Mobile Tomato Plants

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you put a tomato plant on a motorized wheeled platform (with the requisite amount of dirt) and let the plant drive?

The hard part would be connecting the plant so it could correctly signal the platform to move in useful ways. I suppose some sort of chemical concentration sensors, or maybe even electrical conductivity would work.

For some inexplicable reason, I am greatly amused by the image of a herd of tomato plants driving around the yard on wheeled platforms.

The patient person would embark on a selective breeding program to allow the plants to drive the platforms into the sun, out of the wind, to get a drink of water, etc.

Episode III: Backstroke of the West

Imagine, for a moment, Star Wars Episode III translated into Chinese and then back into English subtitles.


Okay, stop imagining and view the screenshots.
Including such memorable lines as "Our dichotomy opens the combat" and "I was just made by the Presbyterian Church"

Home Sweet Home

After some time in Belgium, in the touristy city of Brugge (it was a fun place to visit), and an afternoon in Luxemborg, we made it back home just fine.

It was good to see Europe, and it's good to be home.

I plan to look through the 1200+ pictures I took and arrange some of them on a webpage.

Swiss travel learnings

More things learned from traveling in Switzerland.

1. When going on a two day hike, and there is only one place to stay the first night, call ahead to make sure they are open and will let you stay.
2. When mailing luggage to yourself in another town, and they say it will take two days, don't forget to account for weekends.

We were going to go on a two day hike from Gsteig to Les Mosses. And we wanted to send one piece of luggage ahead so we wouldn't have to hike with it. The guidebooks all said we could do this at Swiss train stations. However, we tried this from a small station in Les Diablerets, and the attendent didn't speak English, and didn't understand what we wanted to do.

We then went to the tourist information office, where the woman there called the train station and talked for a while, and finally the train station attendent understood. However, the woman there also suggested the post office was cheaper. So we went to the Post, and it was indeed cheaper. We also sent it second class, since that would take two days, and we planned to spend three days in Les Mosses - plenty of time for it to arrive. It was Thursday

We take the bus from Les Diablerets to Gsteig and begin our hike. Lots of climbing. I suspect we climbed more altitude than exists in Illinois. Later in the day, we get to the hotel/restaurant we expect to stay at.

It is quite empty, and the waiter seems suprised to see us. He tells us we cannot stay because we did not call ahead. He goes inside (presumably to talk to a manager), comes back out, and tells us the same thing. He also tells us we could stay if we are a group of 10 people or more, and suggests that a local barn might have room.

We try the barn/house, but it is a summer barn with only a single room for people, and of course they have no room. So we decide to press on with the second day of the hike (which is supposed to be easier than the first day, and fortunately is easier).

We got additional water from a farm we passed (we had consumed all ours), and made it to Les Mosses about ten pm. We are able to find a place to stay, just before they close - it never felt so good to find a room.

We slept late the next morning and went to the Post when it was open in the afternoon. The bag had not come (given it was only one day later, so we didn't really expect it), but the lady there told us the mail didn't come on Saturday, even though the post office was open. D'oh! So the earliest we could get the bag was Monday morning, and we had reservations elsewhere Monday night, and had planned on leaving on Sunday.

To make a long story slightly shorter, we stayed an extra day, and the bag did come on Monday morning, and we made it to Gimmelwald just fine on Monday afternoon. The weather was also very nice on Sunday, and we had a nice hike.

Guide to Swiss hiking difficulty levels

For those from flatter locales, here's a quick reference on how Swiss hiking trails are graded.

• Easy - steeper than anything in Illinois
• Medium - climb the Sears tower using the stairs.
• Difficult - climb the Sears tower again, only using the outside.

The Swiss trail system is a lot of fun. The trails are usually well marked, and even offer an up-close view of the local bovine population.

There was one spot, though, where it appeared as though the trail dropped off the edge of a cliff (we were descending). We thought maybe the person marking the trail had a sense of humor, but no, the trail really did continue weaving down, we just couldn't see it from above.

Travel update

Since the last post, we've hiked through the Swiss Alps and eaten yummy Swiss chocolate and cheese. Now we are in Belgium, in the tourist town of Bruges (somewhat similar to Rothenburg in that it was a weathly medieval city that was preserved through a fall on hard times). Eating Belgian chocolate, beer, and fries.

Some random castle

Mine tunnels

Mine tunnels under the Rhenfels castle. These tunnels were dug under the battlefield and filled with gunpowder, and used successfully to blow up opposing forces. (Hopefully all the gunpowder is gone)

Roofs of Rothenburg

A view of Rothenburg from the room where we stayed. You can see the beams with a pulley sticking out from the top of the buildings. They were used to raise grain for storage in the top of each house.

Each resident was required to store a year´s supply of grain, in case of seige.

Palm trees in Germany?

We are now in Lindau, in the southern tip of Germany.

Night watchman

Sue with the night watchman in Rothenburg. He gave an entertaining and informative one hour tour of part of the city.

German travel learnings

Things I have learned in traveling in Germany.

1. German kezboards have the y and z keys reversed. This often seems to add a German 'accent' to the tzping.
2. Changing locations in the morning (moving stuff from one city to another), and jumping right back on the train again to spend the afternoon in a different hot and crowded city an hour away is very stressful, and not a good idea.
3. Bread rolls sold in the store in sealed plastic packages ought to be baked before eating.
4. Adding bubbly (carbonated) water to coffee substitute does not make it taste better.

Travel Update

We traveled from Bacharach (on the Rhine river) to Cochem (on the Mosel river), and also spent an afternoon in Trier looking at the Roman ruins. Also we visited Burg Eltz, a well preserved castle still owned by the Eltz family. The castle was never attacked, and only successfully sieged once.

After that, it was off to Göttingen to visit Fred, Heejung, and Hannah (and Dave S was also there). It was good to see them.

Unfortunately, I caught a cold (or some such illness) and had a 101 degree fever (that's Farenheit, not Celsius). I mostly recovered by the time we left Göttingen.

Now we are in the medieval walled city of Rothenburg.

Guten Tag

Sue and I have been in Germany for a few days now. There was a long line to check-in for the Air India flight, but otherwise the trip over went smoothly. The first day (the day we arrived), we went to Bacharach, on the Rhine river.

We are now in the land of Castles R Us. To stay awake, we went for a walk, and went up to the ruins of an old church (Werner Kappelle), and then up further to an old castle (Burg Stahleck), which is now a youth hostel. There were some good views from the top of the castle.

Chief Lounging Officer

The member of the household most deserving of the title "Chief Lounging Officer"

Do computers feel pain?

Imagine I fire up the old Apple IIe,and write a BASIC program

   10 PRINT "OUCH, IT HURTS"
   20 GOTO 10

and run it. Would I think the computer is in terrible pain?

On the other hand, it wouldn't be much different than if I made a podcast of me repeatly saying "Ouch, it hurts" in a monotone. Listeners most likely would perceive me as quoting the phrase, and not being some expression of my state of being. (Fortunately for you, this is only a thought experiment - I'm not going to make such a recording)

Now if I were to scream the phrase, adding emotional content, the listener would likely have a reaction, even if they knew that I was acting, and not really in pain.

It seems that the more human-like the reactions, the more we identify pain (or pleasure) in other creatures (or things).

(topic shift)

What if computers screamed when they segfaulted (ie the program crashed)? (Other than having lots of screaming computers at work.) Would this C program be an act of cruelty?

int main()
{
   int *p = NULL;
   int q = *p;
}

Run this program, and a bunch of unhappy laptops will show up at your door along with a mainframe they keep calling 'Bubba'.

Or what if computers put up a dialog like this when the disk drive was nearly full, "I'm stuffed, I can't store another byte. Please compress some files or delete some files to relieve my full feeling, and I'll work much better".

Of course, we might be rather indignant that the computer is expecting a compassionate response from us when it never seems very sympathetic. In fact, the computer seems downright pyschopathic in it's lack of empathy and regard for our feelings and the frustration it causes us. (In fact, I'm going to run that segfaulting program a few more times just to get back at it. Take that you stupid machine!)

Where do crazy yet inspired ideas go

While searching on Yahoo for "super mower", I ran across an interesting web site: www.halfbakery.com. It's place for people to put inventions and "good" ideas (for values of "good" ranging from clever to insightful to strange to funny). It's sort-of like the lazy web meets Tantalus. With ideas like the "Film Noir Home" and "Custard-Filled Speed Bumps" (Mmmm... Custard ...), how can you go wrong?

Sweet Cinnamon Slug

I found this Sweet Cinnamon Slug today.

This type of slug is tasty when prepared properly. Here it is cut up and ready to bake:

And here is the finished, delicious result:

Pecan Waffles with Caramelized Bananas

My wife made some delicious pecan waffes with caramelized bananas. Yum.

And the perspective-enhancing side view:

Actually, the waffle in the foreground is not a pecan waffle (the waffle in the background is, though). They were so good I ate the first round before remembering to take a picture.

Tokihiro Sato

I was at the Art Institute of Chicago recently and saw an exhibition of photographs by Tokihiro Sato. The method of photography was intriguing. He would photograph a scene with a large format camera using an extremely long exposure, and then use a mirror or a flashlight pointed at the camera to "draw" on the image. He himself would not appear in the image, but the points of light would.

A quick Google search turned up more images here and here, or just search on google images for Tokihiro Sato

In addition to the points, lines, and squiggles of light, the city photographs have ghosts of cars and streaks where traffic flows. The outdoor scenes have blurred leaves where the wind was blowing.