captain ahab.

over break, i had the pleasure of not shaving for a length of time. when i did shave, i had the pleasure of leaving a set of chops. more particularly, "whaler's chops," "1800's banker chops," "amish chops," or "leprechaun chops" depending on which term you fancy using.

it was a pleasure.

in order to remember the good times before i began school once more and had to shave them off, i decided while in the parking lot of big lots to get a photo or two of me with them. the shot i share with you now is the combination of an afternoon sun, quickshot autofocus, and a car to the side of me squeeling; all at the perfect moment to make this photo look like an abercrombie ad. it doesn't really even show the chops because of the extreme lighting, but oh well. it's for me to remember the good times, and that it does effectively.

blogging about paper.

*important*
to read this post, click on the giant notebook. feel free to scroll down after you read it.

now feel free to scroll down.

in case you were curious, this is what it looks like without the flip--with matchbook authenticity check even! just click on this notebook to see it in a better, more glorious resolution.

the scientific method.

so. as many of you know, i was hoping to go to med school. and to be fair, i'm not completely dismissing the idea. however, this last semester has taught me something invaluable--i hate the "hard" sciences. just to clarify, that doesn't mean the challenging sciences, that means things that don't involve people, essentially. psychology, for instance, is often considered a "soft" science. well soften me up, folks, for if soft be psychologists, soft i hope to be. and while the idea of being a medical doctor does still has it's appeal... well, read on.

here's the thing. this semester was an experiment of sorts. the scientific method basically states that to test something, you should make a hypothesis and run the test to see how it goes. simple enough. this semester, i hypothesized that i'd be able to not only learn to beat my science courses, but that i'd learn to enjoy them. my hypothesis was based in my success, my results are based in defeat.

now, another important part of interpreting results that most people (including myself) don't learn until a bit after elementary school science is the idea of the null hypothesis. here's the example, compliments of nassim nicholas taleb. if you do a study to prove there are only white swans in the world, you can never be sure, really. the reason is there may always be a little black swan hidden away in an old man's basement somewhere, completely defying your theory (side note, there are black swans). therefore, certain phraseology is used to ensure that honesty and operational definitions are present. to assume there is no difference or your variable of choice is present(ie, there is no black swan, i don't want to be a doctor) is called 'the null hypothesis.' therefore, if we find a black swan (or find that through my classes i want to be a doctor), we would reject the null hypothesis, as it is not the case (in cases with numbers, this is done statistically, of course). however, if we do not find this to be the case, we cannot simply accept the null. you'll remember the old man with the black swan. you never really know. so instead of saying, "yes, we embrace the null. it's true." we fail to reject the null hypothesis. thus saying that as far as we can tell, the null holds true.

this semester, as pertaining to my wanting to go to med school, i found no black swans. i failed to reject the null. that means that as far as the time being is concerned, i don't especially want to be a doctor. that being said, there are errors that can play into things, of course. but i can honestly say that after this semester of dealing with chemistry again, hating biology, and finding the only bright spot in my week being my psychological testing class, that the null was pretty heavily enforced.

so next semester i'll be taking a sabbatical from all classes outside of psychology, and i'm quite excited. i'll be doing nothing but psych all day as far as academics is concerned, and i'm thrilled about it. the way i see it, next semester's null will be that i don't want to go into psychology as a professional field. i'm sincerely hoping to find a black swan.

and on a sidenote, over thanksgiving break i got to paint my nephews' and one of my niece's faces in the likeness of kiss. it's not really associated at all with the rest of my post, but still cool enough that i'm sharing it.

boom.

joey fatone.

well, as many of you may be aware from my last post and facebook photo album, this last weekend i was able to spend the weekend in san diego. twas a wonderful time. and i spent much of it thinking about how i could possibly work

into the post. mission accomplished.

and onto the recap.

rather than bother to post all of the photos on my blog, you can find the facebook album here. only a few select highlights will make it on the post in the interest of time.

to introduce, i'll give you a short timeline.

*4:30 (mountain west). thursday, october 1.
picked up by parents, niece, and three nephews in provo. we begin the drive.

(travel through utah, arizona, nevada, and california enjoying the view. most of the time)

*18:30 (pacific)
arrive at coronado island. waste time on the beach. enjoy life.


*10:00 (p) friday, october 2.
go to sea world. enjoy it very much as i have when i've attended it in the past.

*15:00 (p)
play the idea of being a marine biologist and dying my hair red so i can grow a moustache and be just like the guy who hosted the preshow for shamu. also sit front row for the show. very neat.


*18:00
come back to hotel and enjoy more beach tomfoolery.


*9:00 (p) saturday, october 3.
the day devoted to the beach. gave my best effort in getting a huge sunburn on my back and had moderate success. enjoyed drinking seawater and playing in the waves as i always do.

*12:00 (p)
ate at anthony's which was simply delightful. very much enjoyed it. best fish i've had since england.

*13:30 (p)
purchased a pair of vans half-cabs with a member of kiss on the sides of each shoe. ten dollars new at a tent sale on base. thanked my lucky stars.

*15:00 (p)
more fun on the beach.


*10:00 (p) sunday, october 4.
more beach time, but less "action" and more "loitering" type activities. scavenged for shells and made a good haul. also sat around in the sand acting like i was about to get up. enjoyed most of the day doing such. a delightful final day.


*4:00 (p) monday, october 5.
leave the hotel and order hash browns from mcdonalds. we're on the way home.

*6:00 (mw)
stop at burger kind for breakfast, but it's closed until seven. the time zones have changed and what was 6:55 a few minutes prior became 6:15 across the state line.

(read, make bracelets, watch dvds with kids)

*18:00 (mw)
return to provo. get dropped off by parents, niece, and three nephews. grab my junk, throw it in apartment, and go to the apartment complex office to sort out rent.

*19:10 (mw)
go on campus and update facebook and write this post.



boom.


twas a wonderful time. i enjoyed it very much and thank my parents for letting me tag along. and if you missed it the first time, and really wanted wanted to see the photos i was too lazy to post here, here's the link. and yes, i know i said i'd post a few particular ones here and didn't. i'm sorry, i really need to get going.

the power of print screen.

i love how software that's every feature you can imagine to warp, color, invert or ruin an image always has self imposed restrictions on them so you need to keep using that program until the piece is finished.

well, i just had my new photo taken for my student id.
=========================================>
it had to be replaced because of byu's new id policy, and i wanted to be able to mess with the hue in order to make it a bit more interesting, suffice to say. however, the photoshop program available insisted it knew better than i did and yata yata yata, it wouldn't allow me to use certain functions because i had removed most of the color. and i was annoyed by this.

so, to strongarm the software (or outsmart it), i simply starting using the print screen key and then using microsoft paint. this sort of worked, but what really came out of it, was realizing i could save the file in paint and keep opening it back up in photoshop. i did so repeatedly, played with some sizing, and the result is the above photo, which is now my profile photo. it may change again soon, but i had to enjoy it for a bit.


the lesson of this story is simple. programs will often a)think they're smarter than you and not allow certain actions or b)want to limit your usage to get you to buy the full program or so on and so forth. however, you've the power to overcome such digital tyranny. there is always a way around if you're too lazy or too cheep to get it done at the mercy of software. this adventure's tactic was the print screen key, but there are so many others. use them.