She blinded me with Science!

The following tidbits were discussed last weekend with a small group of friends. It's mostly science stuff that I'm following up with links to confirm or expand on the things I talked about.

We were watching MythBusters and they had a Lifter on the show and I said that it is an example of ionic propulsion. Which then lead to a discussion of ion engines. Yes, NASA has launched a space craft with a ion engine. It was called Deep Space I; it launched in October 1998 and was retired in December 2001. I would to love to know why it was retired, what it's max speed was, and how far from Earth did it make it.
Anyway, back to Lifters; while most people might avoid Wikipedia I like it because it reads well and at the end of most entries are a list of sources with links. Anyone who has a problem with Wikipedia can skip right down to the links.

Next came the uses of magnets in MythBusters (we are all big fans of the show). JP said that Dr. M (physics prof. that we all took for Physics II) said that there are one pole magnets. This conversation was really short lived. I said that Dr. M is an idiot and Kirk explained that without two poles there would be no magnetic field and without a magnetic field the "magnet" would not be magnetic. Okay, it is possible that Dr. M was talking about a Halbach Array, this is a magnet setup so that one pole is on top and the other pole is on the sides. This leaves the bottom with no or very little magnetic effect. However, I'm sticking with my Dr. M is an idiot hypothesis because there is a big difference between a Halbach Array and a magnet with only one pole, and as a teaching professor he should be able to explain that.

There were undoubtedly more science related things talked about but I can't think was anything else that might deserve comment here.

x64 QuickTime

I don't know when it happened but QuickTime is now working on my Windows XP x64 system. Even though the last attempt to install iTunes gave a warning message saying the install was unsuccessful I guess that the QuickTime install was good. So, rejoice every who enjoys using QuickTime on a 64-bit system. Of course, VLC does a better job with fullscreen, but it is nice to have more software working correctly on my system.

The Expert Mind

"Teachers in sports, music, and other fields tend to believe that talent matters and that they know it when they see it. In fact, they appear to be confusing ability with precocity. There is usually no way to tell, from a recital alone, whether a young violinist's extraordinary performance stems from innate ability or from years of Suzuki-style training. The preponderance of psychological evidence indicates that experts are made, not born. In fact, it takes approximately a decade of heavy labor to master any field. Even child prodigies, such as Gauss in mathematics, Mozart in music, and Bobby Fischer in chess, must have made an equivalent effort, perhaps by starting earlier and working harder than others. It is no coincidence that the incidence of chess prodigies multiplied after László Polgár published a book on chess education. The number of musical prodigies underwent a similar increase after Mozart's father did the equivalent two centuries earlier." The Expert Mind @ Scientific American

XML - No Silver Bullet

Several years ago, when XML was just a buzzword and I was an undergrad in Computer Science, I went to a technical presentation / recruiting talk given by Cerner at my university. One of the "big" reasons to go work at Cerner was that they were cutting-edge; they were using XML. I gave the presenter some flak on that point. XML is no silver bullet. No one would consider listening to me, an undergrad with very little experience, not even the professors who should have known better*. Maybe someone with more experience can be more convincing....

Software Development Amidst the Whiz of Silver Bullets...

ACM Queue vol. 4, no. 5 - June 2006 by Alex E. Bell, The Boeing Company

* In retrospect, the professors were being politically correct. This is a business that funds scholarships, hires students, and took the time to give a presentation.

Review of Nerdcore Hip-Hop Music

My first taste of Nerdcore was through the stylings of MC Frontalot.  It is light and funny.  Check out the review and links provided at:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/12/1354242

Career Quiz

Below are my results from the PrincetonReview Career Quiz.  Considering that I am currently have a research assistantship, I guess the quiz is fairly accurate.
		People with yellow Interests like job responsibilities that include organizing and systematizing, and professions that are detail-oriented, predictable, and objective. People with yellow Interests enjoy activities that include: ordering, numbering, scheduling, systematizing, preserving, maintaining, measuring, specifying details, and archiving, which often lead to work in research, banking, accounting, systems analysis, tax law, finance, government work, and engineering.

		People with blue styles prefer to perform their job responsibilities in a manner that is supportive and helpful to others with a minimum of confrontation. They prefer to work where they have time to think things through before acting. People with blue style tend to be insightful, reflective, selectively sociable, creative, thoughtful, emotional, imaginative, and sensitive. Usually they thrive in a cutting edge, informally paced, future-oriented environment. You will want to choose a work environment or career path in which your style is welcomed and produces results.

Diagrams on the Web

Draw and share diagrams on the web!! I'm there.

Free Science and Video Lectures Online

http://freescienceonline.blogspot.com/

Summer School

I enrolled for a summer class today. CSC 698: Research In Computer Science. Luckily, I have a research assistantship that the course is being modeled after; meaning that I get academic credit for what I do at work. I'm looking forward to it but I'm not quite ready to start. Finals were last week and a week off would be nice but I need to meet with my advisors sometime this week and discuss goals and possible approaches that I should take to achieve those goals. So, in order to look good, it would be great if I can come in to the meeting with some work and results done. We'll see. I'll take today off and do some work tomorrow (keep in mind that the job doesn't start until June 5 and the class until June 12).

Ubuntu's Add Applications Program

  This is the screenshot from when I installed Rhythmbox and Eric Python IDE. As you can see just point - click - done. However, Rhythmbox sucks (or at least did for me); so, also using Ubuntu's Add Applications Program I unselected Rhythmbox and select XMMS instead. I've been listening to mp3s and streaming music for the past hour. 

Virtualization

The ACM Virtualization presentation (08 Mar 06) really impressed me. I went to vmware.com to download the server software and immediately got distracted by the Virtual Application challenge. $200,000 is one hell of a distraction. Anyway, I ended up downloading the VMware-player and the sample Browser Application. The sample Browser Application is only a 250 MB zip file that contains an Ubuntu disto with Firefox setup ready to go. Installation, execution, installing XMMS and Eric Python IDE, and downloading some MP3s took less than 45 minutes. This is with me playing around while doing this. This FUCKING Rocks! Thanks for answering all the questions I asked you since I came in to Kirk’s presentation late. To everyone reading this download & install VMware-player (28 MB) and the sample Browser Application (250 MB). Very cool shit. Browsed and Created in Browser-Appliance-1.0.0, VMware-player

If I were rich...

I think I'll start a "If I were rich..." theme. Anytime something really cool (but expensive) catches my attention I'll make a "If I were rich..." post. The SkyScout which you can read about at www.celestron.com is so cool. Just read this, "Aim it at any heavenly body, and the GPS receiver and three-axis position sensor identifies stars, planets, and constellations by voice or text." Sah-weeet! However, at four hundred dollars I'll just print out a star chart and wing it.

Building a Better Battery

I have a box of used alkaline batteries at home. I can't convince myself to throw them away since they are still holding 2/3 of a full charge. This is all the fault of my digital camera which takes four batteries at a time and only uses 1/3 of the batteries' charge before deciding that it needs more power. Luckily, I bought a wireless mouse several months ago and it will happily accept a 2/3 charged battery and drain it down to 1/3 of a charge before needing a replacement (and this takes a long time). In the March 2006, issue of Wired there is an article about the M1 battery. It is made by DeWalt (Black & Decker) and it is suppose to have double the power density, five times the peak energy, and a shorter recharging time than a Li-ion battery of the same size. Li-ion batteries are suppose to kick the crap out of alkaline batteries. So, that being said, where is my double-A M1 battery?

A Comment on my Blog

Today I received an email informing me that someone had posted a comment on my blog. Really I only created a blog to see how Google's recommended blogging site worked. So, this peeked my curiosity and I Googled my name. Holy crap! My Blog profile is the third (second unique) site listed. Well, this is no good. I'm a teaching assistant, how long will it be until one of my student's Googles my name and starts reading the things I write here? Maybe a worse possibility, my advisor sees the site. Hmmm... Can't complain about the thesis project, my students, or my job. I should have took the advise that I read about blogging - Don't Use Your Name!

Finding My Thesis and Stanley, the robotic SUV

Over the winter break my advisor gave me a list of several things to work on, and top on that list was find a thesis topic. I haven't really been actively doing that. Instead I have been insulating the pipes in my house but in my attempts to procrastate I have been reading Wired magazine. The January issue has an article about "Stanford's souped-up Volkswagen blasted through the Mojave Desert, blew away the competition, and won Darpa's $2 million Grand Challenge." You can find it online at: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.01/stanley.html Good article and definately a must read for anyone working with robotics and|or considering working with robotics. Makes me want to do research in the field. But I'm attending a university that has very little money for this type of thing and the best the AI classes have are some Logo Mindstorm bricks that are at least five years old. Would trying to work with robotics in this environment really mean that I won't get any meaningful experience and my thesis starves to death from lack of realistic data?! Probably.

First Night 2006

Christy and I went to the fireworks display at Springfield's First Night 2006 celebration. It was a nice way to bring in the new year.