DART needs to be sued

http://www.kcci.com/news/20298174/detail.html

It is difficult to believe that this type of thing still happens in this day and age. How can people get offended at the message of this ad? "Don't believe in God? You're not alone." I can understand why some people would believe the people who put up the ad were mistaken about the existence of God. But why would people get offended at the message that some people are atheists, or that the specific group of atheists that sponsored this ad are telling other people of like mind that they can join their group? Evidently in large enough numbers complained to get the ad pulled. Even better is this:

http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2009/08/06/gov-culver-atheist-bus-ad-is-offensive/

The Governor of the state weighs in to say he is offended by the ad. In a country where freedom of religion is a core value, a governor using his position to say he is offended is extremely distasteful, although not illegal.

http://www.supplychaindigital.com/Des-Moines-Area-Regional-Transit-Authority--Forward-Motion-_26525.aspx

The important line of that article is "DART’s $22 million annual operating budget is funded by a blend of federal and state government funds, fares, transit advertising revenue and local property tax." As it receives government funding, their discrimination is illegal unless they do not allow ads by religious groups. I would find the latter to be highly unlikely.

I got a job!

Or, at least a job that doesn't involve teaching. I am a research assistant now, and will be writing code for a project at Fermilab that will involve smashing protons into hydrogen, deuterium, and heavy nuclear targets to make precise measurements on the anti-quark sea. This will be much more satisfying than teaching I think.

Lots of homework has kept me from doing anything really interesting. My Quantum 2 professor is awesome, but the homework is really hard. The homework in Particle Physics is getting a bit difficult as well, as the last batch of homework included a problem than no one in the entire class was capable of solving. It is stuff I need to know for the field I'm going into though, so it isn't that bad. And after this semester, I will be mostly done with classes. I need two more, which I will probably take at a rate of one per semester while working on research.

When the summer hits, I should have a little more free time. I'll be working full time, which will mean I'll have most weekends free. I will take advantage of this to visit my friends who I haven't seen in a while.

Update

I haven't posted in awhile, but I'm back now. Christmas break was fun, it was good to relax, but it was just too long. It is good to be back doing work stuff again. Unfortunately, my teaching load has been increased from 3 to 4 classes, giving me 100 students this semester. This probably won't seem like a lot to some people I know though. I teach from 8am to noon on Thursdays and Fridays. I don't like the 8am labs. Not only do I have to get up really early to be coherent by 8am, but my students in the 8am labs work more slowly than students at other times, and sometimes they don't complete the lab. I also got some student who asked me "do I have to show up for lab?" Lazy bum. I'm also tired of seeing my student's buttcracks. They really need to learn about belts.

I'm taking Quantum Mechanics 2 and Particle Physics 1. The latter I'm taking even though I'm missing a prerequisite. It's going to be a bit of work, but I really enjoy the topic so far. I think I'm going to try to get a research job in High Energy Physics.

Battle Sudoku!

I've downloaded Visual C# Studio and I'm working on programming a game called Battle Sudoku. It's like Sudoku, except multiplayer, and whenever you complete a row, column, or square you'll gain power to hit your opponent with something nasty. It might rotate their board, flip it, or replace the numbers with different shapes, or something even meaner.

Microsoft is setting up this neat thing going where if you join a creator's club you can self-publish games on Xbox Live community games. You can even make money off of it. It has to pass peer review in order to be published to make sure it is bug free and content appropriate. If I get this thing working I might shell out the cash to get an Xbox 360 (necessary to submit the game) and the $100 for the creator club membership. Who knows, I might make a small profit.

Programming the game is very interesting. I have to write a program that is able to solve the puzzles and record the steps taken in solving the puzzle (for realistic AI). It also has to be able to generate puzzles according to difficulty. This means I have to learn Sudoku solving techniques in order to program the game. I'm learning all about naked and hidden quads, along with Swordfish, Jellyfish, XWings, and locked candidates. I completed a lot of code today, and I'm confidant I can get it do what I want. However, I am a bit worried about the efficiancy of my program; whether or not it can generate a puzzle and solution in a short amount of time. I've also been pondering about what options I could add. Anyone up for a 25X25 SuperDoku? Or for those less adept at puzzles, perhaps I could add a 4X4 and a 6X6 option.

Computer Issues

I have used about 65 GB of my Hard Drive, but an extra 80 GB is used up and unaccounted for. Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this? I'm kind of nervous because if I keep losing hard drive space my computer will be inoperable.

In the great tradition of Physics, I am naming this phenomenon "Dark Gigabytes".

What was terribly wrong with this year's election

It was on Tuesday. I didn't get to watch House.

I can't think of a title, and a title isn't that important.

I went to a bonfire on the "physics ranch" which is really some land with trees by a swamp with a shed and a fire pit. It wasn't a graduate student event, just some people who decided to go and invited some people along. I'm glad I was invited, and I'm starting to feel like I'm more of a part of the group now. I've made a conscious effort to hang out with the physics people I know and try to develop some friendships. My first year here I was overly reclusive, and the only fruit of that was feeling lonely and unhappy. Sometimes it feels like I really am making friends, other times I feel like I won't connect with other people like I did in Oxford. Of course, I can make great friendships without the people being replicas of Brian Whims, Dan Wu, or any of a dozen other people I could name. I want to be wary of not being satisfied until my life is exactly like it was, but I don't want to get bogged down trying to force relationships with people I really won't connect with when I could spend time looking elsewhere instead. Still, even if I haven't connected as closely I'm feeling happier now that I come out of my dorm room more often.

Still, it was fun. We burned stuff in a fire and ate dinner. Some of the things I said were greeted with laughter, some with awkward silence. An example of the latter would've been when I said it would be really bad to get a charlie horse in one's anal sphincter while taking a dump. Back in Oxford, someone would've laughed at that. Although I still like my friends who wouldn't have.

Oh, post with your name if you've read this post. I'm trying to get a good idea of who reads my blog.