splicing pi

Irving

2011-01-02T19:50:00.000-06:00

2011 starts with a new family member, Irving. 6 month old Beagle - Blue Heeler Mix.

Icicles and gravity

2010-02-13T16:08:00.000-06:00

Over the last few days, it has been sunny and in the upper twenties, so some of the snow has melted. This morning I went out side and found these warped icicles on a bush in the back yard. It looks like, as the snow melts and drips down on the icicle, it freezes, but as the icicle grows, its weight alter the shape of the limb, and so what is down, relative to the branch is changing slowly over time.

All I can say is nature is amazing.

Resolutions for 2010

2010-01-03T14:54:00.000-06:00

Well it is that time of year again, time to make resolutions for the coming year. One method to keep a resolution is to make it public and therefor fear failing in public. So in order to motivate me, here are my resolutions, in no particular order, so far.

Be transparent at work

I work in an a geographically dispersed company, and that leads to silos of knowledge and infighting. One way to fight this is to make everything you do available for review by my boss, coworkers, and those at other sites. There are limits, based on security, but still most of what someone does in a company is open to all.

I thought about suggesting this to management, but I think being a living example will sell it better then any sales pitch.

For now, I am thinking of tracking my status and projects on a wiki, and then some on-line project planning tool. For the office, if they implement Office 2010 with its web sported interface, they may work better.

Keep up the diet and exercise

Last fall my wife and I started eating light and exercising. I have lost 25 pounds plus got off one of the meds my doctor put me on. To stay off the med (and avoid its side-effects) the weight has to stay off and I need to lose even more.

I would suggest SparkPeople as a website to help anyone working to lose weight. For me, the daily emails remind me to think about my health and track what eat.

Learn how to sell an idea

I have some ideas, ideas which could help me and my company, but I have a hard time selling these to management. I need to learn how to do this, otherwise 2010 will be as frustrating as 2009.

Improve my own organization

I have made attempts before but have fallen off the organization wagon, so here we go again. I am moving more of my information into the cloud, mainly into Evernote, allowing me to access information from anywhere I have an net connection. My todo list is being organized in toodledo, again to allow me access and reminders from home, the office, and my iPhone.

There are a few more, but are private. I want to be transparent, but still somethings should be held close to the vest. Being transparent is one thing, making others transparent is something different.

working for a living

2009-12-23T20:44:00.000-06:00

For now this is a bit of place holder, while I try and tie all these thoughts together, but here is a great talk on the value of work. Just plain work

http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.html

Fuzzy Data

2009-11-29T20:01:00.000-06:00

Viewing post on one of my favorite websites, Flowing Data, I came across an interesting post.

The first is a ranking of food recipes being searched on the day before Thanksgivings. It contains a set of 50 maps of the US, and each shows a trinary representation of frequency (below, average, above) of search. What is interesting is how closely it relates to my expectations of what will be served on Thanksgiving. I guess my family in mid-America (Missouri) is just normal, and for that I am thankful.

Healthy pain

2009-08-23T19:11:00.003-05:00

Started working out a couple weeks of ago, walking every day. Yesterday, I started with trainer, and well, now I am must be getting healthier because boy do arms hurt. Walking, bike riding, and weights, are all parts of my daily life.

So for 7 continuous days making it to the gym, and 6 days without caffeine, also not part of the new me.

Finally Google

2009-07-24T08:34:00.003-05:00

Thank you Google for a few things,
(1) I now have google voice
(2) Latitude is on my iphone
(3) The moon is on Google Earth
(4) and hopefully I'll be a beta tester for Google Wave

Just some tidbits

2009-07-06T09:42:00.000-05:00

Just passing along some interesting tidbits I found this weekend, both web related.

(1) Sun is offering a free white paper on cloud computing. It is, as expected a bit basis towards Sun w/ MySQL, but is does provide a good definition of what cloud computing can and cannot due. Search the Sun site for "Introduction to Cloud Computing Architecture", provide some contact information, then it is free download.

(2) From the Gooogle Earth Blog,, a handy way to share a location, http://www.earthurl.org allows you to create a short URL to a place on Google Earth. I guess it is a TinyURL for Google Earth, here is an example from D.C.

DAZ 3D Studio Start

2009-06-20T14:32:00.000-05:00

I have purchased and installed DAZ Studio, and have been struggling with content management. Thank the maker for cellarstudio3d.com, they have a great video series of videos on getting started. Hopefully, I will successfully create some art for this rather plan blog.

Now I have to find some time to do this stuff.

Programming thoughts found on the Web

2009-06-02T13:53:00.000-05:00

Some thoughts for the day care of S. Lott

* "Quick And Dirty == Guaranteed Rework"

* "He Who Codes First Loses"

* "Think Once -- Code Twice"

* "Admin's Law: It's Always Permissions"

* "Programmer's Law: If it's not permissions, it's the path"

* "If it seems hard, you're doing it wrong"

* "One-Off == The First of Many"

* "Requirements Translation: Never == Rarely, Always == Mostly"

* "Things Change: Generalize and Parameterize

Happy Earth Day

2009-04-21T08:40:00.000-05:00

This weekend, between the rain drops I mowed my yard. I am not the green thumb, play in the dirt, perfect lawn kind of guy, so mowing is a chore. While mowing, one question did come up.

Why, in the week of Earth Day, am I mowing the lawn with a dirty, polluting, gasoline engine, tossing green house gasses into the air, while I am systematically removing the very part of plants that could cleans it from the air?

Sometime ago it was decided by the powers that be, marketing, that every suburban yard should look perfect, with mowing, watering, and chemicals, to create a clean green carpet. Maybe we should put our mowers away and not care about how our yard looks to someone else.

Of course, maybe this is just looking for a reason to not mow.

Now I have considered the go natural approach recommended by some, especially in the Southwest, where the desert climate means you should not be pouring tons of water into your yard, just for Kentucky blue grass. The problem is that I live in the Midwest, near major rivers, where the natural habitat would be forest (which I do love) and maybe some prairie grass. All I have to do is let nature take its course and before long I would live in a nice field of tall grass. Cool! Well except for the wildlife which would move in to stay, bugs, raccoon, opossums, etc., and then I have the problem of my dogs and kid getting bitten, worrying about West Nile and rabies.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't, but what else is new. Maybe when my daughter gets older I'll switch to an old fashion push mower, with no engine, and make her cut the grass.

GrandPa

2009-02-17T09:06:00.001-06:00

My grandfather on my father's side of the family passed away before I was born. I knew he ran a service station but never new much more about it.

It appears that my brother found a photo of it in a recent home town paper.

View Larger Map

A bit lost

2009-02-17T09:03:00.000-06:00

I have been overwelmed as of late, too many things do too soon, to the point that I am not getting anything done. I have used remember the milk, but with limited success. Now I am moving on to toodledo, lets hope it works better.

The idea of goals with subtask may make things easier. It is a start.

pleasing the eyes

2009-02-02T19:11:00.026-06:00

I have been looking for ways to get more people at work to use Python. Lots of Perl hacks there, so the sale has not been too easy. The best approach may be the old marketing approach, eye candy.

Where I work is a conservative group of math and computer geeks, so while a normal eye candy would work, but would not be appreciated by management, so I have found the following works okay:

These are from matplotlib http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/

I hope to post some examples of matplotlib generated from Python in the near future. I have some orbital paths go generated for school, and I may try that in Python/Numpy.

2009-01-17T20:37:00.001-06:00

Well writing a blog, using twitter, and setup a facebook page, and have been using linked-in for a while. Hummm, what next on my be social networking agenda?

breath

2009-01-17T17:52:00.004-06:00

Started playing with Adobe Air applications, TweetDeck and Agile Agenda, and love the installation and integration. I think Adobe may have finally a light way platform which does what Java seemed to promise. I am not bad mouthing Java, as I have written many and used many more Java applications, I just think Adobe has done a cool job.

It does not hurt that tweekdeck is a great twitter interface and a good reason to install Adobe Air.

Distractions of homework

2009-01-15T20:22:00.000-06:00

Well it is Spring of 2009, and my GPS Positioning class has started at Purdue. It is the first time with this instructor, Dr. van Gelder, so I am at the panic stage trying to figure out what and how he wants his assignments turned in. So far the homework has been okay, a brief introduction so he knows a bit about the class and small MATLAB program to do 3D rotations.

So I have this little bit of programming to do, (the intro was already email out, as it was due today), so I could sit down get things done. Well except, I go my 3D Connexion mouse today, and well I do have play with it a bit. You know to verify it all works and all that.

Also, well to have better integration with the MS Word world I live in, I purchased Apple's iWork09 yesterday, and while it does not support my 3D mouse, it does have lots of pretty template and gee-wiz features to play with. I did realized shortly after buying iWork, Google Docs or Open Office could be used as well, yet I would not get all the cool templates, then again it was a bit for eye candy.

Well what other distractions are there. Well have not been in Second Life lately, and hey that support the 3D mouse. Maybe I should spend some time verify it? Hmm, well I only watched my Christmas present, Blade Runner, once. Maybe I should study its awesome lighting a bit more?

Well I did need to update my blog, and well I guess I have almost finished that... I guess after the Christmas break it is just hard to get into the whole school thing again. Guess I am lucky that I only one class, well and the place I have go during the day to make money.

Oh can I start complaining about source control, but I did that all day at the office, and guess I do not want to do that again.

Hmm, homework? Maybe tomorrow.

BTW a 80's nerd note, both @levarburton and @brentspiner are twitting now. If you don't know who they are, well this message is not for you.

1827 days

2009-01-11T14:06:00.000-06:00

I know its 11 days past the beginning of the year, and that is when everyone takes a moment to look back, but five years ago our child move in to our home. We are technically legal guardians, looking after an orphan. A girl by the age of six had lost both parents to cancer, and was moved 800 miles from her home to start a new. In all but legal title we are her parents, and are very proud of her.

It is amazing to see someone who has seen so much so soon be able to move on, worrying about friends, playing pokemon, and throwing fits about homework. I am amazed at how well she and children in general can adapt.

I keep my private life private, so there is not much more to say, except kids are exceptional, and full of optimism. I guess they were not, the human race would have died out a long time ago.

Just remember, "pokemon, you have to collect them all"

Trac

2009-01-07T10:57:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I experimented with Trac, from Edgewall.org, and was I pleased. Installation on my windows PC was painless, using Python 2.5.4 and sqlite database, especially since sqlite is included in the Python distribution.

The actual configuration of the server took some time, as I seemed to miss the whole authentification of user step. Once I had that sorted out, using a .htpasswd file, andthen some of the normal foward vs backward slash issues on Windows. It started up and I was able to get to the admin page (hint: the first login for TRAC-ADMIN is created via the command line, trac-admin executable).

Once the system was up and running, configuration of milestones, tickets, severity codes was very easy. One the eaiser web interfaces I have used.

It worked so well, I am thinking that I could you it for my own project tracking, keeping track of all my to do and project list, from house repairs to some CAP website stuff I should do. I kind of like the whole dumping my random "I should" ideas in as tickets and building projects from that. Now I just need to find a free trac setup on the web, so I can access it from anywhere. I guess I could also just get a domain and a cheap plan from Webfaction. Hmm.

Time will tell if the company uses Trac, its not an issue of technology as much as office politics, but then again when is that not the case.

spirit guide?

2009-01-06T08:30:00.000-06:00

The raven or crow. I ponder if either would be my spirtial guide. Thanks to the Manataka American Indian Council for the reference material.

If the robot's win, we will have to listen to techno

2009-01-05T19:56:00.000-06:00

Catch line from Maldroid, "Heck No! I'll Never Listen To Techno", a cool video done all in light-brights.
I found it on babelgum, another tv on computer site. So far, its pretty good, watch a old PBS show of Soviet Propaganda. Wow the Soviet's new who to twist the truth. I often wondered why a parent would fear their child. Well the Soviet propaganda made me worry about. See the story of Pavlik Morozov.

technically, it counts a working towards a resolution

2009-01-03T21:50:00.000-06:00

Well what a bloody hell of a week, welcome 2009. With stomach flu, a bunch of people out of their routines, and sitting two dogs, who one of our dogs appears to really dislike, this has been a long week. Now a new year has started, so I guess its time for a fresh start.

As part of my resolutions, the one to be a bit more positive, got skype and my watcom table working on the new mac, Vikings are still in the playoffs (well they have not played yet, so technically, yes), and my parents got a good laugh at the story of the dog sitting. They did it last week.

Well I could write more, this just this small amounts counts towards my other goal of blogging more.

ICS700

2008-12-28T22:47:00.001-06:00

Well one thing is done, due before then end of year, for the Civil Air Patrol Emergency Service rating, all CAP emg. service members must pass the ICS 700 online class, NIMS (National Incident Management System) Introduction. After a couple hours of study and plenty of slides, I passed the test on my first attempt.

I know watching TV news it seems that there is not a plan when a disaster happens, but all those folks running around, actually are following a well thought out plan. It is chaotic, and like with war, all plans work until they are in use, but there is a reason, and a big picture being managed. All those responders are doing what they do to help people, and that is something we are all lucky to have.

Now that reminds me, I need to make a donation to BackStoppers.

zero time, zero longitude

2008-12-28T19:26:00.000-06:00

you never know what you will learn.

I have often wondered why UTM, and the 0 longitude were at Greenwich England. I would have assumed Paris would be he center of time and space, considering they hold the official metric baseline objects (plus its the French)

Now I may have an answer, while maybe not correct, it does make sense to me. All of this from watching History International's Engineering an Empire.

1. There is a great fire at Windsor Castle
2. The British rebuild the castle complex, and add a large clock.
3. The large clock, with its bell, Big Bend, have the requirement of only gaining or losing one second every twenty-four hour day.
4. To verify the accuracy, the time had to be telegraphed to the Greenwich observatory, which I would assume would validate the time, using the old sun over head trick. Which after all is the definition of a solar day.

Now add the following information

6. At this period of history, the Sun never set on the British Empire. There were British colonies around the globe.
7. To control the empire, the British ran telegraph lines to the various parts of the world.
8. Within a couple of minutes, the clocks in all colonies could be synced to Big Bend, via telegraph.
9. When you compare your clock to someone else's, either could be correct, but if you can claim your clock is synced with the rest of the world, well your clock has a bit more "truth" to it.
10. The different clock problem is encountered often at this time in history by the need to sync time between places, just to keep the trains on time. If you can provide a globally synced time, your trains can run on a schedule that works over great distances, including across international borders.

So the British end up setting the worlds' clocks. Since time is really just a distance, when it comes to slicing the world into 360 degrees of longitude, why not put the zero mark where time is zero.

My question has an answer. I live near -90 degrees of longitude, due to a fire in a place I have never been too.

2008-12-28T14:38:00.000-06:00

well spent a day being moody about what I did not achieve in 2008. Got tired of being around myself, so I know my family hated it.

Well 2008 is almost over, so to hell with it. Onto 2009, so it is time to start thinking of goals, start to look forward.

Simply my goals so far include (in no particular order):

Stay employed
Take my GRE to get officially into the Purdue Master's program
Catch up on my Civil Air Patrol task, including the squadrons website and supply officer duties
Survive my daughter's eleven year

More to come.

Finally a note to VW, do you think you could possibly make the battery of a beetle even harder to change?

bootcamp and vmware

2008-12-20T13:58:00.000-06:00

vmware's vmfusion is something I like more and more.

Last night I installed bootcamp on the mac. After a few minutes of freak'n out, here are some lessons learned. Maybe they will help some other fool, but then again who reads instructions.

When you are installing Windows, make sure you format the bootcamp created Windows partition, DO NOT leave it as is. I did leave it alone and ended up looking at a non-system disk error after Windows tried to reboot. Apple seems to suggest that FAT32, instead NTFS, so I took FAT32.
Don't register your version of Windows till the very end, after you install vmware tools, or you will be like me and on the phone explaining why you went thought the three installs your Windows installation disk allow. But to give M$ there due, they were very nice helpful on the phone.
If a your are stuck with the Windows CD/DVD in the laptop drive. Holding down the eject button on the keyboard while cycling the power will eventually eject the disk. It may take a couple tries.
To get back to OSX, hold the "alt/option" key while cycling power. It will give a boot choice.
That darn Windows boot chime can be upsetting when you having problems.

Once you have vmfusion installed, be a true geek and get you a couple virtual vm appliances with linux distros.

Panadora

2008-12-17T20:25:00.000-06:00

Okay, okay, I am behind the times, but trying to catch up.

Just started using Pandora and well it rock. Now I can listen to The Donna's and find other great music. If you saw knew me, you'd be laughing if you thought I would be a Donna's fan, but why not. I am too old and bitter to care.

For the few who do not know, Pandora is streaming radio service, in which your thumbs up or down helps it determine what song to play next. So in theory if the more the music you like and rate the more you get. So far its pretty, so good.

Speaking of trying new things, (don't worry this is a "G" rated comment), at they office they are rolling out Office 2007, and I am surprised at the resistance. Personally I think its cool (yes office can be cool) so I volunteered for a beta tester. I can't imagine everyone not doing that. I talked to the IT department this afternoon and said, "sure install it, no problem, worse case I have an excuse not to do anything for the rest of year". I feel sorry for the IT department, its not an easy job, and I know they get lots more blame the complements.

You know its early but mark that clean desk calendar's last day of July as SysAdminDay . They deserve it, plus if you tick them off they will block the pandora website.

Python picture

2008-12-11T10:25:00.000-06:00

just love this image, thanks to ars tech

A test geotagged entry

2008-12-11T10:20:00.000-06:00

This blog is really just a test of the new geotagging option in the http://draft.blogger.com, I will make a longer blog entry later, when I am off the company's dime.

new .mac

2008-12-09T08:40:00.000-06:00

hmm, already behind in my blogging. Anway I am now a mac person, running a mac pro 15inch laptop at home. Kool. I have it up and running, with some important apps like matlab and firefox installed. Also have vmfusion running, with ubuntu image, so I am now trying to the mac and linux installs ready for use.

The mac is a bit different, but I think I am starting to get the hang of it. Well I should get back to what I have to do, at least its on linux at the office.

P3K

2008-12-04T12:05:00.000-06:00

Yeah Python 3000, time start ( ) my prints

.mac soon

2008-12-04T08:52:00.001-06:00

I already twitted this, but I am just so happy that my new laptop is out of the factory and in the caring hands of FedEx. My time to switch is getting closer. This will be nice, pretty hardware, bsd based, running vmfusion so I can bounce between OS X, Windows, Red Hat, and Suse.

dropbox

2008-12-01T19:21:00.000-06:00

Well after having to go through all sorts of loops to get my homework off my old computer, I took it work on a thumb drive, since I wanted to print off the code. In a rush to get home, I left the darn thumb drive plugged into the computer.

Arg, okay, I have now signed up for DropBox and moving my gosh darn files to the freak'n cloud. Dropbox is nice as it has clients which work on windows, linxu, and mac (my new hardware, please apple ship it soon), as well as a web interface.

I have only pushed a couple files around, but it seems to do what I need. Thanks to LifeHacker for the comparison chart of on-line storage.

Now, I have to sort out how to get the inverse chi2 cdf inside of Numpy. With that, I can do my error estimation and get this homework done. I till have 24 hours, so I should be okay.

Moving to a mac

2008-12-01T08:25:00.000-06:00

Well it was a ugly Sunday, my custom built PC tower decided it had enough. It now likes to restart whenever it feels like it, with very little warning.

So Santa is coming early, and I am switching to a mac. I'd like to give you a long list of why it is better then a PC, but its more likely that it has to do with geek cred more the technical attributes. Actually, I plan to run vmfusion, giving me a way to switch between mac, PC, and the true geek os, linux.

I though about buy a laptop and just installing linux on it, but decided there are some apps I use for school where linux could cause a headache. Someday I'll get an eee or similar, for that native linux feel.

With this crash, the big issue was rescuing my homework, due Tuesday. When I have more time, I plan to use my maddog external drive box, where I can place an internal drive within it and then an use it externally, then snarf up the other stuff.

While it sucks, I did learn a few things

(1) I have a wonderful wife for encouraging me to spend more and go mac, just because I wanted to. (I new this already, but its nice to know she has not changed).

(2) I lost access to MATLAB, but on the alt pc I am using, found that NumPy/Python/IPython can handle the work I need.

(3) Need to find a cloud storage solution besides just emailing zip files around. Not for everything, but for those few critical files. I'd like to find on where I could access the cloud drive just like any other drive. I know they are out there, just have to do some searching.

I just just it proves, you learn from good and bad. I just wish I could learn the problem in my General Least Square solution, for the homework due tomorrow.

2008-11-27T09:16:00.000-06:00

Wow, my second post, its the Thanksgiving Holiday in my part of the world, so I will probably take a break from blogging. :)

But before I go to family events, I would like to thank God and the universe, for

My wife, sole mate, love of my world.

My daughter, who shows me the wonder of the world, when seen through young eyes.

My parents and brother and sister and their families.

My inlaws who are supportive.

My employer, GeoEye, for the chance to write interesting code, learn new things, and hang out with smart people, while paying me to do it.

My friends, who get me through the day.

Google and their suite of software.

Guido van Rossum and the whole Python community for making programming fun.

Twitter for listen to the world, without getting up.

NPR, which does not talk down to me.

Steven Colbert, because of his fight against the bear invasion :-) (Mr. Colbert, do I win anything for mention you?)

and especially all those men and women who are now and have in past put themselves in harms way to give me this life.

On these days of thanks, please remember those who server, make a donation to the USO or other organization to help these kids out. They are doing it for you.

Happy Thanksgiving

welcome

2008-11-27T09:10:00.000-06:00

Well, I decided to do this blog thing again, see if I can find enough information to keep it going. I guess this is 4th blog. One work, but I stopped when I stopped working with its topic (PL/SQL). Two withered away due to lack of posts. So lets start the fourth.