2012-02-23 - I have the Flu

But that is not all, for in having the flu I have learned some things. Apparently if you live alone no one cleans your house when you are sick. Also apparently no one goes out and buys you cold drugs and ginger ale when you are sick. I am very bummed by this. Another thing I learned is that cats will not only refuse to feed you when you are sick but they will also not feed themselves. They demand that you pick your decaying corpse up off of the couch and drag it into the kitchen to provide them their required nourishment, which is in fitting with their general character. I have not learned anything else.

P.S. Though, why is it that we say “A cold” but “The Flu”? One of the reasons the flu is so bad is that there are many strains of it that keep mutating as they enter and leave people. If there was one definite flu you would only have to beat it once and you’d be safe for life. That is unless you got a cold.

2012-02-04 - Friction

Frictions is basically the most interesting force in the universe, it affects just about everything and is constantly switching between being helpful and detrimental. The textbook definition of friction is a force that resists movement but we can take that one step further. The physical definition of friction comes out of the fact that apart from some small manufactured surfaces nothing is perfectly smooth; every surface has microscopic bumps and indents. As the imperfections of two such surfaces collide they cause resistance to the movement. You can think of it like a truck running into a sand pile or a ball rolling into a pot-hole. In order to overcome that obstacle more force is required and so friction is the force required to overcome the microscopic obstacles caused by moving two imperfect surfaces over each other. That’s sounds much more interesting doesn’t it?

Now at this point you would not be remiss in thinking that friction is a bad thing. After all it’s a force that resists movement and in most cases movement is good. Friction is the force that makes it difficult to push that large box across the floor. You require oil in your car to prevent friction from wearing out the moving parts of your engine. Friction is the force that causes scrapes when you slip and slide along a gravel road. You have to replace the tires on your bike every so often because friction has worn them smooth. The strange thing though is that even though friction resists movement it is also required for several specific and important forms of movement.

It would be impossible to drive without friction. Alright maybe not impossible, but it certainly wouldn’t work anything like it does now. As you press down on the gas pedal your car’s engine burns gasoline to create energy which is eventually used to turn the wheels of your car. As the wheel turns there is friction between it and the road at the point of contact which resists movement. If you have ever watched a car move you might have noticed that the actual direction of the movement of the tire as it contacts the road is in fact in the opposite direction to that of the car. This means that the force of friction is actually in the same direction as the car’s movement and so friction pushes the car forward. If you try driving with smooth tires on a smooth surface the tires will most likely just spin because there isn’t enough friction to move the car, this is where the idea of traction comes from. It should be pointed out that you also can’t have too much friction or else it will prevent the wheels from turning at all.

Walking also require friction, without it your foot would just slide out from under you. If you pick up an object by simply holding it between your fingers or hands (i.e. most glasses) friction is the force that is counteracting gravity and preventing it from falling. If there was no friction movement would be possible only by pushing off of something and the only way to stop would be to somehow create and equal and opposite force say by running into something. Without friction it would be impossible to start a fire by rubbing two sticks together and we probably would have died out thousands of years ago.

That is why friction is the most interesting force in the world. On paper it seems like a bad thing but in reality it is required for so many things that we do.

2012-01-23 - Life

So I realized something rather profound yesterday. Like all profound things it’s probably bull but I'm in that kind of mood and I feel like sharing it anyway. You can stick your fingers in your ears and yell if you want; it's probably the best option.

So anyways, I was thinking about why I hate job hunting so much and it suddenly hit me, I hate job hunting because I don’t like the idea of other people having control over MY life. I’m not religious primarily because I don’t like the idea of God having control over my life so it makes sense that people would bug me even more. As it stands right now I’m in some kind of limbo waiting room train station. Whatever job I end up getting will greatly determine the rest of my life and until that path is settled I can’t really do anything. I don’t know where I’m going to be or what I’m going to be doing so there’s no real point to starting anything. I’m waiting for someone to say “Hey, come and work for us” but apart from interviews most of that decision rests with them. I can do my best to look like I’d be a good candidate but for the most part it’s out of my control and I hate that. It also worries me that if I can’t find a job in a few months I am basically screwed as I will run out of money.

Just in case I'd like to say no offense intended to perspective employers. As annoyed as I am about giving control of my future up to random people I'm willing to forget it all if it means not having to search for a job anymore.

2012-01-16 - Internet Security

Last term I had a course in computer security and I learned a lot of things from that course. So I figured with my new found knowledge I should try to help people by giving out tips on how to stay safe online. Before we start though I want to make it clear that I am not licensed in any way as a security or internet specialist and if this list doesn’t help you then it’s not my fault. Please enjoy.

1. Don’t open suspicious looking email attachments, they’re viruses.
2. Don’t go to bogus looking sites. If it looks suspect it probably is and you should avoid it.
3. Even if they don’t look bogus you should probably stay away from sites that you don’t know. I’m sure that someone is smart enough to not use www.thisisnotavirus.net.
4. Actually even if you recognize the site you should stay away from it. How much do you really know about that site? Have you personally met the webmaster? Can you ever be totally sure he hasn’t been bought or replaced by those out to get you?
5. You know, you should probably avoid going to any sites really. I mean that site about knitting probably seems perfectly safe and you’ve been going there for years but what if they hack it? Then you’ll have to deal with knitting viruses that will damage your computer.
6. What you should do is just unplug your computer from the internet entirely. It doesn’t matter if you are surfing the internet or not you are still sending and receiving data from the whole wide web. They could be using that connection to get into your computer as we speak. As you sleep tonight They will be stealing all your valuable solitaire win/loss ratio information.
7. Alright to be perfectly safe what you should do is just unplug your computer, smash everything with a big hammer and throw it all in a furnace. There are many ways to get into your computer besides the internet such USB, Bluetooth, LAN, WLAN, serial port, parallel port, and even wires made of fire. For the most part these other means are more dangerous because they require the collective to be close to your home or even inside of it. No, the only logical step to protect all your information is to destroy it.
8. The international Collective of people who don’t like you is already on its way.

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