Mistborn 2

I just finished the second Mistborn book, and I have to say, it was totally AWESOME. John told me after I read the first one that the second was even better, and I admit I doubted. I no longer lack faith. This book gets a huge A+

Now I am the first to admit that the small-scale writing is not amazing. The dialogue and descriptions are sometimes a bit clunky. But the big things are really incredible. The overall story, the side-plots, the characters, the scheming and intrigue...they more than make up for any small problems in wording.

I warn you, though, if you were the kind of person who didn't like Serenity because they killed Wash, you should not read this book. Brandon Sanderson, like Good Ol' Joss, is not afraid to kill a couple characters. Or a lot of characters. Wow.

I can't wait to get my hands on The Hero of Ages...

Merry Christmas!

Well, to all my readers (Sam and John), I wish a merry Christmas. As usual, today we had a Swedish dinner with roast beef and sausages, rice pudding for dessert, and the ritual writing of Christmas poems in between.

My poem was pretty standard for me: not very good, complaining about the rice pudding to come. For no good reason, I'll put my haiku here:

Sausage, Roast Beef, Cheese.
Pickles, Crackers, Gravy, Bread.
No rice pudding, please.

Like I said, not amazing. My favorite was from my niece, Abigail:

Christmas is the time of year
When bells are ringing
And presents
But most of all, Christmas trees.

That girl is going to go places, I tell you.

Anyway, it's Christmas. Merry Christmas, everybody.

Wow.

All I can say is wow.

Immunology

Well, I'm studying for my immunology final tomorrow, and I remembered something that Dr. Murray said one day when we were talking about contact viral diseases (for the faint of heart, stop reading now- contact diseases is a nice way to say STDs).

We were talking about transmission of herpes.
Student: "Is it true you can get herpes in the bathroom?"
Dr. Murray: "Sure! I'm not sure why you would go there to have sex, though..."

Ah, immunologists have no shame talking about these things.

Single

Well, it looks like I've rejoined the noble ranks of bachelors. Dang.

Black Friday animals

At this very moment, my friend Jeff is debugging his big Black Friday purchase- a 9 Tb media center PC. Seriously. It's beautiful.

But, thinking about it reminds me of an article I read the other day about some people who became real animals on Black Friday. Apparently, people in New York trampled a Walmart employee to death trying to get in to the store faster. The details of the article are really amazing. Things like the mob ripping the store's front doors off their hinges.

As the man lay dead, with EMTs trying to bring him back to life, the people standing around (the same people who killed him) made fun of him. No joke. These people killed someone to get into the store fastest and buy cheap DVDs, then made fun of him as he died.

That's just sick. What a world.

Dinner with Vader

So, I logged on to Blogger, went to the link for creating a new post, and was then taken away from my computer for a while. Now that I am back, I can't for the life of me remember what it was that I wanted to write about. Something important, no doubt. And since I hate to close the window with nothing posted, I present a bit of wonderful comedy. Enjoy!

The real college experience

So, I've been out with a pretty nasty cold for a couple days, and I realized that I should be grateful. This cold has given me the chance to live the true bachelor life. The real college experience.

Yesterday I woke up at 2PM, ate a bowl of ramen and a whole packet of Jello. Then I lay down on the couch and watched football for a few hours under a couple of blankets. I went back to bed for a brief nap, and woke up in time for another bowl of ramen. Kate scratched my head for a couple hours, then I went to bed.

Today I woke up about 9AM, mixed up another packet of Jello and went back to bed till noon. I woke up, ate my Jello, and nearly made it to church on time. Came home, ate another bowl of ramen, and that about brings us up to now where I am blogging about it.

So in total, in the last 48 hours, I have slept (I mean actually slept, meaning in my bed) about 27, and napped lightly on the couch for several more. I have eaten three bowls of ramen and two packets of Jello. I will probably make some instant pudding before I turn in around 9 for another 12 hours of sleep.

Hurray for college!

A quick misunderstanding from Immunology

Recently in immunology, we learned about a disease called Tularemia. When I first heard the name, I couldn't help but think of Toolaremia, a horrible disease that runs rampant at university campuses, especially those with frats.

Stupid Genomics. Stupid Computer.

Right now I am working on a genomics assignment. Also, I'm about to throw the computer out the window.

All I can say is this: what kind of moron creates a browser with dozens of pages of output, then defaults the scroll button on the mouse to take you back a page? Every time I get a few things found, I have to start over because I try to scroll down with my mouse and it takes me back to the start.

I hate this class.

Even science is racist

I just read a news article about a man who claims that his drunk driving charges should be thrown out because the breathalyzer test discriminates against black men. His lawyer went so far as to call it the "KKK in a box."

Seriously, folks? The KKK in a box? The man was driving with 0.188 BAC, and the legal limit was 0.08. The fact that black men have slightly smaller lungs does not mean that his BAC would show as more than double what it actually was.

I guess that racism, like science, is whatever we want it to be.

Bored

So, here I am, sitting in the MARB, wishing that more MMBIO 151 students had questions. There was supposed to be a take home test handed out today, so I expected some company during my office hours, but Dr. Breakwell didn't get the test done on time, so it's just me.

If only there were something interesting to blog about.

I've read some interesting news articles lately, but nothing worth going into great depth on. There's the Gay School in Chicago, and I guess that's kind of weird. There's all the backlash about Prop 8 that the Church is getting, but if I go into that, I'll just get worked up and frustrated. Plus, it's not like anybody but my immediate family reads this blog, so my opinions are already known. Even science is boring this week. I mean seriously, studies about corn?

In the way of other blogs, I read Sam's yesterday and already saw all the new pictures of his kids (they're some good looking kids, Sam). John hasn't blogged since the election, so no entertainment there.

I'll just have to find something fun to do. Or maybe I'll have to buck it up and finish grading the last set of tests for Dr. Breakwell.

Global cooling

Well, yet again the score seems to be coming out Science 1, Al Gore 0.

According to a report in the Telegraph, Dr. James Hansen and the GISS reported that this October was the hottest ever. People called them on their data, and it turns out that for a large part of Russia they were comparing September of this year to October of last year. Of course it was warmer.

The numbers were revised and re-released, this time showing the record highs in Antarctica instead of Russia, but still coming to the same conclusion that this was the hottest October ever. But this was again challenged, as satellite images show that there is actually 30% more polar ice right now than at this same time last year.

Conclusion? Some scientists keep stretching to make it seem like we are all heading into a horrible Kevin Costner movie. But the evidence is relatively unconvincing. If you want to lower pollution, there are better reasons to do it than to stop global warming. Me personally? I want to reduce pollution because clean air smells better than dirty air. I think that resorting to scare tactics is a bit silly.

Pool time

Well, I just got out of Infection and Immunity for the day, and I thought I should share a factoid with everybody. We were talking about cryptosporidium (a mean little disease that likes to live in pools). Since diseases like this are transmitted by people who don't feel they can make the long trek from the pool all the way to the bathroom, studies have been done to see just how much urine is in pool water. Are you ready for it? 50 mL (cc) per person per hour. Seriously. That means that if you have a pool party with 20 people, in four hours one gallon of urine has entered your pool. Science!

Movie Review: Hellboy II

Last night I finally saw Hellboy II: The Golden Army. I give it an A- because it was very enjoyable, but somewhat predictable.

The basic plot of the Hellboy series interests me a lot. Hellboy was brought to earth as a cute little baby demon by the Nazis in 1944. He was taken from the Nazis by American forces and raised by Professor Trevor Bruttenholm, a researcher of paranormal events. As he grows up, Hellboy fights the forces of evil and weird, despite sort of belonging to both categories. I think that is what I like most about Hellboy. He is interestingly conflicted between his evil nature (we find out a few times in the movies and probably more often in the comics that it is his destiny to destroy the Earth) and his good desires.

Anyway, The Golden Army was really good. It had what I found lacking in the first film (a wider variety of monsters for Hellboy to fight), and still managed to keep the B-movie tone despite a much bigger budget.

Probably the best gag for me was set up at the very beginning and the punch line was close to the end (I tend to like this kind of joke for some reason). When Professor/Dad Bruttenholm is telling a 10-year old Hellboy the legend of the indestructable Golden Army, Hellboy asks him what "industrable" means. The Professor corrects him and explains what indestructible means. At the end, when Hellboy is beating up the giant mechanical army, you hear him say "Industrible my ass!"

There is also a great scene where Hellboy and Abe get drunk, listen to love songs, and both talk about their girl problems. That gives us this bit of dialogue:

Hellboy: She's my... she's my whole, wide w... I would... I would give my life for her. But she also expects me to do the dishes!
Abe: I would die and do the dishes!

And this little gem:

Hellboy: She's still mad at me, you know. And it's not about the mess, either, it's about something else.
Abe: Well, why don't you just ask her?
Hellboy: No! Because when a woman's mad at you, but she's really mad about something else, and you have to ask, she gets mad because you had to ask in the first place! You know?

Ah, yes, it was a great movie.

Media review part 2

Well, folks, back by popular demand (and by "popular demand" I mean "I felt like it"), it's the media review!

Movies:
Bubba Hotep- B+
This was a great little movie where Elvis (Bruce Campbel) and a black John F. Kennedy (Ossie Davis) have to stop a mummy from sucking the souls out of the residents of an old-folks-home in East Texas. You may want to read that sentence again, just to be sure you got all the awesomeness. Bruce Campbel is amazing (no surprise) as a dirty old man version of Elvis (I guess that is just a slightly dirtier, older Elvis than the real Elvis).
Despite the greatness, I had to take a few points off the top because some of the dirty-old-Elvis jokes were a bit excessive.

The Office- B-
The Office has started to lose it. It's still funny, but it feels more forced. It feels like they're straining to make Michael Scott awkward in unbelievable ways, unlike David Brent, from whom the awkwardness flowed so naturally. I hate to be one of those guys who always says "the original was better," but there are several things about the remake that aren't as good as the original (like Keith). That said, I give it a B- because it still makes me laugh. Dwight giving birth to a watermelon...now that's just comedy gold.

Run, Fat Boy, Run- A-
I completely forgive this movie for being directed by David Schwimmer. Run, Fat Boy, Run manages to combine Sports Movie Plot #1 (underdog competes against unstoppable, evil juggernaut, eventually winning due to perseverance and spirit) and Romantic Comedy Plot #3 (guy loses girl, girl moves on, guy makes huge romantic gesture and wins girl back) into a really funny movie. It's about a man who enters a marathon to one-up his ex's new boyfriend who runs marathons for charity. In addition to being really funny, this movie had a great soundtrack, as exemplified by the song picked for the trailer.

It's Halloween!

OK, so Halloween was actually two days ago. But it's still in the general Halloween season, right? On Friday there was a Stake Halloween activity at the fieldhouse. I wasn't really planning on going, or if I was going, I wasn't planning on staying long. So, I didn't do anything in the costume area. But Jason seemed pretty excited about his costume idea and really wanted to go, so I decided to go with him.

I didn't have anything for a costume, so I had to think fast. I present to you the easiest costume ever: the Balloon Pirate. Thank goodness for useless Mission talents like making balloon animals. I just made myself a sword and a shoulder-parrot, and that was that. It wasn't the best costume I've ever seen, but you have to admit it's original.

Good parts of Genomics

Well, despite what I said recently about hating genomics, the last week or two have actually been pretty cool, ever since we gave up on becoming programmers (which is kind of sad, because I think it would be useful to know a bit of programming).

Anyway, we have been talking about Next Generation sequencing, which is the technology that is in use right now to sequence genomes. It is light years ahead of what was in use just a decade ago in the Human Genome Project in terms of time required, quality of data, etc. As we have been talking about this, Dr. Udall keeps correcting himself and reminding us that the correct term is Second Generation, not Next Generation, because there is already a Next Next Generation (Third) on the horizon, and they don't want to confuse people.

Of course, with the constant reminders that Third Generation was coming, one day we asked what it was. It blew my mind. Now, I recognize that most people who read this blog are not Sam (in fact, I'm pretty sure only one of you is Sam), so I don't think everybody will be as interested in this as we nerds are. That said, it is pretty awesome.

Pacific Biosciences has technology in development that they claim will be able to sequence a human genome in "minutes" for under $100. (click the link and go to "demo" at the bottom for a cool video). This will be available in 2010. So, the original human genome took about 10 years to complete, and now 10 more years later we think we will have it in under an hour. Science is just incredible.

More band names

Well, it has been a bounteous few weeks in my classes, with lots of new band names.

First, we got a couple of good immature, teen-punk bands. "Vigorous Gas Producers" and (one of my true favorites) "The Sausage Disease." We followed those up with "Swabbing With Sputum" and "Mexican Goat Cheese," both of which I think would fit in a similar, but ever-so-slightly more mature, group. Maybe in the range of Green Day instead of Blink 182.

We got a couple of good one-word names like "Invader" and "Shanker," and even a rockabilly-esque "Greased Watermelon." There was a crazy-but-adorable Japanese-pop "Fuzzy Test Tubes" (which is what Dr. Robison calls mice). And for good measure, one more Death Metal bands "One Time Kill."

I think, though, that my favorite thing to come from all this wasn't a band name at all. The best had to be a low-budget horror movie called "Return to the Dark Zone." It makes me wonder what the first Dark Zone was about. And why anybody would want to return there. And whether or not Bruce Campbell was in it.

Frustrated rant

Well, today I need somewhere to complain, and I figured, where better than the internet? That's where everybody else does it, right?

I am in a genomics class at BYU, and it is frustrating. Very frustrating. Just in case you don't know what genomics is, here is a brief summary (and those of you who do know what it is, you should realize that I am sacrificing some accuracy for the sake of simplicity).

Genomics is the study of all the DNA in an organism, or its genome. Genomes contain huge amounts of data. Seriously huge. Imagine trying to publish the genome in a book. If you typed A, T, C, and G (the four types of data in DNA- think 1's and 0's for computers) in 12pt. font with one inch margins, your book of one human genome would be just over a million pages long. So, lots of data. To help search all this data, we use computer programs, and often scientists have to write their own.

Now we get to my complaining (the part I'm sure you've all been waiting for). In my genomics class, we are supposed to learn some basics of PERL, a computer programming language. After spending two days in the computer lab, I have learned how to log in, how to move a file from someone else's folder to mine, and how to run that file. We also learned how to look at the code for that file, but what we see looks like this:

#!/usr/bin/perl
print "ARGV=",@ARGV, "\n";
print "ARGV[0]=",$ARGV[0], "\n";
print "ARGV[1]=",$ARGV[1], "\n";
open(DNAFILE, $ARGV[0]) or die "cant open $ARGV[0]: $!";
while() {
print "line $_\n";
$str = $_;
print "string is $str\n";

So, it's not super-helpful.

Today they asked us to write a program, scavenging the bits of code we needed from other, already functional programs. To me, this sounded like giving me a bunch of sentences in Chinese and saying, "Now, using any words you need from those sentences, write a novel." I had no idea even of where to start an assignment like that. So I, being a very hard working, problem solving kind of guy, sat and stared at my screen for several minutes.

Close to the end of the time limit, the teachers saw that there were two groups in the class: those who were getting computer science degrees (who had finished the assignment in a few minutes and were bored) and those who were completely lost and had given up. The teachers got frustrated with our lack of trying, and we got frustrated with their lack of explaining, and everybody left the class in a bad mood.

The sad part of the story is that there's no satisfying conclusion. I'm still frustrated about it. If anybody out there happens to know a good PERL programming guide, let me know. Or if anybody wants to copy and paste Chinese characters into a novel, that would probably be fun, too.

Retraction

If you have not watched tonight's Heroes, DO NOT READ THIS POST.

I just wanted to be among the first nerds to post this, since I finished watching Heroes a few minutes ago. I hereby replace their B+ with an F-. They killed Ando, dangit. You can't kill Ando. He's the best part of the show.

If they want their B+ back, they'd better make Ando's death somebody's dream...or have Hiro travel back in time...or something.

Media review

I'm going to take a page from the book of John and do a quick runover of the books and movies that have entertained me lately.

Hot Fuzz- A
When I heard that it was a comedy/cop movie/action flick, I was thinking it would be like Naked Gun. I was pleasantly surprised. The action was funny, but not so over-the-top silly that it was not enjoyable as action.
I watched an edited version (it is rated R), and the people I watched with had seen the original release. They said it was missing some of their favorite jokes, but I thought it was just fine edited. Some movies seem to lose a lot in the editing process (like Gladiator), but this one was more along the Blues Brothers lines, where I was left completely satisfied with an edit.

Fight Club- D+
This movie I give a mercy D+ because there were a few enjoyable parts. The best of those is the very end. Those few good parts did not, however, manage to redeem the movie. The acting is pretty good, but not great. The plot was interesting, but when they finally revealed the huge surprise, it wasn't that satisfying. And the girl looks too much like Jonny Depp for me to think she's attractive. All in all, not a great movie.

Heroes- B+
Season three is so far not the abysmal failure that season two was, but it still just doesn't have the magic that season one had. I watch the new episodes, but I don't need them in the same way that I needed to keep watching season one. The jury is still out on the promicin shots, but I think they're kind of lame. In fact, the whole plot of season three seems a lot like The 4400. I really enjoyed The 4400, but I am not sure I want to see it redone by Heroes. I give it a B+ out of good faith, because they seem to be heading in the right direction (i.e., away from the flying dork and towards Nice Sylar).

And some books for good measure...
Finding Darwin's God- B
This was an all-around good book. It was written by Kenneth Miller, a devout Catholic and a scientist, and the basic premise is that it is OK to believe in both science and religion. I think that every person who wants to study a physical science and keep their faith should read it. To quote a small part of what he says,

From time to time I have to struggle to explain to my students, and even my colleagues, not only why Darwinian evolution does not preculde the existence of God, but how remarkably consistent evolution is with ... even the most traditional of Western religions.

So, it's a good book. I could keep quoting the parts of it that I liked, but I will spare you.

Mistborn: The Final Empire- A
If I could give this book something higher than an A, I would. It is the best nerd book I have read in a long time. It's like if The Lord of the Rings and Sneakers had a baby. Magic, intrigue, fighting, a great heist, and lots of other great stuff. Brandon Sanderson really pulled it off with this one.

Dune- C-
Maybe I had had it built up too much, or maybe it just wasn't my style, but I really thought Dune was boring. It was like the Leviticus of SciFi. It just didn't keep me interested. I'd say more specifically, but it was a few months ago, and not too memorable, so I'll leave it at that.

Well, that's enough for today. I may continue this thread some other time.

Science boring...interest fading

I am in an immunology class here at BYU, and it can be super-boring. Not all the time, but sometimes it is a struggle to pay attention. One day I noticed that things on Dr. Robison's Powerpoints sounded a lot like death metal band names. Things like "Suicide Program" and "Death Domain."

Once I noticed this, the names started popping out at me all over in that class. Names like "Syphilis Test." The names weren't limited to just death metal, although those are the best ones. Today we talked about "Himalayan Fantasy," which my friend Brad says sounds to him like psychedelic rock, and "Ultrasonic Nozzle" which would probably be some sort of indie-folk-pop.

The moral of the story? Maybe scientists aren't as boring and nerdy as they want us to think...

Mexico continued- the plaza

On that main central plaza there were dozens of musicians. I speculate that Guanajuato has got to have one of the highest stringed instrument to inhabitant ratios of any city in the world. We took a tour with these guys one night that started on the plaza and wandered through the tiny alleyways as they sang and played their instruments. One of them carried a string bass (no kidding- a full sided string bass) and played and sang at the same time. Whenever we got to a place where there was enough room for it, we would stop and they played a few songs and told jokes. It was really amazing.

On the plaza itself there were always people playing and trying to make some money. This guy had clearly been doing this for a long time, as his voice was starting to give out from years of singing all day every day. It was sad, but the music was very pretty. Also, he has one of the most awesome mustaches I have ever seen. Step aside, Jason Lee.













These guys were just sitting around waiting for somebody to ask them to play. There were about six more members of the band wandering around to the benches and tables asking people if they were interested. Most people weren't that day, but the band wasn't taking it too hard. They seemed to enjoy siting on the plaza as much as we did. Adolfo (on the far right) rivals the guy in the picture above this one for worlds best mustache.

Mexico continued- Guanajuato

After a couple days in Leon, we went to the city of Guanajuato. It was also very nice, but way more touristy. Can you blame the tourists for wanting to come to a place like this?

The city was very pretty, and we enjoyed looking around. This picture was actually taken while my parents and I were trying to find a museum full of Diego Riveras' art. We got lost and spent 20 minutes going the wrong way, but we did see some very nice views like this one.










One day we took this neat little ski-lift thingy (which I didn't get a picture of) up to the top of a hill overlooking the city. At the top was a big scenic lookout type place. So, this is Guanojuato from the hilltop. The red dome in the front and center is a church, and to the right of that is an old theater that was very nice inside. Right in front of the church is a green triangle. That is the central plaza that we spent lots of our time on.

Mexico continued- the music school

The biggest help to this neighborhood is a lady named Lourdes, who has taken it upon herself to improve the area. One of the things she is doing is teaching the kids music.

We got to hear a small concert by the kids and it was great. Most of the kids (all the ones on the stage) are just starting, and didn't know how to play yet. But they clapped along with the beat and bowed at the end. It was really cute.

The kids who actually played were also very nice. All in all, I think it's a good program. Music is a great way to keep kids out of trouble.

Mexico trip

So, here I am, back from Mexico and starting my very own blog. I figured it was about time that I started doing one since I never call or email anybody with updates on my life.

I'm new to the blogging thing, so I'm not quite as good as I want to be at making the formatting work quite yet. So, I'm going to do a bunch of little posts from my trip to Mexico rather than one big one. Little posts are easier to manage for me. So, I hope that you can follow this.

We started our trip in the city of Leon. It was a really cool place. These pictures are of a neighborhood we visited. The city was pretty diverse. We saw some very, very nice places, and some places like this that need some serious care and attention. Thankfully, as I will talk about in my next post, they are starting to get the help that they need.