So this week that I have off, I've used a few moments to try and run the experimental operating system HURD. HURD is a Unix-like (think "Linux"), but run by a microkernel, and implementing many of Richard Stallman's (the guy who wrote the GNU utilities that make Linux-based systems worth running),ideas about how computers should work.
Hurd has been under heavy development for more than 15 years, and still barely runs. Part of the reason for this is because they've never had more than 10 developers, almost all of them part-time. Linux draws all the spotlight, glory, and attention. However, I did get it to run, so let me tell you about the experience.
Most manuals suggest installing with ext2, which I did. Then I tried to start it. The ext2 server cannot seem to start up from the hard disk, no matter how hard I try. I was only able to boot it from the livecd, which was from there able to run the ext2 server to read the hard drive. This is bad. The error message is also remarkably unhelpful, claiming that there is a "gratuitous error." The web's suggestions about that only say that it is very bad and shouldn't ever happen. I can think of a number of things that could have gone wrong, but have no means to test them.
The system is supposed to be a Debian, which is fairly unfortunate. Debian is an excellent system for people foraying into the unix-likes, supporting Linux, HURD, BSD, and other platforms, but it does make certain assumptions about the system that made it literally impossible to function. I could not install new software to the hard disk because the root area is a cd, which is read-only. It assumes that if I want to work in a sub-area, that I can wall myself off with unix's "chroot" command. This, for some reason, crashes the machine. Other distributions have the ability to install things into a "new root," helpful for setting up subpartitions, new installations, and so on, but Debian's developers seem to consider this unnecessary, and provide only extremely minimal support for this.
Since last time I tried, they have thankfully fixed that bug in which pressing any key during the system startup would crash the machine, requiring a reboot. They have not fixed the bug in which reading a disk partition requires copying the entire thing into memory. Apparently, HURD developers have either extremely small hard drives, more extensive RAM than the average user, or both. While fixing this isn't within my prowess yet, it shouldn't be too hard for a systems developer. (I know exactly why they do it this way -- it's easier.)
HURD works very well for a UNIX-like system once it does get up and running. It supports many of Linux's filesystems, and has an easy framework for writing new drivers. Plans are in effect for exotic filesystems that no other OS would even consider, such as an FTP-based one. This would allow a person to treat FTP directories as part of their hard disk, making maintaining webpages and so on super easy. The microkernel architecture ensures that drivers shouldn't crash the system, since if they fail, they can be restarted or replaced. The system would also work great for upgrading, since a reboot is only necessary if the kernel itself is replaced, which would be very rare. Compare this to Linux (in which all drivers are in the kernel, reboots are needed to upgrade) and Windows (which needs reboots after installing new drivers, new software, new wallpaper, and if Steve Ballmer feels like it).
I would say that at the moment, HURD would work for a systems-programmer. It is still 3 years from being accessible to programmers in general, 10 years from power users, and 20 years from the populace at large.
EDIT: Next month, I got it to work. And then promptly broke it by attempting to upgrade it. Nice going tightly coupling everything, guys.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
The Autism-Vaccine Debacle
There's a continuing news story that I hear quite a lot about, and that would be the continuing claim that contaminants in vaccines, such as the preservative chemicals, are the cause of an ever-increasing stream of autistic children. Or even the very vaccines themselves. I'll try to cover this as neutrally as possible.
Autism is a developmental disorder in which a person does not develop socially, communicates poorly, values their own inner experience far over social consensus (and possibly even over the external world entirely), and has only a few interests that they follow obsessively. Having autistic children is quite distressing to the parents, since their child doesn't respond to social signals like hugging, and often ignore the parents entirely in favor of manipulating objects. Autism is a spectrum disorder, meaning that there are varying amounts of it, a person could be only a little autistic, very autistic, somewhere between those two, or not at all.
Autism is first noticeable in early childhood. At an age where children first start talking, the child does not talk. The child moves strangely, and insists on playing in a few ways over and over again. Upon being directed to another game, the child will return to their own preferred method instead.
The disorder has been known for long enough to watch people grow into adulthood with it. Adults with more minor autism often intellectually learn the social skills needed to succeed. They have been known to have trouble with relationships, as they had a late start with social skills, and to often be strangely good at art, animal management, or some extreme talent based on their interests. They are often described as reclusive, eccentric, odd, and obsessive.
Parents of autistic children have been frantically searching for a cause that they can blame it on, since when this disorder was first discovered, it was blamed on the child's mother being cold and unemotional. Some parents fear that this is still how it would be understood. Vaccines have often been blamed, since the first major vaccine cluster is usually issued around the same time that the disorder becomes apparent. Since one of the common preservatives used during the time when autism was first discovered included Mercury, a substance known to cause brain damage, the Parents blamed the vaccine for the condition of their child.
The preservative, thimerosal, was quickly removed from vaccines, but no change was observed in the rate of birth of autistic children, which only increased. The increase was particularly noted in silicon valley, in which many geeky people had settled and begun to raise their family with other geeky people. Nerdiness may be a very slight form of autism.
Autism very likely has some genetic component, since geeky people are more likely to product autistic children. Food may also cause or aggravate the symptoms, as Autistic people have been noted to also have any number of gastrointestinal disorders co-morbidly (that is, together with the autism in a way that suggests a link), and opioids (like poppy and sesame seeds) have been noted to worsen symptoms in one group studied, which seems to suggest that a digestive or metabolic defect may be at hand.
Although many parents continue to claim that vaccines are causing their children's problems and are doing their best to discourage vaccines, this is a bad idea. Vaccines are reducing the rate of disease propagation in general. If everyone ceased vaccination, disease would spread very easily. This problem suffers from the "free rider" problem in that the activist parents who refuse to vaccinate their children do not experience the negative effect of infect-able children because most people do vaccinate their children, which stops diseases before it reaches the infect-able.
While Autism has no cure, cognitive therapy has granted many people who have it a normal healthy life. And some people who have it are very strange indeed, but they seem happy enough.
Autism is a developmental disorder in which a person does not develop socially, communicates poorly, values their own inner experience far over social consensus (and possibly even over the external world entirely), and has only a few interests that they follow obsessively. Having autistic children is quite distressing to the parents, since their child doesn't respond to social signals like hugging, and often ignore the parents entirely in favor of manipulating objects. Autism is a spectrum disorder, meaning that there are varying amounts of it, a person could be only a little autistic, very autistic, somewhere between those two, or not at all.
Autism is first noticeable in early childhood. At an age where children first start talking, the child does not talk. The child moves strangely, and insists on playing in a few ways over and over again. Upon being directed to another game, the child will return to their own preferred method instead.
The disorder has been known for long enough to watch people grow into adulthood with it. Adults with more minor autism often intellectually learn the social skills needed to succeed. They have been known to have trouble with relationships, as they had a late start with social skills, and to often be strangely good at art, animal management, or some extreme talent based on their interests. They are often described as reclusive, eccentric, odd, and obsessive.
Parents of autistic children have been frantically searching for a cause that they can blame it on, since when this disorder was first discovered, it was blamed on the child's mother being cold and unemotional. Some parents fear that this is still how it would be understood. Vaccines have often been blamed, since the first major vaccine cluster is usually issued around the same time that the disorder becomes apparent. Since one of the common preservatives used during the time when autism was first discovered included Mercury, a substance known to cause brain damage, the Parents blamed the vaccine for the condition of their child.
The preservative, thimerosal, was quickly removed from vaccines, but no change was observed in the rate of birth of autistic children, which only increased. The increase was particularly noted in silicon valley, in which many geeky people had settled and begun to raise their family with other geeky people. Nerdiness may be a very slight form of autism.
Autism very likely has some genetic component, since geeky people are more likely to product autistic children. Food may also cause or aggravate the symptoms, as Autistic people have been noted to also have any number of gastrointestinal disorders co-morbidly (that is, together with the autism in a way that suggests a link), and opioids (like poppy and sesame seeds) have been noted to worsen symptoms in one group studied, which seems to suggest that a digestive or metabolic defect may be at hand.
Although many parents continue to claim that vaccines are causing their children's problems and are doing their best to discourage vaccines, this is a bad idea. Vaccines are reducing the rate of disease propagation in general. If everyone ceased vaccination, disease would spread very easily. This problem suffers from the "free rider" problem in that the activist parents who refuse to vaccinate their children do not experience the negative effect of infect-able children because most people do vaccinate their children, which stops diseases before it reaches the infect-able.
While Autism has no cure, cognitive therapy has granted many people who have it a normal healthy life. And some people who have it are very strange indeed, but they seem happy enough.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Happy Pi Day
In America, today's date is written 3/14. Yes, I know other countries do it differently. Anyway, the 3-14 part is reminiscent of the first digits of the mathematical constant Pi, 3.14. Pi appears quite a bit in engineering, certainly if you're working with anything that is in any way circular or round. So I'm going to give you some facts about pi.
Pi is irrational, meaning that it cannot be represented as a fraction and would go on forever if written down in our traditional decimal format. It is also transcendental, meaning that it is also not the square root of any rational number either. There are hypothetically an infinite number of irrational transcendent numbers, but only a few have any real use.
For most engineering concerns, 355/113 is close enough. This is 8.49 x 10^-6% (.00000849%) away from the actual value. Engineers would never need more than 39 digits, which would calculate the diameter of a circle the size of the entire universe and not be more inaccurate than the width of a proton. However, pure mathematicians have, for the sake of accuracy alone, calculated pi down to quadrillions of digits.
Pi was discovered at about the same time by the ancient Greek, Babylonian, and Chinese mathematicians. Accuracy of Pi has improved over the centuries, but perfect accuracy isn't needed for many engineering procedures. The Babylonians had it recorded as 25/8 (3.125), but still had circular columns.
If you have a computer or calculator available to you, and it for some reason does not have a pre-recorded Pi constant, you can generate Pi as 4*arctan(1). Make sure your calculator is set to radians, not degrees.
Pi also shows up in a number of statistical functions.
Pi is irrational, meaning that it cannot be represented as a fraction and would go on forever if written down in our traditional decimal format. It is also transcendental, meaning that it is also not the square root of any rational number either. There are hypothetically an infinite number of irrational transcendent numbers, but only a few have any real use.
For most engineering concerns, 355/113 is close enough. This is 8.49 x 10^-6% (.00000849%) away from the actual value. Engineers would never need more than 39 digits, which would calculate the diameter of a circle the size of the entire universe and not be more inaccurate than the width of a proton. However, pure mathematicians have, for the sake of accuracy alone, calculated pi down to quadrillions of digits.
Pi was discovered at about the same time by the ancient Greek, Babylonian, and Chinese mathematicians. Accuracy of Pi has improved over the centuries, but perfect accuracy isn't needed for many engineering procedures. The Babylonians had it recorded as 25/8 (3.125), but still had circular columns.
If you have a computer or calculator available to you, and it for some reason does not have a pre-recorded Pi constant, you can generate Pi as 4*arctan(1). Make sure your calculator is set to radians, not degrees.
Pi also shows up in a number of statistical functions.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Auto Parking
A classmate of mine tells me he wishes that his car would park itself. To some degree, this already exists. Some luxury cars now advertise that they have the ability to paralell park themselves, as this is a tricky manuvre that boggles the minds of most drivers. It also lends fairly well to automation, since the same technique works every time and the system can rely on the human driver positioning it in such a way that it won't smash into another car. (The car cannot, as of this point, see.)
Still, most other parking procedures are equally straightforward. The car can have pre-defined procedures that pulls it in straight forward and stops, slides into a diagonal parking space, and the already discovered "paralell parking" technique of moving forward, diagonal into the space, and then back forward into the parking space, at which point the car stops.
Drivers would need some training in the use of these procedures, as well as some kind of way of indicating to the car which to use.
Still, most other parking procedures are equally straightforward. The car can have pre-defined procedures that pulls it in straight forward and stops, slides into a diagonal parking space, and the already discovered "paralell parking" technique of moving forward, diagonal into the space, and then back forward into the parking space, at which point the car stops.
Drivers would need some training in the use of these procedures, as well as some kind of way of indicating to the car which to use.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
The Retrofuture
It's always a strange experience to look at past predictions of what the future would be like.
In the 1930s, the Great Depression made people think that the future would be worse, because there was no sign that it would ever, ever end. People predicted more economic nightmares, death by robots, fascist control of the entire earth, and so on. Few people were predicted to survive. Those that did would presumably look forward to being dead.
In the 1950s, fresh from allied victory and excited about space, people predicted an optimistic future. An article talks about a typical family from the year 2000. They wear suits made of what looks like plasticized metal, live on the moon, and eat re-hydrated foods, if not outright food pills. (Which one was depicted depended on the writer). Of course, human imagination being what it is, the predicted future-tech looked very much like logical extensions of 1950s technology, with a tad more automation. People still cooked food in ovens, pushed vacuum cleaners, and prepared two children for school, a boy with straight blond hair, and a girl with curled brown hair, a skirt, and a rag doll. TV remains the rage, in slightly smaller cabinets and still black and white. Russia would remain as a rival, remaining neither beaten nor victorious.
In the 1980s, America's economy was down, and Japan's was up. Every prediction of the future then involved Japanese domination. If America was not predicted to be outright conquered, it was predicted to be economically dependent. All the corporations would be Japanese. All your bosses would be Japanese, and you'd better hope for your continued employment's sake that you knew how to communicate with him or her. It was also predicted that a cultural absorption would occur. This idea was only scuttled in the mid-90s, when Japan itself collapsed economically and America recovered. Japanese culture remains famous with America's nerds, but not for the same reasons.
In all of these, fashion is predicted fixed at their own point, paradigm shifts are unnoticed, and the era's big obsession is assumed to be a permanent driving fixture from then on. This failure of human imagination is one reason why I don't want to imagine the future. The 1930's writer couldn't conceive of microwaves, be they used in a cooking device or communications, the 1950's writer could not understand the very concept of the personal computer, nor the collapse of the Soviet Union. That space travel would seem passe after a few important landmarks had been reached did not resonate. (And people were quite willing to endure the expense when national prestige was on the line, but very unwilling once no further bragging rights could be extracted.) The very idea of the Internet would have seemed actively insane before 1980 or so. (Yes, ARPAnet existed, but few people even knew what that was.)
So if you'd ask me to predict the future, I predict that by 2015, some new thing will occur that will change the way that we see the world. I cannot predict what field it will be in. I cannot predict how fashion will change, other than what is currently favored will seem dumb and something different will be favored. (Not necessarily new, fashion sometimes has retro-moments where fashion is copied from an earlier era.) I predict that the US 2012 election will slightly favor Democrats over Republicans, and the 2016 election will favor Republicans, if they haven't destroyed themselves by then.
I predict the election the way I do because US politics tends to be cyclical. People slowly get angry with one party's errors until that party can no longer succeed and loses power. There only tends to be two parties at any given time because of the way the electoral system works. If one party gets too far out of touch with the populace at large, it fails until completely destroyed, and some other party typically rises to take its place. The first party to be destroyed was ironically the founder's own. The Federalist party's positions had become completely moot by 1820, and it died, replaced by the Whig party.
In the 1930s, the Great Depression made people think that the future would be worse, because there was no sign that it would ever, ever end. People predicted more economic nightmares, death by robots, fascist control of the entire earth, and so on. Few people were predicted to survive. Those that did would presumably look forward to being dead.
In the 1950s, fresh from allied victory and excited about space, people predicted an optimistic future. An article talks about a typical family from the year 2000. They wear suits made of what looks like plasticized metal, live on the moon, and eat re-hydrated foods, if not outright food pills. (Which one was depicted depended on the writer). Of course, human imagination being what it is, the predicted future-tech looked very much like logical extensions of 1950s technology, with a tad more automation. People still cooked food in ovens, pushed vacuum cleaners, and prepared two children for school, a boy with straight blond hair, and a girl with curled brown hair, a skirt, and a rag doll. TV remains the rage, in slightly smaller cabinets and still black and white. Russia would remain as a rival, remaining neither beaten nor victorious.
In the 1980s, America's economy was down, and Japan's was up. Every prediction of the future then involved Japanese domination. If America was not predicted to be outright conquered, it was predicted to be economically dependent. All the corporations would be Japanese. All your bosses would be Japanese, and you'd better hope for your continued employment's sake that you knew how to communicate with him or her. It was also predicted that a cultural absorption would occur. This idea was only scuttled in the mid-90s, when Japan itself collapsed economically and America recovered. Japanese culture remains famous with America's nerds, but not for the same reasons.
In all of these, fashion is predicted fixed at their own point, paradigm shifts are unnoticed, and the era's big obsession is assumed to be a permanent driving fixture from then on. This failure of human imagination is one reason why I don't want to imagine the future. The 1930's writer couldn't conceive of microwaves, be they used in a cooking device or communications, the 1950's writer could not understand the very concept of the personal computer, nor the collapse of the Soviet Union. That space travel would seem passe after a few important landmarks had been reached did not resonate. (And people were quite willing to endure the expense when national prestige was on the line, but very unwilling once no further bragging rights could be extracted.) The very idea of the Internet would have seemed actively insane before 1980 or so. (Yes, ARPAnet existed, but few people even knew what that was.)
So if you'd ask me to predict the future, I predict that by 2015, some new thing will occur that will change the way that we see the world. I cannot predict what field it will be in. I cannot predict how fashion will change, other than what is currently favored will seem dumb and something different will be favored. (Not necessarily new, fashion sometimes has retro-moments where fashion is copied from an earlier era.) I predict that the US 2012 election will slightly favor Democrats over Republicans, and the 2016 election will favor Republicans, if they haven't destroyed themselves by then.
I predict the election the way I do because US politics tends to be cyclical. People slowly get angry with one party's errors until that party can no longer succeed and loses power. There only tends to be two parties at any given time because of the way the electoral system works. If one party gets too far out of touch with the populace at large, it fails until completely destroyed, and some other party typically rises to take its place. The first party to be destroyed was ironically the founder's own. The Federalist party's positions had become completely moot by 1820, and it died, replaced by the Whig party.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Economics rears its head again
The United States is in a depression. As is, to my knowledge, the rest of the world. People have still not recovered from the low point after the sub prime crisis. While there is a very good description of both how the crisis came to be, and what effects it may have for us, vicious fighting is now going on as to what to do about it.
As far as I can tell, the crisis currently revolves a lack of confidence on anyone's part in the economy. Consumers are afraid to make purchases, as jobs are hard to come by, and replacing the money they spend is not happening. Companies are afraid to hire, because purchasing is down. The two endlessly feed each other in some kind of bizarre catch-22 situation.
Banking is a big part of this. The banks have $2 trillion in debts that they effectively cannot ever recover. In other countries, nationalization would be called for. This is unpopular here -- many people see nationalization of private companies to be the first step towards communism, a feared ideology. Ailing companies could be bailed out, which gets a lot of flak because this situtation is their own fault in the first place. Failure could be permitted, as bank depositors are protected under FDIC, but this would be more expensive still. FDIC does not provide its insurance for free.
Strangely enough, one economic group has recovered. The electronics industry in Taiwan reports vigorous success today. There are some industries known to do well in depressions, mostly those having to do with escapism. Movies, alcohol, and theme parks are predicted to do well also.
If one has money, now is a good time to do many particular moves, such as buying land, stock, or bonds. This situation cannot last forever, but it is quite grim and worrying for everyone. Especially because it is world-wide. No country has completely escaped.
My proposal is to treat this like the Great Depression, and stimulate the economy by massive infrastructure spending. The infrastructure workers should spend the economy back to health.
As far as I can tell, the crisis currently revolves a lack of confidence on anyone's part in the economy. Consumers are afraid to make purchases, as jobs are hard to come by, and replacing the money they spend is not happening. Companies are afraid to hire, because purchasing is down. The two endlessly feed each other in some kind of bizarre catch-22 situation.
Banking is a big part of this. The banks have $2 trillion in debts that they effectively cannot ever recover. In other countries, nationalization would be called for. This is unpopular here -- many people see nationalization of private companies to be the first step towards communism, a feared ideology. Ailing companies could be bailed out, which gets a lot of flak because this situtation is their own fault in the first place. Failure could be permitted, as bank depositors are protected under FDIC, but this would be more expensive still. FDIC does not provide its insurance for free.
Strangely enough, one economic group has recovered. The electronics industry in Taiwan reports vigorous success today. There are some industries known to do well in depressions, mostly those having to do with escapism. Movies, alcohol, and theme parks are predicted to do well also.
If one has money, now is a good time to do many particular moves, such as buying land, stock, or bonds. This situation cannot last forever, but it is quite grim and worrying for everyone. Especially because it is world-wide. No country has completely escaped.
My proposal is to treat this like the Great Depression, and stimulate the economy by massive infrastructure spending. The infrastructure workers should spend the economy back to health.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Roadposts
I have more than 100 entries now. Which is awesome, but I'm sure you wanted me to come up with some sort of insane invention.
Fine. I propose a highway consisting of uncountably many little conveyor belts, thereby distributing the energy needs of propulsion between the car and the city power grid.
What's that, the tires might get caught in between the belts? Or the belt would have to be implausibly long? And getting on the offramp would involve an abrupt deceleration of the speed of the belt?
If this seems like a bad idea, it's because I thought of it when I was ten and had studied neither mechanics nor physics yet.
Fine. I propose a highway consisting of uncountably many little conveyor belts, thereby distributing the energy needs of propulsion between the car and the city power grid.
What's that, the tires might get caught in between the belts? Or the belt would have to be implausibly long? And getting on the offramp would involve an abrupt deceleration of the speed of the belt?
If this seems like a bad idea, it's because I thought of it when I was ten and had studied neither mechanics nor physics yet.
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