I remember back in March, I had an orchestra project in which I arranged the "Olympic Fanfare and Theme" by John Williams to be played in a string trio. Apparently that inspired the athletic director to invite some orchestra students to play at the banquet. Yeah, because in every true athlete, some kind of Olympic dream exists, even if such a dream exists very briefly. I obviously will "never" become good enough at skiing to ever join any kind of team, nor will it be important for the rest of my life, since it appears that things such as science and research would most likely be what I do best. Regardless, for those athletes at our school who still believe, I say dream on, especially if you even paid attention to any of the groups playing on the stage. However, I guess music might possibly and very minutely still be important in my life...since the trio I played in obviously was worth mentioning to an athletic director
As a result, ever since March, several groups of musicians volunteered/were summoned to perform at the banquet. At one point, it was completely forgotten that the Olympic Fanfare was supposed to be performed at the banquet. It's amusing how it's the one that inspired the whole thing anyway.
Regardless, orchestra + sports-minded people = lack of attention to both groups. So although some pieces were played in a small corner, and other pieces were announced, and others just began at random, the applause varied directly proportional to the number of people that knew that some people were actually playing music...not that anyone could hear anything.
Really, one must remember that the sports banquet is to honor the student-athletes in the school. Oops, unless there are athletes in the performing group, hence it's a celebration of themselves. And besides, who needs to listen to some violins and other stringed instruments making a large amount of noise? One can listen to the sweet music of the food being prepared, the pleasant chords made by general gossip, and exquisitely voiced orchestral hits of students cheering.
In conclusion: let's see what happens next year if I go back as a musician in a rock band instead of a violist playing in a string trio.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 48 - REALLY late worknight
This post was written on May 19.
I have to do this physics project in which I create a house that has some circuits with light bulbs spread out between two floors, switches to control how they turn on, and an alternative energy source to power one of the circuits. Of course, we also get to use a conventional battery to supply most of the house's electrical devices. So since Ellango was busy, Teresa and I worked for the time being. I'll ashume that I'll be responsible for the circuitry/wiring, Teresa will be responsible for the decorating/building, and Ellango will be responsible for making the battery.
Here's a very basic diagram of the circuit:
So basically this is the first time I stayed over at one of my friend's house until around 00:30 at night working on a project. At least Teresa and I got some of the annoying parts of the house finished, meaning the floor. The house is basically going to be like a cube, since we basically just glued some balsa wood together for the walls and the floors. Once the house is complete, wiring and preliminary decoration, we'll secure the house to a wooden board.
I have to do this physics project in which I create a house that has some circuits with light bulbs spread out between two floors, switches to control how they turn on, and an alternative energy source to power one of the circuits. Of course, we also get to use a conventional battery to supply most of the house's electrical devices. So since Ellango was busy, Teresa and I worked for the time being. I'll ashume that I'll be responsible for the circuitry/wiring, Teresa will be responsible for the decorating/building, and Ellango will be responsible for making the battery.
Here's a very basic diagram of the circuit:
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 45 - Onion News Network
It's been some time since I've watched some stuff from this network. I had to say that this video made my day, since the vague story really mocks how news is sometimes like when there's nothing good to talk about. Yeah, the language was pretty strong here, but it's nice to see The Onion discredit themselves as a legitimate source of news once in a while.
In other news, that actually did happen, I went to San Francisco today to get my teeth cleaned. I then had a nice dinner with my aunts and my grandma, since I hardly get to visit them anymore. And I have to say, that construction work on the Bay Bridge really does make me recall images of how the bridge was like 5 or more years ago.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 42 - AP Lang Studying
Yeah, playing around with airplanes is definitely a good way to study for the test.
After United and Continental's merger, flight simulation enthusiasts quickly published the most likely livery that the airlines would adopt for their planes. This paint is by Gabriel Guzman for the default Boeing 737 in FSX. The aircraft paint can be downloaded at http://www.flightsim.com/file.php?cm=SEARCH1&fsec=0&fname=united737-800.zip.
So about these two giant airline's merger, there's definitely something I can talk about that relates to AP Lang. There's all of the economic and political problems involved in such a merger. Directly, their merger will mean more landing rights at busy airport, more terminal spaces, and fewer fare competition. Whether or not that's a good thing would depend on who's ideas you use to base your argument. We all know Calvin Coolidge. He didn't do a thing to keep big businesses from booming, and thus the big companies loved him. This merger is nothing close to a monopoly, but there are of course little traces as enumerated before. However, if we look at Theodore Roosevelt, trusts were unhealthy for a market. Therefore he took action and broke up companies like Standard Oil. Thus in my humble conclusion, United and Continental will have an interesting niche in the airline industry, provided that they do not abuse their power, yet use the power to thrive in our current state of the economy.
After United and Continental's merger, flight simulation enthusiasts quickly published the most likely livery that the airlines would adopt for their planes. This paint is by Gabriel Guzman for the default Boeing 737 in FSX. The aircraft paint can be downloaded at http://www.flightsim.com/file.php?cm=SEARCH1&fsec=0&fname=united737-800.zip.
So about these two giant airline's merger, there's definitely something I can talk about that relates to AP Lang. There's all of the economic and political problems involved in such a merger. Directly, their merger will mean more landing rights at busy airport, more terminal spaces, and fewer fare competition. Whether or not that's a good thing would depend on who's ideas you use to base your argument. We all know Calvin Coolidge. He didn't do a thing to keep big businesses from booming, and thus the big companies loved him. This merger is nothing close to a monopoly, but there are of course little traces as enumerated before. However, if we look at Theodore Roosevelt, trusts were unhealthy for a market. Therefore he took action and broke up companies like Standard Oil. Thus in my humble conclusion, United and Continental will have an interesting niche in the airline industry, provided that they do not abuse their power, yet use the power to thrive in our current state of the economy.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 39 - AP Physics Studying
I was watching this A-team episode as a way to study for my physics quiz tomorrow:
This is an excerpt where Face and B.A. are basically coaching football, which is a rather amusing start to the episode.
Just so that this post is related to physics, I'll go ahead and blabber on about it, talking about this excerpt in terms of physics.
1. So a football player tackles someone else. Force is equal to change in momentum over time. So we'll use 70 kg as the mass of football player number 1 and 70 kg as the mass of football player number 2. Number 1 is running towards number 2 as shown in the diagram:
So let's say that player 1 is running at 4.5 m/s, which is about 10 mph. He collides into number 2. Newton's second law states that Force = mass x acceleration and Newton's third law states that every force has an equal and opposite reaction. And by altering the equation F = ma, we get F = m(v/t), and then we get F = p/t. We'll assume that if the football player didn't wear any padding, he would come to a stop in 2.0 ms. That means a momentum of 70 kg x 4.5 m/s = 315 kg x m/s to 0 kg x m/s in 0.02 s. That would be a force of 15750 N, or 3540 lbf. And this is totally why football players need a whole lot of padding, and why it's a physically demanding sport. (Yeah, I know I simplified the example, typically you'd have x and y components, and thus it would be a collision in two dimensions problem, and football players tend to fall down, so the change in momentum would be less.)
2. The whistle that Face was blowing...so sound travels at a speed of Mach 1. Yeah, like that says anything. The speed of a wave traveling through air would be velocity = wavelength x frequency. Thus by the Doppler effect, some football players will hear a higher pitched sound, some will hear a lower pitched sound, and others will hear the sound that Face is hearing. That's because they are running away from Face, running towards Face, and staying in place, respectively.
3. We can see the grass as green, because light from the sun is reflected to our eyes by the blades of grass. It is in the visible spectrum of electromagnetic waves. It's wavelength is around 520–570 nm, and thus the frequency is around 5.504 x 10^14 Hz. And thus the energy of a photon of green light (slightly off topic by I don't care), would be given by E = hf, so E = (6.63 x 10^-34 J s)(5.504 x 10^14 Hz), and 3.64 x 10-19 J.
4. All those gold chains B.A. is wearing is pretty heavy. But it also will get pretty hot in the sun, and they will expand a bit because of thermal expansion. That is given by the equation (change in length) = (coefficient of linear expansion) x (initial length) x (change in temperature). The coefficient of linear expansion of gold is 14 x 10^-6 (C°)^-1. We'll just say that initially B.A. had about 4 meters of gold, at 20°C. And since he's in the sun, let's say the gold is now at 25°C. That's a change of 5 C°. So uh L = (14 x 10^-6 (C°)^-1) x (4 m) x (5 C°) = 0.28 mm. So the gold doesn't expand too much.
5. Just for the heck of it, the A-team always gets into gun fights with bad guys. Back in the day, people measured the speed of bullets using ballistic pendulums. Basically this is would be a conservation of momentum problem - total momentum before = total momentum after. Since the pendulum rises, we will also need conservation of energy - KE + PE before collision = KE + PE at pendulum's maximum height. then pugging in known quantities will give us 1/2(m + M)v^2 + 0 = 0 + (m + M)gh.
6. Also just for the heck of it, Murdock is the pilot for the team, even if B.A. ain't getin in no plane. So Bernoulli's equation gives us: P + 1/2pv^2 + pgy = constant. And in a special case of Bernoulli's equation when afluid flows horizontally with no change in height, we get P sub 1 + 1/2 p sub 1 v sub 1 squared = P sub 2 + 1/2 p sub 1 v sub 1 squared, saying that when the speed is high when the pressure is low. Because airfoils are designed to make air flow faster on the top of the airfoil than on the bottom, we get a net upwards force, and thus get dynamic lift. This is probably too complicated for the AP test anyway, and I don't understand all of this anyway.
Alright, so I talked about Newtonian mechanics, sound, heat and fluids. That's too much studying for one night.
This is an excerpt where Face and B.A. are basically coaching football, which is a rather amusing start to the episode.
Just so that this post is related to physics, I'll go ahead and blabber on about it, talking about this excerpt in terms of physics.
1. So a football player tackles someone else. Force is equal to change in momentum over time. So we'll use 70 kg as the mass of football player number 1 and 70 kg as the mass of football player number 2. Number 1 is running towards number 2 as shown in the diagram:
So let's say that player 1 is running at 4.5 m/s, which is about 10 mph. He collides into number 2. Newton's second law states that Force = mass x acceleration and Newton's third law states that every force has an equal and opposite reaction. And by altering the equation F = ma, we get F = m(v/t), and then we get F = p/t. We'll assume that if the football player didn't wear any padding, he would come to a stop in 2.0 ms. That means a momentum of 70 kg x 4.5 m/s = 315 kg x m/s to 0 kg x m/s in 0.02 s. That would be a force of 15750 N, or 3540 lbf. And this is totally why football players need a whole lot of padding, and why it's a physically demanding sport. (Yeah, I know I simplified the example, typically you'd have x and y components, and thus it would be a collision in two dimensions problem, and football players tend to fall down, so the change in momentum would be less.)
2. The whistle that Face was blowing...so sound travels at a speed of Mach 1. Yeah, like that says anything. The speed of a wave traveling through air would be velocity = wavelength x frequency. Thus by the Doppler effect, some football players will hear a higher pitched sound, some will hear a lower pitched sound, and others will hear the sound that Face is hearing. That's because they are running away from Face, running towards Face, and staying in place, respectively.
3. We can see the grass as green, because light from the sun is reflected to our eyes by the blades of grass. It is in the visible spectrum of electromagnetic waves. It's wavelength is around 520–570 nm, and thus the frequency is around 5.504 x 10^14 Hz. And thus the energy of a photon of green light (slightly off topic by I don't care), would be given by E = hf, so E = (6.63 x 10^-34 J s)(5.504 x 10^14 Hz), and 3.64 x 10-19 J.
4. All those gold chains B.A. is wearing is pretty heavy. But it also will get pretty hot in the sun, and they will expand a bit because of thermal expansion. That is given by the equation (change in length) = (coefficient of linear expansion) x (initial length) x (change in temperature). The coefficient of linear expansion of gold is 14 x 10^-6 (C°)^-1. We'll just say that initially B.A. had about 4 meters of gold, at 20°C. And since he's in the sun, let's say the gold is now at 25°C. That's a change of 5 C°. So uh L = (14 x 10^-6 (C°)^-1) x (4 m) x (5 C°) = 0.28 mm. So the gold doesn't expand too much.
5. Just for the heck of it, the A-team always gets into gun fights with bad guys. Back in the day, people measured the speed of bullets using ballistic pendulums. Basically this is would be a conservation of momentum problem - total momentum before = total momentum after. Since the pendulum rises, we will also need conservation of energy - KE + PE before collision = KE + PE at pendulum's maximum height. then pugging in known quantities will give us 1/2(m + M)v^2 + 0 = 0 + (m + M)gh.
6. Also just for the heck of it, Murdock is the pilot for the team, even if B.A. ain't getin in no plane. So Bernoulli's equation gives us: P + 1/2pv^2 + pgy = constant. And in a special case of Bernoulli's equation when afluid flows horizontally with no change in height, we get P sub 1 + 1/2 p sub 1 v sub 1 squared = P sub 2 + 1/2 p sub 1 v sub 1 squared, saying that when the speed is high when the pressure is low. Because airfoils are designed to make air flow faster on the top of the airfoil than on the bottom, we get a net upwards force, and thus get dynamic lift. This is probably too complicated for the AP test anyway, and I don't understand all of this anyway.
Alright, so I talked about Newtonian mechanics, sound, heat and fluids. That's too much studying for one night.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 37 - AP U.S. History Quiz
This post was written on May 8 and published on May 12.
Two down, two to go - in terms of the AP Quizes I have this year. Why quiz? My journalism teacher last year said "Good luck on your AP World History Quiz." So I might as well call it a quiz again this year.
The multiple choice section was not too bad, and approximately what I thought it would be. As for the DBQ, I actually guessed correctly that it would be about Colonial America. All I can say is that I am grateful that I had some lectures in AP Lang about the Scarlet Letter, which I could use to talk about Puritans during the time.
Project Score: hopefully a 3.
Two down, two to go - in terms of the AP Quizes I have this year. Why quiz? My journalism teacher last year said "Good luck on your AP World History Quiz." So I might as well call it a quiz again this year.
The multiple choice section was not too bad, and approximately what I thought it would be. As for the DBQ, I actually guessed correctly that it would be about Colonial America. All I can say is that I am grateful that I had some lectures in AP Lang about the Scarlet Letter, which I could use to talk about Puritans during the time.
Project Score: hopefully a 3.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 36 - APUSH Studying...
"As is clearly shown, you can achieve a 5 by correctly answering just 58 percent of the questions and a 4 by correctly answering just 47 percent of the questions!" (Larry Krieger, AP* U.S. History Crash Course)
Yeah right...like I'll even be able to do so well with the test tomorrow. In the Princeton Review practice test, I got 47 correct, 30 wrong, and whatever the rest was omitted. That worked out to be 39.5 raw points - multiply that by 90/80, and I'd get 44 pts. Which is enough for a 1.
I'll try to remember as much as I can. American history is all very interesting. Looking at how history repeats itself so much (ie, FDR and Churchill vs. Obama and Brown, on behalf of our current economy) is always amusing. Plus, there's always my favorite...American scientific achievements. You can't forget about the race to space program during the Cold War. Or the Wright Brothers inventing the first operable airplane. As always, I'm horrible at memorization, and I only remember stuff I want to remember.
I stopped studying at 23:30. I was looking at College Bored's (no that is not a typo) website and looked at the APUSH course description. I reviewed some multiple choice questions and called it a night.
In the mean time, for the rest of the night, I'll be relaxing by having a nice chat with one of my friends, Gabe, who is basically already in college at UC Merced. It's always nice to talk to good friends, and it's also good to relieve any other stresses I may have for the test. Heck, here's his post at his blog.
*AP is a registered trademark of the College Entrance Examination Board, which does not endorse this book.
Yeah right...like I'll even be able to do so well with the test tomorrow. In the Princeton Review practice test, I got 47 correct, 30 wrong, and whatever the rest was omitted. That worked out to be 39.5 raw points - multiply that by 90/80, and I'd get 44 pts. Which is enough for a 1.
I'll try to remember as much as I can. American history is all very interesting. Looking at how history repeats itself so much (ie, FDR and Churchill vs. Obama and Brown, on behalf of our current economy) is always amusing. Plus, there's always my favorite...American scientific achievements. You can't forget about the race to space program during the Cold War. Or the Wright Brothers inventing the first operable airplane. As always, I'm horrible at memorization, and I only remember stuff I want to remember.
I stopped studying at 23:30. I was looking at College Bored's (no that is not a typo) website and looked at the APUSH course description. I reviewed some multiple choice questions and called it a night.
In the mean time, for the rest of the night, I'll be relaxing by having a nice chat with one of my friends, Gabe, who is basically already in college at UC Merced. It's always nice to talk to good friends, and it's also good to relieve any other stresses I may have for the test. Heck, here's his post at his blog.
*AP is a registered trademark of the College Entrance Examination Board, which does not endorse this book.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 35 - AP Calculus BC Quiz
This post was written on May 12.
I can't believe that 2 of the free response questions on the BC test were exactly the same as the ones on the AB test. That's just pretty bored. And also lazy of the test makers. Let me qualify that argument...if the test makers gave different questions for us, the AB people would probably have a slightly easier problem compared to ours. Or maybe not. I don't know.
Projected Score: 4, hopefully a 5
I can't believe that 2 of the free response questions on the BC test were exactly the same as the ones on the AB test. That's just pretty bored. And also lazy of the test makers. Let me qualify that argument...if the test makers gave different questions for us, the AB people would probably have a slightly easier problem compared to ours. Or maybe not. I don't know.
Projected Score: 4, hopefully a 5
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 31 - San Antonio International Airport
This post was written on May 3.
May 1 is one of those bored days where students around the country scramble into a building to take the "SAT Test." (SAT Practice) "Some will win, some will lose." (Cain) There was basically a swarm of students around El Cerrito High School, where I was stationed to take the SAT Test. On the admission ticket, it does say "arrive no later than 7:45," so that's why everyone was there early. Then the door opened at 7:45, and everyone pushed their way in through the doors. I recognized a cluster of Hercules High School Students and someone yelled out my name. I said, "yeah, hi" as my response. While walking in the crowd, it was as if we students were going into this baseball stadium, were excited for a game...say, the Giants versus the A's in AT & T park. All of that rush, minus the cheering and the screaming and the chanting.
My proctor was pretty darn American. For my current life, the term American refers to anyone who is slightly slow, makes mistakes, stumbles over words, uses excessive speech fillers, and all kinds of other things...but in this case, reading the instructions wrong three times in a row:
Anyway, it doesn't really matter, and this test wasn't too bad. And for those who are somewhat confused about the title of the post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Antonio_International_Airport and http://www.sanantonio.gov/aviation/.
Works Cited:
Cain, Jonathan, et al. "Don't Stop Believin'." Lyrics. Escape. 1981.
"SAT Practice - Prepare with Official SAT Test Prep Questions." College Board. College Board, n.d. Web. 30 April 2010..
May 1 is one of those bored days where students around the country scramble into a building to take the "SAT Test." (SAT Practice) "Some will win, some will lose." (Cain) There was basically a swarm of students around El Cerrito High School, where I was stationed to take the SAT Test. On the admission ticket, it does say "arrive no later than 7:45," so that's why everyone was there early. Then the door opened at 7:45, and everyone pushed their way in through the doors. I recognized a cluster of Hercules High School Students and someone yelled out my name. I said, "yeah, hi" as my response. While walking in the crowd, it was as if we students were going into this baseball stadium, were excited for a game...say, the Giants versus the A's in AT & T park. All of that rush, minus the cheering and the screaming and the chanting.
My proctor was pretty darn American. For my current life, the term American refers to anyone who is slightly slow, makes mistakes, stumbles over words, uses excessive speech fillers, and all kinds of other things...but in this case, reading the instructions wrong three times in a row:
-Good morning. Today you will be taking the SAT Subject test to show what you know"It goes on and on and on and on." (Cain). Three times over. All I know is that this was just too funny seeing her fumbling with the test instructions, asking if we had "number 2 pens," and telling the people who were lost what building in which they should be taking their test.
-Um, we're taking the SAT Reasoning today.
-Yeah, reasoning.
-Oh sorry, you will have to forgive me for this. Today's a Saturday and I'm not thinking right. You guys said reasoning?
-Yeah, reasoning.
-Okay. I don't know, I can't find this in the instruction book.
Anyway, it doesn't really matter, and this test wasn't too bad. And for those who are somewhat confused about the title of the post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Antonio_International_Airport and http://www.sanantonio.gov/aviation/.
Works Cited:
Cain, Jonathan, et al. "Don't Stop Believin'." Lyrics. Escape. 1981.
"SAT Practice - Prepare with Official SAT Test Prep Questions." College Board. College Board, n.d. Web. 30 April 2010.
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