Aug 26, 2009 Posted by john

Am I Really Going There? Rose Diagrams with Google Chart and Python

So, now that everyone knows that it’s dead easy to calculate the average azimuth, we’ll all be doing it, right?. There’ll be a rash of Silicon Valley start-ups all generating social networking applications where we all show off our general direction so that we can see if we’re headed in the direction of our friends. But that’s not enough for me. I want to visualize the data. I... read more

Aug 26, 2009 Posted by john

Where am I headed? Calculating the Average of Azimuth Values

Recently at work, I needed to build averages of angles for a project. During the past couple days, I stumbled on some things that other people might be able to use, so I thought I’d write them up. It involves some interesting (if simple to the math/physics crowd) findings on angle averages, and the development of a small utility to create rose diagrams using Google Chart. Averaging... read more

Aug 17, 2009 Posted by john

PyDev debugger: Error Could Not Resolve Variable

I’ve been consistently getting errors using the PyDev debugger with both stock Eclipse and Aptana studio, PyDev 1.4.7.x and Python 3.x. Many times when I try to use the debugger to view the internals of an object, I don’t see any attributes except “Error” with the description “Could not resolve variable.” It was as if the PyDev debugger couldn’t see inside the... read more

Aug 16, 2009 Posted by john

Art as Embellishment

Due to a scheduling error that I made, I accidentally published this before “The Old Gods.” That post is supposed to be read before this one. Having visited Germany, having read of such beauty in Pre-Christian Germanic culture, I felt that I wanted to honor those ancestors as well. So much of what Native people here cherish is tied up in stories of Salmon, Raven and Wolf. It’s interesting... read more

Aug 16, 2009 Posted by john

The Old Gods

Ack. This was supposed to be published before the “art as embellishment” post, but I accidentally scheduled that other post and it published while I was on vacation. Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of historical research on Pre-Christian Germanic culture. Much of this is what people think of as “Viking” culture, but that topic is such a jumble of confused ridiculousness that I... read more