I guess this is kinda like a poll? Maybe more open ended

I'm off to work, which means I have to finish some HW, do some research, and have to get ready for my teaching duties. I have to teach undergraduates an intro to astronomy lab. It's actually pretty fun (spectra)! Also, I have an appointment with an orthopedic person to look at my knee, which has been bothering me as of late. Then, in the eve I'm going to the gym, going back home to eat, paying rent (late!), and that's about it. I'll probably watch a little bit of DVD to wind down the day (Samurai Jack)...

How's your day?

-avatar!

I too, have off today but have to go through the medical checkup in the daytime. I'll go to a driving school in the morning and at night, and I'll spend all spare time in studying (science and bookkeeping).

I got home from work at 4:30am and watched some stuff I taped from the night before (Simpsons are still on TV?!) while eating breakfast. Watched the opening bell on CNBC until the DOW started dropping like a rock. Disgusted by this I figured the only thing I could do is sleep. Flash forward to 6:00pm; I get up. Since then I've been swapping off between writing game code and adding entries to VGMdb. I'll probably be up until 6:00am tomorrow doing this...

I'm mostly processing food and breathing. My boss wants me to invent a device that blocks bullets and I told him that a magnetic material that is superconducting at room temperature might be able to do it (an extrapolation of the Meissner Effect). I told him that a magnetic field can contain 200,000,000 degree F plasma, so it is reasonable to assume it could successfully deflect or stop a bullet. There are several problems with this. Notably, no one has yet discovered a material that is superconducting at room temperature and the power supply would need to be wearable; somehow integrated into the magnetic superconducting clothing. Furthermore, the Meissner Effect is only known to levitate objects, not stop them at high velocities.

I don't know that much about my boss, so I am concerned about his motives. I haven't yet asked him why he wants to stop bullets. Still, I don't see how it could hurt to tell him about the Meissner Effect.

The highlight of my day, however, is the science fiction book I'm reading. It's called Collapsium.

Work, which is too busy at the moment. Hoping my wife can hold that second child in for another week or so (I'm not mentally prepared yet). Going to play some SimCity Creator on DS and Wipeout HD later probably.

Man, you people are boring. I went drift racing in Tokyo this morning, before settling down to have some breakfast. Later tonight, I'll be heading down to a quiet American suburb to battle some creepy personal demons, and then a friend and I are gonna go investigate a derelict Japanese mansion, which I hear is overrun with ghosts. Can't forget my camera . . .

Have fun playing Silent Hill Homecoming!

-Mike

I went to work today.  Ain't life grand?

I did most of my Christmas shopping today. The band-aid metaphor works here - it's best to just rip it off quickly rather than drag it out. I also picked up RE4 Wii Edition on the cheap. I've seen my brother-in-law play bits and pieces of the GC version, but this is the first time I'll be playing it myself. Not right away though. My backlog is insane, moreso since I picked up a dozen or so titles on the cheap from my local Blockbuster's branch-closing fire sale. I'm never getting to the other side.

I'm heading down to Toys R Us to (finally) pick up Dracula X Chronicles for the psp.  It's $9.98.

I had my 1st lecture for learning how to code in Java and bumped into a friend I haven't since high school while waiting at the uni finance office.

Also called this game company to see if I can get a return sorted out and tried to forget my defeat at a recent drawing contest.

Do you guys think sometimes its best to try something and hope for the best or is defeat just too unbearable afterwards? I kind of tend to be  optimistic and always try but sometimes I really get into it too much and end up dissapointed.

Does everyone use those drawing tablets these days too?

Anyway I guess most of the afternoon will consist of playing Lost odyssey and viva pinata.

same thing we do everyday... try to take over the world...

Finishing my first VGM arrangement and hopefully submitting it to OCR sometime soon. I am slightly excited.

B: Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
P: Sure, Brain, but how are we going to find chaps our size?

B: Are you pondering what I'm pondering?
P: I think so, Brain. But I thought you liked girls!

This thread is just as applicable today as it was yesterday. In fact, the applicability for each day will be valid for a long time, until our sun goes nova.

In this instance of rotation I had a frustrating dream, one that dug into a deep disturbance. I was in a room with a tile floor and many plants. Sunlight was commanding the space with its unerringly straight lines that dust particles enjoy drifting through. The ceiling was low and a toilet was on a raised wooden platform, with spacing one could see through. I had to go, so I stepped onto the platform. I had a strange feeling that someone was watching me and a small piece of plastic landed on the end of my penis. It held fast and my bladder would not release the urine, courtesy of a malfunctioning limbic system. My fight or flee system was confused and regarded the disturbance as a very serious threat. It would not release the urine until the perceived threat disappeared. Brushing the piece of plastic off my tip, I stepped off the platform and proceeded to inspect it further. There was a person underneath. It was a friend I hadn't seen in many years. I didn't determine why he threw the piece of plastic, because I woke up at that point.

I can understand why I had the dream, because paruresis is one of the things that annoys me (my limbic system actually is damaged). My brain purposely put me in an uncomfortable position, in order to help ameliorate the problem.

Other than autopsychological repairs, I met an interesting guy at work today. He would seek out people that were facing a foreclosure and then offer them $3,000. No foreclosure would actually show up on their record and they would have $3,000 towards a new place. The guy would then live in the house without having to pay a mortgage (until he was given 48 hours notice to leave). He did that for 5 years, paying off all of his debts. I was thinking - that's smart. Of course, the houses you get may be in bad shape and you are responsible for any back taxes and further utility payments.

narf....zort....

jodo.. please... we're trying to have an intellectual-sputum-free thread...

although you might be interested to know that the Sarlac Pit Rib House* has changed its name... its now called Boba Burgers.

*actually the original name of the place was Peppino's, but its hard to incorporate an italian name into a star wars joke...  Boba Burgers is on the NE corner of Devon & Tonne in Elk Grove Village, IL

Well, truth is our Sun will not go nova, and it will definitely not go supernova either. It will however become a red giant, which will not be a good thing for life on Earth, but I wouldn't worry about that for the next couple of billion years at least.

Interesting post! I read about your "problem", and apparently many men have experienced it at some point. Very interesting... apparently some people have the same issue when it comes to going poo-poo. I wonder if this is a modern issue caused by society? That would be my guess, since I think this is primarily psychological, and I'm also guessing it comes from the fact that in today's age we rarely have much time to ourselves. Anyway, I hope your "problem" isn't too serious. I read a report which said this hasn't been studied much (which makes me think it's a fairly modern problem) and that some people have such severe anxiety that they can't urinate anywhere except in their own bathroom! Wow... when you think about that, that has to be incredibly hard in life! Fascinating...

cheers,

-avatar!

Paruresis is fairly common and it affects women as well. The other form, which hinders defecation, is called parcopresis. So far, I've met a woman with paruresis and another with parcopresis. They both told me and luckily, I was already familiar with the disorders. Most people would've regarded them as crazy. Vast numbers of men have paruresis, in varying degrees of severity. At the extreme end, people will not leave their houses. At the minimal end, it causes minor time delays in the restroom. My favorite author, Philip Jose Farmer, has paruresis. He admitted that in his autobiography. My grandpa also had it when he was in the military, but large latrines cured him of that problem - no possible privacy.

  In my opinion, it is because we have too much time to ourselves. Just think about how we sleep, for example. Often, it is alone. We are living together in large cities, yet largely have underdeveloped social skills. Social networking sites give us even more reason to be isolated, since we can communicate with people without physically going anywhere. Using the internet (or phones) to communicate is not how we've been doing things these past 100,000 years. I've read that 70% of a conversation is carried out through body language, which is lost while using phones and e-mail. The internet and phones are great for quick messages (like semaphoring was in the past), but should not be used in place of actual conversation (until holography transmission becomes indistinguishable from reality - and cheap).

  I would guess that neither paruresis nor parcopresis are modern problems, but have been enhanced by isolationism. They generally affect people with higher IQs. Since people with higher IQs tend to know more than people with lower IQs, this means they have more to worry about and are thus more susceptible to psychological problems. Having a higher than average IQ is not always a boon.

  You would be shocked if I told you how I handled paruresis. It would make for some interesting reading.

im going mountain biking again sunday, and i always slug a pot of coffee at 5am before i leave. I'm sure ill take a few leaks in the forest, maybe even a dump. I <3 my colon,,,

I didn't expect this to turn into a thread about voiding, but it is a valid answer to the question. I think the mistake was mine - I reported a dream.

   Anyway, today is a new day and I will no doubt be voiding abundantly. I hate to say this, but I have to do squats today. The kind you do in the gym, with weight on your shoulders.

Interesting. I had always thought that when a star went nova, that meant it would undergo expansion into a red giant. I didn't know it only applied to a white dwarf. Unless, of course, the definition has changed since I was a teenager, which is possible.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova

  If the term for what the sun will do is not called nova, then what is the proper term?

It depends on what stage of evolution you're talking about. For instance, after the Sun finishes fusing hydrogen to helium, it will ignite the triple-alpha process and be a full-blown red giant. However, there is no term like "red gianting" because the process to become a red giant is slow, and occurs for any star that has mass similar or greater than our Sun's. You can correctly say that a star is going nova, because nova is a particular process that occurs to a white dwarf during mass accretion. As for the final stage of our Sun's existence, it will simply become a black dwarf. This is when a white dwarf cools off until it's the same temperature as the interstellar temperature (about 2.7 K). Timescale for such an event is rather long, so don't hold your breath! Any other questions, just ask.

cheers,

-avatar!

for some reason this thread keeps reminding me of midget wrestling...

But.... don't you have to be a girl to be doing something like this?

I hate people like you.  Bet you've already got the whole dinner made and stored away too, huh?  Bah humbug.

What's the arranged piece going to be?  If it's Gyakuten Saiban 3's "Examination ~ Allegro", I'd love you most forever and ever.

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.  I always tend to put a little more in the hoping part, though.

How are those, by the way?  My new 360 is starving for some games at the moment.

Pro-tip: Bring your own roll of Charmin'.  If you must use an alternative, just don't use these.

If I'm allowed to answer that question: I didn't like Viva Pinata all that much, but then I dislike Sim games in general. It's really damn cute though, if that's your cuppa tea.

Lost Odyssey however, I would say is the best current gen JRPG, bar none.
Get it, you'll love it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple-alpha_process

  That was an extremely interesting read. I had never heard of the triple-alpha process, but it seems to have a lot to do with our existence, as Fred Hoyle pointed out. Hoyle was also a science fiction writer and he used the concept of programmable matter in one of his stories 30 years before knowledge of quantum dots became mainstream. (That's where I got my idea for a shape-shifting room.)

  So what you're saying is that our sun will:

  1. Expand into a red giant
  2. Shrink to a white dwarf
  3. Cool off to become a black dwarf

  I'm not clear on one point. Why will our white dwarf cool off, rather than go nova?

I think it's kind of ridiculous that distances have to be so great. I would like to see these other types of stars, without using a telescope.

What if you run out of toilet paper? And it doesn't really look good in a natural environment. I think the lesson we can all take from here, is to know our plants. For instance:

http://xkcd.com/443/

The real question is why would a white dwarf go nova? For it to cool is natural, since this is simply the most basic thermodynamic law. For a star  to just brighten all of a sudden requires a change in hydrostatic equilibrium. A white dwarf doesn't really change. It's very comfy, and just cools off. As for seeing stars without a telescope, you're out of luck. My only suggestion is to try and get your eyes enlarged. If you had giant eyes, like an anime character, you could see much better, but then again I think you would be blinded by light during the day. So everything comes with a price you know.

cheers,

-avatar!

I'm playing Doom 64 right now... I like the older games more but I'm having an ok time.

I'm going through the Lunar Subterraine for the first time in FFIV DS, and even at Level 80, sometimes things get a little dicey.  I've thoroughly enjoyed this game.

I also enjoy FFIV DS at work too:
watch out! enemy encounter with a Behemoth!
http://photos-b.ak.facebook.com/photos- … 7_2133.jpg

haha i'm so lame =p

I'm going to finish Collapsium before I go to bed. It has turned out to be a very crazy book, with platforms in outer space made out of neutronium, absence of inertia, wellstone swords, giant spiders with human hands, and relationship advice for immortals.

Naturally, I have another dream to report. It was the most disturbing one I've had so far.

Something was wrong with the Earth. The U.S. government announced that we all have 3 years left to live. It was a lie, an amelioration. As it turned out, we had a little less than a year. The 3 years was how long it would take for the Earth to disappear completely. What struck me as bizarre was that the police were still doing their jobs. I could see them driving about, pulling people over, etc. They even yelled at me for climbing a telephone pole (I was testing the thinning atmosphere). Something strange happened to anything with mass. It was all disappearing and the big stuff was going first.

It was kind of like the end of the movie Titanic, although on a far larger scale and much more frightening.

That made me think about what might happen if a black hole came into close proximity with the Earth.

Sounds like the Nothing to me!