First Published: 2022 January 14
Some times in my life I really think of as listening times. On some occasions that means hearing a friend as they share something deep and personal in their life. At others, it means hearing a story or tale as it weaves. Still others are when I get to sit in silence and hear my own thoughts as they interplay with the natural1 noises around me. And finally, sometimes I get to listen to intentional music.
Tonight is one of those nights. I was reminded of a fantastic curated playlist that an amazing person made for me, and got to listen to it. There were no familiar songs on it, and only a few familiar artists, which made the experience fantastic. Much like me, the playlist generator used so many genres and styles, which gave a very nice experience
or artificial, depending on locale↩
First Published: 2022 January 13
Walking in winter is always interesting to me, especially when it’s1 warmer. Tonight it was around freezing. That being the case, I was wearing my coat unzipped, which a friend remarked on. I thought back to childhood, where my ideal winter outfit was often warm gloves, a hat, boots, shorts, and a t-shirt.
As I’ve grown older, some of that’s changed. I’ve adapted to colder feet, and I’ve grown my hair to keep my ears warm. My chest and legs have started getting colder, which is a little sad. But, gloves2 remain my most crucial winter clothing article.
First Published: 2022 January 12
Sometimes when my mental health is feeling really good, I forget that it’s ever bad. And, the reverse is certainly true. When I’m not doing great mentally, my brain cannot bring to memory any time that I’ve been content and calm. I think that’s a really interesting feature of my psyche, though certainly not one I’d prefer. I’ve been trying to think of ways to get around this, and most of them come to some variation of bullet journaling.
I recently saw a CGP Grey Video about ways to improve productivity/life in a journal. I’ve been on my same1 journal since2 2019, so filling the physical journal would also be fantastic. I guess I often struggle because I feel like I lack accountability with anything, especially anything self-motivated. But, I would also really like to be in a better place longer, which is fun, so I guess I should focus on it.
First Published: 2022 January 11
Right now I’m reading a lot of LitRPG’s and some nearby genres. I’m not sure why, but if I had to guess, it’s mostly because the books generally expect minimal mental effort from me and have interesting premises. Anyways, I hope that I’ll start reading more thought-provoking books soon, but since I’m also planning to begin writing a book1, who knows if that’ll happen
maybe an upcoming post↩︎
First Published: 2022 January 10
Prereading note: This is hopefully going to be my abstract
The major motivation of my research is bridging the gap between known terrestrial life, composed of complex chains of amino acids, and the assumed lack of life extraterrestrially. In the heat of stars, where heavier elements are formed, the intense radiation will prevent any sort of molecular bonds from occurring, leaving us with ionized monatomic species. Somewhere after these atoms are ejected from stars, they can form simple molecular species.
As these small species keep interacting, larger and more complex chemistries have been observed as occurring. Knowing exactly what species are present in these large molecular clouds is essential in order to generate accurate reaction mechanisms.
Something something there’s a need for rotational spectroscopy something something.
The major motivation of my research is bridging the gap between known terrestrial life, composed of complex chains of amino acids, and the assumed lack of life extraterrestrially. In the heat of stars, where heavier elements are formed, the intense radiation will prevent any sort of molecular bonds from occurring, leaving us with ionized monatomic species On the other end of the question of life, prior research has shown that a terrestrial and aqueous collection of amino acids will spontaneously self assemble into repeating patterns (life) when exposed to electricity.
The question then becomes how we can move from these single-atom ion into amino acids. Prior research has found many molecules which could be amino acid precursors, but there are yet to be complete models which produce these amino acids. As a result, we search for ions and radicals which would form these atoms.
So yeah our big motivation is that like life exists (allegedly) and we’re curious how close to life you can get without a rocky planet. We know if you put a bucket of amino acids together and shock them you get life, but most historic research suggests amino acids only form on planets. Bc space there’s lots of radicals and ions (bc nothing to react w and radiation), so we look at those as precursors
First Published: 2022 January 9
Luke 3:22 : “ and the holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.’”
Today’s readings are incredibly hopeful. We are told that the Lord will bless us and forgive us our faults. As the Christmas season ends, I think it’s wonderful that we are presented with the images of forgiveness and rebirth.
First Published: 2022 January 8
Something major that I’ve started doing since stopping my blog last is yarn craft. The spring break after I got back from London, one of my fellow Grinnell Singers taught me1 how to knit.
When I returned to work at the math lab, my boss asked if I wanted to learn crochet. I did, and found that I significantly preferred crochet to knitting, mostly because it is much more freeform. With knitting, you’re by and large limited to rectangular shapes due to the nature of using two needles to put stitches on and off.
Crochet, on the other hand, is primarily left off of the hook, so you can craft whatever shape you’d want much more easily. Anyways, in 2021 I don’t think I crocheted much of anything, but in the first few days of 2022 I started again, and I forgot how good it is as a destresser2.
First Published: 2022 January 8
Whoops, I spaced to post yesterday. The orange came out really well though!
First Published: 2022 January 6
As someone who does a lot of math-adjacent work1, I often have to do lots of repetitive calculations. Since I am easily bored, I tried to find a way to not have to do the same equation 100 times with only minor modifications. Growing up in a CS heavy household, I realized that I could try to use computers to do some of the math for me.
So, I asked my family “What language should I learn?” They responded2 Python, because lots of reasons which boil down to:
It’s easy
It’s commonly used
But as I worked in Python, I became dissatisfied.
Anyways, flash forward to today where I’m now learning Racket. Racket is built on Scheme which is built on Lisp. Lisp is a language3 that developed in parallel to C4-like languages, which is based on the idea of lambda calculus.
It uses a lot of parentheses, and it has been fun to figure out how to use it. Today I wanted to see if 12 steps to the octave really is the best approximation5. Turns out it is in fact the best up to 47 divisions of the octave! And I did that in Racket, which is fun and exciting. If you want my6 code, feel free to message me.
First Published: 2022 January 5
If you’ve seen some of my earlier posts, you might notice that I sometimes used to mention recipes I’d cooked here. Mostly this serves as a way for me to1 recreate these dishes at a later time.
My brothers kindly gave me a2 5 kilogram chocolate bar for Christmas. Now, if you’re anything like me, you immediately thought of the same thing to use the chocolate for! That’s right, candied orange peel.
Well, being fair, my mind went:
Chocolate and Christmas
Christmas = Orange3
Chocolate and Orange
Chocolate Oranges
...
I’m sure you can catch the rest. So, without further ado, I present my4 recipe for chocolate orange (peels).
Cut orange in half polewise
Remove Skin
Boil skin in water for 30 minutes
Remove skin and cool
Scrape pith5 off with a knife or something
Put orange slices and skin together with sugar and reserved boiling water
Cook until candied
Drain and Dry6
Coat in chocolate??