Absent For A Bit ....
Notice: Blogger has screwed up and lost a bunch of photos out of my blog! They are replaced with a gray silhouette of a human head. I will eventually get them replaced with the correct photo, it may take a while to find and fix everything. So some of my stories don't make much sense without their photos, sorry for the inconvenience.
esbb
2013-05-16
A Dragon and Water and ... Cocoa
Posted by
esbboston
at
6:28 AM
7
comments
2013-04-28
A Fistful of Eight Letter Words
It gave me 29,766 words.
Posted by
esbboston
at
7:18 PM
9
comments
Labels: cryptogram, puzzle
2013-04-16
Fifteen Isn't New Unless You Are A Tortoise Or A Rock
The aircraft included in the directive are relatively new, entering service in 1998 or later.
Hold it, 1998? "New"? "Relatively"? I would never think of a 15 year old plane, that flys almost every day, as any kind of new.
-----
Plato Missouri is the Mean Center of Population for the United States of America. Does that mean that the farther you are away from there the nicer you are?
-----
I am glad they changed how you play the Texas Lotto. Starting tomorrow they have new options. Now I wiLL be able to play eXactly how I currently played.
-----
One of my favorite math problems that I have wrote about has almost a thousand hits, which is alot for my blog. It had quite a few yesterday so I figure it might go past 1,000 today. My Solutions to the Seven Bridges of Königsberg Math Problem
-----
What kind of idiot sets off bombs at a marathon race? There are people there from aLL over the world; there is nothing political or religious about running - who are you targeting? And of aLL places, Boston, you even picked a place with my name. You kiLLed an 8 year old little boy. This is a stupid kind of evil.
Posted by
esbboston
at
9:27 AM
4
comments
2013-04-13
A Little Piece of Evil at the Wall Street Journal
Just as soon as I got off the phone talking to the customer support person I heard my e-mail system get a message. Sure enough, it was a confirmation from the WSJ teLLing me that my subscription was canceLLed.
BUT ... then this morning, the VERY NEXT day I got an e-mail around 3 AM from the WSJ teLLing me that the credit card that is tied to my account no longer works - so they were trying to grab one more month. Evil.
UPDATE: 2013.04.26 It has been two weeks, and the stupidity continues ... The Wall Street Journal obviously doesn't know how to turn something OFF ... I just got another e-mail saying that my credit card didn't work for making a payment. I accidentally hit the WSJ icon on my iPad yesterday and sure enough it opened up just like normal.
-----
Don't Eat Doritos !!!
I learned today that eating Doritos wiLL make you want to steal sports cars, be a bad influence to Law Enforcement Ossifers, and pick up hitchhikers.
I saw it on a veRy short documentary on teleBision, so it must be true. You may have thought it was a commercial since it was only 30 seconds long, but it wasn't, it was a documentary.
Remember! Don't Eat Doritos !!!
I may not even shop on that aisle at the groc store just to avoid the Doritos. WeLL, I guess I could venture part way down the aisle just far enough to get my chips to go with my salsa. I just don't need a bad influence like Doritos in my life making me commit crimes. Whispering to me, just eat a few Doritos and you wiLL be brave enough to steal a car. Oh, the Whispering Doritos, how terrible. Then I realized how cannibalistic Doritos sounds, it has "door", "eat" and "toes" in it. Terrible, just terrible.
-----
Cable Company Math
I got an e-mail from the cable company saying that we had already used up 75% of our monthly allocation of data transfer - ??? - wow - and to think the e-mail arrived on the 10th of the month, and I think we started on the 5th with brand new internet service. 5 to 6 days and we are already at 75 percent?!?!?
-----
I am making gumbo, wish me luck ...
Posted by
esbboston
at
9:07 AM
6
comments
Labels: evil, Wall Street Journal
2013-04-02
A Free All First Story
Posted by
esbboston
at
10:17 AM
7
comments
Labels: April First Joke
2013-03-28
My Arduino on The Net
This picture shows the web app running on my iPad from a different network.
Posted by
esbboston
at
6:58 PM
4
comments
Labels: Arduino, Ethernet Shield, Seeed Studio
2013-03-26
Arduino Experiment with Apple TV Remote & IR Receiver
http://www.instructables.com/files/orig/FJ8/0ZF4/GVQHPZ4H/FJ80ZF4GVQHPZ4H.pde
This is my wiring diagram
I noticed the pattern for an Apple TV's buttons had a bunch of values near 500-600 microseconds and another bunch around 1600, or about a 1:3 size ratio. These are for the off and on times in microseconds. I noticed there were 32 cycles of data between what appeared to be a much longer start and stop signals.
"usec" stands for microseconds
For the Middle Button of the remote
Received:
OFF ON
0 usec, 6380 usec
8900 usec, 4360 usec
560 usec, 540 usec
560 usec, 1620 usec
560 usec, 1620 usec
540 usec, 1620 usec
560 usec, 540 usec
560 usec, 1620 usec
560 usec, 1600 usec
580 usec, 1600 usec
560 usec, 1620 usec
560 usec, 1620 usec
560 usec, 1600 usec
560 usec, 540 usec
560 usec, 540 usec
560 usec, 520 usec
580 usec, 520 usec
560 usec, 1620 usec
560 usec, 1620 usec
560 usec, 540 usec
540 usec, 1620 usec
560 usec, 1620 usec
560 usec, 1620 usec
560 usec, 520 usec
580 usec, 1600 usec
560 usec, 540 usec
560 usec, 1620 usec
560 usec, 1620 usec
540 usec, 1620 usec
560 usec, 1620 usec
560 usec, 1620 usec
560 usec, 1620 usec
540 usec, 1620 usec
560 usec, 1640 usec
560 usec, 31000 usec
I noticed each button had a common start and ending, but then different in the middle of the data (the 3rd of 4 parts)
Menu Button: 32 560Wave: 1316411168
Play Pause: 32 560Wave: 131641141118
Left: 32 560Wave: 1316413148
Middle Button: 32 560Wave: 131642131118
Right Button: 32 560Wave: 13164458
Top Button: 32 560Wave: 1316431148
Bottom: 32 560Wave: 1316421248
So I recorded the incoming stream as a pattern of 32 bits of high and low ON, and examined the 8 bits starting with the 17th bit
The Play Pause button pattern 131641141118 translates to a signal pattern of:
0111011111100001 01111010 11111111
Example "If statement" (The array is zero based, so the 17th bit is in array pointer 16)
if (sigpattern[16] == 0 && \
sigpattern[17] == 1 && \
sigpattern[18] == 1 && \
sigpattern[19] == 1 && \
sigpattern[20] == 1 && \
sigpattern[21] == 0 && \
sigpattern[22] == 1 && \
sigpattern[23] == 0)
{
Serial.println("Play Pause Button");
}
Here is a screen shot from the Arduino - PC serial link showing the results as each button is pushed on the Apple TV remote control while pointed at the top of the IR detector on the Arduino breadboard:
Posted by
esbboston
at
2:31 PM
4
comments
Labels: Apple TV, Arduino, IR Detector
2013-03-24
Lost and Ground
While shopping I found this nearly mint condition Crayola Crayon on the parking lot. If you would like it back please leave a comment with the eXact color name and I wiLL send it to you. You must cover the shipping and "handling" fee, and teLL me the approximate date when it was lost.
The longitude and latitude of the site where it was lost:
35.66027 N 101.41003 W
When I looked at the photograph of the crayon I thought there was a hair underneath it! But it turns out that someone simply ruined a tiny piece of my kitchen counter top with a knife.
(There is also a secret contest.)
Posted by
esbboston
at
7:05 PM
3
comments
Labels: Crayola Crayon, Lost and Found, Wal-Mart
2013-03-21
Arduino Experiment for Dog Food Choice
I realize it looks like a jumbled up mess of wires, but the LCD Display takes alot of connections. At least I made the 4 data lines a rainbow pattern of red yellow green blue. I used an old hard drive ribbon cable from a PC to connect the display to the Arduino.
I am having fun !
| Left-Right | Cooper's | Hand Chosen | Date AM PM | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Random | Choice | by Cooper | ||
| Right | Turkey | Right | 19-Mar | PM |
| Left | Chicken | Right | 20-Mar | AM |
| Right | Turkey | Right | 20-Mar | PM |
| Right | Chicken | Left | 21-Mar | PM |
| Right | Turkey | Right | 26-Mar | AM |
| Right | Turkey | Right | 27-Mar | PM |
| Right | Turkey | Right | 28-Mar | AM |
| Left | Chicken | Right | 30-Mar | PM |
| Left | Chicken | Right | 31-Mar | AM |
| Right | Turkey | Right | 31-Mar | PM |
| Left | Turkey | Left | 02-Apr | AM |
| Left | Chicken | Right | 04-Apr | AM |
| Right | Turkey | Right | 10-Apr | AM |
| Left | Chicken | Right | 11-Apr | PM |
| Left | Chicken | Right | 19-Apr | PM |
| Left | Chicken | Right | 20-Apr | PM |
| Left | Chicken | Right | 22-Apr | PM |
| Left | Chicken | Right | 25-Apr | PM |
| Left | Chicken | Right | 26-Apr | PM |
| Right | Turkey | Right | 30-Apr | PM |
| Right | Chicken | Left | 01-May | AM |
| Right | Turkey | Right | 04-May | PM |
| Right | Chicken | Left | 07-May | PM |
| Left | Chicken | Right | 08-May | AM |
| Right | Chicken | Left | 13-May | AM |
| Right | Chicken | Left | 14-May | PM |
Posted by
esbboston
at
7:12 PM
8
comments
Labels: Arduino
2013-03-20
Can You Compare Delaware Air?
T: "Ah ... these clean sheets feel so wonderful!"
E: "You should remind me more often to wash them ... (Pause)"
E: "I'm not saying that I wiLL do it, but you should remind me anyway."
My friend from Delaware (DE) has a first name that starts with De and a last name that starts with Da and the Spanish word for "of" is "de", so aLL together, my nickname for her is: DeDadeDE
DeDadeDE is fun to try to speLL reaLLy reaLLy fast repeatably. I think they could use that as a roadside sobriety test.
Posted by
esbboston
at
10:45 AM
4
comments
2013-03-16
If Roy Bought A Robot Dog From Robert Who Robbed It From Robin
Twenty minutes later he comes back inside WITH a dog biscuit from his secret eXternal stash. He is proud of himself (finding it in the dark) as I crack up laughing. He eats it in the bedroom then crunch crunch crunch he is back in the kitchen eating that first handful of dry dog food. First? He asks for more. I give him a second handful. He crunches through that and asks for a third. But I stop after three and let him outside when he asks for the fourth serving of something he neVer eats. I teLL him to go find another biscuit outside. But aLL he does is bark at some-thing-or-one in the darkness.
I know he had supper and this is a little early for breakfast. We wiLL caLL it brupper or supfast, either one sounds Scooby-Doo-ish.
Posted by
esbboston
at
1:54 AM
10
comments
2013-03-14
Pi e Day
Posted by
esbboston
at
12:16 PM
9
comments
Labels: Pi Day
2013-03-07
The I-Paw-d
-----
Candy Caution: I noticed that the tips of Hershey's Kisses break off veRy easily when unwrapping the candy. It appears that the size is approximately 0.01 grams or less, which is a smaLL portion of the 4.6 gram candy, but it may cause tiny chocolate stains on your clothing, skin, or leave unsuspecting treats for rodentia.
-----
I ordered a new toy today. It is an Arduino microcomputer with sensors caLLed the Sparkfun Inventors Kit. It looks like great fun and I might learn a new thing or two about programming, robotics, and electronics.
-----
I am off to a great day in the outdoors: painting
Posted by
esbboston
at
12:09 PM
5
comments
2013-03-06
Excess Duckage
I have an excess of ducks.
A semi-long time ago (around Christmas) I watched the first season of Duck Dynasty on a DVD that was my son's Christmas present. I enjoyed it so much that I pre-ordered the second season. But then I forgot about this pre-order. Since that time I upgraded my cable teleBision and the second season has been playing several times. Then yesterday I got an email teLLing me that my second season DVD is coming.
What makes this so terrible is that I think the first season was wonderful, but the second season seems a little more fake and contrived. I have enjoyed Uncle Si, though, he is delightfuLLy insane. I know someone in real life who is almost just like him. I won't mention any names, but I wiLL say he is a goat rancher.
-----
You know it is going to be an interesting day when you mess up counting to five. And the game isn't reaLLy that hard ....
I love it when something that accidentaLLy looks like a plan comes together.
-----
Another Five: I saw a picture where someone had constructed two large human shaped feet out of snow, maybe a couple meters taLL. There was a caption on the photo: "Another Two Feet of Snow"
INVENTION: So we should start measuring in Toes as a unit of length. Look how easily it allows us to convert to the metric system - 10 toes equals two feet. I suggest TZ for the unit abbreviation. 5x5280 = 26,400 TZ per mile. So the distance to the sun would be 2.455 trillion TZ, and if the number of people on earth is 7 billion times 10 toes, that would be 70 billion toes.
-----
Good-Bye Mr. Hugo Chávez. It is probably a quite siLLy thing to blame your death on a secret US government plot to kiLL you with cancer. If the White House would have tried you would have been gone a long time ago. Maybe the people of your country can be free soon.
Posted by
esbboston
at
7:45 AM
5
comments
2013-03-04
Soon There Will Be Less Then More Then Less Then More ...
-----
My wife has stolen my iPad most of the time because her new game crashes on her iPad. Her iPad is older and doesn't run the same operating system version. Both operating systems are the latest versions possible for their particular hardware. Strange.
-----
I left out a veRy good story from Saturday evening simply because I wiLL have to see a particular teleBision commercial again before I can teLL you the tale. Sorry. But I have most of it wrote, just waiting on some details.
Posted by
esbboston
at
4:02 AM
9
comments
2013-03-02
An Egyptian Cat Walks Into A Bar
Posted by
esbboston
at
8:46 AM
4
comments
2013-03-01
pope adod ...&... YES!!! - I am old enough
-----
My wife picks me up at the entrance of the maLL. I teLL her that I think I got my eXercise in for the whole month. She replies, "A whole month's worth in one day?!?!?" I teLL her, "weLL, February is a short month."
T-"Did you want to go to Wal-Mart before we leave town?"
E-"No, because we would interfere with eXercise scheduled for the month of March"
-----
This Is Cool: Use google search engine to balance chemical equations!
-----
I have a new name for the neXt pope.
pope adod
What is cool about that name is that it is the same when viewed upside down.
This is useful if the pope puts his name tag on upside down.
-----
Waste what little time I have left on earth.
That's what some people do. I stop at a convenience store on the way home to get a six pack for a get together at my house. I am not actuaLLy drinking this but getting it for others.
The C-store clerk asks me for my ID. I crack up laughing because I am not even close to the legal age limit. I am old enough that when I was 18 that was the age limit, and now I am over THREE times that number! But then I notice that she isn't ringing up my purchase and find out she seriously wants to see my ID. She actuaLLy reads my ID.
I am not sure if I have ever been carded in my entire life. She told me that they card everyone.
I can't wait to turn 18 x 4 = 72 to see if I continue to get carded. ... or 90 ... but hopefuLLy I am no longer driving by then.
Posted by
esbboston
at
6:42 AM
0
comments
2013-02-23
Bizarre Bubble Bug in Blogger
Every once in a while when I try to leave a comment in Blogger the comment form suddenly acts bizarre and doesn't work. When I press a button, a bubble momentarily appears then disappears asking me if I want to Copy or Paste the mail button to the right. Of course I don't and never would. So it just wastes my time and I lose my typing, as copying it to the clipboard rarely ever works in this situation, but as you can see I was able to do a fast screen capture.
Posted by
esbboston
at
1:22 PM
7
comments
2013-02-19
This Old Microwave
A Washington state friend: A dog house for a tiny dog
From me: A bow tanker
From me: Donate the glass plate to Badger from Vienna, as the glass plate of his microwave oven committed suicide this morning.
Posted by
esbboston
at
10:31 AM
10
comments
Labels: Chelyabinsk, pineapple, Snickers, Tito's Handmade Vodka
2013-02-15
Wolffalos
-----
Valentines Disaster! The chicken took too long to cook, I left the flame on under the veggies and scorched them, and the new style of home baked bread was below average .... I wiLL try harder neXt time!
I can usuaLLy manage to do two things at once, but not three. The problem involved baking two things while stir frying. Now I have a mountain range of dirty dishes.
I did manage to find a Valentines present for the both of us. The cooling racks for bread loaves come in a package of two.
Posted by
esbboston
at
8:02 AM
6
comments
2013-02-13
Nyet
-----
I have a question: the Wall Street Journal has a photo of a Chinese performer putting a SINGLE live snake in his mouth and out his nose. WHAT does that have to do with the business world?!?!? Thank you for grossing me out today WSJ.
-----
Yesterday I taught my wife about the sand delivery systems that locomotives use to maintain wheel traction. I had read about them but had never seen them in action until we were waiting at the crossing on Wilson Street and happened to be the vehicle closest to the track.
Link to Wikipedia Article for Sandbox for Locomotives
-----
I learned today that throwing shoes at your opponent is an insult in Arab societies. I wonder if the Pentagon has ever thought about using shoes as a weapon for drone strikes?
As a shoe salesman I have mixed feelings about this practice. I guess if they aren't Vibram FiveFingers shoes that would be okay.
Dirty socks might be considered chemical weapons and banned under the Geneva Protocol of 1929.
-----
My new hobby: Studying Russian Spies, etc.
I have been busy with math projects. I wiLL publish them soon. I also put up some more photos in my blog Finding The Cute of the Universe
Posted by
esbboston
at
8:51 AM
6
comments
2013-02-05
Double Your Words, Almost
Down to Earth
Thursday February 7, 2013
After dying before his time, an aspiring
comic gets a second shot at life...by being
reincarnated as a wealthy but un-likeable
businessman. After dying before his time,
an aspiring comic gets a second shot at
life...by being reincarnated as a wealthy
Did I see that right? I took a screen shot save just to be sure. After aLL it is 6:25 AM and I am operating on only a few hours sleep.
I found that veRy hilarious. I had to read it carefuLLy three times, not just twice. After the first pass through I asked myself A) I had already seen this movie, right? AND B) Did they reaLLy repeat the same sentence twice?!?!? ... Yes, they did repeat it, but then I noticed they had fiLLed the tiny pop-up box and truncated the last few words. Of course then I had to check it again to be sure it was eXactly same words and same order, yes, same and same, just incomplete. Then there was the whole process of copying it and formatting it into Blogger, so the amount of laughter got stretched out over a long complicated time frame, so it had a feeling of constrained diluted laughter, no, not laughter, there was no boiling, just hilarity, evaporation. Yes, that's it, comedic evaporation.
-----
Bigfoot
Bigfoot in South Dakota? How come I have NEVER heard of this before ... what a load of crap! Animal Planet channel is getting stupidly desperate for programming material. There are enough people with rifles that somebody could have & would have shot one by now. I think I wiLL start looking for Medium Foot.
Then I thought about the massive number of animals that have become eXtinct through the actions of humans.
Message from my aunt in South Dakota: Big Foote was Indian Chief, My address road named after him, killed at Wounded Knee.
Message to my Aunt: I had remembered your road name & the sign's wrong speLLing at the Interstate 90 exit, but there are people chasing a Bigfoot creature in South Dakota and elsewhere of course. I have seen some of the humans from the teleBision shows "Moonshiners" and "Duck Dynasty", and they could veRy easiLLy seem Bigfoot-ish from a distance, and that distance would not have to be that great.
-----
I am watching someone walk towards the entrance of the cardiologist office but then had to pause to finish their cigarette.
Then she threw the remains on the ground, nasty.
Posted by
esbboston
at
10:45 AM
6
comments
2013-02-03
In Seconds Place
60 seconds x 60 minutes x 24 hours x 365.25 days per year = 31557600 seconds per year
The approximate value given on http://m.xkcd.com/1047/ for the number of seconds in a year was 75^4 = 31640625
31640625 is 0.263% higher than 31557600
Today I was playing with differences of factorials on my TI-89 and found a closer approximation.
317! ÷ 314! = 31554200 which is 0.0108% lower than 31557600
Update: After reading Rob's comments I decided to see how long the 0.0108% of a year was in hours, and eXpress that value as a factorial division.
31557600 - 31554200 = 3400 seconds
One hour equals 60 x 60 = 3600 seconds per hour
So 16! ÷ 13! = 3360 which leaves 40 seconds
40! ÷ 39! = 40
But that last step is just cheating to get to an eXact number, because
X! ÷ (X-1)! = X
So one year equals (317! ÷ 314!) + (16! ÷ 13!) + (40! ÷ 39!) seconds
But then I noticed that 17! ÷ 14! = 4080 which is fairly close to 3400, and keeps the equation pretty with translational symmetry, the repeating of the 17 and 14's.
So calculating an approximate pretty value 317! ÷ 314! + 17! ÷ 14! = 31558280 which is 0.0022% larger than a real year
Pretty is important!!!
Posted by
esbboston
at
8:39 PM
4
comments
New Blog for My Abstract Art ... Come Visit
These are pieces that I have generated mainly using computer art tools. Enjoy !
Something New:
I am also in the process of linking my poetry blog entries together. This project is only partially finished. A "Poetry LINK" at the bottom of the blog entry points to the next older piece of poetry.
First poem in the series of linked poems ....













