For this last post of 2010, I have decided to mention the posts that, in my opinion, were the best of each respective month. Here's what I think:
January
Capital Punishment -- This was my first post that I wrote. I spent a lot of time writing and re-writing this one. And it was also the first time that a random person left a comment on my blog. I felt pretty famous.
February
Abstract Art - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 -- This was a very fun series for me to write. Every time I see a Jackson Pollock, I think about what I wrote here. To write these posts, I first pulled out my old Art History book to find things to write about when I realized that there was enough material there to make it into three posts. It was pretty nice.
March
Malaria -- This post was pretty interesting. I wrote it after a guest speaker came to my microbiology class. I wrote a followup post here about what one could do about the problem.
April
Seeing in 3D -- If you click on the link on the blog those pictures will be placed side by side and you can see the 3D image if you look hard. It's cool.
May
The Uncanny Precision of the Collective Uninformed -- I heard about this concept from an episode of Radio Lab. Basically, it says that if you get a group of uninformed people to guess something in a subject they don't know about, they will be more precise than a professional. Pretty neat, huh?
June
Prosopagnosia -- This is an illness that I've been thinking about a lot. If you suffer from prosopagnosia, or face-blindness, you can't recognize any faces. You can take a free test from a link on that post. I think one of the most amazing things is that 3% of the population suffers from this.
July
Meeting the Cadavers -- This was an interesting time for me. It was the first time that I came across a dead body.
August
Ant Head Stitches -- This is an awesome concept that I learned from a great book that I read. Basically, you use huge monster ants to bite a cut closed then twist off the body so the head keeps the wound closed.
September
Gambling Simulator -- This is a pretty cool simulator. It shows how likely you are to win the lottery. And in case you didn't know, it's not very likely.
October
F-pyrosharpiongun -- This was pretty fun. I kept thinking about what the most dangerous creature would be. It started out as a mix between a shark and a scorpion and then just went on from there.
November
Shearing the Sheep -- I liked the picture that I drew for this post. That's about it. I guess November was a king of slow month...
December
Stone Coin at the Bottom of the Sea -- I really liked this podcast. I think about it when ever I cash or write a check.
Well, there you have it! It's been a long year, and there are only 5 days left for my year long goal.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Password generator
Ever having a tough time choosing a password? Just use this handy dandy password generator!
It's completely random, so there's no chance of anyone just guessing it. However, there's no way of memorizing the password, so you better have it saved somewhere.
You could also use this to create a throwaway email account, you know, if you want to create an account on some website but don't want to use your real email account. Or you can use it to give to people for keeping in contact with you if you are on vacation and don't want to check your normal email or something.
It's completely random, so there's no chance of anyone just guessing it. However, there's no way of memorizing the password, so you better have it saved somewhere.
You could also use this to create a throwaway email account, you know, if you want to create an account on some website but don't want to use your real email account. Or you can use it to give to people for keeping in contact with you if you are on vacation and don't want to check your normal email or something.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Class Crossover
Because my major (Construction Management) and my career path (Optometry) are quite different, there is hardly any crossover between the classes I take for my major and the prerequisites that I had to take to get into optometry school.
However, I can remember as specific time when there was crossover between my two college worlds:
It was between Construction Safety and Human Anatomy. I went to my Human Anatomy lab early one morning and learned about the circulatory system. We discussed and looked at all the veins and arteries in he body. My TA pointed out the femoral artery, which is huge. On the cadaver it was about as thick as my pinkie. He said that if that just punctured or pinched, you could die within an hour.
Later, I had Construction Safety, and we talked about fall harnesses. My professor explained that once you have fallen, the little loops around your legs pinch tightly and pinch your femoral artery closed. He said that you have about 30 minutes to rescue someone who has fallen from a roof or scaffolding before they completely blackout and then 10 more minutes until they die. To show is that this is true, we actually did a fall test. I thought they would do it on a dummy, but they asked for volunteers from the class. Rather than jumping off a roof (which can lead to some nasty leg breaks from the harness) we had a mechanical crane lift the guys up and hold then about 2 feet above the ground. Almost instantly their legs fell asleep and then started aching. By the end of it their legs were shaking and hurting, and they were only in the air for one minute. It was pretty crazy and it was pretty well ingrained in my mind that I really don't want to fall off of a roof.
However, I can remember as specific time when there was crossover between my two college worlds:
It was between Construction Safety and Human Anatomy. I went to my Human Anatomy lab early one morning and learned about the circulatory system. We discussed and looked at all the veins and arteries in he body. My TA pointed out the femoral artery, which is huge. On the cadaver it was about as thick as my pinkie. He said that if that just punctured or pinched, you could die within an hour.
Later, I had Construction Safety, and we talked about fall harnesses. My professor explained that once you have fallen, the little loops around your legs pinch tightly and pinch your femoral artery closed. He said that you have about 30 minutes to rescue someone who has fallen from a roof or scaffolding before they completely blackout and then 10 more minutes until they die. To show is that this is true, we actually did a fall test. I thought they would do it on a dummy, but they asked for volunteers from the class. Rather than jumping off a roof (which can lead to some nasty leg breaks from the harness) we had a mechanical crane lift the guys up and hold then about 2 feet above the ground. Almost instantly their legs fell asleep and then started aching. By the end of it their legs were shaking and hurting, and they were only in the air for one minute. It was pretty crazy and it was pretty well ingrained in my mind that I really don't want to fall off of a roof.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Happy Third!
Today's post will be short because I'm tired. But it's mine and Katie's anniversary today! Woo hoo! And I only have to write for 8 more days!
Monday, December 27, 2010
Iotacons!
I have just discovered Iotacons (that's with an "i" as in "iota") drawn by Andy Rash and it's pretty cool. Here are some samples:
Click here for more!
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Monkey on a typewriter
I got some sweets books for Christmas this year. One of those books is called "50 mathematical ideas you really need to know." It's really neat. Olivia has been sick today, so I stayed home from church with her and read a chapter on probability. It talked about the classic case of the monkey and the typewriter, saying that given enough time, a monkey could produce a work of Shakespeare by randomly hitting keys.
But how much time would he need?
Here's the short answer: a lot.
Here's the longer answer: let's say there are 30 keys on a typewriter (26 letters, a period, a comma, a question mark, and a space). Let's also assume that the monkey won't have to write an entire sonnet, but just the first three words of the famous soliloquy in Hamlet:
TO BE OR
That's eight keys that the monkey will have to hit in the correct order (including the spaces). How do you calculate that probability? Well, the monkey has a 1 in 30 chance of hitting the "T", and an 1 in 30 chance of then hitting the "O", and so on. So you multiply them all together:
30 x 30 x 30 x 30 x 30 x 30 x 30 x 30 = 6.561 x 10^11
Now, if you assume the monkey can hit one key per second, without taking any breaks for eating or sleeping, the monkey will have to type for about 20,000 years for there to be a "reasonable expectation" that it would have typed "TO BE OR." But if that ever happened, I think the monkey would be more famous for living that long.
But how much time would he need?
Here's the short answer: a lot.
Here's the longer answer: let's say there are 30 keys on a typewriter (26 letters, a period, a comma, a question mark, and a space). Let's also assume that the monkey won't have to write an entire sonnet, but just the first three words of the famous soliloquy in Hamlet:
TO BE OR
That's eight keys that the monkey will have to hit in the correct order (including the spaces). How do you calculate that probability? Well, the monkey has a 1 in 30 chance of hitting the "T", and an 1 in 30 chance of then hitting the "O", and so on. So you multiply them all together:
30 x 30 x 30 x 30 x 30 x 30 x 30 x 30 = 6.561 x 10^11
Now, if you assume the monkey can hit one key per second, without taking any breaks for eating or sleeping, the monkey will have to type for about 20,000 years for there to be a "reasonable expectation" that it would have typed "TO BE OR." But if that ever happened, I think the monkey would be more famous for living that long.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Christmas present to YOU!
Merry Christmas!
As a Christmas present to the general blogging world, I decided to post the PDF version of the new book that I published! It's called "The Lewis Family Tragedy and Other Stories"!
Click here to enjoy!
As a Christmas present to the general blogging world, I decided to post the PDF version of the new book that I published! It's called "The Lewis Family Tragedy and Other Stories"!
Click here to enjoy!
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