Self-Repairing Technology

That You Tube video is kind of unnerving. But there are other examples of self-repairing technology.

In 2003, a group of researchers at Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley are trying to develop web site software that is able to recover rapidly when mishaps occur.

Engineers from Aberdeen, Scotland have invented artificial platelets to plug leaky pipes similar to the way biological platelets work when we get a cut. That is really neat!

Finally, self-healing automotive crash-barrier is under evaluation for use on America's highways. It is already being used at NASCAR pit stops.

I have always thought that if a person is going to invent some device for a certain problem see if nature has not solved the problem already. That is how we got Velcro®. For more examples of solving problems nature's way is the book The Gecko's Foot: Bio-inspiration: Engineering New Materials From Nature by Peter Forbes.

Mutant Deer Now Road-Kill

A Wisconsin man has crashed into a seven-legged hermaphroditic deer with this truck. After taking a picture of the mutant deer and sending the photo to experts he ate the deer. He said the deer was tasty. I wonder what kind of wine or beer a person serves with mutant deer? Hmmm.

I wonder how long it will take for some environmental extremist to blame the deer's condition on global warming (which we all know now is caused by cattle (shame on them!) at least according to the U. N.)

Partridge in a Pear Tree

My sister forwarded this to me:

There is one Christmas Carol that has always baffled me. What in the world do leaping lords, French hens, swimming swans, and especially the partridge who won't come out of the pear tree have to do with Christmas? From 1558 until 1829, Roman Catholics in England were not permitted to practice their faith openly. Someone during that era wrote this carol as a catechism song for young Catholics. It has two levels of meaning: the surface meaning plus a hidden meaning known only to members of their church. Each element in the carol has a code word for a religious reality which the children could remember.

• The partridge in a pear tree was Jesus Christ.
• Two turtle doves were the Old and New Testaments.
• Three French hens stood for faith, hope and love.
• The four calling birds were the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John.
• The five golden rings recalled the Torah or Law, the first five books of the Old Testament.
• The six geese a-laying stood for the six days of creation.
• Seven swans a-swimming represented the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit - Prophecy, Serving, Teaching, Exhortation, Contribution, Leadership, and Mercy.
• The eight maids a-milking were the eight beatitudes.
• Nine ladies dancing were the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit - Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self Control.
• The ten lords a-leaping were the ten commandments.
• The eleven pipers piping stood for the eleven faithful disciples.
• The twelve drummers drumming symbolized the twelve points of belief in the Apostles' Creed.

So there is your history for today. This knowledge was shared with me and I found it interesting and enlightening and now I know how that strange song became a Christmas Carol.

May God grant you peace and happiness throughout this Christmas Season.

Merry Christmas!

Comparing Computer Science to Other Sciences

Computer science as a science is different in one respect from the other sciences in that it creates instead of discovers. Other sciences through experimentation and theory, the scientific method if you wish, try to discover the laws of nature. The computer scientist on the other hand create laws in the "electronic world." In a way computer scientists are like artists in that they create. True, they use the scientific method especially if a program doesn't work, then programmers have to go in and debug it, like other scientists solving a riddle. But it is that combination of art and science (which some people think of as being contradictory to one another, which I am not so sure are contradictory, but can be complementary to one another) that makes computer science as a field unique.

Computer science can help the other sciences' scientists with their skills by writing programs and letting the scientist discover the "laws" governing the program. In this way, a novice scientist can have a little practice discovering laws. A good program to use for this is mathematician John Horton Conway's cellular automation program Game of Life. It uses three basic laws that are deceptively simple, and when applied recursively leads to unexpected results. It is very interesting to watch the program run, to see all the different kinds of patterns it produces. All the scientist would do is watch the program run as many times as he likes to discover the laws that create the patterns. Of course, the scientist cannot be familiar with the program, because that is cheating, and in real life situations Nature does not allow you to cheat.

The Ingenuity of American Soldiers

I love human ingenuity. In a Newsday.com article it talks about American troops in Iraq using Silly String to detect trip wires. The troops spray the Silly String in a room. If it falls completely on the floor, there are no trip wires in the room otherwise there is. That's just plain clever! That is the very definition of ingenuity: thinking of ways to use an object for different purposes, not just its primary purpose.

A Squirrelly Lawsuit

A woman is suing a Chicago shopping center because a squirrel jumped on her leg in the center's courtyard. The woman got injured while frantically trying to detach the squirrel from her leg. She claims that the mall's parent company knew about this squirrel's behavior because it had previously attacked and harassed(?) other customers. The squirrel could not be located for comment.

I am guessing that the squirrel must have been male because it jumped on her leg. I put a question mark after the harassed word because I do not know if that word should be used when talking about wild animals. If the squirrel did harass the woman would it be sexual harassment? Or maybe sexual assault? Who knows.

Evidently, the woman must think that the mall owns this serial-harassing squirrel to stop its frisky behavior. If a bunch of renegade robins started swooping down on people in the courtroom would it be the responsibility of the shopping center to prevent that behavior too? Where does it stop? What is the shopping center supposed to do about the squirrel? Get a gun and shoot the thing? Then the mall would probably get in trouble with city ordinances about shooting a firearm out in the open. Not to mention being sued by PETA. I suppose that the mall could have tried to capture the squirrel, but that takes time. And if they did capture the perpetrator they would have to move him somewhere else. And what if they captured an innocent squirrel minding his/her own business. The guilty squirrel would still be on the loose waiting for his next victim to come along.

They could have called animal control, but I think animal control only deals with roaming pet dogs and cats and dangerous animals. Squirrels are wild animals and aren't that dangerous (frisky possibly but not dangerous).

This lawsuit is just another example of someone not taking responsibility for herself and abusing the court system just to make a quick buck.

Driver License Renewal for My Dead Mom

The title of this blog is absolutely true! Thursday of last week, my dad received a letter in a mail from my state's Department of Revenue addressed to my deceased mom who died four years ago. When I first saw the envelope I thought my mom owed state income tax (that'll probably be next!). Nope, I was wrong. It was from the DMV! The Division of Motor Vehicles sent my mom who is dead for four years driver's license renewal papers. The envelope contained all the papers you would expect: the License Renewal Exam, the Driver License Renewal Exam handbook and the thin cardboard you take to the exam station. Got to love government! I wonder if I'll get my driver license renewal notice when I am dead and gone! Ha!

Flatulence in a Plane

An American Airlines airplane was diverted when passengers reported the smell of sulphur from burning matches. Come to find out it was a woman who was lighting matches to conceal her flatulence. She has an unspecified medical condition. On a side note, there are at least 12 causes of flatulence. She had to board another plane. The BBC News web site did not mention if they took her matches away from her or not. The TSA allows you to have matches, but you cannot light them.

The woman should have acted innocent and hoped her flatulence did not smell. Sulfur smells stronger than most flatulence, and lighting matches only brought attention to the woman. She should have brought along some air freshener (although I do not know if that is banned or not on airlines) along and used that. That smells too but not as strong as sulfur.

The woman should have worried more about the sound rather than the smell. Unless she was sitting down on a sound-absorbing seat the sound would have brought more attention to her. Then again maybe the flatulence was silent--the silent ones sometimes can be deadly.

In all fairness to the woman there is not much she could have done. Although she could have gone to the plane's bathroom to let it out there. But even that would have been tricky. Definitely opening the plane's window let air the flatulence out would have been not an option.

Interesting Life Suggestions

I've been reading Dr. Paul Pearsall's book The Last Self-Help Book You'll Ever Need. In this book he takes on the self-help movement and here are a sample of his more interesting suggestions:

1. Lose Hope. Striving to keep your hopes up at the worst times in your life can be exhausting. Studies such as those recently conducted at the Harvard and UCLA Medical Schools show that hope does not promote healing, nor does it render cancer treatment more effective.
2. Give Up. Persevering is not the only way to demonstrate strength. Strength can also mean knowing when to engage in enlightened surrender, willingness to give in and move on.
3. Think Sad Thoughts. Trying to think only happy thoughts limits our ability to think creatively and critically.
4. Settle for Second (or Third or Sixth) Best. In any life endeavor, there can be only one number one. Relax and enjoy being one of the thousands who fall short.
5. Be a Pessimist. A little defensive pessimism goes a long way to building a good life. Unless you're a natural at trying to always think positively, the effort is stressful, exhausting, and limiting.
6. Be a Good Blamer. Finding the right person to blame is essential for good mental health.
7. Indulge yourself.
8. Bottle Up Your Anger. Research shows that although mindfully understanding your anger can be helpful, hostile expression of it weakens your immune system and literally hardens your heart and the hearts of those around you.
9. Don't Nurture Your "Inner Child"--Kick Its Ass. Look for your problems within your adult interactions, not within your own infantilized consciousness.
10. Face It, Your Family's Nuts. The only cure for dysfunctional families is to do away with all families. We all have at least one weird family member and usually more. A family is nothing more than a group of people irrationally committed to one another's welfare. A good family is a group willing to stick with you when most sane and discerning people would vote you out.
11. Delude yourself. Research shows that deluding oneself about one's partner--believing that (s)he is kinder and more caring and helpful than (s)he really is---is essential for a lasting relationship.
12. Stop Trying to Live Up to Your "Full Potential." Stop focusing on your potential and start thinking about doing the best with the talents you already have.

Well, how's that for upbeat happy thoughts? Believe it or not the author is neuropsychologist and is a member of a new psychological school of thought called positive psychology! I especially like suggestions 9, 10 and 11.

NASA Plans to Land Man on Asteroid

NASA is planning to land an astronaut on an asteroid hurtling through space at more than 30,000 mph.That is a pretty good feat if they can pull it off. The asteroid NASA has in mind landing on is Apophis. The reason NASA is trying to pull off this feat is so they can learn how to push an asteroid out of the way of earth's orbit. You don't want to fire at an asteroid because then that asteroid breaks up and now you would have smaller asteroids to worry about.

If Apophis struck the earth at a 45 degree angle traveling at 10.56 miles/second it would cause a 3.16 x 102 MegaTons TNT explosion. The creator size would be 1.86 miles in diameter and 0.256 miles deep. Other than that not much damage done and the sound of the collision would be 52 decibels (loud as heavy traffic). By the way, I calculated all this impact information from the online Earth Impact Effects Program using this additional input data:

• Distance from Impact: 1000.00 km = 621.00 miles
• Projectile Diameter: 320.00 m = 1049.60 ft = 0.20 miles
• Projectile Density: 1000 kg/m3
• Target Density: 2500 kg/m3
• Target Type: Sedimentary Rock

You can go to that web site and enter your own values if you like.

Not only do we have to worry about asteroids but meteoroids too. Scientists think that a single meteorite killed off the dinosaurs. When a meteorite impacts the earth it creates a special kind of glass in the crater called diaplectic glass. This type of glass is produced without melting.

The Germany & Austria Santa Ban

This Christmas season Santa Claus is being banned in markets in Germany and Austria. The reason for this stupid ban according to Ananova.com is that "anti-Santa campaigners claim Father Christmas was invented by Coca-Cola and detracts from the true spirit of the festive season."

Haven't these anti-Santa people heard of the Internet? All these pinheads had to do was to go to Snopes.com and check out the truth like I did. Santa Claus was not invented by Coca-Cola. I thought Germans and Austrians are smarter than that. Snopes.com says "Santa Claus was an evolutionary creation, brought about by the fusion of two religious personages (St. Nicholas and Christkindlein, the Christ child) to become a fixed image which is now the paramount symbol of the secular Christmas celebration."

As for Santa Claus detracting from the spirit of the festive season--that is stupid too. Santa Claus is the symbol of giving. If companies and people are turning the Christmas season into some commercial enterprise that is not his fault. Don't take it out on the Jolly Fat (uh sorry, I mean weight-challenged) Man in the red suit.

I wonder if there is anti-Easter Bunny campaigners in Germany and Austria. I hope not, but you never know.

Baby Locks Mom Out of Flat

In Bavaria, a 19 year old woman was locked out of her flat by her eight-month old baby. Eventually, firemen came and rescued her. I don't know, but I think the whole situation is suspicious. I think the baby faked not walking for a while so he could deliberately lock his mom out. Maybe he was mad at his mom for some reason, or maybe he did not like her smoking. Probably was quietly laughing at her for those two hours. You got to keep an eye on those eight-month olds. They can be up to no good sometimes.

A Hi-tech Walking Stick

German scientists have developed an intelligent walking stick that calls an ambulance if the owner falls over. Before the i-Stick tells the ambulance that "Eugena has fallen and can't get up." it plays a message telling the owner to get up. Then after an appropriate amount of time (hopefully not too short--you want to give the owner--an elderly person usually--enough time to pick up the i-Stick.) the i-Stick calls an ambulance or someone for assistance.

On the surface this sounds like a good idea, but then again I am foreseeing some potential problems. First, is it really necessary for the i-Stick to annoy the owner with a message telling him/her to get up? If the owner is conscious I would think he would try get up on his own. If the owner is unconscious or if her hearing aids has fallen out she is not going to hear that message. I suppose the manufacturer can blast the message really loud so the owner can hear it, but then again you don't want the i-Stick to blast the message that all the time. Also, if the owner is seriously hurt let's say with broken bones, do you really want the i-Stick to tell the owner to get up? I don't think that would be a good idea.

Second, what if the owner lays down and takes a nap or just goes to sleep? The owner lets go of the i-Stick and it falls over. While the owner is having a nice nap, the i-Stick waits a while for the owner to pick it up then it plays the "get up" message and scares the crap out of the owner. Can you say possible heart attack? As far as I know and I actually tried to check on this, the i-Stick does not have an on/off switch. I suppose the owner can hook the i-Stick on something so it stands vertically before he takes his nap. It would still be nice to have the option to turn it off though. Hopefully, the scientists will add the on/off switch and make the i-Stick so it does not turn itself off by accident when it falls over. That would not be good if that happened.

A much better idea is to scrap the "get up" message, and have the i-Stick have a button on it that the owner can press to get in contact with help--you know like the Lifeline® medical alert button.

America as a Special Target

For those of you who still cannot comprehend why the jihadists attacked America on 9/11 and why they hate America and its allies please read the five reasons below:

1. America represents those whom the Quran calls "People of The Book"--Jews and Christians.
2. America supports Israel.
3. America is the source of all that Muslims consider to be evil--pornography, alcohol, homosexual rights, evil music, evil fashion and evil culture.
4. America supports Christianity all over the world. More Christian missionaries come from the U.S. than any other country.
5. America is a government "of the people, by the people and for the people, " which makes it a heathen government in Muslim thinking because Allah is to be the head of all gov't.

Most people know about reason 2. Not just America, but other western countries are the source of reason 3. Most western countries drink alcohol. I think the main reason why America and other western countries are hated by Islamofacists is reason 5. Islam is a religion and a gov't combined. Fundamentalist Muslims do not recognize governments and their laws--the Quran is the only authority on such matters and on human behavior altogether. If the Quran says you cannot do such and such then you do not do such and such or else you will be severely punished. Period. Interestingly enough, if the Quran does not say anything about a certain behavior then it is okay. For instance, the Quran does not say anything about sex change surgery. Lawyers would call that a legal loophole. Because of this loophole, Iran allows sex change surgery.

By the way, the five reasons are from a very good book called Islam and Terrorism (2002) by Mark A. Gabriel, Ph. D. He was a former professor of Islamic history.

The Holographic Universe

A hologram is a photograph that allows a person to view at an object at different angles as if it were a real object. Unlike a normal photograph which use regular white light (polychromatic), holograms use monochromatic light (only one hue of the visible spectrum). To see the hologram you have to use the same hue of light that created the hologram in the first place. Holograms have an interesting property. If you break them, their individual pieces display the whole object, although a little less clearer. Holograms are appearing almost everywhere.

Researchers are trying to create what is called holographic memory. This is a hologram imprinted on a CD or DVD for storage. The hologram by its nature can contain much more memory than a normal CD or DVD. Holographic memory offers the possibility of storing 1 terabyte (TB) of data in a sugar-cube-sized crystal.

Then there is holophony--ie holographic sound. I first read about holophony in Michael Talbot's 1992 book The Holographic Universe. Holophony allows the listener to hear sounds in 3-D. Let's say you hear a robin chirp above you in a tree. If that sound is recorded on a holophonic device and played back to you, you will actually hear that robin chirp in exactly that position where you first actually heard it. To give you an idea what I'm talking about listen to this sound sample. It is only 1.9 MB to download and you need to hear the sample in headphones to hear the holophonic effect. Pay attention to the "shaker" sound on the left. It sounds like it is actually moving downward. It's an amazing effect. I think holophony is the next stage of sound recording.

Stephen Wagnor's hypothesis about EVPs on the paranormal.about.com web site is what got me thinking about holograms in general. He thinks EVPs are holographic mental or personality imprints of people who once lived. Since the imprint might contain all the information of a person's personality it might respond to questions. He might be onto something. In the world of parapsychology, there is a phenomena known as a "residue haunting." Residue haunting is the belief that horrible events somehow imprint upon their surroundings. These imprints are not necessarily holographic but they do reoccur and there is no interaction with these type of hauntings. Certain "sensitive" people are able to replay these events.

In theory, any light wavelength (ultraviolet, infrared, etc.) can make its own hologram. Actually, any energy with wave-like properties can make hologram.

As a final thought on this subject, could the whole universe be one big hologram? That's something to think about.

Israel's "Bionic Hornet"

Israel is using nanotechnology to build a "bionic hornet" for military purposes. In the Reuters' article, it said the hornet will take photos and kill the enemy. Neat! Good for them! The US should be thinking along the same lines in the war on terror.

What Israel could also be building is a "bionic roach." They could have the roach explode or better still release some poisonous gas like cyanide when it reaches its target.

General Motors Car Starter

Starting some time next year, GM will have a car starter that keeps track of gas, whether the engine is running, your tire pressure, and your current mileage. It also can tell you if you locked the doors and has a radio pre-sets on it. Wow! The only thing it does not tell you (maybe GM will add this later on. Something the engineers will have to work on.) is whether you need to change the oil or not. All this info is displayed on a LCD screen.

Do you really need a car starter to keep track of gas? If you are not looking at the gas gage every now and then while you are driving then a car starter is not going to be of much use to you unless it beeps a sound to let you know you are low on gas. Then of course if it does that it's almost too late for you to fill the car up with gas. As for letting you know your engine is running or not, surely a driver would remember if (s)he turned off the engine or not? If a person cannot remember turning the engine on or off, then (s)he has got bigger problems--loosing his/her short term memory.

As for the rest of the information on the car starter is not too bad. Having the car starter keep track of tire pressure is nice because it saves you time in checking all four tires. If they can get it check the oil and the air filter that would be helpful too. As for it allowing you to change radio pre-sets, I don't know. It seems to me you can do that in the car. That almost seems like some engineer was thinking, "Oh, you know what would be really cool to add as an option to the car starter..."

If you did not already know, GM already has part of their OnStar program, a car diagonistics email it can send out to the owners. The car basically does a "health" check of itself then emails a report to the owner.

How Smart is Your Right Foot?

This was forwarded to me from my sister:

Just try this. It is from an orthopedic surgeon.

This will boggle your mind and you will keep trying over and over again to see if you can outsmart your foot, but you can't. It's preprogrammed in your brain!

1. WITHOUT anyone watching you (they will think you are GOOFY) and while sitting where you are at your desk in front of your computer, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles.

2. Now, while doing this, draw the number "6" in the air with you right hand.

Your foot will change direction.

I told you so!

And there's nothing you can do about it!

You and I both know how stupid it is, but before the day is done you are going to try it again, if you've not already done so.

I think the reason why the right foot changes direction is because the brain is trying to simultaneous to do both motions that are similar with the same hemisphere. Both the right hand and right foot are controlled by the left hemisphere. If you let your left hand draw a "6" then the right foot won't change direction. I have actually done this experiment with the left hand drawing a "6" and the right foot did not change direction.

Dreams and Memory

Dreams, "inside" phenomena, and input that enter through the senses are stored in the brain the same way and are treated the same way. Essentially, the brain cannot tell the difference. This explains why dreams are so real, especially nightmares. When you have a physical response while awake, that same physical response will be the same when you dream about it. The mind thinks what it is experiencing is real, that is it is happening outside the brain. This also probably explains the psychosomatic principle. This sometimes can be a problem too. For instance, confusing memories for stored dreams.

People can make an effort to notice when they are dreaming. By noticing weird events, trying to levitate, etc. I am referring to the practice of lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming is hard, and not easy to do but it can be done through practice. You kind of lose this ability when you get older. I do not do it as often as I used to.

Bonehead Bank Robbers

Here is the lesson about not doing your homework before executing an action. According to the Ananova web site, a gang of Romanian bank robbers broke into a bank only to find it empty of money! The bank had moved to another address. Evidently these bank robbers must have been amateurs--I am thinking this was their first robbery.

America also has its own bonehead robbers. This March, two masked robbers in California held up a credit union bank. For those of you who do not know, credit union banks are usually cashless.

Evidently, the above bank robbers did not read the Freeman Institute's rules for bank robbers before committing these acts. It might have helped them. Then again...who knows.

A Stupid Lawsuit

The company Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment Corporation is suing Youtube.com. They say web surfers have mistyped the word "youtube.com" and typed in "utube.com" instead. This caused the utube.com web site to crash. Is this really the fault of youtube.com? These same people could have just have easily typed in ytube.com (the letter "y" is left of the "u" letter on a QWERTY keyboard) and have gotten a music video web site. Is this web site going to sue youtube.com next?

I cannot read the minds of people mistakenly going to the utube web site instead of the youtube web site but I can take an educated guess. The people going to the utube web site are people that talk in Internet chat rooms. The people I am referring to are teenagers who use acronyms when talking to each other like lol (laugh out loud) or imho (in my humble opinion) or in this case u (you). So, when a chat-room teenager hears about the youtube web site from a friend or even from TV for the first time (s)he will by habit type "utube" instead of "youtube" in the address bar. That is what I believe is happening.

OBTW, If you are wondering I have never visited an Internet chat room. I have used an instant messaging program though.

Miscellaneous Thoughts Part 6

• Courtesy is the glue that holds society together.
• I think the president should have a system analyst, an economist, and a businessman as part as his advisors.
• Bottom-up taxation. Only taxes allowed: Sales, property and city income. The city collects its taxes first, whatever is left goes to the county. Whatever is left from the county's expenses goes to the state. After the state expenses whatever is left goes to the federal government.
• The Law of Run-Time Bugs: The number of bugs a program has is inversely proportional to how awake the programmer is. The more awake the programmer is the less buggy the program will be.
• Celebrities are glorified court jesters.
• Be weary of news organizations that have an agenda.
• I think it is interesting the same groups of people who adore the U.N. don't want President Bush to have multilateral talks with North Korea. Both gets the world community involved, so what's the difference?
• Those Americans who don't want America to win the war in Iraq are unpatriotic. I want the U.S. to win all the wars it fights. Period. Saying you don't want the U.S. to win the war is like rooting for team A when you claim you are a fan of team B during a ball game.
• Any heterosexual man in a romantic relationship who is for gay marriage would have to be for polyandry (a wife having more than one husband), because if you open the door for gay marriage you open the door for other types of marriages like polyandry, polygamy, group marriage, a woman marrying a dolphin, etc. I don't think any heterosexual man would want to share their partner with other men.
• I think it is good business for businesses to stay out of controversial issues. If they support a controversial issue they might lose a lot of current customers and potential customers.

Lie Detector

How can you tell if a person lies? That is an interesting question. Can you tell from a person's behavior? If he avoids eye contact when talking to you or if his timing is off between emotions gestures/expressions and words when speaking to you he could be lying. Also, if the person rubs her eyes or touches her nose she could be lying. Then again her nose may just itch. You would have to look at multiple behaviors to get a more accurate reading. Also, it helps if you observe the person over a long period of time to look for lying patterns. You actually need a more independent way to detect a lie that has a low rate of chance.

How about polygraph tests? Polygraph tests only measure several physiological variables such as blood pressure, heart rate, respiration and skin conductivity. If you are nervous taking the test you can possibly fail the test. There is even web sites that will tell you how to beat a polygraph test. The unreliability of polygraph tests is why in some criminal trials it is not admissible even though police departments use them. Polygraph tests are better but not by much.

What we need a way to measure the lie where the person cannot beat the measuring device. What about just measuring physical reactions of the brain? It appears that there are physical manifestations in the brain when you lie and the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scanner can measure it. There is no way a person can control the behavior of your brain--ie the communication among the neurons in your brain. Brain scientists are saying measuring these manifestations are pretty reliable.

Scanning a person's brain to see if she is lying would probably eventually do away with polygraph tests. Businesses, CIA, FBI and NSA could scan potential employee's brains to see if they are trustworthy. The police could scan suspects to see if they are guilty of a crime or not. It would even be possible to scan airline passengers' brains to see if they would harm passengers on the plain. The big obstacle to using the fMRI is the cost. That and the size of the fMRI. It's really big. Both would have to shrink to make it more affordable and convenient to use. Plus there are some criticisms of the fMRI. Still measuring brain patterns would still be more reliable than the polygraph test.

When telling if someone is lying regardless of the measuring device the measurer has to ask the right question. Asking a blind person from birth what color your eyes are is meaningless to the blind person. He cannot answer the question because color is meaningless to him. Also the person has to know he is telling a lie. If the person is psychotic or blacked out during a crime he might not know if he is lying or not. Here is a good question for a passenger boarding an airplane: "Are you intending to physically harm anyone on the plane you are boarding." This is a good question because word anyone also includes the crew and not just the passengers. If you said kill rather than physically harm then this might leave out anyone who is going to just injure the pilots of the plane inorder to hi-jack it.

When asking a yes-no question you have to be specific and avoid opinionated questions. You also have to ask questions that get the answers you want. That is don't ask the passenger if he is a terrorist (an opinionated question to the passenger) if you want to know if he is going to commit a crime (a factual question). He probably would not consider himself a terrorist. He could just be an unstable person. If a person refuses to answer the question or spins then he should definitely not be allowed on the plane.

Online Voting

It's conceivable in the future to be able to vote online. County web sites already have (at least mine has) a web site where you can go and look up your voter information. You have to enter your first name, last name, and date of birth. These are required fields. You can also enter the county where you live. How much more programming would it take to have the actual ballot on that web site? I don't think too much more.

All it would take is a separate login screen for just the ballot. You would enter the above information plus a one-time password. This password would be randomly generated by the county clerk's office. They email the password to you. Once you login with the password, your name, and birth date (actually the password is all you would really need since it is unique) and vote the password is erased so you cannot vote again. Online voting would also speed up vote counting. Once you vote online that vote is instantly counted.

There would be security issues for online voting. You don't want viruses infecting the web site or a virus or worm could prevent a person from accessing the web site. Then there are malicious web sites that use fake logins. Of course you would not want the ballot web site to time out on you. And you would hope the server load of the web site could possible take every voter in the county voting at the same time. It could happen. Another big issue is privacy of your ballot--ie you would not want other people seeing how you voted especially from someone trying to hack into the ballot database. You want to know your votes were being counted and also allowed to re-do your votes if you made a mistake. Here a "confirmation" screen would help. The screen would display who or what you voted for with a "redo votes" or "back" button and the "vote" button at the bottom of the screen.

Republicans vs. Democrats

According to the American Conservative Ratings web site, twelve senators in 2005 got a perfect score 100 for voting for pro-Conservative bills. All those senators that got that perfect score are Republicans. Just so you know the American Conservative Union gave some Republican senators low ratings--two Republicans got a score of 32. Most of the scores for Republicans are 80 or higher. The highest score for a Democrat senator is 60. All the rest of Democrat senators had lower scores. What about the House? In 2005, 38 representatives got a perfect of 100. Again, all those are Republicans. The other Republicans got scores of 80 or more. The highest score for Democrat representatives is 64. I think there were three in all who got that score. In summary, the Republicans are more conservative than Democrats.
Which party is taxpayer friendly? The Republicans. According to the Americans for Tax Reform web site, two Senators got perfect scores--both Republicans. The other Republican senators got scores of 80 or more. One Democratic senator got a rating of 65--all the rest of the Democrat senators had lower scores than him. According to that same web site, eight Representatives got a perfect score again all were Republicans. The highest score a Democrat Representative has is 48. All the rest of the Democrats' scores were lower. The National Taxpayers Union web site says that the Republican average rating for the Senate is 69%. The Democratic senators rating is 12%! Wow, that is low! The Republicans in the House gets an average rating of 60%. The House Democrats average rating is 17%!
Which party promotes Judeo-Christian ideals? Republicans. According to the Family Research Council, the lowest Republican score is 29. Three Republicans had that score. The highest Republican score is 100. Over 30 Republicans had that score. The highest Democratic score is 92. Only one Democrat had that score. The lowest Democrat score is zero. Over 30 Democrats had that score. A lot of Democrats had scores in the single digit range. You would think a lot more Democrats would have scores closer to 60. Apparently not.
Want illegal immigration under control? According to Congress Grades.org, only 21 Democrats want illegal immigration reform. 167 Republicans want illegal immigration reform.

Electronic Voting

My town is using an Election Systems & Software (ES&S) iVotronic touch screen voting system this election. A registered voter signs in, then a poll worker inserts the Personal Electronic Ballot (PEB) into the slot of the machine. Then via the touch screen a voter makes his/her selections. The voter can even review his/her selections and change any of them. Finally, (s)he presses the "Vote" button to cast the vote. This system does not make a paper printout of the selections for the voter. That would have been a nice receipt for the voter and would have possibly relieved any suspicions of any voter (like ones who are weary of computers) who thinks his/her vote is not being counted. All in all, I don't think this is a bad system.

The ES&S web site talks about Anywhere Voting Architecture. What the company wants to do is to allow a voter to vote anywhere in their town. An ambitious proposal, but I like it. I think this is where voting is heading. But any voting system will have to prevent voting fraud as much as possible. Basically, a voting system has to prevent voting fraud by checking three things: 1) It should only allow registered voters to vote. 2) It has to verify the person voting is actually the person voting--not an impersonator. 3) It should only allow a person to cast a ballot only once. The voting system we have in place now is not bad. It is too bad there are some people against photo id for voting. That would help with checking 2). Unless the poll workers know a voter anyone can pose as the voter. A person has to show photo id when writing a check, why not when voting? I just don't get it.

I think a better way to accomplish all three checks is to use fingerprint scanners connected into the electronic voting machines. This is the way my system would work. In a city or town all registered voters would have their fingerprint patterns of their right forefinger in a database. It could also be the left forefinger--it does not really matter. This fingerprint pattern would be linked to their name and address and a voting indicator switch (VIS). The VIS indicates whether the voter has voted or not. A voter goes to the poll and puts his finger on the scanner. The scanner reads his fingerprint and checks it against voter fingerprints in the database. If it finds a match (ie the voter is registered) then the system looks at the VIS. If the VIS is false (ie the voter has not voted yet) then screens like in the iVotronic system are displayed. Once the voter presses the "Vote" button the VIS is set to true--thus disallowing people to vote more than once. If the registered voter tries to vote again she will get a "You have already voted." message displayed on the screen. Then the police comes and arrests the person for voter fraud--just joking, although that could be set up too. If the system cannot find the print in the database the system can ask the person to retry re-entering the fingerprint. After three tries the person gets a "not a registered voter" message. After which the voter can talk to a poll worker about not being allowed to vote. As you can see, my voting system handles all three voting checks really well, especially check three because all fingerprints are unique (even identical twins have unique fingerprints).

This system could be even more advance by allowing a registered voter to vote anywhere in the country. It might require a more complicated system to do this but it would still be doable. I don't think it would be that much more complicated. Of course, you would need a country wide database with all the fingerprints in it. The fingerprint program would check to see where a voter lives and bring up the appropriate ballot screens. The only potential problem is if a voter was in another state and after three tries the system could not read his fingerprint, he would be stuck. The poll workers could not really help him. He would have to go back to his residence to vote.

Is my system foolproof you might ask? No system is 100% foolproof. I suppose a person could chop off a finger (gross!) of a registered voter and sneak it into a polling place and put that on the scanner. Or if the scanner was an optical scanner it could be fooled with picture of a fingerprint. Still, my future system would still be better than what we have now. I suppose you could use an retinal scanner instead of a fingerprint scanner. That would be virtually foolproof, but that technology is more intrusive and more inconvenient (a person has to stand still for 10 to 15 seconds) than a fingerprint scanner. Also, retinal scanners do not work with blind people and people with cataracts.

Happy Halloween!

Believe it or not, the three photographs above are actually photos of ghosts! These are one of the best photos I've seen of ghosts. If you look closely at them you can see the people in the photos are transparent. All three photos are clearly identifiable. You don't need the shapes outlined in pencil or pen to make out what they are. They are clearly people. Some ghost photos you look at and think to yourself is that really a ghost or is it just fog or mist or something else. You really have to use your imagination to figure out what the "ghost" is--like an inkblot test. Not these three. You know what the three above photos are. And they are not definitely NOT orbs which are usually dust or someone's camera strap. As far as I know these are authentic photos.

The photo on the left was taken by Tony O'Rahilly, a local resident of Wem Town Hall in Shropshire, England, was one of those onlookers and took photos of the spectacle with a 200mm telephoto lens from across the street.

The photo in the middle was taken during an investigation of Bachelor's Grove cemetery near Chicago by the Ghost Research Society (GRS).

The photo on the right was taken by a woman named Mrs. Andrews, She was visiting the grave of her daughter in a cemetery in Queensland, Australia in 1946 or 1947.

To see more ghost photos go to the GRS's web site.

Evidently there are three types of ghosts:

1. The sad kind, the whispy kind. They seem to be working out some unfinished earthly business.
2. The malicious and deceptive spirits--and since they are deceptive, they hardly ever appear malicious. They are the ones conjured up.
3. The bright happy spirits of dead friends and family, especially spouses, who appear unbidden, at God's will, not ours, with messages of hope and love.

Muslim Taxi Cab Drivers

It seems that Muslim taxi drivers are not picking up people who have dogs with them even if the dog is a seeing eye dog. What I want to know is where is the ACLU? Especially when the Muslim cab drivers are not picking up blind people. If white cab drivers were not picking up minorities or women for whatever reason not only the ACLU, but the drive-by-cloned-media, and prominent Left leaders would be crying out discrimination.

When food delivery businesses do not want to send their delivery people in certain neighborhoods (like black neighborhoods) because of safety reasons (the delivery people getting robbed and/or beaten up) they have to be careful or else the businesses might be sued. Whatever happened to the right to assemble? I am against racism like any other reasonable person, but it seems to me that the right to assemble is largely ignored. When delivery businesses choose not to deliver to certain places because of safety that is perfectly logical. It is not based on racism. It is a survival instinct--you do not go to places where your safety is jeopardized if you don't have to. Women do not jog in a park where they know rapes occur. If white men are beating up their drivers in a certain neighborhood they would probably not deliver to that neighborhood too.

It is the responsibility of businesses to look out for their employees. City governments that force delivery businesses to deliver to high-crime neighborhoods are not looking out for their citizens.

The reason that the Muslim cab drivers are not picking up people with dogs is that they think dogs are impure and they are not allowed to touch them by Islamic law. Here is the difference between the Muslim cab drivers and the food delivery drivers. The Muslim cab drivers do not pick up people with dogs because of superstition. The food deliver drivers do not drive to certain neighborhoods because of safety reasons. If a Muslim cab driver was not picking up a guy because he was dangerous looking or if a person had a mean growling dog that would be a different story. That I can understand.

Congressional Reform

1. The Congress should be decentralized and do business in their own districts. This will put them back in touch with their constituents. The House and Senate can communicate via video conferencing.
   
2. No back-scratching (you vote for my bill and I'll vote for yours) should be allowed in The Congress.
   
3. Line item veto for the president or there should be a law to abolish riders. Lawmakers will not like this because it takes power away from them. The president may not like it because line item vetos put more responsibility on him or her. I say the states have this why not the federal gov't?
   
4. There should be a deficit fund where a percentage of the gov't revenue (say 10%) would go into first before any other expenses are used.
   
5. The lawmakers' salary should be docked every time the national debt exceeds the revenue.
   
6. Voting constituents should be allowed to sue a lawmaker if (s)he breaks his promises to them. I say voting constituents should be allowed to sue rather than a non-voting constituent because if you don't vote you are saying you don't care what lawmaker gets in and what he does. People might say this might increase frivolous lawsuits. Not necessarily. If a lawmaker makes a legally binding contract with his constituents and breaks that contract then (s)he should be held liable.
   
7. Accrual accounting should be used in calculating the gov't capital.
   
8. Voters should be allowed to vote on legislative pay raises.
   
9. No lobbying by foreign companies or foreign diplomats.

Iran Cuts Internet Speeds

It is too bad when a country has to restrict access to information so its citizens cannot be influenced by the outside world or be reminded by its past civil rights violations. I am not talking about a government restricting top secret information from the public. Especially if revealing that information can help the enemy and/or harm the countries defenses. I am talking about Iran cutting the Internet speeds to homes and cafes because they don't want its population to be Western influenced. What's worse is that Iran completely banned satellite TV. What is the government of Iran afraid of? Are they afraid the citizens are going to hear the truth on Fox News about their leader for example. The leader of Iran cannot let that happen.

China is not any better. They censored any references of the Tiananmen Square protesters on the Internet and the gov't censored other web sites they did not approve of.

I should say true censorship can only be done by a government because it makes the laws. If a store does not want to sell a product for whatever reason that is not censorship. It has the right to choose what to sell. You can still buy the product somewhere else. Now if a government bans the product being sold--that is restricting the populations options of buying the product somewhere else in the country. The same goes with a homeowner. (S)he has a right to restrict any item in the home that his/her child brings into the home as long as the child is under 18 or living under the parent's roof.

Massachusetts School Bans The Game of Tag

It seems a Massachusetts school is banning the game of tag amid fears of injuries. The school is also banning touch football and other contact sports too. If school kids are getting fat and the school is not going to let them play tag and other contact sports then how are the kids going to lose weight? Tag is a good cardiovascular game especially if the kid you are trying to tag is a fast runner. It seems this is not the first school to ban tag. A Santa Monica elementary school in 2002 banned tag for similar reasons.

In all fairness, you can get hurt playing touch football. According to the Better Health web site the common injuries for touch football are lower leg, hand (the football players are touching each other way too hard. Maybe they ought to switch to flag football.), hamstring, head (what are the players doing? hitting each other upside the head? This is a rough game!), and impact injures such as from falling over or colliding with another player. Talking about colliding with another player, in Klein Oak High School in Texas, two students got hurt by colliding together when they were playing touch football during P.E. Heck, students can collide together when going to class especially if one of the students is late for class.

Let's face it any activity can get a person hurt. According to the same Better Health web site you can even get injures while dancing. The common injures are sprains and strains, stress fractures in the bones, tendonitis, blisters on the toes and feet if a dancer is wearing ill-fitted shoes, toenail injuries, and impact injures such as bruises, caused by falling over or colliding with another player (dancing can be so rough!).

Then there is that dangerous sport of bowling. A fellow bowler or a spectator can get hurt if another bowler accidently releases the ball during the back swing. Bowling balls are heavy. It can knock somebody out that is behind the bowler. (Okay, I'm joking here, but who knows it could happen.) Here is a question: If that freak accident does happen should the bowler yell "fore!". Just a thought.

If the Left Wins in November

• Amnesty for 12,000,000 illegal immigrants. No where in the DNC agenda is illegal immigration mentioned. This is not surprising since the Left is for open borders especially George Soros who is a big donater to the Democratic Party.
• A push to make homosexual marriage and polygamy legal in all 50 states. If you open the door to homosexual marriage, then polygamists can say they have a right to get married too. Not to mention group marriages also.
• Only liberal judges will be appointed. They will create laws to implement the social agenda liberals cannot get passed through the legislative process. It was liberal judges (5-4) on the Supreme Court that ruled that local governments may force property owners to sell out and make way for private economic development. Those judges that voted that way were not looking out for property owners.
• Liberals will make the killing of the unborn more difficult to stop. The Left feels that this is privacy issue--that a woman has a right to do anything to her body as she pleases. A fetus to the Left belongs to the woman. So, a fetus can be aborted. Well, a fetus has her own DNA. If you do define a fetus as a person and claim it as belonging to you like a chair or something that is slavery. If you define a fetus as a person and say he has his own individuality and abort him then it's murder. If you claim that the fetus is not a person (as the Left does) then what do you define it to be? Another species like a baby porpoise? I wonder if the Left thinks aborting baby porpoises is okay. Maybe, human fetuses should be put on the endangered species act, like the Delhi Sands flower-loving fly. In all fairness I should say, there are Democrats for Life. If you never heard of this group, it is not surprising since the drive-by-cloned-media never reported it. I wonder why. Anyway, you learn something new every day.
• Liberals will continue to try to rid our society of Christian influence, including any reference to God in our Pledge and on our currency. Sometimes I think the Left would rather see "In Government We Trust" on paper currency. If you remove God from society, He has to be replaced with something. As the saying goes, nature abhores a vaccum.
• A return to the "Fairness Doctrine" in broadcasting where opposing views must be given equal time. Every conservative talk show host will be forced to give a liberal equal time on every issue. The purpose of this rule will be to shut down conservative talk shows. This doctrine is stupid. Anyone can call a talk show. Not just conservatives. Rush Limbaugh lets the Left have their say when they call him up. Is the Left going to make left-leaning TV talk show hosts like Oprah Winfrey put on more conservative guests? I don't think so.
• An increase in taxes to push new social programs. Raising taxes is just a reflex action for the Left.
• Passing a new "hate crimes" law making it illegal to refer to homosexuality in a negative manner. I have always thought "hate crimes" makes the prosecuting of felonies more complicated than necessary. It's hard enough for a jury trial to determine if a defendent is guilty or innocent then decide if the crime was premeditated or not, now the jury has to decide if the defendent hated the victim or not. What if the defendent hated the victim for personal reasons and not because of his skin color or sexual preference?
• Liberals will give terrorists from other countries who try to kill Americans the same rights American citizens enjoy under our constitution. President Clinton prosecuted terrorists acts as criminal acts. Then 9/11 happened because the FBI, CIA and other gov't agencies could not share information on terrorists among each other.
• We will withdraw from Iraq prematurely, sending the message to the terrorists that if they will just be patient they can win and bring their terrorist acts to the U.S.
• Unneeded government regulations on business to curb global warming. After all to the Left global warming is the real enemy! (Well, other than President Bush, that is.)
• Since the Democrats love the United Nations the U. S. will have its sovereignty limited more and more.
• Democrats like Senators Clinton (NY), Kerry (MA) and Boxer (CA) would push their bill to grant felons the vote. The Democrats are hoping that allowing felons to vote will increase their voting base.
• Nancy Pelosi will be Speaker of the House. Think about that.

For those of you Conservatives who think the Republicans deserve to be voted out, do you deserve the above? Do you want the Left to run the war on terror? The Republicans can only lose if you don't support them at the polls. That is what the Left is counting on.

Stereotypes of The Left

The Left categorizes people into three groups: The Oppressors, The Oppressed, and The Saviors. The Oppressors are the powerful bullies. These are people in the eyes of the Left are mainly White Male Christian Conservatives (WMCC). It might be just enough to be a WMC (White Male Conservative). The Oppressed are defined as being powerless against the Oppressors and gullible. They are traditionally Women and Minorities (W&M). Finally, we come to the Saviors. This category the Left saves for themselves. Saviors are wise, caring, infallible, powerful people who try to save the Oppressed from the Oppressors. The Left can never be an Oppressor or be Oppressed. The Saviors actions should never be questioned, because they always intend to do right. In the view of the Left since the Oppressed are powerless they will always need the Saviors for protection. That is the way the world works. Also, since the Oppressed are gullible they will always need to be enlightened from the Saviors. The Oppressed will always be in that state. They cannot change their situation.

If the Oppressed by chance thinks they no longer need the Saviors' "help" anymore this is bad. The Saviors lose their power especially ones in Congress and The House. If we lose our power, the Saviors ask, how can we take on the Oppressors? If this situation happens then the Oppressed person must have been coerced, tricked or even brainwashed by an Oppressor. After all the Oppressed are gullible. They do not know any better.

The Saviors try to stay in power by punishing the Oppressors (like the progressive tax structure and over-regulating businesses who they think are mainly owned by WMCs) and giving subsidies to the Oppressed. The Saviors tell the Oppressed that this should make them feel better regardless if it helps their situation or not. If you will just trust us, the Saviors say, we will eventually help you.

It does not matter if W&Ms are really oppressed or not, it only matters if the Saviors perceive them as being oppressed. Perception is reality, and perception to Saviors is all that counts. Since Saviors are infallible their perceptions are too.

One other thing. WMC are always the Oppressors and never the Oppressed, and WMC are not good enough to be Saviors. W&Ms are always Oppressed and would never think about joining the Oppressors, and could not anyway (because they are powerless). Any oppressive behavior from a W&M is purely self-defense. W&M cannot be Saviors either. Everyone has to stick to their role.

Good Programmer Attributes

1. Good problem solving abilities.
2. Good debugging skills.
3. Has good command and understanding of the computer language (s)he is using.
4. Able to make use of reference material.
5. Is creative and mentally agile
6. Patience and a cool head when any programming troubles happen.
7. Logically minded. Marilyn vos Savant in her book Brain Building In Just 12 Weeks suggests these tips to build a logical mind:
   1. Think for yourself.
   2. Separate the problem from the symptoms.
   3. Define and analyze the problem.
   4. Take a critical look at statistics.
   5. Take no premise for granted.
   6. Try other avenues of logical approach.
   7. Get enough information.
8. Able to see the end user's viewpoint.
9. Efficiency minded.
10. Good documentation skills.
11. Good communications skills when in a group or team situation.

Human Interrupts

In computer speak, an interrupt is a signal from hardware or software indicating the need for attention. There are two different types of interrupts: Asynchronous (random), and synchronous (predictable). People also have interrupts. All human interrupts are asynchronous unless otherwise noted.

• Pain.
• Biological needs (synchronous).
• Strong external stimuli.
• Doorbell, phone, pager, or any other real-time device that someone else uses to get your attention.
• A sudden thought, a flash of insight, or intuition.
• An alarm or timer (synchronous).
• A stop sign or stop light (synchronous).
• Anything that blocks or stops what you were doing for a long time.

Brain Thoughts

Brain-body interaction:

1. The brain interprets a situation.
2. The body reacts according to how the brain interprets the situation.
3. If the brain replays the situation, then the body's reaction increases each time the brain replays the situation.

How the two hemispheres handles a problem:

1. The right hemisphere generally knows there is a problem, but does not know what specifically what the details are.
2. The left hemisphere narrows the problem down to specifics.

Comparison between computers and the brain:

• hardware- neurons, synapses, neuroglial cells.
• software- habits, philosophy, preferences, mind sets, etc.
• firmware- instincts, emotions, reflexes.

Thoughts on Education

1. To get an accurate sampling of course knowledge from their students in a medium to large class (say 10 or more students), I think teachers should randomly pick a student every time to answer questions. This will alleviate teacher bias and shy or quiet students have a chance to answer questions or get involved in the discussion.
2. Knowledge is easier to learn if the student can relate to the knowledge or make it his/her own.
3. Knowledge is easier to learn if the knowledge is fun or interesting.
4. It's easier to learn concrete knowledge than abstract knowledge. For example, learning geometry was easier to learn for me than calculus, because geometry was less abstract than calculus.
5. A student can learn when the teacher's teaching style matches the student's learning style. For example, if a student learns best visually and a teacher uses visual aids in her classroom then the student will learn more quickly than if she did not use visual aids.

Good Scientific Theories

A good scientific theory should have these characteristics:

1. You should be able to prove the theory false. It does not matter if you think it is false or not, but can you prove it false.
2. The results of the theory has to be repeatable. This rules out any chance or flukey results.
3. The more simpler the theory the more ring of truth it has (Occam's razor). That is the theory's explanation should not be overly complicated.

Let's say your theory is "My dog Molly, a German Shepard, can read my mind." This is a theory you can prove false. If you think a command to Molly and she does not do it then all indications is that the theory is false. Of course, you would not want to do the experiment when she is sleeping or eating. And you want to make sure she cannot sense you in any other way to rule out other contaminating factors.

The "Molly" theory can also be repeatable. If she can read your mind on Tuesday she should be able to read your mind on Thursday or any other day of the week.

As for Occam's razor, it depends on if you prove the "Molly" theory in the first place, and state a simple explanation for it. How does Molly read your mind? That is the tricky part.

Notice you state "Molly can read my mind." Not that "Molly can read someone else's mind." Or that "Any dog can read my mind." They are separate conjectures that have to be proven true or false. If you state "Molly can read anyone's mind." Then you have to have someone else think commands to Molly. The problem here is that Molly already has to be able to respond to spoken commands from other people. Otherwise, you might get a false negative.

If Molly can read your mind, what does that say about telepathy? That is a real phenomena worthy of further study. The theory does not prove that any dog can read minds not just yours. The theory cannot prove that other German Shepards read minds--Molly might just be a one-of-a-kind telepathic dog. Like I said further study needs to be done.

A German Opera Being Cancelled

So, the German opera is going to be cancelled because of fear of Muslim reprisal. I have several observations about the whole situation. First, the German opera left out of Moses and Hindu gods. They only had the heads of Poseidon, Jesus, Buddha and the prophet Mohammed. Why choose Poseidon? Would not Zeus be a better choice for a Greek god? He was the leader of the Greek gods.

Two, would it have been easier to just remove Mohammed's head and keep the opera playing. To be fair, they should have removed all the prophets and gods. Although, the opera fans might not have liked that. Then again the braver thing would have not changed anything and kept the opera playing.

Is this how it is going to be? Not doing anything that might make the radical Muslims mad? Are bookstores and libraries not going to have any books critical of the Muslim religion in their buildings like the Satanic Verses? I hope not.

I read on the Internet that some gay Muslim film producers are going to show a film about gay Muslim life in the Muslim countries. Good luck to them. They probably should use fake names or just use anonymous on the credits of the film or they might be persecuted by the radical Muslims. Even killed.

Unplanned Design Behaviors

In January 2004, the NASA Mars Rover froze when it had too many open files in its flash memory. This is an example of an Unplanned Design Behavior (UDB). UDBs are not intentional. I like the UDB term because it does not denote a deliberate error. Since mankind's knowledge is imperfect there are bound to be UDBs.

Why do UDBs specifically happen? It usually happens when the mental design does not match the actual design of the designer. Call this Type 1 UDB. In software programming Type 1 UDB is called a bug. The more complex the program is the more bugs the program will have. Here I define complexity of a program as the number of conditional statements the program has. Conditional statements are IF...THEN...ELSE statements.

Type 2 UDB is where someone is following a plan and misses an instruction or misinterprets an instruction. For example, a cook following a recipe may leave out a step or by accident misread a cooking instruction. Or a killer puts on gloves so not to leave any fingerprints on a gun but does not have them on when loading bullets in the gun. In law enforcement leaving fingerprints behind is called evidence.

Type 3 UDB is where the design is either incomplete or inconsistent. Both completeness and consistency is not possible. So, what usually happens the design is not complete or not as complete as it should be. Choosing incompleteness over inconsistency is not a bad choice. A designer has to choose one or the other, and I would rather settle with an incomplete design rather than an inconsistent (read: illogical) design. Since the design is incomplete the final product will not be able to deal with events outside its parameters.

How does a designer prevent UDBs? You cannot completely get rid of all UDBs. You can only minimize the number of them and try to make the system robust enough so it does not crash or go completely out-of-control. You cannot really prove the system won't have UDBs. Try proving a cake will be delicious before cooking it. Especially if you have never eaten the cake before. Or that a program will run correctly or will not crash completely. If you are designing an airplane or a Mars Rover you can simulate the behavior of the system on a computer but the simulation has to be calibrated correctly. I think it is impossible to prove that a system will behave according to design specifications completely because the designer is dealing with instructions that have to be done in a certain order. He has to process the instructions one by one to see what the behavior of the system is. A mathematician does not have to do this when proving a theorem. For instance, the statement Bob is mortal can be proved by the two premises: Bob is a person. All people are mortal. The two premises do not have to be in any specific order to make the premise true--they just have to be true themselves.

The Nature of Teams

Teams are highly overrated. Sports teams like football and basketball are fine. Let me define what a team is: A team is a group of people cooperating to accomplish a main goal or to create a product. Creating a product by one person is optimal if time is not a factor. Poets, song-writers, novelists and any other artist or craftsperson can spend as much time on a product as (s)he wants. Yes, there are pressures from the publicist or record company to get a song done within a dead line but it is not really the same thing. The artist still has complete control of the product. Teams creating a product have shared control of the product. If time is a factor in creating the product then you got to start using teams.

There are several issues with teams. One is communication of ideas. When a team is making a product, people in the team will want to share their ideas. Some ideas are better than others. Some ideas might be misinterpreted or are just unclear. Some people in the group may not have any suggestions. Either because they just don't have any, or they are scared their suggestions will be ridiculed, or maybe they just don't care. The more people in the team the more this phenomena increases. Because of possible communication breakdown, the more people in the team the longer it will take to get the goal accomplished. It's an inverse relation between member count and time taken to meet the goal. You have to get the right number of members for efficiency. That is a tricky calculation. My guesstimate is no more than ten people in a team. Not only do you want the right number of people in a team, but you want to take into account personality and/or egos. Members personalities might clash. For instance, you might have a dramatic person who overwhelms a sensitive or a solitary person. Also, the individual members might defend their ideas on the product too much and reject other ideas that are not his/her too quickly. Then you have too controlling members who want to do everything in the group and leave the other members hardly doing anything. Then you have the team leader. The team leader should be someone who treats members fairly and is able to get the team motivated to complete the product efficiently and timely.

A team functions best when every member of the team is treated fairly and cares about accomplishing the goal. Every member should have a say in how the goal is met. This is up to the team leader to make sure everyone has a chance to state their opinion. The individual ideas should not be ridiculed but the member should be able to defend or explain his idea or suggestion. Personal attacks should definitely not be allowed by the team leader. If every member feels that they are part of the solution or are valued then the group will function more cohesively and effectively. Every member has to be held responsible for their actions and inactions. If everyone is held accountable and allowed to express opinions especially one's viewed as unfavorable to the goal then group think should not
happen. It is up to the team leader to see this does not happen.

Illusions of The Mind

Believe it or not, square A is the same color as square B. I examined the illusion above myself. You can too. Just copy the illusion to your computer, open it in a graphical processing program (MS Paint will work) and put the eyedropper tool over both squares. They should show the same color. This is one of the most striking optical illusions I have seen.

Just recently I have read that a woman experienced the illusion of an alien presence after her brain was stimulated by neural surgeons for epilepsy. She thought there was an unknown person in the operating room with her standing behind her motionless. Researchers say this may help shed some light on certain mental effects such as paranoia.

Then there is the phantom limb syndrome. This is the illusion that a limb still exists after it has been amputated. In the PBS show Secrets of The Mind there was a man who lost his arm, but he felt his hand on that amputated arm still existed. The neurologist Ramachandran had the man grab the cup with his phantom hand. When the neurologist moved the cup away the man reacted in pain and told Ramachandran not to do it again.

In his book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales, Oliver Sacks tells about a man who kept falling out of his hospital bed. Come to find out the man did not recognize one of his legs. The man thought the leg belonged to a stranger and would then roll it off his bed. Since the leg of course was his own leg and connected to his body the man too would roll out of bed. I had a similar experience with my arm when I woke up one morning. My left arm was numb because I slept on it. I touched it with my right hand and for a split second (probably because I was a little groggy still) thought my left arm was not my own. It startled me a little bit, then of course I realized that it was my own arm. I think that illusion happened because there was no feedback between my right hand and and my arm. My right hand felt the arm but since my brain could not feel the touch on the arm by my hand it did not make the connection that it was my arm--not somebody else's arm.

Ramachandran believes that and I quote "your own body is a phantom, one that your brain has temporarily constructed purely for convenience." He says there is two experiments that you can do that can prove that conjecture. One is where you can fool yourself into thinking that your nose is three feet long, and the other is an illusion where you think a rubber hand is actually your own real hand. I have not tried either of these experiments myself, but they sound really eerie especially the rubber hand experiment.

Miscellaneous Thoughts Part 5

• If you believe that people are born being a homosexual, then you can make the claim that people are born being a pedophile too. Both are sexual orientations. Since homosexuals cannot change then using the first belief neither can pedophiles change.
• There is nothing wrong with competition. When you compete against someone who is as good or better than you and you beat them that improves your ability. Paul McCartney competed against John Lennon in writing songs, and The Beatles as a whole competed against The Beach Boys when creating albums.
• I think that the U.S. should vote on the abortion issue. Great Britain had a vote on the issue and they seemed to be less divided about it.
• I think that the term "little people" for midgets is a little fuzzy. After all could not young children be called "little people?" I think a better term would be "little adults."
• You have the right to speak your opinion. I have the right not to listen to it, or to say it is b.s. politely if I think it is.
• Those (Hitler; Carl Marx) who employ the strategy of divide-and-conquer between two groups (Jews and the rest of German population; the rich and the poor) are the only ones who win. The groups being pitted against each other never gain anything. Only when the groups are united can the strategy fail.
• A person can never be too cautious around wild animals that can harm you. There is a reason why they are called "wild" and it is because they are unpredictable. They are completely ruled by instinct and you never know what can startle them.
• Overconfidence can lead to unnecessary accidents. You may think you are an excellent driver for example, but drivers around you may not be good drivers. Be alert, be aware of your surroundings, and think quick if something happens.
• The more an object can be sensed the more it is perceived to be real.
• The brain only has a certain amount energy to disperse to the various body parts we consciously control. If we are multitasking any tasks that does not get our attention gets less energy. For example, if you are walking and talking at the same time and you are focused on talking, you will start to slow your walking down.

Naming Planets

So, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) renamed the planet Xena to Eris. Eris is the Greek goddess of chaos and strife. Interesting and fitting name. Eris caused Pluto to be demoted to a dwarf (or should I say "little people") planet. What's with the IAU still using names out of Greek mythology anyway? Why can't they use modern names like say Andy (just joking). After all meteorologists use modern names when naming hurricanes. What the IAU could do is name planets after famous astronomers like Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei. Heck, even name planets after the people who discover them. Even astronomers have egos. You think if Donald Trump discovered a planet he would not name it after him or like too? You know the planet Donald or the planet Trump (that would more likely). If the IAU does not like my idea of naming planets after famous astronomers and wants to keep naming planets after religious figures how about naming planets after Christian saints like the Saint Dominic, The Patron Saint of Astronomers and Telescope Watchers for example.

al Qaeda Recruiting the Salafist Group

So, al Qaeda is recruiting the Salafist Group. For those who do not know, the Salafist Group is an Islamic extremist group that wants to create an Islamic state in Algeria. Algeria right now is secular. Now, al Qaeda wants the Salafist Group to not only help them attack France but the rest of Europe. I have two responses: 1) I did not know France is in Iraq. 2) How long will it take for France to surrender to Islamo-facists and become an Islamic state itself? Jacques Chirac surrendered to a bunch of protesting young adults. And the protesters rejected Chirac's compromise. The rest of the Europe better wake up too to the Islamic extremist threat. It is Nazism all over again.

The writer of the article misses the point when he says:

France did not back U.S. war on terror in Iraq or send troops, so, in theory, it should not be among the enemies of al Qaeda. However, they have other sins to pay for, according to al Qaeda, including two very serious sins: Sending troops to Lebanon as a part of the U.N. deployment and a ban of the traditional Muslim headscarf in secular state schools.

The writer's premise is wrong so his whole theory is incorrect. al Qaeda and groups like them don't like France not because of what it does or does not do but because France is not an Islamic state (that is the true sin to al Qaeda) and thus are infidels. Period. True, al Qaeda did not like France sending troops to Lebanon (although France reduced the number of troops sent) and al Qaeda really did not like France banning the traditional Muslim headscarf in schools, but I think Muslim extremists did not like France even before it took those two actions. al Qaeda and groups similar to them wants the world to follow Sharia law and only that law.

Anti-discrimination Laws

The anti-discrimination laws for employers are missing some physical and non-physical attributes. What about weight? Aren't overweight people discriminated against? Or maybe some people call that a handicap. I guess it depends on your own definition of what overweight is. But still... How about height and looks? Studies suggests that tall and good-looking people earn more money. Is not that height-ism and look-ism? What about politics? You cannot tell me that Republicans and Conservatives are not discriminated against in Hollywood. If they want a job they have to stay in the closet. Here is another case of discrimination that you may not have thought of: Intelligence discrimination. A man applied for a police officer position in Connecticut and was rejected because a police exam said he was too intelligent! The reason given by the police station was they thought that highly intelligent candidates would get bored and quit. Couldn't the police station put him in the Cold Cases Unit if they have one?

You might think by the above paragraph I am for anti-discrimination laws. I am not. Just like people have the right to assemble with whoever they want, employers should be able to hire or fire whoever they want without repercussion. The point of the first paragraph is that many people have various reasons for discriminating against someone else--they are probably too numerous to list. One of which is prejudice another maybe just a person reason. Basically, discrimination comes down to choice, like Dr. Walter E. Williams says. Free will, if you want. Some people like dogs over cats. Punishing someone for selecting or not selecting someone for a job is just as bad as punishing him or her for not driving a particular car. It does not make sense and it comes close to violating the persons or organizations civil rights. Everyone has prejudices. It's human nature. If you don't believe that what would you do if an alien space ship landed in your backyard? Would you A) Attack it, B) Run away scared, or C) Approach it with curiosity. All responses are not wrong, but A & B fits more with the instinctive response of animals. Fear of the unknown is a strong emotion.

Global Warming

It appears that global warming is not a myth. The current average temperature of the earth is 65.75 ^oF . Not too bad a temperature. I'll take it. Nice golf and walking weather. Of course, icebergs don't like that temperature. I could not really tell you what that means for the earth in the far future. F5 tornadoes? More destructive hurricanes? Who knows. Global warming forecasts are based on computer models using the factors like temperature and air pressure among others. Talking about factors I read on Fox News web site that scientists are having a hard time defining what a cloud is. Cloud modeling is very important to weather forecasting. They reflect heat from the sun back out into the atmosphere among other things. If you redefine clouds you basically have to change your weather models. Weather is extremely complex. In the beginning of the week my local meteorologist was saying the weekend skies were going to be clear and sunny. By Wednesday now he is saying it is going to rain this weekend. If a forecaster cannot predict weather a week ahead of time then how can they predict it in the far future? I am not going to be worried unless the temperature in let's say December is 80 ^oF for several years in a row or until my local meteorologist gets worried.

The controversy now is what is causing global warming. Is it mankind (and womankind) or is it something else? I don't know but I believe it could be caused by that hot big object in the sky called the sun. You turn that thing off global warming goes away. Then again people breathe out CO₂ and it is CO₂ that contributes to global warming. I calculated that a person exhales 141,912,000 cubic inches of CO₂ a year. Currently, there is 6.5 billion of people on the earth. The reader can do the math. I have a solution. Have everyone hold their breath for approximately 1.5 minutes every day. Also, everyone should take anti-gas tablets because flatulence contributes to global warming too. Also, people need to pollute more. Pollution evidently slows down global warming.

CO₂ build up and global warming is not all bad. CO₂ helps some trees during an ice storm. Global warming could be good for the wine companies in Britain and Germany. Also, global warming helps alpine tourism. Go figure.