Don’t you Think it’s Odd?

Why do humans squint when they are trying to see something better?

Is it because they are just trying to cut off the “extra” parts of their vision that they don’t need to focus on? If that’s the case it would be more of a trying to focus on the thing better’ rather than see it better. Like covering up the distractions so you can’t see them.

I don’t know how the topic crossed my mind, but it did. No sooner had I gotten the idea, I was already squinting at near and distant objects only to find that half closing my eyes a little, and straining my
sight a little more, resulted in blurring and dimming my vision; slightly. When you squint your eyes, your ability to see things clearly, decreases exponentially until you cant see at all.. when your
eyelids are closed completely of course. This is what I had concluded after my many trials of research; squinting at things in public places. I’m sure I looked quite the idiot.

When you squint, you are loosing vision. This is fact. What else is fact that eyelashes exist. It’s not a just clean cut to the height and depth of your vision, your eyelashes get in the way. But try squinting now. Even when looking closely you can’t see your own eyelashes properly without the help of some sort of mirror. Because they are blurring. They are cutting access for light to get to your eyes. Everything you see is light. You are not seeing the actual objects before you, but you are seeing the light reflected from the objects. People cant see in the dark… So when your eyelashes get in the way, you see less.

Eyeballs have a thin film of fluid coated over it. This fluid will dry out if you forget to blink and will renew once you do. The fluid is there so that your eyes stay moist and don’t stick to the eyelid (which would be pretty bad for you if it ever did start doing that; never forget to blink). But a  your eyes close, this film will
thicken. It may be an extremely small ammout but it is still liquid. This means that the liquid closest to the rim of your eyes will be thickest. Even thought the region is small, your vision through this area will blur minorly. As you close your eyes you will be moving this closer to the center of your vision. The difference of the ratio between your clear vision and your blurred rim will become smaller until it does make a siffernce for you, slightly.

Your eyeballs are spherical, your irus has a lense used to automatically focus your vision, and your pupil determins how much light is let into your eyes. You can’t control the actions of your pupil volunterily, and you can change your eyeballs from being spherical (without assuming damage). The one stated there that you can actually change, is the lense of your eyes. Depending on how much a magnification you require to see an object clearly muscles inside of your eye will expand to increase the width of your eye’s lense
(increasing the curvature and strengthening magnivity -I dont think thats a word) or contract to give the opposite effect. If you are squinting, your upper and lower eyelids are forcing pressure onto this
lense restricting how well it can change. The lenses will not be able to adjust properly.

All three of my above points make sense. But not if you are trying to see better.

I still couldn’t understand. Why was it almost instinct for a person to squint when they want a better view when all that does is cripple your vision? This question plagued me for ages.

Okay, I was lying. It didn’t plague me, but I was curious nonetheless. And I wasn’t curious for long either. The answer hit me soon enough. It might have been something extremely obvious that we all took for granted without realising the instinctial physics behind why we have the need to squint.

When you squint, you are loosing vision. This is fact.  When you squint, you are blurring and capping your sight. This is again; fact.  Another fact is that your eyeballs have lenses. Two of them. This is critical knowledge when questioning the effectiveness of squinting.

If you are seeing through two lenses, when objects get far enough you wont be able to realise that you are seeing from two different angles beig blended together because the “width” or the distance between your
two lenses (or the angle each makes with a line of “normal” from the object you are viewing) becomes insignificant.

On the other hand, when an object becomes within the range of your eyes that you are seeing too much, you begin to see “double”. The inverted commas because you are seeing the same item from two differnt
angles. One eye will be able to see through the most of what the other eye is seeing as solid. This is what backs up the science of the old trick of rolling up a piece of paper into a tube and then looking through it into a light as if it were a telescope and holding  your hand beside the tube infront of your free eye, palm facing towards.

The images you see from your separate eyes become overlapped, and I re-state. You are seeing too much.

By squinting at objects closer than your abled vision distance, this somehow makes you see things clearer… but only at this range. I don’t know the physics/science behind why this works so but there is a
very good chance that I will go away and think about it and come back when I think I’ve figured it out.
 
-unfinished-

Block and Bullet

EPISODE 1 – “What began as a simple collision”

A fired bullet hits a stationary block of wood and becomes embedded. The block, together with the bullet slide along a frictionless plane at a constant velocity.  The bullet made friends with the block, but the block wanted to take their relationship further.  Bullet said that they had only just met; it was too soon and that they should give it some time before deciding.  Block wasn’t interested in waiting and had wanted to be in a serious relationship because block really liked bullet.  Because bullet would not be persuaded, block stopped hanging out with bullet. Although they were still friends, they didn’t talk very much and never saw eachother.

While block was away, bullet could not stop thinking about what block had said to bullet at that time.  Before long bullet realised that block was the one who was in bullet’s heart. 

Immediately bullet left in search of block but by then, it was too late.  When bullet had found block, block had been in a terrible accident.  During a pulley experiment the tension applied in the rope had been increased beyond its maximum capability, and rope had snapped.  Block had fallen over a distance of 3.8m before reaching terminal velocity and colliding directly with the surface below.  The coefficient of friction between block and floor was 0.02.  Things were not looking good for block.

Block was in the coma for three years.  When block finally awoke in hospital, block could no longer remember who bullet was.  Bullet cried.

Inpspired from dynamics assignments problems.  I did this ages back when I was supposed to be solving a “block and bullet” problem.  I made the “problem” more complicated.. and didn’t solve it… I actually wanted to write an episode 2… but the time constraints…  How I dislike ENGG1010…

Strange Sounds.

It should have been very obvious to me from the beginning.  You would think I would have noticed something much earlier, but I just didn’t.

It was a high pitched ringing, like that of the ringing in your ear produced when something hits you on the side of your head – except a little more discrete.  With my computer humming softly in the background (the fan is pretty strong) it was hard to isolate the single noise as its own.

It wasn’t until one day, my little sister was reading manga at my computer (because God knows she won’t use her own for manga) when she turned to me -who was studying quietly on my bed-  and asked, “Do you hear any buzzing?”

My first thought was that there was a mosquito or a fly had gotten into my room and had flown past her.  But upon suggestion, she claimed it was a sound nothing like an insect could make.  It was higher and made an ‘iiirrrrmmmmmmmmmmm~~~’ noise; as she had so kindly demonstrated for me.  I listened for it but heard nothing and we passed it off, simply as ‘her ear ringing’.

Later however, I found myself sitting, studying at my computer, only to find that there was a slightly irritating ringing noise.  As I leaned down to listen if it was my computer tower (sitting underneath the desk), I noticed a sudden increase in the ringing, followed by a dramatic decrease. 

“How perculiar.” I thought to myself.  After a swift repeat, I discovered the source.  My tablet was producing a small whining noise, which was very unpleasant for my ear to listen to directly held beside the tablet pad.  At first I was alarmed; something could have been broken.  There was a blackout yesterday, and since that, the internet at my place has been out and so has the printer… isn’t doing as its title claims (despite everything having a surge protector at my place).

Worried my tablet might have suffered some damage I tested it out.  Working perfect.  Nothing seemed broken.  But if so, what was that incessant whining?  It didn’t long for me to realise that it probably made that noise because it was.. ELECTRONIC… 

Yes, due to the outer look and coating, (even with the grey-silver metalic colour), I had simply added one and one to solve that a plastic exterior, meant that the whole damn thing was made of plastic.  Which makes no sense, seeing as the tablet itself, was a tablet.

The sound was pretty annoying, and was probably the explanation to my headache, so I reached around under the desk, around the back of my computer tower, grabbed for the usb connection of the tablet and unplugged myself from the network.  Dammit..  No problem, it’s not like I even had internet access at the time anyways.  Fumbling around some more, I managed to reconnect the network and unplug the tablet. 

Immediately it felt like a a horribly whiny, high-pitched, burden had been lifted from my shoulders.

So my worries were gone for the most part, right up until I asked myself.. Did it always make that noise?… Was it SUPPOSED to be making that noise? How come neither I, nor my sister, noticed it until today?

Is a tablet going to be okay if you have it plugged in 24/7 and use your computer on a daily basis for at least 10 hours (probably less than ten nowadsays, because i finish late at uni) a day usually ?  I mean it’s going to be working its little butt of this entire time without a word of complaint (more like some horrible dying whining).

I read up (out of simple curiousity) on the wacom tablet about the battery-less pen, and how it worked with its even-mightier-than-the-pen-which-was-mightier-than-the-sword might.  It turns out that the little tablet board is the one doing all the work, all the time.  Something about its always sending signals to detect the pen and its location with respect to the little square (yeah, I know, I don’t usually pay too much attention to what I’m reading).

So I was wondering if its okay to leave running all the time like that.  I don’t usually use it all the while my computer is on, but say I will use it really quickly a couple times each session I’m on my computer, say all up I’m scribbling for about ten minutes all up within the ten hours I’m possibly on the computer, but pretty often. 

It would be a pretty bad hassle to connect and disconnect the tablet everytime I used it unless I used the front ports.  Seeing as theres only two there, and that usually they are both taken I probaby wont do that.  I could get one of those USB multi port connectors (or hubs whatever they are called) but that would simply be a waste seeing as I have 3 completely unused USB ports at the back of the computer box.

Ah~ what a dillema I have.

With all the luck

With all the luck in the world, perhaps it is possible, after all, to find a four-leaved clover.   No… Let me correct myself.  Not ‘perhaps’, but ‘for sure’.  You don’t require a world’s worth of luck either.

At the end of a long day -maybe even some time in the middle of it- having endured twice as much as yourself could possibly sustain; you are left weary and frustrated.  A person would probably snuff salvation off as a mere dillusion, maybe laugh away at it followed by a short sigh and a slight shake of the head.  There’s no way in the world.

The person whose faith, even in their dire situation as such would not brush off an opportunity.  He may question his luck and have a hard time to convince himself to believe his eyes, but in the end that person is the one whose day will end with a smile.

 By now you may find yourself asking, “What are you going on about.   Where on earth is your story leading?”

Well I’m about to get to that.

My little sister found a four-leaved clover today.  Which required an almost immediate blog.  I’d had never imagined it possible for one to exist.  I had always thought the rumoured four-leaved clover was just a myth, created to scare young children into brushing their teeth at night.

That was shown to be wrong when I was holding the proof before my very eyes.  So it really did exist! I no later found myself taking photos of it.  I was hard indeed to believe that one had simply appeared.  What are the odds.

 This is about where I began to wonder, why is it that a four-leaved clover is so lucky?  I didn’t think that there was anything that it actually did to bring fortune your way… maybe you had to do something to it to bring out the luck, such as, boil it in a broth and consume it… or… dry it, and then have it placed in the four-leaf clover shrine you had built at your house years back.

 No.   There is simply no way luck can become involved from plain old finding a (and I quote from my sister herself) “mutated plant”.  It makes no sense.  You’ve probably just drained your luck on finding one in the first place.

But say you did want to keep it..  How on earth would you do that?  I first thought a lamination would do the trick.. but it would also do a trick of ‘murdur the poor little four-leaved, green, little piece of luck’.  The only way to actually keep it for good, would be to dry it i guess.

Gah! I need to work on assignments due in tomorrow.   No more writing ;__;

But as a sum up, my little sister ACTUALLY DID FIND A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER!!

You would think…

Quoting from todays dynamics lecture (not word for word):

“The real time you are supposed to be learning most of your material is not when you are in class sitting before the lecturer, but whilst you are away struggling with the problems.”

I can agree with this to no end, because for some people (such as myself) I find it almost impossible to keep focused and concentrate while there is someone standing before me talking me though the details.  Also my separately taken notes arent very good because I am just not good at taking notes.  The best way for myself to learn is to have front on experience trying to solve the problem, with pre written notes at hand.

Of course though, its rare for a person to just be able to solve problems just like that without studying first.  However, it is possible to try solving the problems and then when you do get stuck on a problem, going away and looking at the notes, finding what topic you are on, looking for a method to solve the given problem or a similar ’solved example’ to give you a hand or a little push forward to solving the problem.

This will not work if there are no notes to go to.  I will simply get stuck on the problem and dash straight for the text book.  Only to find that there are half a mllion problems with final answer given only, accompanied by 3 or 4 – maybe 5 if I’m lucky – worked examples. 

I often find mysef thinking, ‘It would be nice if they gave more examples.’  Especially when of the many problems given to us, only afew are common to the examples.  The rest have been solved using a method that you have to find out on your own because the text book (being a book written for students to learn from) wants the students to learn by them self.  I like to call these questions, “mystery problems” You need a pretty high level of awesome to be able to solve these by your self.

Back on topic, the lecturers are currently refusing to give us the material required for us to learn what we need to know to be able to pass the exam.  There are two lecturers by the way.  One is for the Statics side, and the other is for the Dynamics side.  Both are jerks, but one is more so.

The Dynamics lecture is pretty tough, but I understand his principals of what he wants.  He -the guy who made the quote back at the start- gives us lecture notes, and he gives us problems.  Fair enough, I say.  With this I can actually get some study done in a decent ammount.   Having the solutions for the problems would be alot more handy, but apparently we would all cheat to do the problems.  Which is exaclt y what we would do, but it isn’t to no avail.  I would look at each of the solutions and see how they were done and learn, rather than working on my own problems and spending the entire semester wondering whether I’ve done it the right way or not.

The Statics lecturer on the other hand is the one who I have issues with.  Not only does this guy refuses to give us solutions to the problems, (well strictly speaking, he does, but you are not going to understand anything from the solution lines cut short so you can only see the answers and remain unsure of just which method was used), he also refuses the students half of the lecture notes.  More than half actually, but the part that counts for the most nonetheless. 

We are given, empty lecture notes, which we are to fill out during class.  He keeps a copy of everythig that needs to fill out, but God forbids the day any student will ever lay eyes on it after he switches the power off, closes his laptop, slides it into its little carry bag and marches out of the room.  I’ve seen him walking about after the lecturers sometimes and I’ve had the mind to want to chop him one on the back of the neck and making a mad dash with the little notes of his.  Of course, this is a University.  Sophisticated and righteous students with principle gather here.  As my friend said, “Someone will want to play hero.”  Being unfit little old me having spent the last two years inseparable with computers I don’t think I have the strength or speed in me to get away.

I approached this ’statics lecturer’ after class early on in the semester.  The problem, you see, was that one of my other classes created a clash on my time table with one of the only two statics lectures.  The other class being a tutorial in which i was to give a demonstration every week worth a percentage each, was the priority.  Being the digilent student I am, I requested he put the notes he was keeping onto the course website in hope that I would be able to study the material still.

The response came quick and ruthlessly with a small hint what I could only assume to be sarcasm.
“You must attend my lectures every week, without fail.  You are not allowed to have clashes at Uni.”

I took the time to explain to him again that the other class would benefit my overall mark much more, if only I had a copy of the notes to learn from.  Also I tried my best to tell him that a clash was not a fault of mine seeing there was only ever one tutorial that ran each week and I couldnt improvise. (and you have to keep the second paragraph of this text in mind while you read this next part)
“There is no use in having the notes if I am not there to explain it to you.  If I don’t explain it, then you will fail.  If I put notes online, all the students will stop studying.”

What?  What now?  Was he telling me to fail?  Its not like that will stop studying.  OF COURSE they will be studying – THE NOTES.  Further convincing was not helping me out.  I restrained myself from losing my temper.  I politely asked him again, pleading, almost.
“If you have a clash, it’s your own fault and not my problem.  If you need notes get it off of a classmate.”

He contradicted himself and walked away, just like that.  I stood there in utmost disgust and disapointment.  Things looked tough.  I’m not the only one who’s had to go through such an idioc conversation either, many people I know have tried.

Say for some terrible reason, such as… say, on your way to uni somebody pushed you on to the road and you were hit by a car.  Injured and unable to go on, you take the rest of your day off to go to hospital; thus missing your lecturer and not getting a copy of the notes.  You confront the lecturer some weeks later with your dillema, asking for a copy of your notes.  I’m about a hundred percent sure he will tell you to rack off.

In conclusion: What a bastard.

UQ St Lucia, 
ENGG1010,
Applied Mechanics,
Statics and Dynamics.

(as expected, last years group of probably 400-500+ students had a 70% failure rate) <– im not actually that certain about this figure.  Its just what I’m told.

Rather Be Written.

 Blog Initiation.  An Introduction.

Hooray, first blog.  Well not legitimately.. seeing as I’ve already published three other entries.  Before writing this up.   Its kinda funny, because right now, none knows this blog exists.  Noone but me and my little sister.  So I’m writing these endless entries with no watches. 

But that’s okay.

I like writing anyways so even if noone is reading, I wont stop enjoying the writing part. 

 Sometimes, I’ll be sitting on a train and then I’ll suddenly see something perculiar.  It doesn’t even need to be intersting.  My creativity and imagination will completely take over, fully analysing what I happen to have taken interest in, and I will want to write up everything I can think about.

 When I get home that day, I will not have forgotten a thing, and I’ll chew out all my thoughts into the keyboard of my computer producig the blog you have here right now.

 Alot of people say, “Don’t make your texts too long.  People will become bored halfway through and never finsh reading.”

If I can have written all my blogs of a longer-than-average length, and have readers who read my texts whenever I post something and not be fed up with me, I would be pretty happy with myself.

 Although I am quite capable of writing short length texts, writing posts that stretch for miles is my style.  I am happy, I don’t intend to change.

I just like writing thats all. 

 Reading is awesome too.  Wired is dangerous to me sometimes.  I sit for hours, completely forgetting everything, reading and not realising how much time has passed.

 I’ll stop writing here.