L.A.B. Unleashed

So I have been trying to come up with some patent ideas. You really have to get into that creative mode and just try to think up some good stuff. I was doing some research on one idea I had, and found a really cool Notes feature I had not seen before!

The Prevent Copy feature can be found in the Delivery Options for any email message.

Once that option is set, you can send the message to your intended recipients. Then, on the receiving end, the recipient will be blocked from Replying With History or Forwarding the message. Note, that the recipient CAN simply Reply to the message, but not with the history included.

Now, if you want to get tricky, and find a loop hole, try highlighting the text in the message. You’ll notice that the “Copy” option has been removed from the standard Edit Menu, AND if you do a CTRL-C, it will not even be copied to your imaginary clipboard! They really thought of everything!

This is such a great way to protect the content of a message. That’s the thing about email, you never really feel secure when sending sensitive data. With this Notes feature you can ensure that the content remains private, between you and the recipients.

Of course, this only works if you are a Notes user, it is not a third party standard feature, so GMAIL or Thunderbird doesn’t implement it on their end. Notes is full of all kinds of great little features … hey, it took me 5 years to find this one!

I’ve never been great at crossword puzzles. I just don’t have that SAT vocabulary to keep up! We got a book of Sudoku puzzles for Christmas, and man are we HOOKED! They remind me of crosswords, but instead of trying to figure out what words fit into the boxes – you have to figure out which numbers do. The rules are simple – working with integers 1 to 9, fill in the empty boxes so that each row, column, and larger square has a single instance of each integer.

Believe me … hours of entertainment for the ‘vocabulary challenged’!

Sharing a snack … I’m just glad they are using separate spoons …

Don’t you hate when it gets caught on the roof of your mouth?! Kobe does too!

We made it to the New England Boat Show on Saturday afternoon with some buddies. I had to pry Kevin off of many vessels including a massive yacht that had 2 bedrooms downstairs, a full bath/shower, gleaming hardwood floors, a kitchen that would make Martha proud, and not to mention the commanding upper deck – with many MANY cup holders, lounge chairs, and all the technical equipment you might need to launch a small aircraft off its very large bow. All of this could have been ours, for the modest price of our home X 2! I think we need to work our way up to that one. Last year was our first year on the water, and although I was a solid first mate, I was no el capitán.

Boating season is right around the corner, and hopefully there will be many days like this one in our near future …..

Forget matches? No problem … we have flares!

Steady while we light the grill … hot dogs anyone?

I’ve had my fill …. good to go!

Ever seen a human water torpedo? We did that day! We quickly figured out that the large yellow buoys are better used for floating; rather than being pulled behind the boat at 35 mph with a person desperately holding on.

Who thinks I was a little too hard on Dick…

Maybe I was, so here is the other side of the Turin vs. Torino name scandal! Okay … so it’s not really a full blown scandal … but it does sound much more dramatic that way!

I’m always interested in areas where my degrees intersect – Math and Computer Science, and the following article is a really neat example of this intersection.

The entire study of mathematics is based on proofs. Proofs of theorems are the backbone of the science. The quality of a proof is that with 100% certainty one can say that something is right. An interesting article shows that mathematical proofs, once irrefutable, are now becoming too complex, and therefore impossible to verify with 100% certainty. Many other scientific fields, such as biology or genetics, have long had to live with the possibility of error in their research and postulates. Mathematics has never had this dimension to it – the dimension of uncertainty. In math things are always proven to be true or false – never I’m 99.9% sure that it’s true.

Computers are playing a larger role in helping to prove these complex new mathematical proofs. New algorithms are being developed to help verify mathematical proofs. In one example, the Four Colour Theorem was finally verified using one of these computer verifications.

The Four Colour Theorem, proposed by Francis Guthrie in 1852, states that any four colours are the minimum needed to fill in a flat map without any two regions of the same colour touching.

You should really try this out … it’s pretty neat. Take a map of the US or the World, or even a checkerboard. You will see that you need at least 4 colors to fill in each section – sure there are exceptions that can be done using 3 colors or 2 colors or 1 color, but these examples would not apply across an infinite base of maps.

A proof of the theorem was announced by two US mathematicians, Kenneth Appel and Wolfgang Haken, in 1976. But a crucial portion of their work involved checking many thousands of maps – a task that can only feasibly be done using a computer. So a long-standing concern has been that some hidden flaw in the computer code they used might undermine the overall logic of the proof.

So, with the era of computers comes the ability to do more complex problems and calculations. But, this also adds another place to make a mistake, in the actual programming or logic of the computer program. Both of these factors are “making math more human” according to one scientist, and I tend to agree.

I’ve been watching the Olympics the past few days. I’ve always loved the Figure Skating, but that new Snowboard Cross event is AWESOME! I’m also looking forward to the upcoming Curling event … not really, but I’m just really curious how one decides to become a profession Curler.

In any case Torino has been a beautiful backdrop for these winter Olympic Games. What’s the deal with the name though? I heard a report on NBC two nights ago, that the “real” name of the town is Turin – as in the Shroud of Turin. Why is it being called Torino? Well, Dick Embersol, the chairman of NBC Universal Sports, decided that “Torino” rolled off the tongue so much nicer than “Turin”.

“It just rolls off your mouth,” he says. “It talks about a wonderful part of the world. It has a romanticism to it. And I just thought that that was a wonderful way to name these games.”

NBC pays hundreds of millions of dollars to broadcast their coverage of the Olympics Games, but does that really give them the right to change the name of the city – just because the head-honcho thinks is sounds more romantic?! I think it’s completely ridiculous! It just continues to perpetuate the stigma that Americans have – what right does this guy have to change the pronunciation of an entire city, just because that’s what he prefers. Who does he think he is? And to be able to comment on it so openly, like he did nothing wrong, adds to his NO-ONE-IS-MIGHTIER-THAN-I attitude.

Hmph … I don’t really like how “Embersol” rolls off the tongue. Maybe it should be pronounced as POMPUS instead.

Kevin sent me a great article this morning – Babies Get Abstract With Maths. Don’t ask me why they spelt “Math” wrong, it’s really annoying me, but I felt like I should keep the integrity of the article in tact.

In any case, a study was done to show that babies have numerical perception across their senses.

… seven-month-old babies demonstrate an ability to match the number of voices they hear to the number of faces they expect to see.

That is pretty amazing to me! It seems as though we were born with these abstract mathematical senses engrained right into us.

I was doing some more Eclipse research today and came across some really neat resources for colleges and universities. From the website…

The IBM Academic Initiative (formerly called the IBM Scholars Program) offers open standards, open source and IBM technologies and educational resources to help faculty and students stay current with the IT industry.

They offer discounts on hardware and software, portals for students which include contests and job opportunities, course materials to download and much more! Regarding Eclipse specifically, for the past 3 years they have given out an Eclipse Innovation Grant with the upwards amount reaching $30,000.00. What a great way to integrate open source technology into the class room and provide a link for your students to the corporate world.