Last Blog Post EVER

Well Mr. Goertz, this year has been a great year. I've thoroughly enjoyed your class, so for my last blog post as a 2012 senior, I just wanted to share some of my favorite physics memories. Probably my all time favorite was you jumping into the wall and singing. After that, my next couple favorite memories were probably on Kairos and karaoke. I especially enjoyed working on the circuits, and that was probably my favorite unit of the whole year. So thanks Mr. Goertz, for a really fun year. I hope our class didnt cause you too much trouble, and I know this blog probably won't have the full three hundred words required but I hope you will show some mercy.

Have a good summer Mr. Goertz, and let me know when you get that motorcycle.

Blog 30

This is one of only a few blogs left, so I have to make these count. And since its the end of the year, I hope you, Mr. Goertz, will be more lenient on the topics I choose, because these topics are just going to be the absolute most fun topics about things that I like, and not really having much to do with physics or anything else really. Today's topic will be about some of the coolest/weirdest discoveries about history that changes our perception of history.

1) Ancient Egyptians used cocaine, tobacco, and hashish. In the early 1990's, 1992 to be exact, German scientists were testing some unknown particles on several different mummies from many different time periods, and they found several drugs. Now they figured that somehow the mummies could have been contaminated from hard partying archaeologists, so they got an independent lab to redo the tests, and they found the same particles. Now the reason that this is very odd and changes the way that people view things is because cocaine came from the Americas and tobacco came from Europe and America, which means that there was trading going on before it was known that established trade routes were known.

2) This one I don't know much about, but in the 1980's a Giant stone containing the 10 commandments was discovered in Arizona. The only problem was, it was in Hebrew, and testing has placed the writing between 500-2000 years old. Now that is before people came from that place to the americas. It has often been denounced as a hoax, but since so many people have handled the stone, it may be impossible to tell now.

Blog 29

I figured that since I had some spare time today I would knock out a blog a week in advance, just to keep me on the right track. Since there is nothing that I can talk about that we have done in class, instead I will write my blog on the terrible weather that was/is occuring yesterday and today. Unfortunately, at least 5 people were killed Saturday due to over 4 dozen tornados that occured Saturday afternoon, Saturday evening, and Sunday morning. The worst is not yet over however. The storms are expected to increase in intensity as they move East Sunday. By the time this blog is read and the grade is entered, I expect that we will see the full damage and magnitude of the storms. I've always wondered why certain areas in the United States see worse storms than others. My biggest question was why Austin seems to always be right on the very last outside edge of the storms, and we never seem to get bad tornados or anything near as severe as Dallas or other northern cities in Texas. Luckily for me, Mr. Goertz told me why its much rarer for tornados to strike here. It has to do with the hills and the other terrain around the part of Austin where we are located. Apparently, tornados are sentient and prefer to have an easier job of destroying things rather than working hard to do their job. Thats fortunate.

Blog 28-awesome music

Well this blog is slightly off the beaten path, in terms of content, but since we do listen to at least one song per day in class so I figured this blog was close enough content-wise to count for a good grade. My musical tastes seperate into two main categories, normal music, and epic music. Most normal music I listen to is pretty mainstream, such as country, rock, and thats honestly about it. But what I enjoy listening to most is a genre of music called "epic" rock. These are the really cool songs that make it into trailers for movies and games. This style of music turns anything you are doing into something 200 million times more awesome. These kind of songs make you feel like you can do anything, and if you're studying, you are studying to save the world. If you are walking the dog, it makes you feel like if you do not do the best possible job walking that dog then something terrible will happen, so you walk that dog epically. These kind of songs are my favorite sport pump up and workout songs because they don't have words and are not particularly strong or hardcore songs, they just make you feel like you can do anything in the world.

Instead of pictures, here are some links to my favorites.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYKUeZQbMF0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASj81daun5Q&feature=related

Blog 26 (resubmission)

This week, my physics blog is about something that we have been doing in class, because I can’t find anything cool, weird or supernatural to write about. This week and for the past 2 or so weeks, we have been building circuits. By far it has been the most enjoyable thing for me to learn about, not only because it will give me 2+ free lab grades. For me, mechanical and hands on things are by far the most enjoyable and easy for me to learn from. I have a good group to do, although recently NaBuilding tali joined our group because Cameron and Anthony drove her away out of her own group, which I found kind of interesting. The hardest circuit to build the first time was definitely the black box circuit, but now that we have built it a second time it makes it a little bit easier, although it would have been easier not to take it apart in the first place and just skip the other builds and come back. Building the not complex small circuits in this class have made me appreciate just how complex some circuit builds must be to complete the their tasks. Especially computer circuits. We have a few spare computers lying around the hosue and after we began working on these circuits I looked inside of the computer and saw just how complex the circuits are. Very tricky. But very fun.

Blog 27-Lightning

Lightning will be the topic of this weeks blog. I'm pretty sure that we mentioned it in class and if not, here is my train of thought that proves that this blog is related to class. Circuits-->electricity-->badass things-->ball lightning-->lightning.

The first thing I would like to discuss is clearly ball lightning. Ball lightning has fascinated me since I was a young child. When I first saw video/pictures of it, I thought it was a UFO, but upon further investigation, turns out to be the coolest form of lightning EVER. Unfortunately, ball lightning is very rare, although up to 5% of the population of the United States report having seen ball lightning. However, many people may get this confused with St. Elmo's fire, so the real number is likely much smaller than that. Since ball lightning has never been able to be "conjured" or a sample taken in a scientific setting, there have been many theories and experiments to try and conclusively prove what it is. My favorite hypothesis however, was put forth back in 1999. An Irish scientist, whose name I cannot remember at this time, believed that ball lightning was caled when microscopic primordial black holes came into contact with Earth. I have no idea how lightning and black holes have anything to do with one another, but it is very cool and very amusing nonetheless.

Blog 25

This weeks blog will be something I have not written about before, but it will be similar in some regards. The similarities will be that it is a few wacky, crazy, really messed up stories, but these are not quite as lighthearted and easy as the tattoos. These are some of the most unbelievable organ transplant stories of all time.

1) The girl who had her hand attached to her leg for three months.
A girl in China a few years ago was badly hurt after she was run over by a tractor on the way to school. She  severed her left hand completley off. Her right was too injured to be reattached right away to her arm, so instead doctors attached it to her right leg to heal and grow back. After several months and after the nerves and blood vessels had begun to regrow, her hand was reattached, and doctors say its looking good, and that she can move it around, circulation is normal, and she is regaining functions.


2) The cheating husband.....who after his divorce asked for his kidney back.
A doctor named Richard Batista, from New York, was a cheating scumbag. After he was blindsided by divorce papers from his no nonsense wife, he decided to do something kinda low. He asked for his kidney back in the divorce papers. If the kidney could not be returned, he demanded 1.5 million dollars to cope for possible future medical expenses and for emotional and physical distress.



Unfortunately, these are the only two on my list of epic organ transplant stories that are school/ blog appropriate, so these next few words are just filler to get me over the 300 mark. However, luckily for me, I'm very good at adding filler, so this should fit in just about right.

Blog 24-misspelled tattoos

As the pround owener of a completely unique and one of a kind tattoo, I find it my duty to point my finger and laugh at those who are stupid enough to go get a tattoo without having some sort of idea what they want, or even spellchecking the print before that tattooing process actually occurs. Some of my favorite tattoo fails will be listed below, and some, but not all, will be accompanied by a picture, just so that you may laugh.

#1, only god will juge me.
This is a typical example of a kid who A) didn't think clearly about what he wanted, B) went to a pathetic tattoo artist, possibly a new friend or relative and C) who is illiterate. This tattoo will serve as a joke against him for the rest of his life, and rightfully so.

#2, im awsome
Not only does this tattoo have a monster spelling error, even its its own regard, provided it was spelled correctly, is an incredibly cocky tattoo. More than likely this guy has the ego the size of Jupiter, and clearly the same size zits on his back.

#3. why not, everyone elese does
This tattoo is slightly confusing, mostly because 1) it shows a complete lack of maturity and self though, and also because out of all the words that could be mispelled, or the drawing getting messed up, the tattoo artist misspelled "else", which is spelled exactly the way it sounds, and it only has four letters. The man, who payed $100 for the tattoo, later successfully sued the tattoo parlor to pay for the laser surgery to remove the tattoo, as well as pay for a new, much more expensive tattoo at another tattoo parlor, just adding insult to injury.
There are many more tattoos I could show, and some may come at a later date, but for now, that is all.

Blog 23-Iran

Today, my blog is on an issue that seems to be popping up quite a bit, with good reason. Iran and their nuclear potential. There are two sides to this story, and somehow I feel the truth is in the middle of the two extremes. On one hand, there is Iran, who have been showing quite a few signs that they are developing nukes, such as moving their facilities deep underground (outside of the striking capabilities of Israel), vehmently denying that there are nukes, refusing to allow weapons inspectors inside their country (sound familiar? Pretty sure we went through this a few years ago with another country that starts with an I), as well as buying a large amount of uranium from the Russians. In recent developments, Israel seems quite keen to strike at the heart of these weapons facilities, and perform a preemtive attack, just to be safe. However, if that happens, and Iran retaliates with force, and not just "tough" words, that could quickly mean the U.S., England, Australia, and a few other of Israel's biggest supporters could be called on to enter the fight, which would leave the position of the U.S. in a precarious situation. As President Obama wants to be reelected (sadly), the last thing he wants to do is get involved in another war (because he promised to finish them). But alternately, if Israel strikes and he chooses not to get involved, it could also be bad for him, and the US, because people would think we don't look out for our allies. Basically, if Israel strikes, its a lose/lose situation for him.

Blog 22-Jabbawockeez

This weeks blog, is about one of my favorite groups of all times, the Jabbawockeez. The Jabbawockeez are America's Best Dance Crew (from now on going to abbreviated ABDC) winners from season 1. Since then, they have enjoyed a large amount of mainstream success, due in part to their phenomenal skill, as well as their entertaining choices of costumes, which always involve some sort of mask to hide their identity. The reason for this, they say, is to make every group member as important as the next, and to get the audience to focus more on the performance, stunts, acrobatics, and overall feel of the dance, as opposed to one or a few of the crew members. One judge said after a certain performace, "Y'all just set the standard for the next 10 seasons", and he was right. After the Jabbawockeez won season one, no dance crew for the next 5 years was able to match the creativity, intensity, perfection, and performance level of the Jabbawockeez. In fact, after a few more years, ABDC faded from the spot light, due in large part to the less than exciting crews that appeared continuously on the show. Below I will post some pictures of the Jabbawockeez, as well as links to two of their best performances,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1LxaAs-Unc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu3vkTa0sy0&feature=related

Shield-Croc

"The extinct creature, nicknamed "Shieldcroc" due to a thick-skinned shield on its head, is an ancestor of today's crocodiles. Its discovery provides scientists with additional information about the evolution of crocodiles and how scientists can gain insight into ways to protect the species' environment and help prevent extinction."
One cool new creature that was recently discovered is an extinct version/ancestor of the modern crocodiles and alligators. It is a very neat creature. It gets its nickname from the very tough layer of skin on its body, which almost entirely protected them.
"Shieldcroc is the newest discovery of crocodile species dating to the Late Cretaceous period, approximately 95 million years ago. This period is part of the Mesozoic Era, which has been referred to as the "Age of the Dinosaurs;" however, numerous recent discoveries have led to some scientists calling the era the "Age of the Crocs," Holliday said.
Holliday identified Shieldcroc by studying a fossilized partial skull specimen, which was discovered in Morocco and held by the Royal Ontario Museum of Toronto for several years before Holliday analyzed it. By analyzing blood vessel scarring on the bone, Holliday determined that the crocodile would have had a structure on top of its head, resembling a shield. The dents and bumps on the bone indicate veins delivered blood to a circular mound of skin, something never before seen in a crocodile. He said the shield was likely used as a display structure to attract mates and intimidate enemies and possibly as a thermo-regulator to control the temperature of the animal's head."

All in all, a very cool creature.

Shieldcroc is the newest discovery of crocodile species dating to the Late Cretaceous period, approximately 95 million years ago. This period is part of the Mesozoic Era, which has been referred to as the "Age of the Dinosaurs;" however, numerous recent discoveries have led to some scientists calling the era the "Age of the Crocs," Holliday said.
Holliday identified Shieldcroc by studying a fossilized partial skull specimen, which was discovered in Morocco and held by the Royal Ontario Museum of Toronto for several years before Holliday analyzed it. By analyzing blood vessel scarring on the bone, Holliday determined that the crocodile would have had a structure on top of its head, resembling a shield. The dents and bumps on the bone indicate veins delivered blood to a circular mound of skin, something never before seen in a crocodile. He said the shield was likely used as a display structure to attract mates and intimidate enemies and possibly as a thermo-regulator to control the temperature of the animal's head.

Best Memes 2011

The best memes of 2011. If you do not know what a meme is, a meme is an idea or something that travels rapidly person to person. In 2011, the internet produced several memes that made people LOL all over the world. Here are several of the best of 2011. "Honey Badger don't care". If you have not seen the video Mr Goertz, I highly recommend it. It is about the awesome animal, called the honey badger, and a strange and funny narrator named Randall. The next "Chemistry Cat" Chemistry cat is a LOLcat spinoff, of a clever cat, wearing classes, surrounded by bottles and beakers of strange colored liquids who makes clever puns such as "I would make another chemistry joke, but all the good ones Argon." The next and one of the funniest ones is "First World Problems". First World Problems compare the problems of people in developed countries vs third world countries. First world problems include parking too far from the door, the tv isnt HD. Third World Problems are real and include hunger, extortion, and murder. The last and my absolute favorite is "But then I took an arrow to the knee." Mr. Goertz, if you don't get this one, I can't explain it. Youll have to find it out for yourself.

(Non scientific Blog)

This week's blog, in honor of the Super Bowl, will be about the one thing that keeps people watching the Super Bowl. Its not the football unless you support one of the two teams, its not the fans, its the commericals. The Super Bowl Commericals are one of the greatest parts of this magical Sunday, so we may as well get to know a bit about them. Here are a few facts about them. in 2001, there were 69 ads shown, at a cost of 2 million dollars each. Now, in 2012, there will be 75 ads shown, at a cost of 3 million per 30 seconds. In the past few years, the commericals have become hearing impaired friendly, as last year, just 17 of the 65 ads were captioned, and millions of deaf Americans were unable to share in the hilarity. One funny thing about Super Bowl ads is last year, while the commiercals in and of themselves were fantastic, not many people remember what the commericials were for due to a lack of branding. Many were dotcom companies just trying to get their name and face on the market, but kind of forgot to focus on making people remember who they are and what product they offered. Because of that, many experts say that this year, the Super Bowl ads will return to their previous states, with many marketable name brands, people, and recognizable attributes, which may make this year a little more boring. Instead of a picture this week, I will be posting a highlight of the best superbowl commericals.  
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=best+superbowl+commercials+&oq=best+super+b&aq=0s&aqi=g-s1g9&aql=&gs_sm=c&gs_upl=91515l95211l0l97006l14l9l1l0l0l0l295l1634l0.3.5l8l0

The coolest new science inventions

The coolest science inventions blog kind of came to me this week after seeing some new military inventions, and I thought it would be a cool thing to write the blog about. My favorite military invention is what ST-6 used when they took down Osama. For several months now, rumours have been circulating around the military community about Night Vision contacts. Night Vision contacts are now very real, and are the future of night time war fighters. Less bulky than NVGs and with a much higher visual rate, even able to see if perfect darkness, they are very important for the future. one drawback is that they are around 10k per pair, which will keep them, for now at least, out of everyone's hands except the special operations personnel, but one day they will be in every soldier's aresenal, and make a huge differece. The next invention, the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper. The Reaper is the newest, state of the art predator drone. It has a 915 Horsepower engine, is bigger than all previous drones, and is considered around the world to be the most elite drone currently in use, (that is, out of the drones that are allowed to be known to the public. In conclusion, these are some of the greatest new weapons in the world.

Best Ice Cream

Since we did a nice little experiment in class this week, I decided to go and figure out what makes the perfect ice cream. Unfortunately, its impossible to figure out a scientific way to determine what makes a perfect ice cream, as I found out, but I did figure out which ones were the most popular. In order, they are vanilla, chocolate, butter pecan, strawberry, chocolate chips, and french vanilla. My personal favorite is cookie dough. ICe cream has a very interesting history, and even though this blog is a bit short, next weeks will make up for it about the history of ice cream.

The New Study about Pot

Personally, I don't use any illegal drugs. Never have, and never will, but pot smokers around the world can now rejoice. A new study said that moderate smokers of weed did not suffer any lung damage or lasting effects of air loss to their bodies. However, something smokers do not have to rejoice about is the amount of damage that marijuana does to the brain. The first thing to be hit when one smokes a large amount of pot is the short term memory. The levels of THC that the brain absorbs messes with the hippocampus, which really screws up the memory. Also, pot messes with people's emotional responses to situations. Part of the emotional impairment results in the high that users describe. Basically, the lesson here is never smoke weed.