Curiosities for Artists and Engineers

I learned this game a while ago as a great way to break the ice. You probably know it, the Knights at King Arthur's Round Table. A game of puns. I thought I'd share for artists and engineers alike: Who are the Knights at King Arthur's Table? There are many Knights who have sat with King Arthur. Fighters, writers, doctors, and lay-abouts. There are great warriors. The one who never loses a battle is Sir Vival. Far and away a better fighter than Sir Render, though less confident then Sir Ten and less loyal than Sir Yessir. Sir Ration will only fight with a knife. Sir Cumnavigate commands the long trips in the Royal Navy. Who is the doctor at King Arthur's Round Table? It's Sir Jen. She is often assisted by Sir Lancelot specializing in boils. Also in the practice is Sir Vex who works with women. Sir Jen can't do much for Sir Peas who has had so many cold sores no one understands him over his lisp. Cooking and feasts are a major function around the round ...

Printer To Minimize Ink Costs by using the cheapest ink source Goal Much of the expense of operating printers is in the cost of the ink. The little cartridges can cost $20, $30, $40 dollars each for ink jet cartridges and more for toner cartridges. The printers are themselves are close to free in exchange for the future revenues on ink cartridges. Solution: more a micro-mechanical solution to utilize a much cheaper source of ink – standard desk pens. The user will provide the pens they have available. These may be from Staples’ in the 20 for $5 sale, or from the hotel desk, or Sharpies. Print and image quality is not required to be as high. By manual experiments, legible 8pt type is believed to be attainable. A typical Sharpie may not be able to achieve 8pt type. The calibration of the printer would recognize what printing capability is available, and adjust accordingly. High-Level Description of System The standard ink-jet printer consists of a cartridge that passes across ...

The Goals The Shadow Telescope's purpose is to improve the precision of existing land-based and orbital telescopes at measuring the sizes of stars. Greater precision in the measure of star sizes will lead to greater precision in the measurement of planets circling stars. The primary focus is on stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. The action is to construct and operate a visual occlusion target of known size and location between the object observed, and the observer. The Filter Mask Blotting out light is not a new process in astronomy. To remove the affects of bright stars in the foreground, masks are created and inserted in the line of light that is entering the telescope allowing the light from dimmer stars to be visible. The Shadow Telescope is unique in that it's purpose is not to blot out the whole star, but only a known, precise portion of the star. By subtracting of a known portion of light from the star, the size, distance, and mass ratios of the star can be calcula...

Jenny, I've Got Your Number If you are of a certain age, you almost certainly know that 8675309 is Jenny's phone number. (Who doesn't remember this?) You may also notice it doesn't have any duplicate digits. But did you know that 8675309 is a prime number divisible only by 1 and itself? and, it is one of a rare and special set of prime numbers called prime pairs. 8675311 is also prime.  So, if you're in a situation and need to pull a couple 7-digit prime numbers out of your butt, there you go!  Yes. Jenny had it going on.