After a long hibernation, the butterflies are back o_O

Random thoughts:

If the natural color of the sky were orange instead of blue,
would everyone think that orange and green looked good together?

What would the world be like if everyone could change his/her
timeframe relative to everyone else's?
One thing's for sure--I bet there would be a hell of a lot of
old geezers sitting around with frozen smiles, watching us
flicker before their faces.

Since cinnamon sticks that you get at the supermarket are
just chunks of bark, that means that somewhere there must
be cinnamon trees that they rip bark off of.  And if there
are cinnamon trees, somewhere there must be a cinnamon forest!
I want to romp around in a cinnamon forest.  I wonder if it
would smell like a cinnamon bake shop?

Every time I'm stuck sitting around all day doing endless
problem sets, I start to think how much happier I'd be in one
of my favorite fantasy worlds.  But then I think, nah... if
I were stuck in one of those worlds, I'd probably be chased
around by dragons and evil wizards all day.  And nothing
sucks worse than waking up to find you've been changed into
a newt and eaten by the friendly neighborhood dragon.

Why do squirrels have fuzzy tails?  I mean, I know small
rodents need tails for balance.  But they don't need to be
fuzzy for that... so maybe they're fuzzy for warmth.  Kind of
like the evolutionary equivalent of a warm muff!  I wonder if
squirrels curl up with their tails wrapped around them like
little fur muffs when they sleep?                

Magical spells must be like computer programming.  I mean,
beginning magicians in fantasy books are always getting one
tiny letter wrong or something in their incantations, and then
CRASH BANG, everything blows up!  Kind of like getting a core
dump.  Except that if your magic spell core dumped, you'd
probably end up ripping holes in the fabric of the universe or
something.  Boy, wouldn't that just suck.  Think of that the
next time your computer program crashes and burns because you
missed an ampersand somewhere...

It's very important to get your priorities straight.  Like, if
you were doing an important problem set in a really big hurry,
you'd make that your first priority, right?  But then if you
suddenly had to go to the bathroom really badly, but you thought,
No! This problem set has first priority! then you'd probably
end up peeing your pants.  And that's just bad.

If people actually had souls, what would happen to people with
split personalities?  Would someone with 35 different split
personalities have 35 separate souls?  Or just one soul that
was split into 35 teeny little souls?  'Cause then if some of
those personalities were really wicked and some were really
good, it just wouldn't be right to make 'em all go to hell. 
But then even if the good ones went to heaven, they'd probably
be teased all the time for only being a 1/35 soul.

There are no gods among the mortals of Earth.  If you hold up a
person as a god in your mind, you are bound to be disillusioned.
Unless, of course, that person started to hurl lightning bolts
everywhere.  Then even if he weren't a god, you'd probably be damn
impressed anyway. (Note: goddesses, of course, are still allowed)

How many separate strands of protein make up a single human hair?
Someone should make a solvent that separates hair into the tiny
strands that comprise it--hell, my hair splits like crazy by
itself, it shouldn't be all that hard to get it to split the rest
of the way.  Think about the marketing potential!  "Give yourself
the finest hair in the world!"  Of course, it'd also be the most
frazzled, curly hair in the world.  But boy, until it all fell out,
think about how soft and nice it would feel... 

In Japan, it's a damn good thing that the respect people are
allotted increases with age.  'Cause boy, it would be hard to
make really deep bows all the time when you've got osteoperosis.

It's another damn good thing that palm trees don't lose their
leaves in the winter.  Because they'd look really stupid without
leaves, just huge tall stumps sticking up in the air.

Keeping all your thoughts and feelings bottled up inside of you
isn't a very good thing to do.  But if everyone let all their
thoughts and feelings be known, I bet there'd be a lot more
murder in this world.

How much faster would you type if you had 6 fingers on one hand
instead of just 5?  How about on both hands?  7 fingers?  I think
that would be a cool research project.  Except that it's probably
really hard to find people with even 6 fingers on one hand.  You
could make that your quest, and go around telling people that your
quest is to find a 6-fingered man.  And then they would ask you,
'Why, did he kill your father?' and you could say, 'No, I just want
to see how fast he types.'

To be alive and to be happy--is that not purpose enough in this
world?  Maybe then the most fulfilled people in the world are sitting
in insane asylums, smiling at hidden fields of grass with friendly
bunnies and elves... Awwww, bunnies.

I love pomegranates.  Every time someone gives me a pomegranate, I
do the Happy Pomegranate Dance Of Joy. 

If only humans had souls and went to heaven or something, that would
mean that _animals_ couldn't be in heaven.  And why the hell would
I want to go to a heaven without cute fuzzy animals?  I'd rather go
to the Egyptian Happy Field of Food.  Or Chocolate Heaven.  Mmm,
chocolate.

Once bitten, twice wary.
Twice bitten, learn to parry.
Thrice bitten, blow his head off with a submachine gun.

I think it'd be fun to be a trick genie.  You know, where people
have to be really damn careful what they wish for, or you can give
it to them in really nasty ways.  Like if someone asked you for Peace
on Earth, you could kill off all the humans on the planet except for
the wisher.  And then he'd probably get all mad and scream at you to
bring them back to life, and then you could bring them all back as
flesh-eating zombies.  And then he'd probably get smarter and say he
wanted the world to be the way it was before, and then you could dump
him in the stone age and laugh because he'd be out of wishes and stuck
trying to hunt rabbits with rocks.  But then if it were me, I'd
probably get mad and squish him or something, because I hate to see
bunnies getting hurt.

He who is easily amused has the last laugh.  And the first.  And all
the ones in-between...

I've never seen a hummingbird land, only hovering and zipping around
all speedy-like.  It'd be so cool if hummingbirds could never land. 
They'd just hover and hover until they couldn't find enough food,
then sort of splutter like a car and drop to the ground.  And they'd
have to sleep hovering!  You could sneak up on a sleeping hummingbird
and just snatch it out of the air.  Or put a little glass box around
it with a little hole for a straw so you could feed it sugar water,
where it'd be forced to just hover and hover in the box angrily,
probably squeaking in a tiny, ultra-high-pitched voice of expletive.
*grin*

What does it mean to be a scientist?

I go to MIT. What did I do to get in here? Followed my dreams, right? I spent my entire life doing things just because they were interesting. I've always been interested in anything that involved thinking. If I saw a puzzle or problem, I just had to solve it or die trying. I was a renaissance man of sorts; juggling, doing magic/illusions, unicycling, singing, doing math/cs, acting, and more. I did anything that could fulfill me intellectually and got angry when I was bored.

So what happened?

At MIT, the daily grind takes over. Classes take up more time than they should, and I've realized this is because they're just plain not interesting to me. I've taken two classes twice. Is there a reason I did terribly even a _second_ time around? Yes...it's boring to me. I care nothing for the intrinsic details of how a semiconductor works if I don't know what it's useful for. There's a stark difference between defining a word and explaining a topic.

Things I do in my free time (the little that exists because I'm consistenly studying for the boring classes I'm taking) are what are worthwhile to me. It's the random experiments I create for myself, like watching the ants in the EC courtyard and setting up ways for them to get around. Seeing how they react to disturbances in their path. It's the exploring of the world that's interesting to me. It's the puzzles and problems handed to me that I have to solve by using sheer intuition that are interesting to me.

I don't care for the difference between a stereoisomer and a consititutional isomer if you're just going to define the terms. Tell me why they have the properties they have and what exactly it is that they do and base the explanation in reality and I will grab it.

On the other hand, I don't like applied mathematics because I like to learn pure theory, understand it, and apply it myself. Learning something that's already applied is like learning about a cat but never being able to go past that to learn about a dog. If you understand the basics of how a system works, theoretically, then you can apply it to just about anything.

So back to the original question: what does it mean to be a scientist? A scientist is not one who knows a lot and uses that knowledge merely to better the world. A scientist is one who is consistently trying to learn more. A scientist is one who stands by the seashore and sees the waves and thinks about the molecules and how they form the white surf. He is thrilled by the sheer beauty of how a flower works. How it has evolved through centuries to be different colors to attract more insects to pollinate it. Then he expands that to realize that this means insects must be able to see in color. Does this mean insects have the same value for aesthetics as humans, inherently artists, have? He then sets up an experiment for this, for sheer fun and enjoyment; simply because it is something he is curious to find out and doesn't know yet.

The scientist then instills this love of the world around him in others by simply radiating this beauty he hold of the world to others. He sees a flower and explains to someone why it is beautiful to him. Often the other person doesn't understand; it's just a flower.

Then there are the "artists" who believe scientists can't see beauty of a flower because they're taking it apart and dissecting it so there is no beauty. To this I say the exact opposite; I feel sorry for those "artists" because they can't see the sheer beauty that is inside the flower. There is beauty at the microscopic and nanoscopic level as well as at the magnification level visible to the naked eye.

A scientist is always trying to learn more. And then he changes the world by being in it; by getting others as excited as he. That is why I came to MIT and why I'm still here.

Next year, I'll be taking classes I'm interested in. I can't wait.

(inspired by "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman")