Author: John

Build knowledge // Improve the state of the universe for everyone // Repeat

Things I Learned from The Walking Dead

On By JohnIn uncategorizedLeave a comment

I did Mantracker, so here’s The Walking Dead. First, though, a few disclaimers: this is based on the first two or three episodes of the show, then I stopped watching it. Not that I didn’t want to, but because Dish Network, for reasons known only to their marketing department, dropped  AMC from my lineup.

On to the list, in no particular order:

  • Use the stereotyped racist guy as bait. A few problems solved.

  • Box vans don’t have seat belts in back–drive slowly. No need to rush.

  • Car alarms don’t keep going and going and going and going.

  • Handguns aren’t cannons. Have a clue how to use them.

  • Rifles do kick a bit.

  • No need to waste ammunition.

  • CB radios (handheld especially) are worthless for anything more than a few miles. Become a Ham and have a clue. :-).

  • Have a knife — it is quite possibly the most useful tool you can possess at any time, anywhere.

  • In the Zombie Apocalypse, everyone on the team should be armed.

  • Teams? Travel in them.

  • Have some useful skills to contribute to the team.

  • Have a plan.

  • Have a backup plan.

  • Don’t take chances if you don’t need to.

  • Only engage if you have superior numbers.

  • Drama? Avoid it. There are enough things to worry about without engaging in drama.

    • Okay, some of those are a bit petty. Some really only applicable to the impossibility of Zombie Apocalypse. Fun to ponder, nonetheless.

    Things I Learned From Watching Mantracker

    On By JohnIn uncategorized1 Comment

    In no particular order, here are a few things I’ve learned from watching Mantracker:

  • Understand your position, status, limitations, and goal — from that, build a plan.

  • Acknowledge that your trackers are professionals. They are probably far better at tracking than you are at evading. Therefore, never taunt your trackers, never attempt to track them, and recognize your lack of skill.

  • The tracker is the predator, you are prey.

  • Know how to navigate. Dead reckoning, maps, compasses. GPS isn’t always an option.

  • Two words: Shut. Up.

  • Know yourself and especially your limitations.

  • Know your gear and how to use it. Never abandon it.

  • Travel at night whenever possible.

  • Stay out of lights and off ridges, roads, and paths.

  • Use fire sparingly–not at all if possible.

  • Soap, aftershave, perfumes, smoking, and cooking are absolutely taboo.

  • Stay away from dry leaves and branches, wet grass, mud, sand, or anything that will make noise or leave tracks.

  • A team is a team. It must have a shared goal. This is not negotiable. Never abandon your team.

  • There is no “self-sacrifice” in a team. To steal a line from Starship Troopers, “Everyone fights. No one quits.”

  • 26km (or is it miles?) is a long damn way to move on foot, especially if one is out if shape or has bad footwear.

    • Fibonacci

    On By JohnIn uncategorizedLeave a comment

    Not elegant, but effective:

    #!/bin/bash
    n1=0
    n2=1
    c=1
    while [ 0==0 ]
    do
      s=`echo “$n1+$n2” | bc`
      count=`echo “$c+1” | bc`
      echo -e “$c\t$s”
      n1=$n2
      n2=$s
    done

    Threw it together to demonstrate to Boy Wonder how to devise the sequence. Actually, this is the one I started with in pseudocode on the side of the refrigerator then it morphed into the one above to make it work in bash:
    n1=0
    n2=1
    do
      result=n1+n2
      print result
      n1=n2
      n2=result
    loop
    Serves very little practical purpose other than to learn and see the relationship of numbers.

    And Now, For Something Completely Different…

    On By JohnIn uncategorizedLeave a comment

    I love technology. Click through for more awesome quadrotor video from the U. Penn GRASP lab:

    Yes, quite cool. Here are a few ideas:

    1. More quadrotors!
    2. Adjust the flight pattern to combine rotation and all three directions of travel in one or two combined movements instead of many separate movements. This one might be a bit tricker to implement effectively.
    3. Give them the ability to self-dock in a series of charging stations. Probably trivial to make them dock at a particular location (like one of, say, three charging stations). But to have a battery that can be charged quickly enough to be worthwhile — that might be somewhere in the future.
    4. Give them more parts to build larger, more awesome structures — like a shrine to our Robot Overlords.

    Science Awesomeness

    On By JohnIn uncategorizedLeave a comment

    Kids at a Lebanon, Ohio Christian school participate in launching a ballon-cam into the upper atmosphere.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T89AwNredKI

    Very nice that the kids get to participate in a bit of exploration like this.

    This isn’t the first of these that we’ve seen — in fact, there have been many of them in the past few years alone.

    It’s curious, though, that with as many amateur balloon-camera launchings as we’ve seen recently, it appears that nobody has done anything to correct or limit the platform spin.

    So, here’s an idea for the next team that tackles one of these: add a pair of small mechanical gyros with their axes parallel to earth and at right angles to each other to limit yaw/pitch and spin. That should limit and possibly completely eliminate the spin of the camera platform without introducing much vibration or too much additional weight.

    Still — it’s science, and it’s awesome.