Protocol Snow

This is very awesome, GameDaily has been nominated for a Webby award in the gaming category. Even if you haven’t heard of the Webby Awards, you might be familiar with their famous five word requirement for acceptance speeches. I’m currently not as involved with the website/company as I used to be, but this is a cool honor and I’m really proud of all the hardworking guys at GameDaily. Start thinking of a snappy speech, just in case…

Quick update on this blog: school projects have become my life as my senior year of college winds down. I’ve got about half a dozen topics I want to write about that I reluctantly have to put on hold until things get less hectic. So stay tuned!

I was going to the gym today when I spotted some workers constructing this giant ESPN U(niversity) sign outside the athletic facility. Apparently there’s a lacrosse game tomorrow between Johns Hopkins and Virginia? Fair enough, but I didn’t think we had any lacrosse rivals other than Duke that would warrant this kind of festivity. I might stop by the gym tomorrow to see what’s going on, though it’ll probably be rainy.

This year’s NCAA Basketball Tournament, while providing a few wild games, has been disappointing in terms of big upsets. All the #1 and #2 ranked teams with the exception of Wisconsin are in the Elite Eight, and the odd team out is still a high #3 team (Oregon). I’ve picked UCLA and Ohio State to go to the championship game, with UCLA winning. Wishful thinking that if I show UCLA some love, they might return the favor?

I really hate walking. Even though I live so close to school, and the campus itself is small compared to a lot of universities, it’s been at least two years since I last walked to class. Biking is fast and thrilling, and I’m especially intoxicated by the sensation of wind rushing past my face. Just like the reason I play basketball is because I’m so addicted to the sound of a perfect swish, sometimes I feel like the bike ride is what motivates me to get up in the morning and go to class. Unfortunately, I can reach any part of the campus within 5 minutes so the thrill ends just as soon as it begins.

But this means, of course, that I bike to school even when snow and ice coat the ground. The city and campus grounds crew do a reasonable job of deicing the paths so it’s not terrible. Still, people think I’m crazy for biking in these conditions. I was locking my bike today when a woman walked by me and told me that I was “a brave man”.

I don’t get it. On the bike, my traction is brilliant, my control sublime. Sure, I can’t go as fast as normal, but I ride fearlessly over patches of ice without a second thought. After locking my bike, I still need to walk to the building, and the difference in grip is astonishing. I have to stiffen my joints and tread awkwardly around the frozen precipitation because the footing is very insecure and I’m scared to death of slipping and landing on my back. I’m even wearing shoes with decent grip. If I had my old shoes on, forget it.

People look at me on my bike and shake their head, but they’re really missing out. Biking on wintry days may be one of the best kept secrets out there.

One of the classes I’m taking in my last semester as an undergrad is Micro/Nanotechnology. 4 labs are incorporated into the course, and today my group went into the microfabrication facility for some hands-on experience with photolithography.

First you need to get dressed in the proper gear to go into the clean room.

Then you make something like this:

The above device design is just some random one used for instructional purposes. All the features (the text, lines, etc.) imprinted onto the chip are approximately 1.5 micrometers thick. Compare that to the thickness of human hair, which is 80 micrometers on average. The lines you see on the chip can be used to create 1.5 micrometer thick channels so that you can pump fluids through the channels and study flow on the micro-scale. Pretty neat, huh? A similar process to this is used to create those computer chips we all love, though their methods are infinitely more complex of course.

What I find funny is that this is the third time I’ve done this. I’ve made this same exact chip in Cellular/Tissue Engineering Lab, Biomedical Instrumentation Lab, and now Micro/Nanotechnology. Well, people always say repetition is the key to learning.