Go Carbon Neutral

$15 a month later and I'm almost carbon neutral. Ok, for some reason I didn't count airline travel, but at least offset car travel and heating/ac carbon. We actually discussed this idea in a couple of the econ classes I took. This is one of the recommendations from inconvenient truth.

Daily Show August 9 2006

I think the daily show is always amazing - in fact it is the only TV I get (well, right now, when the office starts up again I'll probably get an iTunes pass for it too - I know it's not the funniest but for some reason I'm addicted).

But anyway, I thought that the August 9th episode was particularly amazing. Well, first of all it was nice to finally see a non-white reporter on the show. But I thought that they made a pretty amazing statement during the segment on the mideast crisis being an opportunity. But I was too lazy to describe it so I waited till I found someone else's description. If you are at all thinking of watching the episode at some-point I would wait to watch it. I realize that reading it, it probably won't be as good and you'll wonder what I was talking about, but oh well.

Kelly Clarkson!

I had a new experience at work yesterday. The company I work for wanted some extra ECG (not sure why sometimes it's called EKG and sometimes ECG - but it's electroCardiogram so I think ECG is the way to go - do any of the pre-meds want to chime in?) data to run through their algorithm so they ask employees to have their ECG taken at work. It's a completely passive measurement and only takes like 15 minutes so no big deal. But I go to the room where they are doing it and they guy asks me to take off my shirt and then without saying anything takes out a disposable razor and stars shaving a couple circles on my chest. Now I knew it was coming but I still felt like he could say something, and I don't have Steve Carell chest hair but enough that I have two very visible spots on my chest. But the main thing is that it still itches. So after all this, the point is if you ever go to get your ECG taken bring shaving cream and after shave in case they're not provided - might save you a few days of scratching your chest. Funny how it's embarrassing to have part of my chest shaven, but it's not that embarrassing to announce it on the internet - strange.

Programming the Universe

Just finished Programming the Universe by Seth Lloyd. If I had to pick one word to describe the book it would be ambitious. But I don't have to limit myself to one word so here's the much longer description. It's a 220 page book that does not assume any knowledge of computation, information theory (even what a bit is), thermodynamics, or quantum mechanics but yet explains the basics of all of these fields enough to lead up to Seth Lloyd's proposal for a theory of everything based on studying the universe as a quantum computer. Quite a feat (the actual material is also very interesting). For me it was cool to finally get the explanation of why entropy is information since I never took 6.095 (or whatever it is called these days).

So when you decide to read a book because you are two degrees of separation from the author, it is not terribly surprising to see people you know mentioned in the book - but I still thought it was cool. It wasn't surprising to see Ike Chuang (one of the professors Susanna worked for at MIT). I was a little surprised to see Gerry Sussman, but he is a rather well known professor at MIT so not a big shock. Frank Wilczek (taught the recitation for 8.022 which was my first hour of class at MIT, an hour which had me thinking that I had gotten in way over my head) on the back cover is not a big shock. But it was a kick to see Aram (an AEPi brother) mentioned in the acknowledgments.

Insanity

I don't think I've expressed this on my blog before, but I'm too lazy to go back and check: I've lived in two places in SoCal and in someways due to having lived so far from work I feel like I lived in three areas. I feel like in most cities I would just say I live in that city or say in the suburbs of that city (such as I grew up in the suburbs of Kansas City). But I don't think it really makes sense to say you live in the suburbs of LA since practically all of "LA" is really the suburbs of LA (SoCal types feel free to speak up and correct me). So I've come up with a new definition of where I've lived which is "not LA" as I seem to live and hang out in areas that are around LA but really are not LA.

Anyway that was a super long way of getting to me saying I feel as though I haven't seen any of the insanity usually associated with LA. Orange County and Thousand Oaks aren't really known for their kabbalah practicing, fortune telling, beach bums wearing spedos riding around on roller blades. So I decided it was time for a taste. Well if I was only going to get a few hours I figured I should head to the source (no not a room full of TVs with a guy wearing white acting very pretentious) - Venice Beach. Heading out there I was a bit suspicious that since it's so known for being crazy and being a tourist destination that it might just be prepackaged superficial craziness and everyone not profiting from seeming crazy is just there watching the performers. Well one of the first things I saw when I got there was a guy putting on a street show and he was acting crazy and was jumping into a pile of broken glass. Seems pretty crazy, but the one other time I had been to Venice Beach I saw someone (maybe the same guy) doing the same thing about 7 years ago. So I was leaning toward prepackaged and then I looked around and realized there was plenty of the real thing. I think that a guy walking around the street (the area where people walk around is actually a decent distance from the ocean) in a spedo is sorta crazy to start but add a fanny pack and the place starts to feel more genuine. Then of course the line of fortune tellers and kabbalah types were a little crazy, but add the costumes and the super crazy came out. Actually, I got a big kick out of the fact that by far the craziest looking people of the bunch were the ones pushing Christianity. On top of the interesting looking people I find Muscle Beach amusing. I do not understand the people watching people work out nor the people working out where they know there will be a crowd gathered watching. Well I guess maybe if I was super built I would feel different about the being watched part. I really wonder if the people watching are really watching the people work out or just looking at the tourist attraction of watching people work out in muscle beach (I know I was doing the second).

I've occasionally been playing basketball with people at work so I was particularly interested in watching the people play basketball in muscle beach - well from a distance, there was literally no one of my skin color within 20 feet of the courts. Um - they're better than me... By a LOT. I know everyone reading this is very surprised.

Probably the craziest thing was a giant ring of people on the beach from which you could hear drum sounds. Even in my attempt to make up for an insanityless year in a couple hours I wasn't quite up for walking over and seeing what they were up to.

So overall verdict - I'd say that yes the crazy people in LA are crazy and not a disney recreation of crazy. I think it would be fun to be near a bit more of that, but I will say I felt a little more at home when I got back to Orange County. My trip back was actually like jumping from hot water to cold. I went from Venice Beach to the Irvine Spectrum Center which is a giant snazy outdoor mall (think mall, no roof, palm trees and water fountains everywhere, and band playing in main center area) where the first store I saw was the Saleen store where they had their car that does 0 to 60 in under 3 seconds and another car they had cut down the center so you could walk between the halves and see what's inside the car. Well I guess really I just went from one version of craziness to another. At the spectrum center I saw talladega nights which was very funny, although I was a bit annoyed by the over the top product placement. Now I realize that a lot of that probably came from being a story about nascar but it still seemed to pull me out of the movie a bit. Although it still had me cracking up.