Five Points – 44


Hurricane Flo & Mangkhut Update  –

Most importantly, all friends and family affected by the hurricanes Florence and Mangkhut are safe.  No one is seriously hurt.  That is good.

Mangkhut did not affected those connected to me all that bad.  Power and communications went down for several hours in most places, but was restored in short order.  Some folks lost power for several days.  But all in all, things were not disturbed all that much for my friends and family in the Philippines.

Florence wrecked havoc to South Eastern North Carolina.  A lot of friends and family suffered significant property damage, the total of which are yet to be known.  They’ll be a lot of work to be done.  A lot of patience and a lot of work.

We have not been able to visit our home as of yet, but we believe much of the first floor was submerged.  The river is steadily receding, so the plan is for family to visit at the top of next week.  For reference, the road is at about 8-10′


Plogging – 

I think this is so damn cool – Plogging: picking up bits of trash while running…or jogging .

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2018/02/23/plogging-is-the-swedish-fitness-craze-for-people-who-want-to-save-the-planet-its-making-its-way-to-the-u-s/

I’ve never understood how someone that visits nature because of it’s beauty would consider leaving rubbish about…  It doesn’t take much to pick a few pieces up along the way and the earth thank’s you.  So do the other folks that visit.

I’m in to it!


Shazam –

Apple acquired Shazam this week. https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/11/16761984/apple-shazam-acquisition

But folks often wonder, how does Shazam work?

There is a lot here, but it’s well worth the read.

This is the original thesis from founder, Avery Li-Chun Wang – https://www.ee.columbia.edu/~dpwe/papers/Wang03-shazam.pdf

And this is an incredible writeup about the same, a little later down the line – http://coding-geek.com/how-shazam-works/

***

Reading these reminds me of the value in writing down ideas.  Fleshing them out.  Just getting the idea on paper.  What are the parts? How do they work together?  Where are the pitfalls?  Does someone want this thing?  A solid byproduct of writing is the need to organize the idea in my head in order for words to appear in the correct order…and they often times still miss the mark.  However, I find it much easier to realize my idea is dumb as a bag of hammers when reading it, over just letting it bounce around my brain.

***

In the spirit of neat ideas and proofs of concept being written down, this one turned out to be a good one – http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html


What I’m Listening To – 

The Thunder Rolls – Garth Brooks [COVER] – https://youtu.be/tdsJI8Wc2D4 . This is a pretty good cover and I’ve played it a few times this week.  It’s been raining pretty solid all week, here in Fernvale, TN.  Seems like the summer is breaking and cool weather is on the way.

Garth Brooks does not allow his music to be posted on YouTube, but folks can cover anything because of a compulsory license affecting the composition (the written song – notes, lyrics, melody, tempo of a song).


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