Today I finished reading “Daisy Miller” by Henry James
Read – The Gilded Age
Today I finished reading “The Gilded Age” by Mark Twain
Listening – Within the Realm of a Dying Sun
This week I am listening to “Within the Realm of a Dying Sun” by Dead Can Dance
Read – From the Earth to the Moon
Today I finished reading “From the Earth to the Moon” by Jules Verne
Read – The Golden Apples of the Sun
Today I finished reading “The Golden Apples of the Sun” by Ray Bradbury
Read – Dragons of Winter Night
Today I finished reading “Dragons of Winter Night” by Margaret Weis
Read – The Autobiography of Mark Twain
Today I finished reading “The Autobiography of Mark Twain” by Mark Twain
Listening – Kick
This week I am listening to “Kick” by INXS
Read – Villette
Today I finished reading “Villette” by Charlotte Bronte
Read – Traveller Supplement 14: Space Stations
Today I finished reading “Traveller Supplement 14: Space Stations ” by Mongoose Publishing
Read – On Liberty
Today I finished reading “On Liberty” by John Stuart Mill
Author of my own story
I always make sure to do things by the book.
But I also make sure I am the author.
Listening – Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me
This week I am listening to “Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me” by The Cure
Studying – Tang-Soo Do karate
This month I am studying “Tang-Soo Do karate”
This is my 16th month of practice
I am enjoying the new class schedule.
I never expected to build muscle but that is what I am doing.
Computer science A-level is on-hold due to the Christmas break.
Read – Democracy in America
Today I finished reading “Democracy in America ” by Alexis de Tocqueville
I figure if I am intending to work in America or Japan, I should at least study how each country’s respective government works and how the people are governed.
There may be a test on it later.
Update
So it’s August 19th, 1998, and I can conclusively say that I have not met one single person in all of my travels throughout the US who has ever read this book.
I am flabbergasted that the population of the United States does not understand how their government works or that there are more than two parties.
I am just stunned.
These are educated people.
And they just don’t seem to care!
Listening – Bend Sinister
This week I am listening to “Bend Sinister” by The Fall
Read – Garfield Tips the Scales
Today I finished reading “Garfield Tips the Scales” by Jim Davis
Listening – The Ghost of Cain
This week I am listening to “The Ghost of Cain” by New Model Army
Vagueness
I’m so vague you probably think this diary entry is about you.
Listening – So
This week I am listening to “So” by Peter Gabriel
License revoked
Think about this: If you were to overhear someone exclaim loudly “ohmygod! He’s practicing unlicensed <profession> and somebody could get seriously injured” and you insert whatever profession you can think of, and it sounds patently ridiculous then it very definitely is ridiculous.
There are only two reasons for licensing a profession – someone could get seriously injured and someone wants to protect their income.
And if your profession does not involve life threatening injury but requires licensing and certification, I can only conclude that the entire profession falls in to the protectionism category.
Listening – Crowded House
This week I am listening to “Crowded House” by Crowded House
Studying – Tang-Soo Do karate
This month I am studying “Tang-Soo Do karate”
This is the 15th month of studying.
I have been casually studying karate the past two years. Time to get serious about my self-defense studies.
I am going to increase the classes from two classes per night, three times a week to the equivalent of six classes per day, six days per week. Basically I am going to be studying at various schools six hours a day, six days a week.
Licence revoked
I suspect when the majority of vehicles on the road are self-driving and proven highly reliable that many people will no longer have driver’s licences as we understand them.
A person might hold a simplified license, much like people who are licensed to drive an automatic car (automatic gears) but not a manual car (manual gear shifter), or a motorcycle licence versus a car licence versus a heavy goods vehicle licence.
Having a licence to operate a vehicle will be reserved for professionals, people who like to drive for pleasure, and enthusiasts.
Have you tried having faith in yourself for once?
I always find it interesting talking to people who “have religion.”
They are not only convinced they “know”, but they want you to “know” too.
Through browbeating and coercion they might be able to persuade me to agree with them, but then we’d both be wrong.
Listening – Anything
This week I am listening to “Anything” by The Damned
I am competently incompetent
Having spent some time working I come to this conclusion:
The competent underestimate their ability.
The incompetent overestimate their ability.
The competent overestimate the ability of the incompetent in relation to their own competence.
The incompetent underestimate the ability of the competent in relation to their own incompetence.
Also, I like saying the word “competent.”
Listening – The Queen Is Dead
This week I am listening to “The Queen Is Dead” by The Smiths
Intelligence was my dump stat
It is interesting to realise that you can be so stupid you don’t actually realise you are that stupid.
P.S. I always make Charisma my dump stat as it fits with my own brand of personal charm.
Listening – Echo & The Bunnymen
This week I am listening to “Echo & The Bunnymen” by Echo & The Bunnymen
Read – Love and War
Today I finished reading “Love and War” by Margaret Weis
Wise words
You own a lot of books.
You have information.
You have read a lot of those books.
You have knowledge.
You can reason about the content of those books.
You have understanding.
You realise that not all of the world is contained in books.
You have wisdom.
Listening – Liverpool
This week I am listening to “Liverpool” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood
Read – Sharra’s Exile
Today I finished reading “Sharra’s Exile” by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Listening – Get Close
This week I am listening to “Get Close” by The Pretenders
Studying – A level computer science
This month I am studying “A level computer science” and “Tang-Soo Do karate”
6 months part-time. 3rd month of computer science and 14th month of karate
Improper democratic process
Just because someone didn’t vote the way you wanted them too, you don’t get to do it all over again hoping for a different outcome.
Listening – Sister
This week I am listening to “Sister” by Sonic Youth
Cluttered dramatics
In the same way that people say “I don’t like drama.” yet it seems to swirl around their life, I know a few people who claim “I don’t like clutter” and yet you have to walk through a narrow maze of clutter every time you visit their house.
Read – The Velvet Glove
Today I finished reading “The Velvet Glove” by Harry Harrison
Listening – One to One
This week I am listening to “One to One” by Howard Jones
Read – Machine Learning
Today I finished reading “Machine Learning” by Tom Mitchell
Read – Tomb of Horrors
Today I finished reading “Tomb of Horrors” by Gary Gygax
Listening – Different Light
This week I am listening to “Different Light” by The Bangles
Read – Garfield Makes It Big
Today I finished reading “Garfield Makes It Big” by Jim Davis
Read – Catseye
Today I finished reading “Catseye ” by Andre Norton
Orbiting space stations as a means of accelerating to significant portions of c
If an orbiting space station is built with extended arms that have a diameter of approximately 1 A.U. and then rotated at slow velocity the objects at the arms extremities will rotate faster than objects at the hub. The structure doesn’t need to be 1 A.U. (about 93,000,000 miles) but it’s a good size, it could be made one Earth diameter or even the distance between the Earth and the Moon, approximately 200,000 miles.
Obvious problems are getting enough material to build the arms, stress on the arms as they rotate, and finding enough space where you aren’t going to wipe out a major civilisation. But really, these are minor problems and don’t require any sort of exotic materials or special technology we don’t already have.
It will be interesting to observe the exhibit-able properties.
First, a small time dilation effect will be observable between the hub and the arm’s extremity.
Second, the biggest problem I foresee though, and one I am not sure how to figure out the effects of, is that the ends of the rotating arms will really be moving quite fast in relation to other parts of the structure.
What will that do to electrical wiring?
To the physical properties of the material that makes up the structure?
If one part of the structure is undergoing a time dilation effect, however minor, what will that do to the overall structure?
You have the paradox that certain parts of the structure will be older (or younger) than other parts of the structure?
You will also have the paradox that someone sat at the exact centre of the structure looking out along one of the arms will see the arm bending and trailing behind.
In fact, eventually someone looking from the centre down one of the arms should see the arm either disappear or detach itself from the structure due to the frame of reference getting further and further out of synchronization.
With a structure 1 A.U. in length, rotating at 1 revolution per hour, the rotational speed at the extremity would be equal to the circumference of the structure as it rotates. So 93,000,000 * PI This means that the rotational speed would be 292,168,116 miles per hour.
The speed of light in a vacuum is about 186,000 miles per second, or 669,600,000 miles per hour.
So the rotational speed of the arm would at the ends would be close to 43% of the speed of light.
At that speed the ends of the arms may require some sort of shielding to protect them from collisions with space dust, micro-meteorites, etc.
Interestingly if you think about it, isn’t the Earth itself undergoing some sort of effect such as this? A person on the equator is travelling faster, and hence undergoing a different frame of reference, to an observer at the North Pole.
Is this an inherent property built-in to relativistic physics that a single chunk of matter, i.e. the Earth, cannot undergo relativistic changes, or is it due to the mass of the Earth and the effects of gravity warping space-time?
Interestingly this structure would not necessarily be required to be rigid. It could be made out of a very strong “rope” (for want of a better word) and spun like a bolas. The center motion of a bolas does not appear to be a rotation of a constant fixed axis but appears, from observation, to describe an ellipse and is more of a circular back and forth motion very similar to how female breasts move in an elliptical orbit when a woman runs.
Any objects at the end of the structure could be sling-shotted in to space at extremely high velocities.
Or they could be sling-shotted at planets too, a 1,000lb weight travelling at a significant portion of c would impart enough energy to obliterate a major metropolitan area such as London. Though the calculations for the orbital mechanics may be beyond us at this time, thank goodness.
Read – Asterix the Gladiator
Today I finished reading “Asterix the Gladiator” by Rene Goscinny
Listening – The Seer
This week I am listening to “The Seer” by Big Country
Studying – A level computer science
This month I am studying “A level computer science” and “Tang-Soo Do karate”
6 months part-time. 2nd month of computer science and 13th month of karate