Stephen Caver

The Status of this Blog

I feel I should post something here just to give anybody who comes across this site information on what is going on. There are a two reasons for lack of resent updates. Well, that if you don’t count my tendency to throw caution to the wind and jump on Xbox after I get home from work.

First of all, I just recently moved across Orange County from Huntington Beach to Irvine. Moving, as anybody who has done so before, sucks. Sucks, sucks, sucks, sucks, sucks. My new apartment is definitely an upgrade, but it has been a time and energy drain of late. All of that is behind me now, so I will now begin looking to the future.

Secondly, despite my initial impressions of Movable Type 4, it hasn’t lived up to the expectation. The interface and templating system rocks, but it runs so entirely slow on my hosting that it makes updating a tedious and painful process. That is not how it should be.

I’ve decided that I’m going to move over to Expression Engine, as both a way to get to know Expression Engine a little better and hopefully the performance over Movable Type. Anyway, this site could use some adjustments, anyway, so I’ll also be tweaking the design a bit.

Now if I can just find some time to do all this in, we’ll be golden.

Darwin

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

— Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

Happy Darwin Day.

Hell Yeah The Plane Takes Off

If you missed Mythbusters tonight, you missed a good one. The Mythbusters tested airplane on a conveyor belt myth which states:

A plane is standing on a runway that can move (some sort of band conveyor). The plane moves in one direction, while the conveyer moves in the opposite direction. This conveyer has a control system that tracks the plane speed and tunes the speed of the conveyer to be exactly the same (but in the opposite direction). Can the plane take off?

If you know anything about physics, it should be immediately clear what will happen—the plane takes off. Jason Kottke, who had posed the question in an earlier blog entry, was live blogging the event (in my opinion every Mythbusters episode should be live blogged) and after watching the episode, reading Kottke’s post and reading a majority of the comments to his post, I’m walking away with a few things on my mind.

First of all, why in the hell does Jason think the Mythbusters is “slow?” And who are these jokers in the comments that agree with him? This is the first time I’ve ever heard of somebody actually disliking Mythbusters. After all, it is the greatest show ever conceived. I’m a little miffed at the suggestion that it’s not top notch quality entertainment for the whole family. I’ve been known, thanks to my craptastic Time Warner Cable DVR, to watch it through an entire weekend. Nonstop. My crush on Kari Byron burns red hot.

Mythbusters promotes science, dispels of silly ideas, and advocates critical thinking. A healthy skeptical attitude towards observing the world around us is a beautiful thing, and I applaud The Discovery Channel for putting the Mythbusters on. Lesser people watch Ghost Hunters. I think it is one of the most important shows on television. Right next to South Park (which I have said, and will say again, is the Shakespeare of our time).

Plus, Kari Byron. Hello, Jason? Kari Byron. Need I say more?

That aside, there is this issue with the plane. Why the plane takes off is plainly (no pun intended) obvious. The energy being generated by the engine is being acted upon the air via propellers or a jet engine, not the ground. It is the force against the air that drives the plane forward and up to a speed where it can take off. If you disagree, you’re wrong. I’m not making an argument for the plane taking off side, I’m simply stating what the facts are for backstory. No emails telling me I’m wrong, please. Because I’m not. I’m right.

What interests me the most about this (besides being so utterly flabbergasted that there are people out there who don’t enjoy The Mythbusters on the scale I do) is that it shows how our brains are constantly deceiving ourselves. Intuitively, it seems like the plane would stay put. That is what us crazy upright apes, with our poorly evolved monkey brains, intuitively grasp. But that is not always the case. It is a classic example of why we need shows like Mythbusters that encourage critical thinking and a healthy skeptical attitude about the world.

After all, the Sun intuitively looks like it is orbiting the earth. And that took a little myth busting to crack as well.

Note: Actually, to be technically correct, the earth doesn’t orbit the sun. The sun and earth orbit a common center of mass. But you get what I mean.

The MacBook AirCraft

Cupertino, CA Apple today at a special event held at Apple’s Cupertino Headquarters responded to criticisms that the new MacBook Air was lacking key features such as a DVD drive, ethernet cable connection, and replaceable batteries. Introducing, the MacBook AirCraft.

The MacBook AirCraft presents a new turn for Apple in product philosophy. “We want to make sure every conceivable, antiquated and redundant technology is compatible with the Apple’s products,” said Steve Jobs from today’s special event event. “We will be implementing these new features across Apple’s product line over the next year and a half. We hope our customers bare with us as we roll out these changes,” said Jobs.

The MacBook AirCraft features a Superdrive for running CDs and DVDs, a Floppy Drive, USB and Firewire, as well as DVI output. “A handful of people have floppy disks left over from the early 90s, and we want to make sure that these people are able to find products in Apple’s product line that meet their needs,” said Phil Schiller, Apple’s vice-president of Marketing.

The MacBook AirCraft features an innovative new port hatch which flips down to reveal the features, hiding them from view when not in use.

The MacBook AirCraft was met with considerable critical acclaim as Apple’s stock rose 5 points after the announcement, despite the continuing downturn in the economy. However, some critics have noted that the MacBook AirCraft doesn’t have an 8 inch floppy drive.

“There are at least five people who still have old 8 inch floppy disks sitting around,” said John Dvorak, an industry analyst.

Jobs, however, was not miffed. “We’re making considerable strides to cater to every considerable edge case that people might encounter,” said Jobs. He also noted that no other laptop on the market features a floppy drive. “Baby steps,” noted Jobs, with a wink.