Planck's Post

Basal Metabolic Rate

2009-01-01T12:01:00.000-08:00

I belt out my fair share of 4-letter words. But one of the worse ones I can think of is "Diet"! I'm not a huge fan of eating, if I could take a pill in place of a meal that would suit me just fine. But, that being said, I also don't like to restricted on what I can eat...if I want powdered donuts and Mountain Dew for breakfast then that's what I want.

Now, I'm not going to tackle what you should eat yet but rather how much. My dad doesn't know anything about nutrition other than the four basic food groups but even he grasps the idea that if you want to loose weight you have to burn more calories than you take in. So, how do you know how many calories you burn?

That's where your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) comes into play. The BMR is the number of calories your body would burn if you did absolutely nothing all day. I mean, if we lived the dream of being able to say in bed all day and watch tv and even had someone to operate the remote for us the BMR would be the number of calories you'd burn during that glorious day.

Ok, time for some math people. Here's how you calculate your BMR:

Men:
BMR = 66 + (6.23 x weight in pounds) + (12.7 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in years)

Women:
BMR = 655 + (4.35 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in years)

Here's a link to a calculator if you don't want to break out the paper and pencil.
BMR Calculator

So, my BMR is 1,899. I would burn 1,899 calories a day if I did nothing but stay in bed. Unfortunately I don't get to do that so to figure out about how many calories a day my body actually needs I have to multiply my BMR by some kind of activity factor between 1.2 (you're a lazy bastard that does nothing) and 1.9 (you're not reading this blog because you're training with your buddy Lance Armstrong).

I workout about 3 times a week so I'll go with 1.5 which means that I burn about 2,848 calories a day.

So if I'm happy with my weight then I'll eat 2,848 calories a day, workout 3 times a week and I'll maintain my weight. Of course this is just an estimate. Other factors include what you eat (which we'll cover later), genetics, how hard you exercise, etc...

You want to loose weight then you want to do it by dropping body fat. The safest way to do this and doing it without sacrificing lean muscle is slowly. About 1 pound a week for people that have body fat percentages in the lower teens. The more body fat you have the more weight you'll be able to drop without it being muscle.

Take a scientific approach. Subtract about 200 calories a day from your diet and keep everything else constant. If you've lost more than a pound after a week add some calories back on, if its less then take away some more.

Next in the series: Macronutrients

New Year's Resolution - Loose Weight!

2008-12-29T13:47:00.001-08:00

It's almost that time of the year when we all become hypocrites and take on the challenge of some sort of new years resolution. A lot of people may say they are going to quit drinking or smoking, maybe find a new job, or get a job, but I think the most popular one is loose weight!

When over 30% of the population is obese (not just overweight but obese, 63% are over weight) it's no wonder this is such a popular resolution. The problem is that the same lazy, half assed attitude that got people fat is the same thing that's going to keep them that way. But rest assured the Planckster is here to help.

This is part one of a series of blogs I will be writing about nutrition, weight loss, and exercise. Why, because I am planning on loosing some weight too. Part of that goal is research and that is the part I'm going to share with you in the blogs to come.

But another part of the goal I want to talk about here is being specific in what you want and why you want it. First of all the why...there will be many many days, especially at the beginning, that you've had a rough day at work, or the kids were especially bad, or you're just too tired, or some other excuse as to why you can't or don't want to work out or eat right... the reason that you choose for wanting to loose weight or get in better shape has to be better than any reason you can think of for why you wouldn't want to do it on any given day.

Choose a good goal. Don't just say "I want to loose weight this year" or "I want to get in better shape"... What does that mean, and how will you know when you're done? Choose a goal like, "I want to drop 10% body fat by June 1st." This is a good goal because one, it's specific, it's measurable, it's realistic, and it's time bound. Once you select you're goal put together a plan for making it happen. Figure out a diet, an exercise program and schedule, and don't forget to schedule cheat meals and days off.

Next in this series: Basal Metabolic Rate

Weather Men Suck!

2008-12-15T17:26:00.000-08:00

When I was in college I took a semester of Meteorology as an elective...I went to class literally just for the tests, the only studying I did was reading the book all the way through as if it were a novel, I made a high B! The underlying principles of meteorology just are not that hard to comprehend. BUT....actually predicting the weather for any given location is extremely hard. The variables involved are temperature, wind speed and direction, barometric pressure, atmospheric pressure, surface composition and reflectivity (concrete, grass, dirt, etc...) , altitude, humidity, cloud cover, spin of the Earth, tilt of the Earth relative to the sun, etc... There are hundreds, maybe even thousands of variables.

I know what your saying..."Plankster, if you know its so difficult to do then why do weather men suck?"

Well, I tell you my fellow blogger! It's their combination of ignorance and arrogance that pisses me off. All of their models have a known degree of error. Why don't they ever pass that on? "Tomorrow is going to be a low between 25 and 31 and a high between 41 and 47." Nooooo, it's always, "Tomorrow is going to be a low of 28 and a high of 44." Cocky jack ass!

Take a look at this:

This is the forecast for Fort Worth for December 16th and 17th. As you can see the high on the 16th is going to be 37 and the low on the 17th is going to be 42. That means that at exactly midnight Tuesday night the temperature will miraculously jump 5 degrees! If they showed the plus/minus that included the error you wouldn't have these stupid issues.

Bottom line Mr. (or Mrs.) Weather person....you have multi-million dollar satellites in orbit, thousands of collection points such as radar stations, weather stations, storm chasers, you have some of the most sophisticated computer modeling software in the world and some of the fastest supercomputers to run it on and you still can't get it exactly right...and that's ok. But don't get on TV in your nice suit and your fake smile and spout statistical maybes as if they're fact. It only takes a little bit of humility to say "it might" instead of "it will" and even sometimes the forbidden "I don't know".

Worthless Knowledge of the Week

2008-12-08T20:00:00.000-08:00

The Most Expensive Liquor...EVER!

Ever wonder what the most expensive bottle of whiskey is? If you don't drink then you could probably care less but I do so I'm going to subject you to this quick chunk of worthless knowledge.

I normally drink a 12 year old single malt scotch that averages about $40 a bottle. My wife got me a nice 21 year old about a year ago that was about $150 (and my god, is it smooth) but both of those pale in comparison to a rare collection of Macallan Whisky from 1926. It was aged for 60 years and of course is now sold out but if you can find a bottle it would go for around $38,000. The only place that you can get a sip of this stuff is the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City, N.J...bring your credit card...it's $3,300 per dram (1/8 of an ounce)!

Interesting side note, if you choose to go all American then the most expensive Tennessee whiskey would be Jack Daniels Single Barrel which you can pick up at most liquor stores for about $40! I'd recommend it...a lot!

Movie Science 101

2008-11-24T05:23:00.000-08:00

I'm a man so of course I love a good action flick! Nothing is better than gun slinging, ass kicking, gratuitous sex scene fun that only the likes of a Vin Diesel, Daniel Craig, or pre-Gubernatorial Schwarzenegger can pull off. With the likes of actors that are as skilled as Jackie Chan or Jet Li its hard to believe that action scenes get so over embellished. I can deal with a car blowing up after being shot at with a sling shot by Chuck Norris...because let's face it, Chuck can do anything! But, hasn't any producer ever heard of Newton's 3rd Law?

We've all seen the movies where someone gets shot and flies back 10 feet through a window or a wall or something. A good example is Lethal Weapon when Riggs get thrown through a shop window while getting blown away by a drive by shooting. Luckily he was wearing a vest!

Newton's 3rd Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So as you sit in your chair reading this blog you have the force of gravity pushing your butt into the chair. Well, guess what...your chair is pushing up on your butt with the equal force of gravity. If it didn't you would break the chair and fall through it. A great example of this is to drop a basketball with it spinning. When it hits the ground it bounces back up and spins in the opposite direction because the ground pushes back in an opposite direction to the spin and the direction of fall.

Anyway, all this means that any gun that would propel the victim through a window would do the same for the person doing the shooting it because of the opposite force! Anyone who has ever shot a gun knows that you don't normally get thrown back when shooting it. Even a 12 gauge shotgun will only hurt your shoulder, it doesn't knock you on your ass. Now couple that with the fact that a riffle or pistol bullet will go through the body like a hot knife through butter meaning that it won't impart hardly any force on the person. So with all due respect to John Woo your movies aren't very realistic, but they're fun to watch!

HO, Ho, oh....F**K IT!!!

2008-11-21T07:05:00.001-08:00

Thousands of years before the birth of Christ people around the world celebrated the winter solstice. This is usually around December 22nd and is the day of the year with the least amount of sun light. From the summer solstice to to the winter solstice the day time gets shorter then after that the amount of day light in a day increases. It was celebrated because the worst of winter was behind them. They would generally slaughter their cows to keep from having to feed them from decreasing food stores and most of the wine and beer made in the summer was finally fermenting. Hence the winter solstice became a wild Marti Gras like party with drinking and feasting!

In Rome, where the winters were not as harsh it became a time of social turn around. Slaves and peasants would rule, going to the homes of the rich and demanding their finest food and drink and if they were refused,... well then there was serious mischief to follow! This piece of Christmas actually lasted until late in the 1800's until the rich began to grow tired of it. Christmas in America wasn't celebrated from 1659-1681 and was actually outlawed in Boston. In fact Christmas wasn't even declared a federal holiday until 1870.

Christmas is about the birth of Christ right...
I suppose it can be if you believe in that sort of thing. Fact is that the new and emerging Christian religion wanted to celebrate the birth of Christ but unfortunately the bible did not provide a date. In order to capitalize on the success of other pagan holidays surrounding the winter solstice, namely the Roman holiday Saturnalia (celebration of Saturn, the god of agriculture), Pope Julius I choose December 25th as the official birthday of Jesus.

The Christmas as we know it didn't really start to come into focus until the 19th century and was heavily influenced by books like Washington Irving's "The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, gent" and Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Carol". It was works like these that transformed Christmas in America into a family holiday when families could go crazy giving gifts to their children without looking like they were spoiling them.

Once it was decided that gift giving would be part of the holidays then it didn't take long for corporate American to capitalize on the idea. Billions of dollars in advertising and marketing campaigns are spent each year during this time to ensure that you buy the best, most popular, whatever for little Timmy. Of course you can't forget that Tiffany diamond necklace for the wife and .... sorry, I digress!

Anyway, hope you enjoy your holiday season and that you learned something new but remember...if you see the Planckster in the mall growing agitated at the crowds, long lines and whiny kids...steer clear...I hate Christmas and I'm probably packing heat!

Worthless Knowledge of the Week

2008-11-16T19:01:00.000-08:00

The Universe is Shrinking!

Thousands of years ago I am sure that cavemen sat around a fire outside their cave and looked up to the bright pin pricks of light that dotted the sky and wondered what they were. I picture them making up stories, tall tales of the Saber Tooth they slayed that was “this big”. I’m sure that they were able to tell time and direction by the stars to get from cave to cave. Now fast forward to today. We rarely look up to see the stars anymore, of course maybe because there’s not much to look at. There so much light coming from the cities that last night I counted more planes in the sky than stars but none the less, our understanding of what these sparkling diamonds of the sky are has exponentially increased. So after thousands of years of asking why we are finally at a point where technology is helping us find answers and the universe does not seem as big as it used to be.

Case in point… There are nearly 7 Billion people on the planet right now and a few in orbit but outside of that there is no one…nothing but a few organic compounds floating around on comets (at least that we know of). Up until recently we only new of 8 planets and a few dwarf planets that circled our sun now we have discovered almost 400 planets orbiting nearby starts. The few we were actually able to see! The below infrared image shows 3 planets orbiting Fomalhaut, a star roughly sun-like that is about 25 light years away. The star has been artificially blotted out so that the planets could be found.

Now these planets are several times the size of Jupiter and orbit further out than Neptune orbits our sun but you can now imagine that within the next decade we will be looking at planets the size of Earth and withing our life time we should be able to see details such as oceans and continents if they exist. It makes you really wonder how much longer we'll have this universe to ourselves. Even if we just find bacteria on other planets then it means that life on Earth is not all that special and if we ever discover intelligent life then it will definitely through all of our perceptions about ourselves and our beliefs into the air.

What will it say about beliefs in god that there are other planets with life on them out there, how will it change religion? What will it say about the petty differences that we think separate us from those in other countries? If that life is more advanced than we are then how embarrassing will it be for us to let them to see how we treat each other and what we've done to our planet. Even worse, what if they are not advanced as we are, how will we treat them? From the Egyptians using slave labor to construct the pyramids to the Conquistadors that inadvertently nearly wiped out an entire culture, to American slave traders and Indian hunters...will we have learned from our past mistakes? I guess the good news is that space is a big place and we have time. Even if we were able to image an Earth-like planet tomorrow that had signs of intelligent life it would probably take at least 25 years to get a message to them and another 25 years to get a response, so we have time. Time to answer those questions before we have to, time to grow, time to learn from our mistakes and correct the wrongs that we've made.

The Visible Universe...those blobs of light are not stars, not even galaxies, they are galaxy clusters!

The universe is a big place but so was Earth once...

And the Winner Is...DadTheDude

2008-11-09T17:31:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to DadeTheDude for winning the PlancksPost "You Pick It" contest...even if it was by default. Enjoy your 500ec credits, hope you are able to advertise on some awesome blog now!!! So, here are the answers to your questions:

#3 Why can’t you recycle pizza boxes?

I have to admit, I have never heard of this before. I have always recycled pizza boxes but apparently you’re not supposed to.
The same thing that is bad for us is also bad for the environment, …the grease! You can’t recycle cardboard soaked in grease!
When cardboard is recycled its mixed with water and turned into a slurry. If some asshole, like me, puts a grease soaked pizza box into the mix then a layer of oil forms at the top of the slurry like gas on water. Well, once you’ve got oil in the slurry the whole recycling process needs to be stopped and the machine needs to be cleaned. You end up wasting all off the recycled material and slowing up the next batch…thanks Mr. Planck…ASSHOLE!!!
From what I understand though you can feel free to rip the top of the box off and recycle that.

#2 Why are roof tiles rough and bumpy? Wouldn’t it make more sense if they were slick so the rain/snow would slide off?

What a strange question…but I wouldn’t expect anything else from the dude. I guess to try and attempt to answer this question we need to look at what shingles do and why they are made the way they are.
Shingles protect the structure of the roof. They keep the rain and sun off the wood and protect it. Most shingles are asphalt which is either use a fiberglass mat or an organic mat made of mostly cellulose-fiber and then have a thick tar applied to them and are then topped with rough asphalt granules that reflect and dissipate heat as well as provide protection for the shingle from the things like wind and fire. These shingles are so prevalent because they are cheap to make, easy to work with, and provide great protection while having good durability.
There are smooth roofs out there like metal roofs that are made from aluminum and steel that are quickly gaining popularity due to their resistance to fire, speed and ease of installation, and expected longevity. As far as I could tell the idea of using these metal roofs to keep snow from building up is not an important feature as compared to cost, resilience, and ease of installation. If you have a chance to build a house I would recommend a high pitched roof as the most effective way to prevent snow build up!

#1 If I toss a ball high enough into the air and waited 24 hours … would I be able to catch it?

Ok, so this one I'll be happy to admit gave me a headache...thank god for scotch! The simple answer to this question is yes it is possible but no, it's not likely. As a former Marine sniper you understand the complexities of projectile motion...now multiply that by a million! First you can't throw it straight up because the speed you would have to throw it at for it to stay up 24 hours far exceeds Earth's escape velocity. With that being said your best bet is some kind of shallow elliptical orbit that will decay just in time to fall back to the original starting position.
Now think about this for a minute...when talking about orbits you have to bring into account the rotation of the Earth which spins at different speeds at different latitudes because of the different circumferences...at the poles the spin is almost non-existent, and the equator you have the max spin at about 1000mph. Around the DFW area you are looking at about 800mph. Then, what direction are you going to throw it? That will determine if the Earth is spinning with the motion of the ball or against it. What are the winds doing at different altitudes and because its a shallow orbit the ball will probably dip into the atmosphere a few times before it hits your glove and incinerates your hand.

Hate to say it but the gravitational pull of the sun and the moon will probably even come into effect on this one, hell, even the solar wind. With the Apollo missions and the shuttle missions they have thrust they can use to make course corrections to make up for these but the angle and the velocity you launch the ball with will have to be perfect...so like I said...if you were able to nail down every variable it would be possible, but highly unlikely!

Thanks for the questions Dude!

Bella,...not sure about Emeril...those crazy Italians are so unpredictable!

YOU PICK IT..!!!

2008-11-06T16:58:00.000-08:00

I got home tonight and had a conference call with Japan for work. I don't have to talk much so I was getting sloshed on a nice 12 year old scotch. I just realized that I have not had any dinner so I slammed down some sun flower seeds and deer jerky and washed it down with...you guessed it...MORE SCOTCH!!!!

I have been thinking of things to write about for the past two weeks. I'm sure you can tell due to the poop post and the one before it...admittedly not my best work!

So I need your help...give me some worthless piece of knowledge you'd like me to write about! You pick the topic and post it in the comment section below and I'll do the research and tell you what you want to know.

I'll do the judging Saturday night (because, yes, I'm a looser) and post the winner Sunday. If you are using EntreCard, the winner will get 500ec credits!

So, go think of something...I'm going to get shit faced and play XBox...HAPPY THURSDAY!!!!

Worthless Knowledge of the Week...Check This Shit Out...!

2008-11-03T15:55:00.001-08:00

Your sitting there reading your favorite blog when all of a sudden it hits...that pressure in your lower belly. First it's just uncomfortable but almost before you can get to the end of the next sentence it's painful. Nope, can't wait, you have to go shit!
You sit there for minutes and grunt, push, and sweat your way to a satisfying, comfortable calm. When its all done you have to check out what your hard work was all about. WTF!!! I don't remember eating that, why is it that color, why did it sink straight to the bottom, and WTF is that smell...? My friends, read on, all your questions will be answered as we explore what this shit's all about!

So, you're poop is made up of almost equal parts water, dead bacteria, and non-digestible foods like fiber. Of course the proportions are widely variable, diarrhea obviously has much more water.

The digestive process is done by bacteria and produces gases like sulfur and other nitrogen rich compounds that cause it to stink.

The color has a lot to do with what you eat...or don't eat. The normal brown color comes from iron in the form of bilirubin, which is a by product from the breakdown of red blood cells. If you don't eat as much (such as in a diet) you don't break down as many red blood cells so your stuff can be more yellow. If you are eating a lot of leafy greens then,...you guessed it, it will be green. If your poop is black, you probably need to see a doctor because that can be from partially digested blood. It could also be from some constipation, the longer you wait between shits, the darker and dryer it gets.

If your poop has a high gas or fat content it may float, otherwise, it sinks.

Now for the coup de grace...THE CORN PHENOMENON!
So why does corn always show up in your shit like it just came out of the can? The best answer to this that I've seen is that the outer coating is made almost entirely of cellulose which is fiber and hence indigestible.

Alright, I'm about sick of this shit...I'm out of here!

American Glutony

2008-10-29T19:49:00.000-07:00

It's been a pretty busy week and I'm about to go on vacation so I'll make this a quick little anecdotal quip about my recent surge into what I like to call...American Gluttony!

So, as we are all totally aware, gas prices hit an all time high this summer. Many people went screaming to the dealerships trying to give away their pick-ups and SUV's in favor of some hybrid smart car that runs on left over bean burritos...and what was I doing as gas jumped over $4 a gallon. I traded in my 2002 Trans Am WS6. I felt the pinch to...I needed something that got better gas mileage so I bought a new Vette!

Last night, with the thought of Obama taking office, I realized that another American icon may be at risk...the assault rifle, so I went and bought an AR-15 (civilian version of the M16). Now I'm not some right wing Neo-Nazi, or backwoods hillbilly that goes home to my compound every night. This is something that I'll probably take to the range 3 or 4 times a year and put $50 worth of rounds through it for fun.

This I will tell you people, as I walked out of that gun shop carrying an AR-15 with two 30 round magazines and got into my 400hp Corvette a single tear of American pride rolled down my cheek and I could swear I heard the Star Spangled Banner playing in the background! America is Beautiful!

Worthless knowledge of the Week!

2008-10-27T05:27:00.000-07:00

Hopefully you all know that the sun is a star. Other than the fact that its our star there is really nothing special about it...it's an average star. That's not really trivia you can throw out at parties to amaze and wow people so let's look at VY Canis Majoris (you'll have to excuse scientists...there is so much shit to name they don't get very original).

This star is located about 5000 light years away from Earth meaning that even traveling at the speed of light it would take 5000 years to get there. It is the largest and brightest star we know of. It's so big that if you placed it where the sun is then it's surface would be at the orbit of Saturn. It takes about 8 minutes for light from the sun to reach Earth...it would take up to 8 hours for light to travel the width of this beast!

There, now go forward and spread this worthless knowledge and enlighten the world!

It's a long shot...

2008-10-24T07:48:00.000-07:00

The Military Sniper is often associated with a certain reverence and awe, most likely due to the pure skill it takes to accomplish their mission. While most fighting units face the enemy in force these elite soldiers go out to face the enemy with only 2 men…and only one of them shoots. One shot, One kill is their motto. From over a mile away they aim for what is known as the apricot, which is actually the part of the brain where it connects to the brain stem in the back of the head. One shot here will immediately disable your target, meaning they will instantly collapse without any type of reflex.

All of this sounds great but, I’m sure to the dismay of many snipers, their job is much more mundane than going out and taking down entire army’s single handedly. Snipers are often used as scouts for reconnaissance because of their excellent attention to detail and also their skills in being close to the enemy while remaining undetected. But that part is not near as fun to blog about…so let’s talk about the skill it takes to pull of a great shot.

The longest range shot recorded for a sniper kill is currently held by Corporal Rob Furlong. Corporal Furlong used a McMillan TAC-50 bolt-action rifle to make a kill at 1.51 miles! Not bad for a Canadian...thought they just had a bunch of guys with hockey sticks as their army...just kidding Rob...Hold your fire. So let's look at the pure skill Corporal Furlong had to employ to make this shot before my office fills with a pink mist from my head.

First is the gravity. A bullet in flight has the same pull from gravity as a bullet you just drop from your hand meaning that if you dropped a bullet from your hand at the exact moment one was fired from a gun (parallel to the ground of course) they would both hit the ground at the same time assuming your hand and the gun were at the same height off the ground. So for the Tac-50, which has a muzzle velocity of 2,700 ft/s, the bullet that Corporal Furlong fired would have been airborne for almost 3 seconds before it hit its target. That means the bullet would have dropped 144ft due to gravity in that time which basically accounts for lifting the barrel of the gun up 1 degree. If 1 degree could mean 144ft one way or the other you start to get an idea of the precision that it takes to pull off a shot like this...!!!

I am neglecting air resistance too! Now imagine that calculation with the wind blowing towards you or away from you if you're lucky but try and calculate it if it's a cross wind or even worse blowing at some angle (both towards you and to the right for instance). If you had a 3mph wind blowing from left to right then it would cause the bullet to move almost 4.5ft to the right in 3 seconds.

Curvature of the Earth is also something to consider. Unless you're still using leeches to bleed out the demons when you get a headache you know the Earth is not flat but is a sphere. For the distance Corporal Furlong shot the Earth curved 1.5 feet...when your aiming for something the size of, well, of an apricot, from 1.5 miles away...that's a BIG deal!

Spin of the Earth can also come into the equation but I'm not going to F with it...I've reached (and probably surpassed) the limits of my mathamatical abilities for the day. But the Earth spins about about 1500ft/s. The Atmosphere is not rigidly attached to the planet so it rotates at a different speed...you get the idea...hope so...my Mountain Dew has worn off and I really need to get some work done today.

Bad Mushrooms

2008-10-23T05:56:00.000-07:00

I'm sure that we've all seen the videos of atomic and nuclear weapons tests and we're all familiar with that distinct mushroom cloud associated with them. Ever wonder what causes the mushroom cloud? I did.

A mushroom cloud can be created by any large explosion, not just nuclear ones. In fact volcanoes often form these clouds. What happens is a large explosion causes a great amount of heat. The heated air from the explosion is less dense than the surrounding air so it rises just like a hot air balloon would. This forms the shaft of the cloud.

Once the heated air reaches an altitude where the surrounding air is as thin as it is then it begins to expand and dissipate, this is the mushroom part.

My Little Universe

2008-10-21T14:43:00.000-07:00

A friend recently said something very interesting to me…”Seems like sometimes people forget they live on a planet called Earth!” It’s very true. My universe is from my house to my office which is about 36 miles and in reality my universe is actually my house…my car,… my office. It’s whatever is in visual range of me. Every once in a while, in an act of humility I ponder on the vastness of the universe and that’s what I am going to share with you today. You think you’re the center of your little world, well sit back and ponder with me…, you’re nothing but a spec!

So, on a daily basis I drive from my house in Fort Worth to my office in Dallas (I know,…I should really move) which is 36 miles and I average about 48 mph so it takes me about 45 minutes to get there…on a good day.

The furthest I’ve been is Japan which is 6,427 miles. With the help of the jet stream and the spin of the Earth we made it back in about 10.5 hours. That’s an average speed of about 600 mph. Now that’s only ¼ of the way around the Earth and it took half a day to get there.

The furthest a human has gone is the moon which is on average 150,000 miles from Earth. The Apollo 11 astronauts were able to get there in 3 days, 3 hours, and 49 minutes, that’s an average speed of 1,974 mph.

That spec between the rings on the right is Earth as viewed from Saturn.

Launched on August 20, 1977, Voyager 1 is the furthest man-made object from Earth. It is approximately 9.6 Billion miles from Earth travelling at a speed of about 38,219 mph (~10 miles per second). After 31 years it is leaving the solar system.
It’s becoming increasingly obvious that the speeds humans can achieve will be insufficient for exploring our galaxy, not to even mention the universe. So let’s assume we can go as fast as possible, which is the speed of light. Now, it’s impossible to actually go this speed but let’s say we can get close enough. The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second (mps). At this speed I could have reached Japan in 0.03 seconds. Apollo 11 could have made it to the moon in 1.5 seconds. Voyager 1 could have reached its current position in about 14 hours. Even at this speed it will take 4.2 years to reach the next nearest star. You starting to get the idea…?

At “astronomical” distances we start using a term of measurement called a light year. This is the distance that light can travel in one year or about 6 trillion miles. So the center of our galaxy is about 25,000 light years meaning that it would take us 25,000 years to get there at the speed of light. It would take 2.5 million years to reach the closest galaxy like ours, the Andromeda galaxy. To get to the edge of the visible universe (not the edge of the universe…the universe has no edge), all of the universe we can see, it would take about 13.7 Billion years (the present age of the universe). The universe is thought to be at least 156 Billion light years wide meaning that it would take at least 11 times the age of the universe to go all the way across it at the maximum speed you can go. Tell me that doesn’t make you feel small!

This is a picture taken by the Hubble which shows about 10,000 galaxies (that's right, those dots are galaxies, not stars), the furthest of which is about 13 billion light years away. Since it took the about 13 Billion years for the light from these galaxies to reach us this shows the universe the way it was about 800,000 years after the big bang!

Fact of the Week

2008-10-19T07:09:00.000-07:00

Did you know that the planet Saturn could float on water...? It's true, and just to be clear, I am talking about the second largest planet in the solar system, not the car.
For and object to float on water it simply has to have less density than water. Density is the mass of the object (weight/gravity) divided by it's volume.

Density of Water ~ 1g/cm^3
Density of Saturn ~ 0.7 g/cm^3

Hard to imagine a planet 95 times more massive than Earth, with a volume 769 times that of Earth floating only 3/4 submerged in a giant bath tub!

The Moon

2008-10-14T05:35:00.001-07:00

If a picture is worth a thousand words then this should suffice for my blog this week...right? This is a composite of pictures taken of the moon during one lunation...one complete cycle of the moon.

Our poor moon. Unlike all the other moons of all the other planets in our solar system our moon has no official English name. It’s probably due to a natural human arrogance where we’ve always believed we were the center of the universe or at least deserve to be. Most scientist refer to it by it’s latin name, Luna.

The moon has a rotational period that is the same as its orbital period which means that the same side always faces us (The same is true of Mercury and the Sun). It was born at roughly the same time as the Earth 4.5 billion years ago and because the moon has no atmosphere the surface has remained mostly unchanged since then, at least for the light grey areas. The exception to this is obviously all the craters from impacts by asteroids and comets and then there are the dark areas on the moon which are lava beds from volcanic activity that dried up about 3.5 billion years ago.

The Earth-moon system could almost be considered a double planetary system since the moon is roughly 1/6 the size of the earth. That’s fairly large for a moon, relative to it’s parent planet. In fact the Moon and Mercury are similar in size so the moon could be considered a planet.

It would not be a very nice place to visit though. It’s 225 degrees during the day and -243 at night. But the good news is that you may find some water in craters where comets have crashed that are so deep that the sun never reaches the bottom. If so then you could build a giant “laser” there and threaten to destroy Washington DC unless they pay you $1 Million!!!! MuHahahahaha!

Woke up with a stiffy!

2008-10-10T05:01:00.000-07:00

I woke up with a stiff neck today and just had to know what that was all about because usually the only thing that’s stiff when I wake up is…well, you know. Apparently there is one muscle to blame called the lavatory scapula. It runs up the back and side of your neck and a stiff neck is the shortening of this muscle.

It can be caused by cool air hitting the neck, (which I think was happening last night) not enough pillow support (yep, piece of crap pillow…check), it could also be caused by being on a long phone call without a headset, sitting in a chair where the arm rests are too high, and not to mention stress.

Luckily you can treat it yourself with some type of pain reliever, some heat (a hot shower usually works for me), and/or self messaging the pressure point in your neck and a spot about two inches below that which is where the muscle connects to the bone. If stress was the cause of yours then might I suggest some Jack Daniels!

Ok, so speaking of stiffy’s, what’s up with the morning wood, a.k.a. nocturnal penile tumescence, or for our buddies in the U.K. what’s up with being piss-proud! Well, it seems that we don’t really know what’s up with it. It usually happens during REM sleep and, as we know, can be present when we wake up but the actual causes are still uncertain. One theory is that during REM sleep the neurons in your brain that cause erection are fired and some think it may be linked to testosterone build up in the body. In any case you know what the treatment for that is..."Honey...wake up!"

The Dust Boundary

2008-10-08T04:46:00.000-07:00

While sitting on the couch watching TV the other night I looked up at the ceiling fan my wife had turned off earlier and it was covered in dust. How could that be…? That fan had been going non-stop, on a medium speed, since March. How does it collect dust? It must be Dust Ferries.

For four nights straight I stayed up and sat on the couch in a full camo with my trusty M-16 waiting for these little intruders to show themselves and try and place dust on my fan. I could hear them around the corner and down the hallway waiting for me to nod off so they could deliver their dirty cargo but when I’d creep around the corner they’d be gone….ah the Dust Ferry is indeed worthy prey. After night four I decided to do some research and get to know my enemy and it turns out that my enemy is the laws of fluid dynamics.

So it would seem that the air right on top of your fan blades is moving at the same speed as the fan blade itself. This is called the Boundary Layer and the faster an object is moving the thicker the boundary layer is. Other than the dust not being blown off your fan another practical ramification of this is fighter jets. If you look at the air inlets on most fighter jets you’ll notice that they are not right next to the body of the plane. There is a gap. This is because the designers are trying to get the inlet out of the boundary layer next to the plane. In fact, in some planes, the large inlet surface next to the plane is actually moveable so as the plane increases speed the inlet moves further out to account for the growing boundary layer.

As your fan blade turns it slams into the dust which collects and unless you have a Binford 2000 fan motor which propels your fan from 0 to 1000 rmp in .4 seconds the dust is going to stay. I guess I’ll put up the shotgun and get out the ladder…time to dust the fan.

Could we turn into Optimus Prime?

2008-10-04T09:46:00.000-07:00

How many of you saw the movie Transformers? I remember reading an article (in Popular Science I think) where the question was posed to a scientist of some sort about whether or not the premise of sentient robots was possible. His reply took me off guard. He said not only is it possible but it is probable. Now ever since the invention of computers the idea has been fostering that one day as they get more and more advanced a computer with some form of artificial intelligence will spawn a conscious thought and a new race will be born in which humans will either be wiped out by Terminators or bread as a power source while we continue our lives ignorant of the fact that we are trapped in the Matrix.

What this guy was talking about though was something else entirely, an option that I had never considered before. As our intelligence increases we will soon start reaching a point where our technology will out-pace evolution. No longer will we adhere to the laws of nature and the idea of survival of the fittest will only apply to less intelligent creatures. Already the technological capabilities of man are far out performing the evolutionary abilities. We have developed computers that can think much faster than our feeble brains can, we have developed machines that can lift more, move faster, and reach higher. It has reached a point where the military is experimenting with exoskeletons which will allow soldiers to run faster, carry more equipment, and deliver and absorb more fire power to the point that they will be nearly indestructible against something like the infantryman of today.

With the emergence of nanotechnologies and the advancement of material sciences we now have materials which can shape and repair themselves as needed. A shirt for instance, that is comfortable to wear but turns hard as steel when a bullet comes in contact with it and then can repair the damage that that bullet caused not only to the shirt itself but to the person wearing it. It can contain medicines embedded in the fabrics which can be released to be absorbed through the skin when a small computer in the pocket senses your vitals change.

With this level of sophistication how long will it be until we decided that the human body is to fragile and too inadequate to carry around our superior intellect? How long will it be until we construct robot bodies in which we will transfer our consciousness so that we can perform better? Imagine if instead of having to learn everything when you are born the entire sum of human knowledge and experience can be downloaded. In this future we will not die, and our progress will advance at an exponential rate to the point where all the possibilities of existence are simply entries in a database and the universe itself will be too small to accommodate what we have become… Sad little gods no longer able to learn anything new, experience anything different , be surprised by anything unexpected. The past present and future will merge into a meager unsatisfying existence and we will sit on our thrown as kings of the universe and weep at what we have done.

Women’s Guide to Crap on TV.

2008-09-24T05:19:00.000-07:00

If women are from Venus then the origin of manhood must be somewhere in the Andromeda galaxy and I’m not even sure that 2.5 million light year gap can explain the extreme differences between men and women. Nowhere is this more evident than the differences between television watching habits. Women seem to have the ability to find shit on TV within mere seconds of it coming on. I know what you’re thinking, anyone can do that, there’s a lot of crap on TV these days. No, I’m not talking ordinary crap here that immediately floats to the top like Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader and Opera. I’m talking sinks straight to the bottom shit that is hard to see in that little flush cave like Platinum Weddings, and virtually any cooking show, and Sunset Tan… Women love gossip and human tragedy. That’s why they like the E! Channel and have to TiVo the Dateline when Katie Couric is interviewing the little Cuban boy with cancer that got blown to Africa by a hurricane while he was trying to swim his way to America to find a cure. What’s amazing, they seem to genuinely care.

“Honey did you mail my car payment?”

“Shhhh, what the hell is the matter with you…aren’t you listening to what Pablo went through you insensitive bastard!”

All well that’s why we have a 42” High Def TV in the bedroom. If I get banished there while Bridezilla is on then I’m doing ok. I love the Military, Science, and History channels and would be perfectly happy if those were the only 3 channels I got. I can spend an entire day watching things like Myth Busters, Human Weapon, and Future Weapons. I like the Hot Rod shows on Spike sometimes and occasionally make my way to the National Geographic channel. Maybe this difference stems back to the days when men were the hunters and needed to learn how to survive and protect while women gossiped in the brush while picking berries.

“Hey Tammy, I heard Judy’s boy Raymond can barely start a fire…it’s no wonder though, his dad can’t even make a bow…he has to hunt with a spear still.”

To sum up…a woman’s ultimate TV show would be Oprah cooking gourmet cuisine with Pablo, after he was rescued from the Hurricane (and given a cure his cancer by Tom Cruise), for a celebrity bitch getting married in a tanning salon where people fight all the time.

A man’s ultimate TV show would be two naked blond lesbians muffing down on one another on top of a M1A1 Abrams Tank in Afghanistan while being protected by a Marine Corps Scout Sniper team who are blowing away insurgents from 2500 yards while the 75th Ranger Regiment uses modified ’71 Split bumper Camaros with 454 Rat motors topped by two Holly 750 carbs resting comfortably in a tunnel ram to chase down French PETA activist with 700hp of all out terrorist ass kicking, lesbian love making, American Super Power, gun owning, gas guzzling, rain forest burning, whale hunting, ice cap melting, fuck the rest of the world fun! And I would watch every minute of it with a Jack & Coke in my hand, my heart pounding in my chest, pumping adrenaline through my veins, and ejaculating testosterone from every orifice of my body.

Stimulus for Greatness

2008-09-24T05:15:00.000-07:00

Throughout the history of humanity we have groped our way through the darkness with an ever brightening since of hope created out of the human propensity for self improvement. Every generation gets to stand on the shoulders of their predecessors to see further and accomplish more in an asymptotic journey towards perfection! In the 1940’s a pinnacle was reached in the back hills of Tennessee by two brothers, Barney and Ally Hartman. They discovered a substance that would forever increase the quality of life for future generations of humanity. Mountain Dew was born!!!

Since Dew made its debut on Earth we have seen a burst in technological advancement the likes of which has never been seen in the history of civilization. It was Dew that allowed the scientists at Los Alamos to stay up late and complete their work on the atomic bomb which saved us from the tyranny of a ruthless dictator bent on global domination. It was Dew that provided scientists at Cape Canaveral the inspiration for the rocket fuel that would get us to the moon. It was Dew that provided the impetus for the entire computer revolution and proceeding internet craze.

Not only has Dew changed the very face of humanity forever but it has had a profound personal affect on me. It has transformed me from a mediocre, mindless automaton that awkwardly stumbled his way through life into a juggernaut of intellectual greatness capable of hacking into the wee hours of the night on a diet of nothing but Cheetos and Oreos, capable of completing that project for the boss that he gave me last quarter in the final 5 hours before the presentation because I couldn’t be pulled away from owning newbs on Halo for the past 4 months, capable of giving that presentation under the pretense that I got plenty of sleep even though there was a Jet Li marathon on Spike last night!

When my time on this planet finally comes to a close I will complete the BMX, Snow boarding, and Rock Climbing triathlon to get to the sugary gates of heaven and I will bow before the Dew Goddess and suckle the sweet nectar from her teats until they are nothing but dried up flaps of skin that hang sadly from her chest and I will sit belated, bloated, and belching and finally know true happiness!

Suicide Bombers Must Be Horney!!!

2008-09-24T05:09:00.002-07:00

Today there was yet another attack on the U.S., this time in Yemen. Every time I hear that I think about those terrorist and scratch my head trying to figure out how they could be so stupid. Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate terrorism as an effective war fighting strategy against a much bigger, stronger, more advanced foe but it’s the suicide bombers that always get me. I can understand hating someone so much that you want them dead, and hating so much you’re willing to die in battle, but hating them so much that you’re willing to die without a battle…? How stupid do you have to be?
So here’s my theory on how terrorist leaders recruit these pawns:

Young Male: “Hello Mr. Terrorist.”
Terrorist: “Hello, would you like to come to our brainwashing…I mean training camp?”
Young Male: “Nope.”
Terrorist: Let’s see, what do young males like…ah! “You should come, there will be about 70 virgins there just waiting to screw your brains out.”
Young Male: “I’m in! What do I have to do?”
Terrorist: “Just go over there by that Embassy and the virgins will come get you. Oh, and put on this vest…they think its hot! If you have any questions just push the little red button to call me.”

Guys, have a mind of your own…you’re a pathetic looser that lives in the dessert (that alone would win you a Darwin award) girls only go out with you because you beat them and if you were picky you would let the women over there show some flesh. In other words, no virgin is going to risk sand in her vagina to give it up to you.
I bet terrorism would fall 80% overnight if we dropped Xbox’s instead of bombs… …speaking of which it’s time to see how many newbs I can splatter with the Warthog!

So, what is a Planck's Post

2008-09-24T05:09:00.001-07:00

In physics there is a Planck time, a Planck length, a Planck energy… you get the point. All of these are the absolute smallest measurements of each metric. In other words a Planck length is something like 6.3 billion, trillion, trillionths of an inch and is the smallest possible measurement of length that can be achieved. I figured in times of TiVo, fast food , HOV lanes, and high speed internet there was a need for a quick post…a Planck post. Since I am self diagnosed with a form of A.D.D. attributed to overdoses of Mountain Dew and Sobe energy drinks this won’t be any problem. I’ll be luck to provide a couple of coherent paragraphs before I pick up the Xbox controller.

Enjoy!