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Akano

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Blog Entries posted by Akano

  3. Akano
    So much more enjoyable. I'm on Chapter 10 of Conquest (decided to switch it up), and already I feel much more positive. The characters have fun quirks and interactions, the plot is interesting, and I'm invested in finding out what happens next.
     
    Glad that this version is my physical copy.
     

  4. Akano
    I've been playing Fire Emblem Fates for the last couple weeks on Hard, Classic mode. I'm currently on Chapter 15: Wolfskin of Birthright (got the Conquest cartridge, bought the other two as DLC). My thoughts so far:
    Story: Eh. It should be good; it has all the prerequisites to be good. You make a choice between two warring families (which puts tension on everything and everyone), the history between Nohr and Hoshido seems complex and long-standing, the circumstances of your upbringing are frustrating/unfair, but all in all the story just seems to happen. It has so many things ready to set itself in motion, but instead is very stilted and lacks flow.
    Characters: Hit and miss for me. Some characters are phenomenal (like Kaden, he's fantastic. Also, Jakob is so wonderfully British. I mean, Nohrian.), while others are just sorta meh. Also, Azura's A support with the female Avatar is the least satisfying support ever. They could have made it a lot more interesting/developing. This and the previous category have made me think to myself, "Man, I just want to play Awakening/Blazing Sword," which doesn't reflect well on this game.
    Classes: Interesting/why? There are some new Hoshido classes that I think are cool (Kinshi knight!) and others that I prefer the classic classes to (Diviner << Mage; I really don't like Orochi and her horoscope nonsense. Mages at least learn their magic from study, not dubious astrology pseudoscience...). I think I'll enjoy playing Conquest a bit more for this reason, among others.

    Also, I lost it when Garon says "Do it!" in the Opera House chapter. He looks a bit like Palpatine anyway, but it reminded me of the Game Grumps "Do it!" impressions from their Mario Party playthrough.
     

  5. Akano
    The above image is known as the Pentagram of Venus; it is the shape of Venus' orbit as viewed from a geocentric perspective. This animation shows the orbit unfold, while this one shows the same process from a heliocentric perspective. There are five places in Venus' orbit where it comes closest to the Earth (known as perigee), and this is due to the coincidence that
     



     
    When two orbital periods can be expressed as a ratio of integers it is known as an orbital resonance (similar to how a string has resonances equal to integer multiples of its fundamental frequency). The reason that there are five lobes in Venus' geocentric orbit is that 13–8=5. Coincidentally, these numbers are all part of the Fibonacci sequence, and as a result many people associate the Earth-Venus resonance with the golden ratio. (Indeed, pentagrams themselves harbor the golden ratio in spades.) However, Venus and Earth do not exhibit a true resonance, as the ratio of their orbital periods is about 0.032% off of the nice fraction 8/13. This causes the above pattern to precess, or drift in alignment. Using the slightly more accurate fraction of orbital periods, 243/395, we can see this precession.
     



     
    This is the precession after five cycles (40 Earth years). As you can see, the pattern slowly slides around without the curve closing itself, but the original 13:8 resonance pattern is still visible. If we assume that 243/395 is indeed the perfect relationship between Venus and Earth's orbital periods (it's not; it precesses 0.8° per cycle), the resulting pattern after one full cycle (1944 years) is
     

     
    Click for hi-res image.


     
    Which is beautiful. The parametric formulas I used to plot these beauties are
     



     
    Where t is time in years, r is the ratio of orbital periods (less than one), and τ = 2π is the circle constant.
     

  7. Akano

    Lemuria

    By Akano,

    When I first played Golden Sun, I had no idea that this was actually a mythical place that some supposed existed in the real world. I also had no idea that lemurs were named with a common etymology.
     

  8. Akano

    Golden Sun

    By Akano,

    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.
     

  9. Akano
    The definition of a planet has been under scrutiny several times, and with New Horizon's recent visit to Pluto, the discussion of Pluto's demotion was on everyone's minds (at least, back in July). But I'm not going to talk about Pluto's demotion (though I think it was totally appropriate from a scientific perspective). Instead, I'm going to talk about the Moon.
     
    Should the Earth-Moon system be considered a binary planet? This sounds outlandish at first, since the Moon is a moon, obviously. It orbits the Earth as a natural satellite, just as the Galilean moons (Ganymede, Callisto, Io, and Europa) orbit Jupiter, Titan orbits Saturn, Triton orbits Neptune, and so on, right?
     
    The definition of a moon is vague, and thus there are multiple ways of determining whether or not a planet-moon system is really a binary planet. One way of drawing the line between the two descriptions is by finding the barycenter (or center-of-mass) of the system. The center of mass of a collection of N masses is given by
     



     
    where M is the total mass of the system, and mi and ri are the mass and position of the ith object, respectively. If the center of mass of a two-body system lies outside the larger object in that system, call it a binary planet. This makes sense, right? This means that the smaller body doesn't orbit the larger body, but instead they both orbit some point in space. For instance, the barycenter of the Pluto-Charon system lies outside Pluto (0.83 Pluto radii above Pluto's surface), the larger of the two bodies, while the Earth-Moon barycenter lies within the Earth (just under 3/4 of an Earth radius from the planet's center). By this definition, the Pluto-Charon system is a binary (dwarf) planet system, while the Earth-Moon system is is a planet-moon system. (Although, we are slowly losing our moon due to tidal acceleration. In a few billion years, the Moon will have drifted far enough away that the barycenter of the Earth-Moon system will leave the interior of our planet.) However, when you plug in values for the Sun-Jupiter system, you find that the center of mass lies outside the Sun! Indeed, Jupiter is the only natural satellite of the Sun for which this is true. (Does this mean Jupiter should have a different classification from the rest of the planets? Not really; the Sun is around 1000 times more massive than Jupiter, so the reason for this is that Jupiter is very distant from the Sun.)
     
    Maybe a different definition is needed to distinguish planet-moons from binary planets, then, since the Sun-Jupiter system is not a binary star (Jupiter is slightly too small to generate nuclear fusion). Another proposition is to look at the so-called tug-of-war value of a body. The tug-of-war value of a moon determines which Solar System object has a stronger gravitational hold, the Sun or the moon's "primary" (the Earth is the Moon's primary). Using Newton's law of gravitation
     



     
    we can take a ratio of the Sun's pull on a satellite to the primary's pull. The result is the tug-of-war value, proposed by Isaac Asimov.
     



     
    Here the subscripts s and p refer to the Sun and the primary, respectively; m is the mass of the body referred to by the subscript; and d is the distance between the moon and the body referred to by the subscript. If the tug-of-war value is larger than 1, then the primary has a larger hold on the moon than the Sun, whereas if it's less than 1, the Sun's gravity dominates. For the Earth-Moon system, it turns out this number is 0.46, which means that the Sun pulls on the Moon with more than twice the force of Earth's pull. This is an oddity among moons, but is not unique. It does mean, though, that the Moon, when viewed from the Sun, never undergoes retrograde motion; it moves across the solar sky without changing direction. Another way to put this is that the Moon is always falling toward the Sun (like the planets), and never in its orbit does it fall away from the Sun (unlike most moons). If you look at the orbits of the Earth and Moon from the point of view of the Sun, they dance around each other in careful step, which is unlike most other moons in the Solar System. For Asimov, this was reason enough to consider the Earth and Moon as a binary planet system.
     
    This tug-of-war value does not, however, classify Pluto and Charon as a binary dwarf planet system (they're too far from the Sun for their tug-of-war value to be less than 1). Perhaps the definition of a binary planet is a difficult one to pin down.
     
    Should the Moon be promoted to planet, just as Pluto was renamed as a dwarf planet? I don't know, but it gives us something to think about as we look up at the starry night, watching the dance of all the chunks of rock and gas hurtling through space in our sky, to music written by nature and heard through science.
     

  10. Akano

    Portal 2

    By Akano,

    Just started playing this with my roommate (Friend: Toa of Friendship). I love it so much. The single-player campaign was awesome, and now we're doing the extra "future" co-op levels.
     
    I love ATLAS' design. I wish he and P-body had opposite eye color.
     
    Also, the free DLC is called Peer Review. This speaks to me as a scientist.
     
    Cave Johnson is the best. I could listen to him talk forever about ignoring human rights in the name of advancing science.
     

  11. Akano

    January update

    By Akano,

    Haldo, BZPorples,
     
    I hope everyone had some awesome holiday funtimes! Mine were packed with traveling, visiting friends, gift giving and receiving, and all the food. All of it.
     
    I also saw The Force Awakens twice while I was home. It was pretty fantastic. The part where we find out that Chewbacca is Rey's father was quite the twist![/trololololol]
     
    Now I am back at school. Though classes don't start until next week, I'm in my lab typing this and sorta doing work. (I've been at a loss to find a certain physical quantity for the past week and have been trying to cope with this by watching various videos. Right now I'm watching Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. When Knowledge Conquered Fear = WIN!)
     
    Otherwise, things are going the way they've always been going.
     

  12. Akano
    I'm taking a second pass at this one. Instead, I'm going to talk about chaos.
     
    Chaos is complexity that arises from simplicity. Put in a clearer way, it's when a deterministic process leads to complex results that seem unpredictable. The difference between chaos and randomness is that chaos is determined by a set of rules/equations, while randomness is not deterministic. Everyday applications of chaos include weather, the stock market, and cryptography. Chaos is why everyone (including identical twins who having the same DNA) have different fingerprints. And it's beautiful.
     
    How does simplicity lead to complexity? Let's take, for instance, the physical situation of a pendulum. The equation that describes the motion of a pendulum is
     



     
    where θ is the angle the pendulum makes with the imaginary line perpendicular to the ground, l is the length of the pendulum, and g is the acceleration due to gravity. This leads to an oscillatory motion; for small angles, the solution of this equation can be approximated as
     



     
    where A is the amplitude of the swing (in radians). Very predictable. But what happens when we make a double pendulum, where we attach a pendulum to the bottom of the first pendulum?
     




    Can you predict whether the bottom pendulum will flip over the top? (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)


     
    It's very hard to predict when the outer pendulum flips over the inner pendulum mass, however the process is entirely determined by a set of equations governed by the laws of physics. And, depending on the initial angles of the two pendula, the motion will look completely different. This is how complexity derives from simplicity.
     
    Another example of beautiful chaos is fractals. Fractals are structures that exhibit self-similarity, are determined by a simple set of rules, and have infinite complexity. An example of a fractal is the Sierpinski triangle.
     



     

    Triforce-ception! (Image: Wikipedia)


     
    The rule is simple: start with a triangle, then divide that triangle into four equal triangles. Remove the middle one. Repeat with the new solid triangles you produced. The true fractal is the limit when the number of iterations reaches infinity. Self-similarity happens as you zoom into any corner of the triangle; each corner is a smaller version of the whole (since the iterations continue infinitely). Fractals crop up everywhere, from the shapes of coastlines to plants to frost crystal formation. Basically, they're everywhere, and they're often very cool and beautiful.
     
    Chaos is also used in practical applications, such as encryption. Since chaos is hard to predict unless you know the exact initial conditions of the chaotic process, a chaotic encryption scheme can be told to everyone. One example of a chaotic map to disguise data is the cat map. Each iteration is a simple matrix transformation of the pixels of an image. It's completely deterministic, but it jumbles the image to make it look like garbage. In practice, this map is periodic, so as long as you apply the map repeatedly, you will eventually get the original image back. Another application of chaos is psuedorandom number generators (PRNGs), where a hard-to-predict initial value is manipulated chaotically to generate a "random" number. If you can manipulate the initial input values, you can predict the outcome of the PRNG. In the case of the Pokémon games, the PRNGs have been examined so thoroughly that, using a couple programs, you can capture or breed shininess/perfect stats.
     



     

    Dat shiny Rayquaza in a Luxury ball, tho.


     
    So that's the beauty of chaos. Next time you look at a bare tree toward the end of autumn or lightning in a thunderstorm, just remember that the seemingly unpredictable branches and forks are created by simple rules of nature, and bask in its complex beauty.
     

  13. Akano

    Halloween approacheth

    By Akano,

    '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, Wisconsin, and he introduced me to the joys of Punch Out!! for Wii and Super Mario Maker. I now own both, and have been having loads of fun playing others' levels and designing levels of my own (mostly goofing off). When I've finalized a level I'll post it for you all to play if you like. In particular I've been working on a Ghost House.
     

      

     
    It's been super fun. Also, RubberRoss' levels are utterly evil.
     
    EDIT: Untimely Haunt v2: CD1D-0000-00C8-8D19
     
    Happy Halloween!
     

  16. Akano

    Monthly update

    By Akano,

    Haldo, everypeoples!
     
    I just wanted to check in (as I haven't posted in well over a month). The semester is wrapping up pretty well. I've started writing a paper to published this summer (!) and have been deep in spectrum assignment land. I also have some friends getting married at the end of the month and will be playing trumpet for their wedding with two of my friends. After that happens, I'm going to a conference to give a talk on my research (a first!).
     
    So, yeah, a lot of exciting stuff coming up. Basically, pretty busy up until mid-June.
     

  17. Akano

    My morning

    By Akano,

    I'd like to describe to you all the most memorable scene from my morning walk into school.
     
    I emerged from the tunnel under the train tracks and headed towards the last intersection on my walk on my way to school. In the bare bushes of one of the office buildings on the street twittered a bunch of small sparrows, not a care in the world. I watched them as they chattered, when all of a sudden a brown blur appeared in my periphery. A hawk (I believe a broad-winged hawk) was in a dive, ready to snatch up a meal from the group of sparrows. It swooped, then crashed into the bare branches of the bushes. I could tell immediately after it crashed that it was unsuccessful in its quest, and as it looked around during its shocked stupor, I could see in its face the expression of "Well, this is just great." The poor thing sat there for a moment and eventually freed itself, its ego more bruised than its body, as it flew atop the building and reconsidered what its next move was.
     
    All in all, it was really cool, and I'm glad I got to witness it.
     

  18. Akano

    Awesome Cartoons

    By Akano,

    As brothers tend to do, KK and I spent our Saturday evening watching a cartoon about brothers navigating an unfamiliar world simply trying to get home. Over the Garden Wall is a brilliant miniseries, and if you haven't seen it, you should. The story is captivating, mysterious, and makes you ask all sorts of questions to the very end. The animation is beautiful (similar but different to Gravity Falls), the characters are incredibly fun and interesting, and the plot doesn't necessarily progress the way you think it will, but at the same time has many familiar story elements. Also, the celebrity voice acting is done really well, which isn't always the case when you have big names in your cartoon credits.
     
    Go watch it. It's a great ride.
     
    Also, slightly related, new Gravity Falls tonight! 8D
     

  20. Akano
    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, so I decided to use my math and science skills to better humanity to prove my point.
     
    I used the resource known as Bulbapedia to acquire the complete list of electric type Pokémon (pure and dual-type) and entered in their official Pokédex color. Using the advanced mathematical concept of "counting" to total up how many electric types are of each color, I obtained the following results:
    Yellow: 18
    Blue: 8
    White: 4
    Black: 3
    Gray: 3
    Red: 3
    Brown: 1
    Pink: 1
    Ergo, my scientific findings have brought me to the conclusion that electricity is yellow by a landslide. Have a good day, everyone.
     

  21. Akano

    *Sweeps up the snow*

    By Akano,

    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 my dad which had a Bazinga shirt and socks, TARDIS/Dalek ice tray (!!), and other miscellaneous nerdy things.
    Spent New Year's with some friends from college, one of whom is having a baby in the extremely near future. (I will soon be an uncle, which is kind of awesome.)
    Went to Walt Disney World for a week with my mom and Tekulo. Magic Kingdom is still my favorite park, Haunted Mansion is still my favorite ride, Space Mountain is still my favorite thrill ride, and Tower of Terror is still awesome. I didn't really enjoy Epcot all that much (though I had fun riding Spaceship Earth after virtually zero wait), and Universal Studios was fine except for the head-jostling the Rockin' Roller Coaster gave me. (I remember it being much more avoidable as a kid...)
    Now I'm back at school doing research. Also, thanks to all who supported Tekulo in his recent blog entry where he came out. It makes me very happy to see that here. Keep being awesome.
     

  22. Akano

    *Grabs Popcorn*

    By Akano,

    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 fans, create.
     
    I have seen beautiful creations on this site in the forms of MOCs, comics, general artwork, movies, stories, and music posted on this site for the past 11 years, and it is far more impressive than just about anything that has come out of the official storyline (although, Time Trap is the best thing Greg ever contributed to the actual canon, and there's no way I can knock it). You want a story where Vo-Matoran, -Toa, and -Turaga are male? Or have no set gender? Go for it. There's a headcanon floating around about a transgender Tamaru, there were comics featuring the only male Ga-Matoran, and there were epics that featured Toa, Matoran, and Turaga of Muffins. Do you think Muffins would ever be canonized as a for reals element? Who cares?! It made for far more interesting plots and ideas than a Toa of the Green who has only ever been hinted at and never seen in action!
     
    Part of the fun of writing my epics – How I Became Me and The Inventor of Metru Nui (which I hope to work on again at some point, I swears!) – was twisting one part of the canon while leaving the rest be. Trying to get my OC to fit into the BIONICLE universe was fun, and when it was announced that Vo-Matoran are female (and blue, what's with that? If you've played Pokémon, you know that electricity is yellow bar a few minor deviations ), I didn't budge because I didn't have to.
     
    So have fun making mountains out of molehills, BZbloggers. I'm going to sit over here, lean back, and enjoy my bowl of popcorn whilst I watch the fireworks. Because I'm just that nice a guy. 8D
     

  23. Akano

    Going home for turkey

    By Akano,

    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 General Relativity.
     
    Also, dat Detective's Office set. 8L
     

  25. Akano
    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.
     

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