shadesofmauve | Entries tagged with i did it with science!

I explained my space-travel dillema to my housemate

madalchemist, and he sent me a link to Atomic Rocket, which is a whole bunch of stuff about STL, FTL, weapons, propulsion, and you named it, all aimed at Sci-Fi authors.

Granted, the page is dedicated to Heinlein and refers to him frequently, but since it's in the context of "appreciating a modicum of accuracy in the physical sciences" and not "Having the faintest clue how people and societies work", I'm willing to overlook the Heinlein-fanning.

Hey, space-friends!

I have a novel idea slowly, slowly percolating in my brain: I know who the main character* is but not her name. I know how the setting feels but not its details or mechanics. I know how some of the side-characters are related but not how they influence the story (because "Plot? What plot? We ain't got no 'plots' here, no sir!" is still my main story-failing).

I realized while writing A Star to Steer Her By that I want to write something sci-fi rather than fantasy because it's much, much easier for me to do believable character humor in a futuristic setting. That brings up the question of what level and kind of 'sci' goes into the 'fi'.

( Cut for exessively long brain-dump about FTL, sub-FTL, and Space!Magic travel )

Did I mention this will be soft-sci-fi, not focused on this stuff at all? It will, but I need to work out at least some framework or my brain will never hear the end of it.

*There will possibly be more than one PoV character because I'm enjoying writing that way, but it started with her.

**Longer, if NASA keeps getting its funding slashed!

***The other methods fly in the face of special relativity, too, but they come with built-in phlebotinum, usually involving travel in extra dimensions (warp drives and Vorkosiverse necklin rods both 'fold' space, iirc, though the latter requires a wormhole which is itself a folded-space tesseracty thing).

Hehe. The post about pose positions that changed into a discussion of how our feetsies go is the most comments/discussion I've ever had on a post. It is marvelous.

Even better is that a few people are testing out the foot-angle question for me.

(Sit like a teddy bear -- both legs out wide in front of you. Do your toes naturally want to point up, out, or in?).

We made everyone sit on the floor last night before D&D (except for Dan and Brittany, because they arrived late bearing food, and we were too focused on the food-part to bug them).

Results -- 2 out, 2 up, 1 in.

Now, if I did a survey of enough totally random factors, we could find a coincidental matching number trend and use foot-angle-while-sprawled as a lesson in bad science.

So, I listen to TED talks and stand-up and stuff while I work sometimes -- any videos who's content is primarily audio -- and I just ran across Dara O'Briain.

That's it. Get in the fuckin sack!

Current Mood: laughing

I'm listening to TED talks at work, currently Paul Ewald on creating gentler germs, by creating conditions that select for lower virulence.

Interesting stuff, and very clearly put -- if a parasite requires a living host for transmission, strains that quickly kill the host will die off. So, reducing opportunities for non-person-to-person transmition will create an evolutionary disadvantage for virulent strains. Cool!

Then I see this in the comments:
"But this is not domestication, this is out-competition. In other words, the organism did not ADAPT to be less of a severe pathogen, severe pathogens did not have any further advantage over milder forms."*

They forget to mention that severe pathogens actually have a disadvantage, because they incapacitate their host before the host can transmit infection.

The commenter is saying that what happens is NOT evolution...but it is, even by their own explanation. Evolution is not individual adaptation; evolution happens over populations. If the virulent strain in a viral population is "out-competed" to extinction, then the population has become less virulent.

On the happy hand, real discussion takes place in the comments! Woo!

I usually try and be fairly energy conscious around the house -- turn of lights when I'm not in the room, that sort of thing. But that's not always a viable option, for instance when I'm prepping panels for paintings and I need the gesso to dry in my cold dank basement. Everyone knows paint won't dry quickly without light. This is because it's afraid of the dark. If there isn't a light on, it wets itself.

Current Mood: silly
Current Location: the deep dank basement

I ran myself a cold bath last night.

Apparently, if you run both the cold and the hot tap such that the bath temperature is actually correct, the cold comes out of the water heater tank somehow and so the hot runs out before the bath is full. Geoff and Peg were quite amazed at my foolishness until they remembered that my cousin had done the same last time she was here.

The town I mentioned before is Llangollen, pronounced something like Cthlangocthlen. I bought a latte there, which was really cafe au lait, and the takeout cup had a lid with no hole in it.

Tonight I'm going to make dinner, mostly because Peg remembers loving how I cooked rice. Plain rice. The instructions on the packets over here call for some ridiculousness with a seive, rather than getting the proportions right off.

Clearly, despite their many advantages over us in terms of, say, gay rights and a useful train service, the brits could use help in the vital areas of water-tap, hot-drink-take-out, and rice cooking technology.

Still enjoying myself immensley. It's worth noting that my feelings of small superiority are at the same level as those I feel about US vs. Canadian Wait/Walk signs. Ours are far preferable to the Canadians. We haven't got anything else on them, but I'll patriotically stand by the American Wait/Walk sign.

Off to sunny southern France tomrrow with

didotwite2001!

Current Location: Chester, Cheshire, UK

My creation, it lives! It purrs! It's going to take all morning to configure it's hard drives because they are the SIZE OF THE INTERNET.

While it configures hard drives the SIZE OF THE INTERNET, I need to decide what to call it other than it. My favorite name, Heironymous, I'm saving for my next small fuzzy animal. I considered Lucien (the librarian from Sandman) but I'm leaning towards Gonzales, named after Speedy. Arriba, Arriba! I bet politically correct kids channels today don't air Speedy Gonzales. Do they? Is it culturally insensitive to name a 3.16 Ghz Dual processor computer with 4 gigs of ram after a small cartoon mouse with a caricature of a Mexican accent? Do I care?

Current Mood: accomplished

I think it might be accurate for me to claim the label theological noncognitivist. At the very least, I've never encountered a god concept about which I feel there could be rational discussion - the terms are always redefined mid conversation, or never defined at all. However, according to that bastion of spiritual knowledge and advice, Wikipedia, to be consistently noncognitivist conflicts with atheism.

I have recently decided that I can proudly claim the label atheist, rather than agnostic, because of calculus.

I think that the existence of God is unprovable in either direction. Some definitions state this in their dogma; others lack a coherent definition, which in itself makes the concept unprovable. I totally concur with Russel's Teapot -- if I am given no reason to believe in something outlandish, I'll disbelieve it, rather than suspend judgement.

Does everyone remember calculus? I'm thinking of the limit concept -- that even if you can't get to an exact point, you can get close enough for all intents and purposes (this is a very rough rephrasing). In this function, x is approaching atheism, so we might as well call it that.

My main label happily remains humanism, but it doesn't enter into discussion here because it is not a theistic or atheistic epithet, but an ethical one, which I believe to be far more important, since it actually has a bearing on life and human interaction.

Standard Disclaimer:

1. No, this does not mean I'd like to have lunch with Christopher Hitchens. Sharing a lack-of-belief does not nessecarily bring people into the same camp, and no belief system or lack there of is free of assholes.

2. I have not now, nor have I ever, killed anyone, maimed/tortured anyone, stollen, committed arson, etc. If you believe that ethics can not exist outside of religion, please consider me and all the other perfectly moral atheists you know as contrary exhibit A.

Obviously, none of this applies to my fervent belief in Clarence, who art above us, and doth occasionally call on the phone.

Current Mood: studious
Current Music: Let the Mystery Be

( Why half of my face is covered in vitamin E oil, and the left half has benedryl creme. )

Amazingly, the most noticable effect of my expiriment has been to make me mildly gleeful about my misfortune instead of miserable. Why? CAUSE I'M DOIN' REAL SCIENCE! YEAH!

So far, the actual medecine is doing a slightly better job of healing, and much better job of killing the itch, but the right-side is soft and supple and not icky-rash peeling. And it's shiny. I'll tell ya now, when they say that vitamin E oil is absorbed quickly, they are lying through their hemp stained teeth.

I plan on performing further Vit. E tests in future. It's really supposed to help scars and stretchmarks. I have a lot of scars, but they don't match so there's no real control group. I'd have to use photo evidence. Perhaps I'll expirament on the Oh-My-God-I'm-A-Girl puberty stretch marks on my hips. I think right cheek oiled, left one plain, with a weekly comparison, is probably decent research methodology.

If you wish to suggest alternate expirimental substances, do so, but be warned that I plan to do exhaustive testing with THIS $8 bottle of goo before I buy a different $8 bottle of goo.

Current Mood: itchy

meliz113 and I wish to announce to the world our most recent scientific discovery. After much thinking, thunking, ker-thunking, and research, we are ready to make known our results - the Third Law of Thermo Dynamics!

For those of you who last took a physics course sometime around the megolithic period, allow me to refresh your memory of the first two laws of thermodynamics (these definitions courtesy of Michael Flanders and Donald Swan).

1.) Heat is work and work is heat.
2.) Heat cannot of itself pass from one body to a hotter body.

Well, what is it? I hear you cry. What is this new law and how will it shape our view of the world in years to come? Without further to-do, we give you the ( Third Law of Thermodynamics )

I don't know whether my partner intends to pursue further research in the field. Personally, I will attempt to disprove the 2nd law by demonstrating that it is possible for my body heat to pass to the body of an extremely hot guy, thus proving that heat can pass from one body to a hotter body. So far tests are on hold for want of subjects.

In the meantime, we modestly await our nobel (or ignobel) prize.

Current Mood: Scientific
Current Music: Flanders and Swan, the 1st & 2nd Laws of Thermodynamics

The tuesday upswing wasn't as dramatic as it has been in recent weeks, but it still showed up on schedule - just in time for me to realize I have an 8 to 10 page paper due in a week. Regardless of that, I managed to get Butch & Spike 2 from nothing to text-inked in three hours on Tuesday, which was a personal first. Still inking the rest of it now.

Met with Madge re:1st webpage project. A-, not too bad considering the crappy logo, and she says "Very solid stuff." That's me, solid Sarah. Brilliant? Never. Solid? You bet. Hire me. After all, brilliant people are a pain in the ass.

I got home late today and spent it online window shopping hardware I can't afford - specifically, notebook systems and LCD displays (the former is a total pipe dream, the latter is a real possibility...if 400 bucks fell out of the sky).

Now I window shop
Pentium M notebooks, geek
arroused, I drool.

We all love haiku. Tomorrow I'm venturing into enemy territory - ie, the mall - to search for halloween costume things, including funky tights. We all love funky tights. I suppose I'll have to work on that ol' paper thing on friday since Saturday will be spent at BS of comics and dancing. We all love BS of Comics and dancing.

For your edification: A 'new' human ancestor, or human ancestor relative, has been discovered. Apparently subject to the phenomenon of insular dwarfism, the 32 inch tall skeleton apparently survived by hunting dwarf elephants. (we all love dwarf elephants!). The Skeleton's name? Why, it's a HOBBIT!

Tricksy, tricksy hobbits, taking our yittle welephunts, we'll gets them, we will...

Current Mood: fuzzy
Current Music: At it Again, Andy M. Stewart

Oh, and one more thing to be proud of this week -

One of the ear peices to my headphones broke off in my backpack while I was toodling round Seattle, and completely fell off in the train. To your ordinary music junkie sans duck tape, this might have been cause for great distress, but being McGiver's daughter has it's advantages - quickly, I undid my braid and fashioned a splint repair using my hairtie.

Take that, Life!

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Birdcage In Your Soul - They Might Be Giants

Yesterday, with great glee, I received my new international hell-phone, sans SIM, which I'm planning on buying in France. I bought it through a US broker, all documentation of the sale was in English, and I didn't buy a France SIM - in other words, the phone people had no idea where I was going.

Imagine my suprise when...

My phone speaks french.

Slightly better than I do, I might add. Not much for conversation, though.

The package also inclued lots of helpful documentation...also in french. And a SIM card, which I didn't order. Probably some sort of gimic. Since phone salesman french is a world away from my conversational french, I'm not using it for fear it will eat my soul.

With mayonaise.

Current Mood: gleeful
Current Music: Far Away in Australia, as sung by Dusty at the seisun