Blog on Break!

Hello everyone! I know I haven’t posted anything in forever. Unfortunately, I’m too busy to maintain this blog being a high school senior on the verge of graduating and all. So until I graduate (May 26th) I won’t post anything to this blog. Consider it locked. I may discontinue this blog for another blog. It depends. 

Thanks to all the readers!

Update 2/2/12

Happy Groundhog day everyone!

As you could probably tell, I haven’t been posting for a while. This is because, I’m a high school senior and its second semester. In other words, I’m bogged down with stuff to do. So I’m using what little free time I have to tell all ten of my loyal readers this. Fret not! I’ll get back to posting once all this dies down. That will be all for today! Thanks for being patient with the lack of updates!

SOPA and PIPA: What you can do about it

If you’ve been on the Internet lately, you have noticed that sites like Google, the Wikia community, and Wikipedia have all been “censored”. Equestria Daily and even the blogging site I use, WordPress, have all put censors and black bars on their logos and posts. This is a web-wide protest. Its purpose: to bring attention to two bills promoted by old media companies that is now being taken into consideration by Congress. They are called SOPA and PIPA.

Now a while back I posted a little article on a bill called S.978. That bill and the two bills that are being considered now are actually quite similar. Their goal is to strengthen copyright holders and the government’s power when it comes to online content. SOPA and PIPA will allow the government to shut down any site that has copyrighted material, whether its embedded into the site or even a link in the comments section, to be taken down. The law is so broad that it is essentially the censorship that happens in China. Here’s a video by the Khan Academy explaining this in more detail:

Now, what can you, an average browser in the internet, do about these two bills? If you’re of voting age, contact your representative. You can sign a petition like the one Google has going on their site. If you’re outside the US or not of voting age, spread the news to those who are. These bills are just the beginning. Let’s stop this before something worse comes along.

What’s That About a Goat?

Haven’t had one of these in a while!

Mollusk Blood Could Cure Cancer

Researchers have recently found that an unusually large protein in the limpet’s hemolymph can invoke a strong immune response in humans. Substances similar to KLH, the protien in question, have been made. However, they carry unpleasant side effects. KLH on the other hand is non-toxic. If one were to put markers for a certain cancer on this protein, the body may grow immune to that specific protein, and therefore grow immune to that cancer. There are other applications with this as well. One can put chemicals found in drugs on this protein and create a treatment for drug users. Right now, the protien is too big and complicated to synthesize. So the only way to get is from the animal itself. This unfortunately kills the animal in the extraction process. Hopefully, there will be a new extraction process or a new way to synthesize proteins of this caliber in the future.

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 34,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 13 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Carbon Nanotubes to the Rescue!

Carbon nanotubes are a relatively new development in the field of nanotechnology. These amazing little cylinders open up a new world of material science and electronics! Here are some of the various uses for this technology could open up to us!

Smaller, faster electronics

We all know that electronics and their components are getting smaller. On top of that we require them to be faster and more efficient as well. Right now, copper and other metals can carry a decent amount of energy to get the job done. However, they can only transfer so much. Carbon nanotubes are capable of transferring up to 1000 times more current at a much faster rate than traditional metal components. Carbon nanotubes can also be produced much more cheaply. This will greatly benefit the electronics industry.

Stronger, more resilient materials

Carbon is a very abundant element on Earth. Much more abundant than iron or titanium. However, its not the strongest or most durable of materials. Or so we thought. The nanostructure of carbon nanotubes allow a thread of them to be much stronger and more flexible than even the strongest of metallic alloys. This will allow better bullet proof materials for law enforcement and military. This will also lead to more durable products.

Space elevator!

Yep, you read right! A space elevator can be made because of carbon nanotubes! The basic premise of a space elevator is to make an elevator to a space station that is synchronized with the rotation of the Earth. The problem is, as addressed in the last point, metal cables aren’t an option due to them being not very flexible. A cable constructed of carbon nanotubes, however, could stand the strains and tension associated with being several thousand feet long and pulled taut.

 

 

Brony Podcast

What’s up everypony! As you all know by now, I am a brony. And I love this community! Especially the content generated by this great fandom. I’ve also been listening to two podcasts as of late:

The Brony Show

Bronyville

These two have basically inspired me to start up my own podcast! However, I don’t want to be alone in recording this. So I need two things:

1. I need a way to record skype conversations on Ubuntu
2. I need a fellow brony to record with me!

If anybody wants to be a part of this, just email me misterboab@gmail.com. Please comment below if you have any good ideas on recording skype conversations!

Once this gets started, I’ll probably start up a new site for this.

UPDATE: Objective One complete! 😀 All I need is someone to podcast with!

How I became a brony

Gilded Shield, a pony that I created

Hello readers! This is my first personal post! Hope you find this story interesting!

If you had read my recent update or the fanfic post I decided to take down, you probably guessed I was a brony. Yes, I have transformed into a pony loving abomination! Haha, but really this community isn’t as bad as you think or as I thought it was. I first heard of this several months ago. I think it was in July. I was trolling around on youtube, looking for a video to watch. I refreshed my sub box for the 5th time when a new video from rocketboom showed up:

I clicked the video with nothing else to do. When I finished watching the video, I thought that the whole pony thing was strange. I exited out the tab and forgot about it and the entire fandom for a couple weeks.

The next time I heard of bronies was on memebase. I was reading ragecomics when I noticed the new little tab on the menu bar of the site:

I had, as I mentioned previously, completely forgotten about the bizarre community. So I went back to youtube, remebering seeing a video on bronies. I watched the video again and was curious. MLP had become so popular it has its own page on Memebase? So I decided to give it a try. I went on youtube and searched for the first episode.

Here it is if you want to watch:

I watched it and was intrigued. The first episode had ended in a cliffhanger, and honestly, I wondered what happened next so I watched part 2.

I thought about it and I decided that it was actually pretty good. The characters were interesting and the story was engaging. I decided, “Hey, I already watched 2 episodes, might as well watch the third.” So I watched the third episode. Then the fourth. Then the fifth. Before I realized it, I had watched the entire first season in one night! I was addicted! Before I knew it, I was looking at fan art, listening to podcasts, and reading fanfictions. I had become a brony.

I realized that I, a seventeen year old male high school senior, was watching a show directed at girls ten years younger than me. I kind of fell into a little breakdown, believing myself to be wierd and wrong. I thought that when people were to find out, they would shun and insult the crap out of me. Then I saw this video:

This was an okay thing to be in to. So I continued to be part of the community until this day!

Quantum Entangled Diamonds

Quantum entanglment was described by Einstien as “spooky action at a distance.” This means that when two particles are entangled, what ever happens to one particle, happens to the other instantaneously. Scientists have only been able to entangle small particles because it gets more difficult as you try to entangle larger objects. Recently, physicists at Oxford University entangled two macro-scale objects: two diamonds. They were able to accomplish this by exposing them super short, super fast pulses of light.  This synchronized the vibration of the atoms in both diamonds. The process gets very complicated from here. You can check out a more detailed description at popsci.

This development can help with quantum computers and many other quantum processes. I’m thinking using this as a communication means across vast regions of space. You can alter the states of the atoms in a diamond that will be detected by a computer and translated to code. Since this happens instantly, this would be a better option of communicating with future ships than light.