Matthew's Journal

I'm retiring the use of this software to run my journal and I've switched to Wordpress. The transition is still a work in progress, but, for the moment, you should use the URL millercommmatt.com/wordpress. Eventually, you'll just be able to use millercommamatt.com to view my journal, photos, and anything else I put up.

I was reading an article about NASA crashing the LCROSS satellite into the moon to try and detect the presence of water in lunar soil when I started to think: What does it mean for America when we're effectively the first country to bomb the moon?

I just found a great Olympics article on Yahoo! about some Olympians competing in the rifle competition who have apparently found love. However, that's not the catching point of the article. This article's gem is its opening paragraph. It's as follows:

Warning: the following item makes no mention of Michael Phelps, men's or women's gymnastics, Michael Phelps, USA Basketball, Michael Phelps, beach volleyball, or international scandals, contrived or otherwise (or Michael Phelps).

I just laughed out loud. Apparently its hard to write an Olympics article without mentioning Michael Phelps winning eleventy billion medals or that fact that the Chinese female gymnasts are all 13.

[Link to full article]

I case anyone was curious, there are 2⁶⁴ (two to the sixty fourth power) ways to fill out an NCAA basket including the play-in game.

One play-in game, 32 first round games, 16 second round games, 8 sweet sixteen games, 4 elite eight game, 2 final four games, and the final gives you:

2¹ x 2³² x 2¹⁶ x 2⁸ x 2⁴ x 2² x 2¹ = 2⁶⁴
(18,446,744,073,709,551,616)

You have better odds of winning the lottery several times than you do filling out a NCAA tournament bracket randomly and correctly picking the winner of all the games.

That's it! Global Warming isn't fun anymore!

According to some Scottish researchers, many coastal Scotch Whisky distilleries - most notably some of my favorites on the Isle of Islay - may become flooded if the sea level rises to levels forecasted by recent reports on global warming including the recently released ICPP report. I adore the whisky from many of those distilleries. I can't have anything bad happen to them. The distilleries threatened include, but are not limited to: Bowmore, Laphroaig, Talisker, Lagavulin, Bunnahabhain, and Glenmorangie.

Link to the article:
Dramageddon - Too much water

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/health/3266819.stm

It turns out Guinness may have some legitimate health benefits. A pint of Guinness may not keep The Reaper away, but it should distract him long enough so you can hit him over the head with something heavy and flee.

Ethanol Scam: Ethanol Hurts the Environment And Is One of America's Biggest Political Boondoggles [Rolling Stone - July 2007]
This is a well researched article taking a look at the push for ethanol as a new fuel source and the trouble that could bring.

From the article:
The most seductive myth about ethanol is that it will free us from our dependence on foreign oil. But even if ethanol producers manage to hit the mandate of 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022, that will replace a paltry 1.5 million barrels of oil per day -- only seven percent of current oil needs. Even if the entire U.S. corn crop were used to make ethanol, the fuel would replace only twelve percent of current gasoline use.

Another misconception is that ethanol is green. In fact, corn production depends on huge amounts of fossil fuel -- not just the diesel needed to plow fields and transport crops, but also the vast quantities of natural gas used to produce fertilizers. Runoff from industrial-scale cornfields also silts up the Mississippi River and creates a vast dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico every summer. What's more, when corn ethanol is burned in vehicles, it is as dirty as conventional gasoline and does little to solve global warming: E85 reduces carbon dioxide emissions by a modest fifteen percent at best, while fueling the destruction of tropical forests.

I've been saying for a while now that ethanol is a bad idea for gasoline replacement. Ethanol still pollutes and it's very energy inefficient to produce. It would take more farmland than there is in the US to replace current foreign oil sources. Let me know that they rest of you think!

Recently, I discovered an incredible piece of software being developed by Microsoft called Photosynth. Photosynth is able to take a collection of two dimensional pictures and register them collectively in a three dimensional space. To really get a feel for just what this software is capable of, everyone should check out the following presentation and then go to the photosynth technical demonstration website and take a look first hand at how this software works.

TED Photosynth Presentation:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/129

Photosynth Technical Demonstration:
http://labs.live.com/photosynth/

This software is amazing and I can't wait to see a more final version. Seeing is truly believing.