9/14/2005
First, a quick bit of interesting news.....
The number of old Japanese people is on the rise as a big chunk is now aged over 100. I think they've managed to hack life. But anyway, this does bring up the interesting question of how retirement should work and all, since when it first started, people would live only a little bit after retiring. These, though, are people that are now 35 years past retirement age as it is in the U.S.. It'll really shake up who needs to be paying taxes and all.
And PETA says black people are like animals again. They're pushing their whole thing of animals are really the same as people again, and because they've got a display of pictures of african-americans being tortured or killed next to pictures of animals being killed, there are now groups calling them racists for it. I find some pleasure in watching as PETA gets stuck in this interesting mess. I don't think they're racist, per se, just that they have dumb ideas when one considers the lengths they go to and are also inconsiderate. Seriously, their whole thing of trying to make animals on the same level as people just makes me want to eat more meat. I'm all for, you know, preventing cruelty to animals but this is ridiculous.
Finally the next few days should get busy...bowling league tomorrow, then movie screening, then anotehr football game saturday. tomorrow i'll also put an update of the last few days. including the dreaded story: "Chupathingie in danger!?"
The number of old Japanese people is on the rise as a big chunk is now aged over 100. I think they've managed to hack life. But anyway, this does bring up the interesting question of how retirement should work and all, since when it first started, people would live only a little bit after retiring. These, though, are people that are now 35 years past retirement age as it is in the U.S.. It'll really shake up who needs to be paying taxes and all.
And PETA says black people are like animals again. They're pushing their whole thing of animals are really the same as people again, and because they've got a display of pictures of african-americans being tortured or killed next to pictures of animals being killed, there are now groups calling them racists for it. I find some pleasure in watching as PETA gets stuck in this interesting mess. I don't think they're racist, per se, just that they have dumb ideas when one considers the lengths they go to and are also inconsiderate. Seriously, their whole thing of trying to make animals on the same level as people just makes me want to eat more meat. I'm all for, you know, preventing cruelty to animals but this is ridiculous.
Finally the next few days should get busy...bowling league tomorrow, then movie screening, then anotehr football game saturday. tomorrow i'll also put an update of the last few days. including the dreaded story: "Chupathingie in danger!?"
9/11/2005
Well, today was UCLA's first homegame, and there will be pictures to come, but first a game coverage.
Last season the Bruins defence worried me because, while the offense was good at having strong plays, and the defence as well, there was a distinct lack of consistancy. On offence the gameplan was much more to get a big breakaway than to be able to consistently move the ball down the field, and so if that one chance didn't cut it, there was a lot of trouble involved in trying to still get a first down. As for defense, every few plays there was a critical missed tackle that would lead to losing a good ten yards or so and the defensive line just wasn't consistant enough to shut down another team's offense effectivly.
Today they were up against the Rice Owls, and while their stats aren't that impressive on the whole, the notable thing is that they led the nation in rushing yards last year, with an average of over 300. However, UCLA held them to under 200 yards from rushing, and only about 60 yeards from receiving.
UCLA started the game off right with a quick drive for a touchdown, followed by two more during the first quarter before Rice picked up one late in the first quarter.
While the defense had me worried for the first half of the first quarter with last year's pattern of missed tackles in place, they quickly got their game together and proved to be a very effective obsticle against Rice's offensive line. The Bruin offense, on the other hand, seems to have really developed since last year, and it was very reassuring to see UCLA going with what was a healthy mix of passing and rushing, and to see a consistancy in gaining yards each play rather than just waiting for the one big play. Rice isn't the strongest defense, but the Bruin focus seems to be much better places this season.
The beginning of the second quarter the Bruins just blew away the Owls with 3 touchdowns in the first 3 minutes of the quarter. They each picked up a touchdown during the rest of the second quarter and UCLA entered halftime leading Rice 49-14. The offense was playing a very solid game to keep moving forward and the defense was incredible at putting pressure on the quarterback and getting some very solid hits on him as well. Always good to shake up the quarterback.
After half time the momentum slowed considerably, and in fact there was only two touchdowns on the Bruins side of the scoreboard during the 4th quarter that made up all the scoring. Rice also scored in the 3rd quarter to get a finishing score of 63-21. Of course, what has to be kept in mind is that after half-time, UCLA was playing much of its second string and so many of its strong players weren't in much or at all. They still played a strong game, but they do need a bit more work as Rice made much more progress during the second half from missed tackles and the like. Stuff to work on, but I'd much rather have the second string be working on that than the first string.
On a related note, they've now added instant replays into the refing, and so if there is significant reason to do so, the refs can look at a replay and if there is clear support, reverse calls. Basicly, now they have 2 chances to make the same bad call.
Anyway, I think everyone is still getting used to being able to do that, and the extra delays during the first quarter from that led to the first quarter, 15 minutes of game time, lasting an hour.
technorati tags: Football, NCAA, UCLA
Last season the Bruins defence worried me because, while the offense was good at having strong plays, and the defence as well, there was a distinct lack of consistancy. On offence the gameplan was much more to get a big breakaway than to be able to consistently move the ball down the field, and so if that one chance didn't cut it, there was a lot of trouble involved in trying to still get a first down. As for defense, every few plays there was a critical missed tackle that would lead to losing a good ten yards or so and the defensive line just wasn't consistant enough to shut down another team's offense effectivly.
Today they were up against the Rice Owls, and while their stats aren't that impressive on the whole, the notable thing is that they led the nation in rushing yards last year, with an average of over 300. However, UCLA held them to under 200 yards from rushing, and only about 60 yeards from receiving.
UCLA started the game off right with a quick drive for a touchdown, followed by two more during the first quarter before Rice picked up one late in the first quarter.
While the defense had me worried for the first half of the first quarter with last year's pattern of missed tackles in place, they quickly got their game together and proved to be a very effective obsticle against Rice's offensive line. The Bruin offense, on the other hand, seems to have really developed since last year, and it was very reassuring to see UCLA going with what was a healthy mix of passing and rushing, and to see a consistancy in gaining yards each play rather than just waiting for the one big play. Rice isn't the strongest defense, but the Bruin focus seems to be much better places this season.
The beginning of the second quarter the Bruins just blew away the Owls with 3 touchdowns in the first 3 minutes of the quarter. They each picked up a touchdown during the rest of the second quarter and UCLA entered halftime leading Rice 49-14. The offense was playing a very solid game to keep moving forward and the defense was incredible at putting pressure on the quarterback and getting some very solid hits on him as well. Always good to shake up the quarterback.
After half time the momentum slowed considerably, and in fact there was only two touchdowns on the Bruins side of the scoreboard during the 4th quarter that made up all the scoring. Rice also scored in the 3rd quarter to get a finishing score of 63-21. Of course, what has to be kept in mind is that after half-time, UCLA was playing much of its second string and so many of its strong players weren't in much or at all. They still played a strong game, but they do need a bit more work as Rice made much more progress during the second half from missed tackles and the like. Stuff to work on, but I'd much rather have the second string be working on that than the first string.
On a related note, they've now added instant replays into the refing, and so if there is significant reason to do so, the refs can look at a replay and if there is clear support, reverse calls. Basicly, now they have 2 chances to make the same bad call.
Anyway, I think everyone is still getting used to being able to do that, and the extra delays during the first quarter from that led to the first quarter, 15 minutes of game time, lasting an hour.
technorati tags: Football, NCAA, UCLA
9/10/2005
Ever read one of those stories that seems to twist facts around to try to make some point? Ok, I know that covers really all media, but here's one particularly about the lack of affirmative action at schools like Berkeley.
It seems that blacks are a minority at Berkeley. Ok, now first of all, this is a irrelevant headline as there really isn't anything newsworthy about that. Now, what they are trying to discuss is that blacks are an underrepresented group at berkeley. Now, what IS true is that of Berkeley's incoming class of approximately 4000, only 129 are black, or about 3.2% of the students. Now, contrast this with California's population of 6.7% black, according to The 200 U.S. Census. Now, we can see that, yes, there is a bit of a discrepency here, though first I would like to see the percentages based on the ages appropriate for college, say, 17 to 25 would be a fair range to get an idea.
Anyway, they go on to discuss hispanic percentages as well:
Again, according to the census, Hispanics would be 32.4% of California. Now, what is misleading is the initial focus on minorities that are underrepresented because that is language designed to make it seem as though the reason taht they are at lower percentages is because they belong to minorities, plain and simple. However, what is perhaps more noteworthy is the percentage of Asian-Americans that are in Berkeley's incoming class. The incoming percentage will be about 47% of the class. Now, this is for a group that is only 10.9% of the state, and 11.2% if we include Hawaiian and Pacific Islander to that catagory to be on the safe side.
The article had this regarding the numbers for Asian-Americans:
My question for Birgeneau is how exactly do you spread out this success to other groups? Or perhaps more pertinent is how do you define other groups? To me, he seems to be talking strictly about other minorities. If this is the case, just how do you spread out success on the same scale? While Hispanics and blacks in the incoming class are both about half of what percentages would indicate they should be to be representative of the population, Asians are overrepresented by a factor of more than 4. In other words, if all minorities had similar numbers, then minorities would be a bit over 200% of the incoming class. In other words, this doesn't work.
The issue here is this attitude that there must be gains for all minorities without realising where those gains would come from, specifically, a decrease in the white population at Berkeley. However, if you assume that Blacks, hispanics, and asians were the ONLY minorities at Berkeley, the highest percentage of white students you get is 39%. This in a state where they make up 59.5% of the state's population, or 46.7% (not including those of Hispanic/Latino origin), though I'm not sure which of those numbers more accurately corresponds to how Berkeley classifies "white". However, with either number, we can then see that white students are also being underrepresented at Berkeley, although while Blacks and Hispanics are at about 50% of what would be expected, whites are between 83% and 65% of what would be representative of the population.
Now, why do these percentages matter? The allegations that somehow the system is culterally biased to benefit white students, be it intentionally or unintentionally, do not seem to fit the numbers. If white students are suppoed to be benefiting at the expense of minorities, then why are Asian students the only group overrepresented? The cause here is not skin colour, its something that obviously many Asian students have been able to capitalise on to make themselves more desirable for enrollment than other applicants, not on a group level, but individually. I do trust that they are fully earning their way into Berkeley and deserve their spots, but I also feel that this fully shows that concepts like Proposition 209 did what it was supposed to and allowed students to earn their way in through a fair system.
The problem arises with statements like the following
Again, there's no mention that they are also lacking a student body reflective of the real world, if their numbers are similar to Berkeley's, due to a lack of WHITE students. Of course, to suggest that they need a program to ensure enough white students were admitted would be considered racist by many and would be outright attacked.
Further, the choice of words seems almost loaded, as is in the description of:
If the numbers for Haas School of Business are in keeping in pattern with those of Boalt and Berkeley undergraduates, using the term "a half-dozen" is misleading, because saying "a dozen" would have the same connotation of a small group, but would be, in fact, proportional to the California population. Similarly, Boalt would, in fact, be just slightly above representing the California population properly for black students if it had 18 out of the 268, a number that still can seem small when not in the proper perspective.
The problem here stems from a misconstrued definition of what "diversity" means when applied to a population. While there are positive elements to diversity, it will become detrimental if it's diverse on a level that is not reflective of the general population. To try to increase minority enrollment substantially, and in turn decreasing the enrollment of white students destroys another part of that diversity just as much as if any other group was artifically increased in number to push another group out. If thats who gets in, then so be it, but if you set out to create that proper mix of diversity one of the first acts one would have to do is to cut the percentage of Asian-Americans that are being enrolled by 75-80%. Thats not fair to students that EARNED their right to be there. Second is that diversity isn't skin colour, and it is disheartening that we live in a society that so often forgets that. Ideologies and economic backgrounds are both more important than skin colour, but rarely does a college campus work to have representative amounts of Republicans, and the idea of economic background is used to prop up affirmative action policies but is rarely suggested in place of race-based programs.
In short, colleges are never going to be perfectly representative. Statistically, thats highly unlikly, and that is if it was by random chance and not effected by characteristics of groups such as the strong work ethic that many Asian-Americans brought with them to the U.S. in recent immigration. What matters shouldn't be what the percentages are for skin tones, but that the admissions procedure isn't based on overtly biased procedures, that all prospective students would be admitted if their scores were sufficient, and that the student body is then made up of the best students that the applications pool had to offer, no matter what race they are, either individually, or what the final percentages end up to be. To say otherwise is to try to turn back time to a period where people WERE judged based soley or mostly on the colour of their skin, and that would be a disservice to all students.
Technorati tags:
Politics, Affirmative Action
It seems that blacks are a minority at Berkeley. Ok, now first of all, this is a irrelevant headline as there really isn't anything newsworthy about that. Now, what they are trying to discuss is that blacks are an underrepresented group at berkeley. Now, what IS true is that of Berkeley's incoming class of approximately 4000, only 129 are black, or about 3.2% of the students. Now, contrast this with California's population of 6.7% black, according to The 200 U.S. Census. Now, we can see that, yes, there is a bit of a discrepency here, though first I would like to see the percentages based on the ages appropriate for college, say, 17 to 25 would be a fair range to get an idea.
Anyway, they go on to discuss hispanic percentages as well:
About 11 percent of the 4,000-student class will be Hispanic — well out of step with a state where Hispanics make up about 30 percent of the population.
Again, according to the census, Hispanics would be 32.4% of California. Now, what is misleading is the initial focus on minorities that are underrepresented because that is language designed to make it seem as though the reason taht they are at lower percentages is because they belong to minorities, plain and simple. However, what is perhaps more noteworthy is the percentage of Asian-Americans that are in Berkeley's incoming class. The incoming percentage will be about 47% of the class. Now, this is for a group that is only 10.9% of the state, and 11.2% if we include Hawaiian and Pacific Islander to that catagory to be on the safe side.
The article had this regarding the numbers for Asian-Americans:
[Berkeley Chancellor Robert] Birgeneau says "we all should be extraordinarily proud of" that achievement, but the success needs to spread to other groups.
My question for Birgeneau is how exactly do you spread out this success to other groups? Or perhaps more pertinent is how do you define other groups? To me, he seems to be talking strictly about other minorities. If this is the case, just how do you spread out success on the same scale? While Hispanics and blacks in the incoming class are both about half of what percentages would indicate they should be to be representative of the population, Asians are overrepresented by a factor of more than 4. In other words, if all minorities had similar numbers, then minorities would be a bit over 200% of the incoming class. In other words, this doesn't work.
The issue here is this attitude that there must be gains for all minorities without realising where those gains would come from, specifically, a decrease in the white population at Berkeley. However, if you assume that Blacks, hispanics, and asians were the ONLY minorities at Berkeley, the highest percentage of white students you get is 39%. This in a state where they make up 59.5% of the state's population, or 46.7% (not including those of Hispanic/Latino origin), though I'm not sure which of those numbers more accurately corresponds to how Berkeley classifies "white". However, with either number, we can then see that white students are also being underrepresented at Berkeley, although while Blacks and Hispanics are at about 50% of what would be expected, whites are between 83% and 65% of what would be representative of the population.
Now, why do these percentages matter? The allegations that somehow the system is culterally biased to benefit white students, be it intentionally or unintentionally, do not seem to fit the numbers. If white students are suppoed to be benefiting at the expense of minorities, then why are Asian students the only group overrepresented? The cause here is not skin colour, its something that obviously many Asian students have been able to capitalise on to make themselves more desirable for enrollment than other applicants, not on a group level, but individually. I do trust that they are fully earning their way into Berkeley and deserve their spots, but I also feel that this fully shows that concepts like Proposition 209 did what it was supposed to and allowed students to earn their way in through a fair system.
The problem arises with statements like the following
UC schools promise an excellent education and "it's simply impossible to provide that excellence if the student body is so lacking in diversity that graduates are unprepared to lead in a diverse world," said Christopher Edley, dean of UC Berkeley's Boalt law school, where nine black students are expected in the incoming class of 268.
Again, there's no mention that they are also lacking a student body reflective of the real world, if their numbers are similar to Berkeley's, due to a lack of WHITE students. Of course, to suggest that they need a program to ensure enough white students were admitted would be considered racist by many and would be outright attacked.
Further, the choice of words seems almost loaded, as is in the description of:
For James Marshall, 25, being one of about a half-dozen blacks enrolled at Berkeley's Haas School of Business in 2002 was "quite intimidating."
If the numbers for Haas School of Business are in keeping in pattern with those of Boalt and Berkeley undergraduates, using the term "a half-dozen" is misleading, because saying "a dozen" would have the same connotation of a small group, but would be, in fact, proportional to the California population. Similarly, Boalt would, in fact, be just slightly above representing the California population properly for black students if it had 18 out of the 268, a number that still can seem small when not in the proper perspective.
The problem here stems from a misconstrued definition of what "diversity" means when applied to a population. While there are positive elements to diversity, it will become detrimental if it's diverse on a level that is not reflective of the general population. To try to increase minority enrollment substantially, and in turn decreasing the enrollment of white students destroys another part of that diversity just as much as if any other group was artifically increased in number to push another group out. If thats who gets in, then so be it, but if you set out to create that proper mix of diversity one of the first acts one would have to do is to cut the percentage of Asian-Americans that are being enrolled by 75-80%. Thats not fair to students that EARNED their right to be there. Second is that diversity isn't skin colour, and it is disheartening that we live in a society that so often forgets that. Ideologies and economic backgrounds are both more important than skin colour, but rarely does a college campus work to have representative amounts of Republicans, and the idea of economic background is used to prop up affirmative action policies but is rarely suggested in place of race-based programs.
In short, colleges are never going to be perfectly representative. Statistically, thats highly unlikly, and that is if it was by random chance and not effected by characteristics of groups such as the strong work ethic that many Asian-Americans brought with them to the U.S. in recent immigration. What matters shouldn't be what the percentages are for skin tones, but that the admissions procedure isn't based on overtly biased procedures, that all prospective students would be admitted if their scores were sufficient, and that the student body is then made up of the best students that the applications pool had to offer, no matter what race they are, either individually, or what the final percentages end up to be. To say otherwise is to try to turn back time to a period where people WERE judged based soley or mostly on the colour of their skin, and that would be a disservice to all students.
Technorati tags:
Politics, Affirmative Action
9/09/2005
So, I didn't make it two weeks into the semister without missing a class.
I ended up not going to school today because my back was killing me. I'm not sure what I did to it, but as of heading for bed last night it was sore. Waking up this morning, breathing and sitting up hurt. So I went back to bed...few more hours of lying down plus some advil seems to have done the trick. Still a little sore, but nothing big.
I at least was productive today in that the chupathingie now has fresh transmission fluid and I've repaired a problem with a wire leading to the spark plugs that has been sparking. Hopfully means that I'll be running better now, and gas milage will do better, and thats always good.
Busy next couple days as on top of schol tomorrow, I'll have work both between classes as well as probably after them. Then Saturday will most likly feature more work, plus I'll be going to the UCLA game Saturday night for the start of the season. At least taht should give me something to talk about.
I ended up not going to school today because my back was killing me. I'm not sure what I did to it, but as of heading for bed last night it was sore. Waking up this morning, breathing and sitting up hurt. So I went back to bed...few more hours of lying down plus some advil seems to have done the trick. Still a little sore, but nothing big.
I at least was productive today in that the chupathingie now has fresh transmission fluid and I've repaired a problem with a wire leading to the spark plugs that has been sparking. Hopfully means that I'll be running better now, and gas milage will do better, and thats always good.
Busy next couple days as on top of schol tomorrow, I'll have work both between classes as well as probably after them. Then Saturday will most likly feature more work, plus I'll be going to the UCLA game Saturday night for the start of the season. At least taht should give me something to talk about.
9/08/2005
I really should get around to putting podcast and updated blog links in here, but thats been losing out as i'm, you know, lazy and stuff. Nonetheless, it is kept in mind. I think school and work are taking up waht energy I'd otherwise muster for that. Which isn't altogether bad, as my tutoring schedule has now reached 8 hours a week with one more possibly tomorrow, plus I want to call one family that I have routinely to see how they are doing with hopes of possible continuation, maybe, and then I think I need to get flyers out to Valencia and West Ranch tomorrow, as they are still early enough in the school year that it'll help. I want, Ideally, 12 hours a week if I can, and if I'm not doing the Star Wars bowling on Wednesdays, then 15 hours instead.
Monday was out at Larry's birthday party as a fun line event that nearly led to tragedy. Somehow someone threw the macaroni and cheese thing at me...which I suppose I brought upon myself. Anyway, larry nearly WENT AND MADE some on the spot, except that it led to a debate on what form of preperation the first macaroni and cheese I have should be in. Anyway, I'm also now on a team for MouseAdventure at Disneyland in October. Basically its puzzles and stuff and scavenger hunt type elements all within the park. It sounds like a lot of fun, and should be pretty challenging. I'm still not entirely sure what I'm getting myself into, but it ought to be memorable.
I actually did go to one of the lectures today at CSUN, on Ultra-Compact Blue Dwarf Galaxies. Basic rundown is theres a handful of very small galaxies that appear to be entirly blue with no signs of more mature stars and very low amounts of elements heavier than helium. Basicly, it doesn't make sense...and seemed to indicate that they were galaxies that had only relativly recently formed. However, what the imaging from Hubble has shown is that there are older, evolved stars, they're just outshown by the newer and brighter stars. More interesting, though, is there are signs that most, if not all, of these galaxies were formed by smaller clusters of stars colliding, including one that Hubble actually was able to seperate out into two clusters very close to one another rather than one single galaxy. So basicly, they're small galaxies forming by groups of stars colliding. Whats so neat about them is how this apparently triggers a burst of star formation within them, hense them seeming to be entirely blue stars.
The main question that I do still raise around it, though, is how the explanation for the lack of metals accounts for the ability to form new stars. Now, the reasoning behind no metals being present, even though supernovae have gone off, is that when the supernovae went off, all their material left the star clusters at a speed greater than the escape veolcity. My question, then, is that if thats what happened to it, why didn't this blow out any remaining Helium and Hydrogen within the cluster? Instead, when the clusters collided, this created shock waves that condensed the Helium and Hydrogen enough to trigger star formation, but to me, there seems to be a lack of a source for those stray gases if the supernovae part is true as well.
Anyway, I think Dr. Corbin (speaker from Arizona State University for the lecture) was pretty accurate in that this'll depend primarily on if they are able to find more of these blue dwarf galaxies than the 10 that had been studied. I still find it very wierd to think that, in the entire visible universe, they're only aware of 10 of these things so far. With the numbers of galaxies out there, it truely makes them rare objects thus far.
Finally, football season kicks off this weekend and so I've got to figure out if I'm going to the UCLA football game Saturday....I think I am, but I also feel like i'm forgetting something. Maybe I'm just paranoid as usual.
And now for soemthign completely different; news:
Germany's next election looks like it could lead to a political shift to the right, which seems to largly be from economic issues with the current leadership. Of course, what I think is interesting about it is the changes their election process is undergoing.
Now, offhand I'd be a little worried just since, well, I don't think our elections give us the best of choices, but then again, Germany is parliamentary, so that might balance out that feature, as then you're picking a party rather than a candidate. Also, to some extent, at least this increases interaction with voters...though that being more things like the bus tours and such.
The other interesting point is that Germany has been critical of the U.S. and a more conservative government might lead to better interaction between them and us. Would be nice to have one of the main countries of criticism backing us up on stuff a bit more. Now just to switch the governments of France and Russia...hmmmm... how hard could a coup be? Especially in those two regime-abandoning countries.
And of course, the article that states the obvious, that some video games are physically demanding. I just love how this is news....I mean, DDR has been out for how long? And it was some time before that that those sorts of games started showing up in arcades. Still though, the tone of the journalist that wrote this one did give me the impression that he was more in touch with reality than those that blame games for all problems with kids. Most specifically, I enjoyed this line:
If there are games out there that are leading to teenage promiscuity, I'm obviously playing the wrong video games.
Monday was out at Larry's birthday party as a fun line event that nearly led to tragedy. Somehow someone threw the macaroni and cheese thing at me...which I suppose I brought upon myself. Anyway, larry nearly WENT AND MADE some on the spot, except that it led to a debate on what form of preperation the first macaroni and cheese I have should be in. Anyway, I'm also now on a team for MouseAdventure at Disneyland in October. Basically its puzzles and stuff and scavenger hunt type elements all within the park. It sounds like a lot of fun, and should be pretty challenging. I'm still not entirely sure what I'm getting myself into, but it ought to be memorable.
I actually did go to one of the lectures today at CSUN, on Ultra-Compact Blue Dwarf Galaxies. Basic rundown is theres a handful of very small galaxies that appear to be entirly blue with no signs of more mature stars and very low amounts of elements heavier than helium. Basicly, it doesn't make sense...and seemed to indicate that they were galaxies that had only relativly recently formed. However, what the imaging from Hubble has shown is that there are older, evolved stars, they're just outshown by the newer and brighter stars. More interesting, though, is there are signs that most, if not all, of these galaxies were formed by smaller clusters of stars colliding, including one that Hubble actually was able to seperate out into two clusters very close to one another rather than one single galaxy. So basicly, they're small galaxies forming by groups of stars colliding. Whats so neat about them is how this apparently triggers a burst of star formation within them, hense them seeming to be entirely blue stars.
The main question that I do still raise around it, though, is how the explanation for the lack of metals accounts for the ability to form new stars. Now, the reasoning behind no metals being present, even though supernovae have gone off, is that when the supernovae went off, all their material left the star clusters at a speed greater than the escape veolcity. My question, then, is that if thats what happened to it, why didn't this blow out any remaining Helium and Hydrogen within the cluster? Instead, when the clusters collided, this created shock waves that condensed the Helium and Hydrogen enough to trigger star formation, but to me, there seems to be a lack of a source for those stray gases if the supernovae part is true as well.
Anyway, I think Dr. Corbin (speaker from Arizona State University for the lecture) was pretty accurate in that this'll depend primarily on if they are able to find more of these blue dwarf galaxies than the 10 that had been studied. I still find it very wierd to think that, in the entire visible universe, they're only aware of 10 of these things so far. With the numbers of galaxies out there, it truely makes them rare objects thus far.
Finally, football season kicks off this weekend and so I've got to figure out if I'm going to the UCLA football game Saturday....I think I am, but I also feel like i'm forgetting something. Maybe I'm just paranoid as usual.
And now for soemthign completely different; news:
Germany's next election looks like it could lead to a political shift to the right, which seems to largly be from economic issues with the current leadership. Of course, what I think is interesting about it is the changes their election process is undergoing.
If the methods employed - campaign theme songs, bus tours throughout the country, even call centers - look familiar, it's because they are. In shaping their candidates and messages, the parties are increasingly borrowing methods fashioned and perfected in the United States, say former media advisors and analysts.
Now, offhand I'd be a little worried just since, well, I don't think our elections give us the best of choices, but then again, Germany is parliamentary, so that might balance out that feature, as then you're picking a party rather than a candidate. Also, to some extent, at least this increases interaction with voters...though that being more things like the bus tours and such.
"You could call it Americanization, but you could also call it a modernization," says Mr. Radunski. "If there's television, then you should use it."
The other interesting point is that Germany has been critical of the U.S. and a more conservative government might lead to better interaction between them and us. Would be nice to have one of the main countries of criticism backing us up on stuff a bit more. Now just to switch the governments of France and Russia...hmmmm... how hard could a coup be? Especially in those two regime-abandoning countries.
And of course, the article that states the obvious, that some video games are physically demanding. I just love how this is news....I mean, DDR has been out for how long? And it was some time before that that those sorts of games started showing up in arcades. Still though, the tone of the journalist that wrote this one did give me the impression that he was more in touch with reality than those that blame games for all problems with kids. Most specifically, I enjoyed this line:
Every article about America's obesity epidemic seems to mention video games. That's not surprising, considering that video games have been blamed for juvenile delinquency, low SAT scores, teenage promiscuity, high gasoline prices and just about every other problem facing the nation.
If there are games out there that are leading to teenage promiscuity, I'm obviously playing the wrong video games.
9/04/2005
My grandfather worked for JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and in 1958/1959 he was working in New Orleans. My grandma recently dropped off some maps and stuff of where they lived because of Hurricane Katrina, and so I decided to find where they lived... so my mom lived roughly in the green circle here:
Well, first things first, comments regarding Katrina. To the rest of the world, my bad. Or well, not so much that I was in error as that I think there has been slow responces by really everyone on this, from city on up, and so while international aid was slow to start, theres more and more of it now, from a lot of countries that i'm impressed with, too. There's been a lot of small countries trying to help best they can, and I think the most impressive one is Sri Lanka, which no doubt is still hurting from the tsunami, giving $25,000 worth of aid. Wikipedia has a list of foreign aid and a partial listing is also at Chuck Simmon's blog, where theres also listings of corporations donations.
On top of international aid, more states are helping by taking in refugees, though Texas still is doing the brunt of the work with a quarter of a million of them. While some are the bordering states, like Texas, Tenessee, and Georgia, others are as far away as Utah, Michigan, and New York. Its an impressive effort thats been covered in an article from the AP put up at Yahoo!.
A frightening thought though is that some black members of Congress are calling the term "refugee" racist, as discussed by Michelle Malkin. To make this claim is absolutly rediculous. Firstly, theres not a race connotation, secondly, how is the WORD racist? At best, the use of it is, but to say someone is a refugee isn't racist because the word doesn't have any sort of racial connotation or denotation. In what world does Refugee=black? Second, as Malkin points out, its been used for many hurricanes. The race card is being played so much during this hurricane I'm wondering now if theres ANY other cards in the deck anymore.
An uplifting note, sort of, is that some still in New Orleans are forming groups to subsist while things get sorted out, primarily in the areas that are above water. They're groups that have formed to take care of each other and survive, rather than just giving into looting and violence. One of the groups was described: "The tribe, whose members included a doctor, a merchant and a store clerk, improvised survival tactics." A little civilisation in an uncivilised city.
Now then, on the "what the heck I've been up to" front...
A general rule to keep in mind is that one should never try to have a group of students take a test on a friday afternoon that leads into a vacation weekend. Moreso when scores don't effect anything. There was a 65 question multiple choice test for physics majors on Friday. I had not a calculator, and that wasn't terribly helpful. I ended up being the second one done, in just under an hour...the first person done was done in 5 minutes because he didn't feel like bothering with it...and oh how tempting that was.
Yesterday was seeing John Williams at the Hollywood bowl with the line, and it was fun. I felt particularly classy as I'd had classical music playing on my mp3 player for much of the time. Anyway, the concert itself had a program that left a bit disappointed, because so much of the music that they had listed was not what I'd assosciate with John Williams. Close Encounters and Star Wars, mainly. Though the encores (all 4 of them) really filled out the night, as that included Yoda's theme, Indiana Jones, the main theme, and E.T.. Things that are more in association with John WIlliams, imo. Also it was rather neat to note that at the high point during the Star Wars music there were, on my count, 50-60 lightsabres in the bowl...and that wasn't our doing. This includes 4 master replicas (yes, i can identify those across a crowded bowl) and 2 guys that went running around the bowl with lightsabres. It had a lot more life to it...not disruptive...just, you could tell that it was music that really had an effect on people.
And this brings things up to today, where I am still weighing whether or not its worth bothering to get dinner. Cuz its too much of a hassle and too much money. Apathy, laziness, and cheapness...i got it all...lol. But yeah, this is what happens when I'm one who eats, predominantly, just on social occasions.
On top of international aid, more states are helping by taking in refugees, though Texas still is doing the brunt of the work with a quarter of a million of them. While some are the bordering states, like Texas, Tenessee, and Georgia, others are as far away as Utah, Michigan, and New York. Its an impressive effort thats been covered in an article from the AP put up at Yahoo!.
A frightening thought though is that some black members of Congress are calling the term "refugee" racist, as discussed by Michelle Malkin. To make this claim is absolutly rediculous. Firstly, theres not a race connotation, secondly, how is the WORD racist? At best, the use of it is, but to say someone is a refugee isn't racist because the word doesn't have any sort of racial connotation or denotation. In what world does Refugee=black? Second, as Malkin points out, its been used for many hurricanes. The race card is being played so much during this hurricane I'm wondering now if theres ANY other cards in the deck anymore.
An uplifting note, sort of, is that some still in New Orleans are forming groups to subsist while things get sorted out, primarily in the areas that are above water. They're groups that have formed to take care of each other and survive, rather than just giving into looting and violence. One of the groups was described: "The tribe, whose members included a doctor, a merchant and a store clerk, improvised survival tactics." A little civilisation in an uncivilised city.
Now then, on the "what the heck I've been up to" front...
A general rule to keep in mind is that one should never try to have a group of students take a test on a friday afternoon that leads into a vacation weekend. Moreso when scores don't effect anything. There was a 65 question multiple choice test for physics majors on Friday. I had not a calculator, and that wasn't terribly helpful. I ended up being the second one done, in just under an hour...the first person done was done in 5 minutes because he didn't feel like bothering with it...and oh how tempting that was.
Yesterday was seeing John Williams at the Hollywood bowl with the line, and it was fun. I felt particularly classy as I'd had classical music playing on my mp3 player for much of the time. Anyway, the concert itself had a program that left a bit disappointed, because so much of the music that they had listed was not what I'd assosciate with John Williams. Close Encounters and Star Wars, mainly. Though the encores (all 4 of them) really filled out the night, as that included Yoda's theme, Indiana Jones, the main theme, and E.T.. Things that are more in association with John WIlliams, imo. Also it was rather neat to note that at the high point during the Star Wars music there were, on my count, 50-60 lightsabres in the bowl...and that wasn't our doing. This includes 4 master replicas (yes, i can identify those across a crowded bowl) and 2 guys that went running around the bowl with lightsabres. It had a lot more life to it...not disruptive...just, you could tell that it was music that really had an effect on people.
And this brings things up to today, where I am still weighing whether or not its worth bothering to get dinner. Cuz its too much of a hassle and too much money. Apathy, laziness, and cheapness...i got it all...lol. But yeah, this is what happens when I'm one who eats, predominantly, just on social occasions.
