I may have found a new future hobby

I was on wikipedia last night after finishing my homework. I think I started on "complex analysis" (you know, complex functions and all that... uh... yeah) the following progression took place: complex analysis > fractal > fractal art > penjing (via "Chinese [...] miniature trees and rockeries") > bonsai

So now I have this fascination with bonsai. Like actually growing miniature trees. I am particularly interested in doing something with bougainvillea, it is very colorful and my grandmother's house was surrounded by them. Imagine like a wall of magenta... very pretty.

Unfortunately, as with most of my (hopefully) future hobbies, I currently do not have space for this :(

Thoughts

So prop 8 has been deemed unconstitutional... again. The thing that always bugs me is that a lot of people don't seem to understand how America works. There's always whining and complaining about how the courts decide against something that the majority voted on. They can't really comprehend the difference between democracy and tyranny of the majority.

I thought up a hypothetical scenario yesterday. Suppose there is a classroom with 30 students, 3 of those students are left handed. Let's say 16 students (50% + 1) decide that lefthandedness is evil somehow and they vote that the left handed kids can't have recess. Of course, this doesn't happen ever, but its an illustration of how pure democracy can become tyranny of the majority.

Freedom

So, just as I was about to do some research for my language (seriously thinking about adding 3 new consonant and 4 new vowel sounds) I discovered that wikipedia is going into a 24 hour black out to protest SOPA, which I guess will be voted on in congress this month. Something about it tickled my memory and I found this quote from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, a 1999 sci-fi turn-based strategy game:

"...free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."

It's actually rather creepy how apt this quote seems to be to our current situation. So if you don't want to live in George Orwell's 1984, take action. I started at http://www.google.com/takeaction/ by signing the petition. Sometime this week, I am probably going to contact representatives or something.

New Design

Barely... I moved some stuff around on the right side and got rid of some of the pictures that were just gathering dust. The addition that inspired this slight reformatting though is the banner right under the main picture. I was so happy when I copied the html code into the blogger html... box... thing... anyway...

In my planet related browsing ove the past 3 weeks, I found http://www.davidcolarusso.com/astro/ which has a really cool timelapse of the predicted locations of the planets and sun in the sky. Its actually what led me to the discovery of the optimal viewing arrangement that will happen in early march. Its a nice quick way to figure out what's where for tonight... of course you have to know what you are looking at.

Basically, the circle with the dot is the symbol of the sun. It moves to the left as the year goes on (and up and down a little). Any symbols left of the sun are planets visible in the evening. Symbols to the right are planets visible in the morning. I could go into much more detail about this, but I'm just going to stick with an explanation that makes sense.