Ok, so would-be terrorist Faisal Shahzad didn’t do basic research online on how to create a bomb (I’m assuming the internet may have some better techniques, not to mention indicate that his current design wouldn’t work). His stupidity worked in everyone’s favor in causing no injury, but surely he’d make sure to cover his tracks, right?

Police were able to determine the VIN of the SUV (though, to Faisal’s credit, he tried to remove it from the vehicle), talk with the person whom Shahzad had bought it from, get his real email address, and determine exactly who he is. Law enforcement tailed him for a while before he used his real name to purchase an airline ticket and he was found on a plane during a routine review of the international flight’s manifest.

Really? You want to bomb Times Square so you choose a design destined to fail, barely clean your tracks, and wait a couple days before trying to leave the country? This is a bad episode of 24. And if I know the show as well as I think I do, Jack Bauer would skip the post-crisis celebration to try to figure out what this ill-conceived plot was diverting attention from.

But the Mythbusters – Jamie and Adam – have a background in special effects, not science. A lot of the myths that they cover can be easily worked out with the proper knowledge, but they just do a series of off-base experiments instead, and come to conclusions based on ridiculous observations.

For example, the April 8 episode (that I recently watched as a rerun) is titled “Demolition Derby”. Two of the questions it looks to answer are “Is Keanu Reeve’s iconic motoring movie Speed just fake film physics?” and “Will a car dropped from 4,000 feet fall faster than a speeding car?”

The first examines the bus taking a hard right turn at 50+ mph and the effect of moving all 19 passengers to the right side of the bus. The science behind this is no mystery, and can easily be solved knowing basic properties of the bus and its passengers – namely their weight and approximate location of their centers of gravity.

The second sets up a race between a car falling from 4,000 feet and a car driving 105 mph (if I remember correctly), as seen in a commercial. Again, the physics behind horizontal motion and falling objects is not a mystery (not to mention that the distance of each car and the speed of the one driving are factors that can be easily changed).

Because the goal of the show is to decide whether a “myth” is plausible or not, simple calculations in each of these scenarios would suffice. I know that doesn’t make for interesting TV, but when children may regard the show as educational, perhaps a different approach to some myths would be best.

* Actually just a group of people that have solidified their friendship with me by clicking a button

From January through April, I endured the toughest semester of school in my five-year stay at Northeastern. It was also my last semester. Instead of fondly waving goodbye to me as I left, Northeastern gave me the finger.

For starters, there was Capstone – the culmination of my time in the Civil Engineering department in which groups of four or five are tasked with a major design project that they must see through from conception to final design. Pretty important, eh? Apparently not important enough to warrant an English-speaking professor with at least one year of experience at the university that isn’t distracted by an $8M grant he had just been awarded.

I’m not going to bore you with the details – primarily because I don’t want to relive them – but my shear frustration was palpable. Couple that with the less-than-ideal groupwork that I had to deal with and a final product that I’d say was pretty good, I should have received an A for effort alone. But somehow I ended up with an A-. Sure, I accepted this in Elementary Hebrew freshman year with a professor slightly short of kind, but when it is widely known that anything less than an A in Capstone indicates a significant deficiency, you can imagine how I felt. Although, what did I really expect when my professor made a comment after our final presentation that all but revealed he hadn’t taken a single look at the more-than-dozen proposal and design drafts we submitted to him?

And then there was Steel Bridge. I was finally in charge of it all and had by far the most design experience and coursework to warrant the job. I put more time into the design of the bridge than anyone had put in any of the three previous bridges combined. It was fantastic… on paper. Fabrication went just OK during the Spring, providing me with the prime example of engineers not considering well enough how things will actually turn out. The result wasn’t bad by any means, but not quite what was on paper. We tested the bridge to check for compliance and headed to the regional competition. (We actually walked there; it was at Wentworth and literally closer to my dorm than most of my own campus.)

This is the first year that the guidelines of the bridge have changed drastically, so it was interesting to see how everyone else designed. There were some fantastic looking bridges. I knew it would be a close one before we even got to strut our stuff. We built our bridge in record time (a big plus for the competition), and it went on to be tested. We had a dimension violation not previously there before the day, and we failed the lateral load test – something that had passed on every test we made ahead of time. This is heavily penalized, so I knew we were done then. Our whole team, several faculty members, and a slew of students who had come to support us (afterall, it was so close to campus) watched as our design – the one I am responsible for – failed and put us in the worst ranking we had seen in five years. Perhaps it wouldn’t have been quite as bad had my emotional self been to able to contain the true feelings I had in that moment. But, alas, I cried. Just one of those things, I suppose.

But despite these downfalls, I graduated. Luckily my grades didn’t reflect well the hell I went through, so I graduated in pretty good standings, too.

I spent the next few weeks sorting through the objects that defined my life, deciding which were still important enough to have with me, which I didn’t need but wanted to save, and those that I knew I wouldn’t miss. With a week-long trip to Los Angeles to break up the month, I packed my things to get ready for Cincinnati.

And a month ago, I loaded my things into a Penske (not quite the same ring as saying I loaded them into a U-Haul), and took off with my parents and Amanda on the road to Cincinnati. Since then, I’ve been working during the day and unpacking/organization in the meantime. Though she flew back to Boston soon after we got here, Amanda will be joining me in August (along with Abby, a 12-week-old Feist puppy), thus beginning a new part of my life.

I am officially a “roller coaster engineer” (how cool is that to say?) at Great Coasters International and sharing the new experience with my amazing girlfriend of 4+ years. It’s obvious that the past several years have been leading up to this point – for more reasons that one – but now that it’s here, it is more exciting than I anticipated. Amanda isn’t even here yet, but the “knowing” part of it all, just makes it fantastic.

So as I look out at my fantastic view of the Ohio River from my 20th-story luxury apartment in downtown Cincinnati, a feeling of relaxation and contentment strike me more powerfully than I had imagined for the previous five years. I’ll miss my family, my friends, and the places I’ve called home over the past 23 years, but this is an adventure. I know everything will be fine.

Israel. Why does everyone hate them? I knew anti-Israel sentiments were widespread, but this most recent conflict is highlighting them like Carmex on a cold sore. Even the “liberal media” in the US has jumped on the bandwagon. But why? All previously-existing bias aside, this military operation is one of the most justified there is. Significantly moreso than us going into Iraq.

Israel has never wanted anything but peace. I don’t remember the exact details, but I remember being told the anecdote of Israel offering Palestinians up to  97% of the land that Israel had at the time. The response was the then-Palestinian President walking out of the room. It’s hard to make peace with a group that firmly believes you have no right to exist.

In 2005, Israel took a major step toward aquiring peace with Palestinians, by forcibly removing all Israelis from Gaza. They left Gaza so that a) there would be no clashes between Israelis and Palestinians resulting in violence, and b) Palestinians would be able to build up its own infrastructure and begin to thrive. Instead, Hamas illegally took control of the Palestinian government and spent money on improving its arsenal instead of any practical development. More than three years later, 80% of Palestinians in Gaza have to receive UN humanitarian aid just to survive (the media has been deceiving; the aid that is constantly being mentioned as not being allowed to enter Gaza is not necessary as a result of Israel’s defensive fighting, but is a result of a failed government). The UN had to establish schools and other basic necessities in Gaza because the Palestinians’ own government would not.

Also since then, Israel has maintained a tight border with Gaza, stopping everyone and everything crossing through. It has been necessary because, despite the pullout from Gaza by Israel, Hamas has sought continued attacks against Israeli civilians through rockets fired from Gaza and through suicide bombers and other bombs smuggled into Israel. Hamas’ mastery of media manipulation began long ago when images of ambulances stopped at the checkpoints were displayed for the world to see. How could Israel be so heartless as to stop an ambulance during an emergency? Because Hamas has used ambulances to smuggle bombs into Israel!

Hamas is a terrorist group by any definition of the word. Their open disregard for any life in Israel – both civilian and military -  is blatant evidence of this. They have continued their aggression against innocent Israelis from across the border, even during specific periods of “calm”, and all at the expense of their own people.

Two weeks ago, Israel finally stood up for itself. It waited longer than any other country would ever last watching targeted attacks grip its own citizens with fear. They retaliated with the specific intent of stopping Hamas’ (note: not Palestinians’) attacks against Israel. They are fighting in both self-defense and in an effort to stop the terrorism in its country.

So why the hell is everyone up in arms about Israel’s “aggression”? I truly don’t understand it. For once, I am completely proud of my government’s reaction to the situation (it’s about time I’m impressed by something the President does). They get it. No one else seems to.

Tonight, the UN Security Council passed a resolution for a truce in Gaza. The US abstained, but the other 14 members voted in favor. Awesome – let’s go back to square one. Instead of the UN taking a look at the underlying causes of this conflict, they’re succumbing to pressure to merely “do something”. All they’re doing now is saying “Stop fighting, you guys. It’s not nice.” I’m curious to see what the immediate effect of this resolution is, because if Israel pulls back, I can guarantee it won’t be long before Hamas-fired rockets start landing in Israel and we’re back to square one. Nothing will be resolved. “Resolution”? Yeah right.

I think a lot of people are bothered by the number of civilian deaths being reported in Gaza. I’ll admit it’s tough to read some of the numbers, but I quickly dismiss any question I have of Israel’s tactics. For starters, the deaths are being reported by Palestinians. While I’m sure they’re not blatantly lying, I have to consider the bias at least slightly. But the biggest reason I don’t let it get to me is because it is Hamas’ disregard for its own people that is really to blame. They use their own civilians as human shields. They use schools are arsenals.

Israel knows that this is the case, too. That’s why Israel has repeatedly announced its military’s arrival before launching an assault on a specific area. They’ve dropped leaflets from planes and made calls telling civilians to get out! They significantly risk their own safety in an effort to save the Palestinian civilians that Hamas has shown they do not care about. As far as I’m concerned (and anybody should be concerned), every Palestinian civilian death is the fault of his/her own government. (Meanwhile, Hamas has consistently targeted Israeli civilians in its terrorist attacks.)

I don’t get it. How is Israel the bad guy? Sure Hamas released photos that the media eats up, but governments should be smarter than that. The UN should be smarter than that. It just baffles me beyond belief.

I’ve made a lot of claims here, and I wish I had solid sources to cite for each. Unfortunately, this is the culmination of a lot of paying attention to many many sources for some time. I assure you that any fact here can be backed up with simple research.

I also know that I’ve probably left some things out, but the bulk of my feelings are here. Despite any question of my facts and these possible omissions, I just need to firmly state that I SUPPORT ISRAEL.

But it was also a sad night for the United States.

Arizona banned gay marriage with 56% in favor.
Arkansas banned gay couples (and any other unwed couple) from adopting children with 57% in favor.
California banned gay marriage with 52% in favor.
Florida banned gay marriage with 62% in favor.

There were no other states with similar issues on the ballot.

This is a significant step back for the country; how can we call ourselves civilized when we’re still not upholding equal rights for all. There is no logical reason to ban homosexual marriages. None.

The reasons cited by the strongest advocates stem from religious beliefs and beliefs from conservative upbringing. Many think that allowing homosexual marriages would change what a traditional marriage is – that between a man and a woman.

They’re right; marriage has been traditionally between a man and a woman. But so what?

Until 1865, slaves were traditionally commonplace in the US. Until 1870, voting was traditionally done by just white people. Until 1920, voting was traditionally done by just men. And until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, schools, businesses, and a large amount of other public places were traditionally segregated.

I could go on.

Just because something is done for a while does not mean it is right. All of the above-mentioned traditions were only traditions until the United States matured enough to realize how ridiculous they were.

Homosexuals are simply another minority group in the United States, with differences from heterosexuals no more significant than the differences between whites and African-Americans. How long does this drag out before people realize this? (They will realize it, I assure you.)

I’d really appreciate it if the highly-religious and conservative Americans who see some ridiculous problem with homosexual marriage would stop trying to make policy out of (ignorant) belief. What business is it of theirs anyway?

So while I celebrate Obama’s entrance to the White House in 75 days, I can’t help but feel sick knowing that there is still so much wrong with this country. I cringe when I think about the children of those who were responsible for the passing of the new laws; they’ll be brought up thinking that everyone different from them is wrong.

I just hope alternative fuels aren’t banned since automobiles have traditionally used internal combustion engines…

• The room you sat in consisted of a dozen or so rows of permanent seats, followed by folding chairs that appear to be comfortable, but rarely are. These seats typically straddle a division of rooms, often marked by a folded up wall.
• You were sitting near one or more of the following people:
  • The guy that reads the responsive reading at his own, faster pace
  • The older man whose hairs cause his nose-breathing to whistle
  • The woman whose perfume is ridiculously overdone
  • The know-it-all who chants/reads every part of the service
  • The high schooler who “had to go to the bathroom” at least five times during the two-hour service
  • The annoying child. You know who they are…
• You know how many bricks are on the wall, how many slats on the blinds, etc.
• While one hand was turning pages, your other hand was held at the last page of the service.
• You were thankful that it was not Shabbat and, therefore, nothing in red had to be included.
• On at least one occasion, the person called to the Torah for an aliyah started to read the “after the reading” prayer before the reading, or just altogether read it incorrectly.
• There were quiet oohs and aahs after “tekiyah gedola” on the shofar while the Rabbi smirked in content for providing this excitment.
• Paper bags were handed out to fill with food for the hungry, as well as ensure that you had to handle plenty of food while fasting.
• You became excited when the Torah was carried around the room so that you could check out everyone else in the sanctuary behind you.
• You pretended to be happy to see a handful of people, only to turn to those next to you and gossip about them after they left.
• The cello solo lasted eight-and-a-half minutes. You timed it.
• You got your annual dose of the word “xenophobia”.
• The tune to several of the songs you know have changed since last year.
• You wished you had an excuse to not be able to stand for the standing parts like the elderly congregants.

Happy New Year!

I had heard the Sugarhill Gang’s song “Apache” before, but never realized that something had come before. Well, not only is there an older song with the same theme, it has a hilarious video. The keyboardist alone makes it worth it.

Similarly, the song from the beginning of Dumb and Dumber is certainly recognized by many, but I hadn’t seen the video for “Boom Shack-a-Lack” until recently. I’m not sure why I think it’s so funny; perhaps because it’s a bit awkward, but I’ll let you judge. If you’re up for a challenge, try reading the lyrics along with it and seeing if you can figure out how exactly those words are being sung. I don’t buy it.

[Embedding is disabled, so click here]

And finally, coaster fans may enjoy this a little more than non fans, but it is still a corny late-80s music video for a song written about a roller coaster.

Meanwhile, the Volt is an interesting concept; I’m curious to see how it turns out.

And it got me thinking how well they pulled off the real-time thing. Further, it made me think of how many shows could not pull it if. For example, another favorite of mine: House. “Stay tuned next week as House and his team wait for the lab results”. I’m not sure it’d rank as one of the more popular shows around with that aspect.

It goes for most shows (just think of your favorite if it was done in real-time), and I suppose that’s what made 24 such a hit when it came out. It took this new concept, ran with it, and made it work incredibly well.

In any case, I highly recommend it to everyone.

One step further: putting that name in your AIM profile proceeded or followed by words of affection or the phrase “for life”.

Examples (based on no specific instances):
“Love my 211 Crew”
“[insert Spring Break location here] Girls 4eva”

They know who they are. They know you like them. Why should anyone else care?