The Color of the Grass

Of all the things to think I suddenly was reminded that this platform existed. I had last thought about this over four years ago when I had taken my first industry job. And now I think of it again as I had moved to another company within the industry to pursue a new opportunity.

It's always interesting to change jobs and leave the first company you work for after leaving school. Each company approaches the same problem with different approaches, and it's always an adjustment to how another company operates. But there is always a motivation to make the move, and it's not until after we've crossed to the other side we learn whether our intuition and analysis was how we imagined it.

I've been with my current company for about 6 months now and am finally getting a hang of how the business is executed and the expectations of scientists. Even though the industry aims to deliver medicines to patients, there's always a balance of operation excellence (speed to patient) versus scientific excellence (best science at first filing), and my former company are leaders in the former and my current company are leaders in the latter. This leads to different questions needing to be answered, with my questions changing from those such as "what questions about this molecule need to be answered to enable clinical trials?" to "what levers can we pull in cell culture to create the best possible process?" I think deciding which is the better approach is more a matter of personal preference and there is a fairly narrow range in balancing the two to be able to successfully deliver medicines to patients, and learnings can be taken to improve how other companies in the industry operate.

For me this is an important opportunity to learn more about the nuances of cell culture and become a contributor to our knowledge of cell culture. At the same time there are a number of operational inefficiencies where I believe there can be significant gains in efficiency. However the balance is to not stifle scientific innovation in the name of speed at all costs. What I can say if that I've learned significantly more about the ins and outs of cell culture in the short time I've been at this company and there have been many opportunities to explore exciting side projects beyond delivering the pipeline.

So what does this hold? The view might be more short-sighted since this is mostly only a plan for the next few years. The grass is greener-for now-since the scientific aspects of cell culture was an important driver, in addition to a few other factors. I don't have delusions of this being a long-term move, partially because the locale is not ideal. So maybe the grass isn't greener everywhere; maybe I need to keep the neighbor's dog from peeing on my lawn both figuratively and literally.

Transitions

After four months the main difference between grad school and a real job is actually getting paid a livable wage. However in biotech there are still opportunities to work nonstop...

On Research Presentations

Recently I've been giving a number of research presentations again, and I've been noticing a particular trend. When I'm practicing or preparing a talk, I've noticed that I'll pause pretty often and think about how to improve a talk. While this is normally good for me, it does make it difficult to practice timing. So what ends up happening is that the first time I end up seeing how long the presentation lasts is when I've presenting it to an audience. At least when I'm actually presenting the talk I can give it without stopping or having any unnatural pauses.

Every Once In A While Cricket Produces A Gem

The US Open is Still Unwatchable

So this year I once again made the annual Labor Day weekend trip to New York to eat food and watch tennis, though as the years have gone on it's become more food-focused and much less tennis-focused. This has primarily been to the American fan base that shows up to the US Open.

I understand that the home crowd will support the home player, but the behavior of American fans borders on rudeness, especially in the sport of tennis. Fans will applaud when the opposing player faults on the first serve, and will continue to call out during the service motion or unnecessarily during the point. This year was the first time I went to Louis Armstrong Stadium as opposed to Arthur Ashe Stadium, and the atmosphere was significantly better. All those loud casual "I want to do the prestigious stadium and only see the top players" fans will go to Ashe and as a result, fans who follow the game more closely will end up all over the complex instead of just one stadium. Even when John Isner was playing at Armstrong, the crowd was much more respectful for his opponent, Milos Raonic. As a side note, Armstrong also has much better air circulation than Ashe, as anyone who watched matches on Ashe saw players dripping sweat (Coric, anyone?).

Otherwise when I'm watching on TV or streaming it, the US Open is the only grand slam I watch on mute all the time.

Slow Dinner

So recently I went to Germany and Austria, and one thing that struck me was the overall slow pace of the meal. While I realize that's generally a European thing, especially compared to the faster pace of American dining, it's something I really payed attention to since I was traveling and dining alone.

It may also be a function of eating at a lot of beer gardens and related establishments with extensive outdoor seating. Oftentimes you seat yourself and a waiter will eventually notice you and ask if you want a beer. When you're ready for the menu (or another beer), you eventually wave the waiter over and then order a while later at your convenience. After the dishes have been cleared I was never asked for the check, and I was generally let be to nurse my drink and look around. Eventually whenever I felt like leaving I'd go settle the bill and leave. I personally enjoyed this style of dining, when everything happened whenever I wanted to and the establishment didn't dictate the pace. Of course there were always Americans complaining about how slow the service is, since they wouldn't take the initiative to have their meal at their desired pace.

What I also enjoyed was that at these places there would be many large tables, so oftentimes you'd be sitting near other people and it's a great way to chat with the locals. Usually it would involve all of us laughing at me for being an idiot in some way or another, but always in good fun.

The Big Game

For the most part I generally don't make plans for big sporting events-no viewing parties, bars, etc. Usually I'll watch games by myself at home or the office, mostly because other people are annoying and I don't really do large groups. Every year during the Super Bowl I try to go skiing since there are fewer people on the mountain (yesterday on the other hand...). Going to work during home football games requires some planning to avoid crowds and traffic.

Occasionally I'll end up somewhere by chance during big games and it is curious to gauge how people react to them. Several times big games have been broadcasted on flights I've been on, most notably the Alabama vs. Clemson national championship game in 2017. During big moments of the game you could hear some cheering (or unhappy reactions) throughout the plane. During this year's Super Bowl I was at the gym, and there was absolutely no audible reaction to anything. The only sounds that could be heard were standard gym sounds-no cheering, and not even a gasp.

Browsing Homes

Recently when I get bored or want a distraction during the day, I've been browsing through the local house listings. Given that we've been seeing a large influx of people and with a lot of money coming into the area some of the listings are pretty impressive. Naturally all of that is currently a dream, but browsing through all the listings has reinforced certain preferences in living quarters. As an example I strongly prefer below-counter sinks versus countertop sinks and rainfall showers that aren't directly above the drain. I've come to realize a whole host of preferences I have for every aspect of a home, including materials and layout. Unfortunately this kind of comes with my picky nature. Naturally inspired by architectural design, I went ahead and started playing Prison Architect, because I'm a terrible person.

That C-Pop Kick

So somewhat recently I've been on a bit of a mandopop/C-pop kick (though I did post a track a couple of years ago). For the longest time I didn't listen to Chinese music, especially while growing up (though to be fair I didn't listen to much of anything growing up outside of classical music).

Towards the end of undergrad and the beginning of grad school I started to travel a bit more and thus had the unfortunate circumstance of passing time by watching movies on airplanes. After exhausting the classics (because honestly nothing new from Hollywood is really that great), I ended up turning to Chinese movies (though to be fair they're not much better). The soundtracks of the movies were pretty catchy (much more than the movies themselves), and I was able to find the tracks pretty easily. Eventually I ended up finding (now defunct) 1g1g, which functions as a Chinese version of Pandora and the rest kind of went from there. I'd stumble upon new artists and playlists, and now my phone is starting to fill up with Chinese music. Oops...

Some of what I'm currently listening to:

The US Open Is Almost Unwatchable

As we wind down the final Grand Slam event of the year, I'm almost glad as it means that the upcoming events will be away from US soil. The watchability of the US Open is below that of other majors despite it being in a more accessible time zone. Naturally, the thing that gets in the way the most of the US Open is the fans.

American sports fans are a different breed of sports fan compared to other sports fans. It starts with the sports we watch the most, where being noisy and boisterous are not only commonplace, but encouraged. We don't take kindly to taking orders (yay the American spirit?), and value loyalty to our team above all else, including etiquette. And this lack of etiquette makes Americans poor spectators of sports where fans are expected to be respectful and, at times, quiet.

This is painfully obvious within the US Open itself. During matches featuring an American player, fans will loudly cheer when the opponent faults on the first serve. This is very rude and disrupts the flow of the game with the chair umpire constantly telling the audience to be quiet (for example S. Querry vs. M. Zverev or S. Querry vs K. Anderson). On the other hand, when there is no American on the court there is very little noise between the first and second serve (P. Kvitova vs. C. Murugurza the match before) and what cheers are made are often shushed by the crowd. (for example when Federer is playing). It's also pretty obvious at other slams, where this behavior is minimized when the hometown favorite is playing (like Murray at Wimbledon). While I still go every year, I always hope to avoid seeing American players in my session in the hopes of having somewhat watchable tennis.

I never really understood this blinding sense of loyalty in sport. A lot of it seems to be related to a lowest common denominator, where it's just easy to follow along. For example, chanting "USA" at the US Open is just beyond petty. Or maybe it's just time for me to get a lawn so that I can yell at everyone about staying off of it.

So What?

I, like most of us, spend a lot of time perusing the internet, and my general reaction to most things is just "So what?" and not much else. It almost seems like everyone has an opinion, which they are certainly within their rights to hold, but then feel the need that because they're so important and knowledgeable in everything in which the hold an opinion everyone else is obligated to listen to that opinion. I think the peak was right after the election, where everyone had an opinion on the outcome and made sure that you knew what they were saying, because somehow everyone you knew suddenly became a top-notch political analyst overnight.

Of course, this is slightly hypocritical since anything I write is mostly just random thoughts without much substance, which leads to a lot of "So what?" reactions. There's no real direction here, but for a personal "blog" or collection of ramblings, naturally there doesn't need to be. (Naturally I'm such a renown journalist and as such "journalistic integrity" is such a forte, but the lack of it in the professional world is well...another opinion for another day.) Naturally these thoughts have kept me away for a while, and I'm not really sure what I'm doing with this, though at least hopefully it doesn't seem like I'm shoving words/opinions down your throat.

In other words, no news is good news.

A Commute

While those of you in the Pacific Northwest understand how poor drivers are, I know some of you don't believe me when I say that drivers here are the worst I have come across in the United States. Sure, folks complain a lot about drivers in New York or Los Angeles, but those are aggressive drivers, and their behavior is pretty predictable-leave enough space for a car to merge into your lane, and it'll happen.

When I do drive to work, it's a 4.3-mile commute each way. With no traffic it takes about 10 minutes to get to work, but when there is traffic, the same route takes about 45 minutes, which can be shortened to 30 by taking an alternate route. I wait until after most of the traffic has died down, but by no means does that mean there aren't poor drivers on the road. For example, my drive home last night (yes I'm a grad student so I work weekends):

Mile 0.4: The driver in front of me stops at a green light for no reason, and stays stopped while the light goes from green to yellow to red 5 seconds later.
Mile 0.9: A driver with a green light waves a pedestrian to cross the intersection in front of the car (Seattle drivers are notorious for screwing up right of way at the expense of safety). There are two left turn lanes at the intersection. I'm in the left one, and the person in the right turn lane always cuts in front of my lane in the turn itself and after the turn starts driving in the lane where the left left turn lane turns into instead of the lane the right left turn lane turns into (2 lanes per direction on that 4-lane road).
Mile 1.6: There's a bus stopped at the bus stop in the right lane, and I'm driving on the left lane. All of a sudden the car in front of me slams on the brakes and allows everyone in the right lane behind the bus to merge into the left lane until the bus moves again. (Seattle drivers are notorious for screwing up right of way at the expense of safety, again)
Mile 2.4: I'm behind a car going 25 in a 35 zone so I move into the other lane to pass, but as soon as I pull alongside the car, the other driver all of a sudden starts going 35.
Mile 3.4: Same as mile 2.4, except someone going 25 in a 40 zone.
Mile 3.8: At this intersection, the road I'm on has a left turn lane in both directions. However, most drivers use this as an opportunity to expand their own lane into the left turn lane while going straight through the intersection and to continue using the opposite direction's left turn lane as part of their own lane.
Mile 4.3: At the turn into the complex I'm living in, the middle turning lane has a clear demarcation for when each direction has a left turn (instead of fair use for both directions). However, this doesn't stop the car opposite me to use my left turn lane to get into their left turn lane while I'm approaching the turn with my indicator on.

While Seattle driving is bad, not everything else is-like these pictures I took when I went to Grand Teton national park earlier this month:

(Click to Enlarge)

(Click to Enlarge)

Edit: and now, for the second time in the last 4 months, someone has managed to hit my parked car...

Nissan Rogue and Marketing

I recently returned from a trip to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, and while there rented a Nissan Rogue (which was an upgrade over the booked Nissan Sentra courtesy of my National Executive status). Over the 5+ days of the trip, I ended up driving the car 1,349 miles and ended up getting a pretty good feel for the car to the point I had to take a second to figure out how to drive my own car when I got back home from the trip.

The Rogue, in my opinion, is straight up awful, and essentially felt like a crossover SUV based on the Versa or Sentra. If you've driven either of those cars, you know that both of those cars are incredibly weak. A Versa starts at 109 horsepower, and a Rogue starts at 170 horsepower, which is not necessarily ideal for going through the mountains of a national park. Even National straight-up told me that the Pathfinder at 284 horsepower was a much better option.

Through those 1,349 miles there was many challenging points for the car. At its weak power it particularly struggled on hills. At about 6 degree incline the car maxed out at around 50 mph, and at a 10 degree incline the car would not travel above 38 mph (my car, with 228 horsepower on the base model, has no issues getting past 35 on a 24 degree incline near my place). Additionally, the car really struggled on turns, and in general the balance did not feel stable. The center of gravity felt way too high for a crossover, especially since I had previously driven a 2005/6-ish Honda Pilot when I had my permit (and when I initially had my license) and that felt incredibly stable compared to the Rogue. It also didn't help that any time a car passed in the opposite direction on those rural highways the hood would shake profusely as if it would become detached in the front and obscure the windshield.

Now, I understand that not everyone is looking to take this car through a mountain pass in the snow or drive it over uneven gravel to get to a river. However, these cars are marketed as such to the general public, when most of them will never need these cars for those purposes. Of course that's marketing at work.

Nissan Rogue Pitch (Click to Enlarge)

I believe that this kind of marketing is used to make people feel like their car can do anything; that it's some status symbol of some point (look at me, I'm outdoorsy!) that's easy to display. Obviously this seems to work, as the Rogue is still around and selling. However, the vehicle itself is next to useless in any challenging condition requiring anything beyond basic all-wheel drive functions. I'm not even sure the car would make it up my parent's driveway, which might be 25 degrees, during a snowstorm. While I think the Rogue is much better suited for city driving, advertising it as such isn't going to drive sales as much as advertising it an an outdoors car, which is too bad for consumers who don't look at all the specifications before buying a car.

Another Year

It's funny seeing all the first year grad students (and undergrads) all happy and excited to be here. It's only time until they have the happiness beat out of them.

The DIY Way

Last week, for the first time, I hemmed a set of curtains. I may have cheated a little bit by using ironing tape instead of sewing the hem, but it gets the job done. I might pat myself on the back and marvel at a new job well done (well, not particularly well done, but a serviceable job nonetheless).

Obviously this isn't about tooting my own horn-hemming curtains isn't particularly difficult. What I am intrigued by is the ebbing of the DIY mentality, where today's young adults seem to possess fewer and fewer handiwork skills (which I had also mentioned with the increase in restaurant spending with the decrease of grocery store spending).

A New York Times Sunday Op-Ed provides some intriguing thoughts, and while I'm not as quick to believe an imminent demise of functional society, it does raise some good points. Many of those "world-changing" ideas exist to create a problem to be solved, and it seems that the primary basis of many of these is the convenience of someone doing something else for you. And of course more time to socialize, which seems to be the only priority outside working hours.

While I understand that we can't do everything and are unable to acquire every skill, the lack of these skills that the previous generation had around the house is quite galling. As the Op-Ed points out, many seek to outsource away "everything their mothers no longer do" to the point that they're completely useless inside the home. This lack of DIY, outside of figuring out how to make someone else do it for you, might also explain why so many seem to have such a hard time putting together IKEA furniture.

News flash: It's not that hard. With a little bit of can-do and some common sense, a lot can be done if only you have the spirit to try.

Overheard

Overheard at lunch yesterday:

Girl: Having the freedom to do what I want means that I can choose to be outwardly sexual.
Guy: But, that plays right into the patriarchy.
Girl: But isn't feminism all about letting me do what I want to do?

Rinse and repeat for the 10 minutes I was stuck within earshot of them.

Welcome to Seattle, and now a great portion of urban America, where you're free to do whatever you want to do, as long as it fits within the narrow mindset of the hive mind behind movements whose end goals don't actually have anything to do with equality.

GoldenEye Returns!

If you're like me and you spend a fair amount of time playing the greatest game ever created, you'd be pretty excited to hear about the newest version of GoldenEye: Source. It's basically an HD recreation of GoldenEye 007 running the source engine from Half-Life 2. Eventually when I have some free time I might check this out...

Because I'm So Cultured

Because this totally belongs on r/im14andthisisdeep /sarcasm

Because if it takes a song for you to actually pretend to care about something, then you don't actually care. Read the YouTube comments for a good laugh and to see how superficial people can be (to be fair YouTube comments are generally cancer to begin with).

The tune itself isn't too bad though, if you take it in the context that it's music.

Cleaning, Changing, and Compromise

After I moved out of my parents' house for college, I've yet to ever live with anyone who is as clean about their living conditions as I am. I've always done the majority of the cleaning in the communal areas and end up cleaning up after my previous roommates. Of course it's just not possible to tell someone to be cleaner and expect them to be better around the place (like how telling a jobless person to get a job won't solve their problems).

I think it comes back to personal standards to living cleanliness. Growing up I spent time helping (or being coerced into helping) clean up around the house, making me acutely aware of my living conditions, whereas I bet that most people didn't have cleanliness highlighted as a part of growing up. This is particularly true about my roommates, as they tend not to see a need to clean (except when they're expecting guests). Their lower standards of cleanliness frustrated me to no end, as I would occasionally try to cajole them into cleaning more often. Of course this wouldn't work, as old habits (such as not cleaning) die hard, cleaning doesn't happen. I think cleaning habits are particularly difficult to change, as there's a high energy barrier to cleaning (especially when there's a lot of it to do) and I think it's difficult for people who are used to a certain standard to raise that standard. My current roommate will occasionally scrub the stove (despite splattering large amounts of it on the stove and floor daily that I tend to clean up), but he'll always miss about half of it.

I've come to the realization that it's generally not worth constantly pointing these things out, especially since there is never any change. It only creates animosity between roommates, which definitely isn't ideal. As this point I've had to be the one to always settle for my roommates' lower standards (so not really compromise) to the point that I'm (barely) satisfied if they do their dishes, shower, do laundry, and take out the trash when it's full. It's a low bar, but it's what I've had to settle for without exploding at someone.

The Amazing Drivers of Seattle

I'm not exactly sure I can pinpoint why Seattle drivers are so bad, but they're pretty bad and getting worse. Actually I can hazard a guess, and it might have something to do with how politically correct things have to be around here and how that mentality of self-importance and self-confidence regardless of actual ability and reality translating to the road. It's one thing to know that you're an awful driver, but of course here in Seattle no one is willing to admit that and everyone keeps driving like a lunatic.

Driving in the Seattle area is an exercise of hyperawareness and anticipation, where I've come to anticipate everyone driving poorly in just about every aspect. Sadly these are things I see on a daily basis that I feel that I haven't experienced on a regular basis in other locations.

• Turning out of the wrong lane-I'm really not sure why you think it's a good idea to make a right turn out of the left lane or a left turn out of the right lane.
• Turning into the wrong lane when there are two left turn lanes (or right turn lanes)-This one really gets me since there's one of these when I drive home from the office.
• Not making wider turns-This is also a huge problem with two turn lanes, as the car in the outside lane will always cross in front of the path of the car on the inside lane, regardless of which lane the outside car will take. This also applies to parking, where drivers will always get really close to the car in the next space on the inside of the turn because they start turning too early. This also results in almost every car angling towards the direction where they came from instead of fitting straight into the space.
• Not yielding-There's an on-ramp that merges with the off-ramp I use to go grocery shopping, and no one will yield to the cars on the off-ramp. Instead they just keep going and for some reason I'm the one that has to fit to their spacing.
• Matching speeds-Speaking of on-ramps, most drivers will not reach highway speeds on the on-ramp, instead choosing to coast at around 45mph and then try to merge on the highway.
• Tapping the brakes-Drivers tapping the brakes before intersections where they have the right of way really baffles me. The light is green all the way but before the intersection there's a fair minority of drivers that will tap their brakes.
• Last-minute lane movements-There's a particular street that's three lanes with the right lane becoming a separate road that's part of my commute to work. Every time without fail during the last block there will be multiple cars from the other two lanes trying to move over to that right lane, and sometimes the majority of cars leaving the road will do that. It's almost possible that before the previous red light they can go over to the right lane instead of trying to cross through everyone.
• Blind spots exist?-Blind spots are a myth to many here as well, as someone will try to cross into my lane when I'm in their blind spot, especially on the highway when I'm passing them. Excessive use of the horn has occurred multiple times.
• Going excessively slow-It's one thing to go above the speed limit, but when there's no traffic and everyone's going 10 below...
• Disrupting traffic flow (other than on-ramps)-Instead of the mentality being "I'll make the turn when it won't disrupt flow" it's "I'll make the turn and it'll be alright if that car slows down". Pedestrians and cyclists also take this route when crossing the street.
• Headlights and turn signals exist for a reason-The lack of turn signal usage seems to be a general epidemic, but the lack of headlight usage really seems to be a Seattle thing, especially when I drive home from work late at night (like I'm about to do now).
• Red lights also exist for a reason-I feel like this one is pretty obvious. I've even seen the police here run red lights after stopping at the intersection.

Unfortunately this is only a sampler of the poor driving, as there are many more things that occur on a daily basis anytime I drive (and it's only a 10-mile round trip to the office...)