Also

No words.

FD&C

Yum. Too bad it's probably saturated with artificial colors. FYI - the current seven FD&C dyes are, if I'm not mistaken, petroleum/tar distillates. Crazy.

Mad Pierrot

I have pineapples. I love pineapples. I am happy.


Well, at least I was. Then I finished the can. Now I'm recalling all of my many woes. Cars, money, bikes, family, you name it. Things could be worse, I suppose, but saying that doesn't solve anything. Then again, neither does complaining.

My brain has officially gone into a state of torpor. I no longer think about engineering or physics or math. I only really think when I'm working at the bike shop, and even there most of what I do, I do automatically without much thought. It's a welcome change that won't last all too long.

Anyway, enough talk. Time for sleep.

Oh, Ben Stein...

...I have lost all respect for you. Why are you backing Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed? Do you really believe that creat - excuse me - proponents of 'intelligent design' (none of whom, by the way, are really scientists) are being discriminated against in the scientific community? That's tantamount to making a claim that black people in America are less discriminated against than white people.

Do you know why intelligent design isn't (or at least should never be) included in science curricula? BECAUSE IT ISN'T SCIENCE. Science can be measured. Science can be observed and inferred from observation. Science is tangible and logical. Intelligent design has none of these qualities. Essentially, it's just stating "well, life is too complex to have come about on its own, so God must have planned it."

I agree that the universe (biological or otherwise) is complex, and that there might have been some divine will in shaping the cosmos. I won't go around teaching that to people though, because that's my belief, and it can neither be proven nor disproven. I think Stan Marsh put it best when he said that evolution is the how and not the why. Science is about what's concrete, not ideological beliefs. Science is about the how.

Out of Time

That very well sums up how I feel about life right now.(I made that one too!) The semester's over, and even though I have to figure out my financial aid stuff, I'm going to let that slide for a couple days. I think this might be a movie marathon week. Possibly including Dawn of the Dead. Anyone care to join?

Absolute Ego Dance

Eight posts, and I doubt anyone's actually reading. Unless they receive an email from me. For some reason, I deemed it necessary to include the URL to this "blog" in the signature of my email.

That short paragraph made me die a little on the inside.

---

For me, setting things aflame would be an ancillary benefit of having a blowtorch. What I really want to do is make crème brûlée. Or brown meringue. I saw Martha Stewart once brown the top of a lemon meringue pie with a blow torch. Awesome. Bread pudding is another thing I'd like to learn to make. That one doesn't seem as hard, as it doesn't involve making custard. And quiche. I've recently become reacquainted with quiche in all of its fattening goodness. Trader Joe's has some inexpensive frozen quiche that tastes tasty.

You just wasted a small portion of your life. I'm only writing this because I've had a couple ciders. It's cider season for me, by the way. No more beer for a while.

Pump It

Not only do I now have a weblog (or, if you will, "blog", because people need abbreviated terms), but I use it to post ridiculous Youtube videos. Like this gem:

My mom's the one playing keyboards and singing backup at about 0:55.


Of course, there's more than one type of video that can be posted. There's also the obscure commercial from way back when:

Now, I surely wasn't around when that commercial aired. Hell, I don't even ever recall eating Count Chocula. I do, however, remember seeing Boo Berry and Frankenberry on the shelves and in commercials. And the time when there were three chefs selling Cinnamon Toast Crunch:

They must have downsized. I won't make any jokes about them dying because, well, that's my childhood, and that's one of the things that's off limits in my book. I'd like to retain at least some of my childhood innocence.


Now of course, one type of video posting that's relevant to me is bike videos:

For the uninformed, that's a pump track. My roommate Kevin and I (and a tiny bit of help from others) are currently building one in our super secret visible location. It's nowhere near as big as that one, but we're just getting started.

In the process of building the track (which we've dubbed "The Fountain" for obvious reasons... well, obvious if you've seen it), I've discovered that people have a tremendous desire to name things. The first berm we built is campfire, the second is brickside. The third feature is a large hip/berm, that got the name "the happy hip" after I spraypainted a smiley face onto it with marking paint. The funny thing about these names is that no one will really get it. The smiley face will fade away. The other names are only obvious because we built the whole damn thing, and we know what it was like before There are bricks used as a support for one berm, and the other was built around what appeared to be a fire pit. Rest assured, when it's done, I'll post videos of us riding it too.


Finally, there's the music video:

Mighty Fest Draws Nigh

Citizens of Science

I feel like I had something pertinent to say about something. I can't remember what it was. Whatever, YMO's awesome. It's all I've been listening to lately.

Broke your glasses, but it broke the ice/You said that I was an asshole and I paid the price

Broke. Utterly broke. $0.73 in my bank account broke. I've not yet resorted to scrounging for change, but I don't think I'll get to that point. There's been a lull (of sorts) in my life recently. I work two jobs, but I don't have enough time to work. Unfortunately this gives me a low cash flow. The semester is almost over, so I'll be able to work a lot soon, but that doesn't help right now. Fortunately, the most important stuff is covered, and I finally got my car back. After about a month and a half (maybe longer), I got my car back. It runs great. Hell, after a head rebuild, new timing belt, and new control arm, it damn well better run great. I have lost a bit of confidence in the reliability of the car, but hopefully it'll soon prove itself and I'll be able to go on a daytrip or something.

Unless you're an engineering or physics major, you probably have no idea how much my life revolves around triangles and sums of forces/moments right now. Simple frames boil down to triangles and sums of forces/moments. Less simple frames and roof trusses do the same. All that mathematics behind light and optics is simply trigonometry. Everything has to equal zero. Static equilibrium. Snell's law. Reflection. Refraction. Friction. Greek letters.

One class is down. Linear algebra. I took my last test tonight. I'm fairly certain that I got a B overall in the class. I should have done better. I very well could have, had I studied more.

I need food. I need to buy food. All I've got left is tuna and chili. Doesn't seem like an appetizing combination.

Wintry Mix

So how many thousands of loyal readers have I earned myself? I assume < 1.000.


First, an announcement. I am selling this bike (click for details):




The weather has turned south, but this is typical of Philadelphian winters. I believe that the NWS forecast for today called for a mix of snow/sleet, followed by ice/sleet, then sleet/freezing rain, and finally freezing rain/rain (or you can use the umbrella term 'wintry mix'). Now it's just raining, and since I'm stubborn and have not turned on the gas heat, I'm relying on an oil-filled electric heater to provide warmth. I'm actually thinking of breaking out my tent, and setting it up with the heater inside. Fire hazard? Probably. Warm? Definitely. But anyway, I would be happy with just plain snow.

Last winter, I had a 1993 Subaru Impreza to get me around. That car handled incredibly in the snow. Shit, that car handled great all around. I once took it to a giant sand pit down by the airport, and it had NO problems getting in and out of it. Soon enough, I'll get my Saab back (that's another story altogether), and though I know it won't be anywhere near as good as the Subaru, I hope it at least handles decently in the snow. It is Swedish, after all. Perhaps I should have gotten an old Subaru GL wagon, or even a Brat. Both have true four wheel drive, and have amazing offroad capabilities, as can be seen in the following videos:





I don't care if it is kind of a redneck thing to do. I want one. Lifted and all.



I didn't wake up until about 4:00 today. I went out last night and had some strong beers. On top of that, I've not been getting much sleep lately. Now I'm up and not doing lab reports. I guess I should get on that.

Back to the Dark Ages

Well, here I am. Never thought I would have a blog. I mean, I've got a Livejournal and all, sure. I guess this is more... 'mature'. Anyway, this first entry is a bit grim (and hopefully they all won't be), but it's something that I feel is largely (and naively) ignored. A topic that encompasses everything.

One note: I am not an expert in any of these fields. This is simply some data that I have collected and interpreted in a certain way.

As I'm sure everyone is aware, there is an energy crisis unfolding the likes of which we've not seen ever before. On top of that, there are impending environmental disasters in the works. I'll admit I'm a bit of a "Peak Oil" advocate, but even if you're a skeptic, the evidence is too visible to ignore. I won't go into detail too much about everything (and unfortunately, a lot of my research has been done on Wikipedia, which may be less than accurate information), but I'll give you an idea of why I'm worried about the future.

For one, take the dwindling oil reserves of the world. According to the Department of Energy Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producer in the world, and also has roughly one fifth of the total global reserves. Oil accounts for 44 percent of Saudi Arabia's GDP, and 90% of their export revenues. By 2009, they aim to increase oil production to 12 million barrels a day. However, even in 2004, the United States alone consumed about 20 million barrels. A day. Canada has the second largest proven reserves, which is good because they're a "friend" and they right up there; however, if you look at this graph, you can see that Canada's "conventional" oil production peaked in the '70s. That's readily accessible oil, not including oil sands. Oil sands actually account for 95% of Canada's reserves, but oil sands are notoriously harder to get to. That's partly why they were never extracted before, it was deemed economically unwise.

I also skimmed an article earlier today that touched on the topic of where oil dollars are being invested. As it turns out, oil rich nations (such as the UAE) are increasing their foreign investment. That is to say that they're spending money overseas, buying up all kinds of foreign assets. Of course, economically this is a very sound decision, but the conspiracy theorist in me also thinks that they might know that the petroleum era is drawing to a close, and they're buying up all they can while they've got the scratch. That's a completely unfounded hypothesis, but it's something to think about.

With much hesitation, it seems that a good number of Americans are wising up to this. Unfortunately, we're not the only country in the world that uses oil. China's developing economy is growing at an immense rate; in 2006, China's rate of growth of GDP was 11.1%, over three times that of the United States. Obviously, to fuel this growth, they'll need a vast amount of natural resources, including oil China's oil consumption, if its rate of growth remains constant, is expected to be equal to that of the US (and we are the largest consumer) in the next 15 to 20 years (scroll down to the commentary section). Now of course, this is only a worst case scenario, but I feel that this thirst for oil will draw the US and China to a global standoff within the next 10 or 15 years, 20 tops. It might be called a war on communism, but it'll just be a conflict for dominance over resources. Again, this is the conspiracy theorist talking, but perhaps that's why we're trying to secure as much fuel as we can. If it boils down to war, it will certainly be an ugly one. China's military (active service + reserve) is about 50% larger than that of the United States. It could very well be a war of attrition, with whomever having the largest supply of oil being the victor. It would be truly ironic if, during the course of this hypothetical war, we exhaust all fuel reserves. Think of the massive unemployment of all resources when the petroleum of a petroleum based economy is... well, gone.

China's not the only up and coming economy. India is growing pretty fast as well, but I'll get into that another time.

That's just the energy side of things. Sure, there are newer, "cleaner" sustainable sources of energy, but the sum of those so far isn't enough to solve our problems based on current usages. On top of that, take environmental time bombs like overfishing, overfarming (and related - desertification), overpopulation, decrease of effectiveness of antimicrobial agents, and (of course) global warming. All of this promises that the next few years should be an interesting time to be alive.

I want to try and convey a message to all of my friends. Enjoy what you have while you have it. Even if you look at the most optimistic figures, you can still see that we're heading towards an inevitable energy crisis. Make something of your self. Do something with your life to try and help society. Make less trash, use less energy.

Wash your hands.