Tales of the Golem; or, the Modern Epimetheus

Do you derive joy when someone else succeeds?

I figure I only have about 15 of the 21 things Alanis Morissette wants in a lover. Probably not a very good score.

posted by Richard Mason @ Thursday, April 19, 2007 3 comments

You know everybody got to have a purpose in this world

I made the May issue of Popular Science. Page 58!

posted by Richard Mason @ Sunday, April 15, 2007 3 comments

With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse

Courtesy of Chris, here is photographic evidence of the startling discovery we made a few months ago at the Glasgow Science Centre.


The idea is a demonstration of Pythagoras's theorem that a^2 + b^2 = c^2. The area (a^2 + b^2) in this case is equal to the cross-sectional area of the two smaller tanks filled with fluid.

Then we simply rotate the apparatus and let the "hypotenuse" tank fill with fluid.

The result: the larger tank does not contain all the fluid. a^2 + b^2 > c^2. Convincing experimental disproof of Pythagoras's theorem!

I think it's great that thousands of Scottish schoolchildren are getting to witness first-hand hoary mathematical theories being uprooted by real-world experiments. That is science in action!

posted by Richard Mason @ Saturday, April 14, 2007 21 comments

By the 1950s they're in everybody's home

These are the things I like about my Motorola SLVR L2 phone.

1) It is slim and fits easily in a pocket.
2) It has a nice loud speakerphone so I can set it down for a conference call and leave my hands free to type.
3) In theory I could use it abroad although I haven't actually done that.

These are the things I do not like about my Motorola SLVR L2 phone.

1) The phone will tell me that I have voicemail, with the little voicemail envelope symbol or with the voicemail ringtone. I will pick up the phone and listen to my voicemail, then I will put the phone down. But the phone is not done. It also wants to let me know that I missed a call-- the one that left the voicemail that I just listened to. The phone will beep at me loudly until I pick it up and press "View Calls" to see what call I missed, and "Exit" to signal the end of the missed call viewing.

2) When the phone is getting low on charge, it beeps loudly. For example, if the phone gets low on charge at say, 3 am in the morning, it will beep loudly enough to wake me up. It will keep beeping until I get up and plug it in, or more likely turn it off in disgust.

3) It has a mini-USB port to charge with, but only the particular charger it came with actually works to charge the phone. If I put another mini-USB charger in the phone, it makes lights and sounds as if it were about to be charged, but it doesn't actually charge.

4) There are two buttons on each side of the navigation control. The positive/negative polarity of the functions is mixed up. The buttons on the left side are used for "Call" and also "Back" and "Exit." The buttons on the right side are used for "View" and "Select" and "Hang Up." I find it easy to Hang Up when I meant to Select or Select when I meant to Exit.

5) You cannot enter multiple phone numbers for a single person. Every entry just has one number.

6) This phone still hasn't figured out about Daylight Savings Time, yet I can't set the time myself either.

posted by Richard Mason @ Friday, April 13, 2007 0 comments

Why do I live this way? Hey, it must be the money

I entered another stockpicking contest at the Motley Fool. This one has a $4000 prize for the person who finishes first and a $3000 prize for second. The contest goes until June 19, and there are already over 1000 people playing, so what are the chances? However, at least I am off to a good start. So far, I am in third place.

posted by Richard Mason @ Monday, April 02, 2007 0 comments