Attention Grabber

Yesterday was a bad day. Coming on the heels of a euphoric experience of the American pasttime replete with hotdogs, beers, and garlic fries, it was a much worse bad day than it may have appeared to an outside observer. But then, who cares what the outside observer thinks on my bad day, am I right or am I right? Right. Anyway, this bad day consisted or three very interesting things and it was only on viewing the third that the other two kind of clicked into place.

1. I was up early enough for the sun rise. This may not seem like a big deal, but it was quite lovely. Some clouds were out and about as early as me and they were making some beautiful colors over the Cascades. Lighting up the sky like that made me happy...and wish I was in bed.

2. Mid-afternoon had massive solar halo activity. A thin film of cloud cover allowed the diffraction of light from the sun, making a circle rainbow around it. I'd hardly noticed these but since my recent increase in sciencey thought, I've been eagerly awaiting a prime viewing. Well I had it, and it was really cool.

3. I was out driving when the sun was setting. Now this one rocked the house. The sun going down over the Olympics with some heavy cloud cover right above the point where the clouds would meet the mountains made the sun really red-orange. Moreover, there was a break in the clouds about a thumbs length held at arms length farther up with wispy clouds in this hole. I totally thought I might get to see the so called fire rainbow. Well, it looked like the entire area behind the mountains was on fire and it was the coolest thing I'd seen since #2 and #1.

All this to say I may have had a bad day, but I think God was trying to point out to me that He's still really cool. When I saw 1, 2, and 3, it got me thinking about the technical side of what's happening (i.e. Earth's rotation, water in the atmosphere), but it also made me think that God is saying, "see what I did? I did it for you so could think about me on your bad days. Trust me to get you through it." Huh, I said. That's right. Nice timing. Thanks God. He really is that cool to come up with rainbows and planets rotating and then still love us more than any of that.

π day

Well everyone, today is Pi day, the day that matches the beginning of the mathematical constant Pi, 3.14159... etc., ad infinitum, and what not. My calculus teacher this quarter (a capital fellow if you ask me) said that mathematicians don't really celebrate Pi day, it's the people around math people that think they should be celebrating today. People bake him pies to eat, so he doesn't argue the fact to hard. "Yeah Pi Day!" Who's making me a pie??

If you're at all interested in the amazing number that is the ratio of a the circumference of a circle to its radius, you can go to this link and search the first two hundred million numbers of Pi for any sequence of number you want. For example, my birthday, 3483, starts at the 17,774th digit of Pi. Moreover, if you were to use the full US date format of 03041983, then my birthday doesn't occur in the first 200,000,000 digits. Wow! (or not Wow! depending on how nerdy you are.)

http://www.angio.net/pi/piquery.html

There's other things that could be said about Pi. I could show you an alternate way I learned how to calculate it that use infinite series and stuff like that. It's way cool because every succesive term in the series of numbers you add up tacks 25 digits onto the end of Pi. Holy cow! What does he even mean?! Sorry everyone, but I just had to say something about it. So think about it today at 1:59:26 am and pm. (cause that'll be 3.14 159 26)

Corollary: I add this paragraph on 3/15 and would like to tell about the aftermath of Pi day. Krista Fosse, a veritable anthropomorphized precious gem, actually made me (of all people) a pie yesterday. Apple pie none the less, which is my favorite. And then Jessica Turver, a forest rose of surpassing grace and kindness, made two pies as well, not knowing it was even Pi day. Needless to say, there was much pie consumed last night in the Aerie and there was much rejoicing. Praise Him!

The Multiverse

Regardless of what the masses believe regarding the soon to be mentioned subject (preview: the multiverse theory), I believe I have come to the ultimate justification for any expenditure in proving and utilizing, if proven true, the following theory: the multiverse. Yes, the multiverse. WTF is a multiverse you ask? A brief history (as far as I understand where they [i.e. present day scientists] get their ideas), complete with diagrams.

The multiverse theory seems to me to come from two different ideas and or observations and I think either one is just dandy. Today, there is a debate about whether light is a particle or a wave, or some fancy combination of both. By particle, I mean individual "photons" of light and when I say wave, I mean the electromagnetic wave that propagates all around us allowing us to see. So, which is it? Well if you use what is called the "Double-Slit Experiment," you can demonstrate that light acts like a wave. By shining a laser at a double slit, you set up an interference pattern on a screen beyond the slit like so:
This is produced by overlapping waves. Now, the interesting thing is if you reduce the intensity of the light until only one photon of light is coming at a time through this double slit, then you get something quite interesting and remarkable. This:
Astonishing! I believe the popular opinion among the more extreme thinking branches is that the only way these single, tiny balls of light still make this pattern, even though there is nothing else in the way to hit it or knock it off course, is that in another parallel universe, somebody is running the same experiment, and those photons are interacting with out photons. There's more to say, but this is a blog and nobody cares.

The second idea is much simpler and I don't think there are any proofs yet for this. It is merely that every choice that anybody in any time has ever had to make has spawned a parallel universe; one where you did the alternative to whatever choice you eventually made. One where you went with brown socks and then destroyed the world and one where you stuck with white socks and had a good day at school. Get the drift? Good. It makes for fascinating discussions about science, psychology, morality, and Western civilization. For your viewing pleasure, I have drawn the first four dimensions and then what the multiverse would be like. Think of the sphere as one time unit. (The fourth dimension having popularly been accepted as time.)Theoretically, since there are an infinite number of these universes, there is one where everybody has blue hair naturally, or where the sky is a deep and majestic shade of purple-green, or where most everybody is a comfortable baked clam. Yes, I know. "What a stupid theory," you must be saying. Well, I would postulate that those universes would be infinitely "far away" from us and we don't need to worry about it. If you were to think of all these universes as little beads strung along a wire, then the one where everybody is a baked clam is probably ten to the ten trillion universes away from us. It doesn't matter. I'm concerned with the universes maybe fifty or more away on either side of use. Now we come to the reason for my sharing and the justification.

Somewhere, and most likely not to far away down that imaginary line of universes, is a planet Earth where the sci-fi TV show Firefly did not get canceled. It got signed for five or six or even more seasons and went on to great things. I am going to go to this universe someday and bring back the DVD sets of these seasons, so that this world doesn't have to suffer the stupidity of certain network executives and their shortsightedness by canceling the show before it even had a chance.

(Yes, you read all that sci-babble for that. Sorry)

p.s. Even more astonishing, though I didn't include any numbers in my picture, is that these parallel universes don't necessarily have to be at the same time in...well time. You could go to a universe that is our exact universe except at an earlier or later time frame. How cool would that be?

Segue

Walking down a hill through trees,
Every which way known to me.
I see a path I've not yet tread
And wonder why I've always said
"Every which way's known to me?"

Veering neither left nor right,
It stretches fore and out of sight
'Tween rock and stone and hill-gripped bush.
Advancing forth, I reach and push
Aside a branch that blocks the path
That's not unlike a basket's lath.
And seeing now the way is clear
I gaze and feel and sense and hear
Something strange and almost queer.

Stepping o'er threshold wide,
And glancing not from side to side,
Forth I walk my new found road
That's brightly lit by sun in nodes
And forms the sine from side to side.

Glancing back, I'm stunned to see
Everything the way it should be
For here the world has changed
On my road, ever so strange.
The air is lighter, grass sweeter,
And animals like lotus eaters.
What path do I trod with leg,
Started with so smooth a segue?

Coffee Injustice

I've had a major epiphany and I'm gonna need good, stout-hearted folk to rise up with me against this tyranny I've seen. Did you ever read The Flying Inn? Well it's going to be like that...only not so important. But it'll be important enough I tell you!!

When your friendly barista says to you, "is that for here?" and you of course say, "Yes," do you know what you just ordered? You just asked for your coffee to be placed in a container designed to extract heat from liquids at a remarkable rate. It seems that I get my coffee, and before you know it, it's cold!! What gives? I may like to drink my coffee rather fast, but this stuff cools it off too fast, leaving me with a cold coffee experience.

Good people, we must rise up against this. It's exactly the same situation as the Big Oil companies, hoarding the remarkable technology of gas-free cars and trucks. Big Coffee has a thermally insulating cup that cost the same as their regular 'for-here' cups. Why don't they employ it? Money, of course. But if we strike back now, while they think we're ignorant, we'll have gained an upper hand and possibly changed the course of lives everywhere, or at the very least, of coffee drinkers lives everywhere.

I don't blame the baristas. I blame their ethereal and slightly non-corporeal unknown superiors 60 times removed from them who sit in some plush chair in some plush office in some plush city, drinking their lattes in 'for-here' cups that are thermally insulated. I'll be sitting outside a random coffee shop, protesting, starting on the next day that doesn't end in 'y.' Join me.

The Mars Projects

It all started about eight months ago. The summit for International Peace had just concluded their fifth session and a treaty between all the countries of the world was about to be signed. It was the Mars Projects that had caused all the nations to come together. When New Montreal on the Moon had been hit by the stray asteroid and a second and third had wiped out Sydney and Moscow back here on Earth, petty differences were, for a time, forgotten, and the Coalition for Planetary Unity had finally been listened to.

The Mars Projects had been an attempt by the alliance of the United States of North America and the Islands of Britain to create, maintain, and direct gravity fields in the late 21^st century. To what end, they never have said exactly. Both the Earth and the Moon were, in the opinion of the Alliance (as they were so called), too close to the Euro-Asian Commonwealth and therefore wouldn't make for good research sites. The recent Alliance colony on the fourth planet from the Sun was an ideal testing facility. The researchers were extremely successful with the field manipulations and were on the verge of perfecting a mobilized gravity generator unit when the accident took place.

Some people will tell you that it was sabotage while others will say it was an accident, but whatever the cause, three generators were simultaneously activated by an intense power surge: cause still unknown. All three generators were suspiciously directed towards the asteroid belt beyond Mars orbit. Before the auto-cutoff systems could activate or the researchers react, several asteroids were rapidly accelerated towards the facility. In the few minutes it took them to reach Mars’ orbit, the planet had moved on, paving the way for their unrestricted access to the inner solar system. The power surge had destroyed most of the facilities primary systems, and communications were not possible with Earth or any of the colonies on the Moon until it was too late.

The first asteroid impacted the Moon near the terminator, creating a shockwave that wiped New Montreal off the map. There had been no warning, as Earth based problems had all of the colonies’ equipment trained back on the homeworld. After New Montreal, though, air to space fighters were launched from seven different platforms in a matter of seconds, but, it was too late. A second and third asteroid came down on Moscow and Sydney, killing millions. The fighters managed to destroy a fourth and then turned towards each other. Three of the squadrons were from the Alliance and the other four were from the Commonwealth and they no doubt thought the cause was the other side.

Dozens of lives were lost and war was certainly imminent, but the Mars colony was able to contact the Alliance in time and the truth became known. The Unity Coalition stepped in almost immediately and the rest is where we were a little under eight months ago. The Projects are shut down, Mars has been expatriated, global peace and unity will be ratified into a treaty, and we’ll begin to repair the damage – to the colonies and to the world. That, at least, was what was supposed to happen. That was the end goal by which the nations were planning our future. That was before Jupiter.

Four-cast

When you come into a new year, it's typical for people to make resolutions that apply to yourself. The intention being, usually, to become a better "you" over the course of the new year. I on the other hand have made a list of inventions, technologies, or ideas that I would like to see come about in this grand ol' leap year of 2008. The idea here being to make a better world. I think at least four hopes are reasonable, especially since it allowed me to create a cool title.

1. Presence Dampener: You know when you're walking in a parking lot at night and you 'feel' as if somebody is behind you? And then there's your friend! Or when you're in a room all alone and you can just 'tell' when somebody has entered the room? Well never fear you pranksters! The Presence Dampener is a hand-held device that will actually cause your presence to disappear when activated! Studies show that the device works by phasing only your mass into a parallel dimension. Gravity will still act on you though, because this other dimension also has gravity, so don't fear. People will no longer 'sense' you without seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, or tasting you directly!

2. Abolition of Daylight Saving Time: I believe it no longer serves a purpose and should be banned from ever happening again. It was a good idea at the time, don't get me wrong. Farmers and the like needed more daylight during particular seasons, so let's shift the clock so that normal working hours are more in sync with daytime. Fantastic. Now we have floodlights, and less people are farmers or the like. I'm pretty sure we're done with Daylight Saving Time.

3. Conversion of English to Newspeak: If you've never read 1984 by George Orwell, I suggest you try. Now. In the book, the English Socialist party had created a new language that cut out tons of superfluous words. E.g. good, great, fantastic, and incredibly phenomenal became good, plusgood, doubleplusgood, and double-doubleplusgood. See how much easier that is than having all those other words? Simplicity is elegance. (1984 fans would be chuckling because of that sentence).

4. Discovery of alien life: I'm pretty sure I'd crap my pants twice if we finally found evidence of alien life, even if it's a fossil on Mars. It doesn't have to be alive, it just has to have been alive at some time. People talk about it all the time, but if it actually happened, can you imagine the mayhem? Maybe mayhem is the wrong word, but really, if you think about it, it'd be a double-doubleplusgood event! Wow.