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Akano

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Blog Entries posted by Akano

  3. Akano

    Blog Statistics

    By Akano,

    I have absolutely no life to the point that I just spent the better part of my afternoon going back through my blog posts and recording the view count, reply count, and word count of all 185 entries I've made prior to this one. These are the results of my labor:
     
    All time averages:
    Views: 57.4 ± 45.8
    Replies: 2.2 ± 2.6 (LOL)
    Word Count: 176 ± 242 (BIGGER LOL)
     
    Post-server upgrade averages:
    Views: 79.9 ± 42.6
    Replies: 2.58 ± 3.01 (LOL again)
    Word Count: 198 ± 292 (BIGGER LOL again)
     
    Largest stats:
    Views: 266 (courtesy of "Ask Akano" blog entry; Fort Legoredo review got 265, a close second)
    Replies: 24 (again, "Ask Akano")
    Word Count: 1711 (Vampyre Castle review)
     
    Here are the graphs for each stat.
     
    What I learned from this experience:
    Before the server upgrade, I made a lot of posts about how I'm a terrible blogger.
    Among my most viewed posts were my set reviews.
    My old text color is more painful to view since the background is now completely white.
    Most of my blog posts have fewer than 50 words.
    Most of my blog posts get zero replies.
    Post-server upgrade, most of my entries get between 60-90 views. Pre-upgrade, they got between 10-20 views.
    This is my 186th post.
    I hope this was informative. I know I learned quite a bit from the experience.
     

  4. Akano
    I've blogged before about the physics of bouncing a particle like a neutron on a table or other similar surface. Well, someone at the University of Arkansas has made an animation of how the spread of said particle over space evolves in time if it starts out in a "Gaussian wavepacket," which is a fancy way of saying that the neutron starts out looking more like a particle than a wave by being localized in space. The animation is here, while the full page containing the full Quicktime movie is here.
     
    The red dot is a classical bouncing ball evolving over time (it's pretty boring comparatively). On the left is a plot of the probability of finding the particle at a certain height (the vertical axis) at any given time of the movie. The quantum particle does sort of bounce, become kind of wavy and messy, and then bounces again, but out of phase with the classical ball.
     
    TL;DR: Cool animation of doing mundane physics with a quantum system with results that are anything but mundane. Click the links to have your mind blown.
     

  5. Akano

    Sonic Generations

    By Akano,

    So, lately I've been playing Sonic Generations as a fun way to pass the time. It's a fantastically good game that I recommend to any Sonic the Hedgehog fan. It brings back the play styles of the 2D platformer and that started by Sonic Adventure. (Though the final boss is really lame.)
     
    I also like a lot of their remixed songs. (Green Hill Zone and Chemical Plant Zone sound really cool!)
     
    In A Link to the Past news, I've rescued the maiden in the Dark World version of the Lost Woods and am now in the Village of Outcasts trying to find out where the next maiden is being kept. I'm also getting thoroughly thieved by the denizens of said village. On an unrelated note, my roommate and I also got shiny Dialga at GameStop recently. That's pretty sweet.
     
    And tomorrow I have my first class. Looks like my summer's officially over...
     

  6. Akano

    My BrickFair Loot

    By Akano,

    So, I know it's been a few weeks since the awesomeness that was BrickFair, VA, 2013, but I've finally gotten around to editing the pictures of the stuff I managed to get my hands on at that wonderful convention.
     
    My loot includes
    A pin
    A BrickFair brick (It's actually three bricks stacked on top of each other, but whatever.)
    A yellow prototype Shadow Leech! (Thanks, Black Six!)
    A yellow 1980s space guy.
    Two minifigs (Build-your-own)
    A bag of BIONICLE pieces for Tekulo
    KopakaKurahk's loot includes
    A red 1980s space guy
    Timmy from Time Cruisers.
    An awesome villain minifigure.
    A BrickFair minifigure.
    I also got my mom a small Toy Story polybag set with the alien toy minifigure, since she loves those characters so much.
     
    Soon I hope to upload some more pictures of our BrickFair adventure, so keep an eye out for that.
     

  7. Akano
    ...and I'm not enjoying it as much as I hoped to...
     
    *avoids all the random objects being thrown at him in disagreement*
     
    Let me explain.
     
    I'm currently rescuing the maidens in the Dark World. I'm making the assumption that you're supposed to rescue them in numerical order, but I think they can be saved in (almost) any order. I've rescued two of them, with the third lying in the Dark World equivalent of the Lost Woods (the Skeleton Forest, I think?). Anyway, it took me forever to figure out how to get over there, since no obvious path showed itself on my map.
     
    This game needs a guide. A Navi, Tatl, Ezlo, Midna, or King of Red Lions. Someone who knows the world and can help you get to where you need to go. I've been to the fortune teller in the game to figure out where to go, but he only gives you names, not directions, which makes it frustrating when I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off all over Hyrule trying to figure out where to go next.
     
    Perhaps it will grow on me, but right now I'm longing for Minish Cap and its wonderful gameplay...
     

  8. Akano
    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/you/whatever) IN PERSON:
    Sumiki a.k.a. Cap'n Subnuki a.k.a. Hat Man
    Black Six a.k.a. Andrew a.k.a. you all know who he is
    The Architect a.k.a. Blog Lurker
    Xaeraz a.k.a. Xaeraz
    Aanchir a.k.a. He who draws Andrew Francis characters
    BZPeople whom I saw but did not actually meet (sorry, I'll try harder next time not to be overwhelmed with ALL THE AWESOME and stop to talk to people more).
    Makaru
    Avohkah Tamer
    Bionicle Raptor (related: I also forgot to buy a BZPower shirt. )
    Possibly others whose appearances I don't know and thus would not recognize them.
    All in all, it was an awesome afternoon well spent. I'll have some pictures up some time later this week, including my haul (not too substantial, but pretty cool).
     

  11. Akano

    My First BrickFair

    By Akano,

    So, it looks like both KK and I will be going to BrickFair (so long as we have friends willing to give us rides). So, if you want to meet us, BE THERE! 8D
     
    KK has said Tekulo's rather jealous about our adventure to the fair of bricks. Don't worry, Tekky, I'll be sure to take pictures and hopefully grab some good bricks.
     
    In other news, I've caught up completely with the 900 comics of Order of the Stick, and it's a fantastic series. If anyone out there has a few days to kill, it's a blast to read, check it out.
     
    As for my comics, I should make some new ones, huh? >>;
     

  12. Akano

    My D&D Characters

    By Akano,

    So, recently I told you all that my brother, KK, has come to stay with me this summer and that we've started a Dungeons and Dragons campaign in the land of Hyrule, set some 50 years or so after the events of Majora's Mask. We recently just dealt with some undead necromancy in the Kakariko graveyard and are waiting for orders from the King of Hyrule on where our party will travel for our next mission. KK has also gotten me into the wonderful webcomic The Order of the Stick, which lampshades and parodies the Dungeons & Dragons universe and gameplay. I have since made my player characters in the style of OotS's comic design and wish to share them with you, my lovely reader.
     
    Atlov
     
     



    Atlov is a Hylian wizard who specializes in the Storm Domain (bonus points to those who figure out where his name comes from). He aspires to use his wizard talents as a servant of the Royal Family of Hyrule.
    Stats
    Lawful Good, Level 2 Wizard, 12 HP, AC 12
    Str: 10
    Dex: 14
    Con: 15
    Int: 16
    Wis: 14
    Cha: 13
     
    I'm planning to take a level in Cleric with Atlov after I get my level 2 Wizard spells, since it will give him a nice diversity and allow him to heal himself in battle. He currently worships Nayru, but I think that will change, a) because the Hyrule campaign thingy we're basing our game on doesn't give Nayru many good Cleric domains, and b) because while Nayru is the goddess of wisdom, it may make more sense to worship Hylia (since he wants to serve the Royal Family) or not have a preferred deity (since he may feel that they're all equally important).
     
    Ralu
     
     




    Ralu is a Zora bard from Zora's Domain. He enjoys traversing Hyrule and gathering new stories to tell through the soothing tones of his fish bone guitar. The diplomat of the group, since his Charisma is out the wazoo.
    Stats
    Chaotic Good, Level 2 Bard, 15 HP, AC 13
    Str: 11
    Dex: 11
    Con: 16
    Int: 15
    Wis: 9
    Cha: 16
     
    Zoras get a penalty to strength, and I rolled a bad Wisdom score, but fortunately he doesn't need it too badly. Ralu worships Farore, since he's Chaotic rather than Lawful (otherwise I would have had him worship Nayru). I haven't developed his character too much yet, so we'll see where I take him during our journey.
     

  13. Akano

    Life Updates

    By Akano,

    HI, BZPOWER!
     
    So, in the last few weeks, my family came to visit (including Tekulo and KK) and we spent the latter half of the week seeing sights and enjoying each other's company. My mom won a game of Trivial Pursuit on a category that was supposed to stump her. Story of my Trivial Pursuit life.
     
    When they left, they abandoned KK with me, which has led to me stepping into the nerd realm of playing Dungeons & Dragons. We're doing a campaign in the land of Hyrule with the races of Hyrule being used as analogs of D&D races. We're currently in the Forest Temple seeking an herb to cure the Great Deku Tree's muteness.
     
    I'm also working in a new physics lab where I'm studying the energy states of the hydrogen molecule (H2). I'm thoroughly enjoying it, since I'm learning computational stuffs and learning my way around Linux. (Emacs rules the school.) The program I'm working with is in Fortran, which is my native programming language but was written by someone else with a lot more skill than I possess.
     
    And now I'm shoveling through a LOT of data.
     

  14. Akano

    Origami Shapes!

    By Akano,

    I made a Post-It note dodecahedron:


    It was fun. 8D
     
    For the record: each face is made up of five Post-It notes, each a different color, so that, per face, no color is repeated.
     

  16. Akano
    You may have learned once that classical mechanics all stems from Newton's laws of motion, and while that is true, it is not necessarily the best way to solve a given physical problem. Often when we look at a physical system, we take note of certain physical parameters: energy, momentum, and position. However, these can be more generalized to fit the physical situation in question better. This is where Lagrange comes in; he thought of a new way to formulate mechanics. Instead of looking at the total energy of a system, which is the potential energy plus the kinetic energy, he instead investigated the difference in those two quantities,
     




     
    where T is the kinetic energy and V is the potential energy. Since the kinetic and potential energy, in general, depend on the coordinate position and velocity of the particle in question, as well as time, so too does the Lagrangian. You're probably thinking, "okay, what makes that so great?" Well, if we were to plot the Lagrangian and calculate the area under the curve with respect to time, we get a quantity known as the action of the particle.
     




     
    where t1 and t2 are the starting and ending times of interest. Usually if the motion is periodic, the difference between these times is one period. Now, it turns out that for classical motion, the action is minimized with respect to a change in the path along which the particle moves for the physical path along which the particle actually moves. This sounds bizarre, but what it means is that there is only one path along which the particle can move while keeping the action minimized. Physicists call this the Principle of Least Action; I like to call it "the universe is inherently lazy" rule. When you do the math out, you can calculate an equation related to the Lagrangian for which the action is minimized. We call these the Euler-Lagrange Equations.
     




     
    These are the equations of motion a particle with Lagrangian L in generalized coordinates qi with velocity components denoted by qi with a dot above the q (the dot denotes taking a time derivative, and the time derivative of a coordinate is the velocity in that coordinate's direction). This is one of the advantages of the Lagrangian formulation of mechanics; you can pick any coordinate system that is best-suited for the physical situation. If you have a spherically symmetric problem, you can use spherical coordinates (altitude, longitude, colatitude). If your problem works best on a rectangular grid, use Cartesian coordinates. You don't have to worry about sticking only with Cartesian (rectilinear) coordinates and then converting to something that makes more sense; you can just start out in the right coordinate system from the get go! Now, there are a couple of special attributes to point out here. First, the quantity within the time derivative is a familiar physical quantity, known as the conjugate momenta.
     




     
    Note that these do not have to have units of linear momentum of [Force × time]. For instance, in spherical coordinates, the conjugate momentum of longitude is the angular momentum in the vertical direction, which has units of action, [Energy × time]. The Euler-Lagrange equations tell us to take the total time derivative of these momenta, i.e. figure out how they change in time. This gives us a sort of conjugate force, since Newton's second law reads that the change in momentum over time is force. The other quantity gives special significance when it equals zero,
     




     
    This is just fancy math language for saying that if one of our generalized coordinates, qi, doesn't appear at all in our Lagrangian, then that quantity's conjugate momentum is conserved, and the coordinate is called "cyclic." In calculating the Kepler problem – the physical situation of two particles orbiting each other (like the Earth around the Sun) – the Lagrangian is
     




     
    Note that the only coordinate that doesn't appear in the Lagrangian is ϕ, the longitude in spherical coordinates. Thus, the conjugate momentum of ϕ, which is the angular momentum pointing from the North pole vertically upwards, is a conserved quantity. This reveals a symmetry in the problem that would not be seen if we used the Lagrangian for the same problem in Cartesian coordinates:
     




     
    That just looks ugly. Note that all three coordinates are present, so there are no cyclic coordinates in this system. In spherical coordinates, however, we see that there is a symmetry to the problem; the symmetry is that the situation is rotationally invariant under rotations about an axis perpendicular to the plane of orbit. No matter what angle you rotate the physical situation by about that axis, the physical situation remains unchanged.
     

  17. Akano

    Science Journals

    By Akano,

    So, in an earlier blog entry I talked about a journal article one of our professors presented at our department's journal club discussing neutrons in a purely gravitational potential well. Well, I decided to read it and am going to present it to the math and science grad students on Friday because I think it's pretty dang awesome.
     
    Related: Airy functions are weird. And cool. Perhaps I'll discuss them later...
     
    Also, tomorrow spring is here! (If it weren't for ponies, I would not say that with so much excitement.)
     
    `
  18. Akano

    Goodbye, Spring Break

    By Akano,

    Alas, my Spring Break has come to a close. I did have fun, though. I got Sonic & Knuckles for the SEGA Genesis and enjoyed time with friends and family.
     
    This week I get a midterm for my grad level E&M class. We have over two weeks to do it, though, which is quite nice.
     
    Also, Happy St. Patrick's Day, all! If you are old enough to drink, please do so responsibly.
     

  19. Akano

    Special Relativity

    By Akano,

    A particle moving through space at the speed of light (i.e. a "massless" particle) does not experience time, and particles that are at rest travel through time at the speed of light.
     
    So the next time you feel lazy loafing on your couch or computer chair, just remember that you are traveling at light speed, no matter how fast or slowly you move.
     
    This entry brought to you by SCIENCE!
     

  21. Akano
    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?
     

  22. Akano

    A True, True Friend

    By Akano,

    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.
     

  23. Akano

    Tekulo's birthday entry

    By Akano,

    I was going to make this a topic when it happened, but unfortunately the forums were offline, so I'll make an entry for it instead. My younger brother, Tekulo, turned 21 this past Thursday, Valentine's Day, so go ahead and wish him a belated happy birthday!
     

  24. Akano

    The Hobbit Soundtrack

    By Akano,

    Oh, Howard Shore, your music is wonderful. My favorite tracks, in no particular order, are
    Blunt the Knives
    Misty Mountains
    The Adventure Begins
    An Ancient Enemy
    Radagast the Brown
    Erebor
    The Edge of the Wild
    I'm looking forward to the next couple movies and the delightful music they will bring.
     
    Also, The Wizard Battle set is totally getting added to my collection when it comes out.
     

  25. Akano
    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.
     
    Building
    Half the fun is had building the set. How fun is it to build and how easy or challenging is it?
     



    At only 33 pieces, this set does not take long to build.
     



    Set Design
    Now that the set is complete, we can critique how it looks from every angle. New or interesting pieces can also be examined here.
     



    I would first like to point out that this set came with about 10 extra trans-light-blue round tile pieces, which I thought was ridiculous, but I'm not complaining. The vessel is pretty simple in design, but still rather cool in my opinion. It's like someone combined a snowmobile and a jet ski...and made it fly. The really cool thing about this set, though, is Ewar.
     



    First off, Ewar is an anthropomorphic eagle, which ranks up there in awesomeness with anthropomorphic echidnas. He also has a really simple but clever wing-mount that reminds me of the armor of the old Hydronaut figures. This also allows his wings (and those of the other wingèd Chima races) to be poseable, unlike the winged mummy figures from Pharaoh's Quest. I like Ewar's flip face as well; one side has goggles and the other is just his bare face, which has nice detail on it. The design on his torso reminds me a lot of ancient Egypt, and his helmet (head piece?) is really cool as well.
     
    Playability
    The other half of the fun is in playing with the set. How well does the set function and is it enjoyable to play with?
     

    Woohoo! Cowabunga, dude!


    While it is a small set and, thus, is kinda limited on playability by itself, I'm sure that it makes a nice addition to any larger set if you're building some kind of Chima army or need a new high-tech hover vehicle for your utopian LEGO world. Ewar himself is a cool minifig that also allows for some fun play time.
     

    Hey, Einstein, I'm on your side!


    Final Thoughts
    Once it's all said and done, how does the set stack up? Should I get it?



    Alas, jetski-snowmobile, you are the only one who listens to me.


    This set was originally released as a free promotional with a $75 set order from LEGO S@H. It's now on BrickLink for about $5 USD. I don't know if I would personally spend that much money just to get him, but I'm glad I was able to get him through LEGO's promotional. If you're a fan of Chima, go for it.
     
    Pros
    What's to like?
    Ewar is cool
    Lots of extra pieces
    Jetski-snowmobile
    Cons
    What's not to like?
    Small
    It's a cute little set. If you want to see the gallery, go here when public.
     

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