Eric Karns

And now an excerpt from my dad’s manuscript which will be featured in an upcoming issue of Tech Directions magazine:

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Even the most appealing approaches used to relate electrical theory, like Pythagorean’s theorem, may still be construed meaningless by many students when there is a shortage of good examples around. Therefore, an electro-dynamic machine capable of delivering 160 decibels of raw sound power quickly captures a student’s attention, and goes on to serve as a platform to launch a myriad of lessons in electricity…

The scope of instructional activities involving subwoofers is scalable and can be varied widely to bring young learners in contact with seemingly mysterious electrical phenomena. Depth-of-instruction and learner activities can be controlled to meet teacher goals and objectives by breaking the subwoofer up into its teachable parts - electrical, mechanical, and acoustical…

The essentials of electromagnetic coupling, the discoveries of Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855), Coulomb’s law of charges, Hall effect sensing, and the temperature coefficient of resistance and power compression, are only a few of many topics easily brought to students.

(From: TEACHING SCIENCE and ELECTRICITY WITH SUBWOOFERS by Robert J. Karns / Copywrite 2007)
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Some of you might be wondering… “Why hasn’t Eric blogged lately?” and others of you might just be wondering “What is that smell?”… I can’t help you with the second question unless it’s related to some sort of a fungus in which case I could do a WebMD on that, but as for the first question the answer is: BUSY-NESS/UNINTERSTINGNESS. I haven’t thought of anything worth blogging about and my brain has been sapped by all my work and extra-curricular. Be that as it may, the point is that there really is no point. But at least I blogged today! (P.S. I’m 28 today. Waiting for the hair fairy to come on down and give me some quarters for all the hair I’m losing.)

My boyhood fantasies come true… finally a real batman utility belt. Now I just need my own cave and DC will once again be safe. (In fact it’s already started.)

P.S. In High School we had an elderly science teacher by the name of Mr. Atwell and this dude took major abuse from his freshman students, and I mean it was bad. Kids would throw paper airplanes at him when his back was turned - one time this dude named Garth poured a bunson burner out all over the table and lit it - I felt so sorry for Mr. Atwell. I felt even worse for making up his nickname and the name of the supply closet he would often disappear to. I called him ‘Atman’ and the closet I called the ‘At-Cave’ - guess it was just my future creative, advertising/marketing mind at work. Can’t blame a brutha for that can you?

Click pic for video.

There are a couple dozen Korean protesters outside of my office today. Apparently there is a conference on the Korea-US FTA (Free Trade Agreement) happening at the hotel today. I don’t know much about the Korea-US FTA but from what I’ve gleaned from some Independent media sources it boils down to this: Free trade agreements in the past have devastated working people’s lives throughout the world, and wreaked havoc on environmental regulations (essentially loosened enforcement on safe and environmentally friendly practices). Politicians claim that FTA’s create jobs but in practice it ends up ruining the environment and devastating lives.

So the peaceful protesters outside somehow warrant about 30 police cars and unmarked SUV’s, FBI agents guarding doorways and I got a piece of it on video. SUCKAS!

Click Abe for the big picture.

I’ve got good ‘ol honest Abe on my wall now (4′x3.5′)… it was pretty bare and lonely and needing something cool. This is the taped-up mock-up for now, but eventually I would really like to make something larger and possibly mounted to individual boards, sealed in some sort of brushed on shellacing.

Dear people who read my blog and what not: RoobiBoost is my latest venture with a buddy of mine… we are going with an unconventional name for a sort of, do-it-yourself e-commerce website product. I’m in design-mode right now and designed the frog and the website comp (click the logo to see the comp)… I’ve always been a fan of the ‘kitschy’ logo and as you can see this is no exception. Peace be unto you dudes.

Snapped this dreamy scenery on my walk to work this crispy, crispy morning. My camera phone sucks-it when the suns shinin’.

After 3 weeks of taking the metro during both rush hours, i have come to the conclusion that i very much DISenjoy the experience. Its clausterphobic as a mofizzle and people smell. I almost missed my last stop because smelly people were so packed in here was no room to exit.

I’m currently working on a project for an unnamed Fed. agency in downtown DC. The problem is, this particular agency sticks all its contractors in a satellite office that must cost somewhere between .001 and .002 cents a square foot for office space. I am dead serious.

This floor I am on is absolutely off the charts nasty. The bathroom smells worse than the nastiest roadside gas station commode you have ever experienced. The walls haven’t been cleaned in at least 300 hundred years and the carpets look & smell like they were installed in 1934. On top of the wonderful accommodations, there is a security badging system which allows you in and out of the floor. Since I am not on the project long enough for them to go through the trouble of getting me a badge, I often get stuck in the elevator hallway knocking on the doors until someone who knows me will let me in. I even got stuck in the elevator hallway during a fire drill for over 15 minutes… with the alarm right next to my ear. On that particular day I had had it and left the office shortly after.

BUT, there IS good news. The contrast between the third world building I am in and the adjacent-connected luxury hotel is enough to keep the spirits up. In fact, If the office gets to you too much you might consider a hollywood style suicide out the office window, through the hotel foyer atrium and into the hotel fountain. I have often contemplated this myself… above is a photo of the atrium I can see below my window.