Most Excellent Stop Action Video:


See how it is made at http://www.sorry-im-late.com

Make your own stop action animated videos using free version of SAM Animation..
http://www.samanimation.com/

Martin Gardner died at 95 over the past weekend. I am certain it was just another trick.

The Nature of Things / Martin Gardner from Wagner Brenner on Vimeo.

Go OK

Using a webcam and laptop, here is feedback from a digital source. Different parameters: rotation, refresh rate, color filtering, pixel size.. and more, affect the geometric patterns, image blurring and chaotic appearance and sometimes pulsation of the video motion.

This is a very simple first try. With some time and work, artistic patterns can emerge. I remember playing with this phenomenon a decade ago after seeing studies in analog video systems, but am happy to see it work in digital format.

James Crutchfield wrote an article on analog video feedback in systems more than a decade ago, and it was just great. Here is his site on other dynamic systems analysis and more.
http://cse.ucdavis.edu/~chaos/chaos/pubs.htm


Experiment carefully so you do not cause a burn out of any equipment.

Vacation in the Pool

So, I didn't see the sign.

Web Based "WiFinder"..

Here is a JAVA based wireless internet access finder. It seems to work fairly well, although I haven't tested it in too many locations...

http://meraki.com/tools/stumbler/

Of course, I am now a proponent of trying out another Open Mesh network system, and may just have to buy a couple of these to try them out on campus. The components look 'cheap' at around $50 each.

There are some hard to reach spots that would benefit from Open Mesh, but I am not sure how it will mix with Netgear, and Linksys of different types. The outdoor and indoor housings have appeal for efficiency.

http://www.open-mesh.com/store/


~Richard.

58 words

Typing Test

LaTeX equation editor online

Here is an online LaTeX equation editor. It creates a little gif [or other format, html, etc.] that you can copy and paste. Its response is pretty quick..



http://www.codecogs.com/components/equationeditor/equationeditor.php?lang=en-en

Working at the Internet Cafe

I hope that I can get some exercise soon so I don't look quite as crumpety as in this photo..

I am working at my personal Internet Cafe. Government of China can't see me or monitor me here, but the bugs on my computer laptop are indeed real bugs. Weather is perfect and it finally feels like summer.

Pondering all sorts of things:
switch all school email to Google's free service for non-profits?
accumulate school websites to a new account?
start Ruby on Rails with a new Linux site?
how to display photo streams for the website?
more, more, so much more..

~Richard.

This is too amazing to be overlooked. At Sant Bani School "All School Capture the Flag" this little fawn was in the woods....

very new. very small.. as small as Kent's cap.. he took the photo with his Blackberry :)

Cheering Leap

Here is Dr. Ethan Cheering at the Run to Remember: I feel like the guy with the bike in the background looking on...

What is Friendship Anyway?

Well, off to a rough start in the friend department :)

I guess I'll go out and play in the mud.

~Geekteach.

Bad Google Push Design

Google loses the design award on this one. Squeeze the width of the Google.com homepage and the graphics push ad for 'Chrome' destroys the rest of the top of the page. I can do that for a web page I write - but not one that millions see..

This is definitely in the 'too much spare time' category for me - but really.

der Mathematik-Pens, dass Licht

der Mathematik-Pens, dass Licht

Here are Jon Powell's NH State Math Meet award pen [right] and my NH State Math Meet award pen. It's easy to see that his is still brighter which may infer that he is writing less.

I picked it up by mistake while working on the network at the Lower Building, now I must remember to return it.

~Richard.

Pi Day

3.1415926............. ounces of cookie dough:

Thanks Ethan for the photo....

Tufts E-News: Flights of Fancy

Using sensors with LabView to feeback into Google. The big screen must certainly help.
It seems there should be a fan for wind-blown hair and some occasional bird noises.

Tufts E-News: Flights of Fancy


Posted using ShareThis

Mission Beach Physics Waves

We went to San Diego's Mission Beach area and to Belmont Park. There is a water ride to simulate surfing. Here is a short video of a couple of the takers. I had seen it before in short video, but it is great to see it in person.

Obama Logo

Interesting site lets me make the above Obama type logo.

http://logobama.com/

thanks to Substance

Snapper in the Yard

Last Saturday morning I woke up to see some digging in the front yard the likes of which confounded me on close inspection. There were seven or eight places a foot square or more scoured out of the soil and each a few inches deep. There were no hoof prints, and it didn't look like some skunk or fox after ants, so my first thought was that aliens had briefly landed then took quickly off again. Darn those aliens - I really wanted to catch one. The light bulb in the photo is for size..

Since school has ended, I have the additional luxury of reading the daily paper - as thin and as horribly informed as it presents itself - and lo - on this day, a short article with a photo of two elderly gentlemen and a large elderly turtle all grinning toward the camera. The article went on to cite a returning snapping turtle to lay eggs in the sandy front yard of a Gilford home.

http://www.citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080628/GJNEWS02/643110723

I was so excited I ran out and looked more closely at the holes and saw small claw marks and the telltale scrape of what appears to be a tail. One of the holes was covered back in, and there I suspect are the nested reptile eggs. I actually called the household in Gilford and confirmed their siting... and spoke with a very nice lady about all sorts of animal activities in her yard. I think her school has been out for a long time.

I found an easily readable website that tells me to wait 90-120 days to witness the quarter size snappers to leave their nest and parade to the nearest water.

http://www.tortoisetrust.org/articles/snappers.htm

Now here is the karmic return part of the story. When I was young, my brother and I had a turtle from Woolworths store in Framingham, Mass. Actually, we may each have had one. The horribly airless pet section of those stores would sell out small animals under the auspices that children would take care of them and learn something. It's all quite a silly enterprise since we lived in a beautiful woodsy town of New England with more sticks and animals to shake a stick, or animal, at. I remember my turtle in its clear plastic container complete with plastic island and little green palm tree, although I don't recall its name. We of course overfed and over watered it for a few days or as long as a week. But there are more fun things than a sluggy turtle for kids with a short attention span as we had and besides, the plastic container started to smell.

Soon, somehow the turtle was gone. Escaped? Did we take it out to play and forget to put it back? More likely. High and low, no turtle was to be found until a month or two later when I saw the poor dust covered carcass of a dry little turtle under the bed. I think we put it into our small animal graveyard near the stone wall to final rest with the other creatures of our 'caretaking' including many dead birds, frogs, reptiles that we found. No doubt they were all Christian creatures, since a series of little crosses marked their spots.

So if I can keep these little turtle eggs from being ravaged by the local cat, skunk, or fox [I think I'll cover the nest with a small section of chicken wire mesh] and watch them safely toward water when they do hatch, perhaps I'll pay back the debt from years ago. I still cringe when I picture the tiny, dry, wisp of a little turtle head frozen in time looking up at its worldly caretaker. Thanks, Woolworths.

Hail to the Chief

Here is a short video of a hailstorm that rolled its way through the Newfound Lake neighborhood. The hail was 'pea-sized' approx. one centimeter is size :)

A tornado warning for the region was also posted and the wind, lightning, thunder, and torrents of rain were awesome indeed. I wonder about the safety of the thousand of bikers here for the weekend, and also the newbie boaters who have little clue about their risks out on the lakes when a storm like this rolls through.

~Richard