Thursday, August 28, 2014

The Marshall Islands!

I turned on the radio as soon as I got home today and scanned the 10-meter band.  There was a faint signal for a moment on 28.300 MHz.  I stopped and listened for a while and was about to move on when it came back again for a moment.  I hooked up the audio jack and made a recording.  Luckily it soon came back in strong. 


Then almost as quickly it faded back out. 


Decoding it gives "V73TEN RJ39"---that ain't local! 

RJ39 is the grid square system and this places it in the Western Pacific.  I looked up the call sign and it is broadcasting on 25 Watts from the island of Roi-Namur in the Kwajalein Atoll of the Marshall Islands!  That's 2,450 miles (3,940 kilometers) from here. 


In the map above you can see the BL grid square over Hawai'i and the RJ grid to the southwest.  The yellow line shows the distance from the signal to me. 

It makes sense I would pick up a signal from the west.  It was late in the day and the sun was setting.  Solar radiation causes the atmosphere to become reflective in the 10-meter range, so the signal was coming from the direction of more sun exposure.  That's the distance from NY to LA with the power of a small light bulb!  ---and I am on a minimal antenna setup to boot. 

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Quad Band Transceiver

V got me something for my birthday that I've wanted for many, many years.  I have wanted to get my ham radio license for a long time and finally did in January 2012.  I got a handheld 2-meter band transceiver starting out and had some fun hearing local communications and picking up weather satellite flyovers.  However, what I really wanted was to get on the 10-meter band because of the 11 year solar maximum (which dramatically increases the range of communications).  V got me a quad band that has 10 meter, 6 meter, 2, meter and 70 cM bands.  These refer to the wavelength of the radio signal in frequency these are 29 MHz, 50 MHz, 144 MHz, and 430 MHz respectively.

You can see the speed of light at play here; Hertz is cycles per second; 29 MHz means 29 million cycles per second on the 10 meter wavelength band; radio waves are a form of light waves (electromagnetic radiation); the speed of light is 299,792,498 meters per second, so 10 meter wavelengths of light would pass by at 29,979,498 m/s or approximately 29 MHz in the range of wavelengths around 10 meters. 

I hooked it up to a car battery and portable antenna as fast as possible and got on the 10-meter band.  I picked up a very weak CW Morse code signal and think it might be a beacon but when I went back later I couldn't find it.  I went on the 2 meter band and picked up the familiar NOAA weather radios here on O'ahu and one broadcasting from Maui.  I listened in on two nets that organize emergency ham communications and even picked up two NOAA satellite flybys.

I also picked up what seems to be communication with or between airplane pilot(s), and what seems to be marine radio ship communications on the maritime band.  The latter were not in English one sounded a little like Spanish words from time to time but I think it might have actually been Filipino, another ship sounded like Japanese. 

On the six meter band (at 50.062 MHz) I got a beacon here in Hawai'i and connected the audio to my computer to make a recording.  Here's what it looks like.


It is Morse code.  You can see the · and by the width of the gaps in the background static.  From left to right the letters are:

···–  V
···–  V
···–  V

···–  V
···–  V
···–  V

 ··  D
 ·     E

·–  K
····  H
····  6
····  H
··     I
··· /
···  B 

·–  Q
     T
····  H

···  B 
···  L 
0 
· – 1
 
··· /

– O
·–    A 
····  H
··–   U

····  H
··     I

So the transmission is  VVV  VVV  DE  KH6HI/B  QTH  BL01  /  OAHU  HI  .
VVV means "attention there is an incoming transmission".
DE means "I am".
KH6HI is the call sign.  The first part, KH6 indicates a call sign issued for Hawai'i.  The last part is unique to the operator. 
QTH means the geographic location of the transmission. 
BL01 is a grid square system (e.g., http://www.levinecentral.com/ham/grid_square.php) that, in this context, identifies the location as the Western half of O'ahu (but could also be the southern half of Kaua'i).
Then the translation is broadcast using the postal code for Hawai'i, "OAHU HI".  

Friday, August 22, 2014

Earthquake!

Wow, we just had a real earthquake.  I woke up after midnight and was doing some work on the computer for the next day.  Suddenly the floor shook; I could really feel it against my feet, and there was a rumble.  At first it felt like something heavy fell next to me and then like a big truck was rumbling nearby (or like I was in a rumbling truck), but none of this happened and I realized it was an earthquake.  I have had hints from time to time but this is the strongest one I have felt since moving to Hawai'i just over three years ago.  I saved what I was working on and went around and checked on everyone but the rest of the family slept right through it.  I also checked the time and it was 2:38 AM.  I checked the USGS website (http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/seismic/volcweb/webicorders/webi_hvo.php) and a seismic recorder here on O'ahu.  I had to wait for a bit for the site to update to cover 2:38 local (12:38 UTC).  Have a look...


Update: 3:20 AM.  It's showing up on the map now (http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/seismic/volcweb/earthquakes/). The red circle to the south of Kaiwi channel.:


Update: 3:50 AM.  Now there are some news reports of the quake (link).  It is reported to be a mild earthquake, initial estimate only 4.1, which I find surprising.  I really felt this one; it shook the building I'm in.  They are reporting no tsunami threat. 

Update: 8:00 PM.  Several more minor news reports (link and link).  Upgraded to a 4.2 quake, 40 miles out in the ocean and 12 miles deep.  It was widely felt around O'ahu.  

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Double Trouble

Apparently we have two hurricanes (Iselle and Julio) headed toward us back to back.


Even though Hawai'i is right in the hurricane latitudes; they are very rare events here.  Below are the tracks of tropical storms and hurricanes in the N. Pacific by NASA from 1985 to 2005; Hawai'i is near the gap in the middle.


The last hurricane here was in 1992 and there have only been three since 1950.  The weather has been very warm lately without the heat breaking at night, and the Pacific is very warm with an El NiƱo developing. At first they were expected to weaken to tropical storms by the time they made it here, but yesterday I heard they were actually increasing in strength are were at 85 mph and 75 mph winds respectively.  The first one is expected to make it to the big island on Thursday with the next one arriving possibly on Sunday.  We have had water, food, cash, flashlights, lighters, sterno, etc.  stocked (I try to always keep some of this stocked in a closet going back to when we lived in NY) and are currently charging up our batteries (for phones, my portable ham radio receiver, etc.) and bringing things inside off the porch (called a lanai here in Hawai'i).  We are expecting flooding and the power to go out at least once at some point in the next few days and possibly the cell phone coverage to go down for a while.  There has been a run on the grocery stores in the last 48 hours with some shelves wiped bare and them stacking bottled water near the entrance for people to grab as they go in.  We have made some backup plans at work for people to come in at various times and check on things and there have been several school closings. The governor has signed orders to use emergency funds.

Search "honolulu" and "hurricanes" on google news to stay posted

----
Update: Yesterday (and the last few days) it was partially cloudy with blue skies.  The weather is still not expected to arrive here in Honolulu for quite a while (this evening).  However, it is 2 AM on Thursday and it has started drizzling rain outside and light breeze is blowing. The national weather service has put out a public alert announcing maximum sustained winds are near 90 mph at the hurricane. 
----
 Update: And we had an earthquake!  It was a mild 4.5 centered near Hilo on the big island. (news link)  Small quakes are fairly common here so this is not a surprise.  It is 7:20 AM Thursday here and has cleared off to a clear blue sky!  There are clouds on the horizon towards the southeast however.  There is a steady light breeze which feels good compared to the still heat over the last couple weeks.  Right now Iselle is projected to pass just to the south of Honolulu on Friday and is loosing strength but is expected to make landfall today on the big island as a hurricane.  Julio is gaining strength, now up to 100 mph winds, and has been upgraded to a category 2 but is still several days out. 
----
Update: Tursday 7:45.  And now there's a third one.  Tropical storm Genevieve (link) is forming and might be heading toward the NW Hawaiian islands.  NOAA is also now reporting Julio is up to 105 mph sustained winds.
----
Update: Thursday 18:00.  There has been a breeze going all day.  After noon it picked up a bit and blew down some store sidewalk signs and little things like that.   It has rained off and on, alternating with bands of blue sky since noon.  We topped off the gas in the car and (V, K, and I) dropped by the grocery store to pick up some things for tonight.  Some of the shelves were almost bare.  Back home we went for our daily walk with the two little kids in the stroller just now and there were two strong stiff winds that we really had to push into.  We also noticed bulbuls (a bird here) being very aggressive about chasing insects.  All the schools and events are canceled tomorrow so we are planning to wait it out at home.  Airlines are canceling flights and stranded travelers are having to reschedule.  Iselle is just arriving at the big island now, is projected to pass south of us tomorrow and drop to 60 mph winds then, and Julio is up to a category 3(!) last I checked.

http://www.cnn.com/interactive/hurricane.tracker/index.html

I took the camera with me to the grocery store! 

Above, a run on bananas. Below, the ice box is empty. 

 Above, spaghetti is popular; below, and canned vegetables too. 



 Above, canned beans!  Below, canned meat! 



This is where the bottled water was (below). 


There's talk about places gouging $30 for water.


Sweet mini peppers!


They have black beans! 


Above and below, let's look cute as a distraction then see if I can grab the camera! 



Above and below, who's worried?  There's only a few bags of charcoal left, but I have goldfish crackers! 


---- 

 Update: Tursday 20:20.  Trees are down in Hilo (on the big island) from the high winds.  Power is out in parts of Maui.  We just had a couple stiff gusts outside over the last half hour but not much going on here in O'ahu yet. 

----

Update: Tursday 21:00.  Curfew in Maui, all cars to be off the road by 9pm (now).  Also, an official announcement that all public bus service is canceled tomorrow.  We are making last minute preparations making sure everything is secure outside and unplugging a lot of electronics.  The little kids sense something is up and are excited.  I found this map on weather underground that shows all three storms.  We are just under the "81" in the middle and as of now are predicted to thread the needle between two of the storms.  The third is veering away to the west.  Julio is up to 115 mph sustained winds. 

http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=21.327349,-157.842026&cm_ven=googleonebox

----
Update: Friday 3:30 AM.  Iselle is a tropical storm now and is predicted to be veering more southward.  It is still over the big island, winds of 70 mph.  There is mention of it stalling a bit over the big island which may mean more rain and flooding there.  (Interesting to think about what a hurricane does at 14,000 feet as it goes over the volcanoes.)  A lot of people are reported to be without power on the big island and Maui.  Also, there are reports that a geothermal plant accident on the big island has release hydrogen sulfide and some residents may need to evacuate the area.  Here it is breezy.  I can hear the breeze get stronger then die down back and fourth in almost a regular oscillation.  It is not a strong wind here and there is no rain at the moment.  I see a couple cars traveling on the H1 in the distance.  Julio is still a category 3, sustained winds at 120 mph with gusts to 150 mph. (Currently predicted to die down to a cat 1 at 75 mph as a track north of us Sunday to Monday.)

http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=21.3,-157.8&cm_ven=googleonebox&MR=1

----
 Update: Friday 4:35 AM. There's a noticeable uptick in the wind over the last 20 minutes.  I suspect it is in the 20-25 mph range based on reports from the weather stations around here.  I opened the door to peak outside and there was a noticeable push against the door with wind racing around me.  Still not a big deal here at the moment and there is still no rain since the last update.   
----
Update: Friday 5:00 AM. Some updates from the local news station and radio.  Lots of rain and trees down on the big island.   Power off, then on, then off again on Maui.  8" rain on the big island near Hilo.  Courts closed all over and jury told to remain home and call in next week for instructions.  Someone stole the rescue truck on the big island (the only rescue truck).  The prices of all commodities are frozen until August 15 by the office of consumer protection; said they will investigate reports of price gouging..  A lot of stores have run out of supplies and can't restock.   
----
Update: Friday 7:30 AM. Steady 20-25 mph wind from the NE.  Gusts 35 to 45 mph on O'ahu according to weather underground.  The gusts are rattling the doors a bit inside the apartment.   A little rain off and on.  Power has been on continuously.  There are breaks of blue sky and in one I saw an airplane go up a few minutes ago, around 7:15 AM, headed toward the east which surprised me.  I snapped a picture but it is very pixelated. 


Last I heard the airports were only kept open for emergency landings.  There is news from Maui that a water treatment plant is without power so they are asking people to conserve water.  The center of Iselle is moving off the western side of the big island; winds 50 mph with gusts up to 65 mph.  It looks like lots of rain is still falling on the SE side of the big island however.  Lots of roads are closed on Maui and the big island.  Lots of government offices are closed.  All ports are closed so no shipping is going in or out. They are still looking for the emergency response truck that was stolen on the big island.  (I just heard that they were planning to get a plane in the air to look at damage on the big island and Maui.)  Julio has been downgraded to a cat 2, winds 105 with gusts 125 mph.  Still predicted to track just to the north of us. 
----
Update: Friday 8:15 AM.Some trees down here on O'ahu now.  One is blocking part of the H1 as  a road crew is working on it.  Just had someone on the news talk about the weather on the big island.  He said the volcanic mountain Mauna Loa (almost 14,000 feet) stalled the storm for 5 hours over land and caused it to weaken a lot.  Also, that part of the island only had 10 mph winds during the storm because it was sheltered by the mountain.  Also, speculated that Iselle stalling in place would affect the track of Julio coming up behind it. 
----
Update: Friday 8:40 AM.  Raining now and still windy.  Below is a picture I just took.  It is hard to see the wind from a picture but the palm tree leaves are bent away to the right.  The haze to diamond head in the background is from the rain. 58 mph gust reported just now in Lanai.


----
 Update: Friday 9:30 AM. The rain is here.

 
and a few minutes later the ridge in the background is no longer visible.



The wind actually seems to have died down a bit here with the heavier rain arriving. 

Reports of roofs being blown off houses and power lines down from the big island. Also some video coming in on the local news of streams flooding near Hilo.  One of them looks like a smaller version of Niagara falls. 
----
 Update: Friday 10:00 AM.  Strong winds on Lanai still.  Holding 30-40 mph with gusts up to the 40s and 50s mph.  One arm is swinging up toward us from the east side of the big island.

http://www.wunderground.com/wundermap/?lat=21.31547&lon=-157.83690&zoom=5&type=lightmap&units=english&eyedropper=0&hur=1&hur.wr=0&hur.cod=1&hur.fx=1&hur.obs=1&hur.hd=0&hur.mdl=0&hur.gpce=0&hur.img=0&hur.opa=undefined&hur.opa2=undefined&rad=0&sat=1&sat.num=1&sat.spd=50&sat.opa=70&sat.gtt1=108&sat.gtt2=108&sat.type=IR4&cams=0&undefined=0

----
 Update: Friday 11:30 AM.  Pretty calm at the moment.  The power blinked out briefly earlier so we unplugged everything but all is running fine now.  A cable van with a cherry picker dropped by and worked on things for a bit.  There's a line of dark clouds facing us now to the south.

http://www.wunderground.com/wundermap/?lat=21.31547&lon=-157.83690&zoom=5&type=lightmap&units=english&eyedropper=0&hur=1&hur.wr=0&hur.cod=1&hur.fx=1&hur.obs=1&hur.hd=0&hur.mdl=0&hur.gpce=0&hur.img=0&hur.opa=undefined&hur.opa2=undefined&rad=0&sat=1&sat.num=1&sat.spd=50&sat.opa=70&sat.gtt1=108&sat.gtt2=108&sat.type=IR4&cams=0&undefined=0

The rain has let up for the moment and I noticed a dove with ruffled feathers sitting on its nest out in a tree riding out the storm. 


----
  Update: Friday 14:00.  Okay, things are pretty calm.  Constant breeze but not strong gusts like this morning.  The clouds seem to be breaking up.  Iselle is about 150 km south of us with winds a constant 50 mph to 65 mph gusts.  Most of the heavy rain is too the south and moving off.  Looks like we're pretty much in the clear now.  The big island seems to have protected us by breaking up the hurricane with giant volcanoes at high altitude...!  There are lots of sirens going back and forth in the distance however.  Reports that they cannot get helicopters in the air on the big island to assess impact because of conditions.  Now I think all eyes are turning toward Julio and the track it is taking---for now to the north. 
----
 Update: Friday 16:00.  Well, we survived the hurricane but the supermarket is another story.  Everything calmed down and cleared up.  We drove (a short distance not on any major highway) to the grocery store to check out the neighborhood and pick up a few things.  They are still having trouble restocking and there were gaps in the shelves.  Also, I thought $18 for bottled water (okay, $17.95, I'm rounding off) was a bit steep.  As a citizen journalist's ongoing reporting of the effects of the tropical storm to the world on this website, I took out my camera to take a couple of unobtrusive pictures.  A woman wearing a store uniform came running up out of nowhere saying "I'm sorry" over and over loudly then that I "can't" take any pictures in the store.  I asked why and she went into some mishmash about it had to be cleared through the corporate PR office or I wasn't allowed...  I walked away and she yelled "thank you" very loudly at me.  I'm not sure why she was apologizing or thanking me; it's not like I was going to say "you're welcome".  I think people that work in businesses today don't know what the English language terms "I'm sorry" and "thank you" actually mean.  I have used a camera in stores here many times and never had a problem until today.  Call me crazy but I suspect this has something to do with my 5 AM report "The prices of all commodities are frozen until August 15 by the office of consumer protection; said they will investigate reports of price gouging".  I was not going to say anything about the name of the store until they interfered with me but if you want someone to investigate try the [redacted, contact me for more info.] and ask about the $18 bottled water.  I daresay it will be recorded in the checkout line cashier receipt records.

When we got back home we loaded the kids in the stroller and went for our walk.  We've been able to make it each day since August 1st!



Above, there was very little traffic.  Some leaves and sticks were blown down (and herre in the tropics leaves can get very big).  If you look closely you can see F's hair being blown off to the side.  



----
  Update: Saturday 3:30 AM. We came out very lucky here in Honolulu with Iselle.  Julio is on the horizon.  It is currently a category 2 with 100 mph sustained winds and gusts to 120.  Julio is still predicted to swing wide to the north but of course we are keeping an eye on it over the next 48 hours. In the map below our location is under the red marker. 


Wow, while we were all watching Iselle, Genevieve was a category 5 with 160 mph winds; Genevieve is heading off to the NW however. 
----
Update: Sunday 8:00 AM.  It looks like we're in the clear!  It was overcast yesterday but it is clear blue skies here in Honolulu this morning.  Julio is down to a category 1 now, loosing strength, and continuing to pass to the North.

http://www.wunderground.com/wundermap/?lat=21.31311989&lon=-157.82212830&zoom=8&pin=Honolulu%2c%20HI&rad=1&wxsn=0&svr=0&cams=0&sat=0&riv=0&mm=0&hur=0

If there are no more developments then I'm planning to wrap up this post. 
----

Starting School

School is starting up.  T is beginning his first year of high school and is trying out for the cross country team.  M is in her second year of middle school.  F is in preschool two days a week.  K however gets to spend the whole day with V. 

Impossible Space Drive

Okay, I wanted to finish the last post before adding any more.  I was purposely putting off some things, but all of a sudden a lot is happening. 

First of all, there was the report from NASA's eagleworks about a drive system without any propulsion, just running off of energy creating microwaves in a tapered container.  This follows on claims of measured thrust from a Chinese group and the claims of a British inventor before that.  It caused quite a stir with the usual "impossible" responses (link).  The next step is to independently verify the claims some more.  However, if it is real could it be related to the Casimir effect?  ---where a force is exerted upon metal plates in a vacuum presumably resulting from virtual quantum particles. 

One fun speculation, the speed limit of traditional rocket engines is connected to the propellant's exhaust velocity.  If this system pans out, what is its effective exhaust velocity?  It is based on electromagnetic radiation which is a form of light.  Could it in theory accelerate to relativistic speeds. 

Friday, August 1, 2014

Perception

This is a blog post I've been thinking about for a long time.  I have been fascinated about ways in which we percieve the world around us affects our interpretation of physical reality.  I am planning for this to be a long post that I will add to several times. 

This may be cliched, but let's start off with the allegory of Plato's cave.  In it people ("prisoners") are restrained so that all they see their entire lives are shadows upon the wall of a cave in front of them, cast by the light from a fire behind them.  Of course they come to believe that the shadows represent the whole of reality.  In this allegory the people are only able to perceive a limited form of reality that falls far short of what other people can normally perceive.  This is extended further to imply that some people (philosophers in Plato's version) can see deeper truths of our universe than the typical person, etc.  However, the point I want to make with this is that sometimes a more "accurate" view of the world can be more misleading.  The earth looks relatively flat.  The sun and moon "rise" and "set".  However, like the prisoner in the cave we can see a shadow of the earth on the moon cast by the sun during a lunar eclipse, and the shadow is not flat but round like the earth (link).  Sometimes a more restricted view like a shadow in Plato's cave can give a more accurate version of physical reality then the version we are used to.  I had a roommate from Shanghai, China my first year of college and he knew a lot of maxims.  One of these comes to mind with this example: "(the shape of) a mountain is better (more accurately) seen from a distance (rather than walking closer to see all the detail)".

Okay, now let's switch gears and talk about antimatter.  If matter and antimatter interact they annihilate each other in a tremendous release of energy.  To pick a specific example if an electron and positron (the antimatter version of an electron) run into each other they disappear and a high energy light wave (gamma radiation) photon or two are produced.  Alternatively, since energy and mass are interchangeable (recall the famous E=mc^2), a sufficient amount of energy could result in an electron positron pair.  What is a positron?  It is like an electron but everything is reversed.  Instead of a negative electric charge it has a positive charge; other qualities like "spin" are also reversed.  Feynman came up with a way to diagram the abstracted interactions of particles in time and space (called a Feynman diagram) and we could draw the annihilation of an electron (e-) with a positron (e+) like this.
The electron and positron moving forward in time run into each other in space and annihilate each other releasing energy.  We could also diagram the convergence of energy in time and space to a sufficient amount to produce mass. 
If we combined these two diagrams we could draw something like this.
Now, this change is very subtle and strange but it is not false.  It all depends on how you decide to view the process.  I'm going to make a small change to the diagram. 
I've made the positron an electron moving backward in time.  What would an electron moving backward in time look like?  Well, for example, negative charges repel each other, so backward in time a negative charge would appear to be attracted to another negative charge.  In other words it would appear to be positively charged, etc.  Antimatter is equivalent to matter except that it is, strangely enough, moving in the opposite direction in time.  (I did not create this idea; Feynman proposed it.)  Note that it takes a tremendous amount of energy to make even a small amount of matter reflect through time.  This brings up several interesting points.  Why are the mass, charge, etc. of all electrons in the universe exactly the same?  Could it be that there is only one electron and that it has just bounced back and fourth through time?  The same goes for protons, etc.  (I thought I had come up with this idea but I just read it was proposed by Wheeler.  Although, I suspect it might also have something to do with resonance of certain combinations of mass, charge, spin, etc.)  One way to build the ultimate doomsday machine is to completely destroy a single electron.  This might wipe out all atoms (as we know it) in the universe back and fourth through time and matter everywhere would fly apart because of the repulsive positive charge of protons.  (Although, how you would do this is another question.)  Also, might time be cyclical and the universe alternates through phases dominated by matter or energy, as the two reflect off of each other?  ...or a more fun question; why isn't time travel possible?  I'll save that one for later.  Anyway, this view of the universe, the realization that matter and antimatter are traveling in opposite directions through time, is only limited by our perception of the process. 

Okay, let's switch gears again and talk about mirrors.  I've blogged about this before.  It is a subtle but profound way our assumptions affect our view of physical reality.   When we see our reflection in a mirror everything seems normal, unless we have writing on our t-shirt.  Then we realize the mirror flips things left to right---but not up and down.  Thinking about this for a while we realize this is very strange.  There is no physical reason a mirror would "know" left and right and only flip that instead of up and down.  The answer lies in the realization that the mirror doesn't actually flip anything.  It all lies with what we are used to seeing and doing in our everyday world that leads us to be mislead into believing the rule that mirrors reverse objects left to right but not up and down.  What we view the mirror as doing is related to how we interact with horizontal and vertical planes.  At first they seem equivalent to each other---a horizontal plane is the same as a vertical plane except rotated 90 degrees---but this is not really true.  If you don't believe me then why can vertical planes intersect and horizontal planes cannot; there is a fundamental difference.  In our everyday lives we are used to operating in space on a horizontal plane.  When we turn something around we tend to do it left to right---this seems normal and in fact it is so normal it is difficult for us to recognize how limited this is.  We very rarely rotate things top to bottom to flip them around; especially objects containing text on them ("this side up" packages notwithstanding).  Part of the difficulty in seeing this is in our interpretation of the letters in the words.  When I used to work in a print shop we would hold the text upside down to see if it was aligned square with the edges of the page.  If it was right-side up our mind would work on interpreting the text and interfere with our ability to look at the dimensions of the page (until "stage two" and we  could read just fine upside down, then "stage three" and we could teach our self to ignore interpreting the words---then it wouldn't matter if it was right-side up or upside down).  So let's make up some new text symbols that look like this.
There is always a horizontal bar at the top and a circle to the right.  If we turned the page around to face away from us (and if we could see through the paper) it would look like this.
Now the bar at the top is in the same place, but the circle is always to the left of each character.  This is what we see in a mirror.  However, nothing is really flipped.  The mirror is reflecting what is actually on the page as it faces away from us.  The key is how did we turn it away from us.  We are used to turning things left to right and rotating around vertical planes in daily life. 
However, if we get away from what we are used to in daily life, it is also perfectly equivalent to flip something up and down in a horizontal plane. 
Now the bar is on the bottom, but the circle is still to the right.  If we flip the page this way (up and down) and look at it in the mirror this is what we see.  ...the mirror flipped the text up and down but not left and right!  ...the mirror is still doing the same thing according to the laws of physics and light rays reflect from objects off its surface to our eyes.  The only thing that changed was our expectation of how images should be rotated to look at them.

A truly reverse text image would be flipped both up and down and left and right, a sort of "animatter" text.
This is not something a (regular flat) mirror is capable of, because it doesn't really flip the direction of anything.  Note the rotational symmetry, which is probably more apparent in a standard text example:
The true reversal is equivalent to just rotating the text still facing toward us.  Okay, now that we have talked through this the process might seem trivial.  However, I have seen people completely stumped when I ask them why the rule, that mirrors flip left and right and not up and down, is true---at the risk of being repetitive, the confusion only comes from what we are used to experiencing in our everyday lives and how this affects our view of physical reality. 

As a side note I was drawing these kinds of figures on napkins and reflecting them in silverware, at a restaurant, for my brother to look at when he was visiting recently.  The waitress probably thought we were nuts. 

Okay,  next I plan to switch gears again and talk about something a little different: order, disorder, and entropy. Anyone that has taken thermodynamics knows the rules about order proceeding to disorder in a closed system and that it takes energy to locally increase order.  This is the increase of entropy in a system.  When I took thermodynamics I thought a lot about just what was entropy really.  There are some states that we expect to occur in a system and some that are unexpected.  If we flip a quarter 10 times and see H,H,T,H,T,H,T,T,T,H for the sequence of "heads" and "tails" this seems fairly normal and expected.  However, if we see T,T,T,T,T,T,T,T,T,T this is surprising and unexpected.  In fact, if the probability of "tails" is 1/2 each flip and each flip is an independent event the probability of seeing 10 tails in a row is (1/2)^10 or one out of 1,024.  If this were a row of 10 quarters we might say the system is in a highly ordered state.  If each hour a quarter is randomly picked and flipped again then after a few days the disorder of the system naturally increases.  After a few days we would expect to see something like the first example: H,H,T,H,T,H,T,T,T,H.  We smile and nod and feel like we understand what is going on ... to prove it we can calculate the probability of the disordered state.  There is a 1/2 chance of each heads or tails so if all are independent we can multiply the probabilities and we get (1/2)^10 or one out of 1,024 ... so, the disordered state is just as highly improbable as the ordered state.  Where was the increase in entropy? 

We tend to not recognize either  H,H,T,H,T,H,T,T,T,H or T,T,T,H,H,T,H,H,T,H as being that different from each other and lump them together as "expected."  It is true that there are many more ways to get a mix of heads and tails, rather than all tails (there is only one way to do that).  However, we would probably recognize H,T,H,T,H,T,H,T,H,T as also being very unusual.  Again, the probability of any single outcome is the same and just as unlikely.  We just notice some as "rare" and lump the others together as "common", but it is our perception and expectation that is doing this.  Really what we are doing is defining a "specific" state and contrasting this to a larger class of "general" states.  If we took seven sheets of paper and write E N T R O P Y down in large letters one to each page and laid them down next to each other in a mowed field (with high paper proof/repellant fences), the wind would blow them around and make them disordered.  Only very, very rarely would they rearrange in order on the ground and spell out E N T R O P Y again.  However, if we started from any of the other possible arrangements, it would be just as unlikely for the wind to blow the pages around and arrive at the alternative state again.  How much of the concept of entropy, a fundamental concept in physics, is based on our own arbitrary human definitions of what we are used to expecting to see?  It is just as likely for a drop of ink dissolved in and diffused throughout a cup of water to spontaneously reform into a drop of ink suspended in the water as it is to move to any other specific diffuse configuration of atoms in the water.  We say this is impossible according to the laws of thermodynamics because there would be a reduction of entropy in the system---but is this just because it would result in a state that we could observe as being different and distinct from a larger group of states that appear to be equivalent to each other (but in fact are not and just as unique from each other in a precise physical sense). 

For fun I suggest you read about "Maxwell's demon" which is a classic thought experiment in thermodynamics about the change in entropy of a system and about how this might be related to the use of gravitational slingshots to take advantage of the orbits of large objects to accelerate spacecraft to high speeds (higher than the average speed of bodies in the system) through the solar system. 

Okay, now should I switch gears to time travel?  
  (to be continued...)

New Diet: Made it for one year!

I started a diet one year ago today, Aug. 1, 2013, and I've made it for a full year!  

My cholesterol was a bit too high and I could stand to loose some weight.  I cut out shrimp and coconut, which I like but have a lot of cholesterol.  All meat is out except for fish, and I cut out all dairy.  Also egg yolks are out, so egg white only.  (Except for breads which have egg and milk.)  I increased the amount of nuts and vegetable oils like guacamole or hummus.  They have a lot of calories but they help me feel full so I don't snack so much.  Also almost every work day I have had oatmeal for breakfast.  All sugary drinks are out.  In general it has just been water or unsweetened ice tea, occasionally some fruit juice. 

So, my favorite breakfast in the last year is grilled ahi (tuna steak) with scrambled egg whites.  For lunch generally something like cooked eggplant and tofu on brown rice.  For supper generally either veggie sushi with nuts or veggie burgers.  Absolutely no desserts, danishes or donuts. 

Also, I tend to eat everything on my plate, but this means I sometimes eat more than I should.  (I used to make of point of getting just the food I would eat in the college cafeteria and not throwing any away---it bothered me how wasteful so many people were.)  But this has turned into a bad habit today.  It feels wrong to me but another change I have made is that I have been forcing myself to leave some food each meal even if it is just a little bit to get into a good habit of portion control. 

I quickly lost 15 pounds in the first months of the diet and my cholesterol is slowly coming down.  However, it is not enough.  I need to loose some more weight and my blood sugar has been inching up, which puts me a risk of diabetes. 

So I made a resolution to start some exercise this August first.  I am not sure I will be able to keep it like the diet, but I will try.  I'm starting off easy.  This morning V and I put the two little kids (F and K) into a double stroller and took a long walk pushing them up and down hills along the way.  K fell asleep part way but F was talkative the entire time.  I will try to do this again tomorrow...