For no real reason I began to feel a bit randy (maybe it was the sexy pirate pictures of herself that she was posting). I was just about to turn to my wife and ask if she wanted to have sex when she says “Whew! Man, your balls kinda stink. I can smell ‘em all the way over here.”

Being the quick thinking, smooth talking ladies man that I am, I didn’t even miss a beat.

“Wanna mix your stank with mine?”

Between the laughter and the gagging, I eventually figured out that the answer was no.

Of course, considering how rarely I post here and at When A Leaf Turns, having a third blog will probably just cut that amount even more. The hope is that there will be some overlap so that a single post can go on two or possibly all three blogs. We’ll see.

Anyway, here’s a quick little story that piqued my interest. Maybe it’ll pique yours too.

Signature of antimatter detected in lightning

So there I am, I’ve just spent two hours tracking down the cause of a catastrophic failure that seems to happen at really odd intervals, and when I finally uncover a misplaced comma that cause it all it’s just SO FREAKIN’ AGGRAVATING! But then I get right back to work and start running through all kind of weird test cases to weasel out whatever errors are still hidden from me. Enter an item to look for, enter some (but not all) customer info, back to the item and select one that isn’t sold out, error (yay! it’s supposed to do that), finish entering the customer info, look at the history for that customer, load an older order instead, look for a different item, load it into the old order, popup says the old order will be overwritten (double yay!), change the shipping address, add a warranty to the order, go back and look at the history again, load another order, CRAP!!! The address didn’t load properly. It’s still showing the changed shipping address and it should have loaded the one from the newly loaded order. Another hour and a half before I figure out that I need to reset an index in an array before displaying the address because it’s still pointing to the old address.

Are you bored yet? Jesus, I sure as hell am. Anyway, that’s what my days are filled with at the moment. And yet I find that I’m actually living for those moments right after I fix a problem. I get excited in those moments, when I can believe for a second that it’s finally and ultimately finished. Is this the last one? Will it work exactly as I want it to this time? Those moments of excitement are worth the hours of monotonous code hunting for a misplaced comma, or a bad array index. In other words, I’m now more excited about finishing the project than I was starting it.

It was that realization that jolted my memory back to that Temperament Sorter question and made me realize that I’d found a job that I genuinely enjoy. Now my joy starts low as I look forward to a long battle against my own stupid mistakes, but increases as I approach that moment when I know I’ve eradicated them all (or at least enough to not matter much anymore). In the end I get the most joy out of completing a project because I’ve suffered for it, and it works like it’s supposed to dammit!

• Obama Team Continues Effort to Isolate Fox News – Of course Obama isn’t saying anything that isn’t known by pretty much everyone anyway. However, I’m not sure if this is the way to handle it. First pass impression is that this will backfire. However, what are the alternatives? Simply ignore it? Maybe. I don’t know. I’ll give it some thought and get back to you.
• Intelligent Alien Intervention Institute – A very good spoof on ID and their quest to work their way into the US schools.
• Futurity – I heard about this site from an NPR story. I’m not sure exactly what to make of it yet. So far it seems great. However, since the stories are direct from the sources, rather than being vetted by a professional Science journalist (a dying breed), they may not be as accurate as one would like. I’m keeping an eye on this one, and I may be making posts about stories found here soon.
• New view reveals how DNA fits into cell – I want to make a post about fractals soon, and I think this might be a good jumping off point.

That’s all I really have time for at the moment. I’ll try and get back to this as soon as I am able.

Since I learned this about the Nobel Prize I’ve wondered why they don’t do the same thing with the Peace Prize. Award the prize only after several decades have passed so that it’s limited to those who have had an actual real impact on the world. The fact that President Obama won it this year shows pretty clearly that this is not how it’s done. I think even the staunchest Obama supporter understands that he hasn’t done much to earn that prize yet (whether they admit that aloud or not is another question altogether).

Two possibilities really jump out at me on exactly what has happened here (not this year specifically, but to the Peace Prize in general). First, it’s possible that the original award was not meant to reward those who have made a difference, but to try and make a difference itself. In other words, it was always meant as a political gesture. The second possibility is that the award process was corrupted by those who recognized it’s potential political use. This process would be a little slower, but only because it would start later, after the prize had time to gain some real credibility. In either case it would quickly lead to the exact situation that we see today: Peace Prize as an empty, meaningless political gesture.

In conclusion, let it be understood that I am speaking from a position of ignorance here. I don’t know much about the Peace Prize, and I’ve done almost nothing to remedy that. Perhaps someone could convince me that it’s worth digger deeper into. Otherwise I’ll just continue doing sciency stuff and making fun of religion and homeopaths.

I always have the destination in mind. I must always know that an idea that I’m exploring has an answer, even if I don’t know it. Even if I in fact know that I will never know it. The process of thought is meant to draw as close as possible to that answer, even when it is in practice far beyond reach.

I think he always has the journey in mind. An idea need not have an answer that can be discovered. The exploration of an idea and the lessons that can be learned from it are the real focus of thought. This can be a much more introspective way of thinking, with less tangible, but no less important and possibly more personally satisfying results.

The two modes of thought are very different, and they result in different ways of expressing ourselves. Mine lends itself to definitive statements which can be easy to evaluate. His leads to deeper philosophical statements which can be more difficult to evaluate. It’s this difference that I think leads to his perception of an inequality between us that I don’t think really exists.

1. A new game built from the ground up called Cataclysm.
2. A WoW expansion called Cataclysm.
3. A simple mind-fuck designed to watch the fan base squirm as they try and figure out what the hell is going on.

Well, at BlizzCon, they made it official. And the winner is…

WoW Cataclysm!!!

I really need to get my Rogue up to level 80 to be ready for the new expansion. In case you’re wondering what it’ll look like, here’s the official trailer (well…kind of…)