Slightly Less Boring Default

Professor Kirchhof here to explain spacial physics in a nut shell.

Take four very, very strong rods.  Place said rods in four different places to make a square, but place them trillions of miles apart.  Attach very strong trampoline fabric to these four points, pull it tight.  Take a bowling ball and set it anywhere on this fabric.  The large indention around it represents the indention in the space - time continuum.  Roll a marble to the side of this indention.  One of two things will happen.  It’ll curve and keep going in a different direction without slowing down much (assume there’s no friction) or it will curve and go in to orbit around the ball for a while.  You’ve just demonstrated an asteroid veering off course or an asteroid turning int0 a moon.

Now, this was a planet on a two dimensional plain.  Imagine these planets on a three dimensional plain — aka, trampoline fabric all around.  It creates a gravitational field in all directions.

Let’s go back to our two dimensional plain.  What happens if the fabric rips?  What’s on the other side?  No one knows. You’ve got yourself a miniature black hole.  In a three dimensional environment, since it’s rip in all directions, it will suck things through to God knows where.

Ta - da, quantum spacial physics.

Ryan

P.S:  Yes, I know the image is a bit awry.

Fajitas are, apparently, deadly now.  My dad is using cayenne pepper to sizzle up the fajita meat and it is smoking up a storm. You can’t walk through the house without your nostrils and throat stinging.

My father has effectively gassed our kitchen.

Ryan

The man’s got a lot of things on his shoulders from Bush screwing up the country.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the folder Bush left for Obama had a note saying ‘Good luck, asshole’ in large print inside it.

I can’t help feeling a bit disappointed, though.  He’s only recently enacted on his first promise - health care.  This is great and all, and he’s still got three years, but I do hope he can pull through.

Good luck, Barack.

Ryan

Oh, it makes me angry when I hear someone blurt out ‘we’re alone in the universe’.  It makes zero sense.  One of my beliefs is that not all life is carbon based.  There could be hydrogen based sky jellyfish on Jupiter for all we know.  Recently, I’ve studied and studied on the subject regarding extraterrestrial life and extrasolar planets.  Accounting for planets, dwarf planets and probable dwarf planets, we come to the determination that there are not eight, not nine but seventeen planets in all.  Around our sun, which is a normal g-type star.  Our star is the vanilla of the universe, and even then it’s still relatively small.

Moving on.  Let’s see if I can remember these seventeen worlds in order.

Mercury, no moons.

Venus, no moons.

Earth, one moon.

Mars, two moons.

Ceres, no moons.

Jupiter, more than 62 moons.

Saturn, more than 62 moons.

Uranus, probably more than 27 moons.

Neptune, probably more than 13 moons.

Pluto, 3 moons (Charon, Nix, Hydra).

Orcus, 1 moons (Vanth).

Haumea, 2 moons (Hi’iaka, Namaka).

Varuna, no moons.

Quaoar, 1 moon (Weywot).

Makemake, no moons.

Eris, 1 moon (Dysomnia).

Sedna, no moons.

In the last few years we’ve almost doubled the amount of planets known directly to the public.  I find this amazing.

“We’re a rare case, why don’t we detect the planets in other star systems,” some might ask.  To this, I’ll answer with two things.  One would be steam blowing out of my ears, the second would be this.

We do, but we only detect the occasional few because these are both 1.) big and 2.) close to their parent star.  Hell, we can’t detect all of the moons and planets in our own solar system (yet).  We just do not have the technological proficiency.  I truly would not be surprised if there was life around every star.  Intelligent life?  That’s a discussion for another time and place.

The moral of the story is that I get angry when people tell me we’re alone in the universe.

If anyone needs me I’ll be in the angry dome.

Ryan

I figure I’ll crawl out of the cave and start using this slice of a slice of a slice (of another slice [and another slice]) of the internet to my advantage and to my ultimate goal of mind control and world domination.  Wait, what?

Anyway, I’d like to just open up my first post with a little bit of an introduction.  My name is Ryan Kirchhof (I pronounce it kier - kove, a bit of a Russian pronunciation) and my father is Randall Kirchhof — the old man running Epistemic Ingemination, which I find interesting on occasion.

Moving on, I’m fifteen years old and I do quite a bit of gaming.  I enjoy a good steak made from the very skilled hands of my talented father (whom is the best cook in the world).  My interests vary, but physically I like to swim, mountain bike, do some hiking and I absolutely love traveling.  I usually go on a vacation every summer with my beloved uncle, William Mitchell Austin.  Last year, we went from Austin to Hot Springs to Eureka Springs (and the Ozarks) to Sioux City, Iowa to (my memory fails of where - to - where, but I know we went these places) the Black Hills, to Yellowstone National Park, to Montana and Glacier National Park, to Utah, to San Diego, California to visit my cousin.

This year, I didn’t go anywhere necessarily exciting, though my uncle took a trip to China.  Apparently, the roads over there are clean, reliable and have nearly no pot holes in them.  In the restaurants, you’re very often served beer with your water, as it’s natural over there.

Tea is a large part (as you may guess) of their culture, and my uncle probably sampled at least two types of tea for the month or two he was there.  One interesting type of tea he brought back for my aunt, uncle - in - law and cousin to try.  They nicknamed it ‘Party Trick Tea’.  What I tasted, I didn’t expect.

The way you prepare the tea is rigorous.  You boil the leaves for a little bit, allow the flavor to sit, take a small shot glass (wash it and dry it), pour in some scalding water and you drink this water to swish out your mouth.  You dry the cup and pour in the tea, which is even hotter than the water, and let it roll over your tongue.  When the tea is swallowed, you drink some normal, filtered water — and it tastes like you put a sugar cube in your mouth. It was easily one of the most interesting sampling experiences I’ve had.

Well, that should about cover two percent of what I have to say for now.  Cheers, mates.

Ryan