{"id":237,"date":"2007-05-08T13:54:17","date_gmt":"2007-05-08T21:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=237"},"modified":"2007-05-08T13:54:17","modified_gmt":"2007-05-08T21:54:17","slug":"five-reasons-why-i-was-in-a-good-mood-yesterday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=237","title":{"rendered":"Five reasons why I was in a good mood yesterday"},"content":{"rendered":"
    \n
  1. I went on my first hot-air balloon ride (click here for photos<\/a>). We landed in a Mennonite farm a half hour’s drive from Waterloo. Seven kids came out of the farmhouse to greet us, wearing caps and bonnets. These were the best-behaved kids I had ever seen in my life: they literally walked in formation, and only the oldest one spoke to us, the other six remaining silent. Having a balloon land on their farm was not at all a new experience for them.<\/li>\n
  2. I saw this xkcd cartoon<\/a>, which succinctly captures a point that I’ve been trying to make for the last fifteen years, in arguments against conspiracy-mongers and other associated doofiati.<\/li>\n
  3. I read Elizabeth Kolbert’s New Yorker<\/em> article<\/a> about the Large Hadron Collider and the future of particle physics. I hereby nominate her for a Pulitzer; this is one of the best popular science articles I’ve ever read.<\/li>\n
  4. I saw Spider-Man 3<\/a>, a profound philosophical drama that spoke to me on numerous levels. It is indeed true that with great power comes great responsibility; that we all have the capacity for good; and that, if we wish to vanquish the evil without, then we must first confront the arrogance within. My one complaint is that the Sandman was not a particularly effective villain. Let’s face it: sand just isn’t scary.<\/li>\n
  5. I got a job offer from MIT<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    [Note:<\/strong><\/font> To clear up any confusion, I’m now lucky enough to have several great offers, and have not<\/em> yet decided where I’m going, even unofficially.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I went on my first hot-air balloon ride (click here for photos). We landed in a Mennonite farm a half hour’s drive from Waterloo. Seven kids came out of the farmhouse to greet us, wearing caps and bonnets. These were the best-behaved kids I had ever seen in my life: they literally walked in formation, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventures-in-meatspace","category-procrastination"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}