Category - Science

Classes are pretty demanding. At least, the latter half of this week has been pretty demanding. Before that, I was taking it easy, so I guess that just evens out.

Tuesday was Veterans Day, so we had no classes and I had no work. So I went with some friends to Lake Wauburg in the afternoon. The lake and the surrounding area are reserved for UF students and staff. I had never been there, but I found out that it's a nice getaway. It's far outside of town, and there are cool things to do. I kayaked. It was fun. We had a picnic too.

Wait. Is that really the only thing that's been going on? Not really. I have been busy with classes, as I said. I gave a presentation today for my Indian Ocean class. It was, um, within the time limit? And I have a physics exam on Monday. And a tech writing project due Tuesday. And probably other stuff.

Man, this post is short. Maybe it's the result of a historical trend. November 13ths 2003 and 2005 were similarly unremarkable.

These 100 Very Cool Facts About The Human Body are very cool.

Here are 12 Vintage Cigarette Ads They Would Never Get Away with Now.

From Reason Magazine, a 2.3-megabyte chart explaining the simple process of US immigration: What Part of Legal Immigration Don't You Understand?

Today is homecoming, a university holiday. That means there were no classes, and (since I work for the university) no work. Tonight is Gator Growl, the aforementioned less-than-spectacular pep rally. It's going to be in the football stadium, which is down the street from my dorm. In fact, if I open my window tonight, you'll probably be able to hear me not care!

So how have I spent my homecoming day? First I slept. A lot. I went to bed relatively early last night and woke up late, for a total of 10 or 11 hours. I can't remember the last time I slept that long. It was amazing.

In the afternoon, I went to the student gym. "Whaaa? Jordon going to the GYM??????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" !!!!! Don't worry, I wasn't there to exercise. I was meeting with some people from my Tech Writing for Engineers class. We have a project where we have to pretend to plan an expansion for the gym, so we thought we'd go there to check out the place. I don't think I'd been there since my tour of the campus two years ago. I remember the building being about twice as big and the parking lot in front of it being at least four times as big. But all my memories of that tour are messed up. I had no idea where I was. Plus, I saw some places then that I've never seen since, and I have absolutely no idea where they might be.

Anyway, after that I was due at Flavet Field, which is this field near my dorm. That's where they were attempting to break the record for the world's largest water balloon fight. Get Carded, the organ donor awareness organization I volunteer with, had their tent there, so I had signed up to help out. We were also invited to participate because they needed as many people as they could get (the previous record was 2,800 people or something like that). It was definitely a big deal. ABC was taping it for Good Morning America.

Anyway, they had the field divided in two. Each side had a huge crowd of people and a seemingly endless supply of water balloons. There was a "no man's land" in between. After some waiting, the fight began. I was toward the back of the crowd, so I didn't get many balloons, but I threw a few and got hit by a few. Nate from Get Carded was able to scramble into the pile of balloons and get some for himself and me.

So what does the world's largest water balloon fight look like? Imagine a colorful hail of watery bullets being shot across a large field for several minutes. There were a lot of water balloons; people had spent all week filling them up, I think. To break the record, they had to have more people and more balloons. They said they definitely had broken the balloon record with something like 57,000. They were still counting the people at the time of the fight. Even if the record wasn't officially broken, the event was for a good cause (breast cancer awareness). And it was crazy fun.

This is pretty cool. DOTGO allows you to read some web sites by text message. For example, text "theworldofstuff" to DOTCOM (368266) and you'll get a listing of the posts on the main page of this site. Each one is numbered, so you can text "theworldofstuff 1" to read the first post, and so on. Well, you can start reading it, because it cuts off after three text messages. This might be useful if you don't have Internet access on your phone but you do have unlimited texting and you want to read the first few sentences of my blog posts. You can also text DOTNET, DOTORG, DOTEDU, and DOTGOV as appropriate. Here's an online version if you want to try it without using your phone.

Poe's Law states, "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is uttrerly impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won't mistake for the genuine article."

Really awesome: Hubble Finds Unidentified Object in Space, Scientists Puzzled.

I've been busy with my new webmaster job. I started it on Monday, and it's been pretty nice. It's pretty easy so far, and I like it. If I ever get stuck on something, I can talk to my friend Mark, who works there as well. He's already been showing me the ropes quite a bit.

I've also been busy promoting my Esperanto club's first event, which I mentioned in my last post. That's taking a lot of my time. We had an executive meeting last night where we went over the presentation and some ways to promote it. My ultimate goal is for us to be featured in the main student newspaper before our event. That way we could get the word out to tens of thousands of people.

I hardly get any Ask Jordon questions anymore.

diana: why i am lefty?

This one comes from an IP address in Pakistan. But anyway, I have a whole book about this subject since I did a psychology paper on it in high school. It's The Left-Hander Syndrome by Stanley Coren, and it's quite revealing about why people are left-handed. I forget now, but I think he said it had in part to do with early brain trauma like a stressful birth. That's the book where he advances his controversial finding that left-handers die nine years earlier on average than their right-handed counterparts.

All political links today. Less than a month till the election, though.

A while back I blogged about Change Congress, the new initiative started by Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig (founder of Creative Commons). Change Congress aims to have politicians, candidates, and other citizens state their support (or lack of support) for four key issues that they believe would help improve fairness and end corruption. They've sent a letter to every Senator and Representative as well as every Congressional challenger too. You can see their progress on their iPledge campaign page. Change Congress is looking to improve their low response rate by having citizens pester their members of Congress. Click "Pester Now" next to the name of your member of Congress to find contact information, a phone script, and a form letter.

News coverage about things that don't matter: Presidential Physiques of the Modern Age.

I've saved the best for last. John McCain Gets BarackRoll'd.

Last week, my friend Mark tipped me off to a job opening at the Dean of Students Office. They were looking for a webmaster. Mark had been filling in for the job in addition to doing his own job there, so he was pretty busy. I thought I'd send my resume.

My interview with the Interim Dean of Students was today. To be honest, I had been pretty nervous. In my tech writing and speaking class, we're starting to go over resume and job interview skills, so it was pretty timely. I read up on the stuff we're going to cover about job interviews, so I had that stuff in mind today as I went in. Actually, the interview went more smoothly than I could have imagined, and I was hired on the spot!

I look forward to maintaining the Dean of Students Office web site with Mark, who's the database guy, and the graphic designer. Of course, it'll also be great to get to know the friendly faces at the DSO and to learn about some of the inner workings of the university. I also should mention now that opinions expressed herein are not those of my employer but are pretty awesome.

(Frequently asked question: How much does this job pay? I am pretty sure I know, but I don't want to tell you before I find out for dang sure. As with most discussions of salaries, this would be a faux pas.)

Here are some links to hold you over till next time.

From 2004: Top 10 Secrets They Don't Want You to Know About the [U.S. Presidential Candidate] Debates.

Ever wish there was a phone number you could call that could broadcast your voice from a megaphone overlooking a fjord and a village in Norway? Well, now there is: Telemegaphone Dale.

In Germany, 3,000-year-old skeletons found in a cave have had their DNA matched with several living members of the local population. Some families just never move.

A few months back, I discovered Brad Sucks, a "one-man band with no fans" who had a lot of fans. His only album at the time, 2003's I Don't Know What I'm Doing, was very good, and I think he owes his fan base to the fact that he distributed the album for free under a Creative Commons license that allowed for noncommercial use and remixing.

This week, he released his second album, Out of It. It was the first time I was excited about the release of a new album, maybe... ever? Anyway, it's a short record, but if you liked the first one, you'll enjoy it. You can download it in MP3 format for whatever price you want, including for free. (For the Ogg Vorbis q7 version, Jamendo has a torrent and a direct download link.)

Interestingly, the new album is released under a Creative Commons license that allows commercial and noncommercial use of all kinds, provided that the artist is credited and that derivative works are released under the same license. Incidentally, this license is incompatible with the license Brad used for his first album, which means you can't mash up tracks from the two without permission. Still, it's good that he chose a more generous license for Out of It. He can get away with it since he has so many fans.

I've also heard of this fellow called Girl Talk and how everyone loves him. Unauthorized mashups are his thing. Yesterday, when Waxy.org analyzed the hundreds of samples he used on his latest album, I decided to download it. It's called Feed the Animals, and it's a 53-minute orgy of popular music. There's something for everyone. Recommended.

You know what's annoying? Selling out. I have stopped visiting a number of sites because they were jumping on the money bandwagon and/or acting all high and mighty. At The Sneeze, Steve's running jokes got old fast, and he pretends that his blog is a magazine. I am mad at PostSecret because Frank Warren passes over normal people's secrets in favor of the most scandalous ones, which he then makes money from by putting them in expensive books and music videos. Jessica Hagy of Indexed accepted a book deal. Damn Interesting reposts the same damn articles over and over again... because they're busy writing a book (and sometimes for no apparent reason at all).

Remember a few months ago when I said this?

Jim Davis, the mastermind behind the Garfield empire, has now realized that if you can't beat 'em, you should join 'em. His company is going to publish a book of old Garfield strips with Garfield removed, and the Garfield Minus Garfield guy is going to write the foreword. This is just absolutely nuts... and I count it as a sell-out.

I was going to say that I Can Has Cheezburger was getting very close to the point of selling out. It's run by an actual company now. They've had sweepstakes and have launched sister sites in case this lolcat thing doesn't work out. Yes, I was going to say that ICHC is close... but I just went to the site and saw that I Can Has Cheezburger is now a registered trademark of Pet Holdings, Inc. Whaaa?

To you alleged sellouts: Don't be mad. I used to love you all. You had, and still have, some great ideas. I still have a place in my heart for each of you (except maybe The Sneeze). And hey, there's no such thing as bad publicity, right?

As we all know, good-looking people face so many problems in our society. Fortunately, there's now a social network just for them: BeautifulPeople. To get in, you have to be voted attractive by members who are of the opposite sex. Then you have to pay pretty dang much money if you want full membership. (£69.95 a year? What the heck?)

One of those university projects: Using Photographs to Enhance Videos of a Static Scene.

How much of the things you remember actually happened? A recent (or not recent, I can't tell how old the article is) study suggests that creating false memories is pretty easy.

I remember what it was like starting at college last year. It was tough. I hardly knew anybody, and I was shy about talking to the people who lived on my floor. Now, living in a dorm with mostly freshmen, I see that they're having the same anxieties as I was having, and I'm now in a position to help them out.

It's still hard for me to talk to a bunch of people I know. How do I know we'll have anything in common? I think about things like that. But sometimes it helps to stop thinking about things and start doing things. People can introduce themselves to me, like this one girl Vicky who I ran into three times as I was moving in, but it's better if I take the initiative. As I was passing by the common room, I did introduce myself to someone named Jon. Last night, as I was at the dining hall by myself, I saw Jon there by himself, so I went over to talk to him. We went back to his room, where I met his roommate, Cory.

Later, Jon and I went back to the common room, where I got to meet a bunch of people, viz. Michael, Patrick, Holly, someone else who I think was named Michael, and more. (I should mention now that I'm normally pretty bad at names. I seem to be doing well, but I'm using this blog post to practice.) The one whose name I know was Michael had a lot of questions for me about his upcoming chemistry class, the one I took last year. The others also had questions about what things would be like. Last year, I was wondering the same things, and I had to find the answers from experience. I'm glad I can use that knowhow to make people breathe a little easier.

Today, the Student Honors Organization put on its annual year-beginning barbecue. It wasn't actually a barbecue as much as it was a huge line of people waiting to get some food that was catered by Sonny's. I went with some of the gang from my floor, and I saw Jason, who lived across the hall from me last year but has moved off campus. Later, I distributed flyers for Get Carded, the organ donor awareness group I joined last year. In spite of a sudden downpour, I covered a lot of the dorms along with Roy and David, who were new members. I talked to David about Ubuntu and such things. He's a fan.

I've been wondering when my roommate and I would get to meet our suitemates. As I was writing this post, they knocked on the door to properly introduce themselves. Their names are Michael and Cory, which seem to be common names around here. They're freshmen. I wasn't sure if they'd pair freshmen and non-freshmen in the same suite (they try not to do it in a room), but apparently they do.

Classes start tomorrow. I only have two. They're in the middle of the day, back to back. Not bad.

Stuff White People Like is a blog that lists stuff white people like. I think it should be called Stuff White Liberals Like.

In England, the Avon and Somerset police have taken to an unusual step to curb the number of dumb calls they get on their emergency line: they're posting them on YouTube in an attempt to shame the callers. Will it work, or will it just inspire others to imitate them?

A poorly titled but useful Wikipedia article: metric yardstick. It gives approximate practical equivalents of metric units.

Over the summer, I've discovered the wonders of BitTorrent by downloading all sorts of things. But pretty soon I'll go back to living on the campus of a university that is hostile to sharing. Before Wednesday, I'd like to get my upload/download ratio up to 1 on these torrents. They have to go, go, go! (Well, I could still seed them whenever I'm home for the weekend, but who knows when that will be?) They're all released under Creative Commons licenses, so you can share them without getting into trouble!

• WhiteRoom by WhiteRoom. Nice, kind of quiet music with exotic influences. Ogg Vorbis audio, 96.4 MB, BY-SA.
• Alternative Freedom: a documentary about the growing free culture movement, featuring Richard Stallman, Lawrence Lessig, and others. In English, subtitled in Danish. AVI video, 600.0 MB, BY-NC-SA.
• Originals: 1976 to 1981 by Harbinger, an obscure Canadian band. They started out sounding like the old alternative music that my parents like to listen to, but their later stuff sounds like ELO or something. My favorite track is "Let Yourself Go." Ogg Vorbis, 99.4 MB, BY-NC-ND.
• Lawrence Lessig Keynote. A lecture given by the creator of Creative Commons in his distinctive style on June 10, 2006. Ogg Theora video, 238.7 MB, BY-NC-SA.
• Your Reality by STEEP. Reviewed previously. Ogg Vorbis, 40.4 MB, BY-SA.
• The Great Pharaos by The Pharaos. Reviewed previously. Ogg Vorbis, 15.3 MB, BY-NC-SA.
• The Puppet String's Too Tight by Marauders. Power pop/rock from France. It's in English, though. Ogg Vorbis, 38.7 MB, BY-NC-ND.

I haven't downloaded any Hollywood films, but that doesn't mean that they're all bad. I went to see Tropic Thunder with my friends Nick and TJ on Wednesday night, the day it came out. Without giving too much away, let me just say that it was crazy and full of surprises. Very funny too. Lots of laffs.

Just as I'm leaving South Florida, hurricane season is starting to heat up. I thought I'd be safe from them because they usually don't hit in June or July. But, as Tropical Storm Fay reminds us, it is neither June nor July. Just look at this forecast cone.

See the point where the storm is most likely to be at 2 P.M. on Wednesday? That's where I will be at 2 P.M. on Wednesday. Even worse, the storm could strike South(east) Florida and then work its way up to North Central Florida at the same time I do. Yes, this storm might stalk me. But what's certain is that it will dump a lot of rain all over the place. Whether I will be at "the place" remains to be seen.

The New York Times has an Olympic medal map (Flash) with each country's size proportional to the number of medals they've won at this (and previous) Summer Olympics.

This sounds pretty crazy, but it might just work. It did for someone. With a Bit of Creative Savings, $5 Can Get You at Least $12,000.

In 1992, a ship's cargo of bath toys was washed overboard. The Friendly Floatees have turned up all over the world since then, giving scientists clues about the workings of ocean currents.

May, June, and July have come and gone. Now it's August. But I'd never know it if I hadn't been looking at calendars and things. My friends and I have been carrying on as usual. Yesterday, we played some baseball until rain forced us off the field. We went to Nick's house and watched Starship Troopers, had dinner at Friday's, and hung out at Pompano Beach for a while. As it got dark, we were on the pier, which, unlike Deerfield Beach's, is free to get on. Later we went to one of the lifeguard stations and shot the breeze for a while. Fun stuff.

I dressed for baseball yesterday, so I needed a light shirt that would be comfortable to wear for a few hours in the sun. But I was too ashamed to wear my ash gray University of Florida t-shirt in light of the announcement that UF is the #1 party school in the nation. That's according to a recent survey of 120,000 American college students conducted by the Princeton Review. UF was also ranked (from least to most embarrassing): #13 Best Career/Job Placement Services, #7 Best College Newspaper, #6 Everyone Plays Intramural Sports, #4 Best Athletic Facilities, #1 Students Pack the Stadiums, #10 Dorms Like Dungeons, #2 Jock Schools, #10 Major Frat and Sorority Scene, #7 Lots of Beer, #17 Lots of Hard Liquor, and finally, #1 Students Study the Least.

From my limited experience, UF students do party a lot, so the #1 ranking is probably deserved. This past year, I knew some people who could talk about nothing but the last party they went to (which was usually the night before), the people who hosted it, who was there, exactly how drunk they got at it, the misery of having to be the designated driver, and how they almost threw up or blacked out and woke up in someone's dorm room. This was usually followed by a discussion about how early they had to get up the next morning for class or how late they slept in while skipping class. And these people lived in the honors dorm.

If anything surprises me, though, it's that UF has the 7th favorite college newspaper (presumably the formerly official Alligator). I thought I was the only person who liked the Alligator. Everyone I know hates it and doesn't read it. The rest don't really come as a shock... except maybe the Lots of Beer one. I thought my cohorts tended to prefer the classier stuff. Oh well. I bet the university will try to avoid a repeat of the more dubious rankings by cracking down even further on underage drinking and other such activities. They'll have nothing to worry about from me, but I would do well to study more next year.

Here are 30 Most Incredible Abstract Satellite Images of Earth. They look nice.

Wired reports that Volkswagen is going to be making a 235-MPG car. But I bet it'll only get 200 MPG in real life. You know how cars are.

If you use BitTorrent, you might find this interesting. Glasnost is a test to see if your ISP is manipulating BitTorrent traffic. The test isn't perfect, but it seems that AT&T isn't messing around too much with me.

In October 2003, I "suddenly became obsessed with the metric system," as I put it at the time. I mentioned plans for writing an article called "The Metric System: Ten Times Better or Inching Toward a Metric America." Well, that didn't happen. A fragmentary draft exists on my computer, last modified on October 19, 2003:

Convincing, ain't it?

As I may have mentioned, my parents have had our house for sale for almost a year now. On Saturday, we had a small garage sale. This is kind of a big deal because the only other garage sale we've ever had (as long as I've been around) was before we moved into our current house. It's a way of having less stuff to move. I couldn't think of anything I wanted to sell, mainly because I threw/gave away a lot of my stuff before heading off to college last year. The stuff I have left I want to keep, give away, or sell for a reasonable amount of money. I can't think of anything that I'd want to unload for a token price. Here are some things I actually have in my room:

• A metal detector
• Records
• 400+ issues of National Geographic Magazine
• A sledgehammer
• A lava lamp
• An inflatable pool raft
• World War II ration stamps
• An old lady wig
• A snapshot of an old Irish man playing the accordion (thanks, Luke)
• An uncut sheet of $1 bills
• A large stuffed penguin wearing a Santa Claus hat

...and much more. Man, I have a lot of stuff. But the garage sale didn't do very well, from what I hear. (I was asleep during much of it.)

Here in the United States, we're lucky to have some freedom. The same can't be said of the Top Five Most Censored Countries in the World. (Disclaimer: I am friends with the author.)

This is actually interesting, with nice pictures: 10 Very Rare Clouds.

One Post Wonder is a blog that features old blogs that have only one post. It would be funny if it were itself a one-post wonder, but it's not.

Yesterday my friend Nick asked if I wanted to join him and some of our other friends for lunch. I went along, knowing full well how plans can grow and change. After lunch, we played airsoft at a park in my neighborhood. Then we went to Mark's local park, where there was enough room to play baseball. Actually, since we didn't have enough people for that, we had a home run derby. I think it was my first time playing baseball of any kind. I swung at every pitch, so I didn't last very long. I didn't hit any either. After taking a break at Mark's house, we had played football and then had pizza. Then we played poker. (Texas hold 'em, of course. That variant is so popular that it's annoying. What happened to old five card draw?) So yeah, it was a pretty busy day yesterday. What started as lunch outing became a fun day out.

Tonight's plans: going to see The Dark Knight at midnight. Of course, advance tickets will be necessary. But I just found out: everybody has them except me, and their tickets are for a screen that's now sold out! Awesome! I just got a ticket for the other showing, which I hope to exchange with another moviegoer who's willing to help me out. Surely there'll be measures in place to prevent theater-hopping.

I'm a college student, and the purpose of college is to prepare one for a job. Therefore, I'm being prepared for a job. I've decided that working on software would be pretty cool, so that's what I'm studying. Whenever I mention this, the Bill Gates comparisons fly. I don't want to be the next Bill Gates. I believe in free software, which gives users essential freedoms, while Microsoft believes that they should have total control over the users of their software. Microsoft and most other software companies write non-free software. I find this practice to be unethical. So I need to know: where can I get a job developing free software? I know they exist. The Free Software Foundation even lists a few. But are they more widespread than that (perhaps under the name "open source")? Are there other free software jobs that I'm not thinking of? I don't want to be a sysadmin.

Here are 10 bizarre species names. They're pretty bizarre.

Another list: the Top Tourist Spots Americans Can't Visit. I haven't visited any of them because I can't.

This seems pretty simple, and it would make an awesome project. How to Build Hover Shoes. Caveat: there's soldering involved.