Today I talked a friend into going to the aquarium with me, though it took some convincing.
Our texts:
Friend: we are going to be the only ones there without strollers.
Me: you mean you aren't going to bring a monkey in a stroller? dressed in an elvis costume? the monkey should be wearing big sunglasses.
Friend: Aw, I was going to surprise you with that! now I can't go.
Me: you could always dress up like the pope. that would surprise me.
Friend: the pope and I have a non-compete clause. should I come dressed as jesus?
Me: I have a restraining order against jesus.
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Friday, December 28, 2012
parking garage...
Maybe this dream was partially inspired by a strange attractor analogy involving two parking garages...
Last night I dreamed I was trapped in a parking garage with 3 guys in their 20s who didn't have faces. We were on an underground floor and couldn't find a way to the outside. I noticed an opening to the floor above and started climbing up the opening by stemming up the walls. Then I started to fall but could reach the above floor. But the floor was made of bricks that kept crumbling and breaking off. Finally I managed to work my legs up enough that I could grab a concrete pillar and pull myself out.
The boys were afraid to climb up so I said I would get help. I walked to the edge of a ramp and suddenly a black toyota camry came crashing off the above floor. It smashed hood first into the ground. Glass and metal was flying everywhere and I was getting hit with it.
Some other guy who also had no face but who was older than me grabbed me and pulled me behind the concrete pillar. I said that there were 3 guys trapped on the lower floor. The guy said he would help them but just then another car crashed onto the floor and a huge fire started. There was so much smoke I couldn't see anything.
I asked the guy "which way to the outside????" and he said "there is no way out, we're going to die".
Then I woke up.
Funny that today Yahoo had a story about the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, who was supposedly given mathematical functions in his sleep. The functions were proven to be accurate. We were just talking about him in my chaos class.
Brain, if you're listening, maybe you could be more helpful re: dreams.
Last night I dreamed I was trapped in a parking garage with 3 guys in their 20s who didn't have faces. We were on an underground floor and couldn't find a way to the outside. I noticed an opening to the floor above and started climbing up the opening by stemming up the walls. Then I started to fall but could reach the above floor. But the floor was made of bricks that kept crumbling and breaking off. Finally I managed to work my legs up enough that I could grab a concrete pillar and pull myself out.
The boys were afraid to climb up so I said I would get help. I walked to the edge of a ramp and suddenly a black toyota camry came crashing off the above floor. It smashed hood first into the ground. Glass and metal was flying everywhere and I was getting hit with it.
Some other guy who also had no face but who was older than me grabbed me and pulled me behind the concrete pillar. I said that there were 3 guys trapped on the lower floor. The guy said he would help them but just then another car crashed onto the floor and a huge fire started. There was so much smoke I couldn't see anything.
I asked the guy "which way to the outside????" and he said "there is no way out, we're going to die".
Then I woke up.
Funny that today Yahoo had a story about the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, who was supposedly given mathematical functions in his sleep. The functions were proven to be accurate. We were just talking about him in my chaos class.
Brain, if you're listening, maybe you could be more helpful re: dreams.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
just because it has a formula on it doesn't mean it's a geek t-shirt
I've just started a new course called "Dark Matter, Dark Energy: The dark side of the universe", taught by Dr. Sean Carroll. He's a cosmologist. And he talks really fast.
Interesting side note: cosmologists weren't allowed to win the Nobel Prize until 1973.
Anyway, I didn't entirely understand this completely until I started the class, but gravity is not actually a force. That's because gravity behaves in a universal way through out space (where as forces on earth may not apply in space). Einstein's general relativity theory says that gravity is a component of spacetime, adding a curvature to spacetime.
Spacetime is the point of Einstein's special relativity theory, which is that space and time can't be separated and need to be considered together. The conclusion is that time is no longer absolute (if you've ever had a flight delayed you know what that means - time can go by excruciatingly slow). Anyway, since time and space are no longer absolute Einstein had to figure out a fixed speed limit for the universe. That's why nothing can go faster than the speed of light (in theory).
The curvature in space means that objects can be detected because they curve spacetime via gravity. Picture a flat handkerchief suspended by its four corners. If you put a tennis ball on the handkerchief it will bend around the ball. And if the ball were invisible you'd still know there was something in the handkerchief because you can see a dent where that invisible object is sitting.
Anyway, that's how they know about dark matter even though no one can "see" it. Yet.
The whole point of this post is that people walk around with shirts that say "E = mc2" and people think they're geeks. Well, if they really WERE geeks they would wear a shirt that says:
Interesting side note: cosmologists weren't allowed to win the Nobel Prize until 1973.
Anyway, I didn't entirely understand this completely until I started the class, but gravity is not actually a force. That's because gravity behaves in a universal way through out space (where as forces on earth may not apply in space). Einstein's general relativity theory says that gravity is a component of spacetime, adding a curvature to spacetime.
Spacetime is the point of Einstein's special relativity theory, which is that space and time can't be separated and need to be considered together. The conclusion is that time is no longer absolute (if you've ever had a flight delayed you know what that means - time can go by excruciatingly slow). Anyway, since time and space are no longer absolute Einstein had to figure out a fixed speed limit for the universe. That's why nothing can go faster than the speed of light (in theory).
The curvature in space means that objects can be detected because they curve spacetime via gravity. Picture a flat handkerchief suspended by its four corners. If you put a tennis ball on the handkerchief it will bend around the ball. And if the ball were invisible you'd still know there was something in the handkerchief because you can see a dent where that invisible object is sitting.
Anyway, that's how they know about dark matter even though no one can "see" it. Yet.
The whole point of this post is that people walk around with shirts that say "E = mc2" and people think they're geeks. Well, if they really WERE geeks they would wear a shirt that says:
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
if you're wondering what happened to the internet, it was me
Perhaps I shouldn't discuss the Lyapunov exponent because the internet can't handle it.
 |
| Think it's time to get a new router... |
my hero - Susan Oguya
Just read this very inspiring article about geek girls starting a technology club in Kenya. They call it Akirachick.
Sadly, there aren't that many women in technology. Which is a mystery to me because we're a lot better than men.
(no offense - our problem solving skills are just better suited to computers, mostly because they require logic and rational thinking - okay, that sounds mean towards men, but when was the last time you saw a woman lighting her farts on fire? - I just saw a man do that a month ago, and then film it with his iPhone to share on facebook)
I think Susan Oguya is the shit because she created a software program to decrease corruption in Kenyan farming even though she was discouraged from doing so because apparently some shit for brains people think women are incapable of coding.
And some people think being a geek is weird. Exempli gratia, an email exchange I had yesterday with a friend who competed in the Ice Breaker earlier this month (ice breaker wall explains the log reference). I was watching the last of my chaos classes and the professor, Dr. Strogatz was talking about how the heart works using chaos. Of course I had to share the information with someone:
Me:
How weird is this?????
Dr. Strogatz is talking about the Lyapunov exponent. It measures the butterfly effect in people's brains (if you remember the picture I sent you of the strange attractor - looked like a butterfly). Anyway, it turns out we all have chaotic brains and nerve impulses are ALWAYS on the strange attractor EXCEPT in the brains of people with epilepsy. Crazy! Less chaos in the brain leads to seizures!
Gross. He just showed some dude with electrodes sewn into his scalp so they can see which parts of that dude's brain cause the seizures. Apparently they can do some kind of surgery to fix the epilepsy.
Something else cool! When your heart beats not all the muscle tissue is beating, only parts. Makes sense, otherwise that would be a crazy muscle since it can't ever rest (until death anyway).
Heart arrhythmia is caused when part of the heart who are supposed to be resting keep beating. I have heart arrhythmia from when I got shocked back to life during my knee surgery. Apparently that's a draw back of being resuscitated.
Was eating a sandwich but he showed a rabbit heart and a dog heart in a chaos experiment to fix arrhythmia and now I'm not that hungry. Gross.
Friend:
I'm glad you're as weird as you are. Other people are eating chicken and drinking wine because it's Christmas Eve, you're contemplating chaos attractor schnazzle with respect to when you got shocked back to life. Solid. Drinking wine and eating chicken here. Keep it weird!
Me:
You dry humped a log hanging by a chain from a boom, but I'M the weird one?
Those fucking paddles burn the heart. That's how they get the heart beating again. My heart has literally been burned.
There's a Leonard Cohen song or alka seltzer joke in there somewhere but I'm too busy being weird to figure that out.
Enjoy chicken. They roll around in their shit and peck each other's eyes out. Yum.
Friend:
Proper response.
Anyway, the important take away is that it's okay to be female and a geek. Own it.
Sadly, there aren't that many women in technology. Which is a mystery to me because we're a lot better than men.
(no offense - our problem solving skills are just better suited to computers, mostly because they require logic and rational thinking - okay, that sounds mean towards men, but when was the last time you saw a woman lighting her farts on fire? - I just saw a man do that a month ago, and then film it with his iPhone to share on facebook)
I think Susan Oguya is the shit because she created a software program to decrease corruption in Kenyan farming even though she was discouraged from doing so because apparently some shit for brains people think women are incapable of coding.
And some people think being a geek is weird. Exempli gratia, an email exchange I had yesterday with a friend who competed in the Ice Breaker earlier this month (ice breaker wall explains the log reference). I was watching the last of my chaos classes and the professor, Dr. Strogatz was talking about how the heart works using chaos. Of course I had to share the information with someone:
Me:
How weird is this?????
Dr. Strogatz is talking about the Lyapunov exponent. It measures the butterfly effect in people's brains (if you remember the picture I sent you of the strange attractor - looked like a butterfly). Anyway, it turns out we all have chaotic brains and nerve impulses are ALWAYS on the strange attractor EXCEPT in the brains of people with epilepsy. Crazy! Less chaos in the brain leads to seizures!
Gross. He just showed some dude with electrodes sewn into his scalp so they can see which parts of that dude's brain cause the seizures. Apparently they can do some kind of surgery to fix the epilepsy.
Something else cool! When your heart beats not all the muscle tissue is beating, only parts. Makes sense, otherwise that would be a crazy muscle since it can't ever rest (until death anyway).
Heart arrhythmia is caused when part of the heart who are supposed to be resting keep beating. I have heart arrhythmia from when I got shocked back to life during my knee surgery. Apparently that's a draw back of being resuscitated.
Was eating a sandwich but he showed a rabbit heart and a dog heart in a chaos experiment to fix arrhythmia and now I'm not that hungry. Gross.
Friend:
I'm glad you're as weird as you are. Other people are eating chicken and drinking wine because it's Christmas Eve, you're contemplating chaos attractor schnazzle with respect to when you got shocked back to life. Solid. Drinking wine and eating chicken here. Keep it weird!
Me:
You dry humped a log hanging by a chain from a boom, but I'M the weird one?
Those fucking paddles burn the heart. That's how they get the heart beating again. My heart has literally been burned.
There's a Leonard Cohen song or alka seltzer joke in there somewhere but I'm too busy being weird to figure that out.
Enjoy chicken. They roll around in their shit and peck each other's eyes out. Yum.
Friend:
Proper response.
Anyway, the important take away is that it's okay to be female and a geek. Own it.
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Yeah, there are lots of girls out there. Some just aren't worth talking to.
My brother's ex-girlfriend got back in touch with him this week. Guess it's obvious why they broke up:
My Brother:
[A bunch of blah blah about working on the Mars rover.]
Here's a pic.
My brother's ex:
Cool pic... what is it exactly?
MB:
It's a robot car that drives around on Mars doing science experiments and looking for aliens.
EX:
that is so awesome... looking for aliens lol.
MB:
Actually, it is looking for aliens (in the form of amino acids and stuff, aka germs)
EX:
oh ok, that's a totally different type of alien...
Um, what??????
My Brother:
[A bunch of blah blah about working on the Mars rover.]
Here's a pic.
 |
| Mars Rover! So cool! |
Cool pic... what is it exactly?
MB:
It's a robot car that drives around on Mars doing science experiments and looking for aliens.
EX:
that is so awesome... looking for aliens lol.
MB:
Actually, it is looking for aliens (in the form of amino acids and stuff, aka germs)
EX:
oh ok, that's a totally different type of alien...
Um, what??????
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