Category: A Day In The Life…

I’m headed out to Indianapolis this afternoon. A close friend of the family, Strother, lives out there. He and his wife, who apparently lurks around on this website, are pretty awesome people. I love visiting friends while on the road. It makes business trips so much less business.

Anyway, I hope to spend my time traveling resting up and finishing up some Christmas break homework (thanks RPI!) before the holiday.

Sadly, the library didn’t get me a copy of SLASH fast enough for this trip. hm, it’s been a few weeks. I should give them a call…

Kurt sent me a link to a website that is, unfortunately, so burdened with traffic that it is currently down.

The website asks: how many five year olds could you take in a fight?

Now, this might seem rather morbid, but really it’s kind of an interesting question. The Kids will, presumably, use swarm techniques on you. Kids… everywhere. If the ‘fighting kids’ thing has you wigged out, consider instead the question: how many soft short robots could you take in a fight?

Some facts:
Average height of a five year old: 1 meter. (3 feet 3 inches)
Average weight of a five year old: 18 Kilograms (40 pounds)
Average armspan of a five year old: about 38.1 centimeters (15 inches)

Assumptions:
The kids feel no fear in their attacks.
You have no moral standards that prevent you from fighting your hardest.
The swarm is made up of the average five year old.
Both you and the children are allowed to fight dirty
The fight starts with you surrounded completely by a sea of kids. The kids start three feet away from you.
The kids were not allowed to make strategies ahead of time.

So you tell me, how many five year olds would you be able to take in a fight? As the comments come together I think we’ll develop a pretty interesting conversation regarding methods, means, and strategies.

I hit up the dentist this morning and my teeth are in totally decent shape.

A lot of people find the dentist to be a miserable experience, but I enjoy it. You just lean back, open your mouth, and then someone cleans your teeth. It’s a bit weird I suppose, but certainly nothing over the top miserable.

There may be moments of slight discomfort but for routine check ups I think it’s safe to say that the overall experience is rather quiet. It’s even more enjoyable when you have dental insurance. I love dental insurance.

Also, sometimes the Dentist can be exciting. This year Mrs. Marzullo had to give me the ol’ Peridot test (this is not actually what it’s called. Mrs. Marzullo? my memory needs some help). The purpose of this test is to determine the depth of the space between your gums and your teeth. (deeper is worse)

The test is performed by the dental hygienist who sticks a tiny ruler in between your teeth and gums. The hygienist calls the measurements out to a helper who records them. There are easily 50 numbers.

It’s kind of like a game. You see, two years ago I got a couple 4mm (bad). This year as Mrs. Marzullo worked her way around my gums calling out numbers it… I paid close attention….

2… 2… 3… 2… 3… 2… 3… 2… 2… 2… 2… 2… 1… 2… etc etc

After all of the numbers were read, no Fours!

Rock solid.

Shamus found this local 6 video that demonstrates how deadly giant spiders can be.

Watch as the monster arachnid approaches and then quickly dominates the shuttle.