So I mentioned this whole thing about law school last time. Well, I registered for the LSAT. I talked to my research advisor. I've read about sixty different schools, none of which meet my six fairly straight-forward (and yet unfortunately contradictory) criteria. And I've been working on a "personal statement". There's a bevy of contradictory information out there as to what a good personal statement should contain. I have ignored it all and instead give you the following guidelines. I want mine to:

• Indicate I'm not Yet Another Person aimlessly drifting from grad school to law school
• Ride the subtle line between humor and sobriety (falling, if anything, on the humorous side)
• Be understandable to a wide range of people; I don't want to be too technical

This here's a first draft. A very early first draft. I know the language is choppy and repetitive (particularly in the last 4-5 paragraphs, one of which contains "blah blah" and "Mu ha ha" which means I can't figure out how to end this sentiment gracefully). And I still don't feel like this is anywhere near cohesive enough (although it feels like it can be, with work). But this is the general framework I think I'm going to work with. What do you think? Comments and suggestions on form and content are welcome. You can also criticize my individual word choice, if you'd like, but I'll probably post a much more polished draft later where you can nitpick to your heart's desire.

* * * * * * * * * * *

And I'm also deleting this, 'cause it wasn't that good.

Gee, Fiver-Rah. You barely write in your journal. And now there's been about a billion journal entries in the last week. What's up with that?

Good question. I'm having the "why am I in graduate school?" crises. Let me review the reasons I wanted to go to graduate school.

• I like learning lots of interesting new things.
• It would be way cool if I were Dr. Bond.
• I didn't want any of the stupid jobs I could get with a joint Math/Chemistry bachelors degree.

Alas. I don't want any of the slightly-less-stupid jobs I can get with a Chemistry PhD, and I'm spending all my time doing basic research on a project that bores me. Furthermore, there aren't all that many other projects that are more interesting (aside from all the cool stuff the Santa Fe institute does, but they just have cachet). So my reasons for being here are somewhat less than stellar, and another 2-4 years for a PhD is looking like more and more of a drag.

Of course, without a viable option, this is all stuff and nonsense anyways. And then I came up with a viable option. I was talking about a friend from high school who went to Harvard Law and has since been traveling around the globe (last I heard she was brokering a human rights agreement with the UN in Sri Lanka) doing wacky and fun things. And it occured to me: Hey, I could go to law school.

Now it's undoubtedly true that I think it's interesting. I read every legal brief filed by the EFF and the DOJ in the Sklyarov case up until December of 2001 or so, and many of the ones filed in Felten's case. And DeCSS, and a couple others. For one. I have something like a clue in matters pertaining to biotech/bioengineering (I'm doing theoretical chemistry--I've *taught* a class on the subject). And frankly, there are probably far too few people who give a damn about an intellectual commons who go into intellectual property. I could do it. I could probably do it well, which is more than I feel about basic research. And I could enjoy myself.

Problem is, while I would love to be "Dr. Bond" I would hate to be a lawyer. Bad associations and all that. I've been thinking of this for ... uh ... 4 days now, and I've essentially made up my mind to do it. Or at least, I've paid money to register for the LSAT, which is the next best thing.

So ... what do you think? It's not selling out if I don't do go to a boutique IP firm and make six figures, right? Can I actually do any good as a lawyer? Or is this just a Really Dumb Idea?

Approximately 5% of slashdot readers are girls. On the other hand, exactly 50% of my friends are (assuming that people are being up front about their gender, which seems like a reasonable assumption). Now, this doesn't particularly surprise me (after all, I know all my friends are weird). daoine mentioned that she started to get caught up in this gateway thing because of my "girly rant".

So my question is for both girls and guys. How much of a difference does gender make when you befriend somebody? Are you more likely to respond to a post posted by someone you know is a girl? And are us girls "better connected" than the average /. reader.

• It took me less time to install Warcraft II via wineX and set up networking on my desktop machine (chocobo) running Linux than it took everyone else to install/network on their Windows/OS X machines.
• Chocobo, not running native windows, ran the game faster. There are no significant hardware differences between many of the machines involved.
• I was the only person who knew how to carve a chicken at dinner, even though I won't eat it.
• In the last two years, I've played two multiplayer games: Tetris Attack (for SNES) and ... uh, the party games in "Super Monkeyball". And yet I still remember how to get barracks in eight peons for War2, and can still beat up on my friends (which isn't saying a whole lot, frankly).
• Although my taste in games has evolved considerably over the years (favorite: the "Chocobo Hot & Cold" mini-game in FF9), I still get an adrenaline rush out of wreaking havoc.
• Oooh, oooh! That reminds me of the best .sig I've ever seen: "Cry havoc, and let slip the Chihuahuas of inconvenience!" I don't remember who it belonged to or it would get attributed.

What is rationality? A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away I thought that rationality was just another way to evaluate and sift reality, and there were many others that were preferable--or at least, just as good.

Since then, I've gotten a lot smarter, a lot more educated, and a lot more intelligent. I've become an avowedly rational person. It's difficult not to do so when you spend years in mathematical/scientific training. Rationality quickly takes over your ways of thinking simply because rationality *works*. I am no longer as gullible as I once was. And yet the weirdest thing happened to me today which made me realize that I am not, in fact, as rational as I believed.

My flatmates and I are considering moving. Just considering, really; we're on a month-to-month lease, and we like our current place. But we think it might be nice to have a yard and my one roommate needs to get knee surgery sometime in the next six months or so, and would like to not have to go up stairs. On general arguments of propinquity and serendipity, we went to see a house today. We spent time outside it earlier. It's very very cute, and it has great gardening space which gets sun almost all day long. It met all our stated criteria for a cool place to live. It was priced reasonably. I really liked the outdoors space.

Rationally, there was nothing wrong with the interior either. I know that this is a great deal, a good place to live and all that stuff. And yet the moment I walked in the door I wanted to leave. I didn't like it. I didn't like it at all. There was nothing wrong with the house, except it felt all wrong.

And as soon as we walked out, my housemates and I extolled its virtues, half heartedly, and then Kim and I exchanged glances and we both said, "I can't live there; it feels bad."

Now, how's that for rational? And yet now that I think about it, I do this kind of stuff all the time. There are some people who I meet and I instantly like them. And I'm never wrong. My best friend (and my other housemate, Lucas) I met and I liked instantly. He didn't like me right off, so I spent the first few months of our acquaintance teasing him until he figured out that I was really cool and decided to be friends with me. And I was right; he was cool and it was more than worth it. There's other people who I meet who make me feel weird and uncomfortable. Is it a bad thing to make snap judgements? Are my judgements always "right" through some sort of placebo effect, or even through sheer dogged stubbornness on my part?

Or is there some rational explanation for what appears to be irrationality on my part? What is the true worth of rationality, and should there be bounds to its applications?

So, one of the things I say a great deal is: "X is the joy of life!" My friends regularly slag me off for this. But life has a lot of joy and I don't see why I shouldn't appreciate it.

Here is an incomplete list of the great joys of life:

• Good friends.
• Warm places to sleep.
• Yummy bread.
• Tea. Oolong is quite nice.
• Laughter.
• Books.
• Learning something new.
• Taking over the world.
• Linux.
• My new laptop.
• Silliness.

(Note that some of the great joys of life can be constructed by combining items on the above list, like "My new laptop" + "Warm places to sleep" + " "Learning something new" --> working on cool things in bed via wireless network). Then there's things other people want that leave me completely baffled:

• A plethora of shoes
• Diamond engagement rings.
• Money
• Power
• Prestige
• Social status (aside from slashdot karma, which is all important).

What do you want? Why?

So... A while back, I stupidly posted this rant. I say "stupidly" because first of all, I just posted when I was ticked without really thinking things through. And there were a bunch of really smarmy replies, some of which you can see in the original thread, and some I got through e-mail. I don't think I'm ever going to do that again.

Now, I realize most /. people are reasonably decent. But there seems to be a rather vocal minority out there that honestly believe that women are technophobes and that they are less capable mathematically and scientifically (dear God, and some of these people really believe that it's for physical reasons, too).

Now, I've been sheltered in my ivory tower for a good long while now. I haven't had anyone think me unworthy or incapable because of my gender in a long time. Even though I'm in an area of chemistry/physics which is heavily male, I've never felt like anything other than another scientist.

But just reading comments here occasionally gives me pause, and makes me feel uncomfortable. What gives on slashdot? Does anyone have an idea what's going on? Or are the sexists just idiots? Why do some people think that gender has anything to do with science, coding ability, or intelligence?

Keep in mind, please, that I'm not trying to attack you personally. If the shoe doesn't fit, don't try to jam it on your foot. Yes, yes, I know most people here are quite reasonable. I'm sure you are, too. But I'm curious if anyone who's reading this--which is likely to be nobody--has any ideas here.