I Am. When?

Thanksgiving

nospam@example.com (Andrew Maxim) — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 08:30:00 -0800

Compared to the other nations of the Earth, the United States of America is a young and inexperienced country; while the land has seen its fair share of much older nations rise up on its soil, the country itself is still in its youth. Despite our young age, this is a great nation full of know-how, ingenuity and purpose.

Throughout the history of this nation there are two phrases, historical quotes if you will, that exemplify this drive, determination, and ability to overcome obstacles. The first occurred on July 20, 1969 at 4:18pm EDT when Neil Armstrong announced to the world, "The Eagle has landed." The second occurring each and every Thanksgiving morning as a country proudly declares, "The Turkey is in the oven."

Happy Thanksgiving.

The Tattoo

nospam@example.com (Andrew Maxim) — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 12:50:47 -0700

Before I get into the whys and hows of getting my tattoo, let me start off by saying that if you live in the Tampa Bay area, or can get here, and are thinking about a custom tattoo, go see JD (John Dixon) at Psychotic Ink in St Petersburg, FL. JD has a relaxed, laid-back attitude, is a great artist and does phenomenal work. He is one of those rare people that are truly "about the work."

Now onto the story…

About 20 years ago, I had decided to get a tattoo. I just wanted one for no better reason than "because." At the time, I drew up a custom piece that was centered around my joining the Navy as a Nuclear Electronics Technician. The drawing was a skeleton of an American Bald Eagle perched on a typical "Navy" anchor ("USN Nuke" written on it) with a mushroom cloud in the background. I had planned on getting the tattoo on the left side of my chest; however, for reasons I won't get into, I never got the tattoo.

A few years later, while I was stationed in Virginia Beach and still had the tattoo itch, I scheduled an appointment six months out with a tattoo artist up in northern Virginia. The tattoo was to be the album cover of Glenn Danzig's Black Aria (art by Michael Wm. Kaluta). This was at a time before MW Kaluta had decided to extend the drawing from the album cover to include the full wings, etc. and when tattoo guns were no where near what they are today. As a result, there were very few tattoo artists who could handle the size and detail I wanted (plus finishing the "missing parts" of the drawing), which was probably why the one I found was booked out six months in advance. Once again, this tattoo was going to be on the left side of my chest. Well, as luck would have it, come the time of my appointment I got stuck on duty all weekend and had to cancel.

Flash forward to the year 2010 and someplace in the back of my mind is still the itch for a tattoo. I still like the Black Aria cover; it is a terrific art and I love the good versus evil concept. But it has been done many-times-many times and I needed something original, something unique to me. Age and wisdom also have told me that the human body changes on a fairly consistent basis, so the location of the tattoo (whatever it was) should be someplace where those physical changes would be at a minimum (see the Blob's tattoo in the Wolverine movie for an example of what I am talking about).

While the tattoo itch was still someplace festering in my mind, it was something I hadn't really thought about in nearly 15 years time, so I felt inspired when the idea to get my tattoo struck me. "Andrew," my mind said, "take off that bra and panties, someone is coming." Wait. Sorry. Wrong conversation.

"Andrew," my mind said, "you are obsessed with gravity. You should get a tattoo on your back having to do with gravity, and what better representation of gravity than a Black Hole."

"Really?" I replied.

"Of course. Chicks will dig it!"

I had to admit my mind was correct. I am obsessed with gravity. Mostly about it being broken or rather that the formulas that represent gravity are broken. My mind was also correct in its assumption that it would be cool, so I set to working out the concept for this tattoo.

The concept for the art came to me pretty quickly (apparently, my mind had been hard at work on it for a long time while I was off doing other stuff): the personification of a Black Hole (or avatar), similar to the gods of old representing the human form of a phenomenon. Apollo is the god of the sun and, thus, represents what the sun would look like in human form. Hades is the god of the underworld and, thus, represents what the underworld would look like in human form. Wil Wheaton is the god of gamer geeks and, thus, represents what the gamer geek would look like in celebrity form (I know Vin Diesel is a gamer as well, but he does not look like a gamer geek in celebrity form, more like what gamer geeks look like in fantasy form, i.e. Den from Heavy Metal).

With the concept worked out, I only had one problem before I could get inked…I lost the ability to draw nearly 20 years ago (my belief is I gave it to my daughter when she was born). I had an artist in mind who I thought could handle creating my vision, but it was a student from one of my classes who I never ran into anymore and had no way of getting in touch with. I was pretty much screwed. This was a piece of art that was going to become a permanent part of my body and not something I could trust to just anyone. So onto the backburner the tattoo idea went.

A few months later, toward the end of my spring semester of classes, luck intervened and I ran across a student drawing his final exam for an art class. His work was great and so I struck up a conversation with him about doing a custom piece and the concept of my tattoo. Long story short, he agreed to draw it up, gave me his email address and asked me to send over a photo of me in the pose I was thinking of for the Black Hole avatar.

Instead of snapping off a photo, I decided to use Poser 3D and Photoshop to produce a better visual of what I was talking about. The image to the right is what I came up with and I emailed it off to the artist with an explanation. Basically, the idea is the avatar coming out of a physical Black Hole (with muscles straining against the gravitational forces) to devour a star. Pretty neat, right? My computer graphic kind of sucked, but it was just to visualize the concept and show the pose I had in my mind.

While I waited for a reply from the artist, I set to work on researching tattoos, inks, and tattoo artists. I read up on the composition of inks (allergies), care for tattoos, and began looking for an artist who did good gray-wash tattoos (using only black ink) in the local area. I spoke with everyone I knew who had gotten tattoos in the area and looked at the portfolios for each of the artists who did the work. Again, this was going to be a permanent part of my body so I mentally critiqued the hell out of everything and everyone.

Time passed and I never heard back from the young artist I had met at school. Luck again intervened though as the tattoo artist my ex-wife (and still friend), Suzi, and her boyfriend, Carl (who is covered with tattoos), recommended was supposed to be a terrific artist. They both said that if I give him the concept and told him to put his own spin on it, it would be great. I was very impressed with the work of his I saw and setup an appointment to discuss the idea. Shortly thereafter, I had an appointment to get inked with JD at Psychotic Ink.

On the day of part one of the tattoo, my best friend (and fellow Pirate), Liz, and girlfriend, Catherine, both came to watch the festivities. I am still of the opinion that they both came to see me in pain and were hoping for a good show of blood spurting and cries of agony. I disappointed on both fronts. Liz did bring her digital camera along so I have the following pictures to present (everyone say "Thank you, Liz").

From left to right: (1) This is the finished outline for the body and the "scratches" JD made to record where he would detail later. (2) A bunch of the body filled in just before a break. (3) An up close shot while on break. Getting pretty red, eh?

(4) JD at work. (5) Almost done with the first portion. A little blood up in the star. (6) The first portion finished. Looks awesome, right?!?! Check out how red it is and the little blood specks.

I went alone for the second part of the tattoo, mostly because it was in the middle of a work day, but also because I think Liz and Catherine got too much enjoyment from my pain. As a result, there are no pictures of the second portion being completed. I will say this though, aside from the outline of the formula lettering, JD free-handed the entire second half of the tattoo. In case you can not tell from the pictures above, he also free-handed all the detail for the body of the avatar and star.

In answer to the question that everyone asks, "Not bad and like a son of a bitch." The question, of course, is "Did the tattoo hurt?" The first portion wasn't bad at all, except for the outline of the hand that crossed over the edge of my shoulder blade. The second portion made me want to cry like a hungry-hungry baby, particularly where the tattoo goes onto my side.

There was one time during this whole ordeal that I did cry out like a little girl and that was when I had Catherine put a liquid compress on the first portion of the tattoo the night after it was done. The compress was freezing cold and I am man enough to admit that I screamed; to which she apparently received great enjoyment as I was greeted with the sound of giggling.

Anyway, that is the story of me getting my tattoo. I will add that the tattoo is on the left hand side of my back, instead of centered for two reasons: (1) I thought the bony spine would hurt too much (it didn't hurt bad at all) and (2) I needed room to put the correct formula for gravity once I create it. And that is my story.

Oh, here's the picture of the tattoo two days after it was finished (still a little red). I am incredibly happy with how it turned out and the work JD did. It really is much better than I could have hoped for and captures my vision perfectly. Thank you for enduring the pain with me. Enjoy.

Calendar ver 2.1.4

nospam@example.com (Andrew Maxim) — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 10:03:30 -0700

I have posted an updated version of the Proverbs PHP Web Event Calendar which is available for download from the Proverbs Calendar link in the menu bar. This update includes a few minor changes, most notably forcing IE7 or IE8 in Compatibility View to use the non-css calendar displays (because IE7 is horrid with CSS).

The update also includes a Polish language file provided by Matthew (Thank you for the file Matthew).

Getting Into Graduate School - Part III

nospam@example.com (Andrew Maxim) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 13:55:00 -0800

Maximizing Your Bachelor Degree

This last, and long overdue, part on getting into a good graduate level program covers the seldom mentioned criteria that many (most? all?) schools use when selecting candidates for entry: the value of your bachelor degree. The obvious side of this would be knowing that some schools are considered better than others, but that knowledge doesn't do you much good unless you plan on transferring to one of those "better" schools. Instead, we will focus on the courses that make up your degree.

Take a minute and dig out the requirements to earn your degree at your current school. It should consist of a bunch of required courses, a few courses you can pick and choose from, and "other" courses. These other courses could be anything from courses to meet the minimum credit requirements, to liberal art courses (such as needing 3 communications credits that could come from a variety of places), to specialized focus courses for your given degree. Hold onto that list. Open a new web browser and go to the undergraduate program for your major at one of the colleges on your graduate school list. For instance, if you are currently attending Brown with a major in Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon is probably on your list of graduate schools, so head over to the CMU Computer Science undergraduate website.

Once you have found your way to the undergraduate program website, see if you can find the degree requirements for your chosen major. Every college website I have been on has those requirements posted someplace, usually as a PDF file. Found it? Now compare the degree requirements from your current school to those of that prospective school. More than likely, unless they are both state universities within the same state, you will see several differences between the degree requirements. Your school might require one semester of Chemistry, while the other school requires two; or maybe your school allows you to choose between three advanced programming topics such as Compiler Design, Database Management Systems, and Operating Systems, while the other school requires Operating Systems. These differences are actually pretty damn important in the aspect of graduate school acceptance.

One of the things selection committees ask themselves when they are selecting candidates is the simple question, "Would our school have conferred a bachelor degree to this candidate?" It is a very simple question that equates to whether or not you meet the course requirement for their undergraduate program, and if not, how far off are you. Basically, the reason for this course requirement evaluation is that if you are "not ready" to be conferred a degree from their undergraduate program, how could you be ready for their graduate program? How can you jump into a Microwave Engineering class at the graduate level, when you haven't even taken a Signal Theory course at the undergraduate level?

Hopefully you have guessed by now that this is the last area where you can improve your odds of being accepted into the graduate school of your choice. It will take a little work on your part, but that acceptance letter and accompanying fellowship is worth the couple hours that it will take you to start comparing all of the graduate schools on your list to your current degree requirements. A spreadsheet program is good for this, find the undergraduate degree requirements for your major from each of the graduate schools on your list and start recording the absolutely required courses and the ones you have several choices from. Compare each of these schools to your current degree requirements: where there is overlap you are good, where there are differences you need to do some work.

This is where your optional courses come in handy. Using one of the above examples, if your school says you need at least one course from the following: Compiler Design, Database Management Systems, and Operating Systems; and several of the schools on your list all require Operating Systems; the choice should be clear as to which course you will be taking. There will likely be a few courses from other schools that don't directly correspond by name to a course at your current school, but more than likely there really is a course that is the same. Start by reading the course description and see if you can find a match by description. Additionally, many schools have online credit transfer evaluators. These transfer evaluators can be priceless in matching up Course A from your school to Course B at another school.

When you are finished you might be able to use the spreadsheet you put together to rule out a school or two from your graduate school list. Any school that doesn't even come close to a match to your current school (and the others) should probably get struck off your list. Some schools are designed for themselves and, while they may admit you, are going to require you to take a bunch of undergraduate level courses before letting you work on your graduate degree. Avoid that problem and just strike those schools from your list.

Your ultimate goal is to wind up with an undergraduate course list that not only meets your bachelor degree program requirements but also meets or exceeds the degree requirements from all the graduate schools on your list. Meeting those degree requirements will go a long way towards getting into those graduate schools, or at the very least, not being rejected out of hand. It also shows foresight on your part, as well as a desire to learn and succeed, and that is what graduate school is all about. Good luck.

Calendar ver 2.1.3.

nospam@example.com (Andrew Maxim) — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 15:02:00 -0800

An updated version of the Proverbs PHP Web Event Calendar is now available for download from the link in the menu bar above (The one labeled Proverbs Calendar). The update includes two new language pack files (Portuguese and Hebrew), as well as a few changes to the way the language pack files are handled. Most notably, each language pack file now controls the HTML charset values for the calendar to allow each language to be displayed correctly.

Thank you to Paulo Roberto Gaefke for providing the Portuguese file and Oleg for providing the Hebrew file.

Quack Science

nospam@example.com (Andrew Maxim) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:12:00 -0800

xkcd had this great comic strip up today (shown above). Of course it got me thinking about how I have been neglecting my own pet physics notions and that I really fall into the same realm as the comic (what scientists respectfully call "quack science") with those notions. Let's face it, I do not have a degree in Chemistry or Physics (let alone a PhD), but I do have a few things going for me.

First, I have studied all the stuff I spout off about before I spout off about them. Actually, I studied advanced physics some 15+ years ago. Now, the ideas I come up with... well that is another story, but I do at the very least make sure I know what I am talking about before I talk about it.

Second, and this is actually one of the more import points, is that I outright asked for help/confirmation/criticism right when I came up with my idea in my first physics article entitled Spacetime and Quantum Mechanics. I even went so far as to sit down with the head of the physics department at a local college. It was what that physicist said that made me start my next series of posts on the subject, but we will get to that later (hint: he pissed me off).

Third, I am smarter than the average bear. Actually, my IQ is someplace well over a 100 points above average. To my surprise, there really was an "off the charts" when it came to intelligence quotients, so while I do not know my exact IQ as a result of this, I can comfortably say that I am probably smarter than any other scientist you have met. Unless you had met Tesla when he was alive and then I might have to amend my last statement. Of course Tesla practiced Quack Science, so I am good with that.

Lastly, after never getting any type of solid answer and/or feedback from any physical science type people, I have intentionally left tidbits of information out of each of my physics entries. I had hoped at least one person might bite and point out the opening I left so that I could start a discussion, but we already know no physicists (or even chemists) read my blog. It was a futile attempt, I know, but it had to be done.

So in the name of real science, let's correct a few of those wide open holes I left for the science community:

Orbitals Do Not Exist
Every Chemist, Physicist, Engineer, and (hopefully) first year college student (in previously mentioned fields at least) know that Orbitals Do Not Exist. They don't. Orbitals are graphical representations that correspond to the statistical likelihood that you will find an electron in a given area around the nucleus of an atom. They aren't real, they are statistics that say "yep, 90% of the time an electron is gonna be here if we look."

The problem is with the "if we look" part above. In order to see where an electron is (or was) you hit it with a light particle. Electrons travel very fast, so it is no longer there before you even had a chance to record the spot. Worse than that, when you hit that electron with a light particle, you transfer energy to that electron so that it is now travelling completely differently than it was previously. Basically, by looking at the electron path, you change that electron path. Oops. So scientists use orbitals because they have never been able to accurately predict the exact orbits (i.e. they have no mathematical law).

That was actually the point of this article. That there really is a mathematical formula that can accurately predict the orbit of an electron in an atom, and even model it through a graphical computer algorithm. But I lack the math background to come up with that exact formula thus far (I am working on it), so I threw everything out there that any scientist would need to know to create that model. No one has created that model because they all suck (partially joking).

The Nature Of Light
Pretty much everything I covered in my slit experiment section is dead on, except for the small part I left out to hook in a physicist: The actual wave disruption patterns created by light; i.e. the areas where overlapping light particles that cancel out, much like two waves on an ocean reaching the same point. It's kind of a big one, so I figured I would get at least one comment out of it. But no...

Anyway, the problem with this whole wave cancellation pattern thing of light is that all particles do this. Light, electrons, alpha particles, etc. Any free particle does this. The question is: why? The answer is NOT because they cancel each other out like the waves on an ocean, but rather because two particles occupying the same space are not the same thing as one particle.

Confused? Ignoring for a second the whole fusion thing, if you perform the slit experiment using hydrogen particles (not alpha particles, but actual hydrogen) and you recorded the pattern that the hydrogen hits a plate at, you would get a wave formation similar to light (and electrons and everything else). The reason is that you are looking for hydrogen atoms. When two hydrogen atoms occupy the same space, they are no longer hydrogen atoms. Instead you have one helium atom, but you weren't looking for that, you were looking for hydrogen. So you get a wave pattern on your plate, with blank areas wherever helium happened to have formed instead of the expected hydrogen. Same thing happens with light; you are looking for red laser light and instead get something else in those areas. Not cancelled; changed.

Einstein, bless his little heart, sort of understood this when he said that light can be treated as both a particle and a wave. EVERY particle can be treated as a wave, so he was dead on. But treating something like a wave and it actually being a wave are two totally different things. When you actually get down to the nitty-gritty of how light (and every other particle) behaves, you can just use that instead of wave mechanics.

This leads me to Einstein, or rather the religious zealot following of his theories in the science community. Whenever I have spoken with a physicist about my theory it inevitably winds up with the physicist saying these exact words, "because Einstein said so." Yea, that's solid science for you. Didn't work for my parents as a reason for anything, won't work for a physicist either.

Now, don't get me wrong, Einstein was brilliant and advanced physics a ton. Not as brilliant as Tesla, but that is neither here nor there. The problem is that he was wrong. The second problem is that his theories cover every possible contingency (almost) so that he can't be disproved. Thus, my own theory has to sit in limbo until he can be disproved, which set me about all the rest of these posts I have been covering. In order to prove my own theory, I have to disprove Einstein on several fronts.

Lucky for me, I do have a way of doing that. Unlucky for me, I do not have the time, money, or equipment to do that. As I mentioned once before, a modified Shapiro experiment will disprove Einstein (and most current physics theory). So here it is:

1. Put a satellite in low orbit around Jupiter (big enough gravity force that it should show the Shapiro Time Delay effect).
2. Sync the clock on it without using Einstein's theories to do so (which is what has allowed for GPS satellites to have their clocks in sync) by sending several signals and responses back and forth until you get it right.
3. When the satellite is alongside the planet (by line of sight) in that low orbit, you ping it with a radar signal.
4. Instead of an echo, the satellite waits until a specific time (synced to time on Earth as mentioned above) to respond back. That response is just the time that the satellite received the radar ping, and nothing more.

What the results should (will) be is that the signal to the satellite takes less time than the return signal, despite the distances being the same. If I am right (and I am in this case), this would disprove the whole space-time thing and allow my theory to actually be taken seriously. But, someone needs to run the experiment first, and what are the chances of that?

The nice thing is, despite my not having the resources or academic clout to get my theory out there and accepted, I know it is true (or as close to true as science can ever be). This means that someday I will get to utter those words to the physics community that I have said to every other community I have disagreed with: "I told ya so." And I am good with that (for now).