Happy Pi Day!

iWars: iPod vs. Zune

I got a kick out of this one… fun stuff.

(Full Disclosure: I do own a first gen iPod Touch, that I really like. I have no experience with the Zune, so I’m not in a position to compare the two – in other words, this is NOT meant to start any flame wars.)

Happy 2009

And did you know that a “leap second” was added in?  Why?  Well very slowly the Earth’s rotation is slowing, so a second was added to compensate.  You can learn more details here.

Wishing all a safe, happy, peaceful, prosperous New Year!

Christmas Visit

Maybe they heard Santa had made his yearly visit to our house… we had some visitors Christmas morning.

Borax Crystal Snowflakes!

Well it’s Christmas Season again. And I thought I would repost the instructions on how to make Borax Crystal Snowflakes. Our weather has been swinging from 50s to 30s back to 50s again – so no snow here.

So, what do you need?

• string
• wide mouth pint jar
• white, or maybe blue pipe cleaners
• blue food coloring (optional)
• boiling water (with adult help)
• borax (available at grocery stores in the laundry soap section)
• pencil

Now what you’ll want to do is to shape a snowflake frame from the pipe cleaners, such that one of the pipe cleaners is vertical, and the other two cross in the middle, twisting them together in the middle so that all of the points are equally apart from each other. Next tie the string to one of the points and string along to each pipe cleaner point to make the snowflake shape.

After this tie a length of string from the top point of the snowflake to the pencil, so that the flake will be entirely in the jar, but not touching the bottom.

Now pour the boiling water into the jar and begin adding the Borax into it, stirring in one tablespoon at a time, until you begin to see a little no longer dissolving into the water (now its supersaturated). If you want to use the food coloring, add it in at this point.

Now place the snowflake frame into the solution, using the pencil to hang at the top of the jar and let sit overnight. By the next day, you should have crystals growing on the snowflake!

Bring Your High SPF Lotion

Some people thought this was evidence of life on Mars, but it’s just a rock. It is cool how the light and shadows does make it resemble a humanlike form. Just think though, if it were a human, how much SPF they would need to protect themselves from the sun rays with Mars’ nice and thin atmosphere .

Merry Christmas!

In thinking of what I should write about as a “Christmastime blog”, I thought of things such as the science behind the Christmas Star (and how much the jury is still out on what exactly it could be, should it be some astronomical event), how Mars is particularly close to Earth today and therefore brighter than usual, so you could tell your young kids that it could be Rudolph leading Santa’s team, or perhaps breaking down how does Santa exactly get to all those kids houses in one night? (This link provides some curious animations of how things would look at near light speed travel.)

But in the end though, I thought it would be cool to do something nice and simple. Something that you could do with your kids over the Christmas break – grow some Borax crystal snowflakes!

So, what do you need?

• string
• wide mouth pint jar
• white, or maybe blue pipe cleaners
• blue food coloring (optional)
• boiling water (with adult help)
• borax (available at grocery stores in the laundry soap section)
• pencil

Now what you’ll want to do is to shape a snowflake frame from the pipe cleaners, such that one of the pipe cleaners is vertical, and the other two cross in the middle, twisting them together in the middle so that all of the points are equally apart from each other. Next tie the string to one of the points and string along to each pipe cleaner point to make the snowflake shape.

After this tie a length of string from the top point of the snowflake to the pencil, so that the flake will be entirely in the jar, but not touching the bottom.

Now pour the boiling water into the jar and begin adding the Borax into it, stirring in one tablespoon at a time, until you begin to see a little no longer dissolving into the water (now its supersaturated). If you want to use the food coloring, add it in at this point.

Now place the snowflake frame into the solution, using the pencil to hang at the top of the jar and let sit overnight. By the next day, you should have crystals growing on the snowflake!

And if you wanted to get the more scientific details about Borax, you can go here.

Wishing everyone a Happy, Healthy, and Safe Christmas and Holiday Season!

Happy Thanksgiving 2007!

 

Look closely at the two pictures… do you see a small resemblance? Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the two dimensional molecular diagram of Tryptophan looks just a little bit like a turkey… Okay, so it’s really more the gluttonous amount of food that you eat (and perhaps the accompanying bit of alcohol) that has more to do with that after-feast sleepiness, but it’s fun to bring up alongside the turkey that amino acid we all love to blame for our post meal couch potatoesque lethargy.

Happy Thanksgiving To All!

IT at Hogwarts: And We Thought We Had It Tough

In celebration of a new Harry Potter book and movie…

(Published in Network World, 23 July 2007)

To: Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster

Re: My resignation

Headmaster:

I regret that I must resign my position, effective two weeks ago, at least.

It is simply impossible under these conditions to create a modern, integrated, flexible IT architecture aligned with the school’s educational mission and objectives.

Deployment of the OC-3 fiber backbone met insuperable difficulties, as you know, when the cabling crew was attacked repeatedly by Dementors. Cabling staff rarely are effervescent people in the best of times, and having their life force sucked through their faces by cloaked, shadowy horrors as they lay paralyzed in icy terror is a serious de-motivator.

I may say that your presumably jocular suggestion that the Cisco Certified Network Professional training be modified to include instruction in casting the Patronus Charm was not well received.

As you know, it was considered impractical to deploy CAT5 cable in most areas because of the prevalence of solid granite walls, floors and ceilings and your adamant refusal to consider installing drop-down ceilings – not to mention the difficulties imposed by randomly moving staircases.

But attempts to deploy a wireless LAN have been frustrated by first-form students removing the antennas from the access points, in the conviction that these make superior wands. A conviction that proved immune to a very rigorous, indeed educational, outreach program by the school’s able caretaker, Argus Filch.

Of course, this obstacle was dwarfed by the so-called magical-interference problem. Reluctantly, at your request, I did raise this issue in a series of phone calls with Cisco Technical Support.

It quickly became clear that magic was not an issue with which Cisco Tech Support was familiar, even when escalated to the highest level. I patiently explained that, of course it was not magical spells per se that were causing interference, but the transmission of the wizard’s (or witch’s) energy, via the wand, occasioned by the spells. This explanation was met, variously, by expressions of confusion and outright disbelief and not infrequently, by ridicule.

“This sounds like a spectrum-regulation issue for the FCC,” said one Cisco employee, nearly choking in laughter at his own leaden attempt at humor.

A supervisor finally confirmed that Cisco had no plans to modify its radio-frequency management software to detect and compensate for magic, but that I could file a request for change through my Cisco account representative. In retrospect, I believe this, too, was intended as humor.

Even usually mundane issues proved burdensome. Just one example will suffice. One of the main wiring closets was to be the rarely used second-floor girls’ bathroom, which when renovated would be an ideal location. Except, of course, for the ghost. Moaning Myrtle’s initial flooding of the bathroom resulted in the loss of switches and associated equipment worth in excess of 18,000 galleons. Negotiations proved fruitless in the face of her unceasing moaning and crying, and the project was abandoned.

Also abandoned was a plan to create a wireless mesh network to cover the outlying Quidditch pitch, when beaters on both teams repeatedly used the mesh nodes as practice targets for their bludgers.

Despite all this, one could have persevered (IT professionals are uncommonly stubborn, which is often mistaken for thickheadness), but for the quite unexpected and even more stubborn resistance by Hogwarts faculty to the introduction of modern technology into the classroom.

I made a thorough and elaborate PowerPoint presentation on the benefits that an online learning management system would deliver for faculty and students (Professor Snape’s contemptuous dismissal of it as the work of a “PowerPoint wizard” was uncalled for).

In vain did I describe how online courses could increase the school’s revenue stream and achieve profitability goals; the greater flexibility, not to mention safety, of using 3-D online simulations of boggarts instead of the shape-shifters themselves; the desirability of an online potions catalog, cross-referenced with the Ministry of Magic’s database of potential side effects; an interactive, voice-automated Parseltongue translation system; a Defense Against the Dark Arts curriculum based on next-generation gaming software; a digital library to replace the heavy, often musty tomes of incantations; and an information security infrastructure to block access by He Who Must Not Named.

Yet when Professor of Divination Sybill Trelawney said the proposed IT architecture was “insensitive to the Inner Eye,” I realized my efforts were hopeless.

I have done all I can, Headmaster. I’m afraid that despite my best efforts, Hogwarts’ IT communications infrastructure will remain dependent on owls, talking letters, the use of Floo powder and a fireplace network, and of course, divinations, dreams and visions.

I am returning (once the full moon is past) to the Muggle world of cellular data services and high-tech IPOs. They at least, appreciate the true magic of information technology.

Your obedient servant,

Coxrid

IT director, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

The Table IS The Comptuer

Now don’t get me wrong. I think this multitouch technology is really cool stuff. I can see it being utilized by the military or other government applications, corporations, etc., but when I envision it being a coffee table in the home…

• Multiple instances of “Get your feet off of that table!”.

• Will the table really recognize your toddler’s toys, or for that matter, their coloring that finds its way off the paper, or licking, or some other mess from who knows where that they decide to deposit on its surface. But I guess the rounded corners means it’s child friendly, so it’s all good.

• Ah yes, the new medium for the old fashioned slide show. Instead of having one’s friends and family over to yawn at the slide show on the white screen of the vacation to where the heck was that anyway, now they can have them gather ‘round the coffee table. On a similar note as before though, how will the table recognize that particular person’s head that is now asleep, drooling on the table?

• I can see a boom for chiropractors everywhere. All that looking down working with photos, maps and whatnot on the table can only mean neck adjustments galore.

• The video mentions the table being used as a remote control for your TV. Guess we won’t have to worry about lost remotes.

• Where do you put your coffee table books, anyway?

• Speaking of books, if it can recognize different objects, could I put a book on it and it will read it to me (ahhh, memories of childhood)? Or better yet, could I put my head down on the table too and absorb the book’s material in an osmosis-like process? Perhaps there would be a market for a MS Surface pillow?

Well, I guess the possibilities are endless…

Oh yeah, and it’s $10,000.

Another video touting its “capabilities”…