mo.notono.us

Friday, January 27, 2006

The Hot Chocolate Effect - or- It's All About the Bubbles

Ok - this has (embarrassingly) been befuddling me for quite some time now:

Instructions:
  1. Get a ceramic cup, fill it with coffee, add coffee creamer (the disgusting powdered, non-lactose kind).
  2. Start tapping your spoon at the bottom of the cup.
  3. Observe the pitch of the sound rising by more than an octave as you continue tapping.
I had been speculating that this had something to do with the molecular structure of the cup being altered due to the stress of the tapping, but I hadn't thought of looking it up in Google until my office-mate Andre suggested I do so.

The search results showed my theory was clearly way out in left-field - it actually has to do with the molecular-structure of the coffee, not the cup. By tapping, you cause the bubbles in the coffee to rise to the surface, altering the stiffness of the fluid. The best explanation of all of this was provided by Shawn Carlson in response to the same question by a curious Bob Hall in the SAS.org's E-Bulletin from 02 April, 2004: E-Bulletin Backscatter (scroll halfway down)

Another version of the explanation was given in a paper by Andrew Morrison and Thomas D. Rossing, both at the Physics Department, Northern Illinois University: Sound of a Cup With and Without Instant Coffee: A Foam-Filled Acoustics Demonstration

Apparently the same effect can be demonstrated in beer. I should go do that.


Technorati Tags:

labs.live.com css issue

Messed-up menu
It looks like Microsoft Research's labs.live.com needs to research CSS and cross-browser compatibility (see menu on the left).

Monday, January 23, 2006

ReSharper 215 - stay away!

I installed the ReSharper 2.0 Alpha build number 215 earlier today, but am now uninstalling it and putting build 213 back on. Too many bugs in 215 - I was able to get by in 213...

Labels: ,

Friday, January 20, 2006

Best 50 Cent I ever heard

I can't say I was ever a big 50 Cent fan (that "it's your birthday" song was obnoxious), but I have been listening to the entire Q-Unit album (a mash-up of Queen and 50 Cents) today, and it's just awesome...


Some other opinions:
  • "The best album 50 Cent never released." - Spence D,music.ign.com.
  • "this is the soundtrack to next weekend's party for sure. " - xombievox, GYBO
  • "this is one of the best mashup albums i've heard for a long time " - Johnny Boot Legs, GYBO
  • "YOUR MUSIC SUCKS YOU STUPID ****! LEAVE A DECENT BAND LIKE QUEEN WHO ACTUALLY WRITES THEIR OWN MUSIC ALONE! CANT YOU DO ANYTHING BY YOURSELVES? 50 CENT ****ING SUCKS, ALMOST ALL RAP SUCKS! DO SOMETHING FOR YOURSELF AND LEAVE QUEEN OUT OF IT YOU PIG-****ER! . " - Queen Of Wrestling, queenzone.com/

Monday, January 16, 2006

Sleep: 2hrs + 4hrs does NOT equal 6hrs

See mo.notono.us: Erik Alexander Austegard and more and yet more (when Flickr decides to fix itself, that is)

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Erik Alexander Austegard


Ain't I Adorable?
Originally uploaded by Baby Erik.

01/02/06, 7lb 5oz, 20 1/4"