Sunday, November 25, 2012

Scientosaurus rex on centrifugal effect-

What do you mean, "Dinosaurs dont make good scientists"?



I PROMISED to write a further explanation on the forces of nature, so here we go. What i really want to do here, is just clear up a few definitions and statements that I used in an earlier entry about the equator and sky and stuff... Yeah. In retrospect, this blog is pretty weird.



Anyway, I said earlier that the centrifugal force does not exist. This is both true and false, its a matter of perspective. We all know that there is something that seems to grab hold of us, pulling us outwards, when we e.g. make a turn in a car, or speed about in a curvy rollercoaster. Or use centrifuges, but thats not an example I want to use right now, it would detract from the point.

So centrifugal force is how we most often refer to this force, this pulling sensation, present in your whole body when speed changes direction. Yes, speed changing direction. Thats how youre supposed to think about this, because thats what it is. There is no such force in existance as centrifugal force, its like a virtual force. It can be observed in some circumstances, but its not actually real.

What the centrifugal... effect, as it should be called, actually is composed of, is a combination of centripetal force making our movement change direction, while Newtons first law of motion makes our bodies strive to keep going in the same direction as we used to. Thats a long sentence. Ill state an example;

Youre speeding about, in a car, and make a left turn. The movement starts from the wheels, which are solidly connected to the car. The car changes direction, but as you are not mechanically bound to the car (You should be, though. Seatbelts save lives.), your body will keep moving without turning. Now begins a strife between the force turning the car, dragging your ass or whatever part of you is most connected to the vehicle to the left, while newtons first law wants you keep going forward. The centrifugal effect manifests itself as a feeling that you are being pulled to the right! Trippy, right.

How large this virtual force will be depends on speed, and how steep the curve is. You might recognize yourself sitting in a rollercoaster, going over a huge arching hill-thing. Here, the same happens when the fluids of your stomach come rushing up your throat, as when youre in the turning car. Only difference is that in a rollercoaster, your body is firmly attached to the ride, and the only loose part of you seems to be your half-digested popcorn, which will very much be the victim of centrifugal effect.

Oh yeah, the feeling of weightlessness is also all because of centrifugal effect. I just think vomit is more fascinating.

What is this centripetal force im talking about then? I didnt clear that up very well... Centripetal force is just a word for a force that pulls you toward a center of some sort. We are always being subjected to centripetal force, as gravity pulls us to the sun, for example. Here, again, in the movement of planets, the centrifugal effect equals out the centripetal force, and thats why we dont go crashing into the sun.

One thing worth mentioning about newtons first law of motion, and centrifugal effect for that matter, is that the momentum increases by a factor of 4 every time the speed of the movement doubles. This means that youll feel 9 times as much centrifugal force when youre moving 60km/h as when youre moving 20km/h. Think about that, the next time you blow a corner with your car, and wonder why there was no traction and why you are now in the ditch. You got fucked by centrifugal effect!

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Wingardium Videosa?

AT LONG LAST

Our glorious project takes flight. Hopefully. If its not brought down for some kind of copyright-infringement again. Here is for everyone to see our poor acting performances, our bad writing, our shoddy compositional skills, and our general being bad at filmmaking. Ill make no bones of this, film is not my business.


The music in this video does not belong to me; All copyright belongs to EMI.


Anyhow, we were moderately pleased with our video, even though it had its shortcomings. We managed to make everyone laugh with the clown-costume, the horror-scene wasnt all bad, and we found some fitting sound effects. The tune playing in the end gave us some problems on Youtube... The video was made unavailible to watch in some 214 countries, and was now only viewable in like... Switzerland or such, so thats why it took so long for us to make it viewable to you.

Incase this actually does work, that is. Google, being the supercompany it is, owns both Blogger and Youtube, so I wouldnt be surprised if they were to have the same policies for this kind of thing.


For those wondering what the video is actually all about... Well, dramatically enough its about a pair of sunglasses. Which make you dream. Pretty cool, huh. So you dont really know whats going on with the first one, hes kinda just like, clowns and shit. The other guy was supposed to be this kind of deeper character, who on the surface, before the dream, seemed just fine. But, when he put on these glasses, they would sort of act as a scope into what hes really thinking, and hes actually all alone in this nightmare of his.

So he would just as the first guy send the glasses on. This third actor was supposed to be acting all depressed, but she kinda couldnt stop laughing while we were filming, so we had some issues shooting that :P I think we got it pretty good in the end though, 73rd try or so. So she was this outcast-person, sad and lonely, but then these glasses would take her to a better place, where she could be happy! So she keeps the glasses, and the happy music keeps rolling. End of story.


While we were writing the script I actually wanted this last person to get run over and die... Yeah! Think about it! How dramatic! Shes sad, she finds glasses, shes entranced in happiness, she gets run over in a terrible accident. I thought thatd be nice, since then shed get to die happy, and the glasses would go with her. It would give way to a flood of thoughts in the viewer. But alas, my dear co-writers didnt approve of my sterling visions. I think this was a really good ending too, so you know, maybe it was for the best.



All the people who helped in making this or acted in the movie, my thanks to you. Splendid work! Most of you. Well, some of you.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

feeling feverish and shit-

Urgh, I havent eaten in 10 hours, ive drunk wayy too much coffee, and I feel like complete shit. Im trying to force myself into eating an omelette sandwich, but I have no appetite.

What is Fever?

Fever is the bodys reaction to viral or bacterial attack. By raising the temperature in your body, you kill off weak cells. How does that work? Well, we know for a fact that all animal or bacterial or whateverial cells have a ideal temperature to work and thrive in. And so do the enzymes that these bacteria and cells make use of. All cells also have an ideal acidity, pH-value, that is. For those of you who have basic biological knowledge, you should be able to make a connection to how fever works right about here.

By raising the temperature, the body forces these bacteria out of their comfort-zones, and theyll cease to multiply, or just start dying faster. This ideal pH and temperature range is very strict, a change by just a couple degrees can make all the difference. Then again, some bacteria are more resistant than others, and simple fever may not bite.

It causes discomfort in humans, as we are all familiar with. Just like bacteria, the cells in our bodies have ideal temperatures to work in, and of course, it affects us just like it affects the bacteria attacking us. Why doesnt it kill us like it kills bacteria? Well, were used to it. The people whose fever tends to be too high quickly died away in the natural selection. Atleast thats one theory. Fever does make us feel like utter shit though.

Im sure fever also does other things to the body, like stimulate certain organs which produce a certain kind of anticells, which directly attack bacteria. Antibodies, that is. Antibodies are the immune systems way of tracking down certain illicit cells and locking them down, so that other parts of the immune system eventually can latch on to these bacteria or viruses and be rid of them. I remember what my Biology teacher in school told us when we were studying up on these kinds of things. Antibodies are like a ball and chain, but the lock on the chain only fits a certain foot. If the guards dont know what ball and chain are right for this particular inmate, then theyll have to try out every damn ball and chain in the whole prison, until they find the right one. Only after that, the inmate can be properly dealt with. The guards are clever, though, and theyll remember what ball and chain belong to which prisoner.

Basically, antibodies are the bodys way to tackle bacteria and uphold our immune system. Im sure its related to fever in one way or another.

Update: Day 2 of bad fever. Still alive.

Update: Went a whole week like this. its a painful life.

So yeah. While were on the topic of me, heres a cute picture of me.



Oh yeah. Such a player, man. That face! No idea how old I was. I remember that sweater, though. It may have been a terrible crime against fashion, but that sweater was baws. It was deep olive green on the outside, and motherfuhhin orange on the inside, phooaah, fuck yeahh.


Oh, here I am. Talking about myself and posting pictures of a younger self. Tssk, tssk, tssk. I better stop writing right n-

artist-stuff, lead and lazy-

Hum di da dum, la-li-lo. You know, im probably the laziest person on the earth. I really do need to get a life, right. And barely do I maintain my blog, shame on me! Im sorry, I should pay more attention to you guys!



Kind of a caricature thing going on here, the proportions are not in any way intended to be true to life. The important thing for me with this drawing was to incorporate some kind of emotion. Disgust maybe?


Today, dear boys and girls, I used a technique that is a little bit different from what im used to doing. I drew the base picture with a regular, traditional graphite pen (0.3mm HB mechanical, SHEESH 0.3mm HOW COOL IS THAT) and photographed that, slapped it into my PC, and drew over it digitally! Nothing fancy, just a few overlay layers for the colouring, and some extra stuff like adding highlights and just touching up the shading a bit.

Ive actually never tried this before, and that goes back to my initial statement about laziness. I prefer it all in one medium, no fiddling. Yes, 2 minutes of moving it over to the PC is way too much for me to handle on a regular basis. But it turned out nice, though. Sketching with traditional medium and a real pen is much easier than sketching with the drawing tablet. I cant tell why that is, I might just be more used to drawing on real paper. But who knows, maybe the tide will turn and ill get really good at sketching on the tablet down the line?

Anyhow, one thing that bothered me about this picture in particular was the skin tone. Man, I could just aswell be trying to... I dont even know, but this is like fucking rocket science! How can it be that hard, just getting the right colour for a face? I know a lot of digital artists use palettes, but Im not into that whole "download someone elses brushes/palette--> win"-mentality which surrounds digital painting, Photoshop in particular. If ill ever make use of a palette, I sure hope its a palette I composed on my own.



Myeah. I figured id make a more art-specific entry for today. I was supposed to make a second continuation on centrifugal force and the like, but ill just have to do that some other time...


Oh yeah, 0.3mm mechanical graphite pencil. Erh, no, thats not a lead pencil, btw. Lead is toxic, and not suitable for use in pencils. Its a common misconception, in swedish we say we theres "Bly" in our pencils, but im afraid thats not entirely correct... Its a sort of carbon, not lead.

Anyways, one thing I remember from when I applied for the art programme at Vasa Övningsskola is how everyone used some shitty 4b wooden pencils provided to us when we were doing our entry-exams-things-pass-juju. This meant everyone made smeary drawings. The graphite was all over the place for some of the applicants. Its like some people didnt sharpen their pens even once in those 2 hours we drew. I scrapped the  miserable excuse for an artists tool early on, and used my own mechanical 0.5mm pen instead. While favoring mechanical pens over traditional wooden pencils for drawing might seem an add choice, it was the pen I was best used to, and I knew exactly what to expect from it. No smeary edges, no blurry drawing, and my drawing turned out relatively cool, all things considered.

My point here is; You need to not only use soft edges, but also hard edges. Neither can be neglected. Many seem to have the belief that a painting consisting of thousands of gradiented shadings and not a single sharp line nor contour is a realistic painting. Well, its not. The real world around us consists of more lines than youd think. One thing that I believe is key to learning how to be a great artist is learning when to use hard and soft edges. You can go alot deeper with this subject than youd think, and there are many great tutorials and podcasts about this stuff that I can recommend you watch, if youre interested in art.



So yeah, another days work and a big block of text. Oh, and a jolly good day I wish you.

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Mostly equator and not acrylics!

Not acrylics? It looks like acrylics. Is it acrylics? 




Well, yes. In a sense. I aquired this quite amazing piece of drawing software, called Corel Painter 12. How is it different from what im using, which is Opencanvas? First off, Painter has a really robust brush-engine. It can handle acrylics. On PC. The paint blends, leaves strokes of paint, has adjustable wetness, the brush will eventually run dry of colour, etc. etc...! 

And it really works! They pulled it off! Its smooth, too! Almost no lag when working with a 100p brush on a 3000x2000 canvas! And its not a normal digital picture, no, its really a canvas with a prespecified texture which affects the way all brushes work on it!

Acrylics is not the end of it, Corel Painter comes preloaded with like hundreds of different brushes, ranging from airbrushing tools to canvas knives, from soft 2b to wet simulated watercolour! Its quite fascinating. It does take some getting used to, though, and the stuff you draw in Painter will look very different from the stuff youre used to in Photoshop, GIMP or OpenCanvas.





OH, AND THE EQUATOR! I came to an amazing realization today, when, in art class, we were talking about how kids from India almost always depict the sky as being orange or pink when painting. It came to me that this must have something to do with Rayleigh scattering, so its a perfect continuation on subjects previously discussed! If you havent read my rather lengthy entry about Rayleigh scattering in the atmosphere, go do it now, or take the venture of reading on and probably not understanding what this has to do with anything.

So, Rayleigh scattering makes the sky red, right? Yeah. Is the sky different in India? Yeah. Is the atmosphere different in India? Uh... YES, thats what I realized. Its not groundbreaking, jesus, get off my back about it. The atmosphere is actually alot thicker around the equator! Why did I never think about that? Its for the same reason as the coriolis-effect occurs, or the reason why sattelites dont come crashing down on us, namely the centrifugal force.

Well, that last statement is not really true. Coriolis effect happens because of simple rotation of the earth, and thats a separate phenomenon. Sattelites dont come down because of inertia, not centrifugal force, and also have nothing to do with the rotation of the earth, but instead with the motion of the sattelite around the earth. In truth, theres really not much at all true about what I said. Not even the atmosphere is thicker at the equator because of centrifugal force (It may contain more dense particles, though, but thats not what matters here.).

It is infact the much less heard of Centripetal force that acts here. Not the entire story, but I promise to explain. Centripetal force is the force that draws something towards the centre of a circular path. It occurs in all circular movement, and is in fact what keeps that movement being circular, when the laws of inertia says the path wants to be straight.

So in the case of the atmosphere, the centripetal force would naturally be earths gravitational pull. If not for gravity, atmosphere would FLYYYY AWAY because of preservation of motion. One important thing to note about the momentous force of the atmosphere (The force that wants to be preserved, in short.), is that it is naturally larger at the equator, because as the air moves around earths circle of rotation along with the surface of the earth. It also moves faster the farther away it is from the axis of rotation, as does the surface of the earth, because it still needs to complete a full revolution in the same timeframe as the rest of the earth.

Inertia is in this case the force which in effect is applied upwards, away from the earth. Since its stronger at the equator, the particles of the atmosphere will flock to the equator. That has to do with the balance between our centripetal force and our reactive centrifugal force (Im introducing a new term, get used to it.), which is the same as the force exerted by our preservation of motion. That doesnt really make a whole lot of sense when you say it, but thats the way it is.

In other words, the balance is tipped in the favour of preservation of motion near the equator, relative to near the poles, where there isnt much circular movement, but the gravitational pull, centripetal force, stays the same, squatting the atmosphere up top, elongating it at the sides. YEP. Thats a lengthy explanation for a simple problem. I like to tell the whole story though, and no one seems to be complaing (Which would be totally ok, im shitballs mad at you people for not ever commenting on my entries).

Oh, lets not wander astray here. Since the atmosphere is thicker at the equator, more Rayleigh scattering will naturally occur the nearer you are to the equator, AND THUS, REDDER SKY. WOOP WOOP. So basically, because of preservation of motion, the indians get to have much redder and more beautiful skies than we do, and the indian kids in my art class will draw pinkish skies.


DAMNN RAYLEIGH, You make for long-ass entries. Im sorry guys, I just had to try to explain this.


I have an extra treat for you. Its a really ugly faux-acrylic painting of a blue guy. It doesnt really make much sense, and it doesnt really have artistic value, so im going to make the picture as small as blogger can make it. ANYWAY TOO MUCH TEXT TOO LITTLE PICTURE. I mean, some balance has to be had, right?




Okay, just to avoid confusion, Inertia, or preservation of motion as i weirdly enough decided to call it, or simply newtons first law combined with momentum, is actually not A FORCE being exerted, its rather FORCE which is contained, in motion... Damn, ill have to make another entry about that.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Halloween, bad puns and more stuff!


Im sorry guys, my blogging has been bone idle for the past week. I should know better.



I hope you chaps had a good halloween, because I did! Good night in good company. ANYHOW Heres how I was dressed up (Of course I was dressed up, fool, its halloween. Quite frankly, I worked my fingers to the bone painting my face.)
SKULL-FACE THING

I am actually very pleased with myself! I "drew" it all myself, standing infront of the mirror! The eye-hand coordination may not be quite as good as when you draw on paper, but it was great fun anyways!

Wearing that wasnt such great fun though. It was like perspirative madness. My eyes sweated to hell and back, and the white parts which used another kind of colour-thing were bone-dry.

So after wearing it for a while I changed it a little to what my friends could only describe as a ukranian male prostitute. Yeah, imagine that, it mightve been more scary than the skull-face. But then again the skull outfit was great all in all! I managed to totally scare my friend out of his skin!

Im actually a little bit embarrassed uploading these here, theyre almost better fit on facebook or something. Photos of me that ive asked people to take... Ill make no bones of it, thats not the kind of blog this is supposed to be, im sorry!

The cane and the hat from the first photo werent actually mine, I borrowed them from a friend of mine who is also the photographer. My own outfit was actually quite...

Barebones.



BONE-GLOSSARY
Bone idle; Lazy, not prolific*.
Work your fingers to the bone: Work very hard.
Bone-dry: Simply really fucking dry, alright.
Scare/(make one jump) Out of his skin: An idiomatic and more poetic way of saying you scared the shit out of someone.
Make no bones of: To speak frankly. Which means plainly, or truthfully.
Barebones: stripped to its essentials.


*(Prolific: adj. for one who makes alot of stuff. I love words.)

Im dreadfully sorry for all the terrible puns I made this day. I really am!

By the way, I changed the layout slightly. I added a soft blue spacing under every post to increase readability and help you tell one entry apart from another. The entries being so melded together kinda got under my skin.