"Going to Mars with Peter"

Our brains have a propensity toward seeing patterns and making connections. We also have hardwired within us a desire not just to understand things, but to do so quickly (likely a useful trait when we needed to understand that a boulder rolling down the hill was probably going to keep on doing so, and we better get out of the way!). I think the combination of these two aspects of our physiology attribute a great deal toward our belief in the supernatural. Specifically, we see patterns in the events and world around us that we don't understand and the easiest explanation is that, of course, these patterns were made by someone, just like every car and every chair has a maker. Since we don't see the maker around us, we attribute the patterns to an unseen, "godly" maker. That doesn't mean that this is the correct explanation, but it is certainly one that has been satisfactory for most of us for most of our history.

I may not ascribe to that view of the origin of patterns around us, but that doesn't stop my brain from searching for them. And this week, circumstances aligned in such a way that I found a pleasant pattern in my own life.

I am embarking over the next few months on the final chapter in my System Engineering master's degree program at Johns Hopkins. The capstone project, which will consume my extracurricular hours until December, is the development of an aerial robot to survey the Valles Marineris on Mars. I find it fitting that 8 years ago, during the summer after my senior year in high school, it was a space settlement design competition that I participated in, in Cape Canaveral, Florida, that first got me interested in engineering. The goal then was to design a Martian outpost that could support hundreds or thousands of settlers. Our project leader was a devoted and enthusiastic classmate named Peter (the type of kid who wore a star trek outfit to school, though for his sake, it was during Halloween season). My friend, Robert Yao, and I, being somewhat more interested in going to Florida than staying up all night writing requirements for an imaginary extraterrestrial apartment complex, endearingly joked that we were "Going to Mars with Peter."

In preparation for that trip all those years ago, I read Robert Zubrin's "The Case for Mars" and was at once fascinated at the idea of a manned mission to the Red Planet. Ever since, I've found the plans to return to the moon about as exciting as a road trip to Cleveland. As I bone up on Mars facts now, I'll be much more concerned with the impact of eroding dust and the low atmospheric pressure on a flying robot than on methods for terraforming the planet so that the 3014 World Cup could be played on the (no longer) red planet.

Something about coming full circle in my education fills me with a sense of completeness and pleasant, mild satisfaction. Now, if I wasn't human, I would probably say something more logical, like "well, really it would only be 'full circle' if the settlement competition had occurred during my first semester at school." But I am human and this seems a pretty innocuous occasion to indulge myself, so, yeah, I'll say it, isn't it amazing how so often life just happens to work out like this?!

The Perfect Temperature for Disaster

I just realized how we drink from a mug (or cup) without looking at the liquid it contains. We use the temperature differential of the liquid and our mouth to feel when it has reached our mouth and thus, when we should cease tilting the mug upward.

This all came to me as I found myself with a nice splash of green tea on my pants after taking a sip while reading an e-mail. Having let the tea cool, it had reached the temperature of my mouth and thus I just kept tilting upward until... disaster.

FAQ: Didn't I feel the pressure of the liquid as it entered my mouth?
A: No, I was distracted.

Check for the neck!

After a weekend party and a week of carry-out, I have trash bags full of recyclable and non-recyclable materials. The question is, which is which?

To the rescue is the Fairfax County website. It even has a catchy slogan ("Check for the Neck") complete with the recycling logo done up in what appears to be giraffe fur (is that legal?). According to the website, if they get too much "trash" in the recycling, they have to throw out the whole lot. My roommate, Mike*, made a good point - why not put this information on the bin itself?

Oh, and for my Arlington County readers, see this. Though, if you don't have curbside pick-up (for example, you live in an apartment complex) you should check with your apartment management.

*Also my step-dad

Now do you believe? -Morpheus

He's the One. And by he, I mean 0.999...

When I first encountered the seeming paradox, in 9th grade, that 0.999...=1, my mind was "blown." I kept wanting to say, "Yeah, it is close to one... but it is not identical." I mean, if it were true, my whole world view would be shaken. On Judgement Day, I could justify zoning out during a looong Sunday School class on Isiah with the argument... "I really wanted to pay attention. Really really wanted to. So technically I was paying attention... 0.999...=1, as you well know Mr. God."

Of course, I really just didn't understand infinity... or Isiah for that matter. For lost souls, like me, Wikipedia comes to the rescue. I like the simplest definitions best:

An even easier version of the same proof is based on the following equations:

But, behold, Wikipedia lists many others as well that range from infinite series (something that I know something about) to Cauchy sequences (of which I know nothing).

Note: The Wikipedia article also has a good section on why students often reject the equality of 0.999... and 1. My favorite:

Some students interpret "0.999…" (or similar notation) as a large but finite string of 9s, possibly with a variable, unspecified length. If they accept an infinite string of nines, they may still expect a last 9 "at infinity".

Be specific, General general

I don't learn something new everyday. Today I did.

If you have 50 states, each with an Attorney General, you have 50 Attorneys General, not 50 Attorney Generals. I didn't realize until I heard "Attorneys General" on the radio today, that 'general' in this instance means the opposite of 'specific', not a military commander. I did know it was not a military post, but I always thought that it just had an antiquated name, perhaps because it was established back when the attorney was a general in the military or something. And that fact that we often talk about the Attorney General or the Surgeon General of the United States, there is no need to use the plural.

By the way, I saw someone smoking today... I wonder what past Surgeons General would have to say about that!

This blog entry is proven to reduce your gullability by 75%!!!

I have had a lot of "almost posts" in the past few weeks. Most have had to do with how statistics are used to win arguments, scare people, and generally hide the reality. I know it's cliché to mention the book How to Lie with Statistics, so I won't. I just want to vent on 2 things I hate about how people use statistics and one thing I like about statistics that is often glossed over.

Hate #1: "They have proven that X causes/prevents/is better than Y." X can be smoking weed and Y can be lung cancer/Alzheimer's/cigarettes, or whatever. I hate it when people cite papers they have not read in order to claim outright victory in an argument that is by NO MEANS closed. I will cite but not discuss the proposition that most published research is wrong, or at least some is by definition.

Hate #2: "X reduces the risk of Y by 50%." X can be drinking red wine and Y can be dying of heart disease, or whatever. Whenever you hear something like that, your first thought should probably be "so what?!" The relevant statistic is what your risk was and what your risk would be if you do X. Overlooking the possibility that the statement is probably wrong (see Hate #1), if your current risk is 1 in 5,000, your new risk is 1 in 10,000. But if your current risk is 1 in 5, your new risk is 1 in 10. The later is much bigger news to you.

Hate #2 brings me to what I think is glossed over in statistics, especially as reported by the media. Statistics look at a population, but you and I are both individuals. A population statistic, say the risk of dying in a car crash this year, is about 0.013% (40,000 Americans/year/300 million Americans). If you live to 100, the lifetime risk is 1.3% or 1 in 75. But population statistics are meaningless if the population is diverse.

Do you think that your risk is 1.3% if you drink and drive? Nope, higher.

What if you always obey the speed limit? Nope, lower.

The Internet abounds with risk calculators for health problems, presumably because there is so much data in this field. They typically ask you to answer a number of questions and then use some multiplier for each answer to determine your overall risk. Often the calculator will tell you by what % you can reduce your risk by changing your behavior. (Life Expectancy Calculator)

I would like to see a compendium of risk calculators, but for everyday stuff, not just medical conditions. Like, by what percentage can I reduce my risk of choking if I don't eat hard candy or mow my own lawn?!

Don't wait idly by. Rev up for the environment.

When you pull up to a stop light, should you cut the engine? Should you warm up your car before pulling out of the driveway? According to anti-idling advocates, and contrary to conventional wisdom (i.e., what I was taught), the answers are yes and no.

Myth 3: Repeatedly restarting your car is hard on the engine and quickly drains the battery.
Wrong. Frequently restarting your engine does negligible damage to the engine and does not drain modern batteries excessively. In fact, the opposite is true; idling an engine forces it to operate in a very inefficient and gasoline-rich mode that, over time, can degrade the engine’s performance and reduce mileage.

According to the site, and a quick scan of the google results, if you are idling for more than 10 seconds, it is best to turn off the engine. It is better for your engine, the environment, and your wallet. They also say the best way to warm up your car is by driving it (that you should start driving within 30 seconds of starting the car, even on really cold days).

No less than 4 fewer dying traditions

According to Barry Leiba, of "Staring At Empty Pages," there are "exactly four" situations where it is proper to correct someone's grammar:

(1) when you're an English teacher correcting a student
(2) when you're coaching a nonnative speaker who's asked for help
(3) when someone else has asked for coaching
(4) when someone puts the equivalent of a "kick me" sign on her back.

My latest favorite is the distinction between less and fewer. From the Dictionary.com entry for fewer:

Usage Note: The traditional rule holds that fewer should be used for things that can be counted (fewer than four players), while less should be used with mass terms for things of measurable extent (less paper; less than a gallon of paint). However, less is used in some constructions where fewer would occur if the traditional rule were being followed. Less than can be used before a plural noun that denotes a measure of time, amount, or distance: less than three weeks; less than $400; less than 50 miles. Less is sometimes used with plural nouns in the expressions no less than (as in No less than 30 of his colleagues signed the letter) and or less (as in Give your reasons in 25 words or less).

The cost of one lecture: $40?

I remember as a first year college student, there seemed to be a craze about how much we were paying for each lecture. The math worked out something like...

Tuition: $3000.
Hours of Class per week: 15.
Number of weeks: 14.

Therefore, cost per hour of class: $3000/15/14 = $14. Out of state is more like $40-50/hour. Now there were very few classes I attended that I felt I would have paid $14/hour for, and maybe one or two I'd have paid $40 for. So do I feel my tuition was too high?

Not necessarily. There are tons of benefits to a college degree AS A WHOLE, that go beyond any knowledge gained from one class.

Getting recruited to higher paying jobs even though you spent a good portion of the last 4 years goofing off and partying... priceless.

One small step for computer scientist

Growing up and hearing replays of Neil Armstrong's first words from the moon,

"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

I was always kind of confused... like, wait, that doesn't make sense does it? It wasn't until a year or two ago when I read a book that specifically mentioned the utterance that my suspicions were authoritatively confirmed. Man is another word for Mankind. Armstrong was either an idiot or he slipped up. I was inclined to believe that it was a combination of a slip up and the fact that Armstrong swallows his A's.

Not so, according to computer scientist Peter Ford. Ford claims the recording has a digital signature of the 'a' as in "one small step for a man..." Listen to it again. Even if you really want to hear it, I doubt you'll be able too. There just isn't that much time between 'for' and 'man'.

I'd have travelled farther with a greater amount of gasoline if not for the incident

I love the usage notes on Dictionary.com. Previously, I posted on minimal. Although it is missing minimal, this site has tons of other interesting common english usage errors.

Have a Looksie...

To my mind looksie has been a bona-fide slang term for "look" for many years. Until today when I actually saw it in print here, and then checked the authority. It is "look-see," which isn't quite the cutesie word that, well, "cutesie" is. Add that to the list of things I learned way too late in life.

Tax stuff I didn't realize.

I didn't realize it was balanced like this,

I thought the bottom 50% income earners paid more tax percentage. The bottom 50% cut-off is $29k.

This is also interesting,

I didn't know about the creation of the 10% bracket for under $7k earnings or the 2% reduction in earnings from $30-75k. I did hear about the tax cuts for the rich.

Question about space

Do people put two spaces after a period these days or just one? Seems like I have seen a lot of both. I've always used two and I am hating merging my document with a teammates work that uses only one space. Einstein is silent on this one.

I may be dumb but I have a decent reason

I have always had trouble figuring out the switch below (is O for on and I for off or the other way around):


The problem, which may have always been obvious to you, is that the symbols are not letters but numbers (i.e., the binary numbers 0 and 1). In binary, 0 is off and 1 is on, which I have known for a very long time. I suggest the following improvement to the interface of these type of switches:

Or better yet,