here's life

This after noon I spent a while trying to figure out the angles needed to make the end tables the way I want them. The green is the glass top, with one "V" flat under it, and the other "V" flat on the floor. I tried all sorts of fancy vector math--even pulled out my robotics notes from Dr. Lee. Trying to get the angle shown in red. The big difficulty is that I just want to cut the ends of the legs--let the diagonal be just a rectangular solid. Finally I simplified it into a bunch of right triangles--then I could get it. The 3D stuff really threw me through a loop and made me realize how much I didn't learn/have forgotten from school.


I also took a break and went under the road to see the muskrats, but they didn't seem to be out and about. I wonder if they washed away in all the rain we have been having. (pics are actually from yesterday)


It is cool, I can slip into the culvert at one side of the road, and not even get out at this end and still pretty much see if the muskrats are out. I don't feel as out of place as sitting by the side of the busy road, staring at the ditch. More pics in July.

I couldn't find a basin that I really liked to use for my waterfall, so I got a sheet of brass and made one. It was a bit rough, bent and dented, so I covered it with an even layer of hammer dents. The pan will be filled with gravel, burying a water pump that I ordered online, but have not yet gotten.

The idea is that water will flow down the surface of the rock and be caught by the basin, creating pleasant sound to add to the relaxing ambiance of my apartment.

I took a nap today, and as I was drifting in and out of consciousness, I figured out how to make end tables to match my desk. Now I need to get the idea in my head into wood.

In order to better serve you, the reader, I have posted excess pictures of the waterfall last month using a wrinkle in the space-time continuum.

More of the lamp and the table. And the remains of my house.













To show the reflectivity of the top, simulating a liquid.


























and the translucence of the "liquid" simulating the quasi-light absorbing properties of the "nectar of the gods" which is coffee or even Tea













































Two pictures of a piece of art I made from a section of the space-age material-- honeycomb--and a landscape I scavanged. It represents how we cannot see nature fully because of the technology and progress that we put between ourselves and our deep organic roots. Thus we can only perceive a filtered view, and that at only one specific angle.















Link back to main post

After work today we stopped by another department of Spirit Aerosystems and saw the new nose section of the 787. It was a big carbon-fibre funnel, and was really cool (thin too!). The pdf above has a good shot of it (without the show-biz setup).
We evidentially were either before or after the big show that the hanger was obviously setup for. It was pretty deserted when we visited. I think they must have had some customers there or something--the amount of $ that went into making this plastic tube exciting. And exciting it was!

For the looping promo video, they had 2 arrays of 4 speakers that looked like they were VRX900's. There were 2 sets of 3 screens, each 3x5 and arranged in a -|--|- pattern. (They didn't account for the spacing when they made the spanning videos) The screens were either back-projected, or plasma (I didn't check)

For the main area they evidentially had had quite a show, there were two arrays of 6 VT48xx speakers (don't know the exact model #) and over 70 lights, at least a dozen of which were motor-controlled.
Remember the fiasco with the fridge, ice and smoke machine at 2am? Well, these guys did it right with two fog machines under the nose section with refridgeration units built in. I guess they poured smoke out on the mirrors underneath during the big unveiling.

Even though I knew it was all a show and for effect, I came away much more excited about this new plane they are developing. Even though it is much more advanced than the technology that I work on (circa. 1960), it seems that making a plane out of carbon fibre really simplifies manufacturing--and maybe design--and is more conducive to automation. It was about time that someone did things differently than it has always been done.

Last night I was looking for some paper work, and I found my digital camera. I had figured I left it in MO or something. But there it was, inside a large book. It takes pictures, albiet of low quality. And with no picture display on the back, it is hard to see if the lighting was right, etc. And it only too me a little finagling to get the pictures off--so it must be pretty easy! So. now there are pictures on this blog--and if I get a tripod, or a box to set it on, the picture quality can improve.


Here is a picture of my desk. Above you can see my card libriary.


Closeup of my desk:




Blinky lights!

Today I ended up going to Vineyard again. After church Landon invited me to go play Ultimate frisbee later in the day. So I went up to the Sedgwick County Park and had a good time. There were 8-9 people, and so we made the field pretty small. But I still got a good bit of running in--which is good for me. And so much more fun than working out in a gym. There was a range of skills there, but everyone had a good time, I think.

Meanwhile, my crock pot was making potato soup. It is good, even though I didn't follow the recipe exactly (I rarely do).

To start a story about this evening at the begining...
I went to Rosedale just before LU. Of the 150 students, one in particular was named Steve. Later on Steve lived with my brother and his wife in VA, (until my brother moved to OH a few months ago). The other day I found out that Steve's brother Chris goes to the Vineyard here, and this evening I met him. He was talking to Landon who was thinking about going to LeTourneau, turns out Chris graduated from LU in '98. Landon was asking about the CE program at LU. (Anybody have any insights I should pass on?) Although I have not kept up with Steve, (or pretty much anyone from RBC) it was cool to make the connections.

Well, maybe I don't have a life, but this afternoon I spent an hour or so, (nobody was keeping track) watching the "pond" where the muskrat lives. Turns out it isn't one muskrat, but four, plus a turtle the size of a mousepad. I think it might be a snapping turtle. The turtle would sit with his nose and eyes out of the water. I wondered how the two species would interact, but I am not sure if the muskrat even know they are sharing the puddle with a reptile. If a muskrat approched, the turtle would slowly transform back into a grey-green rock on the muddy puddle floor.

It seems that out of the four muskrats, one is left handed---or maybe left-jawed. Today they spent much of their time gathering grass. After climbing up the bank, they would nose around at the base of the grass, and eventualy emerge with a bundle of grass sticking out of one side of their mouth. Usually the right side, but one of them gathered grass in the left jaw. I am not sure how they hold the grass while they cut more, but they seem to be fairly efficient little guys.

Today I ordered tickets to fly out to see my brother and his wife in a few weeks. It should be good to see them, and hopefully they will have completed the buying of a duplex by then. My younger brother will be there as well as some other people I know. I'll have to work extra in the evenings here to make up the time I will miss, but what are evenings for?

I live near the corner of two four-lane roads. I wandered across the road this afternoon to get a section of plastic pipe I have been seeing by the side of the road for a couple weeks. On the way back I saw a muskrat making his/her way toward the ditch with a bundle of grass in queemy mouth. Quem hurried into the water and disappeared into the opposite bank. I stepped up onto the low concrete retaining wall that quem had skirted to reach the water and waited. A moment later the muskrat emerged from the burrow, crossing the muddy puddle, and came walking up queemy path toward me. Either muskrats are near-sighted, or this one was so used to cars speeding by a few feet from queemy "garden", that quem didn't notice me until I was three feet away. The muskrat stopped and looked at me for several seconds and then darted back to the water. I waited nearby for a while, but quem stayed in queemy burrow.

It was interesting to find a little bit of wildlife so close to the traffic and noise. Just stand in the sun and wait, unwinding from a day at work.
The water was a few feet wide, and about as deep and ~20' long, shaded by a small willow at one end. It rained recently, and the water level was near the maximum--the extra flowed under the road and away. An unmown hayfield sloped up on the far side.
I may visit the area again and maybe even remove some of the trash from the water and banks.

--Dr. Baas
Over the last couple days a worm has been going around that clogs Windows 2000 networks. My home computers have not yet fallen prey to it's evil machinations---I'd better run some patches to keep it that way! Several large companies have had trouble with this piece of code and it's relatives, according to the Wired article above. Evidently it came out very shortly after M$ announced the vulnerability. Maybe they should start doing "Mystery Patches" so they don't have to tell the crackers what to go after.

My patching is going to require a reboot?! It does seem to be changing the kernel, so I guess I won't complain...

Work today was interesting--only had class for a few hours, and then unexpectedly had to go back to normal work and try to get stuff done. All in all, it went fairly well, and there was a real relaxed atmosphere in the office today.

After work I hung out with Matt (from work) for a couple hours. We were going to go to church, but there was nobody there and an earthmover was making major modifications to the dirt at the entrance to the parking lot. So, we put together a bookcase, after buying some tools at Lowe's. Turned out that no tools were needed to assemble it---using 6 thumbtacks and 12 little metal pegs. We watched the Normandy part of Saving Private Ryan--after seeing some photos of the beaches he took while in Europe. We went and looked at TV's at Best Buy and had a shallow discussion about why such a $1.5K purchase could or could not be justified.

So, now I reboot my computer and get some sleep to face another day!

Yesterday I made pizza. I think I cooked it a bit too much, but it was good anyway--now I have something for my lunches. And I made way too much tomato sauce for two pizza, so I can have spaghetti as well!

I wouldn't have bothered to cook, except Fjord came down for the day. It was good to see him again before he goes back to LU. We re-installed debian on two of my computers, giving me current kernels. We also installed Xdmx on them. This is a program that makes my desktop span two screens on two separate machines--like synergy, but it lets me drag windows from one screen to the other, as if it were all on one machine.

This evening I was about to go to church, I got a call from a guy I work with, Aaron. He got an entertainment center and wanted help putting all the pieces of sawdust-board together. So I went over and we got it all fixed up.

I found out a few days ago that my ME team leader from senior design actually lives in Wichita. I'll have to go visit him and his wife sometime. Cool that there are people here that I know.

Well, I've got more class in the morning, so I'd better make my way toward getting some sleep...

Well, my desk is done. After a couple weeks I am finally finished. It swallowed 3 twelve foot 2x4's, two 1x4's, two hinges and some glue and screws. Then to top it off, 19 suction cups and six 20"x20" pieces of tempered glass. It turned into more of a kluge than I was hoping for, but I went ahead and varnish/stained the awkward thing anyway and I am please with the result. My cable modem and router are suction cupped under the monitors. Their blinking lights reflect off the glass and are visible, even though they are out of sight.

Now I have to clean up (with the vacuum I bought) and rearrange my furniture. I found a Lazy-Boy(R) recliner, which will nicely supplement my couch in seating accommodations. It is in pretty good shape; needed some cleaning, and some kid used a Sharpie on the seat. But with the help of some solvents, I hope to remove that.

On a different note, I went to a small group meeting this evening. They were in Exodus 20 and discussed the 10 commandments and how the law relates to our current grace-driven faith. Some good points were brought up.

Life at work continues unabated. I go to class and work hard at staying awake for the first couple hours of lecture. I am not learning anything earth-shaking, but it will be helpful. Sometimes it is really frustrating to try to make the program do something, and have this feeling that the programmers could have so easily made it so it would work. And other programmers have, why don't we use their stuff? (But we are doing 3D solids now, and that is fun.) And then on break, if I am not walking around eating an apple, I surf the web, and when I go to use a mouse gesture or open a new tab, I realize my dependence on better technology. I haven't tried installing FireFox yet...I wonder if it would work, and if it would be a problem...
So, since I have work in a few hours I must go to bed.

I have been in class all week, learning the ins and outs of the CAD program my company uses. The current version has had many improvements since it was first implemented about 10 years ago. In the next room, students are learning the next version, which we hear is less mature, but easier to learn and use. Why are they paying me for three weeks to learn a program that is several years past it's prime? Inertia. There is so much data in this format that needs to be maintained, and so many expensive computers that run it, they can't afford to make a switch over...yet. They say they'll make the change in a year and a half, but they have been saying that for a while. And as I get better at the program, I see that it is not as hard to use as it first seemed, and is actualy pretty powerful for what it was designed to do.

However, since the advent of newer, better and cheaper CAD systems, nearly anybody can try out their ideas for the configuration feasibilitiy using a CAD program and test if their designs are sound structuraly using an FEA program. And for number crunching, they could just write their own scripts. And when they are ready to move into the physical, materials are much more sophisticated and much cheaper than they were 25 years ago. And if you need computer control, there is so much more to be had. For example, this on-going robotics project started in 1967 and had various ranges of success over the next 20 years. In the early 80's they got carbon fiber, now easily had by every design team. Their computing systems also progressed over the years, giving them the ability to test out designs before they built them. Often, the difference betweeen a working and non-working design is just a few variables. Which can easily be "brute forced", using today's computing power to cut-and-try until a solution is found. There might not be more ideas surfacing now than 25 years ago, but the good ones are easier to pluck from the haystack of bad ideas.
So, go out and make the world a better place! Don't wait for the big companies to do it for you, they have too much legacy baggage to take advantages of all the advances of the current technology and infrastructure.