St. Patrick's Day Lesson

I love this holiday. Many people use this day as a reason to drink, and so do I. In fact, I took the day off for an entire day of drinking with good friends - one of my favorite things in the world to do. But while I do love drinking a good pint (or more) of the Johnny Jump-up, I am not a believer of blind drinking. One must never stop learning new things, and I took this opportunity to learn a little bit more about my favorite beer, Guinness.

One of my favorite things about Guinness is watching the famous cascade of bubbles. It is wonderful to behold, and mesmerizing every time I drink it; I can't stop looking! But what causes it? On the surface, it doesn't make sense why the bubbles fall down. They are, after all, less dense than the actual beer itself, otherwise the famous 'Bishop's collar' would be at the bottom of the glass (ha! Bishop and bottom in the same, non-ironic sentence!). This seemingly glaring violation of physics is actually easily explained.

In the interior of the pint glass, bubbles are, in fact, rising to the top, creating that delicious, delicious head. But, since those bubbles take up space, small as they are, they push other bubbles out of the way. The bubbles right up against the glass have nowhere to go (poor them).

Pint glasses, like most other smooth objects, are actually really rough when looked at with a scanning electron microscope. That roughness creates drag. When the poor little bubbles run up against this rough glass, the bubbles have nowhere to go but down, carried along with the falling nectar. So the falling bubbles are only the ones on touching the glass; all others are rising up to create the head. But don't take my word for it, read for yourself!

Now enjoy St. Patrick's Day with some good friends, music, and of course a properly poured Guinness!

Not everything that is useful is a right!

We as a society have somehow perverted the idea of a right as something material. It is often said that education is a right, that healthcare is a right, healthy meals are a right. The problem is that all these things are material; education, healthcare, food all take resources to create. Something that is a right should not - and cannot - take resources to give out. A right, by definition, is something that every person should be able to have at any and every point in his or her life. Unlimited access for each and every person is what defines a right, and that prevents anything material from being a right. This world - or even the universe at large - only has finite resources, and everyone cannot possibly have unlimited access to something material.

Which is why stories like this one make me frustrated. Apparently people think that the Internet is a fundamental human right, like the right to free speech and press. I am not going to say that this flies in the face of true rights, but it comes pretty damn close. It costs someone something to provide Internet access to your home or local coffee shop, and if you aren't somehow paying for it, then you are screwing the guy providing your much-beloved Internet! This is how the world works; someone provides something you need (Internet, healthcare, cheesy pizza), and in return you give him or her something they need (cash money).

Rights like those in the American Bill of Rights are true rights, and notice, not a single one of them demands that I or anyone else give society something material for free. They allow people to pursue material goods, but they do not force one societal group to freely give something to the rest of the people at a lose. That is exactly what people are trying to do when they say that some material object is a right; it is no different to say that an Ikea dresser and dual monitors (things I have worked and paid for) is a fundamental human right. People need to pull their heads out of their asses and realize that there are many useful, indispensable things in this world, but we need to pay for them!

Now, crack open a good beer and have fun!

Why am I doing this?

This is my first post, obviously, so I must first explain why I have decided to set up my blog; the world - particularly the Internet - is full of self-promoting, egotistical people who think that their opinions are worth anything. Why do I think that I am any different, that my opinion is worth anything? Well, frankly, I don't think that. At least I don't think that my opinion on most things is worthwhile - really only science and beer are the two topics I would consider myself competent to talk about, and science is iffy. But that is not why I am here. My objective with this blog is to chronicle my change as a person, share some thoughts, and hopefully, someday, hear the thoughts of someone else when he/she comments on here.

I feel I am in a special position that I don't see other people experiencing. I am a recent college graduate in Physics from Carnegie Mellon University, have a (fairly) high-paying job, and an insatiable thirst for knowledge for many things in life. So I have the smarts, the drive, and the funds to pursue pretty much anything I want, and I am doing that already. It has gotten to the point that I cannot keep my thoughts on my various hobbies/pursuits/loves inside, and so I have decided to put them down here.

What makes me different? I wrote that I don't see other people experiencing what I am experiencing, and I meant it. I see people accepting what is in their lives, and not trying to enrich it any further. They just take what they see, and not try to understand what is going on, how things work, and improve their knowledge on anything in their lives. We live in an age in which anything can be pursued and improved, armed only with the slightest bit of curiosity and a slight application of brainpower. Why would anyone not try to maximize his/her enjoyment of an activity within his/her means? I don't know, but I have sworn not to be like that, and for some reason I have the distinct impression that makes me very different from most of society. I also get the impression that the winds are changing, and we, as a society, are headed towards great change, where the every man has knowledge of hard science, art, beer, music, finance, ballroom dancing, computer programming, and many other topics. An ideal society is one in which complete strangers can sit at a bar, drink Guinness, and have a deeply engaging discussion on anything from politics to cooking to American Idol. I hope that this blog and I are some of the winds of that change to a new golden era, hence the name.

The topics for this blog are my hobbies, interests, and pursuits, and will get more in depth as I improve in all of those. For the foreseeable future, though, I intend to write on the following:

• Science, particularly Physics
• Beer
• Dancing
• Music
• Technology
• Art and Architecture
• Politics
• Video Games

Hope you like it. Feel free to comment below. I will never censor, block, erase, or otherwise tamper with posts, but I will force people name themselves when making a comment. I don't care what you have to say. As a libertarian, I encourage you to speak your mind as long as you say it with some kind of identification, and most of all, conviction!