This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon
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Yesterday morning at work I noticed that one of my coworkers had a LED Binary Clock. We got to talking, and I mentioned how bogus it was that it wastn’t actually purely binary, and still represented digits from our normal 24/60/60 system. I joked that I would whip up a web version that did it right. I didn’t actually intend to. But over lunch I needed a break, so I did. Most of it was done in 20 minutes over lunch. (I was slow since I hadn’t done this kind of thing in years.) I ended up refining it slightly more during another short break I had in the afternoon, then once I got home I started cleaning it up for posting here, made new images, etc. Anyway… my new binary clock is now ready!
Abulsme True Binary Time
A number of places sell items like the ThinkGeek LED Binary Clock. These proport to show the time in binary and thus be all geeky and cool. But they fake it. They just take the normal standard time in HH:MM:SS format and show each of the six digits as a binary number… This is simply NOT geeky enough. True geeks will want a clock like what I present here.
This is a true binary time clock where the time is represented by one binary fraction representing the portion of the day that has passed. The first bit is half days, the second is quarter days, then eighths, etc. as well as their on and off graphics. The clock shows the local time from your computer and reflects the time zone you have set, so it is only as accurate as your own computer’s clock. The last bit flips once every 1/65536th of a day, otherwise known as approximately every 1.3184 seconds. This is truely a binary clock. Not like those wannabes that use 24/60/60.
Hmmm… Now I just need to get someone to make an actual physical one of these so I can have one on my desk or hanging on my wall!
To the Wendy’s on Wickham in Melbourne, FL. Dot the clown is great on your Tuesday family nights. Amy loves her. Obviously many other kids do too. We come most weeks after Amy has bass lessons and while Brandy is in chorus practice.
All kudos to the clown!
A suggestion though… it is very busy, but predictably and consistantly busy… perhaps consider adding a third register. I know there are space issues, but I’m sure it could be figured out.
Or failing that, would you perhaps consider hiring some cashiers who don’t operate in fucking slow motion?
I love Wendy’s, but 45 minutes is too damn long to wait in line for a Classic Double Combo.
Just a thought.
Thank you.
Since the New Year, work has been nuts. I have been very busy at work. Full days. Less “slack time”. And full long days. 8 AM to 7 PM pretty much every day. Usually no lunch or lunch at the desk. Lots of cola that I actually shouldn’t be drinking, but am.
It has been fun. I actually feel good being useful and productive. Much better than having extra time to kill or let myself procrastinate, as I am wont to do if given the option sometimes. But it is also stressful and exausting. I finish up at around 7 PM (as I am doing right now) and I just want to go home and crash right away. So stuff at home is falling behind.
Looks like this pace will probably last at least the end of the month given what we have coming up. Maybe after that I’ll be able to rest. For a little while. Maybe.
But it is “good busy”.
Time to go home.
Oh yeah, and one thing I should note. We went to the beach yesterday and had a wonderful time for several hours. But as usual, I was a dork. While I knew it was an issue to watch out for, and had taken precautions other times I went to the beach, and had even talked about MINUTES EARLIER. This time I neither used those little strappy things, or took the items in question off. So a couple hours into the fun playing in the waves thing, a wave hit me just right and swept my glasses away into the ocean. They are probably somewhere in the Azores by now. Ooops.
Right after the wave hit and I came up, it took me a few seconds to realize something was different. Then I wondered if I had just left the glasses out by the towels (like I should have) this time. Then I realized, no, I did not. They had just been knocked off. I spent a couple fruitless minutes checking the area immediately around me with my hands and feet, but of course no luck. Then both Brandy and my mom decided to walk the shore near there “in case they washed up” but I was pretty sure that would be fruitless and was correct. (Although it was still fun walking and looking at all the things we DID see.)
Anyway, lucklily my spare pair were in the glove compartment of the car (where I usually keep them) so my eyesight was rapidly restored, although with an older and not quite as nice frame.
But it still sucks.
Maybe this is an appropriate time to order contacts before the prescription I have for them runs out.
I have lamented for several years that the 1998 Q4 random vacation, the very first of the true random vacations, did not have a full narrative like the rest of the random vacations. This was the trip to Lac Megantic, Quebec that I took with my mother the weekend after Thanksgiving that year. It was only a two day trip, but it started the whole random vacation thing for me. However I only started writing up the trips and posting details about them with the next random trip. For years this website has had a note apologizing for the lack of a narrative and pointing to a few pictures.
Recently though I asked my mother if she could write up something about the trip since she had been with me. She kindly obliged, and now the Lac Megantic trip has a full narrative like the others. Click through below to see the whole thing.
1998 Q4 Random Vacation
There were fewer and fewer tracks as we passed uninhabited summer cottages. I kept suggesting a driveway etc where we might turn around as I looked straight down a very steep bank to the stream in the distance below on my side of the car. Roads were treacherous and getting stuck was a very real possibility – as was sliding out of control. However, this was Sam’s trip and he was in no mood for suggestions – especially from a parent – so I TRIED not to either boss or panic! But I was REALLY anxious – and increasingly annoyed at Sam’s pigheadedness at continuing forward, higher and deeper into snow! Finally Sam had to really persist – going forward, then back – trying and trying – spinning wheels – to make it up one hill only to decide about a mile further that we should turn back after all.
This weekend my mom is visiting. There she is above with Amy. She arrived Friday night, will leave early Monday morning. Short visit, but got to see the new place. We showed her around a bit yesterday. Old house. New house. The general area. She is insisting on helping with moving and cleaning and such. But we are trying to do some fun things too. In a few minutes we’re going to leave to go on a beach run. We might try to fit in the zoo too, but depending how long we stay at the beach, there may not be time.
It is her first visit down here. A little different than than PA!
Anyway, off to do the beach thing…
This is the LAST in a series of posts with items that would have been posted on my blog if I had had a blog during the months I did not have a blog. This was originally sent to friends and family on September 9, 2004 04:09:57 UTC.
Well, got home a few hours ago. Long trip. Long week. Very tired. The general area is somewhat a mess. Lots of signs down, trees down, electricity is sporadic block to block. The big palm tree in front of the house we are in fell down right across the driveway. One of the last things we did before we left was make room in the garage for Brandy’s second car. If we hadn’t, the tree would have whacked the car right in the middle. There was some random debris otherwise, and the number “2” from the “1270” on the house fell down. But otherwise the house was fine. And we had electric. In talking to one of Amy’s friends who stayed the whole time, the block only lost power for half an hour or less. Good.
Meanwhile, the place we have the offer in on didn’t fare quite as well. The enclosure around the pool area collapsed and is now in the pool, and there appears to have been at least some roof damage too causing some water damage on the living room ceiling. And some minor damage to some of the exterior trim. And like everywhere, some broken trees and bushes. Looks like our options are: walk away, delay closing until they fix everything, do some sort of deal with the insurance money being credited to us. Right now we are leaning toward #2. But we will be looking in more detail at the options tomorrow.
Anyway, things look pretty good. Now it is just time to undo the plywood and get the place back cleaned up and in normal condition and get back to the routine life… oh… maybe not…
Of course, in the end, Ivan did not hit us, but Jeanne did. But all that was already posted about on this blog…
Drum Roll… yet another new graph is being introduced. Woo! As with the other in the Graphs section of my website, this will be updated periodically.
Sam’s Body Fat History
Since I first got a scale that measures body fat as well as weight, I have kept track of that as well as weight. Off and on. Not all the time. And a bunch of the data hasn’t yet been entered here. I will slowly get all the historical readings back into the charts here.
For a male my age the “healthy” range for % Body Fat is 8% to 20%. Overfat is 20% to 25%. Above 25% is considered Obese. Oops. As you can see, I’ve been in the bad categories. I am working my way back down.
I figured for completeness and all, I should post about the final certification of the electoral college results.
Congress Certifies Bush’s Win After Protest
(Joanne Kenen, Reuters via Yahoo! News)
The rare objection to vote certification, the first filed in decades, forced the House and Senate to halt their joint session, usually a routine and ceremonial affair. Each chamber then debated the objection, and rejected it, the Senate by a 74-1 vote, the House 267-31. The state-by-state certification was completed a few hours later.
Bush got 286 electoral votes, Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry 251 and North Carolina Democrat John Edwards, Kerry’s running mate, got one electoral vote for president.
(via DrudgeReport)
I was happy to see the challenge, not because I saw any values in the merits, Bush clearly won Ohio, but just because it shows some of the arcane details of the process, and that is always fun. Too bad it wasn’t able to be a bit more disruptive.
If we had the exact same results in the electoral college, but the Democrats actually were in the majority in both houses of congress, would they have the guts to use a challenge like this to change the results of the election? I think they would not. Even if the leadership was in favor, I think there would be enough defections to prevent it. But imagine the hullaballoo that would cause if it did happen! It may not ever happen, but the fact that it is completely possible by the procedures in place is very interesting and fun.
If any party that had the majority in both houses was unified enough and didn’t give a damn about precident and the popular will, they could always refuse to ratify the results whenever the other party won the presidency, thus throwing the election into the House of Representatives where they could pick their own guy. (Or under certain situations, someone else entirely.) Fun stuff. Fun stuff.
I must also say though that I am dissapointed that John L. Kerry did not get 31 electoral votes. He certainly deserved them. John F Kerry robbed him!
Good for John Edwards with his 3rd place showing though! Perhaps he will try for 2nd place next time around!
Lunch time, so time for a quick post… uh… and maybe I’ll get some food, maybe not. :-)
I’ve been holding off on replacing my GPS just because it isn’t the highest priority to spend money on even though it has a huge orange spot in the middle of the screen that makes it difficult to use. But the wait has paid off! Garmin has announced a new unit!!!
Garmin StreetPilot c330
Our StreetPilot “c-series” GPS navigators feature a simple touchscreen interface, with automatic route calculation to any destination and turn-by-turn voice-prompted directions along the way. Selecting a destination is straightforward and requires only a limited amount of input from the user. Plus, the StreetPilot c320 and StreetPilot c330 allow you to choose between a three-dimensional navigation view or the more traditional “bird’s eye†overhead view.
For the ultimate out-of-the-box convenience, the StreetPilot c330 comes pre-loaded with highly detailed MapSource City Select street data of the entire United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. The database features an industry-leading five million-plus points of interest—including hotels, restaurants, gas stations, ATMs, and attractions. (The c320 comes with a 128 MB SD card and a MapSource City Select CD-ROM for data transfer from a PC via a USB connection.)
The centerpiece of both units is a bright, 3.5-inch diagonal, 16-bit color display that makes navigation a snap. The StreetPilot c330 features dual integrated speakers for high-quality voice prompts, and an internal lithium-ion battery for out-of-car route planning.
The new StreetPilot c-series boasts distinctive and sleek styling—the only buttons are a rotary volume knob and an on/off switch. The device is secured by a suction-mount cradle that fastens to the windshield for easy portability between vehicles. Users can customize their unit’s appearance with an array of colored faceplates (sold separately).
Suggested Retail Price:
$964.27 U.S.D. (for domestic US market only)
Expected Availability:
March 2005
(via gpsinformation.org)
No detailed reviews with screenshots and such yet. I can only hope that despite what they say about it being “Easy” they have retained all the features of previous StreetPilots. The only thing that could make me not want this would be if they removed some of the “geek features” like downloading tracks to your computer, entering destinations by latitude and longitude rather than by address, etc…. But Gramin has been pretty good about that sort of thing. If this thing is feature complete, then the larger screen plus preloaded nationwide maps and everything will make it a no brainer… once enough of the critical stuff is taken care of to make an optional thing such as this a reasonable way to spend money again.
Can’t wait to see detailed reviews of this thing once it is actually available!
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