It is lucky to be here
Hope this email finds you in good health. Life is not forever. I've noticed early signs of my own bodily decay -- stress in ever-typing fingers, the chills of a cavity I should really get filled. Sumana Harihareswara (whom I admire) talks about scheduling time each year just for grief (see the 19min 20sec mark). I am working on taking better care of myself. What do you do for self-care?
Learning new physics gets me so excited. And there are so many unsolved problems! Matter behaves in unexpected, beautiful ways; superconductors and symmetries hide among the latest advances in physics. It makes me feel like an explorer. (Where do we, as humans, still lack basic knowledge?) Here's a toy problem I've been thinking about.
Distances feel shorter. I have taken several road trips to visit new and important places in California, like Surina's new college and good friends in Santa Barbara. I especially loved attending the Sequoia Dark Sky festival with Madison. Next month, I am planning a long road trip to Flagstaff for fun and to teach at a Tribal environmental data workshop. (Where should I stop along the way?)
I am reflecting more. As I choose my path, I am pruning all the paths that cannot be. It is easy to fall into routine, in location and in thought. I've started to accidentally believe my opinions. I've learned to communicate through stories, at the expense of my rationality. (Is this what people experience as adulthood?) I observe the world through a lens of culture and ideology (read: Bayesian priors), and I would like to understand where my viewpoints come from.
I spent several weekends this summer building tiny houses, thanks to my good friend Katie. I learned several new skills (ask me about installing windows). I also see it as a noble, innovative cause -- get your neighbors involved in direct impact against homelessness (one of the biggest issues in the Bay Area). Volunteering with others inspires me: it reminds me that I am not alone, nor helpless.
What questions have you been afraid to ask? I'm looking for good ones, so please send them on to me.
Things I've liked or thought about recently:
science and math
* What's lying deep in the ocean? https://www.submarinecablemap.com/
* Beautiful visual of a Fourier series: http://bgrawi.com/Fourier-Visualizations/
* open science is good science: https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/with-open-data-scientists-share-their-work
* what makes a cell, a cell? https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-math-that-tells-cells-what-they-are-20190313/
* a new state of matter: https://www.quantamagazine.org/black-hot-superionic-ice-may-be-natures-most-common-form-of-water-20190508/
* find a national lab near you: https://www.instagram.com/p/B1zNDE-h0Mj/
* what is a wind turbine, actually? https://www.explainthatstuff.com/windturbines.html
* blackouts don't stop space launches: https://www.wired.com/story/icon-launch-blackout/
* (long) reproducible data analysis tutorial: https://jakevdp.github.io/blog/2017/03/03/reproducible-data-analysis-in-jupyter/
* (long) plausible reasoning: https://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/prob/book.pdf
human behavior
* say things yourself: https://sivers.org/dq
* animals or gods: https://nadiaeghbal.com/animal-god
* open source is not simple: part 1, part 2, part 3
comics
* it was all a dream: https://xkcd.com/430/
* everything is arbitrary: https://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=3478
* existential games: http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2013-02-10
* never enough time to say what you mean: https://xkcd.com/1146/
* live your dreams, without listening to others: https://xkcd.com/137/
* the physics of language games: http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/talking-is-weird
* who are you, really? https://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=3495
* physics, in a nutshell: https://xkcd.com/2207/
* age is just a number: http://falseknees.com/300.html
* life mottos: http://falseknees.com/287.html
* l want a life full of experiences: https://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=3487
music
* learned about this artist on the day he died: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKW2H0WBqW8
* movie music before it was cool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLNLvcBmoqo
* I forgot how good this song was: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQUlA8Hcv4s
* Finally listened to Baduizm from start to finish: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-UWPlRIl68qlvI1RQJryJu-cYADzC4EO
* if a tree falls, and only I hear it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89LRsMkGKQ4
* thanks Ravi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVnGDwdom7c