The Honest Hypocrite

Happy Groundhog Day!

2012-02-02T17:03:00.001-05:00

Happy Groundhog day!

The fun is over here, where you can find the groundhog starring in some 80's television shows.

Or over here, where you can argue over just how many days are depicted in the movie Groundhog day.

By the way, Phil says, six more weeks of winter.

Snow on the Shellpot Creek

2012-01-21T11:04:00.001-05:00

The snow was followed by freezing rain which coated all of the trees.

Web is blacked out today to protest SOPA and PIPA

2012-01-18T11:20:00.000-05:00

Many sites are blacked out today to protest SOPA and PIPA. You can learn about why SOPA and PIPA are such a bad idea and how to tell your representatives you are against it at the EFF.

Help stop bad legislation from censoring the internet, and plain old breaking the internet.

Superbowl 46 Playoff Roster predicted winners after Wild Card week

2012-01-11T13:25:00.000-05:00

Mostly the expected happened during NFL Wild Card week, HOU beat CIN, NO beat DET (but was interesting at the start), and NYG crushingly beat ATL. Less expected was DEN beat PIT in an extremely exciting game. This sets the outcomes for the RKB Fantasy Playoff roster predictions a little more firmly, though four of the teams haven't played yet.

Like previous years, we can still model the performance of the list of 52 roster using the current points scored and plugging in the average points/game from the season multiplied by the number of games the simulations says a given team will play. Add it up and compare to the other rosters to see which rosters make it to 1st or 2nd place, which is in the money. There are obvious problems with the model, since it uses averages and there can be a wide variation in the performance of a given player in a given game. But it points the way toward a prediction of the outcome.

Firstly, below is a plot of the outcomes of rosters in 1st and second place from 10,000 simulations of the rest of the games of the playoffs.

Each column represents the frequency of that given result. The numbers are the number of the roster. Green rosters have me in the money. The darker green rosters are results in which I actually come in 1st and second place! As it stands I have a 54% chance of being in the money (1st or 2nd), a 47% chance of being in 1st, a 20% chance of being in 2nd, and 13% chance of being in 1st and 2nd. Most of these centered around NE or GB making it to the Superbowl, with a little help from Arian Foster of HOU along the way.

We can take the bars above and break up the results by the final Superbowl team matchups. Thus we can determine which combos result in wins for me and which do not.

The sizes of the entire pies above represent the relative probability of the various matchups in the Superbowl. For the purposes of this model prediction the winner doesn't matter as much as the number of times a team plays. Each pie is then broken down into slices for each of the 1st and 2nd place result combinations. Light green pies are when I end in first place, dark green are when I end in 1st and 2nd place, and the lighter yellowish green are when a roster of mine ends in 2nd place. The orange and blue colors represent other rosters of interest, for my sister and brother-in-law respectively.

It is in my best interest that NE and GB meet in the Superbowl, and my roster somehow overcome the all GB and all NE rosters of some of my competitors, I think this is due to spreading the players across teams, and the hopefully luck addition of Arian Foster to the lineup. I can also be successful if NE plays SF and HOU plays GB, while NO vs. NE or BAL vs. GB might yield a first and SF vs, any three yield 2nd place finishes. Under no circumstances do I want to see NYG or DEN make it to the Superbowl.

I know who I need to root for this weekend, how about you?

Superbowl 46 simulations and predictions

2012-01-03T19:41:00.002-05:00

It's time for playoff fantasy football again. Like previous years, using the data from this season I have simulated the playoff games and generated probabilities of the matchups for the Superbowl and the winners. It should come as no surprise that the most probable matchup, about 20% of the 100,000 simulations has Green Bay playing New England. The plot below shows the relative probability by size of bubble with the NFC team winning in blue and the AFC team winning in red.

Other NFC teams with a reasonable chance to be in the Superbowl are SF and NO. On the AFC side it is Baltimore, with perhaps Pittsburgh and Houston as also-rans.

The reason to do the simulation is to see how many games each team plays so that I can choose players who score many points per game and have many chances to do it. Below is a chart of the expected number of games played for each team. The best outcomes are when a team without a bye makes it to the Superbowl because then they play four games, in bright green. More likely is playing three games, in light green. Obviously I will avoid players on teams that only play one game, in red.

Next step is to pick players.

Giant picture print framed

2011-12-30T08:05:00.001-05:00

This picture ink jet printed on fabric is 6.5 ft tall by 4 ft wide. We finally found a wooden frame to stretch it over at Blick's, an art store in Philadelphia. The subject appears to be St. Mary Magdalene with a chalice, perhaps the Holy Grail, but searches on that generate similar but not exactly the same picture. I would love to know the artist.

Baseball fan with HOMERUN license plate

2011-12-30T08:01:00.001-05:00

Santa

2011-12-05T16:48:00.001-05:00

Santa? Are you OK? Do you need some help? Santa?

Crazy colored bromeliad flower

2011-11-21T14:39:00.001-05:00

The bromeliad flower with vibrant colors was blooming at the U.S. Botanic Gardens.

Trilobites at the National Museum of Natural History in DC

2011-11-21T14:34:00.001-05:00

Trilobite fossils marching off to infinity.

Actually these are fossils of individuals at different stages of development.

Passion Flowers at the National Botanical Gardens in DC

2011-11-21T14:27:00.001-05:00

These flowers have crazy colors and very delicate spidery petals, but they are real.

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Where are the jobs? Small businesses or large?

2011-11-02T11:41:00.003-04:00

Howard points to a chart that shows that while small business (1 to 4 employees) may be the largest number of businesses, they only make up 5% of the jobs and payroll in the economy. I felt the chart presented...

...didn't allow for the clear comparison that would make the point hit home, so I made a new one with the data from the U.S. Census Bureau (Table 2a. at this link).

Now with the bars lined up and the totals adding up 100%, you can compare business size to its fraction in each of the bars, and you can see how that fraction of the total changes using different weighting measures. The lines provide a guide to link up the comparisons of fractions across the various weightings - fraction by business, fraction by jobs, fraction by payroll.

Its clear that while there may be a lot of small businesses, they don't have the larger fraction of employees or payroll. You might look at the chart this way, if you are employed, or if I pluck a random person from employed person from the economy, it is most likely that they are employed at a firm with 500 or more people. If you own a business it is most likely that your business has 1 to 4 people. Which question matters more to you?

I also went to far and created a chart with the details on business sizes up to 10,000 people. This chart is busier, but it at least answers the questions of those who think the 500 and up bucket was too large on the last chart. While businesses with 10,000 or more employees represent only 9% of business, they represent almost 30% of jobs and more than 30% of salaries.

As to whether small business or large business are the engines of job creation, we need more information on growth rates of employment and information on movement of the businesses between the bins. Still I agree that it is incorrect to say that small business have the majority of jobs, that's just plain wrong.

My new band and its debut album

2011-10-26T13:56:00.000-04:00

Reddit has a make your own band and first album with artwork generator much like the one that I have done before.

It's been so long since I did that one, that I thought I would get the old band together under a new title and write some more music.

Our new band name is MICROCASSETTE, and our debut album is "the situation should be changed". Here is the album art.

MR. ME license plate in Delaware

2011-09-30T15:53:00.001-04:00

The tough question is - Is this person a They Might Be Giants fan, or a non-credentialed Medical Examiner?

"He ended up really, really, really sad"

Begonias at Winterthur

2011-09-21T16:21:00.003-04:00

These beautiful begonias were in full bloom at Winterthur.

All from that little planting in the ground.

Free software to run your pennsylvania election - Power to the people!

2011-09-21T15:40:00.000-04:00

Power to the people is a popular theme in elections, but how do you get it there when the election process and rules can be complicated and difficult.

David Lynn's answer was to create and freely distribute the Pennsylvania Political Campaign Management Database to make it easier for people to run for office in Pennsylvania. He hopes his completely free software (he doesn't even ask for your name) will encourage younger people to enter the political process as candidates.

Software and the willing efforts of programmers like David Lynn can be a way to hack the political system and make it easier for regular people to negotiate the often labyrinthine election statutes and get elected. More power to him.

Three discussions of marginal tax rates, only some get it right.

2011-09-16T15:06:00.003-04:00

Firstly a link commenting on a egregious common mistake that the media makes often makes about tax rates. The following statement from USA Today is clearly wrong:

"That raise actually might not be as good as it looks. The extra money is nice, but it could very well bump you into the next tax bracket, possibly leaving you with less money than you had before the raise."

This commenter shows that within our tax system you always make more money when you get a raise, you just might have a higher marginal tax rate on the extra salary, but you never make less net income. USA Today fixed it.

An even more complete discussion of marginal tax rates can be found here.

All that being said when you add in the rest of the tax code with earned income tax credits, welfare and deductions the net income vs. starting income can be very different at low incomes. This author seems to think that it provides a disincentive to work, whereas I see it as society's way of providing an income above the poverty line for families until they begin making more than that. The lowest net income seems to hover around $35 to $40 thousand a year.

Autographed hot dog buns at Tony Packo's Cafe in Toldeo

2011-09-02T13:03:00.003-04:00

Tony Packo's Cafe in Toledo is world famous for it's "Hungarian hot dogs", which are really just hot dogs with a delicious sauce on them. They also have a tradition of having famous people autograph hot dog buns. The buns used to be real, but now are air-brushed plastic replicas, though the autographs are authentic. On our way back from Michigan we stumbled onto one store off of I280 in Toledo and I took some pictures. Here is the first autographed roll:

That first roll is autographed by Rock Astley, you just got rick-"roll"ed!

Tony Packo's Cafe has a long time association with the television show M*A*S*H*, because it has been mentioned on the show several times. Thus the first two buns are from Alan Alda (Hawkeye) and Gary Burgoff (Radar) from the show.

The rest of the buns represent a glance through the selections - there were hundreds - and my apparant love for 80's music and television shows.

Above are musicians from the 80's

Above are actors and comedians from the 80's.

One astronaut.

This is probably the only place in the world where Barbara Bush's and Michael Dukakis's buns are right next to each other,.

Savannah animals at the Pittsburgh Zoo

2011-08-26T13:54:00.000-04:00

Closeup of a rhino using my new telephoto lens for the iPhone.

Two giraffes.

Elephant in the distance.

Aquatic life at the Pittsburgh Zoo and Aquarium

2011-08-26T13:50:00.001-04:00

Touchable rays at the zoo. They feel like slimy foam rubber.

Fish or rock, you make the call.

Not the penguins from Madagascar.

PNC Park in Pittsburgh

2011-08-26T13:47:00.001-04:00

We are next door to the park, but no games in Pittsburgh this week. Probably couldn't have gotten the great deal on this room if there were.

Lighthouse at Port Sanilac on Lake Huron

2011-08-22T16:10:00.001-04:00

We visited Port Sanilac today and got to see the lighthouse and Marina. The first picture is with the iPhone unaided.

I also got to try out my new telephoto lens for the iPhone and you can really see the zoom. I think it is a good first attempt from the water side of the lighthouse.

The last picture I took unaided from right in front if the lighthouse. This one is closed to the public so no inside views.

Biggest flooding yet on Shellpot Creek last night

2011-08-19T10:35:00.001-04:00

What is this fish doing out in the middle of the street?

You can see from the debris line how far the water went up the lawn. We ended up with water in the garage.

Here is a pile of sticks left by the creek high up the bank.

Some fence posts and other big branches swept in from further up the creek.

Not exactly the Tunguska incident, but see how all of the hostas are bent the same direction by the flooding. It's impossible to kill a hosta.

This big tree branch hung up on the waterfall of the creek. The forecast is for more of this. I am no longer excited for it.

Oriole at the Orioles game.

2011-08-12T21:24:00.001-04:00

Trees down from yesterday's storm

2011-08-10T13:36:00.002-04:00

This big branch broke from a tree in front of Chestnut Run Plaza.

You can just see here crews cleaning up a huge tree that was snapped in two by the storm. Look for the jagged trunk in the middle of the picture. This is at Barley Mill Road and Rt 141.

Day Lilies on Shellpot Creek

2011-07-18T14:44:00.001-04:00

Employment-Population Ratio - a scarier way to look at unemployment

2011-07-12T09:59:00.007-04:00

The Bureau of labor Statistics compiles a stat called the Employment-Population Ratio that is the number of people working of the available workforce, defined as people 16 and over. I am sure some of those folks are not working because they wouldn't otherwise, but in the current climate many have no choice. As has been reported repeatedly, the 9.2% unemployment underestimates the number of people unemployed because after a long enough time people just leave the workforce and are not counted in the number. The chart below shows the current ratio is 58.2%, that's the lowest Employment-Population ratio since 1984.

A longer time series shows the history since 1948.

It's been lower in the past, but that is a generation ago. I personally would like Congress and the President to start working on jobs now.

(Unstable Isotope at Delaware Liberal got me thinking about this)

Fireworks at Greenville Country Club on July 1st

2011-07-06T13:34:00.003-04:00

Finally uploaded a movie of the fireworks we attended on July 1st. I certainly haven't gotten the hang of taking pictures of fireworks with my iPhone 4, but the video turned out well.

Enjoy!

Dining room table is much longer than we thought.

2011-07-05T20:57:00.001-04:00

Our 42" round dining apparently extends all the way to 92"! We have two 10" leaves and so had only opened it that far. We thought that's as far as it could open.

Lynn was investigating longer tables because we were thinking of purchasing one to fit ten for Christmas Eve dinner. She saw a similar table design where the pedestal separated to let the table extend farther yet still remain stable. That got us experimenting with our own.

Turns out that with a little careful coaxing and a rubber mallet the table extends pretty far. It is the farthest we have extended it in the ten years we've owned it and given the lack of leaves as far as it's been extended for decades before that.

Lynn is investigating the correct wood to roughly match the leaves we have, which already don't match the table and are probably not original to the table. We are thinking white oak.

This discovery has let us stave off purchasing a new table for a while. It's like we already have a new table.

Video of White heron Flying around Shellpot Creek

2011-06-27T10:28:00.007-04:00

Finally caught video of a White Heron flying around our section of Shellpot Creek north of Wilmington, Delaware. I fell a little bad following it around to get the video because it finally flew onto the roof and then downstream to feed because of me.

Up on the roof of our house.

Hopefully it will come back some day when I am not around to bother it and eat some tasty fish in our section of the creek.

POFOLK License plate in Delaware

2011-06-24T09:04:00.001-04:00

POFOLK license plate on a BMW SUV in Delaware. POFOLK? I don't think so.

Dog vomit slime mold in the garden

2011-06-14T11:50:00.001-04:00

My very own pet dog vomit slime mold appeared after the recent rains in the mulch in the garden. Size 10 shoe added for Size comparison.

Asian Lilies make their debut

2011-06-13T19:33:00.001-04:00

It is Asian Lily time in the garden again. Here is a sampling of the many that are blooming.

The speed limit on Baynard Blvd between Shipley and Marsh is 30 miles per hour!

2011-06-10T17:21:00.002-04:00

I don't even know how you can get going fast enough on Baynard Blvd to be unable to avoid a deer let alone kill it when you are unfortunate enough to hit it. The speed limit is 30 miles per hour.

In a separate incident a car skidded and crashed into the guardrail on the bridge over Shellpot Creek on Baynard Blvd. You can see the skidmarks coming out of the crash on the other side as well.

The real irony is that you can see the 30 mile per hour speed limit sign right at the accident spot. Lynn heard the crash after I had left at 5am for a business trip Wednesday two weeks ago and ran out hoping it wasn't me. She only saw a car's bumper left behind that was subsequently removed.

Sage is blooming

2011-05-19T20:31:00.001-04:00

The sage is doing so well this year that it I'd blooming. It looks like salvia.

I don't know if this changes it's taste or will have any affect on it's production.

Remembering Shuttle Launches

2011-05-18T11:25:00.001-04:00

This week's shuttle launch reminds me that when I saw the launch (above) of the Space Shuttle Atlantis in February of 2008 we also saw Endeavor in the VAB being prepared for a March launch.

I saw the launch one week and then the next week we toured Kennedy Space Center without the crazy crowds.

Single Digit #9 License in Delaware

2011-05-16T12:23:00.002-04:00

Delaware license tag #9 spotted on rt 52 in Greenville (of course).

Recourse to the web reveals that it was purchased for $185,000 in 1993 by Frank Vassallo. In 2008 he bought #6 for $675,000.

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/02/21/delaware-man-spends-675k-on-license-plate-6/

1JSBACH license in Pennsylvanis

2011-05-16T11:33:00.001-04:00

1JSBACH PA tag in Greenville. Pretentious much? I guess they couldn't get B8H0VN.

Foxhounds at Point to Point

2011-05-11T15:37:00.004-04:00

The foxhounds are some of the most dog-looking dogs. There are like a fox hound archetype.

Carriages at Point to Point

2011-05-11T15:25:00.003-04:00

Many pictures of the horse drawn carriages at Point to Point.

Canadian Redbud tree flowers

2011-05-04T14:00:00.001-04:00

The whole reason I plant a Canadian Redbud at each house I have owned is for these pretty flowers and for this time of the year when the branches are covered with these flowers.

Osama Bin Laden is dead

2011-05-02T15:09:00.002-04:00

It's all over the news today, I am not sure you need my links to it. Osama Bin Laden was killed my US special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Finally.

I am not sure how important he was to al-Quada anymore, but he certainly was a symbol. Perhpas this sucess, along with the democracy fueled protests across North Africa and the Middle East signals a positive change.

My favorite coverage was @ReallyVirtual in Abbottabad, who apparently was live tweeting it and didn't know it.

Oscar Meyer Wienermobile in Wilmington today

2011-04-28T17:13:00.000-04:00

The Oscar Meyer Wienermobile was at the Acme at Rt202 and Rt 141 north of Wilmington today.

They let us go inside it. I like the custom Wienermobile embroidery.

They even had sheet music for the famous tunes.

Super close up blossoms of tulip daffodil and azalea

2011-04-28T10:25:00.002-04:00

The camera on my iPhone 4 is better than my Kodak camera. Here are some Spring flower close-ups using the iPhone. The black tulips.

A cute white daffodil with a delicate yellow with orange fringed center.

These azaleas seem to me to be more old-fashioned than the regular ones. I like the lavender color.

Blue Heron on Shellpot Creek

2011-04-22T08:35:00.004-04:00

Saw the Blue Heron on Shellpot creek this morning. Pictures are pretty good, but still no video.

I tried to switch to the iPhone and slightly bumped the blind on the window and it flew away. That noise couldn't have been heard by the bionic woman yet it spooked that bird.

1-800 GOT CHART JUNK

2011-04-20T15:41:00.004-04:00

I was trying to get an estimate of how much it would cost to get rid of some stuff in a storage unit. 1-800 GOT JUNK trucks and billboards are all around and at their website you can get an estimate and see how much it would cost depending on how much of a truck you would fill. That data begged to be scraped and graphed to see what the set up cost and incremental cost of junk removal would be. They also provide pictures of how much of the truck would be filled as well as a picture of how much junk would fill it. I combined them all into the following chart, click it for a larger version.

Just a trip for a minimal amount of junk costs $142, and each increment of 1/8 of truck costs about $65. I added the little graphics of the amount of truck and junk next to each point so that a user could see it build, but I also wanted the full truck in the larger size. The 1-800 GOT JUNK website does do a nice job of letting you click to see each of these, but I like the graph to get the full view.

The payback time is based on a storage unit at $456/month. For a full truck costing $598 it only costs about 40 days of rent and then you have no rent after that. Might be worth it.

(source: 1-800 GOT JUNK, and my own imagination)

The Glitz of Times Square

2011-04-10T21:21:00.002-04:00

I was in New York City again on Saturday, but thus time I had time to walk to Times Square and stare up at the brightly lit signs like some sort of country rube.

I got out of there without being mugged or buying the Brooklyn bridge so I was lucky.

George M. Cohan overlooks it all.

Just up Broadway a few block is the Ed Sullivan theatre with The Late Show with David Letterman.

Raccoon during the day on Shellpot Creek

2011-04-10T20:15:00.002-04:00

I am told that it has been a long time since there has been a confirmed case of raccoons with rabies in Wilmington, but I am still cautious around raccoons during the daytime (and at night as well).

Do any of my readers know more?

This raccoon pretty brazenly walked along the creek even while were sitting on the rocks. Then it continued up to my neighbors yard where a bunch if them get fed.

Spring daffodils and other flower portents of Spring

2011-04-08T10:20:00.002-04:00

I like these daffodils with the two colors.

These yellow daffodils are tinier and more delicate in appearance.

These interesting shoots will hopefully be glorious peonies in a month or so.

Broad-shouldered hawks soaring and wheeling over Shellpot Creek

2011-04-04T19:32:00.002-04:00

Not one, but two broad-shouldered hawks wheeling and soaring over Shellpot Creek.

They were flying around for a long while.

Car elevator in New York

2011-04-04T14:40:00.002-04:00

I think it might be cool to have a car elevator in my driveway. This was one if several I saw in New York this past weekend. I looked for one stacked three high to get a picture.

Empire State Building

2011-04-03T12:02:00.002-04:00

The Empire State Building as seen through the urban canyon of 34th street.

Ornate altar at St. Michael's on 34th street in New York City

2011-04-03T11:50:00.002-04:00

Ornate altar at St. Michael's on 34th street in New York City.

An imposing statue of St. Michael.

Batting Practice for Detroit

2011-04-02T16:04:00.001-04:00

Brandon Inge fields one.

Keith Olberman at the Yankees Game

2011-04-02T15:55:00.001-04:00

Keith Olberman is at the Yankees game with us.

My sister called out to him and he waved to us.

Detroit Tigers to defeat New York Yankees later today.

2011-04-02T14:01:00.002-04:00

At the hated Yankee Stadium to watch the Detroit Tigers defeat the hated New York Yankees.

Wooden water tanks in NYC

2011-04-02T12:16:00.001-04:00

Interesting wooden water tanks on top of building in New York City. There was a dirty jobs where they replaced one of these. Wood is apparently the best material because it swells and prevents leaks.

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Saving my planted too early plants with an improvised cold frame

2011-03-31T17:05:00.003-04:00

As a person who actually calculated the last frost dates (90 percentile) for Wilmington from the available data you would think I would know better. The above graph is the temperatures near my house for the past several days. Blue is below freezing, the dips to 25F were especially concerning to me and my poor plants. I knew ahead of time that temperatures would dip below freezing, but I now had lettuce, Brussels sprouts and strawberries newly planted and I wasn't sure they would be able to handle it.

I just started with just bottles with the tops or bottoms cut off to cover the plants I could and a black plastic bag for the row of lettuce.

Bottomless seltzer bottles just fit over the Brussels sprouts.

Topless jugs, a bottomless milk jug and a bucket serve to cover the new strawberry plants.

For the lettuce plants I improvised a cold frame from a plastic bag, duct tape and six dry wire hangers saved from the dry cleaning.

Linus helped me lay out a piece of black plastic a little longer than the row of lettuce. I just used a heavy duty 55 gallon garbage bag that I slit up both ends to make a double long piece of plastic.

Leftover hangers from the dry cleaning will provide a high enough support in the middle to be taller than these very short plants. I started by bending the tops of the hangers flat so that I could duct tape them to the plastic in the middle. I made sure that I had enough plastic on either side so that when I invert it and cover the plants, I can put some wood on the plastic to seal the end and keep it from blowing away.

I used four hangers, two on each end that will also be the sides and two dividing the middle space to provide support along the length. After I taped in the four hangers, I took two more hangers, unwound them and bent then into straight pieces and then duct taped them to the middle of the plastic to provide support to the spine of the cold frame.

Starting at the hanger on the end, I then taped the bottom of the hanger to the plastic to form the side of the cold frame, be sure that you have enough plastic at the end to cover the side and have a flap that you can put a piece of wood on to keep the cold frame in place when it is completed. Finally the frame is becoming more three-dimensional. Do the same to the hanger at the other end.

Next tape the sides of the wire hanger to the plastic for the two hangers in the middle. This will now make the cold frame into an upside down diagonal structure. Do this with both hangers.

I made sure that the hangers were taped well and that the straightened spine hanger wire was also taped well. Above is the completed cold frame, before it was inverted onto the plants.

The cold frame in place. I did use two sticks in the ground between the end hangers and the middle ones in order to give the spine extra support. Gently make sure the sticks line up with the duct taped spine so they don't poke through. The plastic overlapped at the edges gives a spot to put some wood down to seal the frame against the ground to keep some heat in and freezing temperatures out or at least moderated. They also keep it from blowing away.

Here is an angled shot to show the three dimensional structure a little more prominently.

I would estimate that I spent almost nothing but my less than an hour of time on this, since the ingredients were left over from other projects or free with other things.

So far my plants have survived the 4 or so days of deep freeze so the frame and the bottles seem to be working. I was finally able to begin the retirement of the device since last night's temperatures stayed above freezing, and what we have for the next few days is rain not freezing or frost.

For a detailed plan of the above project with measurements and a list of materials ... you will need to forget that you aren't watching This Old House or the New Yankee Workshop.

The Honest Hypocrite in Lego Spaceship Letters

2011-03-24T17:14:00.001-04:00

Andertoons has completed his quest to make a LEGO spaceship for every letter of the alphabet. I have taken advatange of his typography to put "The Honest Hypocrite" in LEGO spaceship type. (click the picture for larger)

I have combined two of my favorite things, LEGO and this blog. Enjoy.

March Madness Simulations

2011-03-24T12:05:00.007-04:00

My March Madness NCAA basketball playoff simulation this year followed the schema of the Playoff Fantasy Football simulations.

I used the Sagarin ratings to get information on the teams' expected performance.

The difference between the ratings for two teams is the expected spread and I used the normal distribution with a standard deviation of 8.83 points to get the probability of a team beating another team.

I then simulate the whole tournament as many times as I like using a random number generator and the probability generated above to pick the winner of each matchup.

To make my picks I then compared a particular set of picks to the simulations, typically 1000, to determine the points for that set of picks.

Recall that in the bracket pool in which I participate not only are the rounds weighted 1,2,4,8,16,32 for rounds 1 through 6, but you multiply those points by the seed of the winning team. If Utah State makes it to the final four, for that round you get 8 points times its 12 seed or 96 points.

I compared several selections to each other to try to find the one that had the most points in competition with other selections in my simulations.

Top seed advances wins - 6% of simulations
Top Sagarin points advances wins - 23% of simulations
Top Pomeroy rating advances wins - 25% of simulations
Secret winning picks wins - 47% of simulations

Thus I was at least able to find a set of picks that outperformed Sagarin and Pomeroy in my simulations. I suspect it has something to do with the seed rating. The results reflect the expected outcomes before the start of the tournament but after the play-in games.

A chart (click for larger) showing the expected outcome of a given seed helps explain why lower seeds might yield more potential points than higher seeds. using the simulated results, the top plot shows the expected round that a team will advance to. Round 6 is the championship. The middle plot shows the expected points for a given seed assuming a standard point scheme of 1,2,4,8,16, and 32 points for winning a round. The bottom plot is the one of interest here, it includes the seed rating in the points.

Upper plot: First seeds are expected to do well advancing to the elite eight on average. Next seeds two through four generally make it to the sweet sixteen. Seeds from about 5 through twelve generally make it one round, and that uncertainty is where the fun comes in.

Middle plot: The standard point assignments don't change the expected value of a team much.

Bottom plot: Including the seeds in the expected points really shows how three and four seeds can be worth much more than a one seed. Even more interestingly, the correct 10 through 13th seed can be worth more points than a five through 9 seed, because they do about as well in the tournament, but have more points due to the seed multiplier. That is what makes the seed multiplier a fun bracket pool game.

M - O - O - N that spells Moon

2011-03-22T17:21:00.002-04:00

M - O - O - N that spells Moon license plate in Delaware.

Two points for the movie or book reference.

Captains of the Axiom from WALL-E

2011-03-21T21:43:00.004-04:00

Captain Reardon 2105-2248 143 years
Captain Fee 2248-2379 131 years
Captain Thompson 2380-2520 140 years
Captain Brace 2521-2645 125 years
Captain O'Brien 2646-2774 128 years
Captain B. McCrea 2775-

The events of WALL-E occur 700 years after the Axiom leaves Earth in 2105. The captains are very long lived, perhaps due to the microgravity, which appears to have offset any decrease in longevity due to obesity.

If these are the beginning and ending dates of the reigns as captain, as the non-overlapping dates imply, then the captains live very long indeed. Captain McCrea has been captain 30 years by the time of the events depicted.

UPDATE: though I copied this from the film that we have been watching over and over again with Linus, it turns out there is a FAQ with this information.)

Hard drive prices from $1million/GB to pennies/GB in 30 years

2011-03-19T09:45:00.005-04:00

The ever increasing pace of progress has made once incredibly expensive things available to the masses for pennies. No where has this been more evident than in the computing industry where each year more computing power becomes available for the same price as the year before. Computing equipment is one product in a deflationary spiral, and that's good.

One example of this decrease in price is in the price per GB of hard drive storage. S ome have grabbed this data and then just picked some milestones. I think it is better represented in a graph.

Hard drive storage has gone from $1million/GB to pennies/GB in 30 years. That's seven orders of magnitude in 30 years.

I also took the data and put it into a spreadsheet which you can access at Google Docs so that you can make your own charts without copying and pasting from the original data which is not in tabular format.

(via BoingBoing, via isen.blog, via ns1758.ca the data is at this link)

VANGOH license plate in Delaware

2011-03-12T12:21:00.001-05:00

Van driver and art afficianado. The owner of this VANGOH license plate has it all.

Grammar mechanic at work.

2011-03-06T19:12:00.001-05:00

This sign at Branmar plaza needed some fixing.

I had some black electrical tape in the car so I fixed it.

There I fixed that for you.

I don't know his name but his face sure rings a bell...face blindness tests

2011-03-02T12:01:00.002-05:00

A tweet or two and the requisite post on BoingBoing about Oliver Sax and his prosopagnosia—or "face blindness" pointed me to the faceblind.org testing site to see if I was good at recognizing faces or not. I think I am pretty good at recognizing people, it is the names that I have a hard time with.

The test confirmed by suspicion. I am pretty good at recognizing faces. For the unfamiliar faces test the results are below:

With a 93% vs. an average of 80% or an even lower 65% which might indicate someone has some face blindness. The test faces were creepy and generic. I guess that is on purpose to remove other cues.

For the famous faces test, the results are below:

I got 97% correct, vs. an average of 85% or even 50% indicating some face recognition difficulties.

I don't know his name but his face sure rings a bell...

Snow drops herald spring

2011-02-27T13:44:00.001-05:00

Spotted these snow drops blooming in the yard. Spring must be around the corner.

Fortune Cookies dispense problem solving and optimization advice.

2011-02-23T14:40:00.001-05:00

"A problem clearly stated is a problem half solved" certainly captures the need to clearly set up a problem and how the work to do that can be a significant but useful part of the solution process.

On the other hand "Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment" fails to capture that in an optimization you might find a local maximum using such a technique and fail to globally optimize the whole system.

This week's fortune cookies offered or inspired surprising insight for a slip of paper inside a cookie.

Snowy Day on the Shellpot Creek

2011-02-22T09:24:00.001-05:00

Snow pillows are back on Shellpot Creek.

The snow amounted to 3.5 inches by my measurement at the driveway a few feet from the garage.

Migrating Birds

2011-02-17T11:30:00.002-05:00

Can you see the long line of migrating birds in a "V" flying across this picture? I think that direction is roughly west. There was another line just as long preceding this one. Taken on full digital zoom with my definitely not crappy iPhone. Those of you that remember my heroic efforts with my previous phone, the crappy Treo camera will recall my frustration with picture taking then. Now it is a pleasure.

T-shirt: How to explain your research at a party.

2011-02-14T17:21:00.004-05:00

My new t-shirt reward for renewing my subscription to Science arrived. I wore it proudly yesterday.

How to explain your research at a party.

I have probably used all of these techniques at one point. Diagram, Lecture, Demonstration, Embellishment, Puppet Show, Interpretive Dance.

One might have just as easily titled this "the six stages of increasing desperation when explaining your research at a party."

First picture of Shellpot Creek with the new iPhone.

2011-02-13T17:12:00.002-05:00

The creek is flowing but there is still ice and snow around.

Books I've read and will read blog-cleaning.

2011-01-31T12:02:00.001-05:00

Clearing out the book lists - both sets probably go in the Books I've read sometime in the past pile now, except for How to Ditch Your Fairy. Didn't get to that one yet.

Books I'm Currently Reading

Books I've Just read

Snow breaking my Dr. Seuss Juniper

2011-01-27T16:48:00.000-05:00

I thought that we wouldn't have a repeat of last year's heavy snow which broke many limbs on several holly bushes and a juniper tree, all of which eventually got cut down and went into the fire.

This year the snow is breaking the other juniper.

That limb on the ground used to be attached at the top and point straight up. It seems to have taken out to other limbs on its way down.

A closeup of the damage shows the broken top, another limb missing halfway down, and another hanging on by a piece of bark.

You can see how the snow is bowing the limbs down to the roof.

A view from the front.

Snow pictures of the day with all precipitation types

2011-01-27T16:41:00.001-05:00

There has been a lot of complaint that the weather forecasters missed the call on this recent storm. It started yesterday when we awoke to 4 inches of snow that was twice what anybody expected and was still snowing when we all thought it would turn to rain.

We had in sequence - snow, cloudy skies, rain, ice pellets and lots of snow again. My pictures begin in the middle with the measurement of last night's snow, which was the second wave. About 7.5 inches.

Linus confirmed my measurement later in the shoveling. You can see my little meteorologist at work.

Then I got crazed with power after I finished shovelling the driveway. "

Look on my mighty snowpile ye snowflakes and despair. Fear my mighty shovel of power."

This has happened before.

Here is the pillowy snow covered rocks on Shellpot Creek.

The required waterfall picture.

And a closeup of the water flowing. The creek has actually risen above the earlier level where it froze so the water is flowing over ice stuck to the rocks.

A closeup of the water at the base of the waterfall.

Deldot Traffic cams, my favorites embedded.

2011-01-19T12:20:00.002-05:00

Just trying to see if I can embed the Deldot Traffic Cams pictures in a blog post. It looks successful to me. These will not update automatically, just refresh the browser to see them update. I chose cameras that are roughly on my way to and from work.

Traffic cam Rt 141 and EX stat., Cam 60

Traffic cam Rt 141 and 100, Cam 88

Traffic cam Rt 141 and Rt 48, Cam 76

Traffic cam Rt202 and Silverside, Cam 49

Traffic cam Rt202 and Rt 92, Cam 48

Traffic cam Rt202 and Rt 141, Cam 50

Traffic cam Rt261 and Silverside, Cam 51

After the WC and DIV week - Superbowl and Fantasy Football Playoff Roster winner predictions

2011-01-16T21:33:00.005-05:00

After today's unexpected loss of NE to the NYJ a lot of clarity was brought to the RKB playoff fantasy football pool predictions. Firstly the model probabilities for the SB matchup and winners.

The most likely outcome and matchup is PIT playing GB in the superbowl and GB winning.

Because many rosters in the playoff pool had NE players a large number of potential winning rosters (including my own) were wiped out and have no chance of winning. Also, the GB and PIT games this weekend generated a lot of points for rosters which had those players. Finally, not very many people had NYJ and CHI players in their rosters. The combination of these factors means that for the purposes of my simulation model there is not difference in the 1st and 2nd place winners among the several superbowl mathcups and outcomes.

The expected winner of the pool is roster 64, Rich V 3, built on a GB/PIT superbowl matchup with GB kicker, QB and DEF, and filled in with PIT players for the extra RB and WR. The second place winner is roster 9, Bruschi Drink 4, which contains all GB players. The roster just placing out of the money in third place is roster 58, RDK 2, my roster built around GB kicker, QB and DEF, with NE and PIT players filling out the RB and WR positions. There is no graph because these are the results in 2000 simulations no matter the team outcomes. I didn't bother with 10,000 simulations because for this model the results look pretty unequivocal.

The results show a failure in the model in that there is no link between team performance and player performance except for the number of games played. Additionally it doesn't take into account good or bad days for players since it only uses the average number of points per game for the year. There is good and bad news in this. A weird combination of player performance could let me squeak through and win the pool, but that same combination could let a 4th or 5th place through to win. The only way to get better information is to get game by game data to try to get the variation in player performance into the simulation.

Simulation and Prediction: Winning Rosters Fantasy Football Playoff pool

2011-01-15T09:55:00.014-05:00

The purpose of the fantasy football playoff roster simulation is to search all of the possible combinations of player rosters for the one roster that has the highest chance of beating the other rosters. To do this I have first simulated the expected outcomes of the playoff games using Sagarin ratings. I also collect the expected performance of each player in each given game from available data about their performance this year. Combing the two yields the expected performance of a given roster and then I compare lists of rosters to each other to see which roster beats the other roster the most times.

My goal is to find roster which score a lot of points and which do well in comparison to their competition. Additionally the search is also for rosters which win over the various high probability outcomes of the playoff season. The model is displayed diagrammatically below.

Using the simulations of the NFL playoffs, the average expected points for a given player per game, we can simulate the performance of fantasy football playoff roster against one another. Now that we know the 72 rosters competing in this year's RKB fantasy football playoff pool, the simulations allow us to see what the probability of rosters being in the first two places, those placements are in the money for this playoff pool.

Before the wild card week during creation of my rosters I used a similar technique with 20 roster that I picked to try to choose the best roster. I chose rosters that had players from teams that played the most games and had players with a high average number of points per game. I also tried to cover the different possible superbowl matchups. From the 20 I chose 5 rosters that I felt covered the potential matchups. The chart below shows the performance of those rosters vs. the 72 participants in this years RKB fantasy football playoff pool.

The chart shows the frequency of the first 20 outcomes for first and second place combinations in 10,000 simulations. Green bars are rosters in which I place in the money, red are not. My rosters are 57 (RDK1, NE dominates ATL in SB matchup), 58 (RDK2, GB dominates NE or PIT in SB matchup), 59(RDK3, PIT dominates ATL in SB matchup), 60 (RDK4, NO dominates NE in SB matchup), and for the hometown 61 (RDK5, PHI dominates NE in SB matchup). Rosters are numbered by their alphabetical order on the RKB Fantasy football roster list.

Before the wild card games were played my rosters were in good position to be in the money according to the simulation results. One roster, 57 where NE is in the SB was so popular that two other participants picked exactly the same players for their rosters (2 and 56). Of the 91 different outcomes, 38 of them had my rosters in the money. Those 38 outcomes combined to 75% of the 10,000 simulations with my rosters in the money. But a the wild card week of playoffs has occurred the outcomes have changed.

After the wild card week, I modified the playoff simulator to reflect the fact that IND, KC, NO and PHI were out and reran the simulations. These simulations also included the actual point totals for players who played the first week added to the simulated totals for the games after the first one if a given player played any. Now there are much fewer possible combinations of possible rosters in the money (first or second place), but my rosters still figure prominently in the money. Once again, green bars are rosters in which I place in the money, red are not

Now their are only 20 possible outcomes of first and second place combinations according to the simulation. Of these 20 combinations, 8 have my rosters in the money. Those 8 represent 64% of the 10,000 simulations. This is a decrease from the estimate before the wild card games were played, but the most probably outcome, in which I am in a three way tie for first place, has gone from 11% to 22%.

I could still lose the chance to get money if really unusual events like SEA winning or New England losing occur, but the whole point of this was to have the fewest rosters which cover the most probability of being in the money.

SB winner predictions post wild card week

2011-01-12T12:18:00.003-05:00

Before the NFL Wild Card week the Playoff fantasy football simulations showed the likely matchups were either NE or PIT vs. either ATL, CHI or GB with NO and PHI more distant possibilities on the NFC side and BAL, NYJ and IND as even more distant possibilities on the AFC side. A NE win of the superbowl vs. many different opponents figured high in the probabilities. The chart looked like this (click below for larger):

Now that the wild card games have been played and IND, KC, PHI and surprisingly, NO, have been eliminated, plugging those completed games into the simulation and running under those assumptions yields the following chart:

The earlier conclusion that NE or PIT would likely meet ATL, CHI or GB in the superbowl still holds. The NE vs. GB matchup seems to be the primary beneficiary of the NO and PHI losses. While the probability of SEA in the superbowl is now visible on the chart they are still a distant fourth place in probability vs. the other NFC teams. The balance of probabilities on the AFC side hasn't changed much, NE still leads with PIT a close second. The following chart is a Pareto chart of the likelihood of outcomes for matchups and SB winners with the wild card week results included.

It yields a more detailed view of the outcomes. Still, 79% of the time, NE or PIT meets GB, CHI or ATL in the SB.

My playoff rosters with NO and PHI concentration are eliminated now, but the roster with a GB focus expecting a NE, GB matchup is still very much alive and a contender for first place in the RKB fantasy football playoff pool.

Happy 1-11-11

2011-01-11T12:34:00.002-05:00

Just a reminder that this year is very binary.

Today is 1/11/11. Enjoy.

Coming later in the year is 11/11/11. Get ready.

First snow of 2011 - pictures and a car in a ditch

2011-01-07T09:06:00.006-05:00

The first snowfall of the year in Delaware puts more than 2 inches of snow on the ground. Here is a measurement showing 2.5 inches. Use the right hand side of the ruler for measuring, this is a measuring square and the left hand side starts at the top of the "L" part of it.

Because it happened at night and into this morning and it wasn't expected to be much there hasn't been any plowing on our street or the streets in the neighborhood around us. That probably led to this person going down the hill on Baynard from Shipley to Marsh too fast and ending up in the ditch just before the Shellpot Creek bridge. There was no one in the car and folks on the scene said the person had gotten out already and was OK.

Shellpot Creek always looks nice after a good snow.

The snow on the driveway might actually need to be shoveled!

Superbowl winners, Simulations vs the Professionals

2011-01-06T21:39:00.001-05:00

I took the odds of a given team winning the superbowl from Yahoo Futures for comparison with my simulation results. My results are in red below.

I match pretty well with 5dimes.com and SBGGlobal, but bodog looks too flat and I don't know what Sportsbook was thinking with the high probability for the New York Jets.

The agreement with some of the professionals lends some credibility to the results of my simulations and the roster decisions I will make based on them. I always say I don't know anything about football so I base my work on those who do and the people who set the odds need to know because they are trying to make money doing this.

Superbowl simulations - matchups and winners

2011-01-05T22:20:00.008-05:00

I am struggling to find the best way to present the data from my simulations of the football playoffs. The key to picking a good roster is to figuring out which teams play multiple games in the playoffs, essentially the ones that make it to the Superbowl. Thus I compiled 10,000 simulations of the playoffs and then determined who the AFC and NFC champions would be that would meet in the Superbowl and who the winner of that game would be. The pie charts below try to capture all of the outcomes from 12.5% chance that NE will beat ATL in the Superbowl to the less than 1 in 10,000 chance that SEA and KC would meet in the Superbowl.

The chart below is a filter of the above data with only NE or PIT as AFC champion, and ATL, CHI or GB as the NFC champion.

The Pareto below shows the top 15 outcomes for matchups in the Superbowl. They represent 78% of the outcomes of the simulations.

The matchups of either NE or PIT vs. either ATL, CHI or GB represent 68% of the outcomes of the simulations. The only wrinkle left there is which team will dominate the game an and so the makeup of the rosters to cover those possibilities. The results are heavily waited to not only a NE appearance in the Superbowl but also to a NE win.

Better Visualization of the Superbowl Simulation

2011-01-04T21:16:00.005-05:00

Rather than the bar charts from earlier I used Tableau to create pie charts showing the fraction of simulations in which a team wins the Superbowl as a function of the home advantage and the standard deviation of the normal distribution dividing the spread. (click the chart for larger).

Does this show better the expectation that New England would win assuming the straight Sagarin ratings determine the winner of each game? The stdev equal to 0.001 assumes that the favored team in the spread wins automatically. The fractions in the pie charts show how NE is dominant even using the normal distribution to more realistically represent teams' chances of winning. A stdev of 1000 is approaching the case where each game is 50/50. Notice the teams without a BYE are more likely to win the Superbowl in this case. That just because they play one fewer game and have one less chance to lose.

Players stats are entered and I am modifying the simulation to let me test 20 rosters at a time in 1000 simulations of the playoffs. More to come.

Who will win the Superbowl this year? Simulations suggest...

2011-01-03T22:09:00.008-05:00

I am currently crunching the numbers for this year's Playoff Fantasy Football Pool. Using the Sagarin ratings and the formula discussed earlier, I have randomly simulated this year's playoffs many times to determine who will win the Superbowl. This year New England seems to be the favorite to win if we just assume wins based on the ratings. Even if we use 13.92 as the standard deviation and the spread and a normal distribution to calculated the probability of a team winning, New England wins about 33% of the time with no home advantage and 39% of the time with a home advantage of 2.11 points as given by the Sagarin ratings. The plot below shows how the winner varies with the standard deviation used in the model for either 2.11 points home advantage on the left or 0 points on the right.

Click on the chart for larger. The X-axis varies from a standard deviation from 0.001 which essentially assumes that the team with the higher spread wins through more reasonable scenarios with higher standard deviations which are more like what has occurred in previous NFL seasons.

Using the home advantage of 2.11 and a standard deviation of 13.92 simulations also show the likely teams to make it to the AFC and NFC championships. The plot below shows those results for 1000 simulations.

The likely matchup is either New England or Pittsburgh as AFC champion vs. either Chicago, Atlanta, or Green Bay as the NFC champion. Other teams have slim chances of appearing as seen down near the x-axis. Notably, New Orleans or Philadelphia have slim but noticeable chances to be the NFC champion, as well as Baltimore, New York Jets or Indianapolis having slim chances to appear as AFC champions.

Next step, collecting player data and simulations to make the perfect roster picks.

Probability of winning an NFL game - recalculated after thirty years

2011-01-02T19:19:00.006-05:00

It's NFL playoff time again. I am in the process of redoing my playoff football model to more accurately reflect the probability of a given team to win a game based on the spread or the Sagarin rating difference.

Stern wrote a paper called "On the Probability of Winning a Football Game" (1991) in which he collected the final scores and the spreads from 1981, 1932, 1984 to determine the relationship between the two. He found that the final score difference between the favorite and the underdog, subtracting the spread could be modeled with a normal distribution with standard deviation of 13.89. The average was 0.07 which is effectively zero for the purposes of the analysis. The probability that a team will win a given game is then the cumulative normal distribution around the spread with a standard deviation of 13.86, or normsdist(spread/13.86) using Excel functions.

I wondered if the analysis had changed in 30 years so I pulled the data for this year through week 16. The plot is below:

The standard deviation is 13.92 with an average -0.17. Hardly any difference found from the earlier analysis for a lot of work to extract the data and get it into a format for the analysis, but at least we now know it hasn't changed. The normsdist function with the spread replaced with the Sagarin difference (home+home advantage-away) divided by 13.92 is what will be used in the game simulation for the playoff fantasy football.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T15:02:00.003-05:00

Seems appropriate to point out that the dates for this year have as much scope for binaryness as for last year.

Today is 1/1/11 or 01/01/11 if you like.

In ten days it will be 1/11/11, or 01/11/11.

And, please remind me, our 5th anniversary this year will be on 11/11/11.

I leave the other interesting dates, binaries with zero, for instance, and other numerical coincidences as an exercise for the reader.

Bonus: this year there will be a 9/10/11.

Before and After - Shoveling Panoramas

2010-12-27T17:04:00.006-05:00

The view out of the garage before (click picture for panorama) ...

...and after shoveling (click picture for panorama).

It was only 5 inches on the driveway as I measured it.

So it wasn't as dramatic as farther east but it looks real pretty. Today's winds were powerful and rattled the house. Some children lost a ball onto the frozen Shellpot Creek, probably because of the wind.

It made it down the creek to our section and they fished it out safely.

Roses in the snow

2010-12-26T17:25:00.004-05:00

The last of the fall roses dried on the stem now have to contend with snow.

Boxing Day snow photos

2010-12-26T17:11:00.004-05:00

It's going to snow for a long time today and tonight and we are supposed to end with 12 inches. Here are some starting photos of the excitement.

Shellpot Creek downstream.

Shellpot Creek Waterfall.

The lonely snowy swingset.

More to come.

Winter Solstice Lunar Eclipse

2010-12-21T18:54:00.008-05:00

Above is the sequence of the best pictures I took last night when I stayed up late to capture the first lunar eclipse on a winter solstice in almost 400 years.

I had hopes of taking pictures from inside the sunroom through the skylights but I realized they were dirty and I would have to clean them. Unfortunately I out it off until nighttime and so I was out on the roof with the windex freezing on the skylights trying to get them clean. I finally needed to get a hair dryer to remelt the cleaner with a towel to wipe it off. I shouldn't have bothered. Below is an example of the moon through the skylights with bright wings on either side.

Thus I ended up going outside to get the best pictures. It was cold so I had a fire going in the fireplace to warm up after each trip. I have been wrestling mightily with how to get the correct exposure on my crappy 8 MP Kodak camera, which is not a DSLR. I don't feel I deserve a real camera until I learn to take care of this one, and true to form I almost dropped it last night as well.

It seems like it is impossible to take a good picture of the full moon with this camera, I need to find a way to reduce the exposure way down, even as the camera thinks I need a high one because most of the field of vision is dark. I also struggled with having the camera focus on infinity, I finally had some luck with the distant setting, a little mountain icon on the camera. To be honest, once the eclipse was at its darkest I had a good amount of luck by just setting the exposure to a really long time to capture the dark red of the fully eclipsed moon. below is a closeup of an 8 second exposure, distant focus, lens zoomed and then I digitally zoomed and cropped it for this photo. It is the best shot.

I realized that for these long exposures that I was actually getting a good image of the stars around the eclipsed moon as well. So I tried to capture some constellations and the moon. Below are two shots with the moon at upper right, Orion at lower left and light pollution from Wilmington to the southwest at the bottom near the horizon.

I even got the Big dipper in this shot. Click for larger to see.

With my new success with the 8 second exposure to see stars I may try this again at the next new moon.

Freezing Shellpot Creek Video

2010-12-15T09:22:00.002-05:00

This morning it was about 25F. The creek has been trying to freeze these past few days but it is actually still relatively flowing due to last weeks rain. The battle between water flow and below freezing temperatures has produced interesting ice spray on the rocks of the water fall. The creek also flows under the ice.

Christmas lights are on the tree

2010-12-08T12:18:00.001-05:00

Finally put lights on the tree last night. Had some help from Linus who magically fixed a set that was one third out that I could not get to relight.

We are using the multicolored lights on the tree this year. I think it makes it the tree look a little retro. Next step ornaments!

SANDART Delaware license plate

2010-11-04T08:41:00.001-04:00

Either this person with the SANDART Delaware license plate likes to put colored sand in bottles or they which is cool, or they like to build giant sand castles at the beach which might be cooler.

Perhaps they make giant colored sand paintings on the ground. The ephemerality of such work is vey deep and poignant.

Fig newton fan in Delaware?

2010-11-04T08:27:00.002-04:00

The Delaware owner of this FIGNEWT license plate is perhaps expressing their love of fig newtons to the world.

Toad Lily on the Shellpot Creek

2010-10-31T17:08:00.003-04:00

I thought I had lost this toad lily twice this year due to Shellpot Creek flooding and overflowing its banks. It seems to have done just fine and has some pretty wildly spotted flowers.

Ghostbusters Quiz

2010-10-19T09:41:00.005-04:00

Mental Floss has a quiz on Ghostbusters, which has lately been on cable, so I felt really prepared. Some of the questions were not trivia from the film, they were trivia about the making of the film, which is unfair in a quiz purporting to see how much of the film you remember. I got a 90%.

Take it yourself here.

(via Mental Floss, via Neatorama)

Are they really POFOLK?

2010-10-08T08:48:00.001-04:00

This family better be extreme fans of Edgar Allen Poe or enthusiasts of a river in Europe, because I don't know how poor you can be driving around a BMW SUV X5.

This POFOLK Delaware license plate seen during my travels. Are there other interpretations?

Shellpot Creek just starting to fill up from the rain - video

2010-09-30T09:06:00.002-04:00

Shellpot Creek is only just getting started today. If Tropical Storm Nicole drops the 2 to 4 inches expected then this creek will rise higher.

The rain will be good to flush out the creek anyway. We just don't need a flood of the backyard like earlier in the summer.

US Religious Knowledge Survey and Quiz

2010-09-28T12:59:00.004-04:00

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released a new survey of religious knowledge on Tuesday. From the summary:

"Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups on a new survey of religious knowledge, outperforming evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions.

On average, Americans correctly answer 16 of the 32 religious knowledge questions on the survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life. Atheists and agnostics average 20.9 correct answers. Jews and Mormons do about as well, averaging 20.5 and 20.3 correct answers, respectively. Protestants as a whole average 16 correct answers; Catholics as a whole, 14.7. Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons perform better than other groups on the survey even after controlling for differing levels of education."

There is a quiz you can take to test your religious knowledge. I got 15 our of 15 even with the last question being a very difficult one that I didn't quite know the answer to, but I knew the subject matter so I was able to eliminate answers that couldn't have been correct. The average on the quiz is 50%, which I think is abysmal. Results of quizzes for 3412 nationally representative adults are below.

When I reviewed the number correct for different religious affiliations I realized that people were not even getting the 33% correct that would be expected from random guessing. This means people think their incorrect answers are the right answers for the questions. Are they being taught incorrectly? That needs to be fixed. It might be important to know that a country is predominantly Muslim or the religious holidays of a group that has a disproportionate affect on foreign policy.

Why doesn't Pew ever call me? After the poll they should tell the people the correct answers so they learn something.