StellarAndStoked.com

discoverynews: Annular Solar Eclipse over Saitama, Japan; 9:32...

Sun, 20 May 2012 19:44:31 -0400

Annular Solar Eclipse over Saitama, Japan; 9:32 Local Time

Super Senior

Wed, 09 May 2012 09:10:35 -0400

Ironically enough, my busiest semester of undergrad — with half the semester spent studying for the DAT all the while juggling three upper-level biology courses and another upper level psychology course — granted me my best performance out of any semester in undergrad. All I know is, I worked very, very hard and it feels so good to sit back and look at those numbers so close to 4.0! I’ve experienced a tough learning curve within the past two years in sciences here, but I think I’ve finally proven my abilities to not only myself, but to admission committees, as they will soon be reviewing my entire undergraduate record in a couple of months when my application is in.

It’s been a great semester and this summer should be great as well: celebrating with Sheida and her family for graduating, visiting her up at Physical Therapy school, getting into a routine back at school — working in the lab and studying for the second DAT, enjoying a little break from the craziness of keeping up with all these science lectures, and submitting my dental school application.

I’ll be back for one last semester in the Fall — only 13 hours to go, due to my part of transferring from out of state, but it will be a great one. I’ve still got stuff to prove!

Heading to the lake today to celebrate with Shade and her (our) friends.

Catch ya soon.

Google's Self Driving Car

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 19:52:00 -0400

Google: “Having safely completed over 200,000 miles of computer-led driving, we wanted to share one of our favorite moments. Here’s Steve, who joined us for a special drive on a carefully programmed route to experience being behind the wheel in a whole new way. We organized this test as a technical experiment, but we think it’s also a promising look at what autonomous technology may one day deliver if rigorous technology and safety standards can be met.”

Bubba Watson — Fellow Georgia Bulldog and 2012 Masters...

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 23:14:00 -0400

Bubba Watson — Fellow Georgia Bulldog and 2012 Masters Champion. This is his shot from the second playoff hole at No. 10, setting him up for the win over Louis Oosthuizen. Absolutely amazing.

Check out his post-Masters news conference.

Photo credit: SCOTT K. BROWN/AUGUSTA NATIONAL

“Honorary Starter Sam Snead Tees off to open the 1984...

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 19:34:12 -0400

“Honorary Starter Sam Snead Tees off to open the 1984 Tournament.”

The Masters has begun, thus, it is going to be an exciting weekend.

Photo credit: Augusta National/Getty

ATREX EXPERIMENT LIGHTS UP THE NIGHT SKY From...

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 12:00:00 -0400

ATREX EXPERIMENT LIGHTS UP THE NIGHT SKY

From SpaceWeather.com:

“Before sunrise on March 27th, sky watchers up and down the eastern seaboard of the United States witnessed a strange apparition. A quintet of milky-white plumes appeared in the night sky, twisting in the winds at the edge of space. “It was pretty unreal and very exciting to see,” says eye-witness Jack Fusco, who sends this picture from Seaside Park in New Jersey.”

“The plumes were chemical tracers (trimethyl aluminum) deposited in the upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere by five rockets launched rapid-fire from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The goal of the experiment, named ATREX(Anomalous Transport Rocket Experiment), is to study 3D turbulence in the thermosphere.”

Pediculus humanus humanus — A body louse. Prepping for...

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 21:38:31 -0500

Pediculus humanus humanus — A body louse. Prepping for tomorrow’s Medical Entomology Lab Midterm.

DAT Quickly Approaching.. Semester Flying By

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 15:38:36 -0500

I’m taking the Dental Admissions Test in a mere thirteen days. As with any enormous life-altering test of abilities that one comes across in life, fear, heated by a wild sense of unpreparedness, seem to settle in the gut and gradually increase its boiling with every minute of self-suspected inefficient studying.

I would be naive in saying that I am not nervous, not scared and wanting to push back the date of the exam. I feel like I am learning little, but crucial things in general and organic chemistry that I have should have known months ago and have overlooked, or better yet, forgotten. The sciences are my mountain and I am trying to climb up their steep slope! I have an uneasy comfort with the perceptual ability, quantitative, and reading comprehension sections, and still am trying to get my practice scores in these sections as high as possible.

But with any enormous life-altering test of abilities that one comes across in life, all these nerve wrecking and gut wrenching side effects means two things: I want to succeed so badly and am willing to put in everything I have to get to this. I can relate it to my youth soccer career. Butterflies were a common neighbor in my game plan. Be it a region camp pool game, or semi-final under the lights at Disney in Orlando: the sidelines were flooded with college coaches, pen and notebook in hand. You learn to accept these butterflies and just perform to the best to your ability. It’s amazing how close by success can be if you blend your previous hard work with those butterflies.

Or so I’m hoping in the DAT realm!

Apple has released the first developer preview of the upcoming...

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 08:07:00 -0500

Apple has released the first developer preview of the upcoming OS X Mountain Lion (no more Mac OS X) due this Summer. I’m excited about some of the new features coming straight from iOS. Give it a look!

Congrats to the Foo Fighters for winning five Grammys last...

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 18:18:00 -0500

Congrats to the Foo Fighters for winning five Grammys last night, taking home:

Best Rock Performance – “Walk”

Best Hard Rock Performance - “White Limo”

Best Rock Song – “Walk”

Best Rock Album – Wasting Light

Best Long Form Music Video – Foo Fighters Back & Forth

I am so grateful that I was able to see them again last Fall. Dave Grohl and company certainly are the best rockers around.

I’m now a full-on Instapaper user. From Instapaper,...

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:13:00 -0500

I’m now a full-on Instapaper user.

From Instapaper, “Instapaper facilitates easy reading of long text content. We (people) discover web content throughout the day, and sometimes, we don’t have time to read long articles right when we find them. Instapaper allows you to easily save them for later, when you do have time, so you don’t just forget about them or skim through them.”

With the Instapaper “Read Me Later” tabbed on my Safari browser’s Bookmarks Bar, I’m all set to go. Anytime during the day that I come across an interesting article, from browsing news sites and the tens to hundreds of RSS feeds I’m subscribed to, and I’m pretty pushed for time but I just know I’d enjoy reading that later… I press “Read Later” and boom: the article is saved to my Instapaper account, both at Instapaper.com and on my Instapaper iPhone app, in a very condensed and super easy to read format.

I’ve read great things about Instapaper over the past month and have gradually incorporated it into my routine workflow (with an idea of coding my own personal RSS feed from articles on Instapaper into my blog), but now decided to go full-on with the mobile app addition.

If you’re into reading things, now or later, check it out. And if you have an iPhone/iPad, check it out too! … for a well spent $5.

Also, if you enjoy reading the thoughts and blogs of cool designers/developers as I do… the Instapaper blog by the developer himself, Marco Arment (former lead developer at Tumblr) has had some great stuff with great links for exploration.

The highest qualities of NCAA basketball: 1. The Duke vs UNC rivalry. 2. A game winning buzzer...

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:50:00 -0500

The highest qualities of NCAA basketball:

1. The Duke vs UNC rivalry.

2. A game winning buzzer beater.

3. A Duke game winning buzzer beater over Carolina.

A Three Test Week. Don’t you just love those? I certainly...

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:30:00 -0500

A Three Test Week. Don’t you just love those? I certainly do.

In the batter’s box — Abnormal Psychology.

On deck — Neurobiology.

And in the hole — Microbiology.

I’m ready to do some Tomahawk Chopping this coming Spring if you know what I mean. I think I may have heard pitchers and catchers report in SIX days… or something like that.

My Most Useful Applications at the Moment

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:03:00 -0500

I thought I would take a quick break from my current science-mode and make a quick post that I’ve been thinking about writing.

Here is a list of my most used applications at the current moment. These are pretty much in my daily routine. They are either used on my Macbook with Mac OS X, my iPhone with iOS, and some of them on both devices. If you haven’t heard of some of these, you should definitely give them a look. All of them are available cross-platform (useable on Windows). I’ll link them to their site and then quote their description straight from wikipedia (unless otherwise noted).

Dropbox

Wiki: ”uses cloud storage to enable users to store and share files and folders with others across the Internet using file synchronization.”

I can access all the files in my dropbox folder, from anywhere with a web browser. I use this at school, in my lab, even for web hosting. I can also access all my documents (say class power points, pdf’s, etc) via their mobile app on my iPhone.

Summary: if you aren’t utilizing cloud-storage in 2012, you are really missing out!

Spotify

Wiki: A “music streaming service offering streaming of selected music from a range of major and independent record labels, including Sony, EMI, Warner Music Group, and Universal.”

I’m into a lot of alternative music. Their aren’t many “indie-enough” bands that I haven’t been able to access on Spotify. Basically, you type in the artist, Spotify lists their complete discography that you can stream whenever, where ever. Facebook integration is great as well so you can see what your friends listen to, and you can even message and recommend artists to each other. I have yet to try the iOS app yet.

Summary: if you are really into music, you will definitely get good use out of Spotify.

Foursquare

Wiki: “a location-based social networking website for mobile devices… Users “check-in” at venues using a mobile website, text messaging or a device-specific application by selecting from a list of venues the application locates nearby… Each check-in awards the user points and sometimes “badges”.”

Foursquare is a quickly growing start-up that I’ve used for a while. I’ve even got my Dad and his best friend hooked. A lot of places (especially restaurants and stores) have “specials” when you check-in or become they “mayor.” I could really see this being a lot of fun in a big city. It’s great for finding places that your friends like and recommend. If anything, you can at least use it for the recent team up with American Express and foursquare… at many businesses and restaurants, you get a $10 American Express credit when you check-in with foursquare and pay with American Express (a cause to support small businesses).

Summary: It’s a great app to travel with. Claiming the mayorship of your favorite pub, stadium, or grocery store comes with a lot of pride!

Starbucks (mobile application)

Via the Starbucks website, you can “reload your Starbucks Card, track your Stars in the My Starbucks Rewards program and scan your barcode on your iPhone at the register.”

I love using this app when I go to Starbucks. It’s very painless. I don’t have to sign for a debit card and I get rewards that add up. Plus, any Starbucks gold member gets any syrup add-ins on the house. There is a heads up for unauthorized purchases however. Just be sure to lock the app with the password option and don’t let your smartphone get into the wrong hands and you’ll be more than fine!

Summary: If you go to Starbucks and have a smartphone, why not just try it out! You just open the app and swipe your phone at the register.

These may not be new to the raging web 2.0 advocate, but I enjoy incorporating these apps into my busy-second-decade-of-the-millennium life.

“The Nike+ FuelBand is designed for anyone who wants to be more active. It measures your...

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 21:02:00 -0500

“The Nike+ FuelBand is designed for anyone who wants to be more active. It measures your daily activity and turns it all into NikeFuel. So you can set a goal for every day and then go out and beat it. Life is a sport. Make it Count.”

This is a pretty sweet route Nike is going. I think it’s just what the society of 2012 needs.

1/7/12 — Candy Land, the race was on.

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 14:02:50 -0500

1/7/12 — Candy Land, the race was on.

This is Chad. He has been my chemistry teacher for the past week...

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:49:00 -0500

This is Chad. He has been my chemistry teacher for the past week and a half. He has gotten great reviews over at the Student Doctor Network for being a top resource for chemistry review. I’ve been trusting his lectures to give me quality and refreshing overviews of my general and organic chemistries. The lecture set for both chemistries cost $60 and each has an accompanying outline and online end-of-lecture quiz which have been great.

I am in my second serious and full week of studying for the DAT, which I plan to take the second week of March, and I can totally say that I am in a deep world of science for the next couple of months. The balancing of DAT studying (Gen Chem, Organic Chem, Biology, Perceptual Ability, Quantitative Reasoning, and Reading Comp) with my classes for this semester (Neurobio, Microbio, Medical Entomology, Abnormal Psyc) has proven to be a great way to take up not only all the day-lit hours of the day, but most of the moon-lit hours as well.

This is quite the adventure, but I am learning to enjoy and embrace it all, one day at a time.

Spending Friday in some serious sciences. There are a lot of...

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 15:30:56 -0500

Spending Friday in some serious sciences. There are a lot of review options out there and I recently stumbled across DATqVault which has given me a different perspective on some Biology topics — it has been especially efficient in highlighting my lack of developmental biology knowledge!

Always love a fire in the woods of suburban Atlanta.

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:03:46 -0500

Always love a fire in the woods of suburban Atlanta.

Loving the Elements!

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 21:57:00 -0500

Loving the Elements!