Life In Cromwell

This is just a phenomenon I've annoyingly observed and made a quick chart for.

New Layout

As you can see, I've revamped my site a bit, adding a few new features like an uninterruptable music player (cool) and mouse-reactive buttons on the Nav. bar (useless).

If you find any flaws with my layout (I think I'll call it... "Brushed Carbon"... that's a cool name), please let me know so I can hunt it down and painstakingly rectify it.

Enjoy!

The Infinite Wisdom of Our Leaders

I've never professed to being politically aware, nor do i want to be too politically aware (that would just disgust me), but I can't help but notice some of the seemingly blatant acts of idiocy that are happening in this state and country. Excuse me while I rant, and do tell me if and where I am wrong:

Corzine: After reading a few articles about his toll-hike plan, I can't help but wonder which lunatic(s) is guiding his thought or if he's being so economically Communist of his own volition. I came across this example (with a few modifications) in the newspaper a few days ago on just why this plan SUCKS.
Imagine two cars at the tolls into NY. One of the cars is a fuel-efficient hybrid with two people in it carpooling. The other car is a monstrous Hummer with a single passenger. One of them uses twice as much fuel, emits twice the amount of pollutants, and causes twice the amount of pavement wear that our taxes will have to remedy. Both pay the same toll.
Now that hardly seems fair. Why not tax more on something like gas? That's something that would actually encourage people to make smarter choices. Instead of applying the same fees across the board (COMMIE!), apply them based on peoples choices.
Oh, and WHY?! 30 Mil for a stadium when NJ is hemorrhaging money from nearly every office? How about 30 Mil for luring better teachers and more security technology into troubled cities like Newark? Or even better, 30 mil directly to Rutgers so they don't need to cut so many sports and classes!

George "Dubya" Bush: I don't know if it's the fact that he's on his way out, or because he's just getting old, that makes him think his plans are working, but he's a walking storm of contradictions. Take his ethanol plans for energy independence into consideration.
You may think that biofuels hold much promise for the environment and economy, right? I did too, at one point. I was caught up in the rhetoric, after coming out of middle school having done a report on alternative fuels. Same with my brother. Thee was one time, about half a year ago that we were at a dinner party and the topic came up. My brother chimed in on how his science teachers all taught him that biofuels were so much better. An old woman sitting next to him said, "I'm not so sure it's a good idea. I mean you're using food to make fuel. There are so many hungry people in the world, why are we doing this when it would just make the problem worse?" I was rather dubious of her theory. I thought biofuels were good and would be able to calm the energy crisis.... until this:
A few months ago, there was a newspaper article talking about how pizzerias were under increased financial strain. Why? Grain going to ethanol production meant that livestock feed prices increased meant milk prices increased meant higher cheese costs.
Now, a few days ago, I see a front page article in the Star Ledger talking about how food prices have all increased 4-11% across the board placing strain on low-income families. Coincidence? No. The fact is, if all the U.S.'s corn, grain, soybean, etc were converted to biofuels, we still wouldn't be able to power a quarter of the country. It's not happening.
Furthermore, Bush (being the brilliant planner that he is) has failed to realize that fuels that are "less bad" are still "no good" (My Ecocinema friends can laugh at that.). Burning fuels is burning fuel, you will still produce pollutants and greenhouse gasses (except for hydrogen). Ethanol isn't an alternative fuel, it's a bandage on a gaping wound. The future doesn't hold highways of ethanol-powered vehicles, it holds hybrids and fuel cells and electric vehicles (or some other "real" alternative fuel vehicle).*
Thanks, Bush, for F'ing up the agricultural community with subsidies, promises of jobs, and visions of a corny CO2 filling the skies.

If you're read this far, I congratulate you and open the proverbial floor to comments...

*Update: I forgot to mention that the amount of energy-rich chemicals used in agriculture are astounding. They're in fertilizers, fuel, etc etc. By the time corn, or even ethanol arrives at your home, you've already already contributed significantly to global warming. WITHOUT HAVING EVEN TURNED THE IGNITION ON YOUR CAR! Is that a good use of corn?

Smash Labs Smashed

The new Discovery Channel show that was supposed to appeal to the same fan groups as Mythbusters has turned out to be a Smash... Failure.

"Smash Labs" whose tag lines have been similar to "Can a bulletproof vest bombproof a building?" turns out to be on the intellectual level of high school pyros taking Physics 1... and not passing. No offense to the hosts, but i don't want to hear their building experiences, I want to hear cool facts from industry leaders and what "real" engineers can pull off. You don't see the host of Future Weapons doing his own gun mods, you see the truly cutting edge from top-notch designers.

Their "Scientist Girl" who I will refer to as "3" (in a Dr. House way...) explained things in a rather childish way. aka: "This crashed into this and transfered the energy to that." (paraphrased, but very close to it)

I tuned into the show hoping that I would get a cool yet intelligent show, like a combination of Mythbusters and Future Weapons. Instead, I find a show where hosts discuss physics in language befitting of a high school freshman. Nothing was quantified, and their methodology for improving safety devices was like Mechanical Engineering on anti-steroids: give technology to geeks and see what they can come up with.

They had a design competition for safer highway barriers? *YAWN* Honestly, they already have them in race tracks for Nascar. SAFER (Steel And Foam Emergency Reinforcement) Barriers. But the traffic dividers in use now are already damn near perfect.

*Directed at the show hosts:* CARS DON'T CRASH INTO HIGHWAY BARRIERS AT 90 DEGREES UNLESS YOU'RE PLAYING FROGGER ACROSS 10 LANES OF TRAFFIC. SECONDLY, CRASING INTO ONCOMING TRAFFIC IS NOTHING LIKE ONE CAR CRASHING INTO 5 STATIONARY CARS AT ONLY 60 MPH. LRN 2 PHYSICS PLZ, KTHX.

And don't turn the show into an infomercial for Rhino Liners for pickup truck beds... We know they're tough, but honestly you have to brag that you're trying to use it to bombproof a building?... *Cough, the Pentagon and others use a competitor's brand for their own buildings.*

BTW, I lasted through the show to about the first commercial break.

Latest Update

My photo album has been successfully implemented and is now online for your viewing. If you have no life and have seen most of my Facebook albums before, then a lof of this stuff will probably be familiar. I suggest you go through it nonetheless as there are a few differences between Facebook's albums and this one. ;)

http://www.tcnj.edu/~moy5/Pictures/index.html

Note: I don't have anything like stuff from first semester, it's mainly pretty/interesting things from past vacations.

If only...

A Year Of Higgins' Fun Sites

For those of you who know of Mr. Higgins, but were unfortunate enough to not receive his Random Information emails, or if you just want to look at some of them again, here are some of the highlights from 2006-2007.

For those of you who DON'T know Mr. Higgins, I send my sympathy to your school districts.

http://www.i-mockery.com/halloween/bag/dinosaurs-attack.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Unusual_articles

http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/

http://www.globalincidentmap.com/home.php

http://www.bertc.com/japanese_ice_creams.htm

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1770138/

and that concludes my GMail dumpster diving. Anyone with other notable mentions please comment.

Heads Up

Welcome to my less than beautiful blog. As you can hopefully see, this is an extension of my Personal Website Project. I'm still trying to figure out how this all works, but I'm slowly picking it up... alas, I'm no web-page designer, nor do I have any formal training in the Digital Arts, but...

After much code-wrestling, I have managed to *I think* syndicate this blog to Facebook, so hooray. I can now keep all you strange people who read this informed about the wondrous things I find throughout my life. :)

Pictures, Links, and all manner of Entries to come!

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