Sunday, October 15, 2006

I just stumbled across this posting which I wrote waaaay back in February, but which I, apparently, never got around to posting.

I know that I often bitch about UBC, but there really are some super cool things going on here. I was thinking about this not too long ago when I went to the lecture given by Stephen Lewis. The Speaker Series is run by two profs -- David Ng from Advanced Molecular Biology Lab and Allen Sens from the Department of Political Science and the International Relations Program. I don't know Allen Sens, but I took a molecular biology class taught by David and have worked with him on other things as well, and he's a pretty cool guy. He has big ideas about things he can do to make UBC a better place to work and learn. And he doesn't just talk -- he really makes things happen! And I've heard the same thing said about Dr. Sens. Anyway, as I watched David & Allen Sens talk about this Speaker Series before Stephen Lewis talk, specifically about their interest in getting the arts and the sciences to actually work together on things, it reminded me that there are lots good people at UBC doing lots of good things. And while I may bitch about administrative decisions or the endless bureaucracy, I really should keep in mind that there are some cool people doing cool things here.

Here's one example of something that I think is really cool:



A group of physicists at UBC wrote out the letters "UBC" in carbon monoxide molecules. That's right, those yellow things in the photo are molecules of carbon monoxide! Each letter is only 2 nanometers wide. I think that is friggin' cool.

Wow. I can't believe I just wrote a post where I didn't complain about something. I promise to get back to my regularly scheduled flippancy in my next offering.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That entry was like a time capsule. It's like finding out how Cro-Magnon man lived!

Anonymous said...

If you're looking for something to bitch about, I've got a list about a mile long.

Anonymous said...

Cool?

Or nerdy?