Counter Intuition

Common sense tells you this, counter intuition is the opposite.

I was watching a self defense instructor last night in a National Geographic channel. She said that in order to fend off an attacker, instead of pushing him away, move him close so you can grab his neck and throat. The thinking is counter intuitive.

Today I read a blog that says "Grand theft Auto", the violent video game, is actually good for your kids. That's coutner intuitive. Here's the link

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9942041-7.html?part=rss&subj=news

here's another one

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-9889299-52.html?part=rss&subj=news

Counter intuition is useful in math, but I guess it is useful in real life too.

On-the Job Training (OJT)

For the past days, my bosses were out of the country. My older Boss went to Hawaii for the summer break, then headed to the Netherlands for research. My younger adviser followed the same route, except for the Hawaii and the research part. So they're both in the Netherlands, the younger one visiting his girlfriend.


While they are out, I'm here in Gainesville with my 2 group mates. Both of my groupmates are eventually leaving this year, and since they have a combined 12 years experienced in research, I need to suck up all the knowledge and information that they can impart before I'm left on my own handling a high voltage, superconducting magnet with a delicate laser, just like a newbie, an OJT. These are expensive instruments that eat up a lot of electricity for the sake of science. Although I've handled this things before, I need more hands on experience to perfect my craft (just like today when power was interupted and trouble shooting was needed).


In a lighter side, my two group mates are very helpful. And they are both huge. I jokingly call them "the man" and "the tiger". The man is around 6' 5" tall, 300 lbs. Tiger is a smaller version. So you can imagine myself as the quarterback protected by the two offensive linemen. "The man" likes to work with the hard wares and "tiger" tinkers more on the software side. This explains why "tiger" has connection to several U.S. supercomputers housed at the Army, Naval and Air Force. He showed me a device that generates passwords every 40 seconds when he connects to secure computers to do his calculations.

Anyway, life goes on. Fortunately, they pay me for doing my OJT.

Facebook Stalk

(Note: the names in this blog are real, they were my students before)


Back in the Philippines, friendster is the most popular networking site. Sad to say, friendster is a dying breed.

Although friendster was one of the first in social network, the company can't catch-up with the big dogs, myspace and facebook, in terms of growth. But these are not the reasons I have a facebook account. It started when one of my students (His name is Alberth, Albert with an H) was asking me to make one.


At first, I was hesitant but eventually made one because Alberth coerced me every time I see him in the gym. But in the end, especially during the time when the grades are uploaded to the University's system, it became our (with my students) way of communication. Instead of receiving grievances and thank you through emails, notes are posted through the walls of facebook. In the walls of my facebook where Ryan, a Filipino-American, wrote how he enjoyed watching Rex Navarette's DVD (pronounced Dee-bee-dee).


Since it is an effective way of communication, I made a group in facebook so my students can join. In this way, posting an announcement is like posting in a bulletin board -- everybody can read the particulars anytime of the day in the comfort of their own rooms (Amanda was right, facebook is a viable and practical way to do classroom business).


During the semesters, facebook is a life-line, and when the classes end, when it's time to bid adios and sayonara, good-byes are ended by tagging, "I'll just facebook you". The phrase is equivalent to saying "I'll keep in touch". Remember when Xerox, Kodak or Band-aid became a verb, such as the phrase "xerox the paper" meant "photocopy the paper" (at least back in the Philippines, that's what it meant), facebook is now a verb. I'll wait when the linguists enter the word facebook to a dictionary.


Goodbyes also are tagged with words such as "I'll facebook stalk you". Facebook stalking may sound like a joke but it wasn't for one of my student Ashley. She told me she deleted her account because her high school classmate was stalking her in facebook, leaving remarks to her wall. The remarks became offensive. Isabel commented that people spend way to much in facebook. "It's addicting", Erin added.


I will stalk facebook. What I mean by that is I will wait and see when the facebook company becomes public. If the stock price is right during its IPO (Inital Public Offering), I'll buy some. Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerburg will be the new Bill Gates, at least in my opinion. The company is expanding too. Have you ever heard of dogbook or catbook? And besides, I want facebook to stay around, I want to know in the future if some of my students live to their promises, that is to be a neurosurgeons.

Oral Exam Preparation

The nerve wrecking part of being a graduate student, is the preparation for oral qualifying examinations. Traditional education, such as classroom learning is simple: students pass the tests and they go on to the next level. Graduate students suffer differently, because you have to pass an oral qualifying exam.


I am preparing for my oral qualifying. After my committee members decide that I do have enough knowledge to continue my research, then I'm on to the next level which is a Ph.D. candidate. Right now, I'm reading anything related to my research: FT-ICR, OPO Laser and IR Laser. I take notes the fundamentals and basic of mass spectrometry, how a laser works and how is the laser useful for chemical analysis. The notes is color coded: Dirty white papers for anything mass spectrometry, Orange for anything OPO Lasers and red for Infrared related.


Passing this test requires a laser-like focus and concentration, an efficiency and strategy of a five star general, adding the analytical and methodical way of a neurosurgeon. You are not called a Ph.D. or an expert just for nothing. Suffer just like any other graduate students, as one of my friend described it as pretty hard, dude (Ph.D.)

Physician's Assistant

I hurt myself playing basketball. My shoulders have limited range of motion, so I set up an appointment with a Physical Therapist at the student health center. Instead, a Physician's Assistant (PA) came to the rescue.

I have nothing against a PA, but being a PA doesn't make you an expert in shoulder injuries. I have to explain what is really going on: my range of motion (ROM) is limited, I'm protecting my shoulder in certain ROM.

In the end, he referred me to sports injury specialist (One of my dream job!!). I just wondered about the United States and the way they handle health business. People do specialize (Pediatrician, Neurosurgeon and all these experts), but in the end, they also un-specialized, such as Physician's Assistant (PA) or a nurse aid. Is the U.S. just lazy that every field needs an assistant?

Just my perspective.

The Projects

The projects is a derogatory word for a dwelling. In the U.S., it's a housing project based on family income. I brought this up because, from the nice Windmeadows gated apartment, we are going back to a place subsidized by the government, the University Housing.

The place is family oriented though, if there are some consolations. But my new place is old. The ceilings, the rooms and bath. I left Windmeadows last night, and I can really feel the difference. And I was so tired moving I ended up sleeping in a sofa of a friend.

Just a thought, back in the Philippines, I moved only probably 3 times (in my college and work days). Here, I been in the U.S. for almost 6 years only and almost every year I moved (4 times already).

After returning my keys to the management (gym, mail, gate and home keys), I turned to the beautiful pool beside the club house. It's summer, and gorgeous girls in bikinis are working at their tans, worshiping the sun and relaxing.

Group Presentation

I just finished my presentation, a scientific paper presented to the members of my research group. I'm telling you, even though it's a little bit informal compared to presenting your data in a conference, group presentation is tough.

The paper is about LASER and chemical analysis. LASERs are the domain of people who love numbers. I do love numbers but not to the extent that it becomes very abstract. One of my friend told me that if you work with LASERs, you should be very patient (infinite patient maybe), because you are dealing with small light.

Although I would say that I didn't ace the talk, the bright side was, I learned a lot. With four experts asking you questions - it's not fun - but very informative.

Too many books, very little time

The good thing about Gainesville is that the place is a university/town/small city. This means that the place is a crossroad for people in their journey for education. When people come and go, books are left behind.

Friends of the Library (FOL) is an event in Gainesville (Fl) where you can buy cheap good books. This semester, I got a text-book for analytical chemistry. Once in a while, you need to read the basics of your field. On the list are books for tennis, baby books and something about Relativity (visualized discussion of relativity). One of my favorites is the paperback version of "Bourne Ultimatum" by Robert Ludlum.

"Bourne Series" is my favorite movie (and I believe Jason Bourne is America's favorite assasin too). The other book is about LASER, the story behind the inventor and the 30-year war for patent and royalty of his inventions. I'll be working with LASERs so I said to myself, why not read it then.

Completing the line-up is a book related to electronics (when you work with LASERs, you should know the basic of electronics) and eBay.

One shining moment...

It's the time of the year when every college basketball fan will have to endure the song titled "One shining moment". The music had been a tradition for NCAA basketball, as the background music for CBS network.



One Shining Moment 2008 (Check it out before youtube removes it from the site)

My relationship with the song is mix: hate and love. Being an alternative music fan, the song's beat is painful to bear; however, the tune reminds of the the Florida Gators Basketball. I still remember last year, 2007, when the University of Florida (my beloved school) captured it's second straight NCAA basketball trophy.

Right after the game, when I opened the blinds in my apartment, I saw cars going to campus and heard loud honking. I didn't celebrate since I was in the streets of Gainesville the year before that. I should have celebrated the second championship. It will be a long drought ahead, before I will witness again the "one shining moment" clip with Florida Gator players in the video.

Here's the Florida Gators one shining moment, just in case.


2007 One shining moment

The SEARCH: How Googles and it's rivals rewrote the rules of business.

It starts with a computer hamming, then the blue sky in the background, then the typing. Remember those days when you first open up the computer and typed www.yahoo.com?? I do remember those days, around 1995 to 1996 (Internet was released to the public 1992).


This is my second book for the year 2008, and it's about search. What will the internet be without a search engine? It's hard to imagine. So the first thing you type in front of a computer (most likely) with an internet connection, is of course a search engine. I do Yahoo during those days, the banner ads then appear, and then the graphics are lost because the connection was slow. I didn't encounter google.com until 2002, when I was already in the US (from the Philippines).

The book discussed how google came to be. Have you ever wonder what google means? It's a variation from the word googol, which means 1 followed by 100 zeros. In short a huge number. Too geeky? Try this, when google made public offerings for it's stock 4 years ago (2004), it sold 2,718,28 1,828 of its stocks. The numbers are not random, the numbers represent e (e=2.71828 18284 59045 23536), the natural logarithm.

The book concluded that there still no such thing as a perfect search. Search the web for "the meaning of life" and I bet you will be disappointed. Or search why "Julia loves Raymond", there's no perfect answer either. In the end, the book thought me how to do search: and that is, use yahoo and google or ask.com when you are searching for something. Every search engine is unique in terms of crawling, indexing and showing the results to the users.