Awards! And Tags! Hurray!

In the past couple of weeks, I've been awarded and tagged several times . . . and since today was a day when I didn't (miracle, I'm telling you) have a scheduled post, I figured it was time I posted them. :)

First, the 7x7 Link Award!

This one was awarded to me by Siv Maria at Been there, done that. and M Pax at Wistful Nebulae. Many thanks to both of them!

For this one, I have to list the Most Beautiful, Most Helpful, Most Popular, Most Controversial, Most Surprisingly Successful, Most Underrated, and the Most Pride worthy of my posts. Oh, this is going to be difficult . . .

Most Beautiful: A-Z Blogging Challenge: N Stands For: Nebulae
For the pictures. (None of them are mine, of course.)

Most Helpful: How To: Beaming Someone Up Into A Spaceship
All right, all right. So that wasn't what was meant. Maybe this one, then:
How To: Writing
What, you say? That's not really helpful either? Well fine. Here's a serious one:
Do You Have To Like The Setting To Enjoy A Book?

Most Popular: A-Z Blogging Challenge: W Stands For: Water
814 pageviews. The one with the most comments, though, was this one:
First Campaigner Challenge: 200 Word Flash Fiction
. . . with 87 Things People Wanted to Say.

Most Surprisingly Successful: Awards, Deck The Halls, Eclipse, Arctic Dinos, Congress, Christmas
33 comments, but it's my third most-viewed post of all-time. I haven't the slightest idea why.

Most Underrated: It Would Be A Stretch To Call Them Beautiful . . .
5 comments (2 of them mine), on a post about some fascinating birds (I might even go as far to say they're some of my . . . well, if not favorites, then I'm at least quite fond of them).

Most Controversial: In Which We Interrupt The Usual Posting Schedule To Rant About Politics
Just after Gabriel Giffords was shot. I was steamed. So I posted about it.

Most Pride Worthy: The Copenhagen Interpretation vs. The Many Worlds Interpretation
Two words: Quantum Physics.


Emily Rose at mist of the blossom rain awarded me the Lovely Blogger Award. Thank you, Emily!

. . . and technically, I'm supposed to list seven things about myself. But I was also tagged, so I'm going to combine the two into one.

Speaking of which, Susan Kane at thecontemplativecat and WB Terrien tagged me with the meme that's been floating about the blogosphere: listing 10 random things about yourself.

So, here I go:

1. I love fall. The smell in the air, the slight chill, the orange leaves, the start of a new school year. I'm looking forward to September 23. (And Michael Di Gesu's blogfest is another plus, of course.)

2. I have the urge to write a book with the title All the Shades of Gray. With a gray cover, of course.

3. I love cinnamon. Especially the smell, but it's wonderful on things like bread. Cinnamon raisin bagels are lovely.

4. I strongly dislike mint. Strongly. Which makes it difficult when in the dental aisle at the store, because most of the products are Mint. Or Peppermint. Or Cool Mint. Or Fresh Mint. Blech.

5. I'm finding a lot of discrepancies in my writing, for some reason. It's not something I usually do, but I keep coming across sections where I've said one thing at the beginning and wrote the rest like I said something else. For example, this morning, I'd mentioned the character had a breeze on their face as they were moving, but then continued with the character being in an enclosed truck. With all the windows up. (And no sunroof or anything, either . . . :P)

6. I plan to watch The Color of Magic for Terry Pratchett Month tonight and review it tomorrow for the scheduled post. It's rather long (I think it says 197 minutes on the back) but I've been reading some positive reviews of it . . .

7. I have never sent a text message in my life. And I don't intend on changing that anytime soon.

8. My website is coming along nicely. (You probably figured I'd forgotten about that, didn't you? I haven't mentioned it in over a month on my blog, I believe.)

9. I like cold much more than I do heat. For me, crunching through the snow is way more appealing than strolling down a hot, sunny beach.

10. I love my library.

Now, for who I am going to tag and award. I decided to try something a little different this time, just to see. (Don't panic yet.)

Here's the idea: for those commenters who land on a Fibonacci number (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233) consider yourself awarded. Or tagged. Whichever you please. (Basically, you can take any award, both awards, just the tag, a tag and an award, or all three. And can you tell I love the Fibonacci sequence?)

You can panic now.

Or not.

Hope you're all having a great weekend!


-----The Golden Eagle

A-Z Blogging Challenge: I Stands For: Ice

***An unfinished version of this post accidentally published this morning. My fault, because I meant to say 12:00 PM, not 12:00 AM. Sorry about that. Just another reason why a switch should be made to 24 HOUR TIME. It would make life so much easier. Anyway, I'll rant some other time (that's hopefully in 24-hour!)--on with the post.***

I've already covered Cold (go HERE to read that post) but ice is a very different state of matter.

(SOURCE)

Essentially water frozen into a solid state, ice is the "most abundant of the varying solid phases on Earth's surface". The most common phase transition (i.e. the most common way ice forms) is when water is cooled to 0 C/273.15 K/32 F at standard atmospheric pressure, depending on which temperature scale you use. It can also form without going through a liquid state, such as when vapor turns into frost.

(SOURCE)

Ice is officially considered a mineral. Its crystalline structure is based on water molecules, which consist of  covalent bonds between oxygen atoms and two hydrogen atoms. Weak, adjacent hydrogen bonds between molecules control much of the physical properties of water and ice.

(SOURCE)

The only non-metallic structure known to expand when it cools, frozen water is 9% less dense than liquid water. This is because the hydrogen atoms have a slight positive charge, and the oxygen atoms have a slight negative charge, and the solid hexagonal structure that forms because of their bond takes up more space than when water is moving freely in liquid state.

(SOURCE)

Ice is one of 15 known crystalline phases of water. Besides I_h, which is your usual frozen water, there is:

Amorphous Ice (ice without any crystal structure).
Ice I_c (ice where oxygen atoms are arranged in a diamond shape, produced at temperatures of 130 and 220 K).
Ice II (ice with a rhombohedral crystalline structure, formed by compressing I_h at 190-210 K).
Ice III (ice with a tetragonal crystalline structure, formed by cooling water to 250 K at 300 MPa--MPa stands for megapascal. One megapascal is one million pascals, and a pascal is one newton of force per square meter).
Ice IV (ice in a metastable rhombohedral phase. (Metastable means in a state of equilibrium, but easily sent into a lower energy state with only slight interaction.) It is formed by heating amorphous ice at a pressure of 810 MPa).
Ice V (ice in a monoclinic crystalline phase, and the most complicated of all phases. It is formed by cooling water down to 253 K at 500 MPa.)
Ice VI (ice with a tetragonal crystalline structure and formed by cooling water to 270 K at 1.1 GPa. GPa stands for one billion (thousand million) pascals.)
. . . and for the other phases, go HERE.

(I couldn't resist sharing an eagle sculpture. SOURCE)

*****

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice
http://www.word-detective.com/howcome/waterexpand.html
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/chemical/waterdens.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal_(unit)
http://www.sensorsone.co.uk/pressure-measurement-glossary/mpa-megapascal-pressure-unit.html



*****

Thoughts on ice?


-----The Golden Eagle

A-Z Blogging Challenge: C Stands For: Cold

There's a limit to cold.

0 Kelvin degrees (-273.15 C/-459.67 F) is absolute zero, the point where thermal energy effectively disappears, even if the kinetic energy doesn't. Matter begins to act strange at those extremely low temperatures, presenting quantum effects such as superconductivity and superfluidity. This is due to the Bose-Einstein condensate, which is a state of matter of weakly interaction bosons, within a confined external potential.

Basically, "A new form of matter at the coldest temperatures in the universe", if you'd like the explanation from the website.

Phenomenon caused by absolute zero temperatures:

Superfluidity. At temperatures very, very close to absolute zero (they have't gotten all the way down, if that's even humanly possible) matter acts as if it has no viscosity at all, and that allows it to flow literally anywhere--including up, for gravity doesn't affect things with zero viscosity.

An example of superfluid going up and over:

(SOURCE. See the liquid at the bottom? It went up and over the rim of the bowl.)

Superconductivity. This is the state of zero electrical resistance. One fascinating property of this is that if there is electricity flowing through a superconducting wire, it will continue flowing indefinitely, provided the wire stays below a critical temperature.

An example of a magnet levitating due to superconductivity (Meissner effect):

(SOURCE)

*****

To learn more about cold, go HERE to check out the NOVA program website.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose%E2%80%93Einstein_condensate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfluidity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconductivity
http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/bec/

*****

Thoughts?


-----The Golden Eagle

Happy Halloween! (Plus: NaBloWriMo, NaNoWriMo, And Random)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Hallowe'en. All Hallows Eve. Whatever you'd like to call it, today's the day! Have fun trick-or-treating, partying, whatever. :)

*****

Today is also the last day of NaBloWriMo! I have posted at least once every day for the entire month of October! Even more reason to celebrate.

But, if you're like me and have participated in NaBloWriMo, don't do party too hard! Because tomorrow is *drumroll*dramatic display* NaNoWriMo!


I know that I've said several times that I wasn't planning on doing this event. For many reasons, I told myself. It wouldn't be good for my novel, I said. It would be better to edit, I thought. I don't think word-vomiting all over my document would be a really great idea, I consoled myself.

*sighs* EXCUSES. But you know what? I've decided to change that. Because of a lot of factors. So, basically, I am going to be doing NaNoWriMo!

(If you don't know what NaNoWriMo is by now, I'm seriously going to question where you've been for the past month.)

I'm kind of pushing the deadline to sign up here, but I did sign up to do it! This will be my first year. But hey, I wrote 40,000 words last month, so it's just 10,000 more than that. So, the thing on my mind right now is, I am going to kill this challenge with everything I've got.

Here's the link to My Profile. Buddy me, if you've got an account. (I can't find a lot of you, because there's no "search" for the profiles or anything like that.) At first I wasn't sure about linking to it, but I managed to disable the Home Region thing, which would basically tell you where I live. Boo. I didn't want to do that.

I'll update you guys over there and on this blog with one of those word count widget-y things. I think I'll use the potato man one:

Anywho. Just get geared up for the absolute writing frenzy--it's 50,000 words, after all!

*****

Interesting, because they don't come around here often, but I saw a bald eagle yesterday! Just perched. It was sort of far away, but I could see the characteristic white head and dark brown body. It would be nice if it stuck around . . . but I doubt that.

Ever seen one?


It was snowing a few days ago. SNOWING. It just wet the sidewalk a little, but it's c-c-c-o-o-l-d-e-r than usual now. Even for the beginning of November, people are not usually shivering in a winter coat. It's supposed to get colder and stay that way for a while, too.


Have a great Halloween, all!


-----The Golden Eagle

Eh. {What Else Is There To Say?}

DARN IT.

I wrote a nice, long, miscellaneous post and BLOGGER DELETED IT. It said "Conflicting Edits" and said "Please hit the back button on you browser."

So I did.

AND I FOUND OUT IT DELETED THE WHOLE DARN THING.

*sighs*

Okay then. Well, I'll just try writing it again, although it's not going to be as great as the first one.

*****

Right.

How is your Labor Day going?

Good? So-so? Not on holiday? Irritated the the banks are getting another free day to make some profit?

I've been mowing the lawn, writing, reading Foundation (very interesting and complicated; except: no women! GAH!), blogging, and generally whiling away the day.

*****

You know that swamp I mentioned yesterday? Well, it's there because they couldn't build on the wetlands. Also, there's an issue with some toxic waste that they say doesn't harm anything, but they still can't build on it--I don't get that. I'm assuming it's doing damage somewhere.

But anyway. There's this set of stairs that go up high and you can look over the swamp and basically have a good time watching green gloop move with the breeze and the occasional duck dip its head into the green gloop.

Very fun.

Actually, I just liked getting an aerial view (Hello! Eagle here!) and climbing. I love climbing things, and have been since I was little. (I used to crawl out of cribs and bang my head against the bars if I couldn't get out. I also used to jump a lot. In fact, I still jump a lot.)

*****

Has it been cold recently? It has been here. 40-50s at night, 60s during the day. In the beginning of September! Sheesh. It's not fall yet, folks.

But I don't really mind all that much. I like cooler temperatures, and fall is my favorite season. Did you know that the foliage is changing quicker and earlier than in normal years? Yup, it's true. It's not quite that obvious here, but apparently farther north (Northeast, Canada, etc.) the leaves are changing.

I've spotted a few dark-orange trees . . . but nothing like the color explosion that occurs later in the year. It's very vibrant when that happens.

*****

I'd better go write that review of Prophecy of the Sisters. I said I'd post that today . . .

-----The Golden Eagle