Yeah, I think that just about sums it up.

So, over the past few weeks, I've been reading about a couple of different celestial phenomena which, while appearing spherical, are widely thought to be cylinders, viewed end-on. My question to the astrophysics geeks in the house is this: Why would a supernova or a nebula be cylindrical? At the very least, why would supernovae or nebulae be se uniformly cylindrical that we would ASSUME they are, in spite of spherical appearance? I'm embarrassed to say that I have no idea. Conservation of angular momentum?

So I couldn't get the online files for sports resort to work, I took the games that I don't need, traded em in and got sports resort and two of the motion plus things.

Sword fighting is awsome! seriously it's fun.

Next time you guys come over, bring your harddrives, I have like 40 working games now.

Do any of you have a working copy of Super Smash Bro's? or Zelda? I can't get either of those to work.


We should invite a few more to our blog? Patrick / fab or somethin =)

Come, adore Professor Layton & the Eternal Diva trailer

Yeah, I think adoration is not a strong enough word for my feelings regarding Professor Layton.

: Default Price Low to High Price High to Low Name (A-Z) Name (Z-A)
I think I like either the first one or the blue one. Any will do though. Thanks in advance!

Diesel DZ7125 Oversize Bad Ass Your Price: $289.00

Diesel DZ7126 Oversize Bad Ass Your Price: $289.00

Diesel DZ7127 Oversize Bad Ass Your Price: $289.00

I would love to get my hands on that!!! I will start buying my cards next week... So next week, I will finally start playing with you guys.

Sheldon is right, trains are awesome. Seriously, look at that!

By the way, do you guys know how trains stay on the tracks? The obvious answer is the little flanges on the side, but the real answer is less intuitive, as can be shown by the oxidation present on pretty much all of the aforementioned flanges, and because, were the flanges truly responsible, no train would ever be able to turn. Unlike a car's wheels, a train's are connected with a single, solid axle. So, were the train to encounter a bend, it would just run off the track.

The answer is that train wheels are, in fact, conical! The wheel contacts the rail at only a small area. When it needs to turn, the wheel slides to the left or right, decreasing the circumference per revolution on one wheel, while increasing it on the other. Isn't that interesting?

Well, we finally got a female Azureus for Ben. We never seen Ben call like crazy. He was on it right when he saw her. It was the funniest thing I have seen. Anyway, I really wanted to name her Cassiopeia (Cassie for short) but Ken started laughing. I don't know why. So, should I name her something else... Ben?

Slashdot Linux Story | US Postal Service Moves To GNU/Linux

Awesome to the nth degree. It's all coming down, Microsoft! We're comin' for ya!

Fantagraphics Books - Tony "Millionaire" Stark

I find it interesting that there's a women's studies department in universities, and not a men's studies. Just imagine how awesome that would be. Like, you'd get to study all sorts of manly stuff like motorcycles and airplanes, hot sauce, facial hair, etc. And that's not to say it would be exclusive to men, either! Women could major in Men's studies to gain a better understanding of the male mind, and help think of ways to make traditionally womanly but potentially very macho things like cooking, organization and child-rearing better. Additionally, they could develop ways for men and women to get along better that are geared more towards the male psychology, rather than the idea that we as animalistic brutes have to change ourselves completely. Truly, it would be a paradigm-shifting endeavor, and a model of intergender cooperation.

BTW, I am of the firm opinion that engineering is the manliest of the sciences, so suck it astrophysics nerds.

Which of you darling computer nerds wants to help me edit some video to put on YouTube? Brenda thinks it will help "Brunopalooza" if there is video of him being awesome. I have some, but it's disjointed & long.I think it's an .avi file.
I've never edited video before and doubt I even have software to do it.

As you all well know, I am indeed going to Japan. I figured it'd be most efficient to as officially what you all want me to bring back in here, as you can just make a comment, and I won't have to remember it.

Don't be embarassed if you want some kind of perverted porn/sex object.

The next "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" has a special edition that comes with a pair of working night vision goggles. The less special but still special edition (steel box, art book ect.) costs $80. Who knows how much the extra special edition will cost. This reporter is guessing somewhere in the $250 - $300 range. I want the goggles soo bad.

Taken from /.

"Researchers developing the 'Interplanetary Internet' have launched its first permanent node in Space via a payload aboard the International Space Station. The network is based on a new communications protocol called Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN). It will be tested heavily this month, and could give astronauts direct Internet access within a year. The Interplanetary Internet is the brainchild of Vint Cerf ('father of the Internet'), among others. Last year, NASA tested the technology on the Deep Impact spacecraft."

So I took some robitussin PM at like 5, since I've got a bit of a head cold, and MAN! It knocked me RIGHT the fuck out! I didn't think it would be nearly so effective.

Ben just told me that you've hacked your wii =o. If I bring up my wii tommorrow do you think you could do the same for me? Will I need anything?

=D

Dude, so the manager of my new bay has this amazing whiteboard, that you write on, it scrolls to the left (it has the surface of 2 whiteboards), and it has an 8.5"x11" thermal printer to do print screens with.

The Science Impact of Astronomy PhD Granting Departments in the United States

Authors: Anne L. Kinney

(Submitted on 3 Nov 2008)

Abstract: The scientific impact of the research of 36 astronomy PhD granting departments is measured and ranked here. Because of the complex nature of Universities, this study looks at the Universities in two ways; first analyzing the impact of the published work over a 10 year period of the Department which grants the PhD and; second, looking at the impact of the published work as a whole including Laboratories, Centers, and Facilities. The Universities considered in the study are drawn from the 1992 NRC study on Programs of Research, Doctorate in Astrophysics and Astronomy with three Universities added. Johns Hopkins, Michigan State, and Northwestern all host substantial astronomical research within their Departments of Physics and Astronomy and so are included here. The first method of measuring impact concentrates on tenured and tenured track faculty, with the top quartile being 1. Caltech, 2. UC Santa Cruz, 3. Princeton, 4. Harvard, 5. U Colorado, Boulder, 6. SUNY, Stony Brook, 7. Johns Hopkins, 8. Penn State, and 9. U Michigan, Ann Arbor. The second method additionally includes "soft money" scientists in research and adjunct faculty positions, with the top quartile being 1. UC Santa Cruz, 2. Princeton, 3. Johns Hopkins 4. Penn State, 5. SUNY Stony Brook, 6. U Michigan, Ann Arbor, 7. New Mexico State, 8. UMass, Amherst, and 9. U Virginia. Both methods reveal important aspects of Universities, representing both the depth and the breadth of the science available at the University. Finally, a comparison is made of the total articles published in the 10 year period, both from the departments alone and from the larger universities. Three Universities have both impact index in the top quartile, and have more than 1000 publications in a decade; UC at Santa Cruz, Princeton, and Johns Hopkins.


In conclusion: Santa Cruz was described as, Faculty research 2ed after Caltech, adjunct faculty research 1st, and the most publications 1st.

If I was studying astrophysics at UCI, I would be a junior in the fall instead of a sophomore. I would only need 6 more physics, 2 more math, and 3 more upper div astro classes, wtf. At UCSC I need 13 more physics, 1 more math, and 2 more upper div astro classes. Why is the curriculum so much more intense at UCSC? No wonder Ken is going to be done a year before me!

Indoor......Go Kart.........Racing!

Nuff Said

I want to go to the fair so I can act like a juvenile!!! Cost $10 buckaroos.

Ok heres the deal, the M10 Prerelease is on Saturday the 11th at 2pm. Were going to Comic Cult in Torrance. Google it (I would hyperlink, but im at work and its considered "games"). It costs $30, the manager doesn't run it so he could not tell me too much about it. They have a judge and he runs it, last time when I went to the Alara Reborn prerelease, it was draft. It should be a lot of fun.

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/07/07/ignite-coming-to-la.html

Ignite is really fun, and there's a dinner beforehand. We should all go!

is not as easy as I had first thought. Today was the second time that I tried to install vista while having Ubuntu already installed, and I have come across a problem for the second time. I can't get windows to like the partition! I did a little research and it seems that Vista will not install onto a dynamic partition, whatever that means.. from what I've gathered (or figured out, rather) is that because when I first decided to install Ubuntu, I created two partitions, an Ext2 (which is what linux installs on) and an extended partition, which I then split into two: a Swap and extra space. Well as it turns out (correct me if I'm wrong, Jake) I should have created three partitions, the linux, swap and an empty one. I'm not exactly sure what my next course of action should be.

Be there or be Square, yea.

Bring meat or whatever you want to grill.

Might change the day to saturday, not sure yet.

So! I just got an invitation to Google Voice, which centralizes your (presumably many) phone numbers under one Google number, assigned to you at the start. So, they give you a number, and your work phone and cell phone and all can be connected through the google number. So someone dials the Gnumber, they all ring. Interesting, but frankly I can't see the utility that much unless you're juggling a bunch of phone numbers. I think that's probably rare. Still, the utility is there, but it would be much more useful if you could redirect calls on the fly, say if you step away from your desk work calls go to your cell. Using GPS to that end would be a maaaaaajor coup in my estimation.

One cool but kind of useless feature is the transcription of voicemails, which I've wanted quite badly in the past, but which unfortunately suffers from terrible hearing at the moment. Like all google products, it will no doubt get better, but for now it's pretty terrible, at least at decoding Sam's speech.

One beef I have with the service is that the old name for it, Grand Central, was like a quadrillion times cooler. Paired with a stylised image of a train terminal, it would be pretty awesome. Google Voice sounds lame, but I suppose I can understand that they want to bring it closer to the google brand than say... Youtube, which was an established brand before Google happened.

oh man, I'm tired. It literally took me half an hour to write this out. Give it a try though, it's fun stuff! I hope you all get invites soon, no idea why mine came so early.

What is the deal with them? I really don't get how wearing uncomfortable shoes is supposed to make women more attractive, especially for a businesswoman, where they seem to contrast with the whole clean-cut, put-together look. I mean, it's not as though you really LOOK at someone's feet that often, right? Or perhaps I just make eye contact when conversing more than most people do. Frankly, I think a woman dressed in nice low-heeled business shoes would be more more attractive. Then again, and here's the paranoia part, just thinking that makes me think of how a hard-line feminist would react to it: "Oh oh, so you think it's funny when women dress up as men, do you, you perv?" "Oh oh, I see, you're all 'look at her, she thinks she's a man, how adorable!' you chauvinist bitch-hole?!" etc. etc. They say you're your own harshest critic, but I think I criticize my emotions and opinions way too much, especially when it comes to sexual things, most especially things only tangentially related to sexuality that can still take on a sexual connotation. Now see, I felt bad for feeling bad just there. Not healthy! Snap out of it!

So yeah, I'm awesome and would drive a disgusting yellow ferarri had I the option. Women are disposable playthings to me, brah. I'mma put on this backwards cap and blow this joint. Peace!

So Pandora (yes the music website, not the old greek stiff) just made my list of software companies that have shafted me. The Blackberry has a Pandora app, but the G1 does not. For shame. Especially after that asshole told me:

"As for your question about the Android - Each version of Pandora software for a portable device needs to be separately developed and approved by the various cellular carriers. We are steadily working to bring Pandora to more devices and carriers."

PSN To Offer Comics (Well, Manga

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I thought they were making a Blame! game for PSP. Words cannot express how awesome that would have been. And yes, the excalamation point is necessary, because there's another manga by the same dude called "Blame".

For those interested in the manga, here's a torrent of all the dude's works, which are uniformly excellent:

http://www.bakabt.com/download/145344/1247052876/25705e41f951a4296a99886bea4309bc/306443/Tsutomu_Niheis_mangas_Blame_Biomega_Abara_NOiSE_Blame_Academy_BLAME_NSE_Blame_Dead_Heads_Digimortal_Breaking_Quarantine_Nihei_Abba_Sabrina_Snikt_Winged_Armor_Suzumega_Zeb-Noid.torrent

For those of you with slow interwebs *coughsamcough* I also have a translated copy sitting on my hard drive.

And no, I will not use tinyurl, and this is why. Centralization is bad, redundancy is good, redundancy is good.

http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=anime&aid=6335

So.

This is what they show on Japanese PBS. Apparently it's a CHEMISTRY-BASED action/adventure anime developed to teach kids about the elements and their interactions. Not really my thing, as it has no robots (I don't think...), and goodness knows how much chemistry will really filter through the inevitable coming of age story (which the Japanese just LOVE, though at least it's targeted at children here), but still. PBS should take a hint, and use some of that national endowment for the arts money to develop something interesting to the post-sesame street, pre-high school set. I mean, Look at Math Blasters! I freaking LOVED that game!

Wait a second...

Shia Le Bouf...

The reason he's all over the place is that directors are trying to imitate the Japanese! My God, it's so simple! Something like 90% of the animes that are popular here have the afore-mentioned coming of age story. Dragon Ball, Naruto, etc etc, essentially household names both with children and immature adults. Spielberg thought that by shoehorning in Shia becoming a man into freaking everything (Indiana Jones? Come on, man...) that they would gain instant, subliminal popularity. And it worked! Despite critical panning, international box office numbers for Indy 4, Transformers, and Die Hard broke records! My God...

Taken from a (non-adoring) article about Michael Jackson's death:

"Hang on a minute. I'm not the kind of person to start Paedogeddon-style witch-hunts gratuitously, but ..."

PAEDOGEDDON!

Chris Hanson has to use this, I'm serious.

Chris: Tonight, on Dateline: Operation Paedogeddon. (strategically placed zoom and pan...)

On that note, what crime are these pervs supposed to have committed? The police do, after all, show up after Chris Hanson has worked them over. I mean, you can't lock someone up for WANTING to have sex with children, right? The people they talk with online are adults and everything... Imagine if you were arrested for saying "You know, I'd like to try pot sometime" to a police officer. Then again, I don't suppose it's the same thing. They're actively trying to commit a crime, the same way you can get arrested for soliciting an undercover cop, thinking she's a prostitute, and that seems to be pretty common practice. Then again AGAIN, I think that whole solicitation of prostitution thing is complete BS, ridiculous puritanical laws regarding prostitution notwithstanding.

And yes, I DO think that prostitution should be legal! Just like marijuana, all the arguments against it would essentially be solved by legalization (and regulation and taxation). Given a legal option, would any sane person frequent a brothel which might involve human trafficking, coercion, venereal disease or any number of other nasty things? I think not.

But yeah. paedogeddon. I imagine all these creepy dudes running from a mushroom cloud. "It's the end of days!"

It's interesting, typing in Japanese has a different cadence, at least for me, than typing in English. In English, I type per word, so to speak, with bursts of keystrokes punctuated by spaces. In Japanese, it's more on a per character basis, like a legal stenographer. I wonder if it's different for someone who learned to type with Chinese characters on a phonetic keyboard.

I just realized that it IS possible to make a toilet paper dispenser TOO perfect! If it had a small enough coefficient of friction, the single square hanging off the bottom would cause the whole thing to unravel! The question remains though, what is the most appropriate and pleasing amount of friction to apply?

And I think I agree. Launchess 9 / 22 / 09

http://www.aiononline.com/us/

06-07-09_lockex.jpg (JPEG Image, 1654x622 pixels)

I cannot describe this as anything other than ACHINGLY beautiful.

Pb = __________(A^N * N) / N!(N-1)___________

       Sum(n=0 to N) ((A^n / n!) + (A^N *N / N!(N-1))

Where

Pb: is Probability of a Blocked Call

A: call rate*call duration in units called Earlings named for A.K. Earling

N: Number of channels the line carries

n: number of callers

I was just eating something with sriracha, and I thought about a bunch of rednecks sitting around a table, and one says "y'all got any a that sriracha-sauce?" I think that's the only redneck way of saying "sriracha."