Heh of the Day...

If you're a geeky sort (especially with respect to storage), this is pretty funny...

Intro to Fourier Transforms...

Way back when, shortly after the lava cooled enough to form a solid surface on the Earth, I was making my first explorations into digital signal processing.  With a friend, I was trying to design a better radio teletype (RTTY) modem, and I had the radical notion that a computer might do a better job at it than a collection of op amps, capacitors, resistors, and a bunch of solder.  But of course I had no idea how to go about it.

In the course of some reading, I came across the notion of Fourier Transforms, and in particular the “Fast Fourier Transform” (a software technique) – and off I went into what was the first of many explorations using mathematics to solve problems.  I am living proof that it is possible to do useful work with these techniques even though I am far from expert in the mathematics.  There are lots of engineers like me in this regard, and fortunately for us explanations like this exist for many mathematical tools.

The RTTY problem?  Well, it turned out that the Fast Fourier Transform was in fact a great tool for making a RTTY modem – but there was one little teensy problem.  With the hottest microcomputer of the day (a blazingly fast 4 MHz Z-80), the mathematics required took about 1000 times longer than realtime.  In other words, to analyze and provide results for 1 second of RTTY signal took about 1000 seconds of computer time.  My idea was good, but the hardware of the day was woefully inadequate.  Today's computers could easily do hundreds of them at the same time – and naturally today you can buy an RTTY modem (for under $100!) that works on the same principle that I was trying to use.

Oh, well...

Oh, Jeez...

I hadn't thought of this angle before, but obviously the AGW proponents have.  Is there nothing the courts can't screw up?

Quote of the Day...

From the WSJ's editorial page, in their analysis of Iran's announced nuclear fuel deal with Turkey and Brazil:

In her first game of high-stakes diplomatic poker, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is leaving the table dressed only in a barrel.

Disturbing imagery aside, Obama's team looks like the Keystone Kops of the diplomatic world.  One can easily visualize the snickers and knowing smiles amongst the rest of the world's diplomatic corps as they share their amusement at America's humiliation.

Their excellent column starts with a short, to the point summary: “What a fiasco.”  Indeed.  Read the whole thing.

Looking Back...

At Calvin Coolidge – the much-maligned President who looks pretty darned good to me right now...

The Mr. Potato Head Bill...

Brought to you by John (even the French don't want him) Kerry and Joe (even the Democrats don't want him) Lieberman.  The WSJ is on the case.

Let It Burn?

Interesting piece at American Thinker, by someone who thinks the only road to salvation for America is to let it fail.

Snap reaction: I sure hope he's wrong...but I fear he's right...

Big, Bad Bear!

Reader Simi L. sent a photo of the big bruiser of a bear at right.  He lives well north of Los Angeles, in the region we Southern Californians think of as being roughly the same place as Alaska – “Up there somewhere...”  Simi says:

Attached is a picture of the largest bear I've seen here which I took out of my window last night (hence the reflection of the glass – sorry about that). The white bucket is about 12" tall. Fortunately when I yelled at him he turned out to be a fraid-ie bear and ran off briskly. Based on his size, I don't know why he was so insecure, maybe he was abused as a cub. As most of you know, we see bears here all the time but I've never seen a guy this size.

We've had a few bear sightings in San Diego County over the past decade, but none quite as far south as where we live... 

ClimateGate Poster...

Steyn, Nick...

Go read.

California is in Eigth Place...

Sheesh...

Isn't It Time to Give Up on This Yet?

The Associated Press makes the argument...

Working in the Yard...

Your blogger is sore all over today, after a hard day's work in the yard yesterday.  We started off by a trip to Kniffing's Nursery – the most beautiful nursery we've seen in San Diego County.  We're kicking ourselves for not having found it sooner!  Not only is it a beautiful place to visit, but the people there are friendly and knowledgable; it felt like being home.  We met Ted Kniffing (the owner), his wife Eva (who helped us find what we were looking for), Hugo (he with the big muscles and the ability to manhandle 300 lb trees with little apparent effort), and Dawn (who was full of great ideas).

Our morning trip had an actual plan: we wanted a Palo Verde tree.  We'd picked the Palo Verde because of it's drought-tolerance, beautiful flowers, year-round green, and (perhaps most importantly) it's “twigginess” – for this tree was destined for a place near our bird feeders, where we have a dearth of nearby perches for the hummingbirds, orioles, goldfinches, grosbeaks, and house finches that all habitually perch before visiting the feeders. 

At Kniffings, Eva walked us around to see the various sizes and varieties of Palo Verdes they had in stock, but it was clear from her discussion that the variety “Desert Museum” was, in her opinion, the one to get.  We thought it was more attractive than the others, so we took her advice and bought one in a 24” square wooden container.  Hugo helped us load it up into my pickup, and away back home we went.  When I backed my truck into the place we were going to plant it, and raised the tree to the vertical, the birds were perching in it within 60 seconds – win!  Our friend and neighbor Jim helped me unload it; I dug the hole (about 12 cubic feet of wet dirt), and plop – in it went!  One beautiful Palo Verde tree.  We like it so much, we've decided to bracket the first one with two more...

I spent the next six hours or so whacking weeds on about a half-acre of ground.  I used the hand-carried Husqvarna with a steel blade to get the mustard plants below ground level.  It's a lot of work, but puts a real dent in the mustard's level of enthusiasm.  We also got ready to pull our out-of-control pampas grass by using the whacker to chop off all the blades.  This made about a cubic yard of debris – what a mess!  Also, using the whacker at head height was a lot of work; my arms are feeling it this morning.

After that we took another trip out to Kniffings, and picked up seven beautiful salvias for Debbie to pot and display (she's doing that today).  Then it was off to Wal-Mart to pick up 25 bags of large pine bark (they have very nice quality pine bark at a very reasonable price – over 1/3 less than the going price at the nurseries).  We were up near Alpine, and it was 5:30 pm, so we ran up to Descanso Junction restaurant and had a splendid meal of grilled mahi-mahi.  Then back home and spread all 25 bags of pine bark over a big bed that Debbie had cleared while I was weed-whacking.  Today Debbie is putting those salvias on display in the bed, in elevated pots.  They should show very nicely against the pine bark.

Whew – what a day!  Today I'm in my little home office, working on software.  Sitting, for once, feels very good...

Potential Irony Alert...

Imagine a few years in the future, our country is back on its liberty-loving, capitalist tracks.  Further imagine that we look back then and see that the primary force behind that development was a single politician whose success galvanized the entire polity.  Then imagine that Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey was that politician.

It's at least plausible.

We'd have to invent a whole new word to express irony that profound.

But it seems more likely to me that the Tea Party movement will provide the impetus.

Of course, Christie and the Tea Party are naturals for some sort of political merger...

Our Farcical Confirmation Hearings...

Peggy Noonan weighs in on Senate confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justices, and how they've degenerated into a podium for degenerate Senators to bloviate from.

Every time I catch a clip of a Senator holding forth in confirmation hearings, this little ditty starts playing in my head:

Rope.
Tree.
Senator.
Some assembly required.

Public Service Ad (from the U.K.)...

Via my cousin Mike D.

If Microsoft Built Cars...

An oldie-but-goodie, via reader Doug S.:

If Microsoft Built Cars

At a computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated "If GM had kept up with the technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon."

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors made the following contribution to the debate:

If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.

Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you'd have to buy a new car.

Occasionally your car would just die on the motorway for no reason, You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the car windows, shut it off, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this, restart and drive on.

Occasionally, executing a maneuver would cause your car to stop and fail to restart and you'd have to re-install the engine. For some strange reason, you'd accept this too.

Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bout a "Car 95" or a "Car NT". But then you'd have to buy more seats.

Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, twice as reliable, five times as fast, twice as easy to drive - but it would only run on five percent of the roads.

The Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades to their cars which would make their cars go much slower.

The oil, engine, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced with a single "General Car Fault" warning light.

People would get excited about the "new" features in Microsoft cars, forgetting completely that they had been available in other cars for many years.

We'd all have to switch to Microsoft petrol and lubricants but the packaging would be superb.

New seats would force everyone to have the same size arse.

The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.

If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened.

They wouldn't build their own engines, but form a cartel with their engine suppliers. The latest engine would have 1 cylinder, multi-point fuel injection and 4 turbos, but it would be a side-valve design so you could use Model-T Ford parts on it.

There would be an "Engium Pro" with bigger turbos, but it would be slower on most existing roads.

Microsoft cars would have a special radio/cassette player which would only be able to listen to Microsoft FM, and play Microsoft Cassettes.Unless of course, you buy the upgrade to use existing stuff.

Microsoft would do so well, because even though they don't own anyroads, all of the road manufacturers would give away Microsoft cars free, including IBM.

If you still ran old versions of car (ie. CarDOS 6.22/CarWIN 3.11), then you would be called old fashioned, but you would be able to drive much faster, and on more roads!

If you couldn't afford to buy a new car, then you could just borrow your friends, and then copy it.

Whenever you bought a car, you would have to reorganize the ignition for a few days before it worked.

You would need to buy an upgrade to run cars on a motorway next to each other.

Every time Microsoft introduced a new car, car buyers would have to learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

Microsoft would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Automobile Association Road maps (now a Microsoft subsidiary), even though they neither need nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50% or more.

You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.

This Guy is Just Plain Crazy!

Via reader Tom B...

Quote of the Day...

From Reuters, for Pete's sake:

The United States posted an $82.69 billion deficit in April, nearly four times the $20.91 billion shortfall registered in April 2009 and the largest on record for that month, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday.

Where's all this money going?  I'm certainly not getting any of it.

Are you pissed off yet?  Remember how this feels when you're voting in November...

Great Illusion...

The four ramps in this device actually slope down toward the center, so the balls are really just rolling downhill, powered by gravity.  The illusion is created by making the ramps non-rectangular in a very specific way.  From one particular perspective, this tricks your brain into thinking that the ramps slope upward toward the center – thus creating the illusion of balls rolling uphill.  You can see this for yourself as the demonstrator rotates the entire assembly – you'll suddenly see it as it really is, with all four ramps sloping down toward the center...