AP Exam Schedule.. Ew

AP Test Schedule:
Calculus	Tuesday, May 3 AM
English Literature	Wednesday, May 4 AM
Physics	Monday, May 9 PM
Psychology	Tuesday, May 10 PM
Government	Wednesday, May 11 AM

100 Things About Me

I realized that I really hate surveys, especially the kind that are sent around via email that really don't tell anyone anything interesting about one another. So I decided to come up with a list of 100 random things about me. Yeah, I'll probably do it the next few days in study hall rather than actually be productive. And no, I won't be displeasured if many of you copy this awesome idea.

Link

Quite Possibly the Hardest Puzzle in the Galaxy

You know those puzzles where you have to arrange numbers in a certain order by moving them around one piece at a time? Yeah, try that with a picture, or even better yet, a movie clip instead of the static numbers and you get the hardest puzzle ever.

Link

Belated Easter

This is one of the funniest pictures I've seen in awhile...

WTF is the perfect reaction to this...

YES!

Yes! The new domain is fully up and operational! Score!

Moving Up In The Internet

severtski.spymac.net will soon be no more. I have decided to re-locate to severtski.com, a page which should be operational within the next one-two weeks (thanks for the web space Jeff).

The improvements will consist of:

• a great deal more web space
• no more banner ads
• a cool domain
• more bandwidth (not that I really need it)

In the meantime, I will continue to update both my website and blog, until the day of the great changeover. Yeah, the down side is that I'll have to go through and edit almost every blog and change the links over to the new FTP.

Poll

With respect to my collection of Random Quotes ...what is your favorite quote? Please post your nomination (with your name) as a comment.

At The Moment In a Solar System Far, Far, Away

I’ve been closely following the search for alien worlds now for a couple of years. Its fascinating in that, this last decade has seen the emergency of various new techniques for discovering these previously unknown worlds.

A third technique has finally emerged, and it clearly promises to be more accurate and precise than the previous two. For the uninitiated, plants were first detected by observing stars in an attempt to detect a “wobble”. This “wobble” would be indicative of a large planet exerting a gravitational force on the star, and thus scientists were able to extrapolate the location of a number of (freaking enormous) planets.The second methodology also involved observing distant stars so as to observe the star “blinking” as a planet would eclipse it. These techniques utilize visible light telescopes that allow the inference of the size and mass of these strange planets.

However, the new, third method utilizes the Spitzer Space Telescope, to directly measure and examine these far away planets by observing their infrared emissions. They could determine the glow of the planet from the glow of the stars by measuring the emissions from the star while the planet in question was eclipsed by the star and then subtracted that from the amount emitted by both.

Spiffy.

I Know Where My Towel Is

Well, since the web-development guys for Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy decided to be rather nefarious and changed some links, my previous posting pertaining to the awesome trailer they had was nullified. However, I thankfully had a copy safely stored on my hard -drive. So I took the next logical step and set up another spymac account to host the trailer until the end of time (famous last words eh?).

So here it is! Enjoy the greatest trailer of all time in its awesomeness (yeah and pardon the crappy download speed.. its free at least)!

How Axiomatic....

These are some of my favorite "laws". However, that particular word perhaps is not entirely accurate in that they are observations based on pattern recognition, rather than on generally measurable quantities. Regardless, they are still rather amusing to read.

Dilbert Principle - Coined by Scott Adams as a variation of the Peter Principle of employee advancement. Named after Adams' Dilbert comic strip, it proposes that the most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage: management.

Godwin's law - An adage in Internet culture that states "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." Coined by Mike Godwin in 1990.

Moore's law - An empirical observation stating that “the complexity of integrated circuits doubles every 18 months. Outlined in 1965 by Gordon Moore (born 1925), co-founder of Intel

Occam's razor - States that explanations should never multiply causes without necessity. When two explanations are offered for a phenomenon, the simplest full explanation is preferable. Named after William of Ockham (ca.1285–1349)

Parkinson's law - "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion". Coined by C. Northcote Parkinson (1909–1993)

Ralph's observation - "It is a mistake to allow any mechanical object to realize that you are in a hurry."

Reilly's law - of Retail Gravitation, people generally patronize the largest mall in the area.

Observation

I just realized that I never think to write anything in my blogs over the weekend. Perhaps its because I have entirely too much spare time in school, and thus I tend to write them there.

And the Logical Conclusion is...

I was told of this logical proof, and I had to investigate it for myself, and I thought at least the male readers of my blog would be amused:

Girls require time and money, ergo girls = time * money.
Time is money, ergo time = money
Thus, by substitution, girls = money^2
Money is the root of all evil, thus, money = sqrt(evil)
girls = (sqrt(evil))^2
girls = evil
QED

A Thousand Pictures Make a Word

Yet, another random website in the realm of search engines... This site allows one to visually search through books/music/movies on Amazon (.com .uk, or .jp). The site searches Amazon for the word/phrase/author of your choice and returns with an image of the word/phrase/author comprised of the covers of the associated products. From there one can click any of the covers to get a larger image of them (some are kinda tiny), and then one may either mouse over the image for more information including price and rating, or click the image again to link over to the product on Amazon so that you might buy it.

Try it out.

I, Computer

I decided to go to bed early last night, so I fell asleep watching a movie around 11… But then I woke up at midnight and laid there until 1.5. But anyway, whilst I was laying there, something occurred to me:

Wouldn’t it be very cool if we had computers for brains? The advantages would include (I want to continue to add to this, so leave comments):

• Log Conversations
  
• Away Messages (a little yellow tag hanging above your head)
  
• Blocking People
  
• Deleting Files/Memories
  
• Photoshopping (changing the color of shirt/eyes, adding/removing people)
  
• Spell & Grammar Check
  
• Omniscience (via direct connection to Google
  
• Upgrades (hardware - better body, software - more skills, firmware – more sanity)
  
• Networking
  
• Ctrl + Alt + Delete

And last, but most… one word:

• Teraflops

Though it occrus to me that it would suck if we we're running windows, what with the instability and DRM.

Reggie

Reggie Dabbs spoke at my school today, and I must say he’s one of the few speakers I’ve ever heard that I’ve really appreciated and concurred with. Reggie is this enormous black man, who if he was to sit on someone as he occasionally threatens, he would squish them. But he is excessively funny. I particularly enjoyed what he had to say on games/sports:

"There's three types of people around here, the Black man, the White man, and the Latino. And we all have our different sports for our people... for example, the white man's game is pool, 'cause the white ball knocks around all the colored ones, and saves the black one for last…

The Latino's game is soccer, 'cause they get to kick around the blacks and whites... and lastly…

The Black man's game is bowling, 'cause you take a colored ball and roll it down they alley to knock over a bunch of white rednecks!!"

But all in all he was an excellent speaker with a good message. Essentially he spoke about respect, and in particular, respect of women. I thought that was a very good message to have in high schools because too few guys treat females with too little respect… and that really pisses me off.

I think Cyrus Grissom (played by John Malkovich) puts it rather nicely in Con Air: “a rapist is somewhere between a cockroach and that white stuff that forms on the side of your mouth when you’re really thirsty.” But on that matter I consider those individuals that don’t treat women, particularly the one they are involved, with the utmost respect (yes, as if she were a princess) to be in that same category.

But that’s just me...

Daily Show Clips

Oh. My. Goodness. This is freaking great. Comedy Central is hosting a compendium of the greatest show ever (next to Seinfeld of course). They have a large collection of clips from The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, which provides me with an entirely too large percentage of my daily news. The cool part is, with the demise of many of the Bit Torrent networks, I can at last view some of the funnier clips…

Ctrl+X-Out Letters

This is a random spiffy site that will assemble a collection of pictures via Yahoo!’s image search API. It will search for the individual letters in an attempt to create an image like one cut out from magazines from the days of yore (ok not that long ago). Very cool idea to harness the awesomeness of the internet.

All Your Rights Are Belong to Us

"In addition, by posting Content on an AIM Product, you grant AOL, its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns, agents and licensees the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote this Content in any medium. You waive any right to privacy. You waive any right to inspect or approve uses of the Content or to be compensated for any such uses."

Yeah, that’s comforting. I hereby encourage all of you to cease use of AIM, if in fact you actually tabout something worthwhile (for instance you discuss details of an EMP Gun that you don’t want the rest of the world to know about [and yet later you post it in your blog]).

But hey, if you’re worried about AOL stealing your precious “lols” then I must suggest that you seek professional help. But remember, Big Brother is ALWAYS watching you.

Fed-Up

Did you hear that Fed-Ex and UPS are going to merge? Yeah! They are going to call it Fed-UP...

I just saw this picture on a random website dedicated to the evils of UPS, and it really amused me. Personally I hate UPS.





DHL FOREVER (although Fed-Ex’s Super Saver Shipping is pretty darn cool)!

EMP Gun - The Idea

Today Padge announced the greatest thing ever. Our final project subsequent to the AP is to build an electromagnetic pulse “gun”. This was after him listening to an NPR show that discussed how there is no “safe” way to stop high speed pursuits. So, naturally, I’ve spent a large portion of the day researching electromagnetic weapons and such. So far, my professional opinion is that the optimum solution at the given moment is essentially using an enormous magnetron (the thing that cooks your food in a microwave), coupled with a bank of capacitors, to generate a pulse. The detail is aiming it, but that problem would likely best be solved with some sort of a parabolic Faraday Cage (an apparatus designed to prevent the passage of electromagnetic waves).

Updates will follow as we progress, and useful suggestions are welcome (and yes we realize that we probably don’t have a chance, but we’re still going to try).

However, if we were to succeed, this could trump Eric the Elephant as the greatest accomplishment in my life to date.

So I Was Rasterbating Last Night...

I came across this random website, where you can “Rasterbate” a small image into a much, much larger one (like up to 20 meters in size). The one on the left is 4 sheets of paper wide by 3 tall, and it was made from a 300x400 pixel image.

Essentially it enlarges the image and then converts it into a whole bunch of dots (which are about generally 7-20 mm in diameter), so that it generally keeps the same shape and a surprising amount of detail (especially if you do it in color). It dumps it into a pfd which you download, print, cut up, and tape together to reveal the awesomeness.

On a more random note several comments arose from this topic:

Me: ”Mrs. Cybart can I use you computer to rasterbate?”

Joel: “What do you think about when your rasterbate?”
Me: “How big it is…”

Padge: Kirchhoff is right up there with rasterbating, it just sounds bad.
Chris: Rasterbating?
Padge: I heard it for the first time today and I probably won't hear it again after today
Chris: is that scooby doo talking?

Comments Part III

I was playing around with my template, and I discovered how to add a button to my main page that allows the direct posting of comments (it seemed kinda hidden before). Uh, so, yay.

Publications

So far in my experience I have encountered three general forms of web logs. This is what I’ve seen.

Diary – random people writing random things about their life that have next to no significance to anyone but themselves and a few friends, the majority of Xanga & LiveJournal pages for instance.

Journals – publications with a “higher” purpose than simply a spewing of one’s life out into the internet. For instance, these publications, while still frequently pertaining to the life of an individual are far more poetic, pensive, and/or philosophical/theological.

Blogs – publication with either a clear purpose, such as one for a class, or pertaining to a field larger than the individual. These include commentaries on society, politics, and technology, directories of interesting things found on the web, and collections other useful tips.

Note: I’m not putting them in order of personal opinion, or oozing disdain, I’m simply making an observation and trying to create controversy.

Food Network

Well my parents are in my living room (yes, its mine.) and they are watching something random on the Food Network. Tonight it’s a story about a restaurant that serves TV dinners, at 6$ each. That’s a great way to get rich, play to the stupidity of large portions of humanity. It makes me sick.

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small un-regarded yellow sun. "

Circling around that sun is a planet, and that planet is Earth, and the revised entry in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy concerning it, is simply: “Mostly Harmless”. However, one particular inhabitant of that plant created one of the best books ever.

Yes, my favorite fictional work of all time, Douglas Adams’, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, is coming to the big screen. And I am so freaking excited. However, given my love for the novel, and distaste for ANY changes in the smallest details, there is no way that the film can come anywhere near to my expectations. And that fact makes me sad.

Incidentally, the movie has the GREATEST trailer (heres it is in all its enormous glory) I’ve ever seen. It is sarcastic, witty and, ultimately, hilarious.

One of my favorite quotes from the book:
"Ford!" he said, "there's an infinite number of monkeys outside who want to talk to us about this script for Hamlet they've worked out."

Pessimistic Platitudes

I discovered this (there used to be a link here but I removed it) wonderful collection of de-motivational posters last year at some point in time; however, it was not until now that I intended to order some. The reason being behind such things is that I realized that, hey, I’ll have a dorm soon and I'll need things to amuse me (and random friends and visitors).

It’s wonderful how such posters have a dual purpose, both showing my distaste for stupidity and for motivational posters. There is a saying that “If a pretty poster and a cute saying are all it takes to motivate you, you probably have a very easy job. The kind robots will be doing soon.” However, when you have a poster that discourages stupid people from speaking, then you’re really accomplishing something worthwhile.

The saying "you can do anything if you put your mind to it" is rather amusing in the sense that, regardless of the amount of effort you put into something, one will still ultimately fail if one lacks a fundamental skill/quality that is required for a particular activity. I admit that I frequently say that I can do anything when I put my mind to it, and thus far that’s been pretty true, but I accept the fact that I will never be a professional basketball player.

The sentiments expressed in these posters are undeniably true, unless they apply to you, but in the case that they do… thankfully you likely won’t have enough of a brain to be able to refute them. Thus the truth is ultimately upheld.

Cars

I hate when there are cars in the mall. It restricts movement and channels people into very small paths making it more difficult to quickly weave in betwixt them. I really considered leaping from roof to roof tonight. And anyway, if I want to see cars I'll wander out to the parking lot thank you.

I also loathe people that do one constant speed. From Baker to Busti the car in front of me was doing 40. It stats out a 55 and then drops to 30 at the outskirts of Busti.

I love when the pump at the gas station stops at a whole number w/o me touching it. It just makes me happy.

Ok... that was a wee bit random, but it happened to be on my mind.

Fisix Phun

Padge: "Is my electron attracted to flippers proton?"
All: "yes..."
Padge: "Please don't wink at me"

Electricity is the single dirtiest chapter in physics. Given the rubbing of the rubber rod with the peter and other random attraction jokes, for instance, see the above. I enjoy it. It makes me laugh.