Jason Thalken's Blog

For my next book, I need to take a lot of data on the reaction times of humans. In order to make this investigation easier, I wrote a little program in processing to measure reaction times using three tests:
Simple reaction time - This is a measure of how quickly you can respond to a stimulus. The goal is to click the mouse as soon as possible after an image of a light bulb turns green.Choice reaction time - This is a measure of how quickly you can respond to a stimulus where a simple decision...

Fight Like a Physicist is finally here! It's been a very long road to get to this point, and it's amazing to have a tangible representation of that work in my hands.
This first copy belongs to Jen Hahn for supporting my work and tolerating my long hours, so I'll have to borrow hers until I get one of my own in the mail.
Looking at the book again with fresh eyes, I can imagine it's going to piss a lot of people off, and that's fine. You can't advance human knowledge without annoying the people w...

The science for this one is not too tough, but it does seem to catch a lot of people off guard, so I figured I would turn it into a short video:

It turns out that punches are not like projectiles. Your muscles make a trade-off between adding to the velocity of a strike or adding to the effective mass, and this trade-off gives us a dichotomy based on quantities that we usually think of as changing together in simple classical mechanics scenarios.

If you want to get into the details, it is an inc...

Full disclosure: I have the first 51 digits of pi tattooed on my left calf and foot, so I am personally and permanently attached to the traditional definition of pi. My left legPi is a fundamental constant of the universe, and it is defined to be a circle's circumference divided by its diameter, or the distance around a circle divided by the distance across it. The number pi shows up in math and physics on a regular basis, even when we are not talking about circles, and it is safe to say that...

Here is a fun article covering a talk I gave yesterday at the University of Texas as a part of their Science Study Break program:

UT graduate discusses between physics and martial arts - The Daily Texan

The format of the program is pretty simple; they show a bunch of movie clips, and then discuss them with the audience, with a science-y twist of course.  The whole science study break series is pretty fun, and I highly recommend attending an event for anyone in the Austin area.

This was my f...

Earlier this year, I began building a full-sized humanoid robot, following the InMoov design, because I wanted to build a robotic sparring partner.  I wanted him to swing an eskrima stick at me, throw a punch at me, and even do some blocking drills.  I wanted to fight a robot.

Unfortunately, he sucks at fighting.  There is a very long list of necessary modifications before he could even throw a single punch that lands with impact, and not fall apart immediately.  Changing t...

Earlier this year, I began building a full-sized humanoid robot, following the InMoov design, because I wanted to build a robotic sparring partner.  I wanted him to swing an eskrima stick at me, throw a punch at me, and even do some blocking drills.  I wanted to fight a robot.

Unfortunately, he sucks at fighting.  There is a very long list of necessary modifications before he could even throw a single punch that lands with impact, and not fall apart immediately.  Changing t...

Headlight for a Tricycle
This is a headlight I built for my son's tricycle.  It is designed to fit a fisher-price plastic tricycle, but you can tweak the designs (in openSCAD) to mount it on any kind of tricycle you like.  It is perfect for riding in the dark, and my son absolutely loves it.

If you want a cost-effective way to put a light on your own kid's tricycle, you should probably just duct tape a flashlight to the steering wheel and be done with it.  On the other hand, if y...

Insult-O-Bot is a twitter bot I designed primarily to help teach myself Python and the twitter API, but also because I find something inherently funny about using advanced technology for potty humor.

You can check up on him via his twitter page or you can tweet him directly: @InsultOBot.

He has been live for 10 days now, and here is an analysis of his performance so far:


158 followers81% maleInterests: 86% Comedy (movies and television)Interests: 61% Comedy (hobbies and interests)...

I have created a great evil and unleashed it upon the world.  His name is Insult-O-Bot 2000, and he is a twitter bot that insults people over twitter.

If you want to start tweeting with him now, visit his twitter page or tweet him: @InsultOBot.

If you want to learn more about how he works, you can visit InsultOBot.com.

Here is the quick intro to Insult-O-Bot:  Tweet the word "nominate" and some friends' handles, and he will insult them for you.  Tweet the word "immunity" and...