tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2489895979121875862024-02-18T19:14:41.945-08:00Tom's PortalScience, Culture, Technology and Triathlon. My public journal on my thoughts, readings, training, and life experiences.Tomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09453590882539576697noreply@blogger.comBlogger115125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-248989597912187586.post-20225066445335876192016-10-31T08:36:00.006-07:002016-10-31T09:05:53.330-07:00What is Music? Above and Beyond?<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="bd08c" data-offset-key="ar125-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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<span data-offset-key="ar125-0-0">A lot of people don't understand the way music has always been - they complain about Hip Hop, and Electronic Artists copying others - Let's be very clear - Mozart, Beethoven, and the rest ALL performed mostly music written by others in their own way, along with a few special jams of their own - (And any proper artist, and even scientist will admit they stand on the shoulders of giants they hope to become)</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="787bd-0-0">In this day and age, while many DJs do the same thing, few and far between are a group of musicians like Above & Beyond - I often hear a song on the radio and am surprised - oh - "this is the original" I think - wow! how cool!</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="7kfnm-0-0">A lot of artists remix other people's music, and some even remix their own - but WOW - realize what A&B does - They play all the instruments, sing, compose and are truly amazing! I had the pleasure to see these guys live, in an acoustic format and quickly realized - these guys are special - </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="3unvo-0-0">"The production process for electronic music is often someone sitting at a computer with a mouse - it's a very inorganic, and impersonal process really - " </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="9j5ia-0-0">"We don't tend to just stick a bit of vocal over a track - we start with a song" </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="84g41-0-0">If you have a chance to see or listen to these guys, highly recommended - their weekly podcast is a marvel of dance music, and you can't hear much of a mix from a well known DJ without hearing an A&B original - </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="bb75p-0-0">From my perspective I have never heard a song successfully "de-mixed" - the closest maybe is hearing something like metallica de-hardened with a symphony orchestra, but if you want to see the many face of music (Note that Oceanlab is a name for A&B With a particular vocal artist - Justine Suisse):</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="3k1b3-0-0"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIxBEXKMcNE">OceanLab - Miracle - Original</a></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="6roe0-0-0"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCTYY8katkg">OceanLab - Miracle - Club Mix</a> (They always do a club mix of their music....they are DJs!) - - WOW! Seriously up!</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="8cnq4-0-0"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ipi_yQ4es_I">Above & Beyond - Miracle - Acoustic</a>! </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="bl832-0-0">Wow! </span></div>
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If you want to experience end to end, and amazing journey check out <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNUTlKqSO-I">this recording of their original Acoustic performance</a>!</div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">It's awesome and has commentary that really helps you understand these guys - I was blessed to seem them with a few close friends this year in the bay area and it was AMAZING!</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD4158CXe5yHcEMmcHKBCYkHGnC7yjzbwE7KAXmdPOInV4Q2SGGfcCRWX9vy4FlizJ6Oj9iS2IXQf8mf2ZXbnuMZl8W0hMjXQm4PCwtUKXWkI5dek51V65atrLjvtpb7U6Dv9K5HqwGr78/s1600/Above+and+Beyond.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD4158CXe5yHcEMmcHKBCYkHGnC7yjzbwE7KAXmdPOInV4Q2SGGfcCRWX9vy4FlizJ6Oj9iS2IXQf8mf2ZXbnuMZl8W0hMjXQm4PCwtUKXWkI5dek51V65atrLjvtpb7U6Dv9K5HqwGr78/s320/Above+and+Beyond.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cheers, and much love to my group therapy family!</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">-Tom</span></span></div>
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Tomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09453590882539576697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-248989597912187586.post-50144117183504650362014-11-28T21:07:00.002-08:002014-11-28T21:20:23.090-08:00On Ferguson, Racism, and Police....<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">My friend, let's call him Mike, posted this recently. What broke my heart was not the end point, but that he posted the picture without a touch of commentary. It is very tough to post something like that to social media and not have it taken in the wrong way. The fact that most of the United States, right now (alas from my perspective, but the protests have shown something), wouldn't batt an eye at this cartoon speaks volumes:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl2OmZa5ocoUGyFKcCduIAo6wcqKG375-JSWpLB-sp0TZvpos3uFlosgAotb6CxFo5O-gEoGiZMmzqtf1XnLZ2aflhJhf786i5_CGTmiUKMMmFv4gz360bltYFLNwH5MwUPD1I3sm20ak2/s1600/BeWhite.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl2OmZa5ocoUGyFKcCduIAo6wcqKG375-JSWpLB-sp0TZvpos3uFlosgAotb6CxFo5O-gEoGiZMmzqtf1XnLZ2aflhJhf786i5_CGTmiUKMMmFv4gz360bltYFLNwH5MwUPD1I3sm20ak2/s1600/BeWhite.png" height="464" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">But not a lot of people have really explained why. So I thought it an appropriate time to review some of the basic facts, and really summarize why I believe the situation currently is so infuriating. I'm seriously pissed. I issue here, a serious challenge, to the peopld & government of this United States to fix this. Whether through abolishing grand juries (nobody has them but us, and everyone is still entitled to the same evidentiary hearing in the first place), or allowing referendum for criminal cases. My entire life I have been told that Grand Juries establish if there is evidence for a trial.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">1) I'll get to race shortly, but I want to give first an observation which is undeniable:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Not a single witness seems to have disputed that the victim (no matter the cause he is a victim - he was unarmed as we only now know in hind sight) tussled hand to hand with the officer, and shots were fired.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">2) Who doesn't find #1 frightening (I write this from that perspective)? Law of the wild, law of the seas, you call it. We actually would, typically (I believe) give most people in the situation where a gun was tussled over hand to hand, the benefit of doubt. Alas for an officer of the law there is a down side to this. In my book anything premeditated, or remotely intentional is off the table. Involuntary manslaughter? How is that not discussed? Here is the big point.....</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">3) He is an officer of the law, and he MIGHT have made a mistake. The racism here was not that he was shot and killed. Unfortunately he is an officer of the law, and his JOB is to treat everyone equally according to the law and the constitution. I'm not sure of the proper protocol for handling someone walking down the middle of the street. So unfortunately...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">4) The only question, with regard to Officer Wilson is if he made a mistake. Not if he is racist, or intended to murder Brown. If anyone reading this thinks a cop wouldn't be crass to someone in the middle of the street, I challenge you. If you think anyone shouldn't get premeditation thrown out the window, I challenge you. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I can't blame the Grand Jury either - they are the only ignorant's in this contorted by a corrupted process....</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">BUT</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">When I read that the prosecutor has been presenting both sides of the case to the grand jury extensively, I was astounded. Attorneys are required by law to follow certain rules. Judges, if they have a conflict, must recuse themselves. I see this same limitation in the legislative branch with legislators who oversee their donators (i.e. corporations or unions) in any way. The point is, that these district attorneys, judges, and police, all have a very clear relationship, along with the populace that requires drastic measures.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Lawyers are required, by their bar, to represent the interests of their client. How can a prosecutor be expected to behave differently? This prosecutors job was ACTUALLY just to get to a trial. How could none of the judges acknowledge this, and set a precedent, not only for themselves but those around them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The problem is there is no plaintiff for the people. Nobody but the government can charge someone with a criminal charge. That is why people are taking to the streets. They are shutting down malls, and I wasn't sure if I could get back to San Francisco this afternoon, as there were protests at the West Oakland BART station earlier. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">THIS DID NOT GO TO TRIAL?!?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The race problem here IS NOT WITH OFFICER WILSON. I think this is probably why he is scared. If everyone had not resisted charges, and let a trial happen, I think things would have been much more clear, open, and real. The fact that the prosecutor, in this occasion, seemingly decided to behave in a manner that doesn't befit their duties requires all branches to take action. The fact that there are newspaper articles discussing "if the grand jury proceedings will be made public," are exactly the absurdity that dictates that people take to the streets. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">This all points to Officer Brown as a government, and frankly, media scapegoat, for the underlying truth, that the corruption these days is in the prosecutors office. In this case the prosecutors office failed to dutifully recuse themselves of conflict. These days, cases of non-disclosed, nor explained details (channeling my inner economist) in <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21614101-corporate-america-finding-it-ever-harder-stay-right-side-law-mammoth-guilt">America are profligate</a>. In fact I've been watching this trend in The Economist, my favorite periodical, for a <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/2460856">long time now</a>. So now we all focus on a scared police officer, and what happened in a moment, while millions of minorities are abused in different, yet real ways. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">So the question is how did this not go to trial? Is there an American amongst us, who believes it shouldn't have? By whom, did we believe it should have been tried? It was, by the media it seems? To literally quote the <a href="http://sfpublicdefender.org/news/2014/11/sf-public-defenders-statement-on-grand-jury-decision/">Public Defender's Office</a> in San Francisco:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 18.0018005371094px;">This ethical failure resulted in the exceedingly rare step of the prosecuting attorney refusing to recommend an indictment against the polic</span><span style="line-height: 18.0018005371094px;">e officer he was prosecuting.</span></span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Everyone tried to brush it under the rug. The police officer had nothing to do with that. He should not be vilified. The fact that he was honest, probably exposed some racists along the way that rejected due process. Let's find them. Not officer Wilson. The prosecutors were not objective, that is clear. Who's job is that to fix by law? The State Bar (Pun enjoyed)? If we disprove those things, then we can have a discussion, but for now, I think we've got it all wrong.</span>Tomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09453590882539576697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-248989597912187586.post-71834409170880115402014-11-21T12:48:00.004-08:002014-11-24T12:54:34.463-08:00Regular Expressions, Redirects, and Rewrites oh my!I recently got a request worded as such:<br />
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You choose a technical topic related to programming computers that you know a great deal about already, send me the topic so I can read up on it if necessary, and then prepare to give in-depth 10 to 15 minute lecture about the topic to me and I'll ask follow questions.</blockquote>
I thought this would be the perfect thing to share with everyone else as well. One of my biggest strengths is networking, which I had already covered with that person a bit. As well my extensive embedded experience gives me command at the HW-SW interface. We had already touched on optimizing databases and critical code which I view as more abstract computer architecture (things like pipelining and spacial locality effects on cache misses), and things like pull-ups, flash loaders, and bypass capacitors were not an appropriate subject.<br />
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I pondered a bit diving into computability, and the things one could evaluate with seminal computing models like the state machine, push down automata, and Turing machines, but this seemed a bit too much to bite off in short order. However thinking about state machines (e.g. a soda machine), gave me an idea that would incorporate a bit of one of my favorite subjects, Regular Expressions (regex), and let me touch on a scenario that we run into often in the modern interconnected web world.<br />
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It will also allow me to demonstrate a few interesting things under the hood of the internet. What you often perceive as simply loading a web page is often becoming a server accessing databases and services on the server side to serve a page which may still yet deliver executable code that can load local and cached resources, as well as make browser side calls to further web services. While below I use the example of loading web content this is analogous (via 4 - code, and combinations of other methods) to using any remote procedure call be it REST, SOAP, or some other method which may deliver JSON, XML, or other things instead of an HTML document.<br />
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<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
The Problem</span></h2>
<br />
I use case 1 as the base problem, and will add to the problem as we come up with decision points down the line:<br />
<br />
1) I want to type www.example.com and see the content of www.yahoo.com<br />
<br />
The following cases follow as we go through the analysis:<br />
<br />
2) I want to be able to share a URL by itself as a way to share the content I am viewing at the moment. (No iFrame)<br />
<br />
3) I want query parameters to pass through to my page, easily, without server or browser code (No iFrame)<br />
<br />
4) I want cookies to be shareable between domains (no cross domain iFrame, or careful consideration).<br />
<br />
5) I want to support https (no matter what you must get certificates).<br />
<br />
6) I want a custom path scheme for my content (no CNAME).<br />
<br />
7) I want the user to type www.example.com every they want to get to the site (don't send an HTTP 301)<br />
<br />
8) I want the user to still see the domain www.example.com even though they see the content from www.yahoo.com (don't send an HTTP 302)<br />
<br />
9) The site/content I am integrating with uses a different version of javascript, jquery, node.js, etc. or I need to tightly control the order of javascript execution, for example using a message passing interface (don't use client side javascript without using an iFrame, or heavy focus on synchronization constructs).<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
Solution 1: HTML iFrame</span></h2>
This is probably the easiest way for most people to think of. HTML has a mechanism for this called an iFrame. This simple document will embed a window with www.example.com in my page. I created a simple page like this at:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://hl1264.blogspot.com/2014/11/blog-post.html">http://hl1264.blogspot.com/2014/11/blog-post.html</a><br />
<br />
I will note some limitations:<br />
<br />
1) I click a link inside the iFrame. The iFrame content changes, but my URL doesn't. This is ok for me, but say I am on my nth click and wan't to send a link to a friend. When I copy-paste the URL I will go to my blog post, not to the page I wanted to share!<br />
<br />
2) Query parameters are not passed through. I actually ran into this problem when I asked someone to forward a domain in a way I'll cover next, but they used an iFrame. While 1) above was an issue, we were using google analytics and while the user might enter:<br />
<br />
http://hl1264.blogspot.com/2014/11/blog-post.html?utm_source=Tom&utm_medium=Blogspot&utm_campaign=Example1<br />
<br />
I would not get:<br />
<br />
www.example.com/?utm_source=Tom&utm_medium=Blogspot&utm_campaign=Example1<br />
<br />
which would allow the information to pass through. I would just get a hit on:<br />
<br />
www.example.com<br />
<br />
So the information was lost. While it's a quick Javascript or PHP script to grab those parameters and append to the iFrame address, I don't want to do this with code because it's messy, and in this particular case the partner would not do this for us as well.<br />
<br />
3) Cookies will not automatically be shared without careful consideration. I run into this often when using iFrames to integrate multiple sites. You must carefully navigate this with a smart CNAME, cookie declaration, and possibly certificate which I will give as a real world example at the end.<br />
<br />
iFrames are a useful tool, and can be blended with following items in various ways to achieve different end goals. One prime example is blending sites or content that use different versions of javascript or<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Solution 2: DNS CName</span></h2>
<div>
In DNS parlance a "cname" is short for "canonical name," and means one domain is an alias for another. This is analogous to a file alias in the Mac world, a shortcut in PC land, and a link in the *nix universe. This allows you to say in 1 DNS entry:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
www.example.com CNAME www.yahoo.com</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
As long as the site uses relative paths, then you can navigate the entire site and the paths on example.com will mirror those on yahoo.com or whatever target site you choose. For example most sites will have something like this in place:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
www.example.com CNAME example.com</div>
<div>
example.com A 93.184.216.119</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Where the second line is an "A" or "address" record. The above two lines mean that the canonical name of www.example.com is example.com, and the address of example.com is 93.184.216.119.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
1) One limitation here is https, which is rapidly becoming the norm for all sites. If you use this method but your domain is different, modern browsers will block the content or warn users that they are likely entering a dicey situation. This is because the domain the user entered will not match the domain on the certificate. There is no way around this, and any valid case will have no trouble justifying the cost of a new certificate for the project.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
2) Another limitation is with regard to the path. With this method the path will always mirror that of the aliased site. In the case of www.example.com and example.com this makes obvious sense but there may be cases where you will want a custom mapping whether arbitrary, or for backwards compatibility, but more on that later.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Solution 3: HTTP Protocol</span></h2>
<div>
The Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is used to transfer Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) documents. You get a code 200, for success almost every time you load a web page, and most people will recognize 404 (Not Found - usually mistyped or dead link), and 503 (Service Unavailable - usually server maintinence or overload), and 500 (Internal Server Error - any unhandled exception, for me usually an unhandled PHP error). Within this protocol there is a class of responses (3XX) which are specifically aimed at redirection. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
These codes also fulfill our purpose in some ways:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">301 - Moved Permanently</span></h3>
<div>
Sending this response would indicate a permanent change. If I clicked on a bookmark, and receive this response, a smart browser should change the URL in my bookmark. Smart search engines should know longer index the old URL, and should index the new URL.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">302 - Moved Temporarily OR Found</span></h3>
<div>
Moved Temporarily is the old nomenclature, and now Found is used, but this means keep the URL you have. This response is frequently used in parts of sites that are dynamic with respect to site structure, things like AB testing which could guide user subsets to slightly different interfaces. You can still type www.example.com and get your other site content, but by the time you looked up at the address bar you would quickly see the result site, in our case www.yahoo.com so this option is out if you want to see www.example.com as the domain name.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Solution 4 - The code silly!</span></h2>
<div>
There are, of course, many ways to do this by writing good old code! Here I present 3 different modalities of using server and browser side code to accomplish the effect. In all cases one can get the path from the request URL and use that in the URL requested, with similar effects to the cname mapping. This is the method we did not consider before in the simple iFrame case. In a simple Pseudocode:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Take www.example.com/path</div>
<div>
read www.yahoo.com/path</div>
<div>
return the html document received</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This is also a simple example analogous to getting data via a SOAP or REST call and applying a CSS style sheet to it</div>
<h3>
Regex Aside 1</h3>
<div>
A quick introduction to regular expressions. Most people know that '*' means "everything," and often people will know that 'ap*' will match "ap," "app," "application," "apache" and anything else that starts with "ap." To get particular let's talk about some typical regex syntax ( the particulars which may be platform and language dependant ). Some regex basics:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>'.' represents any character, except in a character class</li>
<ul>
<li>'.' will match 'a' or 'b' but also 'ab' as there was in fact a character, there just happened to be a second</li>
</ul>
<li>'+' represents one or more of the preceding character</li>
<ul>
<li>a+ will match 'a', 'aa', 'ab' but not 'b'. It will still match 'ba' and 'baa'</li>
</ul>
<li>'*' represents 0 or more of the preceding character - be careful</li>
<ul>
<li>'*' will match everything</li>
<li>'.*' will match everything</li>
<li>'ab*a' will match 'aa', 'aba', 'abbbbbba'</li>
</ul>
<li>'?' makes something optional, or indicates 0 or 1 of the preceding character</li>
<ul>
<li>'ab?a' will match anything with 'aa' or 'aba' in it but not 'abba'</li>
</ul>
<li>() groups a piece of the regex for later reference. The value in the first params can be referred to typically as $1 or \1, the second as $2 and so on....</li>
<li>[] are used to indicate a character class, such that multiple characters are possible</li>
<ul>
<li>[aeiou] will match any string with a vowel in it</li>
<li>[1234567890] will match anything with a decimal digit in it</li>
</ul>
<li>^ Matches the start of a string</li>
<ul>
<li>'^ab' matches "abatement"or "absinthe" but not "an abatement system" or "a bottle of absinthe"</li>
</ul>
<li>$ Matches the end of a string</li>
<ul>
<li>'ing$' matches "fishing", "swimming", and "lounging", but not "stinking fish", "It's to freezing out there </li>
</ul>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
In PERL, which is similar enough to PHP, Python, and Javascript with respect to regular expressions here is a simple, yet befuddling looking expression that breaks out the pieces of a URL:</div>
<div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
if ($uri =~ m!^(([^:/?#]+):)?(//([^/?#]*))?([^?#]*)(\?([^#]*))?(#(.*))?!) {</div>
<div>
print "protocol:$2, domain:$4, path:$5, query:$7, fragment:$9\n";</div>
<div>
}</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
$uri = "http://www.yahoo.com/folder1/page1.html?key1=val1&key2=val2#FragmentOrAnchor\n\n";</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
gives </div>
<div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
protocol:http, domain:www.yahoo.com, path:/folder1/page1.html, query:key1=val1&key2=val2, fragment:FragmentOrAnchor</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
$uri = "ftp://ftp.example.com/user1?user=tom&password=12345";<br />
<br />
I will leave deconstructing that regex in your favorite scripting language for you as an exercise later. Regex will come in handy again later when we talk about rewrite rules in 5).</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Solution 4a: Server Code loads destination site and serves it</span></h3>
<div>
In this case code on the server will naively call the content, and can programatically parse the path out and append it to the call. For example in PERL I could write:<br />
<br />
$command = "wget http://www.yahoo.com/".$path; # Where # '.' being string concatenation.<br />
print `$command`; #backtick executes the command in the shell and returns stdout<br />
<br />
In this case, as with others https is a concern. In this case, however I could insert elements around or inside the page loaded, modify the style sheet, and do many dynamic things. This modality will frequently be used in the form of Server Side RESTful calls.</div>
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Solution 4b: SSI</span></h3>
This will normally not be an option as it opens all kinds of security vulnerabilities, but an easy way for demonstration purposes is to use a Server Side Includ (SSI). This command let's the web page execute any command with group permissions that match with apache's permissions. In this case the simple example is:<br />
<br />
<!--#exec cmd="wget "www.yahoo.com"--><br />
<br />
Adding in the path needs could be accomplished multiple ways via further code, but is messy, and this example is just academic.<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Solution 4c: Browser side java script</span></h3>
<h3>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">With java script you can actually accomplish the feat in many ways that parallel some of the other pitfalls. </span></span><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;">One way to achieve</span><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"> this is to simply change to the destination URL:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">var url = "http://www.yahoo.com.com/"</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">window.location = url;</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">But this will give you the destination URL in your browser, and really is equivalent to using an HTTP 3XX code to change your destination. Another option is to load the code and re-write the current document with something like the wget above, or even more fun, just insert the iFrame:</span></span><br /><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">document.body.innerHTML= < iframe src = "http://www.example.com" >< / iframe > </span></span></h3>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The sensible time to do this may be when you are actually receiving for example XML to be rendered according to CSS rules. This is a much more complex but typical case for embedding widgets and 3rd party content into your site. Especially in the case where all of the traffic is between a 3rd party server, this option will reduce latency, but require smart tricks like subdomains to deal with XSS issues. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The common trouble is, again, different versions of java script and js frameworks. Doing this on the client side also exposes you to race conditions (The 'A' in AJAX is asynchronous), so this route is not recommended in that case either without careful consideration and synchronization.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Solution 5 Rewrite Rules</span></h2>
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Solution 5a: Web Server Rewrite Rules</span></h3>
I know that a similar mechanism exists in Windows world, but I'm used to apache, where they have the mod_rewrite module. From the <a href="http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/mod/mod_rewrite.html">apache documentation</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The mod_rewrite module uses a rule-based rewriting engine, based on a PCRE regular-expression parser, to rewrite requested URLs on the fly. By default, mod_rewrite maps a URL to a filesystem path. However, it can also be used to redirect one URL to another URL, or to invoke an internal proxy fetch.</blockquote>
<br />
So you can use this module to map one path to another, as well as parse things like HTTP headers as I mention below. It is regular expression based ( you see regex everywhere ), so you can create logical mappings, not just one to one relationships. Examples aboud on the net but a couple of examples <a href="http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/misc/rewriteguide.html">excerpted</a>:<br />
<br />
In the example ruleset below we replace /~user by the canonical /u/user and fix a missing trailing slash for /u/user.<br />
<br />
RewriteRule ^/~([^/]+)/?(.*) /u/$1/$2 [R]<br />
RewriteRule ^/([uge])/([^/]+)$ /$1/$2/ [R]<br />
<br />
The goal of this rule is to force the use of a particular hostname, in preference to other hostnames which may be used to reach the same site. For example, if you wish to force the use of www.example.com instead of example.com, you might use a variant of the following recipe.<br />
<br />
# For sites running on a port other than 80<br />
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.example\.com [NC]<br />
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^$<br />
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} !^80$<br />
RewriteRule ^/(.*) http://www.example.com:%{SERVER_PORT}/$1 [L,R]<br />
<br />
# And for a site running on port 80<br />
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.example\.com [NC]<br />
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^$<br />
RewriteRule ^/(.*) http://www.example.com/$1 [L,R]<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Solution 5b: Rewrite Rules with Sub-domains & Cookies</span></h3>
In the modern world, while i can load an iFrame with content from another site, as soon as you run to active content, especially scripts, the domains can become a problem. If I want to run this script:<br />
<br />
www.example.com/cgi-bin/script.js<br />
<br />
using my cname example, this would be forwarded as a request to:<br />
<br />
www.yahoo.com/cgi-bin/script.js. Certificates aside, a modern browser will not let this happen. It's behavior will be somewhere from simply nothing happening (my default behavior for Firefox at the moment), to getting a warning/error about cross domain scripts or security. In addition if I wrote a re-write rule as in example 5) above, based on HTTP cookies<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Real World Examples</span></h2>
<div>
To be discussed live....</div>
<div>
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">HTTP Refer</span></h3>
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Unified CSS and templating for white label applications via CNAME and rewrite rules</span></h3>
</div>
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">
Redirect to Mobile site based on User Agent using Apache ModReWrite</span></h3>
<div>
Have you noticed that you typically get redirected to an m-dot "m.site.com" site (not ironman site) often on your mobile device? Apache rewrite rules allow access to HTTP headers:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (iPhone|Blackberry|Android)</div>
<div>
RewriteRule ^/$ /homepage.mobile.html [L]</div>
<div>
RewriteRule ^/$ /homepage.std.html [L]</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">
3rd Party Integration example</span></h3>
<div>
The complete package. Example will be given in my presentation</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Tomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09453590882539576697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-248989597912187586.post-10988783557195939312014-07-24T04:27:00.001-07:002014-07-24T14:04:42.489-07:00My early times in Hungary, My Parents, and a hint of device physics....Lately I have written a bit about Hungary, without hiding my obvious roots there. My parents seemed to talk about everything, but perhaps because of the scars, really neglected much about themselves, their history, or their countries history. Most of this is new to me,but tonite I went down an interesting path. I of course knew about 1956 in Hungary from my father, he told me occasional funny stories about being in the military (every male was but he was never deployed), and joked about kayaking for speed inside the wake of a big boat to go faster on the Danube, but no social science for sure.<br />
<div>
<div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I can't remember a single one now, but I know that I once knew the name of all the bridges in Budapest across the Danube from my time there as a child. My mother was interesting, and prolific, starting as I did, as an artist making awesome stained glass windows (I could not do art, but music was my baby as well as my escape), moving to architecture, and later acupuncture, but never really being satisfied. She did not ever talk about Hungarian history, or much of her childhood either. I lived with her parents for a long time when young, but them being "middle class" and her an only child, they still had the same 1972 VW Bug they bought when they died, and their garage was actually an old bomb shelter under their house. </div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I knew from a young age, especially when this my father would calmly eat even the apple core, he was raised in incredible poverty relative to what we conceive of as normality. I stayed with my grandparents for a large part of my childhood. When I was tiny tiny I bathed in an old school porcelain wash basin (yes in the early 80s, in Hungary, they did laundry by hand and hung it up to dry as well). The whole time you went to the store almost daily, because a "refrigerator" basically had room for milk and eggs. I don't know many people who had to share bath water, but there was never hot water for another bath (what's a shower?).</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
As usual I had to learn about my history from google again. But tonight, randomly, as I plan to finish filing my first patent tomorrow (you wouldn't believe the challenge getting the USPTO to accept a PDF), I looked up my father. Most of this will only make sense to my EE friends (circuit diagrams in all the electronics links below....), but other than my dad being able to do pullups with one arm when I was young, nothing even comes close to looking up his patents.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I distinctly remember talking with my dad about his failed attempts at "bubble memory" once upon a time. But the title of his first patent, actually cracks me up:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"<a href="https://www.google.com/patents/US4388700?dq=ininventor:%22Laszlo+V.+Gal%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ZMvQU_eTEM2IogTwnoLgDA&ved=0CBsQ6AEwADgK">Nucleation bubble generator for bubble domain devices</a>"</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
That makes me want to laugh. We can, because it was a complete failure. Back then as I remember it was IBM, Rockwell, or Burroughs for my father. That was one patent at Rockwell, but then the laughs stop. He joined Burroughs, where former treasury secretary Michael Blumenthal engineered a notorious hostile takeover of Sperry, creating Unisys, while my father created the future of electronics.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="http://www.google.com/patents/US4613771">Integrated circuit having three power bases and proportioned parasitic resistive and capacitive coupling to reduce output noise</a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Interesting. I focused on circuits and communications, but when device physics came into play, that was where I could no longer go. But what I see there is an order of magnitude decrease in noise, and that's never a bad thing. So we've moved from bubbles to transistors, but that patent is raw device physics.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="http://www.google.com/patents/US4609834">Integrated logic circuit incorporating a module which generates a control signal that cancels switching noise</a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
interesting. All BJTs. Old school! Starting to move up into more than one transistor.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So I'll list a few more</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="https://www.google.com/patents/US4697139?dq=ininventor:%22Laszlo+V.+Gal%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=M8vQU-3DM5DtoASGmIH4Dg&ved=0CFYQ6AEwCA">Logic circuit having testability for defective via contacts</a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="http://www.google.com.tr/patents/US4682058">Three-state logic circuit for wire-ORing to a data bus</a> (Once again, BJT logic circuits...... I thought they were only for amplifiers!)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="https://www.google.com/patents/US4749885?dq=ininventor:%22Laszlo+V.+Gal%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=M8vQU-3DM5DtoASGmIH4Dg&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAQ">Nonsaturating bipolar logic gate having a low number of components and low power dissipation</a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I remember hearing BiCmos at a young age and here it comes.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="http://www.google.com/patents/US4949149">Semicustom chip whose logic cells have narrow tops and wide bottoms </a>(Yeah. It's CMOS time baby!)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="https://www.google.com/patents/US4839541?dq=ininventor:%22Laszlo+V.+Gal%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=M8vQU-3DM5DtoASGmIH4Dg&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAw">Synchronizer having dual feedback loops for avoiding intermediate voltage errors</a> (Cool circuit. BJT? CMOS? Your choice)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="http://www.google.ca/patents/US5006794">Module for preventing instability in integrated circuit testers</a> (I understand the title. I have no idea what's going on there)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="http://www.google.com/patents/US5214299">Fast change standard cell digital logic chip</a> (note here, in 1989 they are still talking about a standard chip having 15 THOUSAND gates)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="http://www.google.nl/patents/US5225721">Signal translator for interconnecting CMOS and BiCMOS logic gates</a>. CMOS is great for logic, and BJTs are great for amplifiers. I think this last one might be a seminal work.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Device physics goes back a bit before my father, but not much. For my EE peeps, as well as myself, this might be an interesting trip through semiconductors in the 80s.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Not bad for a poor eastern european immigrant. I just need 10 more to catch up!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish."</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
~Steve Jobs/The Whole Earth Catalog</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Tomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09453590882539576697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-248989597912187586.post-8857547751162750202014-06-14T19:23:00.003-07:002014-06-15T22:27:04.870-07:00The Mighty Magyars and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956"There is no more illustrious history than the history of the Magyar nation"<br />
--Theodore Roosevelt<br />
<br />
Yes, sometimes the Hungarian pride comes out. Hungary has existed in many forms over the years. For those of you who know me, I have long believed that a sustained diaspora from Hungary in the 20th century has affected the world broadly, and positively in many ways. However, a lot of cool things have come from within Hungary as well.<br />
<br />
Watching Italy and England play today I'm inspired to share the story of The Magical Magyars of the 1950's. A team that once upon a time revolutionized soccer and dominated the world for years such that losing to West Germany in the 1954 world cup (beating Brazil in the quarters, and holders Uraguay in the semis) is referred to as "Das Wunder von Bern" ("The Miracle of Bern"). Just a year earlier they stunned England, and the entire world with the first foreign win at Wembley against England ever:<br />
<br />
To quote directly from the <a href="http://www.fifa.com/classicfootball/coaches/coach=61688/">FIFA website</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Sometimes referred to as the 'Match of the Century', Hungary's 6-3 demolition of England at Wembley Stadium in 1953 is seen by many to mark the birth of football's modern age. If so, then Gusztav Sebes, the manager of the 'Magical Magyars,' was the man most responsible for the game's shaping place in football history.<br />Though rightly remembered for the beauty of their play and the brilliance of the world-class players in their ranks, the feats of Hungary's Aranycsapat (Golden Team) also marked a turning point in tactics, group dynamics and on-field fluidity. Sebes's side have come to be regarded as a precursor for the most skilled and intelligent teams in the sport's subsequent history. As Hungary's inspirational captain Ferenc Puskas once said: "When we attacked, everyone attacked, and in defence it was the same. We were the prototype for Total Football."</i></blockquote>
And Johnathan Stevenson from the BBC Relates (quoting Jackie Sewell and of great England fame Sir Bobby Robson):<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>As if to prove their point, the rampant Hungarians demolished England 7-1 in a friendly in Budapest six months later. The old way of playing was over but a bond between the teams that would last several decades had begun.<br />In November 1993, the remaining survivors were invited to Budapest for a grand dinner to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Hungary's famous win. "I've never experienced the sort of camaraderie with anyone else that we had with that team," Sewell told me. "There was a terrific bond between the players and it never went away.<br />"We were shown around Budapest, taken to some vineyards and then plonked on a big stage with TV cameras around where they presented us with these gold cups. It was marvellous, they really looked after us - but that's the sort of people they were."</i></blockquote>
I<br />
<br />
Some interesting records:<br />
<ul>
<li>World Record: most consecutive games scoring at least one goal: 73 games (April 10, 1949 to June 16, 1957).</li>
<li>World Record: longest time undefeated in 20th and 21st centuries: 4 years 1 month (June 4, 1950 to July 4, 1954). </li>
<li>World Cup Record: 27 goals scored in a single World Cup finals tournament.</li>
<li>World Cup Record: 5.4 goals-per-match in a single World Cup finals tournament.</li>
<li>World Cup Record: +17 goal differential in a single World Cup finals tournament.</li>
<li>World Cup Record: 2.2 goals-per-match average for individual goal scoring in a single World Cup finals tournament (Sándor Kocsis 11 goals in 5 games).</li>
<li>World Cup Record: highest margin of victory ever recorded in a World Cup finals tournament match ( Hungary 9, South Korea 0 – July 17, 1954).</li>
</ul>
Some interesting notables:<br />
<ul>
<li>First national side from outside the British Isles to defeat England at home since the codification of association football in 1863, a span of 90 years</li>
<li>First non-South American national side to defeat Uruguay (July 30, 1954), breaking a 17 game Uruguayan unbeaten run against non-South American competition dating from May 26, 1924.</li>
<li>First national side to defeat the Soviet Union at home (Sept. 23 1956)</li>
</ul>
<br />
Unfortunately the story's end begins just one month later with the start of the hungarian revolution. The revolt began with a student protest marching on parliament. When state security forces fired on the demonstrators, killing one, the news spread and violence erupted in the capital. Within a week militias quickly formed, fighting with the state and soviet troops, and had disbanded the existing government.<br />
<br />
The majority of the team played for Budapest Honvéd and was out of the country playing Athletic Bilbao and chose, not to return as the revolution had erupted. While some players eventually chose to return to Hungary, 3 notables moved to Spain to play for Real Madrid and Barcelona.<br />
<br />
On October 30th, the Soviet politburo decided to withdraw from Hungary. For a short time it looked like the peace would continue. On October 31st, the committee reversed it's decision, and by November 3rd Russian tanks had encircled Budapest, and on the 4th they rolled in, and the rest is history.<br />
<br />
Hungary was brought back into the fold, and the diaspora continued. One other interesting interesting side story is the Hungarian waterpolo team which was training in the mountains near Budapest in preparation for the Sydney Olympics. They left the country, avoiding the revolution, and by December when the olympics happened, the revolution had been fully suppressed. Hungary beat the Soviet Union 4-0, in a heated match. Photos of a bleeding <span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20.363636016845703px;">Ervin Zádor spread, and before to long the contest had been</span> termed "The blood in the water match."<br />
<br />
~~~~~~~~~~~~<br />
References:<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Magyars">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Magyars</a><br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956</a><br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria-Hungary">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria-Hungary</a><br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_in_the_Water_match">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_in_the_Water_match</a><br />
<br />
Awesome 30 minute video about Ferenc Puskás<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STBQTqMnd8o">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STBQTqMnd8o</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Tomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09453590882539576697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-248989597912187586.post-27280860783878424402014-01-26T21:35:00.000-08:002014-01-26T21:35:05.067-08:00Intellectual Libertarians!I read a great piece today entitled "<a href="http://www.salon.com/2014/01/26/confessions_of_a_former_libertarian_my_personal_psychological_and_intellectual_epiphany/">Confessions of a former Libertarian: My personal, psychological and intellectual epiphany.</a>" And what an epiphany it gave me indeed. Alas if you are hoping for political talk, this one is not for you.<br />
<br />
Some of the realizations expressed in this essay gave me some great self insight on the process I've been through the last decade. To me libertarianism was politics, not a lifestyle, or philosophy. My libertarian bent is more along the lines of "the more you let government do, the more wasteful they can be." I'll confess that many things like roads, schools, and police seem like obvious places for the government, and I think almost everyone agrees. But just bring up the environment, or even worse (in the US) HEALTHCARE and people are up in arms (I support the environment deeply, and think basic healthcare is just as obvious)!<br />
<br />
I can see now that my 20s were, in retrospect, the time I resolved the conflicts between my head and my heart. My life philosophy when I was younger was heavily driven by my life experience which mostly related around being the best at reading, logic, math, science etc, and being terrible with people.<br />
<br />
For me I fell back on what I will now call "Intellectual Libertarianism," but let's be honest, everyone has some skew in there life at a young age, and most people just don't self analyze that much. When the world came to things like sense, logic, or math.... I always won, and still do, so why not fall back on what works? This was probably what affected my ethos the most. Alas, to assume that really anyone thinks just like you, or even close, is a huge fallacy. I had such an amazing disconnect from the real world, and had no idea! You can never hope to comprehend their life experience in any meaningful way via pure logic. I see that a lot of my perspective was based on a truly ignorant notion the author spoke well:<br />
<br />
"the truth an ideologue is at pains to accept is that no life can live up to ideology. We are a messy species living messy lives. And we are lucky for this. The intellectual libertarian wants the world to be the kind of ideal world it never can be. He (and it’s often he) is unable to live with ambiguity and compromise. The beautiful (it is a kind of beauty) logical edifice of Libertarianism is built on the faulty premise that this is the kind of world that is built on logical edifices."<br />
<br />
Accepting that the world could be so complicated took me MANY years. I still have a world of flaws to conquer, but this one, at least for me has been the most profound process of my last epoch. I expect this realization to guide me in the future to continue to use my values of empathy and compassion to understand rather than judge people. I'll keep my early life skills at work changing the world with cool and innovative tech forever!<br />
<br />Tomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09453590882539576697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-248989597912187586.post-25947251317400088672013-09-25T08:18:00.000-07:002013-09-25T08:18:13.895-07:00FUD, Marketing, and Vested Interests in the Car IndustryAn article I read this morning observes that California <a href="http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1087123_california-car-dealers-slam-tesla-for-website-pricing-tricks">car dealers complain</a>:<br />
<br />
"[they] also [note] that Tesla's quoted new-car prices net out a $7,500 Federal income-tax credit for purchase of a plug-in electric car. According to the California dealers, just 20 percent of all car shoppers qualify for that credit--and the group attributes that statistic to the Congressional Budget Office. "<br />
<br />
While they happily quote financing that only 5% of people can get, on prices that often exist only on one car on the lot out of hundreds to get you in the door, while Tesla's pricing is a done deal.<br />
<br />
And of course while all electric car manufacturers use similar tactics on their websites "We note that the California New Car Dealers Association, however, does not attack Chevrolet, Mitsubishi, or Nissan for this practice--only Tesla."<br />
<br />
Smells like FUD as usual, rather than something real, as in both cases, everything is disclosed (even if the print is tiny, or it's the guy talking 1M mph at the end of the commercial)...<br />
<br />
We watch this time and time again, and in particular with another Elon Musk company that is revolutionizing the mechanics and COST of space travel. How do we clear the path for future technologies and encourage them? It seems it takes a Crisis in the USA to incite change (hopefully). We could have been on the vanguard of raising fuel efficiency standards in the USA, but instead we waited til all of our car companies were bankrupt!<br />
<br />
<br />Tomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09453590882539576697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-248989597912187586.post-74715316475373834972013-02-28T12:01:00.001-08:002013-02-28T12:01:25.456-08:00Rocky (a.k.a. Van) goes to Russia<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPyxotZUMPHXcS45fXpwbyTSMN5Z6hg_s8IJmlC96RIK0Q0B30q83XiJWZQuRCKBpjIvQUB8pca9dLIR1094NztELBBM56N1a5XtCER9Odcmq6yqgL2869ZRGJXCwKsoaUdUbb4HQI7DZg/s1600/Rocky_IV.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPyxotZUMPHXcS45fXpwbyTSMN5Z6hg_s8IJmlC96RIK0Q0B30q83XiJWZQuRCKBpjIvQUB8pca9dLIR1094NztELBBM56N1a5XtCER9Odcmq6yqgL2869ZRGJXCwKsoaUdUbb4HQI7DZg/s200/Rocky_IV.jpg" width="126" /></a>Remember Rocky 4? Rocky goes to Russia, beats the Russian behemoth at his own game, and rather than smugly gloating he turns it into a passionate speech about how as the fight progressed he and the crowd realized how similar Americans and Russians actually are. The scene where the Russian premier stands up and applauds (then followed by his aides) was a poignant illustration of the slowly thawing relations between our two great nations.<br />
<br />
Did you know this actually happened in real life once? It just wasn't the way you think. When I was young I had a great Russian piano teacher for many years, who always used the example of Van Cliburn to motivate me. "You can't just be a little better" he would say, "the reason Van Cliburn, an American could go to the Soviet Union at the height of the cold war and still win was because he was so much better there was no question!"<br />
<br />
Van Cliburn died yesterday (2-27-13) at the age of 78. I actually saw him at one of his last public performance when I was a child. I was lucky enough to see him on the first stop of the tour, as he cancelled the rest! Through my teacher, Dimitri, and that one concert he has for ever been a poignant influence in my life. How could one man, single handedly (figuratively of course!) endear himself to Russians and Americans alike, while for the first time showing that American musicians could compete against the best in the world?<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The impact of Mr. Cliburn’s victory was enhanced by a series of vivid articles written for The New York Times by Max Frankel, then a foreign correspondent based in Moscow and later an executive editor of the paper. The reports of Mr. Cliburn’s progress — prevailing during the early rounds, making it to the finals and becoming the darling of the Russian people, who embraced him in the streets and flooded him with fan mail and flowers — created intense anticipation as he entered the finals.</blockquote>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMJW6xFGTSdQBjqN05yZgKJV8arY4dN6l0a3ZSTfSKvginS1GY0l-yCP4aZnDBWyPcuA8HZKeTP5sKzUzveUPBE1HU9p5Ee-hRrMipgHwTt5YwjYFqZT0Jpx3mpdMhfEIuUYeVyxf0AMAT/s1600/Van+Cliburn+Moscow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMJW6xFGTSdQBjqN05yZgKJV8arY4dN6l0a3ZSTfSKvginS1GY0l-yCP4aZnDBWyPcuA8HZKeTP5sKzUzveUPBE1HU9p5Ee-hRrMipgHwTt5YwjYFqZT0Jpx3mpdMhfEIuUYeVyxf0AMAT/s320/Van+Cliburn+Moscow.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
He was a sensation! The boxing ring was a little different. Other than perhaps a judge ignoring something not allowed, the International Tchaikovsky competition could very obviously be influenced, and even controlled by the Party in a way we only see on a large scale in China these days. In fact his performance was so amazing, then premier Nikita Khruschev in fact gave the judges the nod to his victory! Van Cliburn, or course was completely oblivious:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Oh, I never thought about all that,” Mr. Cliburn recalled in 2008 during an interview with The Times. “I was just so involved with the sweet and friendly people who were so passionate about music.” The Russians, he added, “reminded me of Texans.”</blockquote>
<br />
Really? Think of Rocky when the crowd in Russia started chanting:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
On the night of the final round, when Mr. Cliburn performed the Tchaikovsky First Concerto, a solo work by Dmitry Kabalevsky (written as a test piece for the competition) and the Rachmaninoff Third Concerto, the audience broke into chants of “First prize! First prize!” Emil Gilels, one of the judges, went backstage to embrace him.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The jury agreed with the public, and Moscow celebrated. At a Kremlin reception, Mr. Cliburn was bearhugged by Khrushchev. “Why are you so tall?” Khrushchev asked. “Because I am from Texas,” Mr. Cliburn answered.</blockquote>
Much like the made up Rocky in a short while Van Cliburn endeared himself to the Russian public in a way that was unimaginable. Unlike Rocky however, that moment was his coming out to America as well:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
When Mr. Cliburn returned to New York he received a ticker-tape parade in Lower Manhattan, the first musician to be so honored, cheered by 100,000 people lining Broadway. In a ceremony at City Hall, Mayor Robert F. Wagner proclaimed that “with his two hands, Van Cliburn struck a chord which has resounded around the world, raising our prestige with artists and music lovers everywhere.”</blockquote>
A worldwide rockstar 2 years before The Beatles started their run on the world! The rest of his life seemed downhill from there. When he returned he recorded his performance from Moscow, and it sold over a million copies in the fist year. He quickly started pulling in massive rates for performances, but it was not long to be. His forays into other works were mostly not well received. Most people just wanted to hear the Tchaikovsky and the Rachmaninov 3. He of course became fabulously wealthy, but became increasingly erratic, and left the stage for years at a time.<br />
<br />
In any case I will not dwell on his later life. I saw him perform the Tchaikovsky and was forever changed. I spent my last two years of Piano back when I lived in Austin working on the Tchaikovsky - 1, and my preferred Rachmaninov - 2 because of his impact. Two days ago a legend, and American hero who indirectly played a big part in my life passed away. Rest in Peace Van Cliburn. I want to thank Dimitri Kirichenko in San Diego, and Julia Krueger in Austin Texas for the amazing impact they also had on my life. I am also grateful beyond belief for the love and passion for music I derived from all those years on the Piano, and Clarinet.<br />
<br />
New York Times article with lots of good info which I have excerpted a few times above: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/arts/music/van-cliburn-pianist-dies-at-78.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/arts/music/van-cliburn-pianist-dies-at-78.html</a><br />
<br />
Van Cliburn plays the Tchaikovsky 1st Piano Concerto. It's opening is the most grandiose and powerful around in my opinion. AMAZING close ups of his hands. Note about 5:30 in. Those are octaves in both hands! There's a similar section about 8 minutes in. By do I remember toiling over those sections. If you click through to the second half of the first movement there is an amazing virtuoso finish as well. The third movement also has an amazing finish, and I LOVE the way he looks at the conductor.<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M7M4UoqBpA&list=PL4C3471E0755BFCF2&index=1">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M7M4UoqBpA&list=PL4C3471E0755BFCF2&index=1</a><br />
<br />
Van Cliburn plays the Rachmaninov 2nd Piano Concerto. This one has a powerful opening, but rather than being grandiose, it's power is in passion. I absolutely LOVE this piece. It does get rather grandiose when those big Rachmaninov chords come in on occasion.<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds9CrdY3R2M">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds9CrdY3R2M</a><br />
<br />
My 3rd favorite Piano Concerto, Grieg's first, performed by Evgeny Kissin. Not related to Van Cliburn in any way. Just a side note.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO-H37t1fQQ">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO-H37t1fQQ</a>Tomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09453590882539576697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-248989597912187586.post-39261447009499311712013-02-22T16:07:00.001-08:002013-02-25T15:11:48.177-08:00Time management, quality -vs- quantity, and diminishing returnsGrowing up I have watched many people ruin their lives with a lack of balance. Those who have known me long enough have known I was TERRIBLE at balance, and have worked terribly hard to get to where I am today. Both of my parents, upon immigrating from Hungary (where I don't think they take it easy easy as Western Europe) in my opinion were seduced by the American dream, just like most of the parents of children from my era. I watched them ruin their lives, health, and spirits by not balancing work and all the other things that life involves.<br />
<br />
With this background and perhaps the advice of a few key friends, bosses, and mentors I learned well to balance my life (or focus on balance as a key element), but it was hard. For me it took an odyssey into triathlon, where balance between going hard and easy is a key element of a successful plan, and a long term burnout in a job where I was literally doing 5 peoples jobs! What was profound when I first came to this realization was that it decreased my ability to be highly available and observant. I wrote about this in an article called <a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2010/09/carpe-diem.html">Carpe Diem</a>, where I observed that because I was burned out and uninterested, I was only mediocre in situations where the game really was on the line (think a last minute bug or redesign needed to fix a major problem); I also saw that in addition to always being tired, and snippy with my co-workers and friends, I never had time to "stop and smell the roses" which is where a LOT of creative and problem solving influence really comes from.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately we learn from many sources over the years a fact that is well espoused in this Inc article entitled: "<a href="http://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/why-working-more-than-40-hours-a-week-is-useless.html">Why working more than 40 hours a week is useless</a>." I interpret this as constantly working more than 40 hours on the same thing. I believe you can have other "<a href="http://www.uky.edu/StudentAffairs/NewStudentPrograms/UK101/pdf/BigRocks.pdf">big rocks</a>" (read major passions and devotions as the well known time management analogy goes) in your jar, but you can't have too many, and you certainly can't fill your jar with gravel, sand, and water (busy work, email/SMS, and the WEB/Social Media) first. If you ignore your health, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and personal life you'll just end up with one under maintained big rock, and a bunch of crap:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Arial, Verdana; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">Research by the Business Roundtable in the 1980s found that you could get short-term gains by going to 60- or 70-hour weeks very briefly — for example, pushing extra hard for a few weeks to meet a critical production deadline," she wrote. But Robinson stressed that "increasing a team’s hours in the office by 50 percent (from 40 to 60 hours) does not result in 50 percent more output...In fact, the numbers may typically be something closer to 25-30 percent more work in 50 percent more time."</span></blockquote>
But the unfortunate temptation is to be sucked in by focusing on quantity over quality when we think of things in a superficial form:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Arial, Verdana; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">there's actually a pretty strong correlation between how busy we are and how important we feel. "We live in a competitive society, and so by lamenting our overwork and sleep deprivation — even if that requires workweek inflation and claiming our worst nights are typical — we show that we are dedicated to our jobs and our families,"</span></blockquote>
<br />
But we know these things. Yet people and management have both seemed to ignore these facts in America like crazy. I have been quite successful in the right situations, but I need help. I have an unfortunate propensity to be able to go hard for a much longer time then most people, but I'm simply able to push past exhausted mediocrity to sickness, and a host of other interpersonal issues that can be hard to notice for me because I am so bland. This brings down my employers, myself, and my inner circle. I have been a great performer, for extended periods of time, in the context of my "big rock" when I'm able to incorporate the following:<br />
1) work HARD for more like 6 hours a day (3-4 chunks with at least a little break, and often a workout thrown in the middle).<br />
2) I have and am able to use vacation, and<br />
3) I have a boss who watches me and occasionally helps me refuse tasks or take a break.<br />
<br />
I also need to have the bandwidth to also have my "Smell the roses" moments so I can get creative, and ingenuous inspirations which often come at random times, and often from random people. That said it's still not a popular thing to talk about. As I have moved up the ladder, and especially work with many time zones I have accepted that I am inevitably forced to become a bit more available, especially at random times. My response to this is to resolve conflicts with life more often by not forcing all my errands and appointments to take over my lunch, evenings, and weekends. I feel like there's a fair balance between taking some incursion by work into my personal life, and responding by allowing myself things like haircuts, doctors appointments, and such to occasionally have me step away from work for a while. I also feel like 2 and preferably 3 weekends a month MUST be disconnected. This is JUST medium term maintenance though... You still need vacations.<br />
<br />
I recently raid an article entitled "<a href="http://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/facebook-sheryl-sandberg-can-leave-early-why-arent-you.html">Cheryl Sandberg leaves work at 5:30. Why can't you?</a>" And then follows with:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 17px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Facebook's COO comes out as a proud believer in leaving the office on time, and creating balance in your life.</span></span></blockquote>
I also wrote an article about exercise called "<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2010/03/exercise-and-brain-body-mind-connection.html">Exercise and the Body Mind Connection</a>" which called out articles citing MASSIVE <a href="http://www.menshealth.com/fitness/running-brainpower/page/4">improvements in health AND intellectual performance</a>. So just adding the balance of some cardio a few times a week can make you miss less days sick, focus and think better, AND give you (admittedly subjective) feeling of improvement in BOTH your professional and personal lives! Which leads to another more recently published McKinsey articles titled: "<a href="https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/A_personal_approach_to_organizational_time_management_3049">A personal approach to organizational time management</a>," and another article called "<a href="https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Making_time_management_the_organizations_priority_3048">An organizational approach to time management.</a>"<br />
<br />
These articles reveal how both organizations from CEO down need to focus on time management institutionally, as well as individuals themselves:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">Imagine its impact on senior executives. The scope, complexity, and ambiguity of senior leaders’ roles not only create near-infinite permutations of priorities but also make it more difficult to get real-time performance or productivity feedback. Is it any wonder that only 52 percent of 1,500 executives McKinsey surveyed said that the way they spent their time largely matched their organizations’ strategic priorities? (For more on this research, see “</span><a href="https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/article_page.aspx?ar=3048" style="background-color: white; color: #1c68b4; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; text-decoration: initial;" target="">Making time management the organization’s priority</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">.”)</span></span></blockquote>
So it's already hard for an individual on their own. If a CEO is not able to instill this in themselves AND their employees, they and their employees will suffer:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Our research and experience suggest that leaders who are serious about addressing this challenge must stop thinking about time management as primarily an individual problem and start addressing it institutionally. Time management isn’t just a personal-productivity issue over which companies have no control; it has increasingly become an organizational issue whose root causes are deeply embedded in corporate structures and cultures.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></blockquote>
Luckily they also say that....<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Fortunately, this also means that the problem can be tackled systematically. Senior teams can create time budgets and formal processes for allocating their time. Leaders can pay more attention to time when they address organizational-design matters such as spans of control, roles, and decision rights. Companies can ensure that individual leaders have the tools and incentives to manage their time effectively. And they can provide institutional support, including best-in-class administrative assistance—a frequent casualty of recent cost-cutting efforts.</span></blockquote>
<br />
There's a lot more amazing content in those articles with real suggestions on how to improve the problem. They are a great read. It's taboo in America, but a lot of smart people are seeing the european view of quality over quantity, and diminishing returns. A literally great analogy is Soccer -vs- American Football. The NFL is literally the most stunning representation of American mentality that I mention in an earlier article I mentioned: "Bigger, Better, Faster, More." Alas that is just naive. At times like these I have to fall back to music, which is my first love. We all want to be in the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk48xRzuNvA">hall of fame</a>. We may have 300 pound lineman who can tackle you and run a 40yd that you can't believe, but <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6auk1TkGtVQ">life ain't a track meet, it's a marathon</a>. Or maybe even an ironman these days :)
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</script>Tomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09453590882539576697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-248989597912187586.post-68617284189309750312012-04-02T10:40:00.001-07:002012-04-02T10:44:04.492-07:00Attitudes toward Money, Wealth Inequality, and what it means.I've written before on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient">Gini Coefficient</a>. It it is a measure of the Lorenz Curve relation of wealth distribution. It is commonly used to measure income inequality. I recently saw an economist chart called <a href="http://attitudes%20toward%20being%20rich/">Attitudes toward being rich</a>...<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/images/2012/04/blogs/graphic-detail/20120407_WOC860.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/images/2012/04/blogs/graphic-detail/20120407_WOC860.png" width="524" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So I immediately thought, hmmmm, what's the relationship to Gini coefficient here? I assume that people are fairly perceptive, and know their relative wealth. A poor person is by definition someone without too much money, that has a lot to worry about other than being rich and having expensive things. Yet oddly, by my perception, it's these really poor people who are often willing to work harder, and are more successful, and frugal. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">My quick check showed 42 for Russia, and 25 for Sweden. I know of the top of my head that Mexico, and Russia have a large number of Billionaires with a lot of really poor people so I'm thinking people focusing on wealth inherently results in a less equal distribution of wealth. I grabbed some numbers from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality">Wikipedia</a>, so it's spread across a few years, but let's assume fairly accurate: </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZtX-RSY5ACPDw2IkQLn3JJWPhv5K_A_n5E53JZ4aFXT1qMAO8pBcblslPDssiq4xiHaDzqH6nCPB1nOBNmEHKt2ESJwBMUGz3MbN12K3KN6wBDJlEQqzTSft8-3hyphenhyphen7GuC26qX2K5WePb5/s1600/Gini+Coefficient.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZtX-RSY5ACPDw2IkQLn3JJWPhv5K_A_n5E53JZ4aFXT1qMAO8pBcblslPDssiq4xiHaDzqH6nCPB1nOBNmEHKt2ESJwBMUGz3MbN12K3KN6wBDJlEQqzTSft8-3hyphenhyphen7GuC26qX2K5WePb5/s640/Gini+Coefficient.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Slovenia appears to have something going on because it's WAY out of the way on my assumption, but in general the numbers seem to show a clear correlation. We must always be wary of assuming that correlation equals causality, for it is not always so. But I wonder. Sweden, Norway, The Netherlands, and Finland, "Nordic" countries by my reckoning seem to be more wealthy then most, and have a high GDP Per head. These four countries are all in the top 13 when it comes to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita">nominal GDP per capita</a>, and the top 21 when <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita">adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity</a>, or cost of goods.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So I augmented my chart to add in Nominal GDP per capita, and took out two huge outliers (Bulgaria and Ukraine) for the sake of the chart.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaIzTzeeksHoxaFGmcRzCM8zhgoIV8j-MJH46Yl_Kp3yrOCoh_ISOYFTzf6tggCLjxIBcVHXsP0Y1bVDpL4hoOL-QZo3qCyJoCQlPcsihb-jnUW3ff1ohd30c93f-n4DHpIqOcIbyPNq7h/s1600/Gini+++GDP.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaIzTzeeksHoxaFGmcRzCM8zhgoIV8j-MJH46Yl_Kp3yrOCoh_ISOYFTzf6tggCLjxIBcVHXsP0Y1bVDpL4hoOL-QZo3qCyJoCQlPcsihb-jnUW3ff1ohd30c93f-n4DHpIqOcIbyPNq7h/s640/Gini+++GDP.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">These numbers are not normalized, so it doesn't say that GDP/head is MORE correlated. To me it's just very clear that attitudes on money, wealth inequality, and wealth of a nation are all related. But what's the cause and effect? Can it be legislated away, or is it a fundamental issue of perception, and society? Or even just a function of the Bell Curve? It's clear to me the logic of a more equal and successful society being related. But what's the cause and what's the effect?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">There's a lot of talk in politics in the US these days about taxing rich, and taxing poor. Will it make the rich run away, or actually help everyone? I do believe that financial chicanery has rigged the system toward big banks, and that's why a lot of people are mad. The bankers are not giving more value then they were 10, 20, 50, and a hundred years ago, and their piece of the pie (profits/valuation relative to S&P total) has grown dramatically. I can't cite this directly but I saw a fairly authoritative chart on CNBC recently.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Looking forward to comments on the Business/Finance front, as well as Socio-Political aspects...</div>Tomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09453590882539576697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-248989597912187586.post-50599586485864695052011-11-29T16:50:00.000-08:002011-12-02T09:33:54.521-08:00Compendium December 2011So I have been writing for a while now. Early on my writing was a public log of my journey into triathlon. I have been thinking about writing again about my recent revival and injury, but mostly stopped that after a while. The Top few, and a couple that bridge boundaries are repeated so people who only are interested in certain topics can still read them.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">My top few:</span><br />
1) <a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2011/10/corporate-venture-capital.html">Corporate Venture Capital</a> (2011) - Listed this first out of order. I WANT the right people to read this and consider it!<br />
2)<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2009/11/chinas-command-economy-resource.html"> China's Command Economy, Resource Efficiency, and the worlds Geopolitical Future</a> (2009)<br />
3) <a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2009/11/art-of-triathlon.html">The Art of Triathlon</a> (2009)<br />
4) <a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2009/08/market-based-health-care-reform.html">Market Based Health Care</a> (2009)<br />
5) <a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2010/02/aerobic-training-theory-history-and.html">Aerobic Training Theory, History, and Methodologies. My take...</a> (2010)<br />
6) <a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2010/02/compton-cookout-and-isadore-hall-iii.html">The Compton Cookout, and Isadore Hall III: McCarthy's New Age Revival</a> (2010)<br />
7) <a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2010/03/climate-prediction-accuracy.html">Climate Prediction Accuracy</a> (2010)<br />
8) <a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2010/03/exercise-and-brain-body-mind-connection.html">Exercise and The Brain. The Body-Mind Connection!</a> (2010)<br />
9) <a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2010/05/denialism-and-fud.html">Denialism and FUD</a> (2010)<br />
10) <a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2010/06/future-tech-quantum-redux.html">Future Tech: Quantum Redux</a> (2010)<br />
11) <a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2010/09/carpe-diem.html">Carpe Diem</a> (2010)<br />
12 <a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2011/06/dna-replication-in-silico.html">DNA Replication in silico</a> (2011)<br />
13) <a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2011/11/green-tech-and-alternative-energy.html">Greentech and Alternative Energy</a> (2011)<br />
14) <a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2011/11/could-we-need-revolution-any-worse.html">Could we need a revolution any worse?</a> (2011)<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Philosophy:</span><br />
<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2008/07/day-1.html">My Departure from Luxtera</a> - Cool note I wrote when I left/got fired a job and how excited I was.<br />
<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2008/12/whole-genome-transcriptome.html">Wealth Inequality (2008)</a> - Musings from 2008 on Wealth inequality and how USA is actually pretty bad. Seems Media and Public is finally coming around to this.<br />
<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2010/05/denialism-and-fud.html">Denialism and FUD</a> - Thoughts on how we are often bombarded with illogical fallacies disguised as arguments.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Politics:</span><br />
<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2009/08/signing-statements-aka-line-item-veto.html">Signing Statements</a> - One of my criticisms of the Obama administration, along with continued gross abuse of warrantless search and surveillance.<br />
<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2009/08/market-based-health-care-reform.html">Market Based Health Care</a> - My early musings on how we should implement healthcare reform. I still mostly agree.<br />
<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2011/10/corporate-venture-capital.html">Corporate Venture Capital</a> - My thoughts on how we could use the current cash pile to grow our economy's infrastructure and make money!<br />
<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2009/12/being-environmentally-friendly-does-not.html">Being Environmentally Friendly does NOT cost money</a> - Self Explanatory<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/The%20Compton%20Cookout,%20and%20Isadore%20Hall%20III:%20McCarthy's%20New%20Age%20Revival">The Compton Cookout, and Isadore Hall III: McCarthy's New Age Revival</a> - Writings in response to a racist incident at UCSD and a politicians response.<br />
<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2011/11/could-we-need-revolution-any-worse.html">Could we need a revolution any worse?</a> - Comments on my disgust regarding government waste, inefficiency and graft.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Sports/Training (these articles often also involve a good amount of philosophy):</span><br />
<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2009/11/art-of-triathlon.html">The Art of Triathlon</a> - One of my favorite pieces. Musings on triathlon right as I started Ironman Peak and Taper before IM Cozumel in 2009.<br />
<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2010/02/aerobic-training-theory-history-and.html">Aerobic Training Theory and History</a> - Good compendium for those looking to maximize training results.<br />
<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2010/03/exercise-and-brain-body-mind-connection.html">Exercise and The Brain. The Body-Mind Connection!</a> - My views on how activities affect our mind, body, and soul.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Socio-Political Stuff:</span><br />
<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2009/11/chinas-command-economy-resource.html">China, Resources, and the World in 2009</a> - China and my view of the world in 2009.<br />
<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2009/12/being-environmentally-friendly-does-not.html">Being Environmentally Friendly does NOT cost money</a> - Self Explanatory<br />
<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2011/10/corporate-venture-capital.html">Corporate Venture Capital</a> - My thoughts on how we could use the current cash pile to grow our economy's infrastructure and make money!<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Tech:</span><br />
<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2010/02/temporal-weaknesses-in-modern-data.html">Weaknesses in modern Data Mining</a> - How not thinking "4th dimensionally" as I like to say affects the way we search data.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Science (often get's philosophical as well):</span><br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/"><span id="goog_1243601202"></span>Lack of Genetic Diversity in key crops<span id="goog_1243601203"></span></a> - The risks we are inducing by reducing our key feedstocks to a VERY small number of species. Also how natural systems could be more effective than pesticides etc,<br />
<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2008/09/online-evolution.html">The evolution of the online ecosystem</a> - cool musings on the internet<br />
<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2008/12/whole-genome-transcriptome.html">Whole Genome Transcription Paper </a>- Paper I wrote software for and collaborated on.<br />
<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2010/03/climate-prediction-accuracy.html">Climate Prediction Accuracy</a> - My call for predictive accuracy to determine our belief.<br />
<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2010/05/roudup-resistant-weeds-attack.html">Roundup Resistant weeds ATTACK!</a> - More comments on how our attempts to subvert nature are hapless, and a call to return to more natural methods.<br />
<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2010/06/future-tech-quantum-redux.html">Future Tech: Quantum Redux</a> - Cool things coming out of quantum mechanics science<br />
<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2010/11/future-tech-ii-supersolids-meta.html">Future Tech II: Supersolids, Meta Materials, Varying Fine Structure Constant, and Maxwell's Demon!</a> -<br />
Come more cool things coming out of crazy futuristic science<br />
<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2011/06/dna-replication-in-silico.html">DNA Replication in silico</a> - Cool accidental genetic inheritance in gene chips.<br />
<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2011/11/green-tech-and-alternative-energy.html">Greentech and Alternative Energy</a> - Defining the concepts.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A couple of instructive postings (read if you wanna learn):</span><br />
<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2008/10/vestibular-system.html">The Vestibular System</a> - Random cool physiology thing<br />
<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2009/06/error-analysis.html">Error Analysis</a> - Basics<br />
<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2009/07/memristors-complete-electrical-spectrum.html">Memristors</a> - New basic electronic component, that can sorta behave like a NEURON in silico!<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0000ee;"><u>Infrared</u></span><a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2010/06/infared-vs-thermal-junction-temperature.html"> -vs- Thermal Junction Temperature Sensing Part 1</a><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0000ee;"><u>Infrared</u></span><a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2010/08/infared-vs-thermal-junction-temperature.html"> -vs- Thermal Junction Temperature Sensing Part 2</a><br />
<br />
<br />
And some random Musings.<br />
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I left out the stuff that was a bout news events. Hope you enjoy and give feedback on the page as well as the articles!Tomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09453590882539576697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-248989597912187586.post-47613645121351532302011-11-29T10:17:00.000-08:002011-11-29T10:22:04.273-08:00Green tech and ALTERNATIVE energyI've actually been saying this for a while. We have NO long term studies showing Solar, Wind, or anything is in any way more sustainable, or sustainable at all. It's JUST another source that could allow us diversified and safer energy supplies, possibly at lower long term cost. It's really just business guys, and it's not more proper in any way. I read this article that got me thinking today about the "<a href="http://thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/dawn-stover/the-myth-of-renewable-energy">myth of renewable energy.</a>" Of course no matter how close we get I don't think the wildest machinations contemplated in something like <a href="http://www.singularity.com/">The Singularity is Near</a> will result in endless energy, though we may make it so trivial it's of no consequence.<br />
<br />
I think it's important that people differentiate between alternative energy, and green technology, as I believe there is no way of creating energy that will not have good and bad side effects. I've personally always wondered what effects large numbers of wind turbines for example would do to wind patterns, and could they have effects like El Nino or something else? That being said what we CAN do is persevere through constant innovation to reduce our NEEDS of energy, land, and natural resources through innovative technology. THAT is what green tech is!<br />
<br />
If you haven't read Natural Capitalism it's available free online ( I LOVE Somebody who believes in something so much they give away content for free! ) at <a href="http://natcap.org/">natcap.org</a>. Reading this book really changed my life. Green Tech = Tech for reducing our foot print like smart meters, more efficient energy production of any type (more efficient solar cells, less wasteful coal plants etc.), motion sensor lights, or even compact fluorescent bulbs.<br />
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ALTERNATIVE ENERGY is just another way of generating energy. Geothermal (cool for places like nordic region, who I'm guessing are also not ripe for solar), Dams (do affect ecosystems, maybe reducing floods for people but destroying ecosystems based on their sediment, as well as disrupting breeding), Solar, Wind etc. It's VERY likely that in the long term some of these things will be more sustainable, and cheaper than others. It's also the case that some places don't have oil, or natural gas, or have used most or all of it up. For the US for example reducing oil needs would reduce money that mostly goes to significantly more corrupt (Knowing that our politics is just LESS corrupt) regimes which are often politically opposed to us on global policy.<br />
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That makes me wonder the impact we'll see from the revolutions in the middle east on the impetus for alternative energy. I always say that it's silly for any entity to not be self serving for some degree, so I don't think democracy will change their policies on oil (like China recently putting a crimp on exports of rare earth metals), though perhaps joining the WTO would make them have to leave OPEC (can anyone comment on that?). But these musings I'll save for another time.Tomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09453590882539576697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-248989597912187586.post-13040213277837357132011-11-20T10:32:00.000-08:002011-11-20T10:32:12.135-08:00Could we need a revolution any worse?So not to long ago I saw an article about a drug that for the cost of <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20049313-10391704.html">$93,000 would extend the life of patients with terminal prostate cancer and average of 4 months</a>. This just disgusted me and was a HUGE symptom of our disgustingly bloated government beauracracy.<br />
<br />
This morning I read in the weekend Wall Street Journal that the FDA has pulled Avastin from the market for the treatment of Breast Cancer. Of course we all know the conundrum of prescribing off label, but another<a href="http://articles.boston.com/2011-11-19/lifestyle/30415658_1_avastin-patients-fda-advisers-breast-cancer"> reference article also quotes and notes</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">“Medicare will continue to cover Avastin,’’ said Brian Cook, spokesman for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The agency “will monitor the issue and evaluate coverage options as a result of action by the FDA but has no immediate plans to change coverage policies.’’ </span>Including infusion fees, a year’s treatment with Avastin can reach $100,000.</blockquote><div style="background-color: white; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif !important; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The middle east is not the only place where it's time for an uprising that has been long coming. The government of the United States of America is so corrupt and convoluted it is time for a change. The occupy movement probably has it right. When payoffs and lobbying result in a medicare system with problems like those mentioned above even as we are teetering on the brink of insolvency the government is NOT WORKING!</div><div style="background-color: white; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif !important; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Having recently read <a href="http://www.gladwell.com/tippingpoint/">The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell</a> and reading about the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory">Broken Windows Theory</a> I believe this is translating into our monetary and philosophical ethos in the United States. We are BROKE And are spending BILLIONS we don't have on WAR, unaffordable drugs and treatments, and lining our legislators pockets.<br />
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Why should anyone pay their mortgage? Why should anyone work and be a productive part of society? Why should anyone live within their means and try to get along with people who disagree with them? Despot's in the middle east, along with our politicians do NONE OF THESE THINGS! I'm starting to feel the occupy movement represents the people saying "We can clearly see everything is broken!"<br />
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It's time for a flat tax. No loopholes, and no budget for an IRS we don't need! No more insider trading on the part of our congress men and women. No more entitlements. Everyone get's the same medical care INCLUDING our government representatives. Sorry but the retirement age has to rise! Sorry medicine is NOT free and we can't give everything to everyone!<br />
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Where do we start? How do we start? The time is clearly now!</div>Tomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09453590882539576697noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-248989597912187586.post-27585801186942560082011-10-28T07:46:00.000-07:002011-11-29T15:18:03.444-08:00Corporate Venture CapitalRight now we are sitting on PILES of $$ at big US multinational firms. I've been hearing commentary for example Berkshire Hathaway authorizing share repurchase at Buffett's discretion. I found a quick article indicating there's almost <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/alaskas-billion-dollar-mountain-10272011.html">1 trillion of CASH on corporate balance sheets</a>. Most of this money is probably paying VERY low yields and doing NOTHING for their core business or the USA.<br />
<br />
Then I read this article on a <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/alaskas-billion-dollar-mountain-10272011.html">mountain with literally tonnes of rare earth metals inside</a>, and very little is being done to get at these minerals while China has a monopoly and is constraining exports. Why are these guys going to the government? Many of our biggest and most successful companies depend on things like rare earth metals, infrastructure like transportation, and other things that our government seems unable to break out of gridlock and do much about.<br />
<br />
How about a STRATEGIC fund pooled among our top 500 companies. Proportional voting based on contributions. A sort of endowment for US industry. Perhaps it could even be run as a charity. What is important is that this fund looks at things that will make the US succeed in the long term. If public school education stinks, make private schools. If the government isn't handing out enough money for mining, fund it. Need some pipelines and roads. Government is broke, but BUSINESS has money, so we'll fund it.<br />
<br />
What would the results be? Certainly all this construction and investment will fuel jobs, and production. Not only will our biggest companies be getting the things they need, but their customer base (the US population) will be growing it's earnings and spending power. Obviously this ecosystem will also facilitate the success of small businesses which are the bread and butter of the United States, not to mention a big customer for those top 500 companies as well.<br />
<br />
What could we do with $200 billion to $300 billion dollars INVESTED into our national economy? Nevermind that the big companies funding all of this will make $$ of their investments as well as their core business. Which corporate titans are willing to make this happen? I don't think it will take many to get the ball rolling. Let's not wait for our government. We have a LOT of really smart capable people at the top of corporate America. Let's get it done!Tomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09453590882539576697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-248989597912187586.post-81596582684169443952011-06-24T15:59:00.000-07:002011-06-24T15:59:37.817-07:00DNA Replication In Silico"Did you get that new Anti Virus Software?"<br />
"For my computer?"<br />
"No for your gene sequencer!"<br />
<br />
So I read an interesting post on an MIT blog about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycoplasma">Mycoplasma</a> <a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26921/">contaminating "the human genome."</a> I think its a bit of a stretch, but in fact it looks like bacterial DNA has corrupted what we call the "human genome." Literally bacterial DNA has slipped in via contaminated cell cultures. Now when we test gene expression from a human sample, it appears we are also frequently checking for mycoplasma genes as well.<br />
<br />
How does this happen? The article mentions another study that indicates a large amount of <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0016410">human cell contamination in samples from other species that we have sequenced</a>. This is no surprise as biologists ARE human (right?). But this means we are slowly corrupting the data that we use to compare other species for similarity using tools like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLAST">BLAST</a> and other methodologies. On the flip side viruses and mycoplasma which are VERY small, hard to detect, and hard to filter are all over the place, and easily contaminate and multiply with laboratory samples.<br />
<br />
So in a sense there is "replicating" DNA propagating through gene chips, sequencing tools, and our knowledge, though it doesn't QUITE meet our definition of a living organism, much like viruses and prions they are replicating simply one way or another. What's really scary is that once we start working gene therapy by for example splicing DNA into a retrovirus, which then starts re-writing our DNA with synthesized strings we could complete the loop.<br />
<br />
This will be just another example of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_gene_transfer">horizontal gene transfer</a>. For all eternity we have had ways of exchanging DNA without literally being related, or through a myriad of epigenetic ways, by viruses which infect us by splicing their genetic material into OUR DNA and using the cellular apparatus to reproduce, occasionally leaving pieces behind, or taking a piece of our code along to the next host. This has occurred NOT just between humans, but humans and animals, plants, and other organisms some as close as the bacteria that live symbiotically in our gut.<br />
<br />
Soon the list of things we exchange genetic code with will not just contain carbon based plants, animals, bacteria, and fungi, but carbon based silicon chips and information networks. We could have a bit error in an encoded DNA strand, or a virus that re-writes a character. Imagine a future where machines can directly affect our bodies through a myriad of ways.Tomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09453590882539576697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-248989597912187586.post-15996668990861329572011-05-24T10:37:00.000-07:002011-05-24T10:37:19.129-07:00Armageddon. OK, not really, but Nature is kicking our ass!Personally I have lived about half my life in San Diego or One of it's Suburbs... I did brief stints as a wee one in LA and NYC before moving to Poway when I was about 4 where I lived until I moved to Austin when I was 14. Now as a child, rain was VERY rare indeed. Poway was naturally dry and hot, which is not really odd since southern California is mostly a freakin' desert anyway. Those ten years in Poway I basically NEVER saw rain. I do recall it was a drought, and there were all kinds of water rationing and fire warnings. I guess officially my recollection is likely <a href="http://www.water.ca.gov/drought/assist/archive.cfm">based on the period from 1987-1992</a>.<div><br />
</div><div>Then I moved to Austin Texas in 1994. WHAT A CHANGE!!! In Poway even 100 was not really that bad. I remember getting off to the plain and feeling unable to breath from the Humidity in the air! I LOVE Austin but frankly summer's there suck. Month long periods of dense humidity where it's still often 80 degrees when the sun is about to COME UP!</div><div><br />
</div><div>Where am I going with this? Well nature is a fickle friend. I noticed when I went to Austin for a couple weddings (avoiding <a href="http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/05/21/0521roundup.html">parking garages at all costs</a>....) and while I LOVED the weather, apparently that dryness was the result of massive drought. My friend Ginni's wedding was actually on the Lake and you could see how low the water level was. Apparently it is the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/10/texas-drought-2011-record_n_859902.html">driest 7 months on record</a>!</div><div><br />
</div><div>Here in California we've been complaining of wet weather all winter, and we have been getting HAMMERED with snow in the Sierra Nevada range and other mountains. I read in the LA Times that too much snow has <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/21/business/la-fi-snow-bust-20110521">resulted in a 12% DECLINE in skiers because people couldn't get to the slopes, or felt unsafe</a>.</div><div><br />
</div><div>Nature has been showing it's teeth in even louder ways so far this year. We have recently had a rash of tornadoes in the South that easily qualifies for the biggest natural disaster since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which took the lives of 1800 people and destroyed New Orleans along with tons of other negative effects. So far <a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/gregg-easterbrook/2011/05/24/what%E2%80%99s-causing-the-tornado-tsunami/">481 Americans have been killed by tornados this spring</a>! News reports indicate <a href="http://www.suntimes.com/news/5558127-417/rescuers-race-to-find-survivors-after-tornado-slams-joplin-mo.">116 or 117 people have been killed in a recent tornado in Joplin</a>! While researching sources for this article, I found a post that was making a similar observation of recent <a href="http://www.prisonplanet.com/the-tornadoes-of-2011-the-worst-natural-disaster-in-the-united-states-since-hurricane-katrina.html">natural phenomenon's excesses</a>. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Earlier this year a <a href="http://exploredia.com/japan-earthquake-tsunami-2011-news-pictures-video/">massive 9.0 earthquake hit Japan, along with a massive Tsunami</a> which caused enough trouble on it's own. THEN came problems with <a href="http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20110525a1.html">radioactive contamination, and resulting collateral problems to energy security</a> for Japan. Currently in the United States after bad Hurricanes, and the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana is currently under historical flooding problems, and the Army Corps of Engineers is working hard to <a href="http://www.voanews.com/learningenglish/home/usa/The-Mississippi-River-Floods-Americas-Heartland-121809599.html">save two major cities, New Orleans and Baton Rouge</a> from flooding at the cost of flooding mammoth swatch of countryside and farms.</div><div><br />
</div><div>What's coming next I wonder? 2011 promised to be an interesting year in many ways, but I'll be keeping a close eye on nature!</div>Tomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09453590882539576697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-248989597912187586.post-56200227778675500322010-11-24T21:35:00.000-08:002010-11-24T21:58:36.847-08:00Future Tech II: Supersolids, Meta Materials, Varying Fine Structure Constant, and Maxwell's Demon!<div style="direction: ltr; text-indent: 0pt;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; line-height: 16px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt;">Interesting things are afoot these days. It's very exciting. Medicine, technology, software & networking, neuroscience, genetics, and many fields are blowing up. Right now however we are experiencing some massive discoveries in the areas of fundamental physics and our understanding of materials. About 6 weeks ago I sent my friend, Aaron Smith of the university of Arizona this </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.technologyreview.com%2Fblog%2Farxiv%2F25814%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGEq-6oEi3vBo0knO0BbokAuPx1JA" target="_blank">blog post</a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt;"> on </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMaxwell%26%2339%3Bs_demon&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGByJznfhWtknNkHpM65xftjAGM0w" target="_blank">Maxwell's Demon</a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt;">. I had not heard of this "thought experiment" but it was pretty cool.</span></span><br />
<div style="color: black; direction: ltr; line-height: 1; text-indent: 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; line-height: 1; text-indent: 0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt;">Basically in the blog post they reference an article in </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Fnphys%2Fjournal%2Fvaop%2Fncurrent%2Ffull%2Fnphys1821.html&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNF8cA8xiroDPwy1eYQkKGtGTSwQVg" target="_blank">Nature - Physics</a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt;"> about some theoretical physicists who have come up with a more concrete example of an age old problem known as "Maxwell's Demon." Basically it's a thought experiment that seeks to throw a wrench in the </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSecond_law_of_thermodynamics&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGw_lmsbtbhU4C_nsMpMR4dTFMzZA" target="_blank">second law of thermodynamics</a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt;">. Aaron recommends an article from Charles Bennett in Sciam, </span><span style="color: #000099; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Fecee.colorado.edu%2F~ecen4555%2FSourceMaterial%2FDemonsEnginesAndSecondLaw87.pdf&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNHpcaeoIjEG_kmqhGy1mMxjP8O0EA" target="_blank">“Demons, Engines, and the Second Law,”</a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt;"> and I can find another interesting </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fxxx.lanl.gov%2Fabs%2Fphysics%2F0210005v2&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNF7dfVSiWCJLRt4g6BQli-t-NZhVw" target="_blank">pdf</a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt;"> from Bennett. Kind of like a math proof, this article reminds me that much of science is figuring out why something doesn't make sense.</span></span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; line-height: 1; text-indent: 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; line-height: 1; text-indent: 0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt;">Many people have poked holes in the theory/postulation, and Sziliard, a Hungarian physicist, basically showed mathematically that INFORMATION is ENERGY! That's what I think is super cool. The Japanese scientists basically created an experiment that demonstrates this in the real world. So not like knowing the content of a book, but to some degree ENERGY (or the power required to operate storage) could be converted in to energy. Unfortunately, it would take more information than can fill just about every computer in the world to power a spaceship, but nano-machines would require a reasonable amount and might someday be powered by “information-heat engines.” The experiment appears to have roughly converted with </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.economist.com%2Fblogs%2Fbabbage%2F2010%2F11%2Fmaxwells_demon&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNHKv5WPER4ny4DgBEcaJNHIQz9ipQ" target="_blank">28% efficiency according to the </a></span><span style="color: #0000ee; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt; text-decoration: underline;">economist</span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt;">. (This doesn’t take into account the measuring device and feedback control, which when accounted for pushes the efficiency very far into the negative. It is still a proof of principle because those energy costs can theoretically be made arbitrarily small.)</span></span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; line-height: 1; text-indent: 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; line-height: 1; text-indent: 0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt;">This reminds me of how a black hole sucking everything in would violate conservation of energy (Huh? Don’t think that is right. Black holes gain energy when they suck in energ and they lose energy when they radiate.) Hawking Radiation is an example of how particles and anti particles materialize on opposite sides of the event horizon saving energy as it imparts momentum to one of the pair. Or something like that.</span></span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; line-height: 1; text-indent: 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; line-height: 1; text-indent: 0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt;">Couple more interesting things I read lately.</span></span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; line-height: 1; text-indent: 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; line-height: 1; text-indent: 0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt;">Not sure about a </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newscientist.com%2Farticle%2Fdn19748-new-evidence-that-weird-quantum-supersolid-exists.html&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNHSAgR_UUY71s6dUvB5yz2FFFXxGA" target="_blank">quantum supersolid</a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt;">, but it sounds sick. We know about </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.superconductors.org%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNHMQ54HhRxuGNyfed6c8LIgvfrunQ" target="_blank">superconductors</a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt;">, and other crazy states of matter: </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FQuark%25E2%2580%2593gluon_plasma&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNF_crTOTBtCq0adnqcYFaJVrr1wOw" target="_blank">quark gluon plasma</a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt;">, superfluids, and recently demonstrated trapped <a href="http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/11/researchers-trap-antihydrogen-atoms.ars">antihydrogen atoms at the LHC</a>, are all things that probably don't happen in the real world outside of exotic places like the event horizon of a black hole, crazy collapsing stars and nebulae, or early in the life of the universe. Who KNOWS what's coming soon on so many fronts. Gonna be exciting times soon.</span></span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; line-height: 1; text-indent: 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; line-height: 1; text-indent: 0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt;">Alpha a.k.a Fine Structure constant, could </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.economist.com%2Fnode%2F16930866&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNH4WO0nUujIQZ3iXaGU_6GnEJ0BrQ" target="_blank">vary with time or space</a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt;">. Could be a major discovery and would require a theory beyond the standard model of particle physics and cosmology, which would point a finger directly at </span><span style="color: #000099; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fsuperstringtheory.com%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGr2b1Z0Dz48exH2C-5kCJ50J7OJw" target="_blank">string theory</a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt;">.</span></span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; line-height: 1; text-indent: 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; line-height: 1; text-indent: 0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt;">I'm sure you heard buzz about </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMetamaterial&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNFowwjl_9K0QrTEgaDKoOViOtLg0Q" target="_blank">metamaterials</a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt;">, and some recent stuff about a suit that could seemingly warp space by </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlanticwire.com%2Ffeatures%2Fview%2Ffeature%2FNew-Invisibility-Cloak-Travels-Through-Time-Doesnt-Exist-2549%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNFT0hHGEJ-WgQdTktlUWcT27QWG1w" target="_blank">changing the speed of light</a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt;">. I'm sure we have some interesting things to learn from proving why this eventually will not be made, or if it can be, even cooler.</span></span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; text-indent: 0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px; line-height: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; line-height: 1.15; padding-bottom: 10pt; text-indent: 0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt; text-decoration: underline;"></span></span></div></div></div>Tomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09453590882539576697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-248989597912187586.post-73346564428947512712010-11-24T21:22:00.000-08:002010-11-24T22:00:46.689-08:00Dirty Fuel, Dirty Ships, Dirty Air<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Recently have been reading about how dirty our system of seaborne transportation is. There's a lot of numbers out there, but many are confusing. From an <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/feb/13/climatechange.pollution">article from the Guardian</a> which I consider reputable:</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">- 1.12bn tonnes of CO₂, or nearly 4.5% of all global emissions of the main greenhouse gas!!!</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Dude. We know CO2 is bad. What's bad is that there are some VERY easy things we can do to cut these numbers, as well as pollution. From the<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/business/energy-environment/17speed.htm"> New York Times</a>, shipping company Maersk cut their fuel usage by 30% (and most CO2 emissions come from fuel usage) JUST BY CUTTING the speed of their ships in half! This article also observes that we could cut Fuel/CO2 emissions by American cars by 20% going 10mph slower from 55 to 65. I say do it, and stop building roads. It's definitely an indirect way to encourage more efficient public transportation. Imagine if we could confine heavy transport to certain times of day in big cities easy traffic, and big truck's fuel usage.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">The <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_318985843">International Maritime </a></span></span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.imo.org/About/Pages/Default.aspx"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Organization</span></span></span></span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">, is a UN body responsible for creating rules and regulations for international waters including policies for </span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.imo.org/OurWork/Environment/PollutionPrevention/Pages/Default.aspx" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">pollution reduction</span></span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">.They have passed rules which will require the sulphur content of fuels used by ships in certain areas to be reduced. Alas this doesn't apply in other areas. I'd love to see cleaner fuel everywhere, as well as a reduction in speed by cargo/tanker vessels. There's a lot we can do here without a ton of technology! Technology is cool too. A company has devised a<a href="http://www.skysails.info/english/"> massive sail for cargo ships</a>, and all ships can use <a href="http://www.solarsailor.com/index.htm">solar power</a> for electric motors with zero emissions!</span></span></span></span></span></span>Tomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09453590882539576697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-248989597912187586.post-23579679486867303292010-10-03T19:44:00.000-07:002010-10-03T19:46:36.308-07:00The Holographic Principle and Information<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">So I read a couple interesting developments in the end all physics category recently. One big one was the demonstration of something like Hawking Radiation. This radiation was predicted by Stephen Hawking (hence the name) based on quantum particles materializing on each side of an event horizon of a black hole. A virtual event horizon was created using some interesting physical properties in a contrived way. The reason this is such a big deal is that the notion of a black hole "destroying" information (i.e. swallowing EVERYTHING at the event horizon) violates basic accepted principles of conservation. This good article from </span><a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=hawking-radiation"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">Scientific American</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"> covers the subject in greater depth.</span></span></b></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span></b></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">I emailed my friend, Dr Aaron Smith, a physicist at the University of Arizona a post I wrote about the </span><a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2010/06/future-tech-quantum-redux.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">state of technology, and innovation</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"> as I see it a few months ago. Ironically my note got lost and he found it a bit later, and was telling me about the holographic principle, which I think is best demonstrated at the boundary of a black hole, and even the boundary of the universe. I asked him to write on the subject for me, and his expose, is below.</span></span></b></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</span></span></b></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"></span>Holography</span></b></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">and</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">information</span></b></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">are two key notions that are beginning to invade the world of physics. Beware, mind-melting may occur if you read further!</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">In short,</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">the holographic principle</span></i></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">in physics says that a given theory in D-dimensions is equivalent to a different theory that describes the D-1 dimensional boundary of that D-dimensional space. So, the physical principles that describe our universe must be equivalent to a different set of physical principles that describe the behavior of the boundary of our universe. Confused yet? A convenient way to think about this is that everything in the universe can be represented as information, or encoded somehow, and everything on the boundary of the universe is just another representation of this same information, encoded differently. A radical interpretation is emerging: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">t</span></i></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">he universe may be made up entirely of information...</span></b></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">What realm of physics did this bizarre realization emerge from? Black hole thermodynamics. But before diving in, we need a quick review of entropy.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">Entropy is a macroscopic property of a system originating from the microscopic details. Given a collection of particles with macroscopic properties(temperature, pressure, volume) there is a specific number of ways of reconfiguring the particles while still maintaining the same macro-properties. For example, take a gas in a tank at high temperature: if one particle moves slightly faster and another moves slightly slower than the micro-configuration is different but the macro-properties are unchanged. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">Entropy is simply the number of ways that a system can be reconfigured and still have the same macro-properties</span></i></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">(actually, entropy = logarithm of the number of ways, but that is irrelevant for now). </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">Entropy is intimately related to information: high entropy means it takes more information to specify the micro-details of a system. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">Entropy and information may in fact be one and the same.</span></i></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">It turns out that</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"> the entropy of an isolated system can never decrease</span></b></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">, which basically means that information can never be erased. If you disagree because you erase information on your computer every day, then consider the fact that there is far more information in your computer than the bits you know of; there are all the details about every electron flowing throughout, the tiny amounts of radiation released, and so on. So when you erase something on your computer, the information isn't truly gone, it has just been re-encoded in the microscopic properties of particles and fields in and around your computer. But don't worry about your security, extracting that re-encoded information is next-to-impossible. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">And now, onto black holes. A black hole has mass, charge, and angular momentum(they can spin) and has only one unique configuration once you specify those three parameters--at least that's what general relativity tells us(the "no hair theorem"). This suggests that a black hole has very low entropy since very little information is needed to fully describe it. This leads to a disturbing paradox. When a system with high entropy falls into a black hole, the entropy of that system must disappear and the information describing it would thus be erased. This cannot be, as it violates sacred laws of physics. The resolution is that</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">the entropy of a black hole is actually quite large</span></i></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">, ask Stephen Hawking if you don't believe me, and so it must have microscopic parts that can be reconfigured in many different ways and leave the bulk properties unchanged. General relativity is thus missing some very important details.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">This is all pretty abstract but what does it mean? One more detour, first. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">The boundary of a black hole, the event horizon, is a region in which space-time is so warped that the interior and exterior are not causally connected; anything inside can never affect anything outside. Hmmm, weird. When a system falls into a black hole, an outside observer never actually sees it get passed the boundary! This is because of that warping of space-time. An outside observer sees the infalling system get closer to the surface, eventually becoming a distortion of the surface. The infalling system goes right through the boundary, no problem, and sees itself in the interior but can no longer see anything outside. This means that the information describing the infalling system is now contained within the black hole and is also written onto the boundary somehow. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">Here is the crux, folks:</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">a description of the boundary of a black hole is informationally equivalent to a description of the interior</span></i></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">. At last, holography!</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">This holographic understanding of black holes has led to many new ideas in physics and has the potential to revolutionize the discipline. Lets explore some more of the realm of holography. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">A direct consequence of black hole entropy is that</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">a given region of space-time has a upper bound on its total entropy.</span></i></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"> In other words, you can't cram an infinite amount of information in a finite region of space. This 'information capacity' is highly suggestive. Space-time itself must be indivisible on some length scale; the universe must be truly digital! Current estimates suggest that a spherical region of space, one meter in radius, can hold a maximum of about 10^70 bits of information(1 with 70 zeros after it)! But remember, the universe is holographic, so it is really the area of the region of space we must consider, not the volume; two volumes of space will have a different information capacity if their boundaries have a different area. In fact,</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">the information capacity of a volume of space is simply proportional to the area</span></i></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">Another consequence. Modern particle physics(AKA quantum field theory) must be extremely redundant. The standard model of particle physics says there are many different particles each with a large number of internal degrees of freedom. A simple calculation shows that the amount of information that can be encoded in a region of space, using fundamental particles such as electrons and quarks, is far greater than what holographic reasoning suggests. Therefore,</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">particle physics is not a fundamental theory, but an effective theory</span></i></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">in which the true information content of the universe is encoded redundantly. What is the fundamental theory then? The best known candidate is string theory, in which all things in existence can be broken down into very tiny little vibrating strings; an electron is fundamentally a vibrating string and a quark is too, just vibrating differently.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">Gravity, dark energy, dark matter, cosmic inflation, the big bang, the nature of time, and many other ideas in physics have seen the holographic principle lend an interesting perspective. It is all very cutting edge stuff and a lot of speculation is going on right now.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
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</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">So what was the definition of the holographic principle? Well, it is too poorly understood to give a rigorous definition at this point in time. But, as holographic ideas help us understand to better understand physics, we in turn better understand the mysterious holographic principle. The race is on to figure it out, and will likely happen by the current generation of physicists. Keep your eyes and ears open folks!</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
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</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">For more, read the Scientific American article written by highly regarded physicist Jacob Bekenstein. He is the one who originally proposed in the 70s that black holes have large entropy, proportional to the area of the event horizon.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><a href="http://www.sufizmveinsan.com/fizik/holographic.html" target="_blank"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">http://www.sufizmveinsan.com/<wbr></wbr>fizik/holographic.html</span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
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</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">The Wikipedia page also has some good insight and citations for further reading.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle" target="_blank"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/<wbr></wbr>Holographic_principle</span></a></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">In the end that's a pretty cool reductionist viewpoint as I see it. The universe is nothing but our observed reality, of information. Light, and fundamental particles (gravity loops, quarks, strings whatever) are all quantized, because they are just information as we see them. Of course there's lots of details, but after a century of basic physics becoming increasingly convoluted, we are ready for some understanding and simplification. Let's see what happens.</span>Tomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09453590882539576697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-248989597912187586.post-16309318444981379532010-09-08T22:40:00.000-07:002010-09-08T22:40:20.619-07:00"Carpe Diem"<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">How does one, exactly, seize the day? I think it's a pretty complicated balance. In triathlon you balance consistency with a focused plan that gradually prepares you for race day incrementally, focusing on ALL the aspects that congeal into a passionate performance with perfect execution. I learned a lot about life as I slowly accepted you couldn't just train hard all the time without rest, recovery, and good nutrition.</span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">So the reality is that you can't just go hard all the time just about anywhere. I like to say that even a Ferrari needs an oil change! We all know the law of diminishing returns in Economics terms. Increase any one factor of production alone, like labor, and your rate of return diminishes. It's all about balance. If you build a faster car, without better breaks, better handling, better cooling, and all the other things that matter, you will end up with a car that slams into the wall.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">I believe it's very American to think "bigger, better, faster, more!" but not exclusively. As an Engineer its very easy to get sucked into doing too much. What a lot of people don't tell you, is that when you don't focus on balance, and recovery, YOUR utility decreases, just like they postulate in economics. I had to learn this the hard way getting burned out at a few jobs in my time. One thing I was always good at was going hard. Of course that's only half the equation. You can only be on "output" for so long before you need some "input" time. What I learned gradually as I grew, was learning how to be ready to POUNCE!</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">In one of my favorite books of fiction as a child, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Celestine-Prophecy-James-Redfield/dp/0446671002?ie=UTF8&tag=tomspo-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The Celestine Prophecy</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=tomspo-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0446671002" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" />, some guru comes around and tells the protagonist that you should never feel bad, for being lucky. For taking an opportunity that presents itself. "There are no coincidences" he says, and I think it's a good way to approach some parts of your life. The problem is, if you are running around talking on your cell phone, overloaded with work and duties, and never stop to smell the roses, you will just WALK RIGHT BY some of the most amazing things in the world. A very interesting social experiment by a famous musician,<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html"> Joshua Bell</a>, is a great example of this. The reality is it takes a lot of work to keep your life simple, and open enough to truly embrace the world as a source of inspiration, while devoting yourself fully to your passion, but that is the key.</span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">I read this excellent article last week on keeping your life simple to allow you to release your passion.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><a href="http://zenhabits.net/cultivating-passion/">http://zenhabits.net/cultivating-passion/</a>. I like some of the points they the author highlights about leaving free time in your schedule, or "underscheduling" as he calls it. I also deeply believe that much of this time needs to be "off the grid." When I'm off the grid I am unfindable, often to people's frustration. That doesn't mean I'm not with some people sometimes, but I'm not letting the buzz of the world interfere with my experience. Not only must you be rested, and have free time, but just as important is the "go hard" part of getting your work done. How can you focus on the beautiful world around you if you are always worried about things you didn't finish?</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"> Alas, once again, it comes down to balance. I know that the tightrope between work hard, and play hard, will forever be a challenge to walk.</span></span></div></div>Tomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09453590882539576697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-248989597912187586.post-31726430748735608412010-08-27T19:46:00.000-07:002010-08-27T19:46:21.620-07:00The Tao of Triathlon<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I recently read a few articles by <a href="http://www.zendurance.net/Founder's%20Bio.htm">Shane Eversfield</a> I found through an email from USA Triathlon. I often write about about the physical, spiritual, and mental aspects of endurance training. I asked him for a guest post, as I feel he has a lot of insight to offer</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">.</span><br />
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<div style="color: #0e3d63; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Movement patterns profoundly affect the brain's function. Case in point: I practice T'ai Chi daily. Using a book briefly in the beginning to "estimate the basics", I have continued to practice and refine the movements on my own for over 30 years now. Primary guidance comes from a diligent quest for perfect balance and orientation - a deep challenge as I move very slowly through the form, often with my eyes closed. After 8 years of self-guidance, I read a book about Taoism, an ancient Chinese way of life inextricably linked to T'ai Chi. The yin-yang symbol? Taoist. It expresses the cosmic dance of polar opposites - essentially, the animation of our universe. Not really a religion, or a philosophy, "Tao" translates as "the Way". Engaging an inquisitive "beginner's mind", the Taoist disciple embarks on a lifelong quest to investigate functional principles of our universe and to diligently train their application. Taoism is a way of perceiving, responding to and moving through the world around us. So is Triathlon.</span></div><div style="color: #0e3d63; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">As I read this book on Taoism, I realized that I was... well, </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Taoist.</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> This didn't happen from reading ancient texts or from living in a remote Chinese village with Taoist sages. (Heck, I was a young hippy-artist living in the northeast US.) My Tao transformation occurred through the </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">movements </span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">of T'ai Chi. Taoism is now intrinsic to the way I think, perceive and respond - to the way I live. So is Triathlon.</span></div><div style="color: #0e3d63; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">As triathletes, we're on a path to enjoy and master three basic activities from childhood. Each of these involves a repetitive movement pattern, coordinating opposite arm and leg movements through pelvic core stabilization. (Yes, even cycling.) Equally important, each of these childhood activities requires a unique and complex orientation with gravity. This is profound, given that up to </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">ninety percent of your neurological energy</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">is invested in balance - orienting your body to gravity</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">. (Contemplate balance and orientation deeply while you train.) Like T'ai Chi, each of these basic childhood activities affects the way we perceive and interact with ourselves and the world. Put ‘em together, and you've got a powerful kinetic trinity. Tao of Triathlon.</span></div><div style="color: #0e3d63; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Just like juggling, triathlon is a feat of timing, dexterity and balance, dynamically orchestrating </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">three </span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">elements. Training effectively towards ambitious performance goals requires vigilance and honesty in the ongoing assessment of one's strengths and weaknesses. It demands a continuous response that is equally evidence-based science and creative intuition. Humility, self-honesty, curiosity and knowledge are essential.</span></div><div style="color: #0e3d63; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Human nature provides us with nesting instincts; we gravitate towards our strengths, stay within the comfort zone, and avoid the dark forests of uncertainty. Well, there's no "nesting" in multisport. We're all familiar with that humbling "day-of-reckoning" feeling on race morning, as we toe the line with pale, tender feet. I wonder, is that what makes us so friendly and cooperative in the transition area before the big showdown?</span></div><div style="color: #0e3d63; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Tao says embrace vulnerability and imbalance as opportunities for improvement well ahead of race day. Triathletes who are weak cyclists often elect to participate in group rides with experienced road cyclists. Criticism, embarrassment and humility be damned, the rewards of experience gained outweigh the rookie's discomfort. Drop the fear; embrace uncertainty as the ultimate opportunity.</span></div><div style="color: #0e3d63; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">In the real world, versatility ultimately triumphs specialization: Change is inevitable.</span></div><div style="color: #0e3d63; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Beyond the relentless quest for swimming, biking and running mastery, experienced triathletes know there is a fourth element in triathlon: the</span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> art </span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">of</span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">transition. More than a quick gear and clothing change; it's an instant transition from sleek efficient swimmer, to strong efficient cyclist, to swift efficient runner. In under a minute, it's possible to transform from one movement pattern, from one orientation with gravity, from one integration with equipment to another one entirely.</span></div><div style="color: #0e3d63; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Athletic excellence in a single sport trains mastery of a single identity. The swift transitions of multisport challenge the athlete to fully engage, and then completely detach from each identity. Ego is the collection of identities one assumes in the roles of every day life. A well-balanced individual chooses his/her identities functionally - as tools in a constructive, brilliant life. </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Dis</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">-functionality is a strong attachment to a specific identity, an unwillingness to let go of one role when it no longer serves in the moment.</span></div><div style="color: #0e3d63; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">A ludicrous example of such an attachment: Tommy Triathlete rolls into T2, fastest bike split of the day, and transitions to run. However, Tommy just can't let go of his prowess as a cyclist and insists on wearing bike shoes and carrying his bike for the entire run. Even with the fastest bike split, that finish line is a long way off lugging a bike. Multisport transition develops a functional relationship with ego through the capacity and the will to engage and detach.</span></div><div style="color: #0e3d63; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Function and brilliance - Tao of Triathlon: Swim, bike, run. Balance, orient, transition.</span></div><em><div style="color: #0e3d63; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">This article originally appeared in </span><a href="http://www.hammernutrition.com/" style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Hammer Nutrition</span></u></em></a><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> Endurance News, Issue #69. Copyright 2010 Shane Eversfield</span></em></div><div style="color: #0e3d63; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></em></div><div style="color: #0e3d63; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</span></em></div><div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Check out Shane's book, Zendurance. Shane also writes regularly for Total Immersion, a popular system for teaching swimming.</span></div></em><em><u><div style="color: #0e3d63; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.totalimmersion.net/store/books/zendurance.html" style="color: #3d5459;" target="_blank">http://www.totalimmersion.net/<wbr></wbr>store/books/zendurance.html</a> </span></span></div></u></em>Tomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09453590882539576697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-248989597912187586.post-27179537925583588802010-08-01T16:45:00.000-07:002010-08-01T16:45:54.522-07:00Infared -vs- Thermal Junction Temperature Sensing Part 2<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><h2 style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">Thermal Junction/Thermocouple Sensing</h2><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Typical semiconductor based temperature sensing is based of current flowing through some sort of thermal junction. This junction is ideally two dissimilar metals, where the voltage will be proportional to the temperature of the environment, after taking into account time lag of heat absorption.</div><h3>Voltage/Temperature Relationship</h3><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Typically there is a nonlinear relationship, and the main limitation is accuracy. “System errors of less than one degree Celisius can be difficult to achieve.” The relationship between the temperature difference and output voltage of a thermocouple is derived from a comples summation of coeffeicients based on metal type, and results in a typically non-linear relationship.</div><h3>K Type Thermocouples</h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Type K Thermocouples are the most common general purpose TCs used. They are made of a chromel-alumel junction with a sensitivity of approx. 41uV/ C. According to the Omega NIST reference, K type thermocouples have a maximum error of 2.2C with 0.5C being more typical.</div><h3>Cold Junction Compensation (CJC)</h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Usually, to calibrate a thermocouple, a method similar to sound noise cancellation is used. An independent junction is maintained at a fixed temperature. More commonly a thermistor, or diode (like a PN where the current varied minutely with temperature) is used. Frequently as well, temperature sensors and a look up table can be used to extract the CJC temperature indirectly.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Some examples, and a thorough treatment of circuits for this purpose are included in the Maxim Application Note cited below “<a href="http://www.maxim-ic.com/app-notes/index.mvp/id/4026">Implementing cold-Junction Compensation in Thermocouple Applications</a>.”</div><h1>Observations</h1><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> Thermocouples have a very non-linear relationship to temperature. they are versatile, and usable for measurements which will frequently cover a large range. They are more commonly used in industrial applications where such temperature variation is more common.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> For more accurate measurements, it is common to use a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistance_thermometer">resistance thermometer</a>, which are commonly referred to as RTDs, and made of platinum. For applications under 600 degrees C they are slowly eroding the use of thermocouples due to dramatically improved accuracy and repeatability.</span></div></span></span>Tomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09453590882539576697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-248989597912187586.post-89687568677782735572010-06-27T22:44:00.000-07:002010-06-27T22:44:38.522-07:00Future Tech: Quantum Redux<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">One of my favorite Physics topics was always "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_in_a_box">Particle in a Box.</a>" Mostly I like the name. It's just fun to say. This weekend I started explaining the concept to somebody before I got distracted on a tangent, but it got me thinking. Classical physics is nice, neat, and well buttoned up. Yet we are now entering uncharted territory in the Subatomic Realm. I have literally be in the thick of this acceleration, or Inflection point in the words of Raymond Kurzweil, who wrote an amazing book about the acceleration of technology development, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Singularity-Near-Humans-Transcend-Biology/dp/0143037889?ie=UTF8&tag=tomspo-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=tomspo-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0143037889" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" />. He points out the incredible, and increasing rate or technological change dictates that it will soon be the dominating force of evolution in our lives.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">10 years ago we sequenced the human genome. The biology front is certainly exciting. By some accounts, Craig Venter and his team have created a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/science/21cell.html?ref=genetic_engineering">fully synthetic bacterium</a>. Companies like <a href="http://www.affymetrix.com/">Affymetrix</a>, <a href="http://www.illumina.com/">Illumina</a>, and others have created rapid sequencing platforms we can use for countless applications. I used Affymetrix Arrays working with<a href="http://borevitzlab.uchicago.edu/"> Justin Borevitz</a> when he was at the Salk Institute to<a href="http://genomebiology.com/2008/9/11/R165"> investigate Alternative Splicing</a>. The company where I work, <a href="http://www.cyntellect.com/">Cyntellect</a>, has developed a line of Cellular Analysis Instruments which can be used for<a href="http://www.cyntellect.com/elements/uploads/files/Cyntellect_PR%20_SALK_LEAP_061510_FINAL.PDF"> Stem Cell</a>, and Cancer Applications which allows you to manipulate, analyze, and quantify cells used for therapeutic purposes, drug discovery, or drug production.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">On the Neuroscience front, IBM already built <a href="http://www.research.ibm.com/deepblue/">Deep Blue</a>, the first machine that could beat a grandmaster at chess. Now they are working on a machine, "<a href="http://www.research.ibm.com/deepqa/">Watson</a>" to win at Jeopardy by fundamentally understanding natural language! We already have Autonomous cars that can handle <a href="http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/index.asp">urban </a>and <a href="http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge05/">outdoor </a>environments courtesy of Darpa, who also funded a project I worked on to build <a href="http://vesicle.nsi.edu/nomad/segway/">Soccer playing Segway Robots at the Neuroscience Institute</a> a few years ago. I also happen to believe that in a short time a combination of <a href="http://www.memristor.org/">Memristors</a>, literally silicon neurons, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computer">Quantum Computers</a> will allow us to create systems which can process both logical, and analog problems with incredible capacity. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">Harnessing true AI, and cellular machinery, certainly is dependent on nano tech. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator">Space Elevator</a> is now literally possible due to the strength of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_bonding">carbon nano tubes</a>, which also promise to make incredibly efficient, and compact <a href="http://nanotechweb.org/cws/article/tech/16432">transistors</a>. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_optical_data_storage">3D holographic chips</a> promise to revolutionize storage space abilities from todays amazing multi level DVD and Blue Ray Discs. MEMS machines are now being built using semiconductor manufacturing techniques. At Luxtera we worked on optical structures built directly into silicon, and built <a href="http://borevitzlab.uchicago.edu/Members/Gal/documents/OFC-submission-Rev1.pdf">40G optical cables</a> incorporating holographic optimal inputs, and used a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach%E2%80%93Zehnder_interferometer">Mach Zender Interferometer</a> to modulate the light.<a href="http://www.mems-exchange.org/MEMS/what-is.html"> MEMS</a> <a href="http://www.st.com/stonline/products/families/sensors/accelerometers.htm">Accelerometers</a>, <a href="http://www.analog.com/en/mems/gyroscopes/products/index.html?gclid=CN315O6AwqICFRJDgwod6z4E6A">Gyroscopes</a>, and <a href="http://www.sitime.com/products/products.php">Oscillators</a>, and other devices are incredibly cheap and have no moving parts, so they use very little power and rarely break. How do you think those Wii controllers last so long and are so cheap? How do you think a $100 8 Mega Pixel camera now has motion compensation built in?</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">So on to the Quantum world, and Modern Physics.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">When I was a kid, somewhere around 10-12 my family rented an RV and we drove to Canada and Back. During this trip I got my hands on a first edition copy of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Brief-History-Updated-Expanded/dp/0553103741?ie=UTF8&tag=tomspo-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The Illustrated Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking</a>. This book had a lot of content on matters of cosmology, the big bang and other classical phsyics questions. It also covered relativity, which was the first great non intuitive scientific theory, as well as the underpinnings of Quantum Theory. I believe this book triggered me to become deeply interested in fundamental physics, and later the whole evolution of Quantum Mechanics.<img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=tomspo-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0553103741" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /> From then on I was often found reading interesting, and cutting edge physics books. I never felt drawn into wanting to research, but felt that it was a fascinating subject. Later when I was 19, I took Quantum Physics with <a href="http://hepweb.ucsd.edu/~vsharma/">Vivek Sharma</a> at UCSD. This guy was SO passionate about the subject, he had a good sense of humor, and was a good teacher. It was his lecture on "Particle In a Box" that I always remember. When I read this New Scientist article today about <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627661.100-schrodingers-kit-tools-that-are-in-two-places-at-once.html?full=true">Quantum Machinery</a> I figured it was time to write an article about Quantum Theory.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">Last week I wrote the first part of an article covering the<a href="http://ravingsoftom.blogspot.com/2010/06/infared-vs-thermal-junction-temperature.html"> art of temperature sensing</a>, specifically using an infrared temperature sensor, which works off the principle of black boday radiation. A <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_body">Black Body</a>, is a idealized notion in physics which absorbs all incident radiation completely. This hypothetical notion, in the early 1900s, gave rise to the "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet_catastrophe">ultraviolet catastrophe</a>" which was basically if the Raleigh-Jeans law held true, and object should emit INFINITE energy in the ultraviolet spectrum. Einstein noted that this issue would be resolved by using the notion of QUANTIZING light, which was earlier given by Max Plank for unrelated reasons. This notion of Quantization of light, and really all physical properties was the birth of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics">Quantum Mechanics</a>, and Quantum Theory. A weird world where things don't make sense. A real twilight zone under what seemed to be a universe of sense.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">Ahhh now particle in a box. This notion is one of the few which can be stated analytically, so it's one of the first ones you learn. It is also the theory which explains why electrons can only circle the nucleus at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_level">certain energy levels</a> (resulting in the emission of discrete QUANTA of energy, in the form of light), which underpins our understanding of<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_bonding"> chemical bonding</a> behavior. My favorite side effect which I understand via the less idealized notion of a<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_well"> potential well</a>, is, that due to the particle-wave duality, particles can probabilistically tunnel through barriers due to their wave behavior. This "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tunneling">Quantum Tunneling</a>" property is what allows the plug on every device you plug in to work despite a layer of oxidization caused by the atmosphere.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">This subject is throughly argued, and hotly debated. It's still a great area of mystery. I could write more for hours, but I figure that's a pretty good introduction. Some other interesting articles....</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">Quantum Cryptography</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_cryptography">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_cryptography</a></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Wormholes </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole</a></span><br />
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Quantum Teleportation<br />
<a href="http://www.research.ibm.com/quantuminfo/teleportation/">http://www.research.ibm.com/quantuminfo/teleportation/</a><br />
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Large Hadron Collider<br />
<a href="http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/">http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/</a><br />
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Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory<br />
<a href="http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/">http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/</a>Tomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09453590882539576697noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-248989597912187586.post-88542616620897757742010-06-14T23:34:00.000-07:002010-06-14T23:34:28.602-07:00Infared -vs- Thermal Junction Temperature Sensing Part 1.Recently I came upon a situation where I needed to take very detailed temperature measurements across a large number of locations to validate and environmental control system. Alas this was a subject I know very little about. In my scenario I was attempting to validate the spread across numerous points using a series of thermocouples to evaluate 2 optical temperature sensors in an environmental control system. So I had to do some research.<br />
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In my previous experience there had been 2 scenarios in which you measured temperature. For embedded devices a digital temperature sensor that came calibrated (like a <a href="http://www.maxim-ic.com/quick_view2.cfm/qv_pk/2815">DS1820 from Maxim/Dallas Semi</a>) was usually easy to use, and could be easily bit banged with any old micro controller, meaning code the bus in C as opposed to needing hardware support like I2C/TWI etc. In IC design situations <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandgap_voltage_reference">Bandgap Voltage</a>/Voltage Proportional To Absolute Temperature (VPAT). In my experience they were usually used to give "perfect" reference currents for delicate<a href="http://borevitzlab.uchicago.edu/Members/Gal/documents/OFC-submission-Rev1.pdf"> analog circuits like the Optical chips</a> Luxtera Makes. Of course that's until process varaiation, but that's outside the scope here.<br />
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So I will start with the fun stuff. Infrared Optical Temperature sensing is basically a practical application of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbody">Black Body Radiation</a> theory that was a first big step from classical physics to the quantum era. Nice! In a Blackbody, all light is absorbed, and re-emitted as a thermal spectrum. To me this is basically turning order into entropy. We know that the spectrum of a flame changes depending on its temperature. In fact the spectrum, and spectral peak of emitted light correlate well with the temperature of an object.<br />
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You can use the Stephen Boltzman Equation, add in an emissivity factor, and get pretty good measurements.<br />
<a href="http://www.infrared-thermography.com/material-1.htm">Emissivity</a> is basically a measure of how ideal a material is for this type of measurement.<br />
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<h4>Typical Emissivity Values</h4><table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-border-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-themecolor: text1; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;"><tbody>
<tr style="mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0;"> <td style="border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-themecolor: text1; mso-border-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 239.4pt;" valign="top" width="319"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">Nickel</div></td> <td style="border-left: none; border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-left-themecolor: text1; mso-border-themecolor: text1; mso-border-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 239.4pt;" valign="top" width="319"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">0.05</div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 1;"> <td style="border-top: none; border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-themecolor: text1; mso-border-themecolor: text1; mso-border-top-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-top-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 239.4pt;" valign="top" width="319"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">Aluminum Paint</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid black 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid black 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-bottom-themecolor: text1; mso-border-left-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-left-themecolor: text1; mso-border-right-themecolor: text1; mso-border-themecolor: text1; mso-border-top-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-top-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 239.4pt;" valign="top" width="319"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">0.45</div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 2;"> <td style="border-top: none; border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-themecolor: text1; mso-border-themecolor: text1; mso-border-top-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-top-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 239.4pt;" valign="top" width="319"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">Asbestos: Fabric</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid black 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid black 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-bottom-themecolor: text1; mso-border-left-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-left-themecolor: text1; mso-border-right-themecolor: text1; mso-border-themecolor: text1; mso-border-top-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-top-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 239.4pt;" valign="top" width="319"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">0.78</div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 3;"> <td style="border-top: none; border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-themecolor: text1; mso-border-themecolor: text1; mso-border-top-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-top-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 239.4pt;" valign="top" width="319"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">Plastic: acrylic, clear</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid black 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid black 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-bottom-themecolor: text1; mso-border-left-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-left-themecolor: text1; mso-border-right-themecolor: text1; mso-border-themecolor: text1; mso-border-top-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-top-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 239.4pt;" valign="top" width="319"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">0.94</div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 4; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;"> <td style="border-top: none; border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-themecolor: text1; mso-border-themecolor: text1; mso-border-top-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-top-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 239.4pt;" valign="top" width="319"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">Plastic: Black</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid black 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid black 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-bottom-themecolor: text1; mso-border-left-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-left-themecolor: text1; mso-border-right-themecolor: text1; mso-border-themecolor: text1; mso-border-top-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-top-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 239.4pt;" valign="top" width="319"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">0.95</div></td> </tr>
</tbody></table><br />
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As you can see there is quite a range. Nickel is terrible. Graphite is almost ideal. In our case clear and black plastic also happen to be pretty good. There are other factors (<a href="http://www.isa.org/isaolp/journals/pdf/intech/980648.pdf">good application note</a>) like sample to spot ratio ("dot" from beam small compared to sample size), and getting the beam close to the sample to reduce stray radiation. With a good material the results are very accurate assuming theres no dirty air, smoke, stray light, and some other pretty obvious things. The part we're using claims 0.5C accuracy which is identical to the DS1820, and the results are instant (or basically the speed of light and a look up table), while the 1820 has thermal mass which must equalize with it's surroundings.<br />
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In part 2 I will examine Thermocouple based temperature sensing in comparison.Tomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09453590882539576697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-248989597912187586.post-30353673258180941652010-05-20T18:18:00.000-07:002010-05-24T18:50:19.227-07:00Denialism and FUD!<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt">FUD</a>. Fear Uncertainty, and Doubt. A term used in tech circles. Intel, for example, was purported to have used FUD tactics to intimidate competitors, and the market. They would announce a product aggressively and encourage people to WAIT instead of buying competitors products. Then mysteriously these big products would get delayed or cancelled. Who knows. Products get delayed. Also, SCO -vs- IBM exemplified another form, where SCO made a lot of claims with NO concrete details. Mathematically this equates to throwing out unproven corner cases as arguments, before they are substantiated.<br />
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I notice this behavior pattern in people a lot. They are angry, usually for no reason to do with you, and attack something lame. It's usually a good sign that you shouldn't take it personally. A few times my dad has yelled at me for swimming too much. What the hell? Oh, wait.....you're mad about something else. I look for this in myself. When I use a lame excuse to get emotional, I know I should pull back.<br />
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Global Warming. Fact Versus Fiction. THERE IS A TON ON BOTH SIDES. Clearly there are a TON of lame excuses to counter global warming details. BUT we know a lot of truths. CO2 DOES increase temperatures. Temps are going up, but this has happened before. The Urban Heat Island Effect skews these readings. And alas, correlation does NOT equal causality. I want to take care of the environment, but I don't think SCARING people into doing it is the right way.<br />
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I read article about <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627606.100-living-in-denial-why-sensible-people-reject-the-truth.html">denialism in New Scientist</a>. They talk about how people get stuck denying things that are obvious. Including Global Warming, though again I stipulate, if you are saying "temps are going up" I agree 100%. If you say "Humans are causing temps to go up" then there is a lot of room to debate.<br />
<blockquote>Whatever they are denying, denial movements have much in common with one another, not least the use of similar tactics <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627606.100-living-in-denial-why-sensible-people-reject-the-truth.html?full=true#bx276061B1" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">(see "How to be a denialist")</span></a>. All set themselves up as courageous underdogs fighting a corrupt elite engaged in a conspiracy to suppress the truth or foist a malicious lie on ordinary people. This conspiracy is usually claimed to be promoting a sinister agenda: the nanny state, takeover of the world economy, government power over individuals, financial gain, atheism.</blockquote>I dig that quote. I always laugh when people justify conspiracy theories. They (New Scientist) also comment on the limitation of some types of arguments:<br />
<blockquote>Similarly, global warming, evolution and the link between tobacco and cancer must be taken on trust, usually on the word of scientists, doctors and other technical experts who many non-scientists see as arrogant and alien.</blockquote>So a call to action. For years people didn't believe cigarettes were bad because of lame excuses. We KNOW texting and using cell phones is dangerous when driving, yet I see people still doing it all the time. For years we had people who could only call Bush "stupid," like we now have people who just call Obama a "Socialist" instead of arguing policy. There's a lot of this kind of thinking out there, and many people buy in to it, ESPECIALLY in politics. In Buddhist parlance this results from Dependant thinking as opposed to Independent thinking. Let's spend our time contemplating the REAL world, not the world people want us to see.<br />
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I should confess this post was inspired by my friend Greta in Brazil, and reading this Essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson, on <a href="http://www.emersoncentral.com/selfreliance.htm">Self-Reliance</a>.<br />
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5/24/10:<br />
Woah. Check this out. This guy is an awesome skeptic that Seems to embody my thoughts on this subject well:<br />
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<a href="http://www.michaelshermer.com/">http://www.michaelshermer.com/</a><br />
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He's got cool stuff about intelligent design, and other pseudoscience subjects.Tomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09453590882539576697noreply@blogger.com1