You can tell you’re raising a young scientist when… March 31, 2011
Posted by mareserinitatis in humor, math, younger son.Tags: boring, reading
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Younger son (YS): “Reading is boring.”
Me: “So Harry Potter is boring?”
YS: “No, it’s not boring when you’re reading to me, but it’s boring when I read to you.”
Me: “I enjoy it when you read to me. So maybe if you get to listen to a story, it’s not boring, but it is when you have to read it yourself?”
YS: “Yeah. That’s why we should both do math instead.”
A post to make a LOLcat proud February 27, 2011
Posted by mareserinitatis in humor, pets, physics, work.Tags: equations, microcat, packaging, schroedinger's cat, wire
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I had some help working on my dissertation today. In fact, the help was so adorable, I had to make a LOLcat out of her:
And on a similar note, I have a packaging fail. I ordered some wire. When it finally came in, I ran all over the building looking for it because the package didn’t appear to be in the receiving area. It turned out that the wire had not come in a small coil in a packaging envelope, like I thought. No, it came in a large plastic tube. The plastic tube was then placed in a cardboard shipping tube. However, this wasn’t just any tube; it was one that I think is normally used as a form to pour concrete. The tube was six feet long. I got my co-worker, who is approximately that height, to model it for scale:
As a side note, you can also tell that he is a mechanical engineer because of the plaid shirt.
So yes…they shipped my wire as a single strand, doubly packed in a plastic tube and then a large cardboard tube. I didn’t find it initially because it was leaning on a wall away from the table where all the packages were lying.
*Apologies for the pictures not being the best quality. They were taken with a cell phone.
Textbook destruction February 17, 2011
Posted by mareserinitatis in electromagnetics, humor, pets.Tags: antennas, macrocat, textbooks
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There are two books generally used for classes on antenna theory: Stutzman and Thiele or Balanis. They’re both awesome books. S&T doesn’t cover as many topics, but I find it’s easier to understand right out of the chute. Balanis seems to make a better reference. While we seem to use both books fairly regularly, I haven’t had the inclination to get the most recent copy of Balanis, so we’re still putzing around with the second edition.
Mike was talking to Layne, one of the undergrads who works for him. Mike mentioned that our copy of S&T recently fell victim to Macrocat’s bladder issues. Layne responded, “Ouch! That’s $150! It would’ve been better if he hit Balanis because you can get a second edition of that for $40.”
Somehow, I don’t think we’re going to be able to convince the cat to take cost into consideration when he’s wrecking our stuff. On the other hand, I think I would’ve preferred if he’d hit Balanis because then I’d have an excuse to upgrade.
So what weird ways have your textbooks been destroyed?
Antenna chambers: their real purpose February 11, 2011
Posted by mareserinitatis in engineerblogs.org, engineering, humor.Tags: eeweb, engineerblogs.org, return to zero
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Mike is the manager of our RFID and Wireless Sensors Lab, which is where our anechoic measurement chamber is located. However, the lab itself is in a different building than where our offices are, so when we need some measurements taken, he has to go to the other building.
Today, I found out what he’s really doing over there:
Anyway, if you haven’t seen it before, you might want to check out the comic strip Return to Zero over at EEWeb.
And while we’re on the topic of engineering, I have post up today at EngineerBlogs.org about Lillian Gilbreth, one of the earliest and most prolific researchers into management engineering. Please check it out, along with the posts this week that talk about how we got into engineering. In particular, we have a guest post from Paul Clarke.
And then enjoy your weekend.
The cold and the intelligent December 15, 2010
Posted by mareserinitatis in education, gifted, humor, research.Tags: intelligence, north dakota
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I was very amused to come across an article posted by Hoagies Gifted on Facebook:
A Compensation for Cold Weather: Higher IQs
The article is an amusing explanation of the fact that there is a strong correlation between higher-than-average IQs and latitude in the continental US. It also discusses a few hypotheses about why this may be true.
I looked up the original paper, and it actually didn’t have much more information than the article. I was hoping for a listing of states so I could hold it over the heads of my friends who live elsewhere.
My personal guess is that the cold weather keeps our neurons from overheating…but I digress.
I have to admit that I’m surprised I didn’t see the most obvious possibility discussed. While I would love to claim the label ‘brainiac’ that was so kindly bestowed upon me and my fellow colleagues at NDSU, I think the real reason is the uneven distribution in population.
The average IQ is higher. If you look at population statistics, one would note that northern states also tend to be some of the least populous states. However, these states also have reasonably sized universities and, in general, a better educated population. Doesn’t it make sense that having a handful of universities in a state like North Dakota could skew the values a bit more than plopping the same size university in a place like Los Angeles?
In North Dakota, two of the largest employers in the state are NDSU and UND. Next in line are many of the state’s medical providers and Microsoft. Having a few thousand college professors, doctors, and Microserfs, who can safely be assumed to have higher than average IQs, is going to have a big impact in a state with less than a million people.
Fortunately, I have a higher than average IQ, so I can figure these things out.
Oops, I did it again… October 21, 2010
Posted by mareserinitatis in humor.Tags: pauli effect
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We have two computers at work that are dedicated to running simulations. The reason we have two is two-fold: 1-we electrical engineers used to always be trying to sneak time in on the computer because the mechanical guys would need to be running their simulations. It never seemed to work for both to run simultaneously. The mechanical program would grab all the cores while the electromagnetics program would grab all the memory. 2- We have to deal with ITAR restrictions. Some of the work we do is for the DOD, and we have foreign nationals working in our building. Therefore one computer stays in a room that is ITAR restricted while the other goes into a lab with no such restrictions. (Note that the stuff I’m doing right now isn’t ITAR restricted, but that isn’t always the case.)
I’m usually working on the ITAR restricted computer, so I was surprised when one of my coworkers came up to me last week and asked if I’d been using the lab computer.
“No.”
He went on to explain that he was asking “because it crashed.” In fact, it looks like the motherboard died. And of course, I was the first person he thought of.
And now that I think of it, I had been looking at something on there and thought it was acting flaky not long before the crash.
Because the mechanical group has a foreign national working for them, the solution was to move the other simulation computer into the lab so that we could both use it until the lab computer is fixed. This, of course, means going back to the scheduling conflicts. The other engineer’s schedule makes it easier for her to use the computer in the mornings, so when I went in yesterday, I figured I’d just go and work on another project at my desk.
I hit the power button on my desk computer, and nothing.
This is getting old.
Morbid curiosity…literally August 5, 2010
Posted by mareserinitatis in humor, science.Tags: graves, zombies
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In one of the spam tech newsletters I get, I saw this little tidbit:
Device Facilitates Detection of Hidden Graves, Even Through Concrete
It turns out that the folks at NIST have developed a device that is a chemical sniffer, picking up the chemical Ninhydrin-Reactive Nitrogen.
Previously, this process involved the tedious and expensive process of solvent extraction of soil samples. Now, a simple probe slightly thicker than a human hair can be inserted into the ground to detect decaying flesh.
Oh, awesome! I always wanted to be able to detect decaying flesh. Helps me keep my distance in case of zombie apocalypse.
Bruno said that the device can be used to detect a body buried under a concrete slab, merely by drilling a one-eighth-inch hole and inserting the probe, thereby eliminating the need for unnecessary digging.
I’m sorry…but they’re asking someone named Bruno about this? A name like that just screams mafia ties. Do you suppose they’ll find Jimmy Hoffa?
(If you want the gory details, pun intended, the press release is here.)
One of my co-workers (who was eating when I read this and stopped soon after) and I discussed the unlucky people who got to do the testing and calibration work on this. Did they have to go to grave sites? Visit cadavers at the morgue?
Nope. They used dead rats.
Bruno and Lovestead used frozen, dead feeder rats for their study and took samples of rats buried under 8 centimeters of soil, laid on top of the soil and from boxes with no dead rats in them.
I wonder if they flipped a coin to figure out who got to read the ‘no dead rat’ boxes.
Honestly, I imagine that this is pretty cutting edge (ouch!) stuff…but the whole thing just cracked me up. (The press release seemed almost Onionesque.)
Chemical detection is a very cool area of science. I am really in awe of people who can do this, though. I refused to dissect a fetal pig in high school not because of moral opposition but because I couldn’t keep my lunch down.
Feeling positive July 26, 2010
Posted by mareserinitatis in electromagnetics, engineering, humor, science.18 comments
I got a fortune today: “When you embrace the positive, you shine!”
I feel like hugging a vacuum tube anode.
I also blog at Engineer Blogs, home away from home to some of the best engineering blogs.
Tinsel teeth December 20, 2010
Posted by mareserinitatis in dental surgery, electromagnetics, humor, societal commentary.Tags: antennas, tinsel teeth
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I told you the other day about my harrowing dental surgery. The surgery is a precursor to the next step, which is braces. I’ve been putting all of this off as long as possible (let’s face it: braces aren’t cheap), but the baby tooth that was holding all of this together came to it’s unfortunate demise about 25 years after it’s intended end of operation.
So yeah…braces.
I am hoping that people will be more sympathetic to my plight now that I am an adult versus the typical middle schooler. (At least I hope so for their sake: I’m certainly not as passive now as I was as a 12-year-old.) I remember epithets like “tinsel teeth” being thrown around the hallways of my junior high school so many years ago.
One insult that took me a while to get: “You get good radio reception with those?”
I have to admit: I still don’t get it. Think about it. There are several issues with using braces as receiving antennas.
1 – The most obvious is that the length of the archwire is significantly less than the wavelength of most radio station signals. The archwire would probably be almost Hertzian in length. And Hertzian dipoles aren’t known for the great reception. Usually there’s a bit of active device action thrown in when using a Hertzian dipole.
2 – The second issue is that the archwires are laying horizontally. Most radio stations have a vertical transmitter. This means the braces are cross-polarized relative to the radio station signal. That’s going to knock any reception way down.
3 – It also ignores the fact that human tissue is quite lossy, so the signal will already be considerably attenuated before it reaches the inside of your mouth.
4 – While they are developing the concept of smart braces (which I really like), I don’t think they’re out yet. And while the braces may have cool electronics to move your teeth around at an optimal rate, I seriously doubt they have plans to turn them into dual-use devices that can tune in and amplify a radio signal.
5 – What kind of feed would you use? You can’t use the two archwires as dipole arms and examine the potential across one of the ends because, lying parallel to each other, they will fail to have much of a potential difference. Do they somehow feed to your brain through your incisors?
6 – How do you decode the signal? I got the feeling when this insult was being thrown around that electrical behavior was being confused with mechanical vibration. Mechanical vibration would undoubtedly provide something to the ears/brain that would be musical, but you generally need some sort of transducer to change the signal from electrical to mechanical energy. Again, I don’t think they’re standard on braces, and I don’t imagine that they have plans to make them that way any time soon.
I feel this thoroughly debunks the idea that braces are useful as radio signal receivers. However, I still have no idea what to say to anyone who calls me ‘tinsel teeth’. (And, in case you’re interested, I’m fairly certain that my dad will do exactly that.)