While this is not exactly new stuff, I still found it very relevant.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Declining GOP
According to the CNN Political Ticker, even Texas is becoming a swing state. A formerly conservative stronghold, the change within Texas shows how the GOP has lost touch with reality and the mainstream political view. I believe that the GOP looks backwards to most Americans in these modern times. The entirety of the political spectrum has shifted slightly to the left, but the GOP has failed to adjust. Until it corrects this mistake, it will fail to return to its old grandeur and political domination.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Math and Music
I play the violin, viola, and piano and have always marveled at how similar music is to math. To me, time signatures are like fractions; notes are numbers. A musical phrase is an equation to be written into sound through the instrument. Scales are series; chords are complex operations.
The connection runs deeper. Starting from the middle C, every octave above and below increases or decreases the frequency by a factor of 2. An A below a middle C is 220hz. One above is 440hz. Two below is 110. Two above is 880. Although the other notes are not as exact, they too follow a similar pattern. What is interesting here is although the frequencies change by powers of two, we perceive them linearly.
Music and math are both (almost)-universal. Pleasant sound and numerical operations have no face, language, ethnicity, and race. But why? Have both been evolved into our development; are we hardwired to learn math and enjoy music? Perhaps they developed out of evolutionary benefit--pattern recognition would help, and that would lead into mathematics. Music was a form of creative expression and probably stemmed out of a more developed brain. It most likely served unify groups and create a common culture.
The connection runs deeper. Starting from the middle C, every octave above and below increases or decreases the frequency by a factor of 2. An A below a middle C is 220hz. One above is 440hz. Two below is 110. Two above is 880. Although the other notes are not as exact, they too follow a similar pattern. What is interesting here is although the frequencies change by powers of two, we perceive them linearly.
Music and math are both (almost)-universal. Pleasant sound and numerical operations have no face, language, ethnicity, and race. But why? Have both been evolved into our development; are we hardwired to learn math and enjoy music? Perhaps they developed out of evolutionary benefit--pattern recognition would help, and that would lead into mathematics. Music was a form of creative expression and probably stemmed out of a more developed brain. It most likely served unify groups and create a common culture.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Games I'm looking forward to
Sims 3: More customization, more commands, and more realism. In this upcoming Sims, you'll be able to roam the neighborhood and actually interact with other Sims off of your home property. Out on June 2.
Modern Warfare 2: Continuing off of the older Modern Warfare, this installment no longer has the Call of Duty title attached, indicating that it is most likely a separate series. From the screenshots, it looks like it will feature a snow landscape as well as undersea combat. Out on November 10.
Saboteur: This 1st/3rd person stealth combat rpg is set in Paris during WWII. You are part of the French resistance, using sabotage to disable Nazi capability. What makes this unique from other stealth games is how the people interact with you -- as you liberate sections of Paris from Nazi occupation, people will cheer you on and help you when you engage in fights. Out in probably early 2010.
Starcraft 2: The long-awaited sequel to the amazing original is close to a decade late. From gameplay footage, it seems almost functioning and just awaiting balancing. Out in probably mid 2009.
Bioshock 2, the Sea of Dreams: The sequel to the intense fps set in the underwater city of Rapture, this update is set roughly ten years after the first Bioshock. You play as a big daddy with the ability to wield plasmids. It will include a multiplayer mode the first Bioshock lacked. Out in probably late 2009.
Modern Warfare 2: Continuing off of the older Modern Warfare, this installment no longer has the Call of Duty title attached, indicating that it is most likely a separate series. From the screenshots, it looks like it will feature a snow landscape as well as undersea combat. Out on November 10.
Saboteur: This 1st/3rd person stealth combat rpg is set in Paris during WWII. You are part of the French resistance, using sabotage to disable Nazi capability. What makes this unique from other stealth games is how the people interact with you -- as you liberate sections of Paris from Nazi occupation, people will cheer you on and help you when you engage in fights. Out in probably early 2010.
Starcraft 2: The long-awaited sequel to the amazing original is close to a decade late. From gameplay footage, it seems almost functioning and just awaiting balancing. Out in probably mid 2009.
Bioshock 2, the Sea of Dreams: The sequel to the intense fps set in the underwater city of Rapture, this update is set roughly ten years after the first Bioshock. You play as a big daddy with the ability to wield plasmids. It will include a multiplayer mode the first Bioshock lacked. Out in probably late 2009.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
AP cramming break
I will be studying for AP tests for the next month, so I will not be posting in the meantime.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
The snowball effect
Technically, it's a positive feedback loop. Say A acts on B and likewise, B acts on A. So, if A goes up, B does, which in loops back, increasing A. The cycle keeps continuing until either A or B max out or an external force quells both.
This is the opposite of the negative feedback loop, where A goes up if B goes down and vice versa. Whereas negative loops are self-correcting and are stable, positive loops go out of control. This is important because small changes in this type of system has massive impacts as even small fluctuations are magnified.
This has many implications:
Snowball Earth:
If a natural disaster such as a volcanic eruption or a meteor impact released a large cloud of obscuring ash, it would block sunlight and lower the temperature of the Earth. Fluctuations in the Sun's energy output or changes in methane and carbon dioxide levels would also have had the same effect.
This is believed to have actually happened, roughly 750 million years ago.
Ice, normally contained at the poles, then advanced towards the equator. As more area froze over, it was changed from dark earth and water to white ice. Since white ice reflects heat better than dark earth and water, the more the ice advanced, the less heat the earth would get. This would make even more ice form, and the cycle continued. This eventually spiraled out of control until the entire earth was frozen in a snowball.
Explained by this BBC video, the second of the series Horizon:
Butterfly Effect: Commonly known as the chaos theory, whose most commonly-known example is how a butterfly flapping its wings above the Atlantic could, after a series of magnifying events, trigger a
Cascading Failure: This was the cause of the Great Lakes-Northeast American Blackout of 2003. Because of a power flow monitoring failure and a human operator problem, a generating plant was shut down. This increased the load put on other transforming stations, transmission lines, and plants. As more and more failed, even the best-maintained plants could not handle the load, resulting in the failure of the entire system and the blackout.
Public Panics: The Salem Witch trials, for example, were started by a small group of accusing girls. The accused, in order to save their own hides, accuse others. This spreads until nobody feels safe and is in a constant state of panic.
Disparity in Wealth: Once someone reaches a certain wealth threshold where all basic needs are fulfilled, he can begin investing. Once he begins investing and trading stocks, he can make even more money, depending on the profits. With this, he will invest even more and earn even more to continue the cycle. Now, roughly the top 10% of the world controls 85% of the world's wealth.
Traffic: A traffic jam sometimes begins not with a physical obstruction like a crash, but just because of normal driving behavior. If there is a moderate stream of cars on the road, then the act of one person suddenly swerving can trigger a shockwave that ripples backwards to the other drivers. The car immediately behind the swerver slows down to avoid hitting the swerver. In turn, the next car does the same, and so on.
Economic Fluctuation: Mass sellings such as the Black Tuesday one that was the precursor to the Great Depression are often triggered by chain-reaction selling. As prices drop, people see that they're losing money and sell to cut losses. This drops the price further, which causes others to sell. Paradoxically, this is a positive feedback loop although it works in a negative manner.
This is the opposite of the negative feedback loop, where A goes up if B goes down and vice versa. Whereas negative loops are self-correcting and are stable, positive loops go out of control. This is important because small changes in this type of system has massive impacts as even small fluctuations are magnified.
This has many implications:
Snowball Earth:
If a natural disaster such as a volcanic eruption or a meteor impact released a large cloud of obscuring ash, it would block sunlight and lower the temperature of the Earth. Fluctuations in the Sun's energy output or changes in methane and carbon dioxide levels would also have had the same effect.
This is believed to have actually happened, roughly 750 million years ago.
Ice, normally contained at the poles, then advanced towards the equator. As more area froze over, it was changed from dark earth and water to white ice. Since white ice reflects heat better than dark earth and water, the more the ice advanced, the less heat the earth would get. This would make even more ice form, and the cycle continued. This eventually spiraled out of control until the entire earth was frozen in a snowball.
Explained by this BBC video, the second of the series Horizon:
Butterfly Effect: Commonly known as the chaos theory, whose most commonly-known example is how a butterfly flapping its wings above the Atlantic could, after a series of magnifying events, trigger a
Cascading Failure: This was the cause of the Great Lakes-Northeast American Blackout of 2003. Because of a power flow monitoring failure and a human operator problem, a generating plant was shut down. This increased the load put on other transforming stations, transmission lines, and plants. As more and more failed, even the best-maintained plants could not handle the load, resulting in the failure of the entire system and the blackout.
Public Panics: The Salem Witch trials, for example, were started by a small group of accusing girls. The accused, in order to save their own hides, accuse others. This spreads until nobody feels safe and is in a constant state of panic.
Disparity in Wealth: Once someone reaches a certain wealth threshold where all basic needs are fulfilled, he can begin investing. Once he begins investing and trading stocks, he can make even more money, depending on the profits. With this, he will invest even more and earn even more to continue the cycle. Now, roughly the top 10% of the world controls 85% of the world's wealth.
Traffic: A traffic jam sometimes begins not with a physical obstruction like a crash, but just because of normal driving behavior. If there is a moderate stream of cars on the road, then the act of one person suddenly swerving can trigger a shockwave that ripples backwards to the other drivers. The car immediately behind the swerver slows down to avoid hitting the swerver. In turn, the next car does the same, and so on.
Economic Fluctuation: Mass sellings such as the Black Tuesday one that was the precursor to the Great Depression are often triggered by chain-reaction selling. As prices drop, people see that they're losing money and sell to cut losses. This drops the price further, which causes others to sell. Paradoxically, this is a positive feedback loop although it works in a negative manner.
Monday, April 20, 2009
PirateBay loses
Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström, were each sentenced to one year in prison and ordered to pay $3.56 million in damages together.
The court said,
Some ISPs refuse to cooperate to shut down the Pirate Bay, saying that the ruling doesn't apply to them. Patrik Hiselius, a lawyer at Telia Sonera said:
Via The Local
The court said,
"By providing a website with ... well-developed search functions, easy uploading and storage possibilities, and with a tracker linked to the website, the accused have incited the crimes that the filesharers have committed"
Some ISPs refuse to cooperate to shut down the Pirate Bay, saying that the ruling doesn't apply to them. Patrik Hiselius, a lawyer at Telia Sonera said:
"In part, this is not a legally binding decision, but above all, this is a judgement against Pirate Bay and nothing that effects any service provider. We will not take any action [to block] the contents if we are not compelled to do so"
Via The Local