Short But Hilarious

Nothing big to discuss or rant about this time, I just wanted to show everyone the greatest opening to a show ever. It's from season three of The Office, and it is amazing. Here you go.

Tsunami on the sun...

One of the coolest science pictures of the year is a picture (or a slideshow) of a shockwave of magnetic fields caused by a solar flare. Basically ionized atoms (atoms stripped of some of their electrons by the heat of the sun, making them positively charged, AKA having more protons than electrons) are susceptible to magnetic fields due to their charge; the fields are coupled with the matter in a sense that the fields push along the ionized gas, which the field lines follow in turn. As all the explosions and such happen on the surface of the sun, the field lines become all discombobulated; when this happens the fields put a lot of energy into a relatively small amount of space. There's the chance then for the lines to reconnect and correct themselves in a rather catastrophic event: a solar flare. This short video is of the solar flare and the shockwave aftermath that you see as a fuzzy white line going arcsoss the suns surface: http://www.nso.edu/press/tsunami/tsunami_ospan.mov (for some reason the hyperlink option isn't coming up on the create blog page so there ya go).



Next is something even cooler and less known: the evidence that there is dark matter. I'm not going to try and explain the fundamentals of dark matter to you because a. I would end up writing a book and b. some of the stuff is confusing as hell, to me as well as to you. wiki it if you want. But I digress, dark matter was theorized about because of the results of reactions, planetery and otherwise, that don't work like they should if the only matter that existed was the stuff that we could see. Scientists figured out that dark matter and regular matter can effect each other through gravity, though physically they can pass right through eachother. Because dark and light matter both have 'mass' they both can distort light waves, causing disruptions that bend light, which can be captured in a technique called gravitational lensing.

Now for the specifics: there were two colliding galaxy clusters (collectively called the bullet cluster) that the scientists found. Galaxy clusters have quite a bit of rarefied gas floating within them, which should hit each other and come to a stop. Now if dark matter exists, then it should pass right through and keep on going, moving past the galaxies as they collide, creating a distortion in the light due to the gravity it still creates. And viola! they took a gravitational lens photograph of it, enhanced the colors to make it all pretty for us, and here's the proof of dark matter:

Year of the Fluorescent Green Pig, and other conundrums

Well as we come into this 2007, the Chinese have injected pig embryos with jellyfish proteins that produce a green flourescence on the tongue and other membranes of the grown pig, Gerald Ford and Saddam are dead, Jimmy Carter and Abe Vigoda are still alive, and I just got a MacBook. The world has gone topsy turvy.

And now for something completely different...

A few of my friends from StL were just visiting (they actually walked out the door a few minutes ago) and commented amusingly on the fact that the closet geek side of me is in love with Star Trek: The Next Generation. Now sure, they laugh, you laugh (heck sometimes I laugh), but I think that while it is a cheesy Sci Fi show, it's also a sense of optimism for the future. While the nation is still obsessed with Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, and American Idol, Star Trek (especially TNG) is a show that doesn't take humanity as the executives at ABC think we are, a species going down the tubes culturally and physically, but as a hope for what we can become if man kind isn't Manichean at heart. It shows an idealistic future, sure, but I think it's something that we can attain. I'm not speaking to the technology and the space travel as much as the disposition and perspicacity of the characters on the show. Every character is not only intelligent and well spoken, but they have a sense of duty and honesty and gravitas about them. Sure the circumstances of living on a star ship several hundred years from now is a bit different, but the human abstracts are the same: we could all be a bit nicer, read a bit more, and just try to be better people rather than buying a People magazine and wondering who's baby Britney is having this year.

I think prime time TV can be broken into to sets of shows, those that promote the good in man, and those that extort us with the bad. While I'm not saying that it's a travesty that you like Desparate Housewives, Next Top Model, or whatever, they're just wasting your time with fake relationships without teaching you anything or giving any better sense of purpose. I'd rather watch something that makes me feel like I should try to donate money or volunteer, that I should help that old lady across the street or the guy stuck on the side of the road with the flat tire, like Star Trek, The West Wing, or Smallville. Of course those still have their relationship sub plots and things to hook people, but they also try to give the audience something to take with them, something of a role model character that you not only like to watch but genuinely respect and would like to be more like.

But enough with my ranting, I want to wish everyone a happy new year and Nativity, and God bless.

This is just awesome...

Looking on Wikipedia, under Frank Haig, one of Loyola's Jesuit physics professors, you'll be directed to a page on Alexander Haig, his brother. It turns out his brother was:

• Supreme Allied Commander of NATO
• Chief of Staff for Nixon and Ford
• Secretary of State for Reagan
• Suspected of conspiring with Nixon to assassinate Spiro Agnew if he didn't resign from the vice presidency
• Suspected (until last year of course) of being Deepthroat

He also was quoted with:

• I'm in control here - after Reagan was shot he told reporters that he was in charge until he could get in contact with the vice president.
• Being fervently anti-communist, he remarked to Reagan (referring to Cuba): Just give me the word and I'll turn that f***ing island into a parking lot!

Seems like he and his brother took slightly separate paths growing up.

Got a fetish for horny manatees?

On Conan Monday night was his usual mascot skit where they make up amusing mascots for NCAA teams; this time, however, he ad-libed a line about the 'FSU Web-cam Manatee,' saying you could find it at HornyManatee.com. Little did Conan know that when you say the name of an unused website on air, you have to buy it. So for $159 NBC now owns HornyManatee.com, and Conan has set up a website from it. Here's the story behind it, and here's the website.
Nicee.

Abandon All Hope, Yea Who Enter Here...

I'm reading Dante's Inferno for the second time (this one's for philosophy class however), and while the poem was great the first time around, this time, reading it from a philosophical perspective is giving it a very different meaning. The whole of the Divine Comedy is one of the old texts that you can read from various background, i.e.: politics, religion, philosophy, etc. I know there's a word for something that you can see from different views, but for the life of me I can't remember what it is. The first time I read it as a straight text about Dante going through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, but this time its a much different read when thinking about all the different punishments philosophically, about the way Dante thinks God punishes and loves, and what is involved with salvation (or damnation). My usual favorite scene was when, after Dante kicked and argued with a sinner in the final part of the ninth circle, another sinner turns to the first and (at least in this translation) goes "What the hell is wrong with you?" Oh, the irony.

But on to more random (which often means better) things.

• If you are one of the many people with a wide screen display and are always mad when the wallpapers you want to download aren't in your size, I've been using a great site, found here, that has hundreds of fantastic photography in wide screen formats.
• Found on Wil Weatons blog, a beautiful sunset shot - taken on Mars - for your background.
• Has anyone actually seen anything but a #2 pencil? Everything always says use a number two pencil, but unless you shop at an art store specifically for something other than a #2, you're never going to see one. And yet on any test or form it's always a #2. I just want to have a good explanation as to what the shortcomings of the number one pencil are, and why (since it's number one) it's not used.
• For tomorrow morning at 11, Go Arsenal.
• For Monday night, Go Bears.
• For all those other times, Go go gadget car.
  

thanksgiving break and more amusing things on the web.

hanksgiving break again fulfilled its obligation as my favorite holiday, beating out Kawanzaa by a bowl full of stuffing. We ventured up to my Aunt's in Grand Rapids (AKA Bland Crapids), Michigan with my father's side of the family, accompanied by my brothers girlfriend. Much 'russianness' was done, i.e. drinking a lot and making fools of ourselves. The regular jokes came up, like Nick and Alec smearing a hot pepper on my lips in the middle of the night some 8 years ago and other such novelty stories.
This year lamb was our mystery meat of choice, as every year we pick a non-poultry based meat to supplement (or if it's good enough, supplant) the annual oven cooked and deep fried turkeys. The turnout was less than expected, 18 people instead of the 23 that we could have had (which would have been our largest crowd ever). We were also lucky enough to see my 5 year old chubby cousin Matthew dress up in his batman costume (too small and high waisted for him) and run around the house fighting off imaginary Jokers from the rest of the family, who were nothing but scared and frightful Gothamites to him. His throwing arm also seems to be coming along nicely, and Nick and I have high hopes for him to both be a starting pitcher for the A's in 17 years and hit us in the groin with a tennis ball in the next two months. My friend from camp, Mary Gilstrap, just got married to her fiance Larry Sloan, and I would just like to congratulate them again and laugh for the umpteenth time at the fact that their names rhyme (although Larry's Orthodox name is Lawrence I think so I might be out of luck). Oh, and Ashley, happy 21st.
Now for the amusing web things. Two small ones, one of which is on the blog at the moment: the new amusing picture of the month - Pope Benedict as a Sith Lord. If you're reading this RSS'ed on Facebook, here is the link. The other is the Nietzche Family Circus, shown to me by my dear Shurik. It pairs a random Nietzche quote with a random family circus cartoon, which often turns out to be quite the hilarity. My favorite is this one, just hit the refresh button to get a new one.
I just hope Matthew doesn't start to like Wonder Woman.

ABC, what have you done?

In an ABC commercial for "Show Me the Money," which is hosted by his grace William Shatner, the show was described as, no joke, Shat-tastic and Shat-rageous. Honestly, does no one at ABC realize what shat also means? Shat-tastic? Come on. If I wanted to be described using one adjective, the last two portmanteaus I would choose would be shat-tastic and shat-rageous. Whichever ad executive came up with that idea should be either fired or shot by Shatner himself.

Collection of Amusing Things

School is finally starting to require some work, so I haven't had much time to post. To liven our spirits I've stumbled upon some rather funny things from Time magazine and break.com. With out further adieu, the list:

1. What better to spend lots of money on than a robot that has built in spectrophotometers and infrared sensors to chemically analyze a bottle of wine, determine its brand and type, and suggest the best possible complimentary cheese.
It's called the Sauvingnon Bot, and I think I'm going to get it for my dad for Christmas if it doesn't cost upwards of 200 dollars.

2. Google Tricks:

• Type in 'miserable failure' and click 'I'm feeling lucky.' See where it takes you.
• Type in 'the answer to life the universe and everything' and the google calculator has it equalling 42.
• Type in 'worst band in the world' and google asks: did you mean 'creed?'
• Type in 'french military victories' and google asks: did you mean 'french military defeats?'
• Type in 'waffles' and the first search result is the John Kerry Official Website.
• Type in 'elgoog' (google backwards) and hit 'I'm feeling lucky.' See what happens.

I hope these amused you as much as they did me.

Just a small note.

While reading CNN in my spare time, I stumbled on the fact that Neil Patrick Harris, star of 'Doogie Howser, MD' and the new 'How I met Your Mother' on CBS, is gay. I have nothing against that or him, I just have a question: have you ever seen the movie 'Harold and Kumar go to White Castle'? If you have you can recall the scene where he is driving in Harold's car with several topless women and a few forties. This just makes the movie that much more amusing.

One more thing that we have to worry about in making Afghanistan a happy democracy

On the coalitions path to freeing Afghanistan from the random Taliban fighters scattered across the country, they've run into a snag more often associated with Columbia or the US for that matter. They're battling marijuana. Seems before they can even get a stable congress established we're already forcing the war on drugs issue, right?

Well maybe not: the Canadian troops are having a hard time finding the stragglers of the regime when they hide in the forests of ten foot tall marijuana, making them unable to track visually and otherwise. An unusual property of marijuana is that it absorbs large amounts of ambient energy from the surroundings, making the plants a great help for escaping detection from thermal tracking devices.

How did the Canadians try to get through the plants? They tried to burn them. Yeah, I know, burning marijuana in the middle of a battle is probably not the smartest thing to do - but hey, they're freakin Mounties, give them a break. After realizing the plants were too full of water to even burn, which turned out to be lucky for them or else they would have been high with Afghanis shooting at them, they just gave up. Several soldiers commented on how this was the first time they associated marijuana with frustration.

Oh and some Taliban fighters were found with marijuana camouflaging themselves and their car. Cheech and Chong would have been proud.

That was way too close.

If it was two feet to the right......but wait, it wasn't. Bears win 24-23.

Before the Bears game...

Just a few qubits of odd news and whatever else I deem necessary to waste your time before the Bears come on MNF to reduce the Cardinals to a puff of feathers.

As far as science goes, the Russians have beaten both us and themselves to confirm a new element and become the home of the undisputed chess champion. Ununoctium (Uuo, A#: 118) was confirmed synthesized by an institute in Dubna, after longtime dispute over its creation when Berkeley scientists fabricated data. The Russians were confirmed by scientists in California when both used collisions of Calcium and Californium to make the new atom - for a half life of .89 ms.
Otherwise, the Russians beat themselves at chess, with Vladimir Kramnik beating Veselin Topalov to become the first undisputed chess champion in fourteen years. Now lets see if he can beat IBM's next line of computers...

But until next time (and because I heard the geeky chants of Ivy League football teams) here's a little something:

E to the U, dU dX, E to the X, dX
Cosine, Secant, Tangent, Sine!
3 point 1 4 1 5 9!
Integral, Radical, Mu, dV!
Slip stick, slide rule, MIT!

The Gauntlet

Sorry for the lack of posting, college has made me do nothing but look at molecules and equations for the past several days, not that it isn't fun for me in some sick and twisted way. But before I greet the weekend with a Guiness and a smile I have a few interesting tidbits to share with y'all.

While figuring out how to draw 4 tert-butyl 2,3 dimethylcyclopentane I found a pretty cool molecule (along with some funny named ones like houseane and windowpane) - HSbF6 (subscript on the 6). This, ladies and gentlemen, is the formula for the strongest acid ever discovered. Nicknamed 'magic acid,' or fluoroantimonic acid, it is 2000 times stronger than 100% sulfuric acid. Because it has the ability to dissolve just about anything, you have to make it in all teflon containers because it would dissolve the regular pyrex glass beakers and flasks that are used in lab. That's just cool.

Also, the IgNobels came out this week, basically the Nobel Prizes version of the Darwin Awards but sadly, no stupid people die. The two best winners are the prizes for Peace and Medicine, where a British scientist invented a device that emits a high frequency noise that annoys teenagers (like the hum that comes out of your TV - the condition where you can't hear it is called prebycusis), and two teams of doctors coming out with the same study - titled 'Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage.' You've got to love useless science.

Hasta luego.

Just because bullets aren't fast enough...

In the usual fashion, some American has decided that, you know, bullets aren't going fast enough to get into LEO (low earth orbit) yet, why don't I spend a few years and build something that can either shoot satellites into orbit or shoot them down.

The 'Jules Verne Gun,' named after the author who first thought of making a gun that could shoot to the moon, is happening - kind of. When completed, the 155 ft. launch tube will be an alternative to rocket launched satellites, costing only a twentieth of what it takes to launch a LEO rocket. One of the drawbacks is that whatever you plan to launch in the JV gun has to be able to withstand 1000 g's (your car's maximum forward acceleration is probably somewhere between .4 and .6 of a g, .8 g's if you own a supercar, and 1 g if you own a Bugatti Veryon or Chrysler ME 4-12) and some crazy ass heat from the friction it will make when coming out of the tube - at a minimum speed of 4.35 miles per second (meaning at least 15,660 mph or a bit under mach 21). To get your mass to these speeds the JV gun uses a methane mix, shoving a 1 ton piston fast enough to compress the gas it uses to 60,000 psi. Damn.

As per the RONCO commercials - 'but wait, there's more.' While it takes 4.35 miles per second to get your object into LEO, the JV gun doesn't stop there. While it hasn't been tested at these speeds, the creators say the models (which have been accurate thusfar) indicate the gun can easily withstand over 5 miles per second, and with a small payload it could probably make it into the upper sevens. As long as the railguns don't get over there huge energy vacuum and metal scoring issues, it seems the JV gun is America's newest addition to our favorite cliche - bigger (in this case faster) is always better.