Let's be honest, both poles of the American political spectrum fear the same thing about each other; that if the other gets control a lot of oppressive weird stuff will happen.

If right-wing people get control, the presidency will carry a 'sponsored by Exxon" sign and 'gay' will be outlawed.  Not gay marriage - gay.   If left wing people get control, there will be mandatory gay porn in church and jackbooted enviro-fascists will kick down your doors if you don't compost your orange rinds.

I decided to follow the lead of Alex, the Daytime Astronomer and rewrite my profile. I figured being a little bit more forthcoming couldn't hurt. To save you the trouble of going to my profile, I have copied it here for your convenience.

I have a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) with a strong background in geology. I am a life member of the University of Illinois Alumni Association.

I am also a Life governing member of the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum, Chicago, IL, and through my suggestions to the president of the Adler, I have helped make the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum what it is today.

I just spent the afternoon watching an equine competition called dressage, which I believe is from the French meaning "having one's teeth drilled" (I could be wrong).  

In higher levels of competition, the rider moves through the various patterns and "tests" to demonstrate the smoothness of movement between the horse and rider.  At the lower levels of competition you can have someone call out the pattern moves, which makes it a bit like slow-motion square dancing without the music.

I am convinced that we can discover, by means of purely mathematical constructions, those concepts and those lawful connections between them which furnish the key to the understanding of natural phenomena. Experience may suggest the appropriate mathematical concepts, but they most certainly cannot be deduced from it. Experience remains, of course, the sole criterion of physical utility of a mathematical construction. But the creative principle resides in mathematics. In a certain sense therefore, I hold it true that pure thought can grasp reality, as the ancients dreamed.


- Albert Einstein, quote in Einstein, Jeremy Bernstein, p. 127 (Penguin, 1978)

As I search the Net on freelance writing assignments, I bookmark science and technology news, tools and toys that extend my attention-span into wondering. Paying scientific attention is a distinct daily practice for me.

I saw that mathematics was split up into numerous specialties, each of which could easily absorb the short lifetime granted to us. Consequently, I saw myself in the position of Buridan's ass which was unable to decide upon any specific bundle of hay. This was obviously due to the fact that my intuition was not strong enough in the field of mathematics in order to differentiate clearly the fundamentally important from the rest of the more or less dispensable erudition... In [physics] however, I soon learned to scent out that which was able to lead to fundamentals and to turn aside from everything else, from the multitude of things which clutter up the mind and divert it from the essential.

These are just random thoughts that I have--pieces of a puzzle that I can't quite figure out, but at the same time, that I cannot let go. This is neither an article, nor a theory, nor a hypothesis, nor a thesis--just random thoughts that are somehow connected to one another in a way that I cannot understand.

Instead of writing about things about which I know but don't really care about anymore, I have decided to write about that which I care about but about which I know next to nothing. I'm not doing this for you, my reader. I'm doing this for myself, because I need to understand. Because, I need to know.

Those of you who primarily follow this blog by RSS should come check out some of the remodeling done around here:

Hot Topics: Scientific Blogging has some outstanding writers, who are now coming together on a monthly basis to give you a slew of different perspectives on a current topic. The most recent topic is 2020 Science, and includes pieces on topics like home computing, particle physics, nanopore DNA sequencing, information filtering, and sustainability. Some of the best writing on this site goes up here.

To celebrate my 1st anniversary writing for this site, I thought it time to update my biography here.  You'd think I'd have one ready, but in fact I can't stop with just one.  Having too many facets is a hazard of being a rocket scientist with a life.  

My favorite is perhaps the most useless, my Facebook Profile:
Born in the heart of a dying star (as we were all), Sandy's consciousness swam through uncounted millenia until ultimately coming to rest in the 20th century on a tiny planet called... Earth.

I was a bit more professional over at 365DOA: