Ok people I have not updated my blog in about a month and half. I have just documented the transplanting of the tomatoes into 5 gallon buckets. But over the weekend, before I was able to post the update, some birds ate the tomato plants. I did not expect this at all. I have three small strawberry plants that are still living but I don't know what is going to happen to them.
On to some other subjects, I read an issue of Make magazine this weekend, they had an article about a guy that has combined AI and Genetic programming. Supposedly the cluster of 1000 computers breeds and weeds out ideas until it gets a solution or improvement to the problem. This idea was very fascinating to me, what ideas can this computer cluster come up with. The creator said that we wanted hard problems that he could give to the cluster to solve, he is currently working on an alternative to the Electoral College. I mean goodness gracious, find some thing more important to put your time to especially since this computer has such promise.
My suggestion: South Carolina Schools
Monday, April 17, 2006
Monday, February 27, 2006
Project Tomato
Well the tomato project is going pretty good. The tomatoes had been doing really well in their biodome – the lid. The pictures on the biodome website are very misleading or I did not do it correctly. On Friday, the tomatoes kind of started to fall over so I knew it was time to transplant them. I had been collecting 2-liter and 3-liter bottles: two 3-liter and two 2-liters. It will be interesting to see how the sets of bottles affect progress and quality of plants. My original plan was to glue the tops back on but leave a small hole for watering. However, the plants are bigger than I assumed and the top will probably hinder growth. I have thought about using them later as a kind of support but the plants will probably be needing another transplant to an even larger container by then.
Altered Bottles and Garden soil- fairly cheap at Wal-Mart. (oh no, I went to Wal-Mart.)
Well, I filled all three bottles with some soil. I had clipped off the baby leaves a couple of days prior, and I planted the tomatoes deep so that the stems will grow roots and support the tomatoes better. I think that I could have planted them a bit deeper, but I wanted room for the roots to grow.
Close up of the tomato plants
The final setup: We have a bathroom upstairs in the loft that we don’t use very much so I switched out the lights with garden bulbs. I used a probe thermometer back when I used a heating pad to assist the germination stage, and I used it just to check the temp. But I don’t know how I would use temp. information now. The blue green powder is some fertilizer that came with the biodome, but I can't tell if it does any good. The problem that I have had in the past was the amount of water and the frequency of watering. This first time, I watered with a ½ cup of lukewarm water and a 3-liter bottle cap of the fertilizer water. I have recorded the date and the amount, but I have to figure out when to water them again. Not that many people read this blog, if any, but if you have any gardening experience and run across this, please give me your thoughts/advice. This watering was done on Saturday, and on Sunday you could see the plants perk up a little bit and straighten out.
Altered Bottles and Garden soil- fairly cheap at Wal-Mart. (oh no, I went to Wal-Mart.)
Well, I filled all three bottles with some soil. I had clipped off the baby leaves a couple of days prior, and I planted the tomatoes deep so that the stems will grow roots and support the tomatoes better. I think that I could have planted them a bit deeper, but I wanted room for the roots to grow.
Close up of the tomato plants
The final setup: We have a bathroom upstairs in the loft that we don’t use very much so I switched out the lights with garden bulbs. I used a probe thermometer back when I used a heating pad to assist the germination stage, and I used it just to check the temp. But I don’t know how I would use temp. information now. The blue green powder is some fertilizer that came with the biodome, but I can't tell if it does any good. The problem that I have had in the past was the amount of water and the frequency of watering. This first time, I watered with a ½ cup of lukewarm water and a 3-liter bottle cap of the fertilizer water. I have recorded the date and the amount, but I have to figure out when to water them again. Not that many people read this blog, if any, but if you have any gardening experience and run across this, please give me your thoughts/advice. This watering was done on Saturday, and on Sunday you could see the plants perk up a little bit and straighten out.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
It has been a while
Well it has been awhile since I posted, so let see what is going on. In the sports world, BCS bowls happened, the SuperBowl happens this weekend and the Olympics starts in a couple weeks. We hit a slow part of the sports calendar so I am not very opinionated about the sports right now. I think signing day is today in College football, it would be nice if USC (South Carolina) could get some good recruits.
Well on the WoW front, my wife and I both started PvP this past weekend. I had been trying to get into the battlegrounds but my character was in the 30s(there are 60 levels in WoW). I hit 40 on Sunday and I played Warsong Gulch like 6 times, 3 wins, 3 loses. I was skeptical about how much fun it would be but once you get playing it starts to be addictive. My wife is a good 10 levels above me but she played at 49. She has had problems getting in since she hit 50. I really want to get to 60 but I just don’t seem to play enough to get there faster. We have owned the game since August and we took a month off when we moved so we have been playing about 5 months but I guess since we are sharing an account that is not bad.
I have been working on a couple of other ideas. I have all these harebrained schemes but I seem to never follow thought with them or start them and don’t finish them. I got three projects going right now. The first is my Sports league wiki site. When I moved here (to Virginia), I really wanted to get involved in the community especially in flag football and soccer indoor or outdoor. I had a really hard time finding organization online with clear information about the leagues in this area. The goal of this website is to facilitate communication between player and clubs of all kinds hopefully expanding to any state and city that anybody wants to post. I got the Media wiki software up and running on the site and that was not as hard as I thought but I am having a hard time inputting data and making the site look the way I want it to. The hardest part is just working on it period after work my wife and I have diner and either watch TV together or one of us plays WoW, but the social tendencies of two jerds (see definition below) is another issue.
The second project is pretty crazy. After seeing a PBS or discovery channel story about using a gas cannon to put objects into low orbit, I got the idea that I should build one myself, a small one. I have started a project using Basecamp, which is a pretty cool site. I have put some basic goals and tasks up there but I don’t know how far it is going to go. My wife and I live in a small apartment so there is no room for tinkering with 4 feet of steel pipe. Maybe I can find a workshop or someplace to mess around with this Idea.
The final and most realistic of the projects: I purchased Bio Dome from Parkseed. I have started some strawberries and tomato plants. Both are doing fairly well, the tomato plants are getting bigger and starting to lean/fall over so I don’t know what to do about this but hopefully I will have better results than last year. Once the tomato plants get bigger I am think of putting them in 3 litter bottles or gallon jugs so that it will not make a mess in the apartment. Being farther north and our apartment is not in the best sun position I don’t know how much sun light we are going to get on our porch. I am hoping as we get closer to spring and summer solace that the angle will improve. Last year all the seed that I planted died and I order some strawberries plants which did pretty well but only a couple of strawberry were produced, I may have water them too much.
Well as I have taken up over a page in Word I guess that I have been very long winded so I bid everyone one Adieu.
Well on the WoW front, my wife and I both started PvP this past weekend. I had been trying to get into the battlegrounds but my character was in the 30s(there are 60 levels in WoW). I hit 40 on Sunday and I played Warsong Gulch like 6 times, 3 wins, 3 loses. I was skeptical about how much fun it would be but once you get playing it starts to be addictive. My wife is a good 10 levels above me but she played at 49. She has had problems getting in since she hit 50. I really want to get to 60 but I just don’t seem to play enough to get there faster. We have owned the game since August and we took a month off when we moved so we have been playing about 5 months but I guess since we are sharing an account that is not bad.
I have been working on a couple of other ideas. I have all these harebrained schemes but I seem to never follow thought with them or start them and don’t finish them. I got three projects going right now. The first is my Sports league wiki site. When I moved here (to Virginia), I really wanted to get involved in the community especially in flag football and soccer indoor or outdoor. I had a really hard time finding organization online with clear information about the leagues in this area. The goal of this website is to facilitate communication between player and clubs of all kinds hopefully expanding to any state and city that anybody wants to post. I got the Media wiki software up and running on the site and that was not as hard as I thought but I am having a hard time inputting data and making the site look the way I want it to. The hardest part is just working on it period after work my wife and I have diner and either watch TV together or one of us plays WoW, but the social tendencies of two jerds (see definition below) is another issue.
The second project is pretty crazy. After seeing a PBS or discovery channel story about using a gas cannon to put objects into low orbit, I got the idea that I should build one myself, a small one. I have started a project using Basecamp, which is a pretty cool site. I have put some basic goals and tasks up there but I don’t know how far it is going to go. My wife and I live in a small apartment so there is no room for tinkering with 4 feet of steel pipe. Maybe I can find a workshop or someplace to mess around with this Idea.
The final and most realistic of the projects: I purchased Bio Dome from Parkseed. I have started some strawberries and tomato plants. Both are doing fairly well, the tomato plants are getting bigger and starting to lean/fall over so I don’t know what to do about this but hopefully I will have better results than last year. Once the tomato plants get bigger I am think of putting them in 3 litter bottles or gallon jugs so that it will not make a mess in the apartment. Being farther north and our apartment is not in the best sun position I don’t know how much sun light we are going to get on our porch. I am hoping as we get closer to spring and summer solace that the angle will improve. Last year all the seed that I planted died and I order some strawberries plants which did pretty well but only a couple of strawberry were produced, I may have water them too much.
Well as I have taken up over a page in Word I guess that I have been very long winded so I bid everyone one Adieu.
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Sports update:
I was born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin so it pains me to see the Packers doing so badly. (My Grandparents have season tickets and they live 3 blocks from the stadium) But on the awesome and cool side of things, if the Packers had not had so many injuries the running back Sam (Samkon) Gado would not have been able to play. I don't want to be one of those people who act like person X has been their best buddy since kindergarten so I won't. Sam went to the same high school and was in the youth group at the same time as me, granted I am a couple of years older than him. The success that he has had could not have happened to a better guy. I hope that he continues to improve and that the Packers will be able to sign him and improve overall when the draft comes around.
The last couple of weeks in the NFL have been more entertaining, mainly because College Football has had a break. I always enjoy the predicting and analysis of the playoff run. This year I hope that the Colts win it all, I would like for them to be able to go undefeated but that is not important in the long run. I guess Colts vs. Seahawks would be an interesting SuperBowl but is seems very foreign to me.
College football season is great. The BCS sucks. I was praying in the last weeks of the season that SoCal or Texas or even better, both would lose. But alas the both won out, even though there were, in my opinion, some really bad missed holding calls on some of Reggie Bush's “unbelievable” runs. I hope that the Texas/SoCal game is the ugliest game of all time, 4-5 turnovers each team and a 12-10 final score. I think that the BCS is going to go to a 4-team playoff in a couple of years with the 4 plus 1 formula. Personally I think the season should be cut back the 11 games having only one bye week, then have conference championships, then a 12-team playoff. (Notre Dame would be forced to join the Big 10/11) How many people would love to see Miami/Auburn and Georgia/VT? Can LSU @ the 12 seed run the table? I think that anyone of those teams could win the championship. I am just glad that my team the first USC (University of South Carolina) got to go to a bowl game even if it is the Independence Bowl. Hopefully we can win that game and get some good recruits.
On the fun stuff, The World Cup draw was done on Friday. The US got into a group with the Czech Republic, Italy and Ghana. This group is definitely going to be called the "Group of Death". I think this is a great opportunity to show off to the world how much the we care about Soccer as a Nation. I am looking forward to watching those games even those it is going to be hard to watch the up coming world cup (while I am at work) than it was to watch the one in 2002(while I should have slept). I always love the World Cup experience. I have been trying to watch and keep up with European soccer more, the Champions league final last may, was one of the awesomest game I have ever seen. I hope I will be able to watch some more this coming spring.
The other day I saw some kind of advertisement or something to do with the Olympics, which had totally slipped my mind. I am very grateful for the Olympics because it will help to make up for the void that is Winter/Spring sports in the US. i.e. NBA sucks. The Olympics will end right before March Madness and hopefully as I said above European football with carry me through to the end of May. And then the World Cup starts. This should be a great year in sports.
I was born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin so it pains me to see the Packers doing so badly. (My Grandparents have season tickets and they live 3 blocks from the stadium) But on the awesome and cool side of things, if the Packers had not had so many injuries the running back Sam (Samkon) Gado would not have been able to play. I don't want to be one of those people who act like person X has been their best buddy since kindergarten so I won't. Sam went to the same high school and was in the youth group at the same time as me, granted I am a couple of years older than him. The success that he has had could not have happened to a better guy. I hope that he continues to improve and that the Packers will be able to sign him and improve overall when the draft comes around.
The last couple of weeks in the NFL have been more entertaining, mainly because College Football has had a break. I always enjoy the predicting and analysis of the playoff run. This year I hope that the Colts win it all, I would like for them to be able to go undefeated but that is not important in the long run. I guess Colts vs. Seahawks would be an interesting SuperBowl but is seems very foreign to me.
College football season is great. The BCS sucks. I was praying in the last weeks of the season that SoCal or Texas or even better, both would lose. But alas the both won out, even though there were, in my opinion, some really bad missed holding calls on some of Reggie Bush's “unbelievable” runs. I hope that the Texas/SoCal game is the ugliest game of all time, 4-5 turnovers each team and a 12-10 final score. I think that the BCS is going to go to a 4-team playoff in a couple of years with the 4 plus 1 formula. Personally I think the season should be cut back the 11 games having only one bye week, then have conference championships, then a 12-team playoff. (Notre Dame would be forced to join the Big 10/11) How many people would love to see Miami/Auburn and Georgia/VT? Can LSU @ the 12 seed run the table? I think that anyone of those teams could win the championship. I am just glad that my team the first USC (University of South Carolina) got to go to a bowl game even if it is the Independence Bowl. Hopefully we can win that game and get some good recruits.
On the fun stuff, The World Cup draw was done on Friday. The US got into a group with the Czech Republic, Italy and Ghana. This group is definitely going to be called the "Group of Death". I think this is a great opportunity to show off to the world how much the we care about Soccer as a Nation. I am looking forward to watching those games even those it is going to be hard to watch the up coming world cup (while I am at work) than it was to watch the one in 2002(while I should have slept). I always love the World Cup experience. I have been trying to watch and keep up with European soccer more, the Champions league final last may, was one of the awesomest game I have ever seen. I hope I will be able to watch some more this coming spring.
The other day I saw some kind of advertisement or something to do with the Olympics, which had totally slipped my mind. I am very grateful for the Olympics because it will help to make up for the void that is Winter/Spring sports in the US. i.e. NBA sucks. The Olympics will end right before March Madness and hopefully as I said above European football with carry me through to the end of May. And then the World Cup starts. This should be a great year in sports.
Friday, December 09, 2005
Well this is going to be my first diatribe. I wanted to mention this before but I did not have solid ground for my critic. My beef is with the word, Podcast as the New Oxford American Dictionary defines it as "a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player". I know it does not have to be but in most cases to my understanding a "Podcast" is an mp3. I just don't understand and it is pissing me off with all this, download my Podcast crap. It’s just an mp3. I have no desire what so every listening to Brian Williams NBC news Podcast, some stuff kind of appeals to me Ronald Moore's Podcasts, but those have content that I can't get anywhere else and it is not a live event or summary of one. But I am a person that cannot watch taped sporting events so that might explain some stuff. I like listening to mp3s of songs and even books on mp3. The productization of the word just pisses me off.
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Number 2
Well there is a myriad of topics that I could talk about. I am a big fan of Slashdot. It is a pretty good site for people seeking the inner nerd. The articles are very informative but the posters (not necessarily the editors) are very opinionated, so don't be surprised about anything. There was a recent article that was about creating your own MMORPG. My wife and I enjoy playing WoW and I played a little Ultima Online back in college. Some of the ideas and other mmorgps that are in the article are very interesting. I have always what to make a game in the genre of FF/Crono trigger, Sega games: Warsong = Langrisser (japan), Shining Force, Dark Wizard(Sega CD) Later on UO, Warcraft II and as off late WoW. My entire life I have made up all sorts of stuff. I really enjoy creating things, I like to build/design PCBs, programming, even gardening and cooking are inventing to me. The central theme to my mmorpg would be interaction of thousands of items to create anything (stick + vines + stone = crude hammer/bludgeon) thus altering the world and your character. Since playing WoW I like some ideas i.e. mining nodes but I would make the contents of the node larger and more variable. I am a very big thinker but I never seem to get things rolling but I guess every nerd out there runs into the same problem now and then. I may go into more detail later. Not that anyone reads this but I was thinking of starting a Sourceforge project let me know if you want to help.
Well there is a myriad of topics that I could talk about. I am a big fan of Slashdot. It is a pretty good site for people seeking the inner nerd. The articles are very informative but the posters (not necessarily the editors) are very opinionated, so don't be surprised about anything. There was a recent article that was about creating your own MMORPG. My wife and I enjoy playing WoW and I played a little Ultima Online back in college. Some of the ideas and other mmorgps that are in the article are very interesting. I have always what to make a game in the genre of FF/Crono trigger, Sega games: Warsong = Langrisser (japan), Shining Force, Dark Wizard(Sega CD) Later on UO, Warcraft II and as off late WoW. My entire life I have made up all sorts of stuff. I really enjoy creating things, I like to build/design PCBs, programming, even gardening and cooking are inventing to me. The central theme to my mmorpg would be interaction of thousands of items to create anything (stick + vines + stone = crude hammer/bludgeon) thus altering the world and your character. Since playing WoW I like some ideas i.e. mining nodes but I would make the contents of the node larger and more variable. I am a very big thinker but I never seem to get things rolling but I guess every nerd out there runs into the same problem now and then. I may go into more detail later. Not that anyone reads this but I was thinking of starting a Sourceforge project let me know if you want to help.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
"The First blog" Dum-dum dummmmm
Well Let me explain what a Jerd is? I would like to describe myself as combination of a Nerd and a Jock. I would say that I am more of a nerd than a jock but I guess that is subjective. For the record Jerd is 25% Jock and 75% Nerd.
My Jockdom: Play(ed) Soccer and Football. I still enjoy playing soccer but I seriously out of shape espically since this past Feburary when I messed up my left knee. My wife and I just moved to Northern Virginia so I am looking forward to finding a place to play indoor and/or outdoor. Love college football, hate the BCS!!!!
My Nerdom: I am an Electrical Engineer that automatically quaifies me as a nerd but I shall expound. I graduated from University of South Carolina (The first and orginal USC) in 2001. I Worked for a small company Kryotech designing microcontrollers for big temperature systems that would be used in semiconductor testing for Intel and AMD. Well the bosses did not really understand the dynamics of running a small company in SC and how to play with the Big Boys. In the end, Intel forced us to be sold to one of their buddies in San Diego. I got laid off because the product I was working on was almost done in the production cycle and they did not need me for technology transfer. One of my buddies got me a job at a computer store while I was looking for a engineering job. Currently I am working for the DoD as an electronics Engineer. And to cap that off my wonderful wife is a higher level than me on World of Warcraft, hahahaha.
Well Let me explain what a Jerd is? I would like to describe myself as combination of a Nerd and a Jock. I would say that I am more of a nerd than a jock but I guess that is subjective. For the record Jerd is 25% Jock and 75% Nerd.
My Jockdom: Play(ed) Soccer and Football. I still enjoy playing soccer but I seriously out of shape espically since this past Feburary when I messed up my left knee. My wife and I just moved to Northern Virginia so I am looking forward to finding a place to play indoor and/or outdoor. Love college football, hate the BCS!!!!
My Nerdom: I am an Electrical Engineer that automatically quaifies me as a nerd but I shall expound. I graduated from University of South Carolina (The first and orginal USC) in 2001. I Worked for a small company Kryotech designing microcontrollers for big temperature systems that would be used in semiconductor testing for Intel and AMD. Well the bosses did not really understand the dynamics of running a small company in SC and how to play with the Big Boys. In the end, Intel forced us to be sold to one of their buddies in San Diego. I got laid off because the product I was working on was almost done in the production cycle and they did not need me for technology transfer. One of my buddies got me a job at a computer store while I was looking for a engineering job. Currently I am working for the DoD as an electronics Engineer. And to cap that off my wonderful wife is a higher level than me on World of Warcraft, hahahaha.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)