october
|
10-23-2006:
Light travels at about 186,000 miles per second. or, about 300,000 km/sec. More precisly, 299,792,458 m/s, which means that it'd be able to circle the earth about seven and a half times in one second (if it were able to follow the curvature of the earth). Anyways, i've always wondered how something so fast could be measured. So i decided to look it up a little bit ago. Galileo first proposed the idea that light had a speed and that it was not infinately fast. So he did some sort of experiment with his pal, where they would both stand on top of two separate hills with lanterns. Then Galileo would flash his lantern, then his friend would flash his latern as soon as he saw Galileo's flash. I don't think he got anywhere with his little experiment, except to prove the the speed of light was very fast. Then in 1676, Ole Romer had some solid 'evidence' of the speed of light. He would study Jupiter's moon Io. He discovered that it took Io 42.5 hours to make one trip around Jupiter by noting when it passed in and out of Jupiter's shadow. As he studied Io, he noticed that as Jupiter travel further away from earth, the Io would come out of Jupiter's shadow later and later than expected. This is because when Io went into the shadow, it might've taken, say, 15 minutes until the light actually reached him. Then as Jupiter got further away, when Io came out of the shadow and was visible, the light from Io might've taken 16 minutes, to reach earth. (I don't really know how long it took light to go from Jupiter to Earth, i just made those times up; but you get the idea) So there's evidence of the speed of light. And with hair like that, how can you argue? How they came to 299,792,458 m/s is beyond me, but i'll learn that another day. I have other stuff i must do first. Disclaimer: Aj cannot guarantee the historical or scientific accuracy of this little spiel. So don't go around using it all willy-nilly. |
|
10-03-2006:
Last Saturday, AJ had the worst stomachache ever. It felt like there was a fork going through my intestine. To the best of my knowledge, I hadn't eaten any silverware that day, so i was pretty sure that was not the case. But i did have an abnormal dinner that night. (abnormal as in - not along the lines of what i usually eat) I had mashed potatos with gravy and some turkey. It felt like Thanksgiving. The mashed potatos weren't very tasty. They had lots of lumps in them. and the "lunch lady" person put a big glob of them on my plate. I'm not a big fan of wasting anything, so i forced them down. By the time i was done eating my potatos, my turkey was pretty cold. But before the meal, i decided that cold potatos were worse than cold turkey. (no pun intended?) So i at my luke warm turkey, and that was that. If i would have to guess, i would say it was the gravy on my potatos caused my stomach pains. |
|
10-04-2006:
For those of you that don't know, AJ is quite the connoisseur of apples. Well, maybe not, but i do like apples. They say that "an apple a day keeps the doctor away," and so I try to eat an apple everyday. Not because i'm afraid of doctors or i'm overly concerned with my health or anything like that. If i would have to give a reason why i eat apples, i would have to say that i eat apple because i don't have any other food item convenient for breakfast, they're good for you, and they taste great. Where i come from (college), the only source of apples is my dining hall. So everyday after lunch, on my way out, i stop by the fruit basket, and find a good looking apple. Then when i get back to my dorm, i put it in the fridge for tomorrow's breakfast. Last week though, there weren't many apetizing apples. Almost all of the apples in the basket had brown spots or looked rotten. That was a rough week for me as far as breakfast is concerned. But this week, things are looking up. Yesterday, they had a whole basketful of high-quality, grade A apples. And today, i hit the jackpot... Every other day before today, they've only had Red Delicious apples, which are great apples. But today, they had greatest apple ever -- the Granny Smith -- my personal favorite. There was one left, and i got it. B-) NOTE: (non-apple related) Last night, t35, the people who host this site, had been hacked pretty badly. So if anyone visited here last night, disregard what was here, as that was none of my doing. |
|
10-09-2006:
AJ has been pretty down in the dumps lately. :-( |
|
10-13-2006:
aj is intrigued by some of the 'friend' requests that he gets on facebook and myspace. While aj was in high school, there were certain individuals who seemed to pay no attention to aj. As best as he can recall, AJ only spoke with these people on one or maybe two occasions. And those conversations were very brief. anyway, recently, these 'individuals' had requested my 'friendship' via facebook and/or myspace. And AJ is always up for making new friends, so he adds them as 'friends'. Though i'm not sure why they wanted to add me as a friend. In the past 18 years of my life (my whole life ;-) ), it seemed as though they couldn't care less about me. They probably couldn't care less even today, now that we're "friends." Though i don't really know; i'm not a mind reader. I don't desire their "friendship" in anyway. We're hardly 'aquaintances.' But whatever. There are some other people, who i've made the occasional small talk with, or we've subconsciously acknowledged each other's presence. Those people i would be glad to call "friends." But people who totally ignore me, except for a few rare instances; My views toward them might me slightly negative (but closer to neutral than negative). On a totally different note, it's amazing how the brain can store abstract things. I've recently thought about and recalled the gist conversations that i had with certain people over the last seven years. And they're not very significant things that i remember either. :-/ and AJ doesn't know why he starts talking in the 3rd person, and then switches to the first person for no apparent reason. :-/ x2 |
|
10-14-2006:
I finally have a decent image editing program. Yesterday, i downloaded and installed GIMP (the GNU Image Manipulation Program). It's pretty awsome. It's basically the same thing as Adobe Photoshop, except it's $649.00 less. a.k.a: FREE!. The only thing i don't like about it compared to photoshop, is the way that you make and handle shapes, and the user interface is a little different. But i haven't even had it for 24 hours, so i'm sure i'll get used to it. And with the next best thing costing six hundred and fifty dollars more than i'm willing to pay, i'll gladly accept these little flaws. Before yesterday, any digital images that i created were done the old school way -- with MS Paint. You served me well Paint. I'll miss you. RIP. :'-( |
|
10-16-2006:
I just recently created a small little game. it's called Prime Killer. and if you just can't wait to play the game, here is the link. First, i must make it clear that i did not come up with this game. To the best of my knowledge, Philip Dorrell is the genius behind the concept for the game. I just merely created a java based version, emulating his original version of the game (with some small changes here and there). Directions: You (the player) control that little square near the bottom of the window. The left and right arrow keys move it left and right respectively. You can shoot numbers upwards by pressing the button on your keyboard associated with that number. Though you can only shoot prime numbers (ie: 2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19). And if you press the P key, you'll shoot a 'P' upwards; i'll get to the meaning of this in a paragraph or two. You're objective as the number-shooting-rectangle-of-death is to shoot the falling number blocks. Specifically, shoot the falling number with one of its prime factors. For example, if there was 24 falling, you could shoot it with a 2 or a 3, because those are both prime and evenly divide 24. Let's say we shoot it with a 2. That will turn the 24 into a 12, because 24/2 = 12. Then we can shoot that 12 with a 2 or a 3. We'll shoot it with a 2 again, turning it into a 6. We'll shoot the 6 with a 2 once more, turning it into a 3. Then, because 3 is prime, it has no more factors, and we can either shoot it with a P, or simply shoot it with a 3, and then that will eliminate the falling number. if you need to shoot out a number that doesn't have a designated key (ie: 11,13,17,19), you can press the first letter of that number on the keyboard. Press E for eleven, T for thirteen, S for seventeen, and N for nineteen. Here are some more detail instructions if you still don't understand. I tried to make the game runnable for everyone, so it's in the form of a JNLP file. (Java Network Launch Protocol). Once you click the link, there should be a little bit of loading, and the game will start right up. It has worked on all the computers that it has been tested on, so it should work for just about anyone. If you seem have some technical issues, feel free to leave a comment. Here is the jnlp file. Here it is in a .jar if you'd prefer it that way. Prime Killer ©2006 AJ Marx Prime Killer is licensed under the General Public License version 2. Source code can be found inside the .jar file. You can change the ".jar" extension to ".zip", and it will handle exactly like any other .zip file. |
|
10-22-2006:
As you may have noticed, the website has a new look. I personally think it looks wonderful, but you don't like it, you can change it. This new one may change slightly in the near future. Any feedback on it would be nice. I've been pretty busy the last couple of days. I have two papers due soon. One tomorrow (monday), and the other on Tuesday. I didn't really start either of them until friday night. I'm not exactly shakespeare, so it was tough to get going. I though I had a half decent start to it by the end of the night, so i decided to finish it up on Saturday afternoon, then i would start to work on my second paper. On Saturday, when i woke up (around noon), i was in a relatively good mood. I was feeling sort of artsy. Since i was feelin' good, the rest of that paper seemed to breeze by. I finished most of it by four that afternoon. Since i was a head of schedule, i decided to take a break from writing. So, that's when i started to work on the new design for the website (which actually came to me in a dream in an abstract sort of way). I pumped out that CSS much faster than i though i would. Things went pretty smoothly, displaying equally well on both browsers (Opera & IE). So i think (as best as i can recall) i started to work on my second paper after dinner (a giant plate of spaghetti) around 6:30. First i had to read the book, which was mostly a waste of time, because i found nothing of great use from the material. This second paper was much more difficult than the first. I spent most of the night thinking about how much i dislike writing and this assignment. So i didn't really get anything done, planning to do it today, among other things. I woke up pretty early (11:30 AM) today, to get a jump start on things. By the time i got a shower and grabbed some breakfast, int was just about 12:30. Which, of course, meant it was time for the Formula 1 race. This weeks race was in Brazil and was the last race of the season. I was rooting for Schumacher, since it was a big race for him. He didn't win, but it was still a very entertaining race. While that was going on i also watched some of the Eagle's game. 62 yard field goal? that's crazy. So after that i was determined to finish up that paper (or atleast start it). So after some more reading, and deep thought, i'm sitting here, at 6:51 with nothing. I'll get it done one way or another. |
|
10-23-2006:
Light travels at about 186,000 miles per second. or, about 300,000 km/sec. More precisly, 299,792,458 m/s, which means that it'd be able to circle the earth about seven and a half times in one second (if it were able to follow the curvature of the earth). Anyways, i've always wondered how something so fast could be measured. So i decided to look it up a little bit ago. Galileo first proposed the idea that light had a speed and that it was not infinately fast. So he did some sort of experiment with his pal, where they would both stand on top of two separate hills with lanterns. Then Galileo would flash his lantern, then his friend would flash his latern as soon as he saw Galileo's flash. I don't think he got anywhere with his little experiment, except to prove the the speed of light was very fast. Then in 1676, Ole Romer had some solid 'evidence' of the speed of light. He would study Jupiter's moon Io. He discovered that it took Io 42.5 hours to make one trip around Jupiter by noting when it passed in and out of Jupiter's shadow. As he studied Io, he noticed that as Jupiter travel further away from earth, the Io would come out of Jupiter's shadow later and later than expected. This is because when Io went into the shadow, it might've taken, say, 15 minutes until the light actually reached him. Then as Jupiter got further away, when Io came out of the shadow and was visible, the light from Io might've taken 16 minutes, to reach earth. (I don't really know how long it took light to go from Jupiter to Earth, i just made those times up; but you get the idea) So there's evidence of the speed of light. And with hair like that, how can you argue? How they came to 299,792,458 m/s is beyond me, but i'll learn that another day. I have other stuff i must do first. Disclaimer: Aj cannot guarantee the historical or scientific accuracy of this little spiel. So don't go around using it all willy-nilly. |
|
10-24-2006:
like i said yesterday, Romer studied Jupiter's moon Io. I think Io (and Jupiter too) are very interesting. Io will make one complete revolution around Jupiter every 42.48 hours. Or 1 day 18 hours and about 29 minutes. It takes our (Earth's) moon over 27 days to make one orbit. I think it'd be awsome if our moon were that fast. And for every four times that Io goes around Jupiter, two of its other moons, Europa makes 2 orbits, and Ganymede makes one orbit. I wish we had multiple moons. Though, i am glad that our moon doesn't look like a giant ball of rotten cheese. Jupiter is also quite intriguing. As every one should know, it is the largest planet in our solar system. It is 2.5 times more massive than all the other planets combined. I find it awsome that it emits more heat than it receives from the Sun. And despite being the largest planet, it has the fastest rotation rate. One day on Jupiter would be 9 hours and 55 minutes long/short, the shortest day of all the planets. Jupiter has 63, (yes sixty-three) moons. Though i'm pretty sure most of them are puny, girly moons. Use wikipedia.org for everything you could ever want to know about Jupiter. |
|
10-28-2006:
Some people's handwriting really irks me. Sometimes it's so cryptic, it seems like i'd need some sort of key to decipher it. Maybe if it was a first-graders handwriting; then it'd be acceptable, since they don't really have much writing experience. But college and beyond level people should really have some decent handwriting. Doctors in my opinion are notorious for their sloppy/lazy handwriting. And some of my peers' handwriting is absolutely horrid. I could probably write better with my left hand (and i'm a righty). Maybe i'm a little hypocritical. My handwriting isn't exactly Times New Roman. But i don't really think it's too bad. I think it's clearly legible. I'm comfortable with it. Here's a sample of my handwriting. Also, both sentences just so happen to contain all 26 letters of the alphabet (with a few repeats), if anyone else finds that interesting. 
|
|
10-28-2006:
The first thing that was weird were the characters. The were basically three 'people.' The first two people were from the TV show Law and Order : SVU, which i never really watch. They were that Christopher Meloni guy (Eliot Stabler if you watch the show and know the characters), and Mariska Hargitay (Olivia Benson). And the third character was an alien. He didn't really have a face, i think he wore a mask/suit of armor type of thing. I think he may have been from either Saturn or Uranus. Basically the dream starts off with the humans looking for somebody. I think they were looking for a little girl maybe. Anyway, they're looking, and they're in a spooky old basement sort of place. It's dark, and the ceiling and walls are all deteriorated and splintery. And so they go on looking, and the lady character swings open and old door to suprise whoever might be on the other side. And on the other side is... and empty wooden rocking chair. Which then of course prompts her run back and up the stairs to look somewhere else i suppose. But the dude stays there, and i guess he magically assumes that an alien must be in the basement as well. So he presses his back against a wall as to not been seen. Then he says something to the extend of "1... 2... 3... i'm going in!" and he turns around the corner and runs through and old door. And on the other side is the alien. Which then of course, prompts the detective guy to whip out a maching gun and blow the alien to smitherines. And he does so, and the alien, upon being hit, turns into fleshy/gooey blobs and dies. And that was basically my dream. I don't usually remember my dreams, but this one i obviously did, and i thought it was sort of interesting, so i figure i'd share it with everyone. And just so that anyone might get something useful from this (if anyone has actually read this far into it), here is an interesting fact. At certain stages throughout your sleep, the brain paralyzes itself. I think it's during the REM stage of sleep, but i'm not too sure on that. And no one is certain of why this happen. Many scientists speculate that it does this so that the mind's thoughts are not actually turned into actions. For example, if you dream about eating a giant marshmallow, you wouldn't want to be eating your pillow [thinking it was a giant marshmallow]. |
| History | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | September | October | November | December | ||
| 2006 | January | February | March | April | May | June |
| July | August | September | October | November | December | |
| 2007 | January | February | March | April | May | June |
| July | August | September | October | November | December | |
| 2008 | January | February | March | April | May | June |
| July | August | September | October | |||
