A New Cliché

A great song by Data Romance. One of my new favorite bands...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 19:10:06 -0700

A great song by Data Romance. One of my new favorite bands perhaps.

I Love You - Woodkid....

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 21:42:36 -0700

I Love You - Woodkid. Must…post….every…single…song…by Woodkid. So awesome, so deep.

fortheloveofemrys: fuchsimeon: neverrwhere: scienceandfandomsa...

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 00:45:52 -0700

fortheloveofemrys:

fuchsimeon:

neverrwhere:

scienceandfandomsandstuff:

When asked how it felt to be the smartest man alive Einstein’s reply was “I don’t know, you’ll have to ask Nikola Tesla.”

Good Guy Tesla

nikola goddamn tesla

A great song from a little known band…”those, were,...

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:09:28 -0700

A great song from a little known band…”those, were, the cards for me…”

We need more places like this. Those frogs were really loud.

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 00:42:00 -0700

We need more places like this. Those frogs were really loud.

Sleep Deprivation. Tumblr in a nutshell.

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 22:23:00 -0800

Sleep Deprivation. Tumblr in a nutshell.

Sometimes you need a little techno.

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 23:48:23 -0800

Sometimes you need a little techno.

Discovering Myself

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 02:44:00 -0800

Independence. I finally know what it means. For the majority of this quarter, I have had my own room, by myself. Almost every choice I make is completely my own, there is no one really telling me what to do. Sure, I have had freedom before, but I had a roommate or family living with me. The simple presence of another person in my living space made me slightly more reserved, more responsible, and less of a procrastinator. But without anyone to keep me in check, I’ve discovered how weak my character is.

I tend to cater to the needs of other people. This is generally a positive thing. Having people who want to study or do fun stuff with me makes me more likely to get my work done on time and often makes me a better person. Not having anyone—not having any tangible reason why I should clean my room, go to bed before 3am, workout, do my homework earlier, or any of those things people usually think of as good to do has really revealed to me my true character.

I am weak. I might seem like I have everything together most of the time, but that’s really just the persona of confidence that I reflexively employ. Now that I only have my own mental constraints, it’s like I’m always in break mode. I tell myself the things that I am going to do and what I should do, but I put it all off or miss out on opportunities, so that I can instead play video games and watch movies. I have been doing this most of the current winter quarter. My grades haves suffered some because of it too.

I need to say no to self-indulgence more often, such that I only indulge after most everything else is taken care of. Just last night, I spent about 12 hours playing a new game I got-from 4pm to 4am. I got 4 hours of sleep, skipped my first class, then zombied my way through the rest. I didn’t even notice a girl smile at me on my way to class until she had already passed by. My constant need for entertainment and unwillingness to do homework makes me wonder why I am even doing anything in the first place. I seem to have lost sight of my dreams and replaced them with a routine. The only reason I actually seem to work is because it’s what I’ve been doing so far.

It sounds cliché, but I need to be a better me. I need to stop making excuses and start making habits. I need to learn when I should stop doing something and come back to it later instead of obsessing and spending excessive amounts of time on stuff that is usually not at the top of my priority ladder. I need to actually do what I tell myself I am going to do even when it’s not easy, because it’s the right thing to do.

In a way, I guess this new-found freedom has allowed me to rediscover myself without being overly dependent on others. I imagine the reason why a lot of early college and high school relationships fail is because people are still figuring out who they are. The person I am right now could easily be lost in a sea of mediocrity. I need to change that. I need to do all the healthy, necessary, and, difficult tasks that arise not because these tasks are part of my daily routine, but instead because each task takes me one step closer to my dreams, and to the me that I actually want to be.

If we lose everything, all we have left is our character. Being mediocre is easy, it doesn’t require hard work or dedication. It only requires you to skate through life and be entertained. At the end of the day, though, it’s empty. I want my character to be a shining example of how any human should be. That starts with the small decisions. For example, it’s 2:30am. I need to stop writing and go to sleep. So that’s what I’ll do.

Note: If you got this far, good job. I didn’t really to intend to go anywhere in particular with this, I just needed to vent/think through the discontent I had due to my indulgent behavior.

Another fantastic time-lapse video.

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 22:20:50 -0800

Another fantastic time-lapse video.

I find myself staying up for reasons I do not know, lacking the motivation and self-confidence to...

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 01:49:00 -0800

I find myself staying up for reasons I do not know, lacking the motivation and self-confidence to act as I normally do… though none could guess from my outer behavior. If only my thoughts would follow my actions, this melancholy would never occur.

let-me-be-skinny-to-death: briegaskarth: wouldyouliketoseemymistletoe: talentedmrsean: aw3struck:...

Sun, 03 Feb 2013 21:29:46 -0800

let-me-be-skinny-to-death:

briegaskarth:

wouldyouliketoseemymistletoe:

talentedmrsean:

aw3struck:

Every person who reblogs this will get a song title and a reason to listen to it put in their ask box

every

person

i promise

Oh man this person is in over their head.

6,750 notes, and I STILL GOT ONE

47,255 and I got one! wow I wasn’t expecting that.

A wordless 9 minute short film. Sucks you in and leaves you with...

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 21:25:50 -0800

A wordless 9 minute short film. Sucks you in and leaves you with an interesting ending.

salted-seaside: o-dyssea: i really really needed to hear...

Fri, 23 Nov 2012 01:39:31 -0800

salted-seaside:

o-dyssea:

i really really needed to hear this.

amazing video.

24, by Jem on Finally Woken Little bit different than my usual....

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 16:13:00 -0700

24, by Jem on Finally Woken

Little bit different than my usual. Good though.

Lindsey Stirling - Crystallize Just heard this song. Apparently...

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 16:50:00 -0700

Lindsey Stirling - Crystallize

Just heard this song. Apparently it’s extremely popular or something. Well, it’s new to me, and I find it to be rather awesome. There are also videos on youtube if you would like to see her dancing around and playing the violin (which is interesting).

Time lapse of the space shuttle Endeavour’s move across...

Sun, 28 Oct 2012 16:38:07 -0700

Time lapse of the space shuttle Endeavour’s move across the streets of LA. Take a look.

Keeper of the Wind by Eleni Hassabis. Good stuff.

Sun, 28 Oct 2012 16:34:00 -0700

Keeper of the Wind by Eleni Hassabis.

Good stuff.

Run Boy Run by Woodkid. It came before Iron, but I just now...

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 22:11:54 -0700

Run Boy Run by Woodkid. It came before Iron, but I just now discovered it. Suffice to say, it also happens to be awesome.

Alchemy Time

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 02:28:00 -0700

So I’ve been planning to get around to doing this for a while, and now I’m finally doing it. I’m making gold pennies. “Sorcery!”, “slightly illegal”, or “kind of lame..” you might say..Well, it is all of these things and more. Regardless, I had some amount of fun making/modifying the pennies, and it’s nice to be making something more tangible and long-lasting for a change, so I might as well detail what I did.

This is a video I took of the process. It shows basically what I had to do to make the pennies. Each time I did the whole thing, it took me about 30 minutes to an hour to finish up. I’m sure if I knew exactly what I was doing it would have taken less time.

The basics of the experiment are in the ingredients, which are:

1 copper coated penny (or more)

3 Molar NaOH (sodium hydroxide) solution (120 grams of NaOH in 1 L of water for 1L of 3M solution)

Zinc Dust/powder (metal should also work, but it would probably take longer) (use 0.5 grams of zinc for every 15 mL of 3M NaOH solution)

Heat (stoves, bunsen burners, hotplates, they can all do it)

If you search on google, there are plenty of websites that give instructions on how to do the whole thing. That’s actually how I figured out how to do it myself. There is more than one way to do it, I just went with the method that seemed to be the easiest for me to do. The hardest part of the experiment is really getting the materials together. After that, it goes pretty quickly, and just involves some basic measurements.

I’m not really sure why the 3 Molar solution might be ideal, and I probably had a much stronger sodium hydroxide (NaOH) solution my first time around, but I did notice that my pennies generally came out a little bit cleaner when I stuck to the 3M solution instead of overdoing it (which actually made things go quite fast). Just know that if you do end up leaving pennies in the NaOH too long, it is very likely that it could corrode those pennies. So when you put stuff in there, try to get it done quickly. Doing a lot of pennies at once is difficult for this reason.

However, I noticed that when I did one penny at a time in the solution, that the later ones took much longer or did not become completely covered in zinc. The most likely explanation for this is that the NaOH and Zinc (Zn) have almost fully reacted by the time the second or third penny goes in, and thus the galvanization process screeches to a halt. Likely the limiting reactant has fully reacted at that point. I’m thinking the NaOH is the limiting reactant, but I could be wrong, and when the process stopped, I actually just poured in more of both. The lesson you should take from this is that you should do all the pennies you can in one batch. Just make sure those pennies are not touching and that you can flip them over quickly. Conversely, if it’s your first time doing it, just start out with one or two pennies until you feel comfortable with the process.

After making your 3M NaOH solution, put the zinc dust in. Heat it all up until it starts bubbling, then lower the heat. We don’t need it to boil (though it will be close), we just need the heat to be high enough to get the reaction going. Once it starts bubbling, toss your penny in. Wait a minute or two and then check and flip the penny. If it looks to be completely silver, then go ahead and take it out. When you take out the penny, be sure to cool it down immediately and wash it off. It’s pretty hard to get zinc off of stuff once it dries without a good acid.

The hardest part should now be finished. Naturally, it’ll take a few tries for one to get things down perfectly, but you should have most of it down. Just make sure before you start cooking that you use clean pennies. You may get strange/unwanted results if your pennies are dirty or corroded before you galvanize them. If you have some dirty pennies, you can try cleaning them with vinegar and salt for 5 minutes (I did this to get a lot of my pennies shiny again). Once again, the penny cleaning tutorials can be found on google if you really have no idea what to do.

Some people say that you should only use the pre-1983 pennies because those were made completely of copper and will allow the zinc to fuse better. After 1982, the mint changed, and the majority of pennies were made out of zinc with a copper coating. It is possible that the older pennies may work better for you, but I have tried the whole process on both the old and new pennies and noticed very few differences. If anything, the newer pennies look much shinier, and the old ones look a little more dull. The old ones also seem to take a little longer to fully galvanize/gain their silver coating. It is entirely possible that they will last longer though. We’ll see. I have a bunch of silver pennies that I can compare now.

After you have your silver pennies, if you decide to do so, you can change them into gold. This gold is actually brass; an alloy of zinc and copper, but it still looks pretty cool. All you have to do for this part is put your penny in a fire or place it upon a hotplate for a little while. Just make sure you don’t overdo it, otherwise the penny will melt. As soon as you see the penny turn brown or gold, it should be almost done. I usually wait until just about the entire penny is completely gold, and then I immediately cool it in room temperature water.

And that’s all there is to it. Enjoy.

freaksandbeats: Iron by Woodkid The name Yoann Lemoine might...

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 16:30:52 -0700

freaksandbeats:

Iron by Woodkid

The name Yoann Lemoine might not ring a bell, but this French director and musician has directed music videos for Katy Perry, The Mystery Jets, and Lana Del Rey. In 2011, Lemoine released his Iron EP as Woodkid. Check out this stunning video starring Agyness Deyn.

I have posted this song by itself before, but honestly, the video itself is work of art just as much as the music. Check out this other video for what I think is another fantastic use of the song.