freestyle parking

A local Wendy's has a stretch of parking lot with no lines. I think this is interesting because once somebody is parked there, everybody else seems to park in the same manner. Most people pull in perpendicularly. Today there was another guy who decided to parallel park there which puts a whole new spin on it. I always pull in at an angle because that section is really only ever approached from one direction, and I also like to mess with people. If I'm the first one there, incoming people tend to also park at an angle just because they see I did it. With enough people coming and going, this pattern I created could conceivably continue long after I've left.

10

One of the more amusing things about Tiger Woods 10, unfortunately not featured prominently, is that it includes all of the USGA Rules and Decisions. Much of it is comprised of gems like the following:

Q. A player's ball came to rest overhanging the edge of the hole. The player walked up to the hole and cast his shadow on the ball, believing that this would cause the grass to wilt and his ball to fall into the hole. Was the player in breach of Rule 1-2 (Exerting
Influence on Ball) when he cast his shadow on the ball?

A. No.

fell asleep on tuesday woke up monday afternoon

Sadly I'm not done ranting about alarm clocks. I found a model that looked like it was almost done properly so I decided to get it. You care to guess what store it was at? Best Buy? Target? Nope. Toys 'R Us. I could see going there if I wanted a pirate alarm clock, but why are they the only ones who sell decent normal ones as well?

So I get this thing home and plug it in. It says it has Indiglo. But of course it hasn't been done properly. Instead of lighting up when you hit the button, like in a proper alarm clock, it does an always-on and the button just sets the brightness. Fortunately one of the settings is off. But now if I want to check the time during the night, I have to hit the button four times instead of one. Outstanding work.

I then went to set the time. Pretty standard stuff. Except that it asks for the year as well. I don't need to know what year it is! I just need to know when to get my ass out of bed!!

Fortunately the new alarm clock doesn't seem to have any other stupid functions built in - no temperature or atomics - so I may be able to get some use out of it yet. For the record this is like the fourth time I've tried to replace my old one.

(I can just imagine an Apple alarm clock. Requires AT&T service and WiFi connection, charges you for a $10 firmware update to tell hours in addition to minutes, daily alarm downloads from iTunes store are DRM-enabled.)

While we're on the subject of badly designed things, it turns out that under New Facebook the posted items app won't actually let you post items. It's just for sorting things already posted. Way to put functions where nobody will find them, New Facebook.

The one bright spot in my badly designed day was that more Genesis Coupe news has come to light. It has gone on sale in SK, where the first review sounded pretty good, and a very well put together ad appeared on YouTube. Which is what I was trying to post.

october moon and rusty skies

I am trying to buy a new alarm clock, as my current one is in a bad way and I slept through it on Friday. The difficulty is that I absolutely require Indiglo, and that is exactly what you can't find. I saw all of two Indiglo clocks in stores, one with a ridiculous four-minute snooze and one billed as 'All-Night' Indiglo that never turns off. Which completely defeats the purpose. It's not much better online, where Amazon's results for 'Indiglo alarm clock' are three travel clocks, an iPod dock and a Tom Clancy book. Google chips in with an Indiglo thermometer.

It's also hard to find one that is just an alarm clock. I've ranted before about "atomic clocks." And telling the temperature just clutters up the display for the purpose of telling me what I already knew, that it's warmer in bed than out.

don't know how to play my part

Tried to go check out a Firebird today, but the guy flaked out and I wasn't able to meet up with him. Along the way I got cut off big time by a guy in a big stupid truck, but I was able to cut back in front of him without further escalation. There was also a guy in a Jeep driving along wearing two hats at the same time. Which means he thought to himself, No. One hat is insufficient for this situation.

style to spare

I just figured out what that song stuck in my head was! And no wonder it couldn't be found in my iTunes collection - it's from the website for the Genesis Coupe.

this part of the hustle was a plea to the gods for a favor, usually a trans am

I just remembered I have a Firebird t-shirt. Maybe wearing it will help appease the muscle car gods on my quest. It's not the right generation but I need the help.

car maths

I'm doing car math again. According to my current formula the Malibu may be capable of 139 MPH, although the only thing I can find online suggests more along the lines of 105 MPH. Maybe it's electronically limited...obviously I need to conduct more research in this region.

The objective of my car math is to look at the balance between fuel economy and speed to work out the furthest you can possibly get in a given period of time. Obviously if you drive faster you run out of fuel quicker. However, if you drive really slow you get excellent mileage but you don't actually get anywhere. I am trying to investigate where the breakeven point is. Among other things this involves working out the power required to overcome wind resistance, which is where the first paragraph came from.

Also, even though the Malibu has independent rear suspension it has drum brakes on the rear wheels, which is rubbish. Next car might have four-wheel Brembos...

j5 industries

I've been using the pseudonym J5 Industries for a couple years now. I picked it because I thought it sounded clever and that nobody else work use it. Well, I'm wrong. I did a Google search and it appears there are a couple of actual companies by that name - one rents generators, another does countertops, and there are some nondescript ones in California. Between them they seem to have taken AIM and Gmail. I've got the Xbox Live account though. And this.

to whom speed means freedom of his soul

For as much as I profess to love cars I really have no interest in motorsport. The epic battle of the C6.R vs the DBR9 is pretty much visible only to the Europeans, and rallying is so dragged out it would be impossible to follow when the events are. NASCAR I just find appalling. My only real fondness for the sport was when I found myself in a restaurant in Government Camp watching a Pontiac GXP.R mix it up with some 911s at Laguna Seca. Unfortunately I don't really know what series that is or when it runs, and I still don't have TV anyway.

I finally decided to board the geek train after everyone else and watch the first season of Battlestar Galactica. Unfortunately I watched half of the first episode at 2AM when I was knocked on my ass by a head cold - that really messed me up for the day. The series started off well enough, if depressing - I had no idea of the premise of the show - but it already seems to be dragging down into the same formula. Oh look, they are running out of another critical resource. Another dozen Vipers out of their ostensibly finite supply get blown up to acquire it. And then Baltar gets caught in a wacky awkward position because he has a Cylon in his head. I looked at some later season spoilers and it sounds like some serious retconning happens as well. I don't know if I'm going to pursue this past the first season.

don't know where we're goin

Sunday night finds me trying to track down a flute concerto. I've had an mp3 for a while called Bach - Flute Concerto in G which I like quite a bit despite generally not taking to classical music. I've managed to further identify this track as the second movement of the work, but now I am trying to figure out who recorded this version because apparently just any version isn't good enough to make me happy. So now I am on Amazon.com hitting all the preview buttons and checking track lengths in hopes of finding the one I'm after. For example this French guy speeds it up to a point where the track is 7:09, when the one I like is 8:50. Someone else is 6:30.

Another interesting point is that it's not Bach Bach as I thought, but his son Bach.

And of course Amazon.com sees me doing these searches for more than thirty seconds so it fills everything on my front page with classical music items.

The upside of this quest is that it distracts me from the Top Gear torrent, which is on track to be done well before I intend to go to bed. This week's episode looks awesome.

My neighbors left more free stuff in the lobby this weekend, where I scored a USB floppy drive. Technology has reached a point where floppy disks are a novelty. Now that nobody has a disk drive I should start sending disks to people.

what

As not a hell of a lot is going on this evening, I googled myself, and I actually got a bit of a shock this time. Apparently I've been credited in a powerpoint presentation by a Polish materials engineer. This was in regards to my work on nanostructured copper in Tallahassee. I hardly broke new ground but I guess I do a good job explaining the fundamentals of things.

it's the same old thing as yesterday

I recently reread Cryptonomicon so now I'm psyched about encryption again, and thinking about getting PGP for the new desktop PC I'm planning on building. Part of the reason I haven't actually commenced construction is that I'm not entirely sure what its function will be. I do want to be able to play more demanding games, but the majority of the games I play on the PC are older and don't require cutting-edge technology. I am also trying to find entirely new interesting uses that can be accomplished with newer technology.

In other news I spent most of the day figuring out how to build a high voltage test circuit. This will generate a few hundred watts of heat so I decided a case fan would help. While looking at case fans on newegg.com I found this amusing note in a review:

"The reviewer who is concerned about the .4 mm width difference really doesn't have much to worry about as .4 mm is about the width of 3 or 4 human hairs...about 0.015 inches. You should be able to deflect the back plane of your Sonata that much by giving it a dirty look. Then you'll be able to fit all those 88's in there."

Also, I went to Wikipedia at one point to look up resistor technologies, which eventually led me to reading about anamonics, combinations of anagrams and mneumonics that are frequently used in competitive Scrabble. Interesting trick.

this ain't a surfin movie

So I'm a Master now. I have been since Friday but I have been in a very low energy and reclusive mood for whatever reason until today. I would put some details of my defense up but the whole ordeal did not really seem that cathartic for some reason. I presented my work again, not the smoothest version but pretty well. The oral exam consisted entirely of project-related questions so all my work studying wave functions and Maxwell's equations was useless. I would have been better off studying barium titanate and the nature of the dielectric constant. But in any case I passed, with no dissenting votes. I spent the rest of Friday running around doing things like turning in keys and passing off paperwork. Fun. Thanks to everyone who showed their support in one way or another!

Saturday I did nothing. Today I printed off the hard copies of my report. I was under the impression I had to get them professionally bound but they just want Kinkos-level. So I went to Kinkos. They didn't do the world's greatest job of copying but I now have a trifecta of somewhat professional looking reports along with the original template from which they were wrought.

You might expect that now that I'm a Master and a full engineer I would go off and buy myself something to celebrate, like a new PC or car. Today I actually did buy something - a helicopter. A really little one about as long as my hand. Fry's had them for $25 and I couldn't resist. It really is a toy of a thing - it has some kind of styrofoam body, and it will only go forward if you turn right, not left. Even so, the thing is a marvel of miniature engineering. Somehow it works by infrared control, and the materials used are lightweight but certainly strong enough to protect it from all the knocks it's taken so far. It even has a working tail rotor and an interesting double main rotor for balance. The thing brings me some joy and keeping it in the air requires no small skill so it gets a lot of your attention when you fly it. The biggest downside is that I have to turn the fan off or else the helicopter will just blow away in the airflow, so the room gets hot while I'm flying. That's not a big price to pay though. I have a helicopter!

The PC and car are still in the brain crack phase.

Anyway, it is back to work tomorrow. It will be a little different now that I am not preparing defense material - I have to go back to doing real work. It's going to be a short week though, as on Thursday I am flying back to Michigan for ten days or so.

Also, I updated my video game reviews.

from where i sit none of it seems real

I remember when I was taking a computer science class that the teacher explained we use a decimal system of numbers because we have ten fingers, and that if we had eight fingers we'd probably use octal. But really, we don't count on our hands in decimal. We count in unary. You need ten fingers to count to ten. It would be a major improvement in finger-numeral efficiency even just to move up to binary. That way the maximum number you could count to on one hand would be 31, and for both hands it would be 1023, not 10. Just...be careful where you're pointing when you get to 4 or 128. It probably seems really strange at first but I bet it's like Top Gear steering, it becomes second nature because it's a better way to do things.

It has been a slow couple of days on the car-watching front. I did see the red NSX the other day, but since then I've been struggling even to tally a few Porsches, although I have been seeing enough Land Rovers that I'm wondering if I should tally those too.

everything looks perfect from far away

Well, that's it. I am in Lake Oswego and getting settled. My new apartment is pretty huge and is only a 10 minute non-highway drive from where I'll be doing my internship.

I got my DSL up and running yesterday after some confusion - Qwest actually turned my DSL on first thing in the morning, but botched the programming, so I thought they hadn't turned it on at all. After some slightly irate phone calls after 5 one guy was helpful enough to get the DSL people on the line and fix it.

I am still getting used to the area. If I didn't have my GPS I would probably die of starvation because I still don't know where most of the stores are. That thing has earned its keep several times over during the move. At least there are stores here.

electrical devices that transfer energy from one circuit to another by magnetic coupling

TRANSFORMERS.

Because the only thing cooler than a Veyron...

...is a Veyron with rocket launchers.

in the name of science

Yesterday was the weekly TA meeting to go over the next week's physics lab. In this case it's the thermodynamics lab, and one of the main attractions is burning a Cheeto to calculate how much energy it contains. One of the other TAs is Ukrainian and so had no idea what a Cheeto was, so I offered to go get some out of a vending machine. I also wanted to burn one to show the others how much the things go up.

So I wandered over to the business building's vending machine. I opened my wallet to find that I had spent my last $1 bills earlier that day (on a used Asimov book), and all I had was a five. I tried giving it to the machine but it wouldn't take it.

This was annoying, but I had a cunning plan. Next to the snack machine was one of Pepsi's slick new vending machines, which does take fives. So I'll use my five to get a Mt. Dew, get change back, and use that to get Cheetos. I put my five in the Pepsi machine, punched Mt. Dew, and waited for the fountain of quarters to spit out.

It gave me three Sacagaweas and a Susan B. Anthony.

I was a little stunned that anything would dispense these useless forms of currency. I tried them on the snack machine anyway, but to no avail.

So now I needed to trade one of these coins in for something more useful. There was a girl working the tech support desk in the computer lab next door so I tried her first. "Excuse me," I said, "I'm trying to get some Cheetos for a physics experiment..." and went on to explain my plight. Unfortunately, when I'd finished, the girl said the smallest thing she had was a five, which would have simply put me back at square one.

I then crashed the study lounge, where I found a guy and a girl working on something together. The girl sounded French and had no idea what currency I was in possession of. The guy was amused though, and bought the Susan B. Anthony off of me.

Now armed with a $1 bill, I returned to ground zero of this farce, the snack machine. I put it in and punched in the code for Cheetos. You should see what's coming next.

The Cheetos got stuck and wouldn't come out.

I began to despair at the prospect of obtaining another $1 bill. I didn't want to go through that again if at all possible, so I rocked the machine a little. The Cheetos did not budge at first, but slowly started to lean more and more. Finally, they yielded to gravity and fell.

Triumphant, I returned to the physics lab and set fire to one of the damned things.

chair affair

My computer chair broke this morning. Oddly enough, the failure mode was not what I have been anticipating for months. I thought the whole seat would crack off at the base since it wobbles from side to side, but as I was getting out of it this morning one of the arms sheared off, compromising the structural integrity. Didn't see that one coming. That chair lasted 14 months, blowing away the previous record of 3.

I got a new chair already, which put me down $130. The new chair seems pretty nice, but as I was putting it together I could only wonder which piece would be the first to betray me. I've already found the microfiber fabric does a good job of building up static electricity.

primed, part II

In other news, I coded up an implementation of that Shanks factorization algorithm. So far it can do 19 digits, but I don't know how to get it to stop returning trivial solutions (e.g. factoring 51 as 1 * 51) so it only works most of the time. I was able to factor some phone numbers for people, so that was amusing. I tried to make a copy that used Java's arbitrary precision data types to work on RSA-100, but that wasn't going well. I'm also having problems with Java running out of memory.