I was really excited to get a new cell phone, and I decided to go with the LG Chocolate over the Motorola KRZR. Well, I quickly discovered that mp3 ringtones for my phone cost $2.99 apiece! I grumbled enough paying $1.50 for a polyphonic ringtone, but $3 is just too much. So I spent a bit of time finding a workaround to get my own ringtones on the phone. I quickly discovered a piece of software called BitPIM that will access contacts, calendars, messages, and ringtones on a large assortment of cell phones, including the Chocolate. However, to use BitPIM you need a special USB cable to connect to the phone. The cable itself costs $20, but it comes included with a headset in the Verizon Media Essentials Kit for $30. I found the kit on eBay for cheaper.

So after about a week I had everything I needed. BitPIM automatically recognized my phone. But when I click on the "Get Phone Data" button, I got an error stating the file directories on the phone where not accessible. After some internet searching, I found out that I have version 6 of the Chocolate software. BitPIM only works with version 4. An upcoming version of BitPIM will work with version 5, but version 6 is locked down tight. Well, at least I can use the USB cable to transfer mp3s to my phone just to listen to them, but to be honest, the Chocolate is not better than a dedicated mp3 player.

But wait, there's another option. I actually tried this before I shelled out any money for the Music Essentials Kit. You can send text messages to any verizon phone by email! The address is just [phonenumber]@vzwpix.com (remember to include the area code in the phone number). It also allows you to transfer pictures, audio, and video files this way. So I tried it by sending myself a couple of very short (30 seconds or less) mp3 files. My phone received the messages right away, and allowed me to save the audio as a ringtone, but the audio sounded horrible! It appears that somewhere along the way, the mp3 files were converted to crappy qcp files (don't ask me what those are!). So I gave up on that option right away and went ahead with the BitPIM method.

After BitPIM failed with the Chocolate, I thought about the email method again. QCP seems to be more of a container format than an actual encoding, so I thought to myself, "Why not just change .mp3 to .qcp on the file name and try that?" I mean, the phone already plays mp3s, so I just have to get the file to my phone without it being downconverted. As a qcp file, it should pass through unaltered to the phone. And what do you know? It works!

OK, so here's how to get free ringtones on a locked-down LG Chocolate:

1. Create a short mp3 file (about 30 seconds at 96kpbs). I think it needs to be less than 350 kb.

2. Open the folder on your PC containing the new mp3 file. Go to Tools > Folder Options..., select the View tab and uncheck "Hide extensions for known file types". This makes the ".mp3" part of the filename visible.

3. Change the file extension from ".mp3" to ".qcp"

4. Attach the qcp file to an email sent to [yourphonenumber]@vzwpix.com

5. Once you receive the message on your phone, select "Options" and then "Set as Ringtone". Voila!

A lot has happened in the past few days! I flew to Chicago to give a geology colloquium talk at Northwestern. Then Kelly, her family, the dogs, and I hiked to the Jug for Mother's Day. Then just yesterday I got a brand new cell phone.

The weather was quite nice in Evanston. I guess it was during those two or three weeks of Spring every year. But it was sunny in the mid-60s, with only a little bit of wind. My talk went well. I just gave basically the same talk that I did for my Carnegie interview, but without the proposal stuff and a bit more general explanation. I also brought samples of my cherts to pass around, which I think the audience liked. I didn't have a lot of free time, though. I arrived Thursday night, hung out in the geology department and met people on Friday, then left Saturday morning. But I did have some time to meet up with Eric Singley for some whiskey at a local Evanston bar. Eric's a pretty cool guy. I never really hung out with him that much as an undergrad, but I should have.

Then on Sunday we all hiked to the Jug. There was water flowing this time of year, but it was a bit lower than when Kelly and I went last Spring. Ed wussed out a bit after we got to the water, so Jace and Kelly's dad stayed behind while Kelly, Kelly's mom, and I went to the swimming pools. Gunner went with us and had to swim for the first time ever in his life. He looked pretty clumsy and made tons of splashing, but I think he had a good time. But both he and Ed did not like the hike out. By then it was hot and the trail was burning Gunner's feet. Ed also got overheated and he was wheezing like a steam engine. Jace and Kelly's mom had to carry Ed for a little while, and I carried Gunner for a little bit. They were both out of it for the next few days. They both seem back to normal today, though.

I'm having a great time reading The God Delusion. It was a bit boring in the middle when Dawkins was talking about evolution of religion, why the anthropic principle doesn't prove God's existence, and why God's supposed omnipotence and omnipresence also implies that he doesn't exist. But now he's talking about morality, which is really interesting. I've always been told that an atheistic society will decline into immorality. Dawkins does a very good job of showing the separation of morality and religion, and how morality and ethics are beneficial (evolutionarily-speaking). One way he puts it is to think about how morals and ethics have changed over time, leading to more gender and racial equality. But if morality is based on religion, which is based on a document (or set of documents) that hasn't changed in a couple thousand years, morality shouldn't change over time. This change occurs because religion and morality are separate sets of memes.

I just finished reading a great section about something I've come across as a scientist, and I've seen it from other scientists, even at conferences. Dawkins tells the story of Kurt Wise, who runs the Center for Origins Research. Kurt was set to become an outstanding geologist. He got his graduate degree from Harvard under Stephen Jay Gould. But Kurt was raised as a fundamentalist Christian, and realized that there were contradictions between the Bible and what he studied at graduate school. Fed up with the internal conflict, he sat down with his Bible and cut out (with a pair of scissors) all the passages that disagree with the current scientific worldview. Needless to say his Bible was a shambles afterwards. At that point he made a choice, either "Science" or God, and he chose God...

"It was there that night that I accepted the Word of God and rejected all that would ever counter it, including evolution. With that, in great sorrow, I tossed into the fire all my dreams and hopes in science."

He could have taken the Bible as an allegory or symbolic text, as many do. But this is what fundamentalism does to people. It causes people to ignore scientific evidence. It causes people to want to be dumb!

Sometimes Gunner's cute facial expressions remind me of Lil' Brudder.

It appears that geologist have finally discovered kryptonite...Yes, you heard right.

It's not really a glowing green mineral, but it has almost the same chemical formula given in the most recent Superman movie. The real mineral name will be jadarite, named after the town in Serbia nearby where it was discovered.

I wonder what the mineral name for dilithium crystals would be?

So I've been reading this Richard Dawkins book, The God Delusion. Kelly started reading it and recommended it to me. I really like the book so far. It's basically a book about why everybody should be atheists, or putting it another way, believing in a personal god is just downright silly. I don't consider it a detailed critique of religion...more like a common sense "when you really think about it" kind of book. For example, Dawkins talks about the idea of "Religion" and "Science" being separate but equal, and neither can ask or answer questions about the other. Dawkins points out that this is a line of reasoning to pacify or pander to religious people, and it doesn't work in practice. If there really was a way to scientifically prove that a diety exists, or that miracles happen, or that prayer works, you can be absolutely sure that religious people would jump on it. And if science shows that prayer doesn't work (a test study actually showed that people were worse off if they were prayed for!!!), then religious people claim that Science can't test Religion. In theory, it sounds like a great mantra for dealing with controversial Science vs. Religion questions, but in practice nobody follows it.

I could go on, but you get the picture. The book looks at some basic concepts about the idea of God from a practical viewpoint. I've said for a long time that religion always boiled down to pure faith. You either believe or don't believe and there will never be enough evidence to suggest one option over the other. I've always thought that this makes a person's religion more important and special, because it takes a conscious decision. I think that Dawkins tries to make the same case, but then takes it one step further by saying that if it really does boil down to faith, then why bother! He also mentions that you can't force faith. If you don't believe in something, then all the church in the world won't get you into heaven, so why bother.

Whether you agree with the book or not, it definitely makes you think. Several parts have resonated with ideas I've come up with on my own, but I've never really taken them seriously before. I'd strongly recommend it to anybody, religious or not.

The only problem I've found so far it Dawkins' claim that God must be a part of the universe. If he is, then he must be within the realm of scientific exploration. But I'm pretty sure that all Christians believe that God is external to the physical universe (or else how could He create it?)

I also recommend reading the introduction to Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman. In that chapter he explains how he changed from a fundamentalist Christian into a full-fledged athiest because he became a Biblical exegesis scholar (studying and translating the original manuscripts, which are actually copies of copies of copies, etc.). The more he studied the original manuscripts the more he became convinced that the book we know of as the Bible is not really the "Word of God" as we are told . It's a fascinating read.

New White Stripes! Fuck Yeah!!!

http://jasper.webvomit.com/?p=1061

I read an interesting article about Lord Kelvin's 1862 calculation of the age of the earth. Assuming that the Earth is just a cooling ball of rock, he could figure out how long it took to cool from the melting temperature of rocks (about 3000 degrees C) to the current heat flux at the surface. He calculated that the Earth was about 100 million years old (and no more than 400 million years old). Of course, all the geologists at that time completely disagreed with that number, although they had no way of figuring out absolute age on their own. Then about 40 years later, once radioactive elements were discovered (and specifically that radioactivity can generate heat), the geologists figured out where Lord Kelvin went wrong. Kelvin assumed there were no internal heat sources in the Earth, and if there were, the Earth would be much older. It only takes about a 10 km layer of granite with a normal concentration of radioactive elements to account for the current heat flux of the Earth.

I never understood this explanation. I didn't believe that there is enough radioactivity to compensate for the Earth's heat flux. If so, I should be flooded with radiation all the time. Well, in this article I read, the author showed that radioactivity doesn't actually account for the Earth's heat flux. Obviously, there isn't a 10 km layer of granite covering the surface of the Earth. And if you include radioactivity into Lord Kelvin's calculations, it only increases the age of the Earth by about 50 million years! Yes, radioactivity is a source of internal heat, but it is not that large. But geologist at the time were so excited to prove the Earth was so much older than Lord Kelvin said, they didn't worry about actually calculating it. And this "myth" has been passed down the years.

What really explains the age of the Earth is convection. Convection of the mantle transports heat from the core to the crust without diffusion. Back in the day, one of Lord Kelvin's students, John Perry, modified his mentor's calculations to include convection, and got an age of around 2.2 billion years (much closer to the actual age of 4.6 billion years). But this solution was never picked up by geologists because (A) radioactivity was a much higher-profile topic, (B) it was considered just a squabble between physicists, and (C) it makes a much less entertaining story.

It looks like ASU has deleted my AFS space, which included a my homepage and some image files. I'm pretty sure I have saved copies of all of those, but it sucks that they just deleted everything without telling me first. I know I'm not a student anymore, so they don't have to make webspace available to me, but at least let me so that I can save everything.

I haven't posted in a while, and a lot has happened. I've been pretty busy with my classes and getting lectures/labs together. But I've also accepted a postdoc offer. I'll be working at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington D.C., starting this summer. It will last for two to three years. During that time, I'll be looking at really old organic matter trapped in meteorites, interplanetary dust particles, and cometary material.

It's Spring Break for me right now. But it's not all fun in the sun. Although I have a break in teaching, I still have plenty of work to do. And for once I'm not going to LPSC for Spring Break.

Also, check out new pictures of our puppy on his own blog.

The future we live in is so frickin' awesome! We can already become virtual rock stars by playing Guitar Hero. Now I can download movies directly to my TiVo from Amazon.com! It's sort of like pay-per-view, but I can order movies on Amazon in the morning while I'm working, and they'll be finished downloading to the TiVo by that evening. Cox PPV sucks balls. There are only four or five options at a time, and I have to fiddle with both the Cox and TiVo remotes to purchase a movie. The Amazon/TiVo combo is more like the ideal television service--instantaneous on demand. It's just not instantaneous right now because you have to download the show.

Let me explain what would be the ultimate television service. I want to pay a single monthly fee, just like I do now for cable TV. But instead of constantly-running "channels", I want just a list of programming. Then I select the program and the episode I want to see, and it starts playing. TiVo sort of solves this problem halfway, by recording episodes for me, but I have to wait until they have aired to have the "instantaneous" effect I'm looking for. But movies are a different story. I have to be vigilant to make sure the movies I want to see are recorded. TiVo helps by having automatic wishlists, but the movie still has to air sometime. It's far from "on demand" for movies. And I would rather not have to leave the house and go to the rental store (which probably doesn't have it anyway!) to see the movie I want. Of course, rentals are per movie, not a flat monthly fee (although that is starting to change).

I've been offered a postdoc fellowship at Carnegie. This is a pretty big opportunity for me, but I'm waiting until I hear about my NRC application before I make a decision.

Well, I'm back from Washington DC. My interview at Carnegie went well, I think. Several people were very excited about my seminar talk, so that's a good sign. The bad thing is that three of the five people on the committee were gone, and you know it's always good if the important people can but a face to a name on paper. But I think I met with enough people that will give a "good word" for me to the other committee members. We'll see next month if I did well enough and impressed the right people.

Many of you know I took the red-eye in on Thursday night and the red-eye back on Friday night. I have to admit that it's not that bad, especially if you don't sleep the whole night through on a regular basis. I arrived in DC at 7AM and had a few hours to eat breakfast and get to Carnegie for my talk at 11AM. I got enough sleep on the flight to DC and had a big cup of chai tea latte so I was pretty awake for my talk. I don't think taking the red-eye flight diminished my performance any. By the way, the chai was from a DC bookstore chain named Politics and Prose, and it was weird because it wasn't sweet like Starbuck's chai latte. Instead it was really spicy. It's probably more what chai latte is supposed to taste like. Anyways, I didn't start to crash until about 4PM, which was ok because most of the major interviewing sessions were over by then. By then I was just chatting to a few of the other postdocs until "Beer Time" at 5:30 PM. At 6PM I got a ride to the nearest Metro station and headed back to the airport.

Looking back, I would probably do it again, but maybe upgrade to first class on the longer flights for better sleep. I didn't sleep well on the way home because I couldn't get comfortable, even though I was more tired. But then it didn't matter if I slept well because I was going home. I also recommend a direct nonstop flight for maximum sleep time. Or if nonstop is not available (like in my case) choose a connection that if furthest away from you or your destination. I had a number of possible connections, like Houston or Atlanta, but I decided to go through Las Vegas, even though it was going away from DC at first, because then I would have a nice four hour flight on which to sleep.

Gunner must he hitting his "terrible twos" because he's started acting up big time. It's very sudden because all weekend he was as sweet as can be. But yesterday he peed in the house four times, and it seems mostly because he wasn't getting attention. One of those times was on the bed almost right in my face. Needless to say I was pretty pissed at that. He's also starting to growl when someone wakes him up or messes with his food. I guess he's trying to assert his dominance, but he has no idea what kind of game he's playing. If he's taking it up a notch, I'll take it up two. Get ready for the bitch slap, Gunner!

We took the dogs to Bartlett Lake yesterday. There was barely anybody there, so we let the puppies off the leash. They had a great time, although Gunner thought the water was too cold.

Don't cross the street, but it's OK to ROCK OUT! The cool thing about this crosswalk sign is that they didn't just use electrical tape to block out the two middle fingers. They actually made small triangular plugs to fill in the holes in the mesh!

It's taken me a while (since I don't have much free time), but today as I was grading geology labs I finished the final sound check for my annual "Best of" mixtape. I thought I'd post the track list here. Since I ripped my CD collection to my hard drive this year, I've merged my annual "Best of" and "Downloaded" mixes into one comprehensive list. So this year's "Best of" includes music I've purchased and songs I've downloaded. Because of that, I'm adding the disclaimer that I don't recommend purchasing CDs from all of these artists, only most of them.

Best of 2006
Disc 1

1. Mogwai - Auto Rock
   
2. ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - Life
   
3. Pistolita - Panic
   
4. The Oohlahs - Small Parts
   
5. Silversun Pickups - Lazy Eye
   
6. Built to Spill - Goin' Against Your Mind
   
7. Giant Drag - Wicked Game
   
8. Wolfmother - Mind's Eye
   
9. Brand New - Limousine
   
10. Jesu - Silver
    
11. Moneen - Don't Ever Tell Locke What He Can't Do
    
12. Audioslave - Moth
    
13. Catfish Haven - Madelin
    
14. My Morning Jacket - Mahgeetah (live)
    

Disk 2

1. Band of Horses - The Funeral
   
2. Mew - The Zookeeper's Boy
   
3. Muse - Starlight
   
4. MSTRKRFT - Easy Love
   
5. Mylo - Otto's Journey
   
6. Weird Al Yankovic - White & Nerdy
   
7. Lady Sovereign - Hoodie
   
8. The Sounds - Queen of Apology (Patrick Stump Remix)
   
9. Evermore - It's Too Late
   
10. The Juliana Theory - Into the Dark
    
11. Rodrigo y Gabriela - Diablo Rojo
    
12. Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins - Rise Up With Fists!
    
13. The Blow - Parentheses
    
14. The Grates - Nothing Sir
    
15. The Stills - She's Walking Out
    
16. Ben Folds - Bitches Ain't Shit
    
17. The Dresden Dolls - Sing
    
18. My Chemical Romance - Welcome to the Black Parade
    
19. Pistolita - Beni Accident
    

Oh, and that whole Super Bowl thing...I really didn't see much of it. I was too busy creating the first exam for my geology 101 classes. I didn't realize how long that takes. I don't really care about football that much anyway.

Most horror movies don't scare me that much. They may make me jump out of my seat a few times, but I don't get a deep-seated fear or anything. The last movie that really scared me was Signs, and a lot of that was how well-made the movie was. This weekend Kelly and I rented The Descent, which really freaked both of us out. The monsters don't even show up until halfway through the movie, but when they did, Kelly actually screamed out loud. I would definitely recommend the movie to horror fans, but it does get a bit cliche in the second half of the movie.

I bought a new CD last week from a new band, Ratatat. It's just two guys with electric guitars and a drum machine (no vocals), and it sounds just as cool as you think. You can hear some of their songs on their myspace page.