With the rebirth of BIONICLE, a great debate has arisen, and I am now able to put all of our qualms to rest. In my recent entry about making mountains into molehills, the comments brought up a serious issue: the color of the element of electricity. Specifically, I am a proponent of its color being yellow because I don't buy into the popularity of the color blue, and that Pokémon represents the element with the color yellow. I had many (read: a couple) people disagree with me on that sentiment, s
Hello, BZPeople! I just wanted to drop in and let you know that I'm quite alive and well and have had a wonderful holiday season. I thought I'd give you all a quick rundown of my last month or so after I vanished without a trace. Went home and celebrated Christmas with my folks. Got AN AWESOME INSECT COLLECTION from Tekulo; a custom lightsaber, a LEGO coffee mug, and a Knights minifigure set from KK; a portable charger thing from my mom; an Elvis mug/cocoa mix from my aunt; and a gift box from
It's really amusing to me that everyone is freaking out about this canonization stuff, mainly because this is what happened to me several years ago. As someone who ended up disagreeing with new canon information during BIONICLE's initial tenure, let me assure you: the new canon is meaningless. Even if Greg Farshtey says that Toa can transform into gigantic dinosaurs and feast on souls, it would mean absolute bupkis. Why? Because the fun of BIONICLE isn't what's officially created, but what we,
The room you are currently sitting in is probably around 20°C, or 68°F (within reasonable error, since different people like their rooms warmer or colder or have no control over the temperature of the room they're reading this entry in). But what does it mean to be at a certain temperature? Well, we often define temperature as an average of the movement of an ensemble of constituent particles – usually atoms or molecules. For instance, the temperature of a gas in a room is given as a relation to
This evening, KK and I will embark on an epic quest to return home via Greyhound bus. Neither of us has ever partaken in such an adventure, so it will probably be full of intrigue, drool, and snorts due to the fact that we leave after midnight. 'Twill be interesting indeed. In other news, scattering theory is still something that eludes me. This is funny, because one of my research projects sort of uses scattering theory as an approximation technique. I get it there, but not when it comes to G
KK got me sick. Jerk. In other news, MAJORA'S MASK 3D CONFIRMED XIKQADRVVGSJUPOLWTW!!! I'm pretty psyched about this development and am throwing my money at the screen to make it be mine now. It's not working. Now, please excuse me while I hack up my left lung.
I knew none of the costumes, the premise was ridiculous, I clicked the thing that made Homsar appear, and the click-a-costume dialog was wonderful. ALL IS AS IT SHOULD BE! ♥
Nearly two weeks ago, my brothers, parents, roommate (whom Tekulo has taken to call Friend: Toa of Friendship, so I will refer to him as such), and two family friends took a relaxing trip down to Hilton Head Island, SC. Our first day in the condo wasn't terribly eventful; we all went to the beach and enjoyed the sun and sea. Tekulo built a rockin' sand castle, with a moat, staircases, and other hidden gems, and our dad got pooed on by a crow/raven/corvid. Twice. Also, KK decided to take advantag
Well done, Alex Hirsch. Well done. The latest Gravity Falls episode was excellent. Totally squashed theories about the author of the journal and, while answering some questions, raised even more. Can't wait for the next episode...
Yet again, my brothers suggested I do something that they've done. This time it was "watch Gravity Falls," a show which I knew of but didn't know much about. I have now finished the first season, and I must say it's a brilliant, funny show. In no particular order, what makes it stand out is The humor - By and far an important aspect of any comedy, the humor of Gravity Falls resonates very well, from the lamest pun to the brilliant stuff they get past the censors (and, wow, do they get a lot past
I have been up to lots of stuffs recently. Mostly of the electronic gaming variety. First off, I played Mega Man X for the first time courtesy of the Wii U Virtual Console (prompted by a fantastic video by Egoraptor). Fantastic game; the more I play SNES games, the more I regret not owning a SNES in childhood. After playing Fire Emblem (Rekka no Ken) and Sacred Stones, I finally caved into my roommate's demands that I play Awakening; OMG SO MUCH AWESOME! Probably one of my favorite games of
Haldo, BZPeople! As you may have noticed, this summer the blogs were highly accented with my extreme absence since I took a trip to the northern UK. The reason for this absence is simple: I was studying for, and subsequently started taking, my preliminary examinations for continuation to my Ph.D. in physics. Last week for me was filled with three four-hour exams: one on Monday (Quantum Mechanics), one on Wednesday (Electromagnetism), and one on Friday (Classical, Special Relativity, and Statis
While days 2-4 were relatively uneventful (mostly collaborating days, doing research) my last three days in Edinburgh were pretty cool. Day 5: I climbed Arthur's Seat for a second time; it was sunny, so the view was even better than on Sunday when my advisor and I climbed it together. I also got proof That I made it to the summit. 8D Day 6: I went to Edinburgh Castle and walked around the former residence of the Scottish royal family. There were a few museums that were mainly dedicated to th
So, I'm currently in Edinburgh, UK for official Hogwarts business doing research with a collaborator at the local university. Things I have done include Vaguely losing consciousness on the plane ride over the Atlantic to adjust to new time zone. Would not qualify it as sleeping. Instead of checking into the hotel (which didn't allow checkins until 2 p.m. local time), climbing Arthur's Seat to the summit with my advisor like a boss. Enjoyed a Guinness. (Not Scottish, I know, but arguably freshe
It's been a while since I posted something, eh? Last week I went home to visit my family for a couple of weeks. It's been pretty low key so far; visited some friends over the weekend, mowed the lawn (so lovely), and tried to get things a bit cleaner around the house. I also ate way too much food at various gatherings. This weekend my dad and I pick up KK from grad school (he successfully defended his Master's!) and will enjoy two long, arduous, 10 hour-long trips. Then, I fly to Wisconsin fo
It's finals week at my grad school, but since I didn't take any classes this semester, I have no exams to study for (except my prelims, which are at the end of the summer ). I am, however, holding office hours for my students before they take their exams, so I'm not without stuff to do. I also went to Philly BrickFest two weekends ago, but I was only there for a couple hours since I had to leave for choir rehearsal. I did snap some pics, which will hopefully end up on my Brickshelf at some poi
Today I want to talk about mass. Sometimes you'll hear it defined loosely as "the amount of stuff in an object." There are, however, two separate definitions of mass in classical physics. The first definition comes from Newton's second law. This mass is known as the inertial mass. The larger an object's inertial mass, the more it resists being accelerated by a given force. The second definition of mass also comes from Newton, but it is instead determined by his law of gravitation. T
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
I like triangles. I like numbers. So what could possibly be better than having BOTH AT THE SAME TIME?! The answer is nothing! 8D The triangular numbers are the numbers of objects one can use to form an equilateral triangle. Anyone up for billiards? Or bowling? (Image: Wikimedia Commons) Pretty straightforward, right? To get the number, we just add up the total number of things, which is equal to adding up the number of objects in each row. For a triangle with n rows, this is equivalent
So, my roommate finally coaxed me into playing the first Fire Emblem (actually the seventh, but the first one released in the US) for GBA, and I'm loving it. After finishing it, I'm definitely looking forward to playing Fire Emblem: Awakening, because I've heard nothing but good things about it. The music is great in that awesome nostalgic way, the characters are fun and memorable, the magic wielders are freakin' awesome, and the gameplay is fantastic – in order to keep all your troops alive,
