Fountain thing I wrote several years ago. Written in js because I thought it was easier than C, microcontrollers, and plumbing.

I recently dusted off a small flash-card webapp I made for my sister when she was a teacher. I decided to fix some small bugs that cropped up due to evolving web standards. It is working again. Flashcard decks can be sent by sharing the url after they have been entered and tested. Here are a couple examples of how I have used it.

• Twister spinner
• Flashcards for sight words: First grade sample set

Back in 2013 I wanted to try using a phone to match paint colors. Ambitious, I know. But it is an interesting idea that I think has merit. The idea is to use paint swatch samples from the store as a color reference, then take a picture of it against the wall in question. With that, you could calibrate the picture against the color swatch and maybe get a reasonable color match. I never completed it, and it doesn’t implement any of the calibration. But it lets you take a picture and get the closest match from a database I compiled. None of this is remotely accurate, but it was a fun project of making a simple web app.

Futility Closet recently posted about a recursive set of tiles from Lee Sallows. It describes 9 shapes that are defined by different arrangements of a roughly Utah shaped piece. They can be combined into three identical shapes that are 3 times larger than the base pieces.

One interesting thing I found, that wasn’t described in the post, is that all three final pieces are composed of the same arrangement of the smallest pieces.

Futility Closet recently posted a puzzle from the October 1958 issue of Eureka. It poses the question if the top view of an object is a circle and the front view is the bottom half of a circle, what does the side view look like? The published solution indicates a V shape, but after thinking it through, it appears to be upside down. This sniped me enough that I modeled it in 3d and printed out the object.

I came across a puzzle that went something like this:

If someone crosses a bridge by taking 5 steps forward followed by 4 steps back. (Taking one step per plank.) How many times would they need to repeat that pattern before they reached the other side?

I found it interesting and after solving it for myself, I decided to turn it into a game to prove the solution to someone who didn’t understand my solution.