Author Archives: Matt

I’m going to mturk a Wii

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A great confluence of ideas arrived to me this morning.

I'm going to use:

Amazon Mechanical Turk

To get a:

Wii

My wonderfully fiscally responsible wife has deemed the expenditure necessary to procure a Wii for Christmas unreasonable.  And I tend to agree with her. However, I've played a few games on the Wii now and am definitely intrigued.

So, my quest is to use Mturk to make enough scratch to buy a Wii.

Here's the background:

"Amazon Mechanical Turk provides a web services API for computers to integrate "artificial artificial intelligence" directly into their processing by making requests of humans." – from the FAQ for Amazon Mechanical Turk .

Basically, Mturk provides a way for humans to process certain types of data that technology is not yet capable of processing. Most often, the amount of money you earn doing Mturk tasks is related to the type of tasks performed, the accuracy with which they are performed, and the amount of valuable data collected.

So far, in approximately one month, I have accumulated $17.  The LIST price for the Nintendo Wii is $249.95  At this pace, I will have enough money to purchase a Wii in 72,378 days.  At least I won't have to wait in line to buy one by the time I've Mturk'ed enough cash.

To my new son

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Dear Leo,

You were born on a Thursday and I cannot believe what a miracle you are.  People do this all the time and the amazement never ceases.

I wish for you,

long healthy life

easement of disapointment 

beauty of art

appreciation of your fellow humans

love supreme

discovery of passonate calling

Welcome to the world.  You will always have our love. 

Pankratz Family Picture

Today seems like a good day…

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…to make beer.

The first day of the Fall season finds me brewing a batch of Texas Blonde Ale.  I picked up the kit when I was in Austin from the fine folks at Austin Homebrew Supply.

I've been making mostly extract batches lately, so this time I choose to make a mini-mash.  It always takes longer due to the added time for the mash.  I'm not sure if it makes that much of a difference.  If I like this kit, I'll try the all extract next time.

And, I need to plan my next batch of Abe's Important Stout.  It's a great beer to have around for the colder months.

The weather is beautiful, the schedule of the day is open, and I am going to relax and make beer.

A nice Sunday drive

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Rumley 15/25
 
Dad and I got the Rumley running yesterday.  The magneto was still charged and the engine actually started without too much trouble.
 
The fuel pump wasn't bringing fuel in so we worked on it for a couple of hours.  We checked the fuel lines, cleaned out the check valve, and re-wrapped all the threads with Teflon tape.
 
Finally, we blew some air into the fuel tank and forced fuel into the lines.  The pump took right off.
 
Rumley Oil Pull
 
Abe said the tractor was too loud.  He stood on the platform with me and asked what all the pieces and parts did.
 
Now, we need to clean the exterior up and repaint some things.  And, we'll probably work on the rest of the engines next time.
 
I put more pictures in the BungoJungo Picture Gallery.