Basis of the Meter

This is updated for last post.

Originally, in the 18th century, the meter was described as the length of a pendulum with the half-period of 1 second!  Which does base distance on time, but unfortunately also gravity.  Which slightly varies across earth causing this to be inaccurate.  This is when the French Academy of Sciences came in and took over the definition of a meter (damn metre).  They described it as one ten-millionth of the length of the equator to the north pole.  They used a longitute which passed through Paris.

There were many intermediary definitions of a meter between then and now (1983), see Wikipedia - Metre.  Long story short, the General Conference on Weights and Measures defines the meter (as of 1983) as “the distance travelled by light in a vacuum during a time interval of ¹⁄_299,792,458 of a second.”

The subsequent definitions of the meter after the French took it over was essentially aimed at refining the precision of the definition no matter where you may need to be calibrating.  I’m not clear on this, but it seems they made one refinement due to a miscalculation because of the assumption that the earth was flat.  This made the meter ¹⁄₅^th of a milimeter longer.

World Time Zones

Have you ever seen one of those world maps that shades out the region of the world experiencing night?  Well, I use an operating system called Ubuntu which allows you to set your computers location (and other locations you choose) and your system calendar displays the weather information and the map described above with pins in your location(s).

Here’s a interesting World Time Zone Map:

That made me realize that the latitudinal length of one’s country could be measured by time.  I wondered if there was any non-astronomical units of distance measured by time (such as arch-seconds).  Volume and Mass (~weight) measurements are based off of water (1mL = 1cc(cm³) == 1g | 1pint = 16fl. oz. == 1lb = 16oz).  “Distance” is defined by Metric Space.  Which seems like it can be independent of time and definitely independent of water measurements.  What if a long time ago people happened to base all the measurements on time?  Distance - time to travel, Volume - time to fill, Mass - time until balanced.  One ruler might ask another ruler, “How much time does your land consume?”

In case you’re wondering, cause I was, the distance from the oxygen atom to the hydrogen atom on a water molecule is 95.84pm, the distance between the two hydrogens is 117.42pm with a “bent” angle of 104.45^o.  (By the way the partial pressure of H₂O is 117 mm Hg oddly enough, I wonder if that is a coincidence).  If we stick with a gram of water, we have 3.3426×10²² molecules H₂O, which if spread out perfectly (measuring by distance between hydrogens) it would cover 3.9249×10⁹km (for your reference the circumference of the earth (equitorial) is 4.0075×10⁴km.  That means that a gram of water, if spread out completely, would go around the earth roughly 98,000 times!

Anyway, I wonder what the common distance measurements, well I guess I only care about the meter, are based off of.  All because of my computer’s system calendar…

iPhone/iPod Touch Installer.app Sources Repositories

After you simply plug in your iPhone/iPod touch, open itunes, and then open the ZiPhone installer.  You should add sources to your Installer.app Sources List.

To do this click on the AppTapp Installer logo on your SpringBoard, here is the screen you should see

*This is an out-of-date screenshot but should suffice.  Note the Installer Logo you should’ve tapped on your SpringBoard.

Tap “Sources” in the bottom right then tap “Edit” in the top right, now “Add” in the top left.  Unfortunately you have to add one-by-one:

• http://repository.apptapp.com
• http://touchrepo.com/repo.xml
• http://repo.ispazio.net
• http://repository.ripdev.com
• http://apogeeltd.com
• http://iphonefanclub.com/native
• http://iphonexe.com
• http://apptapp.saurik.com
• http://thebigboss.org/repo.xml

Find more here, http://www.appsafari.com/full-list-of-installerapp-sources/ , but that is my list beyond the default.

Easy Jailbreak for any iPhone or iPod Touch

Check out http://www.ziphone.org/ , it is the blog for ZiPhone, an easy to use Jailbreak or crack for iPhones and iPod Touches.  The download site is http://download.ziphone.org/ .  The crack is compatibile with all firmwares up to 1.1.4.  Unfortunately Apple is about to release the 2.0 firmware which will require a new iTunes as well.  I would hold off on upgrading to that firmware.  The ZiPhone guy says he probably wont switch til 2.1, if even then, but will release an updated ZiPhone that will work with the 2.0 firmware.

This allows you to unlock your iPhone and use it with any service that has sim cards!  Also, there are loads of applications that are useful and available but for some reason Apple is currently blocking them.

johndavies24.com revamped and comin around

I finally put up a decent looking site with roughly the details and technology that I want to put into it right now.

Now its just up to maintaining the site, updating the links, and putting up new stuff and info.

Check back periodically!

Access and Share Your Files Online

box.net

• Work on files from anywhere
• Protect your important files!
• No Software Required
• Easy to Use!
• Collaborate and share online*

*Not in the free version. But if you pay a little (~$8/mo) you can access your files through mobile devices and do a lot of cool things!

Endless.com Shoes and bags

 

Amazon.com has an offshoot company called endless.com which sells shoes and bags that cover the entire spectrum (cheap to nice to boots to leather ect ect) and they are DIRT CHEAP! Also they give you free overnight delivery! Its crazy gotta use it!

My Website

My website, johndavies24.com is a list of FREE software that undoubtedly can save you money and make your life easier.

Orb MediaServer

Media Servers are cool things that allow you to access your files (particularly multimedia) from anywhere in the world. If you have a TV-Tuner card for your computer you can even watch your local TV from anywhere with a internet connection (including an onscreen local guide).

http://www.orb.com/orb/ is the website. All you do is register for free, download their software and in the preferences point to the appropriate folders (ie the Music section is pointed to the folder which contains all of your music).

For example, if you had an iPod touch, which is limited by either 8gb or 16gb of space, you can set up this media server and anywhere with a WiFi connection you can stream to any of the audio or video files you want to enjoy! It even works with cell phones with WiFi connections as well as laptops ect. ect.

Sasquatch is REAL!… Maybe

One of the leading scientists who believe in Sasquatch is Dr. Jeff Meldrum from Idaho State University.

• EVALUATION OF ALLEGED SASQUATCH FOOTPRINTS AND THEIR INFERRED FUNCTIONAL MORPHOLOGY
• Jeffrey Meldrum, Wikipedia

• Google Scholar Sasquatch Results (RECENTLY PUBLISHED ONLY)

This more realistic possibility was pointed out to me by Bill Henkens