Month: November 2005

New Scientist explains that "Meditation builds up the brain." I’m going to have to think on that one.

I miss having an Administrative Assistant! Alright. Time to do the dumb things ya gotta do.

Interesting read for those that like to see where all the numbers showup. This was my favorite albeit a little reaching:

Assign each letter of the alphabet a number so that 1 is A, 2 is B, etc. up to 26 for Z. Then wrap back to the beginning so that 27 is A again, 28 is B, 29 is C, and so on.

4: The 4th letter in the alphabet is D
8: The 8th letter in the alphabet is H
15: If you add 4 + 8 + 15, you get 27 which wraps back to A.
16: 4 + 8 + 15 = 27, and 4 + 8 + 15 + 16 = 43. 27 + 43 = 70 which gives you a R.
23: 16 + 23 = 39, which is M.
42: 4 + 8 + 15 + 16 + 23 = 66, and 23 + 42 = 65. 65 + 66 = 131 which is an A.

The school called to report that 25 minutes into the school day Noah has reported a headache. She said it came on outside when he was waiting for the bus. Is there something stressful about the bus ride? Noah stresses over school far too much! It could also be the cold front that has come through. Noah is very sensitive to weather changes. It could also be that the fumes lingering in the house from the burnt popcorn set him off.

I want to get him into a chiropractor. I prefer Barry Bridges (of course, I’m supposed to plug my brother here but 5 hours is a long way to drive for an appointment). Barry has a great approach to Chiropractic and a fantastic bedside manner.

Time to take Tylenol to the school.

The persistent stench in the house reminds me of the time I shutdown the Digital Crossing Building downtown. Yes, I evacuated the Digital Crossing building. See, I was working late and needed a snack but I had been up for a couple of days (wrote an ad server in 4 days complete with campaign management and ..well, that doesn’t matter) so after putting my popcorn in the microwave I went back to programming. After the smoke alarms went off and the building alarms started screaming with the flashing lights saying to "get out" I remembered my popcorn. Then a nice fireman came to walk through the building and make sure everyone else working late knew that I was hungry and needed a snack.

Microwave popcorn left in the microwave beyond the 2 second pop limit (don’t judge it by minutes!) starts to burn. Left too long it mergers into a black block and produces a thick gray smoke. Given enough time I am certain it would erupt into flame. All that aside, burnt popcorn stinks to high heaven!

Microwave popcorn should come with a warning label "if you should be on Ritalin but aren’t, do not use this product!"

My wife said I wasn’t clear. Yesterday, I wanted a snack and put some microwave popcorn in the oven. It said to pop from 1.5 minutes to 4 minutes so I maxed it at 4 knowing that we typically are done in 2. Then an incident happened and I rushed out of the kitchen to forget the popcorn. Those 2 extra minutes almost started a fire! And today the house still reeks and the microwave is going to require extra cleaning. So, I guess I can’t be taught.

Lost in an hour and 14 minutes!

The leap from tracking every vehicle movement 24/7 on UK roads and retaining the information in a database for 2 years to tracking every person’s every movement 24/7 is not that big. From license plate recognition to facial recognition just doesn’t seem that big a deal. Just a tad scary.

I hope my friends, with the office here and in the UK, that work in the camera license plate recognition business are reaping the benefits!

The only time you will ever see amy ride in a cart!

The camera shows that traffic is flowing westbound again.

News Sentinel readers give their comments on how the accident affected them. That link has a nice picture of the overturned truck. The live cam seems to be showing the truck still in the same place 9.5 hours later (but I can’t be sure).

WATE has the story (with more good pictures) explaining that "the truck [was] carrying a load of the chemical cyanox, a chemical used in the making of plastic"

Tennessee Dept. of Transportation officials say it may be all day before the truck is cleared because the chemical in the tanker must first be removed. Though officials were initially concerned about the chemical carried in the truck, they’ve determined in does not pose an explosion or inhalation danger.

Just 3 days ago, I-40 was shutdown for 12 hours. Seems we need FEMA or somebody to give us a Interstate disaster plan.

So has anyone else noticed that they’ve zoomed the West Hills camera in on the accident scene?

Interstate still blocked.middlebrook looks good.

Seems that I cannot reach TN Lottery Results which means the server that hosts my webcam captures is unreachable. So far I have figured out that another comcast user using the same name server that I use can reach the site fine. My computer and my wife’s computer cannot which means that it is unlikely (but not impossible) Comcast’s problem and it is not a machine specific problem. My focus must be on two things. 1) Is something wrong with the router or 2) Has my server host blocked me due to uploading a picture every 30 seconds (I think this is likely but you’d think they’d let me know.)

West Hills at I-40/I-75 live.

Walker Springs at I-40/I-75 live.
Traffic Cameras provided by TDOT SmartWay (per linking policy)

These are the cameras that you see around town. These are not red light cameras. The red cameras have not been installed yet.

The accident at West Hills could have the Interstate closed until noon or longer.

The following content reposted from June 22, 2005.

I’m an observant person. I watched the traffic cams get installed by TDOT. For a long I have intended to call TDOT and ask, "are those cameras available to the public?" Ironically, being a web guy, I never bothered looking online until one of the local news stations mentioned the 75 cameras are online (though by my count I only see 66). Have a look at a picture of a TDOT SmartWay camera.

Additional information about the TDOT $20 million SmaryWay system is available including cameras statewide and information about Tennessee 511 a service that provides traffic information from any phone. TDOT is also in Alabama.

From the Smartway FAQ:

Other benefits include:

• Providing live video to local television stations that is used during their rush hour traffic reports
• Website access to current construction and incident information.
• Shorter crash response time by emergency response agencies including TDOT HELP trucks
• Using the system to assist in AMBER ALERTS
• Radio reports of current construction and incident information available on the highway advisory radio (HAR) system.
• Use of the system to complement Homeland Security evacuation plans

Now when you want to leave the house you can check to see if I-40 is jammed or not!

East of I-40/640 at I-40/I-75 live.

East of Pellissippi at I-40/I-75 live.

Furthest western camera West of Lovell Rd at I-40/I-75 live.
Traffic Cameras provided by TDOT SmartWay (per linking policy)