New Address?

I'm soliciting the opinion of my readers - I'd like a new address for this blog. What do you think would be cooler?

blog.nherrick.com

or

www.nickolaspickolas.com

(Or maybe even blog.nickolaspickolas.com?)

P.S. I made this post from my iPhone. :D

My Own Interweb Domain

I have a new personal website to keep me from feeling left out of the "I have a nifty website" clique:

www.nherrick.com

Cool name, eh? For a ripe sum of $10 I purchased the domain through Google apps (didn't need to do that, cause it just went through godaddy.com anyways and cost more) and found a cheap hosting plan through 3ix.org for $12 a year. That's right, per year! It includes 40Gb of storage, and 100Gb monthly bandwidth. So you're looking at a grand total of $22 a year for my own domain, tons of space, and uber internet coolness.

The real reason I've gone and done this (other than being home now and having a lot of time on my hands) is because having an academic website seems like an important thing to have as of late. Many of my math and science peers have similar sites detailing their research accolades and such. I suppose it's like an extended resume, but, since resumes are now sort of considered universally pointless, I instead have a website!

For those folks who are desperate for a hardcopy of something to pretend is a resume, I have included a pdf of my CV. Sure, it may be short now, but just you wait! Someday it'll be 66 pages long like Dr. Kapteyn's (who I'm working for this summer).

3D Math Movie

I finally purchased an iPhone on the internet last week, and as it still hasn't arrived, I've spent a good while downloading cool iTunes apps in anticipation of the joy that will surely be mine when I get my latest toy.

Per my eagerness to play with my new toy, I discovered a neat little program that is a nerd's dream come true. Spacetime 3.0 is a way cool and easy to use math program for the computer and iPhone.

Ok, I know, most of my readers won't care one diddly-squat about a program that most everyone can only use the tiniest fraction of, but I found it terribly fun! (Even though I can't use most of what it does.... yet.)

I found myself endlessly amused by all the little 3D movies of complex (and meaningless) trigonometric functions I made. It was so fun, in fact, I made a YouTube video of my results. Here ya go, enjoy:

Driving Across the Country

A couple weeks ago I drove across the entire United States. Guh. I've "driven" across the country about 12 or 13 times in my life, but none of them actually driving the vehicle. This was my first time driving the entire time.

It was incredibly boring.

Here's the route I took with markings for where I stopped each night. I was in no particular hurry, so took about 4 days to complete the trip from Provo, UT to Las Vegas, NV, and then to Harrisonburg, VA via I-40.

Along the way, I way highly amused by a podcast I discovered called "Stuff You Should Know" from Howstuffworks.com. I recommend it to anyone who has anything resembling a menial or repetitive task. I listened to such gems as:

How face transplants work
How redheads work
How flirting works (very educational)
How Ponzi Schemes work
How deja vue works
10 Bizarre ways to die
Where's the best place on your body to get shot?
How money laundering works
How could a cat scuba dive?

And the best:
Why is it so hard to say 'toy boat' three times fast?

Fascinating, I highly recommend 'em.