Jeremiah Oeltjen

Your Own Segway

Do you want a Segway HT but can't quite afford one? Try building one at a fraction of the cost. One caveat:

There is no redundancy or backup system. It is not even robustly made. Loose wires literally dangle out the bottom. In the fairly likely event of the software crashing, a wire coming loose, a component failing, or the batteries running low, the wheels will lock and the entire kinetic energy of the system will be used to accelerate my head toward the ground.

If that turns out to be the only tradeoff, I'd be suprised.

Happy Birthday

For lack of anything better to write, I turn 0x1A years old today.

Other things that happened on this day (September 29) according to The History Channel:

• 1547 Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, is born near Madrid.
• 1888 William Steinway, a car enthusiast, concluded licensing negotiations with Gottlieb Daimler gaining permission to manufacture Daimler cars in the U.S. long before any other import.
• 1907 Actor and singer Gene Autry is born in Tioga, Texas, to a horse trader who also worked as a Baptist minister.
• 1913 Rudolph Diesel, inventor of the diesel engine, jumped overboard while crossing the English Channel on a cruiser - committing suicide at age fifty-five.
• 1941 The Babi Yar massacre of nearly 34,000 Jewish men, women, and children begins on the outskirts of Kiev in the Nazi-occupied Ukraine.
• 1988 Stacy Allison of Portland, Oregon, becomes the first American woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

Faking Yourself Out

Relating to my previous post Joe Soucheray's column in today's Pioneer Press has an interesting take on the change of seasons.

It is an interesting way to look at it. People do start to pout because the days are getting shorter after the summer solstice. They also get quite grumpy around the time of the winter one as well. Why don't we start spring on December 22? It seems to me that sprint is all about the days getting longer and the weather (eventually) warming up.

It certainly would be nice to have those summer days in May and April as well.

Autumn is here

It is autumn once again. The days have begun getting shorter and cooler. I even thought I saw some leaves changing color the other day. Although I don't mind winter I am not ready for the bitter cold and snowfall. I am, however, sick of the summer heat and welcome the cooler temperatures as we progress through the final months before that white stuff overwhelms us.

P.S. I did not do the egg balancing trick.

Be Sure to Proofread

This article contains an interesting typographical error. If a reader saw only the ticker symbols that follow the corporations' names in the article, they may conclude all of these companies are owned by Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT). Is this foreshadowing things to come?

Fun With Numbers

I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but using the hexadecimal system I am 19 years old. It's a good thing I don't use octal, I'd be 31, or 41 in base 3. Reminds me of something one of my CS profs said: "There are 10 types of people in this world: those who can use the binary system and those who cannot."

New Toy

I first saw the SanDisk Cruzer in a computer magazine last winter. I was captivated by the idea of having one device that could carry all the data I needed without the inconvenience and unreliability of floppy disks. So, when I saw one on sale at Staples I decided now was the time to get one.

I'm so excited right now. I can't wait to get to school on Monday and try it out. All of the lab computers there have USB ports on the front to make connecting devices convenient.

The best part about this whole thing is that the Cruzer is upgradeable. Flip the little button that extends the USB connector backwards and the SD card pops out and you can slip another one in. Now I'll be on the lookout for sales on SD cards.