Bendering Time!

The Abyss

noreply@blogger.com (Bender Bending Rodriguez) — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 04:06:00 +0000

There are a myriad of movies that were absolutely ruined by the short-sighted pocketbooks of Hollywood studios. The Abyss is one of them. An absolutely brilliant film when you see its true form, it was completely watered down by know-nothings. Along with the likes of Blade Runner and Brazil, it lost its heart because some near-sighted idiot decided America was to naive to understand the depth and complexity of human emotion that flows from its depths. Do yourself a favor and watch the real cuts of these movies. I throw out an achievement award to The Abyss in particular, but to movies in general who have been ruined by compromise.

Updates, now with pics!

noreply@blogger.com (Bender Bending Rodriguez) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 04:30:00 +0000

1. Go Texas Tech!

2. If you have a 60 year old oscilloscope, I would recommend not trying to fix it. The electrical burn on my thumb where the electricity entered me and the electrical burn on my ring finger where it left can attest to that. Luckily the circuit was completed over a short distance. I don't want to think about if my ring finger hadn't been grounded and my other hand had been. It gave me a pretty bad shock, and I don't know what would have happened if it had gone through my heart!

3. New tattoo (well, a couple of months old, but new to the internet). Thats my dissertation in there.

4. Marley ain't afraid of no noose (Yes, that is the aforementioned killer oscilloscope in the background).

5. The good friar, Slash, Robin of Locksley, and the pirate.

6. AAAAAARRRRRRRRGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! And, furthermore: GAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

"This is your victory"

noreply@blogger.com (Bender Bending Rodriguez) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 03:59:00 +0000

thank you

noreply@blogger.com (Bender Bending Rodriguez) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 05:14:00 +0000

thank you so much.

Through the years

noreply@blogger.com (Bender Bending Rodriguez) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 03:04:00 +0000

As most of you know, I am immortal. I thought you might like to see my senior pictures throughout the years.

1954

1958

1968

1976

1978

1980

1982

1984

1986

1988

1990

1992

1994

1998

2000

Buy Goo!

noreply@blogger.com (Bender Bending Rodriguez) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 02:53:00 +0000

The real reason I am voting for Obama

noreply@blogger.com (Bender Bending Rodriguez) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:00:00 +0000

I'm just a neighborhood supporter. When Obama was at Harvard he lived 1200 feet from where I live now. I'm not exaggerating.

View Larger Map

Palin: Undeniable Master of Foreign Relations

noreply@blogger.com (Bender Bending Rodriguez) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 03:19:00 +0000

Tell me again one reason why this woman should be the second most powerful person in the world. Explain that to me. I am obviously an idiot because I am at unable to see the brilliance and readiness to lead of this magnificent woman.

Things that suck

noreply@blogger.com (Bender Bending Rodriguez) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 07:18:00 +0000

Getting woken up at 3 in the morning to the most god-awfully loud fire alarm ever and having to go stand outside in the 47 degree night air with the rest of the groggy-eyed tenants for 15 minutes.

Note to self: Purchase new unsoiled bedsheets.

rant - summary: if you vote mccain/palin then you are a goddamn moron

noreply@blogger.com (Bender Bending Rodriguez) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 01:04:00 +0000

How are McCain/Palin still in this race? I cannot fathom how the polls put them so close. Thats not true. I think I do know why, but it kills me to face it. Its because this country is full of goddamn idiots who can't see past their goddamn bibles and rifles. This is one of the most re-goddamn-diculous things I have ever seen. Why in the fuck would you vote Republican unless you were a goddamn billionaire? If you think that for one second the Republicans give a shit about you and your situation, than you are simple. You are an unequivocal moron. And if you support Palin because she is a woman, then you are sexist. Thats right, I said it. If you support or reject a candidate based on sex, than you are sexist. And if you support her because you are pro-life and she is pro-life then you have no right to be involved in voting or this nation's future. When we have 18-year-old kids dying in a war, and their tombstones are stained with blood and oil, its unbelievable that people are concerned with what a woman does with her own body, or what I put into my body, or that two boys are kissing. America, you are idiots. You have been duped by people who realize you are idiots. They waved the bible in your face, and you gave them a free ticket to rape you. Oh, and Sarah Palin is going to make you pay for your rape exam at the hospital. Go look it up, its true. Jesus fucking christ, didn't you idiots learn your lesson when eight years ago when you hired the good-ol' boy who you want to have a beer with to run our country? Haven't you realized that its ok to have someone smarter than you running things, in fact, its a goddamn good idea to have someone intelligent in charge? I guess not. I guess they'll just keep waving the fucking bible at you and you will step in line. Fuck.

I'll give you assholes one thing though. You have made me realize how much I love this goddamn country. Even though most of its inhabitants believe that guardian angels look over them, or jesus rode a dinosaur, or that a little clump of cells has a soul and is worth more than a man dying of parkinsons, I still have faith that this country can do some good. I guess we'll see in 6 weeks if you can destroy that last bit of faith.

Whats your Sarah Palin baby name?

noreply@blogger.com (Bender Bending Rodriguez) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 04:49:00 +0000

Bob, if you were born to Sarah Palin, your name would be:
Strike Chipper Palin

The new baby

noreply@blogger.com (Bender Bending Rodriguez) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 17:46:00 +0000

Here she is...

noreply@blogger.com (Bender Bending Rodriguez) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 02:04:00 +0000

Like it or not, today is an important day in world history. I was reminded of those feelings that we all felt seven years ago today when I watched this video. I am literally in tears when I watch this. This may in fact be the last man on television that has a soul.

I don't care how many times he claims that his show is fake, I know I am not alone in feeling that The Daily Show may be the last shining beacon of honesty out there.

The Non-Prius

noreply@blogger.com (Bender Bending Rodriguez) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 01:11:00 +0000

So, I ordered a Prius three months ago, and was told the wait would be 12 weeks. So 12 weeks roll around and guess what? Thats right no Prius, not even a phone call to give me the status. After I had to call them I find out that I would be waiting another 6 months. Well, the Ol' Malibu ain't going to make it through another winter, so I decided it was time to go to Plan B. Tonight, I drove Plan B home. The comments are open now for guesses. I'll give you a hint: Think of the exact opposite of a Prius.

She & Him

noreply@blogger.com (Bender Bending Rodriguez) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 02:57:00 +0000

Honestly, there have been very few actor to musician crossovers that have impressed me, but Zooey Deschanel has got it going on.

Terminator 4: Look Who's Killing Now

noreply@blogger.com (Bender Bending Rodriguez) — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 22:51:00 +0000

It's feeding time, and he wants flesh.

How to skina cat, part 1.5

noreply@blogger.com (Bender Bending Rodriguez) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 23:38:00 +0000

I am clearly an idiot. My smoothing "signal reduction" attempt last night just added more noise. I looked at the first graph today, and realized I just need to get rid of the "spikes." After doing that, I get:

Now, there we go. Eight unique states which occur only once per cycle. That means I should be able to uniquely map the head positions to these values.

How to skin a cat, part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Bender Bending Rodriguez) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 02:40:00 +0000

Controlling this robot kitty has been more difficult than the bear. You can't expect much from a $30 toy. Given the price, its quite ingenious. It's just not modder-friendly.

I've been focusing on the head. There is a single motor. The build these toys using DC motors, as they are cheaper than servos. The eyes, mouth, ears, and up-and-down head movement are all controlled by this motor, with a pretty complex gearing. The feedback to the microprocessor comes from a "wiper." It has three contacts that become closed as the motor spins to various angles. Here is where the difficulty lies. Interpreting this signal to deduce the position of the head.

I started by just getting the raw voltages from each of the three sensors. The arduino outputs these as numbers between 0-1023. After a few experiments, I found that when the wiper contacts are engaged, the values are around 1023 +-. Anything less than 1000 i think is basically "off." So my next step was to translate each of these to a binary value. 1 if >1000, 0 otherwise. So now I have three binary numbers. I tried to keep track of these as I watched the head go through its cycles, but it was pretty futile.

My next insight came in translating these 3 binary values to a single decimal number so that I could graph them. I assigned a 1, 2, and 4 to each binary digit and added them up. The original graph looked like this:

A lot of noise, but definitely a pattern. Making progress...

The next step was to try to clean up this signal. I played around with the binary translation scheme a bit, but then I decided to smooth the values by averaging across the previous numbers. This took care of the spikes and irregularities. Eventually, I ended up with a smoother signal:

Now its a lot easire to compare the actual head states to the signal. My main roadblock now is to come up with some efficient algorithms to process these signals. I've been able to clean them up quite a bit, but there is still some work to make the final translation to discrete states. The problem is that I have a total of 14K of program space on the Arduino, and half of that is taken by the motor controller and the wiimote that will probably be attached. That means I'll have to come up with some cheap algorithms to figure this out.

How to skin a cat, part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Bender Bending Rodriguez) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 02:08:00 +0000

Tip: Start at the lower abdomen, and cut toward the neck.

Mythbusters - Season 7

noreply@blogger.com (Bender Bending Rodriguez) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 01:35:00 +0000

"By the way, I should point out, this is not a real space suit. It's just my wear around town space suit."

olio

noreply@blogger.com (Bender Bending Rodriguez) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 03:55:00 +0000

1. I really love the local music scene. The Precinct is currently my favorite place to go to listen to live music. On Sunday nights the Sea Monsters play. They are composed of a number of local musicians, and feature a weekly guest artist. Regulars include Christian McNeil and Jesse Dee, who are just, frankly, the balls. The best guest artist I've seen so far is Gretel, with guitarist/singer Reva Williams. They're supposed to playing this Thursday; hopefully I'll be able to go see them.

2. I'm conducting a monetary/social experiment at work. There is a small table outside my office. A few weeks ago, I noticed a stack of four or so pennies sitting there. I decided to add one penny to the stack everyday; I have plenty of them, because as we all know, pennies are practically worthless these days. My question is, what is the tipping point where a stack of pennies becomes enough money to take? A stack of 15 pennies isn't worth the bother of taking, but what about $20 worth of pennies. What is that point at which a pile of pennies becomes worth taking? I'll let you know.

3. Dreams. To quote The Cranberries, "It's never quite as it seems." A good percentage of my dreams are about the same thing. Never the same dream, but always a common theme. For whatever reason, I have to go back to high school. PISD (Plano Independent blah blah) has changed their graduation requirements, and for whatever reason they are retroactively enforcing them. Forget that I have a bachelors, masters, and Ph.D. They have deemed my high school diploma null, and until such time as I fulfill their requirements, all subsequent degrees are nullified. Sometimes, I have to go back and take a math class; and not to be snobby, but I always feel in my dreams nonplussed. Here I am with more education than the high-school math teacher, but I am subject to their trigonometry or algebra or whatever lessons and tests. Sometimes, it requires me going back to band. I have to repeat my senior year of band to graduate. In real life, it is possible that I feel a small tinge of guilt for blowing off the last semester of band. At that point, I really didn't care. My trombone had basically broken, but I had no desire to fix it. I wasn't going to continue to play trombone; I knew I was done after graduation. I essentially faked the last semester. At that point, I had discovered that there was a bigger social scene than the band geeks. I started dating Jenn, and really didn't care about band so much anymore. So, to sum up my ramblings, in my dreams I am usually back at PESH, trying to finish one or more classes. The most recent dream, I had to take a history class. I stand up in the middle of the lecture and start ranting about how bullshit this is. I have a job on the otherside of the country that I need to be at, but instead I have to move back to Texas for a year to finish high school. No one seems to sympathize though. Well, thats it. Go to work Freudians; why do I have this unfinished business in high school?

Obama-Biden

noreply@blogger.com (Bender Bending Rodriguez) — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 03:17:00 +0000

Hey,

I just made a donation to help the Obama campaign prepare for the general election and receive a first edition Obama-Biden Car Magnet.

Make a donation now to receive your own:

https://donate.barackobama.com/obamaandbiden

Thanks!

Michael McDonald

noreply@blogger.com (Bender Bending Rodriguez) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 02:46:00 +0000

So, I never really thought to much of this guy. I was vaguely aware of "Yah Mo B There" and none to impressed (but, who am I too judge?). But, amazingly, I just read that he was involved in both Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers. What the hell? Mr. McDonald, I apologize for ever questioning you. Two of the greatest bands of the 70's?!?! Jesus, I'm an idiot for ever doubting.

In related news, Paris Hilton officially rocks balls:

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

Dune

noreply@blogger.com (Bender Bending Rodriguez) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 03:18:00 +0000

The novel (not the movies) is one of the greatest pieces of art in the last 50 years. Its astute and almost prescient observations of the importance of Mid-Eastern oil in politics, global-economics, religion, and culture earns it:

No. 1 on my birthday

noreply@blogger.com (Bender Bending Rodriguez) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 03:26:00 +0000

What song was number one on the day I was born?

Escape (The Pina Colada Song) - Rupert Holmes

I lose. By whatever criteria, I lose horribly.