I recently got an e-mail that AOL Instant Messenger would be shutting down on December 15, 2017. I look at this with mixed emotions – on the one hand, it’s just a chat protocol, one that I don’t really use much anymore (nearly all of my AIM friends have moved on to other chats). On the other hand, it was a chat protocol that had a lot of features that I liked. Continue reading Goodbye AIM
Category Archives: Pseudorandom
NISE Sea Ice Coasters
As part of my job, I see a lot of Earth science data, some of which is delivered to my email inbox daily. Even though I’m not a geoscientist by training, I often find myself thinking of things to do with our data in my free time. One such project was to make some coasters displaying the Near Real Time Ice and Snow Extent (NISE) imagery.
The details about how I prototyped and created these coasters after the jump. Continue reading NISE Sea Ice Coasters
The World’s Worst Phonetic Alphabet
My last phonetic alphabet was all about games, but this one is really just the world’s worst – a bit of fun. Continue reading The World’s Worst Phonetic Alphabet
Solving the Circles
Occasionally, people come to me when they spot a problem they want to solve and think it might be possible with the application of mathematics. This is really fun, because it lets me exercise that part of my brain and at least try to do some algebra from time to time. Continue reading Solving the Circles
The Impossible
Last week, I attempted something I always believed was impossible: I made Double Divinity by myself. This may not seem like much, but for me, it was quite the herculean feat, if only as a mental block to overcome. Continue reading The Impossible
That thing that just happened
Doesn’t happen very often – I got sick; with the high fever and everything, so, naturally, getting some updated content didn’t happen here. Regularly scheduled blog posts will start again tomorrow – apologies for that.
P.S. remind me to get a funny gif of sickness or something for the next time this happens. If I’m clever I’ll set it to a dead-man’s switch or something so that if I don’t blog it automatically shows up.
Taking a Week Off
Hey all – I have no backlog, and I’ve been doing so much writing for work that I’m a little burned out at the moment. I’m taking the week to build up a backlog and enjoy the writing I’m doing rather than jumping off the bus on Tuesdays and Thursdays to post something to my blog. Until next week…
…Have Fun!
Linearly Related Units and Significant Digits
Last week, I made the claim that the significant digits of a measurement are not dependent on the units that you use to measure. Today, I want to look at this from the point of view of units that are linearly related to each other, and I’m going to start with even more specificity and look only at units that are multiplicatively related (for example, this class excludes Fahrenheit to Celsius conversion) using the rules of significant digits. Continue reading Linearly Related Units and Significant Digits
Are Significant Digits Unit Dependent?
A while back, I had a discussion with our development team about significant figures. Specifically, the discussion centered around where they were going to go to lunch and when they were going to leave. Someone piped in with, “Right here, right now,” while another countered, “I wonder how many significant digits you should take for that to actually be true…” The first dev then stated, “First, you would need some units,” at which point I jumped into the conversation claiming, “Actually, I’m not sure that you do. Whether you are using AU or attometers, the number of significant digits should be the same.” Continue reading Are Significant Digits Unit Dependent?
The Future of Shopping
I heard the other day at work that Amazon would be opening physical stores. As my coworkers were talking about how they would work, I couldn’t help but think of this old e-Commerce commercial: Continue reading The Future of Shopping