I’ve always found the following weird naming convention kinda strange and annoying:
Somewhat inspired by xkcd 
Archive for the ‘Science’ Category
Astrology (channeling XKCD)
Thursday, June 24th, 2010The Infrared Thermometer
Monday, May 17th, 2010I just got this neat gadget from ebay:
It can measure almost anything from -32 to 350c at a distance using a infrared sensor.
So far I’ve made some amazing scientific discoveries for mankind:
- The surface temperature of hands and arms varies between 33-36 c
- The perfect frying pan temperature for making veggie burgers is 220 c
- 65-70c is the optimal temperature a slice of pizza
- A sleeping ferret only has a temperature of 28c, thanks to good insulating fur
- The thermometer can be used to detect sleeping ferrets (there are lots of blankets in the living room)
- The mean temperature difference between the floor and ceiling in my apartment is 2.2c
- Driving at 80 km/h on a motorcycle a cold spring night gives your legs a surface temperature of 16 c (full riding gear).
- The paint from a can of spray paint (the kind used for cars/motorcycles) is quite cold: 0-1 c
- When using quick epoxy, the chemical reaction from mixing the base and primer makes the epoxy 35 c (in a 14 c ambient temperature).
The tapwater temperature
In an effort to prevent Stacy from using to hot water while making lemonade, I measured the temperature in 100 ml increments, showing that the water will at first have the room temperature of the kitchen, followed by the room temperature of the basement before reaching the optimal 4-5 c temperature. This took around 8 liters (or 15 seconds), but will of course vary from building to building.
Carl Sagan picture
Wednesday, May 5th, 2010I needed a picture of Carl Sagan for a project (I’ll post some info and pictures on this project soon).
Anyway, this was the best image I could find, but it’s kinda old, blurry so I fixed the colors, contrast, sharpness removed artifacts, etc.. in photoshop and I think the end result is pretty good considering my photoshop noobness. So if your looking for a large good picture of Carl Sagan (And let’s be hones, who would NOT want such a picture??) here it is:
original to the left.. shopped to the right (The improvements don’t really become visible until you view the large version)
Click to view larger
Go Cern!
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010I’ve always been a big fan of particle physics and astronomy. So when CERN fired up their massive particle accelerator to 50% today (7 TeV PER PARTICLE! which is kinda sick), that was definitely a 9.98 out of 10 on the awesome scale
Hopefully some preliminary results can be released this summer
One thing that really surprised me was the funky graphics produced:
And the fact that they use VLC, the best video playback software ever made
Darwin Day
Saturday, February 13th, 2010Also, remember today is Darwin Day!
You can also check out the live streams, check out Randi’s site for more info:
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/jref-news/870-darwin-day-broward-2010.html