I received a much less than stellar review in my short teaching career at the West Georgia Technical College campuses in Carrolton, Georgia, and LaGrange, Georgia. I seem to recall that I was commuting 41.8 miles one way to Carrolton two or three days a week. I also was giving my roommate a ride to her medical clinic (as a patient) five or six times a week to Newnan, Georgia, a one-way distance of 30.9 miles. I was expected to teach Information Technology rather than software engineering and/or computer science. I believe I received a negative teaching review from a Carrolton student in my “Maintenace and Repair of Personal Computers” in the 2012 Winter Semester. I did later earn a TestOut.com certification in the area of PC Pro. We used the simulators offered online from TestOut.com. I earned the PC Pro certificate credential ID C8FR in August 2013. In my defense, I was a competent instructor of Windows 2007 Office and “Maintenace and Repair of Personal Computers” before I resigned due to negative ethics on my part. Also, I did much better instructing when I was teaching only on the LaGrange, Georgia campus.
Category: Memoirs of James Pate Williams Jr
“Odious Olfaction” by James Pate Williams, Jr. (c) Friday, May 10, 2024
“Odious Olfaction” is a MP3 that used Universal Audio Effect Minimoog Emulator recorded by SONAR Platinum. The guitar effects utilized were TH3 Noise Reduction, Chorus, Overdrive, Digital Delay, Spring Reverb, Fender Twin Reverb Emulator. The MIDI audio effect was the Cakewalk Arpeggiator. The Minimoog patch was 2 Classic Oscillators.
Building my Revell USS New Jersey 1:350 Scale Model Platinum Edition by James Pate Williams, Jr. Model Cost from Amazom.com $75.16 USD
Opened the box at 3:00 PM Friday, May 3, 2024.
Painted first coats on the primary and secondary turrets on Saturday, May 4, 2024, afternoon after washing a few of the frames.
By Wednesday, May 8, 2024, I had painted and put together 10 – 5” dual-purpose turrets and I have painted all the main armament triple – 16” 50 caliber rifles. The 5” dual-purpose guns are broken down into four parts and the main turrets at most 15 parts.
On Tuesday, May 7, 2024, I began assembling the Balsa wood decks. The real decking is teakwood which is insect and weather resistant.
What Is Teak Wood & Why It Is So Great? – Start Woodworking Now
I finished the decking (all but two parts) on Thursday, May 9, 2024. There are not any written instructions for the decking, so you must interpret the photographic hieroglyphics (picture writing). The decking pictures are the same scale as the real model so that helps assembly a great deal.
I decided not to use the included metal artillery barrels since I am not good at drilling holes in plastic or for that matter any other media. The most hand drilling will probably involve the hull and propeller shafts holes. When I assembled my standard 1:350 Kriegsmarine Bismarck model last year, I broke a DeWalt drill bit while attempting to drill a propeller shaft hole. This May I purchased an inexpensive hand drill from Wall Mart.
Thus far I have spent the following amounts on this model: $75.16 (model itself), $14.49 (hand drill), and $28.05 (acrylic paint from Hobby Linc), therefore $117.60 total including shipping and handling and applicable sales taxes.
Between 1:15 AM and 2:00 AM, Friday, May 10, 2024, I successfully drilled four propeller shaft holes in my BB-62 model’s hull. I used my two legs as a gentle vice to hold my hull reasonably steady during my drilling operations. Hopefully, later today I will be able to paint the hull carmine red and later add a black waterline belt. I am waiting for the Revell carmine red acrylic paint from Hobby Linc. Revell calls for 90% carmine red and 10% reddish brown for the hull, but I don’t like mixing colors and usually just utilize the dominant color. I have Revell reddish brown acrylic in my set of paints, so I may reconsider mixing paints like a true artist or hobbyist. I would need to get some syringes minus their typical hypodermic needles.
I will update this blog entry later today, Friday, May 10, 2024. Remember Friday, May 24, 2024, is the 83rd anniversary of the Battle of the Denmark Strait. I will have more to say about this pivotal battle later this month.
Summer of 1969, etc. by James Pate Williams, Jr.
Due to my poor performance in regular English literature, I was forced to retake the class in the summer of 1969. I was in between the sophomore (10) and junior (11) grades. The class was held on July 4, 1969, since we were not allowed a vacation day on Independence Day. Also concurrently on July 4, 1969, the great Atlanta International Pop Festival was held at the Atlanta International Raceway in Hampton, Georgia. A fellow classmate tried to get me to skip class to go to the festival. I decided against skipping class.
Concerts That I Have Attended
1970 or 1971 Muddy Waters at the University of Georgia
1973 (?) Larry Coryell at a small venue in Northeast Atlanta, Georgia
November 30, 1974 “The Relayer Tour” by Yes with the lineup of Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Patrick Moraz, Chris Squire, and Alan White. The Omni Coliseum in Atlanta, Georgia
1975 (?) Jethro Tull at the Fox Theater in Atlanta, Geogia
August 25, 1976 “The Going for the One Tour” by Yes with a lineup of Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Chris Squire, Rick Wakeman, and Alan White
In the early 1970s I saw the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra perform “The Planets” by Gustave Holst and Ravel’s arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition”.
Gort’s Directed Energy Weapon, An Observation by James Pate Williams, Jr.
Today, I was reading a review of the movie, “The Day the Earth Stood Still”. The film was released on September 18, 1951. The reviewer referred to Gort, the planetary defending robot, as having a laser beam eye. However, the laser on Earth was invented by Theodore H. Maiman on May 16, 1960. Science fiction authors had written about death rays (directed energy weapons) since almost the invention of the fictional genre. Perhaps these deaths rays were composed of x-ray or gamma-rays. The Strategic Defense Initiative (also known derisively by the Fourth Estate, the press, as the “Star Wars” ABM [Anti-Ballistic Missile defense] program]) a 1980s President Ronald Reagan proposed and supported DARPA funded strategic ballistic defense program envisioned x-ray or gamma-ray lasers to knock out multiple ICBMs (Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles) in their vulnerable launch phase or ballistic outer space flight phase. The problem with these high energy lasers is that most of the designs used a nuclear weapon to initiate the lasering action. Lately, there are some high-energy lasers that were being tested about 10 years ago by the United States Department of Defense: https://www.darpa.mil/program/high-energy-liquid-laser-area-defense-system
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_oxygen_iodine_laser
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_national_missile_defense
Biblical Quiz
Even though I am an agnostic, I scored 47 out 60 on the following Biblical test. That is a pitiful 78. 33 % or C on a five-letter scale (A, B, C, D, F). Evidently, I should have stayed studied in more Sunday school classes.
A New and Some Old MP3s by James Pate Williams, Jr. Copyrighted on Easter Sunday, March 31, 2024
The first MP3 was created on Saturday, March 30,2024. It uses the former Cakewalk Digital Audio Workstation software SONAR Platinum. The software synthesizer utilized was Universal Audio Waterfall Hammond B3 Organ emulator with Lesley Type 147 amplifier and rotating speaker enclosure.
The second MP3 was created on May 19,2009, using my Gibson EDS-1275 double neck SG guitar and one of the older Cakewalk DAWs. Unfortunately, my double neck guitar was stolen from my house in 2011.
The final MP3 in this post uses my 2006 Gibson Les Paul SG Custom. The date on the MP3 is Thursday, February 15, 2018.
The next MP3 is the same music as the first MP3 but using Universal Audio’s Mini Moog synthesizer with Fanfare preset.
Preliminary Factorization Results of the Thirteenth Fermat Number (c) February 5, 2024, by James Pate Williams, Jr.
I am working on a factorization of the Thirteenth Fermat number which is 2 ^ 8192 + 1 and is 2,467 decimal digits in length. I am using Pollard’s factoring with cubic integers on the number (2 ^ 2731) ^ 3 + 2. I am also utilizing a homegrown variant of the venerable Pollard and Brent rho method and Arjen K. Lenstra’s Free LIP Elliptic Curve Method. I can factor the seventh Fermat number 2 ^ 128 + 1 in five to thirty minutes using my C# code. The factoring with cubic integers code is in C and uses Free-LIP.
Fermat factoring status (prothsearch.com)
The following is a run of Lenstra’s ECM algorithm:
== Data Menu ==
1 Simple Number
2 Fibonacci Sequence Number
3 Lucas Sequence Number
4 Exit
Enter option (1 – 4): 1
Enter a number to be factored: 2^8192+1
Enter a random number generator seed: 1
== Factoring Menu ==
1 Lenstra’s ECM
2 Lenstra’s Pollard-Rho
3 Pollard’s Factoring with Cubic Integers
Option (1 – 3): 1
2710954639361 p # digits 13
3603109844542291969 p # digits 19
Runtime (s) = 17015.344000
I aborted the previous computation due to the fact I was curious about the number of prime factors that could be found on personal computer. I will try a lot more calculation time in a future run. My homegrown application is able to at least find the first factor of Fermat Number 13.
Latest Factoring Results (c) February 4, 2024, by James Pate Williams, Jr.
I am testing two factoring algorithms: Pollard-Shor-Williams’s method, a home-grown version of the venerable Pollard rho algorithm and Pollard’s factoring with cubic integers. The second recipe is from “The Development of the Number Field Sieve” edited by Arjen K. Lenstra and Hendrik W. Lenstra, Jr. I use the 20-digit test number, 2 ^ 66 + 2 = 73786976294838206466. My method is very fast with this number as shown below:
2^66+2
73786976294838206466 20
Pseudo-Random Number Generator Seed = 1
Number of Tasks = 1
2 p 1
3 p 1
11 p 2
131 p 3
2731 p 4
409891 p 6
7623851 p 7
Elapsed hrs:min:sec.MS = 00:00:00.652
Function Evaluations = 1995
The Pollard factoring with cubic integers takes a long time but is capable of factoring much larger numbers. The results of the full factorization of my test number are:
== Data Menu ==
1 Simple Number
2 Fibonacci Sequence Number
3 Lucas Sequence Number
4 Exit
Enter option (1 – 4): 1
Enter a number to be factored: 2^66+2
Enter a random number generator seed: 1
== Factoring Menu ==
1 Lenstra’s ECM
2 Lenstra’s Pollard-Rho
3 Pollard’s Factoring with Cubic Integers
Option (1 – 3): 3
73786976294838206466
Enter a lower bound : -50000
Enter a upper bound : +50000
Enter b lower bound : +1
Enter b upper bound : +50000
Enter maximum kernels : 1024
Enter algebraic prime count: 300
Enter rational prime count: 300
Enter lo large prime bound: 10000
Enter hi large prime bound: 11000
Numbers sieved = 452239293
Successes 0 gcd(a, b) is 1 = 274929004
Successes 1 rational smooth a + b * r = 181838258
Successes 2 long long smooth = 68959
Successes 3 kernels tested = 535
2 p # digits 1
3 p # digits 1
11 p # digits 2
131 p # digits 3
2731 p # digits 4
409891 p # digits 6
7623851 p # digits 7
Runtime (s) = 36383.696000
It took over ten hours to fully factor, 2 ^ 66 + 2. I am currently attempting to factor the Thirteenth Fermat number which is 2 ^ (2 ^ 13) + 1 = 2 ^ 8192 + 1. The number has 2,467 decimal digits. I am using 399 algebraic prime numbers, 600 rational prime numbers, and 316 “large prime numbers” (primes between 12,000 and 15,000). I have to find the kernels of a 1316 by 1315 matrix. I am trying the factorization using a maximum of 8192 kernels. I suspect this computation will take about a week on my desktop workstation. There is no guarantee that I will find a non-trivial factor of 2 * (2731 ^ 3) + 2.
Numerical Explorations 