OLPC Logo

I’ve ordered mine, have you ordered your’s? All the cool kids are ordering one. Don’t you want to be part of the “in” crowd?

Not only does ordering one of these super-duper, ultra-nifty, best-thing-since-sliced-bread-cubed improve your health, fortunes, and make you more appealing to members of the opposite sex in general, but every laptop you buy for $399 means that a needy child in third-world country will get one too!

And then you can both go online and play deathmatch! Deathmatch!! DEATHMATCH!!!

I can’t wait to start pwning kids living in refugee camps around the world in Ethiopia, Rawanda, and Darfur at Quake while chowing-down on bean burritos in the comfort of my climate-controlled modern home. It’s gonna be Total ownage!

I’m already working on my snappy one-liners:

“Whaddya pause to wind up your laptop?”

“Hey! Whydontcha go farm some gold for me?”

“You’re so poor, you can’t even pay attention! Cause… you know… You’re all worried about clean water, and food, and all that genocide and stuff… Nevermind.”

Third World is Pwwned!

Kurt Vonnegut Photo by Ryan Somma

He would be 85 today. This great writer survived the firebombing of Dresden, wrote dozens of books and short stories, and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.

Although he objected to the description, Vonnegut wrote many science fiction stories. In his book Cat’s Cradle, he came up with the idea of ice-nine a molecule that converts other water molecules to it’s form, turning room-temperature water into ice. Although science fiction at the time, today scientists are aware of prions, which are protein molecules that convert other molecules to their structure. This is understood to be the mechanism behind Mad Cow Disease.

In his book The Sirens of Titan all human accomplishments, from Stonehenge to the Great Wall of China, are revealed to be for the purposes of sending a message on behalf of a stranded alien requesting spare parts for its ship. His book Galapagos includes the evolution of people stranded on the Galapagos Islands into finned and feral animals after the extinction of the human race. His most famous book, Slaughterhouse Five follows a man “unstuck in time” as he visits different moments in his life. All of these books are precious for their statements on the human condition.

Kurt Vonnegut died on April 11^th of this year from brain injuries after a fall at his Manhattan home.

There’s a bit of odd numerical synchronicity in this date of birth (11/11). In some parallel universe, where humans have an extra digit on each hand and foot, today would be Powers of Eleven Day. What a tribute that would be, for a writer who was so unique in writing and worldview.

I am officially a professional blogger! The blog is called Geeking Out, it’s for my local paper, I’m getting paid for it (barely), and I’ve added the RSS feed for it to this blog’s sidebar. : )

Keep an eye out for my upcoming nervous breakdown trying to keep up with all of this.

Post this pic:

LOLCat Mollie “i can has hugz?”

Despite having one of her back legs amputated, skin grafts to her front paws, and one sadly amusing temper tantrum, she has made a full recovery and resumed her position as neighborhood bully. Mollie is a scrapper cat. This picture is definately too sad for the Realisticats.

My brother Jason had some great suggestions to caption this:

“I AM THE NEW BREED OF PINK DOOM RADAR DEATH CALICO!”

In LOLCatSpeak translates: “i r pink doom raydar deth kat,” which definitely works, but Mollie looks way too gosh-darn pathetic to pull this off. Same for these next two:

“50 Cent ain’t got Shit on Me!”

I liked this one:

“I tried inventing the light bulb but Edison’s goons got to me first”

Great joke, science-related, and humorous for anyone aware of Thomas Edison’s penchant for regularly electrocuting cats as a publicity stunt, but too obscure a reference.

This one is strangely inspiring, and captures how I feel about this effort:

“At least I tried…what have you done with your life?”

He would be 73 today. As Sagan was dying, he stressed the fact that his quasi-atheism did not make him fear death at all, but rather he was always overjoyed for having the opportunity to even briefly exist and experience at all. The world is a much happier place for his having existed.

Sagan’s many works, including his inspiring Cosmos series and his book Demon-Haunted World resulted in my personal ionian enchantement, where I fell in love with the natural world, shook off my own childish ideas about reality, and made science my number one cause.

Carl Sagan was also an avid pot smoker, which does nothing to detract from the brilliance of his writting, and everything to argue for decriminalizing marijuana use.

HAWGWARSH

Not to be outdone by Steve Milloy, I’m offering a BAZILLION-JILLION DOLLARS (That’s more money than infinity!) to anyone who can disprove the following Global Warming Hypotheses:

HAWGWARSH Hypothesis #1

A genetically-engineered race of super-elves, funded by the axis of Cultural Villainy’s Sierra Club, Lambda Horizons, and China are rubbing their buttockses together in homoerotic fashion in an effort to scare people into the evils of environmentalism, promote the homosexual agenda of eroding the American family, and destroy the American tradition of Market Socialism. These elves are so satanically advanced that they are only detectable through absolute, unquestioning faith.

HAWGWARSCH Hypothesis #2

Ultimately we have nothing to worry about with Global Warming because Zorgo the mighty, herald of Reganomics and champion of the NeoConservative faith, will swoop down from beyond the dome of stars painted overhead to vanquish the tree-huggers and chicoms to hell and chauffeur all Big Tobacco, Big Oil, and Republican Party donors to that great big New Republic cruise in the sky. After which, the Left Behind books will begin.

RULES

By submitting an entry to the Hyper Ass-Whupping Global Warming Yadda Yadda Yadda, you agree to adhere to the following terms and conditions:

1. Entrants agree to be bound by the HAWGWARSH Rules.

2. Entrants acknowledge that the concepts and terms mentioned and referred to in the HAWGWARSH hypotheses are inherently and necessarily imaginary, and therefore intangible, supernatural phenomena completely lacking in material form and substance. I–er–HAWGWARSH reserves the exclusive right to define all properties of said entities and mechanisms (Sucks to be you.).

3. ideonexus.com, in its sole discretion, will determine the winner, if we feel like it. This will depend heavily on how much ExxonMobil pays us to not declare one, and whether we feel like parting with such a large sum of money.

4. However unlikely, should there be a winner, they will receive the bazillion-jillion dollars in a single, lump sum rubber check, after sufficient time has been allowed for us to transfer our net-worth to offshore bank accounts and file for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.

5. Submissions must be 100% original, and we mean 100% ORIGINAL. You may not cite the research of others, use any known language, math, or logic in your submissions.

6. Unlike our data, your data must be publicly available and readily accessible to the public.

7. Contest opened for submissions on November 3, 1907. So far it’s gone 100 Years Without any Takers!!!

8. An undisclosed entry fee is required for each entry submitted. Send us money, if it isn’t enough, we’ll send you a notice “Reserve Not Met.” Like Ebay, but without refunds and user feedback.

9. No entries will be accepted. So why bother with a deadline?

10. Contest results will be announced February 29, 2100. Failing to be alive at the time of the announcement disqualifies applicants from winning.

11. Submissions must be laser-etched on steel tablets in triplicate and delivered to me in person. I’ll be in the shower. You may alternately put them in the mail addressed to Santa Claus, since that’s about the same response you’ll get.

12. Entries must include an abstract of no more than 700 words, but long enough for us to figure out if you really know what you’re talking about. That way we can skip to entries more easily ridiculed.

13. Entrants consent to HAWGWARSH editing their submissions and posting them to this blog with snarky commentary and supplemented with children’s drawing attributed to you.

14. You may not sue HAWGWARSH, ideonexus, or Ryan Somma for any shenanigans.

All entrants will get a free stamp on their forehead that reads, “ideonexus pwwned.”

So what have you got to lose?

“Work with animals is a source of suffering to all of us. We treat them like babies who cannot speak. The more time passes, the more I’m sorry about it. We shouldn’t have done it. We did not learn enough from the mission to justify the death of the dog.” ”
– Oleg Gazenko, leading scientists behind the Soviet animals in space programmes

Laika

50 years ago today, Kudryavka, aka. Laika (Russian for “Barker”), became the first living passenger from Earth to reach space. She died from stress and overheating just a few hours into what was to be a seven-day flight, but the plan was always to euthanize her remotely at the mission’s end as the Soviets lacked the time and resources to plot her safe return to Earth.

This was because then Soviet leader Khrushchev wanted a second spacecraft launched in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, November 7, one that would top the recent success of Sputnik. The American press nicknamed her “Muttnik,” and it was long after the political ramifications of the flight were exhausted that her inhumane treatment became the focus of the debate.

Kudryavka lived as a stray on the streets of Moscow before her life in the Soviet Space program, where she was renamed “Laika” because it was catchier. Much of the inhumane treatment she and other animals suffered, such as long periods of confinement and intense training, were invaluable to planning human space flight; however, nothing was gained scientifically by sacrificing Kudryavka in a mission meant solely for political gain. Sputnik 1 was a fantastic accomplishment; Sputnik 2 was a complete failure.

Laika Graphic Novel by Nick Abadzis

None of this makes Kudryavka any less a hero in the canon of space explorers. First in space is first in space. “She is perhaps the only character in the Monument to the Conquerors of Space (1964), other than Lenin himself, who can be individually identified by name,” and numerous stories, music, and even a soil target on Mars carry on the name and legend of Laika.

More photos of Kudryavka on this discussion thread.

Wikipedia entry for Laika.

Cross-Posted at Geeking Out

The Science Creative Quarterly posted my article How To Fly:

Also, LOLQuacks has posted my LOLStevenMilloy photo.

“The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss”

With these words, Douglas Adams helpfully explained concept of flying in his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. But the ground is really big, and, as the Tick so sagely noted, “Gravity is a harsh mistress.” So herein contained is my handy-dandy explanation of how you can impress your friends and family by throwing yourself at the ground and missing:

Step one, throw yourself at the ground. Luckily, this is really easy thanks to gravity, which will pull you down to the ground at an acceleration rate of 32.174 feet per second per second, meaning every second you are falling to the ground, you fall 32 feet (9.8 meters) per second faster. If you want to fall for one second, just spend enough energy to climb 16 feet (4.9 meters) above ground and drop. Voila!

Step two, miss. This is the not so easy part. If you’re reading this, then I assume you are a nerd (like me) and probably still wake up some nights in a cold sweat with nightmares about dehumanizing games such as “Dodge Ball” and possibly even it’s more sadistic cousin “Smear the Queer” from your youth. Now we’re trying to dodge a planet 7926.28 miles (12756.1 kilometers) across at the Equator. Might as well just throw in the towel and brace ourselves for the wedgies, noogies, and nipple cripples. Right?

WRONG!

We don’t have to miss the whole Earth at once, just enough to keep from hitting it each moment. The Moon does this all the time, dodging the Earth faster than it falls toward it – and it’s just a big dumb rock. We don’t want to be dumber than a rock, do we?

Okay then. All we have to do is dodge faster than we fall.

If we fall 16 feet (4.9 meters) in the first second, then we simply have to dodge far enough for the Earth to curve away 16.087 feet below us in one second. Knowing how far to dodge is, as G.I. Joe so wisely said, “half the battle.”

Which brings me to step three, find someone who knows math. In my case, I contacted my brother, Para, who teaches Multivariable Calculus at Georgetown Day School in Washington DC.

Para drew an angle on my circle representing the Earth, “It’s real simple,” he said. “See, sine is the opposite divided by the hypotenuse, cosine is the adjacent divided by the hypotenuse, and tangent is opposite divided by the adjacent. SOHCAHTOA, or Some Old Horse Caught Another Horse Taking Oats Away.” He drew a bunch of equations out for me. “See?”

“Huh,” I muttered.

“I’ve lost you, haven’t I?”

“Um,” I thought about lying, but he’s my brother, he can tell, “yeah.”

“Didn’t you take Trigonometry in high school?”

“Triggawhatromee?”

“Okay,” Para put the pen to his mouth thoughtfully. “I think I see a way to do this with just algebra.”

“Algebra… That sounds familiar. That’s math, right?”

“Hush,” Para drew the following diagram:

Where x is the distance we have to travel for the Earth to curve 16 feet away from under our feet and r is the radius of the Earth. Because we have right triangle and know the radius of the Earth is 20,925,379.2 feet (6.378,055.6 meters), we can use the Pythagorean theorem to find x, like so:

Which, Para showed me, can be converted to:

And then, according to Para, the r’s cancel out, leaving us with:

Which means x equals the square root of 32r + 256! (Once again, according to Para, so if this is wrong, blame him.)

Plug 20,925,379.2 feet (6.378,055.6 meters) into r and we find that we have to travel 25,876.9 feet (7,887.2 meters) or 4.9 miles (7.0 kilometers) in one second to successfully keep from hitting the Earth. Case closed right?

WRONG! SIT BACK DOWN!

We’re still accelerating towards the Earth. So we’re traveling at 32 feet per second after one second, 64 ft/s after two seconds, 96 ft/s after three, meaning we have to travel far enough for the Earth to curve away from under us by 80 feet in three seconds! And we’re only going to fall even faster after that.

Luckily, the Earth’s atmosphere produces a drag on us as we fly. So we can only fall so fast toward the Earth. The speed at which we can’t fall any faster because the air is slowing us down is called Terminal Velocity, and it means that the fastest a person can fall to Earth is 120 MPH (193.1 km), or 176 feet (53.6 meters) per second–if we keep our arms spread out to increase drag.

So that translates to us having to dodge the Earth at 85,823.7 feet per second to achieve orbital velocity. That’s 16.2 miles (26.1 kilometers) per second in order to fly. So let’s all go fling ourselves off the Earth right away! Right?

WRONG!

If everybody else jumped off a bridge would you? Shame on you! There’s still a few safety considerations we need to factor in to this.

For instance, meteors burn up in the atmosphere because they are traveling 26 miles (41.8 kilometers) per second. We’ll be traveling about 62.3 percent of that velocity. Not enough to FOOM! burn up in the atmosphere, but we should probably pack some SPF one-bazillion sun tan lotion for the trip just in case.

There’s also the speed of sound, which is 761.2 mph (1,225 kph) at sea level. So we’ll be traveling 76.6 times faster than the speed of sound, so we should probably pack earplugs and leave the ipod at home.

The speed of light is 186,282.4 miles (299,792.5 kilometers) per second, and we’ll be traveling at 0.0009 percent of this speed. So we don’t need to be worried about hurting the feelings of all the physicists in the world by breaking the laws of their discipline.

The last thing we need to consider is that it’s going to take at least 25 minutes and 36 seconds to fly all the way around the Earth and back to where we started. So we better make sure to let our moms know when we’ll be getting back so they don’t worry. Okay?

Now can we fly now? Huh? Can we? Can we? Can we?

YES!!!

Congratulations! You now know how to throw yourself at the ground and miss, effectively flying!

Since I can’t copyright this knowledge, please remember, when you accept your X-Prize one day, be sure to mention me in your acceptance speech.

Ira Flatow responded to my friend’s request on Facebook (still denied), after I wrote to him back in September explaining my obsession with collecting Science exponents on social networking sites and singing their praises when they add me.

This was his response:

To Ira’s credit, he did actually click the link to my blog. To Ira’s discredit, he didn’t flame me for flaming him… or maybe that’s to his credit, like… I dunno… Being a bigger person than me or something.

Whatever. My blog isn’t an after-@#$%ing-school special. No matter how cool Ira is for his books and radio and networking with real scientists, he still sucks just a little bit for not adding me. : P