“… and television on all over the place is leading to a steady dumbing
down of the American public and a corrosion of basic critical thinking in the population.”

- Jamie Raskin, American University law professor, November 2004 on the Democracy Now! radio program

Flickr user sandymichelle

Just this past Sunday I had to kill my television - in the best sense of the word. You know: denounce, unrecognize, and the such. It was really stealing away any free (and productive) time that I had. I mean, the idle brain cells spin out of control and zoning out in front of TV after a long day of work leads to: not caring about what you eat, not thinking critically about other great things in the world, not spending ol’ fashioned time with your family or friends. (Lots of great, original articles about Killing Your TV)

I remember about 4 years ago when I came across a similar “Turn Off Your TV” site online in the form of a podcast. And the 2 people were talking on and on about trans fatty acids. I was so compelled as to what they were saying I remember typing as fast as I could to take notes and replaying parts and looking up health terms and the such. Learning. Critical thinking. Sharing. I went on to write an article in the paper at my school and was excitedly telling everyone about my findings. I continued to look up more and more information - I was addicted to knowledge. Just a few minutes ago, I just finished my meal of baked chicken, couscous, and black bean soup with tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, and garlic. And I know that most of that motivation to eat healthy as I do today came from that little audio finding 4 years back. Now it allows me, 4 years later, a chance for me to just sit and enjoy a meal - in peace and quiet - and experience the flavors of life one by one. Hmm, there was life before TV.

I kept running past the idea that parents talk to their kids about 28 minutes a day while the average adult watches 2.5 hours of television per day. Hmm. What are we doing to ourselves? Now, I’m not being anti-fun here, entertainment is great, and I make it through most of my day with a humorous outlook on life. But I see people ignoring food as they eat, sitting silently among family or friends, just gazing. Paying lots of money - to be advertised to constantly and have this machine suck away brain cells.

Flickr user janz87

I also came across someone who said - if aliens came to visit us and checked out the layout of our homes, they would think the television is some sort of god of ours, as our entire houses are arranged around the careful placement of the television set. And then comes the arguments about using a DVR to save time. Of course, it is better than just mindlessly watching channels and surfing without barriers, but there are other ways to go about getting your fix without paying a crapload (ahem). But I can think of many better things to do anyway! I don’t think you’ll lose sleep at night or have regrets on your deathbed - just wondering and wishing that you you had watched more TV.

Flickr user chrisdonia

On another note, it is awesome to see change and progress going on all around the world, from the recent election all the way down to the small world of fire protection engineering. Every time I watch one of the videos about technology and change in this era - I get all giddy and warm on the inside. It’s true.

There’s a giant conversation going on. And it doesn’t depend on power or money or anything. Just a passion - a want. I think of how one person that I know revamped and forever changed the world of fire modeling by utilizing a couple of free tools to bring together thousands of users who were all previously working in dark corners. I think of how a few scratches I made on a notebook one night turned into a tool that hundreds of fire model users use every week - and I think of the next step, and the next, constantly progressing. I think of those that are “too busy” to participate in this movement and think this is only for nerds and computer people - and how bad I want them to participate.

I came to the conclusion that the two ideas I speak about here are interrelated. Apathy and social sloth. Here’s what I think: no one is any more busy than anyone else. Some of us just want something more strongly than others. And that used to be okay, praised even - when the dark corners were predominant. But now, everything is public - the world pushes upon itself.

Don’t be “too busy” watching TV or sitting out on this big movement - wherever you are or whoever you are. This is big. Join in anytime.

So there are scientists, and there are artful scientists. Here’s version 0.9999 of the graph from my last post in all of its full and smooth glory. It’s for a homework exercise in my combustion course (go ahead, click for full size - it’s fantastic):

Well, why do you care about my graph? I certainly do. There are many books about conveying information in statistics and how to present data in a very informationally dense format, sure. But let’s think about this graph that I made for a homework assignment. The purpose of the homework was for me to learn, yes? And that nice orange line bought me some extra credit worth 25 points, but that’s another story. I want to learn it inside out, run it amongst others, and in the end communicate great things to many, many people. Every time. With every action.

So I could have left the default Excel settings for the chart, but my soul cannot allow such a thing.

This graph shows relationships, it runs a conversation with itself and lets the numbers drive by each other and say hello. It’s living, and it talks to me. Check out the dark red diamond line called “Mixture Fraction”. This guy drives all of the others. Then the f’s come in. Then we go back to the real quantities like the mass fraction of oxygen (Yo) and fuel (Yf) and we can also grab temperature (in Kelvin) based off of what those f’s are telling each other.

Yes, yes, Kris. You are talking nonsense, I don’t like it. Well, perhaps I’m not as eloquent and direct as this guy (watch this great motivating video, do I ever let you down?):

But our messages are the same. Do what you love, and work your ass off at it. All the time. Not the old and dead cliched way of “do what you love” - but the minute by minute, day by day, just got home tired from work but I need more, but I don’t have the time, wake up and do it, it keeps you up and night, but I want to watch TV every day, what you REALLY want to do, an exact thing/action/pursuit every day until you die - kind of way.

If I wasn’t here loving my graphs at 2:34 AM in the morning and pondering the million things I just learned from this 4 day exercise, I’d quit. If I doubted for a second (as the guy in the video says), I’d do us all a favor and leave here. But I want this knowledge, and these relationships so very badly. And when the end-result comes along, I have a sick urge to spend so much time and detail on things so that others may benefit. Make your life, thoughts, and business public, and see what happens to it. It skyrockets.

Now do you see why I care about my graph? I’m proud of what it represents. Now go off and care about your own graph. For the rest of us.

I just finished the longest problem that I think I’ve ever worked on in my life. It took about 14 hours to complete this one problem in my combustion homework, but damn was it satisfying to finish and solve!

There is a serious amount of knowledge being learned here by all, and it does take time, sure; but it is very satisfying work. I could tell you about all of the above data points and how the mixture fraction of the fuel is a localized and conceptual version of the mass fraction or how the Shvab-Zel’Dovich parameters help to make such analysis possible, but I’ll leave that for you to learn in the combustion class if you take it.

Instead of that kind of talk, I was driven last night to my stove. I often get distracted while reading about fire and start fantasizing of ways that it actually connects to real life - I want to see it. And it just so happened that I was reading about the subject of diffusion flames.

Understandibly, I still have many unanswered questions about the love of my life: fire. Things like why it looks at me how it does with different colors representing how efficient the flame is burning or how much carbon is being produced and thereby how much radiant heat energy is being lost (I’m looking at you, sleek yellowy flame on the left).

So I was led to removing the cover panel on my gas stove last night and equipped only with a wet towel, I wanted some answers right then and there. Long story short, after 30 or so minutes of messing with the disassembled stove at midnight, I had a much better understanding of diffusion vs. premixed flames. For you, just know that there is an amazing amount of philosophy, fire dynamics, and fluid mechanics going on as soon as you turn the knob on your stove to on. Enough there for me to spend my whole life pondering about with passion, even.

In other news, on the opposite of my topic, it is quickly getting cold up here in MA. Tonight it’ll hit around 45 F before the sun peeks around the roof shingles. Life is good. Cool weather, good friends, and lots and lots of dedication to studies. And a bit of fun, come on now.

Well, I’m off for a much needed break. Take over on tackling your passion for me.

Peace.

This summer, I have been working in the sticky Houston heat as a fire alarm and security technician once again, because, well, it pays quite a bit more bucks than UHD did for being a lab assistant. And, thanks to my low income over the years of chasing my passions, I need as much cash as I can get ahold of before the big move in three weeks.

The cool part is that I used to work for the same company for 6 years, so jumping right back into the groove after being away for 22 months took all of half a a day to happen. Most of the customers that I were meeting up by commuting all over the city to I had actually visited years before. And even more odd to me, somehow all of the old knowledge was still stuck in my brain, waiting to be used. I’m talking about weird, minute stuff like remembering city code and station IDs (06 3D) or IP addresses (192.168.1.254) of customers that I hadn’t physically been to in over three years. Oddly intriguing how our brains are wired, isn’t it?.

Well, the focus of this post is to present a glimpse of the diverse set of people, minds, and environments that I run across during the regular work week (and you know how much I like diversity of mental inputs and daily stimulation of the senses).

These particular photos are from an adult care home in southwest Houston, in which this tenant was not present at the time, and I can only imagine what is running through her thoughts these days. The organization of the photos and thoughts seem to reflect raw categorization patterns of the mind. And the daily routine list with 14 steps to follow each and every day make me wonder how Josi is doing with her version of time management and self progression in her own version of the world.

It really serves to remind me that relativism is one of the most important concpets for us to wrap our heads around in the world. Relativism as a basis of thought and experiences makes way for a much better, hands-on understanding of forgiveness, happiness, and it also raises our awareness of expectations in the modern connected world.

Well, enjoy the pictures (link to full album) and take a moment to think of what it would be like to live in this room for years and years to come, with your only possessions being these posters and a toy tool bench set placed in the corner of the otherwise bland, white room.

Your sanity would be optional.

Link to full photo album

It’s interesting how my routines change month by month. I guess that is what is defined by this age range. Movies, programming, motorcycling, science. I just finished the book, The Quarterlife Crisis, and as cheesy as the title sounds, I did get a bit of good stories from it. You may notice how I say stories, and that is what I mean. At this point, after reading way too many psychology books and self-help books, this article really puts it into perspective: http://www.life2point0.com/2006/11/follow_your_bli.html

It’s a long, slimy article, I know. But if you can take time out of your day to read it… well, time out like time out to watch the previous video I posted, you know. Speaking of time, it tends to dilate depending on what you are doing - there is some correlation there based on how uncomfortable I feel before I do something versus how satisfying it is. We humans are built weird like that.

In other news, I took the Fundamentals of Engineering exam on Saturday, and wow. I cannot discuss the questions and stuff there lest NCEES sues me and makes me homeless, but that was the hardest thing that I have taken in my life. It was at the George R. Brown Convention Center with what looked like 800-900 students and, according to the NCEES stats, about 560 future engineers. I would show pictures but any phone or camera device would have you banned from the building and have you $130 lighter for no good reason. Anyway, about the test: this is why you have to kick ass in school, students. The test is the connector to the reality that is real-world problems.

Otherwise, I am off to sleep for another night. This week I will be working on a cross-platform launcher for Fire Dynamics Simulator, since the command line scares or hinders our users. In Python, of course. Python and Fortan, the story of my life.