Ben and Katrina were strolling through the Mt. Auburn Cemetery the other day when Katrina noticed something moving.

It was a Huge Coyote! Check out the picture here.

I just learned of a little math fact today. A Mersenne number is a number that is one less than a power of two. (*see source 1)

2^n – 1

Examples:
1, 3, 7, 15, 31, 63, etc.

A prime number is a number that is only divisible by itself and the number one.

Examples:
2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17… etc

By putting these two bad boys together we get the Mersenne Prime. A number that is one less than a power of two that is ALSO a prime number.

Examples:
1, 3, 7, 31, 127, 8191, etc.

These Mersenne numbers are very tricky to figure out. In fact, there are only 44 that have ever been discovered; the largest having over 9.8 million digits in the number (2^32,582,657 – 1). One cool thing about Mersenne Primes is that always is the case where two must be raised to the power of a prime number. That makes hunting Mersenne Primes a heck of a lot easier though still way too hard for Windows Calculator. Also cool is that the 44th Mersenne number is currently the largest prime number known. (*see source 2)

Anyway, the exciting news of the day is that the 45th Mersenne Prime number may have been discovered!!! Hot Diggidy! Get out your party pants!! If the number confirms in September we should have a Prime Party. This one will most certainly be more than 10 million digits long which means that the GIMPS folks may win the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s prize of $100,000. And if you’re feeling ambitious, try and grab the next prime number in the list to win $150,000 or $200,000!!!! (*see source 3)

A couple sources:
1. The fast, the easy, the wikipedia
2. GIMPS – with lots of history and fun facts.
3. The Electronic Frontier Organization

The Mythbusters paint a pixelated* Mona Lisa in 80 milliseconds with 1,100 paint balls, 1,100 paint ball barrels, and a lot of pressurized air.

Video

*for lack of a better word

I’m learning a new form at Kung Fu: the Five Animal form.

Throughout the form, we Kung Fu-ists imitate five different animals in the midst of our flurry of attacks. Your job… is to guess which animals we imitate. I was going to give you a list of animals to choose from, but I think it’d be far more entertaining to just let you have at it.

Good luck. (also: don’t cheat)

One of my favorite rock climbing routes in Connecticut is Thor’s Hammer. It’s up at East Peak in Meriden and reliably delivers chills and thrills at each ascent. I’ve talked of its majesty in the past. It’s just great in every way.

I hit up Thor’s hammer a few weekends ago with Pete and Ben. We got out there reasonably early, set up our rappel lines and then zipped down to try our luck. Other than some heavy heat, the day was successful.

As an added bonus, I got to do some ascending with Pete’s equipment as well. Ascending requires using special equipment to quickly ‘climb’ ropes. Here’s a picture of some of the equipment that hovered above me as I ascended.

The advantage of setting up an ascending line adjacent to the climbing route is that it allows us to get a unique perspective for taking climbing photographs. Pete has a beautiful Canon 10d camera, so it’s always worthwhile to spend some time setting equipment to help with photos.

We each climbed Thor’s Hammer twice. This route is unique in that it has two roofs that require either stretched lean backs or furious fist jams.

Here’s a picture of Pete working his way to the first roof.

Here’s Pete again working the second roof.

It was a great day and a gorgeous climb. I hope that I’ll be able to climb it a few more times before the season ends. I desperately want to lead the route.

Sometimes it seems we’re at the brink of war with the entire world.

side note: Did you know that Brink! is a 1998 Disney Channel Original Movie set in the backdrop of competitive inline skating? It is.

a Gummy Bear meets its violent end.

Video

My attempts to escape to Portland trip this weekend to visit my sister have failed.

I am very disappointed.

This is a great little chart that shows how much things weigh and how much they are worth.

Enjoy!

The Olympics are over. Who won? Depends on how you count…

All Medals Total
1. USA (110 medals)
2. China (100)
3. Russia (72)
4. Great Britain (47)
5. Australia (46)
6. Germany (41)
7. France (40)
8. South Korea (31)
9. Italy (28)
10. Ukraine (27)

Gold Medals Only
1. China (51 gold medals)
2. USA (36)
3. Russia (23)
4. Great Britain (19)
5. Germany (16)
6. Australia (14)
7. South Korea (13)
8. Japan (9)
9. Rep.of Michael Phelps (8)
10. Italy (8)

Weighted*Medals Total
1. China (223 points)
2. USA (220)
3. Russia (139)
4. Great Britain (98)
5. Australia (89)
6. Germany (83)
7. France (70)
8. South Korea (67)
9. Italy (54)
10. Japan (49)

Population per Total Medals
1. Bahamas (165k people per medal)
2. Jamaica (247k)
3. Iceland (316k)
4. Slovenia (406k)
5. Australia (465k)
6. Cuba (470k)
7. New Zealand (475k)
8. Norway (478k)
9. Armenia (500k)
10. Belarus (510k)

Population per Gold Medals
1. Jamaica (452m people per gold medal)
2. Bahrain (760m)
3. Mongolia (1.31m)
4. Estonia (1.34m)
5. New Zealand (1.42m)
6. Georgia (1.47m)
7. Australia (1.53m)
8. Norway (1.59m)
9. Slovakia (1.80m)
10. Slovenia (2.03m)

Population per Weighted* Medals
1. Jamaica (101k people per point)
2. Bahamas (110k)
3. Iceland (158k)
4. Slovenia (225k)
5. Norway (227k)
6. Australia (240k)
7. Bahrain (253k)
8. Mongolia (263k)
9. New Zealand 267k)
10. Estonia (268k)

GDP per Total Medals
1. North Korea ($370m per medal)
2. Jamaica ($870m)
3. Mongolia ($964m)
4. Armenia ($1.55b)
5. Georgia ($1.59b)
6. Krygyzstan ($1.74b)
7. Tajikistan ($1.85b)
8. Cuba ($1.88b)
9. Belarus ($2.04b)
10. Kenya ($2.11b)

GDP per Gold Medals
1. North Korea ($1.11b per gold medal)
2. Jamaica ($1.48b)
3. Mongolia ($1.93b)
4. Georgia ($3.18b)
5. Ethiopia ($4.23b)
6. Kenya ($5.90b)
7. Belarus ($1.68b)
8. Zimbabwe ($16.2b)
9. Bahrain ($16.9b)
10. Panama ($19.3b)

GDP per Weighted* Medals
1. North Korea ($202m per point)
2. Jamaica ($343m)
3. Mongolia ($385m)
4. Georgia ($796m)
5. Kenya ($1.02b)
6. Ethiopia ($1.06b)
7. Cuba ($1.16b)
8. Krygyzstan ($1.16b)
9. Belarus ($1.21b)
10. Tajikistan ($1.23b)

* Weighted to Gold = 3 points, Silver = 2 points, Bronze = 1 point

Jon Abad linked to this cute little kids version of the Dark Knight trailer.

Enjoy!

Last night I went out to dinner with a few of our contractors for this job in Ohio. What an interesting life they have led. One of the guys named Steve works in New Jersey. In 1991 he and his new wife learned of an opportunity to work in Italy. He described it as one of those romantic dream-like jobs. Who wouldn’t want to go to to Europe and work in Italy? Well, he went home to talk to his wife. They talked about it while they ate dinner and while they cleaned up. What would they have to give up in going over there? They talked about it more on the patio after dinner. How different would the cultures be? And they talked about it more before bed. All night it was the subject of their conversation.

Their conclusion? No. They didn’t think it was a realistic idea. they just couldn’t see themselves leaving the states.
Three months later the company offered them a chance to go to Turkey for four years. They went.

Do you think you’d be able to pick up and start work at a distant place? To go to somewhere like Turkey, Saudia Arabia, Ukraine, or Jerusalem for a multitude of years?

One thing Steve mentioned was that his life was very cooperative. At the time of the decision, he’d just got married and he didn’t own a house or have any kids. There was little reason not to go. When the time came to decide on Turkey the best counterargument they came up with was “there’s no way we could go to Turkey… we have a BBQ next weekend.”

This weekend wasn’t as “weekendish” as I would have liked, but it still had some enjoyable moments. It started with a seven hour work day Saturday. Working on Saturday isn’t actually that bad. It tends to be amazingly productive because of lack of interruptions and usually someone brings in doughnuts. I was out by about 3-4pm and at that point went up to Coventry to take Mandy up on an invitation for some wake boarding.

Oh man. Wake boarding is really fun. We started with some tubing and then moved to the boards. Brandon, the boat owner, just got a new boat a year or so ago and has it stocked with gear. It is furiously fun. Five of us were on the lake for a good three or four hours Saturday evening. What a refreshing break. I hope that I’ll be able to go out again this season.

As for this week? I’m only in Ohio today and tomorrow. I really want to try and sneak out to visit my sister in Portland, OR for labor day weekend – though it depends a bit on how work is looking when I get back to CT. Unfortunately, classes start back up on September 5th, so I think this is my last opportunity for a multi-day trip for a little while.

It is dark here. I am likely to be eaten by a grue.

I am boarding a flight to Cleveland Ohio!

WTF officials are all like, “OMG WTF LOL!”

A beautiful short film.

I’ve been feeling a desire to run and lift more aggressively again. Lifting and running faded away within the past year with the increasing complexities of work and school. My lunch time work-out was traded for lunch time vedge out and running has virtually disappeared from my schedule. Outside of Kung Fu and my occasional weekend climbing, I’ve been pretty stagnant.

Kung Fu is going well I suppose, though I need to attend class more regularly and I need to strengthen my legs. When I do get to class, I often find my knees helplessly calling for reinforcements. Not a good thing.

Perhaps I’ll be able to figure something out.

Nicole sent me the following e-mail… check it out!

So I have my Ph.D. qualifying exam this afternoon. Its an oral exam that determines whether I am worthy enough to pursue a doctoral degree or not. Failing means I have to start looking for a job… tomorrow. Anyways, after trying all yesterday to convince myself I’ll be fine, I wake up this morning determined to relax so I go into the exam with a clear head and not panic. This morning, I was going to have a lazy breakfast, a long shower, and then mosey my way to my office for the exam. I turn on the kitchen sink to rinse an apple but…. no water??? I check every faucet, tap, and toilet. No water whatsoever. I call the landlord, who calls the town. A major pipe in Hadley has burst, much of Hadley is without water for 24 hours. OH NO!!!!! I get on the phone and call every person I know who is close enough to me to use their shower. Everyone’s already at exams or doesn’t have water themselves. I finally get ahold of a friend who has a friend who has water. I go to this stranger’s apartment, not knowing who this guy is, to use his shower in desperation. And now, I’m sitting in my office waiting to be called into the exam happy that at least I don’t stink and have greasy hair, but frazzled none the less.

So what do you think? Is this situation…

a) the result of me using up all of my bad luck for the next month and I’ll be fine? I mean honestly, the one day all of Hadley decides to not have water is one of the two most important days of my Ph.D. career. How much worse can things get?

b) an omen of horrible things to come? Lady luck is not on my side, but hopefully she’ll be around as I start looking for a job tomorrow. Anyone know of any openings for molecular modeling or flame chemistry?

Anyone have any advice for Nicole?

I have fallen way behind on e-mails.

Bear with me for a few days, we’ll be back in business soon.

This weekend I was introduced to this:

Cinnamon Toast Crunch a la Total Cereal.

I LOVE Cinnamon Toast Crunch. It is beyond good. So totally good. But it’s not very healthy. Total’s Cinnamon Crunch cereal seems to combat that factor. I will be eating it constantly this week and I will report back throughout the week on the deliciousness.

Day one report: Totally Delicious.

I really love the facebook application Graffiti. It’s got a few disadvantages to MSPaint and a few advantages. I’ve been playing around with it a bit and I whipped up a picture today for Vivienne during lunch that I’m pretty proud of.

enjoy!

For those of you with Facebook, click here to watch the brush strokes that made up this picture.

This week I asked people for their guesses on the number of posts and comments on MikeDiDonato.com

The answer to the question is:

Total Posts: 3,108
Total Comments: 13,181

Kurt stole the closest guess on posts from Irene with 3001
Shamus had a disgustingly close guess on comments with 13,179

What?!?! Shamus was TWO off? Holy Crap?

Shamus wins.

UPDATE: WIN REVOKED – Shamus cheated. for SHAME shamus. For Shame.

Kurt now wins both. But he just stole his guesses from Irene.

Irene wins.

This was a very successful week at work. We made some really big progress on the equipment being built, and had a productive meeting with our customer.

I’m tired.