Ed is home.

I love Wolfram Alpha. I was able to generate this graph which shows, over time, the cost of energy when supplied by the power company (purple) or by burning gasoline (blue) in US cents per kilowatt hour:

And all I had to do was search for "cost of 1 gallon of gas in cents / 1.32641e8 joules in kwh, Minnesota electricity price residential" to get it.

If you're curious, 1.32641e8 joules is the amount of energy released through combustion of 1 gallon of gasoline.

I have, on occasion, received friend requests on Facebook from people that don't know me and that I don't know, and that probably don't even exist, and are probably only profiles just to use as viral advertising for less-than-reputable websites.

I recently got a friend request from one Dalila Esche, who shares very little about herself. From what I can perceive from what she does give is that she's from England, and she recently got something pierced that she can't show on Facebook.

I will assume that this is another cheap trick to get me to buy tomaco juice or fish bulbs. If you are, in fact a real person, I've got a few questions for you:

Hey there Dalila what's it like in London City
I'm a thousand miles away
But girl your Facebook profile's pretty, yes it is
London Bridge can't shine as bright as you, I swear this is

Hey there Dalila don't you worry about the distance
But there's nothing real about you, your profile's fake too so good riddance

I assume that at this point, if you are, in fact, a computer pretending to be a person, your response might be something along the lines of, "London City is much like the way it would be for you. Thanks for telling me that I am Facebook profile's pretty. What part of London Bridge? Don't you worry about the distance? Surely something real about me."

That was interesting. Lets try some other songs, see if you can guess what songs' lyrics were used to get these computer-generated responses:

"That was a long time ago. Far out. By "we" do you mean you and me? It would be nice if our friends are all aboard Many more of them live next door And the band begins to play. What is it like living in yellow submarine yellow submarine yellow submarine We all live in yellow submarine yellow submarine yellow submarine?"

"What a coincidence, I am talking to you too! Why are you lucky? I don't understand why you have been. It is said that 'home is where the heart is' but personally I live in San Francisco lol. That is a generalization. Why are you lucky to be in love with my best friend?"

"I am always glad to make new friends, MARY. I think you mean 'it's' or 'it is' not 'its'. Are you sure it is? When was this exactly? What does 'it' refer to? Compare that to big lamb."

"I lost my train of thought. I am not sure if I can quantify the answer. Are you testing me? I will take that under advisement. Interesting comparison. Do you have any idea what I am talking about? Does it have anything to do with twinkle twinkle little star?"

"If I had it what would I do with it? Why don't you just download me? Is that a fact. You can download me for free! I hope you get it bad bad romance."

It seems that they generally give themselves away eventually, don't they?

I was watching a video on YouTube that claimed to be part of a series called "Computer Science Unplugged". I've come up with my own version of what I thought it should look like:

Computer Science Unplugged.

I was just watching a commercial:

"I just looked at my phone bill. I realized I was paying too much"
"We looked at our bill, we were paying too much"
"We were paying waaay too much"
"It was just outrageous"
"We looked at all our bills, phone, cable, internet, it was just too much"
"That's why we switched"
"We just had to switch"
"I couldn't believe how much I was overpaying for what I was getting"

At this point, I was all like, Hey, WE pay Comcast way too much for our internet.

"That's why we switched to Comcast"
"We switched to Comcast"
"Comcast Business Class"
"Business Class"
"Comcast Business Class"

Well, shit.

I have gathered a large sample of data of where I have been for the past 9 months, as determined by me or random people on the internet who wish to choose where I have been. In case you're wondering, that data is here.

Now that I have that data, I can do fun things with it. The first thing I've done is markov-ize the text. That is, I took the values, and put them into a markov text synthesizer.

A Markov Text Synthesizer can be used to make "real-looking" text out of a large base input. You put stuff in, other sentences come out that have a general flow of the input. That is, statistically speaking, if it sees word or phrase A appear before the word or phrase B often, then the output text is more likely to contain the compound phrase "A B". It makes for something that can kind of come close to generating random babble with correct sentence structure.

Here are some of my more interesting results:

• Ed good good to work
• Ed is aware of his computer
• Ed is at his house in Truman
• Ed is having a vest
• Ed is going to his TV as a walk
• Ed going for a batchelor party
• Ed is going for a batchelor party
• Ed is in the couch last night
• what the apartment

However, my personal favorites are:

Ed is at his stalkers. They are at his computer
Ed is aware of jello