Rethinking Quarterbacks

I became a true fan of Tim Tebow when he did the anti-abortion ad during the national championship game. Recently there has been a lot of news coverage on him because he is 7-1 as a starter, including 3 overtime wins. It was reported that if you were to multiply the odds of the Broncos winning at each of the games worst moments, then it would be nearly 137,000 to 1 against! You would have better odds at trying to flip heads on a coin 17 times in a row.

My thought with this is that maybe coach Doman is onto something at BYU by keeping a quarterback who can lead a team verse a quarterback who can throw the ball.

Candles in the Bathroom

My wife likes candles because they smell good and are pretty. I see them in a much more practical manner. I realized that I can use the heat from the candle's flame to increase the surface temperature of the mirror and thereby increase the dew-point reducing the the fog that builds up during my shower. It works out great. I light the candle and place it next to the mirror, near the sink. When I am done, there is a nice, clear, vertical column for me to shave in the mirror, that is clear of fog, and the bathroom smells "nice." A real win-win situation.

Insangerous

What a great made-up word. Truly, it describes the actions of anyone who doubles the speed limit - they are insane and endanger others. Here are some examples:

1. Fastest Lap - I have never been to New York. I have know idea what the roads are like except through movies (Men in Black). That being said, driving around Manhattan in less that half an hour sounds fast. Looking at the approximate route he took, The route should take around 40 mintues averaging 36 mph (Google). The driver averaged 56 mph, topping out at 144 mph. Pretty good.

2. 520 Bridge - The speed limit is 60 and people commonly drive slower. The trooper believes the driver reached 150 mph; he averaged 137 mph while weaving through cars. I don't even think I can imagine what that looks like in my rear view mirror - approaching faster than cars if you were parked on the freeway. (Here would be the loop of Lake Washington)

Lastly, please don't drive this fast!!! Sign up to be a test pilot (for missles) or something else, that doesn't endanger others.

Google Chrome

When I see this logo, it always strikes me as odd. It is the normal Google colors I am use to seeing; so what makes it catch my attention as quirky? The other day, I finally figured it out - the colors are arranged clockwise. There is nothing wrong with the rotation being clockwise but the colors "start" on the left. That is where they start because I am familiar with green, yellow, & red on traffic lights.

Thinking more I guess Google's logo is working from stopped internet at the top (red), accelerating through yellow, and moving to green (go). This would make more sense with the direction arrows. Hmm maybe I can finally find peace with this conclusion.

BBQ Stall

In my Heat Transfer class in college, my teacher wanted us to start designing experiments. One student put a temperature probe in the freezer and plotted the temperature between the 30 minute compressor intervals. Although I would someday like to hook up my kitchen to do such tests, I think I will leave my wife alone - she makes great food.

A recent article revealed how to reduce how much meat dries out while cooking. The problem occurs during the temperature stall. The temperature of the meat stalls because the juices start to sweat out of the meat. As the juices burn off, evaporative cooling occurs, and cools the meat. The secret is to wrap the meat in foil at the beginning of the temperature stall.

Sorry this comes at the end of the cooking season. Best of luck next year.

Water Polo Math

For an water polo officiating class we were asked, "which is more damaging, a counter or an exclusion?" Here is the analysis:

Given:
A good team scores on 15% of normal possessions, 50% of counters, and 50% exclusions. (Note: for normal possessions, I am averaging the 6 goals of 30 possessions with the "rarely better than 10%).

Find - which is more damaging:
A contra at the start of possession would be worth (+0.50 goals) to the offended team and the offending team loses (-0.15 goals). The offended team gains (+0.35 goals) per possession. A contra at the end of the possession would be worth nothing since the shot clock is expiring anyway. On average a contra is worth (0.35+0)/2 = 0.175 goals to the offended team.

An ejection at the beginning of the possession would be worth ((exclusion-normal)+0.50-0.15 = 0.35 goals) and the offending team loses nothing. An ejection at the end of the possession, the offending team loses a possession (-0.15) and the offended team gains a possession (+0.50 goals). This gives a 0.65 goal advantage to the offended team. On average, then, the ejection is worth (0.65 + 0.35)/2 = 0.5 goals to the offended team.

Results:
Therefore, an exclusion is 2.85 time more damaging than a counter. Q.E.D.

Hack Me

How are your passwords? For the one's that count, I like to learn a new word in the dictionary, maybe even one in a foreign language.

To make sure your password isn't something too easy, check it against the NYTimes or common iPhone combinations.

Moving

Thinking about robotics, won't it be cool here in 10 years when you pick up your Uhaul with an exoskeleton. How cool would it be to lift and move the sofa, or entertainment center by yourself. Talk about manly. You could also spin it as do-it-yourself for women.

Coca-Cola 600

After all the excitement of the Indy 500. I was suprised to see another jaw-dropping finish in the Coca-Cola 600. I caught the last 30 laps of this race. FYI - each lap takes about 30 seconds.


First, I want to give a hats off to Denny Hamlin and his team for successfully changing the carburetor and finishing tenth.


This race was also very exciting down to the end. Everyone got gas with 60 laps to go, which is too far too make it. As they neared the end, running under green, a real question of who would have the fuel to finish. With a caution at 4 laps to go, the engineers scratched their heads on what to do. Dale Earnhardt Jr., driving the National Guard car, had done every thing he could to save fuel. He patiently raced behind the UPS car - drafting. During the caution laps, a team mate came up behind him and pushed as he had his car off.

As with the Indy 500, it was not to be for the National Guard team. On the last turn, Dale Earnhardt Jr., ran out of gas. Even though they had built up to it for the previous 30 laps, it was still surprising to see it actually happen. What a surprising day.

Indy 500

I managed to catch the last 20 laps of the Indy 500. I always think this is the best part of the race. The rest of the race is for wearing out the cars and drivers.

Danick Patrick had just taken the lead for the first time since 2005 (the last time I think I have watched any of the race). Half way to the finish, she just got passed - not enough fuel to finish at the leader's pace. Bertrand Baguette, who passed her, ultimately ran out of fuel with two laps to go. JR Hildebrand, a rookie took the lead, with Dan Weldon a little over a second behind. Going into the last corner, passing slower traffic, slid out on the debris and crashed into the wall. I was shocked, telling him to gun it. He regained control of his car and on three wheels was passed just before the yellow caution, finishing the race in second place. You can see the light change from green to yellow in this video.

Too bad the National Guard car wasn't able to take the win for Memorial Day weekend.

Thank an Engineer

I have never thought of Civil Engineers as bad guys. I have found that most of them are very agreeable. Although it comes as no surprise that not everyone thinks the same as me, after all I am an engineer, it is interesting that engineers are trying to boost their public image.

Work for the Dead

Have you ever thought about how much work will need to be done to redeem the dead? Being an engineer, I had to crunch the numbers.

Assumptions:

1. There are 7 billion people on the earth now

2. About 7 billion people have lived on the earth before now.

3. There are 13.5 million members.

4. Half of whom are active and able to go to the temple.

5. Of those member aforementioned, 2/3 of which are temple age.

6. Work will not be repeated for the dead.

7. Excluding all who are born during this time.

8. Including all who are currently alive.

9. Exclude any time for genealogy and name preparation.

Those members need to go twice a week and complete all the ordinances for 30 years to get the work done! Considering I don't think that many of my assumptions are accurate, there is likely much more work that needs to be done.

Late Pi Day

For Pi day, my wife was studying pies at school. After her class, she brought in one of the pies for my coworkers and I to share! You may think I am bias, but it was honestly the best apple pie I have ever had.

Wind & Rain

In Washington, it rains every day (or so people say). I went for a jog today in great weather. Now (3 hours later), it was raining. Even though it is great the rest of the day - it has still rained.

As I look out the window, watching the wind blow at and angle, I want to draw lines measuring the angle of the fall outside. As interesting as that would be, I could also do some math to figure out how hard the wind is blowing. I can look up the terminal velocity of a drop, measure the distance of the it moves hoizontally, project the resulting vector onto the correct plane, and get the result I am looking for.

Now that I actually think about it. It would be far simplier to measure the velocity outside than do all those calculations inside. oh well, life isn't suppose to be easy.

Computer Sorting

I created some files in autoCAD and was surprised to see how my computer decided to sort them. I don't always agree with sortings (like the yellow pages) but this one was strange. Does the dash not count as a character?

National Engineer's Week

What a great idea. We have so many other "weeks," why not have one for engineers?

What are some ways you can get involved? I would start by making a sketch of your front room. By completing the sketch into CAD it will be easy to plan out future remodeling for the furniture in the space. If that sounds too complicated, try making a bottle rocket or maybe even a toothpick bridge.

On the website for Nation Engineer's Week, there is also a page for Engineer You Life. It is a page targeted to get young women interested in engineering. Maybe what you can do is find someone who is on their way to college and encourage them to look into engineering.

Warming Up with Work

A while ago, I noticed that the bathroom at work was really cold in the mornings. There is a heater in the women's room to keep it warm because it is along the exterior wall. Turns out the heater had quit. It was old enough that they had to order in parts to fix it. Now that I knew what the problem was, finding a solution was easy.

I did a quick calculation and found the bathroom required about a 1/2 KW of heat. This value is negligible when compared to the building. I suggested propping the door open at night so the HVAC system would warm it up in the morning. It was a success!

Free Fall

During my last flight, my wife pondered how long it would take to fall to the ground. I thought for a minute and responded "about 3 minutes." I happened to know that planes fly around 33,000 feet and that a sky-diver, with their belly down, falls about 120 miles per hour. After a few sloppy conversions, I was about to round out my number and have a decent guess.

If you are like my wife, you are likely wondering why I would know the terminal velocity of a skydiver off the top of my head. Engineering would be an obvious answer but it was actually thanks to a TV show I had seen recently. I was watching people ski down a crazy steep mountain for the speed-skiing record. After watching, I confirmed my suspicion that it was faster than belly, free fall and conveniently had the number in my head to impress my wife.

In The Beginning

int main ()
{
    cout << "Hello World!";     
    return 0;
}