Death Star over San Francisco

Olympic Taekwondo

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Randy Pausch on Time Management

Randy Pausch on Time Management

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The Push For Quotas For Women In Science

"The NYTimes has a story about how Congress has quietly begun to press for an equal number of women in the hard sciences and engineering under Title IX, which is best known for mandating numerical equality for boys' and girls' sports for institutions that accept federal funding. The problem is, the article says, it is not merely that women face discrimination from male colleagues, though that is often true, or that they are discouraged from pursuing these fields. Rather, women with aptitude in these areas often simply have other interests and so pursue their education and careers in other fields like law, education, or biology. Opponents of this plan, including many women in scientific fields, say implementing sex-based quotas will actually be detrimental because it will communicate that the women can't compete on even terms with men and will be 'devastating' to the quality of science 'if every male-dominated field has to be calibrated to women's level of interest.'"

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday July 15, @05:48PM on slashdot.

Hippocratic Oath for Scientists?

"I promise never to allow financial gain, competitiveness or ambition cloud my judgment in the conduct of ethical research and scholarship. I will pursue knowledge and create knowledge for the greater good, but never to the detriment of colleagues, supervisors, research subjects or the international community of scholars of which I am now a member."

Article: Living the Scientific Life

Teaching Math

What do kids want to learn and how do they want to learn it? There are certain requirements for every course that must be mastered by the students. But what makes learning enjoyable for some and drudgery for others? As a teacher, I can show my students an outline for the course and try to put everything in perspective so that they have a better idea of where I am taking them through the course. They know where they are and they know where they are going.

It always happens in every math class that I have taught that one day a student will as me why they need to learn this stuff. They are not impressed with explanations of how math trains their minds to think logically and teaches them to solve problems in a sequential manner by applying properties and theorems. The best answer that I can give my students is that I don’t know. And they don’t either. It depends on them and what they end up doing with their lives. Some of them will probably never use any of it. I am giving them tools to use and it will be up to them to decide if and when to use them.

I look at it as they are on a journey, one that I have already traveled. In high school algebra and geometry, they are at the beginning of a journey that will take them to calculus and higher math. Calculus is the door to a whole new way of looking at the world and leads to an understanding of the way things work. They are beginning a journey that will take them places and allow them to understand things that they haven’t even imagined.

I realize that most of my students will end their journey early and go no further than the basic algebra and geometry that is required for them to graduate from high school. That is fine. Math isn't for everyone. As long as you can make change and balance a checkbook. You probably learn all of the math that you need for normal, everyday life by 6th grade.. But there are a few who will make the journey. They will take the tools that I give them and acquire many more along their journey.

Hopefully, one or two of my students will continue the journey even further than I have gone.

A New Enerprise

CGI artist Gabriel Koerner has confirmed this is actually one of his designs. I'm really looking forward to the new Star Trek movie next summer. I really don't mind that it is a restart of the original series (TOS), as much as I am a fan of all things Star Trek. I think the modern way of story telling may be what the series needs to get a new generation hooked on making the future happen as much as my generation has been influenced by TOS.

Information R/evolution

Found on Merlin Mann's 43folders. This is an excellent video presentation by Michael Wesch on how digital technology is affecting the way that we deal with information.

On note taking and other important stuff

I'm in grad school working on an MS in EE and for note taking have found that nothing beats plain white copy paper. It's cheap ($2-3 per ream) and with a 3-hole punch and an inexpensive 1” 3-ring binder is very versatile. I have one binder for each course. I like the 1-1/2” wide binders because I can easily fit 2 or 3 in my bag. I have tabs to divide syllabus and course schedule, notes, handouts, and blank paper. Other tools include a good ol' Pink Pearl eraser, a Z-Grip 0.5mm mechanical pencil, and Pilot G-2 0.7 mm gel pens in red and blue ink and a Pilot G-2 Pro fine point in black ink. With these tools I can quickly capture notes and diagrams. The only things that I type up are homework assignments and lab reports. In my computer, I have files for each class and sub-files for homework, labs, and lecture notes (PowerPoint presentations and PDFs supplied by the professors). With my trusty Moleskine pocket squared notebook to keep track of my deliverables and other stuff I am able to leave my Dell Latitude D520 notebook computer put away until I get to the library.

Discontinued - Your kidding?

I just found out that my trusty TI-86 has been discontinued. So I'm using a relic. Hmmm. Well, anyway, everyone knows that real engineers use HPs. I bought the TI before I knew better anyway. Let's take a look at what they've got.

Wow. Look at the HP-50. Nice!

Oops, $149.99?

Um, the TI still works great, and besides, it's not the calculator, its the skill of the operator that counts.

Ya, that'll work.

Getting Things Done

I finally got around to buying David Allen's book (I bought it from Amazon along with one of the textbooks that I need for one of my grad courses). So far it is a pretty easy read. The book organizes a lot of what I know and have learned from working in industry for 18 years. I'll need to get through it all, digest it, and read through it again before I decide on what it can do for me. At this point, two thumbs up. I just need to put it down and get back to my textbooks occasionally.

Reliving the 80s with Pandora

I'm just sitting here doing some random browsing on line with Pandora open in another tab. I've got several stations set up that I can go to depending on my mood. Tonight, I selected the Electric Light Orchestra station and so far there has been a steady stream of "oldies" coming across. Starting with ELO, there has been The Police, Paul Simon, Cyndi Lauper, and now Bryan Adams is up. Each song brings back memories and feelings from a long time ago. It's actually quite amazing to me how music creates such an emotional response.

What to do?

I'm trying to figure out what I want to accomplish today. I'm a functional procrastinator and if I don't sit down and organize myself in the morning, I'm just kind of random throughout the day. At the end of the day I really don't feel like I have accomplished anything.

I started listening to podcasts from Merlin's Mann's 43 Folders blog and have downloaded a series on getting things done. I started listening to it on my walk last night and it is no surprise that I'm not the only one with this problem. What is surprising is that someone else actually has to time to spend really thinking about this issue. Merlin and his guest must have some very important projects that they are putting off. It seems that it is common to find lots of other things to do (like I am doing now) rather than getting done what needs to be done. The trick seems to be that if you are going to procrastinate getting done what needs to be done by doing other things, make those other things that you do things that need to be done. In other words, waste time with worthwhile activities.

Perhaps I'll finish listening to Merlin's podcast on my walk tonight, if something else doesn't come up.

Solving Karnaugh maps ain't like dustin' crops, boy!

I've found a new toy to play with. Recently, I pulled out my EE textbooks with the goal of re- familiarizing myself with things that I have forgotten. One of the things that I have been playing with is my old favorite the Karnaugh Map. I had forgotten how much fun it is to solve K-maps by hand. I think that they are a lot more interesting than wasting time with suduko. There is something practical that can result from simplifying a Boolean functions using a K-map. After playing around with several functions, I wondered if anyone had taken the time to create software to simplify a K-map (I was almost certain someone had). I found a neat open source application at http://k-map.sourceforge.net/#top to do just that. Now to all I have to do is get around to spending a little time playing with the software. I wonder if I can get it to run on my Pocket PC.

The Beach

At the beach. I'll be right back.

A Real American Hero

From the story of the Real GI Joe:

On Oct. 26, 1942: The last man did not fail

Oct. 26 fell on a Thursday this year [2000]. Ask the significance of the date, and you're likely to draw some puzzled looks -- five more days to stock up for Halloween? It's a measure of men like Col. Mitchell Paige that they wouldn't have had it any other way. What he did 58 years ago, he did precisely so his grandchildren could live in a land of peace and plenty.

Whether we've properly safeguarded the freedoms he and his kind fought to leave us as their legacy, may be a discussion better left for another day. Today we struggle to envision -- or, for a few of us, to remember -- how the world must have looked on Oct. 26, 1942. A few thousand lonely American Marines had been put ashore on Guadalcanal, a god-forsaken jungle island which just happened to lie like a speed bump at the end of the long blue-water slot between New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago -- the very route the Japanese Navy would have to take to reach Australia.

On Guadalcanal the Marines built an air field. And Japanese commander Isoroku Yamamoto immediately grasped what that meant. No effort would be spared to dislodge these upstart Yanks from a position that could endanger his ships during any future operations to the south. Before long, relentless Japanese counterattacks had driven the U.S. Navy from inshore waters. The Marines were on their own.

World War Two is generally calculated from Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939. But that's a Eurocentric view. The Japanese had been limbering up in Korea and Manchuria as early as 1931, and in China by 1934. By late 1942 they'd devastated every major Pacific military force or stronghold of the great pre-war powers: Britain, Holland, France, and the United States. The bulk of America's proud Pacific fleet lay beached or rusting on the floor of Pearl Harbor.

As Mitchell Paige -- then a platoon sergeant -- and his men set about establishing their last defensive line on a ridge southwest of the tiny American bridgehead at Henderson Field on Guadalcanal on Oct. 25, it's unlikely anyone thought they were about to provide a definitive answer to that most desperate of questions: How many able-bodied U.S. Marines does it take to hold a hill against 2,000 desperate and motivated attackers?

The Japanese Army had not failed in an attempt to seize any major objective since the Russo-Japanese War of 1895. But in preceding days, Marine commander Vandegrift had defied War College doctrine, "dangling" his men in exposed positions to draw Japanese attacks, then springing his traps "with the steel vise of firepower and artillery," in the words of Naval historian David Lippman.

The Japanese regiments had been chewed up, good. Still, American commanders had so little to work with that Paige's men had only four 30-caliber Browning machine guns on the one ridge through which the Japanese opted to launch their final assault against Henderson Field, that fateful night of Oct. 25.

By the time the night was over, "The 29th (Japanese) Infantry Regiment has lost 553 killed or missing and 479 wounded among its 2,554 men," historian Lippman reports. "The 16th (Japanese) Regiment's losses are uncounted, but the 164th's burial parties handle 975 Japanese bodies. ...The American estimate of 2,200 Japanese dead is probably too low."

Among the 90 American dead and seriously wounded that night were all the men in Mitchell Paige's platoon. Every one. As the night wore on, Paige moved up and down his line, pulling his dead and wounded comrades back into their foxholes and firing a few bursts from each of the four Brownings in turn, convincing the Japanese forces down the hill that the positions were still manned.

The citation for Paige's Congressional Medal of Honor adds: "When the enemy broke through the line directly in front of his position, P/Sgt.Paige, commanding a machine gun section with fearless determination, continued to direct the fire of his gunners until all his men were either killed or wounded. Alone, against the deadly hail of Japanese shells, he fought with his gun and when it was destroyed, took over another, moving from gun to gun, never ceasing his withering fire."

In the end, Sgt. Paige picked up the last of the 40-pound, belt-fed Brownings -- the same design which John Moses Browning famously fired for a continuous 25 minutes until it ran out of ammunition in its first U.S. Army trial -- and did something for which the weapon was never designed. Sgt.Paige walked down the hill toward the place where he could hear the last Japanese survivors rallying to move around his flank, the gun cradled under his arm, firing as he went.

The weapon did not fail.

Coming up at dawn, battalion executive officer Major Odell M. Conoley first discovered the answer to our question: How many able-bodied U.S.Marines does it take to hold a hill against two regiments of motivated, combat-hardened infantrymen who have never known defeat?

On a hill where the bodies were piled like cordwood, Mitchell Paige alone sat upright behind his 30-caliber Browning, waiting to see what the dawn would bring.

One hill: one Marine.

But that was the second problem. Part of the American line had fallen to the last Japanese attack. "In the early morning light, the enemy could be seen a few yards off, and vapor from the barrels of their machine guns was clearly visible," reports historian Lippman. "It was decided to try to rush the position."

For the task, Major Conoley gathered together "three enlisted communication personnel, several riflemen, a few company runners who were at the point, together with a cook and a few mess men who had brought food to the position the evening before.

"Joined by Paige, this ad hoc force of 17 Marines counterattacked at 5:40 a.m., discovering that "the extremely short range allowed the optimum use of grenades." In the end, "The element of surprise permitted the small force to clear the crest."

And that's where the unstoppable wave of Japanese conquest finally crested, broke, and began to recede. On an unnamed jungle ridge on an insignificant island no one had ever heard of, called Guadalcanal. Because of a handful of U.S. Marines, one of whom, now 82, lives out a quiet retirement with his wife Marilyn in La Quinta, Calif.

When the Hasbro Toy Co. called up some years back, asking permission to put the retired colonel's face on some kid's doll, Mitchell Paige thought they must be joking. But they weren't. That's his mug, on the little Marine they call "GI Joe."

And now you know.


The Washington Post
November 18, 2003; Page B06

Mitchell Paige, 85, a retired Marine Corps colonel who received the Medal of Honor after almost single-handedly staving off enemy forces during a crucial battle of World War II, died Nov. 15 at his home in La Quinta, Calif., southeast of Palm Springs.

United States Marine Corps

Since 1775

Here's to you and to our Corps.

Freedom

For those who fight for it, freedom has a special flavor the protected will never know.

Back to Business

I've been working on the courses that I'm taking over the summer at CAC. I'm trying to knock out the education credits that I need to teach here in Arizona. The courses aren't all that difficult (Behavior Management and Intro. to Education) and actually are quite interesting. They just take a little time for the reading and writing papers. I've got a couple of more chapters to go and hope to have it all finished over this weekend. Then it's back to playing with microcontrollers. I really miss the little guys.

I've been seeing a lot more discussion about FPGAs in the literature lately. It looks like they are coming to light as the versatile little buggers that they are. EDN magazine has an interesting little article in the July 7 edition on the image-processing applications of FPGAs. In Embedded Systems Programming magazine (July 2005) the editor has a nice piece about his experiences with FPGAs.

Good news! IEEE Spectrum magazine is reporting in the July 2005 issue that engineering salaries are slowly starting to rise again in the US and are really taking off overseas. Overseas, salaries for engineers are increasing by double digit percents. The drain that has occurred here in the US with engineering jobs seems to be heating up the job market in China and India. Hopefully, some type of near equity will be reached with US engineers and some of the jobs that have been sourced off-shore will start returning.

Computer magazine (July 2005) also has an article on embedded computing and discusses the need for computer science to revisit its foundations and prepare for the 21st century by creating practices that will meet current and projected needs. It will be necessary to reinvent computer science. There are issues of precision and reliability involving temporal issues. We have the basic tools that we need. We just need to start using them. Technology is ready for another leap. The time is just about right for another revolution such as occurred as transistors became ubiquitous.

Star Trek New Voyages

I came across a cool web site for an independent Star Trek fan film production group at Star Trek New Voyages. They have released two films so far that pick up where the original series from the 1960s left off. Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise had completed three years of their five year mission when the series was cancelled and the fan films pick up during the fourth year. All of the original Enterprise crewmembers are portrayed by new actors who give fresh interpretations of the original characters.

The first two episodes “Come What May” and “In Harms Way” were released in 2004. These short films are available free for download from the website in zipped WMA format either through direct download from mirror sites or through bit torrent. Each episode is presented as a teaser and five acts. There are two more films in development and are scheduled for release in 2006. The third film is being written by one of the writers from the original series and will guest star Walter Koenig - Mr. Chekov from the original series and the movies.

I was impressed with the quality of the films considering that they are privately sponsored and produced. There are quite a few computer generated special effects but the look and feel is approximate to the original series plus something a little more. The costumes, props, and sets are very well done. I noticed the improvement between the first episode and the second episode and anticipate again as much improvement in the upcoming episodes. Since Star Trek Enterprise was cancelled and there is no Trek in sight, at least not for a few years, the production of fan films such as New Voyages will do nicely to fill the void for Trekkers such as myself.

I know that there are other fan films in production, some spinning off from the later series such as "The Next Generation." But for me, it's exciting to see Captain Kirk and the Starship Enterprise back in action again - boldly going where no man has gone before.