Actual Vector Calculus homework question:

If Yoda says to Luke Skywalker, "The Force be with you," then the dot product of the Force and Luke should be:

A. positive
B. zero
C. any real number
D. negative

The correct answer should be E. Facepalm.

First few days: Done

I've survived the first two days of Fall '08 pretty painlessly. I like my schedule (nothing before 11) and I'm not majorly behind in anything yet.

I just need to get my assignment schedule in order and do some reading and I'm all set for Monday.

Now it's time to see how late I can stay up and still wake up before 11.

In the HOUSE!

Just checking in from my new house in Isla Vista, where I just moved in.

9/11 post from KafirGirl

KafirGirl has a good post up about her experience on Sept. 11, 2001.

Seven years ago today, I sat in a cold, windowless classroom, staring at a puddle of tears on my desk. I should have skipped class today, I repeated in my head. Today would have been the best day to skip class. Some of the other kids, boys mostly, were yelling back and forth about how we should just nuke them. We. Them. On an ordinary day, I’d be included in the we. But I was one of them that day, and the 20 pairs of eyes burning holes through my skin reminded me of that more and more with every passing second.

Go read the post, then subscribe to her blog so you can learn about the Koran and have a good laugh at the same time.

How does the Large Hadron Collider work?

In honor of getting closer and closer to being fully operational, the LHC has recently gotten lots of attention both from the scientific world (heralding the LHC as a remarkable tool that will help us understand more about how the universe formed, among other stuff) and from crazy people who actually think that turning the LHC on will create a mini black hole that'll destroy the earth, or that it will open a cosmic gate between the earth and an evil supernatural extraterrestrial race that will enslave humans and doom the earth for eternity, as foretold by the Bible. (From Bad Astronomy)

Well I'm with the scientists on this one... and here's a little video that explains how the LHC basically works in less than seven minutes! Enjoy.



Via Laughing Squid

Got my camera

My new Canon Digital Rebel XSi/EOS 450D arrived this week and I've been taking tons of practice shots of the same boring stuff (socks, roofs out the window...) to get to know the camera a little better, but there are some sorta interesting shots too:

That's my dad, shot with the Canon 50mm f/1.8 II.

I was really looking forward to getting that lens - it's really inexpensive and has decent optics - the only drawback is that it's really cheaply made, and that was pretty obvious when I got it last week. It felt like a kid's toy and was really rattly.

I had some problems with the autofocus on the lens (I didn't have a problem with the other lens, which is weird because I thought the autofocus function was within the camera) - AF persistently would focus just before the true focus point, which can be seen a little in the shot above. It's very sharp, but I had to go manual to get the best of it.

So I sent it back to Amazon, and I'm planning on getting a 50mm f/1.4 instead, which will be really nice.

I need more lenses...

Lens photo by Papuass

Trying Out Google Chrome

All I know so far: Google Chrome breaks this page - the footer gets smushed (smooshed?) over by the main content. Maybe they'll fix the problem, but from what I've seen, I still like Firefox just fine... Internet Explorer remains completely out of the equation (and if I really need IE, I have a neat little Firefox add-on to open it pretty painlessly).

My overall first impression: meh.