Apr 10 2010
The Big Valley was a popular throwaway TeeVee show in the mid 1960’s. Does anyone remember it?
It starred Barbara Stanwyck (who insisted on being billed as “Miss Barbara Stanwyck, and I wonder what the “Miss” meant), Peter Breck as Nick Barkley, Richard Long as Jarrord Barkely, and Linda Evans as the prototype “10” as Audra Barkely.
Apr 09 2010
Those of you who regularly read my posts know that I do not routinely write about politics, although I usually make a short joke about silly wingnuts in my closing statements on Pique the Geek, the science post every Sunday at 9:00 PM Sunday evenings.
However, the antics of the newly elected Republican (of course) governor of Virginia just got me going. Robert Francis McDonnell is the new governor of Virginia, just this year being sworn into the office. In my opinion, he is a racist and a bigot.
I offer insights not often given by folks at progressive sites, but I think that my experiences might help to make sense of McDonnell’s antics. Please read to the end before you hate me, or my ancestors.
Apr 05 2010
The Geek usually does not write about history, but he will make an exception. First, Easter this year coincides with my father’s birthday. He was born on this date in 1919. If he were still alive, he would have just turned 91 years old. My granddad on his side lived to that age.
Second, Easter is by proclamation the highest of the Holy Days in the Christian tradition. Christmas is also joyful, but everyone is borne and only One has, as tradition and religion insists, been resurrected.
Third, the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences insisted on a well rounded education before anyone could be graduated. Whilst I am a scientist, I appreciate literature, art, architecture, and especially history.
On a historical note, today is the date on which Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968. On a more personal historical note, my father would have been 91 today, but he died in 2005.
Mar 15 2010
If you missed the initial piece, you can find it here. This is a fictional body that incorporated vampires into science as it is understood, and gives them some humanity as well.
Athene is a very ancient vampire, and actually punched Aristotle in the nose once. Tricia was just brought across, because Athene feel in love with her and would not allow her to die. Athene is around 26 years old, except for the millenia, and Tricia is a real 23 years old.
Mar 14 2010
We are very misunderstood. We can not fly. That would violate the principles of physics. We can not vanish, for the same reasons, and our reflections actually do appear in mirrors.
We are quite a bit stronger than most humans, but it is with at a cost. Oh, the stake in the heart is no more fatal to us than it is to humans, but that is pretty much uniformly fatal. Our similarities are much greater than our differences, but there are a couple or three big differences.
Mar 12 2010
This has been a very good week. My brother and nephew were shot and lived (there is an essay about that that you can find if you follow my name here), my son got very good news about his legal status, the former Mrs. Translator is getting a nice tax refund, and so all is well.
I am happier than I have been in months, if not years. To celebrate it, I am playing The Who at high volume presently.
Mar 10 2010
Hello, all. This is sort of an irregular blog for me. Except about myself, I rarely talk about other family members to protect their privacy. However, this has been on national news, so their privacy is not very protected already.
Everyone is familiar with violence, at least on the news. This piece affects me personally, and even though I watched some of the news feed in real time, it was after the medics had already left with the victims.
Mar 08 2010
Hello, all. I did not have research time to finish up the next installment about nuclear fusion in stars, so we will have to do with this. I began planting my garden last week, so the subject of canning food came to mind.
Most people do not realize that canned foods are relatively recent developments, not counting wine and beer, which are at least technically, canned in many cases.
Mar 03 2010
Mar 01 2010
Nuclear fusion is often proffered as the final solution to our energy needs. That well may be, but hardly anyone understands what it means, and almost no one, outside of physicists, knows how it relates to nuclear fission (the power source that we use now).
It all has to do with Dr. Einstein’s simple, but seminal equation, E = mc2. This means that mass can be converted to energy in a huge fashion. Let us take a kilogram of mass, any mass, and convert it to energy. Using the formula, and it has been proved over and over to be correct, one kilogram of mass (think of a big sirloin steak, for example) becomes a LOT of energy.
According to the equation, that kilogram of mass becomes thus:
E = (1 kg)(2.9979 x 108 m/s)2 = 8.99 x 1016 Joules
This is almost 90,000 billions of Joules. We are talking big energy. But it does happen quite like this. Only in matter-antimatter annihilation does all mass become energy.
Mar 01 2010
Nuclear fusion is often proffered as the final solution to our energy needs. That well may be, but hardly anyone understands what it means, and almost no one, outside of physicists, knows how it relates to nuclear fission (the power source that we use now).
It all has to do with Dr. Einstein’s simple, but seminal equation, E = mc2. This means that mass can be converted to energy in a huge fashion. Let us take a kilogram of mass, any mass, and convert it to energy. Using the formula, and it has been proved over and over to be correct, one kilogram of mass (think of a big sirloin steak, for example) becomes a LOT of energy.
According to the equation, that kilogram of mass becomes thus:
E = (1 kg)(2.9979 x 108 m/s)2 = 8.99 x 1016 Joules
This is almost 90,000 billions of Joules. We are talking big energy. But it does happen quite like this. Only in matter-antimatter annihilation does all mass become energy.
Mar 01 2010
Nuclear fusion is often proffered as the final solution to our energy needs. That well may be, but hardly anyone understands what it means, and almost no one, outside of physicists, knows how it relates to nuclear fission (the power source that we use now).
It all has to do with Dr. Einstein’s simple, but seminal equation, E = mc2. This means that mass can be converted to energy in a huge fashion. Let us take a kilogram of mass, any mass, and convert it to energy. Using the formula, and it has been proved over and over to be correct, one kilogram of mass (think of a big sirloin steak, for example) becomes a LOT of energy.
According to the equation, that kilogram of mass becomes thus:
E = (1 kg)(2.9979 x 108 m/s)2 = 8.99 x 1016 Joules
This is almost 90,000 billions of Joules. We are talking big energy. But it does happen quite like this. Only in matter-antimatter annihilation does all mass become energy.