Action at a Distance

"Didn't you used to wear that, like, five years ago?"

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:32:38 GMT

Not sure how many of you out there watch Castle (you should, by the way, because it's AWESOME), but last night was their Halloween episode. As the episode opens, the protagonist, novelist Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) is trying on a Halloween costume--suspenders, revolvers... brown coat. He comes out of his bedroom to a bewildered look on his daughter's face.

"What are you supposed to be?"
"A space cowboy."
"There are no cows in space. Besides, didn't you wear that, like, five years ago? It's time to move on."

My must-see list for SPX

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:19:34 GMT

I've never been to a webcomics expo before. I've been to a BRIDAL expo and a PHYSICS expo, and I've wanted to go to a webcomics one for a while, but I've never had the chance.

Now I get to! The Small Press Expo is being held this weekend in Bethesda, right outside White Flint station, which is super-easy for me to get to (straight shot on the C8). It's really exciting--I've been reading a lot of the exhibitors for years, and now I get to actually "meet" them.

My must-see list is as follows:

Kate Beaton of history-themed awesomeness
John Campbell of Pictures for Sad Children
Joe Comeau and Emily Horne of A Softer World
Aaron Diaz of Dresden Codak
Jeph Jacques of Questionable Content (will probably skip if too crowded)
Jon Rosenberg of Goats (my first and favorite webcomic)

In other webcomics-related stuff, after the LJ-RSS-feed glitch of last week, I've switched all my webcomics over to Google Reader. At first, I thought it would mean that I'd never check my LJ any more and thus miss out on all the updates from my actual friends. In actuality, I'm checking my LJ almost as much, and now that there's no webcomics on the page, I actually NOTICE my friends' entries.

I can't help but think this protestor must be confused...

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 18:42:43 GMT

(Photo courtesy of AP, posted to Washingtonpost.com)

So this woman must be either (a) very confused, (b) suffering from brain damage or (c) part of a performance art piece. Those are the ONLY explanations I can POSSIBLY think of why a woman holding a sign saying "HANDS OFF MY BODY" would be protesting FOR a group that would like nothing more than to have the government take away her reproductive rights.

I have nothing against the act of protest, even when it's as mind-bogglingly disruptive as this one evidently is (metro delayed across the city), but one's protestations should actually MAKE SENSE!

Grad school rant

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 17:51:48 GMT

So, my responsibilities right now are the following:

1) make corrected figures so that the paper I'm writing with [Prof. X] and [Prof. Y] can go out and get itself published

2) do my Classical HW

3) make revisions to the paper I wrote as an REU student with [Prof. Y] and [Prof. Z]

(2) needs to be done by Friday and will probably take me 1-2 full afternoons to complete. (1) should be almost done, but there are some ambiguities ([Prof. X] described one thing via email, but drew something else, which he left on my desk). (3) can't be done until [Prof. Y], [Prof. Z] and I MEET to discuss what revisions we want to make.

So, ideally, what I would like to do is spend one of the next three days (including to-day) at the office, have the meetings I need to have, and then spend that day + Friday working on (1) and (3). Then I can devote the other two days to (2). Unfortunately, that involves planning. [Prof. Z] has already planned / rescheduled our meeting THREE TIMES (it's tentatively scheduled for to-morrow, after my classes, but chances of cancellation are high), and [Prof. X] only seems to be around when he's NOT wanted. So I am getting ready to flip my shit but am trying to keep myself calm.

My plan is this: I'm gonna try to work on my HW here to-day as I wait for [Prof. X] to maybe possibly show up, and then, to-morrow, there will either be a meeting or there won't, but either I'm going home after the meeting, or after class. If [Prof. X] wants to meet to-morrow, I'll tell him, "I'm sorry, but I've got homework. Let's meet on Friday," and call it a day.

That should work. It should. But just watch someone monkey it up.

Some gems from my first Classical Mechanics class

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:04:00 GMT

Prof: "How many of you were math majors as undergrads?"
(several hands go up)
Prof: "Shit."

---

Prof: "Some notational issues:"
(writes on the board) 1 = -1 = sqrt(2) = pi = e
Prof: "But with my handwriting, you won't be able to tell them apart, anyway."

---

Prof: "If the order of differentiation matters, it's called the math department."

It kinda sucks that I've got 2-3 hours of back-to-back physics Monday, Wednesday and Friday (with 1.5 hours of physics Tuesday/Thursday) but at least I'll always be done by noon.

I also share the name with the son of former PM Ariel Sharon

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:28:39 GMT

Got an email this morning from a fellow Kenyon physics major.

"Hey Everyone,

I hope you're all beginning to settle in to your post-Kenyon
endeavors. I wanted to share with you a small story from this summer
that I though you might appreciate. I was scrolling through the guide
menu on my TV looking for shows on one evening not too long ago, when
I came across a peculiar name for a show. I saw a half hour segment of
"Gilad's Bodies in Motion." I though to myself, "self this is strange.
This would be the perfect title for one of Gili's 140 review
sessions." I went ahead and went to the channel and looked at the show
description only to be disappointed to find that bodies in motion were
in fact human bodies not point particles to model projectiles. It
turns out this was a fitness channel. The point of this story is
two-fold. 1) Should physics not work out for Gili he'll always have
personal training as a second option. 2) Should physics work out for
Gili, he'll need to be careful not to title a course "Gilad's Bodies
in Motion" for copyright reasons.

Take care everyone, and good luck,"

I <3 ancient games

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:45:19 GMT

Generally, it's not good to do something like watch a movie or play a video game while you're waiting for your code to run, since doing such tasks takes away processor resources from the code you're running. But I think it'd be all right if I played some StarCraft--the system requirement for the game is a *90* MHz processor. Ha! I use more than that checking my email!

Ah, reading for pleasure, how I missed you

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:04:29 GMT

I just finished The Eyre Affair, which is officially the first novel I have read--to completion--for pleasure in quite some time.

Very much enjoyed it; I've started on the sequel.

I used to be such an avid reader as a kid; it upsets me that I haven't been reading more. I hope this is just the beginning of my return to bibliophilia.

How am I not sore?

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:24:01 GMT

Jen's PODS unit arrived yesterday, filled with most of her stuff, including 47 boxes of books, five bookshelves, a king-sized mattress and a loom. The job of unloading the unit fell on me, Jen and Jen's parents. To make matters worse, there's no adequate parking by our apartment building, so the pod was parked waay over at the other end of the complex, so moving in her stuff was a two step process: move it from the pod to Jen's car and her parents' minivan, then unload the cars and bring the stuff up to our third-floor apartment.

Jen's father and I, being the two manly men of the party, were tasked with the moving of the large furniture; I can't decide which was harder, the mattress or the loom, but pictures of the former will probably be posted to our Facebook in the coming days.

We started unloading at around noon and weren't finished until 9pm. But we got it all done, and that's pretty phenomenal.

Can't say it was fun, but it was all worth it to be able to sleep on a REAL BED and be able to permanently put away our air mattresses, and while my legs were killing me last night, I woke up this morning feeling strangely fine. No aching muscles, no weariness... Hey, I'm not complaining.

Try a WEEK

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:25:16 GMT

So here's the deal: Jen and I decided to go with Verizon DSL instead of Comcast, the premise being that we were gonna cut down on the evil factor. So we purchased it two weeks ago Thursday, they said it'd be activated in 1-7 days, which meant there was a decent chance it would be online by the time I moved in the following Sunday.

I get there, and there's a UPS slip that said we missed delivery of the router. Fine, okay. My parents have to take me to the UPS shipping depot in Laurel to pick it up (since there's no guarantee I would have been home for the second or third attempts). So on Tuesday I get the router, set it up... and discover my service hasn't been activated yet, and, in fact, it WON'T be activated until... Thursday.

Fine, okay. So I got unlucky with the whole 1-7 days thing. Thursday rolls around, it's STILL not activated. I call Verizon, they say there's some sort of problem with my service, and they'll get back to me. Friday rolls around, I call them back (they never actually got back to me), and they said, "Oh, nonono. It should all be good." I insist that it's NOT, they tell me they'll get back to me and might have to send out a repair tech on Monday (to-day). I'm grumpy, but what can I do?

I call them back later in the day on Friday to check in. They say the problem isn't on their end, and they'll need to send out a tech after all. I ask them on what time Monday should I be expecting the tech, and they tell me that, oh no, the tech won't be arriving 'till TUESDAY (to-morrow)!

This is absolutely WONDERFUL, considering JEN IS MOVING IN TO-MORROW!! So in addition to all the stress of moving her stuff in, we're ALSO gonna have to worry about a Verizon guy who will be coming "some time before 7pm."

But the bottom line is, it's been a WEEK since I moved in, and whenever I'm in my apartment, I don't have internet. Luckily, my University of Maryland network account is up-and-running, so I can use internet while at the office, but, considering my "work" right now is teaching myself all about Lyapunov Exponents, if I had INTERNET, I could be DOING IT FROM HOME!!! Plus, it's been a bunch of lonely nights, what without the comfort of Google LiveJournal and Washingtonpost.com (on the plus side, I have managed to get Wikipedia Offline)

I feel kind of... dirty

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 01:19:50 GMT

For years, my pseudonym / screen name / etc. has been Antar (as in, the name of this blog).

After doing a Wikipedia search on the name, I feel I should make it abundantly clear:

The name comes from Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Symphony No. 2 "Antar", which melodically chronicles the tale of the great 6th century Arabic Warrior-Poet Antarah ibn Shaddad.

It IN NO WAY references the home planet of the main characters from the 1999-2002 teen drama Roswell and associated young adult novels.

I think I need to go take a shower....

No more travel

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 13:22:53 GMT

Wow, this is gonna be weird: I'm done traveling for the forseeable future.

No more flights to Austin or back and forth to Gambier.

My home, my work, my school and my fiancee* are now all in the same place.

That is kind of crazy.

*Technically, fiancee arrives in a week-and-a-half...

My God

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 03:29:59 GMT

http://wonkette.com/408962/fox-news-asks-commenters-to-write-funny-questions-they-would-ask-obama

although, to me, this isn't NEARLY as bad as:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/22/AR2009052200793.html

Say what you will about liberals--they don't make racist comments and ban conservative organizations.

Physics of Angels & Demons

Tue, 26 May 2009 12:21:06 GMT

I would need to re-watch the opening LHC scene to get a better sense for the scientific accuracy, but it was pretty cool, regardless. Just a couple of things I need to note:

-There was the line in there about the LHC not being meant for antimatter production. That struck me as false at first; after all, most cyclotrons (like Fermilab's Tevatron) work by colliding protons with antiprotons (antiprotons = antimatter). But then I remembered that the LHC is unique in that it's a proton-proton beam, so that's actually probably correct.
-Actually, the big deal in the movie wasn't the production of antimatter, but the production of LARGE AMOUNTS of antimatter. Wikipedia says the LHC can produce 10,000,000 anti-protons each second (that's 1.67x10^-19 kg--a VERY SMALL amount, whereas they were producing actual visible amounts of antimatter (see below).
-The physics-lady at one point says the canister had the explosive yield of a 5 kilotons of TNT. One kt of TNT = 4.184x10^12 J. Assuming 100% efficiency in turning matter into energy, we can solve E=mc^2 for m to get: there was ~233 mg of antimatter in that canister. At current rates of production, it would take the LHC 44 MILLION years to produce enough antiprotons for just ONE of those canisters.

-The explosion: forgetting the whole fireball / implosion / blinding flash of light thing, assuming proton-antiproton collisions, you wouldn't get the same fiery spectrum you'd get in your usual bomb--all the energy released would be in the form of 938 MeV photons (1.3 fm or 1 millionth-of-a-nanometer wavelength light). That's high, high, HIGH energy gamma rays and, as such, I would imagine that, if you were close enough to get hit by the concussive shockwave, you should have been close enough to be SEVERELY, probably FATALLY irradiated by those beams. Lemme see if I can work out the calculation:
-From XCOM, the 938 MeV photon cross section of water (of which we mostly are) is 0.0202 cm^2/g. Water has a density of 1 g/cm^3, so that gives a linear absorbtion coefficient of 0.0202 cm^-1. Assume the helicopter got up to 10,000 ft (a pretty generous assumption). Then the surface energy density at ground-level would be 179 kJ/m^2. Assume the person is standing up (not lying down) so has a height of 2 meters and a "cross section" of 0.05 m^2. Then, of the 8.95 kJ incident on each person, 98% (8.8 kJ) will be absorbed. Assuming a weight of 100 kg, that's a radiation dose of 88 Grays. That's an instantly fatal dose, looks like. Nice job, Dan Brown. You just killed EVERYONE.

Oh, and by the way, I GOT ENGAGED!!!!!

This is the OPPOSITE of how these things usually go

Thu, 21 May 2009 15:16:33 GMT

My warranty on Scheherazade, my Dell laptop and primary computer, expires next month. It's one hell of a warranty, covering not just normal wear & tear, but "accidents" up to--but not including--fire & flood.

I just had her serviced a few weeks ago to fix a crack in her screen casing. About a week after the servicing, when I tried to replace her hard drive (for upgrade purposes--not because the HD was failing, as far as I could tell), the plastic cover that makes it so the HD case is flush with the rest of the laptop broke clean off. Since I was graduating, I couldn't get a Dell tech to come out before I left Gambier, so he's showing up to-day in MD.

But YESTERDAY, all of a sudden, my CD drive has stopped working.

So everything on my poor baby laptop seems to be breaking down at the same time...

...but it's RIGHT BEFORE the warranty expires, not RIGHT AFTER, which is what USUALLY happens with me and my electronics items.

Dell offers a one-year warranty extension, and if it's reasonably priced, I'll probably take it. I've pretty much decided that Scheherazade will be my last "desktop replacement" laptop and that she'll be replaced by a Linux workstation or Mac Pro (read: really powerful tower) and a Dell Mini 9 "laptot" (a.k.a. "netbook"), but I won't be able to afford to buy those new computers for quite some time. So until then, I'll still be pretty reliant on Scheherazade, and, if it makes any fiscal sense, I should keep her under warranty.

Oh, God

Thu, 21 May 2009 14:19:16 GMT

I had no idea that blip.fm was posting all my blips not just as Twitters, but as LJs. THAT is annoying. Now that I think about it, though, what the Hell was I *expecting* them to do with the account I added?!?

listening to "It Will Be a Good Day by Yes - " on Blip

Thu, 21 May 2009 02:20:49 GMT

Then again, I kind of have a thing for melodically beautiful but lyrically nonsensical tunes.

listening to "Lithium Flower - Scott Matthew" on Blip

Thu, 21 May 2009 02:09:47 GMT

Okay, I'll be the first to admit that this song makes absolutely ZERO sense, lyrically, but I like it anyway.

listening to "COMPLETE Lady L by Nick Andopolis - " on Blip

Thu, 21 May 2009 02:05:56 GMT

Ha! Okay, this service officially rocks if they have THIS of all songs.

listening to "Kaleidoscope - Sleepy Rebels" on Blip

Thu, 21 May 2009 02:02:30 GMT

And this would be the first.

listening to "The Honey Tree By The Mostar Diving Club - " on Blip

Thu, 21 May 2009 02:00:46 GMT

Just playing around at this point; this song would be the 2nd song I've heard on a commercial that made me buy the whole album from (shudder) MySpace.

Was not expecting that from American Dad

Mon, 11 May 2009 14:40:53 GMT

The best quantum physics joke I've ever heard came from... Seth Macfarlane?

"Heisenberg's wife was unsatisfied because when he had the time he didn't have the energy, and when he had the position, he didn't have the momentum."

Thank You For Banking With Us

Thu, 07 May 2009 19:38:04 GMT

Closed out my People's Bank of Gambier account to-day.

Guess I'll never get to hear that Scottish ATM voice again...

Footlong Sub to Save Chuck

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 23:30:54 GMT

Submitted via the Subway website...

To whom it may concern: I have just returned from purchasing a 12" turkey & pepperoni sub from one of your Mt. Vernon, OH locations (the one OUTSIDE the Wal-Mart, rather than inside). I am composing this message since the establishment did not have a comment card box.

The turkey-pepperoni 12" had long been a staple of my diet, back in my young and heady high school days. But these days, as a college senior in rural Ohio, I vastly prefer to spend my money at local establishments than to schlep over to the neighboring town to get mere "fast food."

For four years, I can't say I missed it; my college town has a local deli and many other fine dining establishments, and nothing--certainly not the TV ads featuring dancing/singing idiots--made me even once think I was missing anything.

But then, two weeks ago, I found myself watching Chuck, one of my favorite currently-airing shows. In that episode, one character attempts to butter up another--a rather large fellow by the name of Big Mike--with a footlong chicken teriyaki sub. In the scene, the delicious sandwich is shown in all its glistening, meaty glory as Big Mike devours his favorite food. Now, I've never had a subway chicken teriyaki sub. But watching that scene made me remember MY favorite subway sandwich, made me remember my minimum-wage high school job (working for a dry cleaner's), made me remember how I HATED that job, made me remember how the ONLY THING that motivated me to go to work each day was that I would get myself one of those mouth-watering turkey & pepperoni sandwiches (eating half right away, and saving half for my mid-shift break). I remembered how the turkey and pepperoni complemented each other so perfectly, how the olives--bathed in honey mustard--added just the right variation, how the freshly-baked, never frozen Italian Herbs & Cheese bread would crunch. I remembered dripping honey mustard on myself and staining oh, so many pairs of pants. In that short scene, all those memories came flooding back, and I thought to myself, God, I want some Subway.

I'm graduating this year and moving back to a more civilized region, one where chain restaurants aren't a 15-minute car ride away. I'm heading off to become a poor grad student, and $5 will be approximately my daily lunch budget. Now that I've tasted that juicy goodness once again, I know where that $5-a-day is going. And it won't be to McDonald's.

The purpose of my writing this, Subway corporation, is to try to convince you of the good that Chuck has done for your business. I am sure my story is far from unique. And while I'm not going to say that that one scene is somehow saving your corporation (I don't imagine you're doing particularly poorly), I am saying that it was THE most effective Subway advertisement I've ever seen, and it reawakened a long-dormant craving in someone who used to be one of your most regular customers. You should implore NBC to renew Chuck, if at the very least, for the promise of more such ads to come.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a sandwich to finish.

Back to Chrome

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 23:08:27 GMT

Oh, shiny, shiny interface. Oh, Omnibox. On "Speed Dial" home screen. How I missed you.

I've switched back to Google Chrome, and this time, I think it's for good.

As I described so long ago, the main reason I switched away in the first place was lack of Flashblock. In addition, I was worried about trivial things like "security" and "speed."

Regarding security, I realize the master password is kind of silly for Chrome's user experience. And if I consistently lock my screen when I go away from my computer, it's not something I have to worry about. In terms of vulnerability to attacks, I think the results of pwn2own speak for themselves.

Regarding speed, those weird slow-downs I'd experienced seem to no longer be a problem, at least in Chrome 2.0 beta. Part of that might be that this version of Chrome has somehow been made EVEN FASTER in terms of Javascript execution, but I think the real answer lies below:

Chrome 2.0 has support for add-ons. And while everything's still very much in beta, some wonderful, wonderful souls (scroll to the bottom, to the "answer" by ChromeFreak) have taken to making a version of Flashblock. The interface is a bit clunky (Shift-F to whitelist a site; hunt down a cookie to remove it from the whitelist), but by-God, it works (for instructions on installing an extension in Chrome 2.0, click here).

So I'm rejoicing in the glory that is un-dockable tabs, Google Docs integration and sandboxed processes (ooh! Looks like they've added custom dictionary support!)

P.S. I swear, I *am* working on my Honors. I just implemented three chapters worth of corrections. So I'm taking a teeny break.