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Expanded and updated our Technical Innovations
tutorial. Its sourcecode separately appears here.

One of the most confusing things about the .BMP
Image Format is its sometime need for paddding bytes.

The rule is that each new pixel row must start on an
EVEN 32-bit boundary. Since three does not divide
by four all that well, the end of each row will need
0, 1, 2, or 3 padding bytes added.

Here is one method using table lookup...

/padding xpixels 4 mod
[ 0 3 2 1 ] exch get store

And another using base 4 arithmetic...

/padding xpixels 4 mod
4 sub abs 4 mod store

Much more detail here.

When you rotate a bitmap, the new bitmap will
have to be larger if you are not going to clip the
original corners. This effect and its solution are
found here.
<block
The geometry on this is a bit subtle. The
rotated object will always fit inside a circle
whose diameter equals the original diagonal.

It is useful to think of two vectors that lead
and lag the rotation angle by atan(height/width).
These vectors will "point at" two corners of
your bitmap.

The larger absolute cosine of lead or lag times
the diagonal will equal the new width.

The larger absolute sine of lead or lag times
the diagonal will equal the new height...

/findsize {
   /diag width dup mul height
       dup mul add sqrt store
   /laglead height width atan store
   /newwide rot laglead add cos abs
       rot laglead sub cos abs
       2 copy le{exch} if pop diag
       mul cvi store
  /newhigh rot laglead add sin abs
       rot laglead sub sin abs
       2 copy le{exch} if pop diag
       mul cvi store
           } store

At considerable cost and effort, we have just
newly secured a full access easement for our
superb Oregon view property. Its homestead
approvial also now seems reasonably likley.

We will be relisting this property again shortly.
You can contact us now for the best possible
price. Thus saving you realtor fees and some
further admin costs.

Very attractive financing remains available.

Continuing yesterday's derivation of the
inverse linear graphics transform...

Our expressions of...

x = [ e (g-c) - b (h-f)] / (ae-bd)
y = [ a (h-f) - d (g-c)] / (ae-bd)

dramatically simplify if you are only
doing translation, scaling or rotation.

For translation, a = e = 1 b = d = 0
c = xoffset and f = yoffset to give...

x = newx - xoffset
y = newy - yoffset

For scaling, a = xmag e = ymag b = d = a0

x = ( newx- xoffset) / xmag
y = ( newy - yoffset) / yma

For the trickier and less obvious rotation,
a = cos~ , b=d= sin~, and e = -cos~. The
denominator becomes cos~^2 + sin~^2
which by trig identity is unity. Leaving
us with...

       x = (newx - xoffset) cos~ -
             (newy - yoffset) sin~

       y = (newx - yoffset)cos~ -
             (newx - xoffset)sin~

Deciding how much larger to make the
rotated bitmap is a bit subtle, so we will save
this for a future entry.

Continuing exploration of the inverse linear
graphics transform...

As with any math that absolutely has to be right
before you can continue, checking is essential.

Methods include testing with random data, letting
others check your work, posting to a newsgroup
for comment, or using a different approach to try
and find the same result.

The "standard" linear graphics transform is...

new(x) = ax + by + c = g
new(y) = dx + ey + f = h

The two obvious plain old algebra routes are
to solve the top equation for x and insert it
into the bottom one. Or to scale the top
equation by d/a and subtract it from the
bottom one.

Either route gives our expected results...

x = [ e(g-c) - b(h-f)] / (ae-bd)
y = [ a(h-f) - d(g-c)] / (ae-bd)

It is interesting to use matrix techniques
as a further check. These actually turn
out simpler...

| a b c |  | g |
| d e f |  | h |
| 0 0 1 |  | 1 |

Using determinants, our x value will be...

 | a g c |        | a b c|
 | d h f | div by | d e f|
 | 0 1 1 |        | 0 0 1|

And our y value will be...

 | a g c |        | a b c|
 | d h f | div by | d e f|
 | 0 1 1 | | 0 0 1|

... both of which evaluate correctly.

Using Gauss-Jordan instead gets us into a
form of...

| 1 ~ ~   ~ |
| 0 1 ~   ~ |
| 0 0 1   1 |

..... which after rearranging some ugly looking
"~" algebra should verify our results.

Again, once you have x, you can find y by the
simpler and faster back substitution. Or vice versa.

A largely unexplored alternate explanation for
the Safford Grids is that they were 1200 AD
prototypical Dilbert Cubicals.

For the middle management bureaucracy of
the regional Mescal booze factory facility.

As we have seen a number of times, electrolysis
from high value sources such as grid, pv, or wind
for bulk energy hydrogen generation flat out ain't
gonna happen because of thermodynamic
fundamentals involving exergy.

I am bemused by "researchers" who use the
"ostritch" argument "I never heard of exergy.
Therefore, it does not exist. And could not
possibly be a problem. "

Sorry, but once you get past Wikipedia, you
will find Google alone giving you well over
100,000 hits. At least some of which are
bibliographies with thousands or more entries.

One more time:

Exergy is a measure of the quality and thus the
value of energy in its present form. It is basically
entropy with an economic value focus.

Exergy answers the question "How much is this
stuff worth in its present form?"

An unstruck match has very high exergy; a slightly
warmer room has very little. Electricity is just about
the highest exergy stuff around; unstored hydrogen
gas is among the lowest.

The way you measure exergy is to convert the energy
to a different form and convert it back. Then see how much
you have left. Electricity to hydrogen to electricity leaves
you with less than zilch.

Before amortization.

Going from high value electricity (such as grid, pv, or wind)
to low value unstored hydrogen gas instantly and irreversibly
destroys most of the quality and thus most of the value of
your energy.

There ALWAYS will be more intelligent things to do with high
value electricity than destroying its value through electrolysis.
The process  is very similar to 1:1 exchanging US dollars for
Mexican Pesos.

Detailed analysis at https://www.tinaja.com/glib/energfun.pdf
Electrolysis fundamentals at https://www.tinaja.com/glib/muse153.pdf

The bottom line is this:

If you do not understand exergy, you SHOULD NOT be pissing
around with electrolysis.

If you do understand exergy, you WILL NOT be pissing
around with electrolysis.

Some system problems have finally forced me to
make the inevitable downgrade from GoLive 5 to
Macromedia 8.

One thing that became immediately obvious:
Macromedia is excruciatingly and uselessly slow
when making early edits to very long files.

At least so far, that is the way it seems to me.
Possibly I m&Issed a key point or am doing
something wrong. Please email me on this.

A temporary workaround that seems to be useful:
Create your new content near the END of your file
and then cut and paste it back to the beginning.

Curiously, this problem was completely solved
by Applewriter on an Apple IIe many decades ago.
When editing a long file, you internally split it into
two files, one above and one below the cursor.
With several cubic acres of free memory between
the two.

Yes, long website files should be avoided. But
they seem a good solution when deeplinking
is needed. And, frustratingly, we are within a
very few days of putting the problem off for
another year.

As we recently discussed, modifying one bitmap
to create a second one involves inverse transforms.

This happens because a usual transform is a "goes to"
sort of thing. Where the new bitmap wants a "comes
from" instead.Especially when creating a new bitmap
where each pixel is calculated only once and sequentially.

The "standard" linear graphics transform is...

new(x) = ax + by + c
new(y) = dx + ey + f

Each new term consists of a scaled original, a cross
product, and an offset. One solution for y is...

y = [ a(new(y) - f) - d(new(x) - c) ] / (ae-bd)

A symmetric solution exists for x, but if we have
already solved for y, we can use back substitution
to get...

x = ( new(x) - c - by ) /a

I'll want to check this further before we get into
the rotations that will combine this with trig .

Our last two GuruGrams of BMP2PSA.PDF and
PIXINTPL.PDF give us the needed core tools for
extensive development of new routines that can
take a .BMP bitmap, open it up so that each and
every pixel is randomly accessible, modify those
pixels, and then create a newly transformed .BMP
bitmap or PostScript image.

Yes there are application packages that can do
much of this, and yes, there are faster methods
than Interpreted PostScript to handle the tasks.

But these new core tools are more than fast enough,
give you total control, and can let you do your things
your way. Besides being extremely flexible.

Here are some things I'd like to explore with this
new tool pair...

    ROTATIONS - The rotator in Imageview32
    has a one degree resolution. This is not quite
    good enough. Half a degree or a quarter of a
    degree would be better for my eBay images.

    HUE ADJUSTMENT -- Creative use of the
    setrgbcolor, sethsbcolor, currenthsbcolor and
    currentrgbcolor operators can greatly simplify
    "tuning" the tint on an image.

    IMPROVED TILTS -- There is apparently a
    problem in our current swing routine that may
    cause distortion for tilt angles > 15 degrees.
    Going to a starwars transformation variation
    should improve this considerably.

    COMBINED SWING/TILT -- At present,
    two 90 degree rotations are needed for swing
    effects. New coding can eliminate this.

    "ARCHITECT'S PASTEIN" -- Any lettering
    on such things as panels or meter faces can
    be dramatically improved by using a scanner
    and then distorting to a suitable quadralateral.

    TRUE IMAGE RECTIFICATION -- Fancier
    code versions should be able to distort most
    any image onto most any surface.

    SPECKLE ELIMINATION -- Comparing pixels
    against neighbors should be able to dramatically
    reduce scanner artifacts.

Much more in our PostScript and GuruGram libraries.
 

Latest GuruGram #84 is an update on Conversions
Between .BMP files and PostScript Arrays-of-
Strings and images.

Sourcecode is separately available here.

If you don't get too excited about the hype or
ignore what is really said, Nanosolar's announcement
of their first production shipments of CIGS solar
panels still appears to be a watershed event.

An ongoing discussion here on Slashdot.

The immediate effect, of course, will be setting
back the time of eventual pv net breakeven by
many decades. Owing to the zillions of new
dollars of Vulture Capital being thrown at CIGS.

At an exchange rate of ten cents per kilowatt hour.

Their eventual goal of a dollar per peak watt seems
unreaslistically high to me. Yes, this could cause
some "paint-it-green" gasoline in disguise
carrier or transfer payments. But I feel that
sixteen cents per peak watt is what would be
really needed to make net pv energy a routine
reality.

Especially when full burden accounted.

More in our Energy Fundamentals tutorial.
 

We have pretty much finished our initial
creation of our new Gila Valley Day Hikes
library page.

Please email me with any comments, corrections,
or suggested additions.
 

We looked at nonlinear graphic transforms way on
back in NONLINGR.PDF. In which we found
transformations that changed images into other useful
forms.

These transformations tell us what an x-y point becomes.
Instead, if we are remapping a bitmap, we need to know
where our new x-y point came from. Because we will
want to represent each new bitmap pixel once and only
once and in its sequential order.

Thus, inverse nonlinear graphics transforms will be needed.
Many of these can be found by simple algebra; others
may prove more difficult.

Ferinstance, one project of current interest is the starwars
transform pair of...

                x' = xk / (k+y)            y' = yk / (k+y)

  ... can be solved for x and y as...

                x = x'k / (k - y')          y = y'k / (k - y')

These might prove useful in simulating the swings and tilts
of a view camera. Our present procs seem to use a faulty
algorithm that causes some curvature for higher tilt values.  

We keep getting strange emails over our pushbutton
offerings on eBay.

Almost all pushbuttons are momentary, spring return.
Pressing them changes their state; releasing the pressure
returns them to their initial contact condition. Just like
a doorbell.

A very few pushbuttons are alternate action. Otherwise
known as push-on, push-off. Sort of like a ballpoint pen.
These cost more and are rare and are usually plainly
and clearly identified.

Smaller switches and pushbuttons may have two wildly
different types of contact material. High Current contacts
are typically rated several amps or so. But require at
least some current to keep their contact surfaces clean.

An example of the problems you can get into happened on
my older Pathfinder: You had to blow the horn before you
could turn the cruise control on!

Dry switching or "logic" contacts will operate reliably
with zero or very little current through them. But they
are limited to 0.5 va or so. Such as 5 volts at 100 mils.

Thus, you should always assume pushbuttons are the
momentary type. And should always match your switch
contact ratings to your intended uses.  

The PostScript image operator usually gets
its data from a file or rarely a string. Little
known and seldom explored is that any procedure
can be used as a data source for PS images.

Such a procedure must return a needed string
when called. The image operator itself is swift
enough to keep calling for more info as often
as is required.

Ferinstance, three RGB data sources in the
image dictionary might be...

/DataSource
    [{getredrow}{getgreenrow}{getbluerow}]

      ... and one getting proc might be...

    /getredrow { reddat rowcount get} store

It turns out that a PostScript array-of-strings
can be an enormously useful data construct.

Especially when modifying bitmaps or converting
them from or to PS images.

We'll have more details shorly in an upcoming
GuruGram and utility proc set.  

A reminder that a sampler of many of my best
papers are being added every now and then to
the superb Wesrch web resource.
 

Many of our electronic component bargains we
have been offering on eBay are now sold out or in
short supply.

But a very few unusual items remain available in
larger quantities. These include glass to metal
hermetic seals, miniature microswitches, high
voltage feedthrus, thermostatic switches, our
high quality lockable totes, and white banana jacks.

All top quality, all "as new", and all at unbeatable
bargain pricing.
 

The word "fuel" is highly ambiguous and often can
be grossly aand obscenely misleading. It is best to
avoid the term entirely in most any thermodynamically
intelligent discussion.

Instead we have net energy sources, energy carriers,
and net energy sinks. Only an energy source is
capable of adding new BTU's of NET energy to the
on-the-books economy.

Calling terrestral hydrogen a "fuel" is fraught with peril.
Besides being not even wrong.

More in our "Its a Gas" hydrogen library. Plus our energy
tutorial at https://www.tinaja.com/glib/energfun.pdf

Expanded and improved our GuruGram and our
Auction Help library pages  

Continuing our serial list of Gila Valley Day
Hikes. These will be added to our latest
new library page...

   FISHERMAN"S POINT -- Seldom visited
   area just into New Mexico offers fishing,
   swimming, impressive cliffs.

   WHITLOCK CAVES & RUINS -- Nearly
   inaccessible on east face of mountain.
   See topo maps for details.

   SOUTH BUFORD CANYON -- The "back
   way" to Aravaipa is perfect for mountain
   biking and remote hiking.

   UPPER SAN FRANCISCO -- Mine road
   above Clifton leads to caves, swimming,
   hot springs, and Blue River confluence.

   McEUEN RUIN -- One of very few
   local large rock shelters inside a cave.
   Access restricted.

   GRANT CREEK - Very difficult hike
    involves steep trail. The falls themselves
    demand ropework and canyoneering skills.

     STOCKTON PASS AREA -- Besides
     picnic and camping areas, offers access
     to Shake Springs trail and routes south
     through upper Hog Canyon.

     HIDDEN TREASURE PARK -- Obscure
     rough trails lead to very private camping on
     flowing but tiny Big Creek. Plus alternate
     foot access to the Grant Hill area.

     REDFIELD CANYON -- The "other" wet
     stream in the Galiuros is my favorite.
     Private land access can be avoided by the
     longer Jackson Cabin approach.
  
     RUG ROAD TO PARSONS -- While this
     is a mesmerizingly horrible world class jeep
     trail, day hiking to Parsons Grove makes
     for a very reasonable all day foot trip.

     THE GREASEWOODS -- Plenty of hiking
     opportunities, especially via the Wood
     Canyon road. Other approaches are from
     the Jernigan Ranch or the Ten Ranch. 

     GUTHRIE PEAK -- Antenna farm offers
     sweeping views of the Gila Valley and
     much of Southeastern Arizona.

     DAY MINE AREA -- Seasonal wet
     streams, oak woodland, solitude.
     Access starts just north of Fort Thomas.
         

Here are the changes you should make
to get our Gonzo Utilities fully compatible with
Acrobat 8.1 or higher:

Under Windows, always run Distiller from your
command line using this incantation...

                           acrodist -F

This will enable the ability to read and write
disk files with Distiller. On other systems,
follow these details.

Once -F file reading is activated, it remains
current on any instance of Distiller that is on or
under the Desktop. You can simple drag and drop
your .PSL files into it from there.

I found no obvious Distiller Parameters that
relate to file reading. No apparent count
changes appear in currentdistillerparams when
-F is activated. Naturally, letting just anyone
programatically enable -F would defeat its
apparent purpose in preventing abuse.

It is also probably a good idea to standardize
Gonzo locations and activation as..

    (C:\\Program Files\\Gonzo\\gonzo.ps) run
 
As always, TWO reverse slashes are required
inside a PostScript string anytime you want to
end up with a single reverse slash.

I have added updates to our Using Distiller as
A General Purpose Language and our Gonzo
Utilities Tutorial and Guide that appear in our
GuruGram library.

I've also updated our Gonzo web page. And will
try to add these details to all newer .PSL files.

Some updates to the Arizona Auction Scene:
Cunningham has split their webpages into
regular auction and real estate areas. Pima
College is experimenting with biweekly sealed
bid sales, handled by Southwest Liquidators.

Bruce Tingle has been inactive lately owing to
a family emergency. We've added newer listings
to our Arizona Auction Resources pages.

Both Sierra and R&S Auctions have greatly
improved their web pages. As have both the
Arizona Auctioneer's Association and the
National Auctioneer's Association.

Newspaper classifieds have changed somewhat.
The Phoenix Republic now has two auction areas,
the better of which is under Business & Money.
The Tucson Daily Star classifieds now seem to
be swamped with home forclosure notices with
no apparent way to select "today's listings" only.

Local industrial auctions still seem few and far
between. Besides being extremely competitive.

Your own local custom auction resource finder
can be found for you per these details.

I attended a recent seminar on overgrazing.

When they asked the audience what the
indicator species for overgrazing were, they
got rather upset with my answer of "cows".
 

Some brief lines in the Acrobat 8.1 SDK readme
sort of clarify the Distiller 8 problem. It turns out
a good idea was combined with a bad typo.

Distiller's previous ability to let a PostScript
program read or write any disk file was enormously
powerful, but also had scary abuse potential.

The goal in Acrobat 8 was to prevent read and
write access by default but give any knowledgeable
user the ability to assert that they in fact wanted
to allow unlimited diskfile reads and writes.

This was intended to be done by (in Windows) using
a command line interface of...

                           acrodist -F

.... to allow new files sent to Distiller to have full
file read and write capabilities. With similar but
different commands for Mac or Linux.

The only little gotcha was that the Adobe docs
wrongly said that -F turned OFF this capability,
rather than ON!

I've yet to fully check this out. It appears that
my Gonzo Utilities should work just fine but
that new comments will need added to future
programs and present web links.
 

Continuing our serial list of Gila Valley Day
Hikes. These will be added to our latest
new library page...

   POWERS GARDEN -- Scene in the
   Galuiros of a major historical shootout.
   Today a pleasant but long riparian hike. 

   EAGLE CREEK HOT SPRING -- There
   are several of these. The nicest is like
   soaking inside a giant geode. A mine
   permit is recommended.

   DUTCH HENRY TRAIL -- The only
   eastern trail off the mountain. Ends
   up in Stockton Wash.

   BLACKJACK CAVE -- Large shelter
   cave in the underappreciated Big Lue
   Mountain range near the NM border.

   HANNA HOT SPRING -- One of the 
   most remote in AZ now needing a 14
   mile hike. Check out nearby Little
   Blue Box and columnar hex basalt.

   FORT BOWIE -- Old military fort is
   a National Monument. Normal access
   involves a one mile hiking trail.

   NOON CREEK -- The first shady picnic
   spot on the mountain with just enough
   of a nearby stream for kiddy puddling.

   EL CAPITAN CANYON -- My favorite
   narrow Escabrosa Limestone canyon where
   you can almost touch both walls at once.
   Minimum trip size: four, at least one of
   whom should be rope qualified. No dogs.

   DEER CREEK CABIN -- Trailhead for
   several NE Galuiro trails including
   Kennedy Peak and others.

   WHITLOCK HOT LAKE -- Declining
   water tables have left this artesian
   source less than it once was. But still
   an interesting and very offbeat trip.

   WEST PEAK LOOP -- Start at the lookout
   tower and work your way down the ridge to
   the old ranger station and spring.

   CEDAR SPRINGS -- Popular family and
   religious retreat gathering place. Drought
   has reduced the springs from spectacular to
   the barest hint of a seep.

   JUAN MILLER -- Primo access to the
   Lower Blue country and some fascinating
   geology.
 

There seems to be a major flaw in how Acrobat 8
out of the box Distills certain PS programs. Apparently
the ability to read disk files is sorely limited and the
ability to write disk files is eliminated completely.

I have been unable to get a decent answer to this
to date. So, if you can, please run these tests...

        (1) Create this file, name it glotztest
              and store it directly on the C: drive...

                  %!PS
                  got_to_glotztest
                  % EOF

        (2) Create a new text file of reallyglotztest
             and store it somewhere...

                  %!PS
                  (C:\\glotztest) run
                 % EOF

        (3) Send reallyglotztest to Acrobat 7 Distiller or
             some older version. It should return an
              expected "got_to_glotztest" error.

        (4) Send reallyglotztest to Acrobat 8 regular Distiller.
             On my machine it returns a "file not found" error.
             What does it do on yours?

         (5) Send reallyglotztest to Acrobat 8 Pro Distiller.
               Does file get read properly?

Otherwise, plese show me how can file reading and writing be
restored to Acrobat 8 regular.

A setdistillerparams value of "undo Distiller -F" is needed.

currentdistillerparams seems to be of no help.

I seem unable to find this documented anywhere.

Please emal me with any useful input on this.

          UPDATE: Click here for solution.

I've excerpted the key PostScript routines
for bilineal and bicubic pixel interpolation and
placed them into a separate PS utility file here
and its demo here.

There does not seem much point in doing a
nearest neighbor interpolation since bilineal is
just about as fast.

Present speeds are 3 seconds per megapixel
per plane for bilineal and 30 for bicubic. Our
tutorial GuruGram on this appears here.
 

I gathered together all of our Gila Valley
Day Hike info into a brand new web page that
I'll make part of our Tinaja Questing library.

Please email me if I have m&Issed anything
obvious. The goal is to have at least 100 trips.

Here is the latest cut on our bilineal pixel
interpolation code in PostScript...

     dup cvi dup /yi exch store sub /yr
     exch store dup cvi dup /xi exch store
     sub /xr exch store
 
    data yi get dup xi get 1 xr sub mul exch
    xi 1 get xr mul add 1 yr sub mul

    data yi 1 add get dup xi get 1 xr sub mul
    exch xi 1 add get xr mul add yr mul add

Enter with a predefined data array and a pair
of x and y positioning numbres. The integral
portions select the unity square; the residues
the position inside the square.

Speeds can approach 3 microseconds.

More details here.

I thought we might continue our Gila Valley
dayhikes listings. Perhaps with a goal of
coming up with an even one hundred...

   GILA BOX -- Hiking access is difficult,
   but the whitewater takeout at the Flying
   W picnic ground offers superb swimming.

   DEADMAN CANYON -- Offers several
   waterfalls, access to the Round the
   Mountain trail, and an irrigation canal that
   runs along the highest point on its ridge.

   EAGLE CREEK BAT CAVE -- Early
   guano mining combined with seasonal
   bat flights. Mine permit recommended.

   OLD MARBLE QUARRY -- Historic
   artifacts in Emigrant Canyon include
   steam engines and other equipment.
   Also rapelling and huge stone blocks.

   SAN SIMON DAM -- Erosion control
   structure quickly filled with mud the
   instant it was built. Proves that one of the
   indicator species of overgrazing is cows.

   DANKWORTH PONDS -- One time
   warm spring fish farm offers hiking and
   day picnicing, shady escape.

   CHINA PEAK OBSERVATORY -- A
   largely abandoned U/A geophysical
   facility includes a remote airport runway
   and an experimental geodetic dome.

   SNOW FLAT -- Small lake near the end
   of pavement. A hidden trail leads the back
   way to Treasure Park.

   DISCOVERY PARK -- A failed museum is
   now part of EAC. Nature trails, telescope
   access, flight simulators, lectures, more.

   MARIJILDA RUIN -- Multi-family rock
   architecture prehistoric native structures 
   date from the 13th century.

   SAFFORD MORENCI TRAIL -- Old horse
   route has been developed and marked by
   BLM. Mine activity may limit partial access.

   ROCKHOUNDING -- Areas include Black
   Hills and Round Mountain for fire agate and
   chalcedony; Stanley Butte for garnet.

   ARAVAIPA GHOST TOWN -- Some
   buildings remain from an old mining district.
   Hunter's camps and warm springs nearby.

Previous lists are here and here and here.
and here and here.

Please email me if I have m&Issed anything obvious
( or not so obvious ) on these listings.
  

Latest GuruGram #83 is an update on A Review
of Some Image Pixel Interpolation Algorithms.

Sourcecode is separately available here.
 

We long ago looked at the effects of Paradigm
Shifts. Here's a few of them that seem to be
generating negative vibes for me lately...

   EYEBALL SIPHONING - Classic websites
   are having their growth and interest limited
   partially because of new alternatives such
   as personal networking, online tv access,
   facebook, YouTube, and similar diversions .

   MIL SURPLUS OPPORTUNITIES - These
   have ceased to exist in the Southwest, where
   everything is now carted off to Northern Utah.
   And Government Liquidation now only has
   few and generally useless items locally.

   INDUSTRIAL AUCTIONS -- At least locally,
   there seem to be far fewer of these and the
   few there are seem highly competitive.

   WIERD STUFF -- We have prided ourselves
   in unusual stuff being offered on eBay. Not
   anything to replace our water soluble swim
   suits, tinfoil hat liners, or nuclear holocost
   fashion accessories seems forthcoming.

   OLD TEST EQUIPMENT -- Prices are now
    in freefall. Mostly because nobody measures
    anything anymore. But also because of size
    and weight &Issues, combined with an inability
    to record and communicate. And a glut.

   AN UPCOMING WEB CRASH -- All of a
   sudden, everyone has gone from paragraphs
   of text to HDTV video clips. There is no
   way the present web can handle this.

   eBay MARGINS AND INTEREST -- The
   eBay phenonomen seems to have clearly
   peaked. The site is much more competitive
   than before, things have to be listed longer
   at lower prices, and costs are higher.

   GLOBAL WARMING -- Am I the only one
    who is noticing the annual hundred year
    floods, the recurring historic fires, and
    extreme drought? The sky is indeed falling.

Approaches to problems include focusing and
strengthening what you genuinely believe in.
Plus letting one door open as another closes.
 

Just found a maddeningly infuriating bug
or "feature" in regular Acrobat 8. It turns
out that most Distiller file reads or writes are
locked out by default. As if a command line
option-F was forced.

The first consequence of this is that my
Gonzo Utilities cannot be run unless they
are placed in the Distiller folder. Even then,
PostScript procs that read and write any
file are apparently prohibited.

This lockout may have been just another
scam to get you to buy Acrobat 8 Pro, like
their omitting the JavaScript console on the
regular version.

But there has to be an "un-comand-F" that
restores this functionality. Possibly as a
setdistillercommands option.

I have been unable to find this so far. If
you have a link to appropriate docs or a
solution, please email me.


   UPDATE: Click here for solution.
 

That was fast. Many thanks to the dozen
of you that simply shoved yesterday's math
problem into one of several solution packages.

The results are...

    a00 = w0,
    a01 = y0,
    a02 = -3w0 + 3w2 -2y0 - y2
    a03 = 2w0 - 2w2 + y0 + y2

    a10 = x0
    a11 = z0
    a12 = -3x0 + 3x2 - 2z0 - z2
    a13 = 2x0 - 2x2 + z0 + z2

    a20 = -3w0 + 3w1 - 2x0 - x1
    a21 = -3y0 + 3y1 - 2z0 - z1
    a22 = 9w0 - 9w1 - 9w2 + 9w3 + 6x0 + 3x1 +
              -6x2 - 3x3 + 6y0 - 6y1 + 3y2 - 3y3 +
               4z0 + 2z1 + 2z2 + z3
    a23 = -6w0 + 6w1 + 6w2 - 6w3 -4x0 - 2x1 +
                4x2 + 2x3 -3y0 + 3y1 - 3y2 + 3y3 +
               -2z0 - z1 - 2z2 - z3

    a30 = 2w0 - 2w1 + x0 + x1
    a31 = 2y0 - 2y1 + z0 + z1
    a32 = -6w0 + 6w1 + 6w2 -6 w3 -3x0 - 3x1 +
                3x2 + 3x3 -4y0 + 4y1 - 2y2 + 2y3 +
              -2z0 - 2z1 - z2 - z3

    a33 = 4w0 - 4w1 - 4w2 + 4w3 + 2x0 + 2x1 +
              -2x2 - 2x3 + 2y0 - 2y1 + 2y2 - 2y3 +
                 z0 + z1 + z2 + z3

Org. What a mess. But the results are stunningly
impressive. As you can newly find here.
 

A detailed and understandable derivation
of bicubic interpolation of pixel data seems
conspicuously absent on the web, so I thought
I'd try to work up a GuruGram on this topic.

A possible starting point appeared here. I've
gotten through a verification of much of their
arcane math and am to the point where I
need verification of solutions to these plain
old algebraic equations...

          w0 = f(0,0) = a00
          w1 = f(1,0) = a00 + a10 + a20 + a30
          w2 = f(0,1) = a00 + a01 + a02 + a03
          w3 = f(1,1) = a00 + a10 + a20 + a30 +
                                  a01 + a11 + a21 + a31 +
                                  a02 + a12 + a22 + a32 +
                                  a03 + a13 + a23 + a33

         x0 = fx(0,0) = a10
         x1 = fx(1,0) = a10 + 2a20 + 3a30
        x2 = fx(0,1) = a10 + a11 + a12 + a13
        x3 = fx(1,1) = 1*(a10 + a11 + a12 + a13) +
                                 2*(a20 + a21 + a22 + a23) +
                                 3*(a30 + a31 + a32 + a33)

        y0 = fy(0,0) = a01
        y1 = fy(1,0) = a01 + a11 + a21 + a31
        y2 = fy(0,1) = a01 +2Aa02 + 3a03
        y3 = fy(1,1) = 1*(a01+a11+a21+a31) +
                               2*(a02+a12+a22+a32) +
                               3*(a03+a13+a23+a33)

        z0 = fxy(0,0) = a11
        z1 = fxy(1,0) = a11 + 2a21 + 3a31
        z2 = fxy(0,1) = a11 + 2a12 + 3a13
        z3 = fxy(1,1) = 1*a11 + 2*a12 + 3*a13 +
                                 2*a21 + 4*a22 + 6*a23 +
                                 3*a31 + 6*a32 + 9*a33

Four solutions are available by inspections and
another eig by pairs of equations. The object is
to solve a00 through a33 as functions of w1
through z3.

Your independent checking would be much
appreciated. Even a minor error here would
cause much later trouble. Please email me.
 

We might complement our recent lists of
Gila Valley day hikes with this list of places to
avoid that you definitely do NOT want to visit..

    SPENAZUMA MINE -- 1900's gold
    mining scam is private property on
    which visitors are strongly discouraged.

   ARIVAIPA CANYON -- There is an eastern
   access problem caused by a locked gate from
   a few-chips-shy-of-a-full-board landowner.

   TOP OF MT GRAHAM -- Red squirrel
   refugium is strictly enforced by Bureau
   of sports fisheries and wildlife, among other
   agencies. Trailhead access to some northern
   trails are blocked and prohibited.

   EDEN HOT SPRINGS -- Once hippy paradise
   is now a working cattle ranch. There has been
   a long history of exceptionally bad vibes.

   FREEPORT MCMORAN -- Due to copper
   mine development, many access points north
   to the Gila Mountains now have locked gates,
   guardhouses, or are otherwise restricted.

   THATCHER HOT WELL -- Has been plugged
    with concrete over a nudes-vs-prudes squabble.
    You still can visit, but there is nothing there.

   MT. GRAHAM OBSERVATORY -- While
   scheduled tours and individual invitations are
   possible, trespassers will be prosecuted to the
   fullest extent of the law by an aggressive 24/7
   onsite police force.

   TRAMWAY PIMA BASE STATION -- This
   appears to have been recently sold and seems
   to be private property under development.

    WATSON WASH HOT WELL -- Has been plugged
    by BLM over wild parties, drugs, shootings,
    fires, and the usual nudes-versus-prudes &Issues.

   RES ACCESS -- There are all sorts of recent
   horror stories over visits to the San Carlos indian
   reservation. Ranging from gang intimidation to
   shakedowns to extreme permit enforcement
   to outrageous fines. But the casino will still
   be happy to take your money.

   WINTER ON THE MOUNTAIN -- Mount Graham
   access is closed during winter to vehicles beyond
   Shannon Campground. Skiers, snowmobiles,
   and hikers are usually permitted.

Sometimes an apparently simple task can
have horrendous hidden gotchas. I got an
email from an individual seeking a simple way
to select the strongest of eight audio channels.

The obvious answer is any of a number of
mid-range PIC microprocessors that have
eight built in 10-bit A/D converters.

But what is meant by "strongest"? As anyone
who has ridden gain on a VU meter knows,
it flat out ain't that simple.

Speech and music have wildly different
patterns of peak to average values. And
integration times from short to long can
produce wildly different results.

So the hidden gotcha here is to be able to
define "strongest". I suspect this is highly
non-trivial.
 

Continuing with a fourth entry in our list of
easy and fun Gila Valley day hikes to
obscure and unique places. Some of which
even the natives never heard of.

   ROUND THE MOUNTAIN TINAJAS -
   At the crossing in Upper Marijilda. These
   are world class rock pools.

   FISHOOKS WILDERNESS - Remote area
   with solitude, ruins, small streams, riparian.
   Rarely visited.

   OLD US 70 - Two stretches of long abandoned
   and somewhat overgrown roadways are perfect
   for hiking and mountain biking.

   RIGGS FLAT LAKE -- Fishing, camping,
   hiking on top of Mount Graham. Closed
   in winter.

   EUROFRESH TOURS -- Huge tomato
   production facility on the other side of the
   mountain offers free commercial tours.

   PADDIE'S RIVER -- Interesting side
   canyon in the Galiuros. Approach from
   the sunnyside area.

   WILD RASPBERRIES -- Late August
   in most any old burn area on the top of
   Mount Grahm. Also commercial apples
   and prickley pears later and lower.

   PIMA BADLANDS -- Huge area to the
   west is largely roadless. Interesting
   geology full of nooks and crannies of
   one sort or another. 

   ARIVAPIA CANYON - World class
   riparian wilderness stream. Eastern
   access is currently restricted. BLM
   permits required. 

   CLUFF PONDS -- Several small lakes
   are an Arizona Game and Fish hatchery
   location. Just south of Pima.

   NORTH TAYLOR CANYON -- Hiking
   trails lead to a divide in the mountains
   separating Mt Graham proper from West
   Peak.

   COPPER CREEK CROSSOVER -- An
   ancient and vehicle impassible wagon
   road once connected fourmile with the
   upper end of the Copper Creek mining
   district. Access may be restricted. 

   CARTER SAWMILL - One of many
   earlier sawmill sites reachable by hiking
   trail beyond 4WD access.

This sort of concludes our initial list of one
year's worth of weekly trips. We may add
an ongoing "B" list of "not quite as great"
trips as we continue.

Please email me if I have m&Issed anything
obvious.

Previous lists are here and here and here.

Our Faxitron Model 8500 Industrial X-Ray
machine will come off eBay in four days.

It will not be listed again as we have some off
eBay offers. This is an outstanding bargain.

I keep getting strange emails from alternate
energy enthusiasts trying to "solve" the
storage problem for excess electricity they
think they will be generated during the day.

Proposed solutions include hydrogen, liquid
sodium, lithium borohydries and similar
outrageously inefficient, downright deadly, and
ludicrously UN-cost effective wet dreams.

In reality, the storage problem simply does
not exist. Because nothing can remotely
approach synchronous grid storage for
efficiency, simplicity, cost effectiveness,
and implementation.

And this will continue for many decades
until such time as alternate energy excess
approaches peak demand. Naturally, trying
to work offgrid is being part of the problem,
not part of the solution.

Even at their outrageous current pricing,
a synchronous inverter is far cheaper and
far simpler and far safer and far less complex
than any other approach to energy storage.

And the price of these can reasonably be
expected to eventually drop into the ten dollar
range. Given enough demand and interest.

Purists might insist "but you are not storing
anything". To which an economist would
reply "You are instead swapping fungible
commodities." If you put nickels in a
piggy bank and later remove some, it does
not matter in the least whether you get the
same ones back.

Even if synchronous inversion was not
obviously the best, number two would be
pumped storage. Cheap, effective, low tech,
and thoroughly proven.

Much more in our Energy Fundamentals
tutorial.  

We picked up a bunch of very unusual and high
quality switches at a recent power utility auction
and have listed them on eBay.

All are high current and rated to 600 volts, which
makes their new prices outrageous.

The first group of these are some ten gang ABB
knife switches. These are weird enough and funky
enough to be excellent for stempunk and similar
outrageous projects.

The second group are genuine ElectroSwitch
modules. Some fully manual and some with
solenoid driven electrical reset. The latter are
extremely useful for safety lockout relays.
These go up to 20 pole, double throw.
 

Continuing our list of easy and obscure
Gila Valley day hikes to unique places. Some
 of which even the natives never heard of.

We'll split this up into pieces of thirteen trips
or so for a full year's worth of travel.

      OAK GROVE CANYON -- Seldom
      visited and little known feeder canyon
      to Arivaipa offers a wet stream, cliffs,
      riparian. Access presently limited.

      OLD GOAT RANCH -- Spectacular
      San Simon erosional features caused by
      obscene overgrazing that continues to this
      day.

      CUNNINGHAM ROADS -- old logging
      trails atop Mt. Graham are closed to
      vehicles but offer superb and easy hiking
      and mountain biking.

      SANTA TERESA ROCK CLIMBING --
      World class climbing granite is little
      known and seldom visited.

      MARIJILDA PICNIC AREA -- Small
      pools are perfect for kiddies. Lots of
      big trees, but fewer because of recent
      flood damage.

       MORENCI MINE TOUR -- Commercial
      tours of one of the largest copper mines
      in the world. Reservations required.

      YELLOWSTONE DAM -- small catchment
       in scenic area has an unusual flying buttress
      architecture.

     OLD MORENCI BRIDGE -- Restored
      older bridge on the backcountry byway
      is also a shady picnic area and a Gila
      River whitewater put in. 

     WEST END MINES -- Historic district
     east of Duncan offers all sorts of exploration
     possibilities. Avoid tunnels and shafts!

     PIMA GAP -- Unusual geological feature
     forms a short box canyon in the Upper
     Sonoran life zone. Javelinas common here.

     ROPER LAKE STATE PARK -- Has
     developed hot springs, lakes with islands,
     fishing, camping, hiking.

    FLYING BOXCAR - Rare static display
    of a military C119E twin boom cargo and
    paratroop plane at Pima International Airport,
    aka the Flying J. Call in advance.

    LEBANON PONDS - Collection of fairly large
    reservoirs that hold seasonal water and provide
    storage for a historic irrigation district.

Previous lists are here and here. 

Pixel interpolation is crucial when modifying
any bitmap for resizing, perspective correction,
image rectification, or any of a number of
related processes.

In which you take four adjacent pixel samples
and attempt to get the "best" result for
a point lying between them. Some hints over
how to do this appear here and here.

 Key questions are how fast the poorer methods
 are and exactly how the better methods work...

   NEAREST NEIGHBOR -- This is the fastest
   method in which the closest pixel is substituted.
   It tends to create ugly artifacts but has quick and
   simple algorithms. Can be improved by oversampling.

   BILINEAL INTERPOLATION -- This "averages"
   the four corner pixels in proportion to their relative
   distances. The approximate formula is...
     
           f(x,y) = f(0,0)(1-x)(1-y) + f(1,0)(x)(1-y) +
                        f(0,1)(1-x)(y)    + f(1,1)(x)(y)

   BILINEAL VIA TABLE LOOKUP  -- This can
   considerably speed up bilineal interpolation but
   limits you to n x n quantized values. The execution
   speed is a fairly mild function of n, while the table
   lengths increase as the square of n.

   3x3 COMPROMISE -- This is the "worst" bilineal
   table lookup but is considerably better than nearest
   neighbor. It is surprisingly fast in that a single
   lookup is needed 4/9ths of the time, a two point
   average 4/9ths of the time, and a full four point
   average only 1/9th of the time. At 2X oversampling,
   you get a 6x6 array that is 36 times "better" than
   nearest neighbor with only a 4x speed penalty.

   BICUBIC INTERPOLATION -- This creates a
   smooth surface between the corner points that
   takes into account both the values and the slopes
   at each corner. The results are superb but the
   computation is enormously complex.

   Sixteen equations are involved...

      surface p(x,y) =
               a00 * x^0 * y^0)  +  a01 * x^0 * y^1) +
               a02 * x^0 * y^2) + a03 * x^0 * y^3) +
               a10 * x^1 * y^0) + a11 * x^1 * y^1) +
               a12 * x^1 * y^2) + a13 * x^1 * y^3) +
               a20 * x^2 * y^0) + a21 * x^2 * y^1) +
               a22 * x^2 * y^2) + a03 * x^2 * y^3) +
               a30 * x^3 * y^0) + a31 * x^3 * y^1) +
               a32 * x^3 * y^2) + a33 * x^3 * y^3)

   The coefficients are found by simultaneously solving
    sixteen equations based on the 4 data point values,
    their x slopes, their y slopes, and their xy slopes.

    The calculations are obviously complex and may
    need done millions of times on a larger bitmap.
    Typically three times over for red, blue, and green.
    Simplification by table lookup would seem to not
    give much improvement over bilineal. At a still
    horrendous speed penalty.

It is important to note that none of the new methods
can add any informational content beyond that available
from the initial pixels themselves. Smooth and band
limited data is thus assumed.

I'll try to work up a GuruGram that explores all of this
in much more detail.  

Continuing our list of easy and obscure
Gila Valley day hikes to unique places. Some
 of which even the natives never heard of.

We'll split this up into pieces of thirteen trips
or so for a full year's worth of travel.

      GILLARD HOT SPRING -- One of the
      hottest anywhere at 180 degrees. Mixes
      rapidly with the cooler Gila River.

     CARTER BOX -- Secret hidden pools
     here once held native fish. Not sure
     what our drought conditions have done
     recently

    MORENCI CRYSTAL CAVE - Several
    hundred feet of passage, typically with a
    lake blocking some easier access.

   MOUNT GRAHAM SAWMILL - Largest
   and most important sawmill on the mountain.
   Both the tramway and the flume started here.
 
   HIDDEN GILA ACCESS -- Obscure ag   
   roads lead to an amazingly pristine river
   stretch halfway between Pima and Thatcher.

   ASH CREEK - Nice picnic area with a
   running stream. Flume and mountain access
   trails further up.

   MOUNT GRAHAM OBSERVATORY --
   Incredible technology. Guided tours only
   from Discovery Park. Seasonal.

   APACHE BOX -- A favorite hiking area
   of BLM employees just over the NM
   border. Nearby Zen monastery tours.

   STOCKTON & GILLEPSIE WASHES --
   Nice picnic areas. Through hikes downstream
   are nice and easy but only seldom done.

   HOTWELL DUNES - BLM hot tubs,
   sand dunes, off road vehicle paradise.
   Enforced dress code.

  BEAR BASIN -- The most obscure trail
  access on the North side of the Grahams.
  May have water and tinajas higher up.
   
   SAN CARLOS FALLS -- Spectacular
   but difficult canyoneering on the res.
   Rec permit required and enforced.

   ALLEN RESEVOIR -- Failed flood
   control dam is seldom visited. Makes
   for interesting close in exploration.
 

While the RGB ( red-green-blue ) color space
is the most popular, there are times and places
where HSB ( hue-saturation-brightness ) can be
more useful. Such as in our latest GuruGram.

These two color spaces precisely 1:1 map into
each other, following these details. The math
involved is simple but rather obtuse.

It turns out there are six HSB cases, each with
a dominant color, a secondary mix color, and a
background color. The latter sets the saturation.

The six cases are red with blue mix, red with green
mix, green with red mix, green with blue mix,
blue with green mix, and blue with red mix.

But a much simpler way is to let PostScript do
all the work for you... 

  r g b setrgbcolor currenthsbcolor ---> h s b
  h s b sethsbcolor currentrgbcolor ---> r g b

Latest GuruGram #82 is an update on Some
Possible False Color and Rainbow Improvements.

Sourcecode is separately available here.

What could there possibly be not to like on
the latest eBook Reader product intro?

Outside of, maybe, its outrageous price and
Draconian DRM, its downright ugly look,
its rinky-dink fake keyboard, not allowing
any printing, file export or excerpting,
lack of any backlighting, overpriced sole
source media, its lousy ergometrics, unwanted
random page flips, utter lack of PDF ability,
and its failure to provide a universal interface?

There is not the slightest doubt that books
will soon be shot out of the saddle. Whether
this will happen through the evolution of
ordinary PC's laptops, video viewers,
and expanding iPod devices or by way of
specific eBook reader appliances remains
to be seen.

At any rate, I feel the winner will have
the following properties...

    TOTALLY UNLOCKED ACCESS --
    Using standard .PDF files, word docs, and
    other popular existing formats.

   SLEEKER THAN AN IPOD -- Must
   have touchy-feely properties better than
   the books it is replacing.

  DRM OPTIONAL AND MULTIPLE --
  Accepts any book-like material from any
  source. Free SDK's available to any
  of many info suppliers.

  INDEPENDENT OF MEDIA -- Hardware
  supplier should have no interest whatsoever
  in selling books or book equivalents.

   EASY EXPORT -- Owner should be able
   to transfer any and all content to any and
   all other personally owned devices of any
   sort. At any time for any reason.

   NO-NONSENSE ERGOMETRICS
   If a keyboard is needed, it should be a
   real one. Operation otherwise must be
   intuitive and convenient. Pags must not
   flip if picked up wrong.

   SHARPLY HIGHER AUTHOR PAYMENTS--
   Perhaps a minimum of 80 percent. There is
   no longer any need whatsoever for intermediaries
   of any sort between author and reader.

   SANE MEDIA PRICING - The cost of
   writing a book has dropped by a hundred
   and the cost of delivering a copy by a
   thousand. Twenty five cents is a reasonable
   selling price for a copy of a million seller.
   Even if it only earns the author $200,000.00.

   VAST LIBRARIES OF FREE MATERIAL --
   From out-of-copyright back lists, older classics,
   and from anyone with an axe to grind.

   FULL COLOR, BACKLIGHTING, VIDEO --
   Device should draw no particular distinction
   between watching a video, reading a book,
   playing a game, or attending a class.

   RUGGED AND WATERPROOF -- Must
   stand the rigors of outdoor use, full sunlight
   exposure, and reasonable abuse.

   CHEAP ENOUGH TO GIVE AWAY --
   As advertising promotion, third world learning,
   or to aide and abet a student backpack revolt.

Thought I'd start a list of easy and obscure
Gila Valley day hikes to unique places. Some
 of which even the natives never heard of.

We'll split this up into pieces of thirteen trips
or so for a full year's worth of travel.

      FREY MESA FALLS -- Waterfalls,
      riparian, rock scrambling, fishing.

      RED KNOLLS -- Many dozens of
      pseudokarst pits. These are very
      easy to rig -- just push the bolts in
      with your thumb.

     McENARY TUNNEL - One of
     many local investment scams. This
     one to tap Mount Graham for water. 

     SAFFORD GRIDS -- Spectacular pre
     historic ag structures. Possibly to
     farm agaves for mescal.

     OLD CCC CAMP -- Amazingly close
     in "ghost town" is virtually unknown.
     Buildings, trails, oil change ramps.

     TENSION STATION -- Much of the
     Mount Graham Tramway is very hard
     to access. But the first tension station
     is an easy hike with minimal 4WD.

    CACHE CAVE -- Small rock shelter that
     once held a spectacular collection of
     ancient basketry and other artifacts.

    BONITA CREEK - Nearby wet stream
     has indian ruins, birds, hiking, and history

    RINCON SPRING - Mile long dayhike
    gives sweeping valley views. Very seldom
    traveled.

    DEAD CAMEL PLACE - Footprints of
    paleo animals and other palentology.

   FORT GRANT ICE CAVES -- No longer
    have any ice in them because of global
    warming. In spherically eroded granite.

   GOAT HILL SITE -- Indian ruin on the
    summit of a small knoll. Dating from the
     1300's.

   ZEOLITE MINES -- Thin layers of minerals
   with an incredible variety of catalytic, filtering,
   and similar uses.

I've often needed "rainbows" of false color
for such things as chromaticity diagrams or
electromagnetic field plots. And have often
been disappointed with the final results.

An obvious starting point is to use a HSB
color space with maximum saturation and
brightness. Ranging from red through blue.

Purples and magentas are problematic because
they are not "real" colors. They are instead
white minus green and take a "shortcut" across
the bottom of the chromaticity diagram.

Easily explored, of course, with PostScript.
Here a hue of 0 is red, 0.333 is green, 0.667
is blue, back to red at 1.0. Saturation varies
from a white zero to a 1.0 fullest color. And
brightness goes from a black zero to a 1.0
maximum.

HSB is 1:1 mappable to RGB and vice versa.

Perhaps reversing things so that low or cool
equals blue and red or hot equals red. Thus a
value of 0 would become a hue of 0.67 blue
and a max value of 1 would be a red 0.00.

At any rate, the first cut usually produces a
rainbow all right. Except the red is somewhat
dark and the blue is waay too dark. And there
seems to be "too much" green and "not enough"
yellow or orange.

A first step in correction is to seek out a constant
perceived brightness. The eye sees green a lot
better than red and very much better than blue.
The usual formula for an "equivalent gray" and
constant brightness is...

     lum = 0.31 red + 0.11 blue + 0.59 green

If we take a saturated green as the best
brightness we can get, then unsaturating red
by 0.59 - 0.31 = 0.28 ( to 1 - 0.28 = 0.72)
and unsaturating blue by 0.59 - 0.11 = 0.48
(to 1 - 0.48 = 0.52) should give us a better
looking rainbow. With intermediate colors
properly apportioned.

The "too much green" problem is stickier
to deal with. Hue is pretty much linear
over a 400 to 800 nanometer range, while
the eye's perception is logarithmic. In
particular, two obvious colors of orange
and yellow are perceived between red and
green. While only a blended aqua is perceived
between green and blue.

My present thinking is to use a table lookup
hue booster to stretch the oranges and yellows
and squash the green. While preliminary
results are interesting, I am not yet sure of
the underlying math.

Otter be a log in there somewhere.

There also may be a problem with aqua
being "too bright". I am not sure if this is
a monitor problem or how to deal with it just yet.

I'll try to work up a Gurugram that has full
examples and useful results.

One of our associates discovered that subminiature
banana plug jumpers will fit very nicely into a submin
phone jack. For 2.5 mm is 0.1 inch, more or less.

The retention is a tad on the light side but is
quite useful. And you do need an insulated panel
because the jack body becomes the live connection.

We have lots of both of these remaining on eBay.
 

We made a loop trip through some of the more
remote New Mexico rural areas. Mostly to visit
this superb Bed & Breakfast and this well done
herb farm.

Some observations...

   THE WEB IS A GREAT EQUALIZER -- One
   that opens all sorts of income and employment
   opportunities that actually favor remote rural
   locations with low labor, low stress, and low fixed
   expenses.

   SO IS HIGH TECH -- Those in the know can
   easily create their own video production studios,
   art services, eBay sales offices, or music recording
   studios in a spare bedroom or two for astonishing
   low costs.

   WIDEBAND IS SURPRISINGLY AVAILABLE -
   In a small rural community, most everybody lives
   within a mile of the phone company. Making DSL
   the norm. And satellite Internet is now accessible
   most anywhere.

  THEY BITE THE HAND THAT FEEDS THEM -
  There is very strong anti-government activism in
  precisely those rural locations where the ratio of
  government benefits to income is highest in the
  nation. Brought about by water, ranch, farm, grazing,
  mining, and energy subsidies. Plus government jobs
  being a fraction far higher than in urban ares.

 GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL -- Small gardeners
 and farmers in rural New Mexico are having to change
 their views on which crops no longer grow well.
 Not to mention the now annual hundred year floods
 and the newly recurring historic fires. And the
 dieoffs of live oaks and other extremely drought
 resistant species

PERCEPTION DIFFERS FROM REALITY -
The "typical" New Mexico rural home is often
viewed as a squeaky clean beige fake adobe with
real vigas and a studio tower high on a windswept
bajada of stunning vistas. The reality is often an
older and rather shabby singlewide trailer.

DEVELOPMENT TRASHES ALL -- The few
good spaces remaining in the rural American
West are either changing dramatically or outright
disappearing entirely. Never to return
 

Here is how the pricing and lotting of our
electronic components offered on eBay gets
done:

We start with an opening price of just under
ten dollars and adjust the lot quantity to end
up at a price of one-sixth of current distributor
list pricing.

Prices get further adjusted depending on their
popularity or rarity and to how many times they
are listed. Prices get lowered on some items that
we have enormous quantities of. Especially our
white banana jacks and miniature snap switches.

The quantity in a lot is also adjusted to give you
the best possible shipping rates. As in under
thirteen ounces to package at a one pound rate.

Oddball quantities sometimes result if we have
a strange quantity remaining that can be split into
one or a very few lots.

There is an ebay listing penalty above $50 total,
so we typically list five lots at a time. More often
than not, we have more inventory available.
These additional items are immediately shippable,
on or off eBay.  

I'm saddened that the sci.energy.hydrogen
newsgroup has turned into a sewer of unhousebroken,
clueless, and irrelevant off-topic trolls. On the other
hand, the total lack of interest in the hydrogen economy
drives home the fact that this is a clueless political scam
that flat out ain't gonna happen.

Arguments against the hydrogen economy include...

    1. Terrestrial hydrogen is ONLY an energy
        carrier or transfer media and NOT a fuel.

    2. Terrestrial hydrogen creation is inefficient
        as considerably more energy of usually
       much higher quality has to be input than
       is eventually returnable.

    3. No large terrestrial source of hydrogen gas
        is known. Water, of course, is a hydrogen
       sink and, by fundamental chemical energitics,
       is the worst possible feedstock.

    4. The PROPERLY CONTAINED energy density of
        hydrogen by weight is a lot less than gasoline.
        And drops dramatically as the tank is emptied.
        The energy density of hydrogen gas by volume
        is a ludicrous joke.

    5. Virtually all bulk hydrogen is produced by methane
        reformation. And thus is EXTREMELY hydrocarbon
       dependent.

    6. Hydrogen has the widest explosive range known,
        the least spark energy required for ignition, and
        has no known colorants or odorants. Its flame is
        often invisible or nearly so.

    7. There is more hydrogen in a gallon of gasoline
        than there is in a gallon of liquid hydrogen.

    8. No effective vehicle compatible means of hydrogen
       storage is known that is remotely as cheap, safe,
        dense, and convenient as carbon bonded hydrides.

   9. No infrastructure exists for gaseous hydrogen
       distribution. Pipelines in particular raise major
        density and embrittlement &Issues.

    10. Electrolysis from high value sources such as
        grid, wind, or pv is totally useless as a hydrogen
        source because of the staggering loss of exergy.
       There ALWAYS will be more intelligent things
        to do with the electricity.

    11. Improper burning of hydrogen produces highly
         polluting nitrous oxides.

   12. Terrestrial hydrogen is basically a POLLUTION
         AMPLIFIER that INCREASES the pollution of
          its underlying sources. It is utterly ludicrous to
         claim that hydrogen is in any manner, way,
         shape, or form "nonpolluting".

    13. Hydrogen rots most metals through embrittlement.

    14. "Carbon Neutral" solutions would appear better
          than "Carbon Free" because (A) A significant
          measure of the energy of most fuels is in its carbon
          fraction, (B) Carbon appears to be essential for
         convenient and safe room temperature liquids,
         and (C) Reformation is not required or else
         is simpler, cheaper, and wastes less energy.

    15. An optimal hydrogen storage solution exists by
          carbon bonding as in heptane or iso-octane. Both
          of these room temperature liquids ain't broke.

More on these topics in our "Its a Gas" hydrogen library
page. A tutorial on energy fundamentals appears here.
 

An interesting web page on the sub pixel rendering
needed for displays to exceed print quality appears
here. The latest algorithms completely eliminate
any color fringing. Through a fairly elaborate filtering.

Some of our earlier stuff on subpixel techniques appears
here and here.

Our newest computer with the latest version
of Distiller seems to be six times faster than
what we had been using. Which may make very
complicated manipulations of larger bitmaps
a lot more reasonable.

I thought I would try to update and improve our
existing bitmap manipulation code. Perhaps by
splitting the incoming BMP file into individual
red, blue, and green PostScript string arrays.

True two dimensional manipulation of the arrays
could get done to create all sorts of fancy effects.
The arrays could then be recombined into a
composite final bitmap.

Some goals in all this might be (1) a rotator that
has better than one degree accuracy, (2) a
perspective distortion corrector that does not
in itself introduce artifacts, (3) a hue modifier,
and (4) a perspective "label paster".

Plus a few others that will depend on available
speed for really fancy stuff. Like taking speckle
artifacts out of a scanned picture. Or image
rectification and improved downscaling. Or further
exploring nonlinear graphic transforms..

More on all this whenever.

Retested and updated the offsite links on our
home page.

As always, these are the links that I personally
use the most and form my "best of web".
 

The key secret to our Delta Friendly Magic Sinewaves.
lies in locking pairs of pulse edges together so
that they track. Done in such a way that they always
and exactly cancel all triad harmonics.

Such harmonic cancellation is a must if only three
half bridge drivers are to be used on unmodified
three phase loads.

The above tutorial derives how and where the
tracking is needed from switching fundamentals.

My favorite trig identity of cos(a+b) = cos(a)cos(b)
- sin(a)sin(b) gives further supporting proof that
the edge tracking works.

Ferinstance, say p1s = p4s - 60. The sum of
needed cos(p1s) + cos(p4s) will be cos(p4s-60)
+ cos(p4s) Using our trig identity, the third
harmonic becomes cos(3*p4s)cos(180) +
sin(3*p4s)*sin(180) + cos(3*p4s) = 0 .

Which happens because the sin of 180 is zero
and the cos of 180 is minus one, which cancels
out the first and third terms.

Much more on our Magic Sinewave library
page. Our latest ultra fast calculators appear here.

Expanded and updated our Arizona Auction
Resources. Your own custom auction finder can
be created for you per these details.

Additional auction help is found here. 
 

In a crowning achievement after several false
starts, Marcia Swampfelder finally was awarded
the worst paper of the week on Wesrch.

There is joy in Mudville tonight.

I'm finding some curious vector math emerging
on our Delta Friendly Magic Sinewaves.

To guarantee operation, various pulse edges
have to be locked to one another. A pair of
locked pulse edges can have a vector equivalent.

That vector equivalent seems to preserve all
non-triad harmonics. Albeit with possible sign
changes.

For instance, if p1s = p4s - 60 a paired calculation
of cos(p1s) + cos(p4s) becomes cos(p4s-60) +
cos(p4s). Which has a single equivalent vector of
1.732*cos(p4s-30). With identical fundamental,
5th, 7th, 11th, 13th, 17th... harmonics.

The single equivalent vectors greatly simplify our
Ultra Fast Magic Sinewave Calculators. A further
analysis of these vector equivalents appears in the
sourcecode for the calculator. Found through the usual
View Source button on your browser.

Some useful tools here: cos(a+b) = cos(a)cos(b) -
sin(a)sin(b) and its negative. And cos(a) = cos(-a),
so cos(60-a) = cos(a-60).

Not sure where this is going, exactly. Meanwhile,
I have yet to find any example of a four pulse
delta friendly solution. And that they probably may
not exist.

Additional info in our Magic Sinewave library.
 

I can't seem to be able to get our Google
Custom Search to also report our eBay
offerings. I suspect eBay went out of their
way with robot exclusions to prevent this
sort of thing from happening.

What I would like to see is a custom search
that finds everything on my website and
everything we are offering on eBay. And
nothing from anybody else.

Please email me if you have any suggestions.   

Both the National Auctioneers Association and
the Arizona Auctioneer's Association have very
much improved their websites. To the point where
actually is now some overlap (!) in their auction
listings.

What we feel is the most complete source of
Arizona auction listings anywhere on the web
appears here. Your own custom regional auction
finder can be created for you per these details.
 

Few people realize how major a role private
corporations have played in dramatically altering
western water flows and rights. Three Phelps Dodge
examples can be of historic and technical interest.

We have already seen how the Black River pumping
plant removes water from the Salt River Basin and
moves it into the Gila Valley. Done by pumping
up onto a mesa and then free flowing some fifty
or so miles. Serving the Morenci mine and townsite.

A shorter PD project in Riverside NM pumps water
up several hundred feet into Bill Evans Lake where
the water is then run by aqueduct several dozen miles
to the Tyrone mine.

Even more intriguing is Blue Ridge Reservoir that
diverts water from the Colorado River basin by
pumping it up and over a ridge and dropping it into
the East Verde River where, many miles later,
it ends up in Horseshoe and Bartlett dams, serving
the Phoenix area. This time, eighty miles or so in
a very elaborate water credits exchange.  

Expanded and updated our Magic Sinewave library.

We recently looked at a number of Factors Driving
Technological Innovation in our series of GuruGrams.

This seems to be turning into an ongoing topic. We
already added Form No Longer Follows Function
here. I guess I'd also like to newly add Complexity
Beyond Comprehension.

Back in the days of an Apple IIe, a reasonably
swift individual could understand exactly what
all 128,000 bytes of memory were up to at all
times. These days, nobody but nobody has
the faintest clue what even a tiny fraction of
memory in, say, a Pentium with XP is up to.
And that is before the malware and trojans
take over.

Similarly, a reasonably swift individual could
build up all aspects of a new product by
creating their own printed circuit board and
attaching obvious and easily understood
components to it using common tools and
ordinary skills.

Not so any more. Sneeze and all your parts
vanish without a trace.

The points being that much of what was
exactly and precisely known in past
development now has to be taken on faith.

And that no single individual is likely to
completely understand any new product
development. Teams and groupwork
are now apparently a must.   

Expanded and updated our GuruGram library.

Oops. Just discovered that several crucial links
on our new Ultra Fast Magic Sinewave Calculator
were broken.

The main Magic Sinewave page is found here, and
the Executive Summary tutorial here.

Latest GuruGram #81 is an update on Two Way
Linking of HTML and Acrobat PDF Files.

Sourcecode is separately available here.

Our revised website search engine is based on
the new beta version of Google Custom Search.

This is surprisingly simple to set up and easily
finds both HTML and Acrobat PDF text strings.
It seems to grab just about everything on our
website, all pages deep.

Once set up, you go to your Google account home
page and simply cut and paste a short JavaScript
module where you want on whichever pages you
want.

You can also extend your custom search to any
number of web pages. I am still exploring whether
eBay pages can be included in a custom search.

A wildcard of "/*" may be used to search to
arbitrary depth on any given website.

If you search on an obvious term, Google ads
may be appended to your search results. You
can also use their AdSense service to get
paid for links made from your searches.

I have avoided using AdSense to date because
of the exceptional quality of our existing
banner advertisers. Which I definitely want to
preserve.
 

One of the unintended consequences of the new
CBS and NBC online on-demand delivery of many
of their network programs is that it drives home
how mesmerizingly awful their current offerings are.

I can't believe they are actually doing this on purpose.

Out of some 34 programs, I found two of them
barely watchable. One of which apparently has a
death wish, because they are using plot devices
obviously stolen from I Love Lucy. 
 

I am changing all of our What's New archives back
to single year files. This greatly simplifies our
new deeplinking process and still gives acceptable
load times for all but the slowest links.

Just put the last of our Insulinks up on eBay.

We are rapidly running out of our more popular
electronic component items. I'm not sure when
or where we will be able to find comparable
bargains again.

If you post to newsgroups, it is only a matter
of time before a few-chips-shy-of-a-full-board
and unhousebroken troll causes you grief.

Some suggestions on dealing with problem
posts and posters...

   WAIT BEFORE RESPONDING -- Do
   not give an instant reply. Think it over
   preferably for a day or two.

   RESPOND TO THE LURKERS -- Do
   not directly confront the epsilon minus.
   Answer patiently, objectively, and with
   additional supporting links.

   RESPOND ONLY ONCE -- Do not drag
   out anything that gives the epsilon minus
   a forum.

  GIVE THEM THE LAST WORD -- Which,
   of course, they will have anyway.

   LET OTHERS BAIL YOU OUT -- If your
   position is credible, others will be likely to
   soon come to your rescue.

   HIJACK THE TOPIC -- Make subtle
   to obvious changes in the topic direction and
   tone that makes the epsilon minus look
   like an epsilon minus.

   SELECTIVELY EDIT -- When responding
   to a previous thread, eliminate or weaken
   any portions that do not strengthen yours.

   START A NEW TOPIC -- Stating your key
   points and solidifying what you want to say.
   Only in a different direction with a somewhat
   different point of view.

   THREE DAY HALF LIFE -- That's about as
   long as a typical topic will stay on topic if you
   do not stir it.

   RETHINK YOUR PRIORITIES -- Too much
   of this happening may mean you are spending
   far too much time on Usenet.

And if else fails...

   INVOKE ADOLPH HITLER -- This is
   guaranteed to end the discussion. Hitler,
   of course, was the greatest highway
   engineer of the twentieth century.

I replaced our old and klunky and broken website
search with a new Google Custom Search Engine.

You should find it at the top of all our web pages.
It does seem to search everything all the way back,
both on .ASP and .PDF pages.

Please test it and report any problems. We may
improve it and add to it as time goes on.

Many thanks to Burr Brown for sending me an
eval board for their new INA209 chip. Once again,
this device simultaneously measures dc voltage,
current, and power. Over an 0-26 volt range with your
max current set by your choice of a low value series
resistor.

The eval system consists of two snap-together circuit
boards. One is a generic USB interface intended to
interface many different current and future products.
The other is a 1NA209 specific board.

You have to provide your own wall wart for the USB
side and your own power supply for your current
measuring system.

The chip appears very useful for measuring dc power
both into and out of a battery or other power supply.
But note that both sides of the current sensing resistor
are strictly limited to a 0 to +26 vdc range.

The sensing resistor must be on the high side so that
both voltage and current can be input. Negative or ac
signals going below ground are not permitted.

Note further that the fastest update rate is somewhere
around 1000 samples per second. This might restrict
some uses with pulsed current or PWM systems.

More on this whenever I get a chance.

While there seem to be more auctions than
normal lately, there sure seems to be a dearth
of my type of high tech distress liquidations.

But opportunities seem to abound in these
areas if you can add personal value to them...

   MACHINE SHOPS-- Those that have failed
   to go CNC are no longer competitive, and
   those that have may be facing payment &Issues
   with their costly new equipment.

   FITNESS CENTERS -- Interest in these has
   clearly peaked, so bargains in equipment
   and fixtures and accessories abound.

   PRINT SHOPS - You can now do just about
   everything a print shop did on your own far
   better, far faster, and ridiculously cheaper.

   CANDLE STORES -- The web has severely
   cut into brick and mortar stores of all sorts,
   especially Mom and Pop operations. Candles
   are but one example of newly unviable ventures.

   WOODWORKING -- I'm not sure why there is
   a peak in these auctions. Offshore suppliers
   and labor costs do have to be factors, though.

   CO-OP FOOD SERVICES -- Wal Mart and
   similar chains have pretty much eliminated
   any cost advantages to many co-op ventures.
   Even worse is the skyrocketing costs of
   maintaining delivery routes.

   OFFICE SUPPLIES -- You cannot give classic
   steel desks away. and most business ventures
   have sharply cut back on paper filing and similar
   accessories.

As usual, the best buys will be in related inventory,
"contents of room" and "contents of cabinet"
unsorted, murky, or poisoned lots that are a minor
and nonobvious part of a larger liquidation.

More on our Auction Help page. Your own custom
distress liquidation finder can be created for you
per these details.

A reminder that we have a 1994 Pathfinder
for sale at $3900. Which is well under Blue book
for a vehicle of this age and condition.

Managed to get more or less near the trailhead
to the secret San Carlos River waterfalls.

A good trip description appears here. Do not even
think of attempting this unless you are well attuned
to Arizona backcountry travel. GPS is highly
recommended, or a Brunton and flagging at the least.
Cellphones are probably useless.

Mile markers are obvious. About 0.3 miles past marker
11, look for a gate and rough track north that seems to
go to a corral. You shortly should see dirt South Summit
tank and take a newer and unmarked track counterclockwise
to the right around the tank.

This track tees with the topo track after a mile or so
where you hang to the right. The metal Summit Tank
should shortly be visible at, of all places, the top of the
hill. The dirt Summit Tank should show up a quarter mile
later. The jetski concession still seems to be available.

It is nearly two miles to the recommended trailhead
from the tank. Much of the terrain is eminently
drivable, being flat and sparse, well packed, and
apparently not overly environmentally sensitive. But
you may have to squint quite a bit to meet the
"established roadway" rule.

The double hill to your left makes a good backsight
to monitor your progress. Apparently the easiest
trailhead appears in the slight dip in the 4180 foot
contour here. The canyon is pretty much invisible,
even without the limited sight distance of the
Chainfruit Cholla forest.

There are apparently three areas of interest, none
of which we yet got remotely near. There is a fairly
easy accessible 20 foot waterfall and long pool.
There is a 70 foot wet rappel half a mile downstream
that apparently has a usable "mere mortals" bypass.
This likely is at the canyon "corner" where the river
shifts from westerly to southerly.

Further down canyon by another half mile might also
be very interesting. But may or may not have
impassible tinajas. Canyoneering at its best.

Permits are $10, and our permit WAS in fact challenged.
Mostly because of hunters further down the road.

More on this whenever. Let me know what you find
on your visit. 

This website gives credibility to the theory that
some web pages may be becoming excessively
specialized.

If there is one thing I cannot stand, it is intolerance.

Many thanks to the folks at Parallax for comping
me a Propeller Demo Board.

The Propeller is a group of next generation $12
parallel computing chips. Each has eight separate
32 bit microprocessors that share common I/O
in a unique round-and-round architecture.

This chip may be one way of solving the crucial
Magic Sinewave task of a 12 bit or better
precision time delay with minimum overhead
and simple coding.

Another obvious possibility is separating the
input amplitude control from the actual
sinewave generation. This should enormously
simplify timing. Besides allowing much fancier
I/O and interaction with synchronous inverters
and similar systems.

I'll try to do some eval on this soon. 

A Magic Sinewave summary appears here and
our latest ultraspeed calculators here.

A crucially useful test of the desirability of any
workplace is whether or not too fine a distinction is
drawn between the casual dress days and the
clothing optional ones.

The latest discovery of the free energy proponents
involves rectification of Johnson Noise. There
apparently is a credible second law violation on
the quantum nano level. There is, of course,
no way in hell that this can ever lead to an
even remotely exploitable power source.

The whole concept centers on Maxwell's Demon,
a useful summary text of which appears here,
along with its earlier volume.

Their "not even wrong" thinking seems to me to be
based on a patent with centuries of prior art and a poorly
done Spice model. Both of which are nearly certain to
prove totally useless in the real world.

Several obvious problems is that it is a long, long
way from nanowatt seconds to kilowatt hours.

Low source impedance is a must for any economic
energy source. Voltage by itself will not hack it.
The product of voltage and current is what counts.

Further, Amortization and full cost true accounting
overwhelm the costs of most energy concepts, even
with a "free" feedstock.

Any low temperature scheme flies in the face of
Carnot. And higher temperature concentrations
leads to fourth power efficiency losses, limits to
sensor performance, tracking, and infrastructure
cost &Issues.

It is also quite easy to confuse absolute temperatures
with operation over a temperature differential.

Without exception, in every previous Maxwell's
Demon example, entropy shifts elsewhere in the
system have fully guaranteed compliance with the
second law on the macro level.

And finally, if the concept were extendable beyond
the nano level, some organism would already have
figured this one out. My prediction is that some
real world rectification thresholds absolutely
guarantee no large scale second law violation will
ever result from this approach.

Much more in BASHPSEU.PDF and ENERGFUN.PDF.
More on patent absurdities here.

A useful collection of electronic logos ( both
integrated circuits and otherwise ) appears here.

Tens of thousands of logos also appear here,
but I have yet to find a way to search them by
style rather than by company name.

The current mystery is a connector logo that
has a "CA" on top and a "W" on the bottom
in an overall hexagonal shape.

Much of our early Magic Sinewave work was
centered on the PIC microprocessor. I am beginning
to wonder whether other newly emerging alternates
might be more appropriate.

The crucial core to magic sinewaves is a jitter free
delay of 12 or more bits of resolution with extremely
low overhead.

Since the PIC is only an eight bit device, it has to use
a two step process where most of the delay was
calculated and a residue done by table lookup. This
led to "pinch points" in the code and complex coding.

One approach would be to find an economical uP
with enormously huge flash memory available. Each
delay of each pulse of each amplitude could then be
brute force coded. Something like half a meg of
flash might do the job nicely, and the coding would
be very simple and straightforward.

A second approach would be to find an economical uP
whose data bus is at least twelve bits wide. Or whose
timers allow very low overhead that is jitter free.

A third approach might involve PLD's or DSP's.

Getting both very short and very long delays with the
same code seems enormously tricky.

Your email suggestions are welcome.

One of the medical curiosities of rectocranial
inversion is that this affliction can simultaneously
be both chronic and acute.

Noticed that both CBS and NBC now are
offering live internet rebroadcasts of many of
their prime time programs.

This does take a faster computer and a high
speed internet connection for smooth viewing.

But, my oh my, the bandwidth gobbled up by
such services. An internet overload and collapse
seems to be just around the corner. Especially
when routine HDTV video on demand starts to
be offered as a website norm.

Does anybody know of a high quality wireless
digital rebroadcaster that connects to your computer
and reaches a HDTV set in a distant room?
This should be an obvious product, but I can't seem
to find one just yet.

Got our industrial X-ray machine up on
eBay. Turns out it is a Faxitron Model 8050
Serial 1229. It should be an ideal "parts kit"
to upgrade to a modern instant viewing machine.

This beast is outrageously heavy despite its
small benchtop size. We will assist you in
loading onto your pickup truck or SUV, or
can provide a very limited delivery service as
noted in the offer.

Updated and expanded our Arizona Auction
Resources listing.

Arizona auctions seem to be on their fall upswing,
but a dearth of industrial distress auctions seems
to remain. It has been a long dry spell for us.

Your own custom auction finder can be created
for you per these details.

We picked up some hard to find classic
mercury switches recently and now have
them up on eBay.

These are glass encased "NE-2" size and
shape. They can be used as tilt switches or
silent switches in singles, or by threes in any
"must be vertical" sensor.

Sensitivity is a few degrees.

They also are a reasonably safe way to
demonstrate some properties of mercury to
grade school or middle school students.

These remain fully legal, but they must not
be broken, must be disposed of properly,
and are not recommended for new production
designs. They remain quite useful for experimental
or one-off apps where alternatives are difficult.

Human cannonball on his circus exit interview:

"Sorry to see you go. It is hard to find a man of
your calibre."

Apparently Adobe Systems has moved their
Acrobat JavaScript Consoles over so they are
only available on the more costly professional
versions of Acrobat 7 or 8.

This makes development of our Acrobat PDF
Animation and similar tasks considerably more
expensive. Or now needs unbearably difficult
hand coding.

A reminder that we have inventory in depth
on most of our eBay auction items. Similar
items are often found in the eBay store or else
may be ordered direct.

Much as we like p&Issing contests between two
competitive bidders, you can usually avoid
paying more than our opening price just by
searching deep into our eBay site or emailing us.

It is, of course, NEVER a good idea to enter
an early eBay bid on ANY auction item. Secrets
of successful eBay bid strategies appear here.

And similar tutorials here.

We have long had a demo of Two Way Linking
of Acrobat and .PDF files. There were some
ancient history problems with its operation that
may have obscurely resurfaced with Acrobat 7.

And supposedly have been cured with Acrobat 8.

Please email me if you are having any problems
with this demo. Particularly in not going to the
correct page of a previously viewed file.

What are the factors that make for a good inventory
source for an eBay auction? I'd include these...

    FORCED SALE -- A third party such as a
    bank or a landlord is forcing the auction to happen.
    Their primary interest is to free up the property
    for a new leasing or to recoup their cash losses.

    MUST VACATE -- The property must be
    cleared. It is not possible for the original value
    holders or new buyers to continue in place.
    Everything literally must go.

   DEEP DISTRESS -- Should be a desperate
   attempt at salvage, rather than an inventory
   reduction or relocation of a viable business.

   NO ORIGINAL INTEREST-- The original
   owners who know the value of what is being
   offered should be long gone or in jail or flat
   out broke or otherwise scattered.

   NO BLACKMAIL OR BULK SALES -- Items
   will be sold piecemeal and the auction is real,
   not just a "put up or shut up" time wasting
   smoke-and-mirrors scam.

  NOT A NATIONAL AUCTIONEER --High
  profile national auctions tend to draw more
  people, have higher prices, and be much more
  strongly promoted.

   SECOND TIER LOCAL AUCTIONEER -
   may be sloppy or incompetent, out of their
   area of expertise, or improperly promoted.

   FOCUS NOT OBVIOUS -- Your items of
   interest should be only the tiniest and the
   most unobvious part of the whole. Thus
   failing to attract regular competitors.

   POSIONED LOTS -- Wildly mixed lots
   should have worthless junk dominating with
   real gems deeply buried. "Put it with the
   next lot" is your friend.

  MURKY INVENTORY -- Lots of items
  high up on dark and inaccessible shelving.
  Items very difficult to properly inspect and
  evaluate.

   "IN-PLACE" AUCTION -- happens at the
   original site. Items hauled off to an auction
   "yard" or "barn" inevitably get evaluated
   and highraded. And the moving labor and the
   value added has to be paid for somehow.

  "CONTENTS OF ROOM" DEALS -- Or even
  the lesser "contents of cabinet". Where lots of
  bulk unsorted inventory hides the true value of
  buried gems.

   NOT AN ESTATE SALE -- These tend to have
   overall bad vibes because of squabbling siblings
   and the fact that somebody died or had to go to
   a special home. Also, items are unlikely to be
   new.

   NEW ORIGINAL INVENTORY -- Rather than
   items to be repaired, not taken care of properly,
   warranty returns, broken, or otherwise trashed.

  NOT REGULARLY SCHEDULED -- As in a
  college inventory auction or routine business
  excess trash cleanup. These tend to attract
  competitors and rarely have stunning bargains.

   EXCESSIVE LENGTH -- Bargains tend to abound
   twelve hours into a ninety minute auction.

  120 DEGREES IN THE SHADE -- Not counting
  the scorpions, the four inch hail, and the total
  lack of working restrooms.

Much more on our Auction Help library page.
Your own custom auction finder can be built for
you per these details.

One of the utterly bogus claims of the "hydrogen
economy" proponents is that hydrogen has an
energy density by weight that is three times better
than gasoline.

In reality in the real world (A) it does not, and (B)
even if it did, it does not matter in the least.

For energy density by volume utterly and totally
dominates in terrestrial automotive apps.

Suppose that someone shows up drunk at a refinery
somewhere and flips some valves that inadvertently
triples the energy density by weight of gasoline. What
would likely happen?

Possibly the total weight of a vehicle could be reduced
by as much as 26 pounds. Golly Gee mister science!

But much worse is that you have to consider the
CONTAINED weight. The weight of a gasoline tank
adds very little to the weight of the liquid it holds.
While it is enormously unlikely that you could hold
an equivalent thirteen pounds of hydrogen in a twenty
six pound container. The size you would need for
gasoline parity.

In reality, gaseous hydrogen containment systems
vastly exceed the weight of the hydrogen they hold.
And, of course, get worse as the hydrogen is used up.

Thus in the real world, the contained energy density
of hydrogen by weight is not even remotely as good
as gasoline.

Additional arguments against the hydrogen economy
appear here.

Our electronics inventory sales on eBay are about
two thirds complete, and we are running out of
inventory on many of the earlier items.

New items to be listed tend to be more obscure
items in smaller quantities. On some of these,
we will be using representative photos or no
photos at all.

As usual, you can email us with questions on
any item. And we certainly will combine lots
or even "start a tab" to get you the best possible
shipping costs. Again, email for details.
 

I find the classic statistical Monty Hall Problem
utterly fascinating. Particularly the way nearly
everybody is loudly and emphatically dead wrong
about the odds.

A game show host offers a contestant a choice of
three doors, one of which contains a car and two
of which contain goats. The contestant guesses a
certain door. At this point, you might rightly
conclude that their odds on the car are 1 in 3.

Now, the host KNOWINGLY opens a door that
is GUARANTEED to have a goat behind it and
ALWAYS asks the contestant if they want to
change their guess.

The surprising answer is that changing their
guess DOUBLES their odds of winning the car!

Most people will wrongly argue that a new guess
involves two doors and that the odds are 1 in 2 of
either door winning on the new guess. But that is
NOT at all what happened.

Because -- the original guess had 1 in 3 odds. The
number of doors has not changed. The number
of goats has not changed. And whatever was
behind the guessed door has not changed. Thus
the odds on the original guess REMAIN as one
in three!

Since the odds of there being a car in the open
door with a goat in it is now 0 in 3, the unguessed
closed door has to have odds of 2 in 3 of holding
the car. Or TWICE as good a bet as before.

I'm wondering if the entire concept of an "ebook
reader" is not a totally bogus straw man.

Any old laptop now lets you attractively view book type
material much better than a dead trees book does.
And simple ebook specific nav features are easily added.

We can shortly expect cellphones and music players
to also offer acceptable ebook reading capability.

A stand alone ebook reader is probably doomed to
failure because it simply does not do all that much
that is not better done elsewhere.

When incompatibilities and DRM and existing
publisher stupidity &Issues are layered on top,
the eBook reader concept seems fatally flawed.

Further analysis here.

Received an email asking about two way
linking of Acrobat PDF and HTML files.

We have long had a demo here, but I guess it
is time to upgrade this into a new GuruGram.

Bottom line: On the HTML side, an Anchor
gets you to any part of any page. An anchor
might be manually or programmatically set as in

             <a name=""glotz">

And the anchor can be called by...

        http://www.mysite/myhtmlfile.htm#glotz

The "#" here means "find the anchor in the current
document". You might want to position your HTML 
anchor a little earlier than you think you need it to
make sure there is decent spacing above your entry.

On the Acrobat .PDF side, an anchor is called a
named destination. Full details on its use appear in
the PDFMark Reference Manual.

A named destination might be created by

        [ /Dest /zorch /DEST pdfmark

This can be entered into an appropriate place
in the sourcecode of the document to be
distilled either manually or programmatically.

Or later entered directly into the .PDF file
by an appropriate editor or service proc.

Your named destination is similarly called...

    http://www.mysite/mypdffile.pdf#zorch

This simple example will take you to the top of
the desired Acrobat .PDF page. There is an
optional View parameter that lets you set an
exact page position or magnification. There is
also an optional Page parameter that lets you
use a page number rather than a name.

New destinations can be added to an existing
.PDF file with Acrobat 7 or higher by selecting
View and then Navigation Tabs and then
Destinations. This will automatically position
and zoom to your preselected page image.

Note that you must have a "real" copy of
Acrobat 7 or higher and not just an Acrobat reader.

More on post editing .PDF files here.

Noticed a new INA209 chip from Burr-Brown that
simultaneously measures dc voltage, current, and
power. Over an 0-26 volt range with your max
current set by your choice of a low value series resistor.

With current sensitivities to 40 millivolts full scale and
measurement speeds useful to 1000 per second. With
pricing in the $3.50 range. And one percent accuracy.

Besides its obvious automotive, battery, test, and server
uses, this chip should be able to once and for all
eliminate all of the happy horseshit involving bogus
electrolysis efficiency measurements.

Way on back in my slide rule and college days,
the efficiency of math calculations was super important.

But today we now have Computing Power Insanely
Beyond Awesome Which means that the "old ways"
need no longer apply. Specifically, it has recently become
utterly trivial to throw another half a million calculations
at a problem. Or even half a billion.

Thus brute force attacks may often prove most useful.

Our New Method of Solving Electromagnetic Fields gives
a typical example. Where hundreds of thousands of
intense calculations utterly trash the efficiency but
provide you with highly useful results in times ranging
from tens of seconds to a few minutes.

And, of course, our Magic Sinewaves started out with
exhaustive searches of all possible harmonic bit
sequences.

Just picked up an older Faxitron industrial
X-ray machine Have not had a chance to even
pick it up yet, let alone test it. But if the tube is
still good, it should be quite valuable. Apparently
new solid state imaging sensors are now available for
this film based system, although quite expensive.

Please email me if you want to get in ahead of the
hoarders on this one. The lead in the two foot cubic
box makes this 400 pound beast expensive to ship,
so local pickup would be advised.

One of the virtually unknown secret places in
Arizona is the tiny mountain resort community of
Greer hidden at the headwaters of the Little Colorado
river. At the end of route 373, the "road to nowhere".

We just got back from a visit, and found the low end
burgers-and-cobbler-with-an-attitude at the Rendezvous
Diner to certainly be worth a stop.

And that the pet welcome $200 total per night, six person
cabins with private jacuzzi spa hot tubs at the Snowy
Mountain Inn to be an outstanding bargain, combined with
superb food and service.

UPDATE: Has been sold at auction. Status unknown.

One tip: It is tempting to make a loop over the Coronado
Trail ( US 191 or old 666 ) when visiting the White
Mountains. While this "must see" route is certainly
spectacular and includes world class mines, it is also
very long, quite tedious, has no services, no cellphones,
and is carsick urppy.

Locals instead often will go the Luna-Glenwood-Mule
Creek route through New Mexico. While somewhat
longer, this road is much faster and requires far fewer
barf bags. And gives you access to the Catwalk, the
Gila Wilderness, Frisco Box, the Mongollon ghost town,
and the underappreciated Big Lue mountains.

Not sure if a recent Infopak request was a
yank-my-chain hoax or not. What they wanted
was a pv system to run a 2 horsepower 3 phase
lathe.

Such a system would be an insanely huge gasoline
destroying net energy sink. An infinitely greener
and more environment friendly solution, of course,
would be a generator from Home Depot and a VFD
drive from McMaster Carr or W.W. Grainger.

Forgetting that nobody uses lathes anymore since
CNC mills are ridiculously more productive, pv
systems pretty much demand a matched and continuous
load. Any high power and low duty cycle load is dead
wrong.

There is a strong correlation between dimes and kilowatt
hours in any pv system. Very often, the two can be
treated as interchangeable and fungible commodities.
You can use either dollars or energy for your analysis,
or some mix of the two.

A dime per kilowatt hour is often ballpark for power
utility buyback contracts. Driving a 2 HP lathe for
a highly unlikely two hours a day would cost forty cents
or so. Per this analysis, the maximum amortized system
cost over ten years at ten percent would have to be
significantly less than $908 .

My rough estimate of the conventional pv system
they would need is around $35,000.00 fully burdened
true cost for the system, and possibly triple that for the
NRE expenses. Any tax credits or subsidies, of course,
should be charged at their true societal costs of at least
three times face value.

Thus, the cost penalty and environmental destruction
caused by going pv solar would be something like
ONE HUNDRED TIMES the best solution!

Much more in our Energy Fundamentals tutorial.
 

When it comes to Italian food, you cannot be both
pro volone and anti pasto.

Here's a good starting sequence for learning
the insider secrets of dealing with eBay...

      eBay selling secrets
      eBay buying secrets

      enhancing your eBay skills I
      enhancing your eBay skills II
      enhancing your eBay skills III
      enhancing your eBay skills IV
      enhancing your eBay skills V
      enhancing your eBay skills VI

Additional auction info is found here, tested
and proven sources of supply here, and your
own local supply source directory here.

A Wall Street Journal article from today and its
later Slashdot Analysis strongly supports what I
have long suspected: That most peer reviewed
scientific papers are just plain wrong.

Clearly, conventional peer review publication is
doomed. It makes no sense whatsoever for a
researcher to pay many thousands of dollars to
get published in a negligible circulation journal
so expensive that their own library cannot afford
a copy. Combined with utterly outrageous copy
charges.

Of the many emerging alternatives, I am most
impressed by Wesrch and where it seems to be
going.

For most individuals and small scale startups,
any involvement with the US Patent system is
virtually certain to result in a net loss of time,
energy, money, and sanity.

My classic Case Against Patents appears here,
a tutorial on When to Patent here, and additional
resources here.

Very often, it is not a good idea to sell an eBay
item on its first listing. Chances often are good that
you will get a higher return if you have to relist a
time or two.

While the relists are a gamble, you might be betting
$3 in relist fees against a $100 higher total return.
You can repeat this bet many times and still end up
way ahead.

Two techniques we can call ratchet up and ratchet
down may be of use here.

Say you have a clean refurbed higher ticket
industrial item for sale. You might open at something
like one third of factory list price, knowing full
well that a sale at this price is very unlikely.

You then ratchet down by lowering the price between
five or fifteen percent on each relisting. Chances are
the item will eventually sell for a higher price than
you might have first guessed.

In an opposite situation, say you have a few rare
collectibles and somebody instantly grabs one with
Buy it Now. Clearly your price was too low. In
this case, you ratchet up by changing your new
opening price to your old Buy it Now price.

A little of this goes a long way, because each
sale reduces current eBay demand. Plus, of course,
the higher the price, the less the interest. But so
long as the Buy-it-Nows take place in less than two
days or so, you can ratchet up as long as it takes.

Tutorials and sources on our Auction Help pages.

We've reached the point where our current What's
New blog needs split a third time to make for sane
download lengths.

The dilemma is that multiple splits make our deep
linking extremely tricky. Plus, GoLive slows down
dramatically and annoyingly on long edits.

I'm not sure what the solution to this is. Possibly
some sort of redirect on the deeplinks may help.
But it is not clear how to steer a deep link between
a current and an archive file. Especially if JavaScript
is to be avoided since some users deactivate it.

The simplest is to assume everybody now has
high speed internet and go back to plain old
single long files. And for me to move over to
Dreamweaver.

Your email comments are welcome.

Refurb Log:

Many electronic components come in several
different sizes. One classic example are phone
plugs, which originally were large and 1/4 inch
in diameter. For some apps, these were superseeded
by miniature 3.5 mm phone plugs ( commonly used
for headphones ), and subminiature 3.5 mm phone
plugs ( commonly used for mics or power controls ).

A dilemma exists with banana plugs, which do not
seem to have common names associated with each
of the four or more sizes available.

"Regular" banana plugs were used singly or often
in pairs for older audio test equipment. Their use
has waned, although there seems to be lots of
newer apps that involve audio speaker connections.

A regular banana plug fits a 0.150 diameter jack
or a comparable standard 5-way binding post.

"Miniature" banana plugs were somewhat smaller
and do not seem to have much current use. They
once were quite popular for patchboards and
programming jumpers.

A miniature banana plug fits a special 0.125 diameter
jack

"Subminiature" banana plugs are considerably smaller
and were popularized by the Triplett 310 VOM.

A subminiature banana plug fits a special 0.10 inch
diameter jack.

Finally, there are somewhat rare "oversize" banana
plugs used for high current apps and special uses.

An oversize banana plug fits a very special 0.25
inch diameter jack or a comparable conductor hole .

We still have a few of these items up on eBay.

Please be sure the size is the one you expect.

Proofing websites and other tech material is
enormously difficult. Especially when you are
maintaining a remote individual site like I am.

We have just added a third person to our
proofing process and are starting to go back
through everything to give you the best possible
info and accuracy.

The GuruGrams and our eBay Listings will receive
initial priority on this

Meanwhile, please report any problems to me.

I can't believe the number of people who are
enthusiastically getting sucked into the recent
"burn saltwater" utter fiasco. There are enough
alarm bells going off for a Pink Floyd Time intro.

It is enormously unlikely that any untrained and
inexperienced researcher is going to make a
profound and earth shattering breakthrough in
the fundamentals of hydrogen generation. More
likely, they will make the same grossly incompetent
stupid mistakes that everyone else does.

Water, of course, is the worst possible feedstock
for hydrogen generation. Because of fundamental
chemical energetics and the fact that water is an
ash.

Virtually all hydrogen is commercially produced
through the reformation of methane. And rf energy
simply is not strong enough to produce hydrogen by
direct disassociation.

What likely is happening is that the rf induces
currents in conductors associated with the sea
water whose nonlinear dc terms in some manner
do a plain old but woefully inefficient electrolysis.

Back to the bogosities The claim of "70 percent
efficiency" is clearly ludicrous because it is very
difficult to even generate rf from the mains at that
efficiency. Some of the reports include "not even
wrong" statements like "seven times Faraday"
which to me is totally absurd.

Even if you had a theoretically perfect electrolysis,
all you would be doing is converting very high
quality electrical kilowatt hours of energy into fewer
very low quality kilowatt hours of hydrogen gas. The
loss of exergy is so staggering that this route is
clearly totally useless.

Even apparently neutral words like "stainless steel"
can cause difficulty. Seems that none of the lightweight
researchers even bothered to open an intro electrochem
book. And never heard of the hydrogen overvoltage of
iron. Which cuts any potential efficiency in half.

Serious electrolysis demands the use of costly and
hard-to-maintain platinized platinum electrodes.

The fact that the "breakthrough" was done by a highly
questionable alternate cancer researcher in itself
raises eyebrows. And it certainly is not clear to me
how the hydrogen produced would be separated
from water vapor, oxygen, and other contaminants.

The arguments against the "ain't gonna happen"
hydrogen economy appear here. More on electrolysis
here. And more on energy fundamentals here.

And more on bashing pseudoscience here.

There are a surprising number of wet streams in
deep canyon bottoms in Arizona that to this day
remain largely inaccessible and prohibit crossing
of any type. Some over dozens of miles or more.

While the Grand Canyon and its many feeder
streams ( Havasu, Kanab, Paria, Antelope, etc... )
are our obvious biggies, here's my selection of
some of the neater and more obscure stuff...

   WEST CLEAR CREEK - Virtually uncrossable
   between the Bullpen and Maxwell trail. Hidden
   pools and drops are extremely dangerous.

   EAST CLEAR CREEK - Blocks all east-west
   travel for something like forty miles! Maybe
   much more if you straightened out all the loops.
   Even its treacherous horse crossings are few
   and far between.

   SAN CARLOS RIVER - The tribe keeps
   the good part well hidden. Fine pools, falls, and
   most impressive canyoneering.

   CHERRY CREEK - Forms the barrier
    between the Sierra Anchas and the Sombrero
    Butte country. Feeder canyons such as Devils
    Chasm, Pueblo Canyon, and Cold Springs Canyon
    are world class.

   UPPER MARIJILDA - Very fine tinajas at the
    Round-the-Mountain trail crossing.

   PAIGE CREEK - Great swimming, lots of big
   trees, nice climate. Also check out nearby
   Espirito Canyon.

   SALOME CREEK - Superbly remote stream
   west of the Sierra Ancha wilderness. Tramways
   were once used for fish stocking because of
   extreme inaccessibility.

   AQUA FRIA CANYON - Indian ruins, ghost towns,
   an impressive historic aqueduct and lots of quicksand.

   LOWER EAGLE CREEK - Hot springs and bat caves.

   ARAVAIPAI - Riparian in a class by itself. Currently
   has access problems because of a few-chips-shy-of-
   a-full-board landowner.

   FOSSIL CREEK - Newly restored to its historic
   flow rates after the closing of two hydro plants.

   TONTO CREEK - Visit the Hellsgate. The
   eastern Young approach has a much shorter
   hiking trail but much longer 4WD access.

   REDFIELD CANYON - Secret inner heart of the
   Galiuros. Anglo and prehistoric ruins, utter solitude.

   RUCKER BOX - In the most remote part of
   the Chirachuas. Difficult access.

   FREY MESA FALLS - Hidden canyon between
   the falls and lake. And right in my front yard.

   BONITA CREEK - Spectacular portion of the
   Gila Box. And right in my side yard.

   UPPER LOWER MIDDLE BOX - Not quite
   in Arizona, but close enough. Start at
   Fisherman's Point, work towards Virden.

   SANTA MARIA CANYON - I've yet to check
   this one out, but it sure looks impressive on
   the topo maps. Virtually unknown. More here.

   WET BEAVER CREEK - Lives up to its name.
   Often severely infested with nude females. Can
   be crowded on weekends.

    DUTCH BLUE CREEK - Floods have made
    access to Hanna Hot Springs and the Little
    Blue Box very difficult. Horses from Luna
    may be the best approach these days. Otherwise,
    start from Juan Miller.

    EL CAPITAN CANYON - Short but spectacular.
    Not often wet. Take one rope qualified person
    with you.  

Just added a pair of extremely rare KIM-1
microprocessor trainer boards to our eBay site.

These were by far the finest of all of the earlier
6502 single development board computers and
remain useful to this day.

Entire adventures, chess games, and complex
video displays were written in its 1K memory
space.

The sole remaining use for public transportation
is to provide prey for predators.

Curiously, this works equally well both at the urban
gang and at the city council levels.

There's a new uniform employment requirement
now in effect for the entire upper Gila Valley: Successful
job applicatants must be able to exhibit a core body
temperature measurably above January ambient.

Solar gain excepted.

Our Guru's Lair Website usually has a strong traffic
pickup in September, owing to school interest and tech
types returning from vacation. So far, this has not really
happened. Despite lots of new features and continually
improving content.

I'm wondering if at least part of the blame cannot be
placed on eyeball siphoning.

Ignoring that there are lots of new websites and that
interest in tech topics might be waning, there's now
lots of new places on the web for people to spend their
time.

Obvious examples include MySpace, YouTube and
comparable networking sites. Plus several zillion new
blogs. Our own blog, of course, appears here.

And the real heavies such as Google are grabbing a
disproportionate amount of traffic. Spent on such things
as maps or aerial photos and intensely effective searches.

Your thoughts welcome. Please email me.

A recipe for the ultimate hacker food appears
here. Please do not use intraveniously.

The E.F. Johnson company has a rich electronic
history, both for superb components and comm gear.
They've gone through several buyouts and apparently
the component part is now part of Emerson Network
Power.

We have bunches of Johnson original components up
on eBay. A few of these remain distributor stock,
while many others have vanished without a trace.

I've yet to find a web source for historic Johnson
catalog data. Please email me if you find one.

One of our more enignatic parts involved the
Johnson "series 375" connectors. For which we may
have found a modern use.

This 375 was a "shrunk" UHF connector called a
"mini-UHF" connector. It had the same appearance
as the regular ones but was only 3/8 of an inch
in diameter. In addition, there were internal groves
that allowed quite compact (for then) 1/4 inch
diameter snap in operation.

Somewhat similar to a modern MCX connector but to
RG58 standard coax scale. I get the impression that
the Mini-Coax scheme never really caught on, owing
to the industry switch to smaller cables and needing
better high frequency performance.

At any rate, we have a bunch of these 375 connectors
up on eBay, and may actually have found a modern
use for them. Together, the RG58 snap in crimp
connector and the mini-UHF adaptor let you snap in
an ordinary cable into older gear that still uses the
standard older UHF connectors.

We've repackaged things so you get the five pieces
you need to go directly from RG58 to snap-in UHF.

Latest GuruGram #80 is on Finding the Minimum
Distance between a Point and a Cubic Spline.

Sourcecode can be found here. Additional GuruGrams
here. Custom consulting and seminars here. And
more on Cubic Splines here.

Feeding the Fire is a Mark Eberhart book on
energy that does an exceptionally good job of
tieing everything from thermodymanics to
information theory to energy history to
geopolitics together.

Our ancient and creaky website search feature
finally broke completely. It was a really big deal
when we first went to it, because it was one of the
first to be able to search both regular and .PDF
files at the same time.

I'm searching for a suitable modern replacement.

Meanwhile, you can use the Global Spec box and
click on tinaja only. Or search on Google, adding
"Don Lancaster" in quotes. And adding search terms.

Lately, only around twenty percent of my
reasonable info email requests to industrial
firms are ever answered at all.

And of those, only a tiny percentage actually
respond to the question being asked or deal
with the need being addressed.

Does anyone else find the trade journal practice
of calling you on the telephone and wasting a half
hour of your time over a subscription renewal to
be utterly infuriating?

Especially when it is not at all clear which language
the caller is trying to speak in.

To qualify for the renewal, of course, you have to
lie. Meaning that zero useful information comes out
of such a call. Especially since most of the calls are
from utterly worthless second tier magazines that
you could not care less about in the first place.

Trade journals are clearly a dying breed. This
appears to be a death wish they have placed
upon themselves. Or more likely by the post office.

I keep getting the bizarre emails accusing me of
not knowing the difference between a radial and
an axial capacitor.

On looking around the web, I found several sites
that dead wrong confused these two. Even the
eBay category selection is ambiguous.

On a cylinder, the axis goes out the ends. That is
what the axle rotates about. The radius extends
outward. In, of all things, a radial direction.

The origin of the electronic use was perhaps the
earliest resistors. These were a carbon cylinder with
holes in either end. Leads were attached and extended
radially outward. These eventually got replaced by
molded resistors in which the leads extended axially.

You can easily verify this by reading any 1929 radio
book.

Some axial capacitors have one lead going out either
end as was needed by traditional point to point wiring.
Other axial capacitors are single ended, with both leads
going out one axis and intended for upright pc mounting.

Continuing our look at the minimum distance
from a point to a cubic spline...

For a given t value, the present distance s
will be the square root of the sum of the x and
y distances. The problem being to make the
best possible guess of an improved t.

To do this, you find the s(t) slope and set it
to zero, seeking a minimum. Starting here,
the simplified result seems to be...

    [ (deltaX)*X'(t) + (deltaY)*Y'(t)] /
      [ (X'(t))^2 + Y'(t))^2 + 
      (deltaX)*(X''(t)) + (deltaY)*(Y''(t)) ]

I have yet to check this out completely, so
stay tuned.

As a wasted trip to Phoenix just proved, bulk
bids at any auction can be bad news...

   THEY MAY BE BLACKMAIL - the whole
   auction may be a musical chairs charade to
   get somebody to pay up.

   BULK BIDS USUALLY WIN - The bulk
   bidder is bidding at his avoided costs,
   while many of the lot bidders are trying
   to make a speculative profit. And not all
   lots will have strong interest.

   THEY MAY PAY WITH FUNNY MONEY -
   If a forced auction is for a $100,000 lein and
   the bulk bid is for $200,000, then half of the
   money goes right back into the bidder's pocket.

   BULK BIDERS HAVE INSIDER INFO -
   They often will know the exact value of what
   is being offered because they may have created
   that value themselves.

Some defenses...

  KNOW AHEAD OF TIME - Avoid any bulk
  bid auctions when and where possible. At the
  least, try to find out if they are present. And
  adjust your expectations.

 DO THE MATH - You can often tell early
  in the auction whether a bulk bid will win.
  If there is a $300,000 bid and 100 lots, then
  each lot must averge $300. Not likely.

  WHEN DANCING WITH ELEPHANTS -
   keep your eyes on their feet at all times.

  FAVOR SECOND TIER LOCALS - Large
  national auctioneers are more likely to
  encourage and close on bulk bids. Smaller
  regional auction houses are less likely to.

 PLAY THE ODDS - As long as you hit it
  really big in one out of twenty auctions or
  so, it does not matter if you walk away
  empty handed from a few of the others.

What is the minimum distance between a
cubic spline and a given point? This question
gets important real fast when curvetracing
or fitting cubic splines to fuzzy data.

The general solution is ugly, because there
can be more than one local minimum distance
with certain splines. IF you can assume that
you are "very near" a minimum distance
already, the problem is greatly simplified.

There are three obvious approaches to
finding a minimum. You can increment t
till you find a good enough solution. You
can assume a parabola near the correct
solution. Or you can use Newton's method
where you multiply the current error times
the function slope.

A comparison of the latter two methods appears
here. While this "horses mouth" key document
gives a direct Newton's method solution that
often converges good enough in a single pass.

More on this whenever.

Just did a "real" Cat-5 Network. Literally. As
Part of last night's TFD fire drill on entanglement.

We made a 20 foot square "fishnet" out of Cat-5
cable with squares about ten inches on a side.
Each wire pair did a simple half hitch at each joint,
then each wire went on to continue its row or column.

This was combined with the usual "two firemen
follow their hose out blindfolded with full air packs"
life safety drill. The net was thrown on top of them,
complete with ambient sound effects from two
buckets full of empty soda pop cans.

Firemen were prepped a few feet earlier by
one-wire lassoing their boot or airpack.

Also found out that six foot sections of rug tubes
( usually available free from any rug company )
can be beat over firemen's heads without damaging
the tubes much. And create an unexepected
happening.

Both the props and the firemen's performance
wildly exceeded our expectations. But even
at four hours net net built time, it is usually easier
to build a new net for the next drill than try
and fix the old one.

Long ago, I did a Bezier Cubic Spline through
Fuzzy Data based on this original Siggraph paper.

My routines definitely work, but they lack any
use of Basis Functions and the HTML presentation
is kinda primitive. I'm wondering if they should
get replaced by an extension of our latest
Bezier Data through Four Points tutorial and
utility.

In which you would exactly fit four of the "n"
points ( initially n = five ). And then use as much
least squares fitting as you need for optimization.

There are eight possible variables to optimize
least squre errors on any cubic spline. You could...

      just use four exact points as is
      optimize all for best fuzzy data fit
      preseve end points, optimize the rest
      preseve end points and initial slope
      preerve ends, initial slope and tension
      preseve end points and final slope
      preerve ends, final slope and tension
      preserve ends, slopes, and initial tension
      preserve ends, slopes, and final tension
          ... etc ...
 
Each would produce a slightly different spline
that would meet curvetracing needs in a somewhat
different way.

More as this unfolds. The story to date appears
in our GuruGram and Cubic Spline libraries.

Revised and updated our Arizona Auction resources
library subpage.

Your own custom regional auction finder can be
created for you per these details.

August 19, 2007