Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Fourier and Lightning

As I spend my night trying to finish up my project and and homework for my class, I decided to procrastinate some more.  I'll be honest, my streak of straight A's might come to an end tomorrow after I take my final, and that is definitely caused from the lack of effort that I put into this class...but if somehow by the grace of God I breeze through the final, then the streak will live on.  My class is called Signals and Systems, which is pretty much an extension of calculus with emphasis on Fourier Systems and Transforms.

To give a quick idea of what Fourier is, for those who don't know what it is, you are pretty much taking a signal, lets say a sound wave, and pretty much looking at the frequency harmonics of the wave, and at least for my degree in Electrical Engineering, you would have a signal and when you are breaking down the harmonics, you look at how different components of your signal will affect your systems that you are sending your signal to.  Now Fourier is used everywhere and for a lot of different things and that is the beauty of it. It will definitely be a subject that I will get more in-depth with. Once I have a better understanding of it, I will have to share what I find.

Anyway, earlier this evening as I left my parents house after visiting with my sisters, I started watching a storm off to the northeast of where I was at, I decided to take a little longer drive home to watch the storm, mainly the lightning. I have always been fascinated with lightning, and tonight watching the storm, it got my wheels spinning.  What if I could take a Tesla coil(not the car company) and use it to draw the lightning to strike it. Once it strikes it, would I be able to harness the energy and electricity it produces? Seems like a thought that might be possible.

The other night I was reading an article on EMP's(Electromagnetic Pulse) and I was drawn to how this could be used as a weapon(and I wouldn't put it past any government in the world to be developing it, if they haven't already), which would bring devastation for our society. Think Dark Ages again multiplied by 100.  Now to bring this all together, since electromagnetic waves are pretty much sine waves, this is where Fourier would definitely help me to understand these waves better, as well as my Electromagnetic Physics class soon.   Now what if I can take a Tesla coil and use it to absorb the EMP, thus eliminating the chance that the EMP would do any devastating damage. Possible? Well anything is possible. Difficult? You bet. I like challenges though.  Till the next randomness of my head.

J


Saturday, June 13, 2015

Cap and Coke

"Our battles are first won or lost in the secret places of our will in God's presence, never in full view of the world." - Oswald Chambers

If you were to ask me what my favorite drink was, well judging from the title you could probably guess that it is Captain Morgan and Coke.  Once in a blue moon I will have a drink, and tonight is one of those nights.  As I get ready to subject myself to my last weekend of homework for the quarter, I decided I needed a drink to help relax me so to speak. You see this has by far been a very difficult quarter in school to say the least and in that process I questioned why I am in school to begin with. My desire for school is gone as of now.  There are a hundred reason I could discuss as to why I feel that way, but I will spare you the agony.

This brings me to the above quote above. This quarter has been a battle, everything I want to do turns into a battle.  There has been days that I just wanted to say adios to everything and disappear into the mountains.  Now don't get me wrong I would never do that, as much as it seems tempting.  A few weeks ago I read a blog post on "If Only" Discipleship.  It was an eye opener for myself.  It pretty much talked about how we make excuse that if things were better we would be able to serve God like we should.  Well that hit home, since I don't have a lot of time and I do make those excuses.  As I try to regain my focus for school, I have been mindful into keeping myself more active with God and not letting my busyness get in the way.

Now after reading that article, I knew what I should be doing, but for some strange reason I felt disconnected from God.  I actually feel like I am in a "spiritual depression" of sorts.  Nothing seems to be going the way I envision it going, and it just feels like God has been silent with me for whatever reason.  I even went fishing last weekend to try and see if I just needed to get out by the lake to help clear my cluttered head and listen for God.  Unfortunately it didn't really work, if anything my mind was even more cluttered than before I went up there.  Until now, after listening too different songs, one by Zac Brown Band, "Tomorrow Never Comes" and the second by Need to Breathe, "Slumber".
I love how God uses music to get his point across to me.  It is something I have always been able to enjoy with music.  Sometimes I wonder if I missed a calling to do something in music, but oh well I still can.

On a side note if you have time check out those two songs, they are great songs and great albums in general. Also with fathers day coming up, on the Zac Brown Band album, there is a song called "I'll Be Your Man (Song For a Daughter)" which is an excellent song. Since I have two daughters I listened to this song and hope that I raise them up to be Godly women and that if they listen to this song they would always remember me by how I raised them.  If you are a guy and have daughters listen to the song and challenge yourself to raise your daughters up so they would consider you their man until  they find their future husbands.  Ladies if you have an awesome dad that raised you up, then share this song with them, I guarantee they will absolutely loves this song. Until the next time.

J

P.S. Here is the link to the article I mentioned earlier if anyone wants to check it out, its a good read.
http://australia.thegospelcoalition.org/article/if-only-discipleship