Monday, December 13, 2010

A Geek's life list - Part 1 Books

I've been thinking for a while now about what I would put together into the ultimate GEEK GOSPEL. I'm developing this list and will put them in order of what I feel to be importance to our culture with their historical, philisophical, and scientific worth. I have to start with the following:

The Older Testament
  1. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
  2. From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne
  3. Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne
  4. Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
  5. Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
  6. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
  7. The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
  8. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
  9. The Oz cycle by L. Frank Baum
The Newer Testament
  1. Dune, Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune by Frank Herbert; Science Fiction, most influential novel since 1950 by a long shot. Original. Highly philosophical.
  2. Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit by John Ronald Reul Tolkien; Fantasy, Old myths put into a magical setting. (See Star Wars)
  3. 2001, 2010, 2061, and 3001 by Arthur C. Clarke; Hard Science Fiction, referenced by all, almost only known by geeks.
  4. Rendezvous with Rama, Rama II, Rama Revealed by Arthur C. Clarke; Hard Science Fiction, original
  5. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov; Warning of AI, Potential looming threat
  6. Ringworld by Larry Niven; Hard Science Fiction, Exploration
  7. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams; The best of Science Fiction-Comedy
  8. 1984 by George Orwell; Dystopia. Historical yet modern.
  9. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis; Fantasy, one of the best examples of a developing genre in its early stages.
  10. A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Water, An Acceptable Time by Madeline L'Engle.; Fantasy, Close to Home and original
  11. Animal Farm by George Orwell; Dystopia, Fantasy
  12. Star Wars by George Lucas; Space Opera, Mythological themes in a futuristic setting.
I understand that a lot of this has to do with preference and that I am forgetting a LOT. It is only supposed to be examples of the best of the different types of Science Fiction. I am certain the first seven of the New Testament won't be moved much and can be agreed upon by all geeks.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

A walk on the Wikipedia

Article 1 is going to be from the Random Article button, This will be 77 steps.
1. CMYK Color Model, 2. Color Printing, 3. Jacob Christoph de Blon, 4. Category:1667 Births, 5. Anna Maria Luisa d'Medici, 6. State of Presidi, 7. Napoleon I, 8. Acre, Israel, 9. Galilee, 10. Kabbalah, 11. Zohar, 12. Four worlds, 13. Ein Sof, 14. Creation myth, 15. Rationality, 16. Feminism, 17. Equal Rights Amendment, 18. United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, 19. Torture, 20. Uzbekistan, 21. Moldova, 22. Romanian language, 23. Spain, 24. Guerilla warfare, 25. Sudan, 26. Jihad, 27. Crusades, 28. Catholic Church, 29. Ronald Reagan, 30. Grenada, 31. Canada, 32. Viking, 33. Nazi Germany, 34. Stalin, 35. Red Army Invasion of Georgia, 36. Tbilisi, 37. Football (soccer), 38. South Africa, 39. Same-sex Marriage, 40. Recognition of Same-Sex Marriages in Mexico, 41. Coahuila, 42. Republic of Texas, 43. Texas Dollar, 44. Numismatics, 45. American Numismatic Association, 46. Seattle, 47. Grunge, 48. Micheal Jackson, 49. Vitiligo, 50. Albinism, 51. Dominance (genetics), 52. Central Nervous System, 53. List of Infections of the central nervous system, 54. Rabies, 55. Louis Pastuer, 56. Pasteur Institute, 57. Bacteriophage, 58. Biotechnology, 59. Bioengineering, 60. Artificial Limb, 61. Circulatory diseases, 62. Cardiovascular disease, 63. Biomarkers, 64. Heart disease, 65.  Heart, 66. Iron, 67. Transition Metal, 68. Nickel, 69. Rechargeable Batteries, 70. Flywheel Energy Storage, 71. Conservation of Energy, 72. Galileo Galilei, 73. Jupiter, 74. Europa (moon), 75. Extraterrestrial Life, 76. First Contact (science fiction), 77. The Time Machine,


Everything is Connected.

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Really great website.

I was at a friend's house today and met his brother. He has a website called http://sharlowtech.webs.com/ that is really, really cool. He is a programmer and makes some excellent games he has developed. He is currently working on a project to allow people to make their own games and is remaking Doom 2.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

The Joy of Languages

I am taking German at my local community college. I have enjoyed it immensely. I am listening to a German podcast as I write this, and have noticed things about learning a foreign language.
1. It increases the knowledge of how your own language works grammatically which makes you a better speaker.
2. It is fun. It allows you to speak with more people, and the joy of learning and making connections is cool.
3. It allows you to get more perspectives when you look at the news through new websites.

I plan on taking more languages throughout my life, and I will use all of them as I travel the world. Up next: French.

Monday, March 1, 2010

On XKCD 695

http://xkcd.com/695/

Next time NASA builds a billion dollar rover, they should put wipers on the solar panels so that the rover can dust itself off to increase time that it works and efficiency.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Google News

I just went on to Google News and saw there was a new layout. I looks like something I could get used to, but the problem is it doesn't organize the news into sections like the old format, which is still used for other countries and languages. If I want to view all of the articles for a particular subject, I can't do that on this new format.

I think they should keep this new format for when people want all of the most important articles from all subjects, but have a "Classic view" link at the top so we can go back to the old format which is similar to a newspaper organizing articles into different sections. Keep it, but don't scrap the old.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Canada Trip

I forgot to blog about this when it happened, so here I go. Over Thanksgiving Break I visited Vancouver, Canada to see The Vinyl Cafe by Stewart McLean on Saturday November 28.
Trip to Canada with Grandmere and Grandpere
November 26-29, 2009
Destinations:
Vancouver, Langley, Tsawassen, Canada
Point Roberts, United States of America
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
Olympia, Washington, United States of America to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
I went to school and did my two classes of the day after an hour break of walking around the school. We then started to drive up I-5 towards Canada. I had packed everything the night before with Grandmere. It was an easy drive up, quick and speedy, even through Seattle there was no delay. We went up past Bellingham, the furthest north I had been in Washington, and through the farmland to Blaine. We went to the border. We waited about 5 minutes, and went through. The farthest north I had ever been. It is White Rock, and lots of farms in the lower Fraser river valley. We went up easily, and went to our hotel in Vancouver. We went shopping at the Burrard Street mall to get some things for my grandfather. We went back to our hotel and watched a special on the geology of the Great Lakes. I went swimming in the hotel.

Thanksgiving, Thursday, 26 November 2009
Vancouver, Stanley Park, and University of British Columbia, British Columbia, Canada
We started our day with a nice breakfast at our hotel. We then went to Stanley Park where we drove around the perimeter of the park. We first stopped at the totem poles, of course, where we took pictures and got some souvenirs. We continued to drive along the perimeter of the park and took pictures of Burrard Inlet. For an inlet surrounded by city it is very pretty. We went to the northernmost part where there is the lighthouse where we read the signs on its history. We finished going around the park and then came back to our hotel where we saw an escort of police cars going past our hotel. We then went out to the University of British Columbia. It is a very big campus. We went to their museum on First Peoples. An excellent museum, smaller than but definitely as good as the Royal BC Museum. We went around the campus looking at what was happening. There was a graduation happening, so the place was very crowded. We went back into Vancouver where we had dinner on Robson Street, which has a lot of restaurants as I discovered through Google Maps. We walked there and ate a delicious dinner of lamb, and when we were coming back we looked in some shops. I stopped in a bookstore where I saw a book my science teacher has, Pocket Reference by Thomas J. Glover, which is now going to go with me when I go overseas. When we came back to the hotel I drafted a letter concerning the lack of economics in high school and the excess of PE. I went swimming in the pool.

One thing that happened was my grandfather while talking to the person at the front desk said, “Oh, you Canadians,” in a sneering voice. I was embarrassed.

Friday, 27 November 2009
Vancouver, Ladner, Tsawassen, British Columbia, Canada, and Point Roberts, Washington, United States of America
We started today by going south to Ladner, where my grandfather and I looked at a boat he was interested in. It had some problems which he didn't want to fix, so he said he wouldn't buy it. However, that boat could go around the world, is comfortable, and the cabin is about 5' 5” tall. It would have been a nice boat to work on, but he didn't want to repair something he just bought. We then went south to Point Roberts. We started by going to the Tsawassen Ferry Docks, but we realized when we were on a narrow spit of land that we were in the wrong place, so we turned around. When we were driving down, we realized that we didn't have the papers allowing me to go overseas with my grandparents. However, we decided to try it anyways, a bit risky in my opinion. We got onto the right road and drove to the 49th parallel, the longest unfortified border in the world, where we showed our passports to the American and he said he didn't know if we would be able to get back across without them, but we decided to go anyways. We went to the marina. It is a nice little place. We drove around the western shore and drove back to Canadian customs. We got through easily despite not having the papers. We were lucky the customs official understood it was a simple mistake. We ate at an excellent restaurant in Tsawassen where they served Fish and Chips. They were inexpensive, were prompt, and had excellent food. I will go there every time I am in Tsawassen. We drove back to highway 99 and back to Vancouver. We went back to our hotel and dropped our stuff off. We walked to the art museum that is a short walk away which had an exhibit on American and Canadian landscape paintings on the first floor. We saw the entire museum and then went back to our hotel where we had some drinks in the coffee shop. We spent the rest of our day in our hotel room, and I went swimming a little bit too quickly because I had some tummy trouble.

During that day there was a group of girls from Kootenay on a school field trip that arrived.

Saturday, November 28, 2009
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
We woke up and I finished my Thanksgiving dinner. We then went down to the restaurant where we had our breakfast. We went to the room, got our materials, and then drove across False Creek to the Maritime Museum where we went to see the first ship that circumnavigated North America. It was a great exhibit, I got some flag pins for me and my brother, and we then went to Granville Island. It is a very nice market, and we got lunch and some items of course. While talking to a person who worked at a stand, he said some hateful things against the president. It is okay to speak out against someone in power, I personally have some concerns with the fiscal issues. But he talked of him as if he was talking of Satan, and I was so embarrassed to be related to him that I walked to another stall. We went through Granville Island and bought some more things, and we then went to the hotel. We had our dinner in the hotel, got showered, and dressed. The theater where the Vinyl Cafe was was sold out. Stewart McLean uses his arms and voice very well, and the musicians were really good. There were three stories, one having to do with punch and alcohol, bicycles, and one other.

Sunday, November 29, 2009
We ate breakfast at the hotel. We ate breakfast at the hotel, got out of the hotel quickly, and were leaving at the same time as the girls from Kootenay. We got down to the 541 border crossing promptly and waited about 15 minutes. We got through with no problems, the customs official was nice, and we drove to a rest stop. While there I suggested that we go to Bellingham so that I could share Western with Grandmere and Grandpere. We ate a snackat a local bagel shop, which felt a lot like Bagel brothers. While in Bellingham Grandpere made snide comments about some High schoolers labeling them as Western Students. That was the last straw. We drove through the campus, but didn't stop anywhere. I will go back with Grandmere and Mom at some point, but Grandpere will not come along. The drive back to Olympia was easy, and the conversations were small. I was quiet in the back seat until we reached Tacoma where I took out my little black book. When we got home I talked to Grandpa, and put my things away before taking my math test.

I have told Grandmere and Mom how much Grandpere embarrassed me through myself, my family, of my nationality, and intelligence. This is the last time I go outside Washington with him willingly.

Remarks on destinations
Vancouver is very pretty for being such a large city. It is clean, most of the people are young, athletic, and there are few people on the corners. There are some, but not nearly as much as Los Angeles. However, there are a good number of sirens through the city from police cars because it is such a large city. About 2 blocks from our hotel there is a garden where people grow food, which gives a nice feel to the downtown area.

Stanley Park is a truly amazing park because of the foresight the people who created it had when it was created.

The Canadians of southwestern British Columbia are so excited about hosting the Olympics. This is wonderful, and the pride of their country I have seen from them is wonderful.

Point Roberts is a really nice little peninsula, it is very unique, having a fair sized amount of people and being a practical exclave of the United States while being so close to Bellingham by boat. As we were driving through Tsawassen going down I wondered why you would live there. We assumed that they probably wouldn't be working because of the long border waits on some days, so I thought that it would probably be a retirement community. It is sheltered from Tsunamis by the Gulf/San Juan Islands, and gets cool breezes being on the Strait of Georgia. It is a nice little community with a nice marina and a little park. My grandparents were thinking that it is a wonderful place to retire. After being there, the border is best left how it is because the Americans who live there live there because it is somewhat isolated yet close to large cities, and people haven't moved there who still work because you have to cross the border twice in order to get to the rest of Washington by car.

The University of British Columbia is an excellent school with a very wide variety of coursework they offer. It is one of the school I am considering going to, mainly because they have a phage lab I learned about a while back.

Other remarks

I will definately go with my grandmother on many trips in the future. She is one of four people I will travel with, the others being my father, and my other two grandparents who live in Chicago. She is fun to be with and I love her dearly. I hope the two of us can travel the world together, with no one else to darken the trip. That would be wonderful.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Music editor on Google

Google has a word editor, spreadsheet editor, presentation, and a form editor. Google should put on an editor on Google Docs that allows musicians to write music as they would on Sibelius. This can't be copyrighted because there are many score editors. This would make it really convenient to musicians so they can access their music anywhere in the world. Also, look at my first post labeled Google to see another idea for music.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

42 on Blogspot.

On Google, 42 has only 1,990,000,000 at the writing of this post compared to 41's 2,020,000,000. Why? 42 is the answer. Only bloggers have the power to change this, and if Randall Munroe of xkcd is reading this, you can reach a much wider audience, it is in your power to change this.
Number
Results on Google
1
17,750,000,000
2
14,340,000,000
3
12,370,000,000
4
10,780,000,000
5
10,400,000,000
6
8,670,000,000
7
8,010,000,000
8
7,740,000,000
9
10,500,000,000
10
10,700,000,000
11
8,520,000,000
12
8,850,000,000
13
6,390,000,000
14
6,420,000,000
15
6,960,000,000
16
6,330,000,000
17
6,030,000,000
18
6,190,000,000
19
5,790,000,000
20
7,230,000,000
21
5,670,000,000
22
5,770,000,000
23
5,420,000,000
24
5,430,000,000
25
5,450,000,000
26
4,730,000,000
27
4,650,000,000
28
4,790,000,000
29
4,550,000,000
30
6,330,000,000
31
4,070,000,000
32
2,430,000,000
33
2,320,000,000
34
2,280,000,000
35
2,500,000,000
36
2,250,000,000
37
2,070,000,000
38
2,100,000,000
39
2,060,000,000
40
3,060,000,000
41
2,020,000,000
42
1,990,000,000
43
1,940,000,000
44
1,980,000,000
45
2,360,000,000
46
1,880,000,000
47
1,820,000,000
48
1,970,000,000
49
1,920,000,000
50
3,610,000,000
60
1,870,000,000
70
1,380,000,000
80
1,530,000,000
90
1,430,000,000
100
3,040,000,000,000