Midlife Sooner

try this

try my new flash page here.

posted by Flippo @ 10:20 AM 1 comments

quotes

Here are some more Zeke Quotes

Z "I burped and it was a tasty burp" at the restaurant last night, we were eating ribs to celebrate my new paid tutoring position.

Z "calm down mommy" when she was laughing loudly about something we won't mention.

I am trying to stay with all the stuff that needs to get done. I have a lot of class work to do before monday.
if you didn't notice I put in a counter that keeps track of how many people read my blog, this is for my sake to see if anyone is reading this. More dealing with my needs for acceptance and approval I think. I still can't get back on Google ads to make money, man when they black list you you are done! no grace there.

I am trying my hand at FLASH to make visual aids for my class, I may from time to time try to show these to you, not sure if my blog will run them or not. this latest one deals with energy and has a safe falling onto a car which explodes, very graphic. All for education because I don't want to keep giving these kids fishes, I want to teach them how to throw safes.

posted by Flippo @ 8:05 AM 1 comments

Welcome to Nerdville

Guess what I picked up at a garage sale the other day!
A prize I call "nerd-gold" yes it is the Roomba vacuum cleaner!
for 5$ I now have a machine vacuuming my house, and as an added benefit it occupies my children while I take a nap.
I don't know how long "dusty" (zeke given name) will last due to both boys trying to sit on him and put "trash" in his path, but 5$ was worth it. I do have to buy a battery which costs money but we won't talk about that. I also took a picture of the dirt cleaned up by dusty in one battery charge (I used a battery from the lab). it actually really cleans well, I am impressed. I like the idea of pushing a button and letting dusty do work, gives me hope for a useful future for robotics. If you have a chance, pick one of these babies up (ebay has them pretty cheap).
I must say that the urge to open dusty up and modify a little, is strong, but the urge not to vacuum is stronger.
We like to set dusty to working while we eat, mostly to clean up under Judah as he "eats" and give him something to watch as we stuff him full.

I am teaching Statics this summer, getting ready for that. I am also teaching a help session in physics next fall which is really good news since it will give me a 50% raise which in my salary bracket is still not much, for most, but for us it is a blessing, thanks God. I also just had a meeting with Dean Pulat who said she knows the dean of engineering for K-State, yes a little networking goes a long way! Well on my way to being able to stay in Manhattan KS for the rest of our lives!

posted by Flippo @ 10:55 AM 0 comments

The Desert the Desert the big brown desert

Well we are done and heading back to San Diego today, I am about deserted out I think. We will fly home tonight to my own bed. I am looking forward to that. Angie and the boys will be back form Kansas sometime on Sunday. I really miss them.

posted by Flippo @ 7:58 AM 7 comments

In the Desert stuck in a hotel

My day on field test in California
6:00 up and Qt
6:50 fill up coolers with ice/switch walkie talkies to car chargers
7:00 meet for free breakfast compliments of the Brawley Inn. (they were serving french toast)
8:30 Loading Rover in car and off to desert
9:15 arrive at spot we left off yesterday and unload rover after a very uncomfortable ride due to the fact I had to go to the bathroom and the road was very bumpy, the agony was exacerbated by the sloshing water in the back of the car that I had to listen to.
9:20 sit and wait for rover to respond......not moving..... no beeps.
11:00 pack up rover and head back to town
11:45 arrive at radio shack to buy 17" lcd screen, keyboard, and mouse for debugging purposes
11:55 unload rover and listen to the computer scientists argue about which programming language is better.
12:00 go fill up car with gas
12:15 go to lunch (I had a burger with the big fat fries)
1:15 go back to rover room sit around write dissertation while computer scientists argue
6:00 drained ice and water out of coolers.
7:00 go to dinner (I had italian food)
8:00 go back to the rover room sit around listen to computer scientists, called wife.
10:00 went outside talked to Matt
11:10 sit in rover room listening to scientists and write my blog

The rover has a problem with it's software, namely the drivers that allow all the serial devices to talk to the main computer. We are now trying to use several usb to serial converters instead of the one with the offending drivers. They may fix it, in which case we would go back to the desert tomorrow, if not then we are on the plane home, probably Thursday flight. I have mixed feelings, I want to go home but I don't like goign home in shame. I myself am not a computer scientist so I pretty much sit around and pass out drinks to those who are. My dilemma right now is, should I go to bed and look like I am a lightweight and not part of the team? or just sit here watching you tube videos and looking up 80's rock stars.? it is a toss up, both have their advantages. Matt is stuck here dozing on his bed, The rover is in his room.
These Computer scientists will stair at their screen for hours while muttering curses and exultations and never tell you what they are talking about. they don't even like to tell each other what they are doing.

posted by Flippo @ 11:02 PM 1 comments

California is the place you oughta be

Tomorrow I go to California to babysit a robot that travels about an inch every 2 seconds, I really don't know why I am there other than muscle to get the thing back in the car. Big note this year we are renting brand new Jeep Grand Cherokee's for the trip. Hopefully I will get a lot written on my dissertation while I am in the hotel after a long day of bot sitting.
Before I leave though we have a family wedding taking place here in Norman, My cousin Skip's kid. So Mom and Dad Flippo will be here as well as Dad's family which will be a hoot. Aunt Van will be at large, we were phoned the other day and pretty much ordered to be at the wedding by her. There should be some good pictures coming, we will see if she behaves herself or not.

posted by Flippo @ 4:43 AM 1 comments

Over Unity Magnetic Motor

The other day I was doing something online when I came across an interview with the CEO of a company called stoern in Ireland. Pretty much they were daring anyone to prove their magnetic motor a hoax. For those non engineers over unity means that you get more out of a machine than you put in. In this case it is a motor that spins by itself creating motion from nothing more than magnetic fields. Now every motor does this but needs energy put into it via electricity. These little darlings seemingly spin on their own, even when I write that it makes me shiver due to the slap in the face of science. The first law of Thermodynamics says that you cannot create or destroy energy, just change it from one form to another. Hydrodams change the potential energy of water to electricity. Over unity is what we think to be fictional, just not possible, and in the realm of perpetual motion machines and antigravity. So my beliefs are based on scientific law, which is nothing more than a generalized observation of most everything we have seen to date. It is a good law and has worked, no one credible has challenged it and many rest on it for guidance in research. I wasted about 2 hours of my day watching videos and listening to interviews actually a little fearful of believing any of it, in my world people are put into categories by what they research. If I wanted to study antigravity or the space elevator concept I would be categorized as kooky and probably would not get any job in academia afterwards, even though NASA is currently sponsoring both topics. It would be a scientific burning at the stake kind of thing. The point is, this topic is heresy to engineers and I don't want to believe it but I am intrigued. It would not be the first time heresy has turned out to be right. Science looks for Holy Grails not heresy, the only difference is we are looking for one and will not accept the other. So no doubt Science will throw out its champions to combat this challenge and every scientist and engineer spectator will jeer from their seats and write emotional and bitter comments to the video claims. If the claim is real and true then it will take a while to open the minds of those who see themselves as the science faithful. Science will not approach it with an open mind because of the preconceived laws they adhere to, and rightly so such is science. The magnet motor has been around a while, Tesla even made one supposedly, but Stoern's challenge will force the technology to be looked at by those who would not risk their reputation otherwise. Should be interesting, either this company made a mistake, is lying, or actually has something. The analogy to religion is there, the lunatic, lier, or Lord argument is appropriate.

So I am ordering some rare earth magnets and will try to mimic this research myself. If I am successful then I will make a bigger one to run my house on and retire to arkansas off the grid. Below are some videos that might prove interesting to you and also a excerpt from my journal this morning (my Christian readers will enjoy it more I think).















Also there are several companies actually selling generators already, here is one.
http://www.perendev-power.com/

Here is an excerpt from my journal.

"I have been thinking more and more about that motor, amazed at the possibilities and also resisting any notion of it because of fear of being fooled and ridiculed by the smart people around me. What I think I know to be true is really in my way and in conflict with all the evidence I have seen. I have seen countless videos of motors, of companies selling generators based on magnetic motors, of teenagers making them out of duct tape and screwdrivers, interviews with company CEO's daring anyone to prove them wrong. Even if I had one here in my hands that worked I would still have this struggle with believing that motion could come from seemingly nothing, or some source that we have not even considered. It really has opened my eyes to What non christians are going through when hearing about the gospel. It is amazing the blinding force behind going against your world view. It really makes the whole child like faith concept more understandable. Right now my child would have no problem with a over unity magnetic motor because he is not enlightened and has not listened to countless teachers and "experts" tell him over unity is not possible. He is not hampered by what science thinks it knows to be true in every case. Unlike me he can accept its simplicity and design without qualms without the struggle and conflict. When we ask a person to accept Christ we are asking a great deal, we are asking them to jump a huge chasm of faith to go against what the world has told them their whole lives. they can have all the evidence in the world and know of all the abundant life, eternal rewards, peace, and security from following Christ, yet it is still a huge risk and struggle. The over-unity magnetic motor may turn out to be a hoax but I have learned something about thinking outside world view box both spiritually and in engineering. "

Enjoy your Paradigm while you can.

posted by Flippo @ 7:19 AM 3 comments

posted by Flippo @ 11:11 AM 7 comments

Ah soooo

The punk in the suit is Andy, he is one of the punks I hang out with and ride with. This is his masters defense presentation and the only time I have seen his dressed up. several other pictures of the boys, one is with me in the back seat. We were eating at sonic without mommy (she needed a break).

Mommy "Zeke try to build a bridge over that puddle"
Zeke "I can't"
Mommy "yeah use sticks and do it like a beaver would"
Zeke "Mommy I can't I don't have the right kind of teeth."

We are thinking about taking in a Chinese kid during the day for money and language lessons for the boys. We are not sure cause of the work involved. There is a couple with a 2 year old boy that are from the same city that I lived in China that might be open to it. Well gotta get, I am setting up a little clean room to install strain gages, I am thinking about taking over Matt's office for this purpose. He doesn't get here till 3:00 p.m. so I have plenty of time to do this.

posted by Flippo @ 8:46 AM 0 comments

Few more pictures

Here is a few more recent pictures. Most of them are of the Force Torque sensor that I am currently attempting to fabricate. The green picture is the CAD drawing with the grey and yellow strain gages attached. The wooden part is a make shift test stand that I will use after I bake on some strain gages. The Steering wheel picture is of my old truck which now is my brothers, what a cool truck. Right now he must have lost the key cause he is using a stubby screw driver to start it. Angie hates that truck, but man what a machine!
There is a possibility that I might do some consulting for a company called MSC this summer. They make software like ADAMS, NASTRAN and so on. They are doing some work with the aeronautical companies and my buddy said that will need some contractors this summer. We will see, I might be able to justify a new computer out of the deal and write it off, still working on how to get a new bike. I will be teaching a class called statics this summer as well, it shouldn't be too hard. I have good notes to go off of, just not looking forward to grading so much. I am looking forward to all those pesky students leaving for the summer!

posted by Flippo @ 6:30 AM 2 comments