So, Owen, what's new?

Let's see.
I wrote up a paper of my work for class and submitted it. Last thing I ever have to do as an undergrad!

Had a job interview Tuesday, still waiting to see how it worked.

Booked a flight, I'm heading to Ottawa early June. Cue "Leaving on a Jet Plane" and "Farewell to Nova Scotia"

In just over a week, returning home for my graduation ceremony.

And, for whatever reason, I've been reading this cute comic: Catharsis. It's not superb writing, and the guest comics are a little...eh. But it's still cute. What can I say?

Oh, the people on the bus I ride with are throwing me a going-away party.

And I'm cooking dinner for the boss on Sunday.

Look what it's DOING here!

I woke up this morning to the radio host: "For weather, expect rain, freezing rain, and wet snow this afternoon."

That wet snow is still going on.

Does EVERYTHING need a comment board

The folks at Penny Arcade have come up with a law/theory that I think is quite true.
Bleeped out, it's "John Gabriel's Great Internet F***w*d Theory."
Essentially, Normal Person + Audience + Anonymity = Total F***w*d. Seeing comments on Youtube, IMDB, most message boards, you get the idea.

Comment boards are the new hot thing for a lot of sites. CBC.ca added one fairly recently, and as a result brought the average IQ of the site down several points. It, as well, gets lowered to a lot of name-calling and pointless never-ending debates about the seal hunt and Paul McCartney. Is it necessary? No. Really, it isn't. I doubt there's somebody who looks at the comment board, and says "Oh, they really don't like this. We better change it."
That being said, there was a fire in Halifax yesterday morning on Spring Garden Road. The comments are mediocre, sympathetic at best, except for this lovely one:

there was a lot of manly gear downtown this morning
and many manly men doing manly things
not to mention the womanly women doing manly things womanly
and there were lots of lights, too!
oh, all the flashing lights!!!

Your comments, please? (Ignore the possible irony)

On Mountain Dew and Science posters

Last time I drank Mountain Dew was just before they rebranded it as Dew Fuel, an energy drink. I used to really like it, not for any particular reason, just because.
I just bought a bottle of it here (Not that many fancy energy drinks up here). Just regular old Mountain Dew (sans caffeine) in a glass bottle.

Blegh!

More those around Acadia who are interested in what I've done for the past four months, head down to the co-op office. Just inside the library, down the stairs, and through the door. My poster detailing my work should be up there. If not, let me know and I'll see if they can put it up. They may also be good-natured if you ask them as well.

I'll see about getting it up on this site.

Spring is here!

I went into the Superstore today for a snack. Hoping to avoid the oft-luring bakery, I hit the produce section.

Oh, what do I see? Artichokes! Roots! Mushrooms! Fresh herbs! Endives! Plantains! Chilies!

Oh sweet and wonderful, SPRING IS HERE! Let the feasting begin!

I'm cooking supper for my boss on Saturday night. Seeing all this fresh produce, as well as the latest issue of Saveur, halted me. I may have to investigate the planned dinner, and incorporate some of these fresh ingredients.

When I started this blog, I thought I'd write about what I'm feeling and my thoughts on certain aspects. I never thought I'd be writing so much about my faith.

I find that when I'm away from a lot of my Christian friends my faith can take a beating, and I tend to examine my beliefs more thoroughly.

This past week has strengthened many of my beliefs, both traditionally Christian as well as some more liberal points of view. Despite this, I still feel like I have taken a beating. I am aware that opening myself up on the web means opening myself up for attacks, as well as those near and dear to me.

I'm not intending for a break, but for a little while I'll be talking about biology, my work, my interests. This is just to change things up for a bit, and I hope that discussion will start again on other topics. I link to a lot of sites in my posts, and I hope that you guys find them interesting and are going out and exploring some more. For Example: 10 impossibilities conquered by Science. (Nothing controversial. I promise. Really!) and The Art of the Title Sequence

Pardon?

I've never had my faith questioned before.

I've questioned my own faith before, but not in my memory since I became a Christian has another person questioned my faith or my Christian beliefs.

It started somewhat innocently enough. Somewhat, because I was asking a thought-provoking question: Heinz's dilemma, structured by the psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg.

A woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $ 1,000, which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said, "No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it." So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's store to steal the drug for his wife.

-from Wikipedia

Should Heinz have broken into the laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?

I thought the answer was clear as day: Steal the damn drug. But the company present did not agree. When phrased in the form that they were Heinz, they maintained that they could not steal the drug, as God has written in the Bible that Thou Shalt Not Steal. They would have faith that God would either heal them, or take them away. "God's keeping them suffering for a reason," is how one person phrased it.
An interesting twist, I thought. When asked about it from looking at Heinz as a third person, they said that he did the wrong thing. Stealing is against a universal moral code, and also by putting his faith in science.
The idea of a Universal moral absolute (hereafter referred to as a UMA) always intrigues me. I think that there are rules and guidelines, but sometimes you break them to do the right thing. In my Ethics class in 2nd year we explored the idea of a UMA. Take "Do Not Lie." If you're hiding Jewish refugees from the Nazis and a stormtrooper comes knocking on your door, do you tell them the truth of the people hiding, or do you lie (persuasively) and tell them that you haven't seen anybody lately?

They said that they would tell the truth.

We're told not to lie, and that's that. Whatever happens to you or to them, well that's God's will.

I don't know how we got going from that, but we ended up discussing evolution. Now, I'm a scientist, and a Christian. (Note which one if capitalized). Long ago I settled out, for myself, any apparent contradictions the two have in each other, and I believe that I'm no less a Christian for agreeing with evolution (nor do I believe I'm no less a scientist for believing in Christ). Obviously, they were opposed to it, words were traded. At the end of it all, the other member of the company said "We'll pray for you that God will reveal Himself to you."

I felt my knees actually give out. I was stunned. I'm more liberal than many Christians, but at many other times more conservative. From a very young age, I was taught to question, and then to find out for myself. Question teachers, question government, question the rulemakers. The only people I wasn't allowed to question were my parents, paradoxically. Hence my curiosity, my demand of evidence, my insistence on reading for myself if I feel it is necessary. God and His Word are not out of bounds in my mind. I ask why. When I come across something I don't like in the Bible, God had better have a reason for it being there (He always does, by the way). I've never thought I've done wrong by this. The idea to read and interpret a text full of symbolism, metaphor, history and context with such single-minded literalism astounds me.

To have someone question my faith is still stunning. It's not affecting me or my behaviour, but it's still...wrenching.

I know it's been two long posts in two days, so here's some funny pictures to make up for it:



see more crazy cat pics
(and Schrodinger's cat)

and (source)

Dear Acadia,

The best years in my life have been spent in your hallowed halls. I met my best friends on your green campus. For five years I have been proud to call you my school and my home.

I know that we've squabbled. You've always been asking me for my money, but you've made good on your promises, and soon you'll be delivering a paper denoting my accomplishments in your presence. You've had a couple of arguments with yourself, forcing me to sit idly on the sidelines until we could continue. Many others left after your first squabble. I felt that I could see through the faults and stay with you.

You've encouraged me to go out on my own in the world, and provided me with the support I needed to get started. You have indeed been a Nourishing Mother. Now I'm leaving, and in ten years or so you'll be phoning, wondering where I am and how I'm doing (and asking for some funds, natch).

Before I go, why the change? I know you couldn't stay 1.0 forever, nor would I want you to. But already you were so cautious with your computers, and now you're making us buy our own. Acadia, look at how Dell has treated you in the past. Their goods are fragile, cheap, sometimes dangerous. We've only had to replace drives and motherboards since the contract, and the new computers are only a single digit better than the one I'm writing with now. I fear that their salesman has seen a lonely empty-nester and sold her an overpriced product. Open your eyes! Do the research! There is no reason why you should be asking your children to be paying that much for a computer. Computers are much, much cheaper than that. You should have driven the cost down. Mr. Dell and Mr. Jobs would still make profit. There's free, open-source, versatile and compatible software out there.

Your 2.0 has promised to be the future. I'm sorry, but you're firmly stuck in the past and afraid to change. Your business mind is still firmly there. The Advantage, in the beginning, was daring and out there. That's why it won awards and honours. Now? Now it just feels like a newer model. Juggle the features and the price a little bit, but in the end it still costs the same as the last one (if we're lucky), and it has all the same features. Coming out of high school, we know how to use Microsoft Office. I've yet to use LoggerPro in a work setting.

Teach us, Acadia! Teach us how to be efficient with computers! Teach our teachers, and teach them how to pass it on. We have the technology, but why? Show us how to break the mold with our tools. Knowing Microsoft is no longer an advantage, it's merely expected. But knowing how to use Excel and Access to manage an experiment with hundreds of cultures (cough cough)? That is an Advantage. Teach us how computers work at their best, so that we can master our tools.

A good carpenter with a good hammer works better. An uneducated carpenter with a good hammer just bangs his thumb harder.

Don't razzle-dazzle us. Your scores are soon going to sag. There's many fifth-year students who are none too pleased at your treatment of us. Some see you mainly as a transaction. Pay $50 000 and four years, get degree.
I wear your crest, your signet and your spirit. Please don't make me change.

Your loving biologist son,
Owen

One of my favourite days of the year

Today, for the first time all year, I was able to walk home without a jacket on. I stood outside my work, music in my ears. Crows, starlings and ducks in the flooded fields behind the station. A breeze, warmed by sunshine, blowing the leaves around. Not a hint of snow or cold weather in the air, nor on the ground.

Spring is here!

You know what would be good?

I had lunch at a British Fish and Chips shop. For dessert I had a deep-fried Mars Bar. It was pretty good, but I just had a brainwave to make the ultimate deep-fried chocolate dish:

Deep-fried Cadbury Creme Eggs.


I'm a genius, non?


ETA: While finding links for the above words, I found that I'm not the first person to come up with this idea. Dash it all! Still, I came up with it on myself, and I'm satisfied with that.
By the way, one of the links I found claims that a DF'd Mars bar is " an excellent source of fat, sugar and calories."

Furthermore, ice is an excellent way to get your daily water quotient, and a bag of frozen vegetables is an excellent way to get your vegetables.

WTF?

It snowed last night into tonight.
Seriously. A few centimetres of the white stuff all over, making a mess of many, many things.
On April Fool's, nonetheless.

I see stuff like this, say it's obvious that God has a sense of humour, and people call me blasphemous.


I went to Halifax this past weekend, scoring a free ride on the way down and the way back. Spent it with friends, ate some Ethiopian food (finally something good and spicy) and drank some wine with a dinosaur on the front of it. Good times were had by all.

I'm also planning on my trip down to Nova Scotia for grad weekend. I have the whole week off, so I can spend time with friends and family before heading back for a last couple of weeks at work. By the way, I've been extended (unofficially) until the end of May. I'm deciding on my grad ring, and I'm torn between the "Classic" and the "Crest." Let me know what you think.