mikeferrari.com

As an organizer of the “Midwests greasiest Hot Rod Show” i have a deep understanding of the effort it takes to put on a good quality hot rod or bike show. There are lots of grass roots non big corporate butthole shows that just exist purely because of the love for a specific genre of vehicle. The traditional hot rod scene has the hunnertcarpileup, billetproof, paso, lonestarroundup etc etc.
The bike scene has a different twist.. You have the harley crowd.. which essentially has the big shindig in sturgis.. and you have the rest of the guys.. the i am a biker and i dont grow my beard long and refuse to take showers crowd.

Those guys have clubs like the “Ton Up Club” in Chicago.. http://www.tonupchicago.com/ who put on the Mods vs. Rockers show. Another bunch of fellas up in Milwaukee throw a show every year called RockerBox…  a show that i am hoping to go to this year.. RockerBox http://www.rockerbox.us/index.htm

So i was eating lunch at Taco Bell, off the fresca menu, trying to reduce the fat intake a bit. I was pondering things that i would do if i was so wealthy i didn’t have to work. A long long list was developed, some things were major, some things were minor. Most of the ideas ended up with me learning and developing something.

Whats that say? that my high school science teachers had an impact? college?, yeah, i don’t think so. I have always learned faster and more in depth when i studied things on my own terms. Technology, science, philosophy, art, all topics and areas.. i have learned way more about everything outside institutional learning facilities.

Anyway, i was thinking about art and math, something i tend to do regularly in recent months.

If i was wealthy and didn’t have to work i would study the relationship between the Fibonacci sequence and the Golden Ratio.

The Fibonacci sequence is a series of numbers, starting with 0, each new number is created by adding the last number with the previous number.

0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34

More on the Fibonacci sequence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number

The golden ration is the mathematical equivalent to “looking good”.. its a measurement of proportion and aesthetics etc. Its a fascinating concept and a true artist understands it and uses it expertly… sometimes without even knowing it.

The golden ratio is approximately 1.6180339887

More on the Golden Ratio http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio

The relationship between the two.. In my mind, is one of the most interesting mathematical ideas that relate to artistic concepts and nature.

Dr. Ron Knott has done extensive analysis and research into ancient mathematics and the relation between the Fibonacci sequence and the Golden Ratio. I would sit and study this for weeks.

http://www.mcs.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/R.Knott/Fibonacci/phi.html

One day, maybe

Time… I am having troubles with time lately.. my 40th birthday just went by and its driving me to re-organize and re-evaluate. First thing is to define the constants..

168 hours week (24×7) = 56 hours sleep (8 ours of beautiful sleep a day) + 112 wakefull hours (up and at ‘em)

so thats 168=56+112

Out of that 112 wakeful hours i have a job that i work at.. lets say 40 hours.. truthfully it ranges from 40 to 60 but for the purposed of this discussion lets assume 40.

112 wakeful hours - 40 hours work = 72 hours total personal time

Wow! 72 hours.. lets break that down into weekday and weekend time..

8 hours of sleep on sat and sunday (assume i am not working on the weekend) is 16 hours.. so 48 hours minus 16 hours.

48 - 16 = 32 hours

32 hours weekend personal

and 24 - 8 (work) - 8 (sleep) = 8 hours

8 hours personal time on the weekday

Where the hell does it all go?

Yeah, that thought you just had in your head.. i had the same one.. thats why i am putting my foot down and doing something about it.

Air Car.. compress air.. run it though an engine of sorts and produce forward momentum. Old idea, new technology. I will buy one as soon as they are available for my commute to work.

I have been digging through tons of raw data at work, thousands and thousands of lines of raw uncategorized mess. I also have been playing with a bunch of XML and SVG. Man i love SVG, makes me have all kinds of cool ideas.. real sweet stuff. Wish i had the time.

Anyway, this is what my mind was thinking today, as created by graphviz.

The “Dot” file which is the data for the above image…

ideas.dot

The coolest thig is that you can represent data as a graphic.. and with SVG you can link parts of the graphic with a web site or a file or another graphic.. the possibilities are endless for automating the visualization of large large piles of crappy data.
You know, Humanize it a bit.

Mike