My Arduino on The Net

I got an Ethernet shield (Arduino talk for "eXpansion card") for my Arduino Uno microcontroller yesterday. 

Today I hooked a temperature probe and LED (light) to the Arduino and played with setting it up as a web server. Yes, that's right, setting it up to deliver content on the Internet and to practice having remote access and control of things. I was able to get a web page that shows the inputs from the Arduino analog channels, and it keeps track of how many times the value randomly exceeds or equals 300 since it was turned on or reset. If a value eXceeds or equals 300 then it momentarily turns bold as weLL.

The temperature probe is tied to analog input 0, so that is why A0 is significantly lower than the others A1-A5 that are just floating with nothing attached.  The web page refreshes automaticaLLy every 50 seconds. In the time I have taken to write this blog post the number analog values eXceeding or equaling 300 has been 21, so it happens occasionaLLy. Again, this doesn't reaLLy mean anything significant, I'm just measuring something that happens occasionaLLy in the real world and reporting it and giving slightly different visualizations during events.

It displays the room temperature in F by default, but if you feed it a message of "esbbC" at the end of my regular URL, it wiLL put up a first line that says "hi esby!" - I used fmcgmccllc's nickname for me (she has the blog Detroit Automotive Meltdown) AND then it displays the temperature in Centigrade. My picture below actuaLLy has "esbbF". The temperature choice of F or C determines whether the LED on my circuit board turns ON or OFF. I tied a picture of a spinning Carbon Nanotube from wikipedia next, then there is a form for entering a first and last name. The form doesn't reaLLy do anything with the names just yet, I am just playing around.

Later this afternoon I tied my Arduino to the Internet by using a DDNS service, so people around the world can see what the temperature is in my living room.

This is the link to my Arduino: http://esbboston.is-a-geek.com 

This picture shows the web app running on my iPad from a different network.

Arduino Experiment with Apple TV Remote & IR Receiver

I was 95% successful in getting my Arduino Uno microcontroller to read the keypressing of an Apple TV remote control. I say only 95% instead of 100% because it reads all the buttons, but only works reliably from a distance of a couple inches, so not so much "remote", more like only "mote".

I purchased a Radio Shack item 276-0142, a two piece container with an Infra Red Detector and Emitter. I have only played with the detector so far.

I had read about other people doing Arduino experiments with an infrared receiver, but when I got home from the Radio Shack store I discovered that their IR detector had two leads, and while the one in the online example had three. I couldn't find any Arduino plans online for a two lead IR detector so I had to kinda wander through several web sites to get where I am so far with the wiring and design. I did find plenty of user comments at the Radio Shack website about how this particular product was a piece of junk and didn't work at all. So I wasn't hopeful. But I finally made it function. I am not exactly sure if this is an optimal design, so any comments from other people would be welcome.

I got the basic Arduino code from www.instructables.com web site, particularly this one for the detector, and then modified it for interpreting Apple TV remote patterns of information.

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:

So if someone could help me understand why it only works for a distance of a couple inches I would appreciate it. If I am veRy careful and move the remote perpendicular away from the detector I can get about six inches away, but I have to be veRy careful.

Special thanks to Wally_Z at instructables, see his web site: How To Control Your TV with an Arduino!

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.)

Arduino Experiment for Dog Food Choice

I am testing my dog's ability for abstract reasoning, language, and communication skills.

I made a random light generator with my Arduino microcontroller. When I push a button it randomly sets the light to ON or OFF, and then I use that in an eXperiment with my dog Cooper.

I feed him either deli chicken or turkey mixed in with his dry dog food, and I ask him this meat choice question using my hands as the placeholders for chicken or turkey. I momentarily wiggle each hand with fingers spread apart as I say each word 'Turkey' and 'Chicken'. Random light ON determines Turkey = Right, OFF means Chicken = Right. And then whichever hand he points at first is the meat choice he gets.

I wiLL report back later on the test results (Cooper's choices).

The little blue round switch near the bottom of the red breadboard is a potentiometer that adjusts the contrast of the LCD

The yellow light toggles ON/OFF with each push of the Push Button, but the red light is randomly ON or OFF. The randomness is especially good because the random number generator seed value is generated by a floating Analog Pin input with nothing hooked to it.

I highly recommend NOT getting red colored breadboards. They are very difficult to see the wire connections compared to a white breadboard. The red one just came with the kit.

The Arduino is currently hooked to the PC in these pictures but just for downloading programs. It can be disconnected and powered by batteries or an AC adapter. 

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

Can You Compare Delaware Air?

Here is a conversation between my wife and I veRy early this morning in the darkness:

 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."

I know one person in Delaware and she responds: Fresh bedding is the bomb! Especially if it's been air dryed outside!

My response to my friend from Delaware: I used inside air but sent that air immediately outside, the net effect is that some outside air immediately replaced it, so depending on where it leaks back into my house, mixing etc, I am not eXactly sure what percentage of the air that passes through my dryer has veRy recently been outside. That would probably be an interesting calculus or differential equations story problem. Using science instead of math I think I could measure the situation by doping the inside air with an inert chemical at a low concentration, say helium, and then use a gas chromatograph to sample the air during the process of running the dryer. I would just have to find out the sensitivity of the GC to the right parts per million level in order for it to be statisticaLLy meaningful.

I could also measure the amount of air leaving the vent pipe during the process and measure the static volume of the house. They make that sort of device for HVAC system evaluations of air handling systems.

But there is water in the clothing being dryed that contributes to the volume of air measured plus the air is heated during the process. I suppose you could run the dryer in an empty mode with no heat to determine a "just air" amount, but then there is also the case of the lint build-up during the process which probably restricts dynamicaLLy the amount of air comparing the begin point versus the end point of the process, complicating the math.

In the end, it probably has nothing to do with the outside air and more to do with the effect of sunshine chemicaLLy reacting. You could compare this by doing identical type loads, drying during the nighttime and daytime using the same set of odor judges blindfolded so they don't know whether it is daytime or night. Then repeat the process several times for accuracy.

Miss Delaware Air responds: All I know is that the outdoor smell lasts forever - even if you pack them away in the fall and take them out in the spring. Sleep so good on air dried sheets!

My response: I wish you would bottle up, or even better yet, build a pipeline to send some of your Delaware delightful air here, with the pipeline terminal exiting in my house. They have been making sulfur petrochemicals and carbon black in Borger for not quite a century.

Miss Delaware Air responds about how her air isn't so nice aLL the time, especiaLLy when they fertilize the local fields with naturaLLy produced chicken made chemicals.

My response: I guess that is the similarity between air sickened by petrochemicals and your chicken pet's [odorous] chemicals. 


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.

If Roy Bought A Robot Dog From Robert Who Robbed It From Robin

At a little after one AM my Cooper asks me for a dog biscuit. I teLL that I am completely out and that Ernie is going to go to Wal-Mart tomorrow and, (-here-) you can have a handful of dry dog food. He neVer eats dry dog food by itself. He indicates that he wants to go outside.

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.

Pi e Day

Several people, mainly numerical geeks, celebrate today March 14th as Pi day because of the first significant digits of the number pi being 3.14, matching the day and month.

But I thought of another number in math called e, the mathematical constant that is the base of the natural logarithm which has an approximate value

2.71828182845904523536028747135266249775724709369995... out to fifty places.

So combining pi & e gives you pie, a most delicious treat. I plan to eat pie today at sometime after 2 PM using the whole number part of e. For the eXact minutes I used the fractional part 0.71828 times 60 minutes per hour, which gives me 43 minutes plus 6 seconds.

So at eXacty 2:43:06 PM is when I plan to take the veRy first bite. Now, for the fruit fiLLing, do I choose appl-e or ch-e-rry? Ch-e-rry is my favorite between the two, but the 'pl-e' of appl-e looks so close to 'pi-e' ..... When I work on memorizing pi I only go out to 200 places, because anything beyond that is ridiculous.

UPDATE:

The I-Paw-d

Inventing an Apple device for my dog: i-Paw-d

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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.

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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.

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I am off to a great day in the outdoors: painting

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Soon There Will Be Less Then More Then Less Then More ...

Watching Bolt (Walt Disney 2008) What a movie! Its plot reminds me of The Truman Show, so "The Tru-Dog Show" ? Hahahahaha

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Marrying a princess is reaLLy a two part deal. You have to figure out how to marry them, then after that you have to figure out how to merry them.

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So ... I haven't been asleep hardly at aLL and I have a stupid dream: my cow is stuck on top of a mesa in the far distance.

There is not much light.

Perhaps it has long horns or big ears, I can't teLL for sure, maybe both, or it has a hat on, or ear muffs, I don't know.

It is a long ways away and it is cold and it is winter-fering with my sleep.

I have no cows in real life.

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I am canoeing up life fixing to possibly make a veRy big choice of which tributary to take, that changes 87 percent of everything. Wish me luck.

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My child is suddenly 16 times farther away for most likely several years or in my case, forever. Sad. At least there is Skype and Skype equivalencies.

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Our microwave oven has been broke for several days, but it is not my duty to replace it because my wife wanted to buy the same model that she has at our store AND ... this is the important part ... she is the one assigned (by her) to get it.

So last night she gets a cinnamon roLL out of the refrigerator and asks me this question: How I am to heat this cinnamon roLL?

My answer: Hold it between your hands

She is tired and responds with 10 percent anger-confusion, "What does that mean?!?!?"

I laughed and said, "You asked me how to heat up a cold object and I gave you a technicaLLy correct method for warming it up to maybe 98.6 degrees."

I paused and thought of an improvement, "OR ... you could put it under your arm, that might work faster." Then I said something about moisture content, I forget the eXact wording.

My close way offering is not quite a microwave oven.

Much later I realized that if she simply eats the cold cinnamon roLL it wiLL heat up to her body temperature while also converting its chemicals as fuel heating up the body ... so in effect, a self warming cinnamon roLL. 

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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.
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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.

An Egyptian Cat Walks Into A Bar

So I sit down at the counter of the diner and Jesus told me a half story of the Internet, saying that his girlfriend said something about Egypt, the Internet and cats. He couldn't remember that entire saying, so I used the Internet on my phone to google 'Egypt Internet Cat' - and the veRy first item had the saying that Jesus had tried to teLL me.

Saying: The Internet is just like ancient Egypt with people writing on walls and worshiping cats

Jesus got a kick out of me using the Internet to find a saying about the Internet, within about 15 seconds after he told me half the story.

I even risked my sandwich getting cold in order to find him the info. No, that isn't right, I don't think I had even ordered yet, hmmm, confusion.

I asked Jesus if I could blog this cat-Egypt-internet story and he said I could if I used his fake name of Don Juan Santiago de Sebastian ... I think I got most of that right but now it seems like I am missing one more name and now ever so slightly later it seems like I have the order slightly wrong.

I told him that I would give him a pseudonym of ... (and then I semi-randomly picked names using JESUS as an acronym), so his acropseudonym is

   James    (E name that I forgot)    Samuel    Ulysses    Saul

And then after aLL that creative effort he told me that I could use his real name.

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Why am I eXtremely sad today? I went to the McRib location service and there does not appear to be a single McD restaurant in the entire lower 48 that has the sandwich for sale.

Apocalypse Confirmation.

On a brighter note I was able to upgrade the firmware in my TI-89 calculator so that it wiLL properly chat with my PC.

I need coffee.

And Spring.

Spring, where are you?

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I just remembered something about math. I know how to do fractions using Egyptian Hieroglyphs. I should put that on my resume ...

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UPDATE: I just got back from McD for breakfast. Guess what was on the tray liner paper .... that's right, a flow diagram for McRib. Talk about adding insult to injury!

pope adod ...&... YES!!! - I am old enough

I spent several frustrating hours spread out over a couple days dealing with my Internet provider, even wasting $80 for a new router, and they finaLLy appear to have their system working again. SO ... the very neXt day I get a robotic phone survey asking me (with a kind feminine voice) to rate their quality using a 0-9 scale by the keypad of my phone. BUT ... their system fails to accept the keypad entry ... I am not sure I have ever had this happen before.

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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"

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This Is Cool: Use google search engine to balance chemical equations!

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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.

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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.

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.

This Old Microwave

To support the glass breakage cleanup after the meteor shattered the 49 acres of windows in Chelyabinsk Russia, I plan to drink a glass of vodka.

My plan is to slowly become more Russian. But Tito's Handmade Vodka is from Austin Texas USA, so Raustin (Ростин)?

A friend responded "Russians understand that anything imported is better than what they have, so that's perfect!"

My response: I wonder if they feel that way about водка and икра.

Same friend responds: "Now, even their rocks are imported."

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How you can teLL you have been married too long: When you say something to your spouse and you can teLL by their reaction that they have misunderstood you AND you already know the incorrect interpretation they think they heard. Does this make sense? If not, let me start over ....

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Here is a sad story: 

My wife got eXcited when she saw something new growing by one of our pineapple plants. 

I explained to her that it was just a weed.

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My wife ate aLL my smaLL Snickers, but she replaced them with a large bag of even SMALLer Snickers. I think it would be possible to make Snickers smaller than this, but they would have to change the name to Snicker.

I think Snickers could eXist in an even smaLLer form factor, but then they would most likely be in vapor form and highly combustible.

Do you know what is in the middle of a Snickers? ---ck---

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Today's Question: what can I make out of my dead microwave oven?

My Favorite Lawyer responded:   A step stool ? 

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.

I need more ideas, please.

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Wolffalos

In a dream: I was in Stinnett TX working outdoors and Cooper was with me. Then he was suddenly gone. I yeLLed for him. He appeared to be playing with other dogs across the street but when several animals came running towards me they were aLL grey wolves which slowly morphed into a buffalo stampede. About this time I said to myself, "This is a dream." and woke up. Where is my coffee?

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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.

Nyet

So ... the president wants to try AGAIN to reduce our Afghan force, this time by 34,000 in a year. That is roughly less than a hundred people a day, less than one plane full. Um, question, don't we have more than one plane?

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

Double Your Words, Almost

The FX channel schedule displays a movie about reincarnation on my iPad. In the pop-up window for the movie description they put these words:

   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.

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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.

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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.

In Seconds Place

The online cartoon xkcd is one of my favorite things. It is published three times per week on M-W-F. One episode, number 1047, gave approximations for physical events. One of the items mentioned was the number of seconds in a year. It has a fairly exact value of

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!!!

How To Properly Celebrate Ground Hog Day

Ground Hog Day is February 2nd.

Ground hog meat is sausage. So one way to celebrate is by eating sausage.

Mmmm ... sausage

Another way to think about ground plus hog is to remember what form of ground (The Earth) that hogs like best. And it is ... just add water ... Mud!!! There are so many things you can do with mud such as making mud pies and imitating pigs by roLLing around in mud. But there are a few delicious desserts that have the word mud in them as weLL.

If you are like me and tend to completely forget about yesterday being Groundhog Day, you could celebrate by watching the Bill Murray movie over and over until you have it memorized, or insanity or divorce happens. Another sneaky way to celebrate Ground Hog Day is by waiting until September 21st, which is Bill Murray's birthday.

Another feature of Groundhog Day is the ability of the animal to predict the near future weather with some shadow nonsense. I decided to try directly talking to a hog but I couldn't understand them. They are s'pposed to be rather intelligent. So I decided to try something else. I cooked sausage in a pan and then shook it to see if the pieces would reveal a message. The secret to doing this properly is to aLLow plenty of eXtra skillet space. A pan with bumps on the bottom probably helps.

The words that appeared were "ROB BANK"

I thought this was a bit strange, especiaLLy the part about using the B twice. But then I reasoned that the sausage was being efficient and entropy being what it isn't in this story. I figured the message could be interpretted a couple of ways. One, I have a friend named Rob and maybe the sausage was teLLing me to give Rob eveRything I have in my bank account. But then I remembered that it isn't a bank, but a credit union. So then I thought maybe the sausage is teLLing me to rob a different bank, a real bank. But I decided to shake the pan of sausage again and this time it gave me a dollar symbol inversed. I thought, wow, inverse, veRy creative sausage. So I went to the bank after eating my mystical message meat.

I approached the bank teLLer and politely gave her a piece of paper with this message:

"Please give me aLL your money. I was cooking sausage this morning and it spoke to me and told me to rob a bank."

This particular bank is where my wife set up our commercial account, so the people know me quite weLL. I go there often enough that a few of the teLLers even have our checking account number partiaLLy memorized. The teLLer reads my slip of paper and cracks up laughing. I wasn't being taken seriously! I even showed her the video of the shaken sausage saying and $ symbol on my iPhone. She laughed some more, soon foLLowed by even moRe teLLers roLLing on the floor laughing holding their abdomens. I felt this was veRy unprofessional. I puLLed out my hand gun and fired three warning shots straight up. But then I realized there was office space above me, and I heard screams both above me and the shocked teLLers in front of me. They slowly got off the floor and gave me some money. I thanked them and told them I was just obeying my (now) inner sausage, sorry for frightening you with the handgun.

But I don't know how much money it was because just as soon as I walked out of the bank I was kiLLed in a hail of police buLLets.

Then in true Bill Murray form I woke up in my bed this morning, and it was and wasn't Feb 3rd.

Followed by Dumber and Dumbest

Today's Dumb Joke: The magician David Copperfield was going down a road when he suddenly turned into a driveway.

Today's Dumber Joke: Do you know where to find Ukraine on the map?

U look right between Tkraine and Vkraine

Today's Dumbest Joke: What are the two hottest days of the week?

Fryday and Sunday

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Yea! I heard the position for King or Queen of the Netherlands is opening up, but I would have to wait until April. Bummer. I could do that job.

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Time is magical on computers. The iOS 6.1 software update says
'9 Minutes To Go'
and I close my eyes to rest.
A few seconds later I open my eyes and it says 11.
I try closing my eyes longer. This time it's 12 minutes to go (!)
I try one more time .... Wait .... wAit .... waIt .... waiT ...... 13 minutes (?)

I must be sleeping wrong.

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I was able to fix a door yesterday. I think that technicaLLy makes me a-door-able.

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They have a local newspaper in Oklahoma that covers four counties. The unique purpose of the "OK Jailbirds" is to give you information about the recently arrested, and fugitives. The issue I photographed at a convenience store in Enid OK covers Garfield, Kingfisher, Major and Noble counties. It is published once a month on the 2nd Saturday.

Then I found out today that there are several local editions for different chunks for most the state of Oklahoma. I found the online site and this map. The western part of Oklahoma is very sparsely populated, so that is my guess as to why they don't have jailbird coverage (yet). Or maybe the people in those counties are better nicer people? After aLL, they do live closer to me and perhaps I am a positive influence on the crime rate in western Oklahoma.

Almo$t Forever

The reason why the Post Office prints "Forever" on their stamps is because its shorter and takes less ink than "Good Until We Run Out Of Money".

I saw this morning that stamps went up by a penny. But I buy forever stamps anyway. I think any intended first class stamp from the past should be a Forever class stamp.

All my forever stamps are Santa Claus and Reindeer. That wiLL look kinda strange in July. Maybe.

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When I have shotgun questions it makes perfect sense to seek the ad-Vice from the Vice President. Oh, sorry, did I say 'perfect', perhaps I was thinking of a different fect word, say, maybe defect.

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Fact: Less than one tenth of one percent of aLL cottage cheese is manufactured in a cottage.

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Today's Dumb Joke: Do you know why they don't hold the Olympics in Budapest?

Because they would be known as The Hungary Games.

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Sometimes I think I accidentaLLy got some one else's bucket list.

It involves a wide variety of containers.

And surprisingly, lids.

I found a teleBision show caLLed 'An Idiot Abroad'. This episode has an Englishman in Russia. This should not be confused with a different show caLL 'A Broad Idiot'.

I just got finished hearing someone use the term 'Jet Age' to describe something ultramodern. The jet engine has been around for over sixty years, so you could actuaLLy encounter antique items that are 'Jet Age'. 

Considering when I was born, even I am 'Jet Age'. 

Most days I don't feel veRy ultramodern.

I am okay right now, weLL, most of me. The outside of my nose is cold. I am hoping it doesn't spread. It could turn out to be a strange case of progressive frostbite. 

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A Chicken of My Mother

 

 

A Bridge Adorned

While traveling across Oklahoma I noticed a strangely adorned bridge. It is narrow on the east side, but bra'd on the west.

(Just west of Woodward Oklahoma)

Goodbye Old Friends ..OR.. My Wife Made Me Throw Away Gold

After a year and a half I finaLLy wore out my Vibram Fivefingers Komodo Sport toe shoes.

My wife actuaLLy forced me to throw the old ones away!

So ... now I have a new pair of Black & Blue ones to replace the Black, Grey & Gold.

The old ones stiLL felt marvelous, they just had a "few" holes.

Holes are slightly incompatible with winter & wives.

I love being a Vibram shoe salesman.

So I took them for a walk in the park almost immediately. But I decided to take a chicken for a walk in the park too.

By chicken, of course, I meant that I had to stop at the diner just a few blocks away from the park to have a griLLed chicken sandwich with bacon.

While I was at the diner I told Shannon the owner that I had applied for a job far away. It was a technician job operating a scanning electron microscope. I told her that I probably wouldn't get the job or even an interview. Then I remembered that I had read an article about a guy who built his own electron microscope.

Normally these things cost a whole bunch of money.

Shannon asked me what would I need an electron microscope for?!?!? I eXplained that I had just read the article and didn't have any immediate plans to build one.

If you google "Build your own electron " ... then microscope shows up as the first item on the drop down box. 

Link to Build Your Own Electron Microscope

So after my walk in the park I decided that I deserved a treat: chocolate

I headed to Wal-Mart to buy a 6 pack of Hershey's milk chocolate bars.

When I got out of the truck I realized I only had eXactly 4 dollars because the shorts I have on have these horribly long pockets that go aLL the way to the bottom, so anything in the pocket bounces on my knees as I walk, a terrible feeling. I also had bought them long ago at Wal-Mart. I thought, surely 4 dollars should buy me chocolate.

I was wrong.

The price was $3.94, which made me happy until I realized I would probably have to pay sales tax which would be 32 cents, so I was going to be short and 100 yards away from my truck!

The state of Texas usuaLLy doesn't charge tax on groceries, food items, but they have weird rules about how things are packaged which determine the tax or no tax rule.

So I ask the man stocking the candy aisle if he can help me cover my potential tax. We are laughing at me begging for coins. He only has 21 cents which I promise to pay back. He tells me the ladies at the service desk might be able to help me with the rest.

I go to the service desk and eXplain my situation and they (two of them) smile and start digging their change out. So they give me enough to cover the tax AND give me the 21 cents back so that I can reimburse the stocker of the candy aisle, which I returned immediately.

And Then Something Else Happened

I was listening to Pandora, which gives you randomized selections of entertainment. They also give you a button to skip things you don't like AND things they have already played. BUT it turns out they have a daily limit on the number of times you can skip. SO ... I turned Pandora OFF ... hmm, I wonder if they saw that coming?

-------

I heard the Aflac duck is hospitalized and suffering from mysterious injuries. I think their main suspect should be Gilbert Gottfried.

-------

The local sports coverage was on just now but I wasn't listening too closely. But I did notice something odd in the annoucer's voice as he was narrating the action of the game highlights. Suddenly he said, "Oh, sorry, wrong tape." I think he suddenly noticed the words on his teleprompter didn't match the video being presented.

-------

I am having trouble finding the right frequency to shave. Every ten minutes seems too often, and every ten days seems a bit too gorilla.

-------

It is now 4:30 AM. You may think I am up early but I am actuaLLy down late.

-------

I originaLLy titled this blog post "And Then Something Happened". But that was the second to the last thing that happened, the naming of the blogpost. The last thing was adding the word Else. But now I realized that isn't true, because the last thing I am actuaLLy doing is writing about the titling process. What would be truly horrible is if in the future I accidentaLLy add something near the beginning of this blog post while forgetting that this declared final part being right here, totaLLy destroying my integrity. I think I need a sandwich.

The Star T B Utton

Diagnosis: I thought the Start Button on my microwave oven was flaky, but it turns out that the "Door Closed Sensor" probably just needs adjusted. My son discovered that pushing against the already closed door while pushing the Start Button makes it start reliably.

HopefuLLy nothing else goes wrong that would require me to simultaneously hold my foot against left side while resting my chin on the top side while pressing my elbow against the right side.

I just want to heat my pancake syrup.

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My least favorite GEICO commercial: Eddie Money Travel Agency

Later: I just saw the GEICO commercial where the gecko is talking about his virtual coffee - which suddenly reminded me about the pot of real coffee I made but then forgot about while watching something interesting on teleBision.

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Earlier in the afternoon I saw that it was 20 F outside. The F stands for Far in height, but it can also mean Far in length, too. So I set a target of 20 miles for walking at the park. I came within 19.5 miles of my target, but I won't say [weather] I was high or low. I am now safely eating inside, eating a griLLed chicken sandwich with bacon while chatting with Jesus and James. IronicaLLy the first thing James asked me about was Germans going below absolute zero. I doubt them.

Link to Going Below Absolute Zero

Also, the snow in the shadow of the foot bridge at the park was reaLLy neat. Link to PHOTO
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Oops! I'm in trouble.

It is now 12:18 AM and I believe there is no where in my city that I can buy fresh jalapeño peppers. At least any place that I know.

If you happen to have a spare JP, bring it by, but don't ring the doorbeLL. Because I don't have one. And you might wake up people who are less enthusiastic about satisfying my need to make a perfect soup.

At this point there are probably three of you out there who are thinking, "If this guy can grow pineapples, why didn't he think to grow jalapeno peppers?" (I didn't speLL it with an ñ that time because I didn't know if those three people are comfortable in their use of squiggly n's.)

I wiLL gladly reimburse you two peppers for one later today, that is how desperate I am. I must stir now, good-bye.