L.A.B. Unleashed

After a long week of fighting the flu, being doped up on nyquil, oscillococcinum, and almost choking on a cold-ease lozenge, I was thrilled to come home from work  to find this note from our dog walker.  It easily made my week.

Hi Leah + Kevin –
Kobe crapped in the office.  I picked it up b/c I’m the best dog walker in the world.  But I put it in your kitchen trash b/c I didn’t know what else to do w/ it.  I buried it a little so hopefully it doesn’t stink the home still!  Kobes ran a lot and is only mildly muddy.  I wiped him down.  Hope you guys are well.  I want a ride on your boat this summer!
ps: Really really don’t get a puggle – we have 4 and they all suck!

He really IS the best dog walker in the world.  Not only because he takes such good care of Kobe (and his crap).  Also because he continually cracks us up with these notes! 

In his neverending quest to prove he is the King-of-Technology in the house, Kevin sent me this the other afternoon.  My immediate reply was, "wow, you kicked my ass".  He giggled mischievously (I can tell, even over IM) and said, "I know".   My project for the night is making him a paper-mashay crown.

So next time you are angry with someone,  or feel a fight coming on, just hit them with this line – "My blog can kick your blog’s ass – foo".

Recently, I’ve taken a hiatus from my java project and am on to programming a new feature area back in C++-ville (that’s on the other side of javatown … great coffee there!).  I’ve never had to work with dialog boxes before, most of my prior work has been on the back end – server side stuff.  I’m not usually the one interacting with the user, I’m usually the one propagating the information that someone else has collected.  Getting to be on the UI side for once has been fun.  Working with icons, making sure they paint correctly on the screen, and creating some new dialog boxes and menus has been a nice change of pace. 

For someone unfamiliar with dialog box layouts, I was happy to find a helpful dialog editor tool online.  It is an old-school microsoft product, but I didn’t want anything fancy, so the crappy UI and sparse offerings were fine with me.  I just needed a quick way to do some layout work, and I was specifically looking for guidance in using the right window’s system coordinates.  The tool made it easy to visualize what I wanted for layout, and when it came time to define my dialog via code, the tool offered an easy way to find the perfect coordinates for the objects in my new dialog window.

Determining placement of the objects was key, and it was easy with the coordinates shown in the green box above.  You can see that my focus is on the "Cancel" button in this case.  Much faster than making guesses in the code on what the best coordinates and sizes of objects should be.  Then recompiling, deploying, and launching the application just to see how incredibly screwed up everything looks.  I have never been a fan of the trial and error technique, although sometimes, that can be the fastest way too … especially when you have luck on your side!

I just received this important announcement.  It is an actual notice recently posted in my office building outlining the Evacuation Process in the event of an emergency.  I’ve inserted my initial thoughts as I am reading it …

1.  When an alarm sounds DO NOT wait for instructions from the building public address system, evacuate the building immediately.
 >> fine
2.  Find the nearest stairwell exit and proceed out and away from the building.
 >> makes sense
3.  Ensure that people needing evacuation assistance (if any) are with their "buddies" or have other assistance.
 >> that’s nice, I will help
4.  Note name/location of people who do not have assistance and report to Security and/or Emergency personnel.
>> ok
5.  To prevent hazards, employees should not carry beverages while exiting the building.
 >> uh huh …
 >> actually … wait … so I shouldn’t go back for that hot cup of coffee I just poured?  I don’t              understand … should I bring my donut instead??  Bring food, office supplies, laptop computers, personal belongings, but LEAVE THE BEVERAGES IN YOUR OFFICE – got it.
6.  Managers and Floor Monitors should check all areas on their floor/wing to verify that all personnel have evacuated.
>> back to normal
7.  As you leave during an evacuation, continue to move out and away from the building.
>> refer back to #2, fine.

Let’s go back to #5 …. Does anyone else find this extremely silly?  You mean, in the event of a fire or attack, I should not run back into my office, hurling myself at my hot hazelnut latte, and make sure I carry it with me???  I mean, I would not want to leave it open and vulnerable or sacrifice my beverage unnecessarily.   But then again, I DO want to avoid a beverage hazard, because that would just make a bad situation worse.

Hilarious (to me anyway) that this is part of the evacuation plan.  It might have been normal to say, "don’t carry belongings with you", but to specifically call out beverages as the one item you should not carry with you while evacuating the building … sometimes I wonder if I am in a Dilbert cartoon.

Thanks to Art, I’ve been introduced to an online community, set up as a wiki, whose mission it is to solve the millenium problems.  I’ve been poking around on the site this evening and have already learned some really interesting techniques people are using to make head way on the P=NP? problem, which I gave an example of here, when describing my trip to Epcot. 

One of the more interesting techniques deals with the properties of soap bubbles.  Soap bubbles, like the ones you use every day in your home, are used to solve complex mathematical problems because they are able to find the smallest surface area between points or edges.  The classic example is taking two panes of glass, putting pegs between them, and then dipping it into a soapy mixture.  Soap bubbles will quickly form, connecting the vertexes in the shortest path.  Sounds familiar doesn’t it?  The Traveling Salesperson Problem requires a shortest distance to be found between many given points.  Since soap bubbles create their route very quickly, in polynomial time, it seems reasonable to apply this soap bubble math to a proof for P=NP. 

Unfortunately, further reading shows that this technique does not provide a viable proof.  I really enjoyed a portion of Scott Aaronson’s paper where he describes the problem with using soap bubble mathematics.  Basically, there is no magical reason in nature of why soap bubbles act in this way.  They generally find this shortest route with a small set of points (3 or 4), but with a larger set, the results can and do vary.  Aaronson actually sets up the experiment on his own to study the results.  He was also the author of another good read on large numbers, which I blogged about here.

Interesting stuff though.  I would really like to recreate that soap bubble experiment at home … it would be such a Mr. Wizard moment.

My hair has been getting super long!  I have not gone for a substantial trimming in about a year and a half.  It’s  never been this long, as far back as I can recall.  At first I was just being lazy about getting a hair cut.  Then I decided it might be fun to grow it out for a bit.  Then I started to really like it long and wanted to see how long I could grow it.  About 3 months ago, I figured I needed a plan … a goal of how long to grow my hair before chopping it.  A couple of friends mentioned the organization Locks of Love, so I looked into it.  LOL is a wonderful organization that provides hair pieces to children suffering from long-term medical hair loss.  They accept a minimum hair length of 10 inches and they are always in need of hair donations from men and women,  young and old.  You can even have color treated or permed hair.  They make the process really simple – just package up the pony tail or braid and send it off.

Well, I chopped it a couple days ago now, and although I miss my long hair, I’m glad that I did it.  It makes it easier knowing it went to a special kid.  And … I have to admit, I am loving the extra 15 to 20 minutes I shaved off my morning routine!  That’s right … This morning I got up for work at my normal time, but made the early bus, and was at work about 35 minutes earlier than usual!  This new found time must have been getting sucked up in the hair drier.  Imagine what I can accomplish with an extra 35 minutes every day?!  Phew … mind blowing!

By the way … the picture to the left shows my 10 inch pony tail, which I had just chopped off.  I am looking down at it quite awkwardly … wondering if I’ve made a terrible mistake (should I have waited a couple more months), but at the same time feeling content with my donation.  Kevin keeps reassuring me … so he gets BIG points for that … such a smart cookie!!

Big news in the math world today.  Two articles are getting recognition for their research in the area of Prime Number Theory.  The first article does a great job in explaining the basics of Prime Numbers and why they are so important in mathematics.

Prime numbers, such as 17 and 23, are those that can only be divided by themselves and one. They are the most important objects in mathematics because, as the ancient Greeks discovered, they are the building blocks of all numbers—any of which can be broken down into a product of primes. (For example, 105 = 3 x 5 x 7.) They are the hydrogen and oxygen of the world of mathematics, the atoms of arithmetic.

The article goes on to show the relationship between the patterns of primes across the number line and energy levels in the nucleus of a large atom, such as Erbium #68 on the Periodic Table.  Fascinating stuff.  If we are able to better understand the pattern of primes accross the number line, we would be able to start predicting larger primes, and in turn, this would provide a key to many of the data encryption algorithms used today.  If Physists are able to help solve this prime number pattern problem, by studying it from a different angle, but using the same math, there could be a huge connection here. 

The second article won the Gödel Prize for outstanding journal articles in the area of theoretical computer science.   In this paper a Polynomial time algorithm is introduced; given an input number the algorithm will determine whether or not the number is prime.  I believe this is the first algorithm of its kind that runs in polynomial time.  An example of other algorithms in this area have been architected to divide the input number, N, by every other number that is less than or equal to (<=) the squareroot of N.  You could see that given a large N, this could take an extreme amount of time, certainly not polynomial time.  Again, being able to find factors of very large prime numbers quickly is the foundation of cryptography and data security.  The full impact that this new finding will have on these areas is not yet known, but it has certainly opened many new doors.  Very exciting!

Said Ortiz, "I told them, ‘Wait till you play your first game at Fenway. You might need a diaper.’"

Big Papi being …..  Big Papi … I love it!

En Junio, mi familia y yo vamos a ir a Puerto Rico para las vacaciones.  Hay doce personas están viajando a Puerto Rico y nos estamos quedando a Palmas del Mar en Humacao, en dos villas.  Las villas están entre una playa y una cancha de golf – mucho divertido!

Ayer, nosotros tenemos una fiesta de cumpleaños para mi primo Sean, quien tiene dos años ahora.  Después unos vasos de sangría (hecho en casa) empecemos hablar sobre que vamos a hacer mientras en las vacaciones.  Mi otro primo, Mike, quiero ir al radiotelescopio de Arecibo, de la película Contacto.  El también quiero buscar la chupacabra en El Yunque – Bosque Nacional Del Caribe, pero yo creo que este loco!  Un chistoso, Mike …  (mas o menos)!

Me gustaría algunos recomendaciones de que hacer en Puerto Rico.  Quizás, de alguien quien ha estado a Puerto Rico, o quizás alguien quien ha vivido alli.  Nosotros queremos relajarnos, pero también queremos ir en algunas aventuras y ver la isla total.  Nostoros agradásemos todas las recomendaciones que recibamos!

In June, my family and I are going to Puerto Rico on vacation.  There are 12 people going on the trip, and we are staying at Palmas del Mar, in Humacao, in 2 condos.  The condos are between a beach and a golf course – lots of fun! 

Yesterday, we had a birthday party for my cousin, Sean, who is now 2 years old.  After a few glasses of sangria (homemade) we started to talk about  what we are going to do while on vacation.  My other cousin, Mike, wants to go see the Radio Telescope in Arecibo, featured in the movie Contact.  He also wants to look for the chupacabra (goat sucker) in the rainforest, but I think he is crazy.  Just kidding, Mike … (sort of)!

I’d love some recommendations of what to do in Puerto Rico.  Maybe from someone who has been there before, or maybe from someone who has lived there.  We want to relax, but also do some adventurous stuff and see all of the island.  Any and all recommendations welcome!