Sometimes my brain surprises even me.....

   I was standing in the shower the other day, well not really the other day, more like two years ago when my brain did something that I really did not expect. It came up with an idea for a book. I was following a thought train, as often happens when you have nothing else to do but wash, when I jumped from experimental alternative energy sources to a fabulous idea for a book. I repeated the idea over and over in my head (at least seven times, that's how long it takes me to remember stuff) and then when I finished my shower I wrote the idea down. I took me about 30 minutes of writing to get all the ideas I had down on paper. I did run into one stumbling block, I could not figure out what the motivation of my antagonist was. "Do not bother me with fiddling small details, I'm going to be a Novelist!" I thought in hubris. A day or two later, I was regretting my words. Then a few days later the motivation hit me and there was another flurry of writing. Since then I have written seventeen chapters. I think I'd like to follow the example of David Wellington's serialized publishing model, but I have some reservations on that point.
   Now, I would never dream to consider myself a writer, but isn't there an old saying that everyone has at least one book in them? It might not be a very good book, but I digress. So, after finishing a section (two or so chapters), I asked  DocMaureen to read it to see if it was any good at all, anything worth wasting a significant chunk of my time on, or was I just fooling myself. After the longest few minutes of my life (save for the time DocMaureen had to have an emergency appendectomy) I got my answer. In the spectrum of goodness mine was the equivalent of.... toilet paper. Soft, there when you need it, and useful for wiping your @$$. Not really, she was much more gentle, but that's how it sounded to my sensitive ears. She followed up with "But I've read published books that were worse than this," which made me feel a little better. I've since learned that one must develop callouses on their heart when exposing it to public scrutiny, go figure.
   Since then, more than two years have passed, and I have written many more chapters, in fact, I have just finished the book. The only problem was, that tight ending I had planned? Yeah, that didn't happen. I realized halfway through the climax chapter that there was no way I could end the book as I had originally planned. It simply wouldn't work. Then the unthinkable happened, the story told me what to write, not the other way around. I had always heard of characters in a story taking a life of their own, the writer loosing control of them, etc. I had thought that was nonsense, a form of self aggrandizement to make the pretentious feel better about themselves. I mean, I MADE them, who were they to tell me what to do? Any of you Kurt Vonnegut fans will probably see the connections to Breakfast of Champions in this inference. If I ever offended any fledgling authors out there by stating this point of view, I humbly beg your forgiveness and mark myself an @$$. Get the tar and feathers.
   So, now all I have to do is find some poor schmuck to edit it, polish it, edit it again and we'll be ready to go. Go find someone who wants to publish it, that is. I've heard this can be monumentally hard to do. Especially if it is deemed that the genre you have written in is not "the next big, hot thing". 
   Whether it is paper or electrons, I have news for all you Sci-Fi /Action /cyberpunk /Anime fans out there. Anyone want to read a new book? 

Coming up: Saliva causes cancer, film at 11....

The last time I went all number-crunchy on you, it was in response to the hyper-sensationalized media warnings of nuclear fallout from Fukushima, specifically in reference to dosage and radioactive iodine, NOAA Studies now show that radiation levels are well below the danger levels, even in fish swimming in contaminated water. Go Figure . We're going that route again, though on a slightly different subject, and now:

Everybody FREAK OUT!!! at least that's what the people in California and at NIH want you to do. They have found that a key ingredient in Coke and Pepsi causes CANCER!!  

OK, now that I have your attention, lets dissect this headline a little. I heard this little tidbit while I was dutifully watching C-Span like every responsible citizen should (OK, so I'm a nerd, you did read the title of this blog right?) and there was a meeting of the Society for the Promotion of Women in Politics or something and one of them mentioned that regular people can have power too, just look at what the people were able to do concerning the cancer causing agents in Coke!

Now, this is of no small amount of concern to me since I usually have 1 coke per day, and I savor that moment. If my favorite carbonated beverage is causing cancer, I'm going to be a little put out. So I went and checked it out. I looked at the actual NIH Study and did some number crunching (this is the math part). Given certain facts like:
A. The cancer causing agent is in the caramel coloring (its called 4-Methylimidazole or 4-MEI)
B. There are about 130 micro-grams in each can (roughly the equivalent of a single grain of salt in your salt shaker)
C. The amount of 4-MEI given to test rats is ....large
D. Using their own dose numbers (30, 55 and 115 mg/kg per day), we can calculate that the average human (5' 8", 175 lbs.) would have to consume  levels of 2.4, 4.4, and 12.3g of raw chemical, per day.
E. That amount of raw chemical is enough to color between 18,400 and 95,000 cans of coke PER DAY. 

These numbers are shown not to cause cancer in laboratory test subjects (rats and mice). It not until we reach the extremely high dosage level of 24.6g/day (190,000 cans of coke) does the evidence of cancer shows up. Now, I like Coke, but I think that it is not physically possible for one to consume 190,000 cans of coke in a day, anyone?

the Crazy Carrots

I recently received this letter from my cousin, and since i like my cousins, I thought that I would do my little part to help out. So, without editing, here is the transcription of my cousins letter:

Good morning!


   Lilah's team (Crazed Carrots) has raised 1/3 of the money needed to pay the entrance fee to the Global Destination Imagination Tournament in Knoxville, TN. Our website www.crazedcarrots.bbnow.org has been onfire the last two days with donations coming in from friends, family and blog readers. I am asking for your help in spreading the word about this website so that the momentum can continue and we can raise the entire $5,000 needed. 


Would you resend this email to your friends and family members who know Lilah or would be interested in supporting a group of children who have the opportunity to have a life-changing experience? 
Would you post our website on your Facebook account? 
Would you Tweet it to your followers? 
Would you send it to your co-workers? 
Would you post on a homeschooling yahoo group or coop site? 


    To summarize their project: The group of children (age 8-11) chose Project Outreach, a community service project. They were  to identify a need in their community and create a project to address the need. At the State Tournament, they presented their project in a skit to a panel of judges and answered questions about the work done. The Crazed Carrots identified their community as our Planet, the need was raising money to help threatened animals (specifically sea turtles, sharks and polar bears) and the project was hosting a free screening of the documentary Shark Waters, which brings awareness to the industry of shark finning, which is killing thousands of sharks each and every day. At the screening which was held at Westport's Earthplace, the children sold 60 hand designed and painted canvas bags to bring awareness to ocean pollution, sold handmade clay figurines and paintings. They presented their research in a brochure and on a presentation board. Organic apples and bananas were also sold. Over 100 hours of work was done by this amazing group of children. They raised $530.00 which was donated to Earthplace, The Mystic Aquarium and Sharkwater Productions. Their skit highlighted this is in a clever theatrical production recreating the event while educating the audience on the need to protect these animals. They won first place. 


    In Tennessee they will be competing against 1,000 other teams from around the US and world. The opening ceremony includes a parade of nations, similar to the Olympics. 20,000 people attend this week long event. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity to meet new friends, learn about different cultures, and perform their presentation to a huge audience. Please help me to get this team there. Every dollar donated will go towards the expense of the entrance fee. If someone wishes to make a tax deductable donation, checks can be sent directly to Destination Imagination with the subject Global FInals and team #107-87713. The receipt will come from Destination Imagination directly to the donor. Otherwise, non-tax deductable gifts, or donations can be made through our website: www.crazedcarrot.bbnow.org. 


Thank you! Jess and Lilah

Calluses on your Soul

  For the first time in a long time I am willingly submitting myself to the scrutiny of others and exposing my ego to damage. Today marks the day when I make my official first attempt at writing, and not the usual engineering or technical papers that I tend to be involved in. A BOOK, a novel, a long story, whatever you want to call it, I'm attempting to write one. I have kept it a little secret for the past few months because I wasn't sure if what I had was worth anything or if it would just fizzle out. Apparently it has not fizzled, I have been working in the spare time that I have, an hour or two here and there, and have come up with a plot line, seven to ten primary characters, the sketched outline for the first six or seven chapters and the primary ideas for approximately seventeen chapters. The idea came to me, as ideas do to many people, in the shower. I had been thinking about the show Heroes which was short lived and jumped the shark almost after he first season was over in addition to pondering the feasibility of a type of generator I had heard about a while ago and came up with a cool idea: What if there were bio implantable generators? Weird right? then everything started to fall out, the main character, what would happen to her, how it would happen, all the good stuff that make a story. 
  For the next couple of days every chance I got I kept writing, not on the actual chapters, but background. Character names, story flow, actual ballistics and medical condition research, genetics research, in a short time I had a binder and notebook with hand written notes, typed pages and diagrams. Its been a lot of fun so far.
  Recently I had my wife Dr. Maureen read the prologue. The verdict? Amateurish, she didn't really like the stories of that type, not extremely well written. I was crushed. The person I had counted on to give me words of encouragement had eviscerated me instead. [WHAT THE WHAT? I did no such thing. -Ed.] At first I was a little shocked but then she told me she was comparing me to actual written work, stuff that had been published. She also said that she had read stuff like this on the shelves. Keeping in mind that I'm not an author by nature and I was a bit more encouraged. I set about re-writing the prologue and I feel its better now, in fact ready for (queue drum roll) EDITING
   I knew I'd reach the point where self editing was not enough so I decided that I would need to find a person who did this for a living. I checked on line and there are plenty of places that will do it but they want you to buy some sort of editing/publishing deal usually and they mostly deal with paper publications. So I went looking for alternatives and found some. Which leads me to today. I have just sent the Prologue and three chapters out for editing. I have yet to decide how I want to release it, there are so many options. I guess it depends on whether the thing stinks like last weeks fish or not. I think, however, I will release the Prologue for all to read and comment on when as soon as it's ready. 

Familiarity breeds contempt (Or why I'm Like Julia Child)

Every now and then something happens in your life to make you realize that you are not invincible, that no matter how well you plan or how prepared you are, circumstances can arrive that can toss your well ordered life into complete disarray. Something like this happened to me a little less than three weeks ago. Now you may be wondering why someone would wait three weeks to write about an event of this magnitude, aside from the glaringly obvious reason that I don't post much. Well that was one of the results of life kicking my ass.
The day was going so well, we were at a dual birthday party for my niece and nephew and my sister-in-law was getting lunch ready (Home made chili and pulled pork, mmmm). They were finishing with the garnish for the chili which was to be scallions and shredded cheese. I offered to help with the scallions. Some of you can guess where this is going. To make a long story short, I almost cut off the tip of my finger. Standing at the sink, telling my mother quite calmly that I had cut my finger and would shortly be going to the hospital. I turned to inform my brother, who had come over to see what the problem was, that I would probably be going into shock in about 30 seconds or so. I then proceeded to nearly pass out. When the excitement calmed down a little, I regained enough presence of mind to bandage myself and have someone drive me to the hospital.
Which leads me to possibly the fastest ER visit in the history of Man. I was at the hospital, admitted, treated and released and back at the party in about 2 and a half hours. This becomes more amazing when the drive time from the house to hospital is about 20 minutes.
Now for the amazing part. People take a lot of what medicine can do today for granted, but lets take a minute and appreciate what was done. I had sliced the tip of my finger almost off with a knife sharp enough to cut through fingernails without breaking a sweat. It was literally hanging on by a few millimeters of skin. Here I am three weeks later and my finger tip is attached. My FINGER was reattached with NEEDLE and THREAD. This is really cool. To give you perspective, here are some wonderfully gruesome pictures.Fair warning, these are a little gross.

This is a nice side view where you can see all four stitches that I got. I believe that it is worth mentioning here that these stitches were done by a 4th year med student and apparently she does a wonderful job according to my GP.

As you can see a good portion of the finger nail is now gone, having been removed by the wonderful doctors at the ER after my digital block. The mess where the nail bed should be is actually caused by gause stuck to the finger. I did not know this at the time the photo was taken.

Lastly you can see here that the cut went pretty much all the way through the finger> It was only held on by the small bit of skin at the very tip of the finger. Let it be known, when people say Cutco knives are sharp, they ain't kidding around. Well, that about wraps it up for this episode of gruesome pictures, tune in next week when we'll be showcasing what happens to a toe nail when you drop a 2 pound shower head on it.

Who would have guessed?

Apparently Peter Gabriel is a closet nerd. Two weekends ago The Boss went to a Peter Gabriel concert which was good according to him. But, the best part of the concert was not the music, the best part was a plug that Mr. Gabriel put in for something that is quite near and dear to the heart of The Boss and the soul of our company. These are not his exact words, but Mr. Gabriel said:

"Have you heard about some crazy scientists over in California? Apparently they are very close to making a fusion reaction in a laboratory setting, its something called the NIF project. They use these really big lasers and hit a small pellet of fuel to create Fusion. This is a really great thing, if they can get this to work this has the potential to create un-imaginable amounts of energy and could solve many of the earths energy problems, in addition to destroying many of the earths stores of nuclear material."

While I can not confirm the last portion of the statement, I can say that this is indeed what is happening, being intimately involved with this project my self. The science, physics and physical aspects of this project are really quite interesting. The premise is to use about 200 laser beams all focused on the same target. This target contains Fuseable material (usually an isotope of hydrogen), by increasing the temperature of the sample with those lasers it is possible (in theory) to force the atoms to fuse together. So what you say? Well Fusion has a much higher energy yield than Fission which is what happens in a Nuclear Reactor. Fission works by breaking apart unstable high Atomic weight atoms, Usually U235 or U238. When these atoms split They form two new atoms, BUT the weight of these two atoms when added together does not equal the original weight of the Uranium atom. The excess weight is converted into energy. Each split makes a set amount of energy dictated mostly by the mass difference between the uranium and its fission products, about 202MeV. There is another way to generate energy using the following Nuclear binding energy curve.

Uranium is far out to the right, and when it splits you move up the curve to the left. Fusion is better, it usually starts with hydrogen far to the left, when you fuse it you get a helium atom, some neutrons and energy. When you fuse an atom, you move up the energy curve to the right. At first look, at the released energy, it would seem fission is better (220MeV per reaction vs 4.03MeV per reaction for Hydrogen fusion). But if one takes into account the energy released per unit mass, the fusion reaction is about 5 times more energetic and doesn't have all the nasty nuclear waste products at he Fission does.

So the upshot is Fusion created a lot more energy using the same amount of fuel mass with less nuclear waste products than fission. This is not to say it is without its drawbacks, but if this works we'll have a limitless amount of energy at out disposal.

Thanks to Wikipedia for the chart above.

Hook 'em while they're young

In the fall of 2010 The Wife, Child1, Child2 and I met some friends in Boston for the day. After going to a museum or two, eating lunch and checking out the Curious George store, we headed over to a certain large bookseller. There I found scientific gold, a book about the elements called...... The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe.  This is the book that I have been reading to Child1 as a bedtime story for the past 5 nights.


I am willing to bet that you are thinking: "What the hell kind of bedtime story is that?!" My answer would be, the best. Why should bedtime stories always be about a porridge stealing, chair breaking, bed sleeping blonde, or a freakishly huge red-haired hound, or some other moral teaching fiction? Can we not also include the awesomeness that it the real world? Science? Engineering? Chemistry? These things can be fascinating! Let's take a really simple example from the above book: on page 34 we encounter Sodium. Bad stuff. Blows up when you toss it in water. Further on, on page 49 we find Chlorine. Really bad stuff, the gas will sear your lungs. As the author describes it, inhaling chlorine gas is "as if someone was pointing a blowtorch at your sinuses". Nice eh?  Here is where we get to the cool bits, when you mix these two really bad elements, you can EAT THE RESULT. When presented in the proper fashion, this will blow a child's mind right out of their ears (and make you the smartest person in the world to them). I ask you, where is the down side?


All joking aside, it's a wonderful thing to teach kids at a young age to respect others, play nice, ignore skin color and other good social values, as well as reading. But why is it that people balk at trying to teach their children the other stuff like how to plant seeds, what photosynthesis is, how to use a hammer and build a birdhouse, where bacon comes from, and, yes, how televisions work and what the elements are? I really don't think a child's mind will differentiate between learning how to spell a word and learning what the chemical formula for salt is. Science and technology in all its forms should be introduced at an early age, we need more engineers, scientists and researchers . Oh sure, some people will say that they don't want their kid to be a "NERD" or a  "GEEK", but those are just petty labels made by insecure people trying to make themselves feel good. In this situation should you ask yourself would the likes of Bill Gates (Microsoft founder), Steve Jobs (iPod anyone?), Brad Bird (I loved The Incredibles) and Ken Olsen (this one you should look up) would really care what others called them in school.


Don't even get me started on lasers.....