The Best Laid Plans Of Martians  & “I Think It’s Gonna Be A Long Long Time”

“This is Major Tom To Ground Control...”

Censorship of Suicide Prevention?

The other night our dorms held a “Trick or Treat in the Halls” event for the children in our Martian settlement. Prior to this event there were prepatory events, pumpkin carving, door decorating and removal of posters and signs deemed inappropriate for youth.

Some of these things made sense to remove. But among the things that were mentioned as necessary to cover, I wonder about two.

First of which is a cartoon ghost wearing a bra on a sign explaining the risks of breast cancer. Maybe it’s bad maybe it’s not. But doesn’t breast cancer awareness include the children? Don’t they see the advertisements on television? I’m not one to advocate for something being okay just because it’s been seen or said before, but I’m unsure that this needs censorship?

I am against the censorship of the suicide prevention sign. To censor this implies that the children won’t be affected by mental health issues before they are too old for the trick or treat event. This event includes children up to 12 yrs old. I was 9 the first time I recall mental health related struggles affecting those around me, but in all honesty I may have been somewhat aware of it even before then. I wouldn’t be introduced to suicide prevention till six years later.  I don’t think this is unusual.  When I mentioned this at one of the events, the others around me in a similar age group, the same ones who’d been planning to cover the sign recalled similar occurrences. They noted that they’d definitely known about these things to some degree by 5th grade. We can’t prevent these from being things that our youth have to deal with and giving them inadequate resources makes them things that they have to deal with alone.

In my experience, the deliberate censorship of mental health made it harder to speak about it because it seemed “bad”. Censoring it in the same way that drugs, alcohol, sex and excessive violence were made it seem like something that I “wasn’t spost’ to be aware of yet”.

It’s just a couple signs and in all honesty I don’t think their removal matters in the grand scheme, but I do have to ask: Does it make sense?

“He's told us not to blow it Cause he knows it's all worthwhile”

An Exercise in Unpacking & Havin' More Fun:

Imagine this:

Your shuttle, a lovely blue craft old enough to vote, returns you to mars late enough in the sol that it is already dark and you can feel the cold of the atmosphere in spite of your insulative layers.

Alone, you must unpack your craft and the extensive resupply materials it contains. Because you are alone you cannot leave the craft docked in front of the mass housing unit and since nearby docks are taken you must dock up hill from the housing unit.

How then do you get the supplies into your personal chamber???

Well, if you're me...

While wearing full insulative equipment you drag one of the carts up the hill, load it with the supplies, increasing its mass significantly. Then you push it and a rolling desk chair toward the hill, hop into the rolling desk chair and hold on.

I may be many things, but I'm certain I had the most fun in unpacking.

“Torrefaction” and the Potato Principal

There comes a point at which my mind no longer wants to absorb new information and I become extremely distractible. Junk food and music become the primary motivators for staying at my desk. This is the point at which I consider my mind a fried potato. 

Tonight that point was hit with the word “Torrefaction,” which describes a process of heating a biomass fuel in an inert atmosphere (like nitrogen) to make it into a more efficiently burning source. Pretty cool right?

I’m working on understanding some Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA) techniques for something I’m writing and hence came across the word. 

Today began at 9am with some light physics (literally physics regarding light)

Continued on with some dynamics that took way longer than it should have

Came back around to TGA hit “Torrefaction” and now my mind is burnt toast. 

Aside from interuptions for food, hygene and laundry (bothersome repeated tasks we’ve yet to find ways out of) today has been dedicated to engineering and yet here we are nearing midnight, still with more to do and a fried potato of a mind. 

One piece of information, a test of character.

If you could give the man on the tractor only one piece of information, and had to choose between the following, which would you choose?

a. the moment produced about the point at base of the tree is (-16.5i + 5.51j)kN-m

Or

b. Your distance from the tree is less than its height, if the tree falls faster than your tractor moves... you splat

Credit due to R.C. Hibbeler Statics&Dynamics 14ed

Injustices on Mars: 200 years of Backwards Thinking

Several young women have expressed to me in the past week their frustrations with improper treatment and I would like to speak here regarding the attitudes that are unfortunately still present in the universe.

A student looking who dreams of designing hospitals and other places of healing that have a more positive affect on the mentalities of their inhabitants. 

A mechanical engineering student pursuing her education far from her family, looking to improve the world she lives in, whether that be her home country or America.

A freshman nursing student, who came looking to obtain a top tear education, that would ultimately provide a pathway to help those who need it most. 

Three intelligent young women who are both capable of and motivated to change the world for the better. All of them have overcome obstacles to ultimately leave their homes and families far behind to come study on Mars. These young women, are students deserving of our highest respects and yet I am anguished to hear of the unkindly and demeaning way in which they have been treated in this particular community. 

Our first student in seeing a freshman struggling, became somewhat of a mentor for this student. She shared with him advice she had learned on the subject he struggled with, and surviving school in general. He in turn treated her as something to be obtained, and saw it fit to text her with questions that... did not pertain to studies. 

Our second student, living in a whirlwind of learning about both engineering and other cultures and yet smiling through it all. I think we all have much to learn from her. This young woman came to me to discuss engineering. She wears a ring on her left hand, worn as a way to deter young men. She expressed that someone was speaking to her that “wanted to be more than friends” and was not deterred by her expressed lack of interest. So, having learned that a ring worn on the left ring finger is an American indication of being committed, she began wearing one. 

She is committed. Committed to her studies and herself. She is clever and I hope her promise ring keeps its promise of deterring those who don’t listen to her. That said, this is an approach I have seen used before in this community and elsewhere with mixed effectiveness. The unfortunate nature of this approach is that it only deters those who have enough sense not push unwanted attention on those who are committed to someone. The issue here is not that people are expressing romantic interest, but that they are not respectfully heading requests to discontinue certain behaviors. Another unfortunate drawback to this method is that it deters people whom one might actually be interested in getting to know.

Our third student, excited in the days approaching college, started talking via social media to another student. They talked almost every day and she was excited to have a friend at school who had been nothing but kind and respectful. Her ‘friend’ began to express interest in taking her to a school event. She hoped that her ‘friend’ would meet her in the library so they could talk. This is when he expressed that he didn’t have enough time to bother for a conversation and made implications that suggest he was only kind to her at first in hopes he would get to be with her for what many do after this particular school event. She has found other accompaniment for the school event. 

These young women have shown exceptional strength in not allowing idiots to affect their studies, but they shouldn’t have to. This kind of thing happens everywhere and time and time again these young women will have to show strength in the presence of the universe’s worst, but these attitudes are not consistent with the direction the world is headed. I have omitted from this writing things that were said that I feel more specific than needed in this context. I find this behavior particularly ridiculous as the organization approaches 200 years, pledging pretty words of honor, respect and dignity, while preserving ideas that should have died in the last 200 years. 

Additional Statement:

Other events have also elapsed in the past week that lead to me writing this particular piece. The female representing figure was removed from a gender neutral single stall restroom, leaving women to have to find an alternate restroom on the other side of said building and leaving few options for those who do not fit the binary genders. Meanwhile an individual originally dismissed for predatory behaviors was allowed to return.  

I would also like to point out that these occurrences do not only happen to women. In this sometimes stiflingly traditional culture, I have seen objectification and mistreatment of a great diversity of people in a diverse number of forms. I would like to suggest this is not the kind of diversity that we should encourage.

I would like to formally conclude with a request. Students, Mentors, Creators, Be Respectful to the best of your ability, and when the best of your ability isn’t good enough, Get Better. Most of all it is important to Try.

Please Don’t Be Ashholes. And don’t say things worthy of Vogon poetry. 

Welcome to life on Mars

Fish = Es TIMES q!?

This was said, this morning out loud in my dorm room, today. In context, it made total sense.