I almost forgot...

This is pretty cool...

So I was watching this and it occurred to me that the solar flare must be moving unbelievably fast so I tried to figure out roughly how fast...

The flare goes out about 1/6th of the diameter of the Sun which comes to about 144,000 miles in just about a second or so. That is about 18 times the diameter of Earth... in a second. It's close to the speed of light which is I guess what impressed me so much. Solar flares aren't purely energy either as I understand it... yes they are photons and electromagnetic energy but they trigger hydrogen explosions and cast energy as well as matter out into space all at close to the speed of light.

It just impressed me.

I DO like Starwars...

nonetheless...

This looks pretty facinating...

The concept is brilliant actually (but he doesn't get to the actual concept until the end). If this little guy can get past the two Goliaths to the end user I imagine the two Goliaths with go the way of... well... Goliath.




A couple more links to longer videos with some more explanation:
Part 1
Part 2

breakin the habit...

post title = my goal

Reality = fail

What is up

So I've been playing Starcraft 2 lately when I have spare time in the evenings (I was one of the lucky few who got selected to participate in the beta). Granted spare time is not in an abundance but what little I get to myself after other responsibilities are taken care of has of late been used to hone my skills as a SC2 player. I am ranked 32 in one of the copper leagues (each league has 100 players). This means that I am not the very worst player but then its all relative... above copper is bronze, silver, gold and platinum (filled no doubt with people who live in their parents' basements drinking cases of redbull to sustain them as they spend the work day, the evenings and the late nights working towards Starcraft grand mastery... that or 12 year old Korean kids. I'm not being ethnocentric or racist or anything; South Korea has the biggest and most fanatical fanbase for Starcraft anywhere on the planet.) Anyway that has been a nice distraction while I wait for the morning air to warm up a bit.

As soon as I start seeing consistent temps in the mid-50s when I wake up, I plan on cycling to work as much as possible. This year I am going to try out these tire liners called spin-skins made by a company called turtleskins. They make products from various high density synthetic weaves... police body armor, safety gloves, snake boots and... bike tire liners. I got so tired [pun] of getting flats halfway to work it became a mental deterrent for me so I hope these make that a rare occurrence. Well that is about all I have to write about today. I've also started working (again) on my Microsoft certification so I can update my woefully out-of-date Windows 2000 MCSE but I will cover that in a later blog... maybe after I pass the first test and actually have something to show for my study effort.

Wait for it...