L.A.B. Unleashed

Well, about 1 week ago I finally finished the book, Dreaming in Code by Scott Rosenberg, founder of salon.com.  Have I mentioned I am a slow reader?  I haven’t let that stop me though, I just try to plug through at my own pathetic pace.  In any case, overall I found pieces of the book really captivating, but the overall plot/story left me disappointed and slightly disheartened at the end.  The book chronicles a startup company’s efforts to produce an opensource PIM (personal information manager), similar to Outlook or Notes.  The difference is that it was going to be Peer-to-Peer and run on any OS.  So, let’s start with the positives, because I did learn a ton!  There was a lot of programming/computer science history, that many of my co-workers experienced first hand, working in the early days at Lotus, but was news to me.  As I was reading the book, I kept a sticky note pad close, and marked off the quotes or thoughts that I found interesting.  Here are my top 10 highlights from the book (with page numbers in case you want to "take my tour").

1. The phrase "yet another" is commonly prefixed to things that many others have already done in the past.  In this light, the Yahoo search engine actually stands for "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle". – pp. 100
2. "Its not a real project until commitments are made to defer some capabilities.  Doing everything at once is not an option." – pp. 121
3. Software can be made "Good, Fast, & Cheap … pick any two". – pp. 119
4. It is important to avoid ambiguity.  Use different words to describe different things.  For instance, "item", can mean many different things when you are having a design discussion.  It is important to be explicit about what you mean. pp. 192
5. Hungarian notation is my preferable scheme for naming variables.  Although it doesn’t make much sense in English, it makes a lot of sense in C++ – "prepBut nI vrbLike adjHungarian!  qWhat’s artThe adjBig nProglem?" -pp. 197
6. Wizzy Wig – WYSIWYG – "What you see is what you get" – pp. 280
7. The reason I am more comfortable coding than writing is that "With code, the computer tells you if it understands what you write."  When trying to write a book, or article, or blog, you never know as you go if you are getting your point across. – pp. 299
8. In 2038 the internal clocks of all UNIX based computer systems will roll over to zero.  This was found when a never ending, recurring meeting was schedule with Chandler, and the event would replicate itself until 2038, and then just stop. – pp. 326
9. "The art of making software well is, in a sense, the ability to send a vision through that atomizer in such a way that it can eventually be put back together – like the packets of data that separate to cross the Internet and get reassembled into coherent messages for your computer".  Reminiscent of Charley and the Chocolate Factory, when the om-pa loom-pa men send a chocolate bar through the television. – pp. 334
10. Hofstadter’s Law: "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law". Got to love the recursion in that statement! – pp. 331

There are more highlights that I have, and I could go on and on about them, but I hope those give you a feel for the book.  Now for the negative … The book started with the goal of following the creation of Chandler, named after the founders dog … love that!  Chandler is a new piece of collaboration software that was going to take about 1 year to build.  Well, 3 years later, Chandler is still not at a 1.0 release, last I checked 0.6 was coming soon.  The book allows you to sit in on fascinating design discussions, which is my favorite part of software development, and a part that I usually do not get to do on a daily basis.  So, it was fun to feel like I was hanging out in the room while they were dreaming up all these brilliant ideas to implement into Chandler.  The disappointing and disheartening part, is that many of these great ideas were compromised and in the end cut to make releases, and a 1 year project, 3 years later, is still in it’s infancy stages.  As someone with hope and an investment in the software industry, I was really rooting for Chandler.  I guess its lack of progress underscores Rosendberg’s theme for the book …. "Software is hard".  It’s hard to build, hard to test, and hard to release.

I do recommend the book for anyone that is interested in software, not just programmers, but really anyone interested in technology.  It was very well written, and I do feel that I gained a lot from it.

Can you imagine 57-D?  To the left is a map of the structure that describes the symmetry of a 57-dimensional object.  Other objects such as balls or cones have symmetry in 3 dimensions, which is easy to picture, but this image is called "E8" and is a lie group, or a way of describing a 57-dimensional object.

 

The problem was posed over 100 years ago by a Norwegian mathematician names Sophus Lie.  It took a Sage Supercomputer 3 days to chug through the calculations and generate the final structure.  Interestingly enough, the Sage computer was a behemoth built by IBM in the 1960s, and its not clear to me if this is the same architecture the mathematicians used to solve this problem. 

What’s attractive about studying E8 is that it’s as complicated as symmetry can get, said David Vogan of MIT’s mathematics department.

[The structure] represents 60 gigabytes of data, enough data to store 45 days of MP3 music files, or fill a piece of paper the size of Manhattan (about 60 square kilometres). The human genome takes up 1 gigabyte.

The findings will have implications for the fields of physics and string theory, among others.  There are write-ups all over the web, but I found this one on Nature’s website to be exceptional.  There has been a lot of important mathematical breakthroughs happening in the last year or so, here’s another we can add to that list.

Really great screening last night at the Museum of Science!  The film, which you can see clips of here, is close to completion after almost 8 years of work.  We got to see 45 minutes of the biography entitled Julia Robinson and Hilbert’s Tenth Problem.  The problem intrigued me because of its relationship to algorithms and computer science, but I didn’t expect to become so interested in Julia Robinson.  She was one of the first women mathematicians of the 20th century, and made huge contributions to the field.  The presence of other prominent women in mathematics set a great and inspiring tone in the film.

After the screening the characters, and I do mean characters, came to life in front of the auditorium in the form of a panel discussion.  I sat in aw of these brilliant minds.  The three living mathematicians that contributed to the solving of H10 where there – Yuri Matiyasevich, a younger brilliant Russian; Martin Davis Professor Emeritus New York University; and Hilary Putnam Professor Emeritus in the Harvard Philosophy department.  Together with Julia Robinson they make up the team who solved H10.  Also part of the panel discussion was Constance Reid, Julia’s sister and biographer, the director of the movie George Csicsery, and the head of the Clay Mathematics Institute Jim Carlson. 

At first it was mind boggling to see these characters sitting in front of me in real life, after I had just watched there amazing story playing out on the screen.  Kevin says I’m easily star-struck … but I think I just really appreciate their work and how mathematics like this can change the world.  That is much more exciting to me than Ben Affleck’s new movie, but I will also admit that if Ben Affleck were part of the panel last night I would have given him equal attention. 

There were about 100 people there, a mix of older and younger, mathematicians and just members of the "regular" public, such as myself.  A couple of great questions were posed by the audience.  One of my favorites was ….

How much mathematical detail can you put into a documentary, so that the problems are fully explained, but so that you also don’t lose the non-mathematicians that are watching it?

The Director, Gregory Csicsery, said he struggled with this, and asked the audience to fill out and send him a questionnaire that would help him tweak the level of mathematical content to a balanced level.  He added that the amount of mathematical detail in the documentary right now it too much for television and is pushing the limits for film.  As someone with only an undergraduate mathematical background, I found everything in the movie explained perfectly … none of it was over my head, so I think they have a good balance right now, and could maybe even add a little bit more.

At this point in the evening I had a question on the tip of my tongue, but I was feeling too intimidated to ask it.  100 people, none of whom I know, many of which probably know each other pretty well, mostly mathematicians …. why would I be intimidated?!  I always know if I have a good question if my heart starts pumping really hard, loud, and constant.  I’ve used this as an indicator of whether I have a something worth while to ask since college.  I don’t know why my body has this reaction, but its usually right on.  So I waited with my question in my head until my heart started beating through my chest, then I knew I should just go for it.  100 people, none of whom I know … who cares if I sound stupid, right?  The next thing I know, my arm has shot up straight in the air.  I swear I don’t know how it happened … but that is usually how it happens … something in my body takes over and pushes the fears in my brain aside.  So I asked …

I am not a mathematician, I am more of a computer scientist, but I was wondering from a mathematicians perspective, are you disappointed with the outcome of the H10 result?  As you are going through the calculations do you ever hope that it is going to turn out one way over the other?  Do you wish that there was an algorithm that could prove decidability, and what goes on in your head as you work through your calculations?

I got some laughs at "Don’t you wish there was an algorithm that could prove decidability?, but it was the good kind of chuckle … like "yeah, don’t we all wish there was such an algorithm".  Then a man diagonally in front of me across the isle turned around and whispered, "good question", so that made me feel good.  The answers I got were a glimpse into the heads of these brilliant men:

Yuri, the Russian mathematician basically said in very broken English, that you can’t change the answers, so there is no point.  Hilary, the Harvard Philosopher, talked about some other undecidability problems that remain unsolved, and that there is still hope that they will have positive outcomes.  My favorite answer came from Marin Davis, who gave me exactly what I was looking for.  He said, that when starting these proofs, you may have one idea in your head about the way something will turn out, but you have to follow the math, and your direction may change in the middle and that’s okay.  He then added that even Julia Robinson at one point wrote him a letter saying she did believe there is an algorithm that could solve the H10 problem, but by the end of their research together, that of course changed.  What I took away from that is, it’s all about the math.  You have to follow where the math leads you, and its about the journey getting there, not necessarily about the result.

It was a really exciting night for me, I learned a lot, and found the film really interesting.  It’s planned release date is late in 2007, see here for the director’s official site.  I hope to go to more of these types of events.  The Clay Mathematics Institute holds public lectures through out the year, so I’ll keep an eye on their website.

The Clay Mathematics Institute (the originators of the 1 million dollar prize to the solver of the millennium problems) and the Museum of Science are holding a screening tomorrow evening at 7:30pm for a film about Hilbert’s 10th Problem.  This famous problem relates to the decision problems involving one of my favorite subjects …. computational complexity theory.  Does a general algorithm exist that can tell you if a problem is solvable or not?  The answer is no …  a general algorithm does not exist … too bad!

After the screening there will be a panel discussion where I’m sure the phrases Turing Machines and NP Completeness Theory will be tossed around.  Sounds like an exciting event!  It’s free and open to the public … I’m going to try to check it out.

Besides 3.1415 … Here are some other cool numbers ….

• 6 is the smallest perfect number.  [ 6 is divisible by 1,2, & 3.  1 + 2 + 3 = 6]
• 28 is the 2nd perfect number. [ 28 is divisible by 1, 2, 4, 7, & 14.  1 + 2 + 4 + 7 + 14 = 28]
• 53 is the only two digit number that is reversed in hexadecimal. [53 = 0x0035]
• 73 is the smallest number (besides 1) which is one less than twice its reverse. [37 x 2 = 74 -1 = 73]
• 153 = 1³ + 5³ + 3³.
• 316 has a digit product which is the digit sum of 3¹⁶.
• 469 is the largest known value of n for which n!-1 is prime.
• 496 is the 3^rd perfect number.

Can you believe the perfect numbers go from 6 to 28, then the next one is all the way at 496!!??

Check out this link to see properties of the first 10,000 integers!  That website was a great find by Art!

And for an opinion of the top 10 coolest numbers see here … I was happy to see the Golden Ratio made the list!  Thanks for that one Mike!

Enjoy PI Day!

Based on  ….

• The number of corporate programs geared towards the advancement of women
• The number of women in the company
• The number of women in Senior Management roles

LINK: http://www.thebostonchannel.com/asseenon5/11200576/detail.html

If you don’t have reservations somewhere yet, check out this website.  You can make reservations online using OpenTable, and with a cost of $33 for 3 courses, its a great opportunity to try something new!  My sister’s technique for picking a restaurant week restaurant is to look at the number of dollar signs next to the restaurant name.  The more the better!  So we always try to get reservations somewhere with $$$ or $$$$.  Monday night we ate at Lala Rokh in Beacon Hill.  Persian … very good!

Tonight we are meeting up with our restaurant week partners in crime (for 6 restaurant weeks now) Beth &  Matt.  We’ll be trying Blu at the Sports Club LA, where the new Ritz Carlton is.  Hopefully they won’t be serving anything too healthy!!

Friday I am very excited to take Kevin to The Fireplace in Brookline.  One of my favorite restaurants, but he has never been.  It is the perfect winter restaurant atmosphere, with (you guessed it) a gorgeous roaring fireplace.  It also has a great wine list and my favorite appetizer is the assorted cheese tray.

I’m pretty sure some restaurants are extending their restaurant week menus into next week as well, so its not too late to make a reservation!  Also, many suburban restaurants are joining in this time – Milford, Medford, Rockport, & Tyngsboro are just a few.  Enjoy!

After much research and planning here is how our trip has shaped up:
2 nights Venice – The Westin Europa & Regina
4 nights Tuscany – One night planned in San Gimignano at Hotel L’ Anitico Pozzo (Thanks to Dave & Constance for the recommendation!!)
1 night Rome – The Westin Excelsor
4 nights Santorini – Mystique

Dave and Constance also recommended a restaurant in San Gimignano, Ristorante il Pino, they said it was one of the best meals they’ve ever had, to the point where they took pictures of each course of food that came.  We can’t miss out on that!!

Santorini was by the far the most challenging part of the trip to plan.  It was so difficult to find a hotel.  First of all, everything is super expensive.  Looking at the prices in Euros, instead of dollars, lowers the shock factor of the price tags, but when you do that conversion of 1.3 to 1, reality hits.  From what I have read on Trip Advisor, even the 4 star, $400 a night hotels, get bad reviews.  Everything is just so overpriced.  That and its a very popular destination, because many hotels I found with the great reviews and reasonable price tag were all booked up through September!  I guess it’s a good sign that the demand is there, even though the destination seems very overpriced.  I’m going to be optimistic and just assume that it will be worth every penny!  We finally settled on Mystique, a starwoord hotel, that hasn’t opened yet.  Its grand opening is in May, and they are running some deals for its opening.  The ironic thing is, after pouring over reviews and gathering information from literally 50 different hotels, I decide to book a place that has had zero reviews.  I feel okay about this because Starwood has such a great reputation.  There was that random Sheraton in Vermont that was questionable … but c’mon … it’s Vermont … what did we expect for 2,000 SPG points?!  Mystique on the other hand is 40,000 SPG points a night!  I think I was so hesitant about the other hotels I found because most of them are run by families (or in one case random Dutch students) and from the reviews it seems like it could be hit or miss in the quality of your stay.  And again, some of the great properties I was interested in, such as Ikies Tradtional Houses, were all booked up.  Anyway, there is a lot of buzz surrounding Mystique’s opening, from what I can tell online – 18 suites/villas built into the cliffside, with an infinity pool over looking the caldera, how bad could it end up being with that description?!  I’m just sorry I wasted so much time obsessing over all the other hotels … I lost a lot of brain power there.  But it was all part of my process.

From doing research about where to stay in Santorini, I’ve stumbled across the popular restaurants as well.  Can you believe that they are already getting booked up through June?!  So I made reservations for us in September at 1800 Restaurant, an infamous spot in Oia, the town in Santorini we are staying.  I just can’t get over how much planning in advance this leg of our trip is taking.  Lots of build up … I hope it lives up to the hype!

Kind of funny that most of our trip is booked at Starwood properties, and we are definitely taking advantage and using our points in Venice and Rome.  If you don’t have the SPG Amex card, and you like to travel, you should consider it.  We rack up points very quickly, and we’ve used them for quick weekend trips away, and now we get to use them as part of our big trip to Europe!

So now that the trip is pretty much all planned out, I need to fight my obsessive compulsive nature and just "let it go".  It has been fun though!  I’ve spent so much time planning, and it’s so far away, I’m afraid the anticipation is going to kill me in the mean time!!!

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing!  My sister and I went to see New Visions on Saturday afternoon, the latest Boston Ballet show at the Citi Wang Theater.  The show was comprised of 3 20 – 30 minute pieces, all with varying levels of classic ballet mixed with a more contemporary feel.  Overall I highly recommend the show, and I also highly recommend a glass of champagne during intermissions!   The 1st piece Brake the Eyes was a little rough for me.  It was very fragmented and the music was outright strange.  The costumes were classic ballet tutus, but the dancers were in bare feet.  The entire piece just did not set right with me.  The 2nd piece was so amazing though, it made up for any disappointment in the first one.  This piece was entitled Polyphonia, and I loved how it was so clean and simple, yet had a lot of complex movement at the same time.  The costumes were perfect – eggplant colored leotards, pink ballet tights.  The simplicity of the costume allowed the beauty of the dancing to shine through.  The music was comprised of 10 different classic piano pieces, all perfectly intertwined, and each new part of the music welcomed a new couple to the stage.  The partnering was creative, exciting, and even pleasantly surprising at times!  I would love to see this piece again, originally choreographed for the New York City Ballet.  I hear that the choreographer, Christopher Wheeldon, is starting his own company, so I’m going to have to keep tabs on that and see if I can get to a show.  The 3rd piece was my 2nd favorite, Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, but I was still so enthralled by Polyphonia, that is the one I will really remember.

Here’s a tip, if you’re a ballet lover like myself.  The Boston  Ballet offers membership to "young professionals" for $22 a year.  Then for each show you get $35 tickets to the best available seats in the house.  For the last two shows I’ve sat in the Orchestra, right around row R.  Not a bad deal, right?!  Next show isn’t until May – Classic Balanchine, then the season will finish off with Giselle!