Brian Yee

An Oldie But a Goodie

brianyee0 — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:26:50 +0000

This is back from 2000. I still think about this every now and then and thought I’d post it (or re-post it):

Postal Experiments from the Annals of Improbable Research. Experiments include trying to send all sorts of objects (including a $20 bill in a clear envelope, to a ski, to a deer tibia) through the US Postal Service to see what gets delivered and what doesn’t.

Wood Burning Pizza Oven from a Weber

brianyee0 — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:20:47 +0000

This is an interesting project. Guy with a custom wood-burning weber can get up to 1000 degrees. Perfect for making pizza. This inspires me to work on getting better pizza out of my grill. Reminds me of weber_cam’s firedome.

Home (PizzaHacker).

Perfect Spot for Kids to Help Cook

brianyee0 — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 14:56:50 +0000

This is a great idea from Parent Hacks. When kids are helping with mixing and measuring, put the bowl over the open dishwasher door. When you’re done — close it and the dishwasher wash cycle will clean up the mess. Done. Easy.

Link.

Time Traveler’s Crib Sheet

brianyee0 — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 22:56:49 +0000

Just in case you’re sent back in time 1,000 years, here’s all the basics you need to know. Like heavier-than-air flight and the basics of fighting infections. Just hang this up in your time machine.

Time Traveler’s Crib Sheet. (from BoingBoing)

(P.S. Apparently, I’m just a transparent proxy for BoingBoing. Go read that site, they have more content )

2010: Living In the Future | the book

brianyee0 — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:37:23 +0000

Here’s 1972’s vision of what 2010 would be like. Hint: Everyone wears jumpsuits.

2010: Living In the Future | the book. (from BoingBoing)

Resolutions

brianyee0 — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:19:07 +0000

I’ve always thought it was a little lame to do this, but that never stopped me before. So…here’s the small list I wrote down last week:

1. INBOX ZERO EVERY DAY

At least at work, get things organized out of the inbox and into a task list of some sort. It is pleasing to look down to a clean inbox, helps to feel that things are in order.

2. PLAY LESS WOW

As fun as it is, it’s really just a time sink — time I could be using for something more useful.

3. CREATE SOMETHING REGULARLY

Spend some time doing something creative, doesn’t matter what.

4. DON’T WAIT, ACT NOW

Shannon knows I’m a procrastinator. So I’ll try to work on that a bit.

5. HAVE NO RESOLUTIONS NEXT YEAR

Would be nice to not be able to come up with a list like this.

Nostalgia

brianyee0 — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 22:36:14 +0000

Sometimes you look at old pictures and think “Awwww”. I just look at this one and think how beat city my lawn was in 2006. Yikes. Eila looks cute, though.

Flying Free

brianyee0 — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:35:46 +0000

Yesterday’s Astronomy Picture of the Day was pretty neat. It was an astronaut grabbing a rather large satellite in an untethered spacewalk.

The picture doesn’t capture really what’s happening here. The satellite is rotating while being captured. The video shows this better. Shannon couldn’t believe what she was seeing. ”Is he crazy!” seems like what Not surprisingly, NASA stopped the practice of untether spacewalks after the Challenger accident.

This reminded me of an interesting anecdote from Mike Mullane’s Riding Rockets on risks in spaceflight. The shuttle engineers had found a very rare but potential flaw with the shuttle that might prevent the solid rocket boosters from separating (which would be fatal to the crew). They had asked the astronauts if they would still launch knowing the risk. That astronaut’s response:

They might as well have asked a three-year-old if he wanted to eat his candy now or wait until tomorrow. If the engineers said, “We forgot to install the center engine. Do you still want to launch?” Hank (astronaut Hank Hartsfield) probably would have said, “No problem. We’ll just burn the two we have.” Nothing was going to get in our way.

The business of being an astronaut is extremely risky. I wonder if I could fly in the face of those risks.

Wants For Sale

brianyee0 — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 03:24:04 +0000

This couple from New York paints pictures of the things they want, and sell the paintings for the price of the real item. When the painting sells, they buy that item. Really neat concept.

Wants for Sale (from Kottke)

“Sometimes doing nothing is the best option”

brianyee0 — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 21:40:07 +0000

Great post by NASA’s Wayne Hale on his blog regarding conjuctions, or close encounters between the Space Shuttle and space junk. When a conjunction is going to occur during the crew sleep period and there is sufficient reason to believe there will not be a collision, mission controllers will set a timer to expire at the Time of Closest Approach and everyone would hope they did their math correctly. This happened three times during Wayne’s tenure in Mission Control. His quote:

So as we waited for the clock to count to zero, there was plenty of time to contemplate metaphysical topics: life, death, courage, risk, achievement, probability, dishonor. They are all fellow travelers, intimately bound together. No great accomplishment comes without difficulty or risk. Miscalculation or failure results in death and dishonor. But it is what it is; you do the best you can, make the best rational choice you can given what you know, and then wait for the result.

Going to Las Vegas holds no enticement for me.

I follow Wayne Hale on twitter (@waynehale) and I am always impressed with his insights and thoughts on the space program.