FTW IS WTF SPELLED BACKWARDS

So, I was browsing the internet and saw pictures of galaxies colliding, and I was like wow. This has nothing to do with physics, but it looks so cool. And then I looked at the caption:

“…shows a Hubble view of IC 1623, an interacting galaxy system that is very bright when observed in the infrared. One of the two galaxies, the infrared-bright, but optically obscured galaxy VV 114E, has a substantial amount of warm and dense gas. Warm and dense gas is also found in the overlap region connecting the two nuclei. Observations further support the notion that IC 1623 is approaching the final stage of its merger, when a violent central inflow of gas will trigger intense starburst activity that could boost the infrared luminosity above the ultraluminous threshold. IC 1623 is located about 300 million light-years away from Earth.” – I think this is copyrighted by the Associated Press. So.. yeah. I’m citing them here.

I understood every word completely. Well, there is the word infrared in there. And because it’s bright when viewed in the infrared, does that mean the galaxy is giving off a lot of heat? Because night-vision goggles have infrared and then you can see body heat given off by other people. How does it pick up heat? Well, I wikipedia’d it and I learned that infrared waves is the same as heat radiation. The heat from people’s bodies radiate and give off heat. Also, the visible light from the sun only accounts for 49% of the heat on earth. The other half comes from objects and the earth itself absorbing the sun’s visible light, and then giving it off as infrared light (something happens, and the wavelength gets longer). Pretty mind-blowing, if you ask me.

This weekend, i went to josh lee’s house and got locked outside. Yeah, no one was home so josh had to climb the side of his house to get to his parents’ room’s window and then somehow got inside to let me and cory back in. so while i was outside, i was riding this wave board thing… and I’m like… whoa waves. That’s what we’re learning now in physics, during periods 7 and sometimes 8. It’s like a skateboard but rotates in the middle, the front controls turns and the back controls speed, depending on how much you move it. WAIT that’s not a wave at all. Well, the way you make it move is like a sine or cosine curve, so it’s like a wave like that. You can control the frequency using speed, and you can control the amplitude by turning. It’s pretty fun, but I’ve seen kids riding it around town and stuff, which is stupid because you can’t even go fast on it. And it tires you out after probably about… a block or two of riding. Whoever made the waveboard is stupid.

This past weekend, I went to Hawaiian Brians to play pool and the new Beatmania IIDX 15th Style DJ Troopers game. Even though I’m really bad at the game, and wouldn’t have even beaten a single song, Chris Sugii was playing on the Player 2 side to keep the game going. Beatmania consists of a turntable and 7 buttons, and it is exactly like Dance Dance Revolution where you just need to press the correct button when it flashes on the screen. Anyway, it reminded me of what we did in class: listen to Kohara’s uhh… what do you call those things… phonograph? record player. Before that class, I never knew how those things worked, but it’s really interesting how simply putting grooves on something, and then scratching it, is able to produce music. Even on Kohara’s Bob Marley record, you could hear the cheers of people in the background, and lots of stuff, showing the quality of the music contained on those old records.

Here’s a picture of the beatmania control pad with the 7 buttons and turn table.