Dale Swanson

5 Creepy Forms of Mind Control You're Exposed to Daily

2012-01-26T22:37:00.000-05:00

http://www.cracked.com/article_19646_5-creepy-forms-mind-control-youre-exposed-to-daily.html

Supreme Court says search warrants needed when police use GPS devices to track suspects

2012-01-23T11:58:00.000-05:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/supreme-court-says-search-warrants-needed-when-police-use-gps-devices-to-track-suspects/2012/01/23/gIQA7wL1KQ_story.html

Regulatory Capture

2012-01-20T13:17:00.001-05:00

I read a comic that lead me to this wiki article on examples of regulatory capture in the US. It's a good article to read if you're looking to lose all hope.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture#American_examples

Monsanto's growth hormone, rBGH, which has been linked to cancer in cows and humans, has been banned in numerous countries, but is unlabeled and legal in the United States. Margaret Miller, a former chemical laboratory supervisor at Monsanto, wrote a scientific report that was to be submitted to the FDA to obtain approval of the drug. Shortly before the report was submitted, Miller quit Monsanto to take a job at the FDA, where her first job was to approve the report she had just written while employed at Monsanto.

Richard Feynman explains science

2012-01-19T20:06:00.000-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYPapE-3FRw

Useful Websites for School

2012-01-15T01:38:00.123-05:00

I've often said that I don't think I could do well in school in an age without the internet. The bulk of my time spent learning is spent on various websites increasing my understanding of concepts. While random sites found via googling are often useful, I've compiled a list of websites I go to time and time again. I've mentioned some of these before, and some are quite well known, so you may have already visited them.

Wolfram|Alpha

I've mentioned Wolfram Alpha a few times here, but it really deserves its own post. If you've never used it before, it is a "computational engine". Similar to a search engine, but aiming to answer questions directly rather than simply via links. While it can be used for any subject, I pretty much only use it for math.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=integral+of+sin+x+2x^3
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=sum+of+1%2F2^n+from+1+to+infinity
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=area+between+y%3D|x|+and+y%3Dx^2-6
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i={{45%2C+-34%2C+120%2C+1}%2C+{-14%2C+25%2C+-67%2C+0}%2C+{12%2C+75%2C+-72%2C+1}%2C+{1%2C+42%2C+83%2C+82}}

While there are other systems that can solve math like this, Wolfram Alpha stands out two ways. First is that it does a very good job of interpreting input correctly. If you've ever tried to use a program like Maple or a graphing calculator to solve things, you know it gets pretty annoying to input what you actually want. Even if you think you have the input right you don't know for sure. Wolfram Alpha shows what it thinks you've inputted so you know for sure if it is correct. The second thing is the show steps button. With a simple click Wolfram Alpha will show you how it solved the problem. This doesn't always help, as sometimes it uses a very labor intensive brute force method, but helps quite often. Note the random and examples buttons near the search box if you want to see examples of what kinds of things it can do.

Khan Academy
I've written about Khan Academy before, but it is really an amazing site. It consists of 10 minute videos on a wide range of science and math subjects, including: arithmetic, differential equations, calculus, bio, chem, physics, and economics. The videos are made by Sal Khan, an electrical engineer who went to MIT and worked as a hedge fund analyst. He is amazing at explaining things in an intuitive way. I highly recomend you just go and watch a few videos.

MIT OCW
MIT Open Courseware is a site where MIT posts videos of their lectures. The site has been around for over a decade now, and they probably have nearly the entire course catalog on there, usually with several different lecturers. They also have the HW, tests, and answer keys. In other words you can get an entire MIT education minus the piece of paper at the end for free. While I don't like these videos as much as Khan's, you can't ignore the extra rigor and breadth in the MIT videos. If you are looking for some to sample, here is the first in an excellent 5 part series on an overview of calculus. Here's a great Physics I video.

Ptable.com
A dynamic periodic table. I know if you're not currently in a chemistry class you will probably want to skip over this, but I recommend you check it out. It is a very well done site, and presents a huge range of data in a amazingly simple way. Most the fun stuff is in the properties tab, so click over to that one. Then click the various properties (like melting point, or date of discovery) and examine how various properties vary with location in the periodic table.

Physics Forums
The Physics Forums are a great site to waste hours at reading through posts. They are centered mainly around physics, but have forums for math, and other sciences as well. Even if you are not interested in physics there are often some very interesting threads on there. They also have homework help forums where you can post problems and they will attempt to guide you through it.

Cramster
Cramster is very useful site, that I probably would have put higher in this list if not for the fact that it's pretty exclusively useful for people actually taking classes. It has worked out solutions for the odd problems for most textbooks. The answers are generally a lot better than the ones in solutions manuals. The have even number solutions if you are willing to pay something absurd like $100 a year.

Paper Rater
I've written about Paper Rater in greater detail before, so I'll be brief here. Essentially, Paper Rater is an enhanced grammar checker. You enter text and it goes through and gives you stats and possible issues with it.

Graphing Calculator
Not much to say about this one, as it's just a nice, simple online graphing calculator.

Obama administration says Constitution protects cell phone recordings

2012-01-12T23:10:00.000-05:00

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/obama-administration-says-constitution-protects-cell-phone-recordings.ars

When I first saw this I almost dismissed it out of hand as the DOJ arguing against the right to video tape arrests. It simply didn't compute that they could actually be in favor of people's rights.

The coming war on general-purpose computing

2012-01-11T23:19:00.000-05:00

http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html

Even this is a shadow of what is to come. After all, this was the year in which we saw the debut of open source shape files for converting AR-15 rifles to full-automatic. This was the year of crowd-funded open-sourced hardware for genetic sequencing. And while 3D printing will give rise to plenty of trivial complaints, there will be judges in the American South and mullahs in Iran who will lose their minds over people in their jurisdictions printing out sex toys. The trajectory of 3D printing will raise real grievances, from solid-state meth labs to ceramic knives.

How to coil rope

2012-01-09T02:43:00.000-05:00

Coil thin rope (550 cord):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYEJS73nnKM

Coil thicker rope:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4uwdLAKT1g

Why Water Feels Colder Than Air

2012-01-08T01:38:00.017-05:00

Air at 80°F can feel uncomforably warm. Water at 80°F can cause hypothermia. Why is it that if one has water and air both at 80°F that the air will feel warm and the water will feel cold? It turns out there are several reasons why water feels colder than air. If you've never thought about this before I suggest you stop to ponder it for a few moments before continuing on.

Heat vs Temperature
I'll begin with one of my trademark unnecessary background explanations. Heat is a form of energy. It manifests itself as kinetic motion in molecules bouncing around off each other. Temperature on the other hand can be thought of as the average heat energy an object has (with some exceptions). This is very similar to the relationship of mass and density. If one wishes to increase density one can either increase the mass (while keeping volume constant) or decrease volume (while keeping mass constant). Similarly, to increase temperature one can either increase heat energy, or decrease the volume (while keeping the other constant). The classic example of this a bike pump feeling warm because of compressed air, or some sort of compressed air feeling cold when it's allowed to decompress.

An example I saw Bill Nye do once is the comparison of a lit match to an ice sculpture. Clearly the burning match has a much higher temperature. However, since there is simply so much more ice, the sculpture has more heat energy. To revisit our mass and density analogy, styrofoam has a much lower density than lead. However, a large block of styrofoam would have a much higher mass than a small pellet of lead.

Another issue that should be addressed is why things feel cold in general. Your body is warm, and most things in the environment are colder than it. When your warm body comes in contact with something colder than it, heat from your body moves to the object. This leaves your body with less heat, and thus less temperature. The transfer will continue until you body and the object are equal in temperature. Since your body will continuously adjust its temperature back to normal, in practice this means your body will give heat energy to the object until it reaches body temperature.

Now that we understand the difference between heat and temperature, we can begin addressing the specific reasons why water feels colder than air. There are five effects that could explain this. Different combinations of effects will apply depending on the situation.

Denser
At the temperatures we are talking about water is liquid and air is a gas. This means water is much denser than air. Since density is simply the measure of mass in a certain volume, the higher density means more mass of water in the same volume of air. Mass is often the best way to talk about how much of something there is. In this case, since liquid water is denser than air, it simply means there is more water in the close space around your body. This means it will take more heat energy from your body to warm the water up to body temperature than if it were the less dense air.

At room temperature a cubic meter of water has a mass of 998 kg, while the same volume of air has a mass of 1.225 kg. The same volume of water as air has about 815 times the mass.

Specific Heat
We know that more mass will take more energy to warm up. You may be asking yourself if that is the only thing that matters. Will two different substances, of equal mass, require the same energy to cause the same rise in temperature? The answer is no. Every substance has an intrinsic property called "specific heat" that determines how much energy is required to raise the temperature of an equal mass by an equal amount. The formula for temperature change is: $$$T = \frac{Q}{c m}$$$ Where: T is change in temperature, Q is heat energy, c is specific heat, and m is mass. This can be viewed as saying, a given amount of heat energy will result in less of a temperature increase the higher the product of mass and specific heat is.

Water has many interesting and unique properties. One of these is a very high specific heat. The only known substance with a higher specific heat is ammonia. This is largely the result of strong attractive forces between molecules, known as hydrogen bonding. At room temperature the specific heat of water is 4.1813 $$$\rm{\frac{J}{g K}}$$$, and air is 1.012 $$$\rm{\frac{J}{g K}}$$$. This about 4.13 higher. Since we saw that specific heat is multiplied by mass, and the mass is also much higher for the same volume, we can look at the combined specific heat times mass of water vs air. This combined product is about 3366 times higher for water than for air.

Forced Convection
When a fluid like water or air is in contact with your body it is warmed and then becomes less dense, and thus floats on top the rest of itself. New unwarmed fluid moves in to next to your body and that must then be warmed. This process is called convection. In practice convection isn't that significant. However, forced convection is. Forced convection simply means that the air or water near your body is being forced to move away instead of naturally floating away. This is how a fan or wind cools your body.

If you are in a pool of water vs standing in air there isn't much difference in terms of convection. However, if the water is flowing over you than that is a very significant factor. In the case of rain or a shower, water is in contact with your body for a few seconds and then leaves, taking whatever heat your body invested in it with it. In a pool of static water or air your body could bring the temperature up to its own, and then the heat transfer would stop (ignoring gradual convection). But if water is rushing by this can never happen.

Thermal Conductivity
When two objects of unequal temperature are in contact heat flows from the higher temperature object to the lower temperature one. This is conduction, one the the three types of heat transfer. How quickly heat is transferred will depend on the thermal conductivity of the substances. Water and air have different thermal conductivities. While, water's isn't that special, air's is very low. This means air absorbs heat much slower than water does. Liquid water has a thermal conductivity of about 0.6 $$$\rm{\frac{W}{m K}}$$$, compared to air at 0.025 $$$\rm{\frac{W}{m K}}$$$. Heat energy is transferred about 24 times faster through liquid water than through air.

Latent Heat of Vaporization
I said above that if volume is held constant, an increase in heat will cause an increase in temperature. This is true except for when the substance is undergoing a phase change. In other words, while it is melting or vaporizing, there is heat being added, but the temperature does not go up. Here is a graph that shows this. Note the amount of heat energy (x axis) needed to raise water from freezing to boiling vs the amount needed to actually vaporize it. To vaporize (boil or evaporate) a kg of water takes 2257 kJ of energy. This is over five times the energy needed to raise water from just above freezing to just below boiling. To make this clear, it means that causing a kg of water to evaporate requires many times more energy than warming ice water to body temperature. That energy comes from your body heat, and this is exactly how sweat cools your body.

Like forced convection, evaporation may not occur in all situations. If you are submerged in water there will be no evaporation. And, if there is 100% humidity then the air is already saturated with water and there can be no more evaporation. This is likely the case in a shower or in rain. However, afterwards the humidity can drop. There is a good chance that the water on your body will have already warmed to body temperature, which will remove all the other effects. At that point, evaporation alone is what would cause the heat loss.

To summarize:
Water feels colder than air because there is more water near your body (denser), which takes more heat to bring to body temperature (specific heat), and takes heat from your body faster (thermal conductivity). This water may then be flowing away from your body, taking the heat with it (forced convection), or evaporating and consuming a huge amount of energy to do so (latent heat of vaporization).

It seems unlikely that Kim Jong Un will want to reform North Korea, but even less likely that the regime can go on resisting change

2012-01-03T02:56:00.000-05:00

http://www.economist.com/node/21542227

It is hard to see how the economy could be modernised without abruptly destroying the state’s paternalistic ruling mythology. Much of the dark interior of North Korea is bereft not only of consumer goods but also of trustworthy information, on anything from prices to politics. Although an increasing number of people, especially in the border areas, are aware of the vast disparity between capitalist South Korea and their own workers’ paradise, defectors say many still do not fully grasp how wide that chasm is. As one defector puts it, explaining why his relatives cling to their belief in the Kim family state when he sends them cash from South Korea: “There is a gap between what you know and what you believe.”

Toothpaste

2012-01-02T03:55:00.000-05:00

I had to write a report on toothpaste as part of a project for school. Since I did a fair bit of research into how toothpaste works and what the various ingredients actually do, I figured I'd post it here.

Overview of Tooth Decay
To understand the importance of toothpaste one must first understand the process by which bacteria cause cavities. The bacteria in a person's mouth form a colorless, thin, sticky film called plaque. The bacteria use carbohydrates present in the mouth after meals as fuel. The population grows and they produce acid as a waste of their metabolism.

While teeth are the hardest substance in the human body, they are very susceptible to acid. The acid from bacteria causes the pH level in the mouth to lower. This causes demineralization, and causes the teeth to soften, which in turn reduces their resistance to abrasion. Once the pH level returns to a higher level, minerals naturally present in saliva cause the softened teeth to gradual remineralize. The critical pH level is 5.5. Below this level demineralization occurs, above it remineralization (Dawes).

As long as the process of remineralization is faster than the loss of minerals from acid there will be no decay. However, when carbohydrates are frequently consumed the bacteria can produce more acid than the body can counteract. This leads to tooth decay. Once tooth decay has occurred the body can not repair the damage.

Ingredients
Abrasives
Toothbrushing removes the plaque film that covers one's teeth. This is accomplished through the mechanical action of brushing. It was long thought that toothpaste provided additional abrasive qualities that enhanced this process. Substances like hydrated silica are added to toothpaste to increase its abrasiveness. However recent studies have shown plain water to be as effective at removing plaque as toothpaste (Paraskevas). On the other hand, other studies have shown an additional benefit to using toothpaste (Putt). It is therefore impossible to drawn any definitive conclusions. Toothpaste, however, has numerous other benefits.

Raising pH Level
Since the problem with bacteria is the acid they produce, raising the pH level to make the mouth more basic will neutralize some of the acid and delay tooth decay. Sodium bicarbonate is often used as both an abrasive and to raise the pH of the toothpaste. Since it is slightly basic, it reduces the pH in the mouth for some time after use. In addition to directly neutralizing acid, the basic environment makes it harder for the bacteria to grow, which further reduces acid levels.

Cosmetic Additives
One of toothpaste's most obvious benefits is the cosmetic impression of cleaning it has. While a mouth brushed with just water is perhaps as clean as one brushed with toothpaste, there is no doubt that toothpaste leaves the mouth with a sensation of cleanliness. The foaming action of toothpaste is associated with cleaning in general. Surfactants are added to toothpaste to enhance this foaming action.

The flavor of toothpaste is also associated with a clean mouth. While there are a wide variety of flavors the most popular are peppermint, spearmint, and wintergreen. Toothpastes also come in either paste or gel form. The option of paste of gel doesn't change the effectiveness of the toothpaste and the choice is a personal one based on preferences.

Fluoride
Toothpaste is also useful as a delivery mode for numerous chemicals that enhance oral health. The most significant of these being fluoride. Fluoride has a large body of evidence backing up its positive effects for teeth. Studies have shown that fluoride reduces cavities by 24% (Marinho). Furthermore, increasing the fluoride concentration generally decreases the cavity rate (Walsh). There are three forms of fluoride commonly used in toothpaste: sodium fluoride (NaF), sodium monofluorophosphate (Na₂PO₃F), and stannous fluoride (SnF₂). While NaF and Na₂PO₃F have been shown to be equally effective, SnF₂ has been shown to be less effective, and is thus less commonly used today (DePaola; Beiswanger).

Fluoride has three positive effects. First, it reduces the rate that bacteria are able to metabolize carbohydrates into acids. This effect lasts for some hours after using toothpaste with fluoride. Secondly, fluoride enhances the rate at which teeth are remineralized. This offsets a larger carbohydrate intake, for a net reduction in decay. Lastly, fluoride reacts with the minerals (hydroxyapatite) in teeth to form a protective coating (fluorapatite). This coating is more resistant to acid than the naturally occurring material. Specifically, the following reaction takes place when using sodium fluoride:

Ca₁₀(PO₄)₆(OH)₂ + 2 NaF → Ca₁₀(PO₄)₆F₂ + 2 NaOH

The result is that fluorapatite forms on the outside of teeth and resists future acid attacks more readily. However, this coating is very thin and wears off after several hours to a day. This requires regular applications of fluoride.

Surfactants
The use of fluoride in toothpaste is nearly universal. However, there are several other additives which are found in toothpaste to various degrees. Surfactants are added to toothpaste to act as detergents and cause the foaming action of toothpaste. This has already discussed benefits in perception of cleanliness. However, it also has been shown to enhance fluorides ability to penetrate into deeper crevices in the teeth, the result being a reduction in cavities (Caslavska).

Antibacterial
Triclosan is an antibacterial agent which was patented by Colgate for use in its Total brand of toothpastes. This patent expired in 2008 and triclosan has since spread to other toothpastes. Triclosan has been shown to cause a modest reduction in cavities and a 30% reduction in gingivitis (Feller; Garcia-Godoy). Its effect on plaque continues to work for hours or days after use (Jenkins).

Xylitol is a nonfermentable sugar that is used in chewing gums and sometimes added to toothpaste. Xylitol, not only will not increase bacteria counts, it can actually have a net negative effect on bacteria counts. This is because xylitol is chemically similar to sucrose, which causes bacteria to attempt to metabolize it. This, in effect, starves the bacteria and kills them. The result is a proven reduction in plaque levels (Milgrom).

Remineralization
Calcium phosphate has been shown to enhance the remineralization process, when used with fluoride it has a greater effect than fluoride alone (Shen). Similarly, nano-hydroxyapatite is a new technology that also enhances remineralization (Tschoppe). These two additives have proven benefits, and are currently only found in specialty toothpastes.

6 B.S. Myths You Probably Believe About America's 'Enemies'

2012-01-01T19:38:00.000-05:00

http://www.cracked.com/article_19461_6-b.s.-myths-you-probably-believe-about-americas-enemies.html

12 Must-See Skywatching Events in 2012

2011-12-30T19:59:00.000-05:00

http://www.space.com/14085-12-amazing-skywatching-events-2012.html

This meteor shower reaches its peak in the predawn hours of Jan. 4 for eastern North America. The Quadrantid meteor shower is a very short-lived meteor display, whose peak rates only last several hours. The phase of the moon is a bright waxing gibbous, normally prohibitive for viewing any meteor shower, but the moon will set by 3 a.m., leaving the sky dark for a few hours until the first light of dawn; that's when you'll have the best shot at seeing many of these bluish-hued meteors.

Can we lower medical costs by giving the neediest patients better care?

2011-12-29T04:00:00.000-05:00

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/01/24/110124fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=all

If Camden, New Jersey, becomes the first American community to lower its medical costs, it will have a murder to thank. At nine-fifty on a February night in 2001, a twenty-two-year-old black man was shot while driving his Ford Taurus station wagon through a neighborhood on the edge of the Rutgers University campus. The victim lay motionless in the street beside the open door on the driver’s side, as if the car had ejected him. A neighborhood couple, a physical therapist and a volunteer firefighter, approached to see if they could help, but police waved them back.

The Truth About Christmas

2011-12-26T02:07:00.000-05:00

http://travonfree.wordpress.com/2011/12/13/the-truth-about-christmas-nsfcwcc-not-safe-for-christians-who-celebrate-christmas/

Nothing new here, but I liked the writeup.

Pope Benedict XVI attacks Christmas consumerism at Mass

2011-12-25T05:09:00.000-05:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16328318

In his homily, he urged worshippers to "see through the superficial glitter of this season and to discover behind it the child in the stable in Bethlehem".

Seeing this story I couldn't help pointing out how much gold there is in the video of this guy giving his speech complaining about glitter. Also, I'm contractually obliged to point out that the bulk of what we associate with Christmas has nothing to to do with Christianity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas#History

God of the Gaps

2011-12-20T16:45:00.000-05:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps

God of the gaps is a type of theological fallacy in which gaps in scientific knowledge are taken to be evidence or proof of God's existence. The term was invented by Christian theologians not to discredit theism but rather to discourage reliance on teleological arguments for God's existence.

Ideas For Government

2011-12-20T14:02:00.000-05:00

Bills must be read aloud in their entirety before being voted on.
Only members present for the entire reading may vote on a bill.
Bills require a majority of all members, not just members present.
Bills must be published and read aloud at least one week prior to being voted on.
Emergency votes could waive the one week requirement with a 60% vote, but would only be valid for two weeks unless they were repassed after the week requirement.
Require a 200 word (or less) summary of goals of the bill. Any part of the bill that does not directly address those goals is invalid.
No one may hold a public office if they have received over $10,000 in gifts or contributions (from any source) total in the past 10 years.
Starting one year prior to an election, anyone qualified for a public office may get signatures on a petition to receive funding for that election. If they receive a number greater than 1/500th of the eligible voters then they receive some set amount of funding. All ads or expenses related to the campaign must come from that fund exclusively.

Ok Candidate

2011-12-19T19:55:00.000-05:00

http://okcandidate.com/

Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors

2011-12-16T04:57:00.000-05:00

http://thoriumremix.com/2011/

Abolish the TSA

2011-12-15T21:32:00.001-05:00

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petition-tool/petition/abolish-tsa-and-use-its-monstrous-budget-fund-more-sophisticated-less-intrusive-counter-terrorism/c7L94bFB

The petition to abolish the TSA ended with the requisite number of signatures on Oct 22. They finally posted a response, almost two months later. It was written by the head of the TSA. The petition can be summarized as: The TSA is an awful waste of money that robs us of our rights. The response can be summarized as: The TSA is great.

Stephen Colbert Interviews Neil deGrasse Tyson at Montclair Kimberley Academy - 2010-Jan-29

2011-12-12T23:16:00.000-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=YXh9RQCvxmg#t=381s

Rummaging About in the Genetic Junkyard Skepticon 4 PZ Myers

2011-12-09T00:37:00.000-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=DRsN7w7iW08#t=260s

Candy desk

2011-12-07T21:19:00.001-05:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candy_desk

One senator with a particularly strong hankering for chocolate is Jim Talent from Missouri. Once during a vote, he called people away from the candy desk to his own on the other side of the row. There were oohs and aahs until six people walked away with Russell Stover Low-Carb Chocolates.

Basically, the Senate is just like Animal House.

New Jersey, in a nut shell

2011-12-06T20:55:00.002-05:00

http://i.imgur.com/Pwnf4.jpg

Authorities in Awe of Drug Runners' Jungle-Built, Kevlar-Coated Supersubs

2011-12-03T21:06:00.000-05:00

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/03/ff_drugsub/all/1

The group summed up its findings in a 70-page white paper—marked FOUO, for official use only—that conveys a grudging respect for the engineers and craftsmen who were able to build something so seaworthy in the middle of a swamp. “The streamlined hull, diesel-electric propulsion system, and fuel ballast system design all show a significant level of technical expertise and knowledge of submersible operations,” it states. The hull, they discovered, was made from a costly and exotic mixture of Kevlar and carbon fiber, tough enough to withstand modest ocean pressures but difficult to trace at sea. Like a classic German U-boat, the drug-running submarine uses diesel engines on the surface and battery-powered electric motors when submerged. With a crew of four to six, it has a maximum operational range of 6,800 nautical miles on the surface and can go 10 days without refueling. Packed with 249 lead-acid batteries, the behemoth can also travel silently underwater for up to 18 hours before recharging.

Halt and Catch Fire

2011-12-03T20:24:00.000-05:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halt_and_Catch_Fire

Halt and Catch Fire, known by the mnemonic HCF, refers to several computer machine code instructions that cause the CPU to cease meaningful operation. The expression "catch fire" is intended as a joke; the CPU does not usually catch fire.

Usually.

Genetically altered mosquito warriors could wipe out humanity's biggest killer

2011-11-30T20:11:00.001-05:00

http://www.gizmag.com/genetically-modified-mosquitoes-aegypti-mosquito/20668/

The humble mosquito, and the deadly diseases it carries, is estimated to have been responsible for as many as 46 billion deaths over the history of our species. That staggering number is even more frightening in context - it means that mosquitoes are alleged to have killed more than half the humans that ever lived.
...
In short, the modified genes affect only the female mosquitoes, rendering them flightless. The larvae hatch on the water, and the females are unable to leave, rendering them harmless to humans and leaving them to die. The males are unaffected, so they mature normally, then mate with other females to pass the genetic modification on.

I've often wondered why stuff like this hasn't been done before. Admittedly I'm not a geneticist, but it would seem we have gotten pretty good at genetically engineering simple lifeforms. Particularly in this case, since we don't care much about the overall health of the insect. Just produce insects that carry a gene that makes them sterile when there are two of them, and release tons of them. It would seem like this has been done, although using radiation to sterilize them as opposed to genetics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterile_insect_technique

A few years ago, I read something about genes that could affect the odds that they would appear in the sex cells. A sex cell is supposed to have a random gene picked from the two possible genes (one from your father one from your mother). These genes would increase the odds that they would be picked over the other choice to something over 50%. This struck me as an interesting way to genetically engineer some sort of species as a weapon that dies off, (think the xenomorph from the Alien movies). You create perfectly normal aliens and unleash them on some world. However, included in the initial group would be a few individuals with a certain gene. This gene would have various effects based on if the individual had two copies or one, and if they were male or female. A male with one copy would be more likely to pass on the gene (maybe 90%). A male with two copies would be sterile. It would have no effect on females, they'd just carry it normally.

I wondered how effective this gene would be, and did some spreadsheet calculations. I then wrote a basic program to simulate the odds. I discovered that the gene was super effective as long as it had high enough probability. The magic threshold appeared to be 86%. At 85% the population would stabilize with a small core group of gene free males. At 86% it would always wipe out the population, even when introduced into a large stable population. I'm sure there's some interesting mathematical explanation for that point, but I don't know what it is, and I didn't really want to write a whole detailed post about this.

Oddly, I never added it to my site. I vaguely remember not considering it done, but maybe that was before I realized that anything I do is done the first time I stop working on it. I added it and it's there now, at the end of the C++ section.

http://daleswanson.org/programs.htm

How Software Companies Die

2011-11-29T21:21:00.000-05:00

http://www.zoion.com/~erlkonig/writings/programmer-beekeeping.html

Read this and thought it was interesting, then I noticed it was written by Orson Scott Card.

Peek Inside the Lamborghini Factory

2011-11-27T03:33:00.000-05:00

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2011/08/peek-inside-the-lamborghini-factory-2?sXFc&mbid=su_ppc_auto_5&sQZc&pid=1224&viewall=true

an illuminating metaphor for the process of biological evolution

2011-11-26T20:09:00.000-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=l-uNFaUJo5c

This is a very interesting example of evolution using memes instead of genes.

Money Data

2011-11-23T01:32:00.001-05:00

http://xkcd.com/980/huge/#x=-1464&y=-1264&z=4

I think I'd be happy if xkcd switched from comics to just monthly epic data presentations like this. Here are some interesting things I found in it:

Annual cost of: cat - $670, internet - $720, cellphone - $928
1965 ratio of CEO pay to production worker pay = 25x. 2007 ratio = 275x.
That royal wedding used $800,000 in flowers.
Iraq war cost more than Vietnam.
Combined Iraq/Afghanistan wars cost about 25% of WWII.
Nuclear power plus a Fukushima level accident every year costs less than solar or coal with external costs (although less than on shore wind).
State taxes are surprisingly regressive.
Apple has $76 billion in cash reserves, they could buy 15 Nimitz class carriers (at $5 billion each, US has 10), or 422 F-22 Raptors (US has 187).
Walmart's annual profit of $16.4 billion could fund 88% of NASA's annual budget of $18.6 billion.

Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America

2011-11-22T23:44:00.001-05:00

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6476

http://www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/balko_whitepaper_2006.pdf

These increasingly frequent raids, 40,000 per year by one estimate, are needlessly subjecting nonviolent drug offenders, bystanders, and wrongly targeted civilians to the terror of having their homes invaded while they're sleeping, usually by teams of heavily armed paramilitary units dressed not as police officers but as soldiers. These raids bring unnecessary violence and provocation to nonviolent drug offenders, many of whom were guilty of only misdemeanors. The raids terrorize innocents when police mistakenly target the wrong residence. And they have resulted in dozens of needless deaths and injuries, not only of drug offenders, but also of police officers, children, bystanders, and innocent suspects.

Also see this map:
http://www.cato.org/raidmap/

Paramilitary Policing From Seattle to Occupy Wall Street

2011-11-22T22:01:00.000-05:00

http://www.thenation.com/article/164501/paramilitary-policing-seattle-occupy-wall-street

Then came day two. Early in the morning, large contingents of demonstrators began to converge at a key downtown intersection. They sat down and refused to budge. Their numbers grew. A labor march would soon add additional thousands to the mix.

“We have to clear the intersection,” said the field commander. “We have to clear the intersection,” the operations commander agreed, from his bunker in the Public Safety Building. Standing alone on the edge of the crowd, I, the chief of police, said to myself, “We have to clear the intersection.”

Why?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Organization_Ministerial_Conference_of_1999_protest_activity

Police officer pepper-sprays seated, non-violent students at UC Davis

2011-11-19T13:45:00.005-05:00

http://boingboing.net/2011/11/18/police-pepper-spraying-arrest.html

In the video above, you see a police officer [Update: UC Davis Police Lt. John Pike] walk down a line of those young people seated quietly on the ground in an act of nonviolent civil disobedience, and spray them all with pepper spray at very close range. He is clearing a path for fellow officers to walk through and arrest more students, but it's as if he's dousing a row of bugs with insecticide.

Well he's on paid vacation, so at least justice was done.

Persistence Over Intelligence

2011-11-18T23:24:00.000-05:00

http://essays.dayah.com/persistence-over-intelligence

Conan O’Brien May Be About to Push the Envelope on Late Night Television

2011-11-17T12:44:00.000-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=GME5nq_oSR4

Scale of the Universe

2011-11-14T01:13:00.000-05:00

http://www.primaxstudio.com/stuff/scale_of_universe/scale-of-universe-v1.swf

I've seen a lot of these, and even made one at some point, but this is by far the best one I've seen.

5 Lessons of U.S. Plan for a Permanent Military Presence in Australia

2011-11-12T03:33:00.002-05:00

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/11/5-lessons-of-us-plan-for-a-permanent-military-presence-in-australia/248266/

The U.S. has arranged with Australia to install a permanent military presence near the northern Australian town of Darwin, a move that signals shifts in President Obama's foreign policy and the U.S. vision for its role in the world. Obama will formally announce the new base with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard during his visit to Australia next week, the Sydney Morning Herald reported this morning.

U.S. Planning Troop Buildup in Gulf After Exit From Iraq

2011-11-11T00:07:00.000-05:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/world/middleeast/united-states-plans-post-iraq-troop-increase-in-persian-gulf.html?_r=2

Argument recap: For GPS, get a warrant

2011-11-08T23:05:00.000-05:00

http://www.scotusblog.com/?p=131423

Midway through a federal government lawyer’s plea Tuesday for unrestricted power for police to use new GPS technology to track cars and trucks on public roads, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., sketched out just how the Court may well restrict the practice. Despite an unqualified prior statement by the Court that one moving about in public has absolutely no right to expect privacy, the Chief Justice said that such a right might exist, after all, and it could trump the fact that the movement was in public. If the Court can find a way to say just that, police almost certainly would have to get a warrant before using GPS to monitor where suspects go.

Vaccine-wary parents warned against sending ‘chicken pox lollipops’ through the mail

2011-11-07T16:25:00.000-05:00

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/vaccine-wary-parents-warned-sending-chicken-pox-lollipops-mail-article-1.973738

Parents fearful of vaccinations are being warned by a federal prosecutor that making a deal with a stranger who promises to mail them lollipops licked by children with chickenpox isn't just a bad idea, it's against the law.

Remind me again why we don't require a license before people can have kids?

Color of Time

2011-11-07T01:03:00.000-05:00

I was stumbling and came across this site:

http://bickov.com/projects/the-moment-of-color/start2.html

It changes the background color for every second of time. The obvious way to do this would be the convert the HH:MM:SS of time into a RGB value. However, it was clear that wasn't what that site was doing, because the color changed dramatically every second. I thought perhaps there was something more interesting going on. It did mention that every second would have a unique color, which would imply that it took the date into account too. I thought perhaps it took the unix epoch time and converted that into hex values. It could use a simple hash of the time and then just take the last 3 hex pairs and use them directly. That wouldn't absolutely guarantee unique times, but it would be about as close as you could get with the limited space of RGB values. Since 256³ = 16,777,216 you'd have enough colors to only have to use each twice per year.

I checked the source, and was somewhat disappointed to see it was just generating random values. I guess it was just a concept. You could at least seed the RNG with the hour, minute, or second values.

I decided it would be somewhat interesting to see it implemented the way I had originally envisioned it, and set out to make it. I began by copying his code since it was relatively easy to follow. However, every time I attempt to use javascript I'm reminded of the inadequacy of my "pretend it's just C++" method of programming it. So, I scrapped the code and started over from scratch. After more troubles trying to figure out how to do things that should be simple in javascript, I got it working pretty well. There are still some things I'd like to change, but that's not very likely.

I'll admit his is prettier than mine, but I think mine is more interesting to watch. In order to make full use of the color space I'm not directly using the HMS values. I'm converting them into a ratio and then multiplying that by 255. In other words (#seconds/60) *255. This allows a just barely perceptible change in color each second. Also, I wanted to make the foreground color complementary colors. However this is apparently not that easy to do. I ended up just subtracting each hex pair from 255, which gives sometimes complementary colors, and painfully jarring colors the rest of the time.

http://daleswanson.org/things/clock.htm

White House Responds to Petitions

2011-11-05T20:19:00.002-04:00

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petition-tool/responses

The white house has begun responding to the petitions that had the requisite signatures. I was pretty cynical about what the responses would be. However, I must say the responses surprised me. That is, I was surprised at how condescending, circular, and filled with bald faced lies they are. Perhaps I'm too insulated from politicians' day to day lies.

Also, I suspected that there would be petitions about not taking petitions seriously. However I expected this would take a few months. However, literally the day after the first responses were posted there were already multiple petitions to take the petitions seriously. Here are some of my favorites:

Actually take these petitions seriously instead of just using them as an excuse to pretend you are listening

Offer a response to marijuana legalization petitions that isn't written by someone legally required to oppose them.

We demand a vapid, condescending, meaningless, politically safe response to this petition.

One silver lining is that they did respond to the petition demanding they acknowledge aliens. In their response they mentioned the various ways we're looking for signs of alien life. Interestingly the first one, SETI, has been shut down since April 2011 due to lack of funding. It requires $5 million in funding, ie, less than 0.0005% the cost of the Iraq War.

And since I've been watching these videos nonstop, I'll link this one about SETI here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHuve33yOVY

Bizarre Lunar Orbits

2011-11-02T16:24:00.002-04:00

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/06nov_loworbit/

The orbit of PFS-2 rapidly changed shape and distance from the Moon. In 2-1/2 weeks the satellite was swooping to within a hair-raising 6 miles (10 km) of the lunar surface at closest approach. As the orbit kept changing, PFS-2 backed off again, until it seemed to be a safe 30 miles away. But not for long: inexorably, the subsatellite's orbit carried it back toward the Moon. And on May 29, 1972—only 35 days and 425 orbits after its release—PFS-2 crashed.

Weathering Fights - Science - What's It Up To?

2011-10-27T12:52:00.000-04:00

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-october-26-2011/weathering-fights---science---what-s-it-up-to-

A Digital Direct Democracy For the Modern Age

2011-10-21T20:48:00.000-04:00

http://politics.slashdot.org/story/11/10/21/1727257/a-digital-direct-democracy-for-the-modern-age

"Last month the White House created an online petition system through which constituents can directly voice any grievances and concerns to the US government. Any petition that reaches 25,000 signatures (5,000 originally) is promised an official reply. This weekend the first petitions will be closing, and already many have far exceeded the required number of signatures. Is this the way for the voice of the electorate to gain more weight in modern politics, or is it the web version of a placebo button? Will the President's office really consider the top pleas, which include petitions to Legalize and Regulate Marijuana, Forgive Student Loan Debt, and Abolish the TSA?"

This is somewhat interesting. Not that I think it will change anything, but it will be interesting to see what "official response" they get.

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petitions/popular/0/2/0/

In particular, I am very interested in the official response this one will get:
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/formally-acknowledge-extraterrestrial-presence-engaging-human-race-disclosure/wfYDlmlG

Legal Tender? Maybe Not, Says Louisiana Law

2011-10-21T00:41:00.000-04:00

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/10/20/1956211/legal-tender-maybe-not-says-louisiana-law

"Lousiana has passed a law that says people may no longer use cash for second hand transactions. The idea is to make all transactions traceable, thus foiling copper theft, etc. This move has profound implications that range from constitutional rights to Bitcoin, Craigslist and so forth; I wonder if there are any Slashdotters at all that support such a move." On the list of exceptions: people who deal in used goods or "junk" less frequently than once per month, and (drumroll, please) pawn shops. That means a pretty big chunk of the population who post in online classified ads in Louisiana are probably already in violation.

I was hesitant to post this, since it seemed so crazy that it had to be either made up or exaggerated. But it appears to be real. Also, note it was signed on July 1st.
http://www.legis.state.la.us/billdata/byinst.asp?sessionid=11RS&billid=HB195&doctype=ALL

Underwater exploring is banned in brazil

2011-10-20T23:47:00.000-04:00

The latest news from 1985:
http://www.nytimes.com/1985/06/25/science/underwater-exploring-is-banned-in-brazil.html

A dispute between the Brazilian Navy and an American marine archeologist has led Brazil to bar the diver from entering the country and to place a ban on all underwater exploration.

The dispute involves Robert Marx, a Florida author and treasure hunter, who asserts that the Brazilian Navy dumped a thick layer of silt on the remains of a Roman vessel that he discovered inside Rio de Janeiro's bay.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_trans-oceanic_contact

Candidates who spend more usually win

2011-10-18T22:44:00.000-04:00

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/oct/17/occupy-wall-street/occupy-wall-street-protesters-sign-says-94-percent/

The center found that in 2008, the biggest spenders won 93 percent of House races and 86 percent of Senate races. In 2006, the top spenders won 94 percent of House races and 73 percent of Senate races. And in 2004, 98 percent of House seats went to candidates who spent the most, as did 88 percent of Senate seats.

Qu8k Rockets Above the Balloons

2011-10-09T21:15:00.000-04:00

http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/10/09/1618252/qu8k-rockets-above-the-balloons

"Lately we've been inundated with 100k' balloon flights and amazing video footage from space — the flights usually taking better than an hour to achieve apogee. Derek Deville took a shortcut to 121k' using a 'home made' Q rocket motor and a ton of engineering genius. On September 30, 2011 at 11:08am, Qu8k (pronounced 'Quake') launched from the Black Rock Desert in Nevada to an altitude of 121,000' in 92 seconds before returning safely to earth.This small documentary on the flight is probably one of the most brilliant Amateur Rocket videos out there right now." The launch was an attempt to claim the Carmack Prize. (And Deville evidently likes to launch another kind of rocket, too.)

Encyclopedia

2011-10-08T19:35:00.000-04:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper_orientation

Pages: 12
Words: 5331
Characters: 32701

Nightmares Fear Factory's photostream

2011-10-07T18:27:00.000-04:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nightmaresfearfactory/with/5187590855/

Dale Swanson: A Valuable Reference

2011-10-01T17:06:00.000-04:00

Probably the funnest part of having web sites is looking at the logs and seeing where my site is linked from. Here is a good one:
http://www.kgbanswers.com/can-you-use-everclear-alcohol-to-fuel-your-car/10796083

They quote my site and then cite it as a reference. To be fair, the part that follows the quote makes it pretty clear I thoroughly researched my facts:

Besides getting you very drunk it can also be used to fuel your car, no modification needed, just pour it in and go. It can also be used when you need fire, as it is highly flammable, and can be used as an effective cleaning agent. The Center for Survival Statistics recently published a report that said Everclear was directly responsible for saving the lives of over 12 billion people last year alone [1].
...
[1] This sentence is completely made up.

How To Predict The Future

2011-09-25T01:38:00.015-04:00

A while ago, I noticed a trend when people made predictions for the future. Short term predictions tended to be too short, while long term predictions tended to be too long. For example, some new technology that you think will be around in 10 years will probably be closer to 20 years. On the other hand, if you think a technology will take 500 years it'll probably be something like 250.

I think there's relatively simple explanation for this. People tend to focus on big changes and overlook small ones. If we take a technology like solar power, there are plenty of predictions about it being cheap enough for large scale use in 10 years. However, these predictions likely overlook the various small problems with implementation. Perhaps we will have solved the largest problem keeping costs high in 10 years, but there will be a number of other problems that we haven't solved, many of which we aren't even aware of yet.

It is even clearer in long term predictions. Look at a sci-fi story from a few decades ago, and you will see lots of technology that is inferior to today's tech. A well know example of this is the original Star Trek series from the 60s. They use big clunky controls, and the portable devices are already inferior to a tablet computer. Keep in mind it is set over 200 years in the future, so there is little doubt that we will be massively more advanced than them by the same time. The exceptions to this would be single big inventions that may well be impossible (eg faster than light travel, matter transport).

When someone is writing a story based in the future they need to come up with each invention. It's easy to come up with major inventions (particularly if they are needed for the plot), but most inventions aren't major. Most inventions are small and evolutionary. In the last 50 years there have been a few major inventions (and there is no hard line, so it's futile to try to decide exactly what has been major vs minor), but there have been millions and million of small innovations. Most of the change in our daily lives is from these small innovations vs the major revolutionary inventions. On top of this, most of these innovations have been incremental, ie, they relied upon the previous innovations to exist first. Without coming up with the long chain of innovations, it would be impossible to predict the one at the end.

Getting back to my main point, short term predictions need to be lengthened, while long term predictions need to be shortened. When I come up with a prediction I just double it if it's < 50 years, or half it if it's > 200 years. This is ok, but I figured there had to be a better way to make the adjustments. I wanted to come up with some formula that would tend to move predictions towards a certain time frame (eg 100 years). I had some requirements. First, it should tend to about double short term predictions, and half long term ones. Second, as the year gets closer to 100 the adjustment should become relatively less, with the adjusted year never being moved past 100 years. Last, I wanted one formula for < 100 and > 100 years, not a piecewise function.

I came up with a formula to do this a few years ago, but didn't save it. My recent reading of Manna made me think about this again. So, I started a spreadsheet and set out to come up with a new formula that fit my requirements. After some tinkering I came up with this:$$$\cdot$$$ $$$\frac{}{}$$$
$$N=I^{\sqrt{\frac{2}{\log{I}}}}$$
Where: N is the new outputted year, I is the inputted year, and log is the base 10 log. And if it's not clear, the sqrt is an exponent of I.

This worked out pretty well. It's a bit too high for input years < 5 years, and an input of 1 year causes a divide by 0. 10 years gives 26, 25 gives 47, 50 gives 70, 150 gives 122. Looking at the adjusted values though, I think the turning point is too far out. More thought convinced me that something like 70 years was probably better. Changing this was rather easy. I used 2 because log₁₀(100) = 2. So it followed I could just replace 2 with log₁₀(t). This had the additional benefit of making the base of the log not matter (as long as you use the same base on the top and bottom)
$$N=I^{\sqrt{\frac{\log{t}}{\log{I}}}}$$
Where: N is the new outputted year, I is the inputted year, t is the year where the turn from adding years to subtracting years happens, and log is any base log.

Looking at the formula I noticed something interesting. If you're unaware, calculators commonly perform base 10 or base e logs. If you want to perform a different base log you need to use the following formula:
$$\log_b{x} = \frac{\log{x}}{\log{b}}$$
Where: log_b(x) is the base b log of x, and log is any arbitrary base log.

In other words, if you want to find the base 7 log of some number, but can only compute the base 10 log then you have to find the base 10 log of whatever number you want to find the base 7 log of, and then divide by the base 10 log of 7.

With this knowledge, it should be clear that the above formula is really:

$$N=I^{\sqrt{\log_I{t}}}$$
Where: N is the new outputted year, I is the inputted year, t is the year where the turn from adding years to subtracting years happens, and log_I is base I log.

I attempted to get the variables out of the exponent using more logs. I failed, but managed to get it in a different, and I feel interesting, form:
$$N = I^{\sqrt{\log_I{t}}} = b^{\sqrt{\log_b{t} \cdot \log_b{I}}}$$
Where: N is the new outputted year, I is the inputted year, t is the year where the turn from adding years to subtracting years happens, and log_b is the base b log.

If we use a base of 10 for the logs, and a turning year of 100 this becomes:
$$N = 10^{\sqrt{2 \cdot \log{I}}} = 10^{\sqrt{\log{(I^2)}}}$$
Where: N is the new outputted year, and I is the inputted year.

This formula is about as simple as I can make it. More importantly than that though, it reveals some interesting things. First, note how there are two functions, log and sqrt, and then their inverses, 10^x and x^2. They are nestled inside each other in an alternating fashion. Second, note that the conversion is now simply a power of 10. This means you can just focus on the exponent part to get a feel for how it will behave.

Anyway, I made two graphs showing how the function translates years. First is specifically the input years < 100. The second ranges 0-10,000.

In the second graph it's clear that it's similar to a simple log graph. I was worried that something as simple as log(I) could produce an adequate curve. A simple log(I) hugged the x axis too much, but multiplying by 100 steepened the curve. Then, subtracting 100 shifted it down so that the graph went through the point (100, 100). This looked ok for the low values, however, it flattened out too quickly for the higher values. I played around with the values some more, but couldn't find any way to get the curve right.

So, I'm pretty happy with my formula. Maybe I'll think about it some more and try to figure out if there is a simpler way to get that curve. After all, I always need ways to avoid studying the math that I'm actually going to be tested on.

If you want some more interesting info on the formula, Wolfram|Alpha never ceases to amaze:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10^sqrt%28lg%28x^2%29%29

Obama unveils plans to cut US deficit

2011-09-20T00:01:00.000-04:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14975745

I generally don't bother posting about super obvious news like this. However, after reading the proposal I was rather surprised. As always, I recommend you simply read the source documents first hand:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2012/assets/jointcommitteereport.pdf

It's very readable, and broken up into four sections (jobs, savings, health, tax). Each section is filled with a few dozen ideas to accomplish that goal. Each of those with a paragraph or two giving more detail. In other words, it lends itself to skimming. A word of caution: the pdf bookmarks seem to have been created by some sort of 'cat playing with laser pointer dot on keyboard' system, so steer clear of them.

Since you won't read it, I'll go over some of my favorite parts. First, it mentions some of my biggest pet peeves, farm and oil subsidies. Second, it mentions selling off the vast property holdings of the US. I'd be amazed if either of these ever come to fruition.

On the taxes side it deals with two of the loopholes I'm aware of that allow the top 1% to pay so little taxes. First, is the capital gains tax. If you aren't aware interest from investments isn't taxed as income. Rather it is all taxed at the same flat rate, which I think is currently 15%. It is common for the very rich to get most of their income as interest on investments, so they end up paying only 15%. Second, is depreciation of assets. That allows the rich to deduct the loss of value of things from their income. However, it oddly only addresses depreciation with respect to airplanes, and then only says the schedule should be increased from 5 years to 7. Frankly, I have no idea if what actual effect that would have, and I don't know why it's not being more generally applied. Although I think the capital gains tax is more important.

Two major savings items that don't seem to be mentioned are reducing the size of the military, and increasing age of eligibility for social security.

While it's not perfect, it's far better than anything I would have expected to see proposed by a traditional politician. In my opinion one of the follow must be true:

It is only being proposed because the president knows it has no chance to pass, and it will garner him some general goodwill (see I tried).
There are even deeper loopholes that the rich actually use to protect their income from taxes.
Will end up passing, but stripped down to the point that it represents the worst of both worlds (see health care bill).
My view of US politics is overly cynical.

Manna by Marshall Brain

2011-09-19T16:51:00.000-04:00

http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

Rather interesting short story about a possible outcome of robots being able to perform more and more jobs. The ideas were interesting, although I found it slightly long winded and preachy at times. However, I suspect that could be a result of my distaste for fiction in general.

Comparison of Four Major Scripting Languages

2011-09-18T18:16:00.000-04:00

http://hyperpolyglot.org/scripting

A detailed comparison of PHP, Perl, Python, and Ruby.

Scientists Discover 'Hidden' Code in DNA Evolves More Rapidly Than Genetic Code

2011-09-17T11:42:00.000-04:00

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110916152401.htm

The researchers discovered that as many as a few thousand methylation sites on the plants' DNA were altered each generation. Although this represents a small proportion of the potentially six million methylation sites estimated to exist on Arabidopsis DNA, it dwarfs the rate of spontaneous change seen at the DNA sequence level by about five orders of magnitude.
This suggests that the epigenetic code of plants -- and other organisms, by extension -- is far more fluid than their genetic code.

Brownian ratchet

2011-09-10T06:03:00.000-04:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownian_ratchet

The device consists of a gear known as a ratchet that rotates freely in one direction but is prevented from rotating in the opposite direction by a pawl. The ratchet is connected by an axle to a paddle wheel that is immersed in a fluid of molecules at temperature $T 1$ . The molecules constitute a heat bath in that they undergo random Brownian motion with a mean kinetic energy that is determined by the temperature. The device is imagined as being small enough that the impulse from a single molecular collision can turn the paddle. Although such collisions would tend to turn the rod in either direction with equal probability, the pawl allows the ratchet to rotate in one direction only. The net effect of many such random collisions should be for the ratchet to rotate continuously in that direction. The ratchet's motion then can be used to do work on other systems, for example lifting a weight against gravity. The energy necessary to do this work apparently would come from the heat bath, without any heat gradient. Were such a machine to work successfully, its operation would violate the second law of thermodynamics, one form of which states: "It is impossible for any device that operates on a cycle to receive heat from a single reservoir and produce a net amount of work."

Did the CIA Do Enough to Protect Bin Laden's Hunter?

2011-09-07T14:29:00.000-04:00

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2011/07/did-cia-do-enough-protect-bin-ladens-hunter/39867/

But it was the story's intro--not the analyst's bio--that caught the eye of the group Cryptome, which specializes in data leaks. The AP mentioned that John was standing "just outside the frame" in the iconic photograph, below, of President Obama's national security team in the Situation Room during the raid that killed bin Laden. Cryptome homed in on the yellow patterned tie of a man just off camera (see red arrow) and then identified a tall man, face in full view and wearing the same or similar tie in another photo of the national security team from the White House Flickr stream. They also spotted the same man in a photo of CIA Chief Leon Panetta attending a private briefing on Capitol Hill that the AP says John also attended. Cryptome speculated that the man wearing the tie in question was John.

How To Solve Basic Science Formulas

2011-09-04T01:38:00.034-04:00

While taking intro science classes I've notice a lot of people who don't have any system for solving basic science formulas. Once one develops a system for solving these equations they become very easy. Indeed, it is a criticism of many science classes that simply solving these equations blindly doesn't teach one anything about science. I'll leave that debate for somewhere else, and instead go over the process of solving these types of problems.

I'd also like to note that solving simple physics formulas isn't only useful for those in science classes. Over on the Physics Forums I see many people asking questions that they could solve themselves by simply Googling the formulas and then plug and chug away.

Before we begin, you should be able to manipulate algebraic formulas to solve for different variables. Given:

$$$a+b=\frac{c}{d}$$$

you should be able to solve for a, b, c, or d. For example, $$$d = \frac{c}{a+b}$$$. If you're unsure about how to do this Khan Academy is a great site covering tons of math and science at all levels.

Second, it would behoove you to familiarize yourself with the common variables used in whatever area you are working. Usually, these are pretty obvious (e.g. m for mass, v for velocity), but sometimes the obvious choice is already taken and something else must be used.

For the first example here are some formulas involving energy:
E = mhg
E = 1/2 m v²
Where:
E is energy, m is mass, h is height, g is gravitation acceleration = 9.8 m/s, and v is velocity.

Q: What is the velocity of an object with a mass of 500 kg and a kinetic energy of 100,000 J?

Begin by identifying the variables given, as well as the one asked for. We identify m = 500 kg, E = 100,000 J, and v = ? (we are looking for it). Now we must find a formula that has these variables. The second formula (E = 1/2 m v²) has all these variables. However, we need to solve for v. We can either solve for v before (while it is only variables) or after (while is is all numbers) we substitute numbers for variables. Which is easier will depend on the problem and person. Solving first has the advantage of avoiding some messy arithmetic, particularly on tests where the numbers are likely to cancel out nicely. It also only has to be done once for a given variable. So, if you have several problems all asking for the same variable it will make sense to solve for that variable once.

Getting back to this problem, I would solve for v first:
$$E = \frac{1}{2} m v^2$$
$$\frac{2 \cdot E}{m} = v^2$$
$$\sqrt{\frac{2 \cdot E}{m}}=v$$ (Ignoring the negative root)
Now we replace the variables with the known values:
$$\sqrt{\frac{2 \cdot 100,000\,\mathrm{J}}{500\,\mathrm{kg}}}=v$$
And now we solve the arithmetic:
$$v = 20\,\mathrm{\frac{m}{s}}$$

I'd like to mention something about units. You could simply recognize that meters per second is the expected units for velocity and assume that is what your result is. However, you can also solve units in the same way as you solve numbers. In this case we need to know that J = $$$\mathrm{\frac{kg \cdot m^2}{s^2}}$$$. Dividing J by kg is the same thing as multiplying it by 1/kg. Hence, the above formula with numbers removed gives:
$$\sqrt{\mathrm{\frac{kg \cdot m^2}{kg \cdot s^2}}}=\mathrm{v}$$
kg/kg cancels out giving:
$$\sqrt{\mathrm{\frac{m^2}{s^2}}}=\mathrm{v}$$

And taking the square root gives the expected m/s.

For a second example I'll be using an electricity question. Here are several formulas in this area:

$$F=\frac{k \cdot q_1 \cdot q_2}{r^2}$$

$$V=IR$$

$$R=\frac{\rho \cdot L}{A}$$

$$E=\frac{k \cdot q}{r^2}$$

$$V=\frac{w}{q}$$

$$A=π \cdot r^2$$

Where:
F is force from the charge.
k is Coulomb's constant = 9 x 10⁹ $$$\mathrm{\frac{N \cdot m^2}{C^2}}$$$
q_n is the charge of particle n.
r is the radius, or distance between the two charges.
V is voltage aka electrical potential difference
I is electrical current, measured in amps
R is resistance
ρ (greek letter rho) is resistivity of a material
L is length
A is cross sectional area
E is electrical field strength (volts/meter)
w is work

Here is a list of ρ (rho) values for common materials:

Material	ρ [Ω·m] at 20 °C
Aluminium	2.82×10^-8
Calcium	3.36×10^-8
Copper	1.68×10^-8
Gold	2.44×10^-8
Iron	1.0×10^-7
Lithium	9.28×10^-8
Nickel	6.99×10^-8
Silver	1.59×10^-8
Tungsten	5.60×10^-8
Zinc	5.90×10^-8

Q: A copper wire is 40 cm long and 1 cm in diameter. What is the resistance of the wire?

Begin by identifying all the variables given, as well as the one being asked for. Since all the formulas use standard units (meters, kilograms) I find it best to just immediately convert these into the standard units.
L = .4 m
d = .01 m
ρ = 1.68×10^-8 Ω·m (value for copper taken from above chart)
R = ? (this is what the question is looking for)

Now we look at our available formulas and find the one which uses those variables. In this case, none only have those variables. However, $$$R=\frac{\rho \cdot L}{A}$$$ is only missing one, A (cross sectional area). Thus, we must solve a sub problem first. We see there is a formula for cross sectional area provided: $$$A=π \cdot r^2$$$, this only requires radius, which we know is half of diameter (if you wish, you can pretend d = 2r was provided and do a second sub problem to find r). Using the area formula we find that:
A = 7.85 x 10^-5 m²

With the above list of variables, we can now solve for the original unknown (R).
First rewrite the original formula:
$$R=\frac{\rho \cdot L}{A}$$
Then substitute in the known variables:
$$R=\frac{1.68×10^{-8} \Omega\,\mathrm{m} \cdot 0.4\,\mathrm{m}}{7.85 × 10^{-5}\,\mathrm{m}^{2}}$$
Then solve the numbers and units separately:
$$R= 8.56×10^{-5} \frac{\Omega\,\mathrm{m}^2}{\mathrm{m}^2}$$
Units cancel the same way numbers do. Thus, m²/m² cancels out and we are left with just Ω as our units, which is what we expect. It is easier to just drop all the units and then assume the final units are what they are supposed to be. However, actually solving the units provides an important check. If you are unsure if you are correctly remembering a formula simply solving with only units can tell you if its wrong. In addition, solving the units while doing the math will help show simple errors.

I could continue giving examples, however I think the basic process is pretty easy to follow (also laziness). Just identify the variables. Find a formula with the correct variables in it. Plug in the numbers and solve. I suggest you simply think of things to calculate then Google to find the formulas.

How the full unredacted Wikileaks cables were leaked

2011-09-02T00:37:00.000-04:00

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,783778,00.html

Just in case you haven't heard, the entire set of cables that Wikileaks has and was gradually publishing has now been leaked. The important fact here is that Wikileaks had been redacting the names and other specific low level info. Well now a 350 MB 7z file is available on The Pirate Bay.
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6644172/Wikileaks_Cables__Full__Unredacted__and_Decrypted_%28cables.csv%29
The password being:

ACollectionOfDiplomaticHistorySince_1966_ToThe_PresentDay#

How Irene Lived Up to the Hype

2011-08-29T22:30:00.000-04:00

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/how-irene-lived-up-to-the-hype/

So Irene right now ranks as the 10th-deadliest storm since 1980, with some possibility of that number going higher. And it ranks as the 8th most destructive storm economically, give or take. Meanwhile, it received about the 10th-most media coverage.

I found this storm rather annoying. Not because it was overhyped, but because the hype was overhyped. If you don't like hype don't watch the news. Hype is their business, and business is good.

In the age of the internet there really isn't any reason not to get your information directly from the source for things like this. Do you think Fox/CNN is operating their own fleet of weather buoys, or planes dropping sensor probes into the storm, or weather satellites, or supercomputers running simulations? They are all getting their data from the NOAA, so you might as well too.

Image Formats, And Which To Use

2011-08-28T01:38:00.061-04:00

As someone who spends an enormous amount of time on the internet, one of my problems is when people use the wrong image format. This leads to either too big a file size or a crappy looking image. Which format to use is a pretty simple thing to figure out. First some background.

JPEG is probably the the most common image format. It is an old format. While there are better choices, it is entrenched in many places. JPEG will likely be around for quite a long time. The key aspect of JPEG is that it is a lossy format. This means that it loses information as a trade off for a smaller file size. This is similar to how MP3s work. JPEGs can have various quality settings which allow one to decide how much quality (and file size) the image loses.

GIF is also an old image format. However, unlike JPEG it is lossless. That means that no quality is lost when saving an image as GIF. There are caveats to that though. The biggest problem is that GIF only supports 256 colors. This is fine for things like logos and icons, but any real world image will have a significant loss of color info. Today GIF has largely been replaced by PNG. However, one thing GIF has going for it is animation. If you see an animated image on the web any time soon it's likely to be a GIF.

PNG was created largely to replace GIF, both due to patent issues and just general better quality. Like GIF, PNG is lossless. It overcomes GIF's main downfall by supporting either 24 bit or 8 bit color. This means PNGs can either be smaller than GIF for similar color loss, or perfect color. If JPEGs are MP3s then PNG is FLAC.

BMP is is a lossless and totally uncompressed image format used by MS Paint. It produces huge files, which generally makes it the worst possible choice for anything. Using our audio comparison BMP is a crappy version of WAV.

TIFF is another lossless image format. This one is often used by scanners. Like BMP, TIFF produced huge files and should be avoided unless you have a specific reason for using it.

SVG is different from the other formats described here in that it stores info about how to draw the image rather than what the image is. The result is small file size and an image that can scale up infinitely (since the computer is drawing the image itself). It is analogous to MIDI. The downfall is that it uses more processing power, and isn't universally supported by web browsers. In addition, it will only work for simple images that are collections of lines. Wikipedia likes to use SVG a lot, much to my dismay. Getting this image link crashed Firefox, twice.

Now that we've covered the common image formats it's time to answer the question: Which image format do I use and when?

For real world images (eg images taken with a camera), JPEG is the right choice. PNG or TIFF could be used if you want no data loss at all, but you'll pay for it with a huge file size.

For images that were created on a computer (eg logos and icons), PNG is generally best. If you have a heavily used image and want to minimize file size an 8-bit PNG is most likely going to be the smallest file size. People often use JPEG for these types of images which leads to both greater file size and worse image quality.

To illustrate the differences I made a few example images:

Here is a screen shot of Wikipedia:

PNG Full 79 KB

GIF 58 KB

JPEG Low 53 KB

PNG 8-bit 37 KB

The full PNG is a perfect image with no quality loss. It's 79 KB. The GIF and 8 bit PNG both lose some color info in exchange for a lower filesize. The 8 big PNG is the smallest file I could get at 37 KB. I've included a low quality JPEG (setting 15/100 in Gimp) to show the artifacting that JPEGs produce with high contrast changes such as you see in computer graphics. Note in the 8 bit PNG that only the color gradient in the Windows title bar shows color loss. All the color icons are fine.

Here is a computer created graphic:

PNG 8-bit 37 KB

JPEG High 183 KB

JPEG Low 46 KB

In this case the original image was a 47 KB GIF. The 8 bit PNG will never lose color info over an 8 bit GIF and will almost always be smaller (about 25% smaller in this case). The NOAA probably uses GIF for maximum compatibility (IE6 doesn't fully support PNG), and simply out of habit. I recommend you open the PNG and the high quality JPEG in tabs and compare them. The JPEG may look alright to begin with, but looking at the PNG shows the JPEG is quite blurry, losing data near any sharp edges. This highlights why JPEG is a terrible choice for computer graphics. Also keep in mind the JPEG is almost 5x as large.

Now here is an image taken with a camera:

JPEG High 124 KB

JPEG Low 28 KB

PNG 8-bit 230 KB

Really, the only choice here is a decent quality JPEG (85/100 pictured). The low quality JPEG is much smaller but also horrible looking. If file size is a concern you would probably want to go with something in the middle. The 8 bit PNG was the smallest file of the various others I tried, and doesn't look very good. A full quality PNG was 786 KB, with no noticeable improvement over the 124 KB JPEG.

Here are some tables with the files sizes (in KB) of the various formats I tried:

Format	KB	Notes
wiki.png8bit.png	37.4	Color Loss
wiki.pngbw.png	45.3	B/W
wiki.jpglow.jpg	51.7	Artifacts
wiki.gif.gif	58.3	Color Loss
wiki.gifbw.gif	65.3	B/W
wiki.pngfull.png	79.4	Perfect
wiki.jpghigh.jpg	182	Slight Artifacts
wiki.bmp.bmp	678	Huge

Format	KB	Notes
irene.png8bit.png	36.7	Perfect
irene.jpglow.jpg	46.4	Bad Artifacts
irene.gif.gif	46.9	Original
irene.pngfull.png	66.1	24-bit
irene.jpghigh.jpg	183	Artifacts
irene.bmp.bmp	627	Huge
Format	KB	Notes
catskills.jpglow.jpg	27.6	Low Quality
catskills.jpghigh.jpg	124	Good Quality
catskills.png8bit.png	230	Color Loss
catskills.gif.gif	275	Color Loss
catskills.gifbw.gif	500	B/W
catskills.pngfull.png	786	Perfect
catskills.bmp.bmp	1671	Huge

Something in the water

2011-08-28T00:58:00.000-04:00

http://articles.boston.com/2011-08-21/bostonglobe/29912200_1_caleb-banta-green-drug-experts-new-drug

On March 4, 2008, Field and Banta-Green and other colleagues initiated a single-day study. Ninety-six Oregon municipalities agreed to take part in the research. They were large and small, rural and urban, representing 65 percent of the state’s population. The researchers took a portion of the daily flow from local water-treatment facilities and headed back to the lab, where they injected 2 millimeters of the sewage onto Field’s instrument and scanned it for meth, cocaine, and ecstasy. The same rigor that scientists apply to a new employee or an athlete taking a drug test, Field and Banta-Green were now applying to raw sewage. The results were very clear: The components of ecstasy appeared in less than half the treatment plants, cocaine’s components in 80 percent of them. The molecules of meth, though, were in all of them. The researchers published the study in 2009 in the journal Addiction to much academic fanfare.

Jaw-droppingly gorgeous video captures the Milky Way as Earth spins

2011-08-27T20:15:00.000-04:00

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/jaw-droppingly-gorgeous-video-captures-milky-way-earth-234619211.html

How to get $12 billion of gold to Venezuela

2011-08-25T16:44:00.000-04:00

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/08/23/how-to-get-12-billion-of-gold-to-venezuela/

But here’s one last idea: why doesn’t Chávez crowdsource the problem? He could simply open a gold window at the Banco Central de Venezuela, where anybody at all could deliver standard gold bars. In return, the central bank would transfer to that person an equal number of gold bars in the custody of the Bank of England, plus a modest bounty of say 2% — that’s over $15,000 per 400-ounce bar, at current rates.

Amazing video: Planets viewed from Earth as if they were at the distance of our moon

2011-08-22T18:29:00.000-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1Yi58jtNdY

Battery Wire Magnet Motor

2011-08-22T17:40:00.001-04:00

http://goofygifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/trippy-gifs-battery-wire-magnet-motor.gif

Why Haven't We Been Contacted By Aliens?

2011-08-14T01:38:00.001-04:00

Consider the following: there are about 300 billion stars in our galaxy. We have every reason to believe that these stars typically support a wide variety of types of planets. In addition, there are hundreds of billions of galaxies, similar to our own. Current estimates for stars in the visible universe are about 70 sextillion (7 × 10²²). Our solar system and Earth formed a relatively late 10 billion years after the universe began. Other stars had formed and died by then. Life on Earth formed a few hundred million years after the Earth formed.

Thus, it would seem there was both ample locations and ample time for life to have formed many many times other than on Earth. Our universe and galaxy should be teeming with life. With so much life, and with that life having a considerable head start on us, the unavoidable question is:
Why Haven't We Been Contacted By Aliens?

This question is known as the Fermi Paradox, and if you've never read about it I suggest you check out the Wiki article. Here I will attempt to cover some of the major explanations for why there has been no contact with aliens.

Earths Are Rare

As I said above there are at least 7 × 10²² stars in the visible universe. To date we've discovered over 500 planets outside our solar system. However, those planets are mostly quite different from Earth, and unlikely to support life. This is largely a result of the conditions that make planets easier to detect (very large mass, very close and short orbit). We have only just begun to search for Earth like planets, but we have already found a few that could qualify. We have no reason to think that Earth like planets are particularly rare. Even if they were as rare as 1% of star systems, the absurd number of stars would mean there would still be an unimaginable number of Earth like planets. I don't think that there is a lack of suitable locations.

Life is Rare
With only one example of a planet that supports life, we have very little idea of what kind of conditions are needed for life to begin. There are a few things about Earth that are unusual, and if these things are necessary for life to begin it could mean that life just doesn't happen that often. These go beyond a planet being Earth like (which usually means small, rocky, and having liquid water). We have a large tilt giving us seasons, a large moon giving tides, and our star is located in a rather sparse area, protecting us from various cosmic catastrophes. You can read some more of the interesting things Earth has going for it on Wiki.

In addition, while evolution does an excellent job of explaining how life can go from a basic replicating stage to the diverse complex array we are a part of today, we have no explanation for how life can spontaneously begin. Some experiments have shown amino acids can form from sterile conditions similar to what would have been present on the early Earth. However, while amino acids are an important component of life, they themselves are not life.

However, I don't think there is anything about the Earth that is that uncommon. Nor is there anything that seems like it would be totally insurmountable. Life on Earth began within a half a billion years of Earth forming. A typical star system would last about ten billion years. It seems like life began very shortly after it was possible on Earth. Given our one example, I see no reason to assume life is particularly unlikely given reasonable conditions.

Intelligent Life is Rare
Many people have a flawed impression about evolution. Specifically, that it leads to better and more advanced life. Better is too broad a word to have much meaning, and while it certainly can lead to more advanced life, it isn't a foregone conclusion.

Simply put, evolution is just a process where genes that cause themselves to be more likely to be passed on (by producing organisms better adapted to their environments, or more likely to successfully reproduce), tend to become more common. These genes represent small changes, which over very long periods of time can lead to great diversity. Note that neither 'better adapted to their environments' nor 'more likely to successfully reproduce', is equivalent to 'more advanced'. More advanced may be a way to achieve those goals, but in and of itself is not a goal.

The evolution of human intelligence took 'only' 7 million years. Life had existed for about a billion years, and complex land based vertebrates had existed for several hundred million years. It seems like human level intelligence could have evolved earlier if it was a significant evolutionary advantage.

Another evolutionary misconception is that improvements in speed, size, strength, intelligence, etc are advantages. While these things could be an advantage, they are trade-offs. They come with an increase in calorie demands. If the improvement doesn't allow for a corresponding increase in calorie intake, then it is a disadvantage. The human brain is no exception to this; it consumes about 20% of the calories we take in.

It is not hard to imagine how the increased intelligence of humans may not have been enough to offset the increased caloric demands that went along with it. Would a human, without the accumulation of knowledge passed down, be any better at surviving than another great ape? The fact that we are here would seem to be evidence that the increased intelligence would be an actual advantage. However, there could have been a unique set of selective pressures that caused intelligence to be beneficial. If this is the case, it could be that diverse complex life is common, but that intelligence is rare or unique.

Intelligent Life Tends to Destroy Itself
The ability of the human race to destroy itself is a unique and recent development. More than a hundred years ago it wouldn't have been possible for any group of humans to wipe out the entire human race. With nuclear weapons, this became possible. There are other methods that would have the same result as well, some that could be accidents. It could be argued that as intelligent life develops more and more technology the number of ways it could destroy itself only increases. Eventually it becomes certain that one of these things will happen.

That being said, I've never been a fan of this explanation. It would seem we are unlikely to wipe ourselves out anytime soon, and we have already reached a point where we are detectable from space. In a hundred more years it seems reasonable we could be taking the first steps into other solar systems. Once we reach that point, I would think we'd be a lot harder to wipe out. Again, with the number of stars it would only take a very small percentage of civilizations that didn't wipe themselves out to lead to a huge number of civilizations that should be present.

Faster Than Light Travel is Impossible
While simply accelerating to the speed of light is impossible there are a number of 'loop-holes' that would allow for travel between two points in less time than light would take. If it turns out that even these are impossible and that it is truly impossible to travel astronomical distances faster than light then this would pose a significant problem for galactic colonization. There could be a few dozen current civilizations in our galaxy that we'd never contact due to the distances.

That being said, it would take at least 100,000 years to cross our galaxy. If there were thousands or more advanced civilizations it seems probable that some would be traveling around at close to the speed of light, and that some would have come across the Earth by now.

These are just the main reasons I think are most likely to be relevant. Wikipedia goes into much more depth. In addition there is something called the Drake equation, which aims to estimate the current number of advanced civilizations given a set of variables. If I had to make a guess as to the reasons, I'd have to say a combination of rarity of intelligent life and faster than light travel being impossible.

Look Up! The Perseids Are Here

2011-08-12T15:51:00.002-04:00

http://news.discovery.com/space/look-up-the-perseids-are-here-110812.html

Bad News Bears

2011-08-12T00:38:00.005-04:00

http://www.lolbrary.com/random/3976/russian-bears/

Firefox Extensions

2011-08-07T01:38:00.002-04:00

I started using Firefox a long time ago, back when it was Phoenix. It was a great day when I discovered it. The superiority to IE was unquestionable. I'm not sure if I could have spent every waking moment of my life on the internet without it. The two main features that drew me in right away were tabs, and extensions. Tabs are now the norm, and while other browsers allow extensions, Firefox has the advantage of the huge catalog of extensions available already.

Now it seems Firefox's momentum has slowed. While IE continues to be abandoned, Chrome has risen to capture those users. One of the benefits of Firefox was that it was fast and lean. It was just a basic web browser. If you wanted more, that's what extensions were for. Unfortunately, Firefox has fallen victim to the same problem that every successful program has. Feature creep is inevitable in a popular program. The simple fact is, it's more fun to add new features rather than sit around fixing bugs.

Still, I have grown dependent on some extensions, and will likely not switch away from Firefox for a while. I decided to write a post about what extensions I use, so that people can be more like me. I have a page on my site about the programs in general I use, so feel free to install all them too.

Without further ado, here are my currently installed Firefox extensions:
Adblock Plus - This pretty much goes without saying.

Download Statusbar - I've used this for years. Makes downloads just show up in a status bar, instead of a box.

FlashGot - I installed this years ago first as a way to build galleries from predictable image names (ie sequentially numbered images). Now I use it to do two things. First, download all links with a certain extension. Second, to download embedded flash videos (eg Youtube).

Greasemonkey - If you don't know what Greasemonkey is, it is pretty interesting. It is a javascript engine that lets you run scripts on certain pages. In effect it allows for small simple extensions that only run on certain pages, which mainly change the look of sites. I've written a handful of custom ones. Some of the others I use are: Show Just Image - which auto forwards to just the full sized image on the endless array of image hosting sites. Super iGoogle, which removes the worthless stuff (sidebar) from the iGoogle page. And xkcd titles, which displays the "secret" alt text under the image rather than requiring you to hover over it.

Multi Links - Multi Links is an interesting recent addition. It allows you to right click and drag a box which will open any links you cover in new tabs.

NoScript - If you're unaware of NoScript, it blocks javascript from running on certain sites. You can either have it run by default on everything and blacklist sites, or block it by default and whitelist sites. It's great for security and blocking ads and stuff that would autoplay sounds. It's also funny how many sites have some sort of security that is entirely javascript and bypassed with NoScript.

RefControl - RefControl lets you hardcode your referral string, which lets websites know what site you are coming from. I have no idea why I have it installed, no doubt trying to bypass some restriction somewhere.

StumbleUpon - StumbleUpon is probably the greatest invention since the internet. You tell it what interests you have, then click the stumble button and it displays sites that fit those interests. You can thumb up or down sites and that determines how often they are shown to other people, as well as further determining what types of sites you like. Essentially it's a never ending stream of mildly amusing or interesting content.

Tab Mix Plus - Tab Mix Plus allows a ton of customization for how tabs behave and look. Some things which I think it has allowed (some of these may be default behavior): Allow tabs to be very small, and take up multiple rows, great for when you have 100 tabs open. Make new tabs open at the end of the list, instead of near the current tab or whatever the hell the crazy default is. Reload or close all tabs either to the right or left of current tab.

Those are all the extensions I have currently installed. Here are ones that I've had installed previously, but have determined I don't need.
Firebug - A great developer tool. Allows you to examine the CSS and JS on a page and debug it step by step.

Forecastfox - Displays weather in status bar. Don't need it since I've discovered WeatherSpark, and check it 20 times a day.

Nightly Tester Tools - Pretty good set of advanced tools. Really the only things I ever used was the ability to copy extensions to clipboard, and display the build in the title, which does nothing, but makes me feel cool.

The Stockbridge Saga

2011-07-24T23:03:00.000-04:00

A good little story about a guy who built a very nice garage and then had his neighbors complain about it.

http://www.hemmings.com/hmn/stories/2010/11/01/hmn_feature13.html

http://www.justacargeek.com/2010/05/stockbridge-saga-part-1-history.html
http://www.justacargeek.com/2010/05/stockbridge-saga-pt-2-mother-hen-and.html
http://www.justacargeek.com/2010/05/stockbridge-saga-part-3-were-pretty.html
http://www.justacargeek.com/2011/07/stockbridge-saga-part-4a.html
http://www.justacargeek.com/2011/07/i-showed-up-at-zba-hearing-thursday.html

How Michigan managed to empty its penitentiaries while lowering its crime rate.

2011-07-23T22:23:00.000-04:00

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2010/1011.mogelson.html

When parolees are less likely to reoffend, more prisoners can be let go without jeopardizing public safety. Going hand in hand with Michigan’s improved recidivism rates, therefore, has been a correspondent increase in parole approvals. Over 3,000 more prisoners were paroled in 2009 than were paroled in 2006; approvals for violent offenders have gone up by more than half (from 35 to 55 percent), while approvals for sex offenders have more than quadrupled (from 10 to 50 percent). As a result, during the past three years, the number of state inmates in Michigan has shrunk by 12 percent, reversing a sixteen-year trend of steady prison population growth. The turnaround enabled Governor Jennifer Granholm to shut down ten prisons last year, and an additional eight are slated to be closed by the end of 2010.

Schrute

2011-07-20T21:26:00.002-04:00

http://www.quickmeme.com/Schrute/

Why don't things in orbit fall?

2011-07-17T01:38:00.068-04:00

This has been explained in plenty of places, probably a lot better than I'll do, but I enjoy explaining things, and it is a good way to solidify my own understanding of them.

If you asked random people why things in orbit don't fall I'd expect you'd get an answer about lack of gravity in space. While strictly speaking there is so little gravity in the majority of space as to be considered none, this is not true of near Earth orbit. Things like the space shuttle and the International Space Station orbit at about 200 miles above the surface of the Earth.

Orbital mechanics can be pretty complex. There are strange results like it taking more energy to send a probe closer to the sun than farther away from it. However, the basics are easy enough to understand. To begin, we can look at the the formula for finding the force of gravity, which is pretty easy. $$$F=G\frac{m_1 m_2}{r^2}$$$ Using this formula we can find the force that an object should have at orbital height.
$$F=G\frac{m_1 m_2}{r^2}$$
Where:
F is force of gravity
G is the gravitational constant, 6.67384 × 10^-11N m² kg^-2
m₁ is mass one (Earth 5.9742 × 10²⁴ kg)
m₂ is mass two (object)
r is the distance between the masses

Before we move on, it is important to discuss r. You may be tempted to think the distance between the Earth and an object sitting on Earth's surface is 0 (or very close). Indeed, in common usage it is. However, when dealing with gravity all distances are measured from centers of gravity. As far as these formulas are concerned everything is infinitely small with all the mass in a point (which would make everything a blackhole [which leads to an interesting consequence that blackholes behave the same as any other object at a distance beyond their event horizon]). This means that we must add the radius of Earth (6,378,100 m) to whatever height above Earth the object is at.

Is there no gravity in orbit?
Let's begin with a 100 kg object on Earth's surface:
$$F=6.67384 × 10^{-11} \mathrm{N\,m^2\,kg^{-2}}\frac{5.9742 × 10^{24}\,\mathrm{kg} \cdot 100\,\mathrm{kg}}{(6,378,100\,\mathrm{m}) ^2}$$
$$F=980\, \mathrm{N}$$

Newtons (N) is the SI unit of force, analogous to pounds. An apple has a weight of about one newton. It doesn't matter if you have a intuitive feel for what that force is. You just need to be able to compare it to the force in orbit, which is:
$$F=6.67384 × 10^{-11} \mathrm{N\,m^2\,kg^{-2}}\frac{5.9742 × 10^{24}\,\mathrm{kg} \cdot 100\,\mathrm{kg}}{(6,731,100\,\mathrm{m}) ^2}$$
$$F=880\, \mathrm{N}$$

Note the only difference is the increase of r from 6,378,100 m to 6,731,100 m, or a 5.5% increase. That is significant, but not overwhelming. The force on Earth's surface is 980 N while the force at ISS orbit is 880 N. This force is weight. Thus, an object in ISS orbit weighs 90% what it does on Earth's surface.

Why don't things in orbit fall then?
Now that we know there is only a small decrease in the force of gravity a few hundred miles up in orbit, the next question is why don't the things fall then? The answer is that they do. This isn't some silly trick answer either. Objects in orbit are falling towards Earth at all times. Indeed, orbit is accurately called free fall.

Why don't they hit the Earth then?
This question leads to the key aspect of orbit. It isn't the height; it's the speed. When we put something in orbit, the bulk of the fuel is used not to get the object high, but to get it moving very fast. I calculate that it takes about 9 times the energy to get an object to orbital velocity as to get it to orbital height. To understand why this is important, let's look at the picture from above again:

Now I have no idea which direction the astronaut is moving, but let's assume it's from left to right. Notice the curvature of the Earth below him. It's slight, but it's there. The Earth is nearly a perfect sphere, thus the curve is constant. If you travel in a straight line on the Earth the surface will slightly curve down and away from you. This drop off is very slow, and thus not noticed. We can figure out how fast the drop off occurs, and the answer is 7.98 inches per mile. To be clear, this means when you travel one mile on the Earth's surface you drop about 8 inches (relative to a flat plane parallel to your first step).

How long would it take to fall 8 inches? Since acceleration due to gravity is constant we can use the kinematic equations to find the answer.
$$d= v_i t + \frac{1}{2}a t^2$$
Where:
d is distance traveled (7.98 inches = 0.202692 meters)
v_i is the initial velocity (0 in this case so this term drops out)
t is time, what we are looking for
a is acceleration, which in this case = g = 9.80665 m/s²

Doing some shuffling we find:
$$\frac{0.202692\,\mathrm{m}}{4.903325\,\mathrm{m/s^2}}=t^2$$
Solving for t, we find t=0.2033 seconds.

Thus, it would take about 0.2 seconds to fall 8 inches. Here's an interesting question: What would happen if you traveled a mile in the 0.2 seconds it took you to fall 8 inches? You would fall 8 inches closer to the Earth, but the surface of the Earth would also drop away about 8 inches. In the end you would be no closer or farther from the surface of the Earth. This is precisely what orbit is.

A mile in 0.2 seconds works out to about 18,000 mph. We tend to think that very fast speeds are unstable, but this is only because of atmosphere, which creates drag and slows things down. If there was no atmosphere then things would continue at whatever speed they are at indefinitely. It should now be clear why things must be lifted to be put into orbit. It is not to get them a little bit higher above Earth's center of gravity. It is to get them out of the atmosphere so that the incredible speeds required for orbit can be achieved.

Orbits tend to be ellipses, and rather complicated. But, for our purposes, we can treat them as perfect circles. Here is the formula for circular orbits:
$$v=\sqrt{\frac{m_2^2 G}{(m_1 + m_2) r}}$$
Where:
v is orbital velocity
m₂ is the mass of object being orbited (Earth)
G is the gravitational constant
m₁ is the mass of the object orbiting
r is the distance between (the center of masses of) the two objects

Notice that if m₁ is insignificant compared to m₂ that the bottom term becomes m₂ * r. Since the top is (m₂² * G), a $$$\frac{m_2}{m_2}$$$ can drop out to 1, leaving:
$$v=\sqrt{\frac{m_2 G}{r}}$$
Since the mass of Earth is constant, the only thing that matters is height above Earth. You should already be thinking that this height won't have much effect at normal orbital heights since it is only a 5.5% increase in r. We can use Google calculator to do this math for us very easily.
At Earth's surface, v=17,685 mph
At ISS orbit, v=17,215 mph
Which comes very close to Wiki's figure of 17,239.2 mph. To put these numbers in some context, a 747's cruising speed is about 570 mph. The fastest known plane was the SR-71 with a top speed around mach 3.3 or 2200 mph.

Top 5 Things Every Extrovert Should Know About Introverts

2011-07-14T16:17:00.002-04:00

http://briankim.net/blog/2007/10/top-5-things-every-extrovert-should-know-about-introverts/

What I Saw in North Korea and Why it Matters

2011-07-12T17:54:00.000-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIdRSl7Dc88

A good talk by a guy with first hand knowledge of both North Korea (from visits) and nuclear weapons (from working at Los Alamos).

Web Comics

2011-07-10T20:06:00.002-04:00

I have a folder called web comics with 15 or so links in it that I check every day. Often, it's the first thing I do in the morning* before eating or peeing or breathing. I've decided to share the list of these web comics with the rest of the world. Many of these will not be much of a surprise if you are familiar with web comics. In addition, the humor of most could be described as nerdy, eccentric, and absurd. Actually, that more or less describes my life.
*"morning" may actually be late afternoon

Here's the list. They are vaguely in order of how much I like them:
xkcd - Probably the most popular nerdy web comic out there.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - The same description for xkcd could be used here, although they do differ quite a bit. Probably my favorite web comic.
Married To The Sea - I used to think he found old drawings and gave them absurd captions. However, some of the drawings are too ridiculous to be real. Updated 365 days a year.
Toothpaste For Dinner - Ran by same guy as MTTS. Pretty much just awful drawings with funny text.
Cyanide & Happiness - I suppose this may be the most popular web comic, or at least the one I most often see copied and pasted to random sites. Humor could probably be summarized as 'offensive'.
Buttersafe - Would probably rank higher if it updated more than twice a week. Humor could probably be summarized as 'absurd'.
Amazing Super Powers - Hard to pin down the humor on this one. Perhaps, 'people who would be poor role models'.
Three Word Phase - There's a 1% chance you will love it. There's a 99% chance you will say "okay?".
Surviving the World - A unique execution. The author draws the comic on a chalkboard and then takes a picture of it. I suppose they are supposed to take the form of life lessons.
Abstruse Goose - Good, rather heavy on the nerdiness.
Something of that Ilk - A recent addition to my list.
Doghouse Diaries - I'm running out of descriptions that aren't covered by my general one.
channelATE - Why am I writing description when you should just be looking at the actual web comic?
Cowbirds in Love - Could probably be summarized as 'inoffensive'.
Basic Instructions - Taking the form of instructions on handling life's problems, it is a bit heavy on text, but good.
Questionable Content - I think this could be summarized beautifully as 'hipster soap opera'. I'm not sure how I started reading it, or why I continue, but I am sure that reading it is probably the gayest thing I do.

Honorable Mentions:
Perry Bible Fellowship - A comic that isn't really updated anymore. However, it would probably be at the top of the list if it were. I think it was published in a newspaper, whatever the hell that is.
The Oatmeal - Not really a web comic. More of a guy ruthlessly tearing people apart with drawings.

Overwhelmingly Large Telescope

2011-07-07T19:42:00.000-04:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overwhelmingly_Large_Telescope

People are talking about the debate to stop funding the James Web Space Telescope. In this discussion some one brought up the OLT, which is a ground based telescope that would cost $2.2 billion (newest JWST estimate is $6.6 billion) and have much greater resolution than even the JWST.

While the original 100-m design would not exceed the angular resolving power of interferometric telescopes, it would have exceptional light-gathering and imaging capacity which would greatly increase the depth to which humankind could explore the universe. The OWL could be expected to regularly see astronomical objects with an apparent magnitude of 38; or 1,500 times fainter than the faintest object which has been detected by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Q&A: Bill Gates on the World’s Energy Crisis

2011-07-07T16:04:00.000-04:00

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/06/mf_qagates/all/1

Chris Anderson: How has Fukushima changed your perspective on nuclear power?
Bill Gates: What happened in Japan is terrible, and there are many reasons it should have been avoided. It’s a 1960s plant design, generation two, put into service in the early 1970s. Emergency planning and execution were quite weak. The environmental and human damage is clearly very negative, but if you compare that to the number of people that coal or natural gas have killed per kilowatt-hour generated, it’s way, way less. The nuclear industry has this amazing record, even equipment from generations one and two. But nuclear mishaps tend to come in these big events—Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and now Fukushima—so it’s more visible. Coal and natural gas have much lower capital costs, and they tend to kill only a few at a time, which is highly preferred by politicians.

The Tau Manifesto

2011-06-28T00:01:00.004-04:00

http://tauday.com/

Welcome to The Tau Manifesto. This manifesto is dedicated to one of the most important numbers in mathematics, perhaps the most important: the circle constant relating the circumference of a circle to its linear dimension. For millennia, the circle has been considered the most perfect of shapes, and the circle constant captures the geometry of the circle in a single number. Of course, the traditional choice of circle constant is π—but, as mathematician Bob Palais notes in his delightful article “π Is Wrong!”,¹ π is wrong. It’s time to set things right.

Morality and the Bible

2011-06-27T16:50:00.000-04:00

I've long wanted to make some sort of chart that had rebuttals to the common arguments people had for believing in gods. I've been too lazy to ever actually do this (besides there are quite a few on the internet already). However, one of my favorite arguments is morality. As in, the Bible gives a moral code and without it one cannot be moral.

This is fun because the Bible describes and condones a number of things that can only be called atrocious. This leaves two choices:
A. You agree with all the horrible things in the Bible. In which case, you are a sociopath.
B. You recognize that some parts of the Bible are morally wrong, and should be ignored. In this case, you've used your own moral judgement, proving that you don't need a moral code written by someone else.

Anyway, if you'd like to read some of the crazy things the Bible says this is a good site:
http://www.nobeliefs.com/DarkBible/DarkBibleContents.htm

RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

2011-06-27T15:39:00.000-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

Where You Shouldn't Live

2011-06-27T13:48:00.000-04:00

There was a discussion on Slashdot about if risk of natural disasters could be avoided by choosing to live somewhere safer. I found a few interesting lists of disasters in the US, and figured I'd share them here.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/reports/billionz.html
http://www.fema.gov/news/disaster_totals_annual.fema
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_natural_disasters_in_the_United_States

In particular, that first link has a lot of interesting maps and charts, including the pretty picture I've included here. If you read through them it should be pretty clear that there are certain areas that are at much higher risk for natural disasters than others.

As with any data, you have to be careful about what it really tells you though. I wish they would use counties instead of states for one. Also, instead of total number of events, I'd prefer total number of deaths or damages. I'm also unsure if these should be adjusted for population or for area. Even so, any state with more disasters than either the largest (Alaska) or most populated (California) state is probably a poor choice.

Rochester Police Hand Out Curb Violation Tickets to Emily Good Supporters

2011-06-26T12:27:00.000-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqPZxRWxxm4

The video below is from a Rochester, New York, neighborhood meeting in support of Emily Good, the woman arrested for videotaping a traffic stop from her front yard. So Rochester police sent four squad cars to ticket the cars of meeting attendees who parked more than 12 inches from the curb. Yes, they even brought a ruler.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7ZkFZkejv8

On May 12th, A Rochester woman was arrested for taping a traffic stop in front of her 19th Ward Home. She was standing in front of her house with a hand held recording device when the arrest happened. Officer Mario Masic, Rochester Police Department, executed the illegal arrest.

The Basics of Regex

2011-06-26T01:38:00.037-04:00

A while ago it was suggested I write something about regex (regular expressions). At the time I didn't want to because (A) I don't feel very qualified to write about them, and (B) there is already a lot of stuff about them. Well, I have been using regex more and more lately, and while neither A or B have changed, what's the point of a blog if it's not filled with redundant inaccurate information?

Regex is an extremely useful tool for anyone that uses a computer. For one thing, it is the only good way to write a program to parse some text. However, many other programs use regex for searching. Thus, even if you don't program it is still worth learning regex. As an example, Notepad++ allows regex for its find and replace feature, which is hugely useful. While regex has a reputation for being extremely complicated, the basics are rather easy.

Before I begin I have to recommend this page. This is where I go every time I'm writing anything more than a simple regex. In addition to that reference, this is a great regex tester. Also I'll be basing this on Perl regex, which is what I'm familiar with. It should be pretty similar to other languages, particularly at the basic level I'll be going over.

Let's begin with a basic example:
if($string =~ m/test/) {print "True"}
In this example $string is our test string; we are testing to see if something is in $string. 'test' is what we are matching for; if $string contains the substring 'test' then the if statement is true. The =~ and m are Perl specific. The m stands for match, which means Perl will return true if it finds the search string. It could also be s for substitute (find and replace) or tr for translate. The forward slash / is what Perl typically uses to separate the parts of the regex. As an example if we wanted to replace 'test' with 'TEST' we would use:
$string =~ s/test/TEST/
Note the only changes are the m becoming an s (substitute), and the second half of the regex added, again using forward slashes to deliminate. To simplify and make this more general, from here on out I'll just show the actual regex, like this:
s/test/TEST/

Now to begin going over what the characters inside a regex do. To begin, alphanumeric characters (a-z, A-Z, and 0-9) represent themselves. That is why in the above example replacing 'test' with 'TEST' didn't require any special characters. If you wish to match a non alphanumeric character, the safe practice is to escape it. This means you put a backslash \ before it. The backslash says that the character that follows has a special meaning. In the case of non alphanumerics this special meaning is just the actual character matched literally. In the case of alphanumeric it will match a variety of different things I'll get into shortly. As an example this will match on a single period:
m/\./
If you wished to match a double quote followed by a period you would do this:
m/\"\./

Now I'll go over what meaning the non escaped non alphanumerics and escaped alphanumerics have:
^ - this typically matches only at the start of the string.
m/^The/
That will match on the string 'The day is over', but will not match on 'Is the day over?'. In the second case the fact that 'the' is not at the start is why it didn't match. Confusingly, ^ also serves to negate a character class, which we will go over later.

$ - this is the opposite of ^ in that it matches only at the end of the string.
m/bye$/
This will match on 'Good bye', but will not match 'Good bye.'. The key difference being that the second ends with a period, which isn't included in the regex.

These can be combined:
m/^bye$/
This will only match exactly 'bye', it will not match on 'bye.' or 'good bye'.

Next come wildcards, ie, things that will match any of a certain type of character. Note they only match a single character. If you want to match more than one there are other characters we will discuss.

. = Matches any character, the tradition wildcard.
\n = a newline, or what you get when you press enter.
\t = a tab.
\s = Matches white space, which include normal spaces, tabs, and newlines.
\S = Matches non white space. A trend is the capitalized version of a wildcard matches anything that wouldn't be matched by the lower case version.
\d = Matches digits (0-9).
\D = Matches non digits.
\w = Matches "word" characters, alphanumeric and underscore _.
\W = Matches non word characters.
\x2a = Matches the ASCII character represented by that hex value. The \x represents hex, the following two characters is the hex value. In this case 2a is 42 in decimal, or an asterisk *. See here for an ASCII chart of hex values. Using this you can easily represent any character you wish. Note that you can usually get away with not using this, which will be more readable. But this has the advantage of letting you be certain the characters will be matched as you intended.

m/\d\d\-\d\d\-\d\d/
This will match any character followed by two digits, then a hyphen, then two more digits, then another hyphen, and two more digits. As in '11-06-18', likely a date. Note it will only match two digits. However, '2011-06-18' would also match simply because it wouldn't care about the 20 at the start. On the other hand, '06-2011-18' would not match.

As noted above, the wildcards are treated as single characters. If you wish to match more than one character (either wildcards or actual characters) then you must follow them with one of the following:
* = match 0 or more times (as in match even if it's not there).
+ = match 1 or more times (it must be there, but can be repeated any number of times)
? = match 0 or 1 times exactly.
{n} = match exactly n times.
{l,m} = match between l and m times. If you wish to just use the lower bound you can leave the other out. {4,} will match 4 or more.

I should give some more details about ?. By itself matching 0 or 1 times isn't that useful. But when you follow any of these with a question mark it will make the expression "non greedy". By default regex will match the largest substring it can, this is "greedy". If I wanted to match anything that started and ended with a space I could use:
m/\s.+\s/
This will match a space, followed by one or more characters, followed by a space. The problem with this is that it would match from the very first space it found, until the very last. In other words, given a paragraph to match from, it would match almost the entire thing. To make it match on individual words you could force it to be non greedy:
m/\s.+?\s
Now it will match the smallest string possible, as in a single word.

Another feature of regex is flags that follow the regex. In Perl the format is:
m/test/g
Here g is the flag. There are a few common flags:
i = Match case insensitive
g = Match global. This is useful for substitutions. Ordinarily, Perl would stop after the first substitution, g tells it to substitute as many times as it can.
m = Treat as multiple lines. This affects how ^ and $ work. Normally ^ would fail to match if it followed a newline. With the m flag each line gets treated as if it were a separate string.
s = Treat as single line. This affects how . matches. Normally it doesn't match on newline itself. This flag will cause it to match newlines as well. The flags s and m can be used at the same time. It will cause . to match newlines while also causing $ and ^ to treat newlines as beginnings and endings.

Now we can start writing some decently powerful regex.
m/\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}/
This will match an IP address. Which follow the pattern of 4 groups of between 1-3 digits separated by periods. It will match on '74.125.224.72', for example. Note that in valid IP addresses each number can't be greater than 255, which this regex won't care about.

Regex has two more interesting features (well it has a lot more than two, but two more that I'll be going over), classes and groups. Classes use [] while groups use (). Groups give a way of matching any of several different choices. (a|A) will match either lower case a or upper case A. The pipe | is used as a deliminator. They can be full words or anything as complex as you'd like. (apple|peach|banana) will match either of those three fruits. (\d{2}|\d{4}) will match either 2 or 4 digits, but not 3. In addition to matching any of a choice, groups provide a way to access the string that matched later on. Since this is more complex and somewhat Perl specific (although very useful) I won't explain it. See this site for an example.

Classes allow you to match anything from a range. This allows you to create your own wildcards. Probably the most common usage (at least for me) is [a-zA-Z], this will match any letters, but not digits. Note the lack of a space between z and A, if you include a space then it will also match on spaces.

If you remember way up above I mentioned ^ would also negate a character class. This is where that comes back. For both classes and groups putting a ^ at the start will cause it to match on anything that would not match on otherwise. In other words [^a-zA-Z] will match on everything except letters.

As an example of this how would we match all three letter words?
m/\s[a-zA-Z]{3}\s/
This might be a first thought, but it has the flaw of only matching letters that are surrounded by spaces. Words can also be immediately followed by a period if they end a sentence (as well as a wide variety of other things). Instead of looking for letters surrounded by spaces we should instead look for letters surrounded by any non letter.
m/[^a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z]{3}[^a-zA-Z]/
This is better, but still has some flaws. It will match on 'www.google.com'. The 'www' and 'com' parts will each match. One solution would be to require a space at some point (after any number of non letters). Combining the two previous examples we get:
m/\s[^a-zA-Z]*[a-zA-Z]{3}[^a-zA-Z]*\s/
This reads as, match a space, followed by any number of non letters (0 or more), followed by exactly 3 letters, followed by any number of non letters, followed by a space.

Think Like a Physicist

2011-06-23T19:57:00.000-04:00

http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/kenny/papers/physicist_si.html

Multicellular life arises in a test tube

2011-06-23T16:36:00.000-04:00

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/331789/title/Multicellular_life_arises_in_a_test_tube

Common lab yeast normally live as single cells that bud off single-celled offspring. But challenging generations of yeast with conditions that make solo life tough led to spiky multicelled yeast forms within about two months, said Will Ratcliff of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. The experiment suggests going multicellular may happen more readily than previously thought, he told the Evolution 2011 conference June 18.

This is far from the first experimental evidence for evolution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment

War Powers Act

2011-06-19T04:56:00.003-04:00

There has been some discussion lately about the War Powers Act, and what exactly the President is allowed to do without approval from Congress. As a constitutional law scholar* I thought I'd summarize the situation.
*Note: By "constitutional law scholar" I mean "guy with access to Wikipedia".

Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution lists all the things Congress has the power to (legally) do. It includes the following:
"The Congress shall have Power...
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;"

Article 2 Section 2 of the Constitution declares the President the commander in chief of the military:
"The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;"

A logical reading of these two clauses would suggest that Congress has the power to decide to go to war, and once that decision is made the President would provide the ultimate authority for how the military conducts that war. It is no secret that we have not declared war since 1941; all wars after WWII were fought without declarations of war. The Constitution doesn't specifically require a declaration of war, even though it's clear it intended for there to be a declaration of war before a war was fought. Instead of declarations of war, Congress has given authorizations for war. Since there is no special requirements needed to pass a declaration of war vs an authorization (ie they are both normal laws), in practice this has little weight. While I'd like to see a return to formal declarations of war, it is pretty much a semantic change which reflects the general softening of terms with time.

The current law that deals with war is the War Powers Act of 1973. This law basically says that the President may use the military without congressional approval for between 60-90 days when needed. The law is actually pretty short and easy to read, so I recommend reading it yourself:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode50/usc_sup_01_50_10_33.html

Here is some of it:

In the absence of a declaration of war, in any case in which United States Armed Forces are introduced—
(1) into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances;
(2) into the territory, airspace or waters of a foreign nation, while equipped for combat, except for deployments which relate solely to supply, replacement, repair, or training of such forces; or
(3) in numbers which substantially enlarge United States Armed Forces equipped for combat already located in a foreign nation;
the President shall submit within 48 hours to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and to the President pro tempore of the Senate a report, in writing

And:

Within sixty calendar days after a report is submitted or is required to be submitted pursuant to section 1543 (a)(1) of this title, whichever is earlier, the President shall terminate any use of United States Armed Forces with respect to which such report was submitted (or required to be submitted), unless the Congress
(1) has declared war or has enacted a specific authorization for such use of United States Armed Forces,
(2) has extended by law such sixty-day period, or
(3) is physically unable to meet as a result of an armed attack upon the United States.
Such sixty-day period shall be extended for not more than an additional thirty days if the President determines and certifies to the Congress in writing that unavoidable military necessity respecting the safety of United States Armed Forces requires the continued use of such armed forces in the course of bringing about a prompt removal of such forces.

The law goes on to state that no law or treaty may authorize war unless it explicitly says so. It also says that the President has no authority to fight wars outside of those granted in this law.

So that is the background info. The current situation is that the US has deployed to Libya with only the president's approval. The conflict began on March 19th, and the required report was submitted to Congress on March 21st. 60 days after the report was May 20th, 90 days was June 19th. Since the deadline was coming up and Congress wasn't going to approve the war, the White House had to come up with different justification. On June 15th the White House released a 32 page report that said the War Powers Act didn't apply.
White House: US 'can act in Libya without Congress'

While the report is 32 pages, the part that deals with the White House's justification for ignoring the War Powers Act is only a paragraph:

Given the important U.S. interests served by U.S. military operations in Libya and the limited nature, scope and duration of the anticipated actions, the President had constitutional authority, as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive and pursuant to his foreign affairs powers, to direct such limited military operations abroad. The President is of the view that the current U.S. military operations in Libya are consistent with the War Powers Resolution and do not under that law require further congressional authorization, because U.S. military operations are distinct from the kind of "hostilities" contemplated by the Resolution’s 60 day termination provision. U.S. forces are playing a constrained and supporting role in a multinational coalition, whose operations are both legitimated by and limited to the terms of a United Nations Security Council Resolution that authorizes the use of force solely to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under attack or threat of attack and to enforce a no-fly zone and an arms embargo. U.S. operations do not involve sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nor do they involve the presence of U.S. ground troops, U.S. casualties or a serious threat thereof, or any significant chance of escalation into a conflict characterized by those factors.

At this point it is a good idea to reread the first quoted section of the War Powers Act above, and attempt reconcile it with the White House's claim. An important issue is if drones count as US Forces. I'd probably have to say no to that. In that case clauses (2) and (3) don't apply. Unless US fighters are flying in Libya airspace. In that case (2) seems to apply pretty plainly. Only one clause needs to apply in order for the law to apply (note the use of or between clauses). So let's look at (1) again:
"in any case in which United States Armed Forces are introduced into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances;"

So it comes down to if remotely fighting a war counts as being introduced into hostilities. If it said engaged instead of introduced I'd have to say yes. As it stands, introduced does sound to me as if it could only apply to situations where there is a threat to US Forces.

That's a technical reading of the situation. The reality is that it's clear that this action goes against the spirit, if not the letter, of the law. In addition it is clear that even those in a position to likely agree don't necessarily do.
2 Top Lawyers Lost to Obama in Libya War Policy Debate

The rational answer to this would be for Congress to simply pass another law clarifying what exactly constitutes hostilities. Unfortunately, we live in the real world. In the real world people align themselves with teams, and the people on the same team as the President won't do anything that is perceived as going against him. Those on the opposite team will do anything to interfere with him. The Senate has a majority on his team, and no surprise, support the war. The House has a majority on the opposite team, and you guessed it, are against it. So the reality is that no clarification will be passed. A lawsuit has been filed, but there is a legal concept called the "political question doctrine" which states that courts won't rule on issues it deems political. Prior challenges to wars have been dismissed for this reason. At most, the House may not fund it. However, I don't know how that would work, if there is already funding for the rest of the FY or what.

An Intro To Star Trek

2011-06-12T01:38:00.028-04:00

I decided there could be people reading this blog who are unsure of what level nerdiness I have. The answer to this problem will be this post giving basic info and the various Star Trek series possibly followed one day by one on races. I've listed the five television series in chronological order by original airing.

Star Trek: The Original Series

Aired: 1966-1969
Time Period: 2265-2269
79 episodes / 3 seasons
Significant Races: Federation, Klingons, Romulans

Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS) is the classic series from the 60s that started Star Trek. It has a rather different feel than any of the modern Star Treks (which start in the late 80s). There is a lot more romance than the newer series and the action is cheesy at times. Having grown up with the modern Star Treks I prefer them. However, I will admit that the movies from the TOS era are better than the newer movies.

In TOS the starship Enterprise travels around exploring worlds and solving problems that invariably arise at these alien worlds. A typical episode will involve the Enterprise discovering some unusual phenomenon and then investigating. This leads to some dramatic problem, either a technical problem that threatens the ship, or a philosophical problem with the culture. The characters use their resourcefulness to solve these problems and at the end of the show everything is as it began. The episodes are very much self contained and there isn't much lost by watching them in random order.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Aired: 1987-1994
Time Period: 2364-2370
176 episodes / 7 seasons
Races: Federation, Klingons, Romulans, Ferengi, Borg

Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) is set roughly 100 years after TOS. There are stylistic differences due to the change in time (both in universe and real world), but is otherwise a similar show to TOS. The Enterprise-D explores, finds something strange, which leads to drama, which is resolved. I don't want my short write up to be interpreted as a sign this isn't a good series. Indeed, TNG is considered the best series by many. There just isn't much more to say other than it is an updated version of the original. If one wishes to get a general sense for Star Trek it is probably a good intro show.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Aired: 1993-1999
Time Period: 2369-2375
176 episodes / 7 seasons
Races: Federation, Klingons, Romulans, Bajorans, Cardassians, Ferengi, Dominion

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DS9) is an interesting series. When TOS was created one of the guiding rules is that there are no internal problems in society (at least in the Federation, the analog of the USA that the human race is a part of). No racism, sexism, money, poverty, sickness, etc. All the problems come externally. DS9 changes this and explores a darker side. I don't want to give the impression that it is completely different than the rest of the Star Trek universe, but there is a clear darker spin on it. Since DS9 ran concurrently with TNG for a couple years it couldn't use the same formula that TNG and TOS use. Instead of a ship that travels around the galaxy, DS9 has a space station that the galaxy travels to.

It's necessary here to explain the layout of the Star Trek universe. In Star Trek the galaxy is divided into four quadrants, with Earth centered along the dividing line between the bottom two quadrants (6 o'clock). Starting with the bottom left and working counter clock wise they are named Alpha, Beta, Delta, Gamma. The normal star trek universe takes place in a rather small portion of the alpha and beta quadrants, however for whatever reason, they really only ever mention the alpha quadrant. It would take a ship about 100 years to cross the galaxy (about 100,000 light years). All this means that at the start of DS9 the delta and gamma quadrants are unexplored.

DS9 sets out to explore the gamma quadrant via a newly discovered wormhole. This wormhole allows instantaneous travel from the alpha quadrant to a point deep within the gamma quadrant. It is discovered that the gamma quadrant is largely controlled by the Dominion. An entity created by the "Founders" who either genetically engineered or conquered all the other member races. The Dominion attempts to conquer the alpha quadrant, which leads to a large scale war.

Because DS9 is stationary the show flows from one episode to the next much more so than other Star Treks. Besides the regular cast there is a large group of reoccurring characters that show up regularly. Combined with the long build up to the war, followed by the war itself, this means this show is much better to watch in order. There is a six and then a ten episode arc later on in the series. This doesn't mean there aren't a lot of self contained episodes still. But even those episodes build on past episodes more so than in other Star Treks.

Because of the changes in the style and semi-serialized nature of DS9 it tends to be very polarizing. There seems to be about equal amounts of people that are sure it is either the worst or best Star Trek series. I am on the best side of that debate. In particular, I like the social commentary on terrorism and what is acceptable to give up to win a war. This is made particularly profound by the fact that the series ended in 1999, before our current wars.

Star Trek: Voyager

Aired: 1995-2001
Time Period: 2371-2378
168 episodes / 7 seasons
Races: Federation, Borg, Kazons, Hirogens

Star Trek: Voyager (VOY) began right as TNG ended, and thus continued the traditional theme of a ship exploring the galaxy from week to week. However, it dealt with the other unexplored quadrant mentioned above, the delta quadrant. It does this by having the ship be pulled into this unexplored space in the first episode by a powerful alien. The ship is then about 70 years away from home and spends the rest of the series attempting to get home.

Since the show is set entirely in this new quadrant there is much less of the traditional races. In addition, since the ship is moving through the quadrant there are phases when they are near one particular race's territory. Still the format is fairly similar to TNG/TOS.

The general consensus seems to be that Star Trek series have gotten worst with time. As such, there are many people that feel VOY is the worst. Its main flaws are a large amount of technobabble and deus ex machina endings. Personally, I've never been bothered by those things, and find VOY to be pretty good.

Star Trek: Enterprise

Aired: 2001-2005
Time Period: 2151-2155
97 episodes / 4 seasons
Races: Federation, Klingons, Andorian, Xindi

Star Trek: Enterprise (ENT) serves as a prequel to TOS. It is set about 100 years prior to TOS. In this time Earth is just beginning to explore the galaxy, and many things that are common in later years are either missing or discovered during this show.

The format is similar to TNG/TOS, explore a new world every week. However, it does seem to try to follow DS9 with serialization. There are a few very long arcs lasting entire seasons. As I said above, many people feel Star Trek series have only gotten worse with time, and this show is no exception. When it originally aired I stopped watching half way through its run.

That being said, years later I rewatched it and liked it better. The first two seasons aren't strong, and have a big time travel arc, which is never that good, but all the Star Treks have had weak beginnings. The last two seasons get to be pretty good. it is a shame it was cancelled there, as the show was getting good. In addition, the show barely touched on two major events that occur around that time (Romulan War, and foundation of Federation). Had it not been cancelled those would have made great arcs for the following seasons.

Man Ordered At Gunpoint To Hand Over Phone For Recording Cops

2011-06-05T00:09:00.000-04:00

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/06/04/201228/Man-Ordered-At-Gunpoint-To-Hand-Over-Phone-For-Recording-Cops

"Miami Beach police did their best to destroy a citizen video that shows them shooting a man to death in a hail of bullets on Memorial Day. First, police pointed their guns at the man who shot the video, according to a Miami Herald interview with the videographer. Then they ordered the man and his girlfriend out of the car and threw them down to the ground, yelling, 'you want to be f****** paparazzi?' Then they snatched the cell phone from his hand and slammed it to the ground before stomping on it. Then they placed the smashed phone in the videographer's back pocket as he was laying down on the ground."

Update on Ashcroft v. al-Kidd

2011-06-03T17:37:00.000-04:00

http://www.scotusblog.com/?p=120589

The Bush Administration’s wide use of an arrest tool to take terrorism suspects off the streets barely — and perhaps only temporarily — survived a major test in the Supreme Court on Tuesday, even though its principal architect — former Attorney General John D. Ashcroft — will not have to go to trial to defend it. While finding that Ashcroft is entitled to limited legal immunity for a single, controversial use of the tactic, fully half of the eight Justices voting on the case sent out clear indications that they are deeply skeptical about it. That was the somewhat contradictory outcome in Ashcroft v. al-Kidd (docket 10-98).

How to Tie Five Useful Knots

2011-06-03T03:55:00.001-04:00

I do some outdoors activities like backpacking and canoeing. During these activities, there is occasionally a need to tie knots. I've noticed that no one in our group (myself included) knows how to tie any knots, and I feel this would be a useful skill. I did some searching and found a small set of knots that seem to be pretty useful and learned them. They are all relatively easy to learn, although I must say figuring out knots from pictures can be a bit confusing. Luckily, this Animated Knots site is pretty good.

Square knot (Reef knot)

A square knot is one of the most basic knots. Prior to learning these knots it was pretty much the only knot I knew. It's easy to tie and looks pretty with its symmetricalness. That being said, it is apparently a pretty poor knot to use. "There have probably been more lives lost as a result of using a square knot as a bend (to tie two ropes together) than from the failure of any other half dozen knots combined." - Some Knot Expert. In addition to its tendency to come undone it is very easy to accidentally tie the much worse granny knot. It's easy to spot a granny knot when tying, so go to the above site and look at the differences.

Sheet Bend

The sheet bend is similar to the square knot, except better. Since it holds much better than the square knot, and is just as easy to tie, it should be used instead of a square knot whenever possible. It is also useful for rope of different sizes.

Double Fisherman's Knot

This is a good knot for connecting two pieces of rope into a longer one. I knew this knot before, but the single version. The double is bit more than just tying a double knot, but still pretty easy. Once you know the double you can easily do the triple or more for added security. I must say the animation was a bit bewildering at first, but you are essentially just looping the rope around itself and the other rope twice and then passing it back through those loops.

Bowline

The bowline is a pretty good knot, useful for putting a strong loop at the end of a rope. It is probably the most complicated knot in this list, but really isn't very hard at all. The general consensus seems to be that this is the best knot for forming a loop, strong under tension and easy to untie (without tension). Its one flaw seems to be that it can undo itself if there is a lack of tension, which seems like it could be fixed by adding a double overhand knot to the free end (half a double fisherman's knot).

Half Hitch

Frankly, I don't think the half hitch seems that useful. It is used to lash rope to a post, but the bowline seems better to me. I did see it mentioned a lot as a useful knot which is why I'm including it here. Its also worth noting that a half hitch by itself is pretty weak, but it almost always followed by another half hitch (making a full hitch I guess).

Bonus Knot:

http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/secureknot.htm

Because I like you so much I'm throwing in an additional knot for free. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this knot here before, but I think it deserves an additional mention. It is a much more secure way of tying your shoes. I have a pair of old sneakers on which the laces of worn down so smooth that even double knots would come untied in a few hours. This knot has never come untied on its own (and I leave my shoes tied for months just slipping them on and off). It is basically the same as the bunny ears method of tying your shoes, but you tuck both ears through the center instead of just one.

Embed a Video, Go To Jail?

2011-06-02T15:14:00.002-04:00

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/06/02/1211245/Embed-a-Video-Go-To-Jail

"A few weeks ago, Slashdot had a post about the new bill in Congress to make streaming infringing videos a felony, punishable by up to 5 years in jail if just 10 people watch the video. As more details come out, the bill keeps looking worse and worse, as it appears that the definitions used in the bill would mean that merely embedding or linking to an infringing YouTube video could put you on the hook for jail time. Obviously, supporters of the bill insist that's not who will be targeted with this bill, but just the fact that they could be should be worrisome enough. We've seen other laws "misused" in the past."

Q: What would Earth be like to us if it were a cube instead of spherical? Is this even possible?

2011-05-21T18:38:00.002-04:00

http://www.askamathematician.com/?p=6657

Life on a cubic Earth would be pretty different. Although gravity on the surface wouldn’t generally point toward the exact center of the Earth anymore (that’ a symptom of being a sphere), it will still point roughly in toward the center. So, the closer you are to an edge, the more gravity will make it feel as though you’re on a slope. So, although it won’t look like it, it will feel like each of the six sides forms a bowl. This has some very profound effects.

FCC Commissioner Leaves To Become Lobbyist

2011-05-15T02:10:00.000-04:00

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/05/11/2156237/FCC-Commissioner-Leaves-To-Become-Lobbyist

"Meredith Attwell Baker, one of the FCC Commissioners, is leaving the FCC to become a lobbyist for Comcast-NBC, just four months after approving their merger deal. She refused to put any significant conditions on the merger, saying that the deal would 'bring exciting benefits to consumers that outweigh potential harms.' Comcast has released an official statement saying that, 'Meredith's executive branch and business experience along with her exceptional relationships in Washington bring Comcast and NBCUniversal the perfect combination of skills.'"

Teen Arrested For Asking Cop About Unwarranted Raids

2011-05-09T20:43:00.000-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0X1Acrty6E