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Monthly Archives: May 2008

Bike commuting

Yesterday the News-Sentinel ran a bike commuting story. Dean Koehlinger says that Fort Wayne needs bike lanes, not just trails. This is a very good idea. The Rivergreenway bike paths follow the three rivers. This is not an efficient way to get around. There need to be a few sections of trails and bike paths [...]

Bike to work week

May 12–16 is Bike to Work Week, part of the League of American Bicyclists’ Bike Month. I have been peddling to work frequently since starting grad school. I have only driven on a few workdays since September. Yesterday I rode my bike to work. After work I rode an extra 72 km. For about a [...]

FORTRAN

In college, before video games, we would amuse ourselves by posing programming exercises. One of the favorites was to write the shortest self-reproducing program. Since this is an exercise divorced from reality, the usual vehicle was FORTRAN. Actually, FORTRAN was the language of choice for the same reason that three-legged races are popular. –Ken Thompson, [...]

Electric airplanes

This is really cool. I thought of doing this myself, but it is too expensive for now. Randall Fishman built an electric ultralight. He is now selling them as the ElectraFlyer. Depending on the battery pack and propeller installed, it can fly for up to two hours. Instead of the short noisy propellers on most [...]