It’s really hard to pull off wearing a mustache, but I tried it again last night. I even wore it out in public today, but it was mostly for fun. People were less engaging, to say the least. Heck, even I mistrust myself wearing one.
Jason thought I should slowly remove a little bit more day by day, and I tried that but messed up the whole thing when I tried to shave a vertical line down the goatee part. Still, it was fun while it lasted.
We watched Shaun of the Dead again last night. It’s a brilliant movie, and part of the its greatness I think is related to the “Oh man, could you imagine that…” aspect. I’m always envisioning what-if type situations and sometimes even testing to see if I’m prepared for them. People that were on the bus trip to the Seattle Repertory Theater know that, and hopefully know that CJ clearly isn’t ready (chicken…).
Still, zombies never occurred to me as something I’d need to be ready for. But thanks to the movie, I will be. “Ash is out today.”
Congrats to Chandra, who just passed the Oregon State Bar. Cheers, counselor, though technically she passed it back in February. She found out today anyway, which I suppose is the important part. Regardless, great job!
Lolly ICQ’d me this morning suggesting that I take a look at Google Maps. They just added satellite composites as a basemap option in the search, which is fun as heck.
I presented a rough approximation of what I may pursue as a research topic in my class yesterday. The instructor suggested that I look to see what had been written about social physics which asked many of the same questions I was curious about. This pleased me because its nice to have a place to start. So this morning I started looking for information on Social Physics and was somewhat disappointed to to learn that there are two areas of research that are known as social physics.
One describes itself as a many2many peer collaboration system interested in privacy and information exchange. This, while interesting, isn’t of any use.
The second area is of much more interest (and use). This is the social physics (which I imagine first coined the name) that looks at using a scientific framework to understand social interaction and human systems. Early examples of this framework include some work by Hobbes where by he used Galileo’s heavenly body studies to explain which political governance system was best.
although this isn’t exactly what I’m looking at, it’s part of the same suspect realm that tries to fit an understanding of human interaction into a framework that matches a real science like physics. Economics is a good example – there are theories and formulas, but they’re all based on things that can’t possibly be universal constants.
What I’m interested in social physics for is to develop a way to look at things like entropy in human communities. Where is the greatest loss of potential energy?
The reason I want to know this is because I’ve lost faith in the aesthetic and economic arguments for environmentalism. I still believe they’re effective, but they’re imperfect in the sense that aesthetic doesn’t matter to a lot of people, and economics only make a solid argument when you’re talking about including external costs, something we as Americans have been told by God we didn’t need to do.
My hope for physics is that it will provide something more helpful. You can argue all you want about how humanity needs wilderness for the good of its soul, or how in the long run sustainable food sources will be better for us, but you can’t ignore the laws of physics. Producing a good inefficiently, or producing it elsewhere and shipping it here greatly increases the entropy of that transaction. That energy can never be used again. Our tenure here surely depends on finding a way to reduce the amount of waste in our lives. So now I’ve got some reading to do.
Michelle once again demonstrated that she’s got the cojones by running a 10k in the rain this morning. Yup, she ran the Bridge2Bridge 10k (including a stint over the Fremont) and finished in just a over an hour. I’m in awe, but I have to believe that maybe my contribution (an iPod shuffle full of awesome, awesome tunes) helped quite a bit. Its a … nice day … for a … white wedding.
I’ve listened to emcees and pundits talk about the Caucasianization of rap and hip-hop culture, and for the most part I took it in stride and just acknowledged that once again a great art form was finding acceptance. But there have been a few bizarre moments. Like seeing a pre-teen girl’s tee with a hip-hop bunny picture on it at Fred Meyer. But none were quite as bizarre as today’s trip to Washington Square.
We walked through Nordstroms looking for some work clothes for Michelle and were surprised by the army of beauticians. Then, thinking we’d made it through the fray of weird chemist/dentist costumes, we came upon some techno/dance/hip-hop music and a roped off square of floor where three local boys in Trailblazer apparel were… well.. they were break dancing. Inside Nordstroms. And they were good. Really good. And I was about to make a comment to Michelle about BBoys in the place my Grandma shopped by couldn’t because a woman the same size, shape and age as my grandma was standing right in front of me with the same sense of confusion that I had.
A woman who worked the fragrance counter was standing behind us and was marveling about the scent that they created. She thought it was delightful and masculine. I thought it smelled like formaldehyde and gym. But the three guys that were doing the break dancing were amazing. They clearly were not just normal b-boys, but gymnasts. The combination of stamina, build, and agility suggested they were beyond your typical contortionist or cardboard spinner. They were amazing.
But once again, possibly from the smell of the aqua-net coming from the woman in front of me, I was reminded that these were break dancers. In Nordstroms. What the hell?
I’m not sure which was funnier, the fact that support was no help, or that the tech asked me who he was speaking to when he could see my name.
There’s something in my genes that loves April Fool’s day. Sadly, I’m not allowed to express it at home (Michelle hates pranks) or a work (you changed everyone’s password!?!) so I have to relish in the exploits of others. Luckily, the Internet is full of pranks, jokes, and misleading information.
While enjoying Google’s annual prank, my friend lamented that he didn’t like April Fool’s because he couldn’t trust anything on the Internet. I reminded him that he generally shouldn’t trust stuff on the Internet anyway. I guess he’s got a point though – you can’t even trust links on days like this. Well, Internet Explorer users can’t trust links anyway, but that’s not really a prank, just more of a humorless security issue….