Sunday, November 26, 2017

TWID Nov 26, 2017

This is a post detailing some stuff I did, learned, posted and tweeted this week, I call this TWID (This week in Denis). I am doing this mostly for myself... a kind of an online journal so that I can look back on this later on. Will use the label TWID for these


Went for a run in 20 degree weather this week and my phone shut off half way in. I thought the battery was empty. But later when I was back home the phone turned on and there was still 37% of charge left. I guess it was too cold for the precious phone and it decided to shut itself off. Very annoying when you use the phone to track you steps as well as listen to podcast while running. From now on, I will put it in my fleece not in the outside pocket of the jacket. I am still not sure what I hate most,  running when it's really cold or running when it's really warm.

I am still reading Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson, this will take me another week or two to finish

I am also reading Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery by Scott Kelly, this one I should finish in a couple of days


I noticed that Duolingo added Chinese to their app this week. I will have to give that a shot to see how it compares to a book and CDs

Went to my sister in law for Thanksgiving, hardly any talk about politics this year. What was discussed however was bitcoin... interesting..I guess bitcoin has hit mainstream now.

Worked only 2.5 days this week.. have a bunch of tasks waiting for me to do next week, this is also the last week of the current sprint

Took the kids to the mall on black Friday.. wasn't as busy as I expected.

Read the following: People Who Speed-Listen to Podcasts
For myself, it depends on the podcast.. something like twit, Joe Rogan, motley fool, stuff you should know, Jocko podcast I listen to at 2x speed and I don't lose anything at that speed(at least I believe I don't). Hardcore history I listen to at 1.5x speed , I listened at 1.0x before but I noticed that 1.5 is fine... everything else is at 1.5 as well. It is interesting to hear Joe Rogan sometimes at 1.0 speed...I then check if something is wrong because Joe sounds so weird and slow :-)

See also the comments on Hackernews: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15741428


This Week I Learned

Medicane
Heard this one on CNBC, decided to look it up because I thought it was some made up stuff or someone misspelled medicare.

Mediterranean tropical-like cyclones, sometimes referred to as Mediterranean hurricanes or Medicanes, are rare meteorological phenomena observed in the Mediterranean Sea. Due to the dry nature of the Mediterranean region, formation of tropical cyclones is infrequent, with only 100 recorded tropical-like storms between 1947 and 2011
More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_tropical-like_cyclone

Sfumato
The technique is a fine shading meant to produce a soft transition between colours and tones, in order to achieve a more believable image. It is most often used by making subtle gradations that do not include lines or borders, from areas of light to areas of dark. The technique was used not only to give an elusive and illusionistic rendering of the human face but also to create rich atmospheric effects. Leonardo da Vinci described the technique as blending colours, without the use of lines or borders "in the manner of smoke".
More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sfumato


Chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro originated during the Renaissance as drawing on colored paper, where the artist worked from the paper's base tone toward light using white gouache, and toward dark using ink, bodycolor or watercolor. These in turn drew on traditions in illuminated manuscripts going back to late Roman Imperial manuscripts on purple-dyed vellum. Such works used to be called "chiaroscuro drawings", but are more often described in modern museum terminology by such formulae as "pen on prepared paper, heightened with white bodycolor". Chiaroscuro woodcuts began as imitations of this technique. When discussing Italian art, the term sometimes is used to mean painted images in monochrome or two colors, more generally known in English by the French equivalent, grisaille. The term broadened in meaning early on to cover all strong contrasts in illumination between light and dark areas in art, which is now the primary meaning.

More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiaroscuro


Rhombicuboctahedron
In geometry, the rhombicuboctahedron, or small rhombicuboctahedron, is an Archimedean solid with eight triangular and eighteen square faces. There are 24 identical vertices, with one triangle and three squares meeting at each. (Note that six of the squares only share vertices with the triangles while the other twelve share an edge.) The polyhedron has octahedral symmetry, like the cube and octahedron. Its dual is called the deltoidal icositetrahedron or trapezoidal icositetrahedron, although its faces are not really true trapezoids.

I am not sure if I forgot what a Rhombicuboctahedron is or if I never knew.
Here is a Rhombicuboctahedron as drawn by Leonardo da Vinci, this is the one that made me look this up


Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=355440

Below is also a rotating model of a Rhombicuboctahedron

Source wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rhombicuboctahedron.gif

More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhombicuboctahedron and here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyhedron



Squaring the circle
One of the tasks Leonardo da Vinci had set for himself was to learn how to square a circle

Squaring the circle is a problem proposed by ancient geometers. It is the challenge of constructing a square with the same area as a given circle by using only a finite number of steps with compass and straightedge. It may be taken to ask whether specified axioms of Euclidean geometry concerning the existence of lines and circles entail the existence of such a square
More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squaring_the_circle



This Week I tweeted


This man is about to launch himself in his homemade rocket to prove the Earth is flat

Hahaha, I can't believe that this is happening in the year 2017. One of my buddies left me a good comment
the ironic thing is that, if it fails to launch: conspiracy. if it launches and he dies on impact: conspiracy. if it launches and works and he claims the earth IS round: conspiracy

Why You Should Be Photographing Your City At Blue Hour
Like the golden hour, blue hour occurs twice a day. In the early morning as the sun casts light on the atmosphere, but has not come over the horizon. In the evening it is the short period of time after the sun has set and before pure night sets in. Both have a very distinct and different feel to them. The morning blue hour is a time of calm and quiet. There are very few people and cars around, buildings are often unlit, leaving only the street lights illuminating the city. It is a wonderful time to be a photographer and a wonderful time to shoot the normally bustling streets of a city.


Amazon’s Seattle campus is using a data center next door as a furnace. It’s pretty neat.
This makes sense, why not use all that heat to do something useful with it


Tesla to be its own first electric semi truck customer with cargo route between Fremont and Gigafactory 1
While orders for the Tesla Semi electric truck are piling up, Tesla’s VP of Truck programs, Jerome Guillen, confirmed that Tesla will be its own first customer and that it will use the trucks to carry cargo between its factory in Fremont, California and its battery factory in Nevada.

Eating your own dogfood  :-)


Some cool stuff you might enjoy


Legofy
To make a design from a picture so that you can build it in Lego. The code is on Github: https://github.com/lucaswo/legofy

Here is an example


Top left is the Vermeer painting, top right is the output from the code, the bottom one is the lego built based upon the top right output



Some pics I took


Raritan Delaware canal

Took this after I finished my run this morning
What you see is the Raritan Delaware Canal, this canal runs behind my home and there is a trail that runs alongside the canal.



Bokeh

This was a picture I took in Manhattan, you can clearly see the bokeh in this pic



Inside PATH Station

This is the PATH station around 6:20 AM, this reminds me of a the station in West World



The elves are back

The elves are back, they are watching to make sure that my kids are behaving. I hid the elves this morning and it took the kids 30 minutes to find them. They got all worried... especially after I told them that since they were behaving badly, there was no need for the elves to stick around any longer  :-()



Tuesday, August 22, 2017

San Francisco day 7: Coit Tower, Market Street, Mission Dolores, Painted Ladies

Today is the last full day in San Francisco,  we decided to go to Coit Tower first



Coit Tower, also known as the Lillian Coit Memorial Tower, is a 210-foot tower in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, California. The tower, in the city's Pioneer Park, was built in 1933 using Lillie Hitchcock Coit's bequest to beautify the city of San Francisco; at her death in 1929 Coit left one-third of her estate to the city for civic beautification

We hiked up to Coit Tower,  we then took the elevator up to the top

Here are some pictures from the top of Coit Tower


Panorama of the city San  Francisco Panorama

Marina and Alcatraz Marina and Alcatraz

Bay Bridge Bay Bridge



Here is also some art from inside the Coit Tower near the elevator


The Stockbroker

Coit Tower Art


Workers

Coit Tower Art


Train workers

Coit Tower Art


Street/Market

Coit Tower Art



From Coit Tower to Market Street
We then took a walk from Coit Street down to Market Street, here are some pics

My guess is that this is a topless cabaret

Hungry I Club


Cafe Trieste

Caffe Trieste

I don't know if it's true or not, but the lady who operates the elevator in Coit Tower told me that Francis Ford Coppola wrote the screen play for The Godfather in this cafe. Patti Smith is another frequent visitor back in the day


Cool looking record store
Record Store


The Hobart Building

Hobart Building


The new SalesForce headquarters

SalesForce HQ


Some office building

Office Building


Another office building

Office Building



After Market Street, we decided to go to Mission Dolores


Mission Dolores Basilica front

Mission San Francisco de Asís, or Mission Dolores, is the oldest surviving structure in San Francisco and the sixth religious settlement established as part of the California chain of missions. The Mission was founded on June 29, 1776, by Lieutenant José Joaquin Moraga and Francisco Palóu (a companion of Junípero Serra), both members of the de Anza Expedition, which had been charged with bringing Spanish settlers to Alta (upper) California, and evangelizing the local Natives, the Ohlone.


View from the cemetery

 Mission Dolores Basilica Frome Cemetery


Fra Junipero Serra

Fra Junipero Serra


View inside, note the orange glass

Mission Dolores Basilica inside


Another view

Mission Dolores Basilica inside orange glass


Side view

Mission Dolores Basilica sideview orangle glass



We took a stroll around Mission Dolores Park


Mission Dolores Park


People enjoying a perfect day in the park

Mission Dolores Park People


Nice palmtree

Mission Dolores palmtree

And we finished the day with a visit to the Painted Ladies

Painted Ladies near Alamo Square
Painted Ladies Street View

In American architecture, painted ladies are Victorian and Edwardian houses and buildings painted in three or more colors that embellish or enhance their architectural details. The term was first used for San Francisco Victorian houses by writers Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larsen in their 1978 book Painted Ladies - San Francisco's Resplendent Victorians


Painted Ladies with the financial district visible in the background
Painted Ladies San Francisco

Monday, August 21, 2017

San Francisco day 6: Japanese Tea Garden, Golden Gate Park and Twin Peaks

Today the plans were to go to Golden Gate Park, the Japanese Tea Garden and Twin Peaks

On the way to the Japanese Tea Garden we passed this brown fire truck
Brown San Francisco Fire Truck
It was interesting to see a brown fire truck, normally they are red


Just so that you know if you get to the Japanese Tea Garden before 10 AM on a Monday, you get in for free, otherwise it is $9 per person.  The Japanese Tea Garden is inside the Golden Gate Park. We got to the Japanese Tea Garden around 9:30 AM


Japanese Tea Garden


The temple inside the garden
Japanese Tea Garden Temple

View of the tea houseJapanese Tea Garden Tea House

Some fortune stones that are for sale in the gift shopJapanese Tea Garden Stones

Some porcelain kittiesJapanese Tea Garden Kitties

Some more porcelain kittiesJapanese Tea Garden Kitties 1


Matcha
Japanese Tea Garden Matcha

I ordered this and it was good. Texture was interesting. It was served with a marshmallow textured like dessert which was filled with bean paste.  Matcha is finely ground powder of specially grown and processed green tea leaves. It is special in two aspects of farming and processing: the green tea plants for matcha are shade-grown for about three weeks before harvest and the stems and veins are removed in processing

Japanese Tea Garden Gate
Japanese Tea Garden Gate

Buddha Statue
Japanese Tea Garden Budha

Interesting Bridge
Japanese Tea Garden Bridge

Golden Gate Park

Interesting little bridge
Stow Lake Bridge

Chinese Pavillion
Golden Gate Park Chinese Pavillion

Interesting flowers




Twin Peaks

The Twin Peaks are two prominent hills with an elevation of about 925 feet (282 m)[1] located near the geographic center of San Francisco, California. Only 928 foot (283 m) Mount Davidson is higher within the city.

Picture of one peak taken from the other peak
Twin Peaks Peak

View of downtown San Francisco
San Francisco viewed from Twin Peaks

Panorama from Twin PeaksSan Francisco Panorama viewed from Twin Peaks

Financial District
San Francisco viewed from Twin Peaks Panorama 2

Another view of San Francisco
San Francisco viewed from Twin Peaks  1

Financial District
San Francisco Financial District  viewed from Twin Peaks

Some kind of tower
Engulfed In Fog

The one thing you will notice when you get up on Twin Peaks is that it is really windy, so make sure to hold on to your hats and phones