Tori

I've always been into science... and by "always" I mean always; I learned the alphabet so that I could use an index. I'm not kidding - age three I was looking up things in an index for fun!

Anyways. You know how I posted picture of the moths? And there were those two weird ones, right?

I figured out the species! Out of 13,000+ North American Species, I figured it out *dances* I'm totally made of win. It can be annoying how good I am at looking things up though... people tend to turn to me to look things up for them!

Alright, so this moth is: Spotted Apatelodes Moth – Apatelodes torrefacta - Hodges#7663

And this moth is: Spiny Oak-Slug Moth - Euclea delphinii - Hodges#4697


I looked at hundreds, probably thousands, of moth pictures to ID them! The problem with the Spotted Apateloes Moth is that many of the pictures are of the moth in a display set-up. It looks like this when it's spread out an preserved, very different!:

And with the Spiny Oak-Slug Moth, the green spots (which look like lichen) are different from moth to moth, so it was challenging to pin down the species!

You know what annoys me? (well, one of the things anyways...)

When something gives/asks for weight in grams/kilograms. That's not weight!!!

Pounds are weight. Ounces are weight. Newtons are weight.

Grams (kilo- etc) are NOT weight. They are mass!

Pounds:Newtons as Slugs:Kilograms.

Yes, in case you didn't know, the imperial (AKA, the effed up system the USA uses) unit for mass is a "slug"... which is weird. Even more weird, the "small" version of that is the "slinch" (slug-inch) also called a "blob"... I mean, come on! Are we trying to get all the other countries to laugh at us?!?!

Mass times acceleration (almost always gravity) is what gives weight. Thus, you have a different weight on the moon. However, if you "massed" yourself, it would be the same.

*Sigh* Now that I've taken general physics, mistakes like this annoy me... also, I'm yet to go through a day without thinking about a physics equation!

1) If you recall, I posted this a while back about when my bag of win died.

Well, I got a new one!

It is made of even MORE win! It's perfect, and exactly what I've been looking for for the past year!!!

I got it at this cool store here called Passport to Peru. It's just awesome :D

The bag is denim-blue burlap, lined with regular black fabric. It's wicked sturdy, and has loads of pockets (Pockets are my best friend!) It's fantastic!

( Pics of the new bag )
It's incredible how "me" this bag is! I spent more on it than I wanted too ($29 +tax) but, over my whole life, I have spent less than $50 on purses... so I think I'm doing pretty good for most women!

2) Mom and I went shopping today as Nordstrom Rack (Nordstrom's Outlet store.) I got two new tops (it would have been three, but one was too tight, and they didn't have any in the next size!)

One is a nice long-sleeve dress shirt; it's styles much like mens' button up work shirt, but it's cut for a woman (plus, it's pink and purple striped :P) It will be perfect if I get a desk job with work study. It's something I can dress up or dress down. The best part: it cost $185 orginally and we got it for $12!!!!!!! We also got another top that mega cute and hard to describe... I'll have to get a good picture of it (just hanging doesn't do it justice!) for $15. We were quite happy with our finds!

3) Star Trek is MADE OF WIN AND OMG AWESOME! I need to see it again :D (I missed the part with Paul McGillion because the movie was so win that I forgot to pay attention and look for him!!!!)

4) My visit here in Cleveland has been very good, apart from the previously mentioned, and has really helped my to relax after the stress of finals and getting into Mount Holyoke/schlorships.

5) I have been sleeping really well, which is fantastic and largely due to #4!

6) I am too tired to think of another. Although I have been sleeping well/long, I still have more to catch up on! Plus, I did a lot of stuff today... so yeah, tired! (Also have a very yummy dinner and I'm STUFFED which makes me sleepy!)

Yeah... you know, I don't even know why I bother anymore... everyone who knows me knows I'm a geek!

Anyways, lets see what's been super-geek in the past few days!

( #1 )

~*~*~

2) When you clean off your bedside table and find the following book/publications:
- My Friends the Wild Chimpanzees Jane Goodall
- Long, Lost, Dark Teatime of the Soul by Douglas Addams.
- Contact by Carl Sagan (yes, that Carl Sagan!)
- A book about Nikola Tesla
- Two books on Richard Feynman
- An astronomy text book... and I've never taken an astronomy class
- A book on ancient monuments and stone circles in the UK
- A sorta spoof on music history (it's really good actually, and VERY funny. Bach, Beethoven, and the Boys by David W Barber)
- A dictionary
- A medical handbook that is about more than 60 years old... well, printed then.... it was written in 1910! It's Backwoods Surgery and Medicine by Charles Stuart Moody. It's falling apart, cost $1.25, hardbound, when it first sold, and it no longer accurate (quote: "... God smiles, he may not developed septic fever.") but it still a fascinating read!
- Four issues of National Geographic magazine
- Three issues of WIRED magazine
- Three issues of Smithsonian magazine
- Harry Potter 3, 4, 5, and 6. I've been rereading the whole series (I've read all of them once before... I don't like rereading books because I remember them near-perfect the first time through) and as I come across something I reference on of the other books because I noticed a clue or something :) (My mom and I have also been listening to them on MP3 on the way to and from school, we're about 3/4 of the way through #3)

My bedside table isn't all that much emptier... most stayed.


( #3 )

( #4 )

I'm a geek, eh?

OH! And I got an 87 on my physics test!!! Woohoo! Go me! It would have been higher, but there was a fire-drill partway through and I got distracted from my train of thought as we evacuated the building; when we got back to our test 10 minutes later I was just staring at my paper wondering where I had gotten that number from...

But I'm still wicked happy about my grade :)

When you're too old for Barbie, what do you do?

Why, have your sister get you a Doctor who action figure with 5 Adipose. Also, the TARDIS USB four port hub :)



I'm a happy geek :)


Also, the weather is SUDDENLY warm! Well, HOT! Also, turns out the AC in the "junk" car doesn't work... and Dad and I spent about six hours in it today... with the windows down pretty much the whole way! Even with that, it was still pretty hot... some chocolate in the car melted...

But it's cooled off like 20 degrees in the last hour (bizarre, I know!)

The NASA shuttle Discovery launched tonight from Florida. We saw it from here! It took about 6 minutes to be able to see it, and we were about to go in when I shout "LOOK!"

Sure enough, there it was! Moving across the Southern skies, at a rather shallow looking angle! We saw (we think) when they stopped the main thrusters, and went to manual burst. It was really, really cool to see!

Ironically; I live in Florida for 2 1/2 years, but never saw a launch while we lived there! We lived 200 miles from the launch area, and now we're about 1,200 miles away! I've seen rockets launch when we lived in Kodiak, which was close-range (30 or so miles) and very cool, but they were supplies and other equipment, not people.

Oh, I managed five hours of sleep Friday night, and four hours last night... wonder if I can sleep tonight?

1) You feel that you must know every Greek letter there is (lowercase AND capital) and what they could possibly stand for; when suddenly, out of the blue, you think to look ahead at the next section and think "ωμγ". Then you catch yourself and think "omg, I'm thinking in txt AND Greek!" ["ωμγ" are the letters "omega mu gamma"]

2) When something odd/cool/interesting happens you describe in terms of physics: "That glass almost hit the floor! It's negative acceleration would have been so great that the force would have broken it! But the acceleration of my hand was fast enough to get a high enough velocity to get under the glass in a period of time so that I could catch it and allow it to have a slower deceleration by moving my hand downwards with it, slower and slower, for a short distance!"

3) You've been studying for 3 1/2, and although you're almost done, you kinda want to keep going...

4) You have a physics test tomorrow; translation, you study all weekend [well, not all] and then help all the people who "forgot" for an hour before class since they all know you'll be at school that early anyways.

5) Staff who work in the Science building want the Art Club to do some artwork for it; you try to come up with some "physics-y"

6) You can't come up with anymore because there's more problems in the world textbook to solve!

*points up* Although that icon seems the best, these were in the running:



Oddly/worryingly, they all apply to the situation!

So, we were having a pretty decent sized thunder/lighting storm (whichever you call it by...) Ameila counted the seconds (silently) and then told me it was 11 miles away. I asked which formula she used; point being, I've heard 1 or 5 seconds per mile. She said she used the "2", because she'd been told that recently (by a unnamed professional... to protect his identity.) I'd never really heard of that one before, so we start bounceing math off each other (well, I bounce math off her, I like it more...) After getting confused because we were calculating different ways (and weren't positive on the speed of sound off the tops of our heads) we break out (one of the many) physics textbook. She couldn't careless at this point, but I'm determined. So I start to do calculations (and some metric to imperial... ugly numbers *shakes head in shame*)

Anyways, I kept coming up with .166(repeating) as the speed of sound (miles per second) That's in dry 0*C air, little faster in warmer air... so about 1/5 of a mile a second... or 5 seconds a mile...

Anyways, long story short. Count the seconds and divide by 5 for miles from the strike, or divide by three of kilometers.

So, when the electronics are unplugged... what do I do for fun? Physics... and no, I haven't ever even taken a class in it...

Am I really that hopeless?

(I'm taking it this fall *squee*)