Delta Latitude

How to Create Your Own Quantum Entanglement Experiment

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Brown) — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 23:05:00 +0000

Recently I've been addicted to Google+ and I have found that my posts have really slowed down. So here is something to keep you busy. An at home project that you can do to generate your own entangled particles and then verify that they are entangled.
Entangled particles are one of those quantum mechanics effects that sounds like something right out of Star Trek. Basically you generate two entangled particles and then the act of measuring the polarity of one particle causes the other's polarity to be set. This occurs now matter how far apart the particles are apart and can happen faster than the speed of light. Strange indeed.
The experiment is described in detail here: here (Part 1) and here (Part 2).

Happy Birthday Voyager

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Brown) — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 19:44:00 +0000

Thirty-five years ago last week, Nasa launched the Voyager probe. Currently it is Nasa's longest running spacecraft and is poised to exit the solar system sometime soon where eventually it will merge with an alien spacecraft and harass crew of the Enterprise. No wait ... that was a different probe wasn't it?

Curiosity: Wish You Were Here

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Brown) — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 15:09:00 +0000

After last week's amazing landing of Curiosity on Mars, Curiosity is now sending back its first HiRes images. I wonder if there are any Martians living in the hills? Check out the full image here.

All About Me

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Brown) — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:07:00 +0000

Lately I have been spending a fair amount of time volunteering with the Technology Alliance Group for Northwest Washington. Last week they returned the love by making me the member of the month. You can read the gripping Q&A session here.

On another note, if you are looking for a tech job in the Bellingham area, check out TAG's new job board.

Happy Pi Day - 3.14

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Brown) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 16:51:00 +0000

(Image via: http://brownsharpie.courtneygibbons.org)

It is that time of year ... pi day (unless you are European, then it would be January 3rd). So let's break it down. pi=3.14159265 ... so the official pi time is March 14 at 1500 hours, 9 minutes, 26 seconds --- your mileage may vary. You can check out more fun facts at http://www.piday.org/.

Why SOPA is bad for the US

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Brown) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:46:00 +0000

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Today is an informal protest SOPA day. "What is SOPA," you might ask. This video does a nice job explaining why SOPA is bad for the US. Proponents of the bill suggest that it is necessary to stop all of the evil pirates out there. On the surface it sounds good. Why would anyone want to support pirates? But the reality of these bills is always much worse than the political hyperbola.

Pageline 2.0 for your Wordpress Site

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Brown) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 22:18:00 +0000

Okay, I know that this is a Blogspot site and you are probably wondering why I would blog about a Wordpress plugin. Well, frankly, PageLines is cool. It really allows you to configure a site quickly with all kinds of cool effects. Sure Blogspot is great for a quick and dirty blog that can really look great, but if you want to do more complicated stuff, then Wordpress is the way to go (or if you have really complicated things to do, then try Drupal).

The problem is that Wordpress can be a bit intimidating. Along comes PageLines, a theme that greatly streamlines the process of building a website. We produced this website for Windows on the Bay this summer. Looks great doesn't it.

PageLines just came out with a new version that is even better than what we used. Check it out here.

Lego Android-Powered Robot solves Rubik's Cube 5.3s

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Brown) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 01:35:00 +0000

This robot is pretty amazing. It can solve a scrambled Rubik's cube in 5.3 seconds. I remember it used to take me forever to solve the thing. Just think, for only a grand you can have your very own robot solver. It is built from four LEGO Mindstorms NXT kits and a Samsung Android phone.
Now if it could just help me to remember where I put the damn cube.

The Sky is Falling

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Brown) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:53:00 +0000

Break out the tinfoil hats. Sometime this week the German satellite ROSAT will come to a fiery end. You can track it live at this site: http://www.n2yo.com/.

Blogger for android

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Brown) — Wed, 25 May 2011 20:19:00 +0000

I know this is a little slow on the draw, but I just installed the Blogger app for android. It automatically found all of my blogger sites and linked them up. I'm also attaching a QR-code for the app. All experimental for now.
So much for the QR-code. The app is force closing when I try to take a picture in the app. Also, you can not attach an existing photo.
Okay, another weird thing. If you save a draft and then publish via the web, the app doesn't Recognize that it was published and will set it back to draft mode losing any labels in the process.

Range Extension for eSignal

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Brown) — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 20:22:00 +0000

A couple of months ago I posted a study for thinkorswim that would plot the difference between the opening price and the current price (range extension). Recently, I've been evaluating eSignal and decided to reproduce that study.

This is a simple study for eSignal that plots the range from an opening price to the current price for the current bar. The difference in the two prices is shown in either ticks or absolute price depending on the input setting.

In this example the Euro is up 8 ticks from the opening. For those of you that looked at the TOS study, you might have noticed that we had the ability to set alerts. I have not included it here.

Enjoy,

Andy

//plotExtension
// Plots the realtime difference in ticks between
// the opening and the closing price.
// DeltaLatitude © April 2011       
//
// This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution
// 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit
// http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
// or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street,
// Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.                      


function preMain() {

    setPriceStudy(true);
    setStudyTitle("plotExtension");
    setCursorLabelName("plotExt",0);
    
    var fp1 = new FunctionParameter("useTick", FunctionParameter.BOOLEAN);
        fp1.setName("Plot Tick Values");
        fp1.setDefault(true);
}

function main(useTick) {

    var barState = getBarState();
    
    var extension;
    if (useTick) {
       extension = (Math.round((close(0) - open(0))/getMinTick())).toFixed(0);
    } else {
        extension = (close(0) - open(0)).toFixed(4);
    }
    
    if (barState == BARSTATE_CURRENTBAR)  {
        drawTextRelative(0, close(0), "  " + extension, Color.red, null,
            Text.Bold|Text.LEFT|Text.VCENTER, null, 12, "current");
    }
    

    return extension;
    
}

An Atomic Clock on Your Wrist

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Brown) — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 20:21:00 +0000

via ieee spectrum

Having lived in Colorado for twenty years, there are a couple of things that you learn. One is that you always travel with a sleeping bag in your car in the winter and another is that there is an atomic clock in Boulder. This clock is the official wristwatch of the United States and is about as big as a Volkswagon. Recently Symmetricom of San Jose announced an atomic clock that is only a couple of inches on a side (or about as big as a large wristwatch). With a bit more work we will start seeing these devices in GPSs, cell phones and maybe even wristwatches. Then, everyone will really know what time it is.

For more info read this ieee spectrum article.

The Tayana 37 Sales Experiment

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Brown) — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 23:33:00 +0000

Kalliope, A Tayana 37, In Admiralty Inlet

In last weeks action packed blog, I mentioned that I was in the process of selling my beloved Kalliope on the web-site www.tayana37.org. I've been playing around a little with search engine optimization (SEO) for the site. Last week I managed to show up on the second page of Google search results when you searched the term tayana 37. This week we have managed to move up to the first page. Wahoo. Pretty exciting. Okay, I know I am at the bottom of the page. But, this is where you can help out. Go ahead and link to www.tayana37.org in your blog posting or twitter about it. I'll let you know the results.

Google is Digitizing Everything

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Brown) — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 20:09:00 +0000

Better Than Life?

I think Google is out to digitize everything. First, they indexed a good chunk of the Web, then they index your mail, your street, your house, the earth, the moon, the stars, countless books and now this. The speck of paint in the magnified image above is worth millions ... and you can have access to it in your living room. In fact, there are more specks of paint digitized just like the one above. Eventually all of the specks will be cataloged and stored for your perusal.

In some ways. the virtual is better than the real thing. In the brick and mortar world you just can't get that close to this particular piece of paint without some one hassling you.
This spec of paint along with specs of paint from around the world can now be seen at the Google Art Project. Not only are they digitizing paintings from all of the great museums around the world, they are digitizing the interiors of the museums so that you can virtually tour them.

MOMA - Gallery 1 - Impressionist

So what about the fleck of paint at the top of the article? I'm sure you recognize it. It is the small fleck of paint on the upper right hand corner of the painting on the right in the gallery above. You know the one—the painting that tried to represent the earth, moon, and stars in the most advanced medium of the time—paint.

Check it out in its full glory here or head directly to the gallery.

Tayana 37 Mk II For Sale

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Brown) — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 20:40:00 +0000

Tayana 37

After much hemming and hawing we have decided to sell our lovely Tayana 37, Kalliope. You are probably wondering what this has to do with technology. Well, I've decided to do a little experiment and create a website that demos the boat. I was able to pick up a domain name, tayana37.org, that does a great job of describing my vessel. In fact, the domain name already shows up on the number two page when you do a Google search of "tayana 37". Go ahead and check it out by clicking here.
I picked up the tayana37.org site a couple of months ago when I started thinking about selling the boat. I quickly put up the most boring test page on blogger (click here) and connected up Google analytics and then did absolutely nothing. That boring test page generated several hundred hits with a large percentage coming from direct searches of "tayana 37" and "tayana 37" for sale. Not bad for zero optimization.
The next step was to create a new page with a little better content and add a ton of images that were captioned with "Tayana 37". Hopefully this will help some of the images bubble to the top of the image search feature.
The final step will be to create a Google ad-campaign to generate even more traffic.
I'll keep you updated on the experiment.

Range Extension Study for TOS

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Brown) — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 18:19:00 +0000

This is a simple study for ThinkOrSwim that plots the range from an opening price to the current price for the current bar. It has an alert associated with it so that if you have a big move the system can let you know about it. You can also tell the indicator if you want to display price or ticks.

In this example the Euro is down a big whopping tick (well it is a new hour). If we exceed our range, then we would get an alert and the bar would change from yellow to red or green depending on the direction.

Enjoy,

Andy

#
#hint:atbPlotExtension Bands\nAdds a label that displays the price difference between the opening and the current tick.\n(c) 2010 Deltalatitude, LLC
#hint DisplayTick: Show extension in ticks or absolute price.
#hint MaxExtension: Send an alert if > MaxExtension
# This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution
# 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit
# http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
# or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street,
# Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

input DisplayTick = yes;
input MaxExtension = 100;

def range = if DisplayTick then (close-open)/ticksize() else close-open;

AddChartLabel(yes, concat("Extension: ", range) ,
if range > MaxExtension then color.Green else if range < -MaxExtension then color.Red else color.Yellow);

alert(absValue(range) > MaxExtension,concat("Max Extension for ",getSymbolPart()),Alert.Once,Sound.Ding);

LR Bands for Think Or Swim

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Brown) — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 20:47:00 +0000

I've been reading some of the discussions lately on the TTM forum about different types of reversion to the mean stock strategies. One strategy I've been playing around with a bit was suggested by John Carter and expanded upon by Gary_P on the forum. The basic idea is that you buy on pullbacks to the +/- 1 or 2 Std Deviations from the linear regression curve . He was kind enough to provide some Tradestation snippets and I have gone ahead and translated them to TOS for your charting pleasure. Enjoy.

So in the example above, You would have entered on 11/29 at 1168 ~ 1175. Your target would have been 1230 with a stop at 1120 or so. Did I make this trade? No. I had my entry a couple of points too low. C'est La Vive.

#hint:atbLR Bands\nThis script plots the historical values of the Linear Regression channel. A big thanks to the TS code written by Garp_P\n

#hint Length: Length of Channel
#hint NumDevs: Width of Channel in Stdevs.

input Length = 38;
input NumDevs = 2.0;

def SDev = stdev(close,Length) * NumDevs;
plot LR = Inertia(close, Length);

LR.SetDefaultColor(Color.Green);

plot UpperBand = LR + SDev;
UpperBand.SetDefaultColor(Color.Cyan);
UpperBand.SetLineWeight(2);

plot LowerBand = LR - SDev;
LowerBand.SetDefaultColor(Color.Cyan);
LowerBand.SetLineWeight(2);

Happy Birthday to the Transistor

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Brown) — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 18:52:00 +0000

The transistor just turned sixty years old and is still going strong. I suspect that most of us would be hard pressed not to use at least one or two billion transistors every day.
Here is a quick video from the University of Illinois that explains how the transistor works.

Space is Big. Really Big.

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Brown) — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 20:24:00 +0000

The beginning of Douglas Adam's book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy says that, "space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is." Well now our buddies at NASA have tried to put it in perspective with this movie called All We Can See. And as you can see, it is really big.

NASA Goddard

Scan for Squeezes in ThinkOrSwim

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Brown) — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 20:04:00 +0000

A couple of weeks ago I posted an article about how to add columns to display the current squeeze status for a quote window. This time we are going to use the TTM_SqueezeCol study that we created to generate a custom scan that will allow you to scan for daily squeeze.
This is NOT for the faint of heart, so follow carefully and let me know if I made any mistakes.

Select Studies->Edit Studies. This opens up the Edit Studies and Strategies window. Under the Studies tab select and right click the TTM_SqueezeCol study that you created from my previous article. Select copy. If you don't see TTM_SqueezeCol, then you don't have the study. You will have to get it to proceed. Follow these instructions. Seriously. I mean it.
A new thinkscript window will open. Rename the study to TTM_SqueezeScan.
Change the line that begins with plot BolKelDelta ... to def BolKelDelta ...
Add the following line to the end of the study:

plot signal1 = if( bolKelDelta < 0) then yes else no;

Make sure that the editor is not reporting any errors and press OK.
Now open up the Stock Hacker window under the scan tab.
Click the red X on the Net Change and % change row. If your screen looks different, add or delete rows until you just have a volume row.
Now click the Add Study Filter. You should have a window that looks similar to this:
On the row that says ADX crossover, left click the small triangle on the right side of the box and select Custom.
Replace the line that says ADXCrossover() with

plot foo = TTM_SqueezeScan();
Click Okay.
By default a scan will scan everything, this can take a while, so go ahead and set it up to scan a single index. In my example I use the S&P 100.
Tighten things up even more by only scanning equities that are trading over a million shares.
Now go ahead and hit the Scan button.
If everything worked out okay, press Save Scan Query. You can now use this scan in any quote list.

There you go, we now know that we have a couple of daily squeezes setting up on about 15% of the S&P 500. Are you interested in scanning the Futures market? Just select Scan In: Futures and decrease the volume to zero. Today, it looks like Oats and Cocoa are in a squeeze. Hmm, it looks like breakfast could get interesting.

Watch the Mars Rover Being Built - Live

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Brown) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 17:27:00 +0000

NASA and JPL have teamed together to create a Curiosity Cam so you can watch the next Mars rover being built -- all live. Okay, it is about as much fun to watch as paint drying, but interesting in its own alien way.

Tired of Facebook tracking you on every site you visit?

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Brown) — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 01:05:00 +0000

I definitely have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. I like that I can keep in touch with many of my friends that live off in the far corners of the world, but I am annoyed with the amount of tracking that Facebook is doing. Heck, most companies do it, but these guys don't even do it that well.
Well in the same spirit as one of my favorite Firefox add-on (flashblock), we now have Facebook Disconnect. It only works on the Chrome browser, but I suspect someone will copy it soon to other browsers. Get it quick before Facebook sues the developer.

TTM Squeeze RadarScreen for Thinkorswim

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Brown) — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 16:10:00 +0000

[Update: Recently TOS incorporated TTM's code into their proprietary studies. Unfortunately, this technique will not work for proprietary studies. :-( -andy]

Last week I was watching a video webinar over at Trade the Markets. Someone asked if Thinkorswim had the ability to display the status of a squeeze in a RadarScreen type of window. The short answer is yes with lots of caveats. I will walk you through the procedure.
The first thing you will need is TTM's squeeze indicator or an open source version of squeeze. You can get one from TTM here. These instructions are specific for TTM's squeeze so you will have to modify them for your particular indicator.

Go ahead and start Thinkorswim and click on the MarketWatch tab and then the quote sub tab. You should see a screen that roughly looks like the one in the picture above (without the squeeze columns). Now we are going to add the squeeze indicators to a column in your quote screen.

In a chart window, select Studies->Edit Studies. That will open up the Edit Studies and Strategies window. Under the Studies tab select and right click the TTM_Squeeze study. Select copy. If you don't see TTM_Squeeze, then you don't have the study. You will have to get it to proceed.
A new thinkscript window will open. Rename the study TTM_SqueezeCol.
Remove every line with the word momentum in it. This study reference the ExpAverage function which according to the tool is deprecated. Hard to believe. If there are any errors, you will get a message at the bottom of the window.
Remove the lines with squeeze in them (such as plot squeeze) and squeeze.AssignValue, etc.
change def BolKelDelta ... to plot BolKelDelta.
Hit Ok. Hit Ok again. Thinkorswim will add the new study to your chart.
Left click the small grey dot just to the left of the Symbol column header and select Customize.
You should see the window below. Select one of the Custom studies and then click the Add Item(s) >> button.
After you click the button you will get a think script window.
Name the Column "SqueezeHr".
Set the Aggregation period to 1h (one hour, or whatever you want.). One advantage of TOS over TS is that you can have a column for each period that you want to scan.
Delete the text SimpleMovingAvg() and copy the following code into the window

plot BolKelDelta = TTM_SqueezeCol();
def signal = if( BolKelDelta >= 0) then yes else no;
BolKelDelta.AssignValueColor(if signal then Color.Green else Color.Red);
You should now have something that looks like the image below. Go ahead click and OK.
You should be back in the Custom Studies window (see picture in Step 2). As an added bonus, scroll down the available items window and the Send to [1] Red column to your quote page. That way you can just click the square and your linked windows will all get populated at once. Click OK and you are done.

You final window will look something like this:

Thinkorswim doesn't allow you to plot text, but the colors and values tell you the story. An equity is in a squeeze if the value is red (<0). We are out of a squeeze if the value is green (>0).
Now go ahead add add extra columns for Day and Week.

It is possible to add columns for momentum and to indicate how long we have been in/out of a squeeze, but I will leave that article for another day.

Wow, check out the banks and home construction index. Something is getting ready to happen there. Gotta go.

The Morning After: The Schooner Zodiac Dismasts South of Bellingham

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Brown) — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 16:58:00 +0000

Yesterday, a friend of mine reported that the schooner Zodiac dismasted. I found the following on their Facebook site:

September 25th. Heading home to Bellingham in good winds- a great day with 22 school kids on board.
At 1:25 pm, the main mast broke apart and fell across the port side of the ship. No one was seriously injured and the coast guard were quick to arrive. The crew is safe and passengers were all put aboard the motor vessel Kwaietek and taken to shore.

And this morning:

Zodiac arrived safely back in Bellingham last night, after a very long day for the crew. Everyone is safe and sound. We also want to thank our passengers for acting calmly and responsibly throughout their un-scheduled adventure, and helping us get everyone transported safely to shore.

This morning I woke to find them anchored in the bay trying to clean up before they pulled into dock. I am glad that no-one was injured and I hope that they are able to get the mast repaired for next season.

The Zodiac off of Taylor Street Dock

This morning's view of the Zodiac from my house.

3D Road Graphics in Vancouver, BC

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Brown) — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 20:24:00 +0000

If you are heading up to West Vancouver, take a cruise down the northbound lane of 22nd street. If you're not prepared, get ready for the a nice fright as you plow over the 3d image of the girl. But why stop with just a girl, you could create a whole neighborhood reminiscent of the Death Race video game from the 70's. Now that would be cool.