Donnerstag, 16. Oktober 2008

"sonst explodiert es"



So check this out,
I have a coal oven in my bedroom (we burn wood briquettes- it smells better). These coal ovens work like this: you start the fire and, with good airflow, let the fuel burn down to a clean burning red hot ember. Then you close the doors and flue to block the airflow, and the red hot ember transfers all of its energy, over the course of about 6 hours, into the brick/ tile oven. The oven (basically just a big brick block with a chimney snaking through it) stays hot and heats the room for about 12 hours.

There is a rumor that these things can "explode" if you cut off the airflow too early, and I assumed it was because of the expansion, contraction of the brick and thought the "explosion" would be more like a big crack down the side, ruining the oven. Then I researched.

IF you block the airflow of a fire, as you may guess, it smokes a whole lot. That smoke is un-burned matter, ie still contains plenty of energy. If you close off the airflow too early, these ovens will fill with smoke. Hours and hours of black, putrid smoke coming off the wood or coal briquettes. Plus, its really hot. SO, you have a big brick box filled with a superheated, unburned fuel/air mixture. BOOM! When these things explode, it doesnt just ruin the oven, it usually takes out the whole building.
COOL!!!

Mittwoch, 15. Oktober 2008

People who get up early piss me off



http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1682290

ALAS! here it is, proof that my day is longer than other people's! (the link, not the worm) I've been saying for a long time that I need 9 hours of sleep and 18 hours awake every day. Otherwise, i cant wake up and I cant fall asleep. Its SO FRUSTRATING when people say I should wake up and fall asleep at a certain time when my body is blatantly telling me otherwise.

I have never in my life been able to keep a "steady" sleep cycle for longer than about 3 days. If left alone, my sleep cycle will push back so quickly that I have to "reset" by the end of the week (ie skip a night all together) just to be awake during business hours. So based on personal experience through many frustrations and failures, my estimate for my own circadian rhythm = 9hrs sleep + 18hrs awake= 27 hours. In this article, based on genetics, your sleep cycle can vary from 24hrs in .8 hour increments with a minimum of 20hrs and maximum of 28hrs. So my adjusted estimate for my own circadian rhythm- 27.2 hours.

What now, bitches? Now that science has legitimized my sleep habits, nothing can stop me!!!

Dienstag, 14. Oktober 2008

The Independent States of America



Whats happening in the US right now is nearly identical to the downfall of the Weimar republic leading to the rise of Fascist Germany. Even the tiny details like a "staged" terrorist attack on an iconic building and public hype about terrorism. Its no news, and its really obvious.

If someone prefers not to believe something that's right in front of their nose, Its probably no use trying to convince them.

I honestly don't believe that Goerge Bush and his posse will actually stage a hostile takeover of the country. The conditions in Weimar Germany were much worse, Hitler was a much better and more convincing public figure, and the USA is many times the size of Germany with a lot more complex power structure which will take a lot longer to break apart. But I do believe that the structure of our country is not stable, and within 100 or 200 years there will probably be a civil or world war based on the degradation of the USA. Perhaps the acronym U.S.A will change to I.S.A (Independent States of America) or more optimistically A.S.A (Associated States of America). At least then we won't be confused with Usa, Mexico.

Freitag, 10. Oktober 2008

Unattainable Goals



Gelsey Kirkland is teaching guest ballet classes at Steps on Broadway. Imagine that, pay $10 to take a ballet class with the single most famous ballerina still alive today. Her bio doesnt say anything about her being a crack head.

Ballet is amazing. It is a definition of motion and one can create a dialog within this definition, like a pin ball bouncing around inside the table, only able to go where the obstacles and paddles tell it to go, but still with infinite variation. The vocabulary of ballet is a vis-a-vis the human body: basically every direction the human body is not meant to go, go there. Struggle against yourself. Struggle against gravity. Struggle against everything that should be natural, then make it look fun. Smile!

In Berlin turkish vendors cook chickens on sticks. You can buy a half chicken for 2 euro. The sticks go in the rear and come out the top and put the chicken on a perfect axis. They spin on this axis endlessly over a fire, there is no chance they could fall off the axis because it extends through their entire body, from bottom to top and exactly through their center of gravity. Ballerinas strive to have a perfect axis, so they can turn endlessly and never fall. Most fall off their axis but act like they have a stick up their ass anyhow.

The turks then take a cooked chicken off the stick, squish it down with the gutted side toward the chopping block and hack it in half with a big knife, so what used to be a whole body becomes a mirrored profile of two halves, each facing opposite directions. Ballerinas also stive to look like a mirrored profile of two halves. Its called turnout.

To me ballet is the pursuit of an unattainable goal. The romantic obsession with a beautiful ideal, and striving to create that impossible ideal out of reality. A perfect center of gravity and a perfect axis, perfect bilateral symmetry flaunting a mirrored profile. Ballet is the art of pushing your body against its natural stops and creating motion in space which speaks a language that's been handed down, generation after generation, anorexic ballerina to anorexic ballerina, for hundreds of years. The struggle to create this impossible ideal will outlast any one person. One lifetime, especially the brief few years when ones body is capable of actually dancing, is not nearly long enough to get but a taste of what could be possible.

And somehow its absolutely beautiful. Absolutely uselessly beautiful, and if you haven't studied this language, if you haven't learned what the dancers are saying and if you haven't experienced the horror and obsession involved with learning how to say it, there may be no way to fully appreciate ballet.

But honestly, if you just want a good show skip the nutcracker and go see some Ailey style modern.

Mittwoch, 8. Oktober 2008

Windmill self destructs

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=29249089

These things are huge. I cant even fathom seeing the thing turn that fast, they a impressive even at low speeds. It must have been malfunctioning, I thought those things adjust the pitch of their rotors to bypass high speed winds automatically, somehow that one didnt do that.

and then WHOOM!!! the thing flys to pieces, a piece of one rotor cuts the support pillar and the generator unit falls like a hit giant, the severed base of its rotors still spinning. WOW!!! And aside from the physical danger, a 30 story windmill flying to pieces, think about the electricity!!! Those things produce what, 3MWh? And that one was really crankin'. That severed power line running down the inside of the support pillar, just from the power produced by the still-spinning rotor base for the split second it took the thing to fall to the ground probably could have fried a whole football team.

Im a bit wind-turbine obsessed, not gonna lie. Sir Norman Foster is responsible for the obnoxiously obvious teardrop shape of this one.

The first blog, one of millions. Or milliards.

This is the first blog. Not my first, but the first ever. I am the first person ever to have a blog and this is the first blog ever to be written.

I created this blog because a friend of mine suggested we all do so, and a couple other friends also do it and they doodle and write about stuff and thats cool. So i figured, what the heck, might as well get famous by writing a blog so here we go. Fame and fortune here I come!!!

So, try to accept the first two statements, one is true although perhaps infused with dillusions of grandeur and the other is a blatant lie, in fact so blatant that its beyond a lie, its just wrong. Blatantly, obviously, undeniably wrong. And so are most statements made by most politicians. Blatantly, obviously, and undeniably wrong. And yet, its easier to believe that a lie would come from me, the mere, lowly blogger.

A bunch of rich people just stole billions (or milliards) of dollars from the entire United States of America. It must have been an accident.

Maybe the purpose of a blog is for people who like to write emails, but have no friends, to have the opportunity to do so. Or maybe its for people who have a lot to say but not enough time to listen. Maybe its for people who have had their tongues cut out by pirates, but still have fingers. Pirates are people who cruiz around on boats and steal money. Here's Dick Cheney fishing.