Also today, I registered for another class in second term after hearing about it this morning (it's on nanotechnology, how could I not?). This leaves me with seven classes in first term (plus a zero credit seminar I'm required to take) and three or four classes in second term (plus the same seminar). I keep having this compulsion to take more classes because it's my last year. I just won't get another opportunity to take all the stuff I want to take. By the time I'm done I'll essentially have an EP degree with a minor in mechanical engineering (18 to 21 credit units). In my five years of school I'll have taken four and a half years of engineering, or five and a half years of arts & science.

I gave my presentation on my summer research today. It went really well, I had a lot of complements. I only forgot to mention a few things. I had a half-hour of questions for a half-hour presentation, which was insane. A lot of the questions were pretty stupid (though in all fairness I understand that catching concepts must be tough for people whose first language isn't English).

Jubilee and Requiem

The Good News:

Yesterday my little sister got her driver’s licence, making her the youngest sibling in my family to obtain one (she just turned seventeen). If I recall correctly, I was nineteen and my other sister was eighteen. She accomplished this feat on her first try and with just four points off (if you get ten or more off then you fail). This makes her the only sibling in my family to have her licence during high school.

The Bad News:

Yesterday we had our dog (Sage) put down. I think most of the people who read this probably met her, but for those who didn’t she was a fourteen or fifteen year old (we were never sure) blue merle sheltie, fairly large for her breed, and she had a very sweet disposition.

She had cataracts and her hearing had been going for some time now. She also had an infected tooth that couldn’t be removed because putting her under an anaesthetic would have risked killing her, due to her old age. Several months ago she had a stroke that really affected her. She was left almost unable to bark, climb stairs, or even shake herself off. She slowly recovered most of her motor functions, but she suddenly seemed much older and we knew that she could have a terminal problem at any time.

I think it was Saturday that she got quite sick and starting vomiting. This stopped on Sunday so it seemed like she was getting better, but then on Monday she got diarrhoea and she started to smell putrid (my parents looked for a dead mouse in the house before realizing it was her). They took her to the vet and she was diagnosed with internal bleeding and the beginnings of organ failure. Knowing that she wouldn’t last much longer, they had her put down to spare her the pain.

This is definitely the hardest on my dad because he was always closest to Sage. It will be rough on my sisters as well, but we all knew this would come (since the stroke) so it’s not a big surprise. The truth is it doesn’t feel like a really big deal to me. I’m sure that I’ll miss Sage sometimes but the truth is I’ve been looking forward to not having to hear my mom complain about her (my mom hates having animals in the house).

The first half-hour after I got home last night was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster.

Kudos to Chelle and her mom on last night’s excellent concert. That was indeed some magnificent whip-playing.

8 Planets!

Well, it's now official. The solar system has only eight planets (Eric, it seems that I was mistaken when I informed you that they had decided to go the other way and include all the Pluto-like objects as planets, that motion was rejected). The International Astronomical Union has relegated Pluto to the status of "dwarf planet", along with all others of its kind (Xena, etc.). I really must applaud the astronomers for choosing the most sensible option, even though it feels like going backwards in some respects. It’s interesting that a few years ago we launched a probe to examine the planet Pluto and it will arrive (in 2010 I believe) at the dwarf planet Pluto.

A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Church

I think someone tried to flash me

New Books

Don't you just love the new book reaction? I always find it interesting that it barely matters what the book is about, I just have to pick it up and admire its shininess. I walk past a bookshelf in the library and go ooh, digital signal processing and mechatronics, sexy. Or wow! A book about the historical influence of some old dead guy. I always want to take them home, even though I know I'd never read them. I might not even like the subject. But. . . yet. . . so. . . shiny.

C'est geeky.

Sometimes you worry you'll get everything you wished for. I've been given permission to take all six of the mechanical engineering classes that I wanted to take, so now I have to choose.

http://www.ceasefirecampaign.org/mo/en.html

I Rather Thought So

Which member of the JLA are you? Green Lantern With the Green Lantern corps destroyed the last Oa power ring made it's way to Earth to the unsupecting artist Kyle Rayner. Able to create anything his mind imagines the ring lacks the weakness to the color yellow and the 24 hour time limit which makes Kyle the one true Green Lantern.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

Today

it is my birthday

My rear bicycle tire has separated from the wheel. I have a feeling this will cause great inconvenience.

e-books

So I'm in the engineering library right now looking at this poster that lists ten reasons why the internet can't replace libraries. Number 5 says that a state (American poster) can't buy one book and distribute it to every library via the web. The only reason given is "We all want to save money but this isn't the way". This is hardly what I'd call an explanation. I imagine the real reason has to do with the legality of the process.

The one that bothers me the most, though, is number 8, which states that digitizing 500 000 books (a decent sized library) would cost approximately one billion dollars. Don't publishers already have books stored in some kind of digital format for editing, and especially layout purposes? Don't modern printing presses print from computer files, or are they just some sort of giant photocopy machines? If publishers already have digital format texts then I don't see what the practical problem would be (obviously there'd still be legal issues). The only problem would be out-of-print works.

I know that some of you (e.g. Caitlin or Swambo) know a lot about the publishing process so I'd appreciate it if you'd clarify this for me.