Homework at the Speed of Light and Sound

1. A lightning bolt releases a thunderclap as it discharges. You see the bolt almost immediately, but it takes longer (five seconds per mile) for the force of the sound to propagate through the air to your ears. Note that lightning, being electricity, of course travels at the speed of light. It generates continuous booms as it rips through the atmosphere faster than the speed of sound; this creates overpressures that move the air very quickly and create shock waves. Consider the relative speeds involved: If you see thundercloud lightning strike a tree, where does the first boom you hear come from?

2. Similarly, a fighter jet flies above you at supersonic speed. You see the jet as it passes over your head, followed by the roar of the jets a few seconds later (exactly the same sonic boom effect as the lightning bolt). It is pushed forward by a series of massive explosions but is traveling faster than those explosions are able to expand through the air and reach your ears. Note that the force has mostly dissipated by the time it reaches you, leaving you with only a sound instead of the explosive force of the engine exhaust. What would happen if the fighter pilot dropped an unguided bomb as he was passing over your head? What about if he fired a missile forward?

3. Vibration of any kind is also a decent thought experiment. Imagine striking a drum while resting your hand on the skin. You can feel the vibration of the drum as the energy of the strike moves through the material. You can hear the dull sound of the drum beat as that energy rebounds in the resonator and through the air to vibrate your eardrums*. Does the sound cease before, after, or simultaneously with the vibration in your hands? What would be the implications of the skin vibrating slower, faster, or at the same speed as sound? What would be differences between hitting a drum and striking a steel pipe against the ground?

*Extra Credit: Consider that our hearing is based upon our brain's interpretation of vibrations in our sensitive eardrum. Though we experience it quite differently, it is a sensation that is functionally similar to blowing on your arm. And yet there are many limitations on hearing. Things can be too quiet or too high-pitched, and it is difficult to hear through solid objects like doors. Our ears are tuned precisely to the sound energy traveling the air we are surrounded with. If we lived in a more heavily oxygenated atmosphere, like during the Cretaceous Period when Tyrannosaurus Rex walked the Earth, the thicker atmosphere would necessitate a different tuning to a faster "speed of sound".

On The Road Mix (Part 3)

The final section of my three part travel album. Hope you enjoyed it.:

Track listing:

1. Wild Night, Van Morrison - Tupelo Honey
2. Flathead, The Fratellis - Costello Music
3. General, Dispatch - Bang Bang
4. Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny Cash - At Folsom Prison
5. Gallows Pole, Led Zeppelin - III
6. Graceland, Paul Simon - Graceland
7. The King of Carrot Flowers pt. One, Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
8. Dashboard, Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
9. The Great Escape, We Are Scientists - With Love and Squalor
10. Fireworks, yOya - Nothing to Die
11. California Sun, Ramones - Leave Home
12. Power of Moonlite, Tiger Army - II:Power of Moonlite
13. Blue Orchid, The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan
14. Way Out, Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
15. Shotglass, Caitlin and the Shotglasses - Caitlin and the Shotglasses
16. Homelands, Brad and Ethan - Live Recordings, Etc.
17. Barton Hollow, The Civil Wars - Barton Hollow
18. The Queen's Rebuke / The Crossing, The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love

13. Blue Orchid by The White Stripes, on the album Get Behind Me Satan. Great single by the Stripes - I absolutely adore Jack White and I'm sure I still have a big ol' poster of him and Meg rolled up somewhere. I even went to a concert promoting this album up in Portland one time. That's a big deal for someone that rarely spends money on shows. Fortunately my folks had season tickets so Cass and I could go. I really love his brand of raw and open sound, I thought his music documentary It Might Get Loud was brilliant. I still haven't picked up his newer stuff post-White Stripes, and I really ought to.

14. Way Out by Yeah Yeah Yeahs, on the Show Your Bones album. Another band I picked up during my sophomore year. A nice little girl band, they do a great job of mixing up Seattle riot grrl attitude with more of a Southern sound. They're easy pleasers, and I thought they'd be a good outro for my brief intrusion of showy rock. I really ought to check out what they've been up to since.

15. Shotglass by Caitlin and the Shotglasses, on their self-titled album. Another local band. I've known Caitlin and most of the band for quite a while. They basically were a group of some of the funnest townie music kids that weren't getting their rocks off just playing in pep band. Cue a burning-brightly band that put out a bunch of shows and one album just before they all went their separate ways. Caitlin and Justin have bounced around a lot, but they're back in Corvallis now and heading a pretty successful punk band called The Angries. Amusingly, I didn't notice that this track (one of their best in my opinion) also contained more than a minute of silence and a secret track. Whoops. Definitely creates a different mood there at the end of the mix. And I like it. I guess it was meant to be.

16. Homelands by Brad and Ethan on their Live Recordings, Etc., album. This song is a real winner with anyone who grew up here in the Northwest. But I'm a fan of a number of their singles including In the Mountains and Seraphim (both on the album). Another local band, though I really only knew these guys by reputation. They were a couple years ahead of me in school, but they also were big regulars over at the Beanery back when I was pounding coffee with the best of them. Amusingly, while their music is very chill my most prominent memory of them was riding a couple of hijacked shopping baskets tied to a bike down Second Street at night.

17. Barton Hollow by The Civil Wars on their self-titled album. A real newcomer to my collection compared to these local bands that I've had for years. Barton Hollow is probably my favorite single from this band, the group is generally more easy-going folk than hard-strumming country. Annabritt introduced this band to me after falling in love with it herself, and she can now do a bang-up cover of it with her friend Catherine Wright to do the harmonizing. Reminds me a bit of a Steve Earle that found a girlfriend instead of heroin.

18. The Queen's Rebuke / The Crossing by The Decemberists on their continuous album The Hazards of Love. Called a rock opera by Pitchfork and other critics, you can imagine some mix of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and a Shakespeare comedy farce playing out behind the mics. However, since the whole thing is connected it makes it rather difficult to pull out a single track. I leaned toward one of my more favorite and unitary ones, The Rake's Song, but people sometimes get a bit weirded out by its baby-killing lyrics (hey, you can't have a tragic narrator without a tragedy) so I figured I'd pick out something that didn't need as much context. However, while this track does a good job of showcasing the vocals and the band, I think that the transitions are too hard and make for a difficult concluding track. I think perhaps I should have picked something else or added additional music. I had room for another 15-20 minutes of music, but not enough time to pick something suitable.

Here are the links to the first and second parts of this mix.

On The Road Mix (Part 2)

The second of my three part travel album:

Track listing:

1. Wild Night, Van Morrison - Tupelo Honey
2. Flathead, The Fratellis - Costello Music
3. General, Dispatch - Bang Bang
4. Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny Cash - At Folsom Prison
5. Gallows Pole, Led Zeppelin - III
6. Graceland, Paul Simon - Graceland
7. The King of Carrot Flowers pt. One, Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
8. Dashboard, Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
9. The Great Escape, We Are Scientists - With Love and Squalor
10. Fireworks, yOya - Nothing to Die
11. California Sun, Ramones - Leave Home
12. Power of Moonlite, Tiger Army - II:Power of Moonlite
13. Blue Orchid, The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan
14. Way Out, Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
15. Shotglass, Caitlin and the Shotglasses - Caitlin and the Shotglasses
16. Homelands, Brad and Ethan - Live Recordings, Etc.
17. Barton Hollow, The Civil Wars - Barton Hollow
18. The Queen's Rebuke / The Crossing, The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love

Annotations:

7. The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. One, by Neutral Milk Hotel on the album In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. Quite a pleasant little band, their music is really best experienced over the breadth of their album. They're great for lazy weekends and singing along to in the Sun. They're probably the only band that manages to have the lyric "I love you Jesus Christ" be catchy instead of preachy. So there's something. Also, I associate this band with the Redwall books (the ones about the Martin the Warrior mouse and all of the funny hare commandos) because I was re-reading a bunch of those books when I discovered this band. Funny how that works.

8. Dashboard by Modest Mouse on the album We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank. Marking a change in the album toward more energetic music. If Dispatch carried me through freshman year of college, then Modest Mouse carried me through most of high school. Great band. It was a bit difficult picking out just one song to represent them entirely. Black Cadillacs on the album Good News For People Who Love Bad News was my first great love with that band. There were several others, but in the end I decided to pick out something more recent for you to listen to.

9. The Great Escape by We Are Scientists on their album With Love and Squalor. Picking it up with a nice little guitar and stick-symbol opener, We Are Scientists are a fun little band that I picked up during a misguided attempt to find more punk. I'm thinking some time junior year in college - so about 2007. Sadly, the guy I got the music from was more a fan of Emo. Fortunately, they were one of the points of agreement. Still not really punk, but they've got some great guitar and a fun attitude.

10. Fireworks by yOya, on their album Nothing to Die. The first of three local bands on this mix, the two singers were actually buddies of mine from CHS and my children's choir. They were both in my vocal section for years, so I got to know them quite well. They now live in Los Angeles and are putting out their unique blend of folk-electronica.They seem to be doing pretty well with it - they do tours up and down the West Coast regularly. Fun band.

11. California Sun by the Ramones, on their Leave Home album. Never mind the bollocks! It's the Ramones. Well actually that should be the Sex Pistols, but I was having a tricky time putting punk music onto an album that also had Johnny Cash. The Clash would perhaps have been a safer bet in retrospect, but whatever. The Ramones are totally awesome punk, a band that came into the scene early enough to still be more rock than "pump it up to 11" noise. Not that I have anything against that kind of punk - there's another fun local punk band, Rock N Roll Hearts, that I rather wanted to put on - but I eventually decided they were too "Sex, Drugs and Rock n'Roll" for this mix. Maybe the next one?

12. Power of Moonlite by Tiger Army on their album II:Power of Moonlite. Tiger Army was one of several bands that I picked up my sophomore year while living in the Jasper house. A big bach house with lots of girls and homebrewed alcohol (occasionally awful) seemed well-suited with noisy and poppy rock. Similar bands were the brightly electronic Death From Above and LCD Soundsystem - and lots of lots of Irish punk. Fun times

See part one here and part three here.

On The Road Mix (Part 1)

After yet another long hiatus, I thought that I'd make another post on my poor old blog. A little while ago I put together an annotated travel mix for my friend Kindra, and I've been meaning to repost it online when I got the chance. It ended up being one-part discography and one-part audio biography. Since my focus was on representing the music that I've listened to most in life, it's more or less the standard fare. Still, check out the first of three parts here and let me know what you think! (I'll put up the next part tomorrow):

Track listing:

1. Wild Night, Van Morrison - Tupelo Honey
2. Flathead, The Fratellis - Costello Music
3. General, Dispatch - Bang Bang
4. Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny Cash - At Folsom Prison
5. Gallows Pole, Led Zeppelin - III
6. Graceland, Paul Simon - Graceland
7. The King of Carrot Flowers pt. One, Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
8. Dashboard, Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
9. The Great Escape, We Are Scientists - With Love and Squalor
10. Fireworks, yOya - Nothing to Die
11. California Sun, Ramones - Leave Home
12. Power of Moonlite, Tiger Army - II:Power of Moonlite
13. Blue Orchid, The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan
14. Way Out, Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
15. Shotglass, Caitlin and the Shotglasses - Caitlin and the Shotglasses
16. Homelands, Brad and Ethan - Live Recordings, Etc.
17. Barton Hollow, The Civil Wars - Barton Hollow
18. The Queen's Rebuke / The Crossing, The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love

Annotations:

1. Wild Night by Van Morrison on the album Tupelo Honey. I've actually never been huge into Morrison, and I can't really remember when I downloaded this album. Probably when I picked up a bunch of Jimi Hendrix and similar classic rock; it just seemed the thing to do. This single is fantastic, but I think some of the other songs on the album lack the happy energy of Wild Night.

2. Flathead by The Fratellis on the album Costello Music. The Fratellis are such a happy little Ska band. They're great at having a driving sound that is still quite classy. I picked them up from a photographer friend of mine, Leah, down in Eugene. Nowadays she's living in Prague! Can you imagine that? She and I would just hang out at her house swapping photo books and record albums, chatting about one thing or another. Cool chick. And at one point she dumped a bunch of awesome music onto my laptop. Hurrah!

3. General by Dispatch on the album Bang Bang. Dispatch was one of those bands that carried me through my freshman year of college. My roommate Ryan was huge into them, and it didn't take me long to start to obsess as well. General was one of those songs that hits all the sweet spots for me; it's a story song (based on the Civil War!) that has some great lyrics and some stirring melodies. It's a favorite with everyone who's heard the band, I think. I almost got a chance to go see the band live once, but it never panned out. Too bad!

4. Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash on the At Folsom Prison album. The Man in Black! Cash was so great. His life story is quite interesting, and I think that they did a decent job of retelling it in Walk the Line. I've been listening to him for years. He has another couple of songs that I like a bunch too: The Legend of John (later in the album) and The Man Who Couldn't Cry on the American Recordings album. Great stuff. But Folsom Prison is the most iconic, and this song is the best at showing it off. Cash played at many prisons during his life, but it was this one in Folsom, California that really kick-started his career onto the national stage. Good thing too.

5. Gallows Pole by Led Zeppelin on the III album. Zeppelin! Continuing the prisoner motif of Prison Blues, Gallows Pole is one of my favorite Zeppelin songs. It follows a pretty classic three-part story format, which I love, but it's Jimmy Page's fantastic voice coupled with the twanging guitar that really propels this song into greatness for me. There used to be a great Zeppelin cover band here in Corvallis called Stairway Denied, and they had some of the best covers I've ever heard. The lead singer absolutely nailed Page's vocals, and also had good looks and the long rocker hair. They've since broken up, but I'll bump into him here in town and have to resist gushing over a Corvallis celeb.

6. Graceland by Paul Simon, on the Graceland album. Though I do like Simon and Garfunkel, the sheer amount of overplaying of them by my friend Arielle caused me to cast out for this album. I played it a bit, never really latching on, and then one day I came home from an epic backpacking trip into Eastern Oregon and turned this on and everything clicked. Instant travel song favorite. The rest of the album is fine, but it is really this single that I am most enamored with. Hopefully some day I won't feel as burnt out on The Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel. :p

See part two here and part three here.

The Stick Game

I was reading some stuff from this guy who is a Viking LARPer, and while they have a pretty bad rep I have to say that some of their research turned up some pretty awesome stuff like "the stick game"

"The stick game": Played while drinking. Opponents face each other, and are handed a stout stick about 8-10 inches in length. Both opponents grasp the stick with their right hands. The loser is the first person without a hand on the stick. There are no other rules, but it's considered rude these days to interfere with the opponents groin in any way. It's really physical and people get hurt quite often, with opponents getting thrown around and contorting each other. Our current Holder Of The Stick is a girl who's about as big as one of my legs. She's extremely vicious and flexible, and her light weight makes throwing her around less effective than it would be with a large opponent. I'm useless at the stick game.

The Disasterous Reporting of Fukushima

I know that it's often rather eye-rolling to see controversial political advocacy, but I'd really recommend checking out what Fareed Zakaria has to say in this report. I think he does a good job of putting the issue into context. I don't think he goes far enough in terms of alleviating concerns over the Fukushima accident, nor in supporting the idea of clean nuclear energy, but he's one of the first Western reporters covering the story that I've been able to nod my head with.

For the last week I've been in quiet despair over the baseless fearmongering and sometimes stark racism that seemed to afflict Western media covering the disasters in Japan. Some of my favorite news agencies - ProPublica, NYT and NPR among them - were not unaffected by this seeming free-for-all of dire speculation that has caused so much panic. I was glad to see that at least one reporter has managed to retain some level of journalistic reserve and perspective on such an explosive issue.