randomshinichi's Meido Cafe (now with Soapbox!)

2007-Oct-1 - Studying for APSC Quiz tomorrow

214. F4 - [流星雨 #10] Precious Existence
Life Cycle Analysis
Useful for rooting out all possible environmental impacts of a product, from its raw material extraction to disposal or reuse. There are 3 general stages to any Life Cycle Analysis:
1. Definition of purpose (and by extension, scope) of study
This is useful because sometimes LCAs can develop into really humongous structures, especially a complex product (like a car, I don't know, sometimes some people define the purpose as 'to find all possible environmental impacts of a car' which would make it humongous by default). A purpose lets you know where to focus on the most, such as the extraction, or manufacturing, or usage, or disposal.

2. Inventory Analysis
This is where the real data collecting is. This is when you go and find out what happens in each stage of manufacturing that product you're studying, and take note of it, and draw lines and write things down that pertain to the life cycle of the product. Apparently quantitative data is better because might might help you determine which thing has more environmental impact (I dunno!)

3. Impact Assessment
Now you decide which places make the most negative environmental impact and figure out what you can do to reduce that.
There are a few substages to this:
a. Classification
Classify data in Stage 2 according to which ecosystem it is associated with
b. Characterization

common frameworks for comparing different data are established.

WTF does this mean?!!
c. Localization
Weighing impact based on the standards in the region and the assimilative capacity of the region. Which, as far as I can get out of it, means that if there's plenty of room for landfills, our product being disposed won't be that big of a deal, environmentally speaking, compared to... uh.... its traces of mercury inside or something. Or if nobody follows ISO9001 standards while manufacturing the product, and we don't follow the ISO9001 standards either, it won't be as big of a deal either. Which pretty much shoots the idea of Sustainable Design in its own foot.
d. Valuation
Weighing its impact based on socially perceived importance. As far as I can get out of this, it seems to be saying that if the public doesn't care about it, neither should us engineers. Which shoots the idea of Sustainable Design on its other foot.
Really, why does the Applied Science course have to set it in stone and procedurify it like that? It's like saying 'procedures of operating a computer - put hand on mouse; put hand on keyboard; put eyes on screen; sit down; push button', except it feels weirder.

OK, so Life Cycle Analysis is down. Afterwards it's Industrial Ecology. I wonder if we had to study anything else.

Comments (0) :: Permanent Link

2007-Sep-19 - Piano Stuff

Posted in The Broad Highway of Life

Having downloaded Schumann's Piano Concerto No. 1, I was just about to head off and print it along with a new mint transcription of Piano Solo (a mix of songs which Yoko Kanno played on some Cowboy Bebop DVD) and Piano Bar (classic song, gotta get it 100% right), when a video of somebody 'easily' beating Maxwell in the bottom of Tales of Phantasia's Moria Gallery caught my eye.

Yes, I know. Totally unrelated.

Then I followed some links around, and I saw a Sakuraba's Solo in the PSOne Tales of Phantasia. As you remember, in Alvanista's pub there is a guy who's called Sakuraba... who is the music composer for the game in real life. He's moved on to things like Valkyrie Profile nowadays. So I sat down, expecting to hear a revamped version of good old Sakuraba's Solo (which I determined to transcribe and write down, seeing as I lost the original transcription and nobody seemed interested in giving their transcription out to other people to play), and it ENRAGED me to hear that there was a totally new Sakuraba's Solo in the PSOne version of Tales of Phantasia!

Why was I enraged? Perhaps it was more damn showy than the SNES one? Why? The SPC chip just wasn't up to playing that many notes at once in those chords!? Goddamn anyway I was enraged and excited and happy at the same time... what a weird feeling. I started searching all my good old sources for ripped Playstation music (PSF archives) but none of the archives I downloaded had the new Sakuraba's Solo! After spending a whole ten minutes on that fruitless pursuit, I gave up and finally downloaded the Youtube video from where I heard the Solo. Who knows, maybe it`s some kind of song that somebody put on top of the Solo. I`m willing to believe it really is the new Sakuraba`s Solo for the PSOne version of Tales of Phantasia, though. I`ll have to download the ISO for that thing and find out for myself, and perhaps rip the PSF myself, since none of the PSF rippers seem to care at all.

Then again.... I hit the penalty box again :(

n.p. sakuraba`s solo.flv

All downloading activities will cease as I take the computer down to the Music building and transcribe this. This is going to be awesome.

Comments (0) :: Permanent Link

2007-Sep-19 - Not that good at class

Posted in The Broad Highway of Life

Today, Don Witt was trying to derive an expansion equation out of F=ma. He was going to somehow link that to pressure, and since pressure and stress used the same units he was going to get stress through F=ma. He talked about the momentum of molecules and stuff. Apparently he could rouse to class to quite a frenzy. I, on the other hand, put my head on my chin so I wouldn't nod, and closed my eyes.

And so, I slept.

When I woke up, he had uttered some kind of scientific joke that I didn't understand. He didn't seem to have derived anything that looked like the equation for stress, so I closed my eyes again. They were dry. By then it was the end of class. We got up and left.

This sucks. I wish I had the textbook.

Comments (0) :: Permanent Link

About Me

Welcome to randomshinichi's Meido Cafe, featuring randomshinichi on his Soapbox 24/7! Sometimes I will rant about how awesome Haruhi is, other times Ayanami, other times my Miele TT250 bicycle, or how Vista is retarded but I stick with it only because of Ever17. In any case, enjoy the tea and make sure to listen to randomshinichi when he rants!