Today, we take a journey to Middle Earth and take a look at the LEGO reimagining of the Mines of Moria. Presentation From the design of the box to the instruction manual, these are the first things you see before building the set. I really like the LEGO LOTR logo with the one ring on Sauron's finger in the upper right corner along with the map of Middle Earth in the background. The back highlights various parts of the set. I do like their cave-like choice of background for the front
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
Today I want to talk about something awesome: Special Relativity. It's a theory that was developed by this guy you may have heard of, Albert Einstein, and it's from this theory that arguably the most famous equation in physics, E = mc2, comes from. I'm not going to talk about E = mc2 today (in fact, I've already talked about it, but it's not the whole story!), but I wanted to talk about two other cool consequences of Special Relativity (SR), time dilation and length contraction. First and fore
Not sure what started this fad, but I'm okay with this. I Am A: True Neutral Human Wizard (3rd Level) Ability Scores: Strength- 9 Dexterity- 12 Constitution- 12 Intelligence- 16 Wisdom- 14 Charisma- 12 Alignment: True Neutral- A true neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. He doesn't feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. Most true neutral characters exhibit a lack of conviction or bias rather than a commitment to neutrality. S
KK and I had an awesome time. I'll have pics posted later, so for now I'll just use a few words to describe my experience: There were so many AMAZING creations, from a 7 foot long Serenity to some awesome Egyptian temple structures to Erebor from The Hobbit, and that doesn't even scratch the surface of the tip of the iceberg. The BIONICLE creations were really neat, and I enjoyed stopping by those tables. Speaking of, I have now officially met the following BZPeople (yes, that's what I call us
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
Hydrogen is the simplest and most common neutral atom in the universe. It consists of two particles – a positively charged proton and a negatively charged electron. The equation that describes the hydrogen atom (or any one-electron atom) in the nonrelativistic regime is the Schrödinger equation, specifically where ħ is the reduced Planck constant, μ is the reduced mass of the electron-nucleus system, Z is the number of positive charges in the nucleus that the electron is orbiting, e is th
For those of you who aren't Glenn Beck fans, the title is actually a term of endearment.
The reason for the Glenn Beck inside joke? I was at his Insiders Convention in Akron, Ohio this past Saturday, and I had a great time. I got to shake Glenn's hand, got a picture with him, and he talked with my mom and spoke to my dad on the phone due to some very humorous circumstances. Unfortunately, I did not inherit my mother's socializing genes, so I didn't say much. >>;
Also, it appears
You've probably heard of the Uncertainty Principle before. In words, it says "you cannot simultaneously measure the position and the momentum of a particle to arbitrary precision." In equation form, it looks like this: What this says is that the product of the uncertainty of a measurement of a particle's position multiplied by the uncertainty of a measurement of a particle's momentum has to be greater than a constant (given by the reduced Planck constant, h over τ = 2π). This has nothing
Math is a truly wonderful topic, and since I'm procrastinating a little on my physics homework, I'm going to spend some time talking about the complex numbers. Most of us are used to the real numbers. Real numbers consist of the whole numbers (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, ...), the negative numbers (-1, -2, -3, ...), the rational numbers (1/2, 2/3, 3/4, 22/7, ...), and the irrational numbers (numbers that cannot be represented by fractions of integers, such as the golden ratio, the square root of 2, or π).
I've decided to post this review here, as I'm not sure this fulfills the requirements to actually post this in the LEGO Sets forum. Presentation From the design of the box to the instruction manual, these are the first things you see before building the set. ] It's a polybag. The front features the set's picture and a picture letting you know that the eagle character you get is Ewar. The back is full of legalese, as per usual, and has a cutout option for a free child ticket to LEGOLAND.
Due to the combination of the servers being taken offline and me being in school, it's been a while since my last entry. I managed to find most of my entries from Google's cache (Aug 26 - now), so they've been posted as though I had posted them on their original entry days, but the comments have disappeared into the aether. On a more jubilant note, I've been playing Pokémon Y and Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies recently (this is in no way like Tekulo's recent entry). I'm on the first part of case
My very first Equation of the Day was about the wave equation, a differential equation that governs wave behavior. It doesn't matter whether you have linear waves (sine and cosine functions), cylindrical waves, or spherical waves, the wave equation governs them. Today I will focus on the second, the so-called cylindrical harmonics, or Bessel functions. A harmonic function is defined as one that satisfies Laplace's equation, For cylindrical symmetry, the Laplacian (the operator represent
I am currently unable to upload photos to Brickshelf, and I'm not sure why. I'm trying to upload a .zip file of pics I want to use for a review, but after a long time of "uploading," the folder I attempt to upload to is empty. I tried doing one photo at a time, but that's failing as well. Anyone else experiencing this?
'Sup, BZPeoples? I've been away a while attending friends' weddings, visiting various peeps, rereading Harry Potter (still as magical as always), and working on research. If all goes well, this Friday will see me submitting a paper to the Journal of Chemical Physics. All in all, it's been a good few months. But now is the season of autumnal haunts, and I have grown very happy with the drop in temperature and the swap of palette. Over my fall break, I visited KK in the land of cheese, Wiscon
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.
So, I may have just finished watching all six series of Doctor Who available on Netflix. And I'm quite glad I did. Awesome show. David Tennant is best pony Doctor. I want a sonic screwdriver.
Confound these ponies! They drive me to sing. I liked the finale, but I kinda wish it were a two-parter. It felt slightly rushed as one episode. Also, SONG OVERLOAD.
Just finished replaying the first game in the series, and it's still awesome. The world, the music, the characters, the story – all are so wonderful and charming. The soundtrack has to be some of the best music in video game history. After the long, gruelling process that is inputting a Gold level password from my Clear Data (I don't have a GBA link cable with me), I'm now starting The Lost Age. I will miss Isaac and Co. for now.
