Lost Sweater
Nikon D70 || Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D || 1/60 || f/1.8 || ISO200 || Handheld
Someone had left their sweater at the desk I sat down at. She later came and picked it up as the library was closing.
School
Murder by PowerPoint
In my Constitutional Law and Civil Rights class, we’re doing student presentations on Supreme Court Justices. There are 32 people in the class and in about 3 hours, we managed to get through 10 of them. That means that I’m going to be forced to sit with my eyelids glued open critiquing about nine hours of PowerPoints!
Holy crap.
Fortunately they haven’t been terribly atrocious, yet. My biggest pet peeves when it comes to PowerPoint presentations are:
- Horrible theme/background – is it really that hard to use something nice?
- Long, run on sentences and paragraphs that go on and on and on for no reason other then to just fill up the space of the slide and really provide no other reason and then tend to irritate the reader because the presenter is talking and I’m trying to read the slide but I can’t because it’s so freakin’ long. Six Words Per A Slide, Maximum!1
- Small font that no one can see. There’s a reason that Microsoft provides you with 24 pt font. Use it.
- Reading off the slide…word for word. Just don’t do it, okay? I’m not a preschooler; I assure you that I can read.
- Thus, under no circumstances should anyone ever have a slide that looks like this:
This is a real life example from today that I recreated for your viewing pleasure.
1 I actually usually have more then six words per a slide in my presentations. I’m trying to cut back, I promise. But the patch isn’t working like they said it would. And the professors limit the amount of slides you can have. So I’d end up having 6 x 20 = 120 words. Total. Not going to cut it.
CSM Wellness Day
It’s been three years since I went the CSM Wellness Day events and been checked out. I figure this would be a good year to see how my health is doing:
- 15.6% Body Fat – This is ideal for my age, gender, and weight
- 4.54 Liters Forced Expiratory Volume (amount of air exhaled in the first one second) – 104% of predicted
- 5.73 Liters Forced Vital Capacity (lung capacity) – 113% of predicted
- Ratio of FEV1/FVC – 74% of predicted (this means I have trouble getting air out of my lungs)
- Fusional Ranges:
- 21.12 BI Break (Normal: >= 10 diopters) – Pass
- 12.86 BI Recovery (Normal: >= 6 diopters) – Pass
- 40.41 BO Limit Without Break (Normal: >= 20 diopters) – Pass
- 40.41 BO Recovery (Normal: >= 16 diopters) – Pass
- Accommodative Facility
- Right Correct: 100.00% (Normal: >= 80%) – Pass
- Left Correct: 100.00% (Normal: >= 80%) – Pass
- Average Cycles/Minute: 30.17 (Normal: 12 Cycles/Minute) – Pass
I also have really, really flat feet. The flattest feet of the day so far with almost no arching. I have some basic arch support insoles for my shoes, but I may need to get some real, custom fitted ones.
I didn’t get my blood pressure checked this year, but every time I do I’ve always been told it’s excellent.
3rd Space Exploration Conference and Exhibition
The 3rd annual Space Exploration Conference and Exhibition was in Denver this year and we were invited to attend this invitation only event. One might think that invitation only events would be rather dull and highly boring, however I can easily say this was one of the best events I’ve ever been to.
NASA tasked Boeing with getting together the best of the best when it comes to space systems. And that’s what Boeing did.
When was the last time you stood next to America’s first liquid hydrogen fueled rocket engine, a Pratt and Whitney RL-10?
In fact, Boeing still uses the RL-10 in their Delta IV. And of the three major rocket engines used in America (Boeing’s Delta IV, Lockheed Martin’s Atlas V and NASA’s Space Shuttle Main Engines), all of them are made by Pratt and Whitney.
Lockheed Martin had a robot there, Sprocket D. Rocket. Now originally, I thought it was just a simple AI robot. But then I listened to it talk and interact with other people and I thought it was just a remote controlled robot with a human behind it all. Later, someone told me that people would ask it esoteric questions in foreign languages and it would respond. If this is the case, then it fooled me and successfully passed my Turing test.
The conference concluded with a panel of persons from all different aspects of the space industry, including a gentleman by the name of Pat Schondel who is the Vice President of Business Development for Boeing NASA Systems, a part of Boeing Integrated Defense Systems. After the panel was over, I went over and talked with him for a few minutes and picked his brain a bit about Boeing, what’s going in the space sector and internship opportunities in the in the space sector at Boeing.
Talking to Mr. Schondel turned out to be one of the highlights of my time since I’ve been trying find out about Boeing’s space interests for some time now, but Seattle really isn’t the place to do that. Mr. Schondel was able to fill in some gaps for me and give me the ever so slighest glimpse of what goes on down in Houston.
Lead Climb Testing
As I alluded to earlier, I’m in a climbing class at school. I’ve been climbing more and more over the last few years. Two summers ago I bought shoes and a chalk bag; last summer I bought a harness, locking carabiners, ATC (which actually stands for Air Traffic Control, but it’s a belay device), and some loops of webbing. See: Rappelling at Exit 38. I also started lead climbing over the summer and I really enjoyed it. Lead climbing is different from top roping in that you drag the rope up with you instead of having it already in place.
It’s provides a different kind of (relative) danger/excitement that keeps you safe while offering more of a challenge.
Our rock wall at school just started certifying students to lead on the wall. In order to pass, you have to climb a 5.9, take an unannounced fall (to test the lead belayer), and then complete the route.
Yesterday I decided to try for my certification. The route I chose was a 5.9+ with an overhang (I’ll try to get a picture of it at some point). I had climbed this particular route several times before and even mock lead it earlier.
I went up about six quickdraws and took my unannounced fall.
Falling while lead climbing is very interesting. I’ve had my share of falls while leading and they’re always…interesting. You end up falling quite a ways, maybe three or meters on average because you’re almost always climbing above your last quickdraw. So you fall at least twice the distance your are above your last quickdraw. Then there’s usually some amount of slack in the line, so add that on. And finally the rope is a dynamic, which means that it will stretch a bit as you fall.
Having a dynamic rope is a necessity as it pretty much breaks your fall and makes for a nice and relatively soft recovery, making for an exerience nothing like you’d expect.
After getting back on to the wall, I continued my climb up again. And fell again (on accident) while doing the reach-up on the overhang. I blame that on the fact that I had already been climbing for 2.5 earlier that day. I finally did make it to the top and hooked into the anchors. And that’s when I made by fatal failing mistake.
I Z-clipped the anchor:
From www.indoorclimbing.com:
Z-clipping happens when the climber grabs the rope under the last clipped quickdraw. In other words, on the rope going to the belayer. Then attempts to clip the next protection using that rope. This usually happens when protection is close together.
I got back down to the bottom and we discussed it. I wasn’t too disappointed because I did get to lead climb. I signed the form stating that I failed (which is on record until I pass). I can try again the next day (i.e. today), but my arms (specifically my deltoids) are pretty sore.
Forward to time index +0:20 to see what a lead climb fall looks like. Also note that this guy is doing an announced fall (i.e. his belayer knows that he’s going to fall) compared to our required unannounced fall:
SAAS Problem of the Week Quiz Decoder
Script that figures out the answers to SAAS POTW Quiz’s. As a note, this is only the processing end. In order for the script to work, you will need to build a front end.
<?
error_reporting (E_ERROR | E_WARNING | E_PARSE);
$httpfile = $_POST['httpfile'];
$userfile = $_POST['userfile'];
if($httpfile != NULL){
$textarea = file_get_contents($httpfile);
}
else{
$textarea = file_get_contents($_FILES['userfile']['tmp_name']);
}
echo "1. ";
$t = 2;
$length = strlen($textarea);
for($i = 0; $i < $length; $i++){
if(($textarea[$i-1].$textarea[$i]) == "l["){
while($textarea[$i+1].$textarea[$i+2] != ",#"){
$i++;
echo $textarea[$i];
}
$i++;
if($t > 10){
die();
}
echo "$t. ";
$t++;
}
}
?>
Note: This was code that I originally had in a ‘Code’ page, but I’m moving it to a post now. This code is probably really old (years and years old). I enjoy laughing at myself and so should you.
My Ticket Out: Undergraduate Application to Graduate
I’ve completed more then 90 credit hours and thus I’ve reached the point at my time at Mines when I can submit my Undergraduate Application to Graduate. It’s actually a pretty simple form. Two sides. Takes less then five minutes to fill out. I envisioned it being a climactic event with my paperwork undergoing rigorous scrutiny.
It wasn’t.
The registrar asked how she could help.
I said that I was turning in my Undergraduate Application to Graduate.
I handed my form over and she quickly looked at both sides, proclaimed that it looked complete and stamped it with her giant “Paperwork Received” stamp.
I hope the actual graduation ceremony is more exciting than this.
Final Grades
Grades for this semester are in. Drum roll please:
Fluid Mechanics: B
Digital Logic: A
Advanced Engineering Math: B
Information Systems: D
Engineering Circuit Analysis: B
GPA for this semester: 2.875
Cumulative GPA: 2.615
This brings me to 94.5 earned hours which officially makes me a senior. Three more semester left.
Circuits Final
I finished my circuits final on Sunday night at 9:30 pm. There are five problems are on the take home exam and it took me about 9 hours of work to get the entire thing done. That’s almost two hours per a problem. So much so that I decided to document my entire exam here for posterity.
So here it is: My Fall 2007 Engineering Circuit Analysis Take Home Final.
One note I would like to make. The last problem turned out to be very easy since there was an example in the book, almost. In the example, there was an extra resistor (R3) that connected to ground that is not present in the exam. However, I figured that if I put a resistor in there anyway and it’s resistance infinite, it would allow me to use the equations from the book. The Lazy Genius.