Categories
Personal

2012 By The Numbers

Carrying over the commute from last year (minus a few more WFH days) and taking an extremely educated guess at foot travel.

Commute:
  (6.85 mi [drive] + 47.4 mi [train] + 1.29 mi [subway]) x 2 =  111.08 mi daily
                                                                x  245 days
                                                               --------------
                                                                27,214 mi
Flying:
  2,676 mi + 2,437 = 5,112 mi
  2,948 mi + 2,518 = 5,466 mi
  3,656 mi x 2 = 7,312 mi
                                                             =  17,890 mi

Cruise:
  850 mi (estimate)
                                                             =  850 mi

Walk (via pedometer minus treadmill estimated)
  ~1,200 mi - 294 mi =                                        =  906 mi


Etc (misc, pretty random guess here):                        = ~3,500 mi

                                                               --------------
Total:                                                          50,360 mi

Velocity for 2012: 50,360 / 8,760 = 5.75 mph

Laps around Earth: 50,360 mi / 24,901.55 mi (earth circumference at equator) = 2.022 laps

That might be the first time I’ve ever broken 2 laps around the earth. It’s alarming to think that with relatively little travel I still did 2 laps around the earth. I’m always on the go.

Categories
Personal

2011 By The Numbers

Since I do this every year, I’ll just get this out of the way now. Carrying over the commute from last year and taking an extremely educated guess at foot travel. I’m up slightly from 2010.

Commute:
  (6.85 mi [drive] + 47.4 mi [train] + 1.29 mi [subway]) x 2 =  111.08 mi daily
                                                                x  255 days
                                                               --------------
                                                                28,325 mi
Flying:
  3,656 mi x 2 = 7,312 mi
  1,617 mi x 2 = 3,234 mi
                                                             =  10,546 mi

Cruise:
  1,318 mi
                                                             =  1,318 mi

Walk (via pedometer minus treadmill estimated)
  1,160 mi - 250 mi =                                        =    910 mi


Etc (misc, pretty random guess here):                        = ~1,300 mi

                                                               --------------
Total:                                                          42,399 mi

Velocity for 2011: 42,399 / 8,760 = 4.84 mph

Laps around Earth: 42,399 mi / 24,901.55 mi (earth circumference at equator) = 1.7 laps

My average speed is now almost 5X what the NASA’s crawler-transporter’s did moving the Shuttles.

Categories
Personal

2010 By The Numbers

And 2010’s numbers…

Commute:
  (6.85 mi [drive] + 47.4 mi [train] + 1.29 mi [subway]) x 2 =  111.08 mi daily
                                                                x  255 days
                                                               -----------------
                                                                28,325.4 mi
Flying:
  3,656 mi x 2 = 7,312 mi
  1,540 mi x 2 = 3,080 mi
                                                              = 10,392.0 mi

Walk (via pedometer minus treadmill (246 mi))
  1,145 mi - 246 mi =                                         = 899 mi                    
  
Etc (misc, pretty random guess here):                          ~1,300.0 mi

                                                               ----------------
Total:                                                          40,916.4 mi

Velocity for 2010: 40,916.4 / 8,760 = 4.67 mph

Laps around Earth: 40,916.4 mi / 24,901.55 mi (earth circumference at equator) = 1.64 laps

That includes the 2,000,572 steps recorded via a pedometer. I realized tonight I was about 1,000 short of the 2 million mark so I hopped on the treadmill for a quick 1,000 step walk to make it at around 10:00 PM.

My velocity last year was 4.43 mph, so a slight jump based on a few more steps and slightly more flying.

Categories
Programming

Budget Calculator Dice

When I was in High School somehow dice became popular for the 2000th time since the dawn of humanity. For some strange reason I felt the desire to build a little dice game in my TI 83 calculator in TI-BASIC. I had long forgotten about this, and recently stumbled upon it. I transcribed it to my computer recently since I don’t have one of those cables and decided to just throw it out there on the web.

Looking back on it, I could have written this a lot better 😉 . Regardless it’s a fun trip down memory lane. I believe I wrote most of this little gem while lifeguarding on a Sunday morning. Nobody drowned in the production of this code, I swear.

My favorite part may be the about text “DEPRIVING A VILLAGE SOMEWHERE OF AN IDIOT”. Someone at some point somewhere said that about me, and it stuck for years.

Categories
Around The Web

Taking Advantage Of Bias In Rock Paper Scissors

Here’s an infographic on how to improve you’re odds in Rock Paper Scissors. A year ago I linked to some research on bias in a coin toss (it’s not 50-50 it’s 51-49). At this rate I’ll eventually have an advantage in every game of chance.

Essentially this time around it’s more about psychology than bias in the implementation.

What’s the best way to prevent being gamed? Play rock, paper, scissor, lizard, spock, which has more possibilities and is just overall more enjoyable.

Very interesting stuff.

Categories
Personal

2009 By The Numbers

Now to crunch the numbers for 2009…

Commute:
  (6.85 mi [drive] + 47.4 mi [train] + 1.29 mi [subway]) x 2 = 111.08 mi daily
                                                               x  255 days
                                                               -----------------
                                                               28,325.4 mi
Flying:                                                       
  3,656 mi x 2 = 7,312 mi
    779 mi x 2 = 1,558 mi
                                                              = 8,870.0 mi

Walk:                                                           1,065.0 mi

Etc (misc, pretty random guess here):                          ~1,000.0 mi

                                                              ----------------
Total:                                                        39,260.4 mi

Velocity for 2009: 39,260.4 / 8,760 = 4.43 mph

Laps around Earth: 39,260 mi / 24,901.55 mi (earth circumference at equator) = 1.58 laps

Not bad, more than a lap around the earth! At an average distance of 238,857 miles it would still take 6.08 years to make it to the moon.

Categories
Security Tech (General)

Coin Tosses Not Totally Random

It’s generally assumed that a coin toss is “fair” because it’s considered “random” as long as you don’t use a double headed coin. In fact professional sports like football use it. While previously known or at least suspected, it’s not so random. Research shows it has a 1% bias. Making the odds 51-49, hopefully in my favor. They were even able to build a machine to predictably flip a coin.

James Devlin at Coding The Wheel has a great writeup simplified for those who don’t have a head for all the math (pun intended):

  1. If the coin is tossed and caught, it has about a 51% chance of landing on the same face it was launched. (If it starts out as heads, there’s a 51% chance it will end as heads).
  2. If the coin is spun, rather than tossed, it can have a much-larger-than-50% chance of ending with the heavier side down. Spun coins can exhibit “huge bias” (some spun coins will fall tails-up 80% of the time).
  3. If the coin is tossed and allowed to clatter to the floor, this probably adds randomness.
  4. If the coin is tossed and allowed to clatter to the floor where it spins, as will sometimes happen, the above spinning bias probably comes into play.
  5. A coin will land on its edge around 1 in 6000 throws, creating a flipistic singularity.
  6. The same initial coin-flipping conditions produce the same coin flip result. That is, there’s a certain amount of determinism to the coin flip.
  7. A more robust coin toss (more revolutions) decreases the bias.

There’s also some potential strategy, a worthwhile read.

There paper is also available as as well if your so inclined, though you’d need to be a real math/stats nerd to want to read that.