Is to have too many books to read. I currently have over 20 books that I either need/want to read, however how do I decide which ones first?
I have a Java book to read before the next quarter starts. I have the Circle trilogy, Ted DekKer, that I just started because I got it for Christmas. I have the Halo novelizations so I can understand the back story more. Searching For God Knows What is begging to be reread again, if I could only find it… Timeline by Michael Crichton has also been calling my name for a year or two. I also started Something Wicked This Way Comes a week ago. And on top of all this I have my annual New Years Harry Potter reread that I always do. This year I actually have all seven! Exciting!!
If you want my spiritual thoughts on Christmas, I say head on over to My Righteous Indignation’s blog because I don’t think anybody else could have summed it up so nicely or amazingly. Good job Denise, you rock.
I will however post my scientific findings on the Christmas Holiday. I, of course, conducted all these experiments and measurements by myself in my head because I am an Eagle Scout.
No known species of reindeer can fly, but there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not completely rule out flying reindeer which only santa has ever seen.
There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world, but since santa doesn’t (appear) to handle the muslim, hindu, jewish and buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total – 378 million according to population reference bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that’s 91.8 million homes. One presumes there’s at least one good child in each.
Santa has 31 hours of christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each christian household with good children, santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc.
This means that santa’s sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second – a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.
The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that “flying reindeer” (see point #1) could pull ten times the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload – not even counting the weight of the sleigh – to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison – this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.
353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance – this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.
In conclusion – if santa ever did deliver presents on christmas eve, he’s dead now.
The first grade will be the grade of the final, and the second will be the overall grade in the class. Video Games–B, B Honors Computer Programing–B-, A Math 2B–?, ?
Considering I didn’t study anywhere near as much for my programing course I think I did okay. Plus I got an A in the class anyway. I need to read some Java before Quarter 2. Anybody know Java really well?
I’m home and it smells like Christmas! And I have a job! For the break at least…
Ben Cave’s blog actually died. It’s not there anymore.
I know I’ve been absent in the blogosphere lately, and that is because its finals week here at UCI. Actually it’s finals week all across the nation for colleges mos likely. Anyways, I thought I’d just update and tell you guys what I’m doing. Video Games final was yesterday–It was alright. I think I got atleast a B on it. Maybe an A. Math 2B is today in a few hours–I’m a little worried but I’ve studied quite well I think. Computer Programming is tomorrow at 8 am–8 am? Really!? The suck! But it easily be my easiest final.
My schedule for next quarter is awesome. -No class on Fridays -Earliest class is at 11 am on any given day.
Bad things are that I have a class from 5-6:20. That’s not really bad but it’ll be my first afternoon class. And I also will be in two writing classes. Hmmmmm.
And I think I will leave you with this video. It’s made me laugh all the way through studying. I can actually picture Mike singing this…
When I started college I had visions of staying up late with roommates playing video games all night long. This has yet to happen. However tonight I stayed up all night writing an essay and helping others write theirs too. And I almost have to say it was almost as fun as the video game playing would be. With iming each other in the same room privately and publicly, guitar, music, and of course watching The Office from time to time. Video games are a big part of my life but sometimes simple things like writing a paper can work too.
I have quite a few loves in my life… God, Videogames, Relient K, Switchoot, The Office, Harry Potter, Zelda, Halo 3, Resident Evil, The Burn, Carly Patterson, Starcraft, Tennis, Food, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Food, Carly Patterson to name a few…
However, three(four?) of them rolled into one night was a truly amazing experience.
Those of you that missed out on this chance, woe to you.
The only thing I can think of it relating to gay in any way possible was where Gertie Kettle lived in 1050 AD and first observed Quidditch played, Queerditchmarsh. Of course they didn’t have the snitch at that point in time, actually only the Quaffle was used back then so there were only Chasers and Keepers on teams. Ms. Kettle really did not like them playing in by her house. One day the Quaffle landed in her cabbage patch, so she took it and then hexed the wizard who asked for it back. Later, elements from other broom games such as Creaothceann from Scotland and Snidget hunting were introduced into the mix to form the very exciting game we all know today as Quidditch.
So besides half of a name where the game started, which back in that time just met weird or very odd, I can’t see any reason to call it gay.
Another thing I don’t get: I earned two achievements today in Halo 3 and they refuse to show up on my profile. I only need 8, should be 6, more until I have all of them! Then my character gets a Katana!
Another thing I don’t get: My weekly computer programing homework. We just switched to java and I am thankful because scheme was getting really annoying. However, this homework I just don’t understand why I can’t do it. I did this week’s lab without a problem, but not the homework…Any help? Andrew?
