Monthly Archives: December 2012

What’s today’s Mayan Long Count date?

I wanted to know.

I read up on the Mayan calendar.

It was easy to code up in Python:

#!/usr/bin/env python

# This code is completely untested, it doesn't do anything relative
# to timezones or the like.  It does appear to broadly function.
#
# 1 k'in == 1 day 
# 1 winal = 20 k'in or 20 days
# 1 tun = 18 winal or 360 days
# 1 k'atun = 20 tun or 7200 days
# 1 b'ak'tun = 20 k'atun or 144000 days

import time
from datetime import date

def calc(n):
	# n is the days since the start of the latest b'ak'tun
	# which occurred on September 18, 1618
	baktun = int(n / 144000)
	n = n - baktun * 144000
	katun = int(n / 7200)
	n = n - katun * 7200
	tun = int(n / 360)
	n = n - tun * 360
	winal = n / 20
	n = n - winal * 20
	kin = n
	return map(lambda x : str(x), [12+baktun, katun, tun, winal, kin])


today = date.today()
s = date(1618, 9, 18)

print "Mayan Long Count = %s" % ('.'.join(calc(int((today - s).days))))

Today is 12.19.19.17.13. In 7 days, the right most place will roll over, and the date will be 13.0.0.0.0, starting a new b’ak’tun.

Or the world will end. Enjoy!

Another swappable fuselage from Busybee TV

The guys over at flitetest have a great series on building airplanes around a swappable fuselage. The basic idea is to house the receiver, esc, and battery in a fuselage that can be easily attached and detached to different wing setups, essentially giving you different planes without having to duplicate all the same receiver/ESC in each. It’s a neat idea. Today, I noticed this video from Busybee TV, showing his own version of the swappable with a cute twist. He built it significantly smaller (my guess is about 60% as large as the flitetest version) which means that the wing loading is significantly lower, and you can hold the wings in place with magnets. Oh, and it costs about $50. He demonstrates to mini-airplane wingsets. Build videos are supposed to be coming soon. Check it out: