Abandoned Internet Sites . The Arrow of Time . Entropy . Religion

I read an article on CNN.com recently about how the internet is riddled with abandoned blogs that haven't been updated in months. And how people who were once very gung-ho about updating eventually got tired of documenting their daily life on these types of pages. And I started to feel sheepish... did I ever have such expectations? Actually, I think in a few years, this site will be gone. Now really, how cool is it for a middle-aged man to keep a blog anyway? In favor of this site's survival is the fact that I was never really one to have my finger on the pulse of coolness. The worst thing that happens is that I start to update about my pets, my eventual wife and kids, and other bourgeois stuff. Wait a minute... aren't I doing that already? Well then, hooray for mundania!

I was reacquainted with a pretty interesting idea in science recently, one that I had heard while in college. If physical laws for atomic particles are reversible in time, why aren't general macroscopic phenomena reversible in time too? Well, you've heard about the second law of thermodynamics, that entropy is always increasing, right? The likelihood that identical particles will maintain a highly ordered state as they obey these laws of physical interaction is minuscule... it's the development of highly probable, disordered states that is a marker of irreversibility, e.g., the spontaneous dissolution of salt in water rather than the spontaneous separation of a cup of salt water into its constituents NaCl and H₂O. Another example is if an organized deck of cards scatters on the floor and you pick them up without paying attention to the order, it's pretty unlikely that you'll recover the original ordering, rather than all the other possible configurations. The direction that the arrow of time is pointing is the direction where entropy increases. Some people even argue that time doesn't fundamentally really exist... only change.

I got into a really heated argument once with someone over religion in my younger days, and she took as evidence of the existence of the Christian god the fact that we have complex life forms on our planet, in apparent contradiction to the laws of entropy. I was incredulous that she took this as an argument, since she was training to be a chemical engineer (she wound up going to Stanford graduate school!) and they're supposed to know their thermodynamics really well. I argued that the energy provided by the sun provides for life on earth, but at the cost of a net increase in entropy. The way it works is that the energy locked up within the mass of hydrogen atoms of the sun gets released during a fusion reaction to create helium. The helium atom has less mass than the total mass of hydrogen that was used to make it; the missing mass is transmorphed to energy via the equation E=MC², and dissipates as radiant electromagnetic waves, with a net higher entropic state. The fact that we can harness these waves on earth to create life in no way contradicts the law of entropy. So at least, disregarding the origin of the universe, complex forms on a planet can be explained as a consequence of the nuclear reactions of a local star.

I would have taken it better if they didn't try to intellectualize it all in a half-baked manner, but rather if they had just said it's what they chose to believe and that it was just a way of life... we won't know the origin of everything within our lifetimes, which doesn't rule out some sort of supernatural intervention. But if that sort of thing did exist, I doubt that the whole shebang was set up just for humans to play out the melodramas of their lives for the sole purpose of separating them into believers and nonbelievers. We're a single life form among many others on a single planet within a massive galaxy, among billions and billions of similar galaxies... what can possibly make us that important?

But she clung on to her entropy argument. I almost started yelling because I couldn't believe that she could use such a horrible misinterpretation as objective proof for her faith. Logical arguments are really inappropriate anyway. The only reason why I got into the debate in the first place was because they were trying to convert me for my ex-girlfriend's sake, who was disappointed that I didn't accept religion. Nowadays I'm too old to go through that again. It really was for the better after all... I'm actually glad I don't have to deal with that in my personal life anymore, and they probably would have been lost without religion. I just wrote all this down because I was reminded of it by writing about entropy and the flow of time.

A Green Thumb . Nokia . Academics

I'm growing a basil plant near the window. I figured it'd be a good idea to grow some of my own given the expense of buying basil in the store (which is always stale and no longer fragrant). I initially planted it in a plastic cup, but eventually it needed a larger pot. With the help of Miracle Grow fertilizer, the plant has grown larger and turned a healthy shade of green. The window smells of sweet basil. It reminds me of a time in college when I kept a marijuana plant at my dormitory window. My roommate and I didn't have air-conditioning, so our dorm room heated up like a greenhouse in the summer months. The plant thrived under those conditions... it was given to me by a high school friend in a tenuous state, and after a couple of months at the window it became very fragrant, although fresh cannabis smells rather putrid.

Every once in a while I check my website statistics. Someone from Nokia.com visited frequently last month. Hey if you're there, and if you liked my website, can you get me a free phone?

I've been thinking about career options intensely. I'm a little behind the ball, because of a string of long and hard service months that burnt me out and got me down on clinical medicine. If you know me, you know that I'm lukewarm about most things in life... especially medicine. Anyway, it was bad timing for burnout, but now I'm feeling a little more like my normal self... which I don't remember feeling for a long time. In my clear-headed state, I've kinda ruled out the lucrative career options. Right now I plan on seeing how far I can go as an academic. Unfortunately if I'm successful that means I'll be poor for life. But now that the decision has been made I no longer agonize over it. I suppose it's a sign that there will be no regrets.

The options I'm investigating are a neuroepidemiology fellowship at Columbia, or a postdoctoral position in quantitative EEG analysis at UPenn. I'll always love basic science, but it doesn't always love you back. Clinical "science" is a surer shot and a better avenue to allow me to teach, which I enjoy as much as thinking about science. Well, by December I think I'll know which road I'll be taking.

And what about my plans for going back to L.A.? Arrgh!

Philadelphia Venues . Neurology Examination . Murakami

Some old high school friends came to visit me in Philadelphia a month ago (Khanh, Ants, and Jason). I showed them around town... after 3 years here I've grown the know Center City reasonably well, so we saw many attractions.

I took them to see a performance by the [Philadelphia Orchestra] one night. I discreetly took a photo of the orchestra before the show began (photography is against the rules), which I'm displaying proudly on this page. Khanh is a sports guy, so I'm not sure how he enjoyed it. During the performance, he was fidgeting constantly... likely in an effort to stay awake. He even started bopping his head to the music at certain points... I supposed he was enjoying himself, but I felt like shrinking into my seat. I also took them to see a Shakespheare play (Twelfth Night) at the [Arden Theater] in Old City. During the play, Khanh fell asleep twice. It was OK because it was dark and we were in the highest row. That guy can fall alseep anywhere... he fell asleep on me 3 years ago while we watched a Broadway play in Manhattan. He gets credit, though, for at least knowing that the play's intermission was the intermission... Ants, who was awake throughout the whole thing, thought that the play was over at that point. He was surprised to hear otherwise. We laughed so hard about that one that tears came to my eyes.

For food, I took them to a couple of my favorite restaurants: [Tequila's], an authentic and classy Mexican restaurant, and [Zanzibar Blue], a renowned jazz club with excellent food. I also took them to [La Colombe], a gourmet coffee shop that serves the finest espresso I've ever had. I think it's really top flight stuff... if you ever find yourself in Philly, do yourself a favor and order one of their capuccinos... they've made me a coffee addict. Of course, we had to sample some of Philly's famous cheesesteak restaurants. After eating 3 that week, I was ready to vomit.

I attended another orchestra performance two nights ago, featuring Tchaikovsky's Symphony no. 6. The 2nd and 3rd movements were phenomenal. The third movement was a string-buster... two separate violinists snapped strings on their fiddles, they played so furiously. I also saw another jazz band last night, [The Bad Plus] in concert at [Chris' Jazz Cafe]. They're a modern jazz trio who plays rock song standards... LOUDLY. If they're in town, and you want to hear jazz of a different sort, check them out... the drummer in particular is extraordinarily talented and superhumanly energetic, banging all over the place with multitudes of different instruments in a seemingly epileptic fit... very amusing to watch. Unfortunately, the venue was less than mediocre... the food was second rate, and only a minority of tables boasted a view of the performers.

Good grief, I'm becoming a damned yuppie... without the money.

A friend of mine got a job offer from a pharmaceutical company for approximately $200K, right out of residency. That's probably more than I'd ever make in academic neurology or private practice. Starting off like that at my age, I'd eventually make half a million annually by the time I retire. Should I apply for a job like that, stick to academia, or leave medicine altogether? Nothing really sticks out at me, which implies that perhaps I should go for the money.

I recently received my scores from an annual examination that all neurology residents have to take. This year I did pretty well... somewhere between 3rd and 7th in the nation, among the 1500 U.S. neurology residents who took the exam. But it's only a test, and I know I am generally worse than my scores imply. I mean, I'm not going to win a Nobel Prize or anything. However, I will get to go on an all-expense-paid trip to some tropical location for a bi-annual Penn Neurology retreat.

I've been reading more of Murakami. This time the book is Dance Dance Dance. It's great so far, very addictive reading, and easy to relate to the protagonist. This one will probably be one of my favorite Murakami books. He may very well win a Nobel Prize one day...

Killing Patients . Taking Japanese . Watching the Progress Bar

Happy Belated New Year's, my devoted fans! I can probably count the number of you on one hand. Oh well who really gives a sh*t, the vast majority of us are condemned to live and die in obscurity... might as well embrace it.

For some reason my job has been somewhat tolerable as of late. I've even been enjoying myself. This comes after a horrible month on the wards when someone died on my watch. I've never felt so low in my life after that, because of a poor medical decision. Although, given the circumstances around her death, the person was probably destined to die regardless of whatever decision I made. A part of me, however, still has some nagging doubts as to whether I could have saved her if I had made a different decision. If I told the story online, it'd be probably one of the ugliest ethical situations you could imagine, the stuff that Hollywood movies are made of. Everyone at work who reads these pages knows exactly what I'm talking about. Stories like these propagate among members of our neurology department faster than the latest fad among Japanese schoolgirls. I'll save this one until my emotional wounds aren't quite as fresh.

On that note, I'm taking a refresher Japanese class. It has been over 6 years since I've taken a real course, and I'm pleased to see some profiency at the language returning to me. I'm still nowhere near as good speaking it as I was when I was in Japan in 1995 (I'm so nostalgic for those times), but my listening comprehension is probably at its all-time high. A colleague of mine in neurology is also taking the course. We horse around so much in that class, we've gained reputations as clowns and troublemakers. The reason why we're so jocular is that it's the most advanced class they can offer during the evenings, and it's too simple. On the other hand, we get to take it for free at the University of Pennsylvania because of our employee benefits.

I'm still recovering financially from the robbery. I bought a new laptop computer, which really drained me. I've been pretty good and I haven't really spent any money since then. Lucky for me I found a new pasttime, on Kazaalite, downloading files. So far I've probably downloaded over 40 GB of anime, movies, music, and software. It's no wonder why people want to shut the p2p thing down. For some reason, I like the act of downloading just as much as, or even more than, the downloaded files. I particularly like watching the progress bars nudge towards completion. After the file is downloaded, there's a slightly empty feeling. So I download more stuff, and the excitement begins anew.