The Backstop (alias L'esprit de l'escalier)

Caffeine: for me or against me?

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:16:02 -0800

You decide and please advise:

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/118369-how-to-optimize-your-caffeine-intake

FWIW, Paul Erdos said, "A mathematician is a machine for turing coffee into theorems." WIth all due respect to Paul, the last theorem I produces was in 1998. Other caffeine byproducts have consisted of chalk dust and ... I'm not sure what else.

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Best College Majors...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 15:52:42 -0800

...are Math-Heavy

http://www.mint.com/blog/trends/best-college-majors-by-salary-022012/

What did I do wrong?

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A 'holy shit' moment?

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:18:00 -0800

From the nytimes.com:

The researchers examined public databases of 7.1 million public keys that are used to secure e-mail messages, online banking transactions and other secure data exchanges. The researchers employed the Euclidean algorithm, an efficient way to find the greatest common divisor of two integers, to examine those public key numbers. They were able to produce evidence that a small percentage of those numbers were not truly random, making it possible to determine the underlying numbers, or secret keys, used to generate the public key.

Maybe this is why they are called pseudo-random number generators?!

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Which comes first, the cart or the horse?

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:45:00 -0800

President Obama says that he is putting Colleges and Universities on notice. If they don't stop tuition from increasing, they will watch their public funding decrease. Funny. I think most pubic colleges and Universities are increasing their tuition BECAUSE public funding is being cut by state lawmakers. Maybe I'm missing some Federal system of higher education?!

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Sorry, Angels

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 17:45:00 -0700

Every time I put on a suit, at least one angel loses its wings. Sorry.

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Safety First

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 14:22:41 -0700

Sent from my iPhone

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A Dirty Job

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 10:26:35 -0700

I love being a filty mathematician.

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Is the America Invents Act Digging Us Deeper?

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 04:35:00 -0700

It looks like the America Invents Act has been passed by both the House and Senate, and it is on its way to the President's desk. And it looks like the President is going to sign the bill. What is this going to mean?

I do not know much about intellectual property policy, but everybody knows that American patent system is seriously broken. From the backlog of patents that have been filed and are waiting to be reviewed, to the absurd patents that are being granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office, to patent trolling that is now a business (cf. the business practices of Intellectual Ventures), and the technology patent wars that corporations are waging. It's all craziness.

And now it appears there is going to be a revision to the way patents are granted that puts more power into the hands of the large corporations. Where 'invention' had been the act that merited a patent, now it seems that filing paperwork on an idea first will now take precedence. How is this an improvement in the system? How is this going to help fix the problems in the US patent system?

Really, I want to know. Please share what you know. Share links. Share information. Please.

Update: The NYTimes.com has an article on this: Fighting Backlog in Patents, Senate Approves Overhaul

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Query: Inform me on the nature of modern STEM disciplines (via Quora.com)

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 16:14:00 -0700

Truman State Univeristy has the unique honor to be one of a handful of colleges or Universities to have a PRISM grant from the National Science Foundation. We earned the honor of this grant on the basis of our ability to marshal faculty support for the idea that STEM education in the twenty-first century is different from the STEM education of the twentieth century. At Truman, we've had great success in building a curriculum supporting the New Biology, and our NSF PRISM grant is helping us extend this to other STEM disciplines. Specifically, it's helping us reach freshmen in the following way.

We offer a major-specific first semester 'orientation' course to each of our STEM majors, and now this NSF PRISM grant has allowed us to create an 'integrative' STEM orientation course. It lets us inculcate new students with the idea that the STEM disciplines are interrelated and interdependent. Our intuition, borne of much experience, tells us that this will help draw more students to the study of STEM areas. And it will bolster our retention proportions to our majors; our STEM student will view taking course in other STEM areas as 'opportunities' an not 'obligations'.

But I need access to the 'wisdom of the crowds' as I prepare these students, so I posted a couple questions to Quora.com to learn how I should talk about different STEM majors.

If you are a STEM professional in a discipline or area allied with a STEM discipline represented by my questions (below), please respond.

Your perspective may shape a generation of future STEM professionals. No pressure.

I'm considering posting analogous questions on Psychology, Health Science, and some other STEM-related disciplines. If those are of interest to you, stay tuned.

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Pat Summit, UTK Coach: standing up for being human

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 18:30:00 -0700

Today, it looks like the winningest coach in college basketball (women's or men's) is talking openly about her diagnosis of early onset dimentia. And UTK is keeping her on staff. And at the vanguard of their programs. Good for them!!!!!

“She is an icon not only for women’s basketball, but all of women’s athletics,” Ms. Cronan said in a statement. “For Pat to stand up and share her health news is just a continuing example of her courage. Life is an unknown and none of us has a crystal ball. But I do have a record of knowing what Pat Summitt stands for: excellence, strength, honesty and courage.” [quote]

It takes courage to share with your community (and the whole frickin' world) that you're hurt. Whether it's early onset dimentia (as in Ms. Summit's case), prostate cancer (as in the case of Jeff Jarvis), or whatever [yes, I'm thinking about my summer experience], sharing that with others is an important public service that lifts the veil of "secrecy" from situations that others may confront. Let's all share our experiences with others, with humanity, to help them cope and prepare and not fear (or prepare for fear).

(Image used to celerate Ms. Summit, but used without permission; nytimes.com)

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Making and Edukating: an idea waiting to happen (revised)

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 15:58:00 -0700

After more thought, it seems to me that this article, 'At This Girls' Camp, Crafts Take a Drill Press', describes programs that superficially prepare young women for careers in manufacturing. But it's more about preparing girls to be makers, and opening doors to future careers that would otherwise go unnoticed.

Across the country, a handful of companies, nonprofit groups, public educational agencies and even science museums are trying to make manufacturing seem, well, fun. Focusing mainly on children aged 10 to 17, organizations including the Da Vinci Science Center in Allentown, Pa.; and Stihl, a maker of chain saws and other outdoor power equipment in Virginia Beach, Va., run camps that let students operate basic machinery, meet workers and make things.

One thing I take away from this is the depth of experience there is out there in running these problems, as well as the enthusiasm for supporting (with money) the programs. But down there at the foundations of the effort are passion (of the team of individuals who organize the programs) and a respect for STEM learning.

“Not letting your children learn the hands-on component of the theory of science is killing us as a nation,” Ms. Sharris said. “You have to stop giving kids books and start giving them tools.”

I'm not suggesting that STEM should get higher billing in these programs. I suggest quite the opposite, that STEM programs should give these types of programs greater respect and higher billing. Hell, we should start stealing some of their best bractices to appropriate in the ways we teach young people and college students.

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Google Doodle for Fermat

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 20:04:00 -0700

I'd probably lose some math geek cred if I didn't celebrate Google's way of celebrating the 410th birthday of Pierre de Fermat, the namesake of 'Fermat's Last Theorem.' The guts of the theorem are depicted in the doodle itself; that there are no integer solutions to the Pythagorean-Theorem-like equations for integer exponents greater than 2.

That such a simple statement should be so difficult to prove provides a remarkable mathematical (and human) story. The interested reader should watch the Nova documentary titled 'the Proof'. A resource page for the program can be found here.

And it looks like video of the 1996 program has been captured in Google video here:

It also appears to be serialized on YouTube. Here is the first part of five. I'll let you find the rest.

The documentary is a wonderful watch, and it teaches viewers deep and important things about mathematics, the mathematical way of thinking, the importance of proof and the way communities are involved in the creation and evaluation of mathematical ideas.

Past Google doodles can be found here: http://www.google.com/logos/

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Up and Up: Putting the Balloons to Bed

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 19:14:00 -0700

My three-day science, math, and writing camp experience for thirteen and fourteen year-olds is behind me. Reimbursement requests, invoicing, and report-writing still hang out on my to do list. But this afternoon, I decided to use the last of my helium to send another trio of balloons into the sky over my home. With my daughters (pictured above) assisting me.

It's hard to say what they got out of it. We talked a bit about helium and buoyancy, but mostly they helped with some of the mechanical things like winding the balloons up to and down from the sky with my drill rig. Doing little things like this, I hope, will give them the confidence to use their hands to make, break, and build things. And to learn from that process. Just I like I've learned so much from this process of preparing this campus experience for those 28 Kansas City kids who hope to go to college in five years.

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Tremendous. Experience.

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 13:54:00 -0700

Can't put it into words yet.

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Up and Up: If Lost, Please Return To....

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 17:21:00 -0700

Sad news. Today we were demo'ing our helium balloon satellite imaging system with some new 'unbreakable' string with the GoPro HERO camera mounted on the gondola. It was a slightly breeze day, and the winds pushed the balloons firmly away from us. As we let the strings wind out, the balloons rose and before we knew what it meant, they were over a huge oak tree. Thinking that slack would help the balloon rise, we let out string, The balloon descended as the winds pushed it. Then the string went slack. And that balloon rig floated away with our camera taking one picture per second.

So, if you find our camera, please let us know. We'll pay to have it shipped back from us.

Last seen, the balloon rig was ascending slowly and heading northeast. The trio of balloons are red, just as pictured in several previous posts (here, here, and here).

Please let your friends in north Missouri, South Iowa, Southwest and Central Illinois know about our plight. If you or anyone finds our rig, please let us know at millerj@truman.edu or step@truman.edu.

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Up and Up: Still Winds Over Campus

Sat, 30 Jul 2011 06:40:00 -0700

Storms rolled through town Thursday night. When they left, they took the breeze with them. I was on campus all day, and the still treetops called to me, "Launch your balloons today." But there was too much to do to get ready for the three-day camp next week. Launching the balloons would be too much fun to feel right.

But then the new camera arrived: the GoPro HD Motorsports HERO Camera. This rock solid, shock-proof, light-weight unit would give us better quality pictures, but it wouldn't be as satisfying to use as the Aries + PICAXE camera rig that we built ourselves. I gave the camera to Christian to figure out, and by 5:30pm, Christian, Sara, and I were prepping the balloon rig over slices of Hawaiian pizza.

The camera can take all sorts of types of photos, but we choose to have it take one photo per second. By the time we were done walking the balloon around campus like some sort of buoyant trio of dogs, we had about 3000 JPEGs to sort through. Here is a selection.

See the full gallery on Posterous

The GoPro camera is great. I'm looking forward to playing with it more at high and low elevations.

Just for fun, I took a bunch of pics the GoPro took and made a little movie of reeling the balloons to the ground.

reeling_it_in_3.mov Watch on Posterous

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Up and Up: Breaking Against the Wind

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 05:54:00 -0700

This post is for those of you who are keeping score at home. The more we play with this apparatus (from Make Magazine vol. 24), the more we understand its strengths and vulnerabilities. Overall, the helium balloon imaging satellite continues to be great fun. When we're outside testing it, people ask questions or look up at the balloon rig and smile. Often, we get a chance to proselytize for 'making' in service of STEM education. I hope our excitement is infectious.

(At one point, a science professor approached us to ask what we were doing. I describe the project and introduced the student working with me at the time. "Are you a physics major?" the prof asked him, making a reasonable assumption. "Political science," he replied. That gave me the perfect moment to say, "Science is for everyone.")

Wind is a source of frustration for us. The 36" diameter balloons are so big (about 1020 square inches in profile) that they are pushed around by the wind. And it doesn't take much wind to it. This sets the gondola with its camera to swinging around. And since the Aries camera is an el-cheapo, the images suffer from motion blur.

Wednesday, we tried to loft the balloon on campus between the science building and the student union. (Our location is pictured at the topi of this post.) The buildings sheltered the balloons from the breeze until they ascended to about 50 feet. At that point, the light breeze pushed the balloons downwind and lower (putting the tether at a 30 to 45 degree angle of elevation with the horizontal). As long as we gave the balloons slack, the tether's angle of elevation increased and the balloons ascended. But when the tether reached its end, and the balloon hung above the library, we'd watch as the breeze pushed the balloon down out of sight beyond the building.

At one point, we could only hope the string didn't break as we dragged it back across the library building's coping.

Here are some of the 25 pics we took when we first attempted our on campus launches. I'm sparing you the most blurry.

See the full gallery on Posterous

The next day, we chose to test the camera on campus. This time we didn't let the balloon go quite as high.

See the full gallery on Posterous

In this last series of pics, you can start to see the rig we're using to wind the tether in an out. It's essentially a winch driven by a cordless drill, and it's works pretty well. Here are a series of three pics taken as we're drawing the balloon back down.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Others who are interested in this project should take note that breeze is bad. You want very calm weather to get the best quality photographic results.

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Up and Up: Failure Lies on the Path of True Knowledge

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 20:12:00 -0700

There's a failure meme out there, and here is our contribution. I post this for fun and to contribute to the meme.

Tonight, we took our act onto the main campus. This would let a couple other people participate, and it would allow us to see campus in a new an unusual way. We set everything up with new balloons and yesterday's payload. We had the Flip MinoHD all set.

New to our setup was a hack attempt at using a winch fashioned out of an old (long) screw driver and a cordless drill. Suprrisingly, that thing wasn't our point of failure.

My daughter caught the drama on video.

bye_bye_balloons_110726.MOV Watch on Posterous

Apparently, the knot we'd tied at the top of the payload section came undone, freeing the balloons from the payload. Thankfully, the payload dropped from a low height.

Bought a couple more carabiners at Walmart on the way home.

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Up and Up: Further adventures in educational ballooning

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 07:30:52 -0700

Today, I made significant progress in the alpha testing of my instantiation of Make Magazine’s “Helium Balloon Imaging Satellite” project (from volume 24). I was ably and enthusiastically assisted by Christian Johns, a college student who will be a Youth Leader for the three-day summer program that’s motivating my efforts. Even though we started the day with all materials assembled (e.g., PICAXE microcontrollers, modified Aries cameras, the payload platform), ironing out the kinks took about four hours. I’ll leave the gory details until another post (if there’s interest) including our protocol for launching and downloading pics. For now, I’ll share pics of what we’re doing, and a couple videos.Here’s a pic of the payload platform we’re using. The 12 gauge wire that connects the CD to the pill bottle is secured through their holes with bent wire and and glue so there's less in-flight play in the materials. The ‘plug’ that connects the Aries camera to the PICAXE microcontroller comes apart too easily, so we decided to tape the connectors together and take the wires to the platform.

We learned, after launching our rig a couple times and only getting two pics each time (instead of 25), that the two initial delay values used in the PICAXE program (p.85, the narrative description of the code does not reflect the true timing in the code) were too long for the Aries camera. The program picture in the instructions shows a delay of 30000 microseconds, but that’s the same delay the Aries camera uses to decide to power down. So we tweaked the values to 25000 microseconds. That fixed things. Note that the example code downloadable from here does work as described int he narrative.

We also decided that connecting the battery to the PICAXE controller is a big PITA, and we’d like to find a way to put a switch between the power and the microcontroller. This would make launch considerably easier. That modification will wait until I can identify a good switch to use.

Our first real test of the balloon assembly used a Flip MinoHD video recorder instead of the Aries camera + PICAXE system. Here are videos of the rig on it’s pre-alpha flight: one is from the ground, and one is from the rig itself. They are gently edited for length. The first is a ground-based view of our antics. The second is from the balloon-cam.

kauffman_balloon_-_ground_110725_for_web.m4v Watch on Posterous

Balooning_-_first_flight.mov Watch on Posterous

Later, we tested the Aries + PICAXE system. Below are some pics we took. For these, we moved our position so we could capture Universities facilities that support a new locavore initiative (e.g., plots of pepper plants, tomato plants, corn, and herbs gardens along with a food prep building with refrigeration.) The pics were taken at the camera’s default resolution and compression.

See the full gallery on Posterous

All in all, this was a successful test of Make Magazine's Helium Balloon Imaging Satellite. Hopefully the kids in next week's summer program will think it's cool.

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Making and Edukating: a fun test leading to a big week

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 18:22:00 -0700

In a little over a week, I play host to 33 junior high students from Kansas City who are going to come to Truman’s campus and spend three days learning what college is like. For the last few weeks, I’ve been madly putting a program together that leans somehow on model rocketry. What can be more fun that controlled explosions, right?

I’m also going to do some low-altitude ballooning. (Balloons demonstrate another way to overcome the force of gravity.) My approach is based off the “Helium Balloon Imaging Satellite” project in Make Magazine, volume 24. That project has some hidden pitfalls that I’ll share if people are interested. For today, I want to show a picture of a rig I made to overcome a lack of a working helium canister (or regulator). I thought I’d test lofting my payload with a kite.

Normally, I’d get my 9 year-old to help me by holding the kite off the ground while I pulled it into the sky, running upwind. Holding it off the ground is especially important, given that I’ll have a payload hanging off the bottom of the kite. Can’t just let that drag on the ground. But the family was out of town, and I had to do this solo.

Above is a picture of my rig: it’s two 2x4s wedged into my truck’s roof rack so they are angled up. The truck is parked facing with the wind so when I pull the string on the kite, the kite will be moving into the wind. The rig worked great, and it would have worked better if there had been a breeze.

kauffman_kite_110724.mp4 Watch on Posterous

The project in Make Magazine has you construct a camera system using a digital still camera. I made one of these (three, actually), but I thought I'd test my kite-rig with a MinoHD video camera. In the video I recorded, you can hear the kite zip off my launch rig, and you can watch as it flies across my front yard; you see the chicken tractor, part of the driveway, the front walkway, a garden hose, and when you see the Queen Anne's Lace in the long grass, get ready for the crash.

The test-of-concept was successful, I thought. It would have worked better if there had been any wind to provide lift.

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