Nick Levesque

Betterfly

2011-07-10T19:46:00.001-07:00

Nick Levesque

Atlanta Combat Sports/Martial Arts Teacher

Yawn

2011-06-28T07:32:00.001-07:00

I just yawned.

Review: ASUS

2011-06-21T10:53:00.000-07:00

So far so good,

Quality laptop I am currently using, with incredible battery life, lightweight, and ultra powerful.

No joke, I got 12 hours battery life on this thing. And not like "left on standby, battery last 12 hrs" but like "Entire day of using it and it still didn't die, with a 25% left marker at 3:51 minutes left. battery saving mode"

Insane. Awesome. Carry this thing everywhere.
I'm not going to list full specs of this specific machine because every laptop is different and that wouldnt do you any good. But from the cheap to the expensive models, ASUS has it down.

A++ best of the year.

Importance of Online Anonymity and why it is necessary

2011-06-21T10:46:00.000-07:00

Over the past few years online anonymity has been seen as an unnecessary medium for all types of unwanted internet persons from frustrating trolls to immature insulters to uneducated ramblers. This can be seen in the first person in places like YouTube’s comment section to sites like reddit.com as well as it being blatantly displayed on many of 4chan’s message boards. It seems that the general consensus on the matter is that online anonymity is bad. Claims from enraged mothers arguing that we need to stop online anonymity and that kids need to start taking responsibility for their actions online are circulating throughout the nation. Many new articles are popping up about the problems with anonymity, on top of psychological studies proving the effect of anonymity on the quality and morality of posts, and all thrown together with news articles depicting suicides and other tragedies caused by online bullies and other forms of cyber harassment. This is a serious issue. Sites are starting to prevent anonymous comments through diverse means and online identities are threatened to be revealed to the public. Why is that a bad thing? Attacking online anonymity as the cause for its negative effects is comparable to attacking the mailman for receiving hate mail or getting mad at a hatemonger’s megaphone. You probably would never have gotten the mail nor would you have heard the hate speech without those two, respectively, but you would never see to any action against either. We are dealing with a problem amongst people, and the way people are behaving or interacting with other people. We are not dealing with an abstract idea as the root of all the evil that has come out of it. It is important to understand the difference. The truth is that online anonymity has become essential to us. Moreover, it is vital that our culture includes it. Some of the many reasons we need it are support forums, anonymous tips, as well as general and personal privacy reasons. The point is that although online anonymity has been scrutinized by the media for its negative effects, it is a necessary and crucial part of a larger online community that itself is not only needed but also already integrated into our culture.

Before we delve deeper into the subject, we need to take a step back and look at the background of anonymity in general. Surprisingly enough, anonymity has been a huge part of the United States ever since its establishment. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense was first published anonymously simply signed “an Englishman.” Moreover, many politicians including John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton wrote The Federalists Papers under a pseudonym, and the Anti-Federalist, including Samuel Adams and Richard Henry Lee, wrote back also using pseudonyms (Wallace, 1999). Anonymity has been used since then around the world far before the invention of the internet. It was not uncommon for women to use male pseudonyms in order to get their message across, as well as just about every persecuted race or ethnicity had members of it use pseudonyms in communities when and where that race or ethnicity was victimized. Before we continue, it will be convenient to distinguish between different types of anonymity. The spectrum of pure anonymity runs from full anonymity (which is one extreme, where there is absolutely no link between the author and the message) to the thoroughly named (the other extreme, where the author is completely identified). A pseudonym, however, is a different type of anonymity in that although it may be untraceable to a real-world person, it may have a reputation in itself inside of a virtual domain. Because of this, a pseudonym can come with plenty of contextual information about the sender whereas a purely anonymous message entirely stands alone (Donath 1996). The simple advantage of a pseudonym as opposed to pure anonymity is that it allows the possibility to link a number of messages to the same author, therefore building a reputation for the pseudonym. Other advantages include that it is possible to communicate with a pseudonym; in fact it is possible to have a complete conversation between two pseudonyms with neither knowing the real identity behind the other sender (Palme & Berglund 2002). Pseudonyms, which are currently the most common form of online anonymity, definitely do, however, create a problem. The more messages are sent from the same pseudonym, the more context clues can be gathered about that pseudonym, and ergo the more likely it is for the real-world author behind the pseudonym to be revealed. Latanya Sweeney, a computer scientist, showed that 87 percent of people in America could be identified using only a zip code, a birthday, and a gender. What does this mean for a pseudonym user? Leaving simple comments such as “I saw that game, it was great” or “I can’t believe this happened on my birthday” may be innocent comments by themselves, but by piecing together these comments I already obtained a zip code from the first and a birthdate from the second. All I need to identify this commenter is a gender, which is most likely the easiest to find hints of, although that could be debated.

So now that we have established the basis of anonymity and its uses let’s talk about why this is important. Imagine that there was no such thing as anonymity; by that I don’t mean that there is a vanishing of the concept of anonymity, but instead I want to assume that the government (or companies, internet providers…whoever) has taken preventative measures against the possibility that a message is sent out without the original author being identified. Initial reaction is to assume this would be great: we would have no more annoying posters, no more trolls, no more obscenities and a numerous amount of other seemingly positive effects. Before we explore the actual effects of this let’s talk about the ethical issues with this dilemma. This can be analyzed thoroughly rather than summarized with roughly the same conclusion, but a full analysis of each ethical theory and what each would state about the dilemma is far beyond the breadth of this paper. Instead, we choose a basic summary of some major ones. Keeping in mind that we are trying to decide if it is ethical for an influential body to prohibit anonymity or any form of it, we will first review this from a utilitarian point of view, more specifically, act utilitarian. We need to assume that the people who benefit most from this are the common website users who will no longer be annoyed by pesky anonymous babble. Above that, the smaller minority who arguably benefit more will be the higher-class well educated website users who are trying to have meaningful political, religious, scientific, or philosophical discussions on a forum, but simply cannot get their message across due to a flood of useless comments. All in all these are at best a minor inconvenience; therefore the benefit of their disappearance is minimal. The people who are hurt by this, in short, include literally every single person who are members of or can be affected by this influential body that is prohibiting anonymity. If I am in the same country as this prohibition I am losing all of the benefits and necessities of anonymity. The anonymous version of me and the real me send out completely different messages, whether it be out of fear of being persecuted, out of embarrassment, or out of a general want to privacy on the issue. I would essentially have my anonymous-self censored completely to the public. This would be true for everyone. It is easy to see the vast majority of negative effects this has on the people affected, and for that we claim that act utilitarianism would not allow the censorship of anonymity in any form. Let’s delve into a possibly more moral than logical ethical perspective: Kantianism. There are two formulation rules we need to check.

1. Act only on moral rules that you can at the same time will to become a universal law.

2. Act so that you always treat yourself and others as an ends in themselves and never as means to an end.

This is partially proven since trying to censor a person is clearly not a maxim that one can wish to be a universal law, but it is a bit fuzzy since the maxim can depend on the person wishing it and the situation, so let’s look at the second formulation rule. Censoring anonymity in general treats all parties who are being censored as means to an end, the end being the abolition of anonymity and the means being the censoring. Simply for that reason we can say that preventing anonymity is unethical according to Kantianism. At the risk of getting too deep in the ethical side of this argument, let’s look at one more ethical theory before we move on: the Social Contact Theory. The idea is that there is an unwritten unsigned social contract that a person is able to express himself freely and with no limitation given that it does not violate another person’s rights. This paper will not begin to argue the necessity of freedom of speech, but basically just state the commonly accepted belief that a social contract of freedom of speech exists. This is true not because the United States law says so but because it is vital to a culture similar to the one we have in place today, and solely for that reason, we can state that freedom of speech is part of the social contract. Trying to prove its existence would be like trying to mathematically prove 1+1=2, it would take far too long for an accepted basic knowledge. Preventing anonymity is preventing free speech and therefore violating the social contract, rendering this action unethical by the Social Contract Theory. From an undisputed victory of the unethicality of three different perspectives on the issue, it is safe to conclude that it is unethical for any influential body to prohibit anonymity or any form of it.

Moving away from an abstract, almost philosophical argument, we next take a look at more concrete examples of why we need anonymity. Firstly, we need to initialize the idea that anonymity can be used for good or bad purposes, but we will start by describing positive uses of anonymity. Going back to Common Sense and The Federalist Papers, it is apparent that anonymity can be used to send out a message without having to worry about personal actions such as persecution taken against the author. Thomas Paine published it anonymously because of the treasonous nature of his work, which became one of the most influential works of the American Revolution. People working for an organization that misuses or dismisses ethical standards are able to expose that organization for the greater good of the public. This kind of anonymous tip is also used by newspapers as well as police officers, welcoming tips to catch criminals (Palme & Berglund 2002). Kabay (1998) argued that anonymity has an unusual effect: it actually increases prosocial behavior instead of antisocial behavior (as cited in Spivey & Prentice-Dunn, 1990). Apparently completely anonymous peoples will interact much more openly and have more positive discussions of personal matters. Following this, people are much more open to discuss embarrassing or personal matters anonymously and get the support or advice they need, as can be seen on countless support forums. This is even true in real-world support programs such as, and most famously, Alcoholics Anonymous. As Rheingold (2000) puts it “anonymity seems to free people from their inhibitions.” He carries on to say that males will sometimes present themselves as females online not to deceive others but to see how differently they will be perceived in that community. On top of all that, Connolly, Jessup, and Valacich found the following:

A laboratory experiment was used to evaluate the effects of anonymity and evaluative tone on computer-mediated groups using a group decision support system to perform an idea-generation task … Identified groups working with a supportive confederate were the most satisfied and had the highest levels of perceived effectiveness, but produced the fewest original solutions and overall comments.

To summarize, idea-generation is enhanced by anonymity, where the risk of being judged for one’s opinion is not present. Generally speaking, anonymity in its pure form (assuming no traceability) grants freedom of speech without consequence or limitation, whether it is for better or for worse.

So we must now transfer to the ‘for worse’ portion. Allowing anybody to say anything with no chance of tracing the message back to the sender also allows malevolent acts to run amok. Cyber bullying, where one person essentially harasses another person online, is one such example. It also allows not only malevolent acts but also actual illegal acts to occur. A free online service called JAP (JonDonym Anonymous Proxy server) helps users stay completely anonymous on the internet, by acting as a proxy on the local machine. While this is used for both personal and business uses for reasons such as protection against profiling, observation by ISPs, and even the secret service, there are serious misuses of the service. According to Federrath (2006), typical suspected crimes by the use of JAP include “credit card fraud, computer fraud, sending malicious code to vulnerable web servers, insult, defamation, death threat, (and) access to child pornography.” Other arguments against online anonymity include the fact that governments are inherently bad at protecting the victims and punishing the abusers. Kabay (1998) furthers this by declaring: “Governments will continue to fail in their efforts to govern cyberspace because electronic communications networks are inherently divorced from geographical jurisdictions.” Another enormous concern with online anonymity is traceability. The argument there is that even the people who are using it and not abusing can be traced by almost anybody to find the original sender. McCullagh (2001) puts it best with “Privacy is dead on the Net, and being able to shield your identity online is about as likely as winning the lottery. Twice.” He continues to explain that even with the use of privacy-protected web surfing products, the user is still prone to traffic analysis, such as the FBI’s Carnivore system – now replaced with improved software such as NarusInsight. This does not stop at just government agencies, however. Anybody with enough knowledge and skill can determine an anonymous user’s identity and expose it for any reason, while still staying anonymous themselves. The problem thickens. How can we prevent all of these evil uses of anonymity and protect ourselves while not eliminating our freedom of speech and privacy? Before continuing I want to state that I completely agree with every single problem that anonymity causes, and I am in no way refuting the adverse effects propositioned by the other side of the argument. The disagreement, however, lies in the solution to these problems, specifically in the difference in the maintenance of the second part of the question asked above, about preserving free speech and privacy. There must be a better way to dissipate these side-effects without stabbing at our cultures vital tissues.

From the previously stated fact that anonymity grants free speech without consequence, we can see that the root problem of online anonymity where all of the negative effects originate from is the abuse of anonymity, NOT the use of anonymity. So far just about every single positive effect can be said to be a negative effect if it is used incorrectly and maliciously. To put it differently, every single negative effect stems from the abuse, and only the abuse, of online anonymity. So what can we do to stop it? Theoretically we would need to be able to legally persecute all illegal uses as well as misuses of anonymity, thereby creative an incentive to not start abusing it, and enforcing the removal of the current abuse of it. Again, as hinted, this is not a feasible option. An easy but equally problematic fix is actually one of the arguments against online anonymity, namely traceability. To use traceability as a solution we would need for every single message sent online to, if anonymous, be easily traceable. This would allow for any user that is abusing anonymity to be traced and exposed and/or punished by law. Like we have already discussed, this ironically allows for the abuse of anonymity tracing, where non-abusive users are exposed by abusive users at the expense of the non-abusive user’s privacy, reputation, and possibly even monetary value. By solving the problem of online anonymity abuse we have created another equal if not greater problem of online anonymity traceability abuse. What a headache! Instead of dismissing this idea, let’s refine it and try to solve both problems. Our new problem is that users who are anonymous can be exposed by other users, organizations, or the government. What we need is for there to be a checkpoint between a user and his ability to identify an anonym. This checkpoint would have to be able to identify if the user is abusing online anonymity or if the user is upholding the integrity of online anonymity by exposing an abuser. Unfortunately, we cannot inject a sentient being with perfect morals into a software and make it pop up every time sometime tries to access private information, but at least we know that this is what we need to get as close as possible to with our current technologies and resources. This “being” would most likely have to be the government. My reasoning for this is that if a company gets to decide who gets to identify an anonymous source there is too much influence that can sway the company’s opinion, as well as providing too much power to one company. Fixing this could include making multiple companies, such as ISPs, regulate these checkpoints, but sending in a request to your ISP to get the identity of an anonym would likely cause competition bias, where a company with fewer restrictions on the checkpoints would be favorable by some users. It can be disputed that the government could also have conflicting motives that would cause one trace to be allowed over another so we need to allow for checks within this system. To recap, a new government agency controls which traces are allowed and which are not. In order for me to identify who sent a hateful message to my e-mail address I can send a request to this agency and, if they approve, they can give me the identity of the sender and I can decide to take legal actions. Police officers can do the same to catch criminals, and other government agencies can do the same to stop threats such as terrorism. To figure out how this agency makes these decisions we take a look at the theoretical optimum, which would be where everybody votes for every request in order to have the fairest decision on every request. It doesn’t take long to realize this is not achievable. Instead we need to place a system of checks and balances on the agency, where different parties and/or agencies evaluate the decision, and we need to make the agency transparent, where the public can see which requests were accepted and which were not, while keeping the identities of the requesters private. Let’s take a step back and look at this now. Remember that I am assuming that this agency has information on literally everybody. The newly created problems as well as ethical and social implications of this type of agency need to be a serious consideration. What happens if a hacker can get into the agency’s database? What if the agency itself finds a way to fool the public into believing it is transparent or regulated when in reality it is not? How much power are we giving to this agency and how concerned should we be about that? Who says we can even trust the government anyhow? There are many problems and loopholes with this system, and I am sure the reader is capable of describing a scenario where this would fail. Perfection is impossible to achieve, and keeping that in mind, the structure of this solution seems to be, for the most part, successful in solving the problem of online anonymity abuse while keeping freedom of speech intact. I leave it to the reader, software engineers, and politicians to take this solution template and iron out minor problems, create the structure of the system in much more detail, and delve deeper into the subject.

Coming back to the main point, online anonymity is so far integrated into our culture that it has become a necessity for our community and it must stay alive in order for our rights to freedom of speech to survive. Furthermore, this type of censorship also jeopardizes our privacy and can potentially be harmful to the way we behave online, including the decline of new ideas, inventions, and thoughts. The many problems that online anonymity can cause are far outweighed by the effects of its disintegration. Instead of disabling our capabilities to use anonymity altogether we need to tackle the root problem, anonymity abuse. Although I strongly believe in the structure of my proposed solution, whether this paper correctly solves the problem is irrelevant, we need to start thinking differently about the way we handle these types of issues. Technology creates solutions, and these solutions can create more problems. While this is true, it should not be regarded as reinforcement to the idea that we should simply do away with technology. If we were to follow that, we should all go back to living without any form of technology and, therefore, living without problems. It is obvious that this is not true; there will still be problems no matter what the technological advancements are, just as there have always been. Technology creates solutions, and inevitably there will be other different problems, but the two are not linearly dependent. We should further ourselves and our technological advancements, continually and endlessly brainstorming and problem-solving and advancing our culture. For these universal reasons, arguing that online anonymity should be abolished by stating “grow up and accept responsibility for your actions on the internet” is not only an insult to the users who need it and use it but also a slap in the face to the many in history who have used anonymity for righteous reasons. The arguments for the preservation of online anonymity are not cries of immature young persons who just want to annoy others on the internet without facing consequences; they are the just protection of the rights that this country was founded on. Attacking the medium of the problem as opposed to its source and, consequently - censoring, disabling, or preventing online anonymity - is unconstitutional, unethical, and unintelligent.

Bibliography

Rheingold, H. (2000). The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. Boston, MA: The MIT Press.

Palme, J., & Berglund, M. (2002, July 30). Anonymity on the internet. Retrieved from http://people.dsv.su.se/~jpalme/society/anonymity.html

McCullagh, D. (2001, April 27). You can hide from prying eyes. Wired Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2001/04/43355

Wallace, J.D. (1999). Nameless in cyberspace: anonymity on the internet. CATO Institute, 54. Retrieved from http://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp54.pdf

Donath, J.S. (1996). Identity and deception in the virtual community. Informally published manuscript, MIT, Cambridge, MA. Retrieved from http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/Judith/Identity/IdentityDeception.html

Kabay, M.E. (1998). Anonymity and pseudonymity in cyberspace: deindividuation, incivility and lawlessness versus freedom and privacy. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the European institute for computer anti-virus research, http://www.mekabay.com/overviews/anonpseudo.htm

Federrath, Hannes (2006) Anonymity in the Internet. In: ZISC Information Security Colloquium, 20. Juni 2006, ETH Zürich.

Connolly, T., Jessup, L.M., & Valacich, J.S. (1990). Effects of anonymity and evaluative
tone on idea generation in computer-mediated groups. Management Science,
36(6).

Code: Rigid Body using Quaternions

2011-06-20T08:48:00.000-07:00

State of rigid body = Y = x,q,P,L and Y' = v, 1/2*omega*q, F, torque
More detailed documentation later.

Mat3d R = vl_1; Vec3d P = vl_0; Vec3d L = vl_0; Vec3d p = Vec3d(-1,0,0); Vec3d F = Vec3d(.05,10.0,0); Mat3d Ibody = Mat3d(2.0/5.0,0,0,0,2.0/5.0,0,0,0,2.0/5.0); Mat3d osr; Vec3d torque; Vec4d q = vl_0;

if (mytime > 0.0) F = Vec3d(0,0,0);
//Update x using v
newpartvel[i] = P;
newpartpos[i] = newpartpos[i] + howFast*newpartvel[i];
q = mat2quat(R);
//update R using omegastar*R
Mat3d Rt(R[0][0],R[1][0],R[2][0],R[0][1],R[1][1],R[2][1],R[0][2],R[1][2],R[2][2]);
Mat3d It = R * Ibody * Rt;
Mat3d Iinv = inv(It);
Vec3d omega = Iinv*L;
Vec4d omega4 = Vec4d(0,omega[0],omega[1],omega[2]);
q = q + howFast*(quatmult(((.5)*omega4),q));
R = quat2mat(q/quatmag(q));
//update P using F
P = P + howFast*(F-(Vec3d(0,gravity,0)));
//update L using torque
Vec3d pd = p - newpartpos[i];
torque = cross(pd,F);
//torque = Vec3d(pd[1]*F[2] - pd[2]*F[1], pd[2]*F[0] - pd[0]*F[2], pd[0]*F[1] - pd[1]*F[0]);
L = L + howFast*(torque);
newpartpos[1] = R*Vec3d(-1,0,0) + newpartpos[i];;
newpartpos[2] = R*Vec3d(1,0,0) + newpartpos[i];
newpartpos[3] = R*Vec3d(0,1,0) + newpartpos[i];
newpartpos[4] = R*Vec3d(0,-1,0) + newpartpos[i];
newpartpos[5] = R*Vec3d(0,0,1) + newpartpos[i];
newpartpos[6] = R*Vec3d(0,0,-1) + newpartpos[i];

}

mytime=mytime+howFast;

Don't click my ads

2011-06-19T13:16:00.000-07:00

By the way, if you are a friend or family member reading this blog, please don't click the ad (unless you are actually interested of course)

I heard about google cancelling accounts since the ad clicks were... irregular I guess?

Anyways, don't click my ads if you know me personally, unless you actually want to check out what it has to offer.

Father's Day

2011-06-19T13:14:00.001-07:00

...Happy Father's Day

Review: Home Depot AC Repair

2011-06-17T16:22:00.000-07:00

Had a couple AC repair guys come over, Home Depot's was by far the best...

Explained everything thoroughly, very kind, very polite.
Price? About 3,000 dollars cheaper than the other average estimates.

Pretty awesome.

Yes this review is short.... that's all I have to say

Let's generate some traffic

2011-06-16T13:43:00.000-07:00

Alright, let's optimize some search engine....ness
Google trends, woo

1.	williams syndrome
2.	us airways
3.	act
4.	tracy morgan
5.	karen elson

6.	act test
7.	marta
8.	judy moody and the not bummer summer
9.	ray lamontagne
10.	jack white

11.	doubt
12.	bebe
13.	lebron james girlfriend
14.	tennis elbow
15.	bill cosby

16.	judy garland
17.	fahrenheit 451
18.	rashard lewis
19.	super 8
20.	sabbatical

1.	24 hours of le mans
2.	kendo
3.	williams syndrome
4.	sesame street
5.	ethan allen

6.	act
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9.	judy moody and the not bummer summer
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11.	full tilt poker
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15.	periodic table

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20.	akita

1.	the normal heart
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5.	dallas mavericks

6.	university of phoenix
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17.	24 hours of le mans
18.	napoleon dynamite
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1.	michele bachmann
2.	flag day
3.	gop debate
4.	godaddy
5.	pentagon papers

6.	dallas morning news
7.	netflix
8.	republican debate
9.	fathers day gifts
10.	gene simmons family jewels

11.	gabapentin
12.	bruce springsteen
13.	mount rushmore
14.	myanmar
15.	hyundai elantra

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17.	university of phoenix
18.	army wives
19.	fran drescher
20.	harrison ford

1.	bella vita
2.	flag day
3.	metro pcs
4.	guadalupe
5.	amityville horror

6.	crystal harris
7.	hawthorne
8.	hugh hefner
9.	benjamin millepied
10.	guadeloupe

11.	jon huntsman
12.	fran drescher
13.	michele bachmann
14.	gene simmons family jewels
15.	amber portwood

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18.	aneurysm
19.	netflix
20.	gene simmons

1.	toddlers and tiaras
2.	solar eclipse
3.	rush limbaugh
4.	good morning america
5.	gma

6.	boston globe
7.	joss stone
8.	benjamin millepied
9.	gallbladder
10.	duggars

11.	boston bruins
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13.	amber portwood
14.	phillies
15.	bruins

16.	extreme couponing
17.	enchanted
18.	tupac
19.	news channel 5
20.	r kelly

enchanted
2.	guillain barre syndrome
3.	tupac shakur
4.	unclaimed money
5.	boston globe

6.	vancouver sun
7.	minnesota twins
8.	2pac
9.	phillies
10.	toddlers and tiaras

11.	one life to live
12.	jojo
13.	shangri la
14.	ulysses
15.	detroit tigers

16.	pga tour
17.	jk rowling
18.	the today show
19.	oz
20.	lulz

Review: Flip

2011-06-14T10:14:00.000-07:00

Flip off Howell Mill, near 75.
Holy crap. Delicious.

Some of the best burgers I've had in a long time. Bleu burger? Yes Please.
Onion Rings? No thanks. Seriously, crazy fried onion rings that taste like nothing.
But back to the burgers. holy crap, awesome. Like an explosion of bleu cheese and meat flavors.

Now for the shakes. Nitrogren shakes, cold delicious and crazy flavorful. Krispy Kreme, Rice Krispy shakes.
Yum. Nutella shake? Yes. Best shake ever? Yes.

Ok, now I need to go there I made myself hungry.

Learn French

2011-06-14T07:23:00.001-07:00

Just do it. Then you can speak to me in French. And it will be awesome.

http://ee5ddjn091yl21dbrbs9lf8y2m.hop.clickbank.net/

Make your own wine

2011-06-14T07:21:00.001-07:00

http://4953ffyd9-4k1a49-oedq7mpxc.hop.clickbank.net/

This sounds pretty sweet. If you try it let me know!

Atheism vs. Agnosticism

2011-06-14T06:56:00.000-07:00

Atheism vs. Agnosticism: What's the Difference? Are they Alternatives to Each Other?

Finally, a clear and concise description of the two, and the common misperceptions surrounding them.

Prevent religious ignorance, read this article.

Quick Highlight:

Agnostic is not a third more open-minded view between atheism and theism.

You can be both agnostic and theist, or agnostic and atheist.

Random Thought

2011-06-13T13:24:00.000-07:00

People are peacefully ignorant in topics they don't care about, and pretentiously knowledgeable in topics they do care about.
The problem arises when people are the former about the latter.

Likewise, people choose to remain ignorant in topics they don't understand, and choose to be pretentious in topics they do understand.
The problem here arises when they choose to be the latter about the former.

Code: Damped Spring system

2011-06-13T11:38:00.000-07:00

Say you have a damped spring with spring coefficient, ks =10, and damping coefficient, kd = 1 + 0.9 * sin(t). One end of the spring attaches to a fixed wall and the other end attaches to a particle. Assuming there is no other force besides the spring and damping forces applied to the particle, this is an implementation of an integration method with adaptive step size such that the particle motion is stable?

newpartpos[4] is the current ball attached to the spring
newpartpos[3] is the resting length
newpartpos[5] is the wall
kd is the damping coefficient NOTE: the kd is unrealistic, it should be a constant. This is used to demonstrate adaptive step size.
ks is the spring coefficient

double Lr = abs(newpartpos[4][0] - newpartpos[5][0]);
double Lc = abs(newpartpos[4][0] - newpartpos[3][0]);
double kd = 1 + .9*sin(time);
double force = ks*(Lc-Lr) - velocity*kd;
double oldpartpos = newpartpos[3][0];
newpartpos[3] = newpartpos[3] + Vec3d(howFast*velocity +
(0.5)*howFast*howFast*force, 0.0, 0.0);
velocity = (newpartpos[3][0]-oldpartpos)/howFast;
if (newpartpos[3][0] > newpartpos[4][0]){
velocity = -velocity;

Note that this method is the Heun method, it uses forward Euler's method as predictor and trapezoidal method as corrector. Hence, it does not need adaptive step size even though the kd is constantly changing.

Code: Particle System

2011-06-13T11:32:00.000-07:00

Simulating a snowglobe, 50 particles with collision detection and response against a sphere with radius 1.5
User ability to shake the sphere left right up and down with corrected detection and response of particles.
Explanation:
First the position is updated using the Heun method, followed by velocity. Giving us our current state
Y(t) = (x(t),v(t)) and derivative d/dtY(t) = (v(t), F(t))
Notice mass is 1, and therefore trivial.
Since particles are not rigid bodies we assume no rotation, angular momentum, torque, inertia tensor etc...
We are assuming these spheres have only position and no orientation (rotation)

Following that collision detection is done by computing the distance to the center of the sphere and comparing against the radius.
Collision response is done first by updating position then updating velocity.
Position is updated by first finding the intersection of the line (created by the old position and the new position of the particle) and the sphere. A more detailed explanation of this implementation can be found here: http://paulbourke.net/geometry/sphereline/
Note: if b^2 -4*a*c is less than 0, we need to compute the normal of the center to the particle, and multiply it by the radius, adding it to the center, to give us a less accurate but close enough point on the sphere.
After updating the position on the sphere, and translating it by the distance the sphere has moved (from the user) the new velocity needs to be computed.
Finding the normal at the position and breaking down the velocity into tangential and normal components, it is as simple as flipping the normal and adding the two back together.

Note: debugging further would iron out small inaccuracies, such as too high velocity and other small cases
Also note that this is one of many many ways of implementing this. I supply this for your general knowledge, not as the optimal solution to this problem. This is just the first way I came up with.

using namespace std;
double mytime=0.005;
double NUMP =50; //Number of particles

void onTimer(void *){

double howFast=0.005; //Note: Each frame is 0.005 seconds apart

if( DataManager::mUI->mControl->isPlaying()){
recordFrames();
DataManager::mUI->mControl->advanceFrame();
}

if(DataManager::mUI->mSim_but->value()){ // --------- begin simulation code-------------------
vector<Vec3d> newpartpos = DataManager::mParticlePos[DataManager::mParticlePos.size()-1]; vector<Vec3d> newpartvel = DataManager::mParticleVel[DataManager::mParticleVel.size()-1];

for (int i=0;i<NUMP;i++){

//store old values
double oldx = newpartpos[i][0];
double oldy = newpartpos[i][1];
double oldz = newpartpos[i][2];
//update position
newpartpos[i] = newpartpos[i] +
Vec3d(howFast*newpartvel[i][0],
howFast*newpartvel[i][1],
howFast*newpartvel[i][2]);//Heun Method
//update velocity
newpartvel[i] = Vec3d((newpartpos[i][0]-oldx)/howFast,
(newpartpos[i][1]-oldy)/howFast,
(newpartpos[i][2]-oldz)/howFast);
//compute distance to center
double distance2center = sqrt((newpartpos[i][0]-centerx)*(newpartpos[i][0]-centerx) +
(newpartpos[i][1]-centery)*(newpartpos[i][1]-centery) +
(newpartpos[i][2]-centerz)*(newpartpos[i][2])-centerz);

///Collision Detected
if (distance2center > 1.5){

double magc = sqrt((newpartpos[i][0]-centerx)*(newpartpos[i][0]-centerx) +
(newpartpos[i][1]-centery)*(newpartpos[i][1]-centery) +
(newpartpos[i][2]-centerz)*(newpartpos[i][2])-centerz);

Vec3d Nc = (newpartpos[i]-Vec3d(centerx,centery,centerz)) / magc;
//Line and Sphere intersection
double x1 = oldx; double x2 = newpartpos[i][0]; double x3 = centerx;
double y1 = oldy; double y2 = newpartpos[i][1]; double y3 = centery;
double z1 = oldz; double z2 = newpartpos[i][2]; double z3 = centerz;
double a = ((x2-x1)*(x2-x1))+((y2-y1)*(y2-y1))+((z2-z1)*(z2-z1));
double b = 2*(((x2-x1)*(x1-x3))+((y2-y1)*(y1-y3))+((z2-z1)*(z1-z3)));
double c = (x3*x3)+(y3*y3)+(z3*z3)+(x1*x1)+(y1*y1)+(z1*z1)-(2*((x3*x1)+(y3*y1)+(z3*z1)))-(1.5*1.5);

double u;
double inside = (b*b)-(4*a*c);

if(inside<0)
{
newpartpos[i] = Vec3d(centerx,centery,centerz) + (1.5)*(Nc) +
Vec3d(centerx-oldcx,centery-oldcy,centerz-oldcz);
}

else{
double u1 = (-b + sqrt(inside))/(2*a);
double u2 = (-b - sqrt(inside))/(2*a);
if (abs(u2)>abs(u1)) u = u1;
else u = u2;

//snap ball to point on sphere
newpartpos[i] = Vec3d(oldx,oldy,oldz) + u *(newpartpos[i] - Vec3d(oldx,oldy,oldz)) +
Vec3d(centerx-oldcx,centery-oldcy,centerz-oldcz);
}

//Cap velocity
svelox = (centerx-oldcx)/howFast;
if (svelox>5) svelox=5;
sveloy = (centery-oldcy)/howFast;
if (sveloy>5) sveloy=5;
sveloz = (centerz-oldcz)/howFast;
if (sveloz>5) sveloz=5;
//Compute magnitude & normal
double mag = sqrt((newpartpos[i][0]-centerx)*(newpartpos[i][0]-centerx) +
(newpartpos[i][1]-centery)*(newpartpos[i][1]-centery) +
(newpartpos[i][2]-centerz)*(newpartpos[i][2])-centerz);

Vec3d N = (newpartpos[i]-Vec3d(centerx,centery,centerz)) / mag;

//Break down vectors into normal and tangential
Vec3d Vn = (N[0]*(newpartvel[i][0]-svelox) +
N[1]*(newpartvel[i][1]-sveloy) +
N[2]*(newpartvel[i][2]-sveloz))*N;

Vec3d Vt = newpartvel[i] - Vn;

//Update velocity after collision response
newpartvel[i] = Vt - (.7)*Vn;

}
}

int main(int argc, char ** argv){

// inits
// ---------------------------------------------
DataManager::mUI = new ParticleSystemUI;
// ---------------------------------------------

// testing only: init some points
vector<Vec3d> init_particles(NUMP, vl_0);
vector<Vec3d> init_velocity(NUMP, vl_0);

double i;
srand ( time(0) );
for (i=0;i<NUMP;i++){
init_particles[i] = Vec3d((rand()% 10-5.0)/5.5,(rand() % 10-5.0)/5.5,(rand() % 10-5.0)/5.5);
}
for (i=0;i<NUMP;i++){
init_velocity[i] = Vec3d((rand() % 10-5.0),(rand() % 10-5.0),(rand() % 10-5.0));
}

DataManager::mParticlePos.push_back(init_particles); // first frame of data
DataManager::mParticleVel.push_back(init_velocity);
// show UI
Fl::visual(FL_DOUBLE | FL_INDEX);
DataManager::mUI->Show();
Fl::add_timeout( 0.07, onTimer );
return Fl::run();
}

Atlanta Krav Maga & Fitness

2011-06-12T22:08:00.000-07:00

Home Page

Is this review a little biased? It would be if it was a review. But it's not. Did you see the "Review:" in the title? You didn't. Exactly. Now you're starting to get my blog.

So what is it then. It's an opportunity for me to tell you why Atlanta Krav Maga & Fitness is the best source for realistic self-defense in all of Georgia. No not just Atlanta.

First of all there are less than 100 Krav Maga blackbelts in the United States, and 3 in Georgia. 2 of them are at Atlanta Krav Maga & Fitness. Eric Sepeda and Mario Carlomagno.

www.atlantakravmaga.com/instructors.html

This is the only Krav Maga Worldwide licensee school in the perimeter. What that means is that you are getting actual Krav Maga training, not a McDojo or Bob's Krav Maga school.

It's getting late. If I havent convinced you yet let me know why, I would love to discuss it further.

Good night, and stay safe.

Review: Ru San's

2011-06-12T21:56:00.000-07:00

Don't go.

To put it better, if you like sushi, don't go. If you like fried stuff dipped in sweet sauce, go.

From their lunch buffet to their dollar rolls to their special rolls, this is one big slap in the face to sushi. Maybe its because the chefs arent sushi chefs, theyre just minimum wage sushi template-followers.
Lunch buffet is laughable, with three fourths of their rolls coming deep fried and drenched in sauce, it doesnt matter what the sushi itself is itll taste like an expensive french fry dipped in sugar.
To be fair though this place is cheap. Or wait... is it? Let me refresh my memory...

http://www.allmenus.com/ga/atlanta/216965-ru-sans/menu/

Now I'm not saying this is the most expensive place, it is for sure one of the cheaper sushi restaurants, but for what you're paying, there are much better alternatives.
You may as well spend an extra 3 bucks for the 13 dollar Zen on Ten Special Roll at Zen on Ten: http://zenontenatlanta.com/

Now for you sushi snobs out there who are looking for a great sushi place with no concern for the price-per-ounce of food, look no further than MF Sushi.
http://www.mfsushibar.com/menu.html
Incredible food, the Kinjo brothers certainly know the art of sushi, and will beautifully demonstrate their talent the moment that first piece of fish literally melts in your mouth. The location is not ideal, as in bad neighborhood and difficult to park... so take a Krav Maga class first and then head on over.

MF Sushi, best sushi in Atlanta in my nook.

Review: Steel Sushi

2011-06-12T21:40:00.000-07:00

My review of Steel Sushi off of W Peachtree and tenth street (across the street from Mac's)
is somewhat limited. By that I mean that I have only been there for happy hour on Wednesdays.
By that I mean every Wednesday. By that I mean ever Wednesday for the past 2 years.

Here's why:
They offer free, let's repeat that, FREE sushi to anybody with a ten dollar minimum. That means two of their 5 dollar appetizers and you get plates and plates of free sushi.
Not just little california rolls either. They have shrimp tempura rolls, spicy tuna rolls, hawaiian rolls etc.
And the appetizers? Lettuce wraps are to die for, delicious crab rangoons (you know, that actually has crab in it, unlike Lucky-Buddha-Chinese-Mandarin-Happy-China type deep fried imitation crab meat), edamame, chicken or beef satay, and incredible fried calamari.

Needless to say, you wont find too many places where you can get a nice appetizer, allyoucaneat fresh sushi, and a glass of wine for 10 bucks. Best of its kind in my nook.

But be nice, tip for what its worth, not for the 10 dollar bill.

Review: Pacific Grille

2011-06-12T21:30:00.000-07:00

There are not too many places that I enjoy eating at in a food court at a mall.
Pacific Grille inside of Lenox Mall is one of those places.

Delicious meats (try the Thai spicy or pacific chicken) that is, that's right, actual meat.
No meat hose here, you get sliced chicken breast in delicious sauce on a bed of white or fried rice.

How about some sides? You got it. Healthy options of potatoes, mixed vegetables are actually edible! I know right? You don't have to chew on another rubber broccoli piece. Yay!

Try it out, it beats sakkio japan any day in my nook.

Quote from Kirby L. Duluth, GA, on Yelp's reviews:
"The owner, I learned, has been in the restaurant industry for 15 years and wanted a way to bring good quality restaurant food into the food courts. "

My background

2011-06-12T21:19:00.001-07:00

I started Tae Kwon Do at the age of 5 in Canada. In the 3rd grade I moved to Roswell, GA and continued training at East Coast Tae Kwon Do. When that school closed down I moved to Kim Brothers Tae Kwon Do, which was later changed to Fusion Martial Arts. By then I was a blackbelt and instructor in the martial art at the age of 15. Soon after, Eric Sepeda, came to demo a class. I instantly fell in love with Krav Maga, and have been doing it ever since. Eric eventually stayed permanently at the location, eventually switching over entirely to Krav Maga with the name Atlanta Krav Maga & Fitness, which now has another location in Lenox.

Krav Maga was everything that my traditional martial arts was not. I knew more about self-defense and fighting in 3 months of Krav Maga than in the entirety of my Tae Kwon Do training. My confidence was always high and I knew I could somewhat defend myself when I was still doing Tae Kwon Do, but Krav Maga is not even comparable. The level of expertise stricfly in terms of self-defense is 10 times what it was from TKD.

Huge thanks to Eric Sepeda, Atlanta Krav Maga & Fitness and all the instructors and students there.

www.atlantakravmaga.com

Why Krav Maga?

2011-06-12T21:17:00.001-07:00

This article is speaking about Krav Maga as a system. Not any individual school. There are plenty of "Bob's Krav Maga" schools out there inside of a McDojo that do not teach the system well if at all. For a list of Krav Maga Worldwide licensees, check out www.kravmaga.com

The main difference between Krav Maga and other martial arts is simply that it works.

More specifically, from the most efficient and practical techniques that are easy to learn to the way we train, there is currently no better system for practical self-defense.

Let's talk about how we train. Assuming you have done traditional martial arts for 10 years and practiced every technique a thousand times and are near perfect at everything, but that all you have trained is repetition, then what research shows is that when a situation comes up you will not be prepared. At least, not as prepared as you would think. When adrenaline (Epinephrine) is dumped into the body it is a completely different feeling than what you have practiced for so long. What will actually happen is that you will freeze, instead of fight.

Krav Maga takes away the "this would work in theory with a compliant partner" and has designed realistic techniques that just simply work. Add that in with different stress drills, endurance drills, awareness drills etc... (example: eyes are closed and an attacker can attack with any choke from any angle -> much better test of the technique than doing it dry in the mirror) and what you have is the absolute best self-defense system in the world.

We can get you trained from knowing absolutely nothing to a confident, knowledgeable and powerful individual. I learned more about self-defense and fighting in general in 3 months of Krav Maga than I did in 10 years of Tae Kwon Do.

Now that's not to say that everything else is terrible and Krav Maga is the best of everything ever. Other systems and martial arts have their uses, but ultimately they are sports. Krav Maga is a self-defense system, comparable to other self-defense systems, not Martial Arts. So moving on, for what it is, Krav Maga is the most useful and pratical system currently out there. I will accept arguements of Russian Systema, but am not knowledgeable enough in that system to go into detail about it. From what I have researched, however, there seems to be more logical flaws in the latter. Krav Maga is your best bet. But it all depends on what school you go to. Make sure your instructor knows what he is talking about!

www.atlantakravmaga.com

Hello World

2011-06-12T21:02:00.000-07:00

My name is Nick Levesque, I am a student at Georgia Tech studying in Computer Science, and instructor in Krav Maga certified by Krav Maga Worldwide teaching under Atlanta Krav Maga & Fitness, and a super awesome person.

That's it... theres nothing else interesting about me. like at all.