So why haven't I posted 3 posts by now? Well, it's because I'm watching E3. For those who don't know, E3 is the (or was the) prime spot for game companies to hold keynotes to release new software and hardware information. The best part is, you can watch the news, literally - E3 makes gaming news for weeks. You don't have to rely on second or third party news stories; you can formulate your own opinion. That's what I like about E3.

Young, Thomas

English scientist, physician and Egyptologist who conducted the double slit experiment in 1803 where light was said to behave like a wave due to an observable interference pattern.

This suggested that light is a type of energy, as opposed to a collection of particles.

In 1905 the view of light as energy was confounded by the Hungarian-German Nazi Philipp Lenard, whose own experiments demonstrated that light also behaves like a particle--that is, a unit of matter.

At that particular point in Western intellectual history, a history which Richard Nisbett¹ and others say is almost obsessively concerned with rational categories, matter and energy were thought to be entirely different because, according to previously available observational frameworks, matter behaved differently than energy.

Since the discovery of the apparent duality of light as matter and energy, however, an entirely new series of experiments and theories have arisen about the enigmatic "stuff" of the universe.

As an Egyptologist, Young also helped to decipher the Rosetta Stone. » Democritus, Hume (David), Particle, Particle-Wave Duality, Schrodinger (Erwin), Standing Wave

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¹ Richard E. Nisbett, The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently... and Why. New York: The Free Press, 2003.

Add to this, report errors, suggest edits or voice your opinion by posting a comment

http://www.cgarena.com/freestuff/tutorials/max/waterfall/index.html

This tutorial, is one of the most impressive particles applications i've seen. In this application you see an explosion and particle effects coming from a simple image in a 3D environment.

See the application demo, and read the author comments and notes.

Todays release are particles! These are limited edition only up for one week. Free only on the weekend. Weekdays will be set to L$10 so get them while you can for L$0! 5 colors of dull rainbow goodness in one cool particle bunch. =^.^= Get them at the main teleport point.

Click Here to go to Curious Kitties

Scientists Plan to Use the Large Hadron Particle Collider to Study Unparticles

And that's your lame joke for the day. It makes me giggle.

In other news...did you know a neutron lives for 17 minutes? That's like...an ETERNITY for a particle. Most particles only live for 10^-10 second. That blows my mind.

According to some critics, the power of this particle accelerator could create tiny black holes, which would settle somewhere in the Earth, expanding until the Earth, and life as we know it, is gobbled up.

Oh man! Sounds scary, right? Well, not quite.

Within the article, I concluded that there was only one stated critic by the name of Walter L. Wagner. All of the other scientists concluded that this was preposterous as the Earth is being bombarded by these same collisions every second of the day.

One scientist actually placed the chances of a cataclysmic event at 1 in 50 million, which is actually less than the chance of a cataclysmic event caused by a rogue asteroid, alien invasion, and Japanese television.

Way to go CNN...

"Critics of the LHC filed a lawsuit in a Hawaiian court in March seeking to block its startup, alleging that there was "a significant risk that ... operation of the Collider may have unintended consequences which could ultimately result in the destruction of our planet."

Scary stuff... kinda.

Apparently they're searching for dark matter, or more dimensions or something. I guess three isn't enough.. people are so greedy - especially those sciencey types!

Anyway if the world is going to end in August, then I have a month to do everything I've ever wanted to do before I die. Hence the list:

1) Write a novel

2) Climb a mountain

3) Go skydiving

4) Get shot

5) Get married and have a family (call me if your interested)

6) Write a Script

That's all I can think of right now cause I'm distracted by Coldplay..

http://sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/33569/title/Safe_from_black_holes

Felt I would share the summary for class in my own words here for y'all (was quite proud of it!) - it's been a bit since my last post anyways...

          "So it seems that any microscopic black holes produced via CERN’s Large Hadron Collider pose no serious threat to our planet once the machine, the largest particle accelerator in the world, starts up with it’s first test run this September – according to the latest safety reports released by the European Organization for Nuclear Research that became available to the public on June 20^th.

            The Large Hadron Collider, or better known as the LHC, will have the capacity to charge up protons to around 7 trillion electron volts of energy, hurl them around a 17 mile long underground tunnel, and eventually smash them into one another at near light-speeds to recreate a fleeting glimpse of a miniature cosmic environment, much like what is thought of as the Big Bang, with inconceivable densities and energy amounts.

            Some scientists, however, have worries that these super-collisions of protons could generate black holes that could very well become stable – able to gobble up our planet.  Some go so far as to believe that the device itself could become a producer of miniature black holes.  This implies that gravity is weak when paired to other natural laws, because it could possibly leak out into ‘hidden dimensions’ that are no bigger than a fraction of a hydrogen atom.  If this happened gravity could gain in strength and become so dense, folding matter onto itself over and over, that it could create black holes – possibly spitting one out every second!  This has caused a lawsuit to be taken out against CERN and the LHC.

            According to Steven Hawking these black holes would not be able to sustain themselves long enough, resulting in an immediate loss of energy and an inevitable evaporation – causing no harm.  Some new studies suggest that even if Hawking is found wrong that such small black holes would still cause no serious damage due to their size.  These studies have weight because they were completed by independent scientists outside of CERN, including Nobel laureate Gerard ‘tHooft, an expert on black holes.  Several new studies are due to be released with an upcoming ‘Physical Review D’ that imply further reason to not be overly concerned about the uncertainties regarding the LHC.

            CERN, once the LHC is well on its way, hopes to uncover unprecedented amounts of new knowledge about gravity and the fabric of space-time.  If black holes are produced they would be direct evidence of extra dimensions of space.  The LHC may also uncover unities between gravity and other natural forces."

Stream App

Thanks to nuiman for the helping with the development of ~Lux touchSpectrum a.k.a touchStream which will be released with the ~Lux platform, mainly because it is still unstable and crashes with multiple inputs...

Okay, so no bears. :(

Back with some small updates concerning school and a few news tidbits I wanted to share (or forgot to share!)

Excuse me for being brief - Lots of work to finish this week:

A quick concept painting for my level I'll (hopefully) be working on throughout the term.  We had to come up with three basic verbal concepts and pick one to follow through with.  I liked writing them all so much it was really difficult to choose but I think I've made a choice I'll be able to work with successfully.  Still got oodles of UnrealED videos to watch, however, I'm grasping the basics better than I had expected.  Fingers crossed anyhow!  I'll share all those concept designs another time.

Also, I was digging through some work from last terms Sequential Art & Visual Narrative class and believe I forgot to even share this little assignment we had to do.  It's a 10 panel storyboard with a set plot we had to follow.  There are a few things I liked about it: the glow from the outside gave a cool effect and the gesture of the woman (little dress) standing in line was spot on!  Need to work on gesture/figures so much more.  One day at a time.

Now; Can you believe it? Just a day or so after posting an update on CERNs progress with the LHC Allan Boyle from MSNBCs Cosmic Log posted another update on this wonderful, wonderful, WONDERFUL machine: DOOMSDAY DEBATE UPDATE!

Lastly, a nice science news bit from today concerning the discovery of a new, possibly Earth-like, extra-solar planet - yipee!  'Mini'-Planet Almost Fits Earths Profile

That's all for now folks - as always, thanks for viewing, and take care! :)

Sorry folks - meant to blog this early in the week but I've been (not) busy being sick.  Kicked the cold a good one though.  Only 2 days worth after seriously downing some Airborne.  HAHA!  Floyd = 1, Acute viral nasopharyngitis = 0

VICTORY!

Ummm... -blinks-

So the title description is somewhat irrelevant - but there has been a great update to CERNS progress with the Large Hadron Collider.  Read up over at Alan Boyles COSMIC LOG at MSNBC:

BIG-BANG BATTLE PLAN SET!

Go now - shoo! Read!

PS: New school term starts tomorrow! :D

See, right there, when your brain registered the p-word, a black hole of anxiety opened up in the pit of your stomach from which nothing can escape. Your underarms began to radiate heat as your mind conjured memories of stuffy high school laboratories. And as your eyes scanned ahead for those dreaded half-English, half-Greek words followed by an equal sign, the probability of you reading on fast approached zero.

But there’s hope! Whether you realize it or not, you just visualized some of the more important natural phenomena that govern the world around us. The stomachache was space-time curvature at a point of infinite density. The sweating was a crass simulation of something known as black body radiation. And your waning interest was a metaphor for quantum non-locality. What do these words mean? It doesn’t really matter. Even complicated physical processes were surmountable — even understandable — when they were put into the context of something familiar, say, traumatic experiences of young adulthood.

Without analogy and metaphor, a reader can quickly suffocate in the rarified air of the hard sciences. The task then for any science writer is to couch these concepts in colloquial terms and familiar experiences, and no one does it better than Brian Greene.

His second of two books, The Fabric of the Cosmos, is a potent distillation of 200 years of discovery and an invaluable roadmap of reality that is almost impossible to get lost with, regardless of your level of scientific knowledge. It is a compelling narrative of the search for understanding that probes the boundaries of human experience.

Greene, a professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University, is not the first to attempt such a crash course in physics history and experiment for the non-science minded, and he won’t be the last. In fact, the popularity of this breed of book has even necessitated its own genre, which has come to be known as pop-physics.

Make no mistake; it is truly a difficult task to make the revolutionary ideas of hundreds of brilliant people not only digestible, but palatable in fewer than 500 pages. Since you can’t change the elements of the story — an exhaustive historical record of dozens of collaborating countries — good science writing then becomes an exercise in conversational skills, patient instruction and plenty of examples.

Greene is adept at all three but his skillful employment of examples is one of the book’s greatest strengths. Throughout the text, he uses objects we experience and protagonists we can visualize to illustrate his points. The Simpsons characters, Mulder and Scully from the X-Files, and former President Bill Clinton all appear on multiple occasions and eggs, snowflakes and bowling balls all serve as props. As juvenile as this might seem, you would be surprised at how effective Greene’s methods are.

At one point in the book, he tries to explain how something called the Higgs ocean — typically the focus of a Ph.D. thesis — may give particles like protons and electrons their mass. But he uses a very familiar and somewhat playful example to illustrate the point. “If [a particle] has greater difficulty accelerating through the Higgs ocean, it has a greater mass. If we liken a particle’s mass to a person’s fame, then the Higgs ocean is like the paparazzi: those who are unknown pass through the swarming photographers with ease, but famous politicians and movie stars have to push much harder to reach their destination.”

While this technique of using vivid examples seems straight forward, it is actually very easy to mess up and there are a few cardinal sins that many physics authors commit.

A common transgression is to sacrifice accuracy for sensationalism under the misconception that science fiction is the only way to engage the average reader. The very talented Michio Kaku of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (the same place Einstein spent the last few decades of his life) is a repeat offender. His most recent work of pop-physics, called Hyperspace, contains examples that are shamelessly unscientific at times and really underestimate the reader’s intelligence.

But by no means does Greene dumb down the information in Fabric and yet, none of the underlying ideas are lost. Further, he doesn’t resort to sensationalized hypothetical situations but instead finds a creative way to make the reader appreciate real scientific results. In doing so, he makes it more than understandable. He makes the reader appreciate and even enjoy the excitement of discovery.

And if Greene’s delivery of concepts is superb, his thoughtful selection of content only reinforces the readability of the text. The fundamental — and most impressive — difference between Greene and most other science writers is the breadth of the issues he addresses.

Another cardinal sin for a science writer is to allow a topic’s complexity to dictate its relevance, which is just a cop out and a disservice to the reader. Gary Zukov, the author of The Dancing Wu Li Masters, basically left out entire chapters of vital experimental findings because they were too tough to couch in human experience. But Greene doesn’t succumb to such temptations of writing around difficult material. He acknowledges the complexity of problematic topics and painstakingly walks the reader through the material every time.

Unfortunately, some concepts will be beyond analogy and word craft and require at least a cursory digression of technicalities. As Greene puts it: “Human language is far better at capturing human experience than at expressing deep physical laws.” But what is unique about Fabric is that Greene gives the reader the option to get more technical without a loss of continuity.

Throughout the text, he would broach a huge topic by putting it into historical context and discussing its relevance in the big physics picture. Often, the section would end with an ultimatum: keep reading to explore the details for a deeper understanding or skip to the next chapter with at least these implications in mind. This “choose your own adventure” organization gives the book a refreshing flexibility that is too often absent from pop-physics novels.

Writing style also plays a large role in this work’s success. Richard Feynman, one of the more beloved albeit quirky physicists of the 20th century, was famous for his conversational style physics lessons. Though this made Feynman an incredibly effective educator, he was never able to write a book for want of literary chops.

Fabric is such a good read because Greene buttresses the same savvy teaching techniques with an eloquent style of storytelling. Some parts are downright poetic and they uncover the easily missed romance and excitement of scientific discovery. He writes, “By deepening our understanding of the true nature of physical reality, we profoundly reconfigure our sense of ourselves and our experience of the universe.”

And other parts are surprisingly suspenseful, especially for a narrative with such well-publicized plot twists. Even though most people know that Albert Einstein would propose his groundbreaking theories of relativity in the early 1900s, until Greene gets to that part of the story, this reader was genuinely concerned about the troublesome relationship between absolute space and time. (Spoiler: It all works out beautifully!)

One of the more striking features of The Fabric of the Cosmos is how Greene’s enthusiasm for modern physics almost leaps off the page, making the reader wonder, if only for a second, whether or not the Large Hadron Collider will actually produce spontaneous symmetry breaking of massive scalar bosons. But that’s beside the point. To wonder about the world around us is the first step on the path to scientific discovery and Greene’s work makes it so that anyone can find the way.

www.youtube.com/zuluplumber is the link! (it is also on the links section to the right)

This weekend I got done:

Smoke trails using the 3D particle engine from "creators.xna.com".  At first it was splotchy, so I took the code that was making the smoke behind the missles, and commented out all the crap in there.  It has a bunch of stuff where it takes the current time and checks the velocity to make sure they are spaced right... bullcrap!  I just commented it out and add one each update.  It works very, very well.

Collision detection with the far walls of the inside of my sphere.  Trust me... this sucked.  The bounding sphere I had first put on my sphere arena, wasnt working.  The reason is that bounding spheres arent hollow!  Someone from the XNA chat at EFNet/#XNA told me there was a way to make it hollow, but I had already come up with a solution.  I just saved the starting point of the projectile, and when it got a certain distance away (the width of the sphere), I exploded it.  This works really well.

Explosions at my collision points.  This was rough, because of the fact that I was using that creators.xna.com 3D Particle sample and it wasnt actually code I wrote.  When it actually renders the particles, the next two lines are setting renderstates back.  I had to add "device.RenderState.AlphaBlendEnable = false;" after those lines.  Big thank you to "Snorkel" in the XNA chat for helping me with that one.

Weapon cooldowns were easy.  Just set a variable for so many milliseconds, and then take the elapsed game time and add to it.  When it reaches the cooldown for the weapon, you can shoot again, and you set that variable back to 0 and keep adding to it.

1:5:10:122 EcoTip: A recent Danish study has shown that when HEPA filtration is used to reduce airborne particle levels in the homes of elderly participants their vascular blood flow was increased. The HEPA filtration reduced particle levels by about 60%.

***********************************

 Additional Information

Suggested Review - :041, :042, :043, :110

I like portable HEPA filters better than those that are installed in HVAC systems. Portable systems allow you to focus the filtration in the area being occupied, and are much more serviceable and affordable.

Preventing infiltration (:041, :042, :043) and using a more efficient filter in the air handling system as described in :110 provides a pre-filtration of the air, which then can be further scrubbed by the HEPA filter.

 More information about the Danish study is at:

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2008/02/15/hepa-filters.html#skip300x250

  Would you like to receive an email alert for each new 1:5:10:365 EcoTip? Sign up for a Google Alert.

Audiosurf is available in different forms of resale, the most widely recognized on Valve's Steam. I decided to get it and give it a shot. I'll explain it's game-play first though. You can "ride" your music in different ships that you unlock from playing all the ones available to at the time.

The point is to make clusters of three or more of the blocks (in all except the "mono" rides, there are multiple colours) to get points they are located along the highway which is essentially your music. There are also power-ups that you can grab which will modify/ add blocks in your stack.

There are three stacks per normal play (two per player if in a multi-player ship) which if you overfill, you'll lose points and can't collect blocks for a certain amount of time due to you "re-spawning". I haven't tried all of the ships yet; mainly due to being too entertained by just the mono versions (they are easier too ;-) ).

I enjoy the excellent visuals as well; there are great particle effects and the track and blocks go along very well with your music due to some form of software which is quite revolutionary, the track will also bump along to your music if there is a strong beat (the track sometimes does barrel rolls too!). Other background visuals are nice too; and none of them get too distracting. I also greatly enjoy the scoreboards to see if I ever receive a place on one.

There's lots of minute things and other twists and turns on this game (which style is wonderful; never really seen anything like it) which you may discover yourself when you give the demo version a shot. As well as being able to choose your own songs to play on; there is also a radio feature where new songs are set up every week; but one song (my personal favorite), the Audiosurf overture, remains there forever.

I highly suggest you try it and give me your feedback, I enjoy it's "genre" and you probably will too. Give it a shot and look at some of the screen-shots and other information/ news on it's official site. Have a blast of audiovisual gaming fun.

Audiosurf homepage:
http://www.audio-surf.com/

Audiosurf overture:
http://www.mediafire.com/?nzh4ipvxlto

Farewell,
nikoPSK

What I want to try next incorporate a small animated fish for each particle.

's Morgens hoor ik dat er een leuke opdracht voor Mentos te wachten staat en zie ik al enkele van de eerste designs. Direct zie ik de spuitende colafles staan die een straal spuit die op een helm lijkt uit de Tour de France.

De eerste vraag van Bram is dan ook, kan jij iets maken in flash zodat de fles echt spuit, stel dat we een mentosje in de fles laten vallen en ze dan natuursgetrouw cola laat spuiten.
Dus eerst spectaculair hoog en dan geleidelijk aan minder.

No problemo zeg ik!
Op FITC had ik al een prachtige sessie van Seb Lee Delisle gezien over particles dus ik wist dat het niet zo moeilijk zou zijn. Jammer genoeg was dit verkeerd gedacht, 100'den keren CTRL + ENTER in flash met verschillende textures, verschillende soorten spuiten, verschillende soorten parameters.

De verschillende soorten parameters uitzoeken was waarschijnlijk nog het moeilijkste aan de hele zaak.
Het was als een touwdanser op een slap koordje proberen te dansen en de fijne lijn tussen kwaliteit en prestatie vinden.

Maar uiteindelijk is een preview waar de klant HELEMAAL wild van was er toch uitgekomen.
Uiteindelijk resultaat hier