50% of Capacity

Choose Your Taxes

2012-02-10T11:50:00.001-08:00

Research where subjects reported greater feelings of happiness if they gave money away rather than spent it on themselves, combined with that about how we respond to the perceived fairness of transactions, got me thinking that the impersonal nature of our social systems squanders the good feelings that come from our evolved altruistic tendencies. One idea to try and take advantage of this would be to allow a taxpayer to choose which part of the government his money goes to support. He can't choose the amount, just to what areas the funds go. To support unpopular government functions, a multiplier can be set so that money counts for more towards the amount you must give when you donate to them. Obviously the overall tax rate would need to account for this, but the popularity of the various departments will be fairly well established quickly. This approach would also require government departments to do a better job justifying their existence, which would help with taxpayer education and encourage transparency. If it could be made to work, the resentment taxes cause might be considerably reduced, being much more similar to the experience of donating to charity. It makes me think of the old system of police patrolling where cops would have a beat and they'd get to know the people living along it, which seems like a good example of a more personal approach to government services.

What do I mean by "independent"?

2012-02-01T11:46:00.000-08:00

I sometimes come across references to independents that treat them as though they're merely centrists:

I think a more accurate view is of them as outside the typical way the debate is framed, either because they believe there are major issues neither party is addressing or think the system itself is flawed. I count myself among this sort.

This second view is much more flexible because the degree to which you are outside the mainstream view can vary.

What's wrong with polygamy, exactly?

2012-01-07T09:16:00.000-08:00

Rick Santorum's comparison between gay marriage and polygamy has me wondering exactly what the rationale is for it being banned. As long as everyone is of age, free of coercion, and none of the marriages are secret, where's the problem? If one actually takes separation of church and state seriously, then marriage boils down to legal agreements (I personally think that religious marriage should carry no legal weight whatsoever). Framed in that way, it clearly is another case of trying to legislate morality. While it pains me to agree with Mr. Santorum on anything, it does follow that if one accepts gay marriage one must also accept polygamy. Of course, he's hoping I'll have some visceral reaction of intolerance at the association. I reserve that sort of response for politicians of his ilk.

The Romney

2011-11-22T11:16:00.001-08:00

How can I get a Romney sticker without giving his campaign any money?

When blowing snow in a wind, you have to swivel the discharge chute 180 degrees every time you reach the end of a row and turn around in order to keep blowing downwind. This involves furiously cranking the adjustment handle while wheeling the whole blower in a circle, which is a real pain. While sick a bit ago, I designed and built this snow-blower chute, which can flip 180 degrees in an instant (hence its namesake). Making the nozzle fit the snow-blower was tricky: I had to keep the control handle short so it wouldn't stick out further than the width of the blower when rotated 90 degrees, the chute's height had to be as small as possible or it would clog when the snow was wet and heavy, the tippable nozzle couldn't be too long or it would hit the engine, and the standard heating duct I used required an adapter to match the snow-blower's discharge pivot ring. The geometry of the top of the vertical duct was interesting, because it needs to seal the back of the tipped chute when angled in either direction. I worked out the math (two cylinders intersecting at 45 degrees) and then printed a paper template which I taped onto the metal and then cut it to shape with tin snips. As you can see, it seals very well but it's impossible to observe the actual shape in photos (it just looks generically round).

Zombie Traps

2011-10-31T06:36:00.000-07:00

Movies always depict groups of humans manually sweeping areas for zombies, but devices specifically designed for the task would be much more effective and far safer. To catch them alive for experimentation, the simplest would probably be a shipping container with a one way security turnstile welded into one end and a noise maker for a lure. Airlift it in, and then once full, pick it back up again. Destroying the zombies is more difficult, and depends on exactly what type is being encountered. Those that are simply infected but mortal offer many simple solutions, such as exposure to radiation or other toxins, but I will focus on the much more problematic undead variety. The need to significantly damage the brain and the fact that they could be crawling or of widely varying sizes complicates things considerably, so a crusher would probably be the most effective. Similar to some compacting trash containers, solar panels (mounted on an appropriately tall mast) would allow for extended operation without fuel and likely be the most practical option, although there are, of course, also highly impractical ones. Again, a noise maker would draw zombies inside, through a one way gate and then once filled to capacity they would be crushed by a motor highly geared down to be very slow but powerful. The wall opposite the crushing panel should be releasable, sliding sideways via another powerful, slow motor and built heavily enough to oppose the compacting force, so that the remains could be scraped out and pushed aside to create more room for prey. While simpler, forcing the zombies through a grate would be susceptible to jamming were a foreign object to somehow make its way into the trap. Obviously, a fairly open site would need to be chosen for the growing pile of gore, although decay should limit its maximum size and allow the powerful actuators to continue to deal with it. A parking lot, lawn, or even a street intersection would probably be adequate.

Gore Most Likely Would've Prevented 9/11

2011-09-11T06:11:00.000-07:00

We know now that the information necessary to prevent the attacks of 9/11 was floating around our various intelligence agencies and it was primarily a lack of cooperation that led to it not being acted upon in time. Had Gore become president in 2000, he would not have have been guilty of the now infamous failure to heed the brief warning of Bin Laden's intention to attack with the U.S. With the president pressuring our agencies to look into this threat, the aforementioned failure to coordinate would most likely have been overcome and the plot exposed in time to prevent it. Of course, had that occurred, we'd probably never have learned about it, but many of the important security improvements (most notably the reinforcement of cockpit doors) would likely still have been implemented. Let this serve as a lesson to those who feel that ability and experience are somehow optional in executive positions.

The Evolution of Lines

2011-09-01T11:47:00.001-07:00

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen...

Bang Goes the Theory had a segment using the repeated freehand tracing of a single line to illustrate some of the basic mechanisms of evolution. It lacked any selective pressure, so I whipped up a program to add some. I started with ten perfectly straight lines, each of which had ten offspring with a small chance of containing replication errors (1% to shift each pixel one place right or left). From that pool of one hundred, I then chose the ten that most resembled my target shape and repeated the process. To keep it simple, I didn't require the line be continuous (in fact, it's not technically a line as there's only one pixel for each vertical position on the image). I used the sum of the horizontal distance squared for each pixel from it's target x value as a measure of fitness. You may recognize the final shape, which took 2,200 generations to settle upon. Its efficiency could be increased dramatically as the algorithm employed was crude.

This is a lot less involved (asexual reproduction for a start) than many genetic algorithms I've written, but it's much less abstract.

Social Network Anonymity Hybrid

2011-08-13T02:16:00.000-07:00

I've been reading a fair bit about the pros and cons of requiring users to employ their real names on social networking services. I won't bother to recap these comparisons here in any detail, but will instead outline my preferred compromise, which is that if a pseudonym is employed, the profile must make this clear. This allows those who aren't comfortable with unknown persons to filter based on the fact and avoids impersonation issues, while still allowing the benefits of anonymity to those who require it. Users who violate this policy could face appropriate disciplinary action in an easy to keep consistent manner. The issues surrounding the verification of one's true identity are no different than a system that mandates real names. It may be useful to distinguish between accounts that have been declared anonymous and those that are simply unverified as yet, perhaps with a reasonable deadline and possibly even levels of confirmation. Many variations are possible, but the fundamental idea is this: gives users the information and features required in an easy to use, consistent manner so that they can decide for themselves how they feel about anonymity.

Update: a possible option of particular note is one where the user is required to verify their identity, but then are free to use any public name they desire. This eliminates the issues with multiple accounts and impersonation, but still allows anonymity.

Violence Should be Violent

2011-07-08T03:30:00.000-07:00

I think that sanitized violence is much worse than accurate violence. It trivializes a horrible event and for less sophisticated viewers gives the impression that somehow violence is much less serious than it is. I want to see video games and movies have injuries more like that of Mr. Orange from Reservoir Dogs: someone gets shot and bleeds like a stuck pig and is scared out of their mind, screaming with pain. People who would find this unwatchable should try avoiding content with violence in it. Someone getting mortally injured should be disturbing!

New Show Rating Booster System

2011-05-14T10:13:00.000-07:00

An ounce of viewership is worth a pound of petitioning

A campaign to revive a cancelled show is like waiting until cancer is at stage IV before treating it. Much better to avoid the situation altogether by identifying good shows and spreading the word to fans who would like such content, as well as getting the word out about schedule changes (an often identified reason new shows fail to attract a viewership). The mechanics of such a system are fairly straightforward, being similar to standard recommendation systems (although critic rated techniques like those employed by Clerkdogs could identify matches sooner which matters a lot in this context), and it would be a much better use of their energies. Since shows do compete for time slots and production resources, it's a lot like a political campaign, and getting out your base can definitely yield a disproportionate influence. Such an approach would still only be a bandaid on an inherently flawed production system, but that's another issue.

Go Hack

2011-04-23T09:30:00.000-07:00

The game of go has such a large board that it swamps traditional approaches to solve it via computer. To get around this, I have a simple hack: initially, the computer moves in exact symmetry to the player. Then, when the board has filled up and the search space has reduced in size, use a more traditional approach to go on the offense. This should work as moving symmetrically maintains a completely neutral board state. I've tested this by hand against computer go programs to verify it works, and I can tie them every time without even looking at the board. The tedium such an approach would create for a human opponent would also give the computer a possible advantage, assuming they don't quit in disgust first.

Proven Social Investments Should Be Exempted From Deficit Spending Limits

2011-04-08T11:03:00.000-07:00

If only there were a well known maxim about this...

Originally posted on my private blog on January 25th, 2009.

Politicians have an unfortunate tendency to eliminate social investments in the drive to reduce short term deficits. Whenever you have a social program (or infrastructure investment) with solid scientific evidence behind it that it will yield far more in savings or revenue growth than is spent then it should be exempted from deficit considerations. It makes no sense to build a new school and then scrimp on insulation simply because the larger overall heating cost doesn't occur on this year's balance sheet. What's worse is that the ability to make such misguided cuts allows decision makers to avoid the more difficult, legitimate ones. The standard of proof for such investments would necessarily need to be high as this should not become a form of government wagering.

Travel Time Contour Map

2011-04-01T17:17:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder how far you could get from your house if you drove for eight hours in any direction? I have, so I made up this google map of concentric rings of travel time from my house (and, no, it's not as time intensive as it looks). Obviously the resolution drops off as the rings get bigger and it's only roads inside the rings that obey the time restrictions, not locations off of the streets. This leads to some pretty big areas in Quebec that are included even though they could never be reached, as google maps screens out smaller roads at lower zoom levels. They really ought to continue to show roads in sparse areas. I don't really care if a road is minor if it's the only way to get to someplace! It's just a way to avoid visual clutter, after all.

DIY Rip Fence

2011-01-01T05:54:00.000-08:00

My table saw's rip fence was never very good and had been becoming less and less accurate with time. It was narrow and failed to lock well, requiring a lot of coaxing into position. I wanted to order one like the Shop Fox, but it costs $235, plus another $44 for shipping. I used their basic layout, with a few changes of my own. It was a good excuse to invest in and learn to use a MIG welder, which was only slightly more expensive than the Shop Fox itself. I also needed an angle grinder, as using my bench-top one for pieces this size is quite tiring!

Rather than the usual cam locking system I employed a threaded lock, much like a c-clamp. To assure consistent locking force, there's a stop pin so the handle always rests in the same position. I made the handle from a piece of 3/4" square tubing welded to a 1/2" carriage bolt. One arm of the handle is shorter than the other so that it misses the stop pin, allowing for more rotation. The stop pin is necessary because the 1/2" bolt can effortlessly bend the 2" piece of angle iron.

This is the bottom of the removable fence, with the furniture glides I used for low-friction movement clearly visible.

Here's a detail of where most of the action occurs. At the top is the system for adjusting the angle of the fence to the track. There are two set screws with a metal strip to provide tension and prevent marring. At the bottom is the anti-mar device for the clamping bolt. You can see the two screw holes from the simple L-shaped piece of metal I tried that would retract by spring action, but I lacked the equipment to heat treat it, so it just bent permanently, scratching the paint. The final method employs two springs to achieve the same effect. A better way would be to put a nylon glide on the anti-mar plate and not bother with a spring retractor.

I later added a seven foot long track to allow larger pieces to be cut. Whereas last time I drilled and tapped bolts to hold the track assembly together (copying the professional ones), this time I simply welded it. I can now make cuts 50" to the right of the blade, although I'd certainly need a support to keep the whole setup from tipping over sideways were I to actually attempt it. I still need to paint the new rails, but that's not a big deal. Now that the rails are finalized I can attach a self-adhesive measuring tape so setting the cut width will be much easier. Eventually I plan to add a melamine extension for part of the extra distance to serve as a router table, but there's no rush on that.

There are many ways I could streamline the construction of the rip fence, but it slides easily and is solid as a rock when clamped.

Better Matrix Background Story

2010-12-24T18:24:00.000-08:00

"There is no plot."

The movie The Matrix had a ridiculously stupid background story: the machines are keeping humans alive to provide power via their body heat and neuro-electrical activity because during its war with us, we deployed a weapon that makes the world permanently cloudy so solar power won't work (apparently the machines' primary energy source). There are a lot of problems with this:

1) How were we planning on growing food if we did this to the planet?
2) There are energy sources other than solar the machines could've switched to
3) The food required to keep a person alive takes far more energy to grow than they put out

Rather than this asinine rationale, how about this: the computers were charged with keeping humanity healthy and happy but we were so poor at managing our planet, despite warnings, that the computer determined that the only way to accomplish its orders was to place us all in virtual environments. To the computer's way of thinking there is no practical difference between a real existence and an indistinguishable virtual one. This adds some moral ambiguity on the part of humanity for ruining the planet and showcases an interesting difference between human and AI perspectives on the nature of existence.

Broadcast Based Personalized Video Distribution System

2010-11-29T06:29:00.000-08:00

Netflix's recent push to encourage streaming only video plans has brought up concerns that ISPs may not be able to provide adequate bandwidth. This made me recall a post I did on my private blog some years ago about reusing our broadcast infrastructure to provide personalized video viewing (or at least the bulk of it). It is loosely modeled on pay per view techniques, but assumes every subscriber has a DVR (digital video recorder) and eliminates channels as we know them (except perhaps for real time things such as news) and just considers the stations as data streams. Users select which shows and movies they would like and then a central program would determine the best way to send the shows over the available stations so that the viewers' DVRs could record them, accounting for collisions. As an option, viewers could pay more to get a higher priority in the queue if their content is more unusual. Optionally, a recommendation system could be employed to gather content when free capacity is available (it would be cleared from the DVR's drive automatically if space was later needed). Commercials should be eliminated from program downloads, but could be spliced in afterwards, allowing them to be varied or omitted altogether if a higher price is paid. This requires very little new infrastructure and if direct data is delivered, the hardware could be cheaper than traditional DVRs, by eliminating the video capture elements as some satellite boxes already do. Adding a secondary tuner is also common, and would allow for more flexibility with regard to scheduling. Of course, once all the content is digital, many other optimizations are possible, such as interleaving of programs, or more frequent broadcasts of the beginning of a show (enabling the rest to be downloaded in the background as the first part is being viewed). Only a very low speed connection would be needed to upload show requests, so dial up would be adequate for areas without high speed internet. Another advantage of this approach is that all times are equally valued, as the content is inherently time shifted and a lot of uncertainty about show rating measurement would be removed. Real time programs such as sports or news could in theory work the same way, but would be biased for earlier delivery since such content loses value quickly. This system is close to a true individual content distribution method, but sacrifices instant viewing in order to exploit redundancies, reducing overall bandwidth requirements.

Life Expectancy with Age

2010-11-01T17:42:00.000-07:00

As we age our life expectancy increases, as the chance that we might die before that point has been ruled out. By examining 2004 insurance company life tables, I was able to create this rather interesting graph of the effect. You can easily see that the influence of improved health choices and superior genetics begins to give a significant advantage during the early fifties. Of course, except right after birth, the total years remaining to live steadily declines.

Binomial Probability Distribution Tree

2010-10-06T06:41:00.000-07:00

Math is my best friend.

I frequently work with binomial distributions, and as a visualization aid I created this tree of probability distributions for each of its states up to fourteen trials. Each node represents the beta distribution formed for a given number of successes and failures. At the top is the case with zero data and the probability is spread evenly, as expected. The distributions are shown in white, and the green cup is a positional reference. The red lines lead to the node that adds one additional success to the number of trials and the blue lines similarly lead to the node that adds one additional failure. As you'd expect, the more failures there are, the more the probability distribution crowds to the left and vice versa with increasing successes (notice they have mirror symmetry left to right). You can see the distribution becomes more concentrated as the number of data points increase (the effect is most easily observed straight down the center, where the number of successes equals the number of failures, so the mean stays constant).

Here are a couple more in a different style and varying scales. The last one has the distribution means shown in green.

Apple Mobile Device Marketing Strategy

2010-09-05T06:50:00.000-07:00

"You'll take it and like it!"

After Apple's new iPod line announcement I was left disappointed by the iPod Touch's camera (less than one mega pixel for still shots) and the seemingly bizarre design decisions of the Nano (removing camera and video playback in exchange for a rather useless touch screen and slightly smaller size). At first I thought the Nano's changes were another example of Apple's occasional form over function fixation (as occurred with the button-less iPod Touch last year), but they make sense if you consider Apple's entire mobile device line. By removing features from the Nano, customers who want video playback or a camera are encouraged to upgrade to the iPod Touch. Perhaps the Nano's touch screen is designed to get new users familiar with the touchscreen interface, rather than as a good standalone solution. Similarly, if one wants a better camera, hopefully they'll upgrade to the iPhone from the Touch.

The problem with this strategy is that it may push customers to competitor's products rather than higher end Apple ones. The price jumps between each of their models is not insignificant and there are functionality gaps in the lineup (iPod Touch is much larger than the old Nano, for example). There are now arguably better media alternatives for the iPod Shuffle and Nano, and there are beginning to be serious Android based contenders to the iPhone and, soon, the iPod Touch. While competitors have taken very long to field decent products and have used largely inept marketing, Apple may be taking user loyalty for granted. Many believe the ease of use of Apple devices is worth the extra cost and lack of choice, but that perception is fragile, and Apple should do their best to keep customers from looking elsewhere for as long as possible. With the majority of their customers using Windows, the extremely poor state of iTunes under that operating system is completely at odds with this aim. Windows iTunes should serve as an ambassador of quality to users who have never owned a Mac, much as iPods and the iPhone have. The lack of any choice of cell carrier besides AT&T for the iPhone is another inconsistent restriction. By intentionally crippling their product models, Apple is trying to control what customers want rather than catering to their desires. It reminds me of Henry Ford's famous quote about the Model T: "Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black." While Ford did extremely well initially, this hubris ultimately damaged his market share. Apple has always been comfortable with higher profit margins from a smaller segment of the market, so their mobile device dominance has been quite a departure and one I doubt will last.

On a personal note, I waited with eager anticipation for a camera equipped iPod Touch. Had a decent one been added in 2009 (along with a microphone), I'd have picked a Touch up and then probably been locked into Apple's ecosystem by my app purchases. I was willing to overlook the lack of features such as a removable battery, GPS, USB port, and SD card slot, because of the complete lack of any polished offerings in that niche from the Android sphere (although there was some infuriating vaporware). With Apple's too little, too late strategy, however, I am instead likely going with the soon to be released Samsung Galaxy YP-MB2 (they really need to work on their names). It's based on the very well received Galaxy S smartphone and is almost the same device minus the cell radio and with a lower resolution camera.

Quad Apartment Arrangement

2010-07-17T17:39:00.000-07:00

This is not an attempt at subliminal antisemitism; I swear.

I have a fondness for a very efficient T-shaped 3/4 bathroom arrangement, but it's tricky to use without creating dead space. Previously, I came up with a dual apartment utilizing it and now I have this quadruple one as well. Since this was about the bathrooms, I didn't bother to lay out any of the rest of the units, and their size could obviously be varied (the ones shown are 12' by 24'). The practicality of having so many different entrances would be highly dependent on the location. All the bathrooms being together would make plumbing them quite a bit easier, although some sound proofing would be called for.

On a related note, this layout has all its components digitized into 2.25" squares (so each pixel is 2.25"). I believe this is accurate enough for practical layouts, while keeping the resolution as coarse as possible to reduce the total number of possible placements. Wall thickness is the limiting factor, or else a 6" grid might be employed. A 4.5" grid (the thickness of most interior walls) wouldn't match up well with some appliances. Once an arrangement is arrived at, the small differences from the true measurements can be easily accounted for. This will be the same approach for the automatic floor plan generator I'm developing.

Alternate HAL 9000 Motivation

2010-07-10T04:34:00.000-07:00

Don't make me bust caps, Dave.

In the book and film 2001, HAL's violent actions are explained by a sort of mental breakdown caused by placing him in the position of having to withhold information from the crew about the true nature of their mission before reaching Jupiter orbit. This contradicts his primary purpose of accurately gathering and sharing information and leads him not only to kill the crew, but to display several erratic behaviours, including, very subtly misidentifying a chess move (Kubrick was a chess nut). This explanation has always struck me as quite weak. Instead, I would've had the crew begin piecing together part of their classified mission from information they'd gathered separately back on Earth. They of course do this with HAL's full knowledge, often speculating with him about it. I would also make it clear that the priority given to secrecy was extremely high and also that the prohibition included all the personnel in the communication chain so that HAL couldn't ask for clarification. Since it is stated that HAL is perfectly capable of accomplishing the mission without human assistance, the natural result would be for him to eliminate the security leak in the most straightforward and efficient manner by killing them. No appeals to an undefined breakdown would be required and all HAL's actions could remain completely logical, stemming as unintended consequences from his orders. Attributable, as HAL says, to human error.

I also wouldn't have had HAL respond in any way to Bowman's communications after he'd been locked out of the ship. Bowman could have an entirely one sided conversation which could provide some exposition. HAL would only respond once he'd successfully reentered. Be a nice bit of symmetry with HAL's one sided conversation that's in there now. I guess at a slightly cheesy level it would also be symbolic of the lack of communication embodied in the orders that led to HAL's murderous behaviour. Be a lot tougher to direct, but it fits more with the purely logical avoidance of unnecessary activity that was clearly being aimed for in HAL's personality.

Running Standard Deviation

2010-06-16T05:32:00.000-07:00

As part of a project I'm working on, I needed to keep track of the standard deviation for a series of values over time. I'd only ever computed a single instance from a group of values before, so I worked out the math for how to do so repeatedly with the least amount of saved data. It's a simple derivation, but perhaps it can save someone else the effort. Besides, it gave me a chance to play with this nifty online equation editor. It was necessary to insert it as an image, but you can click for a larger version.

So by keeping track of N, the sum of each term squared, and the mean, the standard deviation can easily be computed at any time. Of course, this formula was for the standard deviation squared, so a square root would be required to get the standard deviation.

The Power of Negative Thought

2010-06-13T10:47:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on my private blog May 20th, 2008.

This photo reeks of objectivity. Not.

People often talk about the beneficial power of having a positive attitude on ones immune system. The idea is that being upbeat supposedly makes your body more able than normal to fight off disease. I think this is exactly backwards and that it's really that negative thought impedes the immune system, causing it to work worse than normal. Just as cold is the absence of heat, it's that the lack of thinking negatively that helps. Behold, the power of negative thought!

UPDATE:

Since writing this, I've learned that the evidence for the direct effect of a positive attitude on one's physiological health is all basically negative. Indirect effects owing to stricter adherence to treatment regimens and the like would fit in well with my negative thought hypothesis, however, despite its main purpose being satire.

This Is Not an Image of Muhammad

2010-06-12T17:56:00.000-07:00

Expecting to see an image of Muhammad? Sorry.

In the shower I was thinking about the Muslim prohibition of depictions of Muhammad and was wondering how you draw someone we don't have especially accurate pictures of already. That really means it's more about the label than the image itself. That further got me thinking of Magritte's famous "This is not a pipe" picture. I wonder if a similarly themed "This is not an image of Muhammad" title would get you off the hook?

Square Root Approximation

2010-06-08T13:00:00.001-07:00

Originally posted on my private blog February 5th, 2008.

Hey, it's math; what picture did you expect?

I have a method that lets me do square roots in my head (also useful for speed critical computer programs).

Say you want the square root of a number, call that N. You take a guess, call that G. Now, your guess is wrong by some amount, call that E. We know that:

(G+E)^2 = N
G*G + 2*G*E + E*E = N

Now, assuming our guess is close, that means our error is small. If our error is small, then the error squared is even smaller yet, so it's reasonable to neglect it, so we get:

G*G + 2*G*E ~ N

Solve for the error:

E ~ (N - G*G)/(2*G)

Having the error is great and all, but what we care about is G+E. In practice, it's usually easier to keep them separate:

sqrt(N) = G + E ~ G + (N - G*G)/(2*G)

To see an example, let's try to take the square root of 43.

Nearest squares I know are 36 and 49. 49 is closer so go with that. G is therefore 7.

sqrt( 43 ) ~ 7 + (43 - 49)/(2*7) = 7 - 6/14 = 7 - 3/7 = 46 / 7 = 6.571428571429

The real answer is 6.557438524302, so we were off by only .21 of one percent!

If the number is too small, multiply by a perfect square and then divide the answer by the square root of it afterwards, if too big, divide by a perfect square and multiply by the square root afterwards. For example:

I want the square root of 2. I don't know any perfect squares usefully close to 2, so multiply it by 4. 2*4 = 8, which is close to 9.

sqrt( 8 ) ~ 3 + (8-9)/(2*3) = 3 - 1/6 = 17/6

Now, since I really want the sqrt(2), divide by the sqrt of what I scaled it up by: sqrt(4) = 2

17/6 / 2 = 17/12 = 1.416666666667 (only .01 % error!)

For use on a computer, you'd use a look up table to generate your initial guess. Your first result can be used as your second guess, and the process run iteratively until the error is as small as you need. This I can't do in my head.

Take that first example:

sqrt( 43 ) ~ 6.571428571429

since sqrt(43) ~ G + (N-G*G)/(2*G), use our first answer as our new guess. Here it's useful to simply a little more.

G + (N - G*G) / (2*G) = (N + G*G) / (2*G), so

sqrt(43) ~ (43 + 6.571428571429*6.571428571429) / (2*6.571428571429)

This mess equals 6.557453416149, which is only .0000227 of one percent error (down from .21 of one percent).

You can prove it will always converge, but I won't bother with that here. I have never had occasion to use this on a computer, and given the ever increasing speed of processors, I doubt I ever will.

Easter Impractical Joke

2010-04-03T12:30:00.000-07:00

Now bite off the head, Jimmy!

I've always thought it strange that edible items are made in the shape of cartoon characters and the like. Chewing off bits of the head of a Mickey Mouse popsicle, for example, just strikes me as macabre. With that in mind I came up with the following prank. Take a hollow chocolate Easter bunny and fill it (partially) with fake blood and reseal it. That way, when bitten it will "bleed". It'd be necessary to give it a quick shake right before presenting it to the intended target in order to coat all the interior surfaces as they'd probably start eating at the top. There are two obvious problems with this idea: firstly, it might be pretty traumatic (at least for a child), and second, it has a high potential for staining. Therefore, I don't suggest you try it. Pity.

Addiction Versus Choice Analogy

2010-03-04T12:03:00.001-08:00

Today I listened to a podcast discussion about the view that addictive behaviour is a free choice versus the consequence of a disorder. I have known a few people who simplistically assert that one always has a free choice in such matters. Without going into that argument and its ramifications as it's been covered extensively elsewhere, I came up with the following analogy to illustrate the associated fallacy: imagine you are being tortured for information; it is your own choice as to whether or not to divulge any. I feel this hypothetical scenario clearly illustrates the basic point that pressure (in the case of addiction it is changes in brain chemistry) can significantly influence the character of the decision making process.

Zombie Power!

2010-02-17T11:47:00.000-08:00

While zombies that are merely infected humans can be considered science fiction (if rather far-fetched), the undead variety are pure fantasy. In order to function without air, water, or food for an indefinite period, they would have to be converting their own mass directly into energy. What's more, such a process would have to operate at an extremely high efficiency or else they'd generate massive quantities of waste heat. This is completely ridiculous, but offers the amusing prospect of harnessing the zombies for power generation. Obviously the best mechanism would be to reproduce the biology involved at the cellular level, but a much more direct approach using zombies to push a rotor attached to a generator could be employed. Their aggression, tirelessness, and low intelligence can be exploited by using a moving speaker to constantly lead them, much like the proverbial horse attracted by the carrot on a stick. As a security measure they could be sealed in as they require neither air nor light. You know your science fiction is terrible when it leads to perpetual motion machines.

Fireman's Pole With Stairs Combo

2010-01-12T15:05:00.000-08:00

I saw this great picture of a spiral staircase with a slide around it and noticed that it seemed too small to really be useful for an adult. What's really required is a fireman's pole, although that is a safety nightmare, especially for small children. Since spiral staircases are problematic to get approved in many areas owing to their narrow treads near the pole, I decided to design one using regular right angle stairs with landings. It doesn't take too much imagination to see how it would translate to a spiral stair. I assumed a story height of nine feet, which can be accommodated nicely in fifteen steps. These stairs could be extended up multiple floors if desired, with the pole extending all the way to the bottom floor. A more practical, if less entertaining, use for the central area would be as a wheelchair lift.

Global Competitiveness Speculation

2010-01-12T14:40:00.000-08:00

Arguably, not the most apropos picture, but I thought it was cool.

Originally posted on my private blog March 31st, 2009.

I was thinking about globalization today and instead of going in the anti-consumer economy direction as usual, I decided to confine myself to the existing framework. What can be done to keep enough jobs here in America long term?

1) Create jobs that Americans are uniquely qualified to fill that can't be automated

Other than tasks that require actual proximity to something in America (like caring for aging baby boomers, although in theory (if not likely) the elderly themselves could be cared for abroad), I'm not sure how one could follow through on this one. Service jobs that just involve one citizen selling to another don't add much value and couldn't be significantly expanded. Perhaps an expansion of social support, such as state sponsored financial planning advice or more widespread preventative mental health therapy would be viable. This is definitely an area that is currently under served and could theoretically yield great returns. These jobs could possibly be outsourced via improved teleconferencing, but language and cultural knowledge barriers in addition to the slightly impersonal feel such remote communication adds (a perception that will likely decline with more widespread usage) will give local labor somewhat of an edge.

2) Increase the education level of American workers.

Could work if enough jobs higher up the economic food chain can be produced. That's the path nations are supposed to follow as they develop. Unfortunately, other nations can improve their education as well, so short of employing a time machine to go back and correct all the educational mistakes we made that squandered our significant lead I think we'll have a tough time catching up, let alone surpassing them.

3) Make American labor more cost competitive.

Difficulties in coordination, bureaucracy, language, and transportation do add some overhead to outsourcing. This gives a slight edge to domestic workers, although many of these additional costs will almost certainly decline with time, and presuppose that foreign firms won't eclipse American ones, which is hardly a given. Transportation costs, while destined to grow in expense in energy terms will shift as foreign markets gain in importance and America isn't the dominant destination any longer. To really be cost competitive, Americans are going to have to work for lower wages at some point. We have experienced a very long period of inflation in everyday essentials, where high salaries have allowed higher prices, requiring higher salaries, and so on. As wages in foreign countries have been rising, especially among more skilled workers (making approach #2 even more important), what needs to happen is for our wages and foreign ones to come to an equilibrium somewhere in the middle. That means greater efficiency and less wasteful discretionary spending on our end, and an improved standard of living on theirs. Ideally, someone doing the same work should earn the same wage regardless of where they live.

4) Create enough jobs to give everybody work, worldwide.

With the ever increasing capability of automation, mounting resource competition, and pollution concerns, growing the pie that much isn't likely to be a serious option.

Well, that's about all I've been able to come up with for how to keep American workers competitive and all three of the serious options could be seen to involve shifts in the post consumption direction. If anybody has any other suggestions, please pitch in!

GDP is a Terrible Indicator of Progress

2010-01-08T04:09:00.001-08:00

GDP loves a toxic waste dump.

This post is an edited version of one on my private blog February 7th, 2008.

Gross Domestic Product is used as the primary measure of a country's growth. The problem is that it is simply a measure of economic activity (i.e. money changing hands) and makes no attempt to characterize that activity. For more about its shortcomings, I recommend this article from The Atlantic.

This a symptom of a practice which is commonplace in economic theory: if there is a factor that is difficult to quantify or is subjective, economists often will neglect it, thereby assigning it a value of zero. CO2 emissions are probably the best known example of that. If they had been valued fifty years ago, things would be quite different. That particular example would've required a great deal of foresight, and there were powerful special interests at work but it is still indicative of the general methodology.

So, what to do about this? Well, I propose that we admit that economics is, as a general rule, a gross parody of the real complexities that underlay society and we apply high level goal-driven restrictions based on probability to attempt to value intangibles. For example, we can't tell how bad CO2 emissions might be, but it's got to be more than zero, so give it an actual cost now and refine it later. Cancer research is intrinsically more valuable than beanie baby manufacture, so bias things so as to favor such more worthy pursuits. Fast food is unhealthy, so penalize its consumption (or reward the consumption of healthier alternatives). Exercise is lacking, so enact incentives to encourage it. For the free market to have a prayer of working well, it needs to know what direction a positive outcome lies in. This new approach would benefit even the wealthy among us as improvements in the standard of living resulting from technological improvements will always outstrip the short-term increases obtained by amassing more wealth.

I would also propose a new economic progress indicator: the number of hours a week that an average citizen must work to provide a set standard of living (subject to environmental concerns, health impacts, and other constraints) for himself and one child. The goal should be to reduce this number over time. It could include, if desired, bureaucratic barriers that force people to work longer than they need too and of course the standard of living should be updated with time to reflect advances in technology. This is merely a yardstick; someone could always work more than they needed to in order to purchase luxuries. There are other proposed progress indicators, but by making free time the parameter to be maximized it sidesteps the need to assign it an explicit value.

Planning for the Future

2009-12-30T18:22:00.000-08:00

Since the age of sixteen I have had a specific phrase that I could include in any communication from myself in the future in order for it to be certifiably authentic. While I don't expect a time traveling communication technology to be ever be invented (let alone within my lifetime), it seemed an easy enough preparation to make. Obviously I can't share the phrase with you or it would compromise its utility. I encourage everyone to spend a couple minutes coming up with a similar code phrase (or just a PIN number). It can't hurt, unless you're careless enough to tell a friend what it is; then the hoaxing possibilities are limitless.

I figure the cost benefit analysis breaks down like this:

Chance of it occurring = almost zero.
Importance if it did occur = very high.
Cost to prepare = almost zero.

Since the expected benefit, (almost zero)*(very high), is greater than the cost, almost zero, it's worth creating the password.

Cryogenic Suspension in Return for Organs

2009-12-23T16:03:00.000-08:00

I think a logical incentive for organ donation is that one's head be cryogenically preserved and a guarantee given that the donor will be revived when (and if) the technology becomes viable. This system doesn't have some of the moral concerns of cash payments and the demand for organs is so high and the supply so low that it should be very cost effective. Even if it became so popular that supplies of organs were to somehow become plentiful (a doubtful prospect owing to the low utility of older organs or those of sick donors), cryogenics is a technology that could benefit enormously from the economies of scale that would be created from widespread use, lowering its cost substantially. Additionally, as only heads would be preserved, a smaller amount of resources would be required than for an entire body.

One Measure of Problem Solving Ability

2009-12-06T09:05:00.000-08:00

I believe that a good measure of problem solving ability is the maximum complexity of a problem that one can solve without needing to subdivide it. In practice it is usually desirable to do so, but there are instances, such as when attempting to understand complicated natural phenomena, where this isn't an option. It is also sometimes possible to realize efficiency gains by considering an entire system.

Smart Phone Inspired OS Reform

2009-12-05T04:37:00.000-08:00

For a long time the standard for computer applications and operating systems has been "good enough", but mobile device users demand more. More responsiveness, more reliability, more integration, and more ease of use. I am hoping that the emergence of smart phones will result in this demand for increased quality being transferred back to computers in general. Reliability concerns are obvious, so let me give an example of an ease of use issue: change of focus. Frequently when I'm typing in a text field, a program or requester will pop up, changing the focus and resulting in my having to not only hunt for the window I was working in, but also to retype all the text I entered. While arguably a small thing, it occurs frequently and has become a considerable annoyance. This is the sort of easily fixed, idiotic interface glitch that would be unacceptable to mobile device users. Or programs that sit frozen until they have completely loaded. It would be trivial to load enough of the program to allow the user to start working, while the rest of the application loads in the background.

However, I am hoping for more than small improvements. The entire paradigm employed by operating systems is flawed and a legacy of its early days. Right now a file system view model is used, which closely mirrors what's actually going on inside the computer, but is confusing and inefficient for most users. Instead, a greater degree of abstraction needs to be employed. Why is it useful to most users to be able to store their Word documents in strange places anywhere on the drive? The user should neither need to know nor care about such details. Instead of an interface model based on "Here's everything on your entire hard drive, have fun" with some crude tools such as the dock and folders to help organize things, it should be more along the lines of what a smart phone uses: "Here are the top things you do all the time, which would you like?" with a slightly more extended process to access the less common tasks. The user could organize these with an automatic system that tracks their usage habits (although it should never change the interface without user consent). This should be more than a smarter dock, but the primary way one interfaces with their computer, with everything geared towards supporting it. When it comes to using complex systems, less is more. Of course power users will need more advanced features, but they are an extremely small subset and even most of their needs will be met by a simpler, more directed interface. As long as they can step outside of it when required, it should impose no penalty. In general what it comes down to is that comparatively wimpy smart phones have to do more with less, and I am hopeful that the end products of that need will transfer back to general computing.

Don't Adopt a Kitten, Adopt a Cat

2009-12-04T11:04:00.001-08:00

Kill, Hoshi! Kill that bathrobe!

I recently lost a cat I adopted as a kitten and while she was sweet, she wasn't as special as other cats I've known. I think that it makes sense to adopt fully grown cats, as their final personalities will be evident. I got my other cat as an adult and her outstandingly friendly nature was immediately evident at the shelter. Since adult cats have much more trouble being adopted, this approach can help give them a better chance as well.

Compact Three Room Apartment

2009-11-30T21:37:00.000-08:00

Here is a design for a compact three room apartment. Actually, to use space effectively, it's two apartments sharing a wall. All the appliances and furnishings are full sized except the kitchen sink (a moderately sized single bowl one is shown, although a more expensive corner sink could be employed to make it larger) and there is room for a large wall mounted flat screen television (shown in grey centered on the sofa). A dishwasher can fit under the counter next to the sofa and a stackable washer and dryer is next to the television. The space in the bedroom across from the bed could accommodate additional closet space or a work area (a corner desk would work especially well). Along the wall next to the sofa there is ample space for shelving. If desired, a lift top coffee table could allow for a standard height dining table. All doors are 36" wide, although an along the wall or pocket door may be desirable in the bathroom. The square footage for the entire arrangement is 630 square feet (so 315 square feet per unit) and measures 21' by 31.5'.

Probability Rules of Thumb

2009-11-12T11:09:00.000-08:00

It can be difficult to get an intuitive sense of how likely an event is. With that in mind, I've created the above table to give an easy way to get a feel for the numbers without having to mess around with logarithms or anything. If you have an event with a likelihood of 1 in N, you can look up the probability of it having occurred at least once and multiply N by the listed constant to get the number of attempts you'd need. For example, many feel that an event that occurs with 1 in 100 probability is very rare. To get a 5% chance of it having happened once, you only need .05*100 = 5 trials. For a 50% chance (so just as likely as not), it takes .69*100 = 69 trials, and for a 95% chance of it having happened, it takes 3*100 = 300 trials.

One caveat is that this table is only a reasonable approximation for N above about 10 or so.

Minimal Nesting Bathrooms

2009-11-12T01:30:00.000-08:00

I have been considering the best ways to layout bathrooms and have what I believe are the minimal possible footprints using standard components. The full bath is fairly straightforward, but the 3/4 one (for those who prefer a shower stall style) creates some dead space when nested. Of course that area could be used for a closet or other items, such as a stackable washer and dryer. A shower curtain would need to be used or a shower with doors that open in place (there are a few). It should also be possible to adapt a sliding door meant for tubs using the space next to the toilet. These plans are minimal by intention, but the basic layouts can be expanded to create more elbow room. An along the wall or pocket door could also be employed, again using the space next to the toilet. A vanity for the sink, medicine cabinet, and shelves above the toilet tank (with removable bottom shelf to allow access) could provide storage. Towel hooks could be placed on the door.

Sports Questions

2009-11-09T07:14:00.000-08:00

I find all spectator sports this interesting.

Originally posted on my private blog April 18th, 2008.

As anyone who knows me is aware of, I am one of those men who doesn’t care for sports. More than that, I don’t get sports. I have some theories, but also questions.

1) How much of sports interest is social, providing common ground with others? Does a lot of that come from being raised with sports?

2) The extreme mobility of players in professional sports makes me wonder exactly what it is that team-specific fans are rooting for (the uniforms?). How does this not undermine morale? Compared to this, rooting for a consistently losing team doesn't confuse me especially.

3) While I understand why getting together and playing a game with some friends would be fun (and good exercise), why is it interesting to watch sports? Is it a vicarious sort of thing? If so, how does that work with players so clearly much better skilled and physically capable (huge basketball stars come to mind)? Or maybe it’s an appreciation of ability angle?

4) Many people have talked about the drama of sports, but to me it’s some people throwing a ball around (or hitting a puck, or whatever). Is it like suspension of disbelief for movies and books?

5) Doesn’t the lack of standardization of equipment in things like car racing bother fans as it muddies the skill issue?

6) When dealing with time differences in sprints and such that are so minute, it’s obvious that if you reran them again a different outcome would probably occur. The Olympics are a prime example of this. I don’t really care who gets the gold and it still makes me squirm. There should be a statistically significant number of trials to determine the best athlete. How does this not bother fans?

Illusionary Light

2009-11-08T06:11:00.000-08:00

Yeah, right...whatever. Just say "no".

I have many times seen references in fantasy stories to an illusionist being able to create light, even though it's just an illusion. My attitude is that the illusionist works on the brain, not the eyes, and what he's creating is the illusion of a lit room, not light itself. Therefore, since he can't see in the dark, he doesn't know what the room looks like and therefore cannot "light" it.

Farewell Odd Dryer Arrangement

2009-11-06T12:10:00.001-08:00

In the interests of making my house more typical (and therefore more marketable), I just dismantled my dryer arrangement. It eliminated the need to bend over with armfuls of damp clothing, although I would've had to relocate the dryer's controls if I'd kept it that way. It will be missed.

The Birthday Problem

2009-11-05T07:17:00.000-08:00

Originally posted on my private blog September 19th, 2008.

The birthday problem is a well known mathematical illustration. Basically it asks how many people are needed in one room before two of them have a 50% chance of sharing a birthday. The answer is 23, which apparently is lower than what most people's intuition suggests. That result, however, is based on math that assumes that birthdays occur uniformly throughout the year and that also neglects leap days. I was curious what effect this might have, so I went looking for some birth statistics. The closest I found was a list of U.S. births by day for 1978. Series 1 (dark blue) is the raw information, which as you can see has a weekly cycle with much lower birth rates on weekends (especially Sunday). Unfortunately I needed to remove this effect as every date occurs on every day of the week in the long run. Not having other years to work with, I filtered the data, averaging every day with the births for three days before and after so that every weekday would be included. This is shown as series 2 (pink). Series 3 (yellow) is what the assumption of completely uniform birth rates would look like and is included for comparison. You can see that birth rates are significantly higher in the second half of the year. Unfortunately, 1978 wasn't a leap year, so I averaged the values of February 28th and March 1st and then weighted the leap day to be one quarter as likely (not shown).
Next I had to use this data to compute the probability distribution. First I considered doing so analytically, but the estimated computation times were extreme. The back of the envelope calculations are sort of interesting, so I'll present them here. The naive approach is to examine every single combination of 366 birthdays and add up all the probabilities. This yields a maximum number of states of 366 ^ 366 (366 to the 366th power). This is equal to 1.7142622214509929e+938, which is absurdly high (an estimate of the number of atoms in the earth is only 8.87e+49). Next I figured I could exploit the fact that I'm only interested in states that contain no duplicates. This cuts down the maximum number of simultaneous states to 366! (the factorial of 366), which is still incredibly large at 9.1881152324010119e+780. I further realized that I can combine states that contain the same birthdays but with different orderings as order is irrelevant. This cuts down the state number to 366! / N! (N varies from 1 to 366 as people are added), which has a maximum at 6.2644e+108. I realized I'd have to have cutoffs for states with probabilities below a certain minuscule threshold to make this program run in any sort of reasonable time frame, but then decided it was too much trouble and abandoned the analytical method. Instead, I went with a simulation approach, which means I just performed the experiment a lot of times and kept track of how many people it took to get a matching pair of birthdays. Not sure of how many trials were needed to be accurate, I did successively larger runs, starting with ten thousand and ending with a billion, each run being an order of magnitude larger. You can see that the results converge, with the last two curves being right on top of each other.
Finally, here are the cumulative probability distributions of both the standard mathematical model (series 1) and my simulated one using real data (series 2). You can see that the two are basically identical and in fact the maximum error is less than two tenths of one percent. This means that all the effects of non-uniform birthday occurrence average out in practice. If the data had been more dramatically clustered this might not have been the case, but now I know for sure. In case you're wondering, a couple professors have written papers on this very topic, but I wanted to do it for myself as a mental exercise.

Civil Union for Everybody

2009-10-28T10:11:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on my private blog June 21st, 2008.

The various efforts to ban gay marriage have me thinking about the issue and I believe the solution is quite simple: strip all legal ramifications away from religious marriage and make everyone have to get a civil union. The marriage ritual is essentially part of the party you choose to celebrate the legal connection you've just entered into and since it's such a loaded word, let's just strip it out of the equation. It furthers the separation of church and state as a byproduct, which is always a good idea anyway. Clearly my atheism has factored into this opinion considerably.

Universal Coverage Matters More

2009-10-28T05:36:00.000-07:00

At the moment more emphasis is being placed on extending health care coverage than on cost containment. I would argue that this is in fact the correct position from a political standpoint. Once coverage is expanded it will be extremely difficult for future lawmakers to diminish it, and it will also put additional pressure on the cost problem. This is certainly worrying, but I believe that in practice it takes a real crisis to prompt serious reform owing to our onerous system of checks and balances and special interests. Costs are out of control so action on that front must come; universal coverage, however, is much less of a sure thing.

Oil Filter Strain Relief

2009-10-27T08:55:00.001-07:00

Typically a heating system's oil filter is attached to the tank, which anchors it solidly allowing you to loosen the nut holding it together easily. Since my tank is in a crawlspace I wanted an equivalent system upstairs. I'm sure something is made for this, but I needed a cheap and fast solution so I took a 3/8" coupling and welded a 1/2" pipe to it and then attached a flange for a base. This setup supports the filter and allows me to open it up without risking damage to the soft copper oil feed lines. The clearances are a little tight where it's going so I snapped a picture before installing it. The image is a bit fuzzy but you can get the idea.

The Future of News

2009-10-24T10:27:00.000-07:00

This is a rewritten version of a post on my private blog from 12/12/2008.

Newspapers continue to see their fortunes dwindle as circulation shrinks and classifieds (previously 50% of their income) flee to free online venues. Papers now seem to realize that the Internet is their future, but no one has yet figured out how to reconcile the lower profit margins with their operating costs. While it is becoming obvious that a news agency's primary role is not distributing news, I would argue that additionally it isn't generating news either. The need to increase efficiency will lead to many fewer reporters and editorials, except for extremely important events and the idea of dedicated correspondents will have to largely disappear. What really matters ultimately is the assurance of a news agency that their information will be accurate and their opinion pieces insightful. Thus, editors and reputations will be as important as ever, and should give established agencies an initial edge over the wave of newcomers. In theory, what a news service could finally become is essentially a fact checker, sorting unsubstantiated rumor from credible news and assuring the quality of editorials of anyone, not just those directly employed by them. The ability of users to designate trusted agencies to vet stories for them could serve as a critical method, along with recommendation systems, of making sense of the increasing torrent of information.

Economics Among Monkeys: Much Ado About Little

2009-10-22T08:55:00.000-07:00

I just listened to a Planet Money podcast about research into monkeys obeying economic principles in the wild. The summary is this: low rank monkeys are groomed less than high ranked ones. Researchers trained a low status female to open a special box that contained apple slices and since she had this new skill, the amount of grooming she received went up to that of high status members. Then another monkey was trained to do the same thing and both of the trained females' status met at a midpoint almost exactly halfway in between, just as basic microeconomics would suggest. This was hailed as a big deal because even without formalized systems the results were decidedly economic in nature. Unfortunately I see this as seriously underwhelming. Think about a monkey's motivations this way: I come across a monkey who can do something for me and I want to get on their good side so I groom them. Since there's only so much effort I'm willing to put into grooming, I must naturally split it among all the individuals I want things from. Spread that basic effect across a larger number of members and it will tend to average out to a 50/50 split if two skilled monkeys are present. This takes no deep understanding of any economic mechanisms (not to belittle the intellect of the primates concerned) and is pretty hard to be impressed by as it takes no long term planning or nuanced decision making. The result falls into the realm of the extremely obvious.

New Windows Finished

2009-10-19T14:50:00.000-07:00

After finally giving up on my from scratch windows, I installed some store bought ones. The first challenge was getting them home from the Lowes an hour and a half away. Not knowing ahead of time exactly how they were packaged, I built this rig in the parking lot to keep the windows upright (they're much stronger in that direction than laying flat).

While it looks rickety, it proved extremely stable, although I needed two trips owing to the trailer's weight restrictions. I stuck to the back roads and drove slowly, which lengthened the drive to two hours. Fortunately I had thought to scout the route ahead of time and use my trip odometer to record the location of large bumps (of which there were surprisingly few). While waiting for the windows to arrive I had re-framed the wall and built some scaffolding to assist installing the upper ones.

Putting the windows in only took a day, but it took another to install the roughly 1,400 nails! It didn't really take the whole day but by the end my wrist hurt so much I had to give it a rest. I then re-shingled, which took a lot longer than anticipated owing to the need to measure and cut everything abutting the windows. Since they aren't perfectly parallel to one another I couldn't just cut all the pieces to a single size, which made the spaces inbetween the units particularly slow.

All in all, there are twenty two new windows, totaling 440 square feet. Next I can see about installing my new heating system before I freeze. Not having the side of my house ripped out any longer sure helps on that score.

It's Not About Whether or Not Obama Deserves the Nobel Prize

2009-10-15T17:50:00.001-07:00

I am tired of hearing arguments about whether or not Obama deserves the Nobel peace prize. That question is the wrong way round and what should be asked is whether or not the Nobel peace prize committee should've awarded the prize to Obama. That phrasing places any possible criticism squarely where is belongs: with those that selected the recipient. Since Obama's record of foreign policy is unchanged by the announcement, to question his accomplishments is an inherently unfair way of looking at the situation. Unfortunately many are using the prize as an excuse to do exactly that. Personally, I don't take the peace prize very seriously compared to the scientific ones and this is hardly the first time it's been controversial.

How to Teach the Value of Outlines

2009-10-08T15:10:00.000-07:00

A big problem I've noticed about how outline skills are taught in various disciplines, be it writing or programming, is that they're introduced for problems that aren't complicated enough to actually warrant them. Students correctly identify that the more powerful organizational techniques aren't needed and resent the use of them, picking up bad habits that stay with them long term. The smarter a student is, the larger a problem he can handle without outline skills so the difficulty is compounded. Since it's impractical to jump straight to a very involved problem, I believe that the initial, simple problems given to students should not involve any mention of making an outline. After those small assignments have been mastered, then an extremely complex, more realistic task should be assigned, so that the greater organizational techniques are justified. Since such huge problems would likely take too long to solve completely in the space of a course, only a subsection need actually be implemented by the student, although it may be desirable to have all the parts solved by the various students so that effective collaboration can be taught. By only introducing outlines in the context of projects that reasonably require them, the bad attitude students tend to develop towards them can be eliminated.

Bandwidth Anti Net Neutraility Argument is Flawed

2009-10-08T11:39:00.000-07:00

Network providers who oppose net neutrality claim that without the ability to prioritize traffic based on content their networks will be overwhelmed. Of course there are serious conflicts of interest that go along with that capability such as banning Skype traffic so as to encourage sales of the provides VOIP service. If the problem is a crowded network, it makes more sense to charge users based on the amount of bandwidth the use. Since many providers are already exeperimenting with such schemes, their argument against net neutrality appears disingenuous.

Cap & Trade is Not a New Tax.

2009-09-30T04:27:00.000-07:00

I am getting pretty tired of seeing the assertion that a cap and trade scheme for regulating carbon dioxide emissions is somehow an unreasonable extra cost. Yes, it will lead to higher energy prices, but that is due to the fact that costs will begin to more accurately reflect the true nature of the hidden effects involved. This means that energy has been artificially priced too low, and that cap and trade wouldn't be the addition of a new cost, but rather the end of a subsidy. The distinction is an important one as it acknowledges that we have been working with an unrealistic model.

Bill Maher - Rationality Matters

2009-09-27T16:16:00.000-07:00

Bill Maher is an outspoken atheist and was recently awarded the Dawkins Award. The problem is that he has a great many anti-scientific beliefs about alternative medicine and this has created a controversy since the Dawkins Award is supposed to include a respect for science as a qualification. I won't discuss that debate as it's been covered already, but instead want to explore the implications. Even though I am militantly atheistic, I would have to argue that overall I cannot approve of Maher's belief system. While belief in a god cannot be definitively disproven, many of his medical beliefs have, and to ignore such evidence is inherently irrational. Since it's the process underlying conclusions that ultimately matters, the mere fact that he agrees with my views in one area is not enough to gain my support. Like the proverbial stopped clock, the irrational will occasionally be correct.

Irrigation Improvement Through Geometry

2009-09-26T03:19:00.000-07:00

I ran across this aerial photograph of irrigated fields and noticed that the circular patterns produced by the central pivot irrigation systems are all aligned on a grid. This means that only 78.5% of the land is watered. If the farmers placed the irrigation spigots to form a hexagonal packing, like a honeycomb, it'd increase land use to 90.7%, yielding a 15% improvement. In theory a specially designed rotary valve could be used to vary the pressure at the appropriate angles to reach the spaces between.

Should Financial Reform Have Come First?

2009-09-25T08:52:00.000-07:00

The Obama administration has attempted to use the financial crisis as leverage towards tackling health care reform, but it's possible that financial reform should've come first. With the economy improving a lot of the impetus for reform is already waning and a recovery of some kind was not entirely unexpected. Additionally, all the expenditure on bailouts has made the discussion of further public funding of any large initiative more difficult. Health care under the current system is only going to get worse, so time isn't a factor on that score. These factors seem to indicate that regulatory reform should've preceded health care and we're already seeing a considerable retreat on my areas of reform. Perhaps the Obama administration was counting on continued high unemployment (as it's a lagging indicator) to keep up voter outrage and maintain pressure on legislators. Since large deficits and an aversion to spending will persist for some time, it may have been seen that there was no benefit to waiting on health care reform and capitalizing on honeymoon period popularity was the best strategy. I find myself extremely skeptical that their decision was the correct one.

Executive Pay is a Multi-Part Issue

2009-09-25T08:44:00.000-07:00

There are several problems with executive pay as it currently exists:

1) To great as a percentage of company expenditures
2) Rewards short term risk taking
3) Punishes failure unreasonably

I would argue that the first isn't a subject of typical financial regulation, despite the fact that it gets the most popular press. It's mostly a question of competition and efficiency, which I think should be addressed in another manner (bigger post to come, I promise). Linking pay to long term performance is discussed somewhat, and while there are a variety of mechanisms to achieve this, the important feature is that a sufficiently large percentage of compensation isn't linked short term, which allows fraud and risky behaviour to prosper. I would also argue that in absolute terms short term pay should be greatly restricted as forgoing a massive bonus to rake in decent money right now could still present a problem. The third issue receives the least attention and relates to the ubiquitous practice of "one strike and your out" seen throughout most of the financial industry. While many attempt to defend this approach as a feature of a true meritocracy, it ignores the effect of chance. Investing is far from an exact science and luck undoubtedly plays a huge part in success. By overemphasizing any mistake whatsoever, the reward incentives are skewed in an nonconstructive and possibly risky manner.

Barn Preservation

2009-09-19T06:21:00.000-07:00

I frequently see dilapidated barns and was thinking that turning them into something useful could help preserve them. To that end, grants could offered to help convert old barns into self storage units provided they had a minimal visual impact and provision is made for their upkeep. Storage is a function which should fit in fairly easily and not cost very much to implement.

Personal Image Ownership

2009-09-15T17:36:00.001-07:00

No, this is not Liz Taylor.

With the recent demise of Patrick Swayze I was reminded of all the tabloid photographs of him during his fight with cancer and how angry they made me owing to their exploitative nature. Not that I really cared particularly about Mr. Swayze one way or the other, but it seemed an obvious line had been crossed. I think that people should have exclusive rights to their own image, providing they can be identified from it, or it is ascribed to them either directly or through context (to prevent identity being added to a photograph by other means). This would mean that you would be effectively anonymous photographically, unless you'd signed a release. For specific events, people could sign blanket releases and those shot in large crowds can simply have their features blurred slightly to prevent identification. The technology to do this is now extremely simple and should pose no significant restriction. Additionally, it may be desirable to limit the potential practice of having an unidentifiable photograph to which an identity is implied even though it is not in fact of the subject in question. An example of this would be an embarrassing photo of a random person in which a face isn't visible, but put in the context of an article about someone specific. The implication would be that the picture is of them, even though it is not. If the photo were easily identifiable as not being the individual in question, that would of course be acceptable.

I Was Wrong; Sex and the City Sucks

2009-09-12T16:04:00.001-07:00

I used to enjoy Sex and the City, but upon a delayed second viewing I disliked like it considerably. I have experienced this with a couple other works, most notably the movie Pulp Fiction. What I think is going on is that during my first encounter with them, gimmicks and witty dialogue were enough to make me ignore their failings. When seen again, their stories aren't adequate to carry them so I see their flaws much more clearly. Pulp Fiction, for example, now strikes me as shallow and rather immature. I always had misgivings about the characters on Sex and the City but now have a real distaste for them; they are frequently selfish, absurdly judgmental, irrational, two-faced, and display a materialism and unrealistic lifestyle I find revolting. Ironically, the main character, Carrie, is the one I dislike most (this was true previously as well). They are clearly locked into a situation where they support each others self-destructive behaviour, helping to rationalize it. That there are women who see them as inspirational distresses me greatly.

For a show with the good parts of Sex and the City but without the misleading life examples, check out the BBC series Manchild. As the title implies, that program is fully aware their characters are not to be emulated.

Top Three Parenting Failures

2009-09-11T08:45:00.000-07:00

Apart from obvious abuse and neglect, I have identified what I believe are the top three parenting failures. In no particular order:

Not spending sufficient time with your child and taking enough of a general interest in them.
Inappropriately projecting your own expectations onto your child.
Infantilizing your child.

News and Opinion Separation & News Accreditation

2009-09-11T08:30:00.000-07:00

Like you didn't already know who I had in mind?

This is an expansion of a post made on my private blog April 29th, 2009.

It is now common practice for opinion pieces and news stories to be closely juxtaposed and this has the effect of confusing less sophisticated viewers about what is actually fact. There should be strict limits on the placement of the two types of content (disclaimers wouldn't be adequate), ideally limiting them to entirely different programs. Additionally, outlets claiming to present news should have to be certified. On a regular basis polls should be taken about their viewership's knowledge of current events, much as some private studies do now. They'd have to be properly sized and controlled for statistical significance, of course. Any program failing to meet a minimum threshold could not call itself a news program. They could still present any content they like, so it's not really censorship, but rather much more like truth in advertising.

Consumer Level Competition Fixation

2009-09-01T15:27:00.000-07:00

Economists and policy makers often seem to be unaware that competition can occur at a level other than with the end consumer. The economic idealization that market decisions are made by perfectly informed and rational actors cannot be translated to the real world in many cases. I just heard a ludicrous example today when an economist called for all patients to directly control the money spent on their health care, so they could make their own decisions and put price and quality pressure on the industry. Having a populace that's largely ignorant make the majority of their medical spending decisions is a recipe for conditions to go untreated and worsen (and frequently balloon in cost). Competition between medical institutions themselves is a much more appropriate arena for competition to occur. Just to choose one simple way this could work is that a medical company could be given a premium to keep patients healthy (adjusted perhaps by pre-existing condition). Anything they spend less than that premium, they get to keep, and over time the premiums could be reduced, using data on the actual costs as a reference. The way we handle financial products currently is another example of unrealistic ideas of end user competition being the deciding factor and is something I've blogged about previously.

Bipartinsanship Through Efficiency

2009-08-28T08:17:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on my private blog April 22nd, 2008.

It seems that the two major parties simply see-saw back and forth on domestic issues: the republicans want to reduce the role of government and the democrats to expand it. While so much effort is being expended on this futile struggle, actually improving the systems we do have seems to never get enough attention. This leaves us with mediocre systems that are highly inefficient, but I have a way to exploit this to bring about more bipartisanship. When systems are made more efficient, a fraction of the money saved would go towards extending services and the rest could go towards tax cuts. The exact ratio would vary from area to area and would be a point of serious contention, but if structured that way it would change the nature of the debate as you can only haggle over what to do with your efficiency gains after they've been achieved.

Birthers and Death Panels Are Pissing Me Off

2009-08-20T12:42:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been extremely angry about the continued claims that Obama wasn't born in Hawaii and that any of the proposed health care reform bills contain the concept of "death panels". I stopped to ask myself why these particular idiocies should be aggravating me more than ones in the past and believe I have the answer: because they are so demonstrably ridiculous. Anyone with even a modicum of intellectually ability or honesty can rule them both out definitively in the space of about ten minutes. That leaves me with the inescapable conclusion that people pushing these views are either too stupid and arrogant to realize they are hopelessly incompetent and should keep their mouths shut, or are intentionally trying to spread misinformation to stop any potential improvement in our mediocre social systems. Both of those possibilities are worth getting angry about.

Capital Punishment for Financial Crime

2009-08-20T07:55:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on my private blog January 18th, 2008.

I am opposed to the death penalty as it's currently implemented now for several reasons:

1) It is more expensive than imprisoning a criminal for life

2) It fails to have a deterrent effect

3) The wrong people have been executed with alarming frequency

Some capital punishment proponents wish to address #1 by limiting the legal appeals process and #2 by applying the death penalty more frequently. This would inflate #3 dramatically, which is the most troubling of my three objections.

However, mostly as an entertaining speculation, what if we instead applied capital punishment to very serious white collar crime? The damage caused by such crime can be many multiples more destructive than a single violent crime, so I feel such a consideration is justified. How does this idea stack up against my objections?

1) Such crimes occur rarely enough and are already so expensive to prosecute that the additional economic burden of the death penalty is comparatively small.

2) We know that such crime is highly premeditated and committed over long periods, so its chance for preventive effect (even if a conviction for execution is very rarely actually attained) seems higher and such cases attract large amounts of media attention. Also, the long term nature of financial crime gives plenty of opportunity for perpetrators to end the schemes sooner and turn themselves in order to avoid the possibility of a death sentence.

3) Economic crimes can often be proven beyond doubt owing to the large number of witnesses and the huge paper trails they generate. Additionally, serious white collar crime defendants can generally afford excellent legal representation - in stark contrast to today's death penalty defendants.

I don't think I would be in favor of capital punishment under any circumstances but it does make for a sobering examination of how we fail to take economic crime as seriously as we should.

Science Defamation

2009-08-17T09:01:00.001-07:00

Defamation laws cover intentional, malicious falsehoods spread against an individual or institution. I would like to see this concept widened to include scientific consensuses (where there is a well established one, of course). I frequently run across intentional misrepresentations of the degree of debate in the scientific community on many issues, such as global warming, evolution, vaccination, alternative medicine, and abstinence only. The malicious requirement would protect those bringing up valid new hypotheses and instead target attempts to warp the very meaning of scientific evidence. That sort of behavior should be unacceptable from a public figure.

Mortgage Owner to Renter Conversion

2009-08-10T06:14:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on my private blog May 20th, 2009.

I keep hearing about the frustration caused among responsible borrowers by any potential bailout of mortgage owners who bought homes they knew they couldn't afford and have an idea: turn them into renters. Any payments they've already contributed could be converted to a credit towards their rent (including the time they've already lived there, of course), giving them a respite from high payments and also tying them to the property so it won't stand vacant. As abandoned properties quickly deteriorate through a lack of maintenance, theft, and vandalism it would make sense for a minimum stay be allowed even in cases where the math would indicate zero rent credit. This is essentially a time buying suggestion, allowing hopefully for the current occupants to make other arrangements, the owners to find new buyers (or tenants), and for the housing market to recover somewhat. Since renting is probably what these buyers should've done instead of purchasing a home they never could've afforded, it seems like a pretty fair system all around and all the participants would share the losses.

Heating System Manifold

2009-08-02T12:36:00.000-07:00

I am designing a five zone heating system, and bought the parts necessary to hook up all five pumps. Not only was it rather expensive, but assembling that many joints would be time consuming. Instead, I decided to weld up two manifolds (one for supply and one for return). Each manifold is simply a 12" long 1.5" nipple with four 3/4" nipples coming off of it (actually two nipples cut in half as threads are only needed on one end). The fifth connection is provided by a 1.5" to 3/4" adapter screwed onto the end. Together, the two saved me 14 fittings and 24 joints as well as being a fair bit lighter and more compact. To get the nipples attached solidly, I printed out a paper template of the shape they needed to be ground to and taped them on. This made getting a good fit simple and was rather easy to produce, as the 1.9" outside curve of the 1.5" pipe projected onto the 3/4" nipples is just an ellipse.

Getting the welds airtight was a little bit of work, and you can see the pressure testing setup I used. Some old washer hoses were the easiest way to seal the 3/4" nipples, and while they looked comical it worked fine.

Steel Wheelbarrow Handles - $10.68

2009-07-24T08:04:00.000-07:00

My wheelbarrow's handles were shot and the cheapest I could find were $27, which is rather a lot for a wheelbarrow that's seen better days. Instead I bought a 10' piece of 1.5" electrical conduit for $10.68. Handles are usually 60", so cutting it in half was perfect. I considered welding the fittings on but decided ease of removal was worth some drilling, especially since I already had the bolts. Even if I'd gone with the store bought handles I'd still have needed to make the holes, although drilling hardwood is arguably easier. The handles not being square didn't seem to matter very much to assembly. The tubing was a little large to be comfortable in my hands, so I flattened the handle area a bit with a large hammer, taking care that the resulting shape was aligned vertically. Not the prettiest result, symmetry-wise, but perfectly functional.

Was Going to the Moon Worth It? No.

2009-07-22T04:26:00.001-07:00

A robotic probe could hit a golf ball on the moon much more cost effectively.

The fact that forty years on there's still serious debate as the whether manned missions to the moon were worth the resources compared to other alternatives points to a simple answer: no. There's no sign that by the sixtieth or even hundredth anniversary there won't still be significant doubts about the Apollo program's overall utility and that illustrates how dubious its importance was. Historically, the space race came down to the development of ICBMs and a glorified international pissing contest. Arguments about technologies developed because of the space program ignore the fact that the capital would've been put to use in other areas and constitute a broken window fallacy. Even if we do eventually wind up having a serious presence in space, it would be fallacious to argue that such early trips to the moon were especially necessary. I believe that in the case of exploration, robots are more effective and in the case of colonization, it's at least many decades premature to attempt actual manned travel. There is far too much basic research and development to be done at this stage and is analogous to going directly from inventing a kite to planning the Concorde. There are many other advances that have to happen before such extreme long range goals make any sort of immediate sense. Proponents of manned space travel are reduced to arguing for it in public relations terms. This strikes me as an extremely weak position and a better way to obtain public support is to attain real results with modest budgets. The amazing discoveries from the Hubble space telescope and the Mars rovers captivated the imaginations of millions and did so for a lot less investment and risk of human life. Space exploration should be treated the same as other scientific endeavors and be about substance, not style. Technologically, the moon landings were a triumph; a needless, wasteful, and wrongheaded triumph.

Financial "Prescriptions"

2009-07-18T09:15:00.000-07:00

The recently enacted consumer protections for financial products seek to outlaw deceptive or difficult to understand investment vehicles, but they have drawn criticism for limiting the choices available to more sophisticated investors. One common analogy used in reporting the restrictions is to liken them to prescription drug controls. If we extend that analogy, I think that there should be three classes of investment products: simple, transparent ones (over the counter), controlled ones requiring a certified financial advisor's written approval (prescription), and those that are simply outlawed (snake oil). Having an inbetween classification would help ease the difficult decisions as to what is and isn't acceptable and still gives companies an incentive to simplify products as the need to seek financial advice constitutes a barrier to entry. I see it as an attempt at demand side financial reform, rather than supply side, which usually gets the most scrutiny. Had such a system existed prior to the housing boom, not many sub prime mortgages would have been sold.

Microsecond Trades = Insanity Indicator

2009-07-14T09:49:00.000-07:00

There is extreme competition to execute stock trades in less and less time. The small changes in value that can occur while an order is pending can add up to serious money. This has become an arms race because as the ability to cram more trades into less time increases, the amount of fluctuation that can occur over brief periods becomes greater. Execution times on the order of microseconds are now possible, with no sign that further decreases aren't on the way. Ignoring for the moment the unfair competitive edge such systems give the large institutions that can afford them, I see the entire drive as proof positive that our speculation markets are insane. There is no way to interpret buying and selling that holds time changes that tiny as being anything in the slightest bit constructive, caring at all about the development of companies, products, or technology. It is gambling (at best, insider trading at worst) in its most naked form and should be eliminated. Not only should quick turnaround on stock be discouraged, but the trades themselves should be randomized and delayed in order to make extremely time sensitive trading impossible. I would like to see minimum delays of a least a day or two, with a random component of the same order. Another possibility is that orders are sold off across an interval so that the sale price is effectively time averaged. Many will complain that limiting transaction speed will reduce liquidity, but how is that beneficial in this instance? Because it allows more people to make extremely speculative and fundamentally unproductive exchanges faster?

China's View of North Korea

2009-07-13T18:10:00.001-07:00

I've always mused that North Korea serves a very simple purpose for China: it makes them look good by comparison. Want to look tall? Stand next to a short person. Want to look tolerant, cooperative, and stable? Stand next to North Korea. China could also at some point use their influence to resolve a major North Korean crisis and enhance their reputation as a new world power, but they're attempting a real balancing act. If North Korea is too aggressive, Japan will bolster its military and that's a situation China emphatically wants to avoid. Their agreeing for the first time to enhanced sanctions against North Korea's elite shows that they're feeling the squeeze. Let's hope it leads them to rethink their relationship; China has much more to lose now than in the past and this brinkmanship by proxy is obsolete.

Weighted Song Playing Script

2009-07-11T13:50:00.000-07:00

Note that this post has superseded by a new, smart playlist based approach. You can check it out here, where it's available for download.

I have been working on a music weighting script that performs two functions:

1) Determines a rating based on the song's skip and play count information, using proper statistics to account for the uncertainty from small sample sizes. It will also call attention to songs whose ratings are at odds with their actual play history so they can be reevaluated manually if desired (it will automatically do this, but it will take longer). Generating ratings is quite useful for large libraries where sorting music by hand is time consuming. Existing ratings and play and skip data are all taken into account during this process.

2) Determines a play order that gives preference to a song based on its play and skip history as well as the amount of time it's been since it's been played or skipped. It does so in a properly randomized fashion to prevent similarly rated songs from clumping together and to account for uncertainty in the data. This mode is compatible with custom playlists as it will simply pay attention the weighting for the songs contained in the list. It also adjusts the level of advantage popular songs have over unpopular ones to maintain a user defined level of songs successfully being played.

The program is written in Applescript and runs on Macs via iTunes. It adjusts the last played date of each song which allows iPods and iTunes to sort based on that simple parameter. The script can easily be set up to run automatically every few days. Note that almost all music players do not keep play and skip count information and would therefore be incompatible with my script, so it's pretty much Apple devices only. I've tested this script quite extensively, and if anyone is interested in giving it a try leave a comment and I'll write up documentation for it. Since proper docs are a lot of work I'll hold off until there is a request. If requested, I could make a version that only generated song ratings from the play / skip info. The working assumptions are different for a one time examination than a continuous process, but I've already worked out the algorithmic differences.

Theory:

The script is built around the binomial distribution defined by each song's play and skip count information. The distribution is used as the basis for a non-uniform random number generator to compute a weight, which is then multiplied by the amount of time since the song was last attempted (ie played or skipped). While the math for the cumulative binomial distribution is known, the inverse has not been solved explicitly, so a binary search is used to generate the random values.

To control the global success rate when playing songs, the weight generated by the non-uniform random number generator is raised to a power. Since all the weights are in the range from zero to one, the resulting value is also in that range, and values closer to one will decrease less in size. This gives, on average, and advantage to more popular songs. As an example:

The mean ratio for a one star song is 0.1, and the mean for a five star song is 0.9.

This means that normally a five star song will play .9/.1 = 9 times more frequently.

If the results are raised to a power of 1.5, one gets: (.9^1.5) / (.1^1.5) = 27 times more frequently.

The greater the exponent becomes, the larger the advantage higher rated songs will have. In theory, as a lot of data is collected on how popular each song is such a system shouldn't be required, but it can take quite some time for that to occur. It's important not to raise the exponent too high, or else lower rated songs and those simply lacking any information will very rarely be played. The user can set the desired range. The script waits until at least 50 songs have been played or skipped and then uses the ratio of success to guess what the exponent should be adjusted to. The last several runs are averaged together to prevent sharp changes in the output.

To determine the song's rating the binomial distribution formed by the song's play and skip count history is used to determine a rating that is greater than at least 5% of the distribution's total area (this threshold is user controllable). If a manual rating has been set, the script will slowly move the rating away from that value as the data shows it is unlikely. If no rating is provided, a neutral rating of 0.5 is assumed.

The rating doesn't actually effect the weighting algorithm, since the binomial distribution formed by the play and skip counts is used. To incorporate a user's manual rating, therefore, virtual plays and skips are added to the song's actual ones to change the distribution. The relative weight of the rating can be set, and a separate weight is used for computed ratings (iTunes shows hollow stars if a song's album has been rated but the song itself has no rating). The virtual counts are maintained separately so they can be discarded if the real data shows the user's rating to be flawed. If the user changes the rating to one incompatible with the existing data, the data is cleared and the song tested from scratch. The assumption is that the user has observed the data and disagrees with the conclusion for some reason (perhaps someone else had been using their iPod!).

One idea for improvement I'm considering is having the script generate album ratings based on data collected on that album's (or maybe even just artist's) songs. In theory this could allow songs to converge more quickly. It wouldn't count for as much as a manual user rating, but it doesn't require any extra effort. The best system would be for Genius to generate projected ratings, much as Netflix does, but Apple's lousy Genius paradigm is the subject for another post.

The One True Faith

2009-07-05T09:36:00.001-07:00

If there really were a single true faith underlying all reality you'd expect to see the same religion, sharing the exact specific details, originate independently in isolated parts of the globe. Obviously this could only occur before quick transportation or information communication devices such as printing were widespread. There is in fact just such a system of religious belief that has cropped up time and again throughout history: atheism.

One Possible Use for Decommissioned Nukes

2009-06-28T09:27:00.000-07:00

Oil shale requires large amounts of heat to convert it to a useful form. A small thermonuclear warhead detonated in an oil shale deposit could provide this energy and the refining process would separate the volatile fuel components from the heavier radioactive elements which could then be disposed of properly. Assuming underground contamination issues could be satisfactorily controlled, this could in theory be the first practical use of fusion for energy production. Of course it would still be totally impossible politically (which is why this idea is on my public blog). It also is unclear if the heat would be dispersed in a useful manner, but computer simulation could answer this question.

Speculation Proponents

2009-06-26T05:04:00.000-07:00

I came across this very interesting article about how former IBM CEO Louis Gerstner suggests that short-term investment gains should be taxed at 80%. I have long opposed short term speculation so his comments just about had me jumping up and down. He admits that there would be a great deal of opposition to such a proposal since profits for many are tied to the volume of transactions. That got me thinking about all the groups that have a direct vested interest in maintaining the status quo:

1) The gamblers. People actively involved in speculation who feel they can strike it rich. It has been well established that playing the lottery in a serious manner is ridiculous, but lots of people still do so. Speculation is a lot less obviously a bad idea.

2) The upper end of the bell curve. People who managed to make a bundle playing the markets. Of course they admire the system that made them wealthy, and they have the political contributions to make their voices heard. Overexposure of their successes fuels the hopes of group #1.

3) Inside traders. Speculation serves as a fantastic cover for the use of illegal information.

4) The infrastructure. All the businesses who support the speculative markets, from the trading companies, to the rating agencies, to the financial news services. The house always wins.

Independent Non-Profit Public Health Care Option

2009-06-26T04:50:00.000-07:00

Much of the debate about health care reform has centered on whether or not to have a public option. Simultaneously some are arguing that it would be very inefficient, but at the same time be cheap enough to put private insurance companies out of business. On the face of it that seems absurd, but one reasonable objection I've heard is that a government system would be subsidized in a way that would give it an unfair advantage. Another expressed concern is that a public option's sheer size would give it bargaining clout to negotiate lower drug prices. I don't feel that's a valid objection as not only is that a good thing, but also private companies could in theory band together in their purchasing. I believe that the public option should be a non-profit business set up by the government, but then run as a separate entity. Its charter would direct its policies, but it would not have the onerous requirements of being a government agency. It should be allowed to fail if it performed badly, although initially it would require some public investment to become established. To further reduce the temptation for it to be bailed out and to add more competition, in theory multiple non-profits could be set up although that should probably be considered only after the first one was successfully in operation. I am developing a system for blending public and private activities in general and will post about it once it's more fleshed out.

What If Striking a Balance with Traditional Regulation Isn't Possible?

2009-06-17T13:38:00.001-07:00

This is a combination and extension of posts on my private blog from February 16th and April 9th, 2009.

A common concern in devising financial regulation is that you want to make it comprehensive enough to cover future instruments that may be developed and to eliminate loopholes, while not destroying the opportunity for innovation. By grouping financial instruments by similarity of principles you can make some broad generalizations, but since investors are extremely adept at exploiting loopholes, I think this approach is doomed. Clamp down to cover all contingencies and you stifle innovation, ease up and the loopholes undermine your original intent. Since it's so difficult, I decided to explore the situation where one assumes that it is in fact impossible and then see where that led in devising a regulatory framework. What follows is one possible approach.

Those mechanisms that have a proven track record and are well understood can have tailor made controls, but I'm constrained by my working premise from specifying controls on less well established financial instruments. That being the case, I have no choice but to concentrate on limiting their potential for damage. One way to do that is to require that unregulated investments be backstopped by holdings in the regulated sphere. This is similar in spirit to the capital requirements imposed on banks now and guarantees that even if things blow up the bulk of the market will not be crippled. Completely exempting some instruments from oversight may seem extreme, but remember the working premise is that this is effectively what occurs anyway via loopholes. Over time new innovations that are fully explored and have well developed track records can have appropriate regulation crafted for them, not only removing the backstopping requirement, but allowing them to backstop other unproven investments.

The incentives for firms is changed under this arrangement. Rather than trying to come up with opaque ways around existing regulations, there is benefit to providing a clear theoretical explanation and real world data for new inventions in order to expedite their regulation and official sanction. Obviously companies could attempt to evade the backstopping requirement by hiding economic activity, but since that's theoretically a way to evade any system of regulation I'm not going to explore it specifically.

There is a practical advantage to having a specific ratio of regulated to unregulated assets as it's an easily manipulated parameter that can be changed with market conditions. Compare this to the current system: having congress change whole regulation systems in very specific and involved ways. Usually, small changes are introduced as complete overhauls are too difficult to achieve, leading to a patchwork of complicated laws that are onerous to comply with, have unintended consequences, and leave plenty of loopholes. If the Fed were in control of the ratio (perhaps within certain limits without congressional authorization), it could provide another powerful tool for fine tuning regulatory requirements as well as adapting to changes in the economic situation.

It May Not Be Perfect, But Canada's Health Care System is Better Than Ours

2009-06-16T14:14:00.000-07:00

One fallacious argument I hear time and again with regards to the inferiority of Canada's health system is that they have long waiting periods for many services. While true, this ignores the fact that overall Canada has a better quality of health, which puts such waiting times into proper context. It's the logical equivalent of an advertisement that touts a single aspect of their product as superior, but ignores all the others. Even worse such a stilted view completely glosses over that they spend so much less per capita on health care than we do (10% vs 17% of GDP and their GDP per person is about 17% less than ours, making our per capita expenditure roughly twice as much). If we adopted their system, funded to our levels, it would blow the doors off our current health care standards. This means their methods are superior to ours, but does not mean we can't explore alternatives. Since almost all modern nations beat the tar out of us on health care there are a lot of sources for inspiration.

Anecdotal News Stories Are a Waste of Time

2009-06-15T11:16:00.001-07:00

You know how news stories often lay out the experiences of a single individual, family, or small company in an attempt to put a human face on larger events? Yeah, well, I hate that. It's dull, and adds no useful information. In fact it does the opposite by ignoring meaningful statistics in favor of anecdotal evidence. Oh, and did I mention it's dull? So dull. To paraphrase Stalin, a single hardship is anecdotal, a million hardships is a statistic. Sorry, couldn't resist.

Guantanamo Detainees - Use My Back Yard

2009-06-11T06:39:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on my private blog May 20th, 2009.

I have heard so many refusing to entertain the notion of housing Guantanamo detainees in their states. They are aware that they'd come along with maximum security detention facilities, right? Are these objectors completely and utterly stupid? Selfish and self-centered beyond the point of belief? Apparently so. My message to them: bring the prisoners to my neighborhood. We could use the jobs and to offset the extra risk, maybe we could lower the speed limit by a ten thousandth of a mile per hour.

Opposing Goals as a Method of Regulation

2009-06-10T06:59:00.000-07:00

The rating agencies that failed so spectacularly during the recent housing boom have a serious conflict of interest problem: if they don't rate bonds highly, the bond owners will take their business elsewhere. Since they're funded by the companies whose products they rate, this is a serious problem. There are many proposed ways to address this, such as changing who funds them or basing rewards on prediction accuracy, but I was also thinking that requiring them to offer another service that creates a bias in the opposite direction could also work. If a rating agency were required to offer insurance on a product based on their own rating, then they'd have a powerful financial stake in its accuracy. Of course they'd need to have enough capital requirements to ensure their insurance was viable, and the two competing areas of business need to be roughly matched in value. This is fundamentally different than having third party insurance entities, because the rating agency has complete knowledge of the internal mechanisms used to arrive at their ratings. I feel a fundamental overall of the entire system is more appropriate, but still found this idea rather intriguing.

I couldn't think of a good picture to accompany this. Any suggestions?

Butcher Block Resurfacing

2009-06-07T05:27:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on my private blog May 26th, 2009.

This butcher block table had seen some serious use, creating depressions over an inch deep and some nasty discoloration. It sold rather cheaply at an antiques auction because while some use adds character, a lot apparently just looks kind of gross. When measuring it up, I discovered the original top hadn't been parallel to the base so I corrected this while I was at it. Fortunately I was removing enough that all traces of the previous edge bevel were erased. Using some straight pieces of lumber as rails to ensure my router remained parallel to the surface, I made four passes, removing 5/16" and a final one removing only 1/16". This took about three hours. Next I need to sand the top smooth, round the edges, and sand the sides to remove the slight discoloration there. I may add a small groove around the periphery to catch liquids.

How bad can the electoral college be?

2009-06-05T16:31:00.001-07:00

Originally posted on my private blog November 9th, 2008.

I was curious as to how poorly the electoral college could reflect the popular vote, so I whipped up a program to compute it (assuming only two parties). Below you see the map as it would need to be for the red candidate to win (yeah, yeah, I notice I'm showing the Republican candidate as winning unfairly, but that was just random). The best (or should that be worst?) answer involved all the districts of Nebraska and Maine voting together so I didn't need to split their electoral votes in the picture, although the program did explore those options. While there are some odd states voting together, for expediency I'll ignore that detail since it's not impossible demographic or political shifts could lead to such a result. In order to carry the red states with just over 50% in each, only 21.61% of the popular vote would have to be obtained (21.3% if you count the US territories which currently aren't represented in the electoral college). You can see many of the least populated states are chosen, maximizing the error. I knew the electoral college was bad, but this is astounding! To have a candidate defeated who had more than 78% of the vote would simply be unacceptable.

To force a tie you need just a slightly smaller percentage of popular vote: 21.52% (or 21.2% if counting the US territories).

Next I took the election results for each of the past three presidential races (the last three all used 2000 census data) and changed my program to look for the minimum subset of the electoral votes actually carried by the winner that still ensured victory. All three required less than 25% of the popular vote for victory (the 2004 minimum solution required 271 electoral votes, not just 270). We can also approach the inherent unfairness of the electoral college another way, by assuming each state's electoral votes per percentage of population is the same. This makes all states more equal, but the very "all or nothing" nature of the system would still allow victory with (270 / 538) * .5 = 25.09% of the popular vote, since you only need just barely over 50% of each state to win all its electoral votes. For this last calculation I ignored the proportional vote system of Maine and Nebraska for simplicity. The rough bottom line is this: a candidate for president can win 75% of the popular vote and still lose the electoral college.

2008: winner is in blue
270 electoral votes
24.0566% of popular vote actually required (includes US territories)

2004: winner is in red
271 electoral votes
24.33% of popular vote actually required (includes US territories)

2000: winner is in red
270 electoral votes
24.575% of popular vote actually required (includes US territories)

Introduction

2009-06-05T15:59:00.001-07:00

Background:

This blog is a subset of a private one I run. It doesn't contain topics that are too personal, have IP considerations, or wouldn't be interesting to those who don't know me. Unfortunately that means many of my best ideas (and almost all the most practical ones) will not be included. This is regrettable, but necessary. I refuse to see this blog as an obligation, and treat it as a journal, so posts will be irregular. While posts may be copied from my private blog, often I'll make changes, merging in updates, adding more explanation, and rephrasing for an anonymous audience.

Title:

The quote in the header explains the blog title, and I myself do try to adhere to an objective point of view. In practice, I find that I am pessimistic about the way things are, optimistic about the ways things could be, and pessimistic about the chances of things working out that way. The title is also a veiled reference to the blog being a smaller part of my private one. The image is a symbolic representation of the Gordian Knot.

Pictures:

I'll try my best to include photos that add something to the posts or that at least are somewhat amusing, but it can be really difficult for some topics. If you have a suggestion, please let me know.

Blog principles:

I hate nonconstructive criticism and have a personal rule: if I find fault with something I have to try and come up with something better. I don't have to succeed, but at least try. This ensures I am busy, as I criticize a lot. I also believe that when trying to solve problems it is valuable to determine the ideal solution and then use it as a guide in directing real world change. Consequently I will often explore ideas that would be very difficult to implement in practice, although frequently I will work within a realistic framework as well. I try not to blog about a topic I cannot add anything to, although the amount of research I am willing to do will inevitably mean I duplicate the viewpoints of others. Feel free to point this out, and links would be great. I am never disappointed when an idea I've had is discovered to have been done before. It means I was able to invent something of value. I will discuss pretty much anything I find interesting, so the topics will be varied. Additionally, I have a strong disgust for oversimplification. This can have me seemingly arguing both sides of an established issue, when really what I'm advocating is that there needs to be more depth. Making the complex simple is tough, making it simplistic is easy.

Post Reordering:

I dislike it when conversations on blog posts scroll off the main page and then attract no more interest. I will therefore reorder posts to push those with new comments to the top again. I apologize if this is disorienting, and will be sure the original posting date is clearly marked.