First Blog

Problem solving... Decades ago, my garbage disposal stopped working.  Turned the switch - got just a hummm.  Bummer.  I was distressed, because at the time I hadn't the cash to buy a replacement.  This is notwithstanding the simple fact I didn't know how to install one.    Nonetheless, I called my local appliance dealer to come and fix it.  He took one look.  He pulled from his kit a giant screw driver and plunged it down, deep into the disposal and nudged the blades just a bit.  It then worked fine for the time I lived in the home - on Berkeley Street.  But I remembered this trick.  In all the intervening years I had no problems with garbage disposals until today.  Dad-gum thing stopped working!  My solution:  I went to my garage, loaded with unused tools of all sorts, fetched up a giant screw driver, plunged it deep-down, and nudged the blades just a bit.  It now works again, just as it did before...

The world you grew up in is no more.  The world of reasonable honesty and reasonable lies has been replaced by abject dishonesty and blatant lies. Lies.  Yes. People have always told them.  You have told them; so have I.   We need lies; they are a foundational structure of social living.  They both deceive and protect.  Children tell them to their parents to avoid consequences, like punishment.  Adults tell them to their bosses, to enhance their position and/or avoid consequences of poor performance.  Our bosses tell them to their boards to suggest business is good, the project is on target, or the detractors are wrong.  The boards tell them to shareholders to protect their own credibility and most importantly, stock values.   Our politicians tell lies to their constituents, though sometimes innocently with them not actually knowing much more than they've been told.  They enhance their positio...

Encryption  Lately, we've been hearing of peccadillos and possibly serious and illegal uses of email by high level national figures, e.g. General David Petraeus and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. In most cases, the messages have been read by unwanted persons, much to the unhappiness and ruination of the senders. If you really want your messages to be secure, you need to encrypt them, not with a secret code ring, but with secure but simple to use software. It is free and available. Creating encrypted messages . If you must or just want to send encrypted messages, you want something simple to use. There is an easy and secure method. We'll show you how to use it. It is based on what was once considered the "unbreakable" Vigenere cipher. While this cipher is no longer unbreakable, breaking it would require (i) a whole lot of text to work with and (ii) a very powerful computing apparatus, and (iii) the desire of some party to deprypt you messages . Indeed, the dec...

This is a small update to a previous piece on the The Two Generals, Petraeus and Allen. (See http://used-ideas.blogspot.com/2012/11/presidential-math.html )   It concerns former EPA administrator Lisa Jackson and her communications throught secret emails, though not this time with sexual innuendo. It was strictly political.  Is this better?  We hear "Earlier this year, the Competitive Enterprise Institute sued the EPA for documents involving Jackson’s use of alias e-mail accounts, operating under the name “Richard Windsor,” which drew attention from the GOP and an audit by the EPA inspector general." Basically, she adjusted administration opinion to reflect a strongly environmental slant on activities within her domain, particularly to the detriment of the coal industry.  The CEI reports that "She appears to have illegally evaded deliberative procedures and transparency requirements set in law."  Oh, well.  I guess everyone...

I love evolution theory ; I love creationism .  These are active and competing theories of human and life's existence, one based on contemporary scientific methodology and the other based on traditional, though religious beliefs.   Both involve a level supplemented by plausibility arguments. Both try to tell us where we are on a chronological scale and within a broad scheme of events.  The first tells us where we came from, how long it took, what were the steps, and ultimately how we got here.  It doesn't explain how it happened, but does assume it did happen.    The current evolution theory is consistent, contiguous, though evolving and incomplete.     Science should explain the how - but hasn't done so yet.  Science conjectures, theorizes, i.e. guesses on at the marvelous processes.  The problems are difficult.   In contrast, the creationist (i.e. religious) viewpoint explains the origins, with the ...

Christmas is unique.  It is the celebration of the birth of a foundational leader of humanity.  It has become the celebration of peace on earth and good will to man.  It has become a time to examine our fundamental beliefs whatever they may be. It is a time to consider vices such as greed, self-interest, and sloth.  It is a time to transcend the normal, even new normals, of our lives.  It is a time to look beyond the everyday and look to the future.  It is a time for hope and optimism however repressed or depressed we may be.  It is a time to give of ourselves and our fortunes to those in need.  It is the time for charity.   Indeed, the needy do define where we are, who we are.   It is a time to try to understand the plight of so many millions under the sites of a gun, under the aegis of a dictator, or under the states of starvation, disease, and discomfort. It is a unique time for all religions. This is why this ...

The Academy - here in Texas. What is the Academy?  This translates to Universities and the like.  Lately, in Texas, there is a legislative push to hire creationists in some fair and proportional numbers. The TX HB 25 states, "An institution of higher education may not discriminate against or penalize in any manner, especially with regard to employment or academic support, a faculty member or student based on the faculty member's or student's conduct of research relating to the theory of intelligent design or other alternate theories of the origination and development of organisms."  Roughly speaking, this means creationists should have a representation on the faculty, or at least not be denied representation.   The outrage of my colleagues is without limit.  In this short note we omit details about the definitions of who are the creationists and their latest reinvention as advocates of intelligent design.  Mostly, they give a secular argumen...

There are many callings to atheism , with no particular common denominator.  Significant are those that suggest non-belief is a rejection of belief partly because of negative feeling toward organized religion, or a matter of life's convenience.  There are few that actually have a well formed non-belief in a deity.  This may be the case because ultimately non-belief in a deity is so similar to belief in a deity that they are virtually indistinguishable. The subject at hand is teleology , doctrines explaining phenomena by their ends or purposes.  A great quote for all atheists and all is the following. Fundamental quote:  "Theology is but the ignorance of natural causes reduced to a system."--Baron d'Holbach, Common Sense (1772) Basically, what this says is I don't believe because it doesn't make sense to me. The root of this is that if something is knowable, I can know it - cause I'm smart. :)  Maybe not.  The first part or our posting on...

Fact: 12, 24, 60, these are the big numbers of your everyday life.  These are surely different from the nickel, dime, quarter, and dollar.  Just why is that? You may have questioned why do we, users of a base 10 system of numbers, seem so dedicated to the dozen (12), the 24 hour clock ( = 2 x 12), the minute (= 60 seconds), and the hour (= 60 minutes).  The answer lies in divisibility. Clearly, a dozen (12) is divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6.  This means you can ask for a quarter dozen, third of a dozen, half a dozen, etc.  The math is simple.  If the basic multiple were ten (10 = 2 x 5) we could only do a half or a fifth.  That would be it. For the day (24 hours), we can divide the number of hours by 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, and 12.  This allows a half day, a third of a day (typical shift), a sixth of a day (= 4 hours - the morning shift), and more. For an hour (60 minutes) we can divide by 2, 3, 4, 6, 12, 20, 30.  This allows a half hour, a quart...

Years ago I invented a word game.  It involves the letters of a word and rearrangements. The rule is: you start with a word, say like abc.  Then you rearrange by the rule abc -> bca -> cab All must be words.  Example: tea -> eat -> ate I could find only three such three-letter words, and one is a stretch.  The first is "tea," the second is "spa," and the third is "one." Therein lies the stretch: eon -> one -> neo.  "Neo" is kind of a word.  I never could find a four letter word, abcd, wherein abcd ->bcda -> cdab -> dabc are all words.   Can you? Well, if you wish to stretch real words a bit, try "haha"  -> "ahah" and so on.  You know both words, the second is one of those a-hah moments. I can find four-letter words where there are four rearrangements of the letters, each making words. Example:  team -> meat -> mate -> tame There are others.  This is not truly a problem. ...

The art of memory is ancient.  Why?  Because it was needed.  Indeed, the ancient world strummed along rather well without the use of paper. Imagine a world without paper, if you can.  There would be no textbooks, no notes, no crib sheets, no reminders.  None of those modern artifacts of our daily lives would be there to assist us.  Today, we rely 100% on paper, electronic or from wood pulp. Even into relatively modern times, students relied on their memory to recall long citations from the literature or even math.  Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the US, who was raised with hardly a book in his house, developed his memory to prodigious levels.  He was a surveyor in his early days - to make a living.  This came long before he studied law.  For his survey work he needed basic math skills. These included knowledge of the right triangle, oblique angles and triangles, azimuth, angles, bearing, bearing intersections, dista...

I don't understand how much $16 trillion ($16T*) of debt is.  So, to help myself, I break it down to terms I can understand. There are about 254,000,000 registered vehicles in this country (2009 data).  Big number this is.  But dividing number into $16T would give a valuation of about $69,000 for each of them.  This is somewhat higher than the average cost of automobiles on the road. Another way to put it is to say the US national debt could replace the entire US fleet of automobiles with, for example, brand new fully equipped Lexus ES460's.  Nice cars.  Make mine pearl white. The total of state budgets in 2010 was about $666B.  Dividing into $16T gives about 24.  This means the $16T national debt could completely cover all state budgets for about 24 years. The total annual foreign aide budget of the US is reckoned to be about $54B.  Dividing this into $16T gives about 296, meaning that the national debt of the US could cover a...