~The Catch-All Drawer~

Sunday, November 21, 2004

Timeless Patents
I've seen a few of these absurd but valid patents, but this is a pretty good list. I'm not really sure about the "Bumper Dumper", the Dog watch seems logical(?) , but I don't think we are ready for the "human car wash" yet.


Tossed in by: R.G.B.
. . . Sunday, November 21, 2004 (0) comments

Saturday, November 20, 2004

Mathematics
I always snicker when people seem to be almost proud of their lack of computer skills and the same of lack of mathematic skills. "Oh, I could never figure that out, I'm not good at math." Not that I am a whiz by any means, but I did struggle through calculus way back when, and like remembering names and faces, I believe math is something you can improve with a little rolling up the sleeves. That is in the real world, not the world of professional number chrunchers.

Look at the most recent article in the Journal of the American Mathematics Society. Real bounds, ergodicity and negative Schwarzian for multimodal maps.

Abstract: We consider smooth multimodal maps which have finitely many non-flat critical points. We prove the existence of real bounds. From this we obtain a new proof for the non-existence of wandering intervals, derive extremely useful improved Koebe principles, show that high iterates have `negative Schwarzian derivative' and give results on ergodic properties of the map. One of the main complications in the proofs is that we allow $f$ to have inflection points.

Am I out of touch, or what? What the blazes are they talking about? Oh, well. I do know that The circumference of a circle is its diameter times pi .



Tossed in by: R.G.B.
. . . Saturday, November 20, 2004 (0) comments

Monday, November 15, 2004

RFID tags on the march.
I mentioned these little devil tags in a blog a while back, wondering if the obvious benefits and yet un-imagined uses to be thought up will outweigh the privacy encroachment that is inherent in them.

Now the N.Y. Times story today, Tiny Antennas to Keep Tabs on U.S. Drugs
shows one of the many news stories that they will make this year, I bet. Tracking bulk drug shipment containers so that druggists can verify that the pills are genuine.

As someone interested in words, I do get a kick out of the NYT, obviously talking down to their readers, never mention the acronym RFID, which has been a standard term for a couple of years, at least on the internet, including the Wall-Mart plans to track inventory with RFID, and the Japanese town planning to implant schoolchildren. The Times calls them antennas (antennae?), then labels, and say, "The labels are called radio-frequency identification." but never mention RFID. Strange.

Tossed in by: R.G.B.
. . . Monday, November 15, 2004 (0) comments

Thursday, November 11, 2004

11-11
At this moment it is eleven eleven on eleven eleven.

How's that for synchonacity of corlescence or slipiandority?

11 after 11 on November 11, 2004


and unfortunately, 2004 in binary is 11111010100

not a match.


Tossed in by: R.G.B.
. . . Thursday, November 11, 2004 (2) comments

Sunday, November 07, 2004

bananaguard?
This is for real, but sounds like a joke. Protect your banana in: Ravishing Red, Outrageous Orange, Sublime Green, or even Glow in the Dark.

Tossed in by: R.G.B.
. . . Sunday, November 07, 2004 (0) comments

Timeless Patents
Mathematics
RFID tags on the march.
11-11
bananaguard?