Hydraulic Ram
A hydraulic ram is a cyclic water pump powered by hydropower. It functions as a hydraulic transformer that takes in water at one hydraulic head and flow-rate, and outputs water at a different hydraulic-head and flow-rate. The device utilizes a phenomenon called stagnation pressure, also known as water hammer, that is based on Bernoulli’s principle. In operation, a portion of the input water that powers the pump is lifted to a point higher than where the water originally started. The hydraulic ram is sometimes used in remote areas, where there is both a source of low-head hydropower, and a need for pumping water to a destination higher in elevation than the source. In this situation, the ram is often useful, since it requires no outside source of power other than the kinetic energy of water.
- Inlet - drive pipe
- Free flow at waste valve
- Outlet - delivery pipe
- Waste valve
- Delivery check valve
- Pressure vessel
code computer-science linux mathematics open source original-content
by Layne
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Integer Square-root Function
While browsing the Linux kernel source this morning at work, I stumbled upon this little gem. As you may already know, kernel code can’t use any floating-point calculations, since the state of the Floating Point Unit (FPU) isn’t saved during context switches to kernel-space. This function computes the integer square root of the provided integer. It returns the largest integer less than or equal to the true square root of the input number. Code and sample output provided after the break.
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Bloop
The Bloop is the name given to an ultra-low frequency underwater sound detected by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration several times during the summer of 1997. The source of the sound remains unknown.
Though it matches the audio profile of a living creature, there is no known animal that could have produced the sound. If it is an animal, it would have to be, reportedly, much larger than even a Blue Whale.
Because the Bloop noise originated near the location of the fictional sunken city of R’lyeh from H.P. Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulhu”, the Bloop has been linked to Cthulhu by Lovecraft fans.
If you click through, you can listen to it.
The Tale of Peter Rabbit: Hieroglyph Edition
As with any language, some of the words are hard to translate directly, but Richard Parkinson and John Nunn, expert translators from the British Museum, maintain the story line as accurately as possible with the limited vernacular offered through Hieroglyphic script . . . Peter Rabbit is denoted by a semi-circle, an ellipse and rabbit image.
Voynich Manuscript
The Voynich manuscript is a mysterious illustrated book written in an indecipherable text. It is thought to have been written between approximately 1450 and 1520. The author, script and language of the manuscript remain unknown.
Over its recorded existence, the Voynich manuscript has been the object of intense study by many professional and amateur cryptographers, including some top American and British codebreakers of World War II fame all of whom failed to decrypt a single word. This string of failures has turned the Voynich manuscript into a famous subject of historical cryptology, but it has also given weight to the theory that the book is simply an elaborate hoax — a meaningless sequence of arbitrary symbols.
HOWTO: encode a string into a complicated-looking trigonometric function
I’ve written a small C program that takes as its input an arbitrary string and outputs the above function, modified a bit so that you can use the character index directly, i.e. f(4) gives you the
fifth character of the original string.
Near finals time, I tend to hate Mr. Fourier and his works. However, it’s still early enough in the semester that I’m jovial.
HOWTO: encode a string into a complicated-looking trigonometric function
HexDump Function
When programming at a low level, it’s often handy to be able to dump data to the console as raw hex values. Over the years I’ve written a handful of nearly identical routines to do this, but I’ve finally collected them into one function to rule them all. This function will dump a buffer to screen, 16 bytes per line, in both hex and ASCII format.
48 65 6c 6c 6f 20 61 6e 64 20 77 65 6c 63 6f 6d Hello.and.welcom
65 20 74 6f 20 68 74 74 70 3a 2f 2f 77 77 77 2e e.to.http://www.
77 61 79 6e 65 61 6e 64 6c 61 79 6e 65 2e 63 6f wayneandlayne.co
6d 21 00 m!.
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