Hello, my name is Jeff. I have been doomed to carry a name in common with a famous guitar player of the 60’s and 70’s. I am mostly a lurker on this BBS, having only posted a handful of times since I started visiting back in 1999. I am 33. I have been married for seven years to an amazing woman that is currently in her medical residency after having ditched her former, very successful, career as a TV journalist in Japan. We have a daughter, Sayo, who is two. We reside in Columbia, MD. I am currently employed in the defense industry writing manuals and creating curricula for the operation of certain weapon systems. I was formerly employed as a public high school English teacher, which I left after five years of toiling against a miserable system that claims to put the welfare of children first (funny that I should end up in the defense industry). I am very bitter about this, considering that I always listed “teacher” as my second career choice. What was my first? Husband/father, which always made my teachers roll their eyes when I had to write those, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” essays from grade school. I am an avid reader and devour just about any written material I can get my hands on. I collect rare and first edition books, religious and philosophy texts, pulp science fiction novels, and comic books. I love music of all varieties, although I would say my tastes reside more in the “classic” punk and experimental genres. I am also quite passionate about collecting and watching films, following the catalogs of various producers and directors. I am originally from a small town outside Buffalo, NY called East Aurora. For those of you familiar with the Arts and Crafts movement of the early 20th century this was the location of the famous commune started by Elbert Hubbard called The Roycroft. It is also the birthplace of Fisher Price Toys (the town refers to itself as “Toy Town, USA”). I was raised in a small, extended family by my parents and grandparents (who lived in the carriage house on our property) in the same home my father was raised in. I have one older brother who in many ways is my diametric opposite, although I love him to death. My mother is an immigrant from Germany so we often engaged in traditions and ate food that many of the small town folks I grew up with thought were pretty bizarre. Now my reason for being here (as on this BBS, not the question of the ages) - I was a very sickly child growing up and spent a lot of time in bed, which was directly responsible for my love of literature, Sci-fi, and Trek in particular. One of my earliest memories is puking into an old pot that I carried around when I was sick while trying not to miss a minute of The Trouble with Tribbles, which I was viewing for the first time. I was hooked before I even had a chance to protest. While my most of my cohorts at school talked about peewee hockey or football, I was trying to start a conversation about an episode of the Twilight Zone or how Captain Kirk dealt with Kor. You get the picture. It was like being the boy named Sue. Unfortunately, this was to be the way of my childhood through teenage years – but that’s ok, I’m not bitter at all. Oh no, not at all, “Because I am smart enough, good looking enough, and darn it, people like me . . . “ Now my reason for being here in the Science and Technology area – I have been interested in science for as long as I can remember, particularly cosmology and evolutionary biology. I think this interest really blossomed when Cosmos was first aired in the late seventies on PBS. From this interest my interests in other areas of science grew as well and, strangely enough, also fed my love of history and comparative religion (it may seem like a weird combination, but it is amazing how it is all connected). I have enjoyed many of the threads that were up when this area was still a part of the Trek Tech area and I look forward to more lively and stimulating discussions. Ok, see? This is why I do not post with any frequency. I have a tendency to ramble and be long winded. Sorry. I found this strangely therapeutic. Many thanks for reading my blurb.
^^ I think you should post more often. Ramble on! -------------------- Large In Time; Spoken Word; The RH Factor; Gee whiz!
Well, I'll take a minute to tell you about me. I have a B.S. in Molecular Biology, a M.S. in Zoology, and I am now nearing the end of a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. My current research is trying to understand how a particular cell type makes cell fate decisions during embryonic development. I am focusing on a couple of transcription factors and trying to understand how they are regulated to turn on and off other genes responsible for making the cell adopt a particular fate. So, I guess as far as science knowledge and experience goes, I have rather extensive experience in molecular biology and a little less in vertebrate development. I have an interest in other fields of science, but certainly not the same level of experience and knowledge.
All right, I'll bite--being biographical could be fun! (Warning: like ex nihilo, I am known to ramble. Proceed at your own risk.) Hmm. Being biographical is hard. There's a lot to say. Well, we'll start in the beginning. I was born in 1986 (along with my twin sister) in a hospital in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where I lived for four years. After a stint in Minnesota my family settled in Indianapolis, Indiana, when I was seven, where I resided until I left for university. I am currently a freshman at Indiana University. It was not my first choice, but in retrospect I think it was the best one. Since I am a freshman I lack all those shiny credentials that you lot do, so you don't have to take me seriously. I am majoring in Psychology (my primary interests being cognition and neuroscience) as well as International Studies (my regional concentration will probably be the Mid East or S. Asia) and Cognitive Science. I'm also minoring in Biology and attempting to be a dilettante in all the sciences (otherwise known as a pre-med student--required to take a year each of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Organic Chemistry). It's, er, fun. I'm also trying to remain a well-rounded person by taking some literature, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, and languages (esp. French, but also Hindi). I grew up reading many books, and I loved reading a great deal; I was probably influenced to a large extent by my father's example. I read mostly fantasy and some sci-fi. I don't read as much now, what with classes and all, but I do try to fit in what I can, mostly by reading articles on the internet, browsing Wikipedia (damn that's fun!), and reading Misc. (digital crack, I tell you!). Musically, I was a late bloomer, probably because I spent so much time reading. I was always a SW fan, though, and thus John William's score led to my interest in other film scores as well as a bit of (Western) classical. My father also got me hooked on The Beatles. Then a few years ago my sister bought me a Belle & Sebastian CD, and my life was changed forever as I was introduced to the world of modern music. Having grown up thinking that modern music was limited rap and R&B, this "other" world of modern music (mostly indie music) was quite a shock. My interest in music is quite strong, and I am currently exploring the merits of the post-punk revival. Well, I suppose that's all I can think of to say for now. This is actually quite fun. Thank you all for listening...or reading...or not reading, as the case may be! Goodnight.
^^^ Same here. I'm not really a big science & technology enthusiast, though I enjoyed a few of my science classes from elementary through college. I like reading National Geographic and Smithsonian magazines. I also have a few BBC DVD documentaries ("Walking with ..." series). Astronomy and paleontology were two of my main interests when I was younger.
Hi everyone! I decided to drop in here today, and it seems I may be dropping in a lot more, so I'll introduce myself. I'm not an expert in science or technology by any stretch of the word, but I am interested in a number of scientific things. I'm a college freshman, and I'll probably be reading lots of things having to do with science/technology over the next few years, and it'll be fun to be able to discuss things with all of you.
I'm a baby, just out of college, working in Chicago as a graphic designer. I love making anything in Photoshop/HTML/Flash and as far as other hobbies go, I'm a 100% Dreamcast fanatic and enjoy all gadgets and gizmos. Hmmm, what do I contribute to TrekBBS? Biased opinions, long rants and an appetite for intense debate!
I AM HERE MAINLY TO LEARN ABOUT YOUR WAYS AND THE FAMOUS BOARD THAT EXISTS HERE. I SNACK A LOT AND THIS FORUM MAY HELP. THANK YOU
Hey, FLATBED_SKAN, welcome. I love original usernames, and yours truly is one of them. So, now please use proper case when writing your posts. Uppercasing everything is considered screaming and therefore not recommended Are you from Scandinavia?
Since I seem to be hanging out here quite a bit, I figured I ought to be polite and introduce myself! Ex-computer-programmer current stay at home mom, recently immigrated to Canada from Ireland. No scientific qualifications whatsoever, unless you count an A-level in maths. But I'm fascinated by science, especially cryptography, space exploration and viruses (the human kind, not computers). Hi all! *waves cheerily*
My public LCARS GUI project already has some science apps, and the development version generates schematics, using its own specialized markup language. So some tidbits of information I find on TrekBBS, not only related to Star Trek but also to science in general, end up contributing to its content. I always keep my eyes open for the unexpected discovery or just something that gives up a good idea. Sometimes it's just finding out that I had some small detail wrong. Before joining, I had heard the term chat room but didn't really know what an Internet forum was. I did some searching to see if there were any related to Star Trek, found some dead ones, then read about TrekBBS on Wikipedia, actually, and looked around quite a bit before actually joining and making my first post. My contribution to the board overall is small, since I rarely watch TV (Trek is an exception), but I do like to at least look in on the Science and Technology board, now that there is one.
WOOT! Name is Elizabeth and my husband and I torment a rather large plastic food-packaging operation in Upstate New York somewhere. I have a Masters in Engineering and he is "almost" done with his PhD in Polymers. I'm a major trek-fan... in fact when I moved from Ireland to the USA one of the greatest things I discovered about America was not freedom or other wank like that but STAR TREK NOVELS! In fact that's how I met my husband... I saw him sitting there reading one and I went up to him and asked him where he got it and if there were more. Hobby-wise I raise plecostomus catfish, I build models, and take care of a giant cranky steam-engine. I also torment people online, and take the piss out of nOObs when it comes to any issue related to nuclear power.
Now, why would you read that? -Everyone knows that they aren't very good and only a handful or two of them are well written... Anyway, I suppose they are all we have left -for the time being- and I must say that I rather enjoy the Trek audio books myself (even if they are baaaad) _dane
^Your opinion is duly noted, _dane. Welcome aboard, FoamQueen, and if you're an avid reader of Trek books, you might want to drop into the TrekLit forum just above us here.
Well there are a few good ones out there... But not that many. A few of the ones between #30 and #60 were good.
^There are that many Anyway, I'm in the second chapter of Vulcan's Forge as read by Leonard Nimoy -good stuff! _dane