{"id":1532,"date":"2012-03-16T20:38:58","date_gmt":"2012-03-17T01:38:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/?p=1532"},"modified":"2012-03-16T20:51:16","modified_gmt":"2012-03-17T01:51:16","slug":"updates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/2012\/03\/16\/updates\/","title":{"rendered":"Updates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Update #1:<\/strong> I had my first book signing at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln book store, where 10 copies of my book were graciously ordered.<\/p>\n

\"book<\/a><\/p>\n

I had a lot of fun and talked for a couple hours to some really nice people. All three of them, though, were employees in the book store. Ah, well, I\u2019ve often said that I would give a seminar on my science work to a single interested person. So why not a Q & A about Welcome Home, Sir<\/em><\/a>?<\/p>\n

Update #2:<\/strong> Well I\u2019ve now owned my iPhone for several weeks. After a bit of a learning curve, especially regarding how the various emails link together,\u00a0 and after downloading a variety of applications that were already part of my old BlackBerry\u2014I admit that this thing is a cut above the BB. In every way except one, and that\u2019s the ability to type quickly.<\/p>\n

Now I admit that the iPhone does have a pretty smart auto-correct program that frequently anticipates words and can really save typing time; at the same time I found that it\u2019s easy to get into trouble. Writing to a female researcher and saying \u201cI\u2019d like to see the way you work with those \u201cTHONGS\u201d (rather than \u201cTHINGS\u201d) and I\u2019m up the creek without a paddle. Or I may have to use the iPhone to paddle\u2026<\/p>\n

So emboldened by my appreciation of the new technology, I set out to explore the famous APPs that I have been hearing so much about. In fact, I remembered some time ago on Cath\u2019s blog<\/a>, reading about various humorous applications to measure productivity, and Henry describing how he \u201cwiped the floor\u201d at scrabble.<\/p>\n

Well searching for myself, I was immediately able to download a program called \u201cMolecules<\/strong>,\u201d which I believe that Stephen Curry discussed at one point. Pretty fascinating to be able to carry with me a little 3-dimensional image that can be rotated at any angle to show off the protein domain whose structure I helped solve a couple years ago.<\/p>\n

Among these applications I came across a little program called “Cal Concentration<\/strong>.” In this APP, the researcher need only type in the concentration desired (for example 50 mM), the molecular weight of the solute (let\u2019s say 121 for Tris) and the target volume (let\u2019s say 500 ml)\u2014and lo and behold the thing spits out the following:\u00a0 Dissolve 3.025 g of solute into the solvent and make up the final volume to 500 ml<\/strong><\/em>. Similarly, the APP will calculate mass-volume percentages and volume-volume percentages just as easily.<\/p>\n

Wonderful?! I suppose. Planes fly on auto-pilot and the pilots can still land on their own if necessary. At least I hope that\u2019s true. How long will it be until such basic calculations are no longer done manually? Will this lead to advanced thinking and greater calculations? Or will students and researchers stagnate and no longer be able to function without a smart-phone in their pockets?<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to be optimistic\u2014after all, one can\u2019t stop technology. One needs to \u201cgo with the flow.\u201d But I think only time will tell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Update #1: I had my first book signing at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln book store, where 10 copies of my book were graciously ordered. I had a lot of fun and talked for a couple hours to some … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,91,50],"tags":[636,70,43,635,633,45,634],"class_list":["post-1532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humor","category-research","category-science","tag-apps","tag-author","tag-book-signing","tag-calculations","tag-solitaire","tag-students","tag-thinking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}