Need an equation editor for my UW Course. Don’t have office installed anymore and so don’t have the free one that comes with office. SourceForge.net: MathCast Equation Editor seems to be the leading open source altenative – also requires a font package from MIT. Seems a little obtuse but hey I am editing equations so I am swimming in obtuse. I guess OpenOffice has an equation editor too but I don’t want to install all that cruft.

Smarth is an online alternative but doesn’t seem to function that well in Firefox. I really wish google docs would support equations but oh well.

Tabs seem to be busted. I’ve uninstalled all my add-ons that would seem to be affecting tabs and they are still busted.

UPDATE: apparently a clean install will fix it per mozilla forums

Bob’s totally awesome HDR pic of Pike Place Market – Pike Place Market in HDR and B&W - Bobsplanet and his tools reco

…at Home Depot – #1 selling paint? Ohio State scarlet & gray : Fanblogs College Football Blog

Techcrunch ? Blog Archive ? Google Co-op Launches – not a new idea but nicely done. My first attempt at a halloween prop search

From Michigan Monday

It also means that we are now in that portion of the season where Michigan and Ohio State are showing each other purposeful looks. Michigan went with five wides and five and six-man fronts. The Buckeyes, meanwhile, are throwing passes with Ted Ginn. Even though the games may not be that interesting leading up to November 18, the gamesmanship sure will be.

This is exactly right. The next three games are all about showing the opponent just what you want them to see. I bet that some parts of the OSU offensive seem strangely ineffective for the next 3 games.

going back to college in your 40s is interesting. On the plus side, I am way more equipped to deal with ambiguity, and I generally don’t stress about the course.

On the minus side, my analytical skills have atrophied away thanks to 20 years of using the autosum button in excel and its ilk. So dealing with a message like the following is pretty daunting – I have to recover college calculus and physics in days.

…We’ll then move on to discuss the radioisotope powered cantilever paper. It’ll be good if you try to derive all equations in the paper and identify critical issues…

Fittings Inc. Everything you could want and more.

The Insider: BioPassword to hackers – crack this account – will be interesting to see how much traffic this generates.

Ohio State vs Minnesota 1869-2005 – 38-7 all time, average score of 30-13. 20 and 2 since 1980, average score of 36-15.

I’m feeling pretty good about pneumatics for this halloween.

My primary use is for a creature crate. This is working really well, money well spent as I don’t think I could have created anything as durable as this. I’ve “retired” my opening/closing coffin from last year as this crate is jus so much more effective.

A secondary use is for a popping ghost. I’m using an efx-tek prop controller with some 24vdc smc solenoids (off ebay) to shoot a blast of 120psi air at irregular intervals. The air is directed upwards along a line from the ground up to a tree limb, and a lightweight ghost (gauzy fabric around a clear plastic cup which catches the air blast) flies up the string 10 feet and then settles down. I’ll position it all behind a tombstone and light the ghost path. The pneuma and mechanics are rock solid, I’m happy with them. The ghost is fine, at night in sudden bursts no one will see how crappy it really looks. I’d love to have the skill/ideas to create a better lightweight ghost – it has to catch the air blast in a stiff inner cup structure, needs a lot of gauzy outstructure to float around, and needs to weigh very little – I am probably at 4 oz now and wouldn’t want it heavier. Oh and be weather resistant as this is for outdoor use.

Notes for 2007: better looking ghost. And build 3 of these for different spots in the yard.

Super Bright LEDs – lots of great LED products up here, I am getting some UV LEDs to replace some lamps in some Malibu lights.

Imaging Society: Halloween Photo Tips – thanks Alex

Haunters Hangout Epitaphs – some decent onces i hadn’t seen in a while.

Protect yourself from identity theft with Credit Monitoring from TripleAlert.com – i got a free subscription to this for a year because one of my financial institutions screwed up and released some data. and i have to say it is pretty useful. i get an email alert anytime there is a change to my credit record at any of the 3 major credit tracking institutions – any new account opened for instance. it is a nice part of your personal identity theft package – if all your defenses fail, you can get an alert when something does happen.

it would be interesting to write up and discuss people’s best practices for identity protection. the other thing i am glad i do is to maintain basically two complete bank accounts. one is the “public” account, from which i write all checks, do automatic bill payment, etc. the other is a private account that is where my financial assets are really kept. they are at different institutions. i routinely move money over to the “public” account to pay bills. with this setup, if someone learns how to forge checks or compromises my atm card or something else, they have access to only a teeny tiny part of my assets and i can shut down that public account if i need to.