Too true

This really is. And I thought I was alone.

Dr. Horrible

A creative new format that probably won’t catch on, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog made by Joss Whedon (of ‘Buffy’ fame, which I’m a huge fan of) is an enjoyable web experiment that’s worth checking out for the humor, songs, and story in a small package.

Best mating area

It’s nice to know that Madison ranks highly, as I’m available. (Note: was number one in their magazine but is last of the group online.)

Back in service

Breaking news. Well, that’s a relief (literally).

Spheres of light

These simple illuminated orbs are a fantastic outdoor decoration idea as the beautiful photos show. They seem to belong in their environment.

Paper cutouts

Wonderful paper art by Peter Callesen where the three dimensional creations spring forth from contiguous cutouts of a single piece of white paper.

Fireworks illustration

I really like the style of these illustrations by Ryan hicks using Fireworks which makes certain techniques intuitive. Found here.

Obama delegate switches to Hillary

It’s not a headline you would see, as at this stage it only goes the other way. But I wonder, is there a Hillary supporting superdelagate that once was an Obama supporter?

The worst

I’d have to agree, completely. There’s no reason to wait to judge. But there could be worse in the future, however unlikely.

Geo-tracking my moves

It’s thrilling to see a plot of precisely where you’ve been. Below is a map of my biking routes for one day recently as I went from home to work, created from GPS data taken every 30 seconds as I biked to and from work, about 13 miles. Also shown is the scenic 20 mile Capitol City Trail loop around town in orange which goes through farmland, swamps, forested areas and the city.

I was able to do this using the GeoChron, an easy to use GPS data logger. It’s readily configurable: set a few settings in a text file on an SD card and you’re ready to gather points at whatever interval you choose, from every second to once a day. I can see my weather balloon project using this. The accuracy is also quite impressive, usually less than 3 meters, thanks to WAAS which makes it more accurate than you could get otherwise.

Glass is a solid

It’s such a common misconception. I’ve even heard it repeated by some engineering students who should know better. But what is it about hearing something like ‘glass is a liquid and in old cathedrals’ windows it flows down’ become so easy to accept without evidence?

While the nature of glass may certainly be unclear, that doesn’t mean anything goes. It rests on a technical definition of a liquid as a disordered arrangement of atoms and molecules. While glass fits this definition clearly no one has ever seen glass flow at room temperature and should be taken to a solid, which it behaves like and is the far more important consideration. A little skepticism goes a long way. Perhaps it’s knowing that sometimes science produces counter-intuitive results and some fact like this could be just one of those sorts of things. (But it’s not.)

Dark justice

I saw ‘The Dark Knight’ and was transfixed throughout the lengthy film that flew by. It was a masterful work. The story was spot on, the performances were great all around, especially that of the Joker, the atmosphere was a perfect fit. And it stuck with me, thoughts swirling in my mind, almost overwhelmingly so. I’ve been doing some analysis of the film and its themes, attempting to make sense of some of the questions that were powerfully raised, those of law, order, justice, choice, chance, chaos, truth, needs, desires, balance. I will need to see it a few more times, do some thinking and writing to pull more out of it than just a brief review would, which I hope to do soon.

Tetris in 3D

I had some colored art paper laying around, some time, and was in need of some personality for my workspace. Thus these three-dimensional Tetris blocks.

Being a methodical engineer I took my time, attempting to simultaneously maximize the usage of the size of the unit block given paper of fixed dimensions, minimize the amount of taping and cutting needed, and maximize the structural rigidity. Version 1.0 did not achieve a satisfactory balance (There were some exposed edges to the inside). It’s not quite origami, but I did only use one sheet of paper for each block.

A better screw

Today in 1936 a patent was issued for a better screw, the Phillips. It improved the efficiency of industrial production lines but made cam-out, where the screwdriver unseats from the screw, a phenomenon known to all who have tried to remove Phillips screws. I like the technical patent diagram.

A bigger picture

The Boston Globe’s new online section is accurately called The Big Picture for the large photos that are the primary content for the photo blog of thematic galleries related to the news. I love what’s been done in terms of content and presentation. There are a lot of stunning images on display.

What is the thought behind the idea? The creator, Alan Taylor, explains what he was after with this project that he initiated. He wanted to take fuller advantage of the medium (the web) in its ability to show what would be lost to the archives otherwise and in terms of size, which is significant, and the telling of stories better as the connected groups of photos do. The photos are not all suitable as front page photos but reflect a expansive view of what’s interesting.

A trajectory into space

“Will we commit?”

That was a parting question of the recently concluded six part series that aired on the Discovery channel, When We Left Earth which was about the formation of NASA and its decades long effort to reach into space, featuring a large amount of new quite personal footage I’ve never seen before: of the crews, inside the control room, shots from space. I was reminded of the recent photo collection of Simon Norfolk of rocket launch scenes that I really liked for the emphasis on the non-traditional focus on something other than the rockets themselves, smaller elements at more of a human scale. The picture given was of a monumental human effort by a group of thousands to do something that had never been done before. You could hardly set your sights higher, literally.

Of course, when that commitment was made it was surely done and I find that extremely compelling. It was both an engrossing series and inspiring. There are a number of things we could commit to doing on a large scale from tackling climate change to another push into space. But do we need to or will we?

Iron Man's lab

It was an enjoyable film that I’d recommend. In brief: A brilliant inventor finds his conscience, and builds an awesome suit of armor.

I came away from the movie impressed by the technology on display, particularly that of Tony Stark’s great private lab in which he works. It truly is a dream lab, and is similar to the one I plan on building on my acquisition of a suitable amount of resources.

The thing I liked most is that holographic table that Stark used for rapidly prototyping iterations of the suit design. It was portrayed as a tool of high productivity. The hologram could be interacted with in a semi-physical manner to try on parts, the system could accurately infer suit modifications that Stark desired and instantly apply the changes, undoubtedly saving an immense amount of time and effort. Being somewhat familiar with the state of holographic technology, with many groups working on real-time holographic systems, in my estimation something like this could be feasible within a decade or two. It’s both a hardware and a software problem.

There was a bunch of other tech on display but it was more towards the less realistic, at least in any near-term time frame. The suit was made in a matter of hours autonomously. I sure wish something could be made that quickly. The armor suit itself in nearly infeasible mainly do to the insatiable energy demands of such a suit, which the movie acknowledged by having Stark invent a new type of reactor capable of producing nearly limitless amounts of energy at sustained output power levels high enough to run a major city. I’d advise not waiting for this technology.

Won't stay down

I thought I could handle it, obviously.

I would not have gone on it had I thought otherwise. I was doing quite fine until the cages started rotating end over end, with no end in sight. It was then that my stomach and I had a rather sudden disagreement concerning where its contents should be. (I thought it could at least have the decency to wait until I was out of public view.)

And I lost, becoming a spinning, spiraling anti-tornado of partially broken-down (but still quite recognizable) lunch and breakfast, in that order. Apparently the ride attendant either caught sight of the expelled substance or heard the polite shout of the person sitting next to me to end the ride early, an idea I was fully behind.

“Are you going to clean that up? Otherwise it’s five dollars for me to” the merciful yet gleeful ride attendant spurted, drawing the attention of the other carnival attendants nearby like a hungry pack of hyenas. “I see you’ve had some rice today.” How observant. I said I would clean up after myself, but he declined as its part of the carnival attendant job description.

I quickly left the premises, as I had additional upheavals ahead, although of a lesser volume. Some things are meant to be private. I fortunately got a few photos and videos (“unfortunately” none of the event) before my body so publicly betrayed me.

Otherwise it was a fun day at fair.

Singularity

In the latest issue of Spectrum magazine they have a multi-sided special report on the Singularity, the coming point where some believe that a super-human intelligence will be created and change the world. I’m a little worried though as this quote does not make me feel at ease: “Yes, robot-human wars would be possible, but … robots well-integrated into our economy would be unlikely to exterminate us.”

I, for one, will not welcome our new robot overlords.