Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Slicing the air

Putting together a cool, polished, professional drone video is cool but where are all the startup/practice/learning crash videos?

I don't know (in other words, I haven't looked).

However, there is one way to find out and that's to create your own.

Therefore, here's my compilation music video of first drone flight tests.

Is it art? science? both? neither?

You decide...

More as it develops!



Saturday, March 5, 2011

Thus Endeth This Blog

The cowboy rolls up his knapsack/pup tent combo, slings it over his shoulder and steps into his rocket boots to pursue a lifelong dream.

Where he rides, there are no sunsets.

The path he takes is a lonely one, as usual.

It's always been about you, me, us, as usual, too.

He issues a voice command and off he goes.

"Giddyup, boy, let's get this show on the road!"

Whoooooosh!!!!

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Making Mechanical Cards Like It's The Mid-Nineteenth Century All Over Again

I was trying to remember the three-finger rule and then it hit me.  Dark matter!  Of course, that's what it is and how to explain it to our simple species.

And why Danielle explained:
"If you purchase 4 classes at once the current series going on will be the only classes that apply for it. So if you miss a class we are not going to make it up for you in another series. If you are 'owed' any classes we will honor them during this 4 weeks but after that if you miss any classes you will need to purchase a new series to come back later.

"My best suggestion for you is if you are not positive you can come all 4 weeks then purchase the classes individually.

"If you would like to register ahead of time for a full series you can do so at http://school.alabamayouthballet.org/payments/ and be sure to include in the space provided that it's for swing classes and what level that you will be taking."

As the Great Teacher says, "The easiest explanations are the hardest to formulate.  Take a deep breath and start talkin'.  If you can't get it all out at once, it ain't worth explainin'.  And if that don't work, beat 'em over the head with a rubber chicken.  It works every time."


Don't depend on the dual-brain/symmetry metaphor when it's just a consequence of local evolutionary happenchance.  It's the spin, or the lack thereof, that makes the real difference.

Meanwhile, security levels are at their highest as intelligence sources warn that roving bands of antimatter have permeated the area.  If your loved one disappears out of thin air, report to the authorities immediately!  And students, teachers have been warned - you can't use this as an excuse for not turning in your homework!

That's Mighty Complimentary Of You, Watson

Science of incidents

There's more to a king's speech than touches the tongue

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Over the falls in a barrel

Are you next to try this feat with your feet wrapped against the bitter cold?

Who will be the first to live to tell the tale?

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Rooftops or treetops - which is the hotter heat island?

The cursor flashes, a sideways unibrow mocking me, daring me to show that honesty is the best policy.

But I'm a storyteller, I tell the cursor, which cannot hear or think, meaning I talk to myself, instead.

I have the licence to fib, to stretch the truth, to hide facts in innuendo and nuance.

I am not a journalist.

I am a person sitting here putting finger to key, one at a time, for almost 40 years now (and stylus to paper for much longer).

A narrator coaxes the reader forward, leaving thought trail crumbs that may or may not be picked up later on.

Ignore that which I do not explicitly or implicity spin into my web, the writer says.

But what about a thought trail that has sat there unattended for longer than I, the simultaneous writer/reader, thought I could remember with ease?

Facts don't lie although what we see in the facts is not the truth.

How much can two lives parallel each other without crossing?

And when they do, what then?

An intersection of two lines/lives is a point.

Lines point off in infinite directions from a point.

What is the point of the point?

A meeting of the minds, we used to say, when mind was something we minded and kept in mind before there was nothing in mind to mind anymore.

Two sets of thoughts, let's say in modern parlance, temporarily passing through one another, demonstrating the cause-and-effect that a superset may imply unintentionally.

If A=B and A=C, then can you safely assume that B=C?

I can't, because I'm not sure what A is.

But it shouldn't matter whether I know what A stands for, right?

Let's say, also, that B is a domestic lifestyle with which I'm wholly familiar and I can tell from here that C is about the same.

Do I know that A is truly equivalent by inference?

"Experiment and test" is the conclusive phrase that gels in my thoughts and reaches this blog entry while the Well-Tempered Synthesizer reaches my ears from the laptop computer speakers.

Results to follow.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Out of Math and Physics is History...

Looking back over some old bookmarks, I came across this.

It is good to remember when there were times that large groups of people got along.  Here is one person's view of such times for us to consider when deciding how to react rationally to world events:
As you know, Islamic civilizations rise in the 7th century, and start to fall dramatically in the 14th century for many reasons.

When we discuss the history of this civilization, you could understand that fact.

Before start to talk about contribution of Islamic civilization in human civilization, I would like to present some historical facts, also some ‘’western’’ references:

Here are some interested points:

- Baghdad was the center of the world in the 9th century. It population around two millions.

- The first translation university was built in Baghdad in the 9th century. It was called (Dar Al Hikmah) or Wisdom House. They translated hundred thousands of Greek, Persian, Roman, Hebrew, and Indian documents and books to Arabic.

- For the first time, Jews, Muslims and Christian succeeded to live in peace in liberal (semi democratic society) in Spain in the 10th century.

- Many schools of laws were established in 11th and 12 century.

- The largest Islamic State is Indonesia (20% of Muslims in the world), no Islamic army reached this State. The people converted to Islam due to economical relations, the same as Malaysia and SE Asia.

The collapse of Islamic civilization could be concluded by these reasons:

- Crusaders wars: 200 years of religious catholic wars against Muslims, Jews and orthodox Christian. These wars exhausted the ME societies.

- Mongolian wars: Before the end of crusaders wars, Mongolian invaded the East. They destroyed Baghdad, killed 800000 people and burn its well known library.

- Fall of Spain: Muslims lost Spain in the end of 15th after 800 years of great civilization. Spanish changed the trading from ME to South Africa, which had great economical impact.

- Islamic scholars stopped developing the laws since 14 century, which made many of them not suitable for modern societies.

- Ottoman Empire, ruled the Islamic world recently. They involved in many wars with Russia, Romania, Balkan, Greece, UK, France , Egypt … which converted it to military State.

Islamic civilization and Science

Specific Muslims scientists and their contribution in human civilization:

- Alhazen, is considered as the father of modern Optics:

http://www.unhas.ac.id/~rhiza/saintis/haitham.html
http://brightbytes.com/cosite/what.html

-Sample of Muslims scientists and their contribution in different fields:
http://www.unhas.ac.id/~rhiza/saintis/

-The first world map by AL-IDRIS
http://www.soundsofislam.com/idrisi.html

- Islam and medicine:

Guardian Newspapers, 9/10/2003
http://www.buzzle.co.uk/editorials/9-10-2003-45271.asp

Chemical medicine

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/arabic/ch...medicine5.html

Chemistry or al-kimiya

http://www.tlchm.bris.ac.uk/webproje...mer/arabic.htm

Muslims and Weapon

http://www.sfusd.k12.ca.us/schwww/sc.../Weapons2.html

- Mathematics

History of mathematics: you can choose from 500 to 1300, most of scientists have Arab or Islamic names:
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~...ogy/index.html

About 810
House of Wisdom set up in Baghdad. There Greek and Indian mathematical and astronomy works are translated into Arabic.

About 810
Al-Khwarizmi writes important works on arithmetic, algebra, geography, and astronomy. In particular Hisab al-jabr w'al-muqabala (Calculation by Completion and Balancing), gives us the word "algebra", from "al-jabr". From al-Khwarizmi's name, as a consequence of his arithmetic book, comes the word "algorithm".

About 850
Thabit ibn Qurra makes important mathematical discoveries such as the extension of the concept of number to (positive) real numbers, integral calculus, theorems in spherical trigonometry, analytic geometry, and non-euclidean geometry.

About 850
Thabit ibn Qurra writes Book on the determination of amicable numbers which contains general methods to construct amicable numbers. He knows the pair of amicable numbers 17296, 18416.
About 900
Abu Kamil writes Book on algebra which studies applications of algebra to geometrical problems. It will be the book on which Fibonacci will base his works.

920
Al-Battani writes Kitab al-Zij a major work on astronomy in 57 chapters. It contains advances in trigonometry. 
About 960
Al-Uqlidisi writes Kitab al-fusul fi al-hisab al-Hindi which is the earliest surviving book that presents the Hindu system.

About 970
Abu'l-Wafa invents the wall quadrant for the accurate measurement of the declination of stars in the sky. He writes important books on arithmetic and geometric constructions. He introduces the tangent function and produces improved methods of calculating trigonometric tables.

976
Codex Vigilanus copied in Spain. Contains the first evidence of decimal numbers in Europe.
About 990
Al-Karaji writes Al-Fakhri in Baghdad which develops algebra. He gives Pascal's triangle.

About 1000
Ibn al-Haytham (often called Alhazen) writes works on optics, including a theory of light and a theory of vision, astronomy, and mathematics, including geometry and number theory. He gives Alhazen's problem: Given a light source and a spherical mirror, find the point on the mirror were the light will be reflected to the eye of an observer.

About 1010
Al-Biruni writes on many scientific topics. His work on mathematics covers arithmetic, summation of series, combinatorial analysis, the rule of three, irrational numbers, ratio theory, algebraic definitions, method of solving algebraic equations, geometry, Archimedes' theorems, trisection of the angle and other problems which cannot be solved with ruler and compass alone, conic sections, stereometry, stereographic projection, trigonometry, the sine theorem in the plane, and solving spherical triangles.

About 1020
Ibn Sina (usually called Avicenna) writes on philosophy, medicine, psychology, geology, mathematics, astronomy, and logic. His important mathematical work Kitab al-Shifa' (The Book of Healing) divides mathematics into four major topics, geometry, astronomy, arithmetic, and music.

1040
Ahmad al-Nasawi writes al-Muqni'fi al-Hisab al-Hindi which studies four different number systems. He explains the operations of arithmetic, particularly taking square and cube roots in each system.

1072
Al-Khayyami (usually known as Omar Khayyam) writes Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra which contains a complete classification of cubic equations with geometric solutions found by means of intersecting conic sections. He measures the length of the year to be 365.24219858156 days, a remarkably accurate result.

1130
Jabir ibn Aflah writes works on mathematics which, although not as good as many other Arabic works, are important since they will be translated into Latin and become available to European mathematicians.

1142
Adelard of Bath produces two or three translations of Euclid's Elements from Arabic.

1149
Al-Samawal writes al-Bahir fi'l-jabr (The brilliant in algebra). He develops algebra with polynomials using negative powers and zero. He solves quadratic equations, sums the squares of the first n natural numbers, and looks at combinatorial problems.

1150
Arabic numerals are introduced into Europe with Gherard of Cremona's translation of Ptolemy's Almagest. The name of the "sine" function comes from this translation.

1411
Al-Kashi writes Compendium of the Science of Astronomy.

1424
Al-Kashi writes Treatise on the Circumference giving a remarkably good approximation to  in both sexagesimal and decimal forms.

1427
Al-Kashi completes The Key to Arithmetic containing work of great depth on decimal fractions. It applies arithmetical and algebraic methods to the solution of various problems, including several geometric ones and is one of the best textbooks in the whole of medieval literature.

will be continued ..............
Can we see how it is one species here and not groups partitioned by political boundaries?

Let's hope we do this right and not jump back into recent derogatory quarrels that get us nowhere.

Do You Know Who's Watching Your Back?

Another review.

The oldest woman in the world and I have something in common.

But I don't know what she'd think about this.

At the end of 2010, I decided to stop taking medicine that's supposed to control my blood pressure and cholesterol.

For the past few years, I have felt my self-esteem decrease and watched my weight increase as I fell into the trap of using chemical compounds to overcome my genetic tendency to live only into the 60s or 70s.

After I stopped taking the medicine, an imaginary cloud lifted and blew away, my thoughts cleared and I've lost 15 pounds of body weight.

I'm no Luddite but I'm also a skeptic when it comes to the miracles promised by new technology.

I am happy being a naturally-aging man past the midpoint of his life.

Sure, I use a computer and eat food that's supposed to be good for me but I also drink fermented beverages and occasionally eat fried, processed foods.

One of the many luxuries of a childless adulthood is feeling no guilty responsibility for my health and having no desire to see my great, great-grandchildren at birth.

So, I speak only for myself in this blog entry.

Happiness, for me, is popping no more pills day and night, having oatmeal and tea for breakfast, and then letting the rest of the day be what it may, including a random walk every now and then.

I am a new man, thanks to the freedom from nonaddictive drug dependency.

No more ARBs, statins or beta blockers for me.

No need to use my discretionary funds to subsidise the elixir industry.

This confession feels good.  I've never attended an LPDA (Legal Prescription Drugs Anonymous) meeting but this feels like I just did.

"Hi, my name is Rick and I'm a recovering LPD user."

"Welcome, Rick!" shouts the chorus.

I nod and smile.  A group of strangers just accepted me for who I am.

Doesn't get much more simpler and honest than that.

"Hey, guys, the pub's open.  Drinks are on me!"

Friday, January 28, 2011

Once More, Inside The Paradox On Sale At Pier One

There's nothing hidden about them. Or these.

But can it predict the perfect slice of pie?

The makers of "Pi" claim they thought of this first.  The fashion industry says it'll make everyone look skinnier.

Does it prove China's economy is resting on top of a house of cards, though?

Back to my research and creating more fake academics with credentials full of cited publications about Antarctic arcade game arcana stored in Texarkana canons.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Monday, January 24, 2011

All Brain, No Mind

Don't mind if I do:

Think Different: How Perception Reveals Brain Differences

Lost in the virtual maze

Is there a way to make every one of us our brothers'/sisters' keepers and prevent terrorism? Are thought police the next best thing to massive security checkpoints?

To Open Envelope Tear Off This Stub

Members of the U.S. Congress showed a brave and unified front today when they told members of the press that MoUSC (pronounced 'mouse') would no longer take a salary, fringe benefits, retirement pays or industrial kickbacks through PACs.

They pledged they would earn money the old-fashioned way, through earning the trust of customers, one at a time.

During questioning the MoUSC would not affirm or deny their right to work as lobbyists or remain on retainer (or is that retain on remainder?) as honourary board members of prominent industries seeking favour with the U.S. government for lucrative contracts.

In other industry news, the country music conglomerate is reviewing its contracts with the Hollywood media moguls, concerned that mediocrity and bad movie plots are ruining the purity of C&W music.

Rap music moguls are also questioning the portrayal of their stars, many of them classically trained at prestigious schools like Julliard.

Carlos Slim has not weighed in on the subject of negative images associated with gangs of Mexico, leaving the general public questioning halleged involvement in illegal activities himself.

Bookies are divided over the point spread.

A secret physics society revealed that the knapsack problem is the solution to transforming humans into the nonwaveparticles needed to travel from one version to another of the intertwined universes. Communication to this universe is accomplished through nudging light waveparticles to an almost imperceptibly slightly higher speed spaced at what looks to us like millions of years apart.

Unfortunately, the physicists explained, time units, perceived by us as connected to solar cycles, lives, generations, and civilisations, are not megauniversally scaled the same (think metric vs. U.S./imperial units).

The timescale at which others communicate across universal barriers is why major messages take so long for us to communicate to each successive global civilisation.

However, our relatively short lives lead us to impatience which leads to war, overconsumption, famine and disease-spreading - we cannot easily conceive a message that takes 10,000 or 1,000,000 years to convey.

In farm news, it's time. You farmers know what that means.

Friday, January 21, 2011

Meanwhile, in parallel...

Make an impact.

Get tangled in the future.

Sugar-Coated Pecans on Toucans in Tin Pan Alley for Supper Again

I was in the study/lab/front bedroom/junkroom composing a symphony (yes, writing mathematical formulae can feel like that - what is music, after all?).

"I was in..."

The start of the first sentence of this blog began a train of thought, not a beguine, and diverted me from the path I intended to take.

I wanted to express my thanks to those I have not thanked lately, like Jason and Danielle of South Side Swing and one of their swing dance students, Brianna, for bringing my wife and me into the world of 5-6-7-8 dance routines.

After 25 years of wildly thrashing on the dance floor, much to my wife's tolerance (if not impatience or embarrassment), I have joined the throngs of men who give in to their wives' demands to look like one half of a coordinated couple on the parquet.

We have learned, if not perfected, one of many swing styles, this one called Lindy, if I remember correctly.

Thanks to the folks at Alabama Youth Ballet for the use of their facilities.  It is interesting to learn to dance in a building where ballet and martial arts are taught at the same time.  Sometimes, I feel like I am hearing dancers in tutus being tortured by karate chops (or is that taekwondo* next door?).

Much to learn, much to learn.  I am at the newbie mercy of my dancing instructors.  Patience, little grasshopper, you will learn to swing without upsetting the rice mat.

[*the blogger dictionary wants to change this word to Wonderbra - interesting]

But as usual, I digress, my thought set compressed against but decompressing from the style of writers like Mary Roach, John Locke, James Joyce, Douglas Adams, etc., who wander far afield and may discuss the philosophy behind the design of portable toilets to highlight the need for better television remote control devices just to conclude that the random spread of tree limbs in a forest does not constitute the secret code of a group of nomad herders on the upper steppes of Nowheresville.

I suppose I will not return to the thought that attracted my body to the virtual thought set extension system of wireless keyboard and mouse to announce to you...

Oh yeah, that's it!

I have found, in a dusty old volume of chemical formula conversion tables, the necine bases needed for the internecine basis upon which that which cannot be told or mentioned can be written about in the first epic volume of an X-part set of technical manuals for translating the definition of materials which do not exist in the universe as we know it.

Exciting, is it not?

More as it develops.

I have my programmers running more "what if" scenarios about the changes to the 1000-year plan should we release the full description of the weave pattern that is fully exposed in and around us all the time, ripping apart the fabric of space and time as we see the universe today.

"Parallel universes"?  Ha!  What a childish concept.

Do I hear the Big Bang fizzling out?

But I get ahead of myself, as usual.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Another dustbuster bites the One?

Just when I thought there was nothing else that could be attributed to keeping NASA and its contractors on the ballooning government payroll, I found out, through a review about and the stories in the book by Mary Roach, that there's a PCLP who might be feeding us hogwash.

What kind of humour will I think to find next?

Matter and Antimatter

While the Fermi satellite verifies positronic thunderstorm activity, we have to ask, what's going on here:

  1. Anti-investment: Solar going Chinese
  2. Investment: Chinese going German

Science Has A Face of Humour

Sense has a farce of humour?

Humour has a sense of science?

Faces have a humourous science?

We believe what we see because we can't see anything else.