think or thwim

The sun makes up 99.8% of the mass of the solar system. It’s about 100 times as dense as water.

• Mass = 2,200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons.

The sun’s fusion reaction combines four hydrogen atoms into one helium atom. However, one helium atom weighs less than four hydrogens. The difference in mass is converted to energy. 4.2 million tons of it are converted to energy per second.

• Core Temperature ~ 20,000,000°F
• Surface Temperature = 10,000°F

It has an 11 year cycle between less activity and more activity. We’re currently at a minimum. The last maximum was in 2003. This film shows a comparison between the extremes. Note the camera interference after a flare and coronal mass ejection (CME) at 2:33.

Like the earth, the sun rotates on its axis. One rotation takes about four weeks. However, it’s not a solid body. The equator completes a rotation in 27 days, but the polar regions take 30 days.

This video is amazing, but it takes a while to load so I’m not embedding it:

• Solar streaming and CMEs from the Solarmax IMAX film.

More movies at stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov.

:: Edward Mazria | The Passive Solar Energy Book
:: Duffie and Beckman | Solar Engineering of Thermal Processes

Matthieu Ricard has a Ph.D. in molecular genetics, but instead of pursuing a typical scientific career after school he moved to the Himalayas and became a Buddhist monk. He is currently the Dalai Lama’s French translator. He also participates in research on how meditation affects the brain.

From The Independent | The happiest man in the world?:

MRI scans showed that [Ricard] and other long-term meditators - who had completed more than 10,000 hours each - experienced a huge level of “positive emotions” in the left pre-frontal cortex of the brain, which is associated with happiness. The right-hand side, which handles negative thoughts, is suppressed.

Further studies have shown that even novices who have done only a little meditation have increased levels of happiness. But Mr Ricard’s abilities were head and shoulders above the others involved in the trials.

In this talk Ricard explains that happiness is a skill to be learned. In the second half of the talk he shows the results of some of the studies that back that claim up.

I haven’t read it yet, but his new book is about how to learn the skill of happiness:

Matthieu Ricard | Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill

He donates his proceeds from his books to Tibetan hospitals and schools.

Am I the only one that’s never noticed the arrow in the Fed Ex logo?

If you haven’t already seen thesneeze.com, look at more than just that one post. It’s hilarious. This is a good place to start: Best of The Sneeze

I found it through a new blog called miscellany that I saw in my stats. It has a bunch of good links. I spent a pretty large chunk of today on those two sites.

:: miscellany

Samut Songkram, Thailand. The train comes through several times per day.

Steve Van Beek describes the train’s route:

Whoever built the Mae Klong railway had a superb sense of whimsy. The tiny railway line—already one of the shortest in Thailand—is sliced in half by a very large river. For adventurers, it presents a day trip like no other.

The starting point is Thonburi’s little-known Wong Wian Yai railway station. As the funky little train leaves the station, it trundles past tiny stations, crosses canals and passes the beautiful Chinese-motif monastery, Wat Raja Oros, on the right. Eventually, it emerges into lush countryside, and rolls past small villages, buffaloes grazing pastures, fishermen and farmers — the traditional bucolic scene which typifies rural Thailand.

This first portion of the journey ends when the train runs out of track at the edge of the Ta Chin River. Exit the station train, turn right, and walk a short distance to the ferry landing which crosses the river to a new railway station, Ban Laem.

The section from Ban Laem to Mae Klong (also known as Samut Songkram) is a charming journey through a quiet backwater.

Unlike Thailand’s other trains, designed for speed and efficiency, this train’s modest interior matches its leisurely pace. The passengers are rural with the friendliness such settings imply. From their easy conversations, it is clear that they travel this route daily, taking fish and produce from their farms to the markets in Thonburi. At this hour, many are on their homeward journey…

Samut Songkram is another fishing town. For the last few metres to the station, the rails run through a market. As the train approaches, watch how the previously hidden tracks appear as vendors rush with poles to raise awnings from the train’s path, lowering them once it has passed.

If you’re not into dodging trains to buy your fruits and vegetables you might want to visit the Amphawa Floating Market instead. It’s just upriver from the train station market. At the floating market you sit on the bank and the vendors come to you.

Tim Noble and Sue Webster make pictures of themselves using piles of junk and a light.

:: The New Shelton Wet/Dry

Les Stroud made a documentary about his family’s move from an average Canadian neighborhood to homesteading on a remote piece of land:

• Finding land.
• Renovating an old barn to be a house.
• Building a cabin and outhouse.
• Digging a shallow well.
• Installing photovoltaics and a wind generator.

Continue Reading »

The new computer is ordered and the Lenovo elves are busy building it today. If you’ve been keeping up with my purchases you’ll see that I’ve been on a spending spree lately. So far in 2007 I’ve bought:

• One book I don’t recommend.
• Two books I do.
• One used sailboat.
• One new Lenovo T61.

458 BC: The Greek playwright Aeschylus was killed when an eagle dropped a live tortoise on him, mistaking his bald head for a stone.

2007 AD: My laptop died.

Posting will resume when I figure out what I’m going to do.

:: 1, 2

From Adam Oliensis:

The chart also shows grey highlights wherever the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) has concluded that the economy was in a recession. (These numbers come out late, often after the recession has ended, which is why I speak about them in the past tense.)

Read the rest of the article: Safe Haven: Adam Oliensis | EM-Ratio — What, Me Worry?

:: Big Picture