TheJonas: February 2008

Duty Calls!

WWRFD?

What would Richard Feynman do?

The Hottie and the Nottie by Kevin Guilfoile & John Warner

The Hottie and the Nottie by Kevin Guilfoile & John Warner

From the page: "Except I don't know anyone who sincerely believes that Paris Hilton is good-looking--anyone studying her with honest eyes would admit she has a face like a Horton and a body like a Who. "

This page is tearing me up...

This about Mit Romney:
"He was a flip-flopping plastic creep who once strapped his dog to the roof of his car..."

Awesome Stuff!
Consider:
Barack Obama's speech probably does not meet the definition of "plagiarism," but Hillary Clinton's speeches clearly meet the definition of "cockblocking."

Absolutely incredible.

Of McCain:
"John McCain is one of the worst public speakers I've ever seen, including George W. Bush and Flava Flav. I'm talking like early-round American Idol-contestant bad."

A good page for a good laugh.

Some Stuff to think about

Not for those offended by obscenity. You were warned.

These ideas have all be around for a long time, but not put together in quite this way.

The comments are enlightening though, in terms of what makes people angry, what gets attention, etc.

Also nice is that alphabitch responds frequently and artfully to comments.

Aurora with lit DVE tent

Troop movements

Lengthy convoy on Hwy 49 south of Camp Shelby.

edit: Reviewing this post on a full size PC (rather than mobile) I see my fears were confirmed. You can't tell ANYTHING about the vehicles in the picture. So, to clarify, each of the headlights in the pics above extending (in the top) on around the curve in the distance and blurring together, is a military vehicle of some sort. Mostly hummers with .50 cals mounted on top. Several other various transports. The ones in the left lane were obviously riding escort. You see these fairly often down here, but this one was lengthy even by local standards, extending for miles.

I need to work on my camera skills. /edit

Jonas Bull

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What I'm listening to these days...

The latest (according to iTunes):
10-Aerosmith
9- The Church
8- Paramore
7- Indigo Girls (Still!)
6- Hinder
5- Bad Religion
4- Three Days Grace
3- Saliva
2- Papa Roach
1- My Chemical Romance

Side Trip

On my way to another engagement I realized that I was quite early. I decided to put the time to use exploring with GPS.

I found a little side road that didn't actually seem at all interesting. I did see a sign which mentioned a detour, but it was ambiguously marked and wouldn't have deterred me anyway.

I soon discovered a heretofore unglimpsed (by me) railroad spur. Nearby I found the foundation of an old switching station, now being used to dump deer carcasses.

Further in I encountered a pile of dirt covering the road. This is often used to more or less permanently prevent use of the road. This encouraged me to explore further. A quick bounce and I was over.

The road narrowed and was in a deeper state of disrepair. I eventually found the bridge which was closed but still standing. I was running out of time, but walked the bridge to check it out. It seemed fairly stable as closed deathtraps go. So... Turn back or press on? Yeah right! Onward! I eased out onto the bridge which held my weight but I didn't wait around. I hit the (much higher) dirt pile blocking the other end resulting in red clay dirt all over my truck, but a successful
traverse of the death-bridge.

Jonas Bull

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Front porch: Now with Columns!

finished installing new columns wed night.

Jonas Bull

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Feeling alone and unloved?

http://www.markfiore.com/node/958

Later on...

Jack's comment on seeing his room: "I love it!"

Of course his favorite part is the closet/wardrobe which wasn't changed at all.

We (jack included) watched the space shuttle and ISS flyover tonight. No point trying to get pics, it would just look like stars at best.

Jonas Bull

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What I did this weekend pt II

Jonas Bull

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Comments

Oops! Comments were locked to registered google users up to today. This was a mistake. Until it becomes a problem, anonymous comments will be allowed.

Monday night...

..I painted this corner. And I remembered to check in to the ARES net.

Jonas Bull

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0.999...=bad mathematical education

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0.999

0.999... = 1

Right or wrong? An amazing number of people refuse to accept this equality. It just looks wrong, and despite assurances from the experts and proofs, some people just can't accept it.

This is such a classic example of why mathematics education is lacking, but critical, especially in the early grades.

It isn't that the experts are wrong (which really doesn't happen all that often) in making the equation but that you were TAUGHT wrong. Just like I was. The subject of mathematics is the most poorly taught and poorly understood by its instructors that you find. I have often felt horribly shortchanged by my own poor mathematical education. Not so much the naive misunderstandings of the early teachers, but the later ones who not only failed to understand, and failed to teach, but refused to brook any discontent with questions as to the underlying assumptions of what was being taught. Anyway.

The simplest proof of the equality is:

1/3=0.333...
3*1/3=1 = 3*0.333...=0.999...

Simple enough, right? But you still don't like it, right? Smells funny? There's a "trick" in there somewhere, right?

No, there isn't. The "trick" is in your mind.

Children intuitively understand numbers as fluid concepts, but of course have limited vocabulary and limited range of comprehension. So we teach them to isolate and categorize and make 1=1.

The problem, you see, isn't that the equality is an approximation (one of the common counter-arguments), it's that the entire system is an approximation. That doesn't mean it's wrong or even imprecise.

It just means 0.999...=1

The moon

The moon tonight looked pretty cool. I believe it's called a 'horned moon'.

I ried to take a picture and discovered a couple of things.

One: it's exceptionally difficult to take a good picture of the moon with a camera phone.

Two: as soon as you find the perfect spot for your picture, no matter how deserted, you will be overrun by people asking if you need help, blinking highbeams at you for some reason, or otherwise making a good night picture impossible.

Jonas Bull

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New porch deck finished

And for less cost!

It's a great place to play and relax!

Jonas Bull

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The only real measure of code quality

Voyager 2 Crosses Heliopause

Graphic Resistor Calculator

Not the only one I've seen, but it's neat.
http://cachefly.oreilly.com/make/resistor_calc/index.html

Anyone who's had kids...

http://www.womensfunnyvideos.com/funny-pictures/stop-yelling.jpg

Another facet of my own thesis...

...that younger generations are increasingly moving toward a participatory society rather than the authoritarian society we have grown up with can be found here:

Will Cell Phones Save Books?

Weekend project

We decided to go ahead and repair the front porch on our house. This repair has been long needed. The new porch will have 5/4 board replacing 5/8 plywood sections-many of which were deteriorated tovthe point of being unsafe.

Moreover, two of the brick pilings were either damaged or needed to be reseated.

We started Saturday about noon ripping out the old plywood. This took much longer than expected and it was getting late by the time we started laying the new deck.

Various problems were encountered, including a length miscalculation. We needed more lumber than we thought and on Sunday drove to Home Depot for more.

We had originally paid about 5.50 ea for 12ft boards at a local Jack's store. HD had 10ft boards for 5.87. Surprise, more expensive at the big box! Then we were charged 8.37 at checkout! That additiion was corrected, but we still paid more for less at HD.

Here are a couple of pix of the half finished deck as of Sunday night.

Jonas

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