News from Matthew’s Browser

What makes 13-24 year olds happy? Spending time with family, friends, and significant others: In that order.

What this guy does to live frugally. Most of his suggestions are common sense, but it might just help you with saving a few more dollars at the end of the month.

Want to be more like the super-secret (squirrel) agent ala James Bond, the dude from Burn Notice, or Jason Bourne? This guy wrote a blog page that covers things from turning a $10 flashlight into a $100 “police torch,” to making a remote control detonator. Of course, many of these things are for educational purposes only, but something to keep in mind when you’re in that sort of particular bind.

Ever tried envisioning scales that are larger than that from your place to the local gas station? The larger they get, the more difficult it becomes to envision. This page offers analogies for some astronomical distances that might help you feel more accurately your place in the grander scale of things while upon this “blue marble.”

Milestone in the regeneration of brain cells: “The majority of cells in the human brain are not nerve cells but star-shaped glia cells, the so called “astroglia”. “Glia means “glue”, explains Götz. “As befits their name, until now these cells have been regarded merely as a kind of “putty” keeping the nerve cells together…Our results are very encouraging, because the generation of correctly functional nerve cells from postnatal glia cells is an important step on the way to be able to replace functional nerve cells also after injuries in the brain,” underlines Magdalena Götz..”

Twenty Investment Options: “Capital appreciation may be more important for the young investor, but once she enters her golden years, that same investor may place a greater emphasis on gaining income. Whatever your objective, knowing what investment options are out there is key.”

To become a success, it is often helpful to read about other people succeeding: How they did so, their motivators…the entire dynamics of the journey. In this article, CNet Staff Writer Stefanie Olsen interviews a teen Internet entrepreneur about MyYearbook.com.

A very cool new product from Microsoft has recently been released into the wild: Microsoft Home Server. Think the strengths of a corporate network made simple enough for the novice home user.

How do you differentiate yourself from your competitors in the market of online/mail movie rentals? Netflix has had price wars with Blockbuster and now they are going one step further: Expanding their customer service. The kicker—their customer service staff as some pretty good leniency in offering incentives to keep customers happy.

Fun and useful: How to deal with the scummy car deal salesman-type.

Have one of those old popcorn air poppers? Like coffee? Roast your own beans!

One of my passions is physics. As such, one of the questions that I’ve asked myself is about the elusiveness of the universe. This article explains some of that.

Of course, the top colleges in the United States for 2008.

My last road trip route, if you were interested. Photos soon at MatthewHetland.com!

If a Tree Falls in a Forest…

…Does it make a sound?

I was first confronted with a new way to answer this question when emailing a “pen pal” Lutheran pastor when I was in school, in the years before the Internet had graphics and bulletin board systems ruled the bandwidth. We were discussing the wonderful world of quantum physics where the laws of the physics of Newton and Galileo break down and take a different shape; where the ultimate rules that govern the universe underneath it all are manifested.

So, does it make a sound?

Not if anyone is there to hear it, to see it, to perceive it. If no one is there to perceive the tree, it doesn’t exist. If no one is there to perceive the forest, it doesn’t exist.

I’ve found over the years that this can be used as an analogy for human interaction. People are usually very apt to “talk the talk,” but without a perception of that talk manifesting itself into actions…it doesn’t exist. “Talk the talk, but not able to walk the walk.” Anything internal to you has no effect on anything or anyone but you unless you express it externally. In other words: Thoughts and feelings that are not perceived by the world mean nothing to it.

How to effectively express these thoughts and feelings to the rest of the world? This often requires insight, thoughtfulness, and creativity. “Fortune favors the bold,” I often find myself saying to myself when interacting with people, “and I hope that you do, too.” In 1936 a well-known motivator of a man known to the world as Dale Carnegie wrote his magnificent piece of work How to Win Friends and Influence People in which he described a list of tenets in dealing with other people. A select few of these I list below:

1. Arouse in the other person an eager want.

One of my degrees is in marketing. To this end, I fully understand the importance of self-marketing. Every action in which you partake, every word which you utter, each non-verbal communication which escapes you helps to paint a picture of the world’s perception of you. Some people are more observant than others, but that aside: People interpret everything you communicate in one form or another based on their biases, prejudices, and worldview. To arouse an eager want in an individual it is critical that you know the person: Their wants, needs, and desires, implementing bold actions that make an impression in line with their worldview. This is the third technique that Carnegie offers in successfully dealing with people.

2. Make the other person feel important—doing so sincerely.

This is the last of six suggestions that Carnegie asserts to the end of influencing people to like you. Making someone feel important is always creative, always different, always renewed and fresh and alive. I have always believed—always—that personal achievement, on a secure foundation of integrity and honesty, is a paramount trait: Especially to the end to making the world a better place. I have realized that a person does these things to the end of feeling important. People want to feel important, feel like they belong. “Sometimes someone comes into our lives and touches us in a very special way,” I once read: Sincerely seeing to this in another person is the quickest route in which have the other person feel that you are important to them.

Thermodynamics and the Degradation of Society, Part 1

“A lost horizon in an ocean of flames.”
—Def Leppard, “Desert Song”

Remember back to when you were younger, playing with your friends. When you were in constant contact or communication with them your bonds strengthened and you grew closer. In a sense, you became second nature to each other. The same could, perhaps, be applied to your first girlfriend or boyfriend or such. On the other hand, when you were out of contact for enough time things had a tendency to decay: You were not so much as in-sync as you were before; what was second nature now becomes a glimmer of a sense of what once was. You grow out of touch, what synergies existed because of what you had now lack the true functionality of what could be.

Physics is the study of the relationship between matter and energy. Thermodynamics is the study of energetic interactions or the lack thereof. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that, over time, a system will gradually grow more into disarray. When a system is being formed if there are any chaotic elements involved, those chaotic elements will only grow more prevalent throughout the life of that system. The only way to avoid complete systemic entropy is for the addition of energy to take place.

Energy, to the physicist, is anything ranging the continuum from heat to electricity; from the grand force of gravity to the strong nuclear force that holds the stuff that comprises us together. Energy, to you and I can be anything from effort to affection. Remarks that build confidence to those that seek malice. There are multiple types and factors involved with these kinds of energies that we use to interact with the world in everyday life. We could do something evolutionary: A task performed with a degree of competence, confidence, etc. We could, on the other hand, do something revolutionary: Not something that is a simple degree of effort and task-oriented, but seeks to be transformational to the end being sought. Additionally, this can be positive or negative. Things that are positive in nature will add positive energy to the system at hand; while negative things done will add to the chaos of the system in the same way that entropy seeks the complete disruption of it.

This Law of Thermodynamics applies to closed systems: A sense of the Galilean approach to physics shining through—simplification for the sake of simplification. The lives we live are rarely in a closed system unto themselves, rather they are open to the context of the environment surrounding it. Energy can be exchanged or events and situations otherwise influenced by the goings-on of the systems surrounding it. In other words, our lives are often directly influenced by our environment and indirectly influenced by those situations and environments around us. This is why context is always very important in, well, anything.

Now, for the bigger picture: Laziness and apathy are things that breed chaos. Have you ever wondered why Patton was such a great general? His famous adage that “something done now is better than something perfect tomorrow” goes to this end. By doing nothing in this moment and waiting for another for your plan or execution to be perfect you risk the system growing more entropic than you could handle or that could fit into your plan’s parameters.

Consider this a multi-part entry. More to follow.

13 April 2007: Here I Go Again

Though I keep searching for an answer, I never seem to find what I’m looking for
Oh lord, I pray: You give me strength to carry on,
‘Cause I know what it means to walk along the lonely street of dreams.”

--Whitesnake, “Here I Go Again”

Each of my passions are merely an outgrowth from my first which came to me at a very young age; probably since the third grade, if not younger. The search for wisdom: Answers and truth.

In physics, the “holy grail” has been listed as the search for a grand unified theory, leading to a theory of everything. See, in physics there are four fundamental forces of nature: Electromagnetism, gravity, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. It is often said that this grand unification theory will be easy to recognize because it will, maybe, be about an inch long and mathematically elegant: Simplicity, elegance, boldness. These are the tenets of what wisdom truly is.

And so, I find myself along the path to seek answers and meaningfully relay them to the world while supporting my own needs. Along this journey of discovery, I’ve done much to discover myself and the ways the world works around me. Life is rarely a simple organism happening in small bubbles: Rather it is a large and complex system with multiple forces interacting on one another. We can, however, apply Galilean methods and only analyze discrete systems with little entropy involved. We can pick apart these systems and boil it down to a simple set of causal forces to determine how each element—and we—interact with the rest of the system.

However, I digress.

Business is the organization of resources to do commerce. Through commerce and open markets, great things can be had: Innovation, social change, and moving civilization forward. Necessity begets invention, which often leads to it being developed and marketed, especially in a free enterprise system. Take electricity, for example: Candles had their limitations. Two scientists, Edison and Tesla, vied for the top spot of whether to supply the civilized world with alternating or direct current. In the end, Edison won with his AC power, but DC power can still be found in many applications. They found a simple and elegant solution, applied the economic principle of economies of scale, and made it so that only the rich burned candles.

I write this on the eve of embarking fully on another adventure to seek wisdom, better society, and do commerce, going down the only road that I’ve ever known: Here I go again.