The Piradian Null Device Company

This site is about things that interest me, and some of them may interest you. If it’s useful to you, good stuff. If it’s not, may you find what you’re looking for.

March 31, 2011—Where You Won't Find Me, a quiet, anonymous protest.

June 3, 2010 — Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

So my coastline is getting trashed by this oil spill. BP and Obama make their press releases with great frequency, but really I don't trust them. I heard an NPR clip where Vernon Asper was interviewed, and I started following his research. He was on the first boat (and second) that went out to study and take samples of unaffected areas. His work is pretty interesting. The oil was expected to rise to the surface and kill everything, but instead, it's kinda assumed a balloon shape underneath the water. (His team is studying the balloon, circling it, sending robots in to touch it, seeing where the waves are taking it.) The Gulf of Mexico ain't a great place to find big waves, so whatever's down there might be there for a long time. Strangely, hurricane season might help move things along (or it might make it much, much worse.)

I used to have a link to his web site, but it died, and so you might find him on Facebook.

May 20, 2010 — Penguins!

Everyone loves penguins, right? They're a very responsible lot. This site has lots of pictures and information about penguins and Antarctica.

January 29, 2010 — Related Rates: Derivatives in a nutshell

This article introduces derivatives by exploring the position function and its derivatives, velocity and acceleration. [Click here to have a look.]

November 4, 2009 — Obama's Magic Wand and How YOU Can Help!

October 11, 2009 — Linksys WAP54G, detailed setup for "AP Client Mode"

I have an ancient Mac that has an Ethernet jack, but no capacity for wireless, but I have made it a wireless client using the Linksys WAP54G in "Access Point Client Mode." This is a strangely behaved unit, but it works very well after you wrestle it into submission. This is a step-by-step article explaining how you can do this (with pictures of every screen and instructions for non-standard subnets).

July 28, 2009 — Arithmetic Timed Test Generator

One of my tutoring students is far too old to be struggling with arithmetic, and somehow he has memorized his flash cards (and conveniently removed the ones he has trouble with) but still cannot pass a timed test. He is also terribly careless about watching signs. I looked online but could not find the kind of test generator I wanted, and so I have written my own. You can it start here in a new window. It is 100% HTML; no special Java, JavaScript, Flash, or cookies are required. Tests are customizable, and you may download the source code if you want to make your own changes. It's free software.

July 18, 2009 — Memtest OS X 4.22 Free Download

Memtest OS X 4.22 is still free software. You may download it here. This is a derivative work of a GPL'd package for Intel architecture, and now the author is charging for it (which he is well within his rights to do.) I am well within my rights to post the binaries and the source code for your free download. Have a nice day. Here are some instructions on how to expand this and run it. Additional details are in his GPL documentation. How magnanimous!