Space

Space is huge. To this day, I can never bend my mind around something that big. The quantative data are all there that I accept as fact, yet I can never imagine nor visualize what a "billion galaxies" or a light year is.

Those comparisons to the miles you have to walk, or number of shoes that you'll use up to walk one light year are no use. Sure they give you some fun trivia facts, but those numbers are still too huge for my mind to comprehend (and I'm pretty sure for must humans). It's like knowing how hot 110 degrees is for a person who stayed in Canada all his or her life, but never being to the Gobi desert. Once the person reaches the desert, he'll actually understand. Telling him that it's double the temperature you're used to feeling is ludicrous.

So when I heard that at least a hundred billion galaxies in our universe, I said "so what." A hundred billions doesn't sound like a lot. The national debt is now what? Twelve trillion or some number bigger than that? Billions now all of a sudden sounds quite small.

Then I saw this post. 10,000 is a number I can comprehend. If there're 10 thousand galaxies in a speck of the sky, I can somewhat visualize what 10 billion is. That just blows my mind that we're something that insignificant. If we are truely the only living, thinking species in this universe, that's even more mindblowing.

Just think about this, the inifinite monkey theorem:

The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare.

At least ten billion galaxies in this universe, each at least with 1 trilliion stars. That's 10^22 right there and with so many stars comes the posibility of many planets, with many possibly able to hold life. If we're the only thinking species out there, I'm going to be a very, very, very appreciative man.

I really don't know what I was talking about in this post... but maybe this will clear it up:



-runiteking1

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On Man's Brain

Today, I got a haircut. The day before yesterday, my little brother got a magic kit. Years ago, I heard the phrase: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

While my hair was still being trimmed by the electric razor, my brother asked how to make the hair on the floor disappear. If I were to take a vacuum cleaner and announce to my sibling that this machine can make the hair disappear, he wouldn't think it was magic. If I were to take that same vacuum cleaner back 100 years and announce to people that this machine can make hair on the floor disappear, they would think its magic.

Ice-nine to readers my generation might be some ficitious, hilarious, ludicrous material from a fictional book written a half century ago. To the next generation, ice-nine may well be the material that Kim-Jong Il Junior controls the world with.

My little brother's current obession with the little magic kit is pretty funny. A thing such as Wii, with it advanced sensory and video processing, is not magic; two strips of curved plastic though is (it creates a simple optical illusion). I wonder what will classify as magic to his or my kids and what as technology.

Prehaps a logic system so powerful as to imitate human logic is something to be taken granted for human ingenuity, yet the simple act of making fire from two sticks is deemed as magic. Sometimes I feel that we humans have forgot much of our past to look into the future.

The other day, I heard on NPR a field of medicine called evolutionary medicine where scientists study literally the "root" of the problem. Going back million of years to see why certain traits come up (ADD apparently is a great gene back then, distractibilty helps people from being eaten by sabertooths). Bob Edwards eventually went on to discuss with Dr. WIlliam Meller about sun exposure. Dr. Mellar lamented that the scope of skin cancer has far exceeded the primal need for the sun; how sunscreen, a relatively new man-made material, has caused us to be short sighted in looking into our past.

Magic will never become reality to the people watching it being bred.

-runiteking1

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Silence

Take a look at this marvelous piece by John Cage (4'33"):



Wonderful isn't it? There's absolutely no sound in that piece. If you didn't know the piece before the video, you might have sat there intently starring at the video trying to see if he'll play a sound. The lack of a single sound has the same power as a whole orchestra playing at full throttle.

Likewise in an argument, argumentum ex silentio, argument from silence, is a very subtle but powerful technique. It causes the opposition to reconsider his or her proposition and insert the seed of doubt into their mind. Effective use is very tricky but an astute debater can put silence to work even more than sound.

“There are times when silence has the loudest voice”

- Leroy Brownlow

The best speeches have silences built in them. The writers knew that a rambling list of ideas would not capture the attention and imaginiation of the audience, rather time to let the audience digest, to applaud, to appreciate the speech is needed.

Hopefully you get my jist by now.

-runiteking1

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The Changing Times

Central-Carrol High School's marching band is amazing. There show just blew me away, it was actually a "show" and not some marching maneuvers layered on top of selected music.Their show distinctly displayed their pride, power, and precision. More than that, it displayed a level of dedication I have seen too few. In comparison we... actually, I really don't think we can compare... :-/
A quick look at their website lists several things:

• Their website is the first on the Google search page.
  
• Rehearsals on Monday and Tuesdays are 2 hours long
• Rehearsal on Thursday is 3 hours long (6-9).
• Band camp on weekends over two+ weeks.
  
• a "Quality Assurance Program":
  
  
  

  The “Quality Assurance Program” (QAP) is designed to help ensure quality performances by the Marching Pride. Students who miss a Monday or Tuesday rehearsal, whether excused or unexcused, will be required to attend QAP to make up work missed. Students having trouble with marching or music may also be assigned QAP to receive additional help. QAP is not designed as a replacement to the regular rehearsal scheduled. It is used as a program to help students with
  an absence stay caught up with the marching band. Thursday night rehearsals may not be made up in QAP (see rehearsal policy). QAP is for the occasional absence. Excessive absences will result in dismissal from the marching band. QAP may not be used to make up more than one rehearsal during that week. Participation in QAP is not a punishment. It is an opportunity to receive extra help to help ensure a successful marching band.

To tell you the truth, I'm not interested in that, it's WAY too much of a time commitment. Still, being at the top is something I dearly want. My philosophy is whatever I start, I finish; whatever I finish, I do well. From the looks of it, I think this band needs some serious and drastic change right now.

From what I've heard, the band program here has increased for some 10+ years and this is the first year for a decline. I believe that a band is pretty dependent upon the number of people in it as it gets a bigger pool of money, a bigger pool of talent, and a bigger pool of networks (that's why I envy some of the smaller schools' students, they have to put in so much more work). To my knowledge, we did absolutely no recruiting at our feeder during the two years I'm here, our director is really hedging his bet for the new middle school. This passiveness is going to have to change even if the new school is the mother lode. Mother lodes always run out, unless we can find a dad. 

Practices are what make a band, a band. The more efficient the practice time, the better the band. Recently, our band practices have gotten pretty bad. I'm pretty psyched out about the fact that Mr. G never told the "four person who still is not keeping time" a lot earlier, but rather 3 days before the competition. I mean, come on, what CAN you do in the 4 hours before the competition? Habits take time to change.

Speaking of habits, we need to set our forms right the first time (that means at band camp, and not reviewing the first 6 sets when we still hadn't even remotely go through the last song). Instead of trying to go through the whole show before band camp, my opinion is to just learn the first song plus change REALLY well. What I mean:

1. Memorization check-ups (not tests, that would be brutal, but just keep the guilt level there for not learning the music).
2. Adding the flare there the first time
3. Making the marching flawless as possible and training the weaker marchers so they can keep up.

But then how do we maximize the practice time? After all, we are kids... we have a life and we don't really want to practice. The solution (for me at least): keep us busy. The less time we have to wait around, the less we will have to start talking. Likewise, it will keep our mind a bit sharper and make time go faster as we won't be so bored...  and on top of this, keeping us busy by making us march more reinforces our positions.

Now, there are always those people who rather be at other places than marching band (like me...), how to you take care of these people? Well....:

1. Money brings joy to all people... :)
   
2. Some "trade-off" with development of playing skills that requires an equal amount of dedication. ex: make All-State (requires a lot of practice), participate in some community band that better fits your schedule but still required to attend some practice to even out the amount of time dedication etc.
3. Jazz band: give the option of being at jazz band instead of marching... helps recruiting for jazz band and gives people more choices to be in band.
4. Some form of help to the band director (paperwork, organizing for bus) , so instead of being in the office, he could be out practicing more.
   

All that goes back to the fact that we need people in band, the more, the easier on everybody.

To conclude, lets take a look at Newton's First Law:

"A particle will stay at rest or continue at a constant velocity unless acted upon by an external unbalanced net force."

On a collorary:

"A band will stay at the same level or continue unless acted upon by a force."

Right now, our band can't stay the course. Our band needs a force.

Links:

• Valdosta pictures...
• Central-Carrol band 
• ^^^Their band handbook
  

-runiteking1

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The Power of Silence

Silence is a powerful thing. Sometimes, it is more profitable for a person to be quiet, than to speak out.

When you talk to people silence can signify several things about you. You may use silence as a way to make your point, to juxtaposition your thoughts with nothingness. Or maybe you could use the silence to show that you are a deep thinker, one who analyzes before moving. Either way, not speaking speaks a powerful statement.

When one talk too much, one risk being shut off by the supposed listener. How many times have you just shut down your brain when your parents or a teacher starts jabbering about "Back in my days..."? The more someone talks, the less I'm willing to listen (unless of course the person/talk is quite interesting).


Maybe sometimes, silence is just the only way to go... take a look at this. During the woman's team gymnastic final at the Olympics, Alicia Sacramone had a few bad moments (I'm not going to toast her...) yet Andrea Joyce from NBC keeps on interrogating her in a Gitmo like style, making the already heart-broken gymnast cry. In case you missed the interview, here's the tape from NBC. Extra: Joyce is amazingly lucky... take a look at this:



(Source: deadspin.com)

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the more you talk, the more you're not going to be listened.

“Most of us know how to say nothing; few of us know when to let our silence speak louder.” C. Krosky
“Really successful people have the ability to practice effective silence.” C. Krosky

-runiteking1

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Bad day...

Today, I had a little incident happen today...

So I had band practice in the afternoons today from 3-5, meaning that I have to leave my house around 2:30 no matter what type of transportation I use (namely cars and bike). Unfortunately, I couldn't find a ride before I left today, but I rode my bike to my school yesterday, proving that I could do it in some 18 minutes.

So I had the great idea of riding my bike today - it is a good idea... just not today.

Somehow, the stars aligned wrongly/I was just stupid. It was barely raining when I left my house, a mere drizzle. I thought I could go through this rain with a water-proof jacket and pants.

After a few minutes of going, the heavens opened. It poured... not just poured, poured with such intensity unknown to men. In short, I got soaked. The problem is also that the ground was also a bit wet from a pour in the morning so when it started to rain again, the grounds started to rise. That means that every time I pass through a low point, water started to spray up ferociously. Translation: my feet and socks got amazingly wet.

And those "water-proof jacket and pants?" Turned out, they're just illusions. Both my t-shirt and pants got soaked.

And now the kicker that made my day. While riding the bike into my high school, there were a few pretty big bumps. Now, me being the smart cookie that I am, went over them as fast as I can. The first one went over okay but the second one... *sigh*. The second one got me.

My bike is quite old and one of the screws in the front wheels apparently was loose. When I went over the huge bump, I think my bolt that held the front wheel got loose and dislodged. My front wheels then logically dropped off.

I flipped... well not exactly, but you get the idea when you're going full speed and your front wheels suddenly just fell off.

And as you can see... I survived with no life-threatening scar/injury.

In some ways I love this world, in some ways, I despise this world.

-runiteking1

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The Old King

There once was a majestic king. A king of great powers and knowledge. A king of great wisdom and heart.

During his youth, he was undoubtedly one of the mightiest king of all times. He was kind and ruled fairly, doing what he should do. During the first few years of his long reign, the kingdom prospered. Towns grew into cities, technology developed, bandits vanquished, culture prospered; society grew into a paradise.

Yet as the years roll by, the king got more and more self-absorbed. He started to want more things than should be wanted. He looked across the border into the other countries of larger size and said, "I want that," fully knowing that doing so will slowly deteriorate the kingdom.

As the king put effect the policies of "want," his morals begun to drop and he started to stop doing his job. Instead of being the great and just leader he was, one who lead by example, he became lazy. All in all, he became a small hypocrite. He would tell people to cut down on food, just for his dogs to get faster so he could hunt more. He would just mindlessly stare at the ceiling, thinking of what should be done instead of doing it.

The reason? His policies are working... somewhat. The towns continue to grow and the technology still developed, but deep within his kingdom, in the hearts of the people, the heart of evil and rebellion grew. This evil existed before his selfish deeds but never materialized, but now, as the king became more unjust, this evil grew.

The king, looking at his deeds and said, "All is well, yet I want more." The king started to also be more of a pharisee. He made his servants and peoples bow to each other and acknowledge each other before talking, yet he would rudely command people to do weird and useless tasks before even acknowledging them.

Now the king was a true hypocrite, doing the exact opposite of what he says. Instead of working justly for peace and prosperity for all (which he promised), he didn't really work on anything. Even if he did work, it was for his own gain using war.

As the effects of his policies wore off, the kingdom started to slowly decay. His populations started to migrate into other, more just kingdoms. The overall morale of the kingdom started to decline and the people started to become to be more rebellious.

Eventually, the people forgot about how the king made things once great, and got sick of this king. Then the king is not a king anymore, just an old man.

-runiteking1

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The Funny Side of Anger

(I'm sort of running behind schedule here with band camp starting...)

We all know the fearsome side of anger, the car bombs, the jihads, the death. If you open up any newspaper, the "World" section will contain, mostly, horrific news. But lets look at the other side of anger, the one where we can all go "hahahaha!!! You're so stupid...."

1. Angry flier uses emergency slide to leave plane: Take a look at this story in which a man from New York gets so pissed offed at people getting off a plane before him, he, quote,

yanked open an emergency hatch and slid down the chute.

Sure, he was somewhat intoxicated, but nevertheless, it's still a good example of anger gone funny.

2. Granny bashers at supermarket: Now this is the marvelous one. Two old ladies, more accurately described by the word "granny," rammed each other in a store with their little scooters...

I mean, how stupid can this get?

Shoppers watched in amazement as the pair began trading blows and ramming each other in a furious row over money.

And how was this thing started? A little bit of anger over some money problems...

Now I would like to see that on TV.

-runiteking1

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The Murderer

How would you feel if you killed someone barely know?

And it wasn't your fault.

If you were to ask me that before I heard last weeks episode of "This American Life," I would've probably replied "Oh, I will remind myself over and over again it's not my fault, then gradually get over it."

Now I think different...

Just take a listen:






I spent some (actually, make it a lot) of time paraphrasing the podcast so if people don't want to listen to the some 20 minutes podcast, you can read it. But note that it's greatly paraphrased and doesn't have the intended effects as a human voice. You can download the podcast and listen to it here.

So Darren was driving his car along with some of his friends to play putt-putt golf. He drove on a four-lane highway with a bicyclist in front of him.

Suddenly, the bicyclist made a crisp turn into the car's lane, only 10 feet in front of the car. Of course, the car smashed into the bicyclist (which we will name Susan) at a speed of 40 mph. Darren at first thought that Susan was just injured but as the situation dawn upon him, he lost it.

Susan died the next day in the hospital without her parents seeing her, as they were on vacation.

Everybody said that Darren was not at fault. The police and witnesses all said that there were nothing that Darren could do. No charges were filed.

But Darren couldn't believe it. After all he said, "he saw it all happen... how could it turn out this way?"

After the story appeared on the paper, everybody will know about it. Darren's parents suggest that he goes out for a movie to forget about it, but Darren eventually went to a different town. He didn't want people to see him enjoying. He spent the next few days talking to no one in particular.

The next Monday or Tuesday, there was a special memorial for Susan. Darren didn't have the guts to go to it, or to school for that matter.

He finally went back to school. As he stepped into the school, one of Susan's friends gave Darren a hard, cold stare. He expected this to happen the whole day at school. Instead, there existed a silent zone around him, with his friends trying to act as if nothing has happened.

At Susan's funeral, it was one of the hardest thing for Darren to do by going through those church doors. Then he had to face Susan's parents in the backrooms. Susan's father took Darren's hand and gave the impression of "I'll be friendlier than you have anyway of expected me to behave." Susan's mother attempted a smile and asked Darren to do "whatever in life twice as well." Darren nodded.

Darren graduated around two weeks later. He left town instead of staying over the summer. He said "college offered a witness protection program... no one would know." Still, Darren made one last stop before he went away, Susan's parents house. Instead of getting the warm welcome he expected, the visit was cold.

A month into college, Susan's parents sued Darren for 1.5 million dollar. It took some 5 years of time to clear that up. At college, Darren finds peace in computational work.

If you're going at 45, and a girl cuts 10 feet in front of you, you'll her in some 700 milliseconds. It takes some 220 milliseconds to notice and identify a hazard. Then 500 milliseconds is needed to hit the brakes. He would be studying for another class, then suddenly calculate the times over again to reassure himself.

In the first semester of his freshman year, Darren took a class called "On death and dying." He thought this would help him feel better. For one of his paper, he was incouraged by the teacher to investigate the Susan side of things. 

So he made "blundering intrusions" into Susan's friends about that day. Darren learned that she remade herself a few months before the death. Then he discovered something that would change his life. While talking to one of Susan's field hockey friends, the conversation went on something like this:

Darren: ..I need to know, find things out for this class, you know.
Friend: Wasn't the diary thing weird?
Darren: What diary thing.
Friend: Oh... I assumed you knew.

Turned out that Susan wrote in her journal before the crash:

Today, I realized that I am going to die.

Darren decided that Susan had taken her own life. Why else would she turn in front of her? That's how Darren got through the twenties, even the early thirties, believing that Susan took her own life.

He never thought of the entry in another way. He never thought about the entry in a more obvious way: "Today I realize I will die... someday."

He grew a lot more introspective after the accident, as he had nothing to hide from the world. He barely told any friends that he killed someone. On dates, Darren always wonder whether to tell the women Susan's story. The few times he told the story, it's only because he knew them a while. He hated the reactions thoug. It made the women feel tender, it made them feel that he was using the story to score points.

Darren always imagine Susan's life before the accident, and her life if she had survived. It's probably his way of pretending she hadn't died. Darren thought of her every time he drove by a bicyclist, which was pretty often. Susan would show up with Darren at job interviews, "Is this an ambitious enough job for two life?" Darren thought of her everywhere.

Now, Darren is twice as old when the accident happen and he'd developed a complete different view. He sees the thing as a mathematical error; a statistic.

If Darren had die instead of Susan, he wanted Susan to forget him, not to haunt her till the twenties, the thirties... but Darren would never forget.

-runiteking1

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Doing It Yourself

If you want something done, what do you do?

Basically, you have three choices:

1. Command someone else to do it
2. Use mind powers to do it
3. Do it yourself
   

If you have the power to do number 2, just don't even bother reading the rest of the post, but if you don't... continue.

Say for example, you want to buy a book, but you have do not have an internet connection (heresy, I know) or a book store nearby. So you pick up your phone and call a friend, you tell him that you want "The Example Book: The book of cliches" and ask him to get it for you while you are away. When you get back, you drop by your friends house to find out that he didn't even bother to do it for you... you can't really blame him.

In order to do a job to your standards, YOU have to be invovled.

That means that if you want a group to build the world's largest piggy bank, you have to check-up on them every once in while to make sure that the nose is the size you want it to be, the head to be 20 meter tall and that the whole thing is made of graphene (the world's strongest material...). If you don't get invovled, it might just look like the little midget on the right...

I'm not preaching that teamwork is stupid and useless, I'm preaching that you have to get involved.

The moment you tell someone to help you do something of relatively little importance to the "someone," chances are that the "someone" will already be thinking of the next thing on his or her todo list. Most (not all) people just don't really care what you want unless it affects them. There are those select few who will labor hard for anybody, those are your truest friends.

There's a whole group of people od DIYers, the people who dedicate themselves to doing fixing up their houses themselves. Why? Because it gives them the extra control. It is this, control, that all should strive for in anything one should try to achieve. The control of one's temper, the control of one's money, the control's of one's appearance.

And how do we get this control? By doing it yourself.

-runiteking1

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