Disenchanted

Edited to replace the embedded videos with links. (Jan-1,09)

The 2008 HMS Genetics Department Christmas Skit

PART-1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No8_2ID8ch4&hl=en

PART-2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MNOKDniNrw&hl=en

PART-3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LntERliGozk&hl=en

Christmas Eve Adventure

I had an adventure of sorts on Christmas Eve.

Just as I was pulling out of my apartment (I hadn't gone 50 feet), I saw what looked like white steam come out of the right side front corner of the hood of my car. With memories of having seen this in the past (in other cars), I stopped and opened the hood and peeped around.

Two things caught my attention (a) My coolant tank was bone dry (b) The air filter and some other parts had green fluid sprayed on them. Meant I had a massive cooling system leak somewhere. The next question was where. We poked around the engine and found that the upper radiator hose had developed a large rip in it and hence the source of the leak.

Finding a replacement for this on Christmas eve was tricky, but luckily it wasn't 5pm as yet. (It was 4:15). So we went looking for a replacement. Two stores said they would have to order it in, while the third one had one in stock. Armed with the replacement hose, new clamps, new coolant, we returned to the car, replaced the hose and refilled the coolant. At 5:30 we were done and the car was returned to regular operation. Oh, and it took 1.2 gallons of coolant to refill the radiator.

Whoop! Yay! for being able to notice the leak in the day time, Yay! for it happening close to my apt and not in the middle of a highway, Yay! for it happening in town and where I have people whom I could call upon for help.

Merry Christmas!

Bacon and Cheese Roll - I made it !

So I did it.
I made the bacon and cheese roll.

See detailed pictures here :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68701052@N00/sets/72157611501230447/detail/

[If you are not signed into flickr, you will only see one picture, you need to be signed in and on my family/friend list to be able to see all the pictures]

Solstice and Equinox

The Solstice is the day of the year (happens twice a year) when the Earth is at the farthest point from the celestial equator. It also marks symbolically the start/end of specific seasons (specifically the start of winter/summer)

Equinox is the day of the year (happens twice a year) when the Earth has the same amount of night and day time hours.

2008:
Equinox Mar - 20th
Solstice June - 20th
Equinox Sept - 22nd
Solstice Dec - 21st

2009:
Equinox Mar - 20th
Solstice June - 21st
Equinox Sept - 22nd
Solstice Dec - 21st

2010:
Equinox Mar - 20th
Solstice June - 21st
Equinox Sept - 23rd
Solstice Dec - 21st

More here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solstice
and
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/EarthSeasons.php

Singing cat

A cat that likes to sing along to the words of "Happy Birthday"

Owning the Empire State Building in 90 minutes

From the New York Daily News:

"In one of the biggest heists in American history, the Daily News "stole" the $2 billion Empire State Building.

And it wasn't that hard.

The News swiped the 102-story Art Deco skyscraper by drawing up a batch of bogus documents, making a fake notary stamp and filing paperwork with the city to transfer the deed to the property."

Read all about it here : http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2008/12/02/2008-12-02_it_took_90_minutes_for_daily_news_to_ste.html

Bacon Cheese Roll

This is probably extremely unhealthy, but it looks good. Posted here to remind me to make it sometime. I'll put pictures up if I ever get around to making it.

http://foodproof.com/photos/full/bacon-cheese-roll-1290

[One person who randomly reads this blog, likes bacon a lot :) -> if you see this, call or text me and I'll tell you when I plan to make it.]

and then there was snow...

It snowed 1 inch in College Station last night after more than a decade.
Here's a snowman (or is it a snow lady?) a friend and I found on campus

(If you are familiar with the campus, this was located next to Sully's statue)

[This is also an attempt at an emailed picture posting]

Quasars in Lightbulbs

This evening, a conversation amongst friends turned to the topic[1] of "How much power does a Quasar emit, in terms of light bulbs".

We looked up some statistics on the web[2] and came up with some interesting figures.

A quasar is said to produce the same amount of power as 10^12 suns.
Our sun produces 4 x 10^26 Watts of power.

Taking the average light bulb to be 60Watts, that means the sun produces the equivalent power of 6.67 x 10^24, 60W light bulbs.

Plugging that into the data above, we find that a quasar outputs the same amount of energy as 6.67x10^36, 60W light bulbs !

So there you have it -> A quasar outputs the same energy as 6.67x10^36, 60W light bulbs

--
While most of us in this conversation were not astronomers or in related fields, two of the participants in this conversation were
astrophysicists. One of them did some number crunching with actual formulae and numbers of luminosity and frequency from the field and came up with a value of 2.7 x 10^34, 60W light bulbs. Close enough for back of the envelope calculations!
--

[1] One person was going to be giving a talk on quasars to people from another discipline.
[2] Some of the data was sourced from Wikipedia or links from Wikipedia, use these numbers at your own risk. If you use these numbers to do anything important, you are insane.