Have Yourself a Geeky Little Christmas..

I really need to put more effort into this blog...  But, life can be busy.  Between a huge stack of books I need to get around to reading, and quite a bit of effort going into learning some new skills, I have felt stretched a bit thin.  


But I wanted to take the time to ponder the holiday season.  In a couple of days, I will depart on a visit to see my daughter, her husband, and my three grandchildren.  


My oldest grand child is almost seven, and she is very smart.  My middle grandchild is three, and has been described by my daughter as "scary smart."  And the youngest is just over a year old.


I fact the question of what I will get them.  Sadly, they are all too young for anything really interesting.  I was about eight when I got my first chemistry set.  Of course, when I mixed up a bit of Prussian blue (a very simple thing to do) and left indelible stains in the bathroom sink, my mother began to question the wisdom of the purchase.


I am hoping to spark interest in things like science.  Who knows, maybe one of them will make some major breakthrough in theoretical physics.


Speaking of which, researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara have managed to create something that vibrates in ways that can only be described through quantum mechanics.  That is to say, it is going somewhere that is not in the classical realm.  This opens the door just a crack towards things like time travel and crossing over to other dimensions.


Now, a week or two ago, word came out of England that some researchers are closing in a creating a "sonic screwdriver."  Hmmm, time travel...a sonic screwdriver...throw in a blue police box, and well, I have dibs on being the Companion.


Now, THAT would be the perfect Christmas present...

A Very Geeky Saturday

Sorry to be so long between posts.  I have had a lot going on, and I keep putting off writing something.  I promise to try to be a bit better.


On Saturday I attended the open house at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in Berkeley, CA.  LBNL is one of 16 national labs operated by the Department of Energy.  It is a part of the University of California.


It was original referred to as the Radiation Lab at the University of California. It was part of the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb during World War II.


I first became familiar with LBNL when I read the book "The Cuckoo's Egg" by Clifford Stoll. He was managing some computers at LBNL and was asked by his supervisor to figure out why there was a $0.75 accounting error in  the usage records.  This led Stoll to discover that a hacker has accessed the system.  


LBNL performs unclassified research primarily in the field of physics, though it has diversified into almost every area of scientific research.  


LBNL has a very distinguished history.  Eleven of its research have won Nobel Prizes, starting with Ernest Lawrence, and most recently George F. Smoot.  Smoot is one of my favorite scientists.  He not only won the Nobel Prize for the COsmic Background Explorer, is also the cousin of Oliver Smoot who is famous as the "Smoot" who was laid end to end to measure the Harvard Bridge by students at MIT.  The Smoot Marks are still visible, being traditionally restored each year.  Appropriately, Oliver Smoot went on to be the chairman of the American National Standards Institute(ANSI) and the president of International Organization for Standardization(ISO).  George Smoot has also made a cameo appearance as himself on "The Big Bang Theory" where he asked Dr. Sheldon Cooper if he was on crack, and was the second person to win a million dollars on "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader."


In order to get to LBNL we had to go to the University of California campus where we boarded a shuttle bus that took us up through the Berkeley Hills to the lab.  


When I arrived at the lab the first impression I had was "Eureka."  That is, I felt like I was visiting the fictional town of Eureka from the SyFy television show.  The whole event seemed sort of like "Fonder's Day" from the first episode of the current season of the show.  


I wondered around, checking out the various booths highlighting aspects of research conducted at the lab.  I then took a bus tour of the campus, which included a trip by the Bevatron building, which is, sadly, being torn down.  The Bevatron was the first particle accelerator to achieve billion electron volt(BeV) levels.  The Bevatron was where antiprotons were first observed, which confirmed the existence of antimatter.  It also allowed the discovery of many other particles leading to a new era in physics. While it will soon be gone, its legacy will live on at locations like the Large Hadron Collider in Bern, Switzerland.


The real highlight of the open house was visiting the Advanced Light Source(ALS).  Housed in a building original designed for a cyclotron, it is a synchrotron providing over 40 beamlines.  Both ultraviolet and soft x-ray beams are available for scientific research.  It is one of the brightest light sources of  ultraviolet light and soft x-rays, which allows research that had previously been impossible.


The ALS facility defies easy description.  During the tour we walked around the outer area surrounding the facility.  This allows access to the various experimental stations which can be used by approved researchers.  Each station has a specific purpose.  


Overall, the ALS is a maze of wires, pipes, computers, instruments, etc.  Much of the pipes are covered in a specialized form of aluminum foil that helps protect the vacuum that the beams travel through.


Another facility at LBNL,houses a pair of scanning tunneling microscopes, that are capable of a level of resolution to half the width of a hydrogen atom.  Unfortunately, that building was not open during the recent event.

One other highlight of the visit was seeing Ernest Lawrence's desk.  Among the items preserved there are a cigar box that was used to house the first plutonium ever produced, some of Lawrence's lab notes, and the first radiation warning sign.  The now familiar symbol was first created at LBNL.  The original version was magenta on a blue background.  Today, the official version is black on a yellow background.  The design was based on a pattern observed in a cloud chamber.

Visiting Lawrence Berkeley was the fulfillment of something I had desired since first reading "The Cuckoo's Egg."  It was also a chance to get an up close view at some of the cutting edge research going on while making a connection to scientific history.

Sorry For the Delay...

It has taken me way too long to get back here to post another article.  I have been kind of busy working on learning iPhone programming and working on my first program, which is coming along slowly.


Anyway, it is time to catch up on things...


On Saturday I went to the Apple Store here in San Francisco and after a short wait I got a new iPhone 4.  I bought my first iPhone just over a year ago, and I was a little surprised to discover that I qualified for an upgrade at the same price as new users.  So, I decided to go all the way and buy a 32 GB model.  


It is certainly worth the cost.  As much as I loved my old iPhone, this one is so much better.  The graphics are greatly improved, I have the compass app that was introduced on the 3GS, I have all the new new features available in iOS 4.0 which were not available on my 3G, and most importantly it is much faster.


Apps that were painfully slow on the 3G are greatly improved.  On the 3G many apps took too long to load.  On the 4 they open almost instantly.


The camera is now up to the point where it can actually take decent photos, and it now has a flash.  The 4 also can take 720p HD video with the LED for the flash serving as a light source if needed.


Overall, Apple has created another hit.  

A Mythical Encounter

I was out walking my dog, and I happened to pass a local restaurant when I saw someone familiar.  I was a bit surprised, since this appeared to be someone I knew from TV.  As I got close, I realized that it was who I thought it was, and that there was a another familiar face with him.

They were Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage, stars of TV's Mythbusters, which is one of my favorite shows.

For those who don't know, Mythbusters takes on various "myths" which can include urban legends, rumors, adages, movie scenes, Internet videos, and the occasional bit of scientific error.

For example, they have shown that you can teach an old dog new tricks, that two cars hitting each other at 50 mph does not result in the same amount of damage as one car hitting a wall at 100 mph, and that a bullet fired from a gun does hit the ground at the same time as one dropped from the height of the barrel.  That last one proves a classic physics problem that has confounded many students as it seems wrong.  They are, perhaps, the first to ever actually test this.

Of course, I enjoy the show most when they are testing a scientific myth.  Sometimes, it seems, that they just wish to blow things up.  More than a few of their myths involve high explosives.

Of course, it is not at all surprising that I would see them in my neighborhood.  The show is filmed right here in San Francisco, and is headquartered at Hyneman's M5 Industries, a special effects firm that used to provide support to commercials, movies, and TV shows.  Now they primarily produce the show, and provide research and development for other companies.

Much of the show is show in, and around, San Francisco.  It is not unusual to see the cast shopping at places near where I live.  I have long figured that sooner or later I would probably see them in person.  

Actually, I had seen Adam Savage at this year's Macworld.  But it was fun to see the two of them together.  Of course, since they were obviously having a business lunch (it appeared that it was some sort of meeting) I did not interrupt them.  I would have loved to have had the chance to chat with them, but perhaps that opportunity will present itself in the future.

Granted, I fear that I would have either been afraid to speak, or would have quickly started asking for a job (it would be a Geek Girl's dream come true...) and it would have been embarrassing. 

History's Greatest Geeks, Part One

Geeks are not really all that new a thing.  We have been around for a very long time, though we were not always called "geeks."  In any case, history is full of those who fit would we would call "geekdom."  I thought it might be interesting to consider a few...

The problem is not finding ones to name, but instead is having an abundance of riches.  I know I will miss more than a few, so this list is by no means meant to be comprehensive, but instead to look at some of the great ones.

Archimedes

Archimedes is a good one to start with.  He was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer.  His is credited with several discoveries, including his work in determining density, which arose from the request that he determine if a crown produced for the king was solid gold, or if the goldsmith had pilfered some, using silver to make up the difference.

He was taking a bath when he realized that his body was displacing an amount of water equivalent to his volume.  Based on that, he could determine the volume of the crown, and therefore determine its density, which would be less if silver had been substituted for gold.  He was so excited that he ran back home without remembering to dress, dashing through the streets yelling "eureka!"(literally, "I have found it!").

Galileo Galilei

Galileo Galilei was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher.  He discovered the first four moons of Jupiter, he was the father of modern physics, and in perhaps one of his geekiest moments, he gave us Galileo's Paradox.  He observed that some numbers are perfect squares, that is, they are the square of an integer.  But not all integers, are perfect squares and in fact, most are not.  So, there must be more that are not perfect squares than that are.  But, all integers are the square roots of a perfect sq are.  Put in simple terms, there are as many perfect squares as there are whole numbers, even though most numbers are not perfect squares.  This seems a contradiction, and Galileo concluded that more, less, and equal do not apply to infinite sets.  But, in truth, as strange as it seems, some infinite sets are bigger than others.

He, along with Archimedes can thought of as the giants whose shoulders our next geek stood on...

Sir Isaac Newton

Newton was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who was one of the most influential people in human history.  He gave us the basis for classical mechanics including the three laws of motion:

First Law: An object at rest tends to stay at rest, or if it is in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by a sum of physical forces.


Second Law: A body will accelerate with acceleration proportional to the force and inversely proportional to the mass.


Third Law: Every action has a reaction equal in magnitude and opposite in direction.

Another major contribution of Newton was the development of calculus.  He was the first to organize it into a specific field of mathematics, and also was responsible for some of the first applications.  He was not the only one to contribute to its development, which brings us to our next figure from history...

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Leibniz was a German mathematician who a invented calculus independently of Newton.  In fact, they were involved in a bitter rivalry over which invented it first.  Today, Leibniz's notation is the one used in calculus, though both contributed ideas to the subject, and as noted above, Newton was the first to organize it into an independent subject.

Of equal importance to geeks everywhere is Leibniz's documentation of the binary number system which he associate with the I Ching.

Leibniz also made contributions to the field of topology.

Leonhard Euler

Euler was a contemporary of Leibniz and the man who gave us the exponential function and logarithms. He also contributed to the field of complex numbers and gave us Euler's Identity, which is one of the most profound statements in all of mathematics.

This combines five of the most important constants in mathematics.  The constant e is an interesting, number that shows up in many diverse places in mathematics and science.  It is an irrational number(i.e. it can not be expressed by m/n where m and n are integers.  Pi, the ratio of the diameter and circumfrunce of a circle, and is also irrational.  And i, is the imaginary number that is the square root of -1.  And of course, 1 and 0 are rather obvious in their importance.

Well, that is just a few of the numerous geeks from history.  In future articles we will look at others, both living and dead.  And both real, and fictional. 

Getting to know The Doctor

As a geek, there are a lot of things I enjoy.  But recently, I have had the pleasure of discovering a new one that has quickly become a favorite.  A friend, who happens to be from England, turned me on to Doctor Who.

Now, my friend grew up with this show.  His father was an actor, who had a show on BBC, and my friend even got to visit the set and see the actual TARDIS.  For those who don't know what the TARDIS is, well it is the Doctor's space ship which, due to a broken chameleon circuit, is stuck appearing to be a police call box.

I have to admit, I was hesitant to start watching.  This show bas been around for ages, and I feared I would be lost.  But, much to my delight, I discovered that it is more accessible than I originally thought.  Yes, there are things to learn, but they are easily found on Wikipedia, and elsewhere.  And beyond that, the sbow has a style and character that stands on its on. 

What broke the ice was my friend inviting me and some others over to watch an episode.  He said it was one that would not require any previous knowledge.  I was hooked.  He had suggested I could start with the 11th Doctor when the show would restart.  But, I have been watching the 10th Doctor, and I love them.

If you have never watched this gem of a geek show, the I suggest you do so.  If you are a fan of the Doctor, then you know what I mean.

In either case, Doctor Who is one of the best reasons to have a DVR.  That way I never miss an episode.  I just wish I had started earlier.

A Bit More About Me

Well, in that first post, I gave you a taste of my sense of humor.  Now let me tell you a bit more about me, and what my interests are.

I was a geek from early on.  Of course, back then, we didn't have that word.  I was the sort who used to ace those silly achievement tests they gave us in elementary school.  I remember one from the second grade where I missed one question.  It was the last one on that section and they agreed that I had just marked the wrong answer because I was tired.  The word was "glimpse" and I apparently answered, "A small monkey."  I know I would never have said that.

When I was in the fourth grade, I irritated my teacher because I preferred reading the encyclopedia to listening to her.  Of course, the stuff in the encyclopedia was more interesting.  I especially fascinated by the article on cancer in one of the year books.  I developed a hypothesis that cancer was caused by things irritating tissues.

I was the one who had a microscope and a chemistry set.  And of course, all my peers thought I was weird.  I was fascinated by how things worked.  Given half a chance, I would take something apart to figure it out.

I didn't want a playhouse.  I wanted a fully equipped laboratory.

In junior high school, I showed how a solar cell worked by making a galvometer out of a compass and wire, and I would read my science teacher's lab technician textbook.  She asked if I was just looking at the pictures and was a bit put off when I said I was reading it.  She had trouble with it in college.  And I was a whiz in algerbra.

Then I got to high school.  I did well in biology, and was a whiz in the lab at chemistry, but I had a teacher who didn't seem to think I could do well at math.  The sad thing was, I believed her.  By the end of my junior year, I was convinced I was a bust at math and decided to study something in college that would not require math.  Of course, I was miserable.

And then a funny thing happened.  I had a friend who was an engineering student.  He worked a lot with the computer.  I mentioned that I had heard you could play games on the computer, and he asked if I was interested in learning to use it.  Well, of course I was.  I had wondered into the computer center and had been fascinated and a bit intimidated by these wonderful machines full of blinking lights and switches. 

My friend talked me into joining him there...at three in the morning.  He explained that was when you got more time.  By dawn, I had written a simple program that solved the Pythagorean theorem.  When that program, written on punch cards, ran, I was hooked.  In a few days, I learned how to access the games, and taught myself to write programs.

My first computer was a Univac 1110.  A huge mainframe, with terminals around the campus.  Well, it wasn't "mine," but I treated it like a personal computer.  I was using my friend's professor's account.  Apparently he was cool with this, as there was no way he could miss the fact that I was burning up computer time at a rather rapid pace.

When I dropped out of college, I was still convinced that I could not do math, but I was good with computers.  Unfortunately, I had no credentials and I ended up getting married.  I bought a home computer, and started playing around with the idea of selling programs.

I managed to market a few small programs, but I was always finding something new to play with.  I decided to go back to school and study electronics.  There I discovered I was good at math after all.  I taught myself elementary calculus, so I could understand something that were beyond me.  My instructors thought I was a genius, and I was recommended for an internship at a very prestigious research institute.  And then my mother died.  I just fell apart.  I dropped out of school.  And my marriage suffered.

I heard about a possible job.  Ironically, the place I applied was not the right one, but I got hired anyway.  I spent a couple of years writing all sorts of programs.  I worked on both software and hardware.  One of the projects went up on the space shuttle.  And then the bubble burst.  I was laid off in the tech turn down at the turn of the century.  My marriage broke up, and I moved to California.  I struggled, but I have a good job, with a major university.  I do some programming on the side.

For a while, I tried to deny my geekiness.  Oh, it popped up all the time, but I tried to hide it.  Now I have realized that I am what I am, and I embrace it.

Thus this blog.

Welcome to Geek Girl's Chronicles

Hi! Welcome to my new blog.

Since today is April 1st, I thought I would start things off by sharing my favorite prank...

The first occurred back in my college days. I was working as a computer tech on work study, and part of my job was to be the first level of tech support. It wasn't April Fool's, just a Sunday evening, things were slow, and I was...well, I was bored.

One of the problems people faced was people stealing their terminal. If you walked away to the restroom, or to otherwise take a break, someone might log you off and then log on. To prevent this, someone wrote a program called "Scope Saver."

The program made it look like the terminal had timed out, like you had walked off and let it log off by itself. Well, I went down to the terminal room, and put the program on all the available terminals.

It was only a few minutes before my victim appeared. A freshman came to my window, his eyes as big as saucers. I knew what up, but I played dumb.

"There is something wrong with the computer," he muttered.

"No, everything is up and running fine," I said, pointing to the larger status sign in the middle of the machine room behind me.

"Really, there is something wrong," he repeated.

I followed him down to the terminal room, looked at the one he was trying to log onto, and in my most patronizing voice said, "It is just timed out. You need to enter the site ID."

"I did that," he said.

I sat down, and entered the site ID. The machine responded normally. I started to get up, but he repeated that he had done this. I asked for his account and password. I typed those and again, everything appeared normal, and I again started to get up to leave...

"No, wait," he insisted.

It was getting hard to keep a straight face, but I waited.

After a moment, the words flashed across the screen:

I remember you, you're the idiot who was banging on my keyboard yesterday. I don't like you, and I am not going to speak to you anymore!

"See! See! I told you there is something wrong with the computer," he practically screamed.

I gave him my most piteous look, shook my head, and said, "Well, the computer just doesn't like you."

Tears well up in his eyes, as he pleaded, "But I've got to do my homework!!!!"

At that point, I just lost it. Laughing uncontrolably, I cleared the program, gestured at the screen to indicate that it would work know, and then removed the program from all the other terminals.

Anyway, in coming posts, I will be talking about various and sundry geeky things. Feel free to leave a comment.