Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
dive into mark asks his wife to let him replace his car with nothing. Hilarious, yet interesting how hard it can be to simplify.
home > life
Sunday, January 10th, 2010
I’d like to congratulate my sister, Jessica, on winning Best of Show in the Madden Arts Center Art Show. Read all about it in the Herald and Review. Well done, sis!
Thursday, March 12th, 2009
Ophthalmology Explained: What are those numbers in an eyeglasses prescription?
After visiting the Ophthalmologist yesterday, I received a prescription for corrective lenses with some crazy numbers on it. It looked something like this:
SPH CYL AXIS
O.D.: -1.00 +0.75 180
O.S.: -1.25 +0.75 165
What does all that mean? I turned to the Wikipedia explanation for answers.
It turns out that this is a precription for distance vision only (near vision corrections are usually not necessary for a 25-year-old).
What are the abbreviations?
- O.D. abbreviates oculus dexter, Latin for “right eye”
- O.S. abbreviates oculus sinister, Latin for “left eye”
- SPH stands for spherical diopter units
- CYL stands for cylindrical diopter units
- AXIS defines the angle of the CYL correction in degrees
The spherical component is the main correction as it acts equally to correct blur in all directions. The cylindrical component corrects blur in only one direction — therefore it is useful in correcting astigmatism. The axis angle defines the direction of the necessary cylindrical correction.
Addenda (2011 April 24):
In addition, my pupillary distance is 65 mm. This distance from pupil center to center is useful for ordering glasses online (such as at Warby Parker).
Sunday, February 1st, 2009
Future me, your head is 22 5/8 inches around, making you a hat size 7 1/4. You will thank present me for that information one day.
Sunday, September 14th, 2008
Amanda’s Marathon Training Video
Amanda and I are running the Chicago Marathon this year. We’re hoping our friends will want to come watch us run on Sunday, October 12!
We are running as part of a fundraising group that supports the Chicago Children’s Memorial Hospital. So, Amanda made a fun video showing her unique Rocky Balboa training methods.
Anyway, hope you enjoy the video. If you like it and want to sponsor us, head to Amanda’s donation site and make a pledge to support her. Or, you can pledge to support me here.
Watch below, or check it out in HD on YouTube.
Monday, April 28th, 2008
Amanda, Shayna, Mark, and I ran the 10-mile Universal Sole race in Lincoln Park yesterday. Here’s an excerpt with our times (full results):
O'All No. Name Div/Tot Rank 5 Mile Pace Finish Pace
===== === ====== ======== ==== ======= ===== ========= =====
788 369 MARK 103/120 960 49:11 9:51 1:33:00.4 9:19
883 155 ALAN 57/66 961 49:12 9:51 1:35:53.2 9:36
1148 370 SHAYNA 119/130 1181 1:00:52 12:11 1:56:42.8 11:41
1149 156 AMANDA 120/130 1182 1:00:53 12:11 1:56:44.4 11:41
Tuesday, October 16th, 2007
Steve vs. Alan on Hearing High Stuff
I can hear up to 17.1kHz. Steve can only hear up to 14.7kHz. So I win this round. Although maybe that means he can save more disc space and compress his MP3s a little more?
If you want to perform your own test, you can use Python on Windows as follows:
from winsound import Beep
Beep(14000, 1000)
14000 is the frequency 14kHz and 1000 is beep duration 1000ms (1 second). Crank up the frequency until you can’t hear it.
Update: alternate MATLAB one-liner for doing the same:
f=15000;fs=44100;sound(sin(f*2*pi*[0:fs-1]/fs),fs)
Update 2: Paul says he can hear up to 16.9kHz well but also claims to faintly hear 18-20kHz. I think that means he wins, because I cannot hear above 17.1kHz at all. He said he used headphones whereas I used crappy laptop speakers, so I consider that cheating a little.
Update 3: So apparently, the results are very dependent on the speakers being used. I tested Amanda at home using the Bose speakers and she can hear up to 17.5kHz. Funny thing: with these speakers, I can hear up to about 18.4kHz. Not sure what to make of that except that I’m winning again.
Saturday, May 12th, 2007
Arik posted some new photos of the twins. I, of course, prefer these especially goofy ones.
Saturday, May 12th, 2007
Last weekend, I gained another brother-in-law! The wedding was great fun — check out my photos.
Sunday, April 29th, 2007
Millikin University’s Teaching Excellence and Campus Leadership Award
Congrats on being honored, dad.
Monday, January 22nd, 2007
Last weekend, I became a proud double-uncle when my brother’s family grew from 2 to 4 overnight! Ashley Nicole and Lindsey Grace were born at 12:30 in St. Louis on January 12, 2006.
I posted some photos on flickr, Dad has photos on his website, and the hospital has pictures of Lindsey, Ashley, and both.
Congratulations, Arik and Laura!
Update: Arik has a great picture gallery up on his website now.
Sunday, November 5th, 2006
YouTube is extremely easy to upload video to. I’m impressed.
Sunday, November 5th, 2006
Too Much Time on Our Hands in High School
Chad, Tim, and I had too much time one day …
Sunday, September 10th, 2006
6-year Old’s Drawing of Sept 11th Terrorist Attack
See my little sister’s drawing along with my father’s haiku.
Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006
A Response to How to Write a Haiku
RSS alert
no five-seven-five
a brow furrows
(thanks, KC)
Monday, August 21st, 2006
More Notes on How to Write a Haiku
incomplete sentences
no syllable counting
learn from masters
Tuesday, June 13th, 2006
A journalist goes undercover as a salesman at 2 car dealerships. Read it if you’re considering buying a car (or at least look at the recommendations at the end).
(via Kris)
Tuesday, June 13th, 2006
Green Hybrid has a very nice database of actual mileage recorded by hybrid car owners. HybridCARS.com lists current and expected hybrid models.
Sunday, March 19th, 2006
Fun Putt Putt game that runs in your browser. (requires the Flash plugin)
Sunday, March 19th, 2006
A transcript of Robert F. Kennedy’s amazing speech about the some of the horrific things that we are doing to our environment. It touches on everything from coal-burning power plants to mercury in the water to strip mining to cultural values to draft dodging. Long, but well worth the read.
(via Wil Shipley)
Friday, December 23rd, 2005
If you need to use LaTeX on Mac OS X, start by following the most simple beginner’s guide to get things installed. Then, you might want to read Getting Started With TeX on Mac OS X and look at the Mac OS X TeX/LaTeX Web Site for a good set of related links. More details about the i-Installer and some links from a LaTeX course are also available. Finally, there is a nice visual equation editor that makes complicated equations easier to edit.
Wednesday, November 23rd, 2005
If you ever find yourself wanting to write LaTeX documents on Windows, I’d suggest installing the MiKTeX utilities along with the WinEdt editor. One guy’s opinion on why you might want to do this.
Also, there are nice LaTeX style files for both the SPIE and IEEE proceedings.
Sunday, September 18th, 2005
Steve is quite the photographer, getting some great-looking night pictures of us all last night. So here’s Alan & Amanda, Laura & Kris, then Dawn & Steve.
Sunday, September 18th, 2005
Arik & Laura Wedding Professional Pictures
A sampling of thier proofs is now available. The couple did such a great job of looking good, it must have made the photographer’s job easy — some great pictures were the result.
Note: to download the photos on your computer, just go to the following website. You can replace the number 16 with any picture number from 1 to 45 to see other photos.
Sunday, September 18th, 2005
Congratulations, Steve & Dawn Hoelzer, on the Upcoming Mammy & Pappyhood
Steve and Dawn are going to be parents! Check out the ultrasound. As you can see in the right hand lower corner of the pictures, the due date is around March 29-30th.
Sunday, September 18th, 2005
My little sister, Jessica, just had her 10th birthday. I’m so proud of her! A bit of Sponge Bob was involved.
Sunday, September 18th, 2005
He was a very friendly and loving cat. He’d greet any stranger with curiosity. We’ll miss him. I put together some pictures to remember him by.
Friday, August 12th, 2005
My brother, Arik Brooks, just updated his website and I definitely like the new design because it’s much cleaner both visually and in the code (he’s now using CSS for almost all of the formatting).
If you’d like to look at the design before and after, check out the following screenshots of the main page (or just check the internet archive).
Before (now this is old-school html if I ever did see it):
After (much nicer with a good style):
A notable new section describes their New House including weekly photos of the house he and Laura are having built. I’m excited to visit once it is complete!
Also, his wife Laura now has a page as well. I like the clean blue design on her page.
Cheers, Arik and Laura!
Tuesday, August 9th, 2005
Kris Classen, my good friend and 1 of 2 dedicated readers of the site, offers the following analysis of my previous post.
regarding the news post, he [Paul Graham] is mostly correct for the type of news that makes TV…. they dont have much actual analysis, and they favor worthless human interest stories… however, good papers like the wash post and the NY times actually have interesting articles because the authors bother to do research to add context and meaning to those meaningless presidential speeches… likewise any other specialty publications that focus on their topic (like even the shuttle article you have)—the writers who take the time to do a good job produce an interesting product… i think the bottom line for the guy you are quoting is that he just isnt interested in politics, so he finds politics stories to be uninteresting….
I like Kris’ idea that the value of good reporting is adding context in explaining why things like political speeches happen. As you can see, Kris is a fan of the ellipsis (at least, in email).
Monday, August 8th, 2005
I really liked this quote in Paul Graham’s latest writing. He’s talking about the fact that a very large amount of the content produced by the news media is not very interesting or thought-provoking.
Most articles in the print media are boring. For example, the president notices that a majority of voters now think invading Iraq was a mistake, so he makes an address to the nation to drum up support. Where is the man bites dog in that? I didn’t hear the speech, but I could probably tell you exactly what he said. A speech like that is, in the most literal sense, not news: there is nothing new in it.
Nor is there anything new, except the names and places, in most “news” about things going wrong. A child is abducted; there’s a tornado; a ferry sinks; someone gets bitten by a shark; a small plane crashes. And what do you learn about the world from these stories? Absolutely nothing. They’re outlying data points; what makes them gripping also makes them irrelevant
Web writing is so much more interesting than “the news”.
Tuesday, April 26th, 2005
If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn’t.
Thursday, February 24th, 2005
While procrastinating by surfing the internet, I stumbled across an article on overcoming procrastination. I love his “Get Back to Work” home page idea.
Monday, February 21st, 2005
It’s that time of year again — time to prepare for the 2005 Cubs season by desperately trying to get tickets.
They go on sale this Friday, February 25th. The online “waiting room” is open at 9:30 a.m. and then sales start at 10:00. Also, you can get a wristband Wednesday or Thursday and if you’re lucky, acquire some tickets in person at Wrigley Field on Friday. For more information, check out the Cubs single-game ticket instructions.
Wednesday, December 8th, 2004
Here is a map showing where our condo is. The red square is our place. There is public parking for a good price just north of the dark blue square. Mi casa, su casa.
Thursday, November 25th, 2004
New Wedding Photos of Shayna and Mark Fullarton
Congratulations to Shayna and Mark! They had a really fun wedding at the Palmer House in downtown Chicago on November 7th. Now that they are back from honeymooning in Aruba, thier wedding website has some great pictures. Check it out!
Wednesday, November 17th, 2004
Have you ever wondered why humans have such big butts? We may have been born to run (nytimes.com, registration required). Here’s a bit of the explanation:
Earlier human ancestors, like chimpanzees today, had pelvises that could support only a modest gluteus maximus, nothing like the strong buttocks of Homo.
“Have you ever looked at an ape?” Dr. Bramble said. “They have no buns.”
Dr. Lieberman, a paleontologist, explained: “Your gluteus maximus stabilizes your trunk as you lean forward in a run. A run is like a controlled fall, and the buttocks help to control it.”
Monday, November 15th, 2004
Northwestern’s Associated Student Government has a great restaurant guide for the Evanston area. I added a few ratings for my favority places. Can you tell I’m looking forward to moving back there?
Monday, October 11th, 2004
Are You a Dummy About Fixin Yo Car?
Auto Repair 101 is a good beginner’s guide to car repair. I like to read up a bit before heading to the shop, so that I at least sound like I know what I’m talking about.
Monday, September 27th, 2004
In more family news, my brother Arik Brooks moved his website from Bradley University (where he went to undergrad) to Washington University (grad school).
Wednesday, September 15th, 2004
Paul Graham gives a great answer to the question, “How do you write a quality essay?”
A sample to wet your appetite:
The most obvious difference between real essays
and the things one has to write in school is that real
essays are not exclusively about English literature.
Certainly schools should teach students how to write.
But due to a series of historical accidents the teaching
of writing has gotten mixed together with the study of
literature. And so all over the country students are
writing not about how a baseball team with a small budget
might compete with the Yankees, or the role of color in
fashion, or what constitutes a good dessert, but about
symbolism in Dickens.
With the result that writing is made to seem boring and
pointless. Who cares about symbolism in Dickens? Dickens
himself would be more interested in an essay about color
or baseball.
Friday, September 10th, 2004
My old buddy from Decatur, IL is out in California now. He is a graphic designer with a very cool website.
Wednesday, August 25th, 2004
My parents, Randy and Shirley Brooks, are transitioning their fun little haiku company’s website from family-net to www.brooksbookshaiku.com. Be on the lookout for an awesome re-design!
Saturday, August 21st, 2004
The Sixth Annual Davito BocceFest is today! The city slickers (Me, Dave Stopek, Mark Fullarton, and Mick Montgomery) are sure to have our first victory ever. Look for pictures to come! For more on Bocce ball, look at the Wikipedia coverage.
Monday, August 2nd, 2004
Dan Bailey’s Celestial Imaging
Check out Dan’s new astronomical imaging website. I’m hosting it on my server for a while, so that is fun. He takes many interesting photographs with his telescope. One of the best is from his recent trip to the Badlands.
Wednesday, July 14th, 2004
Steve updated his blosxom blog
I had linked to his blog before his computer crashed, but now the young whippersnapper has some new content and a slightly new web address:
Once again, I commend his use of cascading style sheets (CSS). His blog style sheet is here. He helped me improve my site a bit with CSS — note the background image sticks to the middle right part of the screen and doesn’t scroll with the text.
Friday, July 9th, 2004
Welcome, visitors from my email
Hi friends and family! Hope you got the move info. Thanks for coming to check out my weblog (“blog” for short).
I’m running this off of my own computer from home, so if any of you have anything you’d like to post (photos, comments, etc..), I’ve got plenty of web server space, so please feel free to email me about that.
Have fun!
Thursday, July 8th, 2004
I really like the look of Steve’s newer blog. He’s using style sheets very well!
Thursday, July 8th, 2004
Last week, I spent Tuesday and Wednesday serving my first jury duty. I served at the Dailey Center for the Circuit Court of Cook County.
They have a one day, one trial system where your service obligation is fulfilled if you (1) wait in the juror waiting room all day, (2) get called for jury selection but are dismissed, or (3) get selected and serve on one trial.
I was selected as the 12th juror, so I served on a civil case Wednesday. It was interesting, and fortunately easy to come to a consensus when the jury deliberated.
Sunday, July 4th, 2004
It was a fun forth weekend — we saw a Cubs/Sox game at Wrigley, I got a new grill (and made some tasty steaks), and enjoyed some fireworks off of the balcony.
Monday, June 28th, 2004
This weekend, I had my first chance to see US Cellular Field — it was the Cubs vs the Sox. Although the Sox won, it was a beautiful day for a game. After the game, we walked through the Taste of Chicago for some yummy eats — fried okra and a steak taco were my favorites.
Friday, June 18th, 2004
Can you believe it? Arik married Laura Hanson, a wonderful young lady, on June 4, 2004. It was a great time! See my dad’s photo collection.
Thursday, June 17th, 2004
Relocated to Arlington Heights
For those who are interested, Amanda and I are moving to an apartment in Arlington Heights this Sunday. We got our keys and checked it out today — it was quite nice! This is our intermediate place to live while our condo back in Evanston is built.
Our new address: 299 N Dunton Ave Apt 604 Arlington Heights, IL 60004
Phone number (effective Monday): 847-577-8563
Wednesday, June 16th, 2004
Congrats to my friend Kris Classen on putting that law degree to use and getting a new job at the Appelate Court of Illinois in Richmond, IL. He’ll be working for Jack O’Malley.
Monday, June 7th, 2004
Since Steve introduced my blog, I posted a response, and then Steve responded to the response, then of couse I had to add the obligitory recursive post in response.
Steve’s use of iBlog & .Mac does seem quite simple for setting up simple useless blogs :)
Monday, May 31st, 2004
Steve’s Blog has arrived. Some say he’s crazy, and I concur. Also, check his homepage, where he dabbles in CSS.
Sunday, May 30th, 2004
Just a quick note: dotster.com is good for domain name registration. You can do fun searches for what domain names are available.
Saturday, May 29th, 2004
We had a good time dining and visiting with our friends tonite at Navy Pier tonite.
Some “oil cans” of Fosters were consumed, and that led to discussions concerning the best movie of all time. The candidates included:
- Forrest Gump
- Rain Man (don’t these 2 always come up in similar discussions)
- American History X
- American Beauty
- The Shawshank Redemption
- Office Space
- Old School
- The Jerk (courtesy of Kris)
- 12 Monkeys (the greatest movie ever)
- Bandits & Zoolander (oops, dat’s Manda talkin)
- L.O.T.R. (i can’t believe we forgot to discuss this)
- help me menber de rest cuz I be forgettin now
Over & out.
