Labor day.

Labor Day, schmabor day. here's why I hate it:

1. It's pointless. It was originally designed as a holiday to celebrate the lower and middle classes for their hard labor.... by giving them a day off. Now, low-wage employees (except for government workers like me)don't get the day off, while less deserving high-wage people do. duh.


2. It's making my package late. It left Watsonville - south of San Francisco - on Tuesday - great! By Wednesday morning, it left Sacremento. And since noon Wednesday it's been " in transit" in Reno. It's provably sitting in a warehouse and won't arrive till Tuesday. If there wasn't labor day, it would either be here already or Monday. comeon, Fedex, update the tracking.grrr


3. It makes school go one day longer in the summer.


4. My dad had two tickets for yesterday's OSU game, but he didn't want to fly on Labor Day weekend. Now he's going in october with one of his buddies.

Also, I flew a couple of model rockets today. One worked, two didn't. Film at 11.

Telescope!! Part I

Well, I finally went ahead and bought a telescope. It's a big lug, an 8" (203mm) Dobsonian from Orion.

I also bought:

• A laser collimator, so I can align the mirrors (called collimating)


• A 9x50 finderscope, to point the telescope where I want it


• A zoom eyepiece



• A barlow lens to double the magnification



• A skyglow filter to make it easier to see stuff in these light-polluted skies, plus two colored filters and a moon filter

Hopefully, that astronomy gobbledegook should be understandable to you muggles mortals minions non-astronomical people.

Can humans run a loop?

Well, partially. Here's how: For some strange reason, an object like a rollercoaster car must be dropped from 2.7 times the radius of the loop in order to complete the loop, as explained here. The instantaneous velocity of a falling object is (16t²)', or 32t. Since an object falls 16t² ft in t seconds, h=16t².
h=2.7r
v=32t
∴ 16t²=2.7r
t=v/32
∴ 16⋅v²/1024=2.7r
∴ 2.7r=v²/64
∴ r=v²/172.8
To convert from mph to fps, multiply by 22/15.
So... at 26.7 mph, the fastest recorded human speed, Maurice Greene can run around a loop over 17 feet high. If someone can hit 30 mph going down a hill, then they can make it around a 22 ft loop. Even an average joe chugging at 15 (down a ramp maybe?), then they can have a reasonable 11 ft loop. Those numbers are the diameter, by the way.Status: Plausible.

JUST KIDDING - I just found this - same idea and conclusion, but different (and correct) physics. Oops.

Little News

Minor reports that didn't make it into yesterday's kingdom status:

• I actually got up pretty early this morning at 8:50 when mandachan called.
• My current, rather interesting playlist:
  • King Crimson - a 1970s alt rock band. Unknown but great.
  • Juanes - a modern Spanish rocker
  • Dropkick Murphys - awesome Boston Irish punk band
  • Black Sabbath - weird but awesome
• I'm up to 74275 in my upcoming 7400 series list. If you have any information on the following chips, drop me a line.
  • 74200 and 74201 and 74206 256-bit RAMs
  • 74209 1024-bit RAM
  • 74210 octal buffer
  • 74227 and 74228 16x4 FIFOs
  • 74232 Quad NOR
  • 74270 and 74271 2048-bit ROMs
  • 74274 4x4 binary multiplier
  • 74275 Wallace tree
• If anyone has a bunch of 4000 series or 7400 series chips to sell me, or even sees this this blog, please drop me a line.

Various News

Much news from around the kingdom:

• First, I am up to #10 if you google search 'the amateur geek' without quotations. I am #1 if you use quotations. 'JEDEC 3N' gives me first.


• I have reached up to 74141 on my upcoming 7400 series list. I intend for it to be even more complete than Wikipedia's list. If you have any information on the following, please let me know:
  
  • 7424 Quad 2-input NAND w/ Schmitt trigger line-receiver inputs
  
  
  • 7431
  
  
  • 7458-59 Dual 4-bit counters
  
  
  • 7463
  
  
  • 7479 Dual D Flip-flop
  
  
  • 7481 16-bit RAM
  
  
  • 7484 16-bit RAM
  
  
  • 7498-99 4-bit universal shift registers
  
  
  • 74118-19 hex RS latches
  
  
  • 74135 quad 2-input XOR/NOR
  
  
• So, the general idea is that the CD prefix(i.e. CD4001, etc) stands for CMOS Digital. Eh, not so. I have several CD23xx parts that are DTL parts equivalent to the common 930 series.


• I like my job! I am now officially the page at Gales Ferry Library. w00t.

Adios.

I am the Oracle!!

Okay, okay, no more oblique Nethack references. However, I can now tell your operating system, version of windows, and version of your internet browser with just about 100 lines of Javascript.
Blogger won't let you use Javascript in your postings, so it's implemented in my sidebar.

You better be impressed!!!!