jfiore
Posts by this author
November 15, 2007
There is a fun programming assignment I give to my freshman Python class. I call it curses. An example of it (written in Java, with source) can be found here. Basically, the program generates a series of denunciations, each followed by a somewhat odd curse. For example: "You noisy pile of squashed…
November 5, 2007
Electronic Engineering Times has released their annual salary survey. Among 1600 respondents, median income including benefits for electrical and electronic engineers in North American now sits at $108,800. That's about 4% higher than last year. Two thirds declared themselves satisfied with both…
November 3, 2007
25 year-old Ryan Hall won the Olympic Trials Marathon this morning in New York City with a trials record time of 2:09:02. This was a special multi-lap course around Central Park, not the same route as will be taken for Sunday's NYC Marathon. Hall looked fluid and at ease the entire race, breaking…
November 1, 2007
In previous installments in the DIY NME series, I've looked at the application of symmetrical motor patterns using the drum kit. For this entry, the approach is a little different and says something about "handedness" as well. A few months ago I rearranged my semi-symmetrical drum kit into what I…
October 20, 2007
USA Track and Field, the governing body of the sport in the USA, is launching a study to determine the effectiveness of pre-run stretching on injury prevention. You can participate. From the USATF web site:
USATF is conducting a study to determine the effect of pre-run stretching on running…
October 18, 2007
Sometimes I can't seem to find just the right lab equipment I want for a particular experiment so I design it myself. Such was the case recently for a course I developed and teach entitled Science of Sound. This course is a natural science elective and deals with the physics of audio and acoustics…
October 13, 2007
What happens when an end-of-times pastor meets a CNN bobble-head? One thing is for certain both science and rationality will be chucked out the window. John Hagee, head of a Texas mega-church had some truly crazy things to say on Glenn Beck's Friday evening show (October 12, 2007). You can get the…
October 11, 2007
Recently I received emails from two associates regarding a "get rich quick" scheme. It's made the rounds before and quite frankly I was surprised to see it poke its ugly head up again. While these hoaxes are mildly irritating, it only takes a moment of thought to determine that they absolutely must…
October 8, 2007
A previous post featured a short film about members of the Audiophile Club of Athens and the rather extreme sound systems their members have created. Some members spent in excess of $300,000 to build their systems. You may be wondering just what manner of gear that sort of money would buy, and…
October 8, 2007
The Chicago Marathon has been the site of phenomenal performances, but Sunday's run produced perhaps the tightest men's finish ever. Video here.
Not to be outdone, the women's finish was equally eye-opening and presents a valuable lesson to anyone involved in competitive sport. Video here.
In spite…
October 5, 2007
The latest from the Washington Post is that Olympic track star Marion Jones has admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs.
Track star Marion Jones has acknowledged using steroids as she prepared for the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney and is scheduled to plead guilty today in New York to two counts…
October 2, 2007
Here in the upper Mohawk Valley of central NY, we are accustomed to an abundance of water. Heck, the city of Utica typically receives around 100 inches of snow per year and that's nothing compared to the Tug Hill Plateau just north. The summer of 2007 has been notable for a lack of rainfall, though…
September 30, 2007
Well, running great Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopa broke Paul Tergat's four-year-old marathon record of 2:04:55 at Berlin this morning with an amazing 2:04:26. Details here and here.
This works out to an average pace of 4:44.8 per mile or 2:56.9 per km over 26.2 miles (42.2 km). Geb's sustained…
September 27, 2007
This week's Electronic Engineering Times features a short article on the upcoming USB 3.0 spec. The main highlight is a target transfer rate of 4 Gigabits/second (10 times the current rate) providing usable data at 300 Megabytes/second. This rate would challenge IEEE 1394 (AKA FireWire). USB 3.0 is…
September 17, 2007
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was.. Oops. Sorry, already been done. Start again.
The other day I brought up some thoughts concerning the high cost of college textbooks. In the arena of science and engineering there are issues with the fairly narrow audience and resultant…
September 17, 2007
The latest Embedded Systems Design features an overview of their annual comprehensive programmer's survey. ESD (an unfortunate acronym for a hardware journal) has offered the same survey for the past few years to engineers and programmers in both the USA and Europe, seeking info on their current…
September 14, 2007
We're a couple weeks into the semester and the ever-popular subject of the cost of textbooks has raised its head. Along with my students, I often wonder why they shell out so much for these works. I think there are several things at play here, but first a little background: I've been teaching at…
September 9, 2007
Sequences, whether it's the colors of the rainbow, the names of the planets, or ages of Earth's geologic past just scream for mnemonic devices such as acronym-sentences. Some of these can be quite entertaining in their own right, and even more entertaining if you make them up yourself. For example…
August 31, 2007
It's amazing the things you trip over while cruising the 'net. Consider this site. There's some fun stuff here, some good stuff here, and some downright crazy stuff here. For example, go to this page. You'll find the following passage:
What are angels ? According to the Bible they are Gods…
August 25, 2007
Runners have a tendency to track their workout times. This can be both misleading and dangerous if you don't figure in the effect of weather, a trap both newbies and experienced runners can fall into. Consider long runs.
Last week, I went down to the local canal trail for a long run. I ran 16 miles…
August 23, 2007
Regular readers of the refuge know that I've got a "thing" for audio and music, and that I've had some harsh comments regarding the poor quality audio that so many people tolerate these days in the name of convenience. But what of the other extreme? Who are the audiophile extremists? To what…
August 10, 2007
...coneflower Echinacea purpurea. Double your pleasure, double your fun; two heads, as they say, are better than one:
This rascal popped up along the border of our driveway. It appears to be two stems that just didn't separate, with the heads sort of mashed up against each other. Upon closer…
August 9, 2007
A 53 year old Colorado priest faces indecent exposure charges for jogging naked at a local track according to the AP. The priest, Robert Whipkey, claims that he sweats profusely while running, and as he was running in the very early morning prior to sunrise, he didn't think anyone would be around…
August 8, 2007
"He won't hurt you". Check out this thread which popped up after a report of a child being killed in a pit bull attack. We can thank commenter scorp1101 for jumping right into it with the pit bulls are just fine and I know because I own one argument. The remainder of the thread is interesting for…
August 6, 2007
Is walking to the store "greener" than riding there in your car? Here's an interesting article from The Times UK arguing for the car. The upfront argument is specious. Consider:
"Driving a typical UK car for 3 miles [4.8km] adds about 0.9 kg [2lb] of CO2 to the atmosphere," he said, a calculation…
August 3, 2007
It's short, but mildly amusing in a dumb, almost pitiful sort of way. Behe tries to come off as a serious scientist but he may as well just put a cracker box over his head and drool conspicuously.
August 3, 2007
It's amazing what you can find on the Internet. Yes, it seems that God has written an autobiography. Apparently, God's name is Thomas O'Donnell.
Not really much more I can add to that, except that author O'Donnell also goes by the name Jesus and Satan. Is it a tad presumptuous to pen "…
August 3, 2007
Here's a nice article by Froma Harrop on Real Clear Politics. The upshot is that all is not well in the Heartland, that there is a growing unease in America, and it's not just about Iraq. Consider the opener:
Now and then, a conservative columnist wonders why Americans have grown so sour about…
August 2, 2007
On the audio front, National Semiconductor, long a player in analog semiconductors, has announced a couple new op amp families producing a total harmonic distortion plus noise spec of 0.00003%. These devices are aimed squarely at higher end audio applications and also offer a very low voltage noise…
July 27, 2007
I'm just getting sick of the whole "atheism is a religion" crap that I seem to keep running into lately. Here's a little story for your entertainment.
Once upon a time there was a land called Cardia. In Cardia, everyone played cards. Some people played blackjack, some poker, others pitch, and so…