Category Archives: Jacob’s Knowledge Bombs

Stand back, you will get wet.

9 Geeky Ways to Stay Healthy

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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:

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

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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.

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How I Spend My Weekdays

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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.

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

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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.

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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…

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

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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

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Ion Propulsion

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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.

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SpaceX and the Future of Human Space Flight

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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…

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The Moral Excuse For Shooting a Mutant in the Face

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Do you like video games? OMG, me too!

What would you say if I told you that playing video games would actually make you a more morally well-rounded person?

Blasphemy! Jack Thompson has clearly shown that video games do nothing more than teach otherwise good children how to steal cars, kill grandmothers, and eat babies.

Puh-leez, no one is going to miss a few babies and grandma’s…

In all seriousness though, there is legitimate philosophical background to justify video games as tools to develop moral decision making.  It has been discussed here, in a decently well-written paper by Marcus Schulzke in the journal “Game Studies”, and today I’d like to give you a quick summary of the arguments made in the study, and why I agree with them.

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Stealth Tech!

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Ahoy PaleoPosse!

Allow me to introduce myself.  My name is Jacob, and I’m here to learn you some science.  READY? GO!

Today I wanna talk to you about Stealth Technology.  And because the word “stealth” can mean anything from “quiet” to “camouflaged” to “reduced radar signature”, let me qualify that by saying that today’s topic will be about aircraft stealth technology.


They mostly come at night… mostly…

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