Miss America

Speaker of the house Nancy thinks its a good idea to consider boycotting the open cerimony of the Olympics in Bejing.  She thinks we should see how other heads of state handle the matter.  I think it has nothing to do with you Nancy so stay out of it.  We no longer get to judge people for how they handled a situation even if they kinda dropped the ball.  We are in most of the world’s doghouse right now especially because of our recent economic shenanagans and not to mention what needs not be mentioned.  On what merrit do our elected officials get elected?  The president was a legacy and from what I can see, everyone else’s biggest assest is being a good politition.  If there were more battle-tested businessmen in government I would be esstatic.  Im pretty tried of this boy’s club government we have running things now.  America is getting old , grey and lethargic, just like our political leaders.  America is losing its aura.  But who will stand up?  Not us.  Hell, we can’t even speak up in class without being called a douche.  I miss America.

Simular business models???

The concept of “UBrew” has changed significantly since its inception of a brewery that takes a logistic advantage to the max.  Now we are shooting for more of an expirience than just a cheap.  No one in the brewing industry is doing this exact thing but there are businesses in other industries that are simular.  I can see simularities in Youtube in that the content in user generated and shared.  But if Youtube was exactly like our plan, there would be an expert that would be helping u through the filming processes.  I would also liken us to a amusment park or something like the ESPN Zone franchise for 21to50 year old middle class professionals… mostly males.  Finally, I see a little of Dell in us, in that we have the physical components and u tell us how to assemble it.

Door Game

My first run I switched 5 times and scored a little over 2050 i believe.  I figured after that try it didn’t matter what u clicked on your points would even out at the end.  The second run I switched 8 times and scored about 1980.  The game made it seem like it was a bad thing if one of the doors closed.  The kept them all alive for a while thinking that maybe the equation that generates the points would decrease it one closed.  Then I try to see if the opposite was true by letting all but one close but it didn’t seem to matter either way as I thought at first.  Then the stupid game insulted me by basically saying I’m a bad person for “keeping my options open” when that was not what I was doing at all.  Stupid game. i hate u

To my surprise

I remember it was quite a surprise to me when,  my freshman year here I heard we was a real nuclear reactor on campus.  A few days ago I learned about another amazing thing that PSU has on campus.  Antimatter, the mirror image of matter resides on this very campus.  Although its only a few nanograms, If it were to come into contact with any matter, it would level the building that holds it.  Apparently it is held in  a high power magnetic  field that suspends it .  From what I hear, the reaction between matter and antimatter gives of pure energy waaaay more efficiently than a nuclear explosion.  Thats the rumor that I heard.  From what i understand we are trying to develop a way to use antimatter in interstellar travel. Sounds fun  This makes me wonder…  Is there an AntiJames out there somewhere?  If so are we destined to explode each other? Crazy!

Upon further review… My new favorite musical intrument of all time is the Carillon as played by Cast in Bronze.  here is a youtube video of him playing tubular bells (The Exorcist theme)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0WQovCG7PE

Savart’s Wheel

My favorite expiermental musical instrument looks like it comes from medievel times.  Savart’s wheel is said to make the world’s most obnoxios, irritating noise.  What I heard was a mix of a thirsty camel playing very high jazz saxiphone and a toddler using a cheese grater on a guitar.  Dispite the sheer horror of the tone I was delightfully suprised at the range of sounds it could achieve.  Savart’s wheel, a delightfully dynamic disaster of invention. 

A sample of this fine thing can be found here:  http://www.windworld.com/feature_pages/savart.htm

Centralia

Earlier this semester one of my professors was discussing differences between generations.  She mention that my generation isn’t spontaneous but we do this thing called “planned spontaneity”.  I don’t buy I.  proven by my friend and I driving to Toronto at the last second  a few weeks back.  I don’t think our generation isn’t spontaneous, I think we just don’t go out and do random things like that… planned or not.  For my next excursion  I’m thinking of  taking over Centralia.  If you don’t know what Centralia is its a small PA town that was the victim of various coal mine fire disasters.  The total population of the town is about 9 literally.  It garnered national attention when sometime in the 60′s a boy fell into a sink hole that was 4 feet wide and 150 FEET DEEP!!   Luckily his brother saved him from certain death.  I want to go check this real life ghost town.  The US official revoked the areas zip code a few years back.  This place is off the US map. I have to see this place.  Apparently there is a time capsule that was buried there in the 60′s when the town had a bright future ahead of it.  A group of former residents are supposed to come back in 2016 to open it up but I want to find it first.   I had no idea places like this even existed in the USA.

Cost of Living/What is my time worth?

I made this table in Excel so I had some cut/paste issues but all the relevant expenses I could think of are there. I had to change my profile setup to the must brutally boring thing so I could fit everything on the screen…brutal. I had a pretty good idea of what my cost of living was because I pay most of my bills myself. I always looked passed health insurance though. It’s one of my biggest costs and there is no entrepreneur health plan that comes with the occupation so its a pretty bad thing to overlook.  The money my group made wouldn’t even come close to covering my expenses.  It’s kind of scary.

 

	Per Hour (40hr work week)	Per business day	Per week	Per month	Per Year
Housing	$ 2.14	$ 17.11	$ 85.56	$ 385.00	$ 4,620.00
Gasoline	$ 0.39	$ 3.11	$ 15.56	$ 70.00	$ 840.00
Gas Bill	$ 0.06	$ 0.44	$ 2.22	$ 10.00	$ 120.00
Electric	$ 0.11	$ 0.89	$ 4.44	$ 20.00	$ 240.00
Car insurance	$ 0.25	$ 2.00	$ 10.00	$ 45.00	$ 540.00
Medical insurance package-family pays	$ 0.07	$ 0.58	$ 2.89	$ 13.00	$ 156.00
Medical insurance package-employer pays	$ 1.44	$ 11.56	$ 57.78	$ 260.00	$ 3,120.00
Food	$ 1.11	$ 8.89	$ 44.44	$ 200.00	$ 2,400.00
Entertainment	$ 0.22	$ 1.78	$ 8.89	$ 40.00	$ 480.00
Alcoholic beverages	$ 0.28	$ 2.22	$ 11.11	$ 50.00	$ 600.00
Clothing	$ 0.11	$ 0.89	$ 4.44	$ 20.00	$ 240.00
Cell phone	$ 0.14	$ 1.11	$ 5.56	$ 25.00	$ 300.00
Cable	$ -	$ -	$ -	$ -	$ -
Alternative transportation	$ 0.08	$ 0.67	$ 3.33	$ 15.00	$ 180.00
Tuition	$ 6.53	$ 52.22	$ 261.11	$ 1,175.00	$14,100.00
Total	$ 12.93	$103.47	$ 517.33	$ 2,328.00	$27,936.00
How much my time is worth	$ 16.81	$134.51	$ 672.53	$ 3,026.40	$36,316.80

This is my awesome rock setup!…more later

Death by innovation?

First off I would like to say that I like the judge’s decision picking aqueduct as the winner, second, MIT didn’t deserve any special recognition.  I liked a lot of the submissions that made power tools and such work without being plugged in but it seemed to me this was more of a step back in time than an innovation (Think old-fashion sewing machines).  I have to say my favorite was the winner even though there were a few videos similar to it none brought a better design to the table.  The shea cycle was the most creative in my opinion because shea butter and bicycles are on totally different planets and they were some how brought together with a believable idea.   But still i don’t think it beats out the aqueduct for overall best idea in terms of practicality, presentation, design and possible implementation.
In other news, my guitar is in so feel honored that i will actually leave it for a few hours to attend class.