GoogleOS!

Word on the street today is that google is going to release an OS! This is a BIG move into microsoft's territory. Even IF it's as they say just for netbooks, and basically an android follow on it's still a big move following on the heals of the browser release.

The Economist headline reads: Google v Microsoft: Clash of the titans. They point out that M$ still has about a 90% share of the marketplace and this OS is aimed at netbooks. The reality is, they say, and I agree, that it will be a big challenge. Still the timing, and the company (now and google versus sun 15 years ago) seem to be well placed for success. Google has turned everything they've touched into gold.

Cnet news.com's coverage is also here with a more techie sort of view. Two nice summarizing paragraphs excerpted cover the authors opinion:

Google's general idea seems to be twofold. First, it wants to make it easier for regular people to use a computer by making an operating system that is fast, secure, and lightweight enough to run on portable devices.

Secondly, Google believes that through the use of Web standards like HTML 5--promoted heavily during its recent Google I/O conference as the development platform of the future--software development on a browser-based OS will be easily understood by developers reared in the Web 2.0 era.

I pretty much agree. Starting from scratch is usually a better way to do anything if you want to change. I think they can be competitive becuase MS is SO encumbered by backwards compatability they they can't be as nimble. Also as an IETFer and Open Source afficianado I think it's a good sign they are being open about it and using OS software, and (likely) well documented open protocols.

Google already has attacked MS on the Applications front with google aps. Not only are they well featured, but they are instantly shared and have versioning! I've been using these simple free tools for a while to do work and collaborate.

Still the reality is that google is going major now. I predict 5 years max until they are no longer a a darling, and begin to have some of the problems all incumbents always do. Hopefully the competitive pressures of being a Web 2.0 and web services based company providing a service will mitigate some of those issues and they will be a company of the future. I'd love to be wrong.

A good article I always think of when talking about these subjects is Robert Cringly's 5% solution. He talks about how companies will no longer be able to be lax about improving their products if they want to survive in the future. This is also the future prognosticated for ALL industries by one of my favorite references, natural capitalism. They also agree, but for the bigger picture, that providing services instead of things people buy up front, you encourage producers to be effective and efficient.

I welcome people's feedback.

Error Analysis

I recently had a need to do some error analysis. I had forgotten the some rules, or so I decided to brush up. Really the two main ones I did remember were that PERCENTWISE when you multiply(divide) two numbers the percent error adds, and when you add(subtract) the percents stay the same. On the bright side these basic non-calculus rules can be quite helpful most of the time.

I don't do a lot of analog circuits, or statistics any more. Typical problems involve selecting circuit components to guarantee the parameters which are desired for a circuit. As you start getting into capacitors, inductors, and transistors, the linearity goes away. Also if there's some sort of statiscical distribution your function things can also be quite complicated. In these situations you must use calulus which starts to get VERY complicated once you start getting to deal with statistical distrubutions. Error anlysis can also be extended to computational algorithms, estimation functions, and a whole lot of different concepts. See wikipedia for some complex examples. Still even you can get pretty far doing simple integrals.

The additive property seems quite obvious. The multplicative (or really any rule) is pretty clear if you approach it like a circuit problem (or at least when I do) and think of the biggest variety doing a sweep in (the old days when I used to do) simulations. Fortunately On the bright side quite often you can reasonably simplify a problem to a set of linear equations. For example, despite the complexity of the circuitry inside the op-amps which were the cornerstone of the instrumentation amplifier I was investigating you can see from wikipedia the it's just the basic math operations because of the confiuration used. so extracting the net error is simple following the basic rules above. If you wanted a more exact number you might consider nonlinearity in your opamps, but using basic design rules you learn in EE 101 the high gain of an omp amp can be used to idealize a non linear circuit to something linear.

This is often what you want for something like an instrumentation amp where you're trying to amplify a signal. Still these concepts can be applied to more complicated scenarios. Quite often for analog circuits that have a transfer function and are applied to AC signals you can use a fourier (continuous signals) or laplace transfor (unit step or other functions with instantanous changes) to put them into a linear set of equations.

Error anlysis is pretty pervasive. A good open course from Columbia is a good refresher. Enjoy.

Iran Uprising!

I know it's been a while since I've written. It's been a tough month for me, but the action in Iran to me is amazing and very impressive.

First I want to comment on Barrack Obamas words, and Senator John McCains words. I know we have pretty much never tolerated external meddling in internal affairs so I think Obamas comments saying the people of iran need to pick their ruler was the smart, and conscienscious move. He has made me proud once again. I think what McCain said was not only political but naive and counterproductive. The reality is it appears the Iranian people have the issue covered.

Clearly the people have undetaken some risky protests. This is a brave act of civil defiance, and it appears Iranian politicians and those in power are reacting appropriately:

1) The people are rising up and peacefully (in most cases) asserting the rights which is a powerful uplifting message.

2) It appears that the supreme council of religious authorities are meeting to investigate the issue

3) Reports indicate that the secret police are refusing to assualt or shoot innocents for no reason. I think this is an amazing re-affirmation of the power of civil disobediance as we saw with Martin Luther King, and countless times throughout history. It's also a beautiful re-afirmation of the fact that most people, really, are good in their hearts. Even much vilified (and probably not perfect) Iranian Secret Police.

Iran IS a democracy. Perhaps after their own fashion, but it's for real. And i think we should all recognize the rights of different people to work through issues in their own way. I think it's a source of pride for America that we are what we are. I also believe that we have a lot to learn from different societities out there, and this is a good opportunity.

(6/18/09) A recent update from the Economist. I think clearly if the will was there, the protests would have been over in a day because few people will stand up to a tank (a la tank man). But the reality is that jouralists have been expelled. And to quote their article:

"Its men have beaten up protesters and fired on the crowd. Reformers, intellectuals, civil leaders and human-rights activists have been arrested or have gone missing, not only in Tehran but also in Tabriz, in the north-west, and across the country. Since the Ministry of Guidance has expelled foreign journalists, the course of the repression will be hard to follow. And the outcome of this clash is impossible to predict."

So it's not all perfect. Still I think it's clear that the people have a will that will not be suppressed, and I still think it's a good sign.

2009 Triathlon Season

Here's the plan for the year:

3/29/09 (Tomorrow!) Superseal Triathlon

5/03/09 Wildflower Olympic

5/29/09 Rock and Roll Marathon

6/23/09 San Diego International Triathlon

7/26/09 Solana Beach Sprint Triathlon

*4 months of SERIOUS training*

11/29/09 Ironman Cozumel

I just registered for the Marathon. I think it will be a fun year, and I'm looking forward to only doing 2 events outside of San Diego. At least I have a job here for the next 4 months to keep me around for all the fun events!

The Atlantic has NOT been crossed by a swimmer!

My buddy Luis sent me this article today. I told him "somebody swam across the atlantic" and recounted the blurb I read about her swimming in a shark cage for 10 days or something. Turns out it was a LIE......or a mistake at least. And I as a swimmer and an engineer should have caught it.

There were all kinds of factual inaccuracies in the article, but didn't this trip used to take MONTHS for sailboats? To quote:

The real issue stemmed from the fact that swimming 2,100 miles in 25 days is impossible. (Some newspapers picked up on this.) It's infinitely more impossible when somebody only spends 21 minutes swimming during one of those 25 days. Michael Phelps swimming his fastestwould take about 20 days to cover that distance. And that's his fastest pace, sustained for three weeks, without ever stopping. Impossible.

I'm embarassed at not even thinking about it. I guess even I am susceptbile to believeing the media from time to time.

George Bushs biggest Mistake & Science

Finally! My single biggest complain about George W. was his silly opposition to stem cell research, including forbidding federal funding for research on ALL stem cell lines. Actually in an episode of hipocrasy he actually said it was ok to continue research on 20 something stem cell lines, but no new ones. I think this contradiction indicates that it wasn't a well thought out idea in the first place.

News.com covers the Obama administration's overturning of the executive order today. Personally I'm ecstatic that this happened, and figure we'll see some research money coming from NIH and other resources that was not available before. Here's one of my favorite quotes (unsited of course) from the article:

But critics and skeptics of Obama's decision say that injecting taxpayer dollars into a delicate and already controversial scientific process could backfire. Obama's decision to make stem cell research scientifically worthy of federal tax dollars is as much of a politically subjective decision as Bush's choice not to, they say.

First and foremost I LOVE that they don't quote anyone. Even better is the fact that they say allowing the government to give money to stem cell research (just like it can to just about anything else) is "as much of a politically subjective decision as Bush's!" This is NOT affirmative action, but the removal of preferences, or lack therof. I'm just excited to have a president listening to science and sense! Obama also signed another memorandom saying:

 "Political officials should not suppress or alter scientific or technological findings and conclusions. If scientific and technological information is developed and used by the federal government, it should ordinarily be made available to the public."

I LOVE this, and I hope it will continue. Another good sign is that the "government" is all of a sudden interested in studying the comparative effectiveness of medications. To quote the article on the current state of drug studies:

Half the time, there's little if any good evidence comparing one with another. And one of medicine's little secrets is that new drugs don't have to work any better than cheaper, existing ones to be approved for sale.

 

What the heck? Our system is broke and WE DON'T COMPARE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MEDICATIONS? I personally believe that with all the trouble we've seen with . What we can't forget in this new era of genetics is that some medications will work better for different people with different geno/phenotypes. If one medication or another is truly just more effective ECONOMICALLY then it should reign supreme. HOWEVER, as sequencing costs come down, we should start doing studies correllated to genetic markers to establish different "areas of competency" for different medications. 

I hope science continues to rein supreme!

Chicago

I've been out in Chicago working for 2 weeks at the Borevitz Lab. I'm working on mesh network based environmental sensors for the team to use in quantifying microclimate data, its effects on the ecosytem, and specifically the flora and fauna. Currently they use the Hobo weather station which they use at several locations including the University of Chicago and the Indiana Dunes park nearby. Some nice images of the last month's data is displayed on the weather stations page. This is a big first step down the path of beginning to get real industrial quality data about our environment and ecosystem to help guide our decisions for the future.

There are of course some limitations. These stations are EXPENSIVE! just the basic data logger is about $500 and of course it gives you no ability to do anything wireless. That's a big one. You can put a sensor nearb

y without using a cable, which can break, and degrade any analog signals as well. Of course this is why we are investigating mesh netoworking to take this solution to the next level. Currently I'm using a proposed "Air Station" to drive early prototype development. One of the sensors I mention on that page is the Chipcap which you can get for about $7 and will survie -40 to 85 C, and all it needs is some nice packaging and a connector to equal the sensor Hobo sells for $170! (Shown is the Air Station in Development)

Also with the mesh networking built in, it will be possible to build cheaper micro sensors that will not require their own backhaul. Currently the hobo stations also require that you either go download the data periodically (not real time), use Wifi (not available many places), or pay for an expensive cell contract (expensive). We propose to alleviate this need by using the mesh network for localized connectivity, while accepting that a more expensive backhual 

communciations methodology will be necessary. Some of these sensors (which don't require a timing based digital bus) can be implemented as dumb terminals with Zigbee sending out packets for either ADC or low speed DIO pins. This means Zigbee Card ($20) + Solar Panel & Battery ($20) + Sensor & Packaging cost is now our baseline. There's even tiny AT91 based boards available for $20 which could enable us to have a pretty cheap smart solution as well.

We also recently went out to the Indiana Dunes and I will post some pictures of our trek shortly.