliber, here (Update, Jan 19: It is a 25 Watt Laser. It will burn a hole through your hand instantaneously. That is SO awesome). This thing was shipped in a 2ft. x 2ft. x 8ft. crate, folks.

Greatest movie ever? Very possibly a tiny independent film that is due out later this year.

I'm serious about that, there was seriously a period in my life during which, for whatever reason, I never really got stressed out. There was no tightening of muscles. No insomnia. I think I was just really really lazy - that might explain it. I want to take this opportunity to congratulate my good friend, Sam, on his (rediculously) early acceptance to the NYU Law School. I also need to congratulate the UNC Men's Basketball team on its nasty victory over No. 8 Georgia Tech tonight. I don't want to jinx anyone, but I can't think of a better way for me to leave Chapel Hill than having experienced a national championship season in basketball.

Carrots are an excellent snack food; I'm a big fan of all the orange vegetables, actually. The Grad School Game has reached the waiting phase; this will be a blast. That's sarcasm-speak for "I may not sleep for the next month and a half." If actual humor is what you seek in life, I really enjoyed this comic, but then I'm a sucker for dinosaurs speaking phrases like "OH MY GOODNESS".

My iPod arrived today. The first thing I did was clutch it to my chest and mutter something like, "I'll hold you and squeeze you forever and ever and I will call you 'George'." George strikes me as a pretty terrible name for an iPod, but then, I've never been very good at naming inanimate objects (nor animate ones, for the matter).

Whew! I had the chance to get to the pool today for the first time in ~2 months. It's shocking how good a little physical exhaustion feels sometimes. A little general advice: never a good idea to be a sanctimonious ass. I'm just sayin', is all. I'm kind of excited; soon I'll be given my own little platoon of undergrads to train. I've never had slaves before, so this should be interesting.

Which of the Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs are you? I'm Busby Berkeley Dreams. You know, I used to think that this whole internet quiz thing was getting out of hand, but I've seen enough hilariously cool quizes lately to change my mind. I must have more. Feed me. Alright, that was a bit too Little Shop of Horrors, maybe. Also, Jerome Carpenter now owes me a favor.

Don't know much what to say here. Grad school applications are about halfway through - that process should wind down (at leas the submission part) in the next two weeks. I'll be ringing in the new year from Ocean Isle Beach this time, but I realized last night that, thinking back, I really can't remember anything about any of my previous New Years celebrations. There are only two that summon up any images at all, and those were pleasant and cozy, but far from spectacular. Maybe my New Years Resolution should be along the lines of "Do something interesting next New Years." Small odds that I'll actually remember the resolution a year from now, but I figure it's always worth-while to try and make them.

The blur of my life these past 120 hours: I've witnessed 4 of 5 sunrises and 5 of 5 sunsets, consumed a meal and the lunching hour each day, and spent every night either observing or chatting up a depressingly princess-y valley girl on the 10 hr Santiago-Dallas AA flight. Where did all the sleep go? Damned if I know. Other misc. thoughts about Chile: Tololo is gorgeous - affording spectacular views of the wrinkled Earth as the Andes descend into the Pacific. La Serena is great; this is mostly due to excellent meals (corvina, you are delicious) and fine wine. There are other thoughts bouncing around in here (my head), but they'll have to wait. Or maybe they'll just drift away. Happy holidays.

While this is not always the case, I've definitely spent a majority of the past ten days on the equivalent of assembling giant bird feeders. Not terribly exciting. The good news? Cute German girls (well, girl). Don't get me wrong, Tololo is a beautiful, peaceful place, but it can get quite monotonous after a week or so. It's refreshing to have new people to meet. Oh, I've also added the first small set of pictures from Cerro Tololo.

The sun, she will burn you when sunscreen is forgotten. I am burned. Also, the Goodman Spectrograph information page has been put up on the CTIO webpage, but can be reached more directly from the SOAR Instruments webpage. There is a picture of me somewhere in there - it is awesome. You should go. Anyway, work on PROMPT is underway. Hopefully the first telescope will be getting some test images by the end of next week, though it's more likely that we'll run into a delay or two. Chile is saturated with delays. Fear not, we won't let it get us down.

The machinery is in motion. I've set up this sad little excuse for a webpage to keep my references informed of deadlines and such. Anyone else who's interested in writing a recommendation for me can tell me as much so that I can say "Thanks" back(yeah, like I'm going to use you as a reference). Also, T minus 11 days from departure to Chile. I'll be working on PROMPT and generally having a grand time on top of a giant mountain in the Andes.

I've redone the Japan photo page. All new comments. Some all-new pictures. Should be good stuff. Also, there are pictures from two beach weekends in May here and here, as well as pictures from Europe in March over yonder.

Wow, I'm bad at studying. But at least I'm trying. If you're bored, take the Book Quiz. I came out as Ender's Game, which means that this is the best quiz ever. There is also a Country Quiz and a State Quiz. I got Thailand and Virginia, respectively. Obviously, not all internet quizes are created equal.

It's never too late to study up on Ladder Theory. These are Rock Hard Times.

How Dixie/Yankee are you?