All posts by Jacob

About Jacob

Jacob likes airplanes. And Lego's. And Video Games. Jacob has a degree in Aerospace Engineering from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, and now works for a major defense contractor in sunny Florida, as an aircraft structural analyst.

Fun for Friday the Twenty-Ferd

Friday Link Roundup

Happy Friday everyone!

Ryan’s at San Diego Comic-Con, so it’s Jacob here, giving you your Friday goods.

Ryan:

Robot legs! Just what I need to survive Comic Con.
http://grinding.be/2010/07/19/rex-another-exoskeleton-is-coming-to-market/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+grinding+(grinding.be)
Plus they’d make for a sweet costume. Just click on the Science… sort of donate button and type “$150,000” Thanks!

Patrick:

You know you’ve always wanted to know how to moonwalk (the second nerdiest of all dances, behind the robot). What’s stopping you? We live in the internet age, you can learn practically anything from youtube…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EEynvjfljU
Even if you don’t perfect it, there is a guilty pleasure in knowing how it is done, like knowing the secret to a magic trick.

Acid Queen:

It’s been a tumultuous legislative session for metamorphic petrologists everywhere. But the pain is perhaps most stinging in California where the state senate has introduced a bill to strip the crown of official state rock from serpentine. No runner up second or otherwise has been named. Jerks.
http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/09-10/bill/sen/sb_0601-0650/sb_624_bill_20100623_amended_asm_v96.html

Jacob:

Its been a lazy week for me… I’ve been watching a lot of movies. Mostly trying to check off the movies I haven’t seen from this list of the 10 most under-appreciated sci fi movies!
http://daily.likeme.net/2010/07/20/10-underappreciated-sci-fi-movies/
I just watched “Moon” (2009) and “Primer” (2004) and they’re both REALLY good. Science-minded folks will love both, I’m sure.

Share

9 Geeky Ways to Stay Healthy

Jacob's Knowledge Bombs, , , ,

Listen up geeks! It’s time to get up, get out, and get moving! YOU HEAR ME?

You can’t just sit on your keister, filling out spreadsheets, compiling code, and writing reports all day! You’ve got to EXERCISE to stay healthy!

*cough* excuse me… I had some deer jerky stuck in my throat…Anyway…

This stuff is easy.  There are literally MILLIONS of studies out there confirming that regular exercise makes you a healthier person…from protecting against cancer, to fighting dementia, and even rehabilitating your body after coronary heart disease.

So with all this data, why is it so hard to get geeks to exercise?

“Well, it’s because…”

Who cares why? Let’s change the paradigm and show everyone how well geeks can do it!!

Here’s how to get started:

Continue reading 9 Geeky Ways to Stay Healthy →

Share

CAN YOU HEAR ME? OR ARE YOU CANCELLING MY NOISE?

Jacob's Knowledge Bombs,
I <3 Katy Perry

“CAUSE YOU’RE HOT THEN YOU’RE COLD

YOU’RE YES THEN YOU’RE NO

YOU’RE IN THEN YOU’RE OUT

YOU’RE UP THEN YOU’RE DOWN

YOU’RE WRONG WHEN IT’S RIGHT

IT’S BLACK AND IT’S WHITE

WE FIGHT, WE BREAK UP

WE KISS, WE MAKE UP!”

Man I LOVE that song!  I could just sing it all day long! On the train, on a plane, right beside you, in your ear-hole.

Supposin’ you don’t like the power-pop that my girl Katy likes to sing?  Well then you’ve got two choices: 1) Challenge me to a sing-off.  2) Put on some noise-canceling headphones.

Trust me, you don’t want to challenge me to a sing-off.

Continue reading CAN YOU HEAR ME? OR ARE YOU CANCELLING MY NOISE? →

Share

Freakin Friday Round ‘Up

Friday Link Roundup

Happy Friday once again, PaleoPosse!

Well, Ryan’s at TAM 8, rubbing elbows with the best-of-the-best in the scientific/skeptical universe. So its your buddy Jacob here again, filling you in on the latest bits of news we all found interesting this week.

Patrick:
Slate contributor, Sam Kean has a book out about the periodic table, riviting stuff, I know. Anyway, he is blogging about several of the elements for Slate and you can read about them for free. http://www.slate.com/id/2258112/entry/2258111/?from=rss

Ben:
hey. how come, back in the day, everyone had saber teeth? it seems like it was common? was it because animals didn’t know how wide their throats were, and so needed a gauge? maybe the primary prey for everythings were giant, meaty pneumatic tires? I don’t know, i’m just a simple country physicist.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/08/2947710.htm

Ryan:
A really cool picture of Saturn from a really cool satellite being talked about on a really cool blog. Having just met Phil Plait here at TAM 8 I couldn’t help but link to his site.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/07/08/saturns-gorgeous-gray-mood/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+BadAstronomyBlog+(Bad+Astronomy)

Jacob:
Pic related! Dutch scientists have created a way to make cement with a mixture of Titanium Dioxide, which acts a catalyst to convert the pollutant NO2 from the air and convert it to harmless nitrates.  Their preliminary tests show as 25-45% decrease in the amount of pollutants present in the paved areas!
http://greenopolis.com/goblog/jerryjamesstone/scientists-make-air-purifying-cement-cuts-emissions-45
Lets hope they do some full life-cycle studies to make sure it’s safe, and get this out ASAP!

Share

How I Spend My Weekdays

Jacob's Knowledge Bombs, , , ,

Following in Ryan’s footsteps, I thought I would let my ego come out to play today. ;-) I’ll start by assuming that you’re all wildly interested in my day-to-day life.

As you probably know from listening to the show, I work in the defense industry (though I shouldn’t say which company) which means that I work in a cubicle farm, staring at computer screen with Excel spreadsheets, manuals, and drawings, while scrawling calculations on scratch paper, all day long.

Exactly like this, except in a 1980’s color scheme, and slower computers

I know what you’re thinking… “How do you survive working in a cubicle farm for 9, 10, 11 hours per day?”

Well, thankfully, I have access to a myriad of wonderful podcasts like Science… Sort Of, and today I thought I’d give you a quick list of my favorite podcasts that keep me just distracted enough to forget that I spend more time at work than I do at home.

Continue reading How I Spend My Weekdays →

Share

July 4th Weekend Roundup!

Friday Link Roundup

Happy Independence Day everyone!

Jacob here, filling in for Ryan as he flies back and forth across the country, trying to decide if he wants to go to graduate school or become a homeless hippy on the streets of Santa Cruz.

If you get bored during your long weekend and/or visits with family, here are some links from the PaleoPals to keep you occupied.


Patrick:

Last week it was jet packs, this week it’s flying cars. Forget the Joneses, time to keep up with the Jetsons.
http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2010-06/flying-car-gets-faa-approval-goes-sale-soon

Acid Queen:

Adopt a Microbe from the Deep Biosphere!
The project in a nutshell: Adopt a microbe from the deep biosphere. Get to know your microbe through exciting weekly activities. Submit your weekly projects online to qualify to win one of our fabulous prizes! http://sites.google.com/site/adoptamicrobe/

Ben:

I decided to search for the physics of Nunchucks. They’re kind of interesting. they amass a lot of speed through the conservation of angular momentum. so, with a little trickery, they can be moved in clever, counterintuitive ways, like the small arm of a double-pendulum. also, they should precess.

anyway, this is the only relevant link i found: http://www.thehighroad.org/archive/index.php/t-244793.html

and it degenerates pretty quickly into people debating katanas and viking axes pretty quickly. also, no one really talks about the physics of the nunchucks. it almost might be worth learning to use them so that i can write about them :p
[Note from AcidQueen: “I broke my wrist with some nunchucks once… be careful.”]

Jacob:

Fiberglass Origami!
In the world of Aerospace Structures, a good 75% of what we build is made from flat sheets of metal (or fiberglass or carbon) that we bend, layup, bond, etc… into the shapes that we want for our design.
Well, MIT scientists have discovered a way to make the material shape itself.  By connecting the edges with a special piezoelectric “tape”, the material can fold itself up when a current is applied.  Check out the video at http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/07/programmable-matter-can-fold-itself-into-various-shapes.ars

Charlie:

NUKES IN SPACE: HAPPY 4TH OF JULY
In 1962 the US of A launched a thor rocket with an H-bomb 250 miles up into the atmosphere, that is, into space. They launched it a night and created a stunning light show. Yeah Nukes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z99FIOSetGw&feature=player_embedded

Have a good holiday everyone!

Share

Design of Experiment: AT&T vs. Verizon 3G Networks

Jacob's Knowledge Bombs, , , ,

Hey there PaleoPals.  Today’s article is a bit unorthodox, as it’s actually a quick summary of an experiment that I did with a friend for one of my graduate classes recently.  If you’re interested in engineering, statistics, testing, and scientific journals, you should enjoy it.  If none of those things interest you, I promise there will be a prize at the end if you read all the way through.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In engineering, there exists a field of study known as Systems Engineering, which deals with managing extremely complicated systems (like a rocket or jet fighter) which comprise many different disciplines, and producing a product with the ease and efficiency of building a Lego set.

Inside of Systems Engineering, there is a study known as Design of Experiments (DoE), which deals with how to effectively “design an experiment” (engineers aren’t very creative, lexicologically.  Yes that’s a word.  I just made it up.)   DoE is an extremely important tool for complex projects where many thousands of things may need to be tested at once. You want to design the test such that the important results are readily apparent, so that we don’t have to dig too far through the data to give us the answer we need, and DoE allows us to do that.

So, in my DoE course for my Systems Engineering Master’s degree, I decided to design an experiment to test the 3G networks of AT&T and Verizon.  The results may surprise you…

Continue reading Design of Experiment: AT&T vs. Verizon 3G Networks →

Share

SUCK, SQUEEZE, BANG, AND BLOW! Or, How a Jet Engine Works!

Jacob's Knowledge Bombs, , ,

Here at Science… sort of, we know that our listeners are high-flying important-types, who spend more time in the air than they do on the ground.

So while you’re flyin’ in first class on a Boeing Triple-Seven, sippin on Courvoisier, watching Soul Plane while writing a business pitch on your MacBook Air, I’m sure you’ve occasionally stopped to wonder… “Why is this plane in the air, and not falling towards the ground?”

It’s because Snoop’s gotchya back

Continue reading SUCK, SQUEEZE, BANG, AND BLOW! Or, How a Jet Engine Works! →

Share

Ion Propulsion

Jacob's Knowledge Bombs, , ,

Today we’re going to put our scientific eye-on-propulsion.  (See what I did there?)

I don’t know about you, but when I see a nice blue-colored flame coming from ANYTHING, my immediate response is as follows:

WICKED

So today, in honor (or honour, as Ben would say) of the successful Hayabusa mission, I’m going to give you a VERY brief, VERY simple explanation on Ion Propulsion technology.

Continue reading Ion Propulsion →

Share

SpaceX and the Future of Human Space Flight

Jacob's Knowledge Bombs, , ,

ohio lottery

On Friday, June 4th, 2010, a major milestone was reached in the history of human spaceflight.

SpaceX, a private aerospace company founded by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk, successfully launched their Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, FL (20 miles from where I work) into Low Earth Orbit (LEO), around 155 miles from Earth’s surface.

View from my bedroom window… OK not really, but almost.

SCREEE… *record scratch*

This launch was not the first private company to launch a rocket into LEO, they did have funding & assistance from NASA, and the launch configuration was not a simulation for human flight.

So why was this such a momentous occasion?  Find out after the jump…

Continue reading SpaceX and the Future of Human Space Flight →

Share