Flame Approximation

I found a really cool example of a differential equation while reading the Matlab tutorial on ODE Solving.

"If you light a match, the ball of flame grows rapidly unitl it reaches a critical size.  Then it remains at that size because the amount of oxygen being consumed by the combustion in the interior of the ball balances the amount available through the surface the simple model is

$\dot{y} = y^2 - y^3 $
$y(0)=\sigma$
$0 \leq t \leq {2/\sigma} $

where $y(t)$ represents the radius of the flame ball, and $\sigma$ is the initial radius."

The analytical solution is

$y(t)=\frac{1}{W(\alpha e^{\alpha -t})+1}$

where $\alpha=1/\sigma -1$ and $W(Z)$ is the Lambert W function, $W(z)e^{W(z)}=z$.

I think it is really amazing how a solution to this problem was constructed by simply relating the change in the radius with time to a surface area term ($y^2$) and a volume term, ($y^3$).  Sometimes I get blinded by wanting to find the exact solution and looking at the details; but here a simple model replicates the details quite accurately.

Wolfram Alpha

Wolfram Alpha is a really cool search / math feature.  It is a little like Wikipedia, except that it gives the information in a very concise form.  There are browser plugins for it, and it does a lot of the heavy math that Mathematica does.

I highly recommend it; it is really cool.

Thanksgiving

We decided to go traditional this Thanksgiving, and have a meal worthy of the Pilgrims.  Samuel, Eli and I roasted squirells over an open fire.  On giant sticks.  It was some of the best squirrel I have ever had.

Also important to get clean shots; otherwise there just isn't much there.

The key to avoid very dry and tough squirrel is constant basting.  Isaac and I made up a basting sauce of oil, apple cider vinegar, lemon juice and random spices that worked pretty well.  When roasting you could see that oil drip off into the flames - it was really cool.

Just Kidding.  This was Saturday night.  Thanksgiving dinner was alright; too many people (The entire family & Mike, Laura, Lindsay).  I went over my words quota for the day.  David and I had our ham - we bought a pack of lunch meat ham and had it with our dinner rolls.

Our house must get lonely and empty when everybody goes away.

The most work I did was post holes on Saturday, we finally have all of the new post in for rows 9-5. Isaac hit me with the digging bar, giving me a bump on my head which I still have.

Microsoft Software and Hacks

I have been using MS Word 2007 / 2010 a lot, and I really like the heading feature.  Pops up the Navigation Panel on the left.

I also found that the equations in Word 2007 are easier to do - plus, if you copy as MathML from Mathematica you can insert it directly.  Hard to do equation numbering - by default it wants to put the numbered equation directly below it, not to the right.  However, I found a nice work around that inserts the equations in a table.  Funny thing is that the work around is published on the msdn developers website.

I found a nice little iso tool published by Microsoft.  I don't like how others have a lot of extra junk - I just want to mount my iso.

Finally, if you are a student you can get a lot of the Microsoft developers tools for free through Microsoft DreamSpark.  If you are not (or want a copy of Matlab) I can probably help a brother out.

Lab Dynamics

Having a bit of a difficult time in the lab recently, so this is a bit ranty.

The undergraduate in our lab messed up.  He over amplified the signal, causing roll off, which causes the high energy signals to be chopped off into small energy signals.  Dr. Miller and I spent all of Thursday and Friday trying to figure out why we had so many low neutron count until I checked the measurement.  So I had to miss UOA Nationals redoing his work.  Not very happy about that.

I am also supposed to get 20 samples sometime tomorrow to analyze before Thanksgiving.  At 15 minutes apiece its only 5 hours, but I am still bitter about it.  They better not require more than 300s count times . . .

Finally, Neel and I have been at logger heads.  Conclusion:  make your own damn slides.  Why do I send you the information if you are not going to look at it?

CCC Results and UOA Nationals

CCC's.  Ouch.  I believe we simply beat ourselves - any team could take the win from us if they wanted.  Hell, we were up 3 breaks on Florida before we decided to self destruct.

Saturday (Pool Play)

• Florida - UT went up early, got a solid lead, and then our D line was scored on, O was broken, and we lost confidence and players got frustrated with each other.  Lost it by ~4.
• Carolina - Went up early.  They broke our marks well, and got back their breaks.  I got broken once; my mistake was a mental error - I didn't go back to the force after marking no huck for the first few stall counts.  Lost 10-13.
• UVA - Damn those guys are quick, and they had a lot of energy.  A great call and response cheer as well: "What's that Sound?"  "Night Train" "What's that sound?" "Night Train" "What's that sound?" "Night Train Whoooooo!".  They had another good one of "Night Train, Night Train, Night Train BOOM!".  I had excellent decisions during this game - I knew that I couldn't give these guys a step on me.  UT lost by a lot; after these three losses we where no longer in the championship bracket.
• Georgia Southern - At this point some people where talking about starting drinking and we never had the will to even try to win.  I got skied by letting the other dude get better position; that pissed me off.  I also discovered that I don't respond when people yell at me - I look them in the eyes when they are yelling at me and think "who do you think you are?".  Sure you're advice might be great, but if you cannot control your emotions I am not going to listen to you.  UT lost this game.
• Emory - A win for UT, nothing remarkable.  

Sunday

• Georgia Southern - Weird bracket setup had us playing them again.  We started on O, and they broke.  And broke again, and again.  Finally our O puts one in, and the D gets a turn, doesn't convert, gets another turn, still doesn't convert, gets another turn and finally converts.  I play the next few points, getting two D's.  Georgia Southern lead by 3 at half, when we finally decided to increase the intensity.  Throw a zone to stop there deep game.  I did a really good job in the wall - head was on a swivel and I took away the lanes with my body.  Trey got a few D's on the mark - I think we converted on all of them.  Our O kept on getting broken though, so the game felt a lot closer than what the score ended up being, a win for Georgia Southern by a few.  I really liked the intensity that we displayed in the second half - it was nice to finally get the feeling that the team cared.

UOA Nationals

I ended up not going (lab stuff), but the results show that UT did very badly.  I know that the entire A roster did not go (missing Phil, Richy and UTC guys) and a few rookies went along.

CCC

Classic City Classic is this weekend in Athens, Georgia.  We are coming in as the 9th seed, having Florida and Virginia in our pool.  Let's see if we can make some noise on the national scene.

Goals are:

• No turns
• A chest height bid
• Hold the disc with two hands while pivoting

Good Luck to Yuk at CUFF!

Weird People Magnet

Short Version
Third time in Knoxville that I have been hit on by a gay guy.

Long Version
After running I was practicing my throws at the park.  Towards the middle a guy shows up, introduces himself as Gary, and asks if he can throw with me.  After he throws one of my disc over the fence in the tennis courts we chat a little, at which point he tells me that is an interior designer interested in art.  I decided to shorten the distance between us so he cannot throw another one over, and he starts to chat more, dropping that he also has a license for giving messages (methus?).  At this point I decide that I need to look for an out.  He then proceeds to somehow manage to throw another disc over the fence and starts to apologize profusely. I brush it off, scramble over the fence to retrieve the disc and throw a couple more times before I tell him that I should probably be going.  He then ask me (and I quote) if "[he] could stretch me out".  A bit flustered, I tell him that I'm good.  He then offers to drive me home, and I tell him that I parked in the parking lot.  He then asks if he can take me to the parking lot.  There are three cars in the parking lot; the lexus and two others.  I tell "Gary" that it is really not that far of a walk, thank him for the offer, and leave.

Thoughts
This is perplexing.   Why do these people pick me?  The strangers always seem to pick me to talk to at the bus stops or traffic lights, even when I have headphones in.  I was wearing the Zone shorts today and they are a little short so maybe I was showing  a bit too much leg, but why would you hit on a guy throwing by himself?  Playas gotta practice.  Just because I look content and have a slight smile on my face doesn't mean I want to talk, I am probably just enjoying the world.

Cannot really complain though; it does provide interesting situations.

Dave Baldwin

UT Men's Ultimate's home tournament, Dave Baldwin, was this weekend.

Friday
I helped to line the fields - constructing correct ultimate fields is hard.  How do you make sure they are square with only a rope is 70 yards long, with tape marks at 40 yards and 25 yards?  A guess and check method is to make what you think is the squarest field, and then use the 25 yard marking to put a mark on each line that intersects the corner.  Take the rope, and use it to make the hypothesis of these two marks.  Compare the length of the hypothesis it to similar hypothesis on other endzone corners.  Correct if they are not the same.

Saturday
 Out of  games on Saturday, only 8 points where scored on us.  I only want to revisit the game against West Georgia B (13-1 win).  They where horrible.  What upset me about this game was the lack of professionalism that we displayed.  There where lots of hammers, inverted points, a couple points with only six guys on the field; all sorts of garbage.  Against a team that couldn't even complete throws without defense (there was a point where the defense didn't cover until they where to get halfway).  I felt really bad for the people on West Georgia B - I think that they should have been given the decency of a quick loss.

Sunday
First game on Sunday was against the Mary Washington Grundlebugs.  I got a few points in this game.  My defense was pretty solid - out of the people I covered, I allowed only 3 catches and throws.

Second game on Sundays (semis) was against Ohio, a 13-9 win for UT.  I didn't get any play time in this game.   We really need to work on our offense, we simply have too many turns.  A few stupid deep throw aways, and just other miscues.  In tight games UT runs a very tight rotation,  which I feel provides the opportunity for the same people to make the same mistakes.  We also really on the get the disc to Phil Offense - while this is effective because Phil is a great player, I don't see how this will help out the team in the long run.

Finals game was against Ohio St.  We lost 13-11.  A lot of dirty play by UT, which bothers me.  Where not talking fouling on the mark here.  Chris (co-captain) gave his thrower what looked to be a bear hug on the mark so he couldn't throw (The thrower called foul and threw afterwards, the disc was not caught and since the foul occurred before the throw it was still a turn).  A couple of bullshit up calls, and foul calls on jump balls.  A lot of fouling on the mark.

Final Thoughts
 I just don't know what to think of it.  At practice we are encouraged to foul on the mark in order not to get broken - I understand and accept this even though I would rather get broken than deliberately foul a guy. How do you support your teammates when you feel that they are being jerks?

Another thing that bugged me is the lack of subbing on Sunday.  I order to still maintain interest in the game, I feel that I need to play a few points.  If we are losing, the loss should be the responsibility of the entire team, rather than the 11 people who played the game.  Same goes for winning.  Its so much harder for the sideline to stay involved when they have no chance in physically altering the outcome.  Not saying that we need equal playing time, but everybody should get their chance to change the outcome.

Also, Wikipedia still has the UPA as UPA (the link directs to USA ultimate though).  In watching nationals, I was amazed and amused by the announcers messing that up.

Thorium Liquid Metal Reactor

Reposting an article that summarized very nicely the thorium and liquid metal reactors. I am very interested in these designs.

The article can be found as the first link in paragraph one.

I find it interesting that in our NE colloquium the presenters talk about improving Light Water Reactor designs - we have yet to have one on fast breeders, liquid metal, or other designs.

IEEE Conference - Presentation

Today was my first conference presentation. I was supposed to talk for 13 minutes; I talked for 12 min 45s. Yay for not rushing through it! I got five questions, I answered three of them. Of the two that I didn't answer I pushed one off on Dr. Miller, and talked to the askee later. Turned out he was just using a different name for pulse height deficit. Hopefully everything goes according to plan and the paper we submitted (as a supplement to my talk) will get published.

Initially I was very nervous. I started out rushing, but realized after three slides I realized that there were only two other people in the room who knew more about this particular problem and results than I did - so there is no need to be worried about the content, if I was wrong nobody was probably going to notice.

I did commit a cardinal sin - I forgot to mention what the axis where on my plots. Oops. Dr. Garoff would not be happy.

Chimney Rocks and Mount Le Conte (Halloween Weekend)

Went hiking Saturday morning, than went to an Ultimate party. Feeling sleepy, so no write up. These are all from Chimney Rocks. Maybe pictures from Mount Le Conte later. Mount Le Conte had some nice cliffs.

Cylindrical Seeds Atop Chimney Rocks

Interesting tree Roots

Chimney Rocks - It was very exciting to climb out 

Check out the Poplars in Valley (Yellow)

IEEE Conference - Day 1

I rock at finding the conference cookies. Went in. Got my registration stuff (including some sweet graph paper!). Primary target (cookies) was spotted.  Cookies consumed.  Boring talks.

I went to the talks on modeling of radiation / detectors, and most of them where pretty boring.  Pretty much developers getting up their and talking about their new additions to the codes.  I was hoping for more of a "look, here's something cool that I did with this code".

Need to work on making my presentation exciting.