| Lots of reading |
[Sep. 21st, 2009|06:37 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Lab | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  morose | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Mastodon-Megalodon | ] |
I'm reading books 7 and 8 of Glen Cook's Black Company series. They're being reprinted in 2's and 3's every year or so. One more year and the series will be completely reprinted. This is epic fantasy at its most epic. I must say that the first 3 were the best, but the others have not disappointed in the least.
On the epic fantasy note, "The Gathering Storm," book 1 of the last 3 in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series is due out October 22nd. We've been waiting for a long time, slowly tracking Brandon Sanderson's progress as he works with Jordan's notes to make the book happen.
I picked up Piers Anthony's "On a Pale Horse." It was neat stuff for old sci-fi, but I doubt I'll finish the series that it began.
I've been trudging through Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink." It's about what our brain does in the first few seconds of any given encounter/situation. A little too psychological for me, and he doesn't expand the research enough to really drive some points home, but an interesting read.
Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" was marvelous. The language took a little getting used to since I've been reading modern stuff for so long, but the story was great. It's amazing how much it has been dramatized. The book is little more than an outline of events in a diary style. It's more emotion driven than plot driven. Hollywood has taken quite a few liberties and lost the meaning of the story almost entirely (understatement).
And with the commencement of class this week, there will be precious little reading for me. Just needed to get these down so I wouldn't forget I read them. |
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| Home on the Strange |
[Dec. 22nd, 2008|07:24 pm] |
Staying in good old Lawton for about a week. Most of my friends will be in town, so it should be a good time. My dog is a total spaz but I miss having him around.
And I have tons of books to read. |
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| Novel Writing-Update |
[Oct. 28th, 2008|11:13 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | geeky | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Voltaire | ] |
Usually I'm against letting anyone who thinks s/he can write actually do so, but this November I will be making exception for real authors and posers who join in the fun at www.nanowrimo.org/. You take the month of November and try to write at least 50000 words. A very, "Just write the damn thing" approach.
Some of my friends did this last year, and I wanted to as well, but I was too busy. Graduate school has afforded me the time (I'm just fooling myself here) to take part. In between reading all those science papers...
Any takers?
Update!!!!!
So the novel writing starts tomorrow. I decided I should examine my current progress before I embark upon this burst of progress.
Turns out I've already written 52040 words. I win! I had no idea I had that much of the story just sitting around.
And now to double it!
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| Decisions Decisions... |
[Sep. 22nd, 2008|04:11 pm] |
Crap. All the research here is so damn interesting. How am I supposed to decide? It's good that they built 3 test-pilot rotations with different labs into the system or it would be a real pain in the ass choosing.
There's the guy working with Yersinia Pestis (plague). Man, it's so freaking exciting. But I am as ever drawn to virology (lots of HIV work going on here, but others too), and they both involve very different techniques and models. Not toooo different. I wouldn't be the only guy who started out working with bacteria and switched to viruses. Either way I'll most likely get to work in a Bio-safety level 3 lab. Suit up! Get the personal respirator! Much lower chance of dying...like in the Bio-level 4.
Anywho, 2 more meetings tomorrow and some more research talks. I'm hoping I can make a decision on my first lab by Wednesday. Some of the other damn go-getters around here already took 2 of the labs I was interested in. Silly me, taking time to consider. |
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| Amazing Organization for Sciences |
[Sep. 10th, 2008|01:24 pm] |
So this is a shameless plug for an organization that is dedicated to getting people in the scientific community involved in politics to make science a more important issue. It's called Scientists and Engineers for America. Here's the website www.sefora.org/.
I'm going to look into starting a SEandA chapter at Northwestern.
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| Warbreaker - A commentary |
[Jul. 22nd, 2008|03:14 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | house | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | awake | ] |
| [ | music |
| | silence | ] |
I'm a bit mixed on this novel. I'll go ahead and list the really petty reasons right off.
1) It's one of the first e-books I've read and I still haven't gotten used to the idea of not having a solid copy. It's harder to sit and read for hours when the screen makes your eyes hurt and you can't easily reposition yourself due to the bulkier nature of said electronic device.
2) Despite Brandon Sanderson's assurance that the novel had been proofread thoroughly there were multiple glaring errors on every page. I do not exaggerate. Normally I don't harp on this kind of thing because, as I said, I think it's petty. This is one occasion where I feel I must.
Now that that's out of the way I will enumerate the good points.
First, the setting is certainly very different from what I am used to. Most authors I read go one of two routes as far as religion goes. They either 1) stray away from trying to get too creative with it and go with a classical Good/Evil-Light/Dark scenario or 2) do polytheistic pantheons like you might find in a setting of Dungeons and Dragons. Sanderson does neither of these. To understand the religious conflicts such as they are in the story we must first look at the magic system that is the driving force behind the story.
Breath and Color.
It is a bit strange at first, especially considering the way the author introduces the idea. Breath works how most people imagine a soul would. Everybody has one and, as is often the case in darker settings, they can be lost and in this case gained. Breath can be used for a variety of things, such as seeing Color more clearly. I won't ruin things by delving into this too deeply. Suffice it to say that it is an intriguing idea and the uses and sanctity of Breath and Color are what serve to divide people along religious lines.
Second, there was no "villain." Often there is one bad guy that the heroes are out to thwart. Good novels either play this out well by giving characters very good motivation, or they try to place every character into a situation where they do what they think they must to survive. Keeping away from the tired "there's a villain, let's go kill him" is what makes a series like George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Fire and Ice" good. Sanderson does a great job of explaining the motivations of his characters as duty or survival and there is never an obligatory "bad guy." Certainly there are villains, but they aren't the textbook evil wizards in dark towers plotting mindless destruction. They have depth and motivation and you like them.
The third point is where I will begin to quibble about things. This one is both positive and negative. Mysterious characters. They are very necessary to a story. If all of the characters were two-dimensional or you found out everything about them early on then you would put the book down (unless you like trashy romance or repetitive western novels). However, while you want to keep the reader guessing, enigma is something that must be played out rather particularly. Reveal too much and risk the character becoming boring. Too little and you frustrate the reader (or maybe it's just me). Sanderson does a respectable job of maintaining a balance here, but gives too little. The difference here becomes the reader saying "I want to know more!" and asking "What the hell was that?" A few more lines in the right places and I would have been enthralled rather than disappointed in certain characters. That said, some of them are very intriguing.
Another mixed feeling is about the direction of the plot. Twists and surprises are great. A book that can keep me guessing is one I am almost sure to enjoy. Sanderson does indeed keep the reader guessing. Maybe a little too much. The end of the book totally blindsided me. It was almost enough for me to rethink bitching about the things below, but the story really could have done with more fleshing out and it wouldn't compromise the ending.
There are some bad points.
The worst of these has to be that the author doesn't give enough background. I understand that it is the first book of the series and much more will be revealed as the story progresses, but there are things I feel I should have gotten out of the first book that I didn't get from "Warbreaker." History and geography are the more gaping holes in the setting. Only three kingdoms are important in the story. It isn't so strange to focus on one or two more important lands in a story, but that's assuming you are going to stick to them. Several other kingdoms are mentioned by characters but you find out nothing about them. You have to wonder why they were even brought up when they are just as quickly dismissed. Not only do they bear no weight in the story, but you don't even get a sense of the geography of the world. The closest approximation without a map, using only the story, is that the three kingdoms run north-south, one is in the mountains, and one or two abut an ocean.
The historical gaps are a little more forgivable. Some of them are necessary to the story and are in themselves motivating factors for strife. However, the recent history in the story (the last few hundred years) is so unclear as to be confusing. There was a rebellion over something and now years later we still have no resolution and no one really knows why, etc.... Pretty lame. Maybe further along in the story those facts will be important, but I doubt it. I think this is a part of the story the author didn't really put much thought into because it wasn't too terribly important and he just wanted to get moving.
Another problem is character inconsistency. I have been accused of just not liking female characters, but I think the problem is more in male authors having no flair for writing female roles. Characters shouldn't go from completely terrified to amazingly courageous in the space of days (or less). Growth takes time. Desperation is one thing but it is limited and usually only explains acts, not character growth. Several of the main characters are female and I felt only one had any measure of consistency.
Well, that's about all I can think of at the moment. As for how I would rate the book I would have to say that I enjoyed it, if only for the novelty. The world and the characters are interesting, even if you don't find out as much about them as you would like. The end was kind of a cop-out, but it is the rare ending that I think is done well so maybe the surprise won't be so bad for other people.
As for how I think our young friend will do with "A Memory of Light," I am optimistic. Aside from Egwene I don't think many of the female characters have changed so much as to merit my harping on inconsistency. The action in both books is about even and I think Sanderson might even do better (as far as the hack-and-slash goes, deception and intrigue maybe not so much). My experience here is that a new author picking up a series can bring a welcome change from things that might have gotten stale (The random encounter between Rand's forces and 10,000 Trollocs that took minutes to clear up in "A Knife of Dreams" is a perfect example of something that could have been left out). All in all I think Sanderson is a good pick, but who am I kidding, I'll read the last book no matter who writes it. |
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| Too Bad Games Workshop is going down the shi... |
[Jul. 16th, 2008|04:50 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | house | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | awake | ] |
| [ | music |
| | AFI-Modern Epic | ] |
I have literally been immersing myself in all things Warhammer 40k lately. I've been playing the game, reading Warhammer stories, and wasting many hours playing Dawn of War: Soulstorm.
The only thing I haven't been doing is buying Warhammer models from Games Workshop (GW). 1) They're too expensive and 2) I'm broke. Well, number two doesn't really matter because I really have no idea how I ever afforded this hobby, but it has gotten astronomically more expensive. On top of that I play one of the most expensive armies. Battlesuits are $20-30 each and they come in squads of 1-3, but 3 are necessary for them to be effective. What a waste of money. A box of 10 guys used to be $20 and now they range from $35-40. It's ridiculous. We're talking about plastic men an inch and a half tall! $4 each?!
I don't know what spawned this rant. Maybe severe withdrawal from the game has made me want to get back into it. Hopefully I can find a decent gaming shop when I move to Chicago. One where all of the players aren't 12-year olds who play Space Marines. I would hate to crush their dreams by showing them how much better Tau are. As for being able to upgrade my army...yeah right. I would be looking at $200 easy for the models and materials. Not to mention the time it would take to paint them, and painting is the most despicable part of the hobby for me. Talk about a test of patience.
On a side note I just sold my Chaos Space Marine army. GW put out new rules for them and I didn't like them so goodbye Chaos. I will have to subsist on Tau until I decide whether or not I will continue with the hobby. Because the game is starting to target a younger audience it will become weirder and weirder for me to play it. Back when it was a very dark and villainous game and most of the guys I played with were older, things were cool, but if I show up to a gaming shop when I'm 35 and I kick the snot out of a bunch of kids then where's the fun in that (well, aside from the obvious)?
If you haven't picked up on it by now then this is what passes for nerd soul-searching. Warhammer was just a big part of my social life for a while. I feel like I grew up with it. Even though I haven't played much in the last few years, I've still been into the hobby for 10 years. That's longer than I've been reading the Wheel of Time series, and that has been really important to me as well. Wow, comparing geeky life-influences now. I have been up too long.
I will be posting a follow-up to my post about Robert Jordan's final book "A Memory of Light" which I hope you all remember is being written by Brandon Sanderson. I finished "Warbreaker" some time back and I just haven't felt critical enough lately to make a post about it.
Until then, more Warhammer! |
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| Home for the week (update) |
[May. 31st, 2008|10:54 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | house | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  blah | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Voltaire - Brains! | ] |
So I've decided to go home to Lawton for the week. Reason 1) My mother is going to New Zealand for a month on Tuesday. So I have to see her before she leaves. Reason 2) Bitchslicer is going to be playing at a crappy bar there on Thursday, http://www.bitchslicer.com/. Some of their music is pretty good. A lot of it is very bad. Let's hope they realize these things an dI get to hear what I like. Drag My Own Coffin to Hell is pretty amazing. I used to listen to it to pump myself up for stuff. It's on their 2nd album, "Cum Inside." I know, they're really terrible people.
I'll let everyone know how it goes. A week at home is no picnic for me.
Update.
Well, my dad and I saw my mom off and haven't heard from her since. I'm sure she's having a blast on the other side of the planet without us. The Bitchslicer show was ok. It was very short though, lame. The bar it was at was a Class A shit-hole, as I expected it would be.
I made it out just in time. I saw almost everyone I wanted to, and then a lot of my family too. Could have gone much worse. |
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| Wheel of Time update |
[May. 5th, 2008|12:49 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | home | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | blah | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Iron Maiden- The Edge of Darkness | ] |
Some guy named Brandon Sanderson has been chosen to finish the Wheel of Time series. This will be the twelfth book, "A Memory of Light."
His website is pretty awesome, http://www.brandonsanderson.com/index.php.
He's only 12% done with the rough draft. This will take a lot longer than I thought. I will have to pick up some of his stuff. |
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| Broke and stuff |
[Apr. 24th, 2008|11:24 pm] |
Ever have that feeling where you're broke and have way too much work to do (either or both will be fine)? Man...feeling it at the moment. Where is all my money going? Not that the burrito gig brings in the dough or anything. More hours are required at least. Every time I make a burrito or ask someone "want chips and queso with that?" I feel the biochemistry of my soul denature just a little bit. Ah, bad science jokes. My only solace.
If you couldn't tell I'm writing this to 1) Bother people and 2) to avoid working.
I'm so sure that I will feel nothing but relief the day after graduation. But what if I don't? School could very well have boiled all of the hope out of my already dried husk of a soul. Where would that leave me? I might as well go into politics. Wow, excuse me while I Emo it up over here.
Hmmm, what else to rant about? Fuck music teachers. Ethnomusicologists in particular. Ha, that's not even a damn word. That's what they do, make up words about music. That's it! If only that really cool, well-read fellow wasn't wasting his life on that crap. What a brilliant author he would have made.
Speaking of brilliant authors, I have some shameless plugs to make in favor of a few. 1) Carlos Ruiz Zafon for "The Shadow of the Wind." A brilliant work set in post civil war (that's Spanish civil war, post WWII if you like) Spain. Great stuff courtesy of Jenn.
2) Jonathan Schell for "Fate of the Earth." The possibilities for and possible outcomes of nuclear holocaust. A thorough and thoroughly disturbing exploration of our worst nightmare. Creepy stuff courtesy of Dr. Hamerla.
There was more I know it...Ah! 3) Glen Cook for "The Black Company." I might have ranted about this series before, but it really cannot stand to leave it at one ranting. One per book at least, and he's up to...errr...many (like 10). The gritty lives of a mercenary company in the employ of some very powerful (and to say the least, nasty) wizards. Good split between really evil women and men too. Remind me not to piss off any super-powerful empresses until I find the secret names that undo them (shit, book 3 spoiler!...not, little more complicated).
Right, annnnnd end rant. |
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| Screw Senior Thesis |
[Mar. 18th, 2008|06:24 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Cafe Plaid | ] |
| [ | music |
| | some annoying asshole | ] |
So since Saturday I've spent like 40 hours in the lab. I have at least 8 more to do tomorrow. This is ridiculous.
I'm going to remember this next time I want to achieve stuff... |
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| Let's raise a tankard of ale... |
[Mar. 5th, 2008|09:46 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Lab | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  nostalgic | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Man-O-War, My Spirit Lives On | ] |
So Gary Gygax died yesterday. D&D geeks around the world feel a great emptiness in their souls for this creator of magic and adventure. He hasn't had much to do with the game in a while, but I'll drink to him. |
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| Just so much stuff. |
[Feb. 12th, 2008|05:20 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Manzor | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  weird | ] |
Right. So I visited Loyola University this weekend. Everything went well, except for the airport losing my bag thing, but they found it and the interview went well so it's all cool.
I got to see ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) wyrdtimes, which was a lot of fun. I also got to meet my friend Cici, who I have spoken with via the internet for about 6-7 years now. Crazy stuff.
I have waited until the last minute (yet again) to find a professor to be on my thesis reading committee. Crap. I have until Friday to ask get someone. I think it would be better if they don't know the subject too well, then I would know whether I was communicating simply enough. But none of that will matter if I don't get to the damn lab and get some work done! Aiming for this weekend to start purifying some proteins, so I need to get some induction and expression experiments out of the way.
Class...yet another semester that should have been so easy and has turned out to be a nightmare. How many research papers? Are you kidding? Son of a bitch. Haven't been keeping up with the reading because holy shit there is a lot of it and some of it is more boring than growing E. coli.
Work is cool. Some of the kitchen guys are jackasses and cause problems, but other than that I don't mind the whole thing.
Just picked up "Manslayer." It's the 9th book in the Gotrek and Felix saga for the Warhammer universe. I hope it doesn't suck, the last two have been sub-par. Could be I've just been reading other great stuff (Black Company!).
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| A child of the information age... |
[Jan. 3rd, 2008|05:04 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | the lab | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  irritated | ] |
Oh the impatience! I'm waiting to hear back from gradschools, I'm waiting to hear about jobs, waiting waiting waiting. What happened to being laid back? I know I used to be.
Right, enough whining.
I get a whole week with wyrdtimes! Oh man am I excited. And most of my roommates will be out of the house. Mwuahahhahaha! |
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| On my way to grad school... |
[Dec. 30th, 2007|12:53 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Manor | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | lazy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | 12 Kingdoms | ] |
So, one semester to go. I finished my last grad school applications Christmas night. I applied to: Harvard, University of Chicago, Berkeley, Loyola, MIT, University of Illinois-Urbana, and Northwestern. Cost me about $600 total. Wasn't expecting that so I became very broke. Anywho, it's finally finished. Now all I have to do is wait until February or there-abouts and see where I go...and go visit to make the final decision.
Also, almost done moving (writing because I'm lazy and should be packing). About 2 more trips and I might have it all. Have to get the place ready for the New Years party... |
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| All manner of things |
[Dec. 20th, 2007|08:58 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | crazy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Slayer- Spirit in Black | ] |
Lots of things happening in Knife World these days.
First, the semester is over at last. It took me a week to recover enough to admit it was the truth. Anywho, it went ok, but it is high time to get the hell out of here.
Another reason it took me so long to gloat about the end of the semester is that wyrdtimes has been visiting. She's with her family at the moment, but she'll be back to see me again in January before leaving for Chicago. It was really nice having her around, she forced me to Christmas shop. And she got me some cool presents.
Lab research...balls. Every time I want to do something I have 5 other things to do first, and the people I need to ask questions are not around. What a load of crap. Why are there hundreds of restriction enzymes!?
I am moving out of the Manor (waits for cheers and hisses to die away). My comrades Bob and Ted finally decided on a place they liked and we signed our lease yesterday. Hopefully it will be an eventful 5 months.
I am dreading going home for a few days. I really don't get along with most of my family, and holidays only make things worse.
What else? I've decided to discriminate in my reading. Instead of slogging through a whole series I am reading just the first books of many series that are finished before starting one in earnest. It's interesting.
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| random |
[Nov. 29th, 2007|06:33 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | pchem test | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | bored | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Rammstein | ] |
RANDOM! |
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| Restless Autumn Nights... |
[Nov. 14th, 2007|02:27 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Red Room | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | restless | ] |
So I'm having some trouble sleeping. It is the strangest thing. I feel like I'm wasting time by trying to sleep...but it's 2:30 in the morning. Is it because I have a lot of stuff to do? Maybe, but that's the norm so it doesn't fly here. Maybe I feel like I didn't do enough today. I suppose that's reasonable. I could always have done more.
My research for instance. Today I finally got some positive results, and planned to move on to another experiment. However, I forgot (the theme of my day) that that particular experiment required a few hours of prep-work. Culmination? Got very little done in the lab today. Balls.
I slacked off reading a few weeks ago. This summer was like a golden wind of books for me. Then "A Feast for Crows," and everything seemed pitiful in comparison. I bide my time, read a few small things, then "The Deathly Hallows." Everything is pitiful again (I still don't know why I enjoyed it so much, but who cares?).
Right now I'm reading the 7th and final book in the Crown of Stars series...entitled "Crown of Stars." Very creative. I really enjoyed the series up to book five, but now it's dragging on way too much. I don't feel connected with the characters and events anymore. It could be because it's been a while since I read the last one, but I think it's because I find the writing to be inferior now. There are multiple series I have dropped and picked back up without forgetting characters and events, so why this one? Maybe it just isn't my cup of tea anymore.
The graduate school applications drag on as well. Mostly because finding hours to devote to them is a bitch, partly because they are rather intimidating. I would be overjoyed to get into any of the schools on my list, but there is doubt. Are my grades good enough? Hell yes. GRE score? 1370, not bad. Have I been more than a student and gotten involved? Again, hell yes, but grad. schools don't care about that one so much. What about my research? Aye, there's the rub...not published. It isn't required, just highly encouraged. It hasn't been a smooth ride with my research. I'm still trying to pluck up the courage to ask my professor for a letter of recommendation because let's face it...I haven't given her a lot of results.That's what I get for not spending more time in the lab. Bah!
So where is this going? Well, straight to the bank. Do you have any idea how expensive it is to apply to graduate school? $15 per school for GRE scores (x8 schools). Then $50-90 per application (say $65 average). So that's $640. I should have applied to fewer schools, but I would like to cover my ass so there goes my money.
I have finally decided on a profession...Microbiology. Yes, my love affair with viruses cannot be denied. Biochemistry and all the rest be damned, all I'm really interested in are viruses and bacteriophages.
Where will that lead me, you ask? Not a clue. Hopefully, not to academia. There are enough drug and biotech companies out there working with viral vectors and capsids that I should be able to find a real job. It would be nice to work somewhere like OMRF (Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation). Basically you work and are privately funded (lots of money, application oriented research), but you get grad. students and can teach at OU (mostly health sciences center). What a sweet deal. I'm sure these places exist elsewhere. Thank you Military-Academic-Industrial Complex!
Right, I would like to write more, but I don't have anything to say. Umm, Triangle rules but is a headache. wyrdtimes is amazing. particleman149 is an inferior chemist than I. Robert Jordan is dead (WWWHHHYYYY!!!!!????).
Happy Thanksgiving! |
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confused
excited