Upside Down

Every wonder how your phone knows to rotate the screen? Here's a quick video that I found interesting. Enjoy.

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Are nukes safe?

With the threat of nuclear "meltdown" adding to the troubles in Japan, and even more so adding to the worries of the US, I've been thinking about nuclear power. Darwin Catholic has a lot of good links and information on his site today. The question that people seem to be debating (and have been for a long time) is should we use nuclear power in light of its safety record.

I found a document (Comparative Assessment of Natural gas Risks) online about the safety of various means of energy production. The aim of the paper is to demonstrate the safety of natural gas vs. other power sources, so we should keep that in mind. However, it does present a rather complete analysis of data across a wide range of power sources. Here is a summary of some of the raw data, from 1969 through 2000. The data includes "severe" accidents that resulted in one or more of the following:

1) at least five fatalities or
2) at least ten injured or
3) at least 200 evacuees or
4) extensive ban on consumption of food or
5) releases of hydrocarbons exceeding 10’000 t or
6) enforced clean-up of land and water over an area of at least 25 km2 or
7) economic loss of at least five million USD(2000).

Whenever any one of the above criteria is satisfied, the accident is considered to be severe. Here are the numbers presented.

Technology	Accidents	Fatalities	Notes
Coal	1130	20,510	(a)
Oil	455	21,424
Natural Gas	159	2,273
LPG	124	4,436
Hydro	11	29,938	(b)
Nuclear	1	31	(c)

(a) Including China
(b) Banqiao and Shimantan dam failures together caused 26,000 fatalities
(c) Latent fatalities are treated separately.

By these criteria, nuclear is extremely safe. However, as noted the table does not include latent fatalities. Here's what they have to say about latent fatalities:

The presence of nuclear in these tables is primarily due to the Chernobyl accident, with a contribution from the Three Mile Island (TMI) accident to the economic losses and evacuation. Estimates of latent fatalities and latent cancers are only available for the nuclear chain for which they are of particular relevance. Delayed fatalities are likely to have occurred for the other chains with no records available; their significance per accident should, however, be incomparably smaller in comparison with the Chernobyl accident.

Later in the paper nuclear latent fatalities are given as 33,000. No figures for latent fatalities from other sources are given. This presents a dilemma. One can't compare the technologies' relative safety without all the data. Not including latent fatalities, nuclear is clearly the safest energy source there is. Including latent fatalities for only nuclear energy make nuclear look bad, but we don't know what the numbers would be for other technologies. For instance, how many people die of latent effects of chemical exposure in an oil accident?

Adding to the uncertainty is the assumption that these technologies do not result in deaths when they are working properly. For instance, should we include black lung deaths to be latent deaths from coal generation, even though they aren't associated with an accident?

In the case of nuclear, there are additional issues. The number of latent fatalities is itself a hotly disputed subject. Claims for deaths from Chernobyl range from 4,000 to 500,000. According to the IAEA's (International Atomic Energy Agency) publication "Ten Years After Chernobyl":

Compared with other nuclear events: The Chernobyl explosion put 400 times more radioactive material into the Earth's atmosphere than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima; atomic weapons tests conducted in the 1950s and 1960s all together are estimated to have put some 100 to 1,000 times more radioactive material into the atmosphere than the Chernobyl accident.

They also note that the design flaws of the Chernobyl reactor have been fixed in other reactors.

The most serious deficiencies in other operating RBMK reactors are being addressed through safety upgrades. Between 1987 and 1991, a first stage of upgrading was performed on all RBMK units to eliminate the design deficiencies which contributed to the Chernobyl accident, to improve shutdown mechanisms and heighten general safety awareness among staff. There are plans for further safety improvements.

So, should Chernobyl be counted? Nuclear reactors aren't designed and built that way anymore, and the ones that were built that way have been improved, so the failure that occurred there shouldn't in theory be possible anywhere else. On the other hand, it can be argued that all technologies improve over time and if we exclude that event we should exclude events from all technologies that were not up to the latest safety standards. That would leave us with virtually no data to work with, and that would be skewed by the current state of the art in that field.

So I worked the numbers both ways - with and without nuclear latent deaths, and using the estimates in the original article of 33,000 latent deaths from Chernobyl. Understand that the truth lies somewhere between the two sets of figures.

Lastly, there is disparity in the number of deaths because some technologies are more prevalent than others. The following table shows fatalities per GWeyr (fatalities per Gigawatt of electricity years). This is IMHO a more meaningful number than just fatality numbers, because it takes into account the fact that more electricity is generated by coal and oil than hydroelectric and nuclear.

	Fatalities per GWeyr
Technology	Immediate	Latent
Coal	1.762	--
Oil	1.032	--
Natural Gas	0.196	--
LPG	16.853	--
Hydro	10.288	--
Nuclear	0.048	48 (6.4-800)

For nuclear, 48 fatalities per GWeyr is the figure used in the document. Using the 4,000-500,000 numbers results in the range shown (6.4 to 800 fatalities/GWeyr).

So nuclear is the safest or the most dangerous power source, or something in between. If we consider all historical data, nuclear energy appears to be far less safe than other methods of electricity production (assuming latent deaths from other technologies are not significant). However, if we consider the Chernobyl accident an anomaly and consider only modern, properly designed reactors, nuclear becomes the safest method of electricity production by far. It all depends on one's assumptions. So, I'd have to say that the results are inconclusive. There are arguments to be made on either side.

What did surprise me in researching this was how dangerous hydroelectric power is. To be fair, 90% of those fatalities were due to two disasters in China, and if those are considered anomalies then the safety of hydro would be in line with oil. I didn't consider this data to be anomalous because it was not due to a flaw in the design, but a natural disaster, just as the current nuclear accident in Japan is due to a natural disaster. One can argue that a bad design, once fixed, is eliminated from future consideration, but a natural disaster such as a flood or earthquake is not controllable by humans.

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Light bulbs are cool

Here's a cool video on a seemingly simple thing - the filament of an incandescent light bulb.

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Watson, come quickly I need you!

I watched the Jeopardy IBM Challenge this week and was quite impressed. For those who missed it, IBM's AI (artificial Intelligence) computer "Watson" played Jeopardy against two of the show's all time winners. Watson is a natural language processing system, which means it "understands" and "uses" English sentences for input and output.

I put the terms in quotes because we don't have a clear idea what it means to understand things or to use language. Certainly Watson did a good job of parsing the sentences fed to it (electronically - it does not do speech to text) and a good job speaking (although some of its pronunciation left a lot to be desired). From the sentence fed to it, it would determine what it was supposed to figure out much of the time and come up with a correct answer form its database of knowledge (no, it was not allowed to use the Internet).

It cleaned the clocks of the other contestants, but it won like the machine beat John Henry - by mechanical means. What I mean by that is that it could push the button faster than they could. Throughout the tournament you could see the contestants furiously trying to beat it to the button push and losing, and being frustrated by not being able to answer a question they knew the answer to.

Watson, on the other hand, routinely pushed the button first, unless it didn't know the answer. And the answers it didn't know were telling. Things dealing with "book learning" it knew very well, but it had "no common sense" as my kids put it. One interesting thing that had Alex Trebek and others puzzled were the unusual amounts it bet in the daily doubles and final Jeopardy. Generally a human will pick a number that will give him or her a "round" number or will pass another opponent. It seemed as though Watson took the maximum amount times some predicted probability of winning ignoring the scores of its opponents. Which makes sense, because I'm not sure if Watson knew the scores of its opponents. It did not know what their answers were, which became clear in the first game when it repeated a wrong answer its opponent had already given.

That's not to demean the incredible achievement of a machine that can play Jeopardy at all, and the hard work and talent that went into such an effort. On the contrary, as a computer scientist I find the project fascinating. I just thought the victory was cheapened by the buzzer speed. Had it been more "human" the contest would have been more about intellect and less about mechanisms.

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Liquid Metal

I came across this article today about Apple's latest patent involving liquid metal. What is liquid metal, and what does it have to do with Apple? Liquid metal is an amorphous metal alloy. It is not actually a liquid (at least not at room temperature - I'm sure it can be melted).

The atomic structure of ordinary or conventional metals and alloys is periodic, where the layout of atomic elements shows repeating patterns over an extended range. This atomic structure is called "crystalline" and limits the overall performance of conventional metals.

Liquidmetal alloys possess an "amorphous" atomic structure, which is truly unique. By contrast to the crystalline structure, no discernable patterns exist in the atomic structure of the unique Liquidmetal alloys. As such, properties superior to the limits of conventional metals can be achieved.

Of course, there are many liquid metals alloys possible, and they have different characteristics. Apple currently uses liquid metal for the little "key" that technicians use to eject the SIM card from iPhones. Not very exciting, compared to some of the other applications listed on the web site.

However, this new patent is for a liquid metal current collector plate, believed to be part of a project to develop fuel cell powered mobile devices. If this technology can be brought to market, it promises lightweight power sources capable or powering a phone for a month between recharges.

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Apps for Catholics

Despite Apple's pulling of the Manhattan Declaration app from the iTunes app store, there are still some Catholic apps available. Every so often a friend gets a new iPhone or iPod and I wind up telling them what apps I have on my iPhone. So I thought I would immortalize it in these pages bits.

Some of these apps have a separate version for the iPad. The links I give are the iPhone/iPod app because that's what I have. I have rated each app with 1 to 4 crosses [+] based on my evaluation of it - your mileage may differ. If you know of or like other Catholic apps, please share in the comments - I'd love to find more apps.

Here goes (with some updates from friends):

Bibles

• Holy Bible RSV-CE [+++] Most of the bible apps out there (and all of the free ones are protestant bibles. This one is the real deal. Thanks to Owen at Drawn to Catholicism for pointing me at this one.
• Catholic Bible [+++] Based on the CPDV (Catholic Public Domain Version) translation of the bible. Not enough of a bible scholar to know if this is a good translation or not. The web site claims:

The Catholic Public Domain Version of the Sacred Bible is a new translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible made using the Challoner revision of the Douay-Rheims version as a guide. The CPDV is in the process of being translated; the estimated date of completion is early 2009. It is not merely an update of the Douay-Rheims. It has perhaps as many differences from the Douay-Rheims, as it has similarities to it. However, the CPDV is also not a translation that is independent of other English translations. The CPDV draws on the eloquence and insight of the Challoner Douay-Rheims, so that this new version can present to the English reader both freshness and familiarity.

• iPieta [+++] has a Catholic bible (Douay-Rheims and Vulgate), a calendar, and various prayers and devotions. 
• Official Divine Mercy [++++] By the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception. Need I say more? Includes the message, history, biography of St. Faustina, chaplet, novena, stations, and much more. Even has audio prayer! Thanks to Paul Sofranko for bringing this to my attention.
• The Rosary App [++++] I like this rosary app best - with "dials" for the prayers instead of trying to emulate beads.

Prayers

• Universalis [++++] Calendar, saints, daily psalms, prayers and readings from the Catholic Liturgy of the Hours, seven times a day. Usable without an internet connection. Thanks again to Owen at Drawn to Catholicism.
• Lauds, Vespers, Compline, and Divine Office [+++] These are all Divine Office apps, to pray the liturgy of the hours. The three individual ones (Lauds, Vespers, and Compline) are components of the Divine Office app split out into individual apps. These apps have some cool features. In addition to written and audio prayers it can show you a map of everyone in the world who is currently praying with you (or at least those who choose to share their location information). Check out The Catholic Foodie for a better review than I can give you here, including an interview with the developers of the app. One caveat - have a good internet connection when you want to use them.
• iBreviary/iBreviary Pro [+++] Another app for liturgy of the hours, but also includes mass readings and a missal. My only complaint is that it shows the info for the last time you used it  - you have to manually update it to the current day's information/
• Prayers [++++] is another Divine Office app, with common and devotional prayers, blessings, Catholic doctrine etc.
• [also see iPieta above]
• Holy Rosary [++] I'm not a big fan of rosary apps in general, but this is a decent one.
• SantoRosario [+++] Rosary and other prayers - I think this is one of the less "cheesy" rosary apps.
• iMissal [++++] Has a complete missal, prayers, and even a video mass, courtesy of Catholic TV.
• Stations of the Cross [+++] Excellent app by Ave Maria Press. Name describes it well, although it is not the traditional stations. For that see the next entry.
• The Traditional Way [++++] Another excellent Stations of the Cross app. This one has the traditional stations (hence the name).
• Evangelizo [+++] Prayers, Gospel readings, Saints of the day and more - appears to be a very "quick" app. 
• iMass [++] View the daily TLM (for you trad Catholics - not really my thing though).

News

• H2O News [++++] News, the Gospel and more from Rome.
  
• Radio Maria [+] Looks like a cool app, with alarm clock, Catholic internet radio and more. Unfortunately crashes on my phone. You may have better luck
  
• Ave Maria Radio [++++] Same app as Radio Maria, but different audio stream, and this one works.
  
• iCatholicFM [+++] Same app again, but with different Catholic radio audio stream.
  
• iPadre, SaintCast and other SQPN shows [++] These are OK, except they are paid apps and they aren't really more useful to me than just listening to the podcasts themselves.
  
• iPFL [+] Basically lets you seach the Priests for Life site for prayers and other litugical resources. Not super useful for lay folk.
  

Other

• Catholic Calendar (aka RC Calendar) by Universalis [+++] Great Calendar with feast days, information and more. You can set it for many different countries' feast days. 
• Answers for Catholics [++++] A great tool for evangelization or just answering questions you have about the faith. 
• iConfess [++++] A tool for making a proper examination of conscience and a "how to" for Confession. Whether you confess daily or haven't been in years there's something for you.
• Mass Times [++++] Finds mass times, distances, directions, phone numbers, web sties, etc. for Catholic churches near your current location (or a location you enter). Very useful, especially if you ever travel.
• St. Augustine [++++] Christian Doctrine, Confessions, City of God all available to read, with bookmarks you can add.
• All Popes [++++] Reference material on all the popes!
• The Catholic Game [++] Catholic trivia game. Gets boring after a while, but still fun and since it was free...
• Manhattan Declaration [++] Removed from the iTunes store for being "offensive". Basically takes you to the Manhattan Declaration web page.
• Heresy Detector [+] Goofy app that makes a needle point to random numbers from 0 to 10.
• iFaith [++] Connects you with web sites of various Dioceses. You can get news, homilies and more.
• Lourdes [+] Photos and prayers from Lourdes.
• Spirit FM 90.5 [+++] Catholic radio from Spirit radio from the Diocese of St. Petersburg, FL.
• iCatholicRadio - The Station of the Cross [+++] Catholic Radio from WLOF 101.7 FM Buffalo, NY. [H/T Paul]
• Fulton Sheen [+++] Audio of speeches given by Fulton Sheen. Free app, but some of the content requires upgrading.

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CEASE Pollution

Matt Archbold, over at the National Catholic Register, wrote an article "Anti Baby Science" about a Scientific American article "Will Birth Control Solve Climate Change?". This brings up a topic I've been meaning to blog about for a long time, population control. As I pointed out in "When you're holding a hammer", the solution to all problems is CEASE - my acronym for "Contraception, Euthanasia, Abortion, Sterilization and Eugenics".

First off, let me say I disagree with Mat ton one important point. This is not science. If you read the article, the "work" is funded by science grants, and is done by "scientists", but it is not science. They run population simulations based on their assumptions of what people will do, and come up with resulting levels of greenhouse gas emissions. That is not science, that is speculation.

It calls to mind the work of an earlier "scientist", Thomas Malthus. With just as little data and just as few facts, he produced a simulation that showed the world's population running out of food in the next generation. The problem is Malthus made his prediction in 1798. Needless to say it didn't happen, because his assumptions were flawed.

Likewise, the models these "scientists" are using for their "science" is flawed. I don't have space here for (nor are you probably interested in reading) a blow-by-blow critique of the article, but let's look at a couple of major flaws.

The first flaw is the assumption is that global warming is caused by people. You can read "Science? I think not!" for my take on that. The second is the assumption is that technology will not change, and no scientific advances can be made. It boggles the mind that the same people who make predictions about future societies based on applying Moore's Law to information technology fail to be able to admit any progress can be made in agricultural or industrial technology.

Ultimately though, the purpose of this "science" is not to advance human knowledge (how can it? As the saying goes "garbage in, garbage out"), but to justify a political socioeconomic agenda of CEASE. In that regard, they are doing a fine job. More on this as time permits.

[NB I apologize for using so many Wikipedia references. I have found Wikipedia to be biased, incomplete and downright wrong on just about every subject on which I have enough knowledge to intelligently critique it.^* For that reason, I generally try to reference original sources rather than Wikipedia's. However, time did not permit finding better references for this post.

* For those of you who think I am just a crank, the subjects I am referring to are things like photography, physics, optics, astronomy, and computer science.]

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Things I'm glad I didn't invent

A while back I did a post on things I wish I'd thought of. Here's an idea I'm sorry anyone thought of. The idea is to make a "virtual speed bump" by making a drawing on the pavement that from a certain angle looks to the driver like an object. This has been done before, in Philadelphia, Pheonix and Peoria, and I'm told they are common in Europe.

However, drivers soon find the drawings more annoying than anything else, and ignore them over time. So Canada has come up with a twist. The drawing is designed to look like a child chasing a ball into the road. Shall we list some of the things likely to happen? Accidents as people stop short? Cars swerving off the road, or perhaps into cars or real people trying to avoid the child in the road.

Of course, according to David Duane of the BCAA Traffic Safety Foundation the fake girl should not cause accidents, stating:

"If a driver can’t respond to this appropriately, that person shouldn’t be driving….”

Riiiiight. What exactly is the appropriate response - drive slowly over what appears to be a child in the road? My psychic prediction: This won't end well.

Of course, perspective drawings on pavement can be used to good effect. Just ask Julian Beever! He does perspective chalk masterpieces on sidewalks, like the one below.

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Atoms and Molecules

According to a new recent Rasmussen poll, "seventy six percent of Americans say it is at least somewhat likely that a terrorist group will detonate a nuclear weapon in the next 25 years, and that includes 45 percent who say it is Very Likely."

Most Adults (58%) also believe it is at least somewhat likely that there will be a major war involving nuclear weapons over the course of the next century, including 26% who say it is Very Likely. Thirty-two percent (32%) regard a war with nuclear weapons as unlikely, but only five percent (5%) say it’s Not At All Likely to happen.

Scary stuff, until you realize that 25 years is a long time. If you took a poll in 1969 about the US in 25 years, most people would have predicted we'd have a lunar base and be exploring Mars. History shows we took a different course.

I personally do worry about the next 25 years, but I don't think the atom is the biggest threat. NPR ran a story a couple of weeks ago about how genetically modified canola has "escaped". According to the article

...the vast majority of feral canola plants in the state contain artificial genes that make them resistant to herbicides. Researchers also found two plants that contained traits from multiple genetically modified varieties, suggesting that genetically modified plants are breeding in the wild.

Talk about a Jurassic Park moment! We have such arrogance in modifying DNA and so little experience or knowledge about the consequences. I think the most frightening technology on the radar today is genetic manipulation. Unlike a nuclear bomb, you can experiment with genetics undetectably, and with relatively simple, inexpensive, non-regulated equipment. Applying the lessons of computer science to biotechnology, I envision a day when an "anti-virus" subscription means protection from genetic hackers who make human viruses, rather than computer viruses.

Sorry for the downer post, readers, but these things creeped me out.

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Toyota Gas Pedals and Radiation Death

When I went to college I quickly learned some "tricks". One trick was that if I joined the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) I could use their new UNIX computer in the school's computer lab. That was important, because using UNIX I could do all my assignments without having to wait in line to use a keypunch machine and then wait to get my printout from the school's massive IBM 370 computer.

Aside from getting my homework done easier, and meeting a great bunch of people, I learned some things about computer science. First off, I learned that the ACM had a code of ethics. Up to that point I had never considered that a code of ethics would be part of a particular discipline, rather than just a life code. I figured if you're a Christian, that's your code of ethics. But that's really a subject for another post.

One of the other things that happened was I started receiving Communications of the ACM, which is their member publication. It's full of papers and abstract stuff, but one column fascinated me - Inside Risks by Peter Neumann. Go ahead and click the link and read an article or two. Good stuff. Don't forget to come back here when you're done.

OK, welcome back. One of the things which I found interesting was the sheer number of different types risks associated with computing. We can all understand the risks of losing data, or being hacked, or banking errors, but there are "real world" dangers involved as well. Toyota is finding this out with their sticky gas pedal recall. The flaw is a mechanical one, but since the gas pedal is really just an input device to a computer that controls the car's acceleration, Toyota is (rightly) being called to task for not having safeties in the software. For instance, brake pedal pressure is also monitored by computer (for antilock brake operation). Why not cut out the accelerator when the brake pedal is being frantically pushed?

It seems like an obvious thing in hindsight but should Toyota have had the foresight to do it? As a software architect, and a reader of "Inside Risks" I have to say that they should. The "state of the art" in software today has been "dumbed down" due to short sighted management and low customer expectations. Developers, especially those who work on systems that control "real world" devices, need to consider failure modes in the design of their software.

Of course, although the Toyota blunder is making big headlines, it is not that serious a problem. Far more serious is the death of Scott Jerome-Parks, as described in this NY Times article. Mr. Jerome-Parks died in 2007 at the age of 43 from a radiation overdose for cancer treatment.

His treatments were performed using a new state of the art linear accelerator. The device works by accelerating a beam of electrons and focusing them onto a tungsten target. That converts the energy of the electrons into X-rays, which then pass through a "multileaf collimator". The collimator is essentially a set of metal "windows" that can open or close by varying amounts to control the size and shape of the X-rays that pass through them. Everything, from the strength of the electron beam to the shape of the collimator is controlled by software.

According to the article:

The investigation into what happened to Mr. Jerome-Parks quickly turned to the Varian software that powered the linear accelerator.

The software required that three essential programming instructions be saved in sequence: first, the quantity or dose of radiation in the beam; then a digital image of the treatment area; and finally, instructions that guide the multileaf collimator.

When the computer kept crashing, Ms. Kalach, the medical physicist, did not realize that her instructions for the collimator had not been saved, state records show. She proceeded as though the problem had been fixed.

“We were just stunned that a company could make technology that could administer that amount of radiation — that extreme amount of radiation — without some fail-safe mechanism,” said Ms. Weir-Bryan, Ms. Jerome-Parks’s friend from Toronto. “It’s always something we keep harkening back to: How could this happen? What accountability do these companies have to create something safe?”

It seems that the machine ignored the fact that the instructions for the collimator were missing, and left the collimator wide open, exposing Mr. Jerome-Parks to the highest possible dose of radiation. I don't mean to say that people should avoid radiation therapy, which does save many lives, or to demonize that particular machine, which no doubt has also saved lives. Also, since then, Varian has released an update to add fail safes to the system.

However it came too late to save Mr. Jerome-Parks. Nor is his case unique. According to the Times article errors in radiation therapy are more common than realized, and some of them are due to software errors. Not mentioned in the Times article are issues that Peter Neumann wrote about in "Inside Risks in Medical Electronics" in 1990 about the Therac-25 software problems. When a particular set of commands was entered, the device malfunctioned, emitting high doses of radiation into the patient, resulting in at least 4 deaths between 1985 and 1987.

As we make machines more and more complex, we tend to rely on software more, without realizing that while software simplifies the need for specialized mechanisms, it does not of itself simplify the control problems it intends to solve. With poorly architected, designed, and implemented software accepted as the norm in our homes and offices, it is no wonder that failures happen in critical equipment.

If we look at the Toyota problem, it is actually blown way out of proportion. I don't mean that the people who died or were injured are not important, I mean that we are focusing a lot of attention on this issue, while overlooking similar types of problems that cause even more deaths and injuries. I hope that when the Toyota problem is fixed we won't forget that other people are dying from shoddy software.

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Boolean Algebra - Computer Science Week

Ok, a brief respite from my usual blog topics for National Computer Science Education Week. Each day this week I'm going to blog about some topic in computer science. My goal is to make these topics introductory enough so that anyone can read them and learn something, and perhaps get an interest in learning more.

Today's topic is Boolean Algebra. I know the work "algebra" scares people off. Months of sitting in school trying to fathom what "x" was has left a bad taste in the mouths and minds of millions. But the word actually comes from the title of a book, עilm al-jabr wa'l-muḳābala ‘the science of restoring what is missing and equating like with like,’ by the mathematician al- K wārizmī. So let's restore what is missing in algebra - fun (well, maybe not, but we'll try).

You're familiar with arithmetic operators, + - x and /. George Bool came up with a system of operators on the values TRUE and FALSE. There are three basic operators (which can actually be reduced to 2), that describe all the things you can do. They are AND, OR and NOT, and they are pretty simple to understand.

"I'll eat chicken OR beef." Means I will eat chicken. I will eat beef. I will eat both. The only way this is FALSE is if I will eat neither chicken nor beef.

"I had bacon AND eggs for breakfast." Means I had both, I could not say this if I didn't have bacon or if I didn't have eggs.

"I did NOT eat the peas." This of course, would be false if I did eat the peas.

Pretty simple, and yet George made it complicated by adding formal equations and parentheses and varous properties. The nice thing that falls out of it are some general principles that let us simplify logic. For instance, the sentence:

"If it is NOT Tuesday OR it is NOT raining I will NOT have duck for dinner."

can be shown to be logically the same as

"If it is Tuesday AND it is raining I will have duck for dinner."

Of course, that sounds obvious, but just like numerical algebra, you can use boolean algebra to take some complicated logic problems and find a simpler form that is equivalent. For more information see Ones and Zeroes: Understanding Boolean Algebra, Digital Circuits and the Logic of Sets.

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Things I Wish I'd Thought Of

Sometimes I see news stories about someone becoming rich off an idea and someone inevitably says “I wish I'd thought of that!” Things like the iBeer iPhone app. This is an essential application for any iPhone or iPod touch owner. It simulates actual beer that sloshes around and "pours" according to the movement of the phone. Here's a guy who spends some time writing a program and it goes viral and he sells a million copies of it. Or maybe something like Ruth Wakefield's story. She put pieces of chocolate in her cookies, expecting them to melt, and invented the tool house cookie (aka chocolate chip). She didn't become rich, but did get a lifetime supply of chocolate. Yum!

The people of whom I am most envious, however, are not the “viral video” types, but a class of people I call “ethical entrepreneurs”. These are people who come up with an idea or product that not only benefits them, but also the poor or neglected members of society. How good would it feel to go to work every day knowing that the world was a better place because of what you do? we all like to think we do our small part, but sometimes it would be nice to see something concrete.

Suzanne Sadler thinks so too. Her blog "The Entrepreneurial Catholic" is all about family enterprise. Working for yourself and your family, while serving others is a truly Catholic way to work and live. Only a few posts, so far, but she has some great advice and ideas for starting a business that will change your life and other lives as well.

So what kinds of things do I admire? One of the inventions I like is the “Q drum”. This is a donut shaped plastic container that enables someone to easily transport up to 50 liters of water from a water source by pulling it along the ground. This is a big help for people living in areas without a safe water source in their home. Another is this human powered irrigation pump. It can help poor farmers in undeveloped areas grow more crops and be less dependent on weather. Suzanne Sadler called to my attention the safe bottle lamp. This is a simple kerosene lamp that won't cause a fire if it tips, helping to save third world children and families from burns or death.

Then there's the "Freedom Leg" from Forward Mobility. This is a lightweight brace that replaces crutches by redistributing force to the upper leg. It's more comfortable and helps strengthen the upper leg muscles. The company uses Kids First Enterprise to manufacture its devices in Vietnam. Twenty percent of that Kids First's workforce is disabled, and all of its profits go to projects that support the disabled and disadvantaged. How cool is that?

Of course, my area of expertise is computers, and you don't find many poor impoverished people needing software. However, the other day I came across this cool invention. With a few cheap parts and some software this inventor has found a way to turn a cell phone into a holographic microscope. In many places in the world, access to a medical lab or hospital may be difficult or impossible, but cell phones are everywhere. A doctor even in a remote area could use this invention to diagnose certain diseases.

So, got any good ideas you're willing to share? I'm interested.

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Your Digital Rights

Once upon a time in a land far far away, there was a company that made buggy whips. Every day, the owners would pray that someday they would find a technology that would improve the buggy whip to the point where it cost them nearly nothing to produce, and then they could flood the market with cheap buggy whips and make a fortune. The people would have their cheap buggy whips, and the owners would be rich. What a win-win situation for all! One day their top buggy whip research scientist came from the buggy whip research lab shouting “Eureka!” He had invented the horseless carriage!

Each new horseless carriage was, of course, made with a buggy whip holder. To make it go, the driver simply inserted his buggy whip. Now the buggy whips could be made of cheap cardboard, since they didn't actually have to be used. At last the buggy whip company had their fondest desire!

They immediately set out on a huge marketing campaign to sell the horseless carriage with the new “improved” buggy whip. At first, people were reluctant to replace their buggies with horseless carriages, but after a while they discovered that the horseless carriages gave better rides. After all, the people didn't really care about the buggy or buggy whip, but wanted to get where they were going.

The first problem was that people discovered they could make their own buggy whips out of cardboard. That obviously had to be stopped, so the company started making it so that each buggy whip was a unique shape and only that shape would fit a particular horseless carriage. People started modifying horseless carriages so they would run with any buggy whip in response. Eventually, the buggy whip company did the only thing it could do. It lobbied the government to make laws to protect its buggy whip interests. Legislation like the DMBWA (Digital Millennium Buggy Whip Act) made it illegal to circumvent the buggy whip shape-unique features of your horseless carriage.

But people persisted. They started groups to trade buggy whips and techniques for cutting out buggy whip cardboard shapes. Eventually the BWIAA (Buggy Whip Industry Association of America) was forced to institute a series of lawsuits against individual buggy whip owners.

Of course, this story bears no resemblance to any real world events, but there is a lesson to be learned. A friend once said to me that any law that makes more than half of the American public into criminals has got to be wrong. Of course, in a world of moral relativism he would be absolutely right, but we don't live in that world. Yet, he has a point.

The problem is that we are in a world where the economy can't handle what it has produced. Like the buggy whip company, we got our wish, but didn't consider the consequences. I'm told that the inventor of the microchip worked for Fairchild. When he presented his idea to management, they asked him how someone could repair a circuit so tiny. He replied that you wouldn't repair it, you'd throw it out! They reject his idea, as they couldn't accept that someone would throw out an entire electronic circuit when one device failed. He left and went on to found Intel with his idea.

When the “digital age” came about, content publishers were keen to jump on because it would mean they could produce content that was almost free to distribute. Of course, that means everyone has the capability to (re)distribute that content, which was something they hadn't (but should have) anticipated When a CD was something that took huge machines and large capital investment in factories to produce you could see paying $15 for. When I can burn the same CD for under $0.10 (even after paying a “tax” to support the recording industry) I have to question whether they're being greedy by the 15,000% markup.

Of course, the artist deserves to be paid for his work (more on that later) but how much did the artist get for that $15 CD? I'm told 10-18% ($1.50 - $2.70). Let's be generous and call it $2.50. Now, if the CD costs $0.10 to produce and the artist is paid $2.50, then the cost is $2.60. Allow the record company a 40% markup and we have a $3.64 CD. About this time someone's probably shouting “distribution costs!”, but of course, that $0.10 blank CD had to be distributed as well, so I don't buy it. Note also that if CDs were so cheap there would be a lot more sold, so the price could be reduced further while still maintaining a decent profit.

And the situation is worse. We have the ultimate in cheap distribution – download it yourself! When Apple iTunes promised us $0.99 songs people danced in the streets. And yet, when we can listen to (or watch, or read) our entertainment anywhere on portable devices, we get hit with DRM (Digital Rights Management) that restricts us to one manufacturer or some subset of devices. Now you can pay extra to get DRM-free music, which is technically a step in the right direction, but better yet would be to charge less for it.

My point is simply this. If the recording industry charged what the product is worth (as in cost + reasonable markup) instead of what they can get for it, we'd all be better off. There are 2 ways to make more money on a product – charge more for it or sell more of it. If albums were $1 (and songs were $0.10) for instance, would there be a need to restrict copying? Music pirates wouldn't exist because they couldn't make a profit. People would much rather spend $0.10 for something from a manufacturer that was of known good quality, and that supported their favorite artists than turn to a pirated copy of unknown provenance.

But instead the industry continues to overcharge and then spend the money to prosecute their own customers. The same is true of e-books and in fact most forms of “intellectual property”. Ironically, in the information age, information is the medium of exchange, and yet it's not worth the paper it's printed on. Let's look at copyrights. Today's works will remain under copyright protection 70 years after the death of author. If a work of corporate authorship, 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever expires first.

What's the “common good” of this law? A patent, which might be on some life saving drug or invention to further the good of the human race, only runs for 17 to 20 years. Is entertainment so much more important than invention that we have to reward those who produce it six times as much? Does it take so much longer for the entertainment industry to “develop” the work and make a profit off of it? (Hint, the answer to both of these is “no”)

Yes, the artist deserves to be rewarded for his creative effort. But in the case of Disney film, for example, the artists are salaried employees, and were compensated as much as they're going to be while they actually worked. Even in the case of a band, what's wrong with paying them for actually performing? The brick layer doesn't get paid for 120 years for having laid bricks. The carpenter doesn't get paid for 120 years for having built a house. They stop getting paid when they stop performing their job, and they have to do it again to get paid again.

Instead we live in a society where we cater to the corporation over the individual, and more and more base our economy on what we can get away with rather than what's a fair profit for an honest day's work. We need to adjust to the paradigm, not try to shoehorn reality into our legal framework.

What do you think?

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