As a way of trying out github for myself I uploaded a small script that iteratively solves the Colebrook equation for the Darcy-Weisbach friction factor, which can be used to estimate head loss due to pipe friction; this played a very minor role in my recent MSEE thesis. The script runs in GNU Octave and it certainly should run in Matlab as well, although I haven't tested that.

Some of my projects have been drawing attention from Maker circles lately. I'm very excited that the Color Changing Doorbell was featured on the blog of my favorite magazine MAKE.

Also, a website called BuildLounge was kind enough to link to my serial-controlled fireworks igniter, under a category of "Explosions". Welcome, new visitors from these sites!

These pictures are from an Audi Owner's Club caravan to Key West on May 21, 2011 using Jay Wilson's brand new Audi S4; a fun trip!

Those who know me personally have come to expect a certain amount of frustration when trying to contact me on my phone, which until recently was a Motorola W755 clamshell phone which frequently lost connections, often failed to ring on incoming calls, and had a broken USB connector requiring me to remove the battery and place it in my previous Motorola phone whenever I needed a charge!

Enter the Samsung Galaxy S (“Fascinate” in Verizon's lineup). Yes, I'm aware that the S2 should be arriving in the USA in the third quarter of this year, but it will probably be priced around $300. The original S already has all the features I'm interested in, such as 6-axis inertial sensing and the OLED screen; 4G is less valuable than one might think given a lifestyle that affords constant wi-fi coverage as mine does; finally, at this late date, any smartphone at all is such an enormous discontinuous jump into the present that I can't really lose with any choice at all in this market!

As an excuse to try out FAU's new Living Room Theaters I spent some time Sunday seeing a French film named Potiche, which was surprisingly and tediously political at the same time. The surprise was my own fault: I didn't research it too closely before buying my ticket. Blame for the tedium falls elsewhere! Whereas most of the audience, I expect, saw Potiche as a charming and funny celebration of female empowerment, I saw mostly a nightmare in which everything was politics, everything from business decisions to paternal pride to tender moments between husband and wife tainted with the tawdry operations of socialist democracy.