where wut meets ev4r

Next, how about a study linking cookies for breakfast to ADHD?

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 00:27:58 -0500

Next, how about a study linking cookies for breakfast to ADHD?:

I got an email from an organization asking me to take action, and tell the MPAA to stop marketing violent PG-13 movies to preschool children. Since the MPAA wouldn’t listen to me (it doesn’t have ears), I skimmed one of the articles it referenced referenced in the footnotes. You can read it if you want.

I guess I’m glad someone’s doing this kind of research, but at the same time, it seems like when something’s this obvious, you shouldn’t have to do research about it and publish it in academic journals — it seems more like fodder for proverbs, folk music, or, perhaps, a violent movie?

Maybe they are so many jerks because so few of them are...

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 22:30:18 -0500

Maybe they are so many jerks because so few of them are thoroughly happy… or vice-versa.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/159254/latin-americans-positive-world.aspx#1

bigredben:

“Singapore is slowly losing its nationality.” Does that mean you won’t shove past me during rush hour to get on the MRT before me? Does that mean you won’t chope a 4-person table in a crowded hawker centre when you’re eating alone? Will you actually look after your kids in a busy mall and give up your seat on the bus to frail old ladies? No? You won’t? Then don’t worry, your identity is probably quite secure, lah.

I found this page of notes that jehk left me 9 years ago (for...

Sun, 27 Jan 2013 18:31:34 -0500

I found this page of notes that jehk left me 9 years ago (for reasons I can’t recall) while cleaning my office today.

Interestingly, the green background of the engineering paper weren’t captured by the scanner. It’d be cool if one of these formulas described why that is, since I gather there’s some sort of connection between photons and electrons (the electrophotic effect, right?), but I’m guessing the paper and the dye aren’t made of any of the compounds or isotopes listed on the page.

When I got home I was still hyped on caffeine, and thinking...

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 01:09:29 -0500

When I got home I was still hyped on caffeine, and thinking about how some of my students apparently need to develop some muscles in their hands to be able to control them well enough to draw and shade spheres and cylinders for art. So I wrote a Logo program to randomly generate circles with radii in a given range, located within a bounded area, so I could print them out and have them used them as warm-ups.

Bonus points if you can tell which parentheses are optional due to precedence rules.

to distance.to.frame :x.y.frame :point.p
localmake “a (last first :x.y.frame) - (first :point.p)
localmake “b (first :point.p) - (first first :x.y.frame)
localmake “c (last :point.p) - (first last :x.y.frame)
localmake “d (last last :x.y.frame) - (last :point.p)
if :b < :a [ make “a :b ]
if :c < :a [ make “a :c ]
if :d < :a [ make “a :d ]
op :a
end

to draw.frame :x.y.frame

pu setxy first first :x.y.frame first last :x.y.frame
pd
setxy first first :x.y.frame last last :x.y.frame
setxy last first :x.y.frame last last :x.y.frame
setxy last first :x.y.frame first last :x.y.frame
setxy first first :x.y.frame first last :x.y.frame

end

to narrow.frame :x.y.frame :margin
localmake “new.x1 (first first :x.y.frame) + :margin
localmake “new.x2 (last first :x.y.frame) - :margin
localmake “new.y1 (first last :x.y.frame) + :margin
localmake “new.y2 (last last :x.y.frame) - :margin
op (list (list :new.x1 :new.x2) (list :new.y1 :new.y2))
end

to rand.between :a :b
op :a + random (1+ :b - :a)
end

to random.circle.within.frame [:n 10] [:x.y.frame [[-200 200] [-100 400]]] [:radii.range [50 200]]
draw.frame narrow.frame :x.y.frame -50
repeat :n [
(print “Circle repcount)

localmake “test.point (random.pt.within.frame narrow.frame :x.y.frame first :radii.range)
(print “Center: :test.point)
(print “Distance “to “frame: distance.to.frame :x.y.frame :test.point)

localmake “a last :radii.range
if (distance.to.frame :x.y.frame :test.point) < :a [
make “a distance.to.frame :x.y.frame :test.point
]

localmake “test.radius rand.between first :radii.range :a
(print “Radius: :test.radius)
print []

pu setpos :test.point pd arc 360 :test.radius ; should be test.radius, right?

]
end

to random.pt.within.frame [:x.y.frame [[-200 200] [-100 400]]]
localmake “x (rand.between (first first :x.y.frame) (last first :x.y.frame))
localmake “y (rand.between (first last :x.y.frame) (last last :x.y.frame))
op (list :x :y)
end

“So, Friday night, any big...

Sat, 10 Nov 2012 03:33:50 -0500

“So, Friday night, any big plans?”

“Uh…”

my dick confident, your dick pathetic

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 04:31:58 -0400

my dick confident, your dick pathetic:

Some asshole talks about word choice.

The solution to all of my problems was rectangles.

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 23:14:27 -0400

The solution to all of my problems was rectangles.

inking

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 02:24:57 -0400

inking

(reasoned) mnemonics for sum of an arithmetic series

Sun, 08 Jul 2012 18:16:38 -0400

Occurred to me while walking the dog this morning:

AVERAGE VALUE * NUMBER OF TERMS

so, for 1 + 2 + … + n this is (n+1)/2 * n

A lot of times, these are cast in terms of the constant difference, the starting term, and the number of terms, as in

s + (s+d) + (s+2d) + … + (s+(n-1)d)

For deriving, it may be easier to think of it as (FIRST + LAST)/2 * n

(s + (n-1)d/2)*n

Since this is essentially a discrete “integral” of a linear function, it may be easier to formulate it as a quadratic, since you have a category for quadratics, and probably recognize that a quadratic is appropriate, leaving less “bits” of information to memorize:

(d/2)n^2 + (s-d/2)n

This formula seems reasonable, since if n=0, the sum is 0, and for n > 1 and d > 1, larger d or n results in a larger sum.

Now, if you take the derivative with respect to n, you get

dn + s - d/2 = s + (n-1/2)d

This struck me as odd at first: it seems that that increasing the number of terms by 1 adds the number halfway between the last term and the next term, whereas what actually gets added is

s + nd

But the derivative can’t be applied that way to a discrete function. What you’re really getting with s + (n-1/2)d is the slope of the line between one value and the next.

Honestly, what puzzles me the most about this is that you said you use it so often you wish you could memorize it. I’m having trouble thinking of when this comes up, as opposed to an integral. But maybe that’s because I haven’t had a remotely technical or scientific job for the past 9 years.

Cue dramatic music… yes, cranes really do build...

Sat, 07 Jul 2012 17:20:55 -0400

Cue dramatic music… yes, cranes really do build themselves. I’m going to use a video like this as a big metaphor for constructivism, to help teachers remember, although the analogy is imperfect (eg, the steel used to make the frame is out there, in the world, whereas the source of logical knowledge is inside the learner’s mind).

I found this four hours into the slow process of purging and...

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 18:52:58 -0400

I found this four hours into the slow process of purging and filing the 20+ boxes of paper, notebooks, etc I’ve accumulated over the past 7 years. I remember drawing this one night in May, when I found I had nowhere to put some important papers.

Under this comic was a note I asked a student to write for me in very neat handwriting after she’d finished her work and needed something to do: “Get rid of some stuff, Mr.!” It was posted on my bulletin board at the school for about a month, but did little good, because I was too busy all the time.

I drew this aloe vera today using three colored pencils: green,...

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 01:30:59 -0400

I drew this aloe vera today using three colored pencils: green, red-violet, and red-orange. This is the “split-complement” color technique. It took a little over 2 hours, not counting a few breaks. I’m still not that good at blending, but part of the problem is that I put my blending palette (showing what different combinations of these three colors would look like) on the right side of the page, so that I obscured it with my drawing hand, and forgot to look at it.

"The Division of Coastal Management shall be the only State agency authorized to 10 develop rates of..."

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 20:07:53 -0400

“The Division of Coastal Management shall be the only State agency authorized to 10 develop rates of sea-level rise and shall do so only at the request of the Commission. These 11 rates shall only be determined using historical data, and these data shall be limited to the time 12 period following the year 1900. Rates of sea-level rise may be extrapolated linearly to estimate 13 future rates of rise but shall not include scenarios of accelerated rates of sea-level rise.”

- http://www.nccoast.org/uploads/documents/CRO/2012-5/SLR-bill.pdf

Here’s some very passionately written commentary on the issue:

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/2012/05/30/nc-makes-sea-level-rise-illegal/

I drew a tennis ball with colored pencils for this art class. ...

Sat, 09 Jun 2012 17:29:37 -0400

I drew a tennis ball with colored pencils for this art class. Red-purple “brings out” or “enhances” the yellow-greenness of yellow-green, apparently.

Photo

Fri, 04 May 2012 01:00:41 -0400

fail from the logo forum

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 16:15:18 -0400

> from: X
>
> Ok, I have a question.
> Like, I know how to make shapes.
> Example
> repeat 4[fd 50 right 90]
> Square
> repeat 5[fd 50 right 72]
> pentagon
> and so on…I know you divide 360/sides. But I have a question, how would I know how to make a tree, or a snowflake?? What would I divide that by since I don’t know how many sides it has?

—snip—

Those shapes are regular polygons. You can draw all kinds of regular polygons with that strategy.

***Not all shapes are regular polygons***.

Shapes of houses, shapes of persons, shapes of animals, shapes of trees, shapes of snowflakes are not regular polygons.

Therefore, you strategy does not work for those other types of shapes.

http://www.urbansketchers.org/

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 21:12:46 -0500

http://www.urbansketchers.org/

if it weren’t for commissions, I’d never apply any...

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:04:24 -0500

if it weren’t for commissions, I’d never apply any of this book-readin’ knowledge

this ain’t nothing, it’s just what happened when I...

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 21:16:19 -0500

this ain’t nothing, it’s just what happened when I tried a few inkscape features

[again, please fill in the blank] )

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 23:44:34 -0500

[again, please fill in the blank] )