AI timed roads

 OK all you thinkers out there... here is a job for AI...

I am not a climate crazy, but I do think that we are to tend the earth and not harm it. We can talk for years about changing to electric cars to reduce carbon emissions, but then how do we generate all that electricity??? (Mostly by burning coal and natural gas!)

One of my biggest frustrations while driving is start/stop/start/stop/start/stop...!!! Even on 55 mph roads! 3 blocks, light... 3 blocks, light. Do we coast? NO! If we do, we get blown off the road by the guy behind us who wants to go 55 !!

It seems simple: just time the lights! In Denver, over the years there have been a few "timed" streets, like 14th and 15th near downtown. I remember my dad hitting just the right speed so that he could sail a long ways before he hit a light! So there ya go! Time 'em!

Well... not so quick... even a grid of 4 streets, 2 NS, 2 EW is not trivial to time. That creates 12 individual segments, times 2 for both directions... not even talking about turns. Add more so you have 3 NS and 3 EW and it gets very complex, even with all the same speed roads! Add different speed roads, diagonal roads, short roads! It is very quickly a non-solvable problem.

Well, hey... I thought that is what AI does best! Set up each street with cameras that see the approaches and intersections, know all the speed limits (as if humans do those), know how many cars are waiting, know the priorities, know how to weight the priorities as people wait longer... simple, huh?

Now, let the AI monitor all that and control all those lights! If a busy street is not busy at 9:30 Sunday evening, and I approach on a side street, let me go! If I am cruising on a fast road and there are a couple of cars waiting on an access road for a few minutes, let me go!

Can you imagine all the gas and break pads that would be saved??? Remember, all that gas puts kinetic energy into those cars. When the car stops, all that energy is converted to heat in the road, tires, and brakes! Then, we accelerate again! Please mister AI - Help us!

AI will probably tell us to all have electric cars that it drives.... Ragh, rogh, ragh!

Nois

Entangled Gravity

 Hi!  Long time no Nois...
Something about getting a baby at 63 and having a 12-y-o at 75 tends to absorb all available energy...

Wait!  I was talking about absorbing all available energy in the last "Gravity" post in 2011.. "Keep on keeping on".  I promised a couple of posts but never wrote them... ugh...

I have been watching YouTube posts by physicist Sabine Hossenfelder and watched her recent post about quantum physics being non-local ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpkgPJo_z6Y ).  I posted a comment to her post that seemed to be a perfect starting place to continue the conversation about gravity and our existence.  So, this post is basically a copy of that comment.  Enjoy.  Nois

Comment posted 04/18/2024:

I tried hard to not make this too long... sorry...

During Grad school, I learned about the Dirac Delta function and Fourier Transforms, but I had little understanding of what they meant.  For the next 5 years, I taught math at secondary schools and sadly had to turn my brain off to do that.  Then I worked in geophysical exploration and thanks to geophysicist Qz Yilmaz (SEG), I finally visualized those deltas and transforms!  Wow!

15 years later I was a software QA and had been reading about physicists who believed gravity was instantaneous.  If I understand right, Einstein's thinking was that gravity is a virtual force that is just the effect of the interaction of the warping of time-space by matter.  If so, then it could be instantaneous...  

I was thinking through all of this while driving across Trail Ridge Road in Colorado, USA, back to our campsite, My 3-year-old asked if we were going to our tent?  Yes.  How do we know the way?  We follow the road.  How does the road know the way?  It knows because it is already there --
BOOM!  Brain exploded... The time-space warps are already there.

30 years later I blogged about combining all of this and realized that the book "Holographic Universe" (Talbot, 2011, HarperCollins) was saying what I was thinking... information-theory-wise, every point in the universe has the phase/amplitude information to create the entire universe.  I see the information from each point relative to our respective locations, which forms my reality. 
I observe, therefore it is.

I think entanglement is just like gravity.  All of the particles in the universe are just waveforms, and all our sense of reality is the interaction of the electrical fields and gravity of those particles, and those forces are just how we describe those wave interactions -eh?  All of space is empty.  

If a collision can create a waveform that manifests as 2 particles where one has +spin and the other has -spin then that characteristic would be true whenever and wherever they go.  I suppose you could say that they have a probability distribution in the sense that the polarities could change with time but always be opposite.  So, if you actually observe one of them, then the other will be the opposite (just like Sabine's envelopes.)  However, if you find a way to flip one of them, you must interact with the generating waveform, which will automatically and simultaneously flip the other one... no longer scary.  : )

How does every point in the universe have its information updated instantaneously?  That discussion is another long post. I remember Feynman said there is only one electron in all of time and space - eh?  Imagine building that electron waveform with Dirak Delta spikes.  It would only take one...

I said this would be long... thoughts?  
Sabine, Thanks for your amazing posts!  Charlie

Sleeping in the dust

Sleeping in the dust

That might not sound like much fun but ya'know that is where many of us will go...
Yep, right there in Daniel 12:2 "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." (KJV)

It seems to me to be the perfect companion to the scriptures that say we were made from dust and that we return to dust!  I always thought that passage was talking about being in the hole where many are buried, but I got a different perspective tonight while I was puzzling through an issue that has been blocking my testing at work.  I was also listening to some prophecy videos regarding the Sunday evening 4th Blood Moon of the latest tetrad... Not only the 4th, but all 4 falling on Jewish holy days plus, a Super Moon, plus a Shemitah marker, plus a Jubilee marker... on and on...

When I gave my life to Christ in grad school it was a struggle for me... I felt like I had to give up my scientific mind and cling to mythical religion... and the Lord required that of me.  Then immediately he gave it back and I began to realize that the more I learned about the world, the more it pointed me to him!  That is really the point of my series in the blog "I do not exist".  My final conclusion there was "Sorry Renee <Descartes>, God thinks, therefore I am."  I showed through a series of arguments that we are not whom we think we are and that actually we are manifested physically by a sort of program that God set to create us moment by moment from the ever changing dust of the earth.  In "In His Image" and other books, Dr. Paul Brand (with Phillip Yancey) described how every molecule in our bodies - including our bones - is swapped out for new "dust" every 3-4 years!  It is pretty hard to look in  a mirror after that revelation without seeing a physical manifestation of God's moment by moment creative activity in my life... what amazing love...

Over the centuries various thinkers from various religious backgrounds have pondered death and specifically, where we go when we die.  The scriptures seem contradictory where some places speak about "sleep" while other places seem to indicate that we will be immediately in the presence of Christ... ugh... to much to figure out!  Like other things (e.g. free will/predestination) I sort of find a place to soak in the various arguments and just see how it ends up.  Usually I come to some scientific way of visualizing it that satisfies my curiosity and allows me to see both sides at once.  Daniel 12:2 just did this for me on the death issue.  Now it fits perfectly with my conclusion in the blog...

You see, if I am manifested in this physical space by a program that uses the dust of the earth to create a physical me, then I am very comfortable imagining my body as "sleeping" in the dust.. after all it always was only dust!  Some people worry that on resurrection day our bodies will not be able to be put back together if we are lost at sea, eaten by creatures, burned... see now?  None of that matters!  We do not have the same molecules in us for very long anyway!

2 Cor 5:8 (KJV)
We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

I am kind of sleepy now... time to sleep...  nois

The Walking Machine

The Walking Machine

My son Nate has an uncanny ability to find things that fit my interest!  From flutes to coffee roasting he seems to strike notes that resonate in my brain!  (No, other kids, I am not saying that you don't resonate too!)   We have chosen as a family to not buy birthday presents and we exchange names for Christmas presents, but sometimes we do give gifts, make things or promise dates.  This year Nate did it again...

A few years ago we shared some web sites, pics and YouTube clips about amazing beach wind walkers called Strandbeests invented in 1990 by Theo Jansen  of the Netherlands.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSKyHmjyrkA  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWK75_3S6Kg&list=PL199650F0D691ACD6
He makes most of his "beests" from PVC pipe, so that is right up my ally.  Nate gave me a small, injection molded kit to make one of the incredible works of "engineering art".

Here is the kit and the parts laid out.

With all the pile, it seems quite daunting, but really there are just 12 legs made from 4 parts each and hooked to a frame with ties.  Here are the 12 leg assemblies.

Once the legs are made, the frames are hooked to the crank shafts and then the legs are hooked on.

Once the 6 legs are added  to each half of the "beest" the halfs are joined.

I got a little confused about finishing a leg set.  I thought they were hanging the first legs on both crank sides and left off 2 of the tie rods!  After I got the whole thing done it was sort of floppy... I figured it out, what with all the extra ties duh, and I was able to slip the missing rods in without taking anything apart.  I also was having trouble with the slip together joints falling apart... that was much better once the movement was more limited by having all the ties installed.

Build the fan and add the gears...

I also had some trouble with binding at some points as it walked.  The instructions advised the builder to verify the order of the ties on the cranks, so I checked them and sure enough there were 2 where I had the order wrong.  Once I fixed that I could easily blow on the fan and watch the "beest" walk across the table!

I had hoped to build this with my 4 yo, but once I got it open it seemed clear that it was not a good project for him.  However... I am pretty sure there will be PVC models scaled up from these plans!  The little guy was installing bolts and nuts with me at 2, so I think he will handle that easily!

Thanks Nate!

Update 3/2/15...  I had a dream about a "beestbike" that I made out of conduit pipe.  I searched YouTube and found a few similar ones but then tonight, I stumbled upon this one... nailed it!  Then... from the sublime to the ridiculous...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzzAgVOsTKQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOKabtU3fDk
Nois...

Update 3/6/2015...  With almost forgotten CAD skills, being new to Google SketchUp and never having done an articulated model animation... I guess this did not turn out too bad!  Now I can play with different configurations without needing to cut 120 pipes!  (this shows one set of legs)

To Yurt, or not to Yurt...

To Yurt, or not to Yurt...

Most summers my son, his father-in-law, and I go up fishing for a long weekend to Meadow Creek in Colorado just outside Rocky Mountain National Park at 10,000 feet.  It is incredibly beautiful and we are often blessed by visits from moose and a family of osprey.

Part of the beauty is the pine forest that surrounds the lake.  Some years we can not make a fire due to forest fire danger, but most years we can and have ample fuel from fallen trees and branches.  The last few years the pine beetle infestation has taken a terrible toll on the area.  The rangers showed us how to spot the beetle entry points and predicted when some of our favorite trees would be down.

They must cut them in a controlled way near the camping areas because of the danger of them falling.  Unfortunately, we love to put a high tarp from those trees to create a not-so-little haven in a clearing.  We get a nice shady place to sit and protection from the typical afternoon shower.  Now, none of us is going to be comfortable putting stress on those trees... if they are still there...

So... I proposed a yurt... well sort of a yurt...  I was originally thinking of a full geodesic dome, but really thought it would be cool to go with minimal parts... how few could I go?  A central tall pole and 4 corner poles???  Nah... My first design was 18 poles.  It would have had a hex about 8 ft up and about 20 ft across.  Imagine 6, slightly less than 10 ft pipes laid out in a hexagon with  6 10.ft  pipes connected to each vertex and making a point in the middle a couple of feet above the hex for strength.  From every other pair of vertexes of the hex you attach 2, 10 ft poles and connect them together at the ground.  With only 3 "hard" ground contacts, the terrain could be ... anything!  Then 6 ropes would tie the structure to the ground between the pole pairs.  I figured we might need some bracing for the 10 ft poles and decided to make a 10" wooden model to try it out.  It worked very well and easily held up my "snow load" of a big couch pillow.  Of course, we worry more about wind than snow in August... but you never know in Colorado!

Well... that was over a year and a half ago.  We missed the trip last summer so I did not try out the full sized yurt.  Then, recently I was dreaming and for some reason I thought of the yurt.  In the dream it did not have the hex ring of pipes but rather a steel clothesline cable... yep... only tension!  Certainly the roof load would tension the hex but I needed to adjust the model to be sure.  I think it worked very well!  So, now it only has 12 poles, the "hex" of steel cable and 3, 30 ft lengths of rope to create the 6 tie downs.  6 stout stakes finish the structure.  It needs a rope to a weight on the ground in the center until the side ropes are in place.   When I re-configured the wooden model, the POC structure held up the "snow load" just as well as the 18 pole structure and had lots of side force strength too.  I will not know if mid-pole bracing is needed until I do the full size yurt, but if it is, 9, 5 ft PVC pipe sections should do it.

The roof covering will be a 24x24 ft tarp ($42) tied to the ground stakes, with some folds to fit.  Then, a series of 10x24 (3x $22) ft tarps will be ground-staked and hung around the 60 ft hex to close the yurt for the night.  We always have everything that can attract animals in the car at night anyway, so I suppose we do not need to be too secure with those walls!

12 sticks and no tie downs

12 sticks with tie downs

No tie down crush... still standing!

Tie downs help...

Hex tension solves it!

Tesla Frisbee!

Tesla Frisbee!

Did ya know that a Frisbee is a Tesla Turbine???

Some years ago I made a flying saucer... well a tiny one from used foam plates!  All I did was cut 3 holes near the center of one plate that left 3 beam structures strong enough to keep the center of the plate rigid.  Then I trimmed another plate to remove the outer curved section.  I glued toothpick sections as standoffs to hold the two plates about 1/8" apart.  I put a little tape in the center to reinforce it and glued a longer toothpick section through center holes so that the shaft stuck out a little ways on the bottom.  I glued a little scrap plastic cylinder that had a nub on one side onto the toothpick on the underside.  Voi la!  Flying saucer!

I took another plastic scrap tube a little bigger than the one on the saucer and cut a channel on one side big enough for the saucer cylinder nub.  The second cylinder was glued to a small electric motor shaft to be the saucer impeller.  when the saucer hub was placed on the motor shaft the nub in the slot imparted rotation to the saucer but let it fly up when it had sufficient lift.

I put the motor on a variable power supply and fired it up!  The first thing I noticed was that just a Tesla said, there was no need to finely machine or balance the rotor... it self-centered as soon as a sufficient spin rate was reached.  As I turned up the juice the little saucer gained rotational speed, nicely lifted off and floated across the room!  It had a very stable flight but had a penchant for ending up behind heavy funiture!!!  HaZah!

"What does this have to do with Frisbees???" I hear you thinking!  Well I always noticed how Frisbees fly better when they are spun fast, but I just thought it was because they were gyscopically more stable and thus moved through the air better.  Well, that might be some of it, but I think there is more!

A Tesla Turbine uses no blades but rather spinning disks with holes near the center.  Air or any other fluid can go through the inner holes and move along the surface.  The fluid adhears to the surface of the disk and viscosity couples the surface fluid to the near fluid.  If the turbine is driven, the fluid flows outward, sucking more fluid in through the central holes and out the edges.  Conversely, if pressurized fluid is ducted to the edge it will spiral (which ever way you start it) toward the center holes to exit and will spin the disk, imparting torque to the central shaft.

The flying saucer plates form  a very light, efficient Tesla Turbine by sucking in air from above which creates lift and by shooting the air out from the upper disk's under surface and the lower disk's upper surface, which hits the downward curve of the upper plate, producing more lift.  The under side of the lower disk also shoots some more air out to hit the upper plate lip which might create some more lift but also creates a low pressure zone under that disk that probably cancels that lift... oh well...

However, that is not the case with the upper surface of the upper disk!  It also throws air out and contributes to the low pressure near the center above the saucer for more lift.

Ah, but back then I forgot about the Coanda effect!  Thomas Young (1800) and Henri Coanda (1910) described this effect which causes fluids to follow a curved surface... it is adhesion and viscosiy again - see?  So, not only does the upper air fly outward, it is bent downward by the upper surface of the downward curving upper plate.  (Go ahead.. read that sentence 3 more times... ... ... got it?).

So my recent Frisbee epiphany is that both the under and upper surfaces of the Frisbee are functioning like a Tesla Turbine to create actual lift!  The under surface throws air out which is directed down by the downward curve at the Frisbee edge.  Also the upper surface throws air out which is deflected down by the downward curving upper surface via the Coanda effect!

Ain't science fun! Nois.

frisbee impeller (scary stuff!)
Tesla turbine helecopter (the link in this article is broken!  I searched for other links and they are all broken... hummm...)
Coanda Effect

I am obese - but getting better! The Skinny

I am obese - but getting better! The Skinny

It sounds like I mean that I am sick and getting better - eh? You are right! I just found that out! And how to get better! Woo Hoo!

The nature and cure of obesity was published in 1954 -- Other "experts" must make a lot of money selling other diet and exercise stuff for them to have kept this a "secret" for so long! However, that is changing and I want this post to be part of that! I am not affiliated to any solution providers and I do not make any money from this post, so... trust me... been there, done that, doing it, succeeding. Nothing succeeds like success. You can do it too!!! I am not a doctor or any kind of medical professional, so go to the sources and check it out for yourself and with your doctor.

I think this will take 3 posts -- The Skinny, The Disorder, The Cure... Here's The Skinny:

25 years ago I read a book called "Dieting Makes You Fat" (Geoffrey Cannon, Simon & Schuster, August 1985) Written by a doctor, it has most of the stuff that you read in all the popular diet books and is not far from right. However, it missed one simple thing that caused it to not work for me... dieting is a disorder and has nothing to do with how much you weigh, what you eat, how much you exercise... none of that! I have been socially and mentally beat up, mocked, whined at, cried for, and ridiculed all of my life because I have been a pudge! I never remember a time in my life when my weight was not an issue, even in my 20s when I was fairly trim. I always felt fat and worried about eating too much! What I did not know was that obesity was already in me and I was just manifesting its effects. How different my life would have been if I knew then what I just learned now at 62... ugh... life...

One of the reasons we do not learn things is that we are skeptical of the source, and rightly so! However, I am presenting you with the info straight out and with no gain to be had, so just keep an open mind and LEARN! You will be amazed! Here are the details in short which I learned by studying about the HCG diet which was discovered by Dr. ATW Simeons. Read the next posts and other resources for more info. These posts represent my own understanding of the methods and my own experience with dieting and the new "HCG Way" and they do not represent the HCG diet providers.

Obesity - The Disorder
1. Obesity is a disorder but it is not a disease.
.....a. You can be very trim and have the obesity disorder.
.....b. If you have obesity you can exert will power, diet, exercise, etc and still GAIN WEIGHT.
.....c. Curing the disorder is not done by loosing weight!
2. Obese weight is a separate issue from the disorder.
.....a. Unless you cure the disorder, you will have it even if you loose weight, which you will surely gain back!
.....b. Once cured you may not loose the weight and you will NOT be able to loose the fat by usual means.
.....c. Obese Fat can not be accessed no mater how much you exert will power, diet, exercise and etc.
.....d. There are a few exceptions to 2.c... which leads to hope for a cure.

Obesity - The Cure
1. The Obesity disorder has a cultural cause and cure
.....a. Obesity is caused by overwhelming the part of the brain that controls fat storage.
.....b. To protect your body the brain must find relief, so it switches on a long term fat storage "savings account".
.....c. Like financial savings accounts, fat savings accounts easily accept deposits but resist withdrawals... otherwise you would not save!
.....d. No matter how trim you are, if you have the obesity disorder you need to reset it or you will manifest the disorder and you will gain weight.
.....e. To cure the disorder you must free the brain from overload long enough that it resets the savings account switch.
2. Obese weight also has a cure
.....a. The disorder cure is totally separate from the weight cure.
.....b. Once fat is stored in the savings account it can not be accessed by usual means.
.....c. Fat in the storage account can not be accessed no mater how much you exert will power, diet exercise and etc.
.....d. There are a few exceptions to 2.c... which leads to the cure!

Join Nois for the next 2 posts to get some of the nitty gritty details and links to "the rest of the story"