17 February 2010
11 February 2010
einstein, fifth grade
Kid in 5th grade, asked what einstein sez about matter and energy.
What he says is, they're like ice and water, the same thing, with
some constant involved. For m=e/c^2 (what Al published, not the
bs e=mc2) the constant is the speed of light squared. It has to
do with the elasticity of the aether, which doesn't exist.
What he says is, they're like ice and water, the same thing, with
some constant involved. For m=e/c^2 (what Al published, not the
bs e=mc2) the constant is the speed of light squared. It has to
do with the elasticity of the aether, which doesn't exist.
09 February 2010
frame shift
The grandkid of the VP Eng at work is an intern at work.
He said "grandpa" when referring to the VP.
That was a weird frame shift. Like when you see a dog
being operated on: looks like grocery meat; and grandma;
and its a biomed test.
No dogs recently, but pigs. More like people, although more
expensive than dogs, I think. Dogs were for cardiac work
in LA; pigs for my current work.
When we put our 18 year old cat down last year, I was impressed
by the speed of the vacancy of the eyes after injection. My
dad noticed same on his dog euthanasia. For the pigs, its
a pink injection into the ear, and the animal is already
anesthetized. Cat inject was shoulder I think, dog was between
toes, heroin style.
Not a bad way to go. Much prettier than the HST pistol plan.
He said "grandpa" when referring to the VP.
That was a weird frame shift. Like when you see a dog
being operated on: looks like grocery meat; and grandma;
and its a biomed test.
No dogs recently, but pigs. More like people, although more
expensive than dogs, I think. Dogs were for cardiac work
in LA; pigs for my current work.
When we put our 18 year old cat down last year, I was impressed
by the speed of the vacancy of the eyes after injection. My
dad noticed same on his dog euthanasia. For the pigs, its
a pink injection into the ear, and the animal is already
anesthetized. Cat inject was shoulder I think, dog was between
toes, heroin style.
Not a bad way to go. Much prettier than the HST pistol plan.
06 February 2010
21st century rains
My kid controlled a webcam watching a stream via a netbook.
http://ca.water.usgs.gov/webcams/modjeska/webcam-oper.html?
Wow.
http://ca.water.usgs.gov/webcams/modjeska/webcam-oper.html?
Wow.
12 January 2010
Engineering fun
So we get a new-manufacture, new-layout circuit board
with nominally the exact same behavior and topology.
turns out, after two days of debug, that the board I have
has a bad relay. I was wondering why the calib routine
didn't work. Spent at least a day with the VP of engineering
debugging; he kept saying, lets try it on the test fixture.
All the new boards were good; but mine had a bad relay, which
had escaped the ATP for the boards.
Classic. I had to debug by realizing I was seeing open
circuit resistance (shows as 1800 ohms) when I should have
seen 100.0. I was at one point seeing the resistance of the
attached external resistor. That revealed a bug where the
receptacle for the external resistor was switched in.
But with that fixed, I still saw open. Intead of 100.
Eventually i convinced myself it was open, instead of 100,
and the analog guys found a bad relay (one of 25).
with nominally the exact same behavior and topology.
turns out, after two days of debug, that the board I have
has a bad relay. I was wondering why the calib routine
didn't work. Spent at least a day with the VP of engineering
debugging; he kept saying, lets try it on the test fixture.
All the new boards were good; but mine had a bad relay, which
had escaped the ATP for the boards.
Classic. I had to debug by realizing I was seeing open
circuit resistance (shows as 1800 ohms) when I should have
seen 100.0. I was at one point seeing the resistance of the
attached external resistor. That revealed a bug where the
receptacle for the external resistor was switched in.
But with that fixed, I still saw open. Intead of 100.
Eventually i convinced myself it was open, instead of 100,
and the analog guys found a bad relay (one of 25).
28 December 2009
Tar pits
Went to La Brea Tar Pits (Page museum). Bad traffic.
But nice museum. Wall of 400 wolf skulls, and there are 1200 more.
Nice skeletons, including birds. Pointed out large sternum on birds.
On the timeline, its clear that a lot of bigger mammals died out
as humans started taking off. Funny, that.
Best part for me: I found tar seeps outside of the chained in
lake, and figured out that all the seeps are in a line --just like
Hawaiin fumaroles or yellowstone geysers--- along a fault. Also
saw tar-bubbles grow and pop, which was like slow-motion mudpots.
But nice museum. Wall of 400 wolf skulls, and there are 1200 more.
Nice skeletons, including birds. Pointed out large sternum on birds.
On the timeline, its clear that a lot of bigger mammals died out
as humans started taking off. Funny, that.
Best part for me: I found tar seeps outside of the chained in
lake, and figured out that all the seeps are in a line --just like
Hawaiin fumaroles or yellowstone geysers--- along a fault. Also
saw tar-bubbles grow and pop, which was like slow-motion mudpots.
22 December 2009
Friends
Son of a los alamos scientist. Extremely civil engineer.
1400 SAT. Insanely independent cal tech physicist, and crazy
friend thereof. Profs of cs, and other disciplines.. Potassium
channel scientists stricken with MS and then cyanide poisoning..
an interesting life so far.. I appreciate steadiness and lack
of change.
1400 SAT. Insanely independent cal tech physicist, and crazy
friend thereof. Profs of cs, and other disciplines.. Potassium
channel scientists stricken with MS and then cyanide poisoning..
an interesting life so far.. I appreciate steadiness and lack
of change.
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