Back From the Dead

Holy smokes it's been a long time. I can't really say that I'm surprised that I've gone this long without writing - blogging isn't something that you can force, it just has to happen. It's one of those things where all the stars have to be in alignment and the creative juices have to be flowing - not trickling - we're talking Niagara. And tonight just so happens to be one of those nights. The juices are flowing, so grab your ponchos and hop on board the Maid of the Mist.

So I stumbled across an interesting article on BBC News regarding a type of ant that I hadn't heard of before - the Slavemaker ant. While the moniker is used for many different species of ants, the name pretty much speaks for itself. And while the different species of slavemaker ants use many different tactics of enslaving, the bottom line is all the same: get some poor schmuck to do all of the work for you. And here I was thinking that slavery was an invention of mankind. Now I'm not saying that there are tiny little ant plantations or tiny ant cotton fields, but it's crazy how nature works, and even scarier to think that man's slavery and ant's slavery aren't too far off from each other.

One type of ant enslavement is a form of social parasitism, or as I like to call it, the snatch-n-grab. This involves the slavemaker soldier ants raiding a nearby colony, stealing their larvae, and bringing them back to the slavemaker nest. The scent of the slavemaker colony is imprinted on the larvae and when they hatch, they will work for the new colony - they are literally born into slavery. Holy. Shit.  Imagine going into someone's home, or better yet, another country, stealing their babies, and raising them up to do your bidding.

Another type of ant enslavement is just a plain old coup d'état.  The slavemaker queen and her raiders invade another colony and during the battle, the slavemaker queen assassinates the previous queen, bathes herself in the dead queen's pheromones, and proclaims herself the leader.  The soon-to-be slave workers don't know the better (since the new queen smells like the old queen), and begin doing the new queen's bidding.  Oh. Em. Gee.

Damn nature!  You scary!

Two Five

It's official - despite my best efforts to slow down time, my birthday has come and gone and I now have to face the fact that, yes, I am 25.  TWENTY FIVE.  That's 0.25 centuries.  That's 2.5 decades.  That's 1,304.4375 weeks.  That's 9,131.0625 days.  That's 219,145.5 hours.  That's 13,148,730 minutes.  That's 788,923,800 seconds.  That's 788,923,800,000 milliseconds.  That's 788,923,800,000,000,000 nanoseconds.

In other words...I'm old!  I'm entering a new era in my life and it's time I take a look at my life from a different perspective.  So in honor of entering a new age bracket and new perspectives, I've decided to start a new project.  My last project was to do 30 New Things in 30 Days last September so for this new project I'm going to try and take a photo a day for an entire year, with the hope that each photo will show something from a new perspective.  Or at least maybe something that you haven't seen before.  It's a big challenge, and I'm not sure if I'll be able to complete it, but it's worth a shot.  Just keep in mind that I'm a total amateur when it comes to taking photos and I'm using a low end point-and-shoot camera.  I haven't decided if I'm going to upload the pics onto the blog, or just make a Flickr account, but when I figure it out, I'll post it here.


Tune in tomorrow - same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!

So Long, and Thanks for the Fish

June 30th, 2010...a date that will live in infamy.  Okay, not really infamy, but it'll definitely be a date to remember.  June 30th was my last day as an employee of Dvax, after an amazing run of 2 years and 9 months.  They say you always remember your first - whether it was good or bad, it's forever imprinted in your memories as the first time you've ever experienced something so new and so exciting.

Dynavax represents a lot of firsts for me.  My first real job, my first full-time salary position, my first industry experience, my first cubicle(!!), my first promotion, etc.  But what stands out the most, the most prominent and cherished memories during my stay at Dvax, will always be the people. My crew. My friends. My family.

I was fortunate enough to be a part of something amazing.  It was a smörgåsbord of personalities and emotions:  1 part love, 1 part mayhem, a generous helping of laughter, a pinch of cattiness, topped with a dash of sexual innuendos.  My coworkers made work fun, and I don't think I'll ever meet another group of people like them.  There's not much else to say except...

Trailergasm

Who's up for a movie?

I.Am.Nerd.

So I was browsing Xkcd and I stumbled upon one cartoon that I thought was pretty interesting.  Being a nerd, I instantly hit up the search function on Wikipedia to see just what the cartoon was all about.  Why will my friends stop calling me to hang out?  Being a scientist, it's in my very nature to instantly want to do an experiment.

The conjecture states: Take any natural number n. If n is even, divide it by 2 to get n / 2, if n is odd multiply it by 3 and add 1 to obtain 3n + 1. Repeat the process indefinitely. No matter what number you start with, you will always eventually reach 1.

I decided to start out simple.  For my first experiment, I chose the number 11.

n = 11.  Step 1: (11x3) + 1 = 34.  Step 2: 34/2 = 17.  Step 3: (17x3) + 1 = 52.  Step 4: 52/2 = 26.  Step 5: 26/2 = 13.  Step 6: (13x3) + 1 = 40.  Step 7: 40/2 = 20.  Step 8:  20/2 = 10.  Step 9: 10/2 = 5.  Step 10: (5x3) + 1 = 16.  Step 11: 16/2 = 8.  Step 12: 8/2 = 4.  Step 13: 4/2 = 2.  Step 14: 2/2 = 1

Experiment 1 - Successful in 14 steps.

For my second experiment, I chose to use a bigger number: 256.

n = 256.  Step 1:  256/2 = 128.  Step 2:  128/2 = 64.  Step 3: 64/2 = 32.  Step 4: 32/2 = 16.  Step 5: 16/2 = 8.  Step 6:  8/2 = 4.  Step 7: 4/2 = 2.  Step 8: 2/2 = 1.

Experiment 2 - Successful in 8 steps.

Holy crap, I'm on a roll!  And there's a correlation between a larger n and fewer steps to get to 1.  One more experiment and I'll be able to publish my results!

For my third experiment, I decided to choose an even bigger number (they always say: go big or go home!). This time I chose: 123,456,789.

n = 123,456,789.  Step 1: (123,456,789x3) + 1 = 370,370,368.  Step 2: 370,370,368/2 = 185,185,184.  Step 3: 185,185,184/2 = 92,592,592.  Step 4: 92,592,592/2 = 46,296,296.  Step 5: 46,296,296/2 = 23,148,148.  Step 6: 23,148,148/2 = 11,574,074.  Step 7: 11,574,074/2 = 5,787,037.  Step 8: (5,787,037x3) + 1 = 17,361,112.  SHIT.  **Fast Forward**  Step 63: (16,313x3) + 1 = 48,940.   **Fast Forward**   Step 102: (395x3) + 1 = 1,186.  **Fast Forward**  Step 143: (3,077x3) + 1 = 9,232.  **Fast Forward**  Step 177: 2/2 = 1.

Experiment 3 - Successful in 177 steps.

Experimental conclusions:  1) Conjecture stands true...so far. 2) Correlation does not equal causation! 3) I.Am.Nerd.

Cooking Disaster

Gordon Ramsey himself would be proud of my culinary accomplishments of the other night, and by accomplishments, I mean epic failure.  I can cook, I swear I can!  This just happened to be one of my brain fart moments where everything just went to hell.  So without further ado, I give you my recipe for a true cooking disaster.

Ingredients:
1 packet Trader Joe's pre-cut pre-washed Blue Mountain green beans
1 box Trader Joe's Indian Pav Bhaji
1 moment of a lapse of common sense.

Instructions:
Step 1.  Cook rice in a pot instead of a rice cooker.  Watch as it bubbles under the lid and the rice-goo overflows and drips down the sides of the pot.  Watch as this then puddles in the drip pan under the electric burner.

Step 2.  Turn up the heat on said electric burner (complete with dried rice-goo) and watch as said dried rice-goo burns and starts smoking.  Burn and overcook the rice.

Step 3.  Heat up the Pav Bhaji by boiling the sealed packet in water.

Step 4.  Place microwave ready package of green beans into the microwave and heat for 3-4 minutes (according to the package).  Assume that the green beans are fully cooked.  Do not test.

Step 5.  Plate out overcooked rice and pile undercooked green beans on top.  Dish out piping hot Pav Bhaji on top of both the rice and the green beans.

Step 6.  Taste.  Curse.  Smack forehead for own stupidity.  

Step 7.  Take a pair of tongs and try to manually scrape off the Pav Bhaji off each individual green bean onto the rice so that the raw green beans can be cooked properly in a frying pan.

Step 8.  Sauté the green beans long enough so that they're edible but also so that when they're done, the rice and Pav Bhaji are cold.

Step 9.  Place cold rice and Pav Bhaji clusterf*ck into the microwave and heat.  Burn Pav Bhaji.

Step 10.  Epic failure complete.

[Ingredient]

[Step 7]

[Step 9]

Short Films pt 2

It's only fitting that the day after I finally finish a post about short films, that I stumble upon another one that has caught my eye.  It's pretty short, but very nerdy. 

"Pixels"

Short Films

I stumbled upon these short films about a month ago, and true to my nature, I started a blog post about it and waited a month to actually finish writing it.

"Connected"  

Watch the film (it's only 7:32 min long) and behold the ugliness of human nature.  Warning!  Film may cause desire to connect a vacuum cleaner hose to one's own face.

"Logorama"  

One word:  EPIC.  There's a reason why it won the Academy Award for best animated short film.  It's 17 mins, but it's worth it. Check out all the different logos used in the film.  Warning! Film contains NSFW language and animated violence.

"Tag 26"

Probably the most depressing of the three.  18 mins.  Afterwards you'll be much more appreciative of what you've got.  Warning! Film may cause desire for a full rubber attire.

What I say [What I think]

I need [want] to blog more.  
So [Not] much to say, so little [much] time to write.  
Uninspired [lazy]. 

RTS

With the release of Starcraft 2 this year (This year? Heh, I'll keep my fingers crossed...but you never really know with Blizzard), I figured that I should brush up on my RTS skills since they're a bit rusty.  It's been a long time since I've really been into RTS games; I've mainly been sticking to my FPS (killing terrorists, zombies, and the likes).  But gaming is kinda like riding a bike, the skills are always there once you learn them, you just need to get back on the horse...or bike, whatever the metaphor is.


For those of you who aren't familiar with gaming terminology, RTS stands for real time strategy.  Examples include SC, WC, C&C, CoH, AoE, etc (n3rd props if you know what those games are).  For me however, RTS stands for real time suckage.  I learned tonight just how bad I am at these types of games.  My skills were never that great to begin with, and with so much time spent nowadays on FPS, I guess my abilities have atrophied into uselessness.  In an FPS, it's fairly simple, focus on one enemy at a time, shoot, kill, repeat.  There are elements of strategy: stealth, traps, teamwork etc, but most of the time, your attention is focused at a single target or area.  And I excel at this.  It's weird how I can multitask without problems IRL, but completely suck at it in game.  Especially when it comes to playing the Supreme Commander series.

Supreme Commander, its expansion pack - Forged Alliance, and the soon to be released sequel, Supreme Commander 2, are the most intense RTS games I've ever played.  The sheer scale of the game is massive - micro in on a single unit or macro out to see a global view, with individual units turning into shapes and symbols on a map.  It may not be the prettiest RTS graphically, but with land, air, and sea units, fully upgradable tech trees, and sometimes OP AI, it's definitely one of the most demanding.  Which is why I fail miserably at it.  It's hard enough managing my own resources in the real world, how can I expect to micro and macro manage enough resources to complete my objectives in a game?  Tonight I spent an hour building up enough defense and offense to complete the first objective, another hour to complete the second objective, only to have my base raped once I was given a third objective (the map expanded and what I thought was a well protected base - with map edges on two sides - turned into a shoddy fortification with critical flanks exposed and vulnerable to counterattack).  Two hours of strategy and planning - derailed in less than 10 minutes.  I guess I'm not cut out to be a supreme commander.  Give me a gun, some ammo, and a couple of frags any day.  


I hope they have head shots in Starcraft 2.  

L.A.R.P.

Live Avatar Role Playing.  It just fit too well with my previous post to pass up.

Avatar: Horny Guy Edition

[Note from Lumzo:  I guess this is a recurring theme but this entry may seem dated because I started writing it a month or so ago and never got around to finishing it.  So just pretend that everything you're about to read is still pop culturally relevant.]

We all know that James Cameron' Avatar is the biggest movie of all time - grossing well over $2B worldwide. I'm not going to dive into the plot or characters of the movie, or even the visuals for that matter, rather I'd like to focus on the idea that drives the movie - the avatar itself.  The premise is simple: a human connects his/her mind to a machine which allows them to take control over an alien body, which they can then use to manipulate/interact with the hazardous world around them.  An avatar allows a person to experience something without having to actually experience it.  Kind of like virtual realities, or video games, or movies for that matter (I guess watching Avatar lets you experience what it would be like to hook your mind up to a machine that lets you experience what it would be like to walk around Pandora without having to experience the experience of the experience of walking around in Pandora?  Great scott, I think the time/space continuum just cracked!)  Anyway, it's basically a voyeur's dream come true.  Get the experience, without actually experiencing it.  But I've stumbled upon something greater than Avatar.  I've discovered the voyeur's wet dream.

Enter Secret Girlfriend.  It's Comedy Central's little known "web-series-turned-tv-series" or as I like to call it "Avatar: Horny Guy Edition".  The premise of the show, much like the premise of the movie, is simple: the star of the show is you.  The show is filmed in first person (though technically the narrative is second person) and the camera pans through all the experiences that you and your buddies go through - which coincidentally always revolves around scantily clad women.  Each episode is cut into 2 mini episodes designed to give you the experience of the common, everyday situations that normal guys run into; meeting a hot girl at the gym who you and your buddies think is a pornstar based on the tramp stamp on her lower back, deciding to solve the mystery of her pornstar name, going on a date with her, ending up having a threesome with her and her pornstar roommate, and finally deriving her pornstar name from the most obvious of clues - her pet's name and the street she lives on.  It's definitely a feel-good show for the lonely horny men out there; a 22 minute luscious oasis from the harsh dry desert of reality.  The viewer gets to experience everything a 13-year old boy could ever imagine, without ever having to leave their parent's basement, because honestly, there's not even a snowball's chance in hell that anything one sees/hears/does on the show could ever happen to anyone in real life.  Though I'd choose Jessica over Neytiri any day.  10-foot tall smurfs just don't do it for me.  Maybe I'm just a speciesist/colorist.  

2009 Smörgåsbord

Note from Lumzo:  Okay so I really did start this post in the beginning of December, but because I've been busy/lazy, I've put it off till now, which in turn has significantly delayed other entries that are queuing up.  So let's just pretend that I posted this in December (so I don't have to cheat and alter the time stamp).  Also don't mind the random jumping from topic to topic - it's called a smörgåsbord for a reason.


----------------------------
Well it's December, and the 2009 clock is standing on it's last leg. Where has the time gone? Since the remainder of the year is winding down, I figured I'd let you in on a weird dream I had the other day. We all know how saturated our lives are with technology and the privileges we maintain with instantaneous knowledge and power at the tips of our fingers. And what do our fingertips touch? Smart phones. They're aptly named such because well, they're smarter than most people you'd find on the street. They can do just about anything your little heart desires, which is where I segue into my dreams.


Dream 1:  Gghost

So the other day I dreamed (dreamt? For some reason Blogger thinks 'dreamt' is not a word, though I'm pretty certain it is, but I digress...) that I had gotten a hold of a new prototype application that Google was working on. I was searching through their Google Labs and found one marked 'Gghost' - which at the time I thought was kind of redundant. Why not just name it Ghost? I guess it's because Google puts their patented "G" in front of all their applications (Gchat, Gmail, Gwave etc.) much like Apple puts their lowercase "i" in front of all their products.  Anyway, the point of the application was to have a portable device that could detect demons, ghosts, and any other nasties that might be lurking amongst the living wreaking havoc, chaos, death and destruction, oh my! The device resembled a torch which oddly enough, was powered by tealights. To operate the Gghost, you simply shined the beam around the room and any demonic apparition would appear as a darkened shadowy blur. You'd be surprised as to how many unholy wraiths were actually roaming the Earth undetected. Armed with my new ghostbusting toy, and magically finding myself in a conveniently haunted mansion, I swept through room after room finding demons of all shapes and sizes - and even some possessing my living fleshy companions.  Dr. Peter Venkman would've been proud.

Dream 2:  iPredator
Oddly enough, I had another quite memorable dream towards the end of December.  This time instead of dreaming about Google, I dreamed about Apple.  Yes, THE Apple, Inc.  What about?  Well it was their latest and greatest application: The iPredator.  For those of you who aren't aware, the Predator is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) currently in use by our armed forces to patrol the skies and conduct aerial strikes, without having to put human pilots in the line of fire.  The iPredator (which cost a cool $0.99 from the App Store) allowed anyone who had an iPhone to remotely control a Predator drone and conduct their own surveillance.  The app never let you actually own a Predator, it just allowed you access to a UAV that apparently Apple had stocked up on, and whose fleet was stationed somewhere in the bay area.  All I remember about the dream was driving to work on my morning commute and seeing thousands of Predator drones flying high above 80/580...evidently everyone was using their UAV to check up on the morning traffic.

Pedicures
Towards the end of December, I got my very first pedicure (Let's pause for the shock/laughter to die down.  Finished?  Good, let's proceed).  It was a little weird for me at first (surprisingly enough, I wasn't the only guy there), but as soon as I put my little piggies into the whirlpool and set my chair to full massage, I was in heaven.  And damn did it feel good.  I left with my feet feeling light and rejuvenated, adorned with the manliest color of them all - clear.

Memes
All you'll ever need to know about them.  There's some pretty hilarious stuff out there, and with names like "Philosoraptor" it's pure comedy gold.  And I don't care what the haters say, I pronounce it as "Me Me's" not "Meems."