72 Pencils

I find wooden pencils to be comforting objects.

I don't actually write with them, or even have many around. Maybe they are best to play with. Professor and mathematician George W. Hart made the above design/sculpture called 72 pencils. It is the kind of structure a math geek would like/make.

I think it has three axes of symmetry, but I am not sure if it really has six. It would help to see one in person; I'd appreciate a comment on this if you know

My food blog has a recipe from George W. Hart.

Snowy Day

Some winter days, all you can do is wistfully wait for Spring. As you may see on my wine posting, I impatiently tasted the 2008 wine.

I am planning big things for next year. Chief among there are cherry wine from fresh fruit in the summer. I am also tempted to try a Petite Syrah in the fall -- although that depends on getting some good juice.

This morning before the snow started I was planning on how to expand the garden now that the strawberries have overtaken half of it. The seedlings continue to grow slowly in the basement.

I also have plans for a new fire pit closer to the house. I like the idea of a fire pit; although in truth, I probably would use it once a year.

Conjoint Analysis!

Conjoint Analysis is a market research and psychological research technique, developed by Paul Green of U of Pennsylvania.  It quantitatively ranks a series of customer choices. At work today, we saw the results of a global market survey, and I could not help wondering how they did the statistics. 

If you are thinking, conjoint analysis must be somekind of multiple regression -- well that was exactly what I was thinking. 

The difficult part is extracting a rank ordering from the questionnaire used. There are different ways to arrive at a numerically rank associated with each possible customer choice. Some involve numerical values and some techniques use binary choices. Either way, one can view the whole characteristic space as a full factorial design with an associated point value. 

If you are working with conjoint analysis, make sure the mapping from the questions to the numerical value is done sensibly. Apparently this is often a source or error and confusion. 

Once you do make a full table of options and scores, it is just a multiple regression to optimize the design and extract the coefficients which represent the customer preferences. Of course when multi-valued characteristics are used, then dummy variables need to be introduced. 

This is laid out nicely in this chapter from Orme's "Getting Started with Conjoint Analysis" (Research Publishers: Madison) 2006. 

Depth of Processing and the Retention of Words in Episodic Memory

I started blogging about movies because I believed that if I thought about the movie more and wrote about it, then I would remember more detail about the movie. Now you know that my movie site was first, and my general interest and cooking sites came later. 

I named the site "Depth of Processing" because of Craik and Tulving's paper, where they showed that people remembered things they thought about. As the above graph illustrates, people remember words longer if they think about the meaning of the word rather than superficially.

I was so happy to actually find a reference to the classic paper from 1975.

It is worth pointing out that the paper deals with short term memory rather than the long-term memory that I'd rather cultivate. 

Craik and Tulving have one equation presumably showing the exponential decay of memory with time, although I can't be sure since I can't figure out the definition of the variables. Social scientists never seem quantitative enough for physical scientists.

Miscanthus - A Giant Grass for Biofuel

I love this picture this tall grass, miscanthus giganteus.

 It is ten times more efficient in creating biomass from sunlight than switchgrass. It is a perennial grass, but it does not produce seed, because it is a sterile hybrid. It is laborious to propagate it by digging the rhizomes. On the other hand, being sterile it cannot displace indigenous flora.

The French company Bical harvests miscanthus and produces a fuel pellet, that can be fed automatically to a furnace. 

(photo from allyrose.wordpress.com)

Oil Seed Productivity

I am giving a talk at the Southern Coatings Society in March, and my talk is on coatings materials in a high petroleum cost world. I wrote the talk when prices were high, but now I am giving it when prices are low. Nonetheless, I am going to forge ahead. One of the issues is whether natural oils will ever be economical enough to replace petroleum based feedstocks. The answer is of course, but some oils are going to be cheaper than others. Some of the most popular oils are subsidized by the cost of co-products. For example, linseed oil is a coproduct with seed meal and flax fiber.

The following is a table of oil seed productivity. This table appeared in this form at journeytoforever.com by Ken Addison, but I suspect it is not original with him. Jouneytoforever.org is an interesting site. Maybe I will do a posting on their algae fuel analysis. <>

Ascending order			Alphabetical order
Crop	litres oil/ha	US gal/acre	Crop	litres oil/ha	US gal/acre
corn (maize)	172	18	avocado	2638	282
cashew nut	176	19	brazil nut	2392	255
oats	217	23	calendula	305	33
lupine	232	25	camelina	583	62
kenaf	273	29	cashew nut	176	19
calendula	305	33	castor bean	1413	151
cotton	325	35	cocoa (cacao)	1026	110
hemp	363	39	coconut	2689	287
soybean	446	48	coffee	459	49
coffee	459	49	coriander	536	57
linseed (flax)	478	51	corn (maize)	172	18
hazelnut	482	51	cotton	325	35
euphorbia	524	56	euphorbia	524	56
pumpkin seed	534	57	hazelnut	482	51
coriander	536	57	hemp	363	39
mustard seed	572	61	jatropha	1892	202
camelina	583	62	jojoba	1818	194
sesame	696	74	kenaf	273	29
safflower	779	83	linseed (flax)	478	51
rice	828	88	lupine	232	25
tung oil	940	100	macadamia nut	2246	240
sunflower	952	102	mustard seed	572	61
cocoa (cacao)	1026	110	oats	217	23
peanut	1059	113	oil palm	5950	635
opium poppy	1163	124	olive	1212	129
rapeseed	1190	127	opium poppy	1163	124
olive	1212	129	peanut	1059	113
castor bean	1413	151	pecan nut	1791	191
pecan nut	1791	191	pumpkin seed	534	57
jojoba	1818	194	rapeseed	1190	127
jatropha	1892	202	rice	828	88
macadamia nut	2246	240	safflower	779	83
brazil nut	2392	255	sesame	696	74
avocado	2638	282	soybean	446	48
coconut	2689	287	sunflower	952	102
oil palm	5950	635	tung oil	940	100

Nanofibers Hold Microscopic Ball

Behold this remarkable photo of a 10 micron long epoxy fibers (0.15 micron apart from each other), holding a 2.5 micron polystyrene sphere. The entire assembly was immersed in water, and as the water is withdrawn, the capillary forces caused the fibers to grab the ball and hold it.

This is from Harvard's Aizenberg, and it was published in 9 January's Science Magazine (323 p237ff). The article is light on experimental details and long on bio-mimetic jibberish. The image is great to look at, but don't forget that it is an SEM, and some artist at C&E News added the blue color to the ball.

I think it is interesting that they were able to make these structures, and even more interesting to think about how much the adhesion of the surface is enhanced by having these threadlike structures. It would be great to be able to make practical materials with these little filaments on them. There would be many practical uses.

Rotating Illusion

This strangely realistic illusion of turning wheels is nothing I have seen before. It is from Akiyoshi Kitaoka in 2003. He wrote a scholarly paper on it. The paper talks about stepwise changes in luminance in one's peripheral vision, and this causes a "drift illusion."

!!--Check out my September 13, 2009 post for two more optical illusions.--!!

2009 Garden

Looking forward to Spring is one of the best parts of Winter.

The garden for 2009 is planned out. Of course, does the real garden ever look like the plan?

My flower garden in Michigan is far smaller than the ones in Wisconsin or Minnesota. It is a lot of work, and the previous owner left me flowerbeds where no one can see them. I need to see the flowers every day if I am going to maintain enthusiasm for it. Anyway. Flowers are going to be Impatiens and Profusion Zinnias --yes just two varieties. I need to order seeds today. I know that I could buy Impatiens as nice as I could grow, but it is still fun to grow them. I think my north flower border is too sunny for impatiens, so its Profusions this year.

I really wanted to replace the impatiens totally with some perennial groundcover this year, but my wife has a right-brain attachment to flowers lining each side of the walk. This would be OK if she wanted to help grow it.

In the vegetable garden the big story is the strawberries, which are now in their third year are thriving and taking up more space. I will enlarge the garden going north to make a little more room. I have big hopes for the strawberry crop this year.

There are five tomatoes:

Sun Sugar - about the sweetest and tastiest cherry tomato you could want.

Yellow Pear - never grew it before, but it had good reviews

Black Cherry - Which is a trendy purply cherry tomato. Jenny got some at Whole Foods. Maybe these seeds will taste the same.

Burpee Supersteak Hybrid - against my better judgement, beefsteak tomatoes seem prone to disease and slow ripening. Still the one or two that you get are nice.

Burpee Best Boy - A nice looking tomato, but it is determinant -- meaning that all the tomatoes ripen at the same time. Why would a home gardener want that?

Calliope Hybrid Eggplant - I have been eating more eggplant, and this was a nice variety from last year.

Another favorite is my Pineapple Tomatillo. These cherry size tomatillos are sweeter than standard ones and have a fruity taste. They are about the messiest vegetable ever, and the squirrels got well over half of them last year. I'll take a better picture of them too --the photos online are not so good.

Pimento is back this year after a decade on hiatus. I am tired of growing hot peppers that are too hot to eat. Pimento is nice and fleshy and not hot at all. I also get a better yield of red fruit than bell peppers. I don't like bell peppers anyway. Last year's Italian peppers were failures.

There are also cucumbers, spinach, arugala, zucchini.

Green peas are on the bubble. They take up lots of space, and the rabbits love them. If it were possible to buy fresh peas, I would never grow them. Maybe just a few plants.

Gone this year are the true peppers, basil (I never really liked pesto), kale (Did I eat it once last year?)  I am hoping to get Jenny to do the potted flowers on the deck. I have lost interest in those.

In the fall, I expected a much smaller garden, but then I get over-enthusiastic every Spring.




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See the update post on how this garden turned out.