Vacuum - Edward Vielmetti in Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104

Figure 8 school bus races in Flat Rock, MI - 2008 season

Every year the Flat Rock Speedway does a race series that includes figure eight bus races. This year's schedule includes:

June 14: Marco's Pizza School Bus Figure 8, legends cars, factory stock, 4-cylinder.
Sept. 13: Pepsi Cola School Bus Figure 8, street stock.

This year there's also school bus figure 8s at the Toledo Speedway:

May 23: Night of Destruction, school bus figure 8, figure 8 train, factory stock, 4-cylinder, backup race, rollover contest.
Sept. 5: Burge Wrecking Night of Destruction, school bus figure 8, boat and train figure 8, factory stock, rollover contest, race car bowling.

The Monroe Evening News has the complete schedule.

For photos and videos of this sport I'll refer you to my 2007 figure eight school bus race coverage and my 2006 figure 8 bus race notes.

"Approximately 2 million metric tons of fun" - George Hotelling
"needless to say, once you smell the smoke and feel the roar of the engines, you're eitehr hooked or your not. i, it should be obvious, am hooked." - Jose Nazario

Expert heuristics for problem solving - George Polya's "How To Solve It"

It is characteristic of an expert to have a systematic approach to problem solving.

A very good example of this is George Polya's How To Solve It, subtitled "A new aspect of the mathematical method". In it he prepares the math student for a problem solving approach, not so much by the memorization of zillions of dry facts, but an approach and a set of heuristics (read "methods", "rules", or even "hacks") for dealing with a broad range of mathematical questions, discovery and invention.

The core of How To Solve It is a structured approach to problem solving, and a dictionary of techniques which can be applied to this structure.

First. You have to understand the problem.
Second. Find the connection between the data and the unknown. You may be obliged to consider auxiliary problems if an immediate connection cannot be found. You should obtain eventually a plan of the solution.
Third. Carry out your plan.
Fourth. Examine the solution obtained.

The dictionary of heuristic follows with short pithy entries on technique, questions like "What is the unknown?" and strategies like "Decomposing and recombining".

This book is a math book, but more than that it's a way of thinking about things - and as such, I've found it useful to refer to whenever I embark on a new project to help me understand what I'm after and the sorts of things I need to learn along the way to get to a satisfactory answer. It is as well a brilliant example of how to distill expertise into a handbook which can carry on teaching long after the expert is gone.

Become an expert by collecting other experts in your field or other fields

How do you become an expert in a field? By writing about that field, repeatedly, until you have mastered it to the level which people find you easily and draw on your expertise.

A big part of being able to write about something twice a day is to have a ready collection of other people to call on for ideas or to ask for details or referrals. By being ready to tap into other people's expertise, you figure out what you need to know fast.

Here from Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird:

There are an enormous number of people out there with invaluable information to share with you, and all you have to do is pick up the phone. They love it when you do, just as you love it when people ask if they can pick your brain about something you happen to know a great deal about -- or, as in my case, have a number of impassioned opinions on.

This is part of the "blogger's secret" series.

links for 2008-05-08

• How to monitor environmental noise
  a first pass at collecting sound level and noise measuring tools
  (tags: noise sound howto)
• Announcing: Kerrytown Motherfest 2008
  Myra Klarman photographing moms at Kerrytown on Mother's Day
  (tags: annarbor events photos photography via:murn mothers-day mom kerrytown)

The blogger's secret: how to be an expert about anything

You can be an expert with the blogger's secret:

1. Pick a topic.
2. Write about it twice a day.
3. At the end of six months, you will be an expert.

Note well: choose carefully what you want to be an expert about! It's mighty hard to be an expert about more than one thing this way, just because it consumes so much time.

How to monitor environmental noise

One of the regular top hits on my blog is the post I did about how to report a noise complaint in Ann Arbor. Recently, the local college has been doing a little bit of construction around their playing field, and some of the neighbors have complained about the sound.

If you were going to spend too much money to monitor noise, you'd put together some kind of infrastructure with data loggers at various points around the area, all of which sent their readings (and perhaps audio capture) back to a central system for analysis and reporting and alerting. Here's some of what I was able to find out about that.

From Make Magazine: "Volumen", a giant graphic equalizer built by Argentinian artist, Sergio Avello relays the ambient urban noise levels around the Redgaleria in Buenos Aires. Pretty intense way of visualizing the constant buzz of the city, plus nice shots of the internal circuits.

The Noise Pollution Clearinghouse has a vast array of information and experts about noise pollution. Their sponsors include Quest Technologies, makers of a bunch of noise level monitoring and analysis tools.

In the mining industry, a company called Vipac markets an environmental noise monitor with built in GSM phone (so you can call in and listen), an MP3 recorder which clicks in when sound exceeds a threshold, a solar cell for off-grid use and reporting of data back to a central web server for analysis. No price listed.

Noisemeters.com has a data logging, noise metering sign with clear graphics showing when sound levels have been exceeded on a big indoor sign, and a data logger which collects information about noise levels that can be downloaded from a PC (not real time). w/software, this runs about $1200. They also have a Noise Pole outdoor monitor mounted permanently high out of the way unobtrusively with similar logging (call for pricing) and a portable logging noise monitor which runs about $9000.

CSN sells a Virco LIBLITE designed for indoor cafeteria use with a red-yellow-green stoplight style display, designed either to get kids in a cafeteria to scream at the top of their lungs or to quiet them down (not clear what the actual results would be).

---

I didn't find some simple homebrew system, but the "graphic equalizer" direction seems like it might be reasonable - how hard could it be to turn an iPhone into a portable noise meter of some kind?

At the low end these are called "sound level meters", here's a review of a $50 device, with no remote reading capability.

A London noise map showing the quiet and noisy parts of town.

Joy Yuill (1932-2008)

as printed in the Marquette Mining Journal, April 22 2008. Joy and Baldy were neighbors of ours in Marquette.

REPUBLIC — Joy Elizabeth Yuill, 75, of 11676 River Road, Republic, and former Marquette resident, entered eternal life Tuesday afternoon, April 15, 2008, at her home in the loving care of her family and the caregivers of Upper Peninsula Home Health & Hospice.

Born September 11, 1932, in Gaylord, the daughter of Stanley and Dorothy (Siegel) Yuill, Joy was raised in Vanderbilt and graduated from the Gaylord High School in 1949. She attended Hillsdale College for a year before transferring to Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, where she received a bachelor of science degree in education in 1953. Joy taught in Detroit, while also taking classes at Wayne State University, which led to her receiving her master’s degree in special education in 1956, with special emphasis on blind and partially sighted clients. In 1957, Joy moved to Marquette, traveling extensively throughout the Upper Peninsula to serve sight-impaired students. In 1971, Joy received a nursing degree from Northern Michigan University, working at Marquette General Hospital mostly on weekends. She retired from her nursing career in 2000. For over 17 years, Joy worked summers at Bay Cliff Health Camp in Big Bay as a special education teacher and swimming instructor. She retired from this position in 2005 and then assisted with adult campers for one week each year. 1972 was to produce yet another degree for Joy, this time a master’s degree in music from Wayne State. Joy continued teaching full time until 2002 and thereafter taught on a part-time basis for the next two years. When not in the classroom, Joy was the piano accompanist for the Marquette Male Chorus for many years. She also assisted many students with their solo and ensemble pieces at the Negaunee and Westwood high schools for over 20 years. Known locally for her beautiful renditions on the harp, Joy was a participant in many concerts and musical programs over the years. She was a member of the United Presbyterian Church in Ishpeming. In June 1963, Joy married Vincent “Baldy” Bur, and he preceded her in death in 1999. Joy and Baldy were great animal lovers and took in all sorts of stray and unwanted animals over the years. In her leisure, she enjoyed baking bread, knitting, sewing, gardening, and being involved in anything musical.

Joy is survived by her brother, Robert “Beezle” Yuill of Harvey; a brother-in-law, Leonard Bur of Marquette; sister-in-law, Amelia Kent of North Little Rock, Ark.; her niece, Martha Yuill of St. Paul, Minn.; and a nephew, Stephen Yuill of Ishpeming. In addition to her parents and husband, Joy was preceded in death by sisters-in-law, Christine Yuill and Verna Bur; and a nephew, Michael Bur.

The family will receive relatives and friends at the United Presbyterian Church in Ishpeming on Saturday, May 10, beginning at 1 p.m. A memorial service will follow at 2 p.m. Saturday with the Rev. James Robb officiating. Memorials may be directed to the Marquette County Humane Society, 84 Snowfield Road, Negaunee, MI 49866; or to the United Presbyterian Church, 112 E. Euclid St., Ishpeming, MI 49849.

The Fassbender Funeral Home is serving the family, where condolences may be expressed online at www.fassbenderfuneralhome.com.

Ann Arbor May 6 2008 election results and AutoMARK voting issues

I'll link to election results when they go online here. The Washtenaw County site has the official results. The Ann Arbor News has coverage on the blog, but, true to form, they don't link to the official results site in their coverage.

Early returns (63% counted at 9:30pm) have both Ann Arbor millage proposals passing 3-1, and incumbent school board member Helen Gates-Bryant leading 2-1. Voter turnout looks like it's going to be less than 10% county wide.

This is the second election that I've tried to vote using the AutoMARK machines used to provide assistive technology for those with low vision. The first time I tried this back in January I failed to make it work:

The technological snafu was voting as though I was a vision-impaired voter and trying to use the AutoMARK machines provided for that purpose.... The machine marks ballots with audio prompting; it has awful industrial design, a very clumsy ballot shield, the poll workers had not run a real ballot through it all day (just a sample ballot), and when it spat back my ballot a half dozen times they directed me to the hand marked ballot booth rather than spoiling the ballot and starting with a new piece of paper.

I got to the polling place a little bit earlier this time and tried it again. It misbehaved the same way, but this time there was time to figure it out, so the poll workers called in their expert who drove over to help figure it out. The solution ended up to be very simple: the detachable stub on the ballot must be detached before putting the ballot into the machine, despite the very clear instructions on that stub not to detach it, and with no visible instructions to detach it anywhere on the AutoMARK machine.

I was able to find with some digging a AutoMARK Troubleshooting Guide, which mentions two possible solutions: either remove the stub before putting the ballot into the machine, or program the machine to recognize the stub. I don't know whether this stub length programming is possible with the ballots we are using.

If the ballot has a stub, the stub length may not have been entered into the election setup information.

Note that the system did work with the sample ballot tested by the poll workers - but the sample ballot did not have a stub at the top!

Note for next time: vote early (and vote often), and tear the stub off before inserting the ballot into the AutoMARK machine, despite all of the instructions to the contrary.

UPDATE:

More AutoMARK issues, as I find them around the net:

Ada County, ID: " About 90% of the precincts encountered problems testing the machines because the stub was still attached. This is clearly our fault. The ballots we trained with did not have stubs on them. We never thought about the significance of that and obviously the manufacturer did not consider that either"

Contra Costa County, CA: "During the March Election, the Grand Jury observed the following: a. The perforation on the ballot stub, which the voter received, did not always tear cleanly, complicating insertion of the ballot into the scanner. "

Personalized transit planning for the AATA

Some notes on something that doesn't exist yet, but should.

Imagine a service that has URLs like

http://wheresmybus.org/route/5/inbound/packard+granger/3
http://wheresmybus.org/route/any/inbound/packard+state/0
http://wheresmybus.org/route/any/any/stone-school+eisenhower/4

and which has a very simple output of the times you need to leave to catch the next bus

8:04
8:22

based on the following:

real time bus location information (via mobile ridetrak), for buses already en route, and then estimated times for scheduled buses not yet visible. This is scrapable from existing services.

previously estimated, interpolated times for time points, so "packard+granger" is known to be "packard+south" plus 2 minutes. Interpolation is something that the AATA won't provide, but if you know your route you can probably get within a minute or two.

user specified time offsets to show time you spend to get to the bus stop, the "3" in the above giving me time to walk out the door and walk to the bus, but not to run.

The "any" route variant would let you simultaneously get information about next-bus routing for stops that have multiple lines serving them, and also let you go in any direction just in case you want the "anywhere but here" bus system.

In my typical use of mobile ridetrak I often do this computation in my head (oh, the bus is 8 minutes late...let's see, that means I can leave at ... or walk down how many stops?) That's a lot of math for what should be straightforward for a computer to put together, and if you crunched this down tiny enough it could fit on a very tiny screen.

Burns Park Run 2008

I walked the 5k - official time 39:47 (a 12:49 pace). Lots of fun! More details and link to race results when it's online.

UPDATE: Burns Park Run 2008 results are up! Searchable complete results (789 finishers), 10K run, 5K run, 5K walk.

The official race site for the Burns Park Run is where the race results will be.

Some race photos from Mae's Real Stories and The Corkys.

This movie has the course sped up to 5 minutes - it's a terrific route.

links for 2008-05-03

• Albert Goldbarth: "Library"
  This book is an "airplane book" (but not about airplanes; mean to be read on an airplane; also, available every three steps in the airport). What does it mean, to "bust" a "block"?
  (tags: via:vaguery via:viscousplatypus books poetry via:cshalizi library superpatron poem)

Marie V. Scholes, 1916-2008

reposted from the Columbia Missourian

COLUMBIA — Marie V. Scholes, a Columbia resident for 60 years, loved reading and conversation about politics and history.

“She seemed to know everything and was extremely intelligent,” said her niece, Diane Lucas. “You could have a good conversation on anything with her even if you didn’t agree. We agreed to disagree on politics.”

When Mrs. Scholes wasn’t talking about history and politics, she was reading about it.

“She read everything,” Lucas said. “Her house was packed with history, politics and mystery books.”

She also enjoyed playing bridge and working crossword puzzles.

“She was just neat, she knew everything and was never judgemental,” Lucas said. “She was the best aunt there could be.”

Mrs. Scholes died Wednesday, April 16, 2008, at The Bluffs. She was 91.

She was born Nov. 20, 1916, in Norway, Mich., to Max and Mary Vielmetti. She attended the University of Michigan where she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Kappa Phi honorary societies and received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

She married Walter V. Scholes, who was a member of the MU history department, in 1941. Mrs. Scholes co-authored a book with her husband in 1970, “The Foreign Policies of the Taft Administration.”

“She and her husband spent many summers in London among other places,” Lucas said.

She is survived by five nieces and nephews, 10 great-nieces and great-nephews and eight great-great-nieces and great-great-nephews.

Her husband, one sister and five brothers preceded her in death.

-- HANNAH ZIMMERMAN

links for 2008-04-30

• Goedkope kantoorruimte door 'coworking' - Sprout
  a coworking map of the Netherlands, with nice photos and contact information for the various locations.
  (tags: coworking netherlands holland via:ton neogeography)

links for 2008-04-29

• A physicist on the "Lessig style" (Lessig Blog)
  an account of a lessig-style preso from a physicist, showing highlights of the style. includes use of repetition, blank slides, minimal text
  (tags: keynote presentation preso design howto)

links for 2008-04-26

• BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | What if we all walked to work?
  in central London, for example, there are 109 journeys between Tube stations that are quicker to walk (taking into account time spent waiting for trains).
  (tags: transportation walking walk walkertracker pedestrian london)
• Chariots of Fire and Iron: The Modern Railway System (1888)
  The chariots shall rage in the streets, they shall justle one against another in the broad ways: they shall seem like torches, they shall run like the lightnings. Nahum 2:4
  (tags: party-like-its-188x railroad religion via:biblophagist fire iron)

Michigan Morel Map 2008

You don't really think I'm going to tell you where to pick morels, do you? Even my mom won't tell me where she gets hers.

What I can share is some set of things that people are tracking for timing for when morels appear, and forums where this stuff is being discussed by experts.

There is a terrific list of morel mushroom information carefully collected by The Great Morel; lots to read, if you want to know more.

The Michigan Sportsman Forums report on the Morel Progression Sightings Map for the year, which gives you big dots showing approximate locations. This is a current April 25, 2008 selection.

Absolute Michigan's story on the 2007 Boyne City Mushroom Festival includes plenty of details.

The Grayling, MI visitors bureau guide to the morels of Crawford County Michigan gives away details, but being coy, recommends that you bring your own log book and note where you found yours.

UPDATE: Mike Gould of Ann Arbor has a story originally in the Ann Arbor Observer about Roonquest: the mushrooms that bloom in the spring about morel hunting near Charlevoix.

UPDATE: More morel information by video at Youtube - see e.g. VideoMorelHunting collection of accounts and movies.

UPDATE: Morel mushroom hunting in the Upper Peninsula w/report of nothing yet as of 4/25 in Menominee County. thanks @frnash for the link

UPDATE: Superior Sights on Morel Mushroom Picking in the Upper Peninsula says their favorite spot is northwest of Newberry, MI, in Luce County, and says that the best times in the UP for morels tend to be end of May to early June.

UPDATE: The music of the Mushroomer's Waltz (MP3) comes from the National Morel Mushroom Festival in Boyne City, MI, May 15-18 2008.

links for 2008-04-25

• community - a review of the theory
  We explore the development of theory around community, and the significance of boundaries, social networks and social norms - and why attention to social capital and communion may be important.
  (tags: a2b3 community society theory socnet literature-review)
• Cassier's Magazine: "Widening Application of the Telephone"
  more history of communications technology and its use
  (tags: telephone community customs communication via:vaguery)

links for 2008-04-24

• Wait, How Old Is My Kid Again?
  this is interesting, but why hard code everything? e.g. howoldismykid.com/2007/12/02/Claire.xml or howoldismypresident.com/1802/02/12/Abraham-Lincoln.xml
  (tags: hacks rss via:deusx)
• How to Leave the Perfect Voicemail | The Art of Manliness
  Hello, this is Edward Vielmetti at 734-330-2465, 734-330-2465. I'm following up on our conversation. We met at IUE this spring in Ann Arbor, and you mentioned freelance work on the N. project. I'm available, and please contact me if you're interested.
  (tags: voicemail howto think-of-voicemail-as-twitter)
• Cassier's Magazine - Engineering - 1907
  Multiplex Telegraphy and Simultaneous Telegraphy and Telephony
  (tags: telegraph telephone party-like-its-190x we-gave-you-this-fire why-dont-you-call via:vaguery)

Garlic Mustard in Michigan (via MSU IPM)

Garlic Mustard in Michigan, a report and information from Michigan State University:

Garlic mustard is an exotic invasive plant from Europe that invades woodland habitats in North America and impacts forest biodiversity. In some woodlands, dense stands of garlic mustard in the spring threaten showy spring blooming ephemerals like spring beauty, trilliums and trout lilies. Other research points toward potentially negative impacts on timber species and forest health. Many land managers consider it to be one of the most potentially harmful and difficult to control invasive plants in the region.

It's time to pull garlic mustard again, which is a sure sign of spring. Our yard has a little bit, not too bad, and certainly not as bad as it was a few years ago before we realized just what we had that was growing so vigorously.

Last year at this time I recounted a tale of where to go for a walk in the woods, and the story of the celebration of the garlic mustard recipe of the year. (in summary, bleah.) As a reminder:

So I made it and tasted it. Not particularly good, and I'm still dealing with the tummy ache. Perhaps someone else has a better recipe, or I picked it too late in the season, or it really just doesn't taste that good? I will admit to not adding the vinegar (or, as Allen Bailey suggested, lemon juice) which might have been the problem. Next time, I'll also cook the greens in a change or two of water first, which should also draw off some of the bitterness.

If you have an awesome garlic mustard recipe - or, if you know a source for a supply of pygmy goats that will eat the stuff - pls. note in the comments.

supermemo and morning coffee ritual memory

An important piece of having coffee in the morning is making it part of a routine. If you're predictable in your habits, you start to see the same people in the same space at the same time, and you get to be something of a regular.

If you're careful, and switch your morning allegiances from time to time but still visit the old haunts often enough, you can be what passes for a regular long after you stopped coming every day.

How often, then, do you need to show up for people to remember you? For that I turn to structured repetition, and the power of priming memory periodically to strengthen it. Supermemo, a software package for memory improvement, has a nice paper on using Supermemo without a computer, which specifies a pattern of repetitions and intervals to get details into memory. The table of intervals specified says that you review materials at this pace:

4 days, 7 days, 12 days, 20 days, 1 month, 2 months, 3 months, 5 months, 9 months, 16 months, 2 years, 4 years, 6 years, 11 years, 18 years

Which suggests that a well-timed practice of showing up at a cafe, introducing yourself to everyone, learning their names, and them coming back at precisely timed intervals to repeat the process would be enough to make you a regular in no time at all.