a little while …

i’ve found four completed sides of a rubik’s cube

hopefully imminent.

some plots from my thesis. it is a pictorial representation of transition rates of electrons bound by a two dimensional image potential (i.e. particle-in-a-box) on a metal surface as a function of the polar and azimuthal angles relative to the vertical axis. these electrons are excited first to their image potential state by a photon, let’s say, and from there are knocked again with a light ray to eject them into the vacuum. i have no idea if the mathematics are correct, but nonetheless, i get pretty neat looking plots, which sort of correlate with some of my expectations.

Here is Fermi’s Golden Rule:

in english, the dimensions are NUMBER/TIME, where number is the number of transitions from an initial state, i, to a final state, f.

Here are some plots for several initial states at a square potential size comparable to the bohr radius. the final state is always the same, the continuum state, which is an electron completely liberated from the image potential traveling happily through the vacuum.

this is the ground state, and i kinda expected it to look like this … not sure why there are nodes though.

i’ve been having huge problems with the ‘news’ lately. the other day i was watching tv at 11pm, which is the standard hour for the news on canadian tv, global, cbc, citytv and ctv being the major networks that get airplay. anyway, i don’t usually watch any of them as i’m a big fan of channel surfing first through all the sports channels (sportsnet, tsn and the score) then through all the pop culture channels (muchmusic, muchmoremusic, cartoon, comedy, mtv), but i decided to settle on citytv. i sat through a half an hour, the initial ten minutes of which was devoted to showing how a slice of salami (simulating human flesh, of course?) froze in sub-zero temperatures followed by how a bottle of water similarly froze, and the remaining twenty minutes, highlighted various worldly events, such as a dog falling through ice in colorado being alloted as much airtime as an earthquake in sumatra that killed hundreds of people. i promise you there is no exaggeration here: water freezing in -15C weather and a golden retriever falling through ice … this was the news.

here’s another example of news in print:
the exercise craze that crippled a generation
again, a news article on the topic of “health” guided by the flimsiest of anecdotal evidence trying to pass off as an actual report. what i wonder is whether this poor excuse for news is a result of the blogging phenomenon and the inherent lessening of journalistic standards or whether it’s always existed and has only become more obvious now that non-professionals are doing it too.

one of the most powerful things the nightmare that is HIV/AIDS can do, probably within our lifetime, is to force the world to realize that the old paradigm that describes the agents which cause mass ideological shift in the entire world has become stagnant and needs revision. the past however many centuries human agents have been responsible for causing the ideological revisions: once upon a time there was a zoroaster and he said something about monotheism and the world changed. once upon a time there was a jesus and he had some books written about him and the world changed. once upon a time there was a mohammed and he wrote a book and the world changed. once upon a time there was a marx and a hegel and they wrote a manifesto and the world changed. and so on and so on.
not to sound overly zealous, but within this generation there has to be a realization that once upon a time there was a virus called HIV and despite it being a dead thing, it has done more than any human agent ever in the history of the world to expose an underbelly of humanity that at once conceals all the ways in which humans are responsible for the deaths of millions of other innocent humans. this is something that transcends ‘named’ activism. it’s overwhelming to accept that something as microscopic as a virus can create 40 million orphans in the ‘developing’ world, or that poor women in india contracting the virus will soon become a foregone conclusion. HIV has managed, in only the last decade or two, to lay bare all the world’s injustices for all to see. but HIV isn’t the problem, as therapy exists and it works. the problem is poverty. sexism. arrogance. the idea that to provide intravenous drug users with support somehow promotes rampant drug use. or that to encourage safe sex somehow promotes depravity.
HIV’s got a lot more in store for us and by all ‘educated’ guesses, the worst is yet to come.

here’s one of very very very few articles in the endless ream of articles on israeli-palestinian conflict that addresses what i think is the most important issue: that israel is allowed to be a victim and is allowed to set the terms of negotiation in a world that has forgotten the nakbe (the 1948 palestinian exodus/catastrophe engineered by jewish forces).
since when has furthering the cause of justice demanded that the oppressed “make concessions” before even the supposition of any reparations are to be made? were the jews expected to compromise their victimhood before the nuremberg trials were held?

although audrey hepburn (aside: the other day i saw an indian woman on the bus that looked a lot like audrey hepburn and i was totally motivated to overcome the awkwardness of hitting on chicks on public transportation and was inches away from doing just that had it not been for the engagement ring she wore on her left hand) remains atop my list of most beautiful women ever to appear on tv or film, the top spot on most attractive men i’ve seen on tv or film has been re-shuffled. after watching singin’ in the rain yesterday, i’ve decided that gene kelly will now replace robert redford atop the list.
that’s all.
(this blog entry totally sucks, i didn’t even provide pictures).

for the past however many years, i’ve always sort of taken for granted the insanity that is my family; an insanity that manifests itself a select number of times per year when attendance is almost mandatory and whose intensity is directly proportional to the number of parts of the whole are present. i’ve always been able to realize that i’m a part of it by virtue of it being my lot in life, but simultaneously, though reluctantly, wondered how other families celebrate or mourn or just gather.
this year though, something a little monumental (at least through my perception of things) happened: an outsider CHOSE to be a part of it all. it’s not exactly fair to call it a “choice” though, as it’s motivated by a commitment to someone already part of the raucous club.
but still, it never dawned on me that at some point in your life, if you’re lucky enough, you get to choose whether you want an all-access pass into that segment of another person’s life with the potential to reveal more than any other shared experience up to that point through an awkwardness so extreme that it borders on serenity.
i’ve never been asked to make that choice and i’ve never come close to meeting anybody, with the exception of maybe one person, i could envision asking to make that choice.

maybe (hopefully) one day …

an idealized list of people you’d meet in college.
i most closely embody ‘johnny the frat boy’.

you know what would be great? if these two asian dudes sitting across from me would shut the fuck up.