I am a physicist - not just by education and experience, but by inclination too. I am curious about most things, and love to learn from anyone willing to share. I believe that at our best people are amazing, and at our worst, horrifying. Nonetheless, I can not resist always being optimistic. That is as close as I get to being religious, unless you count friendship as a religion. Friends are my greatest source of fun and satisfaction. I joined OkCupid hoping to find new friends to dine and talk with. I am married, so just dining and talking.

1. I am trying to earn my pay as an engineering manager. It is not always easy, but I like my job because it helps people and creates tangible value. That said, it is still more of a necessity than a passion.
2. I am trying to find ways to burn the same calories I use to burn playing 7-10 hours of racquetball each week. Currently I am running about an hour a day in the woods. I love the Northwest woods, but hate running in the rain.
3. I am also trying to reduce my backlog of unread books. This is a big problem - I have no willpower when a book calls my name.

Challenging smug nonsense. Smug is the operative word here, not nonsense. We all believe in some nonsense, but a few people seem to believe they have a privileged access to the truth. Newsworthy politicians and CEOs come to mind, and they need to be challenged.

Enthusiasm. I believe the world can be:
Enshrouded, exotic, erratic, elusive, expectant;
Enchanting, enticing, entrancing, erotic, enthralling;
Entrusting, encircling, enfolding, embracing, ensouling;
Enascent, enduring, e’erliving, eternal, exultant.

I love any book that makes me think. I like movies with happy endings. I like most music (except when so loud as to give one a headache,) because I lack all such talents. I love all foods when prepared well and taken with good company.

In alphabetical order: Art, Books, Exercise, Family, Freedom, Friends, Kindness, Nature, Reason, and Restaurants. I know this is ten things, but I can never do without breaking rules either.

In reverse alphabetical order:
1. Sustainable development (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_development) - How can I help?
2. Origins of life - Can autocatalyses explain the prebiotic-biotic complexity gap, and if so, are prebiological membranes necessary?
3. How the human brain works - Is a chemical computer a productive metaphor?
4. Emergence of space, time, particles and physical laws - Are fundamental particles like my computer cursor, seeming real but just a continuity of patterns on a stationary substrate?
5. Cultural and historical principles - Is culture and history more about cooperation and competition among people or ideologies?

Most Friday nights I go to a restaurant and a movie. I would like expand this to include the theater, opera and symphony.

If it is hip, I am most likely in the dark about it. This is not all bad. I avoid fads, and more lasting things tend to bounce around until they eventually find me.

You are interested in dinner and conversation. I am still married, so still just dinner and conversation.

Oh no; OkCupid wants me to double my portfolio’s word count, and I was trying so hard to keep it crisp. Perhaps if I add all these extra words here at the end, no one will notice. Well, not quite; you’re noticing. Why? Maybe you are wondering if I can really hold up my end of a fascinating conversation. I would like to think so. I tend to follow the flow of what causes what, and why. That has a certain analytical ring, and it can be. The items I listed under “I spend a lot of time thinking about” are in biochemistry, environmentalism, macroeconomics, theoretical physics and sociology. Those are technical sounding subjects, but causality ranges much more broadly. For example, I would love to know how an oil painter uses brush strokes to convey different perceptions. Do you know? Or more relevant to this forum, how can one make their portfolio sexy; word-image associations to be sure, but how about conscientious-limbic brain links? What the hell does that mean? I don’t know exactly, and that is why it might be interesting to discuss. It was prompted by a thought about how humor can stimulate dopamine.

Okay, that does it; I give up. “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” --- Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg, November 19, 1863.