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Akano's Blog

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About this blog

aka blogs_blog_24

Entries in this blog

Wind at Your Back, Lads, Wherever You Go

My elementary-school self is jumping with joy. One of the ways I've occupied myself this summer was by trying to reconstruct one of the old LEGO Pirate ships, the Black Seas Barracuda. However, I wanted to do it with a twist. I've always loved the sails of the Skull's Eye Schooner, but the yellow/black/white motif of the Barracuda was always my preferred color scheme. Therefore I opted for a mixture of the two. The sails are, alas, not genuine, but printed sheets of paper cut appropria

Akano

Akano

Return of a website

I have to say, the blogs look terrible now. The layout on the homepage, the in-blog reading view, everything. But they're back now. Hi, everybody!

Akano

Akano

I got a Switch

Murio Odd-easy is fun. Trying to think of some other games to bolster my library.   Dat Joy-Con color scheme, tho.  

Akano

Akano

Fourteen years ago...

When I first came to this site, I was very much a lurker. My brothers and I had gotten into BIONICLE from its beginning in 2001, and we eventually stumbled on this site in the early, awkward days of the World Wide Web. It was here that I saw the creative output of the fandom – sprite comics, artwork, MOCs, comedies, epics, and much more.   Fourteen years ago, I became a part of that creative output with the premiere of Akano's Comics.   It's been six years since I made a comic (sorry, everyone,

Akano

Akano

About to give my first final exam

This week marks the last week of the first half of the semester, which means that my half-semester Optics course is coming to a close. It's been busy (hence my lack of presence), but I almost have one full course under my belt. So far there have been two lessons I gave that could have been better presented, but the students have been fairly engaged and seem more or less okay with the material. I guess we'll see how it goes once the final happens.   I did try writing a new Equation of the Day, bu

Akano

Akano

Professor Akano

Over the past couple of months I visited and interviewed at a college interested in hiring someone to teach one semester of courses for their physics major series. My name was given to them through the grapevine and, after giving a mock lecture, presenting my research over lunch, and meeting with the department, I got the job. Starting later next month, I will officially be Professor Akano.   I'm excited.  

Akano

Akano

Equation of the Day #20: The Fourier Transform

Today I wanted to talk about one of my favorite equations in all of mathematics. However, I won’t do it justice without building up some framework that puts it into perspective. To start out, let’s talk about waves. A wave, in general, is any function that obeys the wave equation. To simplify things, though, let’s look at repeating wave patterns.   The image above depicts a sine wave. This is the shape of string and air vibration at a pure frequency; as such, sinusoidal wavef

Akano

Akano

You all asked for this.

I changed my username.   Come at me with the puns/jokes. I'm ready.   (Also, I graduated yesterday, so it's actually official now. )  

Akano

Akano

Thesis defense this morning

I passed.   I'm now Dr. Akano. It's weird, but I'm quite happy with it. It's nice to no longer have my defense presentation looming over my head.  

Akano

Akano

Thesis Submitted

Six years, four papers, and 179 pages later, I have submitted my Ph.D. thesis.   Now I have to defend it. But first, STRESS RELIEF VIA VIDEO GAMES!    

Akano

Akano

Specter of Torment

Seriously, this game is awesome. I can't wait for it to come out on Wii U/3DS so I can play it with a for reals controller rather than a keyboard.   Also I submit my thesis on Monday. That's cool.  

Akano

Akano

My birthday was all right

So, a week ago was my birfday. Usually I make an entry, but last week I came down with a head cold that left me a little out of it. Thanks to everyone who replied to the birthday topic that Tekulo posted in the wrong forum; it was very kind. Now I'm feeling much better (though my throat is still a little phlegm-y). I'm also SUPER stoked for the release of Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment, which cannot come out soon enough on non-Switch consoles. One of the developers called it the Majora's M

Akano

Akano

Equation of the Day #19: Golden Pentagrams

Ah, the pentagram, a shape associated with a variety of different ideas, some holy, some less savory. But to me, it's a golden figure, and not just because of how I chose to render it here. The pentagram has a connection with the golden ratio, which is defined as     This number is tied to the Fibonacci sequence and the Lucas numbers and seems to crop up a lot in nature (although how much it crops up is disputed). It turns out that the various line segments present in the pentagram are in gol

Akano

Akano

Shoveled Knight

I'm kinda in love with this game. Also the soundtrack. Virt can lay down some sick tracks, yo.  

Akano

Akano

Me playing Pokémon Moon

Me: "Hau just handed me a person named Max Potion. I think that's human trafficking."   KK: *bursts into laughter*   Me: *joins in laughter because he didn't expect that joke to land*   Another typical Friday evening.  

Akano

Akano

Spirit of Justice

Finally, we got an Ace Attorney game with fun Apollo Justice cases! What was once thought impossible has been achieved!   Seriously, though, Spirit of Justice ruled. It definitely made up for Dual Destinies' lack of awesome. Also, the puns were taken up to eleven. No complaints here.   Although Case 4 was VERY out of place. Basically, the only thing worthwhile there was Blackquill's appearance. I didn't really like how they portrayed Athena in that one.  

Akano

Akano

Equation of the Day #18: 12

Yesterday I stumbled across this image (which I recreated and cleaned up a bit). It's a beautiful image. Arranged around the edge is the circle of fifths, which in music is a geometric representation of the twelve tones of the Western scale arranged so the next note is seven semitones up (going clockwise in this figure). The notes are all connected in six different ways to the other notes in the "circle," known as intervals, which are color-coded at the bottom. I thought, "Wow, this is a really

Akano

Akano

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