Summer

I have recently completed a 500-day Anki streak. I am very fortunate to have been exposed to the existence of this software. I believe it’s sort of a “bitcoin” for the concept of studying. It’s 100% next generation in terms of learning. It doesn’t necessarily teach you (if you use a pre-made deck, perhaps it can) however, it allows for memorization in such an efficient way that I really don’t know what I’d do without it. Spaced repetition shouldn’t be someone one needs to manually schedule in their life. That’s the beauty of this software. Plus, your daily flashcards can be done on your cell phone. There’s a reason why little kids get addicted to their phone. You can use that “tunnel vision” effect to your advantage when you do your flashcards on your phone. You can read text quicker and get through more cards more efficiently compared to using Anki on a laptop or PC monitor.

That’s enough of that. Anyways, I have been working on some new music lately. My style is morphing at the moment which is exciting in a creative sense. I can’t wait to finish up a couple of tracks I am working on. I am taking things “inch-by-inch” for all things “extracurricular” so unfortunately I can’t say when new music will be ready, only that I am trying hard to make progress.

Anki heatmap for 500+ days! Lighter colors represent more cards being reviewed on that particular day.

Graphic Design - Life in Frog Colors

My froggo’s for the future gallery:

Winter

The triple-quadrupole mass spectrometer at my job.

Friends, it’s been a wild year. Time is precious so I will make this brief. The year 2020 was very challenging for me. When I focus on the silver lining, there have been several VERY positive developments, and I will selectively focus on a few of those here.

I have been doing a lot of writing recently. I am working on putting together a compilation of romance short stories. I have two stories complete and 4 more in progress. I am aiming for 4,000-5,000 words per story, and ten stories per compilation. This is cool for two reasons: First, I’ve really been enjoying fiction writing and learning how to properly develop characters and craft compelling dialog. Second, this is going to help hone my writing skills for when I move out of state. I am planning to continue my current volunteer efforts by grant writing for the organization I’m involved with.

On another creative front, the release of my upcoming EP (“aqua regia”) has been moved to the back burner for now. Things have simply been too busy; in my life there have been A LOT of moving parts this past year. The EP graphic design is done, the tracks are all done, I just need to finalize the post-mix and mastering. My vision is that when I refocus my attention to this project, I will have have enough break time to bring “fresh ears” to the music, and finish off the post-production within several days worth of time.

As shown in the figure at the top this post, I’ve been spending a lot of time this year accelerating ions into a quadrupole mass filter at my job. I can’t discuss the specific details of the project I’ve been working on, but it’s been a cool work experience, and I’ve been able a ton of valuable life experience working in a corporate environment.

With that said… I transmit to you through the interwebz the following good vibes:

[PEACE] *zing zap psssst*

[LOVE] *zzzrrrrrr… zip zap*

[UNITY] *vvvwwwww, wub wub wub*

[REPESCT] *zap zap zip*

Enjoy the vibes!

-JF

Spring

An interesting spring is here.

Thoughts:

Pretend the collective human soul is comprised of a spin-active nucleus with a nuclear spin quantum number >> 1: This global situation is an external magnetic field, and it is orienting and inducing electron circulation in our core selves.  Our unique Larmor frequencies are susceptible to resonance from external events; and the problem is that a projection of our nuclear spin angular momentum onto the z-axis gives each of us MANY spin states. Our mL quantum number range is large and on top of that, we are all spin-spin coupling with each other (thanks, Lenz-Faraday) and it’s a true mess of possible spin transitions.

A human won’t be able to control when or to what state they are brought to resonance. External events will seem to have too much psychological gravity to remain blasé. Core beliefs will be challenged, fears will be stoked, and distrust will be seeded among ourselves.

What is important is how we handle, interpret, and respond to what happens. That will be what forges a future worth living. I think that even though we have effectively zero control over the environment, we can
control how we think about it. Even if it’s hard and takes a long term commitment, positivity-biasing your theme of thoughts seems to me to be the only answer.

Anyways, disregard the NMR philosophy. Flowery language is generally a dead end. I’d rather communicate to you what I have been spending my time on lately: the mandarin language. I’ve found that learning Mandarin is a satisfying way to spend time. China possesses a truly captivating culture and history; and an appreciation of this massive people group serves as a good backdrop to fuel enthusiasm for learning this language.

What I’ve come to understand in my nascent journey into bilingualism, is that speaking Mandarin won’t be an unconquerable challenge. Becoming literate will be. Effortlessly reading Chinese text will be extremely hard
to accomplish. I doubt my ability to master the Mandarin character set enough to become truly literate (I’ve been told if one has a solid master of 5,000 characters, that’s enough to get by in Chinese society).

My goal is conversational fluency- of which, I have confidence in my ability to achieve. I just wish I could spend 100% of my time on this. Even in lockdown, there are responsibilities and obligations that prevent me from truly diving deep and spending 6-8 hours a day studying this material. Full emersion seems to be the best route, but unfortunately that isn’t possible right now.

Anyways, cheers to your own endeavors and I hope your life experience is going smoothly given the circumstances.

PS: I miss Life In Color… I long for it so badly! LIC: I
will never forget you.

-Jordan

Graphic Design - "The Portal"

“The Portal”

Why does a time machine have to look like a human-sized pressure cooker? Perhaps in the future, a “time machine” will be more accurately thought of as a machine that projects interactions with spacetime… a portal projector.

Consider a home-cinema video projector. The “movie” that your eyes interface with originates from the projector… but the red, green, and blue light that stimulates your cone cells is no longer coupled with it. Your eyes don’t directly interact with the projector, rather they interact with the light that is emitted from this device.

Perhaps a time machine can be thought of in the same way. Who is to say that a time machine couldn’t project a portal outward into three-dimensional space? Perhaps humans won’t interface with the time machine itself (by climbing into a steampunk-looking metal box with pressure gauges, piping, and valves) but perhaps humans will interface with portals that the time machine projects outward into nearby space. Maybe instead of gathering in a living room to sit down and watch movies, people will gather together in a living room to sit down and plan their time travel journey!

Are you feeling like a trip to middle earth? Do you want to see castles, shire villages, and knights in shining armor? Perhaps you’d like to experience the exotic geology, plant, and animal life of the Mesozoic era? Join me with my time machine! I have it set up to project portals in this very scenic, harbor-side environment. We can sit on the couches and toast to our upcoming adventures before we dive in together.

- JF

Fall

Greetings. Above is a picture of a dirty, pink autumn sunset taken right here in Southington, CT. There’s something about a fall sunset that sort of disappoints. It doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with its aesthetic value… it’s more about how they are a harbinger for what we all know is coming around the corner: Winter.

Winter sunsets are disappointing. They have a languishing quality to them. Even with the best cloud height and the most opportune cloud positioning, they leave a lot to be desired. A “high-quality” winter sunset will present to one’s consciousness a thin strip of mildly resplendent yellow, which within minutes retreats into a vast, blue backdrop of open sky, completely devoid of low clouds. The delta between the wavelengths emitted over the evolution of the sunset set is tiny. They can’t be said to evolve; they sort of appear, awkwardly hesitate in the sky, and then retreat. They result in tenous displays of light on their best day.

Maybe it can be chalked up to the lack of moisture in the cold winter air. Perhaps the light knows that most people will be indoors anyway and that anything more than a half-hearted attempt at the sublime would be a waste of energy, lost on deaf eyes. Whatever it is, it’s dreary and it makes me long for Summer. o_O

-JF

Book Review #4 - Gilgamesh: A Verse Narrative

5/5 stars

recommended

Background:

I received this book several weeks ago from the secretary of the physics department at my school. She was cleaning out the storage room of the planetarium and recovered it from an old box that was lying around. This is a very old book. The copyright is 1970 and the afterward is copyright 1972. Presumably, this copy that I have was printed somewhere around 1972-1975.

I recommend this book. Gilgamesh is now officially the oldest piece of literature I’ve read (The estimate is that this story originated circa 1800 B.C. – the early bronze age) It’s quite interesting to realize that a story your reading vastly predates anything else that you have ever read by an astronomical amount of time. Additionally, this is a story that touches on the human experience in such a raw and authentic way. It is very understandable that this story was deemed valuable enough to be passed down in oral tradition and in written form for thousands of years.

The story is almost a coming of age tale, with the exemption that age doesn’t factor into the story at all. The protagonist, “Gilgamesh” finds himself struggling with loss to such a degree that he seemingly can’t help but fall into an arduous journey in the hopes of finding resolution through acquiring eternal life. This story has a lot of archetypal plot elements. Gilgamesh voluntarily enters, and yet at the same, is forced into a journey to find a mystic/sage character (who interestingly will remind the reader quite a bit of “Noah” from the bible. Wikipedia has more information on this “flood” reference, which is very fascinating). Gilgamesh has to confront the unknown, both internally and externally. All throughout his journey, he encounters forces (both people and circumstances) that tell him to turn back. They tell him that he has made it far enough and that he should turn back and forgo his quest.

There are some very poignant lines in this book, and they treat the reader to some profound moments. For instance, paraphrasing the narrator describing the mental pain of Gilgamesh early on in his journey, the picture is painted that “the size and nature of the creatures in his mind grow monstrous.”

I recommend that you indulge in the historicity of this tale, and give this translation a read. Remember, The Epic of Gilgamesh is technically a poem, but from Sumerian clay tablets to modern-day English, this will read as prose.

Technical Details:

The Herbert Mason translation is very streamlined, and it’s very easy to comprehend. This book, while formatted in verse structure, does not read like poetry. There is no rhyme or meter structure. You can read this just like any text you might come across.

This particular translation is streamlined, in that there are several scenes of the story that have been trimmed down for brevity. Also, it’s written with (for the most part) everyday vocabulary. I don’t recall using a dictionary at any point when reading this book. It isn’t very lengthy, and realistically it can be read within a day.

Book Review #3 - Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

5/5 stars

recommended

This book was recommended to me by Dr. Marcus Moss, who extensively referenced it during his HCOP keynote address at UCONN this past April.

What needs to be addressed immediately, is that you really need to ignore any preconceived notions that you may have about Dr. Ben Carson before you read his book. Try to go into it with an open mind; forget that you probably only know him as a talking head on Fox News.

I found this autobiography to be very enjoyable and helpful. It’s a success story. The background of Ben Carson’s life and where he ended up is incredible. It’s a story filled with hope, faith and resilience. I would recommend this autobiography, because gaining insights from someone more advanced then you is extremely helpful for guiding your own ship through life’s waters. Ben Carson was essentially the Michael Jordan of neurosurgery in the late 1980s… His level of achievement is so profound that pretty much wherever you are on the spectrum of “making it”, you will benefit from reading his life journey.

Dr. Ben Carson’s childhood and youth were one of the more moving parts of the book for me. I found the deepness of his faith in God to be really admirable. The guy faced so many challenges early on, but with the help of his Mother’s guidance and with reliance on faith, he managed to conquer every obstacle presented to him.

The guy is totally a role-model and someone to be looked up to. Forget his political opinions and his association with the news media and read his story! You will gain insight that will help you overcome your own unique obstacles.

Technical notes:

I noticed in some areas that it seemed obvious the book was written by more than one person. It was noticeable that some sections were heavily written in tandem between two authors. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s just something I noticed. Having made this observation, however, it made me suspicious of some of the dialog presented in the book. I think it’s unlikely that all the dialog is one hundred percent accurate. Likely there is some creative license being exercised, especially when you read very detailed childhood conversations.

Also, there were a few areas where it felt like paragraphs were jumping from topic to topic haphazardly. Some chapters felt abstract in that there was content being shoehorned in at the end.

I feel the “breaking” of the fourth wall that happened several times in the reading could have been mitigated if it wasn’t as noticeable that there were multiple authors. These, of course, are just my creative nit-picks (constructive criticism!). You might not find anything I’ve mentioned to be an issue at all. Enjoy.