I love how, right after the rocket blew up at last night's launch, they cut to that cheesy Sea Launch logo and just ignore the viewer. It's clear that Sea Launch's live video is for promotional purposes, rather than informational.

In honor of Sea Launch not having the forthrightness to provide their avid viewers with post-failure coverage... here's some more launch failures/stuff blowing up:

almost... (and working...)
no GPS for you.
One from our friends in the east...
"Everyone's just laying on the ground shitting themselves."
an HRP clip with great audio and touching tribute at the end.

And the obligatory fuel plant fire...

So the local eBay trading assistant company posted the auction page for the lens I dropped off last weekend. Looking over what they put together, I can't say I'm very impressed. For starters, examine the title of the auction:

Tokina Sigma 70-210mm Marco UC Zoom 1:4-5.6 Lens

Tokina Sigma? Those are two different companies. All of the paperwork I gave them lists it as a Sigma lens, which it is. Apparently I left a Tokina lens cap on it and that was too much for the folks at dropithere.com. And who is Marco? I guess that was supposed to be Macro.

In the description of the lens found on the auction page, they specifically say "Lens Brand: Tokina". No. And under type of focus, they have a pair of dashes which I either interpret as "not applicable" or "none," both of which are not equal to "autofocus," the correct answer. Finally, they list the minimum focal distance as being five inches, when it should be five feet.

And check out their "About Us" blurb at the bottom of the auction page:

Drop it here is Drop Off stores located in Los Alamos, NM that helps individuals, businesses, sell their items on eBay.

Great. So, as far as I can tell, the people running this outfit don't have a very thorough grasp on English (the woman I talked to there had a thick eastern-European accent). The result is an auction page that I think is an excellent example of an auction to avoid; if I were looking to buy one of these, I'd instantly go to a different auction after reading through this page.

I wrote them a nastygram and insisted that they correct all the errors immediately; we'll see what happens.

UPDATE: Four hours after writing the nastygram (11pm local time), I got a response indicating that they had fixed the problem and were very sorry. The apology was also rife with bad English, though the author blamed the borked auction page on "a new employee."

Last week, I posted a puzzle which asked how you could replicated NOT gate functionality using only AND gates. Here is probably the most simple way, using only two AND gates:

Robin asked if the solution involved some sort of hardware trickery and, in a sense, I suppose it does. The solution takes advantage of the power and ground connections to the gate devices to augment the effective logic truth table. The truth table for a standard AND gate is usually shown like this:

A B | Q
----+--
0 0 | 0
0 1 | 0
1 0 | 0
1 1 | 1

where A and B are the two inputs and Q is the output of the gate. The output only goes high if the inputs are both high. This is the abstract logic that is implemented by a physical AND gate. Unfortunately, there is no way to combine any number of these truth tables to produce a NOT function.

However, an actual physical AND gate requires electrical power to do its thing and you can think of the power and ground connections to the gate hardware as "inputs." When you take these inputs into account, let's call them P and G, you get the following truth table:

P G A B | Q
--------+--
0 0 0 0 | Z
0 0 0 1 | Z
0 0 1 0 | Z
0 0 1 1 | Z
0 1 0 0 | X
0 1 0 1 | X
0 1 1 0 | X
0 1 1 1 | X
1 0 0 0 | 0
1 0 0 1 | 0
1 0 1 0 | 0
1 0 1 1 | 1
1 1 0 0 | Z
1 1 0 1 | Z
1 1 1 0 | Z
1 1 1 1 | Z

where Z indicates a high-impedance output and X indicates the gate has been destroyed. The high-impedance state is what you get when the device is not powered, which happens any time the power and ground connections are at the same voltage. The X conditions are reached when the ground voltage is high and the power voltage is low, a.k.a. reversing power and ground, a.k.a. el bortus de chip.

The above schematic takes advantage of the high-impedance states available in the expanded truth table to achieve the logical NOT operation. In a sense, this is a "stupid hardware trick" because the power connections to logic hardware are not generally driven conditionally as part of combinatorial logic... but it is a valid circuit.

I finally beat Final Fantasy XII and can now return to my regularly scheduled life. Fun game.

This puzzle comes from the January/February issue of Technology Review:

How many integers from 1 to 100 can you form using the digits 2, 0, 0, and 7 exactly once each, the operators +, -, x, /, and exponentiation? We desire solutions containing the minimum number of operators, and among solutions having a given number of operators, those using the digits in order 2, 0, 0, and 7 are preferred. Parentheses may be used for grouping; they do not count as operators. A leading minus sign does count as an operator.

Here is the solution I submitted:

1	207 ^ 0
2	2 + 0 * 70
3	2 + 70 ^ 0
4	7 - 2 + 0 ^ 0
5	7 - 2 + 0 + 0
6	7 - 20 ^ 0
7*	2 * 0 + 0 + 7
8*	20 ^ 0 + 7
9*	2 + 0 + 0 + 7
10*	2 + 0 ^ 0 + 7

13	2 * 7 - 0 ^ 0
14*	(2 + 0 + 0) * 7
15	7 * 2 + 0 ^ 0
16*	2 * (0 ^ 0 + 7)

19	20 - 7 ^ 0
20*	20 + 0 * 7
21	20 + 7 ^ 0

26	27 - 0 ^ 0
27	27 + 0 + 0
28	27 + 0 ^ 0

48	7 ^ 2 - 0 ^ 0
49	7 ^ 2 + 0 + 0
50	70 - 20

68	70 - 2 + 0
69	70 - 2 ^ 0
70	70 + 2 * 0
71	70 + 2 ^ 0
72	72 + 0 + 0
73	72 + 0 ^ 0

90	20 + 70

Solutions marked with a star maintain the 2007 digit ordering.

A store just opened in Los Alamos that acts as an "Ebay Trading Assistant," meaning that you just bring them stuff and they sell it and give you the money, minus a commission. They take care of all the logistics. This is perfect for me because I have a lot of stuff that won't sell for much and I don't have a lot of free time. If I sell something for $5, it isn't worth my time to take pictures of it, make the auction webpage, deal with answering buyer questions, ship it, etc. The trading assistant takes a hefty fee off the top (32% for items that sell for less than $200), but I'm not selling this stuff to make money; I just want to get rid of it. This is a win-win for me; I'm going to offload a bunch of crap I don't use and pick up a few bucks on the side, with nothing required of me aside from driving it over to the store. First up is an old lens from my analog camera that I used during highschool.

This brain teaser came across my desk today and I think the solution is quite clever; see if you can get it without using the web.

Can you create a logical NOT gate using only AND gates? [Hint: the answer is yes]
What is the minimum number of AND gates needed for this?

I'll post my solution later.

It only took 13 months, but I finally won a game of handball against the guys I play with regularly. I've won some doubles games before, but it always felt like I was a huge drag factor on the team and my teammate was pulling me along. I won a singles game at the tournament, but my opponent hadn't been playing very long. Tonight was a 3-man game of "cutthroat," where the person serving plays against the other two, so there was no opportunity for anyone to champion me through to victory. And my opponents are both B-league veterans with 10 years or so of experience. So I feel pretty good about that. My arms feel numb, though...

I think this means Ive earned some more playstation time. And maybe ice cream.

2 years worth of change accumulated in my bedroom, covering most of my dresser top and all three shelves above my desk. This is apparently what happens when Nina goes off to grad school. I'm way beyond not making my bed... I like to take it to the next level.

Some statistics: 530 quarters, 482 pennies, 286 dimes, 114 nickels, 5 Anthony dollars, and approximately 50 foreign coins ranging from Kazakhstan to Bulgaria to Belize. The over-abundance of quarters is a result of the fact that I tend to leave everything else in the penny tray (when one is available). The wealth of foreign coins is due largely to my copious foreign travel, but also to the fact that, as a coin collector, I always ask people who have just been out of the country if they have any foreign coinage left from their trip. Usually, this happens while I'm at work and if they give me some I just put it in my pocket along with my regular change.

I don't recall ever receiving Susan B. Anthony dollars as change in the last two years, so I suspect that I was occasionally given them, by mistake, as quarters. This is, of course, why the Anthony dollar was such a failure as a coin. However, I like the following alternative hypothesis: your couch cushions actually have a non-zero interest rate. In my case, an initial investment of $171.62 for a term of 2 years yielded a net gain of $5, or 2.9%. It's not a particularly good rate, and the return is paid out in obsolete coinage that half the retail clerks in America won't recognize... but it's free money. The best part about the couch bank is that your friends occasionally make charitable contributions without even knowing it.

Somehow, my investment strategies seem to be about as useful as that whole Life Pencil idea I had. Maybe I should stick to nuclear safeguards.

When I built the HTPC back in November, I bought my first heat pipe-based CPU cooler and was very impressed with its efficiency: with the CPU at idle and the heatsink fan going full bore the CPU temperature is actually below ambient. I didn't know much about heat pipes so I read up on them and was shocked to find that, even though they are nothing more than an evacuated tube with a bit of fluid inside, they can conduct heat considerably more efficiently than an equivalent cross-section of solid copper.

Anyway, Bob got bored this weekend and built a giant heatpipe just to see how well it would work. The construction is extremely simple; it's just a 10' length of ½" copper tube with a cap soldered on to one end and a ball valve soldered onto the other. Some foam insulation was placed around the piple to make it more comfortable to hold when the pipe gets extremely hot or cold, but doesn't have much effect on the functionality.

Bob holding snow onto the upper end of the heat pipe. Ball valve in the foreground.

High-tech heat pipes have a wicking material on the inner surface of the tube to expedite the transport of the liquid-phase coolant back to the hot end of the pipe. A budget heat pipe like Bob's doesn't require a wicking layer, however; it just relies on the bouyancy differential between the liquid and gas phase coolant (which in this case is water) to get the liquid back to the hot end. For this reason, the BobPipe will only work if the hot end is lower than the cold end, though our experimentation demonstrated that an angle of about 2° off horizontal was plenty.

The key is to get the pipe reasonably evacuated, which it turns out can be done without anything fancy. We opened the ball valve and poured in a small quantity of water (about 3 tablespoons worth). Then, the ball valve was closed and the pipe tilted so that all of the water flowed to the non-valve end of the pipe. This end was heated with a blowtorch until the water was boiling. When the water was superheated and the pressure inside the heat pipe was at several atmospheres, the ball valve was cracked opened a bit a some of the steam let off (but not all). The remaining steam, when it re-condenses, will result in an internal pressure of well under 1 atm and increased efficiency of the heat pipe..

After heating the lower end of the pipe for several minutes with a blowtorch, to the point that it would severely burn me if I touched it, Bob held a handfull of snow onto the upper end for about 10 seconds (the snow was melting at an astounding rate) and already I was able to comfortably touch the spot where I had just had the blowtorch. Soon the low end of the pipe was cold to the touch. It was really pretty cool.

Total cost: ~$15

The climbing trip to the bootheel was a total wash. When I left Las Cruces that morning, it was raining and about 33°F. The rain only got worse as we drove west. The 23 mile dirt road approach to the trailhead was really not looking appealing. James and I met Ken at the point where we leave the pavement; Ken had flown in to Tucson in order to do this hike. His rental SUV was not up to the rapidly worsening task presented by the mudbog roads. It was as cold as it could possibly be and still rain, and the rain was getting harder. The forecast was the the weather to worsen throughout the day. We bailed. So I put about 1000 miles on the truck with basically nothing to show for it, but at least I didn't fly all the way from Seattle with nothing to do... I took a good picture of an incredibly snowy section of I-25 near Las Cruces.

Desert highway, beware of tumbleweed.

In other news, Final Fantasy XII has consumed my life. I know that, by putting it on my Amazon wish list, I asked for this, but... damn. I might as well have asked for and received a 20kg brick of crack cocaine because it would have been about as addictive. I suppose, when you look at it this way, my sister made the financially sound decision; FFXII is considerably cheaper than a 20kg brick of crack, and you can get free shipping. Plus, it improves one's hand-eye coordination, or so I hear. Thanks, Jen.

So after 12 days in Mexico, freezing toes, and glacier travel, I thought it would be nice to do some southern-NM desert peaks because they are warm and dry, even in January.

Yeah. I'm scheduled to climb three peaks in the bootheel of NM and extreme southeast AZ this weekend starting tomorrow. Above is the current radar image for the region. The forecast for Deming, one of the driest cities in the world, calls for snow every day for the next week. Great.

It's still going strong, apparently.

If you do a Google search for "Mouser Week", it seems that it has become somewhat of an institution in the UE world. I followed some of those links and found a lot of forum posts for people asking why it is called "Mouser Week," so I figured I'd post a definitive answer here.

I started a mailing list called Under-MN for some of the Twin Cities urban explorers back in 1998, while I was living in St. Paul for the summer. The list fostered a really great community of 15-20 people who met regularly to explore the incredible underground sights of the area. At the end of the summer, however, I moved to Massachusetts to begin graduate school. Regular exploration continued by members of the Under-MN community, I was just no longer a direct part of it. I got to read about the exploits of the group via the mailing list, but I really missed the drains and the people. Over time, the group discovered a lot of new drains, mill tailraces, etc. that sounded really great but I had never gotten the chance to see.

In August of 2000, I arranged to spend a week at my parents house in St. Paul before returning to Boston to start the school year. I made plans in advance, via Under-MN, to go exploring almost every night while I was in town. During the planning of this event, people began referring to it as "the week Mouser will be back in town." To the best of my knowledge it was not called "Mouser Week I" until much later. The event was prolific.

I returned to the Twin Cities that December as part of my winter break, and again called for a UE fiesta via the mailing list. This time, someone else (Ben?) did the bulk of the planning and they referred to it in shorthand as "Mouser Week II." Word of the success of the first event had gotten out, and this time explorers from surrounding states made the trip to join in the fun. We also got together with Minneapolis UE mainstays Action Squad. The event was much larger than the previous one, with several epic trips that I will never forget. Someday perhaps I'll unearth some of the photos and write up some of these trips. It was a week unlike anything in my experience before or since.

Anyway, since Mouser Week II, I haven't been able to schedule an appearance in MSP for sufficient time to plan or attend another urban exploration gathering, but the tradition has continued. It now happens once a year, organized by whoever steps up, always bookended by food at the Riverside Perkins (This location was choosen during Mouser Week I because it was a good compromise between the people who lived in St. Paul and the people on the far side of Minneapolis). I'm not sure if this part of the tradition holds, but the first two Mouser Weeks always included a trip to Perkins immediately after extricating ourselves from particularly wet drains. We got some pretty weird looks. Those were the days.

I'm alive and well, and back in the states. Our flight got bumped from 8pm to 10:30pm, so we didn't arrive at Weeds' place until 2:30am. I spent the night here in Las Cruces. I'll be driving as far as Albuquerque today, then getting an early start Tuesday; those of you at work can expect to see me there Tuesday morning, albeit a bit later than usual.

A few days ago I was in Tlachichuca, a tiny village in the middle of nowhere, Mexico. It happens to be the launching point for climbing Orizaba, which is the only reason tourists ever go there. But it did have a very clean, modern internet cafe centrally located, with 15 new machines running Vista. I am now in downtown Mexico City, the largest city in the world, and this internet access point has two (2) computers, running Windows98, and 14" CRTs. It takes SO long for the browzer to refresh that I can hardly stand it.

Anyway, today we climbed Aztec pyramids at Teotihuacan (sp?). Pictures imminent.

So my last climb ended in what could have been mild AMS, but was more likely just due to exhaustion and a poor food and water intake routine while climbing. On Orizaba, I made sure to remedy this by getting lots of rest, scheduling my food intake during the climb, etc. And at about 16,500´, at the start of the summit glacier, I was feeling really good. Except for my toes, which felt like they might have fallen off. It turns out that my La Sportiva Makalus are just not up to the task of this mountain. We were making really good time up to the glacier, but the last 2,000´ were expected to take us an additional 4 hours of ice travel, and my toes probably wouldn´t have survived, so again, I turned around. Boo.

I had thought about buying some double plastic boots for this trip, but I would have had to get new crampons to fit them as well. This would have meant well over $500 in gear which I wasn´t sure I would need. Well, in retrospect, I needed it. I´m not super bummed out by this outcome; I learned a lot about managing my health during a climb and some good glacier travel experience. Summiting would have been nice, but I still had a good time. The other three all summited, so my lack of adequate boots didn´t ruin anyone else´s day.

We did get up WAY too early for this hike; we weren´t sure how long it would take us, so we erred on the side of caution and got up at.... 11:30pm yesterday, on trail at midnight. They made the summit at 7am, and were rewarded with excellent views. I´ll post some of their pictures when I get ahold of them. My entire hike was in the dark; I made it back to the hut at 6am. Great weather and a full moon, but not enough light for any photos of my part of the hike.

That´s it for our mountain climbing on this trip. We´re not sure what we´ll be doing for the next two days, but it might include pyramids or something.

We have arrived in Tlachichuca and our awesome climber´s lodge which used to be a soap factory. It´s very rustic and filled with the owner´s father´s old cimbing gear (ancient crampons, ice axes, a tent he sewed himself, etc). For the second time in a row, there is an internet cafe immediately adjacent to where we're sleeping.

The mountain looms above us. The conditions have improved dramatically since the climbers we met at Izta were here, and we are going to go forward with our plans for an ascent attempt. Tomorrow morning we drive up to the hut at 14,000' and go to bed early. The following morning at about 1:00am, we begin our approximately 12 hour trek to 18,400'. Wish us luck!

I made it to the top of the Ayoloco glacier on Izta, but had to turn back shortly afterwards because I was suffering from severe exhaustion and didn´t feel safe going farther. The hike in to the hut involved carrying 9 liters of water (for a gross pack weight of about 70 pounds) up about 3,000´ to a final altitude of 15,300´. This was by far the most exhausting climb of my life, and it left me somewhat ill. I wasn´t able to eat dinner because of severe nausea. In the morning, I felt fine aside from some pretty spectacular hunger. But the big climb plus the lack of a meal afterwards left me too weak to reach the summit the following day. It was fun, anyway. The glacier climb was my first and went well, the weather was perfect, and aside from feeling sick right at the top, I did pretty well.

At the trailhead, we ran into a couple guys who had just come from Orizaba, our next destination. They said that no one was able to summit when they were there because of extreme winds and bullet ice on the glacier. So that seems unlikely. Oh well.

Have to go eat more tacos now. Happy new year everyone.