...Too Quiet

So things have been quiet for a while...too quiet.

Perhaps that means there is something epic in the works? Unlikely. Or is it?!

No, let's call it what it is: lazy. But even that's not it. It's not that I've been lazy. I've been distracted. There have already been several occasions where I've sat down to start writing something and then get distracted by something else. Only this tends to happen all the time. Or I sit there and stare at a blank page and wonder what to write. And then just start to type. Much like I've done here. Just rambling, searching for a topic, trying to avoid stupid, annoying, topics like politics. Which is even more difficult and annoying what with both parties having their conventions. Big parties that only make them both look stupider as they chant about how "we're better than the other party because of what we stand for and screw them we're not going to work with them on anything ever. Also screw the rest of America because we only care about ourselves." Dammit, here I go. Seriously though. As many opinions as I have on how much the politics of today is so beyond anything that we've ever seen in this country that's not what I want to turn this into.

Rather I would like to turn this to be a forum for the discussion of random topics. Topics such as the merits of various types of cheese and recipes for meat pie. Oddly enough in an effort to research various recipes of meat pies I found myself intensely desiring a steak and kidney pie. I might have to venture to the market one of these days and obtain some stake and kidneys and put them in a pie and eat it. I don't think I've ever had steak and kidney pie, but I feel as if it's something I will enjoy. Also beef heart. I've heard delicious, delicious things about beef heart. Though I imagine it's one of those things you have to be careful not to overcook or you'd end up better off munching on a shoe.

The quest continues for an engineering job. I could bore you more with how job searching is never awesome. But I won't. Rather I'll just say that the quest continues. Like I already did. Though I will add that I've started grad school. So far just a single class at CSU, but the hope is to maintain the appearance of relevance. It's actually fun. I finished my first homework assignment in five years the other day and that felt pretty awesome too. At the very least I'll (hopefully) be able to show academic improvement if/when I reapply to the Air Force in February, which I'm told is the next non-rated bored I'll be eligible for.

Actually you know what's been pissing me off recently? This damn layout/color scheme/etc. I don't like it. But I don't know what to do about it. And I don't know how to pick a font. Seriously. I think I'm worse at picking out fonts then I am at picking out ties. And I have a hard time with ties. I realized Sunday getting dressed that I need a greater assortment of colors/patterns of ties to go with a greater assortment of shirts. Also I need more shirts. I'd really like to sit down and learn how to actually code a website, but it's been so long since I've even tried any of that I wouldn't know where to start. MySQL databases and pearl and crap like that that I've only heard other people talk about. Not sure I'll have any time this year so I'll have to stick to web tools and app things. But then again, with all the web tools and app stuff available these days is it even necessary to learn how to do the base stuff? I guess it depends on what you want to do. So I suppose I should figure that out first.

I need to get back into working out. I feel that will solve a lot of blah that I'm feeling right now. Actually school's helped with that because now I'm forced to study either for school or for the GRE which I'm taking wicked soon. Either way activity is probably a good thing. Though I do bike to class because parking around CSU (as it is in any city) is terrible. I actually was late to the first day of class and was about two minutes from giving up and trying again next semester when I finally came across a spot. Well, I probably would have just gone to the next class, but it was super annoying as I had gotten down there about 30 minutes early so I would have time. Now I bike.

So that's it. I'm done. This was officially the worst blog post I've posted thus far. You really should not have read it. Seriously. Go back an unread it. It's mindless dribble. And it's still going! You're still reading this! I know you are because you just read this! Seriously! Stop!

///END///

If it were just that we ended up mindless, would it even matter? How would we know to care?

My Favorite Math

For no reason at all on the drive into work the other day I started thinking about my favorite math. Not anything super complex, of which there is some, but simple single digit integer math. Also my favorite numbers.

Addition:

As it turns out, one of my favorite simple additions is 6 + 4 = 10. Seems simple enough, right? Well how about if I tell you that 6 and 4 are among my least favorite numbers? Odder still if I point out that 3 and 2 are among my favorite numbers. Yet 3 + 3 + 2 + 2 just seems...stupid. I like 7 + 3 = 10 as well, but 6 + 4 just seems cleaner. Though 3 and 7 are among my favorite (if not favorite) single digit integers. I'm also a big fan of 3 + 5 = 8.

Subtraction:

I am not currently aware of any single digit integer subtraction equations that I favor over others. Really I guess it would be the opposite of the ones listed above because they remind me of themselves though in practice, not really.

Multiplication:

I really enjoy 3 x 4 = 12, again, despite the 4. Probably some latent desire for base 12 math. Though 3 x 7 = 21 is probably tops. Expanding beyond single digit integers, 21 is probably one of my favorites. 4 x 4 =16 is pretty sweet despite there being two 4s in it. And who doesn't love multiplying things by 5? Multiplying by 10 is boring. Far to simple. I know people will argue that it's not much simpler than multiplying by 5, but 5 is just so much more fun. On a side note I have a condition where settings like volume, temperature and such must always be a factor of 2 or 5. I have a really hard time setting volumes to values that are not factors of 5, though depending on the resolution of the system I can sometimes tolerate factors of 2. This has occasionally lead to arguments with The Pietras wherein he will claim I am deaf when I turn the receiver up from 50 to 55 even though he was having difficulty understanding speech at the lower volume. It's not my fault his receiver has such a low resolution that a 10% increase in the value of the number results in a 120% increase in volume.

Division:

I've realized that I no longer think of division in the traditional sense. And by traditional sense I mean long division. Rather I think of it as factorization, which is the same I know, yet it is kind of different. I was discussing this with The Knut recently and we both agreed that division is the devil. It is the one thing you always try to avoid. It can ruin perfectly good calculations. It is the only operation capable of destroying reality. It is pure, unadulterated evil.

Other:
When you get to the higher order mathematics it becomes less how you feel about what's right in front of you and more how you feel about what it describes. I really enjoy the heat equation as well as the Navier-Stokes equations because they describe two of my favorite things: heat and fluids. There are other simpler equations too such as INT(1/x)=ln(x). That's pretty cool. I'm a much bigger fan of integrals than derivatives. Integrals are just so integral and derivatives are just so...boring. Though I do enjoy d/dx e^x=e^x. That's a lot of fun and a really easy go to when you're trying to look smart in front of people who don't math for a living. Unless they have some experience mathing and ask you for the proof...in which case I'd be screwed. Something about always being tangent to their curves? Or is that the pickup line?

No one can deny that e ^ (Pi(i)) = -1 is probably the most amazing thing ever and will probably be our best chance at salvation.

The Family You Never Had

Stock photography is a thing. A very blatant and obvious thing. Used by companies to make their web pages, brochures and advertisements make the simplest most mundane tasks look ridiculously exciting or utterly impossible. But it's not all advertising. Advertising is pretty clear. "Buy this product because then you will look like this beautiful model!" or whatever. Ever buy a picture frame? Who is that person? Where are they from? Do they have a history? Forever locked in this frame, the image of a fake family. Fake though? Fake for real? Or fake just to you? Or perhaps, even real to you?

I knew a girl once. Not unattractive. In fact quite pretty. Intelligent and funny. But despite the constant advances she would get she never once found anyone that lived up to her standards. I guess you could say that her one fault was that she was too picky. But is it wrong to have standards? Is it wrong to set the bar unrealistically high? She didn't seem to think so.

She invited me over to dinner one night. It was not out of the blue. We in fact had been supposed to get together the previous week but I had had to cancel as I had landed a hot date last minute. This was really no big deal as we both knew that there was nothing more than friendship between us and she was more than willing to let me have my turn at bat. She had called me the night before to ask if I we could do our little dinner party the following night. As I had nothing planned I figured why not. She had already offered to cook. I stopped by the liquor store to pick up a bottle of pinot to go with dinner. We had originally wanted to try out that new little Italian place on the corner, but we couldn't get a reservation until late so we decided to eat in.

THE MOON!

I've often wondered about how awesome it would be to be permanently on vacation. Pretty awesome I'd imagine. Just to have one central place somewhere so you always had somewhere to return "home" to. But travel for a couple months, relax for a couple months, relax while traveling. Old school type travel too. Like actually sail on an ocean liner for the however many days it takes to cross the Atlantic. Are there ships that even do that anymore? Like not cargo ships? I would imagine not, what with the prevalence of air travel it probably isn't cost effective. Who the hell wants a two day blimp ride to London?!

Actually a blimp ride would be pretty sweet. Excuse me, rigid airship. More sweet.

But then there's the question of burnout. But would you really burnout? After all, how many times to you get back from a vacation where you saw a lot, did a lot, had a lot of fun, you get back to work and think, "Golly gee wiz, I need a vactation just to recover from my vacation!" Now you wouldn't have that problem! You'd come back from your first vacation, think that, and then BOOM, you'd be off on your recovery vaction.

What's that you say? What about peoples inherent need to work or feel productive? Well I have a solution to that too:

Moonbase.

Yes, Moonbase. If you're working on Moonbase then it doesn't matter what you're doing or how long your doing it. You have to dig a ditch for 24 hours on the moon? Who cares! You're on the moon! Yeah, all that stuff about a vacation being where you don't have to work blah, blah. You're on the moon! THE MOON! Do you know where you are right now? I'll tell you where you're not: The Moon!

Every single problem anywhere ever would be solved if we had a moonbase.

They can still reach us on the moon.

For Sale: 1 Bridge, Slightly Used

I shall diverge, but for the briefest of moments, from the more "traditional" warning methods to something slightly more...applicable.

I was having a discussion with a friend of mine over at Ask the Motherboard (which is exactly what it sounds like: a sentient computer housed in a secret government facility that rather than take control of the entire US nuclear arsenal and bring about the fall of man like it was supposed to, started a blog. To avoid having to admit failure the designers locked it in a closet with an EZ Bake Oven and the complete DVD collection of She-Ra and resolved to bring about the fall of man themselves) about why you should never, ever, EVAR buy a digital media cable over $5. As the discussion progressed, aside from passing the Turing test, it was suggested that I write a guest post about the difference between analog and digital signal, and then how it applies to buying cables. At the risk of guesting a post that went over everyone's head, I resolved to write a slightly more techie post here and translate it for there. Also because I had no other ideas for what to write here.

I probably won't get super technical as I'm not an EE and don't want to do the research that would be required if I were to start digging into things like signal processing and Fourier transformations (which I hate!) so it might be a simple copy paste job. Or not. Let's find out:

The Knut once regaled The Pietras and I with a tale of how he was buying a thing. Momentarily sidetracked onto a different story (likely involving cats) we had several beers and returned once more to the topic of him buying this thing. At the store where these things were sold he got into a debate with the sales person on why he did not need to buy the $100 Monster HDMI cable. The Knut told the sales person that he did not need the $100 Monster HDMI cable as he had a cheap $5 one at home that would suffice. The sales person pointed out that the $100 Monster HDMI cable was the best that money could buy and would offer the clearest and bestest signal quality between the thing he was purchasing and the thing he was connecting it to. The Knut pointed out that that was the most bat-shit insane thing he had ever heard as HDMI is a digital standard, that quality and clarity don't mean jack because it's comprised entirely of 1s and 0s and that as long as the cable is rated HDMI it meets the minimum requirements for transferring the 1s and 0s from thing 1 to thing 2. At this point, The Knut stopped channeling Theodor Geisel and told the sales person that he was, in fact, an EE. The sales person then sheepishly walked away and The Knut purchased his blu-ray player, went home and connected it to his TV using a cheap HDMI cable and proceeded to watch The Brady Bunch. The sound of a tiny bell ringing indicated that the cat had killed yet another rabbit.

I'm going to pause here and state several assumptions that I am making in posting this post: Assumption 1) You are not future proofing your setup. In other words you have a setup which you can easily access and change cables if necessary and not running them through walls. Assumption 2) You are not using cables over 2 meters. Assumption 3) You have things that you want to connect to each other at minimal cost.

First off, let's briefly, discuss the difference between analog and digital signals.

Analog technology uses the whole waveform. Each part of the wave is retained in it's original form. A vinyl record is a very good example of analog technology. In the case of vinyl, the waveform is actually imprinted into the record. This is why if you hold your ear right up to the needle you can hear the sound. As the needle bounces over the peaks and valleys it transmits electrical pulses in varying intensities to the speakers which make sound. In the case of analog, the amplitude (height/depth of the peaks and valleys) and the frequency (distance between them) are all variable. Theoretically an analog signal has infinite resolution, though in practice it is much more susceptible to noise.

Digital technology, on the other hand, uses a discrete waveform to transmit information. Essentially a 1 or a 0, on or off. While still susceptible to noise, the impact is far less than that of analog technology allowing for enhanced error correction, better compression and a host of other digital only features.

As an example: let's imagine an old school TV with old school bunny ears. You adjust the bunny ears to make the picture clearer or nosier. What you're doing is adjusting the equipment to receive a specific frequency. The change in amplitude is what makes the picture and sound. Notice though, that it doesn't have to be super clear. You can adjust it so that you can still see bits of the TV show, but there's a whole lot of noise.

By contrast, imagine one of them fancy new fangled High Definition HDTV Television screens with the digital cable/dish/UVerse/FIOS/etc and the fancy DVR recorder (redundant statement is redundant). I'm sure you all have seen the occasional block or weird looking bit of picture using one of these setups, or when the picture suddenly looks like a Picasso. In analog the old TV can still pick up some of the original picture because even though the signal is distorted it is still receiving bits of the original signal. But with a digital signal, when you see your setup go crazy it's because it's not actually getting any information. Because a digital signal is either on, or off, if the TV can't tell which it is because of a low signal quality, or if the error correction function fails to properly functionally correct for error, it does the best it can. Which is to just put that garbled mess up on the screen, or if it's really bad, nothing at all.

So this brings us to The Knut's argument with the sales person about the HDMI cables and also why you should never buy expensive ones. HDMI is digital. This means that the information is either going to get there, or it's not. If it gets there your picture will be perfect. If it doesn't you will not have a picture. A cable can only be rated HDMI if it meets the minimum requirements for transmitting the 1s and 0s. As such, even though they're cheap, because the cheap cables are rated HDMI, they are able to transmit 1s and 0s. The quality of the signal doesn't matter.

To be clear I am primarily talking about HDMI cables as they are the most common source of rip off in the cable market. But the same can apply to other cables, such as USB, Ethernet, coax, and even speaker cables. Unless you're transmitting over a long distance (which my previous assumptions assume that you are not) where shielding and noise are going to have a measurable impact on your signal, you can get by just fine with the cheaper cables/wires. I did buy a 7.5 meter HDMI cable once to hook my computer up to the TV on the other side of the room. I bought the cheapest one I could find, $25. Not a single problem.

I'd recommend checking out Newegg for anything and everything tech related that you need. Amazon can be a good source two, especially if you're a prime subscriber, though I find the comments from Newegg to be infinitely more helpful. Find the type of cable you want at the length you want and then find the cheapest one. I will concede that on occasion I've come across a cheap ($1-3) HDMI or USB cable that doesn't fit well, but reading a few of the comments should indicate whether or not this is an issue. And even the loose fitting ones that I have work just fine, because in the case of HDMI cables, your'e not messing around with them once they're in.

Now you should be well informed as to why you should never buy an expensive cable. However, if you absolutely, positively, unquestionably have to have it that exact moment (i.e. you're hosting a double feature of "The Room" and "Birdemic: Shock and Terror" in 15 minutes and for some reason you're only just now putting your setup together) then my suggestion is to go find the cheapest one you can at the store, order the even cheaper one, and return it when the even cheaper one comes in (unless you're one of the lucky folks who lives near a store that sells cheap cables in which case just buy the cheap one in the store).

In fact, as a general rule: never buy accessories (game controllers, cables, remotes, etc) in a brick and mortar and glass and iron and carpet and drywall and wood and tile store. They are almost always cheaper online.

In fact as a generaler rule: price compare. Everything. It's not that hard, especially if you have a smartphone. Even if you don't. Sometimes it is actually cheaper in the store (if it's a $5 part why are you going to pay $5 in shipping as well?). Sometimes the item in the store is $127.45 and online it's $124.21. If you care that much about $3.24 then...I'm sorry.

I would go on about buying $200 surge protectors...but I'll leave that for another day.

The interesting thing about The Knut is that if you interrupt his story, no matter how long the interruption, no matter if the group then disperses, he will pick up right were he left off the next time you see him. That is, if he hasn't hunted you down first to finish.