Fudgy McFarlen

The essense of the problem is one of detection.  There is a whole area of signal processing called SIGNAL DETECTION THEORY.  Its an interesting course.  I took it from Doug Cochran as ASU.

So how do you pick fly shit out of black pepper? You can not do it.  The joke infers that the 2 things are identical.  Being indentical they can not be discerned. So stop worrying.  You won't taste the difference.

Before the currency of the USA had natural and animistic beings and deities on it.  Now they only have Caesar and his mausoleums.

The photos in the left column show coins before 1925-ish.  The photos in the right column show currency after 1925-ish.

What does this say about our Democracy? About us?  I think it says the people at the top of the power structure are more given to command / control society and they constantly push us in a direction that favors them having more power.

Only consolation is Benjamin Franklin the scientist is on the highest denomination.

I propose to change this back to animistic dieties.  No human with mainly political accomplishments should be on currency.  These political guys are about as useful as tits on boar hogs.  Yeah Obama that even includes you.  When will these guys figure out that their ambition is not our well being. Never going to happen.

Well 13 years later I found this passage in an article by a coin collector:

In the era of this nation’s birth, currency was often recognized as a character issue—specifically, the contemptible character of politicians. Shortly before the 1787 Constitutional Convention, George Washington warned that unsecured paper money would “ruin commerce, oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice.”

But as time passed, Americans forgot the peril of letting politicians ravage their currency. In 1933, the US had the largest gold reserves of any nation in the world. But fear of devaluation spurred a panic, which President Franklin Roosevelt invoked to justify seizing people’s gold to give himself “freedom of action” to lower the dollar’s value. FDR denounced anyone who refused to turn in their gold as a “hoarder” who faced ten years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

FDR’s prohibition effectively banished from circulation the most glorious coin design in American history—the twenty-dollar Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle gold piece. I was captivated by early American coin designs, especially those featuring idealized female images emblazoned with the word liberty. I was unaware that George Washington refused to allow his own image on the nation’s coins because it would be too “monarchical.” Until 1909, there was an unwritten law that no portrait appear on any American coin in circulation. That changed with the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, whom the Republican Party found profitable to canonize on pennies.

By the mid-twentieth century, American coinage had degenerated into paeans to dead politicians. Portraits of Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Dwight Eisenhower were slapped onto coins almost as soon as their pulses stopped. This reflected a sea change in values as Americans were encouraged to expect more from their leaders than from their own freedom.

The following events occurred between  1:20 and 1:35 pm, February 15,2001

After class today I felt a large movement coming on.  I wanted a chocolate muffin too so as I was near the MU I decided muffin first. I got the muffin and then decided I really needed to go….but it just does not look right to take a poo while eating a chocolate muffin.  I then calculated that I would get about to the bookstore by the time I finished the muffin and then duck in to use the banos ( bathroom).  My calculations were inpecable as always. I tossed the muffin wrapper just in front of the bookstore and then ducked in.  To my dismay the restroom was blocked off and said closed for painting. It was getting critical by this time so I walked down a short way to the athletic building and ducked in.  I had a hard time finding a restroom at all there….I did finally find it.  I walked to it and saw a sign for men/women/handicrapped/ stall with no visual blocking wall and thought…well I am desparate…..So I turn around and see a lock as you would expect…I shut the door and try to lock it….the lock wont bolt.  At this point I imagine a lady walking in on me and saying…." What is that?  some sort of anti -bacterial crow-tch?"  As I try to hover my ass above the toilet in public restrooms. I know some guys love wizzing all over the seat and laugh.  I quickly leave…its red alert time now. I hit the ASU law library next. Now if you ever have been in this building you immediately notice its not square. Its domed.  When you go inside its a highly non-euclidean universe twisting back upon itself that forms a maze.   I made 3 laps in this building ending up where I began each time before I found the bathroom.  I was beginning to think I would have to consult stephan hawkings and warp time to find the banos.  I finally did find it not a moment too soon and survived to write this story.

I've had an interest in the Tempe Arizona municiple WIFI system for a while. I will be putting information here as I find it. Feel free to add using the comment section!

Access Point Hardware Supplier:  http://www.strixsystems.com/products/default.asp

Transmit Power (802.11a/g/4.9): 26 dBm  waztempe-access-point-datasheet_ows_2400.pdf

Unlike most wireless networking systems, the Access One Network’s mesh framework allows for wireless backhaul, thus freeing the network from Ethernet cable ties.

Strix Access/One platform is designed to meet all these needs. The platform is based on the Strix DMA (Dynamic Mesh Architecture) and patented design: a layer 2 switching architecture with multiple radios available for subscriber access and 2 radios dedicated to backhaul.  This 3rd generation architecture, unique in the industry, provides the robust high quality transport to carry voice, data and video traffic for up to an unparalleled 10 hops with minimal latency and little reduction in throughput. By contrast, first and second generation single and dual radio platforms are incapable of carrying traffic for more than a few hops without significant reduction in throughput and high latency.  The Strix architecture has been incorporated into the product family of carrier class outdoor products, enterprise products and CPE.

This is a story told to me by a professor when I was doing my masters degree at ASU.

I was in a class called "Signal Detection Theory" taught by my favorite professor of all time Doug Cochran.  He was an eminently fair guy and a real sweetheart when it came to any issues regarding classes.  A couple of weeks before the final he announced in class that if you were happy with your grade thus far that you did not have to take the final exam. You would be credited with the grade you had going at the time of the announcement.  Lest you think one could stop going to the class that was not the case.  There was a final project due at the scheduled time of the final. I had an A so of course I could only lose by taking the final. Thus I opted out.

Some of the Indian fellows in the class had B's and were not satisfied with their grades.  Thus they went to Professor Cochrans office and the conversation when like this.

With Indian Accent: Sir I have a B.

Cochran: Ok well what do you want to do?

With Indian Accent: Oh Sir, we do not want to take the final

Cochran: Ok then your grade will be a B.

With Indian Accent: Oh sir but we want an A.

Cochran: Ok then take the final and get your grade up.

With Indian Accent: Oh Sir, we do not want to take the final

Cochran: Ok then your grade will be a B

With Indian Accent: Oh sir we do not want a B

……. and so on until they Indian fellows got tired.

A poem I came across on the internet:  

ITHACA

By Constantine P. Cavafy, circa 1900
Translated from Greek by Daniel Mendelsohn

As you set out on the way to Ithaca
hope that the road is a long one,
filled with adventures, filled with understanding.
The Laestrygonians and the Cyclopes,
Poseidon in his anger: do not fear them,
you ll never come across them on your way
as long as your mind stays aloft, and a choice
emotion touches your spirit and your body.
The Laestrygonians and the Cyclopes,
savage Poseidon; you ll not encounter them
unless you carry them within your soul,
unless your soul sets them up before you.Hope that the road is a long one.
Many may the summer mornings be
when—with what pleasure, with what joy—
you first put in to harbors new to your eyes;
may you stop at Phoenician trading posts
and there acquire fine goods:
mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and heady perfumes of every kind:
as many heady perfumes as you can.
To many Egyptian cities may you go
so you may learn, and go on learning, from their sages.

Always keep Ithaca in your mind;
to reach her is your destiny.
But do not rush your journey in the least.
Better that it last for many years;
that you drop anchor at the island an old man,
rich with all you ve gotten on the way,
not expecting Ithaca to make you rich.

Ithaca gave to you the beautiful journey;
without her you d not have set upon the road.
But she has nothing left to give you any more.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca did not deceive you.
As wise as you ll have become, with so much experience,
you ll have understood, by then, what these Ithacas mean.

So you are a high dopamine personality type and you are in tech school  what do you do for fun ?  You are creative and you have capacitors?  I'll give you a clue:

More clues: You and your friends that are also bored are full of salt water that conducts pretty well once you get past the dry skin. Yes that is what you do.  You fashion the high voltage electrolytic capacitor into a dart with fins and sharpened tip.  Then you charge up your capacitor darts.  Then you all rampage around having a dart war. When the person goes to pull the dart out of their leg they get shocked.

The above story was recounted to me by Phil Graham of Phoenix Arizona.  A fellow of many stories he was in tech school in the 70's when you could safely share capacitor dart needles. I'd freak out now if hit by one. 

Er well almost never. My neighbor Eric Snell snapped the following photo because he's queer for the weather.

I will send it in a sluice.