| Comics! |
[Apr. 6th, 2009|09:58 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | random, science | ] |
| [ | coordinates |
| | Berkeley | ] |
| [ | audio signal |
| | "All Along the Watchtower" -- Bear McCreary | ] |
So I've been posting with increasing regularity on my "official blog", mostly because, well, I've been posting "pertinent" stuff there -- news, science stuff, etc, and not so much personal stuff anywhere. I suppose my personal life has been a combination of routine and bursts of not-so-pleasant, meaning poor LJ-fodder.
However, Natasha pointed out that my latest entry on my real blog about the "Stick Figure Science" competition would actually make pretty decent LJ-material. I encourage anyone that's interested in either drawing comics in any way or interested in science in any way to take a crack at it. I mean, it'll be fun, something cool to share among us, and hey, won't it be snazzy if your comic ends up being used by the NCSE? The idea is by forcing everyone to do stick figures, it should put everyone on fairly even footing.
More details, etc, are at the blog link above (including a PDF of the comic -- it was done in Illustrator, so it's a vector graphic. I have some teeny details on the "cladogram" in particular), but for LJ, I've put a copy of mine below the cut.
( Whoo comic! 1000 px wide )
Enjoy! |
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| JVP |
[Mar. 2nd, 2009|04:20 pm] |
So, this is something interesting to post on my LJ -- most of my posts of late have been on my "Real Blog" and sciency and such. Still trying to reserve this space for things more speculative, personal, etc.
I will find out shortly how the paper submission process over at JVP ends up! I'm not sure if I should be worried or excited or jazzed, and right now my stomach can't quite figure out which it wants to feel:
Here's hoping! |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 12th, 2008|10:19 am] |
God damn politicians and layman idiots who think autism is even remotely related to vaccines. Guess what? Our medical tech is better and we're diagnosing more symptoms now. We also diagnose more people with ADD ... does that mean that air conditioning is associated with ADD?
For the record:
Vaccines do not cause autism.
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 12th, 2007|08:54 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | random, science | ] |
| [ | coordinates |
| | Berkeley | ] |
| [ | thoughts |
| |  tired | ] |
| [ | audio signal |
| | "L-O-V-E" -- Natalie Cole | ] |
I have often lamented on the use of sig-figs, but its amusing that Reuters doesn't know about them at all.
Since Columbia, NASA has been scrupulous about checking for and fixing problems with shuttle heat shields, which protect the ships and their crew from the 3,000-degree Fahrenheit (1648.88C) temperatures of the plunge through the atmosphere prior to landing.
Because I'm sure that during reentry the hottest teh shuttle gets is precisely 1648.88 oC.
I actually laughed out loud when I read this. I am such a dork. |
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| On silly politicians and Nuclear Power |
[Nov. 24th, 2006|01:25 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | news, nuclear, science | ] |
| [ | coordinates |
| | Glendale | ] |
| [ | thoughts |
| | relaxed if minorly annoyed | ] |
| [ | audio signal |
| | "Davy Jones" -- Pirates 2 | ] |
GAH politicians need to learn science. Its amazingly counter to stereotypes that the only truly viably progessive energy policy is preferentially republican (though they still do a lousy implementation. We need to remove funds from hydrogen research until we have nuclear power, and divert ff funds to nuclear, as well. I swear, we need a NucE or ChemE person in one of those high positions). Little stupidities on this have been running so high as of late that I think I'm going to have to dredge up my senior project paper and post it online and link it up. If I call it an NMR are you going to stop getting MRIs? Guess what, it is NUCLEAR magnetic resonance. Scary word, but really its OK!
The short of it? Yucca Mountain is as close a perfect solution as it gets people, embrace it! |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 21st, 2006|01:26 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | astro, nasa, science | ] |
| [ | coordinates |
| | Berkeley | ] |
| [ | thoughts |
| | still tired... | ] |
| [ | audio signal |
| | "Allegretto" -- Beethoven | ] |
NASA just rocks. I say this as it is time for the Mars Global Surveyor to RIP ... on year 10 of its 2 year mission.
Not quite the same overkill of the rovers, on day 1000+ of their 90 day mission, but still. Impressive! |
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| Global Climatic Aberrations, so HAH |
[Nov. 17th, 2006|01:11 am] |
Oh look, more scientists are trying to make more statements about global warming. As I've said many times, both the people that say its nothing -- and those who say its a lot are both outright WRONG. The fact of the matter is no one is sure what is going on, and there are so many possible reasons, difficulties in creating control experiments, and uncertainty in atmospheric chemistry and solar effects that trying to claim warming is happening or not is useless. The Earth will not care what we do, in the long run, and if we want to do anything we have two options: We either must
- Remove the human element, and use power systems that encourage other low-emission and efficient cycles, or,
- Attempt to maintain temperatures at what we know are an acceptable mean. This method is fraught with ways to screw up, ie, not the brightest.
The fact of the matter, people, is that solar effects very well may have had an impact in the freezing of the Thames, and we are not sure about the precise effects that caused (nor the extent of) the Medieval Warm Period or the Little Ice Age. I have been telling people this for years, and people only begin to listen when the media starts making a bigger deal about it.
I'd like to point out that with String Theory, Pluto, and now increased debate over Global Warming (I swear, I'm giong to call it "GCA" or Global Climatic Aberrations ... I hate "warming" that can lead to "cooling"...), I'm 3 for 3. When will people listen to me when I say that I really do know what's going on with these things? Those that do so far have a wonderful track record of my being right! Sorry, but politicians on both sides need to sit back and just listen to the scientists' final verdict, and until then ... just make smart policy. |
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| Activate Cloaking Device .... |
[Oct. 19th, 2006|08:48 pm] |
So, the Romulans were just really really slow. That is, humans have a prototype microwave cloak as of 2006. I find this fascinating. This has two huge implications other than OMG INVISIBLE. That is, these are the ultimate Faraday cages. You put someone in 2.4 GHz-tuned invisibility cell, and, suddenly, you're impossible to contact. The cell towers just don't see you there. Also note this can be expanded, so that you can use this technology to shield things from EM blasts ... the EM blasts just don't see what you're shielding at all.
Finally, I think it is worth pointing out that the visible one is the most important. When you have a visible cloak, you can use the visible cloak to cloak portions that cloak the non-visible parts of the EM spectrum. Thus, one can render something completely invisible in the electromagnetic by nesting frequencies outside of the visible and then encapsulating the whole thing in a visible-wavelength-cloak.
I also expect this technology will spur alternative detectors. Obviously this technology will not be released to the public for a long while, or, if it is, in only a super-neutered form. One can cloak a bomb in this, and suddenly terrorists around the world rejoice. It is a tool with enough possibilities that twisted folk can really abuse it. So, of course, should a foreign power use this, we need some way to detect something outside the EM. Some insane neutrino sensor? Some gravitic sensor? Both normally need HUGE apparatuses. Something that measures weak and strong interactions with unprecedented precision? I wonder how a MASER would work against the cloak. Is it coherent upon exiting the cloak? If its not, one needs collimated light beams of varying frequencies (read: many lasers) in conjunction with sophisticated computer systems to analyse the deviance from [orginal] coherent laser output when passing through a cloak, and then measure that deviance from the wrong side of the beam, no less! The implications of this are simply astounding.
Heh, this also adds a second method (other than a Dyson Sphere) for a civilization to hide itself. I wonder how well this conceals radiating objects .... and what it does with said radiation. Does it just get captured in its chamber?
Thoughts?
[0100: Minor Edit] |
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