Cycling in north Orem Utah--even on the Provo River Parkway

Jason, a scout leader, is wondering where to take some scouts on a 15 mile (I would guess) ride. He's thinking about the Provo River Parkway but my comments from last year made that seem like a less-good idea.

Here's an 18 mile loop in Orem:

Start at 1600 North and 400 East in Orem. Ride down to 400 West (where the new goofy light is next to State St). Turn right and head over to 2000 North in Orem. Turn left and ride/coast all the way to the dump at the west end of 2000 North. Turn left and ride along Utah Lake to 400 South. This will involve a few left and right turns. Generally keep heading south to 400 south. Then turn left onto 400 South and ride East back to 400 East. Remember that fun descent along 2000 North? Now is when you pay for it. It's not bad, but some climbing. Turn left onto 400 East and ride north to where ever you left your car (or wherever you live).

I've been riding the Parkway trail in the canyon this Spring. It hasn't been too bad in the afternoon on weekdays. The worst of it is the section before and after Bridal Veil Falls which can be avoided by taking the road on the west side of the river then crossing the bridge at the parking lot beyond the old tram station. It's also a good chance to teach scouts some manners.

I did the cycling merit badge with my scouts 2 years ago. I loved the Provo River Parkway trail because traffic was not an issue. I am very very conservative about taking risks with other people's kids and the Parkway trail was great that way. We did a 25 miler and a 15 miler on the parkway trail including riding up south fork and down to Utah Lake both starting from north Orem.

Just this week, some kid on a sweet mtn bike chased me down on the Parkway Trail. Turns out it was one of my former scouts. He's really into mtn bike racing now and seemed genuinely out of breath when he caught me. I felt pretty good about that because one time I had to chase him down on the White Rim Trail after he rode right past our campsite. I was pretty out of breath then. Good thing he wasn't racing then or I might not have caught him. Scouting made a difference for him. It felt great.

Fake picture of Mt. Timpanogos

If you took photographs of a mountain for a year about 20 times a day and recorded the weather and time for each shot, then you could use machine learning to learn what the mountain should look like as a function of the date and time.

If you did that using 3 perceptrons per pixel to learn linear functions for hue, color and saturation for each pixel, then you'd get this image for May 20 at 2:20 pm. Not quite convincing yet, but not bad for such a simple model.

That's in 10 days. And for it to be correct for this year, a lot of snow better melt!

Algorithm and image by CS 658 student Ilya Raykhel who is a graduate student in machine learning.

Nice work Trent Plaisted

So I was running slowly around the indoor BYU track at lunch a while
ago (as I often do) when I saw one Trent Plaisted shooting free
throws, with someone to shag rebounds for him (his wife?), on one of
the hoops at the volleyball court.

That paid off nicely tonight. Nice work.

Overheard on NPR

On NPR this morning they were commenting about how the risk of anyone being fatally exposed to rocket fuel gas from the spy satellite was "only 3% and even then you'd have to hold your face next to it and breathe for a while"  Clearly, this was just a pointless display of military might. 

Suppose the satellite had not been shot down.  And it hit a populated area.  And someone died. 

Would the NPR commentators have said:  gee, it was only a 3% chance, I guess we rolled the dice on that one and came out wrong.  Well, in the end, that was a good call to take a 3% chance. 

That's why I only listen to NPR during the Leg. Session.  Their coverage has more depth than anyone else's (in the morning at least, Nightside project all the way in the evening). 

First time I saw that

One of my hobbies is watching the mountains so that I can watch avalanches roll down through the cliff bands.  I am pretty good at it, not that it's very hard, and have seen a fair bit of avalanche activity on Timp.  At least before our kids were born.  Sitting by the window and watching for avalanches isn't that compatible with raising kids.

So while I was driving home today I watched the tail end of an avalanche coming down the front of Y mountain.  From the first cliff band above the Y and north of the Y.  I couldn't watch if for long as the light turned green.  But a cursory glance at another red light revealed that the run out got quite a way down the mountain.   Looks like there's enough snow this year to get interesting activity below 8,500 feet. 

He's got a point

Tony Caputo (mmm, Italian) says "Our government, both federal and state, is opposed to someone eating salami, but they're not opposed to us being in the environment with toxic nuclear waste"

He's got a good point. 

If we can't important some salamis because they are too dangerous, then,um, why should nuclear waste be any safer?

That's too bad

I see that our legislature repealed in-state tuition for the children
of illegal immigrants. Bad call.

Yet another indication that our Republican Legislators are out of touch.

If some kid graduates from High School and gets accepted at a college
or university and his/her parents have established residency in Utah,
even illegally, then that kid should get in state tuition.

Someone please tell me why this was a good idea. I can see repealing
in-state tuition for their parents, who broke the law, but why do the
kids have to pay for it too?

I wish I'd waited 45 minutes to vote

Because I had to wait 1 hour and 30 minutes to vote in my precinct in Orem. 

Mostly I felt sorry for the poll worker volunteers.

Not what I thought

I thought this article titled "Cosmo vs. Provo" would be about parking in Provo or some other town vs. gown issue. It wasn't. Pretty funny.

Better duck if you are Mormon? Not quite.

Doug Robinson wrote a piece in the DesNews which gave his take on the recent torrent of ignorant statements about Mormons.  It hasn't been since High School in Montgomery, Alabama that I had to deal with this kind of stuff.  It was really awkward in High School. 

This time around, it is much clearer to me that Mormons just aren't well-understood in popular American culture.  That lack of knowledge is easily converted to prejudice. 

An interesting analogy for Mormons to think about is the recent Tom Cruise Scientology video release.  If you are Mormon, it's likely that your first reaction to the video was a lot like most American's initial reaction to anything about Mormons. 

For me it was.  I don't know much about Scientologists, so it was easy for me to get creeped out by the video.  But once I slowed down and listened to the what he was saying (at least in the clips I heard on Nightside with Ethan Millard (Etahn you rock!) while remodeling the bathroom), it's really not that weird.  It's all about believing that you have some kind of power to help people and that that gives you an obligation to help.  I don't know much about Scientology, but on the surface, that's not too different from the Mormon belief that "where much is given much is required." 

Like I said, I don't know much about Scientology and comparisons between Scientologists and Mormons isn't the point.  The point is that I was willing to get creeped out by a video about Scientologists because I just don't know much about them.  My ignorance made me vulnerable to sensationalism. 

I think that for many (normal) Americans, the reaction to something Mormon is very similar.  Because they know so little, they are willing to get creeped out by something presented with just the right spin.   I think that Mormons are currently faced with a great chance to define themselves rather than letting other people do it for them. 

Duck if your are Mormon?  Not quite.  More like stand up and define yourself if you are Mormon. 

I don't mind criticism (in High School it wasn't so fun, but that's just an awkward age for everyone) but I'd prefer to be criticized for things I actually believe and do rather the for a stereotype put forth by someone else. 

Of course, there's a group of people which seem to be obsessed with attacking Mormons on pet issues over and over again in Newspaper comment pages, on CNN's Hardball and so forth.  I don't understand those people either and arguing with them seems pointless.  They've already got their mind made up (as do I).