Road Sign Math Rebooted
As you drive on I-94 East toward the Twin Cities there is a wonderful road sign that always made me smile. I saw it regularly when I would return from visiting family in North Dakota. The sign had this wonderful mathematical significance to it. 3 times 33 equals 99.
After seeing this sign for a while I kept wondering how many other mathematically significant road signs are there? And just like that the idea for Road Sign Math was born.
History
Thanks to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine I can see the history. I launched the website in February 2005 with a simple post. Initially it was a blog that I posted my signs on, but people were also welcome to send photos of their own mathematically significant signs as well. Since multiple people were playing, there needed to be some rules on how to play.
We had multiple people playing and I thought it would be fun to have a scoring system and a scoreboard for players as well as states!
I believe we got signs from all 50 states. We had a sign from the Serengeti. We had signs from most continents. In 2011 I moved the site from a blog to a wiki with the idea that folks could submit and maintain their own signs. This was all before the rise of mobile phones. When the iPhone arrived I thought it would be amazing to make an iOS app to capture road signs, but that never happened.
In 2016, after 11 years of running this site and several others, I made the decision to do some technical downsizing and turned off a number of hobby projects I had been running.
Road Sign Math was one of the sites shut down. I let the domain name expire and squatters have had the domain ever since, and still do. But the idea of Road Sign Math has never left completely…
Reboot!
In 2021 I registered the domain roadsignmath.xyz. That is an even better domain name for Road Sign Math!
I’ve had multiple sessions looking through various backups thinking about relaunching Road Sign Math in all its wonder, but I’ve got gaps in my archives. Also, the transition from blog to wiki made the archive hard to track.
On some recent road trips we’ve been grabbing some signs. And earlier this year I captured anew the Genesis (2023) sign.
I decided it was time to reboot it, not relaunch it. Start back as a simple blog with the awesome MathJax library. Just my signs. No scoring system or leaderboards. Just a fun place to share mathematically significant road signs.
Consider it my little contribution to keeping the Web weird. 😎
Afternoon shuffleboard and pickleball!
We had a great fall cruise on the Lady Liberty at Big Cedar. I live boat cruises. Fall colors are a little late this year. 🍂
We had a fun round of mini golf this morning at Big Cedar. Great course and the large bass was a nice signature hole! 🕳️
Driving through Springfield, MO and into the Ozarks so have to listen to Big Smith (Apple Music). Great Bluegrass music! 🎶
Found some mathematically significant road signs on our drive for Road Sign Math! 🤓 There were a few good ones I wasn’t able to get a photo for too. 😔
(On micro.blog @roadsignmath and note the MathJax doesn’t render on the timeline.)
On our way to Big Cedar Lodge for MEA weekend. Departed at 6:07 am and will be driving for 9 hours with a lunch stop at Culver’s in Liberty, Missouri.
Halfway through the day and I just realized I’ve had my undershirt on backwards. 🤦♂️
We all made 60 Winter Wonderland candles for the 2023 Things 4 Good Candle Fundraiser tonight!
We went to Cookin’ at the Children’s Theatre today and it was incredible. 90 minutes filled with action, story, and fun. This is a traveling performance and worth trying to go to! 🔪
Mazie is home for a short break and made some fresh St. Olaf Cookies tonight. These are so delicious! 🤤
DeFi with Agave sDAI on Gnosis Chain
The recent announcement that Agave launched their Savings xDai on Gnosis Chain piqued my interest. This is connected with MakerDAO, the backers of the Dai stablecoin amongst other things. I generally find MakeDAO interesting and already had some xDAI so I deposited 100 xDai and now have have Agave sDai tokens that earn interest. Current APY 7.521%.
The DAI Savings Rate (DSR is an addition to the Maker Protocol that allows any DAI holder to earn savings in DAI. It is a premium reward by MakerDAO for users depositing DAI, bolstering user benefits and rewards in the ecosystem. sDAI tokens represent DAI stablecoins deposited in MakerDAO’s DSR module. With the launch of sDAI on Gnosis Chain and SparkLend, users can now deposit xDAI to receive sDAI on Gnosis Chain.
I don’t do a lot of DeFi experimentation but this being native on Gnosis Chain I wanted to give it a try and see how it worked.
Comparing Sleep Stages with Eight Sleep and Oura Ring
I find sleep data to be notoriously hard to correlate to reality. I’ve used a variety of devices over the years to track sleep and sometimes it is really hard to correlate it with my actual experience. Thus far, the Oura Ring has been better at this than any other device I’ve used. What it shows me aligns well with my perceived experience.
This week we setup the Eight Sleep and just like the Oura Ring, it also tracks your sleep and gives you a view of the various stages of sleep. I was super intrigued to see if the Oura Ring and the Eight Sleep would agree at all. I was skeptical and was expecting that they would produce very different data. I looked at three nights of data and to my surprise it was more correlated than I expected.
Some observations:
- The Eight Sleep generally interprets more Deep Sleep than the Oura Ring. I have no independent way to assess Deep Sleep.
- Generally the Oura Ring sees my waking periods much longer than the Eight Sleep. This is a little easier for me to asses, and I think neither is spot on. Both got some of this right and some wrong. Overall, the Eight Sleep data seems closer to reality.
- On the whole, the Oura Ring data presents a “less good” picture of my sleep patterns.
There isn’t a conclusion to draw from this since this isn’t a controlled study. However, the two data sources align much more than I expected. Comparing price of the two solutions isn’t meaningful since they do very different things. However, it is notable that a little ring on my pinky finger gets pretty close to a grid of sensors that is under my entire body as I sleep.
Youth in Music 2023
We went to the 2023 Youth in Music Show at US Bank Stadium today to see my nephew perform in the Marching Band competition for Grand Rapids High School. We saw all the AAA and AAAA performances.
- Papillion-La Vista South HS (Papillion, NE)
- Grand Rapids HS (Grand Rapids, MN)
- Farmington HS (Farmington, MN)
- Irondale HS (New Brighton, MN)
- Marshall HS (Marshall, MN)
- Millard West HS (Omaha, NE)
- Brandon Valley HS (Brandon, SD)
- Millard North HS (Omaha, NE)
- Sioux Falls Lincoln HS (Sioux Falls SD)
- Eden Prairie HS (Eden Prairie, MN)
- Eastview HS (Apple Valley, MN)
- Rosemount HS (Rosemount , MN)
The performances were impressive and each one is like a 10 minute show. For the finale, Iowa State University MB (Ames, IA) gave an exhibition performance with a Metallica theme that was incredible.
We got our Eight Sleep setup and ready to use. First night using it! Currently cooling my side, and warming Tammy’s. I’m very hopeful that this helps me get better quality and duration of sleep. 😴
I did my 400th Peloton spin class this morning! 30 min Classic Rock Ride with Matt Wilpers. 🎉
Look up.
We found this Thankful Tree on our walk and Mazie took the opportunity to add one.
