On the sidebar here, you will see a section called Recommended Reading, which is really a link to my shared items on Google Reader, updated almost daily with interesting things from all over the internet. Google Reader is quite useful to dog-ear and share articles and as a magazine customized for me. Happy reading.

The American Geophysical Union’s blog interviewed a number of physical scientists on why scientists should use Twitter. My response reflects two important requirements I have of science: that it is increasingly inter-disciplinary and shares findings with the public as much as possible.

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OffBeat Magazine: Treme Bloggers – Ray Shea and I were part of an hour-long roundtable discussion convened by Alex Rawls on the topic of HBO’s Treme. I liked this exchange in particular.

Me: “… Sometimes it worked because I’m partial to bounce, but other times I felt like it was kind of forced. Okay, now we’re gonna have two minutes of ass-shaking.”

Ray: “I had no problem with that.”

Players vote unanimously to approve deal with owners to end NFL lockout.

Let the unrestricted free agency rodeo begin!

I’m currently reading two books. (I probably do this in keeping with my Vatul nature; consider it an offering to my ancestors, if you will.) They are Bob Woodward’s Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi and Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie.

The books have nothing to do with one another and I picked each up for completely different reasons, but there are a couple of questions that both books bring up.

1) Is addiction a personality trait? I understand addiction as various things –  habit gone bad, a genetic predisposition and certainly as a disease – but is addiction / can addiction become a part of you such that it is something to describe you? Think about that question for a second. See, I view John Belushi as a great actor and an addict, neither which are necessarily part of his personality. I am trying to get at the distinction (or lack thereof) between what you are and what you do. If you think I am going about this the wrong way, read Question 2.

2) In his foreword to the 25th anniversary edition of Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie remarks, “I have treated my writing simply as a job to be done, refusing myself all (well, most) luxuries of artistic temperament.” Easy for him to say when he is a great writer who came gifted with the tools. Just like it’s easy for me to treat exploration geophysics as a job when I come with the necessary geological knowledge and technical abilities. But, how can Rushdie treat something as a job to be done that is such a part of him? Again, how do you plot that line between what you are and what you do?

I’m reminded of some of Mark Folse’s odd words, “Passion and discipline are two names for the same thing, aspects of the same cruel and delightful god that drove men to go to extraordinary lengths to plant a flag on the moon and to write Moby Dick.”

And Frank Sinatra, “Do Be Do Be Do.”

Update: Scientific American asks and answers similar questions this week. “… the link is not between creativity and addiction per se. There is a link between addiction and things which are a prerequisite for creativity … You don’t become addicted because you feel pleasure strongly. On the contrary, addicts seem to want it more but like it less.”