Facebook: The Black Hole of the Internet

Ok, yes, I’m back.  Why in the name of all that is digital am I back?

In short: I want to keep posting my awesome science links.  I know a few people read them or watch the vids.  I think that’s worth it altogether.  I have some good friends online. Despite have 130ish ‘friends’ whom I barely speak with, the small few that I do speak with make it worth it.

So, I am going to keep burning the fires for science.  I think it’s critical for the future of mankind.  I’m not kidding!  The day we regress is the day we start burning people as witches and cowering everytime a comet graces the sky.

I will say this though, if the comet is headed towards Earth, feel free to panic, get naked, drink lots, have LOTS of sex, do LOTS of drugs and otherwise be completely irrational.   Why?  If a comet has our name on it, at this point, we are S O L. So, may as well have a good time before it all ends, right?

Week Two: Sans Facebook

It’s been a couple of weeks, well almost, since we both killed our Facebook accounts.  Mind you, they are deactivated, not deleted.

So, thoughts so far?  I really don’t miss it nor do I think about it much.  The only time I think about it is when I see a great science article online.  If I could somehow just get that stuff out to people without the massive influx of drama.  I do have twitter but it’s not as powerful in that regard.  I can pretty things up and have more room to write in Facebook.

Oh well.  If I did go back I’d reboot my account as a channel of pure science.

I do not miss the social interactions because they were next to non-existent.  I do miss a handful of friends but I know they’re still around if I should choose to go back.  There are other avenues of contacting friends as well.  Also, as time goes by and scenery changes, so too do the people around you.  You can’t be total bud-buds with 100% of everyone you were ever friends with.  You’d go insane.  I have highschool friends I haven’t talked to in a long time.  I can’t stop my life to stalk them.  They have lives too.  Usually it’s just a word in passing and that’s enough for a good long while.

Facebook was a bit too narcissistic for me anyway.  I am proud of what talents I have but I have a rule of thumb: No matter how good you are at something, someone is always better.  I choose the route of being humble.  Sort of like Atticus Finch after he is revealed to be an excellent marksman.  By the way, I’m not telling whether or not I’m an excellent marksman.

For now, Facebook will rest.  I still have a cooking achievement to get in WoW.  It only takes 15 minutes of my day though.

My newest endeavor is getting back into writing music.  I’ve tried a few times in years past with mixed results and good times.  I already put a serious investment into this go round.  I bought myself an Alesis Micron keyboard/synth.  It’ll double as a MIDI controller also.  That will go hand in hand with Pro Tools LE 8 that I got with my Digidesign interface.  These are tools I’ve never used before.  I’ve gotten a small taste of Pro Tools and it’s just insane how powerful even the LE version is.  Next few items will be a bass (short scale perhaps) and a new guitar multi-effects processor.  I need a MIDI interface as well.

It’s nice to have the free time that would have been otherwise wasted on Facebook.  Writing music and showing my kids the joy and work that goes into that is much more constructive.

Facebook is going away

Yes, it is.  No no no, it’s not shutting down.  I mean it’s going away – from me!

This is my typical Facebook regimen:

1. Open browser
2. Click to refresh latest updates
3. Scroll down the updates
4. Look at pictures of people I could mostly care less about (unless it’s a hot chick! bazinga!)
5. Look for any cool links which are seldom found
6. Open any cool links if any are available
7. See who is online
8. Check again to see who is online because FB chat is slow
9. Stare at screen waiting for something clever to say
10. Think hard about a link I could post but realize that no one gives a damn about it anyway so why bother
11. Despite the fact that no one gives a damn about discoveries pertaining to our Universe I post a link anyway waiting in vain for a response of “wow that’s cool!”
12. Instead I notice that the person who posted the status of “Premier of XYZ show tonight” gets 15 comments
13. I am filled with sadness over how a TV show is more important and conversation worthy than understanding the workings of our Universe
14. I close the browser
15. Rinse.
16. Repeat.

Yeah, that’s about how it goes.

Now, if I were a scientist, I’d probably have followers that were also interested in science.  I’d get positive feedback that way I suppose.  I’m not a scientist though, so establishing a base there isn’t happening anytime soon.  Instead most of my friends just aren’t interested in the things that I find stimulating.  I can count about three exceptions and they know who they are.

Or DO they?! Bwa ha ha, they may never know!

On the whole, it’s just time to give it up for a good while.  I’m working hard on simplifying my life. Irony!  It’s true though.  It takes some work to get things back to a simpler state.  I have to tie up loose ends here and there with people I know or maybe someone I was doing work for.

By the way, I do not do sidework anymore for anyone.  It sucks the absolute life out of me.  After a long day at work, the last thing I want is a long night of work at home.  That’s for another post maybe.  It’s ok, nothing to vent about.  It’s just something I had to get rid of.

How does one get rid of Facebook?  Turn it off.  WHOA! That was insane.  I better tone it down.

No, really, you just stop.  It’s not like a cigarette where you’d get physical withdrawal symptoms.  You might crave it in a sense though.  What is it though?  You constantly want to see what other people are doing?  That’s kind of sick I think.   I’ve done it too.  I’ve ‘stalked’ people.  Ok, not really but isn’t that what it is?  You go on their page and look at all their pics, their updates, links, vids, etc.

I know people normally don’t post what they don’t want seen, but that isn’t always the case.  I’ve found things on people’s pages that made me blush or go “hmm….alrighty then!”  It should just be called Stalkbook.  Not to mention that once you put something on the internet, it is there indefinitely.  That drunk photo?  It’s somewhere, even if you deleted it.  I’ve never had a drunk photo of me on the internet… I don’t think.

This world we live in is completely saturated with technology.  We can know anything and everything that happens anywhere in the world at the speed of light (almost).  Sadly, in this world there are many who don’t even understand how any of it works.  That was noted by the late Dr. Sagan.  He also said it was a disaster waiting to happen.  I’m not talking about Teh Internwebz.  I mean science and technology as a whole.  Refer to my sadness from the top.

While social networking is a product of science and technology, as with everything else, moderation is the key.

I do have some genuinely good friends on Facebook.  I have some family on Facebook as well.  Though, if I want to talk to my mom, I will pick up the phone.  If I want to talk to my wife, I’ll walk away from my computer.  Yes, walk away.

For now, the focus is on enjoying simple things in life.  I’ll still bury my head in books regarding the wonders of our Universe but strangely, I find a lot of peace in that.  Doesn’t that sound nice?

P.S. Should I post my Top Ten Most Annoying things people post as status updates?

Moving soon

The blog that is!  No, this was originally a joint blog about a change in lifestyle and so on so forth.  I have since commandeered it and turned it into a nerdy/geeky place to post all the cool science stuff I find.  At least stuff that interests me…

Anyway, pretty soon I’ll be moving this and so forth and this domain will eventually fade away but for the time being I have to think of a snazzy name.  Any ideas? I have a few!

Venus and Mercury sitting in a tree…

Ok, maybe not sitting IN a tree but I had to dodge trees to be able to see them both.  I went out with my D3000 and snapped a few pics with the standard lens.  I can bet a telephoto or even a cam attached to a telescope would take a great pic.  So long as the field of view allowed them both in the same photo!

So here is a smallish version:

Together, at last!

And here is the higher resolution version clickety

Large Hadron Collider

This is COOL!

I wanted to get that out of the way.  Well when they first fired this thing up over a year ago it didn’t go so well.  Something broke so they had to go back in and fix it.  This isn’t like replacing an alternator on a car.  The circumference of the collider is 27km.  On top of that it is just insanely complex.  Well they worked and worked and yesterday it went back online.  I watched some of the webcast.  It was great to see all the people there celebrating as it appeared to work as planned.

Well, what IS the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).  Ok, I’m not really smart enough to type it all up and have it work.  So I’m going to take it from the actual site itself.   Here are two explanations:

Simple: Take two beams of particles (protons or ions) and send them whizzing around a circular track at 99% the speed of light.  Merge the beams near a detector.  Watch to see what happens when these little particle smack into one another.

More detailed:

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a gigantic scientific instrument near Geneva, where it spans the border between Switzerland and France about 100 m underground. It is a particle accelerator used by physicists to study the smallest known particles – the fundamental building blocks of all things. It will revolutionise our understanding, from the minuscule world deep within atoms to the vastness of the Universe.

Two beams of subatomic particles called ‘hadrons’ – either protons or lead ions – will travel in opposite directions inside the circular accelerator, gaining energy with every lap. Physicists will use the LHC to recreate the conditions just after the Big Bang, by colliding the two beams head-on at very high energy. Teams of physicists from around the world will analyse the particles created in the collisions using special detectors in a number of experiments dedicated to the LHC.

There are many theories as to what will result from these collisions, but what’s for sure is that a brave new world of physics will emerge from the new accelerator, as knowledge in particle physics goes on to describe the workings of the Universe. For decades, the Standard Model of particle physics has served physicists well as a means of understanding the fundamental laws of Nature, but it does not tell the whole story. Only experimental data using the higher energies reached by the LHC can push knowledge forward, challenging those who seek confirmation of established knowledge, and those who dare to dream beyond the paradigm.

What I found interesting was the power at which is operates.  Right now it’s going to 7TeV or Tera-electronvolts.  Sounds insane!  Though that’s about the same kinetic energy of a mosquito in flight, from what I read.  So, I suppose you might not even feel the beam hitting your hand.  I want to clarify, that having a ‘few’ particles pass through you isn’t a big deal.  Having them pass through you in the trillions IS bad.  I understand that’s the rate at which these hadrons will be passing each other; trillions per second. Whoa!

Other cool LHC facts from their site:

At full power, trillions of protons will race around the LHC accelerator ring 11 245 times a second, travelling at 99.99% the speed of light. Two beams of protons will each travel at a maximum energy of 7 TeV (tera-electronvolt), corresponding to head-to-head collisions of 14 TeV. Altogether some 600 million collisions will take place every second.

The data recorded by each of the big experiments at the LHC will fill around 100 000 dual layer DVDs every year. To allow the thousands of scientists scattered around the globe to collaborate on the analysis over the next 15 years (the estimated lifetime of the LHC), tens of thousands of computers located around the world are being harnessed in a distributed computing network called the Grid.

Safety?  Yes it’s safe.  The bottom line is that collisions like these occur in space all of the time.  I think you have as good a chance of passing through a wall with both you and the wall in one piece as this machine creating a killer black hole.  So, don’t worry about it.  Also, if it DID create a killer black hole, well, no one will be around to care, eh?

If you made it this far, I commend you and you deserve cool linkage.  Here is your gift, a link to see some of the data coming from LHC while it is online.  This. is. cool.

Lets find out! ( I did not draw this it links to where I got it from)

Read more here if you are REALLY interested

Space: The Final Frontier

No truer words can ever be spoken.  The depths of the mind are indeed complex but not tangible.  Our oceans floors hold many secrets about life and the history of our planet.  Space is, for all intensive purposes, infinite.  This isn’t technically true, to our knowledge.  We estimate the true size of the Universe to be 93 Billion Light Years.   So vast, in fact, that light from one side will never reach the other.  This is why it is the pinnacle of exploration.

Eventually, one day, our destiny will lie somewhere in space.  Perhaps another planetary body in this solar system or even another star system.  That is, if we don’t blow ourselves up or suffer a cataclysmic set back.

The recent White House budget leaves me both concerned and yet I see an opportunity to be optimistic.  I’ve been reading forums to get people’s takes on this.  Mind you this is coming from people who work in the industry to plain people like myself.  It is inevitable that politics gets head-firsted into the mix.  I made that slang up.  Nice eh?  I guess there is no way around it but the degree of  “This was Bush’s fault!”; “This was Griffin’s fault”; “Obama sux!” is just a little much.

I try my damnedest to take a middle road approach.  I want science.  I want exploration.  I want a manned flight program (also termed HSF for Human Space Flight).  At the moment we have it with Shuttle.  In a few short months, it will be done and gone.  What happens after that?  We’re grounded, at least humans are.

Private companies are really getting into the mix of things which does excite me.  Thing is, they’re a ways off from manned flight.  It will happen, just not quite soon as we’d like.

Constellation is dead.  I’m sad and yet I can understand this move.  Some claim to have had the insight or ESP enough to know it was doomed from day one.  I think having a pessimistic attitude isn’t very healthy.  I don’t work in the industry, I follow it from a few rows back.  I can say that my interest is important, not as a single entity but gathered with the combined interest of persons just like myself.  Lack of public interest will kill a program deader than dead.  Apollo anyone?

So, I thought about the cancellation of that program and realized, ok, maybe this isn’t as bad as it seems.  I’m still icky feeling about not having the ability to put humans up but lets think this out.  The downfall of Constellation was reaching back to the past to sort of re-use older technologies or at least model from them.  What we need are newer technologies that are laced with our learnings of the past.

I think the biggest technological advance we need is in propulsion.  Chemical rockets are dandy at getting heavy vehicles off the ground and into space but once in space you need something else.  Something that’s less cumbersome, less prone to failure and has some oomph!  These technologies should be researched to make Moon and Mars missions faster.  Transit time to Mars is MONTHS.  With new propulsion you could get it down to weeks; or so I’ve heard.

So, new technologies and private companies.  I think I actually like the sound of that.  Will they deliver? The talk is there, the walk is yet to come.

More notes on the budget are promised robotics and planetary missions.  This is very exciting to me.  Rovers are great tools for science!  Just look at Spirit and Opportunity; they vastly outlived their planned mission time.  If we had a mission going up every other month, I’d be stoked.

A final note about canceling the Moon program.  Listen, we’ve been there before.  Yes, actual people walked on the actual Moon.  That program was initially a race; a race we would win.  After that, you had a group of giddy scientists drooling over the prospect of getting some precious samples back.  That came later and Apollo XVII was the final Moon-shot.  We never spent more than a couple of days there.  When we go back, we need to plan on STAYING for a length of time.  Weeks, not days.

China wants to go there.  Let them go, plant their flag and then come back.  It’s a great thing for a country.  I’d applaud them for it.  As the saying goes “been there, done that”.  It’s time we went a step ahead.  That way when countries are landing and planting their flags, we can wave at them from our cozy Moon habitats.  From that point we can build on and then eyeball Mars or even astreriods.

So, finally, it’s bittersweet for me.  I wanted to see Constellation work but ultimately I want to see anything work.  I’ll hold on the promise of some serious R&D and science missions.  I’ll hold on to private companies keeping us in orbit too.  It’s a big time shake up of things.  Perhaps it was needed.

Obama says we need to get young people into science and math.  I couldn’t agree more.  If he truly means this then he needs to deliver on this budget.  NASA has inspired generations of people.  Let’s keep it that way.

If this flops as a dud and our space program is left floundering for years, I’ll be one mad space cadet. >:o

LRO (Lunar Recon Orbiter) Strikes Back!

Yes, I was too lazy to type reconnaissance, my bad.  And ok, it’s not “striking back” really as much as it is just doing its job.  The point is LRO has been busy! One objective is to thoroughly map the surface of the Moon.  A nifty side item is to photos of certain areas of interest.  What could be more interesting than the old Apollo sites?  Not a whole lot!  This is important to people like myself who try to combat the small, yet persistently stupid, sect of the population who believe man never went there in the first place.

A few months ago some preliminary photos were released of some of the Apollo sites.  I’ll admit, the resolution was small but it was there.  Also, the Sun has a way of either hindering or helping in bringing out certain details.  In an Apollo XII photo you can see the descent stage and the trails made by Al Bean and Pete Conrad.

See the little squiggly lines emanating out from the descent stage.  Yes, those are trails from the footprints!

Well, the photos were amazing in their own right but what was more amazing is that the spacecraft was still in it’s elliptical (commissioning) orbit.  It wasn’t until the middle of September that the final orbit of 31 miles altitude was reached.  And so with that, the resolution of the pictures beamed back have increased.

Take a look at this pic below.  It’s from Google Earth/Moon.  It’s about as clear as mud.  You can kind of make out some blobs that are craters and it’s all grey and mushy.  Very uninteresting from a detail point of view.

Now, here is roughly the same area (ok it’s not spot on but it’s close enough, I was multitasking a few things).  Now, that is some fine detail.  The blobbiness is gone.  The grey mush gives way to a textured surface.  Right there in the middle is the Apollo XVII descent stage.  The resolution on this photos is about twice that of the previous Apollo sites.

Feast upon the fine detail below:

This is more important than trying to rub Hoax Believers (or HBs as they’re known) face in it.  It shows that the camera works, and works well.  I do have to admit though that it’s nice to see this stuff and take to a HB and ask them to explain it.  The typical response is that it was doctored.  I digress, for some, there is no changing their minds.

The more important thing is to keep the people that really believe it was faked from poisoning the minds of others who are genuinely just looking for answers to questions.

Ultimately, it shows that as a human race we can continue to do truly inspiring things when we put our minds to it.  There is a lot more to LRO/LCROSS than fancy photos.  To learn more about the mission, you can read up on it here: http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov

The problem with time travel

I posted this a couple of years ago on myspace and I’m going to migrate it over here.  I was reinspired to repost this since I started watching The Big Bang Theory.  So, the original post begins now:

January 2007

Back to the Future is a great movie.  Probably the greatest time travel movies ever made.  The Time Machine was, well, not Back to the Future.  The BTTF movies really made it interesting, fun and mind-bending occasionally.  The sad truth is that I don’t think it’s possible; particularly in a Delorean.  I’ll explain.

In science there are methods of gathering data, compiling data, analyzing data, running numbers, doing calculations, etc.  All this is done over and over to either prove something will work, won’t work, might work, etc.  Well I thought of a way to prove or disprove time travel!  It’s so simple that someone entrapped in complex mathematics or quantum theories could easily miss it.  It would take years, or, so you might think.

This is how it would work:

Today Wednesday, January 31st, 2007 a worldwide committee has announced their plans to disprove/prove time travel.  A special secure place is to be designated for the event to occur at.  In this case we’ll choose the Devil’s Tower in Wyoming.  At the base of this tower will be constructed a solid facility, meaning that it can endure even the mightiest of years worth of punishment from elements.  It will be a simple structure as well, no doors, windows, etc.  More or less it will be a landing pad for the time travelers.  Say what? More on that soon.

Now the documents.  Lots of them.   A whole hell of a lot of them.  A worldwide public relations extravaganza.  Why is this necessary?  Well if you tell 5 people in a super secret location the plan then it’s likely to be forgotten, lost, etc.  If the entire civilized world knows the plan then it’s not likely to get lost, barring a cataclysmic event like an asteroid.  Lets assume that won’t happen.  Now what will this documentation say?  Something like this:

==========

Mankind, on this day, January 31, 2007 an experiment was put forth that only you can take part in.  Your reading this means that you are of the future if only by days or weeks.  This is a request and nothing more.  The request is to know whether or not time travel is possible in our universe and dimension.  You are commissioned by all governments of the world and the people of this planet to return to the location of [Latitude and Longitude] once you have discovered a safe reliable way to traverse time.  You are to return to said location on July 1, 2007.  If you are unable to reach this location, a map is provided for various locations which can allow us to communicate and bring you to the site.

Showing up to the location, alone, is not nearly enough proof.  Additionally we request you bring a few items with you. [it's at this point you might request a CPU of the future, some drastic advance in medicine, a droid, anything that overwhelmingly exceeds what we're capable of now.  Currency can be faked, IDs can be faked, photos can be faked.  Solid hardcore evidence of an advanced future civilization requires more proof than saying 'we come in peace']

Godspeed you and the future of our race.

-  The World

==========

Ok so there you have it.  Now what happens on that day when the world is watching?  Will a gigantic time traveling ship materialize?  Will crickets continue to chirp?  Will cheese continue to age?!  Wrong state…

You get my drift.

How can this fail? There are a few ways:

• Man deems it too dangerous to expose our minds to the reality of the future and negates the effort.
• Man DOES invent time travel but instead it goes to an alternate past and we’re left waiting for nothing while an alternate reality does the obligatory “OMG WTF was THAT??” when the future persons appear over Devil’s Tower.
• Man is too incompetent to invent it.
• Man invents it but instead of materializing on earth at this exact time and location, they’re off by a few hundred billion miles and end up in the blackness of space.  Better make that time travel ship air-tight just in case!  Oh and don’t forget to put a reverse gear on it either.

I’m simply trying to entertain here and if nothing else, make you think about it and wonder ‘what if?’  I could be from the future, trapped in the past!  So could you.  Are the UFOs we see, us, from the future or other universes/dimensions?  Ever have something freaky happen that caused an avoidance of something very bad?  Did someone comeback to stop it?  Ever had something go dreadfully wrong?  Did someone come back to cause it?  I am convinced that someone has come back in time to follow me around at red lights and push a button that makes them turn red, non-stop.  Ok, well maybe not all the time, but too frequently…

So enjoy time as it is now and remember to stop and smell the roses.  Life moves quicker than eyes can ever see.  Now, I’m going to go and track down that s.o.b. that keeps turning the lights red for me!

——

Needless to say, on July 1st, 2007 – there was no time traveler appearing at Devils Tower.  Then again, I didn’t wage a worldwide campaign to promote it.  Money is an issue.  Maybe there is a gaping hole in my plan.  Nonetheless, it’s fun to think about.

Hubble Space Telescope – One Last Time

Monday, May 11, 2009, Space Shuttle Atlantis will embark on a mission to give Hubble one last upgrade and servicing. Missions STS-125 is a veteran crew and a special mission in many ways. If you’ve followed this mission, then you know it’s the first since Columbia was lost (STS-107) that an orbiter will not be going to the ISS. This is special in that if a problem develops on Atlantis, the crew will need to be rescued as the ISS will not be available. Endeavour is on standby as a rescue vehicle, should it be needed. You will never see two space shuttles on the launchpad at the same time, ever again.

The mission will be intense as the Hubble is old and stubborn. The crew wants no surprises but they train for them. Many eyes will be upon them as they replace cameras, gyros and other various electronics vital to its operation.

It is still hard to believe that it was initially one of NASA’s greatest embarrassments. Now Hubble is synonymous with success and wonder. After an incredibly difficult emergency servicing mission in 1993, the Hubble’s vision was corrected. Our understanding of the Universe from that day forward has never been the same.

A few Hubble facts:

• Astronomers have used Hubble data to publish more than 7,500 scientific papers, making it one of the most productive scientific instruments ever built. In 2007 scientists published more than 700 journal articles based on Hubble data.
• Hubble’s 18 years’ worth of observations have produced about 32 terabytes of data, equaling the content of about 9,600 digital feature-length films.
• Hubble is nearly the size of a large school bus. It is 43.5 ft (13.2 m) in length and weighs 24,500 lb (11,110 kg).
• In its 18-year lifetime, the telescope has made more than 100,000 trips around our planet. As a result, Hubble has racked up plenty of frequent-flier miles, about 2.5 billion. This distance is equivalent to traveling from Saturn to the Sun and back.
• In its 18 years of observing the universe, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has made about 870,000 observations resulting in more than 560,000 images of celestial objects.

So I wish the crew of Atlantis Godspeed. Make Hubble able to bring us more breathtaking images and data. After the crew leaves, it’s likely no human hands will ever touch her again. It would be nice though, if one day, she was retrieved.

If I could one day take my grandchildren to a museum and say “that’s the Hubble telescope, your dad was named after Edwin Hubble” now that would be cool.

Atlantis is set to lift off on May 11, 2009 at 2:01pm EDT. For more info on this mission go here