It's More Than Just a Free Minor

So now that May is almost over, I suppose that it is time for another blog post. Again, apologies to all that actually check this.

So here is something that I have been thinking about recently: Math. But you might be saying, "Brian, you just graduated. Why in the world would you be thinking about math?" and the answer to your question is simple: Math is everything.

Music is math: When you convert the frequency of equivalent notes between octaves, they are an exact double of the lower octive. For example, if you were to take the A note just above middle C to be 440 Hz, then the A below it would be 220 Hz and the one above it would be 880 Hz. Each note is thusly proportionally spaced (A to A# to B to B# and so on) to be 2^(1/12)x the note preceding it. All of this is simply boiled down to the rate at which waves propagate through matter, but then there have been numerous papers written on the rhythmic patterns of Chopin, Motzart, and Beethoven, one of which takes Beethoven's fifth and pulls the raw equations out of it using Fourier transforms and demonstrates the mathematical soundness of the entire thing. If I could find the link on it right now, I would link it, but I'm not in the mood to go digging. On a less classy note, there's auto-tuning of today's horrible pop stars that makes their voices more tolerable: also math, but just less classy.

Weight loss is math: when you're trying to lose weight, it is going to come down to one thing: calories. A calorie is defined as the amount of energy it takes to heat one gram (which is also conveniently one milliliter and one cubic centimeter) of water, one degree C. This is stored energy and equal to about 4.184 joules. When you are actively using up this energy, you can express the rate of energy consumption in watts, or joules per second. So if the average person takes in 2000 dietetic calories (or 8.368 MJ) per day, they would have consumed enough energy to power a single 100 watt lightbulb for almost an entire day. Now, this really isn't all that much, but bear in mind that there are people that are consistently getting fatter, which means that they aren't using all the energy that they take in, and there body has to store it somewhere. Basic universal laws state that you can't create or destroy energy, only convert it between forms. So they are taking it in, nit using it, and then converting it to fat. Yup. So if you want to lose it, you have to use more energy in a day than you consume. E_out > E_in. Simple as that.

Motion is math: say that your standing on top of a building and drop a baseball off the top. The representation of the acceleration of the ball will just be a = g. Then to find the velocity at any given time, this is simply v = g*t, and then to find the position of the ball, you can integrate once more to find that x = .5 g*t^2. this is neglecting any drag forces that the air exerts on the ball and also just a simple drop. If you were to throw the ball with an initial velocity of 65 mph at an angle of 35 degrees from the horizontal with a cross wind of 30 mph off a 75 foot tall building, you could effectively calculate almost exactly where it would land. This same principle relates to anything that moves. You can use math to explain the lack of friction on old shoes coupled with a diagram showing the unequal forces causing one to slip while walking, or to show the devastation between a head-on collision between an F-150 and a smart car. In that scenario, you can guess who the victor is going to be, but can you explain why? Well, math can.

There are plenty more examples, but these are just a few that I could think of off the top of my head. So every time somebody says to me, "math is hard" I like to interpret this into "understanding everything is hard." Granted, you don't have to understand the math behind everything to do it, it just makes it a lot better.

(And this is what happens when I don't use my brain for a month after being out of school.)

Denim Chicken?

Check out the six day turnaround on blog posts. Not bad, eh?

I am mostly writing because I forgot a very important even in the last post. I went to Disney World. (Hey, I was rushed...)

It was pretty awesome; here are some pictures,

Awesome Castle Show (Forgot the name of it...)

Untouchable Buzz Lightyear Score

Derek Enjoying an Epic High Five Adventure

Umm.... Zebra Man?

Jeniece went to every length to ensure that Derek and I had a great time, and she did very well. Hopefully it was enough to pull through to the end of the semester.

Meltdown Imminent

It has been well over a month since I last posted anything on here, so I will give a quick recap of what has happened since February 3rd.

• I got into ASU.
• I went to Wyoming for a job that is in the middle of nowhere, that would be interesting, good experience and pay well. However, it is in the middle of nowhere.

That is about it. I have also assembled a really sweet gun. It is a .308 and I haven't taken it out yet. I plan on eventually hitting something at 1000 yards. Just for a point of reference, if you shoot completely horizontal, it will take the bullet more than a second to fly that distance and will drop more than 35 feet. It will be a challenge, but I have 40 rounds to try and pull it off. If I can't do it with those, I will just buy more.

I have also spent a liberal amount of time this past month playing a game called "Fallout." It is set in post apocalyptic Washington DC and is massive. I have been checking some walkthroughs on the internet as I go mostly because I don't want to waste exorbitant amounts of time doing things that don't really matter. Fun game overall. I think that if I do decide to go up to Wyoming, I will buy the next one to spend my free time on this summer.

Derek is currently on "operation: don't look so damn fat" and I've decided to join him. Mostly because I feel like crap and don't exercise and I'm gaining weight. I ran a mile and lifted a bit today, but not a whole lot. We'll see how long I keep it up. I figure that if somebody else is doing it as well, I might be more motivated to actually keep up with it instead of quitting like I do every time.

Thanks to my geophysics class, I know exactly how many Joules of energy were released in the 9.0 Japan earthquake from a few days ago. Correction: I know where to look up the equation. I don't have it memorized. I have better equations to memorize to be honest.

There remain 36 days between me and the end of my BYU career. I am very excited to finish up and get out of there. Overall, they have been really good to me. I am just sick of the SSDD outine that I go through there. I am hoping that by not spending much time at ASU, I don't develop the same feelings for that university.

Current shows:

Dexter: Just finished season 4.

Rescue Me: Middle of season 4.

There really isn't anything else on right now. Everything is taking sporadic breaks and I never know when it is on. I think that I am going to start saving entire seasons until they are done. I will definitely burn through them faster but I think that I would enjoy them more. I will likely still acquire them as they come out though.

Anyway, my room looks like total crap and I have resolved to clean it today. Something smells like fire. Better check it out.

HaHA!

For some reason, whenever I'm bored, I never think to post to this thing. Except for right now. Right now I just remembered.

Dave sold Derek and I some cards for a nursing thing fundraiser. Last night we went to Trafalga with them and each got two free games of mini golf. We didn't play our games sequentially, we played six balls at the same time. These were the rules:

1. If you were playing on an odd-numbered hole, you shot one ball, then the other. After you, somebody else did the same thing and the hole was played in this fashion.
2. If you were playing an even-numbered hole, you shot one ball, then the next player went, and the loop continued in that fashion.
3. If you were playing a prime-numbered hole (and later perfect squares as well) you had to shoot both balls at the same time. This rule supersedes the previous rules when determining the style of hole.
4. If somebody gets a hole-in-one on a prime-numbered hole, they got to shoot all six balls simultaneously on the next prime-numbered hole.
5. Bad-Ass points are awarded for doing something awesome.
6. Dumb-Ass points are awarded for doing something stupid.
7. Dick Treason can be called if you rob somebody of a shot within 6 inches of the hole.
8. The 18th hole is treated as prime if a hole-in-one is made on the 17th hole.

It seems like there were a few more rules that were made up, but you get the idea. Also, if you're reading this, you were also likely there...

This semester sucks. Capstone needs to go away. It is one semester too long. I've been spending a lot of time down at USS and we had a design review last week where we were told "you should be afraid of not finishing." I don't really care.

Geophysics isn't too bad. The teacher isn't too spectacular, but she does try to make it interesting. The class's redeeming quality is that the class number isn't preceded by "ME EN" making it a change from the standard I've been experiencing for the past four years.

Tonight, Dave is hosting "Geektober" which is odd, because it is February. "Geekuary" really doesn't have the same feel to it though.

The distributor that I use for my weaponry is currently out of stock of anything and everything that interests me. It is a bit of a pain in the ass. I can't say that I am overly pleased with the fact that I have no guns to sell right now. I have my AK, but as indicated, it is mine and I won't be selling it anytime soon.

I have posted a picture of a magazine that I created. The last gun that I sold initially came with two mags and a hard case. I sold it with one mag and no case, but for less than I initially intended. I did this to one of the mags and quite enjoyed the project.

Yes, you could hide amongst a herd of zebras and nobody would even know you were there...

Also, I've decided to post a picture from last September, when Derek and I went off on a grand adventure around the world. It is entitled "Derek Picked Horrible Breakfast, So He Can't Criticize Brian For Horrible Dinner"

This was at breakfast. Derek carried a similar expression at dinner.

Bombachus

• I'm gonna live forever!

The Final Stretch

So I'm simply going to give a rundown of what happened last semester with the classes. If you need to brush up on what the predictions were, you can read about them here. <- You can click on that...

• Capstone: Sucked. My group was pretty horrible. I've learned that MET's for the most part are useless. There is nothing that they can do that a mechanical engineer can't do better, faster, and more efficiently. I thought it was going to be fun, but I was very, very wrong.
• System Dynamics: Wasn't too bad. I understood the material for the most part and did fairly well in the class overall. I didn't necessarily enjoy it, but I had a really good professor.
• Fluid Systems: Great professor, loved the material, got destroyed on the tests. I felt like a hero walking into the exams, and felt like the stupidest peasant walking out of them. I still did alright in the class.
• MEMS: Didn't enjoy the class as much as I thought I was going to. I really had a lot of fun and learned a lot in the weekly labs, but the coursework was less than pleasurable. I threw a hail-mary on the final which worked out and got me a good final grade.

Now for this semester...

• Capstone: Crappy as crap could be. I can't wait for this to be over.
• Geophysics: Supposedly the biggest fluff class you can take as a mech. I'm taking this just to be able to get an A in...
• Heat Transfer: One of the hardest required classes for a mech. I'm not actually too worried about it.
• Gas Turbine and Jet Engine Design: This class has a 99.8% chance of getting dropped. I will keep it as long as I need 12 credits. If I don't, goodbye. I would really enjoy the class and the material, but I am ready to be done and want to wash my hands of this degree.

Christmas was really fun. I got a remote helicopter which as been more fun than ever imagined. Derek and I have played a week's worth of Donkey Kong. I went out shooting with a bunch of friends on my birthday (Mark, Grant, Brent, Derek, Dave) and did basically nothing for New Year's. Oh, and I got a new calling at church. I'm an assistant ward clerk. I deal with money. Simple enough.

Also, I'm buying an annual pass to Disneyland this year.

final day

This is me: bored. We're doing Capstone presentations. I get to just sit here.

...or Puff the Magic Dragon

Today is Thursday. This means:

• Community
• 30 Rock
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
• Burn Notice
• The Office
• Bones

It is a horrible night for productivity (which is a lie). I don't usually watch any of these shows on Thursday night. I usually "DVR" them and watch them on Friday and Saturday.

So I just took a three hour break from writing this to finish up some homework. I don't know where it came from, but I suddenly realized what I had to do to finish a project that I've already spent about 7 hours on. Myself and some comrades at school had to do some work with supersonic flow and produce some experimental and theoretical results. Experimental was easy; theoretical wasn't. We couldn't figure out how to get the data we needed from what we had. I realized in about one second tonight what I tried to figure out for two hours yesterday. However, after realizing it, it took me three hours to do it.

Speaking of school projects, here are some images of some of the cooler things I've had to do at school so far this year.

• This is an analysis showing the speed of air coming off of an airfoil (wing). The redder, the faster. You see all the blue? That is where the air pretty much is stopped and just hangs out behind the wing. This is for Mach 8, and and 8 degree angle of attack. That means that it is moving 8x the speed of sound and pointed 8 degrees above the horizon.

• This is what I just did. These are contour lines showing air pressure as it moves across a shock wave. Shock waves happen as supersonic air (Mach > 1) suddenly goes subsonic (Mach <>

• These are little, tiny switches. We made them by depositing various liquids, selectively hardening parts of those liquids and desolving other parts, over and over. Each of the longer switches is about 100 microns long (which is less than 0.005 inches). There really isn't even anything you can give for comparison. Just imagine that if you stacked 200 of these switches from end to end, you'd still be under an inch.

There has also been a lot of code writing, but nobody wants to see that. Nobody wanted to see this either, but this is what you get.

Call of Duty: Black Ops came out last Tuesday. Since getting it, Derek, David and I have wasted quite a bit of time with it. I'm currently enjoying it more than I remember enjoying modern warfare, which is saying a lot. The campaign is confusing, but it is supposed to be. There's a bunch of shadowy crap going on and you're supposed to figure out the over-arching theme. Its fun. Also, it has uncle gazpacho, which is fun.