I bought it on eBay

Hoorah hooray, buy it on eBay!

Sounds Easy

this morning i figured out, sorta, how to get excel to pick out multiple maxima on a graph. it sounds pretty easy and i am sure there is an easier way to do it, but it was interesting to learn a few more things in excel.
first: i took the first derivative of the data. this is the change in y-value over the change in x-value. technically with a continuous function the value of 1st derivative at the peak is zero (it is also zero at the minima, ie troughs between peaks). my data is discrete so i don't usually hit the zero mark, but there is a change in sign of the first derivative.
second: i wrapped up a way to spit out if i was at a regular data point (false) or a minima or maxima (true). check for the sign of the current value of derivative to be different than the sign of the last value using SIGN using NOT. so if they are the same sign it spits out FALSE and if they are differnt signs then TRUE. added in an AND to make sure i only got the maxima by requiring the value of the current to be less than the previous (on the way down). and added a couple more and statements to adjust for noise in the signal and a threshold for peaks.
third: i used this web page for the basics of picking out values where there was a true and then just manually incremented for my max 5 peaks per graph that i needed.

overheard

"you psycho nutbags"

micron 8-meg sensor

so dan, tell us about microns 8megpixel sensor were you invovled with this baby?

tecno babble

this has some awesome analogies about marriage, including

"
Some have tried to install Girlfriend 7.0 or Wife 2.0 but end up with more problems than the original system. Look in your manual under "Warnings - Alimony/Child support". I recommend you keep Wife 1.0 and deal with the situation.
"

reader busted

reader is busted, but it points to this cool clerihew page. I wonder who wants to do a contrast comparison between a limerick and a clerihew. thats an exercise for you avid readers. all I can do is point you the to the path!

homemade toys

growing up, it seems upon reflection that the best toys were of the homebrew variety. Ok, dan's sumac shooting bbgun was good too, but i remember:

• the rubberband pea shooters with close pins
• shovels
• ropes
• nails
• needle darts
• bathrobe tie throws
• parachutes
• dirt-clod-in-a-bag throwies
• potatoe cannons
• air compressor darts made from range golf balls
• aluminum can launchers using a blackcat firecracker
  
• and rock at the end of a board catapults (going over the neighbors roof).

this remade bing bang bong game seems to fit the bill nicely.

additions by k2h

• golf ball w/ a tennis racket over the back fence
• gasoline bombs
• lye / tinfoil pressure bombs
• playing card houses
• forts made with computer frames and old doors
• shovels for underground additions to the fort
• the old car battery for LIGHTS in the fort
• tree house nailed directly to the tree
• ball-tag
• sling-shots, of the rope and leather patch variety
• a few renditions of homemade cross bows
• homeade throwing stars and spikes
• the battle-axe (where is that anyway?)
• kevs bike trailer for dumpster diving and trash days
  

second life

the game second life had a funny write over at wired.
it's worth a read.

MasterCard TOS

I got a little something in the mail today at work, a change in the terms of service for my corporate Mastercard account.

basically having to do with currency conversion rates, and that the rate may not be converted on the day of the transcation.

but the big one: a 1% fee will be charged for each transaction that you make in a country other than the Unites States WHETHER OR NOT THE TRANSACTION WAS IN FOREIGN CURRENCY.

catchn' release

in case you don't have a cat

resist, V for victory.

"
Can you 'create' your own resistors? Sure thing, and not difficult. Here is how to do it: Draw a line on a piece of paper with a soft pencil, HB or 2HB will do fine. Make the line thick and about 2 inches (5cm) long. With your multimeter, measure the ohm's value of this line by putting a probe on each side of the line, make sure the probes are touching the carbon from the pencil. The value would probably be around the 800K to 1.5M depending on your thickness of the line and what type of pencil lead is used. If you double the line the resistance will drop considerably, if you erase some of it (length-wise obviously!) the resistance will increase. You can also use carbon with silicon glue and when it dries measure the resistance, or gypsum with carbon mixed, etc. The reason for mentioning these homebrew resistors is that this method was used in World War II to fix equipment when no spare parts were available. My father, who was with the Dutch resistance during WWII, at that time made repairs like this on many occasion.
"

link

buffalo

Dans new ride, the Buffalo armored vehicle according to the spec sheet it gets almost 5 miles per gallon, and it powered by a 450hp Mack Diesel.16" of ground clearance, and only weighs 45,000 lbs. read more at forcerotectioninc.com

how fast?

use SuperPI to calculate PI. its fun, and tells you how fast your computer is. mine did the 19 iterations to calculate pi to 1M digits in 1minute 4 seconds (intel 2.4ghz winXP). how fast are you guys running?

television house holds?

anyone want to venture a guesse as to how many 'TV' households there are in the US according to nielson?





no cheating
http://tv.yahoo.com/nielsen/

Recover data from a crashed hard drive by freezing it

I hadn't heard this before, but apparently you can eek a little more life out of a crashed drive by freezing it. I would have never thought to try this, but all the anecdotal evidence suggests it really works.

According to one of the comments:

The reason that this works, is that when a head crashes it gets off center and will hit the pin the harddrive. Freezing it compresses it, allowing it to gain a little room to move where it wouldn't before.

That's My Carbon

one way to ensure that nobody else, at least in the forseeable future, will use the carbon that made up you while you were you right before you died is to convert it to diamond. life gem will do this for you, or rather for posterity if anyone cares enough about you. currently they are promoting a diamond made from .beethoven's hair.

ikea commercials

these ikea commercials are pretty good

rubix cube

the rubix cube has a fancy algorithm to solve it in a fewer steps then i've ever needed.

google store

I'm sure all of you knew about the google store and I know a certain someone that could really use a new pair of padded biker shorts.

superior comfort and long-lasting durability. They’re designed to be anatomically comfortable (no center seam, no waistband irritation

Liquid Cooling

want to move on to the next step in cooling your computer?
try water cooling
courtesy of my nerdy brother's web browsing

google trends

google trends (more about it here) looks pretty snazy as it shows you how many hits certain search words are getting.

Hacking

a british hacker broke into some government computers (looking for evidence of ufo's, naturally) back in 2000-ish. he didn't actually get any classified info, just 'sensitive'. today he it was ruled that he should be extradited to the us. see stories 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
gotta love the defense of its their own fault (and that he cites the movie 'war games' as inspiration). i have heard this defense from some members of this here blog saying that if people are stupid enough to leave doors open than we are free to walk through. but i have to say i don't think that is a good defense. i do think this guy should be punished, whether he intended harm or not, but not 70 yrs in prison. if you consider the 'they are stupid' defense as valid than what robbery would be considered illegal? you were stupid enough to use a safe in your bank that was susceptible to being opened by dynamite, it's your own fault for leaving the money available to be robbed. now that doesn't excuse the government for being stupid. i do think they deserve to have some egg on their face for that.

as an amusing side note: the spell checker in blogger doesn't know the word blog.

master

who says you can't do more than 100%. from my computerized training at work.

gas prices

think you've found the best place to get gas? try local gas prices from MSN. just put your zip in and have a gander. similar to gasbudy... fun to play with

remodel

i guess i'll need a vaulted ceiling to get the king bed to do this.

whos da nerd

anyone know this guy? its from when we climbed shasta

small pc

~2" cubed. 300mhz, 64mb ram. 16mb flashable rom.
pretty snazy.

bloated chest

motercycle airbag.