I have a problem

See, I know a lot of facts.  And I like to tell them to people, because having a more informed populace is good, right?

Well, I'm just afraid my friends will hate me.

Consider the following, which was posted on my Facebook wall by a very good friend, whom I'm very close with:

My first reaction was to comment something like this:

"Actually, it wasn't a space jump.  People said that Felix jumped from 'the edge of space,' but actually, the (arbitrarily) politically defined 'edge of space' is 100 km above Earth, and Felix only jumped from 37 km up.   However, if we're talking about the scientific edge of space, you could say that there are still remnants of earth's atmosphere as far as 10000 km away.  However, it is the highest he could have physically gotten in his helium balloon, because helium rises only because it is less dense than air.  The atmosphere gets less dense the higher you go, so above 37 km, helium is no longer less dense than the atmosphere, and the balloon won't rise any higher.  I agree though, it was a pretty cool jump."

However, I read that over, and immediately I became slightly worried that my friend would hate me to the end of time for going all factual on what was clearly meant as a fun post.

So, as of yet, I haven't commented.  I don't know what to say!

This problem isn't new, either.  And the last time, I actually posted the comment.  AND it was on a political post, making it 10 times worse.

One of my friends was talking about the news that Romney was using a KKK slogan in his campaign.  This sounded ridiculous to me, so I googled it.  I found the following sources of information:
a) The campaign video that used the alleged KKK slogan
b) The Washington Post article that accused Romney of the deed
c) The editor's note at the top of the article, which admits that the article "contains multiple serious, factual errors" including that fact that the video that sparked this whole debacle says, at the end, "Mitt Romney does not actually support this ad."

So I commented on my friend's post with this news.  I was pretty polite about it, I think.  I guess my friend was a bit unhappy with how I had ruined her anti-Romney post.  Oops.

I just don't know what to do.  I try to tell my friends interesting things (like, last week I enlightened them about how the Earth is in a stable orbit with the sun, which is what prevents us from spiraling inward into a fiery combustion).  And the other day, when we walked by a creepy winged angel statue, I educated them all about the dangers of blinking.

Seriously though.  I don't know how to reply to the Felix post.  What do I do?

Also, here's my Felix Baumgartner artwork!  The Gallifreyan text says "Sometimes you have to get really high just to see how small you are."  Which is an actual Felix quote before he jumped.

Just two more

Sorry for not having anything else to post, so here's two more Gallifreyan art pieces I made (if you don't know what I'm talking about, see the original post).

Numba One: Deathly Hallows Mashup
I'm a huge fan of combining fandoms.  Like this picture just screams ALL THE FANDOMS.  I mean, LOTR, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Star Wars, and Doctor Who, all in one picture?  Freakin' awesome.

Anyways, that picture is not my Gallifreyan artwork.  This is it.  The Gallifreyan text in the middle says "A man in a million could unite the Hallows" which is a quote by Dumbledore in book seven.

Numba Two: Huzzah Science!
This one isn't really a fandom.  But here ya go:

In case you can't tell, this is the Apollo 13 mission logo.  The Gallifreyan text, which is floating around in space, and also cleverly (I think so) hidden in the moon and the sun, says the famous "Failure is not an option."  (That quote was never actually said, but was made for the movie)

Gallifreyan Galore

So, I recently learned how to write in Circular Gallifreyan, which, if you don't know, is a transliterated language from Doctor Who.

I've just been making some pretty things with it - quotes and drawings and such.  By the way, these were all created by hand - with a pencil, a compass, and lots of black pens and Sharpies.  No computer stuff here.
That's all.  Enjoy :)

 This one was my first ever large Gallifreyan project.  It says "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings."  It's a quote from Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar and was used in John Green's book The Fault in Our Stars.

This is another quote from a John Green book, this time from Looking for Alaska.  It says "No one can catch the motherfucking fox."

This one was made in response to soulpancake's time-lapse art video on fear.  I tried to film the creation, but, having never done so before, failed miserably.  But here's the picture.  The Gallifreyan text says "This is fear" and it's supposed to represent my fear of losing myself.  Hence the maze (which is actually solvable...that was hard), the city, and snowflake letters.

I've been working on this one for a while.  As you can see, it's the mockingjay symbol from The Hunger Games.  The Gallifreyan says "May the odds be ever in your favor."  I really liked the way it turned out, and I'm pretty proud of this one.
I'm also hoping to make a time-lapse type video of its creation.  I'll post a link if I manage it.

UPDATE: Here's the link to the YouTube video of the creation of the mockingjay! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOCGJrBqBVY

Gravity is cool!

So we were doing a lab in AP Physics today.  It involved two different masses hanging side by side from a pulley, and then letting it accelerate and timing how long it took, then calculating the acceleration.  That may not have made sense, but the point is, we got a percent error of about 27%, which is not very good.

So we started brainstorming what could possibly have caused this error.  It's not the mass or friction of the pulley, because that would skew the results in the other direction.  It was probably due to human error in timing the experiment, but our eventual conclusion is way cooler.

I came up with this.  See, all masses create a gravitational field.  The more massive an object, the greater the force exerted by its gravitational field on other masses.  That's why the Earth, which is very massive, can exert force on us when we are so far away from the core; whereas we don't feel inexplicably drawn to, say, a bowling ball.  (Though if you feel an inexplicable attraction to a bowling ball, I'm not judging you, don't worry.)

So therefore, the most massive member of our lab group must be exerting gravitational force on the masses in the experiment, and causing the results to be screwy (because when calculating our theoretical value, we only took account of the Earth's gravitational force.  Adding another force on the system would change the results).

Someone proposed measuring the masses of each group member and banishing the most massive member, but they were overruled.  Unfortunately, the period ended before we could try the experiment again, this time standing several meters away to prevent any gravitational interference.  Oh, well.

For those who don't do physics, let me clarify: this is entirely preposterous, because the amount of gravitational force caused by a human would be incredibly, incredibly small.  We can even calculate the force between, say, a 60 kg person and a 1 kg mass that are 1 meter apart.

F = GMm/r^2

Where G = 6.67300 × 10^-11 m³ kg^-1 s^-2

So we plug in the two masses for M and m, and divide by 1 sqaured, which is still one, and get that the force exerted by the person on the mass is 4x10^-9 N.  Which is very very very small.  Negligible.

....I just realized that this was probably not at all interesting.  I apologize.  I promise, no more equations.  I just find this so COOL!

Well, actually, this concludes this post.  I was gonna say one more thing about our Science Olympiad team, but I just realized it involves equations.  I'm already gonna lose all my non-science/math readers, so I'm not going to push it.  Over and out, yo.

P.S. Your computer is probably pulling you towards it right now, with a force of somewhere around 3.2 x 10^-8 N.  Don't let it get you!

P.P.S. This is Bill Amend drawing for xkcd.  The second comic is related.  The others are also funny.

The nerdiness of this post is slightly overwhelming

So I'm at a program at WPI (Worcester Polytechnic Institute - college in Massachusetts) and it's pretty freaking awesome.  Just thought you should know.

So here's how this goes down: 200 nerds from across the globe gathered together to be awesome and learn things.  I'm in physics, so we're learning about astronomy and black holes and quantum mechanics and special relativity and all that mind-blowing theoretical craziness.  I'm also in creative writing, since we're required to take one main STEM class (physics) and also one Humanities and Arts class, for this camp that I'm at.

Basically, it's amazing.  We've played countless games of Magic the Gathering and Settlers of Catan and Egyptian Rat-Screw.  We've held many Rubik's Cube competitions.  We've broken out into Disney medleys on the bus.  We've had light saber duels on the quad (nerf guns are, quite unfortuantely, forbidden at WPI).  We've played Ninja, quite a bit.  We've had multi-hour-long debates about quantum physics and how one would survive the eventual collapse of the universe (including detailed plans on how to become a cyborg-human and create an alternate universe within a quantum computer).  We've eaten ice cream cake at 8AM. 

The best part is, we're all crazy nerds here.  Not only do they understand my nerdy t-shirts, we can have awesome debates about Legend of Korra or Death Note or Nerdfighteria.  We all understand the internet jokes that everyone makes.

The funny thing is, every morning, the Program Assistants slip an announcement sheet under your dorm door, listing out the day's schedule and announcements.  And on the back, they put a comic.  For the past three days, its been an xkcd comic, and about 80% of the camp was talking about how they'd seen that comic before.  It's great.

Anyways, just letting you know that I'm not dead, and that I'm actually being awesome, just not online.  I have real-life nerd friends too!  Be proud of me.

I've started Pottermore-ing

Is that a word?  Now it is.

But before I can talk rationally and coherently discuss this new development, if you will please excuse the following:

OH MY ROWLING!  ZOMG!  YESSSSSSSSSSSSS
*happy dance*


It's official, guys.  I mean, I have a Gryffindor patch on my backpack, and my penpal made me a Gryffindor bracelet, but now J.K. ROWLING has confirmed it!

*ahem*

I have regained my composure and would like to inform the world that I have joined Pottermore.  After not getting into the Beta testing in October and clicking back every week since then to see if it was finally open to the public yet.

And finally my labors were rewarded.

Friends, my name is NifflerCauldron2980 (add me as a friend!) and I am a Gryffindor!  My wand is cedar and unicorn hair, 11 inches, unbending.  And so far I have contributed a great 14 points to my House (but I'm not sure how I did that).

Basically, Pottermore is pretty cool.  My favorite part is reading J.K. Rowling's little notes and backstories about the characters and plotlines and how it all came together.  The extra stuff, where it lets you duel people and brew potions and things, is fun as well.

But, WOW brewing potions is hard.  And stressful.  All these thoughts were going through my head:

• Which of these little bags of ingredients is snake fangs?  TELL ME NOW.
• Where the freak is my wand??!
• Who knew heating cauldrons to the right temperature was so hard? 
• I'm really good at grinding bezoars.
• What am I supposed to do for the three minutes that my potion brews?  Just stare at the screen and hope that I didn't add too many porcupine quills?

I have tried, and failed, to brew the Antidote to Common Poisons at least six times.  All of these failures are because I let my cauldron overheat while it is cooking for five seconds.

Potions are hard.  How was Lily so good at it??

Also, there's one, easily remedied issue that makes me sad:

However, all I see is:

Alas.  I shall stay with my friend-less-ness and continue to fail at brewing potions.  Wish me luck!

There has been too much action in reaction to political scandals. Please write to your congressman to repeal Newton's third law.

Ahh, physics.

So, I have a physics project that I have to do.  It's meant to help us learn about torque.  Basically, we have to make a mobile.  You know, those things with sticks and objects hanging from them, most often seen above baby cribs?  We have to use the laws of torque to create a mobile out of any objects we want, and make sure that it balances.

So originally, my friend and I planned to use fuzzy dice (those things people hang from their rearview mirrors) as our hanging objects, because fuzzy dice are sort of a running inside joke in our physics class.  But I told my circus teacher (yeah, I take circus classes) about the project, and he suggested that I make my mobile out of people.

It was great.  We had these 20-foot metal Chinese poles lying around, and we weighed everyone, and did the calculations, and spliced ropes, and constructed this enormous mobile.  And we put people on it.  The surprising part was that it actually balanced, and we didn't all die.

But yeah.  I wasn't sure how my teacher would react to my, erm, creative project. (Especially since the assignment sheet said a) that the mobile should be less than 100 cm tall and b) you should not use fragile or valuable objects.  I'm honestly not sure whether humans count as valuable or fragile.) But I showed him the video and he freaking loved it.

Here it is.  I'm the one in yellow, though I'm sure you didn't need me to tell you that.  It's obvious that I'm the awesome one.

That's all, folks.  May the mass times acceleration be with you.

I'm a sucker for nerd jokes.

May the odds be ever in your favor (LIES)

The odds are clearly not in your favor if there's a 1 out of 24 chance of survival.  Favorable odds, to me, means that there's a higher probability of winning than there is of losing.  I'm not taking AP Statistics until next year, but I know enough to recognize that 4% is not particularly favorable.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, please go read The Hunger Games.  It's a fantastic book.  I don't feel like blogging about the Hunger Games, though, because of all the movie hype.  EVERYONE is talking about it.

Right now, I'm reading "The Hunger Pains," a hilarious parody starring "Kantkiss Neverclean" from District 12, the undesirable telemarketing district.  This book is the newest parody from the Harvard Lampoon, whom you might know as the author of "Nighlight," the Twilight parody.

It's freaking hilarious, people.  

But besides that.  Hunger Games are way too overdone at the moment (I'm seeing the movie tomorrow!)  Instead, let's talk about more awesome things, like, um...did you know it was 80 degrees yesterday?

This is pitiful.  I'm so pathetic that I'm talking about the weather.

So, do you guys remember about a month ago, when I posted about President's Day and listed all the US presidents in order from memory?  Well, that skill came in handy recently.  Sort of.  Ish.

I had a vocab quiz in American Lit, and my teacher included a random bonus question: "Who is Sylvia Ward?"*  The name sounded familiar, but I wasn't sure who it was.  So, instead, I wrote the following:

"I'm not really sure who Sylvia Ward is.  Sorry.  I instead propose a new bonus question: 'List all the US presidents in order.'" And I then proceeded to list them all on my test.

I didn't expect points or anything, but the next day in class, my teacher says "I was grading the vocab quizzes last night, and there were some...interesting responses to the bonus question.  For example, Anne said..." And she told the class my answer.

It was hilarious and my face turned totally red.  She didn't give me points, but I got a smiley face on my paper.  It was kind of funny.  Well, a lot.

Have you ever put "questionable" answers down on tests?  How did it work out?  All my friends were just like, "you're so nerdy" and I answered "yeah, I know."  One friend, who shares my history-geekiness, agreed that I was a genius, which was quite nice.

*In case you wanted to know, Sylvia Ward Dr. Heidegger's lover in the story "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment" by Nathaniel Hawthorne.  Kudos to you if you knew that!

The urban dwelling resembling the village of York in England (and SCIENCE!)

My title is a cryptogram.  Can you solve it?

(Hint: It means I went to New York City.)

Didja figure it out?  It means "New York City!"  You must be so smart.

It was pretty darn epic.  I mean, it was a school trip, to go to Columbia University for a publications conference. It was a school trip, and they basically gave us free reign to wander anywhere we wanted in Manhattan.  Crazy fun things went down.

However, as cool as it was to watch my English teachers sing karaoke to Lady Gaga, I doubt it interests you.  And I would like to keep you interested.  I think the most interesting thing is my Science Olympiad competition on Saturday.  I mean, New York is way too boring.  But science?  Now THAT'S exciting.


 I mean, you can even write "science" in a science-y way:

Sorry it's blurry; it's my friend's cell phone camera.  I wrote it.  I'll tell you what each letter is, because I'm REALLY proud of this thing.  Took me ages.
S - DNA strand
C - magnet
I - test tube
E - It says mc^2 because E=mc^2
N - a bunch of rulers
C - It says 3.0x10^8 because that's the speed of light, represented by "C"
E - Not sure what the name of this molecule is, my AP Chem friend made it

O - gear
L - fingers (you know, physiology!)
Y - inverted lungs.  Yes, inverted lungs.  Quit laughing, it was hard to draw lungs upside down.
M - triangles with angles
P - phosphorus
I - rad -1.  i
A - deathly hallows symbol.  This was an object of controversy, but my argument was that it related.  Harry Potter is geeky, science is geeky.  It works.
D - atom. In a D shape (I was running out of ideas by the end)

You'll notice that we had a chalkboard in our "home base" classroom, where we relaxed between rounds.  So what did we do? Play games!

First, chalkboard chess.  This was easy, we just made up symbols for each piece (pawn was circle, bishop was triangle, etc).  I was shaded, my friend's pieces were open.  And we erased each piece and redrew it to move.  Simple.  I won after an hour, when I cornered her king and she had no more moves.

Second, chalkboard Monopoly.  This was far more complicated.  First, we redrew the board and simplified the rent amounts and property prices.  We used the random integer function on the graphing calculator as dice, and kept track of money on the side.  It was really complicated.  For chance cards, we had a friend make up things to say.  That was how I ended up losing $2000 in one turn.  The chance cards were all mean.

Third, Pictionary.  This was exciting because I instituted the rule of "abstract Pictionary," stolen from the idea of Metaphysical I Spy in Paper Towns.  Basically, it had to be abstract.  No physical objects allowed.  That's how we ended up trying to draw things like "Neo-Confucianism," "schizophrenia," and a "Mongolian Death Worm."  Yes, we are awesomely nerdy like that.  Let's see YOU draw the "Harvard Sailing Team."

I'm on a QUEST(ion)!

So I was tagged in a Question Thing by the lovely blogger Catherine, and, even though I'm bad at this kind of thing (I mean, everyone lies to make themselves sound cooler.  Yes, admit it.  But I'll try to be truthful at least 94% of the time.) I'll give it a go.

The Rules:

1. You must post the rules.
2. Post eleven fun facts about yourself on the blog post.
3. Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post, and then create eleven new questions to ask the people you've tagged. 
4. Tag eleven bloggers, however, you can break the rules and tag fewer people if you want. Make sure you hyperlink their names/blogs.
5. Let them know you've tagged them!
6. Have fun! 

1. What is your biggest fear and why?
I'm afraid of people ignoring me.  I have way too much to say for that too happen.  I might explode.

2. What are your plans for the future?
Go to college, get a well-paying job, get married, get rich, have 2.4 children and a dog, live in the suburbs with a white picket fence.

PSYCH!  Actually, I want to live on a mountain.  In a castle (with lots of secret passages) and mountains.  I like mountains.  And beyond that, I have no idea.

3. Do you prefer a nice stomach or a nice butt on the opposite sex?
When I first read this, I thought it meant actual stomach, like that they were good at eating, but I guess it means abs.  I say, I don't care. Just be nice overall.

4. What are your opinions on gay marriage? 
Very supportive. Very.

5. What do you think about Rebecca Black?
I think she doesn't deserve the fame she got when there are so many really good singers out there who could use that kind of well-known-ness.

6. How many pairs of heels do you own?
One, I think.  Maybe?  I don't like heels, even though I'm only 5'2".

7. Share the experience of your first kiss.
Kind of weird.  Let's leave it at that.

8. List 3 things you like about yourself, and 3 things you don't like.
I like my nerdiness, awesomeness, and craziness.  I dislike my shortness, awkwardness, and craziness.


9. What is the worst pickup line you've ever heard? (check out my last post titled - Pickup lines at their worst, for ideas if your stuck)
I love looking up nerdy pickup lines, so I'm just going to list a few of those:
"If you were sine squared and I was cosine squared, together we'd be one."
"Let's do some math: add a bed, subtract the clothes, divide the legs, and hope you don't multiply."

"If I were an enzyme, I'd be a DNA helicase so I could unzip your genes."

10. How many hours a day or week do you spend blogging?

Each post takes me one or two hours, depending on how long it is and whether it comes with pictures.  And I post once, maybe twice a week,

11. Would you rather have eternal health, wealth or love? Explain.
Not health, because then I'd sit there and watch all my friends die around me.  Love might be cool, I guess.  Saying wealth would make me sound all greedy-like, but I'm torn between love and wealth.  How about I have a bit of each?


Okay, now I tag people.  Whoopee!
Quirky Screamage-ism, and such
An Abundance of Rambling
[I Am Unimaginative]
Defenestrated Feet
Tangential Bemusings
Peace. Love. Rock n Roll. Various Other Things

My Questions for You Guys are the Following:

1) What is your favorite smell?

2) Who would win in a fight: Neil Patrick Harris or Darren Criss?

3) Tell us a nerdy joke.

4) Describe a situation in which socks and sandals would be acceptable footwear.

5) How will you ever get out of this labyrinth?

6) What food would you like to have growing on a tree in your backyard?

7) Compose a poem describing the nature of a stubbed toe at 3 AM.

8) What is a quark?

9) What is the best way to eat an Oreo?

10) Feelings about Kony 2012?

11) What would you do with a superpower that allowed you to use your toes as fingers?

It's a nice thought, but...

So I happened upon this comic:

It's a nice thought.  Aww, how sweet.  Math love.  The only problem is, it's a nerdy joke that wouldn't actually work on real nerds.  I read it, and I couldn't help visualizing the scene that would play out if anyone ever tried this trick on me:

...Yeah.  Not quite the intended result.

In other news, I spent the weekend on a ski trip in Vermont.  A great deal of the weekend was based on this comic, which I find hilarious:

So my friends and I would break out in song on the chairlifts (often freaking out the strangers riding with us) and throw our palms in each other's faces.

Um...Yeah...

I SET FIIIIIIIIRE TO THE RAIN, WATCHED IT POUR, AS I TOUCHED YOUR FACE

*virtually touches your face*

Snow Day!

This is what I put on Facebook yesterday, when it started snowing, and people were predicting the statistical likelihood of a snow day:

After that, I did notice there were fewer statuses that looked something like "It's snowinngggg!"  or "Guyz, its lyk snowing rite now!!!1!111!"

But whatever.  I'm not here to criticize annoying Facebookers.  I'm here to share the results of my snow day with you.

Did I start my history essay?  No.  Did I finish my history outlining?  No.  Did I research my forestry topics?  No.  Did I call my Gold Award project adviser?  No.

I had a great list of all the things I would do today.  Very few got done.  However, I made this!  IT'S A SNOW DALEK!

Who says I'm unproductive?  Psshh.