JD Facts - The 24th Anniversary Edition

Facts about myself that you may or may not know:

- I started playing tennis in order to try to enjoy something that I wasn't naturally good at.
- The only sports events I have ever enjoyed watching are Men's tennis and ISU Men's basketball.
- I have "invested" at least 3000 hours of my life into this stupid game. This is a very conservative estimate.
- I pretend to like Howie Day ironically, but I actually like it for reals, yo.
- I always thought scientists were cool as a kid, but I never knew it was a career option. I always thought that you had to be like 60 years old in order to do it.
- I've always wanted to do stand-up comedy.
- Taking the ITBS (standardized test) in first grade, I bubbled in the wrong area for one of the sections so when the results came back I was ranked in the 3rd percentile or so.
- My collection of Star Trek books numbers over 100. And I have read them all. More than three times each.
- I started watching Star Trek when I was in middle school because I thought Jadzia Dax was hot. And I liked science fiction.
- Large crowds make my head buzz and make it impossible to focus on anything. Okay, that's not really a secret.
- I enjoy the movie Mean Girls. It's not my favorite movie or anything, but I think it's pretty funny.
- I had a security pillow that I slept with and even carried with me in the house until I was 18. I got rid of it before I left for college because I didn't want my roommate to think less of me. It was really hard going to sleep after that for a while. Its name was Ba (pronounced bah).
- My favorite book of all time is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I have lent out this book to three people at various times and none of them read it.
- I have a one track mind. It is nearly impossible for me to focus on more than one task at a time. It's great for doing homework, horrible for balancing anything else in real life.
- My greatest fear is having to talk to strangers. My second greatest fear is large insects/bugs/spiders. My third is aliens.
- I know how to properly use affect and effect.
- My biggest pet peeve is when people talk down to me. It happens more than you think.
- Brunettes > Blondes.
- Arrested Development, Seinfeld, and Scrubs are the three greatest TV sitcoms ever created.
- In high school I deliberately trained myself to do a single eyebrow raise. It took several weeks to develop the proper muscles.

My birthday

For those of you in the know, my birthday is traditionally celebrated on the 14th of February. However, due to circumstances beyond my control, I will be out of the country for that day. So I am officially moving my birthday from the 14th to the 12th for this year only. Do not let this confuse you - my birthday is still February 14th, but this year only we will move the celebration of it to the 12th.

How important is religion in your state?

http://www.gallup.com/poll/114022/State-States-Importance-Religion.aspx

I would like everyone to note the relative rankings of Iowa and Michigan. Iowa is just 3 rankings "above" (below!) Michigan, both having 64% of their population reporting that religion is an important part of their daily life. I am crediting that margin to myself.

Getting closer

It looks like linux and mac are being at least actively considered by google chrome's development team.

http://blog.internetnews.com/skerner/2009/01/google-chrome-201590-removes-e.html

I can't wait to start using chrome.

Douglas Adams quote

"The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be."
— Douglas Adams

Sometimes I wonder that even if we did create an AI, if it doesn't come with all of the bizarre preprogrammed mental baggage that humans have to make adapting to such a strange existence possible, would it act like anything we associate with "normal" intelligence at all? Would it even be recognizable as intelligent?

I can't believe this is a real news report

OMDL, what is wrong with some people?

History of the Internet(s)

History of the Internet from PICOL on Vimeo.

How to make 225 million dollars for medical research (For free)

Convince the Obama administration to do this. Go there and vote up this idea. Make money for real science while tearing down pseudoscience. You couldn't ask for more.

America, FUCK YEAH

ILLITERACY, FUCK YEAH!

New Years Resolution

When I type in IM, I have a horrible habit of making horrible run on sentences, I feel so dumb because of it. My goal this year is to stop doing it, so if you are ever talking to me on IM and I type a run on sentence, you are to yell at me and question my parentage.

I don't get it

story
1) Some girl gets bored over break and sends over 14,000 text messages. She has an unlimited text message plan.
2) ???
3) Her parents punish her.

Does the internet count as a friend?

Yahoo answers

Thanks to failblog, I recently came across a yahoo answers post asking one of the most interesting questions ever.

What is the right age to start teaching my dog about sex?

The question alone is hilarious, but one of the answers made it all the better.

Strange but.............I just gave my dogs a stuffed animal there size, and the started humping it, then i taught them to go under the bed when they do it

An important holiday

Guys, I don't like to preach much, but I just felt I should remind you what an important day tomorrow is. Tomorrow commemorates the birth of perhaps the greatest hero of mankind, whose tireless work enlightened the world and changed history. Don't forget the reason for the season.

How to pick up chicks

Step 1: Throw shoes at the president of the US
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Chick!

Post Exam 1 report

6 questions, each question worth 10 points. Test is scored out of 40 (so ~20 pts extra credit available). Obviously two of the questions were significantly more difficult than the rest. I had no clue what to do for them, but the other 4 were very doable and I think I got near full credit.

Final verdict: I'm putting my money on a solid 3.0 in the class.

Now to start studying for tomorrow's exam

I impregnate women from across the room

link

Finally, a music video I can relate to! (NSFW)

Too many songs about sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll. We need more songs about day to day life, like this.

Sometimes there just aren't swear words strong enough

When on Friday you double check your final exam times that you thought were on Tuesday and Thursday and discover that they are actually on Monday and Tuesday.

Why I don't get any (Part 2)

Male students in the sciences don't get any.

I could have told you that. Fund my research dammit, not this soft science crap. I will be harder working, given that I won't be distracted by all the sexy-time I won't be having.