Don't become a scientist!

This is a very interesting screed against science written by a tenured professor in physics at WashU. It was written in 1999, and he is essentially saying that there is so little hope of a permenant job in science, you are far better off become a plumber or something similiar.

In this light, it makes alot of sense that I jumped ship and am working on my network engineering certification.

Best Telemarketing scam ever

This is from WOWEconomics, but I had to share.

Apparently this is done by a comedian Tom Mabe, and he has a tape recorder at his phone ready to go whenever a telemarketer calls. Well, one fateful night....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5z4Vs26-TI

Exercise and Diet

Some new thinking that exercise isn't a total cure for bad diet. Perhaps that's misleading, but the title of the story is "Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin". Which is sorta true. The idea that you go out to the gym and exercise for 3 hours a week and lose weight, well maybe you'd lose weight, but it wouldn't be due to the exercise per se, its due to the fact that you are supposed to eat less in combinatino with exercise. Its like this. If you consumed 10,000 Cal in a week, and wanted to lose weight, you could cut your intake to 8000 Cal, and not exercise. Or you could burn 1000 Cal and exercise.

The point (and a major point of the article), is that people tend to overcompensate. I know I do. I exercise, and wolf down a burger, or a shake. Unless you are a sports physiologist, you have no idea how many calories you just burned. And you shouldn't feel like you need to replace those calories.

This is one reason why biking is an extremely effect weight lose strategy, but it boosts your metabolsim so much that its quite easy to double your food intake and not really notice. Exercising on a bike burns 250 to 1000 Cal in an hour. When i did my 40-60 mi trips, i would burn at least 2000 Cal, probably close to 3000 Cal. That's a full days worth of food assuming basal metablism. So, the idea was I could eat perfectly normally during the week, go on a long bike ride, eat normally that day (that's the hard part), and burn a pound of fat.

Anyway i'm getting back into shape slowly. I noticed my weight hasn't changed much but I lost a good deal of muscle since i left Houston.

I'm getting to like this guy.

No, not Obama, the other guy.

Its as if McCain was reincarnated as a donkey not an elephant.

Registered for classes

Registered for 3 durham tech classes today, will keep me busy throughout the fall. 6 contact hours, MTW, so 4 days off 3 days on, should be fun. Two are for finishing CCNA cert prep, and one is for linux admin. At the end i'll take the CCNA exam, and i guess look for a net engineering job. meanwhile work on 3 manuscripts and try to find a good science job (although honestly I dont have much hope - my skills just aren't in demand).

Tour de boring

Man, i've been following the tour but so far no big changeups except for the TTs (time trials). Today is no exception. Typically its a group of 3-4 riders way back in the standings, making a break, 90% of the time they get caught, this time they don't, the main guys who we care about (Lance for one), just sit in the peleton. Lance, we are all waiting for your move which better be supported by your team (or 90% of the American cyclist enthusiasts will tune out next years TdF).

Bye bye

Sent in letter of resignation today. That felt pretty good. I would have liked to stay and get the papers out but it proved impossible (lack of funding is main reason). So i'll be unemployed and working on data analysis and so forth on a volunteer basis.