Learndorphins on WT8P's Notes to Self

Learn to Drive Syllabus – Suburbia and Beyond

Tue, 12 Jul 2022 06:51:54 +0000

Suburban practice: 30-45mph streets

Goals: Be able to drive to (and park at) Trader Joe’s then Metropolitan Market and get back home. Continue building good habits, two-way communication with parental unit in right seat Relatively simple drive to there, some complexities coming back.

Scanning and naming things to keep an eye on (e.g., pedestrians looking like they may cross, lights about to change, etc.)
Lane changes.
Left and right turns, signaling.

An example of a multi-lane left turn; there are no lane dots to assist.

Learn to Drive Syllabus: Neighborhood

Tue, 21 Jun 2022 15:43:09 +0000

(A belated followup to Part 1. Part 3 is here.)

Neighborhood Practice: 25mph streets

Goals:

Back out of and pull into our driveway.
Complete point-to-point drives in a gentle environment, build good habits – speed control, scanning, and learning to recognize potential issues.
Two-way communication with parental unit in right seat. For example, when I say stop, you need to stop right away. Otherwise, I’ll suggest things like “let’s pull over ahead” or “right turn at the next traffic light.” I need you to articulate things you see and actions you’re about to take (e.g., “I see a child on a bicycle weaving; a pedestrian is about to enter the crosswalk, so I will plan on yielding.”). If you don’t do that, I will assume you’re unaware of the issue and will point it out with varying degrees of subtlety.

Locations:

Klahanie Blvd – This is a wide road with ample shoulder, traffic calming devices, and pedestrian crosswalks. The speed limit is 25mph and visibility is excellent … once you’re off our street.

Neighborhood beginner level. Source: Google Street View

Screws

Thu, 26 Aug 2021 18:57:00 +0000

[From mid-2008] My dishwasher’s been making a bad grinding noise that, I think, is the remnant of a broken coffee cup sloshing around in the sprayer assembly. I noticed the screws holding this on are the TORX shape. This got me wondering about the type of screws available and what their trade-offs were.

Enjoy!

The flathead (or “slotted”) screw is an old design, but suffers two shortfalls: it’s hard to center and it’s too easy to apply too much torque, causing the screwdriver blade to pop out and destroy the head. Thus, it’s used primarily in wood products assembled by hand.

Learning to Drive Syllabus, Parking Lot

Fri, 15 Jan 2021 21:36:49 +0000

I will be teaching my adult children how to drive and found it helpful to cobble together a syllabus of activities. This will be in multiple phases, starting with … a parking lot.

Part 2 is here. Part 3 is here.

Parking Lot:

Goals:

Use and feel of steering inputs, mirrors and other controls.
Car gauges and lights.
Learn how the car handles at different slow speeds.
Parking.
Basic turns and navigation around stationary objects.

Locations:

Sammamish Park and Ride

Nutrition Course External References

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 06:47:09 +0000

The Cholesterol Nuclear Option. Source: http://imgur.com/gallery/V2dtI

Harvard Health Letter Spreading your way to lower cholesterol?

Week 3: Diabetes

Defining and Diagnosing Diabetes

American Diabetes Association, Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes 2012
MedlinePlus – Diabetes, Diabetes Interactive Tutorial
International Diabetes Federation

Physical Activity and Weight in Diabetes

NIH, Diabetes Prevention Program
CDC – Prevent Diabetes
WHO – The Cost of Diabetes
National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse – What I need to know about Physical Activity and Diabetes

Meal Planning for Diabetes

Dolphin Kick

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 01:38:52 +0000

When I first heard someone mention the term dolphin kick, I thought it was a reference to the 1980s Patrick Duffy show, Man from Atlantis. The BBC says the dolphin kick “replaces a standard underwater leg kick with a whipping motion that minimizes water resistance.”1 It’s a little easier to make sense of this if you watch the video. Suffice to say, if it’s done correctly, as has been used by Michael Phelps[3,5], it confers an advantage to the swimmer.

RFID 101

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 14:20:57 +0000

I don’t watch much television , but when I do, it’s because my Tivo’s found something cool. Like: last night’s introduction to RFIDs by Dr. Chris Diorio, chairman and CEO of Impinj[5]. His presentation is available online1, so I will just summarize some of the things I learned.

Who wants them? Business! Among the benefits:

For the supplier, RFIDs provide a way to track a product through its complete lifecycle.

Pasta puzzle

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 07:21:51 +0000

I’ve been having a lot of fun reading “How to Fossilize Your Hamster“[1], an entertaining and enlightening collection of quirky science questions and experiments one can do to observe the the principles. It’s very conversationally written with abundant humor. For example, in answering the best way to get ketchup out of the bottle, where they detail seven methods to “exploit the thixotropic nature of ketchup,” they begin with:

“WHAT DO I NEED?

Benford’s Law

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 19:11:48 +0000

I was going through Statistics Hacks and came across Benford’s Law, which states that in naturally occurring numerical data, the distribution of the first, non-zero significant digit follows a logarithmic probability distribution described as:

P(D1 = d) = log10 (1 + 1/d)

In other words, first number is much more likely going to be a 1 than it is a 9. The pretty graph to the right shows the likely occurrence of the first digit. It’s counter-intuitive, as one would assume the digits would be uniformly distributed. However, it’s been observed in a variety of areas like multiples of numbers2, blackbody radiation, physical constants, area of rivers, population and New York Times front pages[9].

Inattentional blindness

Thu, 02 Nov 2006 04:29:49 +0000

Today’s keynote speaker, Daniel Simons, talked about inattentional blindness, the inability to perceive features in a visual scene you’re not paying attention to. It’s used in movies. For example, in The Matrix, the scene in which Neo and Morpheus first spar Kung-Fu style, there’s a stunt double for Keanu. Unless you’re looking for a tall Asian guy doing flips, you’ll perceive it as Neo opening a can of whoop-ass.

Simons’ first example was a powerpoint “card trick” where he presents five face cards. A person in the audience secretly picks one. The presenter then shows the next slide and the card’s no longer there – magic! Try it here.

In an especially funny video, he had someone ask a stranger for directions. As the stranger is explaining, confederates carrying a large box go between the two and they swap out the original requester with another person. The new person was 3″ taller, different color/more hair, Brooklyn accent at least an octave lower. In nearly all cases, the stranger kept trying to help.

They did another, similar one where someone lined up for an experiment and filled out a consent form. In the middle of a sentence, the person behind the desk ducked down, as if to pick something, then another person stood up and resumed the conversation. The person was handed back their consent form and asked if they noticed anything. Nearly all did not.

I failed most of the tests given, but surprisingly did okay in this example only because I didn’t hear the original directions (count the number of times the balls were passed around). Instead, I was focused on the quirky way the players were moving around.

The point was that one’s memory is busy storing what it thinks is most the relevant information. In the first switcharoo case, it’s the directions. In the second, it’s filling out the form. Conversely, you’re less likely to pay attention to what you don’t consider relevant, like what the person giving the directions looks like. Interestingly, an issue autistic people have is that they aren’t filtering on relevance, leading to all sorts of social miscues and obsession with tiny details.

Very cool stuff.

Liquid bandages

Thu, 02 Sep 2004 06:41:07 +0000

This may seem far-fetched, but I got a paper cut from picking up a cardboard box. The box slipped, and when I grabbed it, my finger brushed against the edge, leaving a large gash in my finger. Okay, maybe not “large,” but it hurt a lot and the cut was big enough that it needed to be covered. However, it was right on the joint such that a conventional bandage would overly restrict movement.

Airplane ownership

Mon, 16 Aug 2004 13:21:27 +0000

For you newly-minted pilots who have asked me, “should I buy an airplane?” I offer a quick rule of thumb, based on my ten years in general aviation, four years of ownership, and MBA: No.

Okay, now that we’ve gotten that formality out of the way, here is some insight into the costs of acquisition and ownership, so you can make the inevitable decision.

You have no doubt heard the fairytale that you should consider ownership if you fly more than 100 hours a year because airplanes are an investment. It’s true that my airplane outperformed 11 of my 12 stocks, but if you look at the numbers closely, you’ll notice that buying postage stamps or stuffing the money into a mattress for those four years would have beaten everything.

How airplanes fly

Fri, 30 Apr 2004 11:52:55 +0000

About nine years ago I started flying as a way to blow off steam from the stresses of work. As with anything I do, once I got past the initial learning hurdles, I pursued the hobby very aggressively, eventually earning an instrument rating, a commercial certificate (land) and a private pilot certificate in seaplanes. (NB: Flying seaplanes is almost as good as sex.)

In March of 2000, I became a delusional airplane co-owner. Yesterday, I came to my senses and sold my share.

Fun with Skittles

Mon, 23 Feb 2004 06:49:00 +0000

I’m taking a photography class in hopes that I can improve my technique. We have an exhibition in a couple of weeks, and I’m behind on the number of “exhibitable” (ahem) prints. This weekend I rented a fisheye (16mm f2.8) and a macro (105mm f2.8) lens and set out to take a bunch of photos around the greater Seattle area that I will develop later this week.

After obsessively photographing various foodstuffs with the macro lens — there were so many interesting textures — I bought a bag of Skittles for color. My kids instantly recognized the package and, not coincidentally, had a keen interest in volunteering to help me in a fact-finding mission.

Monday morning armchair physicist

Mon, 26 Jan 2004 14:07:14 +0000

There’s a great urban legend that says a penny tossed off the top of the Empire State building will impact with enough force to embed itself in the ground. Or, if it hit someone in the head, it would kill them.

Last week’s Mythbusters (one of my favorite TV shows) busted the myth experimentally. However, I wanted to understand the math and physics a little better.

The theory behind the myth looks straightforward: the Empire State Building is 1,250 feet tall. An object dropped off the top would take 8.8 seconds to reach the ground, by which time it would be moving at 193 miles an hour: