100 squatsies ✅ 50 pushupsies ✅ And the walkening is a beginnening Oh poo, its raining

I just put together a reading list for the next 6-ish years. A few gems on it : - The Neri Oxman Material Ecology Catalogue - A Crack in Creation (by the inventor of CRISPR) - 3D Bioprinting: Fundamentals, Principles, Applications These books seem like an entryway into a whole bunch of possible endeavors. The future is biological.

I feel like my eye infection has passed a turning point today. Pain is receding, less crap coming out of it, the blurred vision is more controllable. Beware of contact lenses...

😂 funniest science channel I've ever seen

Trump just fired Bondi. Here we go, remember last time? He starts firing people for his own fuck ups - the implosion is starting.

I like to just let the bible open to whatever it wants to open to, and today it gave me this. It was my uncle's bible, and he was a priest, so its possible that he used the Psalms a lot and the binding remembers being opened to this page a lot. I was going to write a bit about how I've learned this lesson from life, how you meet foolish people who seem to just spread destruction to everything they touch... But instead I think I want to write a bit about the magnificence of the human immune system. It actually is connected, though it would be a chore to explain how I go from noticing the destruction that follows certain friends to recognizing grace in the human design. There's grace in those connections, too, the way the strangest things just end up serving the good... But anyways, to the biology bit. I've had pink eye for a week. Its miserable. It started because one morning my glasses mysteriously disappeared from the place I *always* put them at night. In the morning, in a panic, I put in contact lenses so I could find my glasses. Big mistake. Within hours, my eye started hurting. Those lenses had been sitting in their case for at least 6 months after using them one time. The next day, the eye was turning pink. At night, I couldn't sleep because it felt like a rock was stuck under my eyelid. After two days, I couldn't go outside without pain hitting that eye. After three, I couldn't look at screens either. I went to the doctor, and got antibiotics. Yay! But it was ineffective. Boo... Its been 5-ish days and my eye looks scary. Like, I currently look like someone you don't want to encounter at a gas station at night. Well, of course, this is an occasion to learn some stuff. So, after learning most of the possible causes - virus, bacteria, fungus, parasite - I am pretty sure it's literally the common cold, just in my eye. Adenovirus, I think its called. Also an added complication - uveitis, or inflammation, causing internal pain when the pupil changes size. What's really fascinating is the immune response. First, white blood cells flood the infected site, and they capture viral particles and deliver those bits and bobs to B-cells, which is a living library of millions of antibodies. That's their job, they just hold millions of variations of antibodies. When you are growing as a kid, your immune system generates these things randomly and keeps this library of chemical keys hidden away for whenever you get sick. The white blood cells deliver pieces of the invading machines to the B-cell librarian hackers, and they just test all the antibodies until a match is found. When a close enough match is found, that B-cell replicated like crazy and turn flood the infection site. The match is then refined - mutations on every replication are tested against the virus and if the match improves, that line of b-cells replicates, and if the match degrades, then that line dies off. Its a burst of controlled evolution designed to rapidly develop defenses against unknown viruses. Is that not the coolest shit in the world!?!? Sometimes I get unhappy, seeing how so much of life is decay or disease or death. How could God be good, if this is his creation? But then I read about how our immune system works... And its magnificent. Such magnificence deserves to exist... Its existence is glorious. Learning it adds so much meaning to God when he says, "I am that I am." So what does this have to do with the Psalm above? I think if you can see grace, you will see God, and you won't be or want the company of those wicked people who spread destruction to everything they touch. I also think its really important for believers to see in an expansive way, not an exclusive way. In modern times, we tend to define our beliefs as a specific set of exclusionary things and we basically exclude everything, including science (especially). But the great scientists who made this modern world were almost entirely believers, and they said explicitly in their writings that their science was a pursuit of God, a means to know God better. So yeah. There's my thoughts. Still more to learn...

100 squats ✅ 50 pushups ✅ Some curls ✅ Mongolian music ✅ Walk in park : starting

Big day... I finally registered classes - I wanted to take them months ago but the process was opaque and slow. Finally today was the day the registration opened up, and I pounced on it, I was waiting at my computer for it to open. I also figured out how to sync Obsidian with my phone. Major pain in the ass... Its probably worth it to skip this hassle and just pay for the version that does it for you. But its pretty cool that that works now.

🤔 imagine if, instead of bombing enemies, we just invited them to visit and ate hamburgers with them. This could be much simpler.

Beware of contact lenses... I heard about problems for years and it never happened, but in the last few days, it happened... I think it must be a fungal infection in my eye... Very not fun. I wonder if it ever goes away, or if I should just go see a doctor...

Fun fact! Err, a few of them... The city of Athens was originally named "Kekropia," and was renamed to Athens in honor of Athena's victory in a contest with Poseidon. Both Athena and Poseidon wanted to be the patron of the city, so they both did a miracle to impress the citizens. Poseidon struck the ground with his Trident and created a salt water spring. Athena planted the first olive tree. Since olives and olive oil are awesome, Athena won. Athena was the goddess of wisdom, strategy, and invention. You could say that she represented the part of the psyche (another Greek word - mind, and the etymological root of 'soul') where creative genius comes forth. Athena invented the plow, the flute, the olive tree, and Perseus' reflective shield - all of which are obvious symbols. Common epithets for Athena: **_Athena ergane_** - the most common title ; 'ergane' means "worker/industriousness" **_Athenē Mechanitis_** - the inventor, maker of devices **_Athenē Polymetis_** - of many devices **_Hippia Athena_** - of the horses. She invented the bridle, bit, and chariot (I'm changing up word order to emphasize the flexibility of adjectives and nouns order in Greek) **_Glaukopis Athenē_** - bright eyes, gleaming eyes ....and a million more. Greeks are ridiculously verbose... This emerged from a vague plan that's forming in my head... I'm thinking of founding a semi-secret society for people with an interest in STEM fields, and I'm thinking of naming it "the Ergane Society." This is an idea that I'll have to cook for a while before doing it, but I'm drafting some stuff for it now.

Fun fact! 41℅ of Lebanon is Christian, and their president is a Christian. The president of Lebanon is actually required by law to he a Christian, which seems kinda strange, but they have a kind of power division where different religions get different positions, which reduces the chance of any one of them seizing power and making like miserable for everyone else. Fun fact!² Hezbollah was created **_as a response_** to Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon, which lasted 18 years - the same territory they just invaded again, while publicly stating that they will make it a "killzone" and they will "depopulate" it. I'm not saying they're good or anything like that, but that's some context worth knowing. Should #Christian s be supporting #Israel?

I concur.

Pet peeve : recipes in essay format. Bullet points! Bullllllleeeeeeet pointsssssss... I ain't reading all that.