Health Care

I think I would rather have no health care bill pass than have the one that is currently out pass. The Stupak-Pitt amendment is ridiculous, and the argument that people who don't support abortion shouldn't have their tax dollars pay for it is specious. There are many things I don't support, such as the dual wars this country is involved in. I still pay taxes, however. If you don't want an abortion, don't get one. It's as simple as that. Additionally, the bill doesn't require insurers to provide birth control. The best way to reduce and prevent abortions, however, is to support the use of birth control. Lastly, and not related to women's health at all, is the requirement that chain restaurants post the calorie count for their food items. This is just too much. If the government wants to reduce obesity in this country, it needs to stop subsidizing corn, which gets turned into high fructose corn syrup and is then put in almost every box of junk food, and start making healthy food more affordable. It's difficult to eat properly when you can't afford fruits and vegetables, but you can buy a hamburger for $0.99. This bill is ridiculous.

Code

One of the big problems in physics is that we all code. That's not really the problem. The problem is that we all use different languages, and we don't anticipate anyone ever looking at what we write. Because of this, when it turns out someone has to actually use your code, they're screwed. We don't comment, and we give variables names like "x" instead of something more descriptive. It leads to a lot of pain and suffering among graduate students. I can't say that I don't do this either, but I like to think that my minimally descriptive comments are better than most people's nonexistent comments. When I took CS at Pomona, they would grade us on our comments, so it became ingrained. When I stopped having to do so, I stopped doing it at much, but I think I still comment way more than anyone I know.