Dr. Chu goes to Washington...

... and ends up hungover, waking up next to a solar panel. In a clever combination of the politician's non-denial denial of the affair and his characteristic dry wit while more or less staying true to what he believes in:

“I just want everyone to know that my decision not to serve a second term as Energy Secretary has absolutely nothing to do with the allegations made in this week’s edition of the Onion. While I’m not going to confirm or deny the charges specifically, I will say that clean, renewable solar power is a growing source of US jobs and is becoming more and more affordable, so it’s no surprise that lots of Americans are falling in love with solar.”

His wife purportedly expressed skepticism: "Is that really you? You don't have hair on your chest."

In a sense, Prof. Steve Chu's stint in Washington D.C. does indeed feel like the Frank Capra's movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. He even showed an excerpt of it (2m16s until about 2m37s). The naïve and nerdy physicist who's an ardent advocate for renewable energy and had to be forced to talk about the oil and gas industries as SoE.

He talked about many many examples of how a technology was initially derided and dismissed even by subject experts until it found an agent of dissemination who made it economically feasible and popular. And then it becomes as obvious to anyone. Like James Watt to the steam engine and Henry Ford to the automobile. A log-log-linear learning curve, if you will.

"[Refrigerator size] is not plateauing because of the size of the American appetite. It's plateauing because of the size of the kitchen door."

He clearly enjoyed his time at Bell Labs. Of the "flat structure where everyone argued about ideas but respected one another as people." I wish I could always find such places to do my work in... If there are more articulate scientists with social conscience, perhaps the Earth would not be totally destroyed after all...

"We Do Not Inherit the Earth from Our Ancestors; We Borrow It from Our Children."

At the end of the talk, he quoted Apollo 8 astronauts and showed the entirety of Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot.

Two members of the audience asked him questions along the line of "how do you encourage scientists/ students/ student-scientists to be involved in policy? Any advice?" I don't remember what he said exactly, but it had the gist of Dory the blue tang's "just keep swimming just keep swimming just keep swimming swimming swimming"

Mwahaha sorry about the earworm. And if anyone can comment on the feasibility of fusion as an energy source, it would be the veteran laser guru.

Capitalism and Psychopathy

- - -
Ha. Ha. Ha.

The ultimate behavioral economics dissertation topic: Capitalism and Psychopathy
     Chapter 1: Motivation
     Chapter 2: History and philosophy of capitalism
     Chapter 3: Psychopathy in history
     Chapter 4: Evolutionary origins and the neuroscience of psychopathy 
     Chapter 5: Psychopathy and (the rampant) capitalism (that is contemporary America)
     Chapter 6: Where to go from here?

In a culture that idolizes Steve Jobs but not Bill Gates, anyone who dares publish that thesis will never get a job in the United Freaking States and therefore must move to Canada or Scandinavia.

Biz school profs' (canine) personas

- - -
I've been amusing myself lately by associating my recent profs with characteristic dogs, in some cases anthropomorphic ones.

P.C.R. - (a slightly loopy) German Shepherd. Claims to be serious and pedagogical, but secretly is not that serious and has a dark sense of humor. (He called me by different wrong names TWICE).

J.M.L. - the Tramp in Lady and the Tramp. Whimsical, laid-back, yet perceptive and shrewd. Reminds me of Robin Williams' characters.

J.D.S. - the Terrier in Lady and the Tramp. Energetic, snappy, yappy, inclined to provocative and dramatic flairs.

J.P. - a cross between a beagle and a Dachshund...? He's ex-military, has engineering degrees, and lots of hands-on mechanical design experience. Hard to place him so far.

Looking forward to adding more descriptions. I might have to expand my set to more animals later on...

Homogeneous and heterogeneous speaker-audience interactions

- - -
One thing I noticed in the myriad of talks this past week was that the speakers' gender and ethnicity correlate with those of the audience members who asked them questions at the end of their talks. Not surprisingly, guys asked significantly more questions than gals, regardless of who was presenting.

Perhaps this is a good argument of why we need educators from as many different backgrounds as possible... in order to encourage participation from a diverse group...?

Interdisciplinary approach to the energy issues

- - -
Met students from all different fields of science, economics, business, and law. [Insert "synergy" here]

Really got a comprehensive view of how to solve the energy problems, although a lot more breadth than depth. Lots of brief talks (engineers/scientists thought were too non-technical and some MBA/law students thought were too technical). I learned more about carbon capture & sequestration, geothermal powers, wind turbines, aviation and automotive research, etc. On the non-science side, there's carbon tax, cap & trade, behavioral economics, and that McKinsey greenhouse gas abatement cost graph...

Fun tours to local habitats and companies and labs...

Existential meetings in space and time

- - -
me: how're things?

friend: Hi,
Things are.
I'm trying to write a paper.

me: Things are indeed

friend: How are things there?
Are-ing, too?

me: yes
just realized I have a 9am meeting
which I thought was at 10
oy.

friend: That's sad.
Even if people are well up and out by 9:00, nothing should be scheduled until 10:00 or later.
The French seem to abide by that.
Still, if you are working then, you don't have to schedule meetings then.

me: the nanofab people seem to be... early
actually, they start early and often end late
It's a "fab user" meeting

friend: A user meeting?!?!

me: If I schedule something, it's almost always 1pm or 2pm or 3pm.

friend: Those should not happen at least until 3:00.
Exactly.
There's just something about building invisible things that makes one immune to time.

me: yes
astrophysicists
mathematicians
philosophers

friend: Yes.
I suspect that if you get used to not being able to perceive three spatial dimensions, then you also become numb to the fourth dimension.

me: ahahaha






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A scary congregation of toxic gases

- - -
I think this is more than what Britney Spears had in mind when she wrote "Toxic"...

Yeah, um, I was too scared to get closer for a clearer shot. I couldn't tell what the bottom two were... but here are their identities:
(1) tertiarybutylarsine
(2) trimethylgallium
(3) tributylphosphine
(4) trimethylindium
(5) trimethylaluminum
(6) dimethylzinc
(7) Jabba the Hutt's fart
(8) Meth lab explosion

I will figure out what (7) and (8) really are.

[Edit 2011.07.28 19:06]
(7) is 1,1-dimethylhydrazine (UDMHy) ... My original guess wasn't too far off.
(8) is 200ppm silane in hydrogen






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Random outing and random sighting

- - -
Was having dinner at a popular student hangout near campus, with my friend from school, her bf, her bf's friend, her sister, a mutual friend of her sis and her bf. One can draw a relationship graph with weighted edges! We were all programmers to various degrees as well.

Had some pretty good catching up and conversations, mostly about work and research. Talked about puzzle hunts too.

There was a brief Mark Zuckerberg sighting as he was leaving with his Asian girlfriend. I stared for about 2 seconds when he was outside texting, just to confirm :-P We were thinking about doing a group stare but didn't happen, too bad!

The "Fairchild 8", a.k.a. "Fairchildren"

- - -
Watched documentary. NY Times columnist Tom Friedman said in the film that "in Japan in the 1970's, Bob Noyce was [famous] like Brittany Spears. It's too bad that in America, Brittany Spears is Brittany Spears." :-P

Interpersonal dynamics

- - -
I try to be a positive presence in my work environment. I think smiling helps. And posting artworks in my cube. And picking up fallen posters with thumb pins sticking up from the floor.

I also try to send updates to people. Network Protocol 101 (think TCP/IP... note the double-meaning here... I love entendres)... although I've been a little behind in updating my research advisor on my recent happenings. Mostly because I consider them to be the usual stew of big-company acclimatization.

Those Enneagram types... I seem to have a strong element of Types 4, 5, 6, moderate 1, 8, 9, and weak 2, 3, 7. Which is completely expected. I like the descriptions of what's the "best" version (i.e. self-actualization) of each type. And on the other ends of the scale too, guilty as charged.

It's good to have goals, hopes and dreams...

Like being Forever 22.

I wonder if my alum mentor thinks I don't like to admit failures. Although it turns out we failed at the same thing. He's an engineer -> entrepreneur -> venture capitalist. Back in grad school days he was a bona-fide lab rat, and loved it. Though his dad had always told him it's good to be self-sufficient, hence the move to start-ups.

I really want to learn more about start-ups from him... because I will likely do that at some point. It feels awesome to be among a group of kindred spirits united in the same goals (i.e. I knew these people by their screen names before meeting them IRL, ROFL.)

I suppose my high school guidance counselor might be right about me after all. Really few people understood me back in high school...

The Singularity is near!

- - -
And no, the NEMSSS seminar today did not involve giant Madagascar cockroaches. It did involve cybborrg beettles, complete with implanted chips inserted during pupal stage.

The chip talks to the remote control and stimulates muscles that pull on the exoskeleton that creates a mechanical resonance to flap the wings. With directional control by individual pulse train stimulation on left vs. right wing. The speaker was a former student of my PI. He was very energetic like a boy with his favorite toy.

He was also very eager to discuss the ethical issues about controlling beetles, etc. I think that he's only interested in it as an intellectual debate. N from my group thinks that if it were our PI, he would be more inclined toward the "don't hurt the beetles because it causes pain" side.

The study is basically funded by DARPA. Surprise surprise!

Entertaining group meeting

- - -
The presenter today had a definite comedic bent. He was talking about his latest work in the SSNFFF named "Grand Canyon III". It's a modified etching process for a silicon-based photonic/MEMS device that he's been working on.

He talked about Grand Canyon I and II, what was done, and why they failed. He described the failures with a satirical twist. "Everything works great! But only if you need [insert specific case]."

He also drew an analogy for different flavors of fabrication processes.
Plain vanilla: traditional process
Vanilla with colorful sprinkles: adapted for photonic crystals
Chocolate: with extra oxidation step
Chocolate chips, melted and flopped over: Grand Canyon I and II

There was a monstrous flowchart on a bunch of the slides, which made me shudder. He then proceeded to trace over various paths that he took over the years.

My PI: That should go on a PHD comic.
Group: Hahaha... hahahaha...

My PI was really excited about the progress. Yay!

Things I heard from my PI

- - -
My PI tells stories that and go on and on and on and on, which could be really informative and entertaining. A post-doc's helpful suggestion is that whenever I have crucial things to discuss, make a written list and check off during meeting. Else tangents galore!

(1) Back in his grad student days, he was running a wafer process in the fab. A technician apparently turned off the vacuum pump when my PI was not tending to his wafers, and... silane gas everywhere and everyone was evacuated... If not for the quick fixes (pumping nitrogen gas and turning off the toxic gasses), the whole fab might have exploded. There were actual flash fires.

(2) Sandia National Lab currently enjoys a cornucopia of resources. My PI wants to "visit there and absorb the aura" of disposable funding... He has a recent grad who works in the Albuquerque branch, and 3 months into the job she's already dropping by for pointers on applying to faculty positions...

(3) Faculty job slots at 2nd-3rd tier universities are going down. UC schools are getting more consolidated -- Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, UCSF, UCSB are getting most of the resources, and the current governor is... not qualified to be a governor.

(4) An enterprising recent PhD grad was thinking of making an RPG to learn about circuits. This is pretty much like what I was thinking about with quantum mechanics! Maybe I could try starting companies. :-P Apparently another student in my group attended the one-month summer entrepreneurship program that I was thinking about going.

My current advisor is on the same caliber as my former advisor in I.O.N, but my former advisor has a (really efficient) secretary and my current advisor does not have any. I blame the stupid funding situation. Although whether my current PI wants a secretary is another question...

Control theory, information theory, neuroscience

- - -
This prof talked about his research interest of engineering brain-machine interfaces. In other words, controlling machines with mere thought, remotely.

He has lots of DoD funding (no surprise...) and the advertisement industry is into this as well (knowing when there's high brain activity upon seeing certain images... even before conscious realization.)

He had occasional strange stutters, which was a tad distracting. I think it's because he spoke very fast and his thought process lagged during moments of stuttering. LOL. I think profs who talk faster in general tend to be easier to follow, assuming coherence.

There is an optimal speed, I've found. But all else being equal, I've found that going too fast is better than going too slow... because the attention level perks up in the former case and wanders elsewhere in the latter case.

Cheap labor huh

- - -

(11:06:54 PM) friend: Grad school is not about quality of life.
(11:07:12 PM) me: hear hear
(11:07:12 PM) friend: I guess it's actually not that bad depending on the department.
(11:07:20 PM) me: ahahaha
(11:07:42 PM) me: My department is not known for treating students well
(11:08:03 PM) me: but I might have found one of the few profs who is actually nice
(11:09:14 PM) friend: You know, this one time one of my friends in my department got robbed in his office at gunpoint while working late.
(11:09:38 PM) friend: The department would not install security cameras in the building after that. I think physics grad students are actually cheaper than cameras.
(11:09:55 PM) friend: If one dies, just hire another one.
(11:09:56 PM) friend: haha
(11:10:53 PM) me: Who robs physics grad students?
(11:11:03 PM) friend: A tard.
(11:11:13 PM) me: They should just unscrew one of the machines and wheel it off
(11:11:49 PM) me: I think the admins should be robbed at gunpoint.
(11:11:55 PM) me: see how they like it
(11:12:31 PM) me: physics grad students are cheaper than security guards
(11:12:38 PM) me: who watch the cameras
(11:13:03 PM) friend: I think the janitorial staff get paid better.
(11:13:12 PM) friend: Funny enough, they also work really strange hours.
(11:13:27 PM) me: The great state of American higher education.

(11:13:36 PM) friend: The professors go home at 6, and the grad students and janitors are still wondering around the building at midnight.
(11:13:57 PM) friend: One time I saw a janitor waxing a hallway at 3 am.
(11:14:19 PM) me: wow
(11:14:31 PM) friend: Well whatever they get paid they apparently earn it.
(11:14:45 PM) friend: I can't ask them about anything because I don't speak spanish.
(11:16:09 PM) friend: So it turns out if you walk by the main tower on campus early enough in the morning, you can see two mexican grounds keepers raising the american flag on its pole.
(11:16:38 PM) friend: What would the great country of america be without cheap imported labor.
(11:17:14 PM) friend: I suppose I am also cheap imported labor.
(11:17:44 PM) me: yes
(11:17:47 PM) me: sigh.
(11:18:18 PM) me: and non-white Americans are never considered real Americans
(11:18:21 PM) friend: American kids are too smart to do something as laborious as science. They let the foreign kids do that, and stick to becoming doctors and lawyers.
(11:19:13 PM) me: I think they prefer Wall Street bankers, business people, actors, athletes
(11:19:30 PM) me: but proportionally few actors and athletes make it big
(11:19:54 PM) me: and Wall Street tanked lately
(11:20:06 PM) me: so American kids are having a crisis.
(11:20:28 PM) friend: Of course, all the kids that were math majors with me in college, and didn't have the grades to get into grad school got jobs on wall street.
(11:21:14 PM) friend: It really is hard to tell which group is dumber: the ones that went to grad school to torture themselves, or the ones that couldn't make it and destroyed wall st.
(11:21:15 PM) me: America does not reward book smart
(11:21:24 PM) me: hahaha
(11:21:36 PM) friend: There's enough stupidity to go around.
(11:21:40 PM) me: Dumb in different ways
(11:21:49 PM) me: There are many ways to be stupid
(11:22:16 PM) me: Eastern Europeans reward math smarts
(11:22:38 PM) me: They're good at IMO and chess
(11:22:54 PM) friend: I work in a russian group.
(11:23:02 PM) me: case in point
(11:23:03 PM) friend: I think I should learn russian.
(11:23:06 PM) me: :P
(11:23:19 PM) friend: I think I already drink more vodka than them though.

ISSCC 2010 highlights

- - -
(1) The room for the plenary talks is HUGE. Football court huge. I think it's like a freakin' city block.

(2) One of the women's bathrooms had to be reassigned as men's because of the 20-1 gender ratio. I mean, the women's bathrooms were never more than 80% full.

(3) Our designated driver got a ticket. "I guess I'll have to tell my advisor about that..."

(4) Being a good presenter is so important... I only remembered the presentations that were engaging :-P

So this is how it's gonna be

- - -
I've decided that if the Silicon Valley culture is even colder than NYC, then I will seek out everything it has to offer and take every advantage of it.

So basically, in order to stay intellectually competitive, I'll have to regimen my diet and activity level. Such as biking to the farmer's market on Sundays to get fruits and veggies. And actually eating them on a timely basis. And traversing all over this gigantic campus in whichever muscle-powered methods of locomotion imaginable. I must remember to bring camera next time.

Ugh, that ketchup stuff is really bad. No kidding. I'm not getting the fries again. Salads only. The burger itself seems okay though. Lean chicken with whole bread, lettuce, tomato, onion, and no cheese.

Big question, turn-off, unrealism in TV drama

- - -
I realized that to create the most impact, I would have to (1) maximize job utility (i.e. not waste my life) and (2) maximize off-job utility (i.e. keep sane)...

Within (1), there are components (1a) earning potential and (1b) job satisfaction and (1c) intangible factors. I suspect (1a) and (1b) do not completely overlap, and their intersection might actually be small.

In that case, I shall have to work on (2), which translates to hobbies. As being an adult with multiple responsibilities would mean minimal time for hobbies, this is not a viable option once I'm officially in the "real-world".

Which goes back to (1). If I had Prof. Charlie Eppes-level math skills I could totally make a math model of this stupid rat race.

* * *

The only female professor in my department has blown me off twice now, after two separate attempts of trying to establish contact. I heard from one student who told me that she's quitting and going abroad for (what I deduce to be) a more lucrative job. Another student told me that she once told him to "listen to everyone and believe in no one."

Both of the aforementioned students are male. This professor only had two female students in her 10+ years of tenure. I should have known... but I wanted to give people benefit of a doubt. But this experience has really turned me off regarding a career in academia. This plus two of my respected industry mentors told me that they were disillusioned by academia, shortly after I sent my PhD applications.

* * *

Prof. Larry Fleinhardt from Numb3rs is such an idyllic dreamer and scatterbrained hippie-type that I seriously doubt someone like him would succeed as a professor in the real world. I mean, he doesn't have a house and he lives in the... steam tunnel on campus... and the new dept. head saw him coming out from cellar doors... )

Well, he's megawatt intellectually and a fav character of mine, but realistically only if he had an awesome secretary would he be able to keep track of all his professorial tasks (not to mention his FBI consulting...) A secretary who is not shared by many professors as in my department due to the economic downturn.

See, I keep my facts straight and not mixed up with fiction. But I'm increasingly incredulous at how I ended up on this giant hamster wheel with hundreds of clawing and gnawing... fellow hamsters.

Almost impulse-bought

- - -
I almost bought this toy from the campus bookstore. But (1) it's magnetic and might screw up my laptop, (2) it was $30 which I consider a tad too expensive. Sigh! Although if after a few weeks I still want it, then I will buy it.

The most environmentally friendly building I've ever been in

- - -
Genzyme corporate headquarters. I wish that I could work in a place that's built like that... seriously. The architect's contest proposal was a napkin drawing and a (visionary) pitch that evidently beat out all the other massively detailed plans... I think it helps that the CEO is European.

I walked in and felt the forest air with a refreshing aura of serenity. There's a reflecting pool/fountain by the staircase, with lush plant growths all around. The iridescent decor generates dancing rainbows all the way up the 12^th floor... It's a magical glass cathedral. 80% natural lighting and convection heating/cooling... the epitome of a passive building! (ahem inside joke)

The cafeteria is on the top floor, so that "everyone can get the views and not just the senior execs," said our tour guide. All the corner spaces are conference rooms for the same reason. There are chairs with different colors and they're meant to be mixed together (symbolizes diversity)... except the cleaning crew likes to arrange them in uni-color groups :-P

There's also an artwork trading program with the DeCordova Museum, pretty awesome.