arthurwatney

Latest Posts by arthurwatney

Fish = Es TIMES q!?

This was said, this morning out loud in my dorm room, today. In context, it made total sense. 

“Reality ...is FICTIONAL” -(Rainbow Kitten Surprise)

As the days pass and the news gets continually worse as restrictions come and go like the push and pull of the tide (or a sine wave), I find myself in a daze, feeling like this reality is closer to some distopian fiction than anything that could have ever been real....but it is. 

I find myself listening to music and dancing in my cubical of quarantine, because “Because there's nothing else to do” (Pulp, Common People). I danced classical ballet for many years, but lately I’m finding I need music that is far louder and more psychedelic. With that in mind... here’s a few songs that feel oddly fitting right now.

 “American Hero” by Rainbow Kitten Surprise

Because man does Reality seem Fictional Right Now

“Once in a Lifetime” by Talking Heads

How did we find ourselves here, I’m just “Letting the day’s go by”

“Common People” by Pulp

“watch your life slide out of view And then dance [...] Because there's nothing else to do

Anything by Tame Impala Especially 

“It might be time”

“Feels Like We Only Go Backwards (Artic Monkeys Cover of this is good too)

“The Less I Know The Better”

“Yesterday” by the Beatles 

My God, How is this not dystopian fiction? How is this not just a book I can toss aside? 

Stay Home if you can my friends. 

Dance in your dorm rooms. Binge watch television from your couch. Work out till you have abs as good as Angelina Joe Lee in Tomb Raider, then watch Angelina Joe Lee in Tomb Raider, then play some Tomb Raider. Skype your best friend and play two truths and a lie. Read the Martian (Andy Weir)... Twice, then Watch the Movie, then study aerospace engineering. Read “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” (Douglas Adams), complete edition (duh), then pretend you’re an alien for a day. Whatever you do, be safe my friends.  

A cheap solution to heat problems:

A dear friend is working a factory job and has had heat stroke several times due to the recent heat wave. Said friend is in a financial position that limits options and resources. Time to put my overpriced engineering education to work. Here's what we came up with.

Resources required:

Watter bottle, preferably plastic though any will work.

Long sleeve T shirt

Implementation:

Fill watter bottle with water and place in freezer with lid removed

Roll in T-shirt

Use sleeves to tie around body like a belt/fanny pack.

Limitations: This is a minimal, temporary solution. Once the ice is melted it will no longer help.

Benefits: Acess to a freezer, a bottle, water, and a shirt is all that is required.

Already too much

When I was 11 years old I crashed my mountain bike. I was hauled out of the woods in an all terrain ambulance and rushed to the hospital. They stitched me up and I was fine. 

This is the point I have come to. That I know it is almost over, that the semester is almost over. Just like the doctor almost being done with the stitches. But it hurts so bad and I’ve already been through too much. I’ve got no more left in me, I can’t take any more, but there is still more to go. 

Stay Safe. 

Governor Sunshine: President of Mars

The happiest man I know in this region lives in between the two hubs of our small martian colony. He often sits outside where the lawn meets the sidewalk and greets anyone who passes. As I prepare to depart the martian colony in my beaten blue shuttle, I stop for protein at the hub for quality homestyle nourishment. He wanders in and chats with the group of young women in the booth behind me. Greets the young men who walk in to rush their friends for departure, then he says goodbye to the young women and leaves.

I met him once on a day last year walking back to the habit. I sat and chatted with him for a bit. He was injured when he was young in a shuttle accident, his mind and his leg will never be quite right, but he is happy. He spends his days watching sunrises and sunsets, chatting with anyone near about anything, and watching game shows. Some people call him Governor, others call him Sunshine, few call him by his real name, but he expresses pure innocent joy towards everyone and as far as I'm concerned, he's President of Mars.

Martian Laundry Gone Wrong A window into the Martian Laundry Experience:

1. Put clothes in washer

2. Put Soap in Soap Slot & Quarters in Quarter Slot

3. Come back to mysterious puddle and open soap slot

4. Put soggy clothes in dryer and more quarters

5. Come back to soggy clothes that smell funny

6. Throw anything not absolutely vital to the week back in the laundry bag

7. Decide to hang pants

8. Discover you do not have a strong enough rope

9. Braid together several feet of plastic bag

10. Hang pants and spray with disinfectant

Alternative Method for same results:

1. Throw pants over chair, spray with disinfectant

2. Pour some water on your laundry bag

3. Throw some quarters out the window

This method is a more efficient means of achieving almost wearable pants, soggy funny smelling shirts, and losing quarters. 

What Stress?

You know how Advil has those adds? Hostess should too.

“Life Sucks... Then You Die”

It’s been a rough couple weeks. Mum used to play this. It feels fitting tonight on Mars. 

Healthy Life Choices:

My mother insists I eat more protein as my post-flu diet has been poor.

My doctor insists I increase my iron intake as my Martian diet lacks meats.

I think... I have found a solution:

“The College Experience” On Being the Sober Friend

Many people seem to think that the Sober Friend, the one who doesn’t party, but will come get you and fix you up misses out on some fundamental aspects of the college experience. And yet in looking back I believe I got to experience some of the highlights of being drunk and/or high without the expense of the traditional substances. Then again, there were still the health services fees and engineering textbooks cost more than boose so...?

1. Master of Vomiting.

Yep...Noro. I can vomit while practically laying down on the toilet. The trick is to strangle the piping. I’m also quite skilled at running while nauseated and, knock on wood, haven’t missed the toilet yet. 

2. Waking up on the floor + awkward interactions with someone I barely know.

Whatever you do, don’t take a shower when you’re severely dehydrated. 

3. Inability to walk a line 

Albuterol after I had the flu

4. Memory Loss

Severe sleep deprivation will do that. 

5. Bloodshot eyes

Sleep is for people who don’t have a major statics project and circuits and a thermo exam due the same day. 

6. Anti-skunk smell procedures

The people across from me didn’t have to wash their laundry but I wasn’t about to get suspended for their lack of caution and found myself freebreeze-ing my room with the best of em’. 

7. The munchies

No excuse for this one. Three weeks four boxes of marshmallow fruit loops. 

One step closer to becoming iron man

Even Tony Stark would be impressed with this Iron Man suit. 🔥 

“Torrefaction” and the Potato Principal

There comes a point at which my mind no longer wants to absorb new information and I become extremely distractible. Junk food and music become the primary motivators for staying at my desk. This is the point at which I consider my mind a fried potato. 

Tonight that point was hit with the word “Torrefaction,” which describes a process of heating a biomass fuel in an inert atmosphere (like nitrogen) to make it into a more efficiently burning source. Pretty cool right?

I’m working on understanding some Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA) techniques for something I’m writing and hence came across the word. 

Today began at 9am with some light physics (literally physics regarding light)

Continued on with some dynamics that took way longer than it should have

Came back around to TGA hit “Torrefaction” and now my mind is burnt toast. 

Aside from interuptions for food, hygene and laundry (bothersome repeated tasks we’ve yet to find ways out of) today has been dedicated to engineering and yet here we are nearing midnight, still with more to do and a fried potato of a mind. 

The Devil Wears A Suit And Tie

He has been reported multiple times. He has a known track record and some young women are lucky enough to be warned to avoid him...

Others are not.

He invites the younger of the college girls, particularly ones with rough home lives, depression, anxiety, self doubt, anyone who is vulnerable or *has a reason to drink*. And then they get drunk and him and his friends take advantage of them.

He does not know who I am.

About a year ago, I stood with another pushing a door open against the cold beconing in two young women. They had made it out of one of the "parties".

We had acquired information about the "party" and one handed under the table I had passed just enough on to an SRA. The party was "not found". The young women had made it out on their own. We snuck them in through the side door of our residence. They would likely have had to leave school if caught.

As we got them warmed up and sobered up (blankets, soda, water), one of them told us half sobbing what happened, the other sat in near silence and said she was fine. They got out before the night was over, but others don't.

Once I saw a man standing outside, a tall almost iconic image of a businessman, smoking a cigarette, wearing a suit. And then he turned and I saw his face and some cold reality hit me. He looks like he owns this place. He does.

May hell be real & worse than any literature imagines & may his cigarettes send him there.

An Exercise in Unpacking & Havin' More Fun:

Imagine this:

Your shuttle, a lovely blue craft old enough to vote, returns you to mars late enough in the sol that it is already dark and you can feel the cold of the atmosphere in spite of your insulative layers.

Alone, you must unpack your craft and the extensive resupply materials it contains. Because you are alone you cannot leave the craft docked in front of the mass housing unit and since nearby docks are taken you must dock up hill from the housing unit.

How then do you get the supplies into your personal chamber???

Well, if you're me...

While wearing full insulative equipment you drag one of the carts up the hill, load it with the supplies, increasing its mass significantly. Then you push it and a rolling desk chair toward the hill, hop into the rolling desk chair and hold on.

I may be many things, but I'm certain I had the most fun in unpacking.

Roller Coasters & Higher Education: The Hardest Part

I like roller coasters, at least sometimes, but they are designed to shake you, scare you a bit, give you an adrenaline rush, an experience, before they place you back on the ground. 

For me the hardest part of any roller coaster or amusement park ride is always waiting in line. Waiting in line is when you have a choice. Every moment I have to stand there, watching the ride, listening to the screams, I am making a conscious choice to get on the ride even as this new information is presented to me. My friends will get me into line, and once I am on the ride itself I put my faith in the safeties designed by the roller coaster engineer  and let my body be thrown from side to side. Loop da’ loops or dramatic three story high dives, locked into my seat the greatest stress is over and I can relax and enjoy the ride.

College too is designed to shake you a bit, give you an experience and place you back on the ground. And here too I find anticipation and decision stifling. I find the choosing of classes, the navigation of my non-standard course map to be a horribly straining task. I would rather just go forth and do, but I feel an obligation to myself to consider my options thoroughly. Issue is, I can’t see the future, there’s no way of knowing what option is truly best in the long run. It’s like being asked to solve for a variable, but being given an indeterminate matrix and some subjective phrases or playing 20 questions with only non distinct questions.  You just have to take your best guess and move on.   

One piece of information, a test of character.

If you could give the man on the tractor only one piece of information, and had to choose between the following, which would you choose?

a. the moment produced about the point at base of the tree is (-16.5i + 5.51j)kN-m

Or

b. Your distance from the tree is less than its height, if the tree falls faster than your tractor moves... you splat

Credit due to R.C. Hibbeler Statics&Dynamics 14ed

Songs to study by

Physics:

Freefall - Rainbow Kitten Surprise

Statics:

Stuck in a Moment- U2

Thermodynamics:

Hot stuff

Project Management:

My Way- Perry Como

Circuits:

Electric Avenue

I can't tell you why -Eagles

Engineering at it's Finest

Engineering, is a masterful craftfull and I would argue beautiful application of knowledge to solve problems.

Last night I put my education to use.

In response to a problem I retrieved two different size bowls, the smaller one filled with half and half, allong with a cup of ice and set to work applying basic chemistry and thermodynamics to solve a crucial problem...

The lack of vanilla ice cream for accompanying the berries.

Awareness of Denominators

It’s been over an hour, by my approximations 2-2.5 hrs of cranking away on the last problem due tomorrow. It wasn’t that hard of a problem, and yet, little mistakes here and there cost me time. Forgotten weight of a negligible thickness post, and silly little math errors galore checked re-checked and corrected... I was close...so close, to the answer in the back of the book, but just not close enough.

Pained I searched my work and questioned my knowledge until at long last the culprit was found, a demonic little 3/5 that had become a 3/4, changing two half pages of work just enough to throw everything off.

Ladies, Gentlemen and Martian’s of all ages, Watch your demon-inators.

The best laid plans of Martians  & “I think it’s gonna be a long long time”

I packed my bags tonight, pre-flight....

And everything went south from there, and not in the way I intended. 

After much deliberation and anticipation packed and climbed into my MAV. This was after, I should note, clearing the frozen Martian precipitation from my windshield. And yes, I know what you’re thinking ‘snow can’t fall on mars’, but due to the atmospheric regulations in this particular valley it does, and what was particularly relevant to me this afternoon was not the particulars of how this is possible but more the difficulty of clearing it from my vehicle. I did so in only the most sophisticated and intuitive manner (utalizing a baseball cap, sock and plastic butter knife when I discovered my car lacked a snow scraper). 

So at long last, I began the journey.

And then I had no breaks. I do not know what is wrong with them, and I wasn’t about to use my education in engineering to stand out in the cold and figure out how they work, or more accurately why they didn’t. I decided I was satisfied with sayin’ alive. 

So my night went south, without me actually making it any further south. Ah well “the best laid plans of mice and [martians] so often fall astray” (Burns, To A Mouse). I guess it’s gonna be “a long long time” before I get home again (Elton John, Rocket Man).

Censorship of Suicide Prevention?

The other night our dorms held a “Trick or Treat in the Halls” event for the children in our Martian settlement. Prior to this event there were prepatory events, pumpkin carving, door decorating and removal of posters and signs deemed inappropriate for youth.

Some of these things made sense to remove. But among the things that were mentioned as necessary to cover, I wonder about two.

First of which is a cartoon ghost wearing a bra on a sign explaining the risks of breast cancer. Maybe it’s bad maybe it’s not. But doesn’t breast cancer awareness include the children? Don’t they see the advertisements on television? I’m not one to advocate for something being okay just because it’s been seen or said before, but I’m unsure that this needs censorship?

I am against the censorship of the suicide prevention sign. To censor this implies that the children won’t be affected by mental health issues before they are too old for the trick or treat event. This event includes children up to 12 yrs old. I was 9 the first time I recall mental health related struggles affecting those around me, but in all honesty I may have been somewhat aware of it even before then. I wouldn’t be introduced to suicide prevention till six years later.  I don’t think this is unusual.  When I mentioned this at one of the events, the others around me in a similar age group, the same ones who’d been planning to cover the sign recalled similar occurrences. They noted that they’d definitely known about these things to some degree by 5th grade. We can’t prevent these from being things that our youth have to deal with and giving them inadequate resources makes them things that they have to deal with alone.

In my experience, the deliberate censorship of mental health made it harder to speak about it because it seemed “bad”. Censoring it in the same way that drugs, alcohol, sex and excessive violence were made it seem like something that I “wasn’t spost’ to be aware of yet”.

It’s just a couple signs and in all honesty I don’t think their removal matters in the grand scheme, but I do have to ask: Does it make sense?

It doesn’t get easier…There isn’t an answer…But there is a right thing to do.

I used to believe that qualified adults were less afraid and more proficient in handling critical issues. I thought that perhaps their age, wisdom and expertise granted them skill and grace in handling human desperation. I now know it doesn’t get easier.

I know now that when someone close to me first opens up to me about self harm, suicidal thoughts or actions, etc. I will always be initially choked by fear. And every time, I will push aside my fear to talk with them. I think all who have opened up to me have been worried about causing this fear. This initial fear comes from love and an overwhelming desire to keep my friends safe. The initial tightness in my chest comes from knowing that now in context my actions and words matter. It’s terrifying, but I can’t let it petrify me.  

This initial fear is worth the knowledge.

Ignorance does not make it better.

The initial fear is mitigated by presence. To be there. To be committed to being there.

And I assure you, dear anonymous reader, that it is worth it. That this presence, commitment and closeness is worth the fear.

As life has progressed, I have spoken with and listened to presentations by several professionals, trained in helping people overcome mental health struggles. I’ve been told the same things on repeat.

I’ve come to realize that they don’t have the answer either. There isn’t an answer. It will never not be hard. There is no answer, and it will never be easy, but there is a right thing to do, and there are things that make it less hard.

The Right Thing To Is To TRY.

There are resources, some of them are good, some of them are not. Some of them make it better, some of them make it worse. You have to use your best judgement, your intuition, and do the best you can. Sometimes the best you can do is sit somewhere with someone and listen.

“He's told us not to blow it Cause he knows it's all worthwhile”

We are curvature.

If one thinks of life as a series of moments with good and bad wrapped into them, then is would life be worth living if the net sum of the good - bad was bad?

My initial gut feeling was yes, but as in mathematics we cannot just say things are so because of a gut feeling. After all, one could argue that my intuition says so, because the net sum of my moments has been positive.

Consider net happiness as being approximated by the riemann sum of the given good or bad of a set of adjacent short periods of time. Now take the limit of this as the change in time approaches 0. In short, I invite you to consider happiness as the integral of some curve. Where the curve is defined by f(t)=lifes instantaneous happy levels (positive or negative) and the area underneath which is net good/bad.

This is similar to how the integral of position with respect to time is displacement aka net change in position.

Now determining if life is worth living should be a nice integral of a function (which for most would be continuous) and a simple little apple of the fundamental theorem of calculus.

But consider this:

1. We dont know the bounds, so unless a nice little trick or assumption comes in we cant apply FTC. Also of one factors in considerations of life after life on Mars then this becomes an improper integral from 0 to infinity. If you believe that you are reborn then the bounds become negative infinity to infinity. Both very improper.

2. We don't know the function, so we cant integrate it.

3. Even if we could integrate it, we couldn't solve for C, so integrating f(t) as an indefinite integral would be pointless.

So what do we know?

We aren't very good judges of if things are getting better or worse at any given moment so we only have a very rough guess at the rate of change.

We aren't very observant, so we can only notice a few things at a time.

We really only know the moment that we are in, and not where we are going, and what's more I'd like to purpose that our lives are affected by more than one thing.

I purpose that we experience at any given moment the second derivative of the function of life, which is not simply f(t) but rather, a function of infinite (as many as necessary) variables. We know not where we are or where we are going, we dont know how the future will change us. We simply know where we are and have an idea of whether allong a particular direction we are concave up or down.

Life is a n'th dimensional hyperspace and we experience it as the curvature allong whatever path we trace allong whatever level surface we happen to have focused in on.

Aka, we experience life as the curvature (k, second partial derivative) of one level surface of it's n'th dimensional hyperspace.

So we don't know, but just the mere thought of riding allong this hyperspace brings a certain kind of satisfaction, and a unique quest for knowledge.

Martian Cocktail

How to mix a Martian Cocktail:

1. Grab generic cup

2. Add cranberry juice

3. Add orange juice

4. Add ginger ale

Why make a Martian Cocktail?

Because all the juice options separately tasted a little off. It's not quite the American summer camp classic "Bug Juice" (that is more based in color than flavor) but a slightly more grown version. Still non-alcoholic, but named for its color.

A Damn Good Friend

These days, life is stressful. Everyone needs a Damn Good Friend.

Weeks ago, this friend of mine brought me flowers partially pressed in a notebook. Upon receiving them they were pressed in textbooks. I turned to my textbook in search of clarity, thinking I would find myself a diagram. I found a different more beautiful kind of clarity.

To a Damn Good Friend, Thank You (:

Conclusion: I should not consume caffeine based pain killers

Sometimes I'm "that" person. I take to statics with fond memories of vectors from my trouble causing multivariate days and my appreciated too late linear days, allong with a bystanders view of euclidean geometry. This is to say: I draw a mean triangle and think I know more than I actually do.

So when the problem is posed in such a way that it forces one to make one of two conflicting assumptions, I cant help myself.

And when I find that the solution most people will be bringing in makes both of those conflicting assumptions.... something in me can't resist.

I'm 2 pages in on a 4 page detail of why said assumptions break the problem, steadily on my way to the conclusion that the problem statement is ill posed, when I realize what I've done. Ive taken caffeine based pain killers, at night, my resting heart rate shoots up to a conservative 100 beats per minute and my hands are too shakey to write clearly.

I am forced to succumb to a different conclusion: I should not consume caffeine.

That said...I have an explanation. I just hope its correct and not a caffeine + exhaustion based misinterpretation of the problem.

How to do engineering homework: An informative guide and window into life.

1) Procrastinate while convincing yourself you're being productive

2) Find a Location to work

3) Write down the problem

4) Get halfway through and go to staple something

5) Break stapler...

Spend the next, far too long period of time disassembling and reassembling your stapler until several things occur:

- you are fully confident that in an exam situation you could, completely disassemble and reassemble your stapler in less than 5 minutes

- the components of the stapler get so worn out from disassembly and reassembly that the stapler no longer functions quite right in spite of being once more reassembled

-it occurs to you that you will not be asked to reassemble your stapler during an exam and you will be asked to turn in this homework

Addendum: After this particular event occurs, admit it to other engineering students. Upon request demonstrate your ability to disassemble and reassemble your stapler completely and pass off the stapler to another engineering student who obtains an initial 30 minutes of joy from disassembly and reassembly of the stapler. The stapler which still worked marginally after first rounds of reassembly no longer functions from wear. Gift it to the other engineering student and resolve to purchase a new stapler.

Does it make sense?

There’s a caricature hanging on my wall, with it’s date marked as the 11th of September 2019. I look at it several times a day and wonder about my personal insensitivity. 

I sat for said caricature on said day, and truth be told I was smiling. 

I won’t attempt to justify my role in this. I was there, same as everyone else. I ate the food, same as everyone else. If we were wrong (and I believe we were) then I was wrong. 

The caricature in question was drawn at an institution event, a club fair, somewhat of a celebration. Isn’t it wrong? Wasn’t it wrong, to be at a celebration, at a military institution, on a day that marks a great American tragedy? That same night a remembrance ceremony took place. Doesn’t it pervert the nights remembrance ceremony to be hosting a celebration during the day that could have occurred on any other day? I won’t claim that people born on the 11th should’t celebrate their birthday, their births remind us that horrible things and good things can occur simultaneously. I do wonder about the justification of an institutions celebratory event. 

I will not pretend to remember 9/11. The fact is I simply don’t. I do not remember that day, nor any of that year. Regardless, it was a tragedy that affected an incredible number of Americans. I believe it was insensitive to hold the fair on that day and I have my sincere regrets about my part in it. 

A second event also occurred that seemed ill timed. 

A young man, about to graduate died on 9/15/19 in a car crash. Yesterday, 1 week later the institution held it’s 200th celebration. Today it held his funeral. I will not say that the institution should have altered it’s plans on such short notice, but I will say I believe they should have provided more than just 1 echo of his name as so many students mourn his loss and fight off anguish at the denial of half mast rights for the enlisted young man.   

Does it make sense? To What Degree Should We Mourn For Losses To Our Greater Community?