Those OnBoard

I was a devoted BlackBerry user and the Droid Bionic converted me. That says a lot right there.

First of all, I am not paid to give praise to this device nor the carrier. I am
just a customer who is so happy with my new gadget that I feel like a
kid on Christmas and I wanted to share my experience with others.

When I decided to try out the Bionic, I knew I could return it within two weeks if I didn’t like it, so I had two weeks to decide if I wanted to keep the Bionic or return it and get a different phone.

There were many things I was worried about:

-I was worried that without a physical keyboard, I would not be able to type well on the touch screen keyboard.
-I was worried that with the new OS, I wouldn’t be able to configure and tweak everything to get it working exactly the way I like it.
-I was worried about it being too big to easily fit into my pocket.
-I was worried that the battery wouldn’t last me through the day.
-And I was worried that the 4G LTE (which is one of the Bionic’s selling points) would not be available in my area.

Every single worry that I had was blown away and I am 100% satisfied with my Droid Bionic. I could not be happier with my purchase:

-The touchscreen keyboard provides a tactile response with both vibration and sound which made it much easier for me to learn how to type on a touchscreen keyboard (if you don’t like the vibration and sound, you can turn them off). Within four days I was already proficient with the touchscreen keyboard.
-Android has matured a great deal since I last tried an Android phone (about two years ago) and now the settings have all the options I desire so I can configure and customize the phone to my exacting standards (some might call them obsessively exacting standards but that’s just the way I am).
-The Bionic is bigger than my previous BlackBerry, but when I slid the Bionic into my pocket (no “That’s what she said” jokes), it fit perfectly and I have so far never had a problem with the Bionic being too bulky in my pocket; I don’t even notice that it’s there.
-Regarding battery usage: these days, every single smartphone on the market that has a large high resolution display and 4G data capability is going to have to contend with massive energy consumption, there’s just no way around it with current battery technology. So when I compared the Droid Bionic to several of my friends’ smartphones (Android, iPhone, and even Windows Phone 7), the Bionic was slightly better. They were all very close and I think it comes down to how you use your phone. There are many battery-saving settings on the Bionic that you can customize till your heart’s content. So the bottom line is that considering what the Bionic is, it does not hog battery, and in fact with the right settings it can make the battery last for a very long time.
-I’ve tried all three of the US’s major carriers in the following order: AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon. Granted, different phones will produce different results, but when I got my Bionic on Verizon, I was blown away by the speed. It might have also been the Bionic’s hardware, but whenever I was in range of 4G LTE, the speed was blazing fast: better than any other in my experience. However, when I was with Sprint, the ONLY time I was in range of their 4G network was when I was at the airport, and that was for about 10 minutes. With my Bionic on Verizon’s 4G LTE, I was pleasantly surprised to be in range almost everywhere, including where I live which is a notorious “Dead Zone” for cell phone reception. (P.S. Of course I use the Bionic’s WiFi whenever possible because that’s just common sense).

I’m in love with my phone (I think I’ll marry it). But I feel obliged to find something wrong with it. However, this may be just me being too stupid to figure it out, but I can’t find a way to make a homescreen shortcut that toggles the “Data enabled” on/off. I’ve been able to do it with wifi, but I can’t figure it out for data. It may be a shortcoming of the phone, or it may be I just haven’t figured it out. If it’s the latter and anyone out there wants to enlighten me, please do so, and remember, “A Lannister always pays his debts.” P.S. Let’s assume I’m a Lannister

Remember Myspace?  It wasn’t too long ago that people thought Myspace would keep growing and continue to be successful.  Facebook has since taken the position as the top social network with over 500 million active users reported in 2010 and all indications seemed to be pointing to Facebook’s continued growth and success with over 750 million active users a year later.  It’s become a household name and even grandma has a Facebook account.  Meanwhile Myspace use continues to decline and many analysts have written the company off as essentially dead.

So to some people it would seem crazy to predict the doom of Facebook.  But if there’s one company that could dethrone Facebook as king of social networking, it’s Google.

Also a household name, Google’s success was originally built on its search engine, which has become so ubiquitous that the dictionary now recognizes the name as a word, as in “I just googled a great new dinner recipe.”

However the world has seen continued innovation from the search engine giant and they’ve been massively successful with other services such as Gmail, Google Maps, and Picasa (their photo software).

But Google has had their share of failures too.  The most recognized examples are Google Buzz and Google Wave.  If you don’t even know what those two things are, you’re not alone.  Google has recognized their failure and abandoned them.  Yet Google has apparently learned a great deal from their mistakes, because they’ve finally stepped into the social-networking arena with a new service that seems poised to go toe-to-toe with Facebook:  Google Plus.

In case you haven’t heard, Google Plus (sometimes abbreviated as G+) is Google’s most recent attempt to create a social networking service, and from the looks of it, it’s no wonder many are calling Google Plus the “Facebook Killer.”

With Google Plus, Google has taken cues from both Facebook and Twitter.  While Twitter is not a direct competitor with Facebook because it fulfills a different function than Facebook, Twitter is certainly a company worth studying if you’re trying to build a successful social networking service.

So what exactly is Google Plus?  To put it bluntly, it’s like Facebook, but different.  But is it better?  Can it possibly compete with Facebook?  Why should we care?  If we already have a Facebook account, do we need a Google Plus account?

The answer is, yes.  Google Plus is almost certainly here to stay.  And while it may be possible for both Facebook and Google Plus to both be successful, anyone who doesn’t use Google Plus is going to get left in the digital dust.  Why is that?  If one already has a Facebook account, why do we need a Google Plus account?  Because Google Plus does a number of things that Facebook doesn’t, and it does them well.

The most exciting feature of Google Plus so far is the group video chat, which in G+ speak are called “Hangouts.”  As of right now, these group video chats support up to ten people, and as with everything in Google Plus, they’re absolutely free.  In other words, say goodbye to Skype.  While in a G+ Hangout, a small video of each person is displayed on the bottom of the screen, and whoever is talking is displayed in a large main video in the center.  After trying out a group video chat with friends and family, it is instantly apparent that these “Hangouts” will be both fun and useful.  In addition to just having a good time talking with friends or family, the group video chats are also amazingly useful for students who need to collaborate on an assignment or study together.  The business world has already embraced these group video chats for the same reasons giving Google Plus an instant significance for a large number of people.

The next way in which G+ triumphs over Facebook is privacy and sharing.  Many people have complained about Facebook’s privacy and sharing policies.  People end up accidentally sharing things with the wrong people or even making them public so anyone can see.  This includes messages, photos, videos, and anything else you might want to share with people.  Google Plus addresses this problem with a concept called “Circles.” Once you have a G+ account, you can add other people to your Circles.  For example, you might have a circle labeled “Friends,” another “Family,” “Coworkers,” “Acquaintances,” etc.  Any time you say or share something, you can easily decide who gets to see it.  That makes it much easier to prevent you from accidentally making things visible to the wrong people, which as many people know can be very bad.

As of this writing, Google Plus is still in its “testing” phase, meaning that in order to sign up for an account, you need to be invited by someone with an account.  Google is doing it this way because they want to work all the kinks out of G+ and have a smooth service before they “officially” release it to the public.   Update: Google Plus is now officially open to the public and anyone can sign up.

So go out there and give Google Plus a try.  Because it’s extremely fun, useful, and it’s here to stay.

P.S. I’m a writer for The Corsair Newspaper and you can read my article on The Corsair website (albeit an edited-down version):  http://www.thecorsaironline.com/opinion/2011/09/14/google-plus-takes-facebook-to-the-ring/

I love video games.  Who doesn’t, right?  Well, some people, but they’re not technically human anyways.

I recently purchased the Squier Stratocaster by Fender that acts as a controller for Rock Band 3.   This is the world’s first real guitar/game controller.  Unlike the previous plastic Rock Band/Guitar Hero guitars, this thing is an actual factual guitar that you can plug into an amp with and jam, as well as use as a game controller for Rock Band 3.   The guitar has sensors built into the frets that sense where your fingers are pressing down, as well as which strings you are strumming with your strumming hand.

The reason I spent my hard earned cash on this art and science amalgam is that I wanted to teach myself guitar.  I correctly assumed that I would be able to use the fact that I love video games to trick my brain into learning a difficult task.   Rock Band 3 has so called Pro Guitar Tutorial mode which slowly weans you onto the instrument with increasingly difficult fingering exercises (hold the sex jokes, I’m not talking about summer camp).  These exercises are made, like all good video games, to provide the perfect level of challenge and reward so you gradually improve your skill without becoming overly frustrated.

The ultimate goal is to be able to play the songs in the game on expert mode, which is exactly what one would play in order to play the real guitar part in that song!   Pretty sweet!  I’ve only been playing for a few weeks now, but I am already able to play most of the basic chords and I’m learning some advanced ones as well.

It has previously been discussed on this blog how video games can be used as a tool to teach us new things.  This is just one example of how such an idea can be pulled off so well.

Many people these days are aware of problems with schools.  It’s an extremely complex issue with no easy answer.  So I’m not proposing anything or trying to make any kind of grand sweeping generalization, or claiming I know how to fix the problems.  But I want to share with you a personal example of a deficiency in my education (through no fault of my own).

I always paid attention in history class (or at the very least read all the assigned reading and did all the assigned work).  So while I may not be a history whiz, I should at least know some of the basics, right?

Today I was on wikipedia reading about the Industrial Revolution.  I’ve heard the term before, but we never covered it in school.  Someone may have mentioned it in passing, but I really knew nothing about it until I started reading about it today.  In the opening paragraph, it states “Economic historians are in agreement that the onset of the Industrial Revolution is the most important event in the history of humanity since the domestication of animals and plants.”

As I learned more about the Industrial Revolution, I began to see that this statement about the importance of the Industrial Revolution is not an exaggeration.  Every single one of us lives the way we do because of what happened during the Industrial Revolution.  I learned about economic growth.  Mechanization.  Worker exploitation.  Labor unions.  Collective bargaining.  These things are huge.  They matter, in a very direct and real sense.  I’ve only skimmed the surface but now I at least have a foundation of knowledge about that subject.  So many things in our every day lives are a direct result of global changes that took place during the Industrial Revolution, and having now learned the basics of it, I have a much better understanding of the world.

So what’s my point?  Well, we’ve already talked about how we’re autodidacts. I just want to continue the conversation.  There is so much to learn out there about the universe we live in.  The more you learn, the more pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that comprises our reality fit into place.  Let your curiosity guide you.  And know that there’s always so much more to be learned.  You just have to teach it to yourself.  It’s empowering.

EDIT 2011-10-16: The following videos about the future of education and how it can be changed for the better are both inspiring and jarring:

Both videos are TED talks regarding the current state of and the future of the educational system.  In the first video, Salman Kahn (of Kahn Academy fame) talks about how he has begun working with schools to revolutionize teaching.  The second video, which is a bit more bleak, has Bill Gates (of Microsoft fame) talking about the consequences of the budget cuts to education as well as the possibilities for fixing the problems.

I’m going to teach you to be like me.  Now you are asking yourself, “Why would I want that?”  I’ll tell you.

If you’re like me, you use a computer regularly.  Very regularly.  Like maybe bordering on too much.  Perhaps you use multiple computers, such as at home and at work.  And if you’re like me, your digital data is vastly important to you: without access to all your emails, documents, photos, website bookmarks, etc., you would be screwed and your life would be hugely inconvenienced, to put it mildly.

But unlike most of you, my computer has no importance to me.  If my computer were to suddenly get destroyed, stolen, etc., I would not fret one little bit.  And it’s not because I’m rich, because I am most definitely not rich.  So why would the loss of my computer not bother me?  I’ll tell you, but first I’m going to demonstrate something else:

If I am traveling around in my day to day life or even if I’m traveling to some place afar, I never have to think to myself, “Did I remember to bring with me my [fill in the blank]?”  Why not?  For the same reason I wouldn’t sweat the loss of my laptop.  I have freed myself from my computer.  What does that mean?  I’ll feed ya, baby bird:  What that means is that even though I am constantly on any given computer, that particular computer is just an interface between me and my digital data.  No matter where I go, no matter what computer I’m using, my data and I are connected in the same way.  That’s because my data is cloud distributed.  Cloud distribution is the key to my success, and I’ll explain exactly what that means. Cloud distribution means my data is distributed in many locations, and they’re all in sync.  However, that doesn’t mean my data is ONLY in the cloud (this is a very important distinction).  My data is also on any computer I use, so if I’m cut off from the cloud, it doesn’t matter; I still have access to all my data, and I can make changes to my data while offline.  As soon as that computer regains its connection to the cloud, my data changes are saved to the cloud and to all my other devices, just as if nothing unusual had ever happened.

Here’s how I did it, and it didn’t cost me a penny:

Before we get started, you’re going to have to make a realization.  You need to realize that some of your data is unique and/or self-generated (like documents you wrote, photos you’ve taken, bookmarked websites, emails, etc.).  This data will be referred to as your valuable data.  The rest consists of stuff that is easily searched for and gotten from the web, like maybe programs or downloaded movies.  This will be referred to as your non-essential data.  The reason for making these two categories has to do with storage space and bandwidth.  Ok, ready?  Here we go:

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Step 1.  Dropbox.

Dropbox is absolutely key to my success.  Dropbox is an application/service that offers file synchronization.  You can sign up for a free account at dropbox.com.  A free account comes with 2GB of space.  However, you can increase that to a maximum of 1̶0̶G̶B̶ 19GB(Update 2011-04-26: Dropbox increased the maximum capacity of free accounts to 19GB) by referring other people and doing various other things on the dropbox website.  I maxed mine out, and that is important because for my purposes (and probably your purposes too), 2GB is not going to be enough but 19GB will be.  Once you sign up and have your 2GB account, you get an additional 250MB (that’s .25GB or 1/4 a GB) anytime someone clicks your referral link, creates a Dropbox account, and installs the Dropbox software on their computer (Update 2011-04-26: Dropbox now gives double the referral space (500MB or .5GB or 1/2 a GB) if you prove to the Dropbox website that you have an educational email address, which is an email address that ends in .edu).  And they (Dropbox) have a way of knowing whether a computer has already been used for this purpose, so you have to do it on a new computer each time.  So spread Dropbox to all your friends and family and make sure they use your referral link so that you get credit and get the extra storage space. There are ways to take advantage of this that some people do such as going into a computer lab or similar place and using each computer to give themselves a referral, or using a virtual machine software on their own computer to get the referrals. I am not condoning those practices, I am just being realistic and telling you that there are some people who do that. Note that Dropbox also has premium accounts that give you much more space for a monthly or yearly price.  But for the purposes of this tutorial, I’m keeping my promise that everything is free, so we’ll assume you’re going with the free account.

So, you’ve created your Dropbox account, maxed out your storage space to 19GB, and installed Dropbox on all your devices (computers, laptops, smartphones, tablet devices, etc.). (Note to certain people: you might not be aware of the fact that an iPhone is a smartphone and an iPad is a tablet device. There are many different brands available; Apple is just one of them).

When you install Dropbox on your device, it gives you the option to put the Dropbox folder anywhere.  I recommend putting it in your user folder.  For example on Windows 7 point it to C:>Users>username. On a Mac this would be in harddrive>Users>username.  On Windows XP it would be C:\Documents and Settings\username.  They have it for Linux too but I haven’t used it so I can’t comment on the specifics of a Linux installation.

Now, in your Dropbox folder (which is called either “Dropbox” or “My Dropbox”), you’re going to create a folder called Documents or Docs or whatever.  Put all your documents in that folder.  Next, you’ll notice that in your Dropbox folder there’s a folder called “Photos”.  Put all your photos in that folder.  Now this next part is up to you: you create whatever folders you need to inside your Dropbox folder and put whatever files you consider to be valuable data into your Dropbox folder and its respective sub-folders. You may organize everything in your Dropbox folder any way you want, with one caveat: when you first install Dropbox and look inside your Dropbox folder, there will be a certain 2 folders in there, one called “Photos” and one called “Public”. DO NOT delete either of those folders. I’ll explain why later.

Once your valuable data is in the Dropbox folder and you have an active internet connection, the files inside your Dropbox folder will automatically be synced to any devices you’ve installed Dropbox on, as well as to your online account.  This means that you can access your data from any of your devices, with or without internet connection.  But what if you find yourself using someone else’s device? No problem.  You simply go to dropbox.com, sign in, and you have access to all your files.  Dropbox is also useful for sharing files.  Inside your Dropbox folder is a folder called “Public”. Any file that you put in this Public folder you can share by right-clicking (or ctrl-clicking), selecting “Dropbox”, then click “Copy public link”.  Now you can paste this link in an email or wherever, and people will be able to click that link and get that file.

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Step 2. Gmail / Google Apps.

If you already have a Gmail account, good.  If not, then create one (it’s free).  I don’t care if you don’t want to switch to Gmail.  You have to or you’re making a poor life decision and you’ll get left in the digital dust.  Ok, so you’ve got your Gmail account.  Note that you now have all the other Google apps like Docs, Spreadsheets, etc. and anything that you could do in the past in Microsoft Word or Excel or whatever, now you can do it all using all the various Google tools.  Now you’re no longer dependent on a computer having the right software installed on it because you’ll always have access to your Google tools.  But what about if you lose internet connectivity?  That won’t be a problem once you do enable offline access to your Google stuff. I’ll explain how to do it but in the future the steps might change as Google changes its interface. If that’s the case, you can easily find instructions by searching Google. But anyway, at the time of this writing, the steps are as follows:  Sign in to your Gmail account at gmail.com, then click on settings (in the upper right-hand corner), click “Offline”, select “Enable Offline…”, then scroll down and click “Save”.  It will ask you if you want a link to offline mail on your desktop, start menu, and quick launch.  I recommend selecting at least one of those so you can click it when you need to.  Now your email is mobile (web-based) but ALSO saved on your computer in case you lose internet connectivity.  Any changes made while offline will be automatically synced once internet connectivity has been reestablished.  Now, on your smartphone and/or tablet device, download and install Google Sync and set it up by logging in with your gmail address and password.  Select calendar and contacts, and set it to automatic.  Now your contacts and calendar automatically & wirelessly synced across your phone and any computer.  If you were to have your phone lost/stolen/broken, no need to worry about your contacts and calendar, because it’s still all in your gmail account.  Just replace your phone, install Google Sync again, and voila! All your contacts and calendar data will be in your new phone.

BONUS: For only $9/year, you can have all the benefits of a Gmail account and also have a custom domain name for your email address.  For example, instead of name@gmail.com you would have name@mydomain.com, where “mydomain” would be replaced by whatever you want.  You can find a good article on this topic at Lifehacker located here: http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2010/12/why-you-should-use-google-apps-with-your-personal-domain-for-your-google-life/

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Step 3.  Xmarks.

Simply put, Xmarks synchronizes your website bookmarks across multiple computers and browsers.  It also gives you access to your bookmarks from any device that can go on websites.

Before we go any further, it should go without saying at this time that you should be using either (or both) of the two best browsers: Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.  If you have any questions about this issue, you may find it helpful to listen to the ThoseOnBoard Podcast #0.2 – Choosing The Best Web Browser.

So now that we’ve established that you’re using either Firefox or Chrome for your web browser, go to Xmarks.com, create a free account, then install the Xmarks extension (the site has instructions on this, it’s very simple.  Xmarks is completely free, however if you want they have a premium service that you pay for and get added perks.  Just check their site if you’re interested.  Now, on your smartphone/tablet device, install and setup Xmarks as well.

Voila!  You are now liberated from your computer.  All your valuable digital data is backed up, synchronized, and readily available from any device.

Ok, so I lied a little bit when I said that I wouldn’t mind a bit if my computer were destroyed/stolen/etc.  Of course I would be angry because I’d have to buy a new one and like I said before, I’m not rich.  But I would be comforted by the fact that all my precious data isn’t gone forever.  And ain’t that somethin’?

If my illegitimate child were posed this question he would be at a loss for words. And that’s assuming he speaks English! All bastards aside, I would like to take a minute to try to articulate my current career, irrespective of how unenamored I may be of it at the moment and how balls the job market is from a hire-ee’s perspective. Specifically, I would like to define what domain I studied to attain my Scientiæ Baccalaureus, what field I am applying to jobs in, and how I, the individual person, might fit into that greater picture. If I have the chance, I will even try to answer life’s deeper mysteries:

• Why don’t penguins feet freeze?
• Why does grilled cheese go stringy?

OK, so how the hell do those underlined words relate? Time to talk to our boy, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (check him out at TED). And by the way, dude, have you really been using that thing to fill in forms your whole life? I do not even think I could do write that last name in cursive if you held a Avtomat Kalashnikov 47 to my head (to clarify, his name is actually Hungarian which is in the Uralic family which makes it closer Finnish and Estonian than the Russian of the AK-47 but they both look the same kinda crazy to me). From his book, Creativity:

p.27-28 The first question I ask of creativity is not what is it but where is it?

The answer that makes most sense is that creativity can be observed only in the interrelations of a system made up of three main parts. The first of these is the domain, which consists of a set of symbolic rules and procedures… The second component of creativity is the field, which includes all the individuals who act as gatekeepers to the domain. It is their job to decide whether a new idea or product should be included in the domain… Finally, the third component of the creative system is the individual person. Creativity occurs when a person, using the symbols of a given domain… has a new idea or sees a new pattern, and when this novelty is selected by the appropriate field for inclusion into the relevant domain… So the definition that follows from this perspective is: Creativity is any act, idea, or product that changes an existing domain, or that transforms an existing domain into a new one. And the definition of a creative person is: someone whose thoughts or actions change a domain, or establish a new domain. It is important to remember, however, that a domain cannot be changed without the explicit or implicit consent of a field responsible for it.

Djeah boi!! So the domain is the content (the cultural space to be altered) of a particular field and the field is the discipline or the branch of knowledge which includes the people who have it. Okay so how does this relate to anything? While this excerpt is fairly abstract I would like to think that the perspective of creativity is a good one to take, because if you are not creating, what are you doing? That is meant to be a rhetorical question, but “Having sex with chicks!” is an acceptable answer (gotwavs.com/0085412111/MP3S/Movies/Idiocracy/poundonthat.mp3).

Okay, so let us focus some. Shalln’t we? I will try to define my domain but I’m not gonna lie, it’s a little difficult to pin down…

My Bachelor’s degree in Bioengineering, short for Biological Engineering, came from UCSD which has consistently ranked in the top 5 for such programs over the past 15 years, however, as far as the importance of rankings, I borrow from a post on collegeconfidential.com (member, s1185’s) due to its author’s frank message and organic context, “You go to college for the overall experience, since most of what you learn in class will be irrelevant for work, and your employers will pay little attention to US News Department rankings (as opposed to their unreferenced belief as to which is a better school) when hiring you.”

Okay, so people care enough about it to rank it, to find out what it is, let us break it down into parts (from Princeton.edu):

• Biological:  Pertaining to biology or to life and living things.
• Engineering: The discipline dealing with the art or science of applying scientific knowledge to practical problems.

So…putting it together, that means, Bioengineering is the discipline dealing with the art or science of applying scientific knowledge to practical problems in living things, or more simply, any type of engineering applied to living things. From a department webpage (University of Toledo):

Bioengineering is the application of the life sciences, physical sciences, mathematics and engineering principles to define and solve problems in biology, medicine, health care and other fields. Bioengineering is a relatively new discipline that combines many aspects of traditional engineering fields such as chemical, electrical and mechanical engineering.

The UCSD Bioengineering Department actually offers four tracks/majors for undergraduate students:

• Bioengineering: Biotechnology – Biotechnology deals with the implementation of biological knowledge in industrial processes.  From Wikipedia: “Modern use of the term usually refers to genetic engineering as well as cell- and tissue culture technologies. However, the concept encompasses a wider range and history of procedures for modifying living things according to human purposes, going back to domestication of animals, cultivation of plants and “improvements” to these through breeding programs that employ artificial selection and hybridization.” Sex with sheep?
• Bioengineering: Bioinformatics – Bioinformatics can be considered a branch of Biotechnology, it may be referred to as computational biology. This is a crazy domain that involves a lot of gnarly programming to apply information technology to the field of molecular biology. Sex with computers?
• Bioengineering – So we tried to define this one already. Also from Wikipedia: “By comparison to biotechnology [see above], bioengineering is generally thought of as a related field with its emphasis more on mechanical and higher systems approaches to interfacing with and exploiting living things.” Sex with sex toys and robots?
• Bioengineering: Premedical – This is the one I was in. A lot of overlap with the Bioengineering track above, this track contains all the courses a medical school would hope to see taken by an applicant. From what I understand, the UCSD medical school adds something to an applicant’s GPA for being in the Bioengineering department, something like .2 or .3 which is significant (too bad I do not plan to go to medical school). Sex with nurses?

To add to the confusion, some schools do not have Bioengineering but rather Biomedical Engineering. MORE CLARIFICATION! Wikipedia again:

Biological engineering (also biosystems engineering and bioengineering) is a broad-based engineering discipline that deals with bio-molecular and molecular processes, product design, sustainability and analysis of biological systems. Generally, bioengineering encompasses other engineering disciplines when they are applied to living organisms (e.g., prosthetics in mechanical engineering). Bioengineering is often synonymous with biomedical engineering, though in the strict sense the term can be applied more broadly to include food engineering and agricultural engineering. Biotechnology also falls under the purview of the broad umbrella of bioengineering.

So generally, biomedical engineering is the medical application of bioengineering, but the terms are often used interchangeably. Whew! So, I think I have done something to clarify domain and the fields within it. Here is a cursory glance at some of the applications:

• Agricultural Engineering-Harvesting genetically altered wheat with a combine.
• Aquaculture – Also known as aquafarming.
• Artificial Biospheres – Yes, even Pauly Shore helped out.
• Biosensors – Think a machine that reads your fingerprint.
• Bio-based material-Simply an engineering material derived from living matter
• Biomaterials – Natural or man-made that comprises whole or part of a living structure.
• Drug Delivery-Ask a junkie.
• Industrial Fermentation
• Industrial Enzymatic Reactions
• Life Support Systems-Like when Tom Hanks & Brian Boitano had to do the C0₂ filter modification.
• Metabolic Engineering-Often involved in producing beer, wine, cheese, pharmaceuticals.
• Production and Purification of Biopharmaceuticals
• Prosthesis

Do I know how to do all this stuff? The answer is unfortunately an emphatic, no. But I am not an entirely useless individual. No really! Let me explain. Back to our first definition of bioengineering: “any type of engineering applied to living things,” we basically focused on Mechanical Engineering applied to the Human Organism. We studied math, chemistry, physics, physiology, basic programming, biomechanics, circuits, biochemistry, genetics, bioinstrumentation, statistics, biomaterials, yadda yadda yadda.

All of the above is good, but as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (copy and paste, I refuse to type that shit) said in his lecture at TED, it takes 10 years for someone to build up enough technical knowledge to change a domain. Likewise Dr. K. Anders Ericsson and Malcom Gladwell , both referenced in the most recent season (7) of Penn & Teller’s Bullshit might tell you that the difference between genius and mediocrity is about 10,000 hours of practice. So basically what my degree earned me is the chance to enter a field such as medical devices as I have (to some extent) as well as pursue more degrees, in the hopes of reaching that 10 years of technical knowledge or 10,000 hours of practice even further down the line, garnering at least a pittance in the process.

All these topics interest me but I am not sure I want to spend 10,000 hours on medical devices. Excuse me. Where are my manners? I should say what a medical device is (from Wikipedia):

This is an extremely broad category — essentially covering all healthcare products that do not achieve their intended results through predominantly chemical (e.g., pharmaceuticals) or biological (e.g., vaccines) means, and do not involve metabolism.

A medical device is intended for use in:

• the diagnosis of disease or other conditions, or
• in the cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease,

Some examples include pacemakers, infusion pumps, the heart-lung machine, dialysis machines, artificial organs, implants, artificial limbs, corrective lenses, cochlear implants, ocular prosthetics, facial prosthetics, somato prosthetics, and dental implants.

This industry is highly regulated and very conservative (like Aerospace apparently) and is thus difficult to “break into.” It is also said to be a smaller more incestuous group than one might expect and thus one is advised to “never burn a bridge in medical devices.” A friend who works for a company that makes endoscopes told me that the best and brightest are in the medical device industry. I do not know how that claim could be supported but I am just giving you the word on the street. Unfortunately, the regulated and conservative nature that makes it so well “protected” from other job seekers would seem to make it less pleasant to work in. While computer engineers and programmers at Google sit in bean bags and take time for reflection and stretching, people in the medical device industry must cater to a series of auditors and make sure that they are always seen walking briskly and with purpose. Granted, I can only present my view from a very lowly position in a particularly bureaucratic office.

The industry has a development side (Research and Development, Product Development), a production side (Sustaining, Manufacturing, Growth), and an oversight side (Regulatory and Quality). It also needs Marketing and sales people to get the product out and Clinical Research to test the effectiveness and get things to market. Beyond that it has all the basic office and legal functions (Document Control, IT, Maintenance). What is true for me (some of which you may have gleamed from this blog) is that I like to understand how things work in the physical world, I like to create, and I like to stimulate peoples’ minds in creative ways. The kind of position I am looking for as a next step, in this industry at least, is on the development side, to up my scientific knowledge, and I could see myself continuing in that fashion or moving over to Marketing because it affords the opportunity to coalesce the needs of physicians, the technology limitations of the developers and scientists, and the capability of production, all the while requiring a well spoken and intelligent presentation. Regulatory deals with government bodies, Quality tells people they need to do more tests to make sure they do not make bad product, and Sustaining/ Manufacturing keeps those assembly lines running and tries to find ways to standardize, improve, and cheapify the process.

So while I can see some opportunity for engagement and learning, it would seem that jumping into a job that sounds interesting without a higher degree, without lots of experience, without awards, without a big penis, takes a lot of schmoozing and “being professional” day in and day out which is not easy when you have a restless mind and are in an office setting. I will say, however, that being in a place long enough to get acquainted with the people there does make it seem less abrasive but at the same time you can get complacent and the only thing that really matters is if you win the respect of the gatekeepers. That is, those you would interview with, if you applied to a better job. I guess that does not matter too much because my company has all but killed its Research and Development department so I am looking elsewhere (still in Southern California).

I still say that educating people on a grand scale sounds like more fun. But hey! The teamwork skills and Medical Device, Bioengineering knowledge could still be applied to developing educational products (game) down the road! Right?! I hope so. I am keeping myself open to a form of creation that would reach a customer in the form of an audience rather than a patient, to aid in the process of discovery, because that is what I seem to enjoy the most.

Oh yeah, here it is. From “Why Don’t Penguins’ Feet Freeze? And 114 Other Questions:”

“Two mechanisms are at work. First, the penguin can control the rate of blood flow to the feet by varying the diameter of arterial vessels supplying the blood. In cold conditions the flow is reduced, when it is warm the flow increases. Humans can do this too, which is why our hands and feet become white when we are cold and pink when warm. Control is very sophisticated and involves the hypothalamus and various nervous and hormonal systems. However, penguins also have ‘counter-current heat exchangers’ at the top of the legs. Arteries supplying warm blood to the feet break up into many small vessels that are closely allied to similar numbers of venous vessels bring cold blood back from the feet. Heat flows from the warm blood to the cold blood, so little of it is carried down the feet.”

“The uncooked cheese contains long-chain protein molecules more or less curled up in a fatty, watery mess. When you heat cheese, the fats and proteins melt and if you fiddle with the fluid, the chains can get dragged into strings.”

In an ongoing quest to continuously educate myself I find it paramount to take note of any new educational tools.  The most accessible of these tools is undoubtedly the internet.  Staying congruent with Jon’s post regarding a union between education and videogames, I feel that that which is most engaging is most likely to stick in one’s memory.  Using the fantastic firefox add-on Stumble Upon I have come across so far two of what may possibly be hundreds of such websites that are capable of teaching via intriguing flash animations and short bursts of information that are easy to inculcate and process.

Physics concepts

Introduction to Biology

Hodge Podge of Science
If anyone else has anything to add to the list, feel free to post it in the comments.

You may notice the overall look of the site change several times.  This is because I’m experimenting with the best “theme.”  I’ve narrowed the list of themes down to those which display the author’s name for each article posted (which is important on a multi-author site).

My goal is to decide on one soon and stick with it because I think it’s important for the site’s look to remain at least somewhat consistent.  Feel free to make suggestions.

Today, a conversation I had with a comrade (22) at my work  ignited me to ponder a career path which I imagine, if followed, could lead someone like me, in fact, me to an Arnold Schwarzenegger style c[u]ming all the time lifestyle. All of  sudden I was metaphorically grabbed in the lower cajones region and forced to dwell on all that time and money I spent on Education and Video Games (not after turning to the side to cough, embarrassingly hoping that my semi might pass for a generous flaccid).

Bien sûr, this brain wave doesn’t involve a spin-off from something we were nominally employed to do, no siree to The Bobs! (See what I did there: Olde timey saying mixed with an Office Space reference! … I really have to get some of my lower ribs removed.) My work is at a large evil medical device company which makes large evil life saving products but we were scheming up large evil ‘serious games’ to combat the void left by the large evil K-12 education system. That includes you Kindergarten Cop!  Dective John Kimble played by a cu[nn]ing Arnold Scwharzenegger and even your teacher-turned-cop partner Phoebe O’Hara.

Yes, that ‘Serious Game’ term is new to me too, I came (hehe) across it while I was researching: the barriers to entry…, more positive; the lay of the land…, more directed: my potential mode of attack into the video game industry. Speaking to my fellow chronically-under-stimulated-Compañero-de-Trabajo, I brought up my vision of a video game that is equal parts entertainment and equal parts science information, I was thinking knowledge of the human brain (maybe the immune system?). Not only was he interested but he was, as was I, practically foaming at the mouth at the thought of how stimulating that would be.

Understandably, this might not sound that novel but think about the current tradeoff curve for the industry, go ahead, plot “y=-ln(x)+2″and imagine the y-axis is the Learning Quotient and the x-axis is the Gameplay. It’s steep! Can you think back and verify this? You can either learn or have fun, but the learning will be about as fun as your class in high school, minus being high. Notice that if you take the xmax and ymax out to 10 you can see the curve fall below 0. They are so fun people get dumber from the games! Wohoo!! Here I come Calypso!

So much precious youthful brainpower goes into learning facts like, “The largest Tauren tribe, the Bloodhoof Tauren, reside on the top of a cluster of tall mesas known as Thunder Bluff, in the grasslands of Mulgore.”  That’s fucking great! Thank you Blizzard Entertainment! Maybe Michael Jackson and I will go vist them one day!! (Your mom’s “too soon.”) To be clear, I don’t condemn the exercise of creating fantastic fictional universes, but as a man of science I hate to see a good mind maneuver its host into a career at Best Buy or worse yet a Psychology Major because, “OMG! I love it, and I it’s really great because I feel like, you could do anything with it.” Building that deeper intuitive understanding is what so many people spend so much time studying to get, and if you could just put that in the form of a video game (which is a natural fit as I see it) … or a supository…

As I now understand it, the role that me and homeslice from work were pinning for is the Game Designer (look at the Roles).

Anyways, I would not divulge how I would start to make my dream a reality and my reality a dream (as Arnold [Cumings] did) but a big part of my point (hehehe) is that it is not everyday you find a job that simultaneously calls upon all of your aptitudes, not if you have a lot of them, and if you hold them dear, especially the creative and the spatial ones. Take now (as I write this), for instance: I get to be random and self referential. This is fun. I get to connect with people but still work independently, use logical reasoning skills, call upon my memory. Awesome. But is my right hemisphere really being utilized? That big ganglia might try to make himself known as I add colons and parenthesis and brackets and italics; as I insert hyperlinks and graphs; banging on the inner walls of my skull like Trick or Treaters locked in the basement. But let’s face it kids, at the moment, there’s no getting out.

I want to make a game that pushes the trade-off curve to the right and puts it right at the 50-50 point, where y=x. Not to say that there are no games like this in existence. Par exemple:

This one is not that much learning and not that much fun but it’s equal parts both.Granted, it’s only learning if you believe in that evolution stuff.

This one was created by a Harvard/ Stanford Business Professor and I’m told it’s legit. Looks like Sim City.

The kind of stuff people in that industry know is not easy, “most job solicitations for game programmers specify a bachelor’s degree (in mathematics, physics, computer science, ‘or equivalent experience’).” I’m taking a class right now, Mathematical Methods of Theoretical Physics and that shit is not to be taken lightly, even by an Asian. But a game designer does not need to be a programmer. I have no idea what it would take to get a hold of those kind of resources but I relish the thought. (Hmmmm, r-r-relish, aghrghghhhhh).

Everyone should try out Linux (the operating system) at some point.

Screenshot of Xubuntu with Firefox running.

For those who are unaware, Linux is the operating system (OS) of choice for heaving duty IT work, tech savvy people, and anyone who needs reliability and security.

I recently installed Linux on my secondary laptop, specifically the version of Linux called Xubuntu (pronounced ex-ooh-boon-too).  It’s lightweight & fast, has everything you need, it’s interface is similar to that of Windows so it’ll be very familiar to you, plus it’s free!

You can even test it out on your Windows computer without installing it;  it has a mode where you can try it out; it temporarily runs itself side-by-side by Windows without messing up your Windows installation in any way.  When you’re done, you simply reboot and there’s no record of Linux having ever been on your computer.

Try it with one click: Wubi is a program that will download and run it for you.  Once it’s installing, I recommend selecting Xubuntu (it’s more lightweight and faster than Ubuntu or Kubuntu; but basically all 3 are pretty much the same version of Linux).