It's finally the AP Exam, the test that we have all been looking forward to for the entire year. When somebody other than doc! is standing in front of the room. Several days ago, I discovered this neat contraption in my room, evidently spoils of a long forgotten war. Apparently this is a contraption for magnifying images, up to 10 times the original size. The apparatus is merely a fancy convex lens. Two single sided convex lens are separated by a space of air which increases the magnification of the two lens by increasing the distance between the two focal points. The lens are also protected by some sort of metal casing, in case someone inadvertently drops the magnifying glass into a pool of sulfuric acid.

A Strange Week and Equally Strange Foodstuffs

I have to say, that the last week was the weirdest one I have experienced this year, bar none. First of all, recurring dreams of a hit-man who would rip the door to my house off its hinges plagued me every night. Another thing is that I got into this Babybel cheese shown in the picture. These items of food are first wrapped in a layer of wax and then a plastic sheet. The first time I popped open the plastic wrap, I accidentally bit and chewed the wax, giving me some stomach problems. After a while, I began to notice that mashing the wax between my fingers would make it warmer. I believe that this is because the friction of the wax grates upon itself and produces heat energy. This also brings us to the question: why does a rubber band heat up when stretched? Consider Gibb's free energy. ΔG=ΔH-TΔS, where G is the free energy, H is the enthalpy, and S is the entropy. Since stretching is nonspontaneous, as it requires an external heat, TΔS must be negative. Since T is always positive (it can never reach absolute zero ), the ΔS must be negative, inferring that the rubber in its natural state is more entangled than when it is under tension. So it heats up! Wow! Just another way to warm yourself up when you accidentally fall into the Sea of Japan.

Extra-Bitter Chocolate Sauce

Today I went over to the trays situated near the exit of doc!'s room to acquire my epic fornications (quizzes) of yesterday. Residing near the trays was a silver pan filled with a pink and orangery substance which turned out to be cake. Next to the pan was a jar of EXTRA-BITTER CHOCOLATE SAUCE. While disappointingly unbitter, the sauce was very viscous due to the chemical properties of its molecules. After examining the sauce, Brian went home and got a face-lift.













Shortly afterwards, I met this suspicious supporter of Nazism perusing a totalitarian novel on a bench. Notice how the poles beneath the bench provide support so that the normal force of the bench will be equal to his weight. Were the poles removed, the torque placed upon the screws attaching the bench to the wall would be too great, and the whole structure would readily collapse. When I approached the strange and evil lad, he transformed, showing his true colors, thereby chasing be back to doc!'s room to record my experiences.

Evil form:

The Shaving

Traditionally, after the Iolani math team wins the Oahu Math League championship, the captains violently shave the Admiral's head. This year, the captains were William Chambers, Sean Cockey, Anders Lee, and Mark Williams. I believe none of them has had previous experience with hairstyling. The primary mechanism in the hair cutter is a grating that will trap the hair in holes while blades whittle away at the black stems. An extension can be placed on the shaver in order to change the length of the hair being shaved off. This allows a hairstylist to design a pattern as the one shown below.


The blades inside the shaver work as they are moving very fast and they have a sharp cutting edge. Since pressure is force over area, when force is large and area is small, the cutting power is optimized. But such power cannot be maintained forever. The blades will eventually dull and the surface area will be increased. That is why replacement blades must be bought every once in a while.

BuckyBalls

In Physics class this week, the class was beleaguered with a torrent of strange and challenging labs. Amidst the cacophony of the classroom, some equally cacophonous lab partners discovered a chain of silver beads: BuckyBalls. While these BuckyBalls may be arranged into any conceivable arrangement, their secret is not so grand. Each ball is simply a magnetic dipole with a North and a South side. The fields of each individual ball interacts with all the other ones in order to form an undulating mass of metal. Some people like to make regular shapes with the BuckyBalls while others are content with mashing the poor spheres between their hands.

A Cow

It was brown.
As usual, I leave my house for school at 4:00 a.m. sharp on most school days. I have seen this strange contraption many times, but have hesitated to take a picture for fear of scaring the residents of this dwelling with my flash. Note that the dish in the image is a parabolic reflector. Electromagnetic waves from a satellite source will be beamed at a relatively infinite distance, making the waves parallel. The waves are then reflected to the focus of the parabola, where that receptor thingy is. This will ensure a clear image or sound on what ever appliance the family is using. I don't want to talk about the geosynchronous satellite that is providing this dish with electromagnetic waves, for fear of disturbing the mv^2/r.

Why Can't It be Battery Acid?

Water is one of those interesting substances that can behave both as a mirror and as a lens. Looking at the picture, a reflection of me with the camera can clearly be seen towards the bottom. Urgh. I thought I would be bigger. Anywayz, while it is not apparent in the picture, the stones at the bottom of the Weinberg Fountain appear to be closer than they actually are, a phenomenon known as refraction. Since water has a greater index of refraction than air, the light will be deflected more. So the rocks appear closer. Refer to the problem set if you're confused. Hope everyone could do it. I'm typing this sitting on God's Throne. WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!! yeargh...

I Found Your Lab Book

This weekend, there was a math meet. I scored a twenty seven out of thirty as I forgot how to reflect conic sections across a line in a plane. However, we did win the meet overall, with a 252 out of 310 as the first place team. The JV won this meet, so now there is less pressure on them, but still, two thirds of all JV meets lost by Iolani took place during this year. It was a good meet. Even William McQuiston.

In Admiral Park's room, there is a television. When it is not on, the television behaves as a convex mirror. The image is virtual and is smaller in height, as shown by the ray diagram. The screen is actually a lens for the image projected from inside the television, but we have not learned enough to discuss that yet.

Overloading the Circuit

I found this behind my computer today. It turns out that the radio was not working this morning not because of the 'tsunami', but because I plugged in too many appliances into the circuit, tripping the circuit breaker in the house. The wires would have become too darn hot had the circuit breaker not tripped and shut the current off. The problem is, this had never happened before in my 590 years of residence, so we spend half an hour looking for the circuit breaker in the house. Turns out it was in the shed in the yard. This tsunami thing reminds me of those gale winds during finals last year. Perhaps the government has called wolf one too many times.

Very Secret Rehersal

This Saturday I participated in a clandestine rehearsal for the upcoming secret musical 'Kiss Me Kate.' The room that is used as the headquarters for the very secret group of operatives is generally kept in the dark so as to not divulge our secrets to the public. By blogging about the room, I am violating certain codes of conduct, but Dayao will never know. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Um. That did not just happen.



On each of our stands, we have a light clipped on so that we can read our music when the house lights are off. The bulbs were plugged into this long extender thingie, but since all of the bulbs had the same brightness, they must have been wired in parallel. As we added more bulbs and even a guitar amp onto the circuit, the brightness did not diminish. However, more power and current must be supplied into the circuit. Since Iolani is not responsible for the electric bills at Hawaii Theatre, this has no significance in our lives whatsoever.

Webs of Intrigue

Tuesday night, I sacrificed an hour of quality bedtime to attend the annual Keables Community Night. The Keables chairholder this year is Dr. Cheryl Hayashi. While I learned many interesting facts concerning the lore of spiders and their silk, the most important part of that night was asking her about life at Yale. Dr. Hayashi believes that the most important experience of her college life was not the books and strenuous study, but the fellowship and skills about life she shared with her schoolmates. Also, the most important thing that helped her to become who she is to day is the solid high school education she received at Iolani. Even though she did not know where she would be headed as she entered Yale, the variety of classes she tried generated the doors that she would walk through to her career today.

Stuff I'm planning to take next year:
AP Physics C
AP Chem
AP Euro
AP English
AP Calc BC
Chinese 5H
Band 4

Seems a bit heavy... I don't know.

Before anything else, Valenth.
Uraraka, Freddie, Abigail, Talstag, Silent Rose, Phoenix, Izo. Just click on links to feed.

After listening to my fail horn playing a couple of weeks ago, I thought that revealing the mechanics of a horn would be proper. Unlike the trumpet, the spring that supplies the restoring force to the valve is not withing the valve, but resides next to the keys. By depressing the valve, an ingenious mechanism causes the valve in the center to rotate, directing the air flow of the player into adjacent pipes. This increases the length of the horn and lowers the pitch that the audience hears. Furthermore, over time, the valve oxidizes, producing the green patina seen in the picture. If the valve is not occasionally taken out and cleaned, the patina will build up and the friction between the valve and the valve casing would increase, preventing the valve from turning. Sadly, most amateur horn players cannot take apart their valves to clean them, allowing the instrument technicians to reap the rewards of their incompetence.

we'll title it later

Several days ago, I went with my fellow homeless to the mall to go shopping. After going to the bathroom, I realized that there were escalators going up and down (I have never noticed this up until now. NEVER). Because I wanted to go up, I naturally decided to run UP the DOWN escalator. However, this caused me to do more work than I would have done if I ran up the up escalator, because of the moving steps. Since work equals force times displacement, running UP the down escalator would increase the distance I have to run, thereby increasing the work I have to do. When I reached the top, I was comparatively more exhausted than my fellow homeless.

also at some point i turned into a duck and all was well:

Astro Boy Lives On

Before anything else, Valenth.
Uraraka, Freddie, Abigail, Talstag, Silent Rose, Phoenix, Izo. Just click on links to feed.



As we all know, I enjoy music. Especially the under appreciated brass music that everyone else seems to not enjoy. Also, I happen to be somewhat obsessed with Astro Boy. I even gave doc! a CD of the movie soundtrack. So what I did with my mad music skills was I 'eared' the melody for Astro Boy and played it on the french horn. Notice that my fingers do not depress any keys through the phrase. This is because the french horn behaves as an extremely long pipe, and when air is passed through it, the pipe vibrates at fudametal frequency. As I increased the pressure of the air with my mouth, the velocity of the air increased and therefore the frequency also increases, producing sounds of a higher pitch. I don't need to press valves to acomplish this effect. However, to do this, a great deal of lip muscle is required, resulting in my exhaustion after the phrase.

It's a Long Way Down...

During my vacation, I took a trip to the Shanghai TV Tower, otherwise known as the Oriental Pearl Tower. It has a height of 468 meters. In 2009, this outdoor viewing platform was constructed at 267 meters. I also happened to mass myself after coming from a bathhouse and discovered myself to be at 70 kg. As such, at the viewing platform I have a potential energy of 183162 J. Six sig figs!

Onto Lighter Stuff

This winter break, I took a trip to China. Between the wild and wonderful adventures that I partook in, my uncle would take the family out to a fancy restaurant. These places would serve the most mouthwatering Chinese cuisine along with a dash of alcoholic drinks if one preferred (don't get the wrong idea).


The food is set on a lazy susan sort of contraption in the center of the table to facilitate ease of access to all the food without having to pass the heavy and precariously filled dishes of soup across the table by hand.

Spinning the food requires a torque applied by the hand. Notice how I apply the torque towards the edge of the glass and not at the center, for we discovered (some still haven't) that applying a force to an axis of rotation does nothing. Stopping the glass also requires torque, in this case, it is the friction from the contact between my hand and the glass that produces a force that opposes motion, allowing me to enjoy the sumptuous food once it has stopped in front of me.

The World is Flat, yo

Before anything else, Valenth.
Uraraka, Freddie, Abigail, Talstag, Silent Rose, Phoenix, Izo. Just click on links to feed.



When I picked up this book, I figured that it would be just another boring book about world economics and how to benefit in this world. I found exactly what I expected and much more. Thomas Friedman’s book enlightened me about the world as it is today: not as it was as I expected in Globalization 2.0, but in the grips of Globalization 3.0. Even though many of the business and economic concepts in the book are foreign to me, I realized that I am vastly undereducated in acquiring a job in a flat world. Science and technology will be the new platforms on which the future rests on, as well as individuality. I witnessed this effect for myself while reading this book.
This winter break, I took a trip to Suzhou, China to visit my family. My cousin had worked for a government firm that required financial management skills. Once he became adept at his profession, he quit the company and started his own business. He is now the financial advisor of my uncle’s steel factory and outsources grunt work to people on the other side of the globe. Ten years ago, my cousin’s destiny was probably set as just another agrarian farmer, but with the enhancements in technology and communications in Globalization 3.0, the world has been flattened and my cousin can now command a business from the laptop he carries around with him. All he needs are the imagination and the skills to put that imagination to use. As his business expands, he tells me that he plans to expand his services not only to local firms, but to companies across the globe.
This fact makes me ponder just what the right type of education these days is. The self started businessman and technology worker described in the book cannot be for everyone as there will simply be not enough demand for these services. While most of the population must and will go into the grunt jobs of data processing and number crunching, it makes me wonder if we are being educated in the most efficient way. Should my occupation be set in stone before college so that I can receive the best possible education for my future job? This would allow greater specialization of the individual so that the lower and upper level jobs can be more quickly and efficiently. Yet if this is done, people like Mimi Shirazu-Hiza would have never come to the front picture and her research would have never happened. Such is the gambit the government must take if it would vertically upgrade the labor in the nation.
I also realized that there is a wealth of information out there and that it’s mostly in books or educated online resources. It really surprised me that my friends would rather watch Glee or Korean dramas on an internet site than sit down and read a juicy book. As the internet grows, it will attract more and more of the younger generation into mindless activities that eat up time. I think that without internet, I may lose the connectivity with the world that everyone else is enjoying, but in its place I gain a working environment like no other: one free of distractions and full of information from paper. While current, updated news is beyond my fingertips, reliable information is still available to me. Friedman also notes that reading more will help one to write better. While in our English curriculums we read notable works of literature, often it is not enough to encompass the wide variety of knowledge in the world. As I wander the Iolani library, many books lay waiting on the shelves. Yet many of them will never be touched by students, who spend their time browsing a different shelf, the internet. I am afraid what will happen to us Iolani students as we graduate into a world that is increasingly favoring those with the right kind of knowledge.