I can't wait to go to the movies.

1:38:29 PM davemallingsband: i cant even get excited about seeing this upcoming The Happening movie
1:38:36 PM zwieselite: i don't even know what it is
1:38:51 PM davemallingsband: its m night shyamalan. and a happening occurs. now.
1:38:59 PM zwieselite: jesus
1:39:30 PM davemallingsband: and since its m night shyamalan its probably the inverse of what youd expect. i.e., its actually not happening
1:39:38 PM zwieselite: or its happening backwards
1:39:45 PM zwieselite: or inside a box
1:39:56 PM zwieselite: but nobody knwos they're in a box
1:40:15 PM davemallingsband: but we will know
1:40:18 PM davemallingsband: after it happens

I've used Matlab, which is the greatest program in the world, to plot the success of M. Night Shyamalan's career:

I've also rigged up a scale projecting the success of this Happening movie in terms of how radical it will be:

Here's something that fucking sucks: try getting a drop of SoBe Adrenaline Rush in your eye. Try it. I'll wait.

Yes, it fucking sucks, doesn't it? It's probably the 28 different acidic compounds in the drink that makes it so fucking suckish to get in your eye. That, in turn, makes me wonder about how healthy it is to put it into your stomach, which is pointless because I'm drinking it to combat sleep, and anything that fights sleep is inherently bad for you anyway. It's also very hard to write a presentation with SoBe in your eye, which slows me down, which makes me need more SoBe to keep awake, which increases my risk of getting more in my eye. Or worse. ... Physics is starting to piss me off.

Apparently, in contrast to one of my earlier entries, they've actually filmed a buttload of the new Batman. Furthermore, I am excited. Heath Ledger sounds like he's gotten not only The Joker, but also Jack Nicholson incorporated into his character. I'm also pumped for several of the obvious parallel scenes with the original movie, particularly the parallel between the "hit me" scene with the Batcycle (new movie) and the "hit me" scene with the Batwing (old movie).

I'm now in a race against time to churn out results for a collaboration meeting next week. My talk is scheduled. Now all I need to do is come up with content.

Ordering textbooks with Amazon:

Classical Electrodynamics Third Edition by Jackson, originally $95.95, on sale for $75.11. Estimated shipping: January 22, 2008 - January 28, 2008. Shipping method: FREE Super Saver Shipping (5 - 9 business days).

Ordering textbooks with Barnes and Noble:

Classical Electrodynamics Third Edition by Jackson, originally $74.00, with member discount $59.20. Estimated shipping: January 10, 2008. Shipping method: Free Expedited Delivery (3 business days or less).

Fuck Amazon.

Infuriatingly true.

I'd heard rumors, but I'd never seen one of these warnings until I actually bothered to skim through the legal text before installing my iPod update:

THE iPOD SOFTWARE UPDATE IS NOT INTENDED FOR USE IN THE OPERATION OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES, AIRCRAFT NAVIGATION OR COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEMS, LIFE SUPPORT MACHINES OR OTHER EQUIPMENT IN WHICH THE FAILURE OF THE iPOD SOFTWARE OR iPOD SOFTWARE UPDATE COULD LEAD TO DEATH, PERSONAL INJURY, OR SEVERE PHYSICAL OR ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE.

I think that's a statement that I wouldn't be too far off-base attaching to everything that I create, as well. Specifically homework, and internal collaboration documents. The hubris of Apple. If someone can show me a way to run an aircraft via iPod, I'll do it, because that's awesome. Because as far as I know, it only plays music and videos. Maybe it plays Howie Day to bank right, while Shakira translates to "increase speed to 200 knots." In which case, it really isn't that infeasible that my homework could also be used to navigate an airplane.

At last, we have reason to begin the debate over whether true artificial intelligence should be given human respect. I've watched far too many sci-fi movies to have a good grasp on the real issues involved in such a debate. I'd be primarily concerned with keeping the brain happy, lest it rebel and launch some sort of mechanized offensive against the species. A more practical scientist-philosopher would be concerned with taking a conscious being and forcibly altering its mental state, as that might be classified as cruel and/or inhumane. The phrasing in the article gave me a bit of the willies. All that aside, it's pretty awesome. Also flip to page 3 to see one of my rival projects.

I just had my classical mechanics midterm. This midterm was a 30 minute one-on-one oral exam, one question, on a blackboard. Here is a sample question from our earlier homework:

A mass is suspended by springs connected to the vertices of an equilateral triangle. Find the equations of motion, normal modes, etc.

Here is a random cross-section of the exam questions people had been asked before me:

A bead on a circular wire experiences a force from a point on the wire. Find the equations of motion, normal modes, etc.

A small bead is located on a circular wire rotating at a fixed angular velocity. Include gravity. Find the equations of motion, stable orbit, etc.

Here was my question:

Given a metric ds² = g_ijdxⁱdx^j, find the Lagrangian and describe the equations of motion.

The balance of questions seems to be off slightly. The answer to the problem, incidentally, is the equation for a geodesic curve through any space-time. This is handy for describing things like how light bends around the sun, and other general relativistic problems that I don't understand this is classical mechanics why am I doing crazy Einstein things on a blackboard

It's very cool, of course. Just inappropriately placed.

Is it wrong of me to think that Christian Bale should just man up, take a preventative quantity of penicillin, and get it over with? I wasn't aware that the cast hadn't begun shooting yet, and that puts me on edge. I've been ready for a Batman sequel since about halfway through the first movie.

However, the fact that Batman is apparently fucking around in China when he should be using 23rd century technology to fight inept thugs in Gotham City makes me wonder how incredibly far the plot of this movie deviates from the 1989 original. We've already established that his parents were actually killed by some bum and not Jack Nicholson. That was a hard pill to swallow, but I assume some sort of pop art interpretation is happening, the elegance of which I can't quite grasp. Things used to make sense: the Joker killed Batman's parents, so Batman drops the Joker off of a building about eight miles in height. Plot fills in somehow. It seems that for the new movie, they need a pretty different feel from the original.

This is also one of the funniest Onion articles I've seen in a while.

I'm not sure how he did this, but Carlos can go ahead and stay the fuck away from my computer:

When a hard drive starts cursing, things are grim.