Language and Identity

One of my English students is writing a paper about the impact of Language on self-identity for immigrants who have travelled to America. Here's my take:
Language's on one's self identity is directly proportional to how much a person values language in the first place. The more one cares about and preserves his/her language, the more it affects his/her identity. I will use myself as an example to illustrate my point.

Because I care about my language, I make a special effort to remember and speak Russian at home. As a result, I view myself differently in different situations. In public (where I speak English) I view myself as American, wheras at home (where I speak Russian) I see myself as Ukranian. My language also affects how others view me. When others find out I speak Russian, they can no longer think of me as a pure American. Rather, I assume I become somewhat of a hybrid comunocapitalist SlavoAmerican.

On the other hand, a person who doesn't care about language cannot possibly identify himself based on his language simply because he doesn't care about it! This person may define himself as an American based on the flag he puts on his lawn, or the French fries he consumes, but not by language. Similarly, others will not identify this person by his language since that's not what makes him unique. People that don't care about language generally adopt the language of their surroundings, and learning that an Italian speaks Italian isn't exactly interesting. As a result, language does not affect the identity of a person who does not care about language.

So what does my epic tell us? That if you ever hear some English professor trying to stuff the idea that language and identity are "intimately interconnected", make sure to take this statement with a grain of salt.

My Next Program

Below is the logo for my next program, InkChat. The program allows you to chat with your friends not only with text, but also with a pen! Anyway, I'd really appreciate everyone's opinions about the logo. And don't say it's good because you know me, or don't want to offend me. I'd be offended if you couldn't be honest enough to say it needed some work. Because obviously it does. My main dilemma right now is the ink puddle, and the splotch under the "k" do I include those or not?

A Cool Problem

I saw this problem on the whiteboard of the EEP lounge today. So here it is: you're given two posts of height a and d, and you have a string connecting these two posts tied down to the ground at some point. Show that the minimum length of the string is given when theta1 = theta2. (Hint: you don't need to use calculus, trigonometry or even the pythagorean theorem!).

Quantum Mechanics in less than 50 words

There are 3 basic principles of elementary quantum mechanics, and here they are (in less than 50 words...numbers don't count as words):
1) Any object acts like a particle or wave, depending on how it's observed.
2) Energy of particle = 6.63 * 10^-34 * frequency of corresponding wave.
3) You cannot exactly know the position and speed of a particle at the same time. (uncertainty in speed) * (uncertainty in position) = .5 * 10^-34.

It is NOT true that there is a chance that you can walk through walls or somehow be at a different location (within what we can measure, anyway). You are way too big for quantum mechanics to have any real effect on you.

Now you can say that you know more quantum mechanics than most people do in the world! Give yourself a pat on the back.

This is What Studying Physics Feels Like:

While I was trying to figure out whether I should be using radians or degrees to figure out the intensity of a diffraction/interference pattern at 5 degrees from the center of a screen, this ant queen sort of stumbled into my room. It sort of wandered about for about 3 minutes on my physics textbook, so I took a picture. Apparently, this ant queen was very camera shy because shortly after I took a picture it started frantically running about, so I decided to stop torturing the poor thing and let it out. It's funny, but sometimes I feel just like the ant queen did while it was wandering around my physics textbook: stumbling upon equations and formulas, trying to tackle something of enourmous proportion. I especially feel that way now that I have to learn most of quantum mechanics in one day (I have a test the day after tommorow). Oh well, I at least have to give it a try...

In Honor of My Mother

Plaid Pants: $10
6 Juggling Clubs: $210
Boom Box: $30
Sunscreen: $3
Having a mom who made this picture possible: priceless.


Photo: A friend of mine and I performing today at the celebration of the Ravenna creek daylighting in the U. District.

Asking Questions in Class

There is a big email discussion going on amongst some students about whether a certain physics course is good. Here's what one person had to say about it:
"
>Honestly, it's not that
> bad. Just take it. Everyone who's cool and hardcore will think you're
> awesome. Besides, if you have any common sense it's easy. I do warn
> about some of the rather...talkative students with a penchant for asking
> questions without prior reflection.
"
There are two sentences that bug me about this evaluation. 1) "Everyone who's cool and hardcore with think you're awesome" and 2)"I do warn you about some of the rather...talkative students with a penchant for asking questions without prior reflection."
Today I'm going to adress the second sentence.
I'll say up front that yes, it is not a great idea to ask questions without thinking about whether they are worth asking first. These terrible, annoying people should shut their pieholes for once and think a little.
But this is usually not the problem. Far too often students will reflect and ponder their question so much that by the time they decide to ask the question, the lecture has already moved on. Usually they don't even reflect upon the right thing! Instead of wondering if their question has an obvious answer, the student wonders, "will this question make me look stupid? Will I look like I don't understand the material." The answer is yes. Since you have a question, you probably don't understand the material, and yes, you will look stupid. At least to those hardcore guys who have any common sense. But I assure you, these people are in the minority. And honestly, who cares if those hardcore people think you're stupid? You know you're not stupid. You know everyone is asking the same question, so just suck it up and ask already.
Thinking before you ask is important. But it's better to ask a little quickly than to not ask at all. Why? Because not asking questions destroys people's innovation and curiosity. Once you stop verbally asking questions, eventually you will stop thinking of questions, and just learn to accept your reality. I can assure you that most innovators (Einstein, Bohr, DeBroglie), the REALLY hardcore people, did ask questions. Lots of them. They were probably a little annoying, and sure, occasionally got so caught up in questioning that they may not have thought before asking.
I don't know about you, but I'm sort of glad that these people so vigorously questioned what they were learning. I certainly wouldn't be upset if sometimes they asked a question which to me seemed either ridiculous or obvious. How do you think great discoveries are made?
One finaly question: why are we paying these professors so much money if we could learn all the material equally well from a textbook? So that we can ask our professors questions, regardless of how stupid they may be.

Cool Fact

Did you guys know that you can fly from London to Rome for $1.50? Check it out! http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/
Of course, the seating is first come first serve, and the meals are not free (water costs about 5 dollars a bottle), but this is really a great way to save on air travel. Also, there's this airline called Eos on the other side of the financial spectrum which offers first class only service for only $2950 per round trip from JFK to London. http://www.airtravelgenius.com/ar/business_first_class_eos_airlines.htm
My dream trip from U.S. to Rome: Alaska to JFK, then from JFK to London (first class), and from London to Rome. Total fair: approximates $2800. Considering that most first class flights put you back $10,000 or more, I can certainly live with that.

5 Things Money Can't Buy, and a Puzzle

5 Things Money Can't Buy:
1. Intelligence. Meaning the ability to follow logical reasoning. Although you may be able to hire a tutor and train yourself, you cannot immediately buy your own intelligence because you have to practice in order to gain it (which nearly anybody can do).
2. Immortality (currently). By immortality I mean the ability to not physically die. As of now, we still have no way to make people immortal.
3. Money. No reasonable person would give you $10 for $5. Unless they're crazy, in which case it doesn't count.
4. Obedience. By obedience, I mean obedience to you (the person with all the money). If you try to buy a person's obedience, then they are not really being obedient to you, but to the money you give them. So they are not directly listening to you.
5. My expo marker. I'm not selling it.

A Puzzle (heard it in class today):
Bob knows he has one sibling other than himself, but does not know whether this sibling is a boy or girl. What is the probability that this sibling is a girl?

Hint: It's a trick quesiton.

The NIght Before a test.

Well, what can I say. It sucks. It sucks like no other. It's the worst feeling ever, waiting for a test to come, knowing you haven't prepared adequately enough. It really is miserable. You're tired, but you stay up regardless, just to study. The worst part is, nothing seeps into your head. It just goes in one ear and out the other. Sometimes if you're lucky you can cram a bit of information in for the test, but all that knowledge quickly drains away minutes later. Tests are unhealthy. They make you nervous, sick. And the more nervous you are, the worse you do. So you get more nervous before a test because you have to do extra well on this one. Which of course makes you fail worse. It's a vicious, never ending cycle, and I'm stuck right in the middle of it.

InkChat

So, for CSE 490 we have to write an application (which is a program, which is a thing that you stick on the computer and it does cool stuff, like email). I decided to make mine somewhat original and somewhat useful. So, I'm making a chatting client which in addition to typing on, you can write on as well. All chatting clients I know of use one way to communicate: keyboard. There's actually this new technology out there called Tablet PC which lets you write on the screen like you would on paper instead of typing for input. So, I'm going to use this new technology to enable users who have tablet PC to send written messages as well as typed ones. The beauty of this program is that people without tablet pc's can still read the ink because the ink is saved as an image.
This program will be particularly useful for science teachers or students who need to write complicated mathematical expressions while chatting, or for teenage girls who want to draw copious amounts of hearts around the name of the guy that they all have a crush on. Or, it can be used by grandmas who can't type, the list goes on indefinitely.
That's my idea anyway.

The Rouge Post

This is a post that doesn't belong here.
It is not useful, clever, insightful, or interesting.
Its soul purpose is to make the reader waste time.
It has been posted by a foreign entity.
With foreign fingers, foreign intentions, with a foreign mind.
It doesn't even make much sense!
It's completely out of place, awkwardly constructed, and incorrectly implemented.
This post is a rouge post.

I hope I haven't wasted too much of your time.