Category: Interesting Reads

Butterflies to rest their wings today

In honor of the passing of Dr. Edward Lorenz yesterday, I heard a butterfly say the entire species will recognize the man by not flapping their wings for a one minute observation today.

Dr. Lorenz is best known for the notion of the “butterfly effect,” the idea that a small disturbance like the flapping of a butterfly’s wings can induce enormous consequences.

As recounted in the book “Chaos” by James Gleick, Dr. Lorenz’s accidental discovery of chaos came in the winter of 1961. Dr. Lorenz was running simulations of weather using a simple computer model. One day, he wanted to repeat one of the simulations for a longer time, but instead of repeating the whole simulation, he started the second run in the middle, typing in numbers from the first run for the initial conditions.

The computer program was the same, so the weather patterns of the second run should have exactly followed those of the first. Instead, the two weather trajectories quickly diverged on completely separate paths.

At first, he thought the computer was malfunctioning. Then he realized that he had not entered the initial conditions exactly. The computer stored numbers to an accuracy of six decimal places, like 0.506127, while, to save space, the printout of results shortened the numbers to three decimal places, 0.506. When typing in the new conditions, Dr. Lorenz had entered the rounded-off numbers, and even this small discrepancy, of less than 0.1 percent, completely changed the end result.

When I was in college, one of my math professors taught a chaos theory class.  His term (and I’m sure this is near-universal for chaos theoreticians,  but I’ve only heard him say this) was SDOIC – Situation Dependent on Initial Conditions (we pronounced it stoyk).  In chaotic systems, the results you get are extremely sensitive to changes in initial inputs.  As seen in Dr. Lorenz’s weather simulation, only slightlchanges in the measurements later in the simulation lead to completely different outputs at the end.  Thus the tiniest change in conditions, such as changes to air currents brought about by a butterfly flapping her wings, can lead to massive differences in conditions throughout an entire system.

Clearly, I cannot explain this well enough, but it is a fascinating branch of mathematics, and well worth learning more about if you are interested.  And there is much more to it than what Jeff Goldblum discussed in Jurassic Park.

So remember if the weather is batshit crazy tomorrow, it’s due to the butterflies honoring Dr. Lorenz today.  And that, dear reader, is chaos at work.

[tags]RIP, Dr. Lorenz, Edward Lorenz, Chaos theory, the pirates don’t eat the tourists, Nobody could’ve predicted that[/tags]

Sad news concerning Ms. Monroe

Well folks, seems you’ll not get your chance to see Marilyn Monroe playing up-and-down-on-a-stick any time soon. Her private 15 minute oral sex performance video was purchased by a rich person who intends to file it away somewhere for from the peeping eyes of intarw3b pervs.

The gentleman who bought it said out of respect for Marilyn he’s not going to make a joke of it and put it on the Internet and try to exploit her, said memorabilia collector Keya Morgan. That’s not his intention and I would never get my name involved if that were to happen.

Someone involved in the whole possession of the tape affair suggests that FBI director Hoover was very interested in the tape, and apparently not just to get his jollies watching pr0n:

The FBI agent that I interviewed said J. Edgar Hoover was completely obsessed. A team of nine individuals were analyzing the tape inside a lab. J. Edgar Hoover brought in a few prostitutes who allegedly had been with President Kennedy and they tried to … see if that was really President Kennedy.

As far as I could tell from the article, there is still no information on who the man is, and as he’s only seen from one angle which doesn’t include his face, it’s tough to tell.

[tags]Marilyn Monroe, Pr0n, Hoover, FBI, oral sex, pervs[/tags]

McCain calls it?

Folks, I think we’ve all been wondering lately if we’re in a recession or not. Well, we have official word from John McCain (watch the video for the full commentary by McCain):

…the important factor here is that Americans are hurting. Americans are hurting today.

They are sitting around the kitchen table saying ‘Are we going to be able to make our home or our mortgage payments?’

He makes some good comments.  I think things like this will help him with his standing among some of the uncertain right, but doubt it will make any change with those already convinced to support or denounce him.  Of course, it doesn’t take a political genius to figure that out.

[tags]McCain, Recession, Economy, Americans[/tags]

Rush could be indicted for behavoir regarding Ohio primary?

Well, if you listen to Rush, you might have heard him recommending his Ohio (and Pennsylvania and other states with looming primaries) conservative listeners to vote for Hillary in the Democratic primaries.  Apparently, the intention is to keep the Democrats fighting between the Barrack and Hillary camps long enough to make uniting the party difficult, thereby giving McCain the upper-hand in November.  Rush is also telling his listeners that he could be indicted for doing this.  That’s true, but it’s unlikely.  Don’t believe me? Well, see what the Ohio Attorney General has to say about Rush’s claims:

“We have no intention of prosecuting Rush Limbaugh because lying through your teeth and being stupid isn’t a crime,” said Leo Jennings, a spokesman for Democratic Attorney General Marc Dann.

Lucky for Rush stupidity isn’t a crime, I guess.  On the other hand, he’d be off the air if it were.  But then, most of us would be indicted, too, at some point in our lives.

[tags]Rush, Stupidity, Being stupid isn’t a crime, Election, Primaries[/tags]

Satellite kill debriefing

Some of you may remember the falling satellite that some of our excellent members of the US military were able to shoot down recently. There is plenty of news coverage about the event, both pre-shooting and after the successful shot. There is video, such as this ABC clip from the raw footage captured during the shooting:

Beyond all that, there is a very interesting report on the event from the Stanford Group, apparently prepared by retired General David E. Baker. This has some of the best information I’ve seen on the shooting, and covers what happened and who was pleased or displeased by our doing this. I received this from a friend, so can’t speak to where he got it, but wanted to share it because it’s an interesting and brief read.

Hitting a bullet with a bullet: Last Wednesday a federal notice was released warning all ships and
planes to avoid a restricted zone just west of Hawaii for 2½ hours beginning at 7:30 Pacific time. Soon
after, USS Lake Erie’s commander, Capt. Randy Hendrickson received orders from the U.S. Secretary of
Defense to “release the weapon”. Tactical officer Lt. Cmdr. Drew Bates pushed a button and a crippled
U.S. spy satellite known, as USA 193 was history.

You can grab the full PDF version of the report from me, which I’ll keep up as long as my bandwidth allows.

[tags]Satellite, Military muscle, Satellite shootdown, Stanford Group[/tags]

Disappointing game launches

The all time 5 worst game launches? Honestly, that’s a list that has to be tough to narrow down to just 5.  Still, 1Up has managed to highlight the worst offenders.  One managed to recover quite nicely and become one of the highest rated games of all time, but the delivery and verification process at release was insanely bad.

2. Steam/Half-Life 2

Yes, yes, we all love Steam now. It’s the model of digital distribution and community management in PC gaming right now, utterly shaming Microsoft’s embarrassingly inept Games for Windows Live initiative. But back in the day, we were even harsher on Valve than we now are on Microsoft — because the official launch of Steam on November 16, 2004, which coincided with the launch of Half-Life 2, was an utter nightmare.

Wall-of-text warning on the original article, though.  Seems the web-layout folks might want to educate the writers on the importance of more paragraphs and other visual breaks.

[tags]1Up, Half-Life, Worst game launches, Gaming[/tags]

Photoshop disasters

I’m always amazed at how much a bunch of small changes can really change an image. I mean, yes I know that it’s not that hard to change the images, and yes I know that I should expect big changes from a bunch of small changes. But the results still impress me.

However, on the other side of the photochopping craze we find the chops that just didn’t quite go as intended. The site Photoshop Disasters highlights these erroneous photochop jobs. For example, clips from a very funny pair of pics put up there where the DVD case claims to reveal the real star in question:

miley1_clip.jpg miley2_clip.jpg

So real, except for values of not-real where we felt it appropriate to change things a teeny tiny bit.   Or something.

And apologies to Photoship Disasters for cutting out the watermark – I didn’t want to give away the full story just from the pics, so I clipped them down to the part that hopefully will push my visitors to click away via the site link.

[tags]Photoshop, Photochop, Photoshop disasters[/tags]

Techies: MBA for big money

Hey, good news if you are thinking about heading back to school for further degree studies.  It seems that techies who get business degrees are better able to overcome the communication gap between managers and worker-grunts.  The end result?  An MBA nearly doubles IT Pros’ salaries.

For years, IT professionals looking to increase their job security, expand their career horizons and potentially climb a couple pay grades have been told to take business courses or get an MBA, but the evidence to support these assertions has been little more than anecdotal.

Now, however, a study published in the March issue of “Management Science” from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business finds that an IT professional with an MBA degree earns 46 percent more than one with only a bachelor’s degree, and 37 percent more than an IT professional with any other type of master’s degree.

Of course, that nearly doubles salaries thing doesn’t sound quite right when you read that the IT professional with MBA earns 46 percent more, does it?  So according to this study, the MBA nearly doubles IT Pros’ salaries, when 46% means 100%.  Still – a near 50% earnings benefit sounds pretty solid justification for the higher degree.

[tags]IT, Salaries, MBA, When +50% equals double?!?[/tags]

Woman stuck to toilet after 2 years of sitting? Color me skeptical

OK, since it seems every damn news source has covered this today, I have to step in and say I’m just a bit skeptical of what’s going on here. There’s got to be something to this story that we’re not hearing yet. The claim is, a woman sat on a toilet in her boyfriend’s house for 2 years before he finally called police, saying only that there was something wrong with his girlfriend.

Authorities are considering charges in the bizarre case of a woman who stayed in her boyfriend’s bathroom for two years, spending most of her time on the toilet — so that her body was stuck to the seat by the time the man finally called police.

If it were Mississippi or Arkansas, it would probably be a teeny bit more believable than in Kansas. Maybe there isn’t anything more to the story than what’s in the AP story, but it’s just so hard to believe that there’s not something in the story that we’re not being told yet. In particular, it’s hard to imagine this without there being some information missing in the how-did-this-happen details:

It appeared the 35-year-old Ness City woman’s skin had grown around the seat, said Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple. The woman initially refused emergency medical services but was finally convinced by responders and her boyfriend that she needed to be checked out at a hospital.

“We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital,” Whipple said. “The hospital removed it.”

Sat so long her skin grew onto/around the seat? Day-um.

“She was not glued. She was not tied. She was just physically stuck by her body,” Whipple said. “It is hard to imagine. … I still have a hard time imagining it myself.”

Me too, Mr. Whipple. Me too. The boyfriend says, basically, that the whole situation just sorta, you know, snuck up on him.

McFarren told the AP that he wasn’t to blame, and that it was solely Babcock’s choice to remain in the bathroom.

“She is an adult; she made her own decision. It was my fault I should have gotten help for her sooner; I admit that. But after a while, you kind of get used to it,” McFarren said.

Although authorities said they think Babcock was in the bathroom for two years, McFarren said he wasn’t certain how long she stayed there. He said she had a phobia about leaving the room because of childhood beatings.

She did it. She’s kinda kooky. I don’t know how long it’s been. Oh, and it ain’t really my fault.

Whatever. We’ll see if more comes out about just how this happened. Dude is just not telling us something that went on, or the sheriff is leaving out details while an investigation takes place.

[tags]WTF, Seriously?, O RLY?, toilet attachment, Kansas, Really – WTF?!?, Gross[/tags]

Roof strength on SUVs cause for safety concern?

Let me say first that the model they use in the story is the same SUV I currently drive, but mine is white and possibly a little older.  That said, here’s the story – the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has issued a report on roof strength of SUVs, and they find the results not the least bit comforting.  The IIHS believes improved roof strength will reduce injuries and fatalities in rollover crashes and has results of their tests available for concerned consumers looking to still buy a gas guzzler but wanting to remain as safe as possible.

By testing the roofs of 11 sport utility vehicles, then looking at the deaths and injury rates in accidents, the institute found that the stronger the roof was, the less likelihood of injury or death.

. . .

Rollovers account for about one-quarter of those who die in car crashes, but SUVs that are higher off the ground than other vehicles are particularly prone to rollovers. The study contends that stronger roofs, like the one on the 2000 Nissan Xterra, could cut injury risk by a third in single-vehicle SUV rollover crashes.

Automakers contend that roof strength improvements will not do anything to safety numbers, but the IIHS disagrees.  I can conceive that the automakers are right – overall safety design is probably more important than roof strength and the cars with the better safety ratings may achieve that by overall design and not just roof strength.  However, it’s hard for me to imagine that the roof strength could be improved without improving the safety overall design just because I know any change to the design has to be checked for consistency with all other design considerations.

This isn’t to indicate any of these vehicles fail to meet federally mandated safety requirements.  It’s that the IIHS believes the mandates are not strict enough.

The current standard requires vehicles to withstand 1½ times the weight of the vehicle before crushing five inches. The administration would like to require passenger vehicles to withstand 2½ times its weight instead. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says that’s still not good enough, and argues a passenger vehicle should be able to withstand three times its weight when it rolls over.

As an owner of the SUV that received the lowest roof strength rating, I’m all for improving it.  But as with anything in design, I wonder what will the price be for any improvements?  These businesses have to factor in how much it will increase manufacturing costs for improve safety, how much of that can be passed on to consumers, and where will the dollars go from the edge-case buyers who would buy at the current price but not at any higher price.  It sucks for those only concerned with safety, and sure some people will throw up the “What cost human life?” question, but we all have finite resources, and these changes have to be considered.

So how much would you pay for more safety?  If it cost $100 for a roof with twice the collapse strength you currently have, would you?  What if it cost $1000 more?  How about an increase that cost $500 and cut fuel efficiency 5%?  Where does the trade-off become too much for you?

[tags]SUV, IIHS, Safety, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety[/tags]

First amendment is not protection for some forms of being an ass-hat

In a close vote, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled today that 1st amendment free speech protection doesn’t protect forging email headers for spamming purposes. This means convicted spammer Jeremy Jaynes still has to serve his sentence for such practices.

As a result of the 4-to-3 vote, Jaynes will serve nine years in prison for sending millions of illegal spam messages in 2003, absent an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Spamming itself is not illegal. It is allowed under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. However, the law prohibits the use of false or misleading message headers and deceptive subject lines. It requires a way to opt-out, a valid postal address, and that the message is identified as an advertisement.

This is an issue that we’ll probably hearing more about in the near future, as another well-known spammer, Robert Soloway, is headed to court soon to face his own charges for mail abuse and using so-called botnets to send millions of spam emails.

Soloway was arrested in May and charged with sending out tens of millions of unsolicited messages; so many, in fact, that investigators called him the “Spam King,” and his arrest was hailed as a major blow in the fight against spam. Many of Soloway’s unsolicited messages were sent out using hacked “zombie” computers infected with botnet software, prosecutors allege.

The United States Attorney’s Office is seeking more than $770,000 in fines, but Soloway is also facing fraud and identity theft charges that could result in jail time.

Of course, even with this two heavy-hitters out, we’re still seeing far too much email spam. But hopefully these and similar cases will help pare that down eventually.

If criminal prosecutions like Soloway’s are deterring spammers, you wouldn’t know if from looking at your inbox. Security vendor IronPort said that spam volume on the Internet was up 100 percent in 2007, jumping to 120 billion unwanted messages per day.

So we still have a ways to go.

[tags]Spam, spamming, spammers, email, Robert Soloway, Jeremy Jaynes[/tags]