Douglas Adams Would Be 61 Today....

First off, let me say, "Sorry for being so long...."  Life has a way of getting complicated, and mine has been crazy for a while. School keeps me awfully busy, and well, this is not my primary Google account, so I have to log out, and log back in...and well, I just keep putting stuff off.

Anyway, I could not pass up the chance to honor one of geekdom's greats.  Today is the 61st birthday of the man who gave us The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, as well as some of the best episodes of Doctor Who, including "City of Death," a great Fourth Doctor Story.

Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide Trilogy stands as one of the classics of science fiction.  I loved the stories, and his death came far too early.  It is especially a shame that he did not live to see the realization of what seemed an impossible dream when he wrote his books.  

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has come to actually exist in the form of the Internet, Wikipedia, Google, and various smartphones.  It occurred to me one day, as I was looking up something during a discussion with friends, that we have what Adam's inspired...an information source of astounding depth and breath that we can carry with us...

Now, if only we could get Wikipedia to change the article on Earth to simply read...

Mostly Harmless

A Final Leap

I have been very remiss in updating this blog.  A lot of that has been because I am in school, and well, things have just been busy.  Also, my life has been more than a bit crazy.  But I wanted to take a moment and mention the death of a great hero of my younger years...Neil Armstrong.  I still remember sitting and watching those fuzzy images of that first small step...  I grew up with the space program.  I watched every launch I could.  I have visited both Huntsvile and Kennedy Space Center.  I saw the equipment Armstrong and the others trained on.  I have seen moon rocks more times than I can remember.  And, even though I knew the day would come, it was still sad to hear that he died... May he rest in peace, and rise in Glory.  My light perpetual shine upon him.

We Lost Another Great One...

It did hasn't received as much attention as the death of Steve Jobs, but another person who had a profound effect on the world of computers died a few days ago.

Dennis Ritchie, of Bell Labs, who along with Ken Thompson, developed the UNIX operating system, was found dead in his home on October 12th.  He was 70.  Ritchie was also the developer of the C programming language.

While Ritchie's death did not receive the attention that Steve Job's did, his contributions are also very significant.  In fact, UNIX was the basis for the NeXT operating system which would evolve into Mac OS X, as well as the model for Linux.


Ritchie had been in ill health in recent years because of prostate cancer and heart disease.,

His web page is here.

Goodbye, Steve....

I got the news on my iPhone.  I was on my way home from classes in Computer Science, and I had pulled it out of my purse to look up something I saw on a sign, and the push notification from AP News popped up on the screen.


Steve Jobs, co-founder, and former CEO, of Apple had passed away.  The news hit me hard.  Over the past few years I have become a major Apple fan girl.  And I came to admire Steve Jobs for all he has done for the world.


About three years ago, I bought an iPod Touch.  I read an article that pointed out how you could do almost anything on it that you can do on a laptop.  While that might be viewed as a bit of an exaggeration, there is truth in that statement.  I didn't realize it, but I had taken the first step towards addiction.


When the iPhone 3GS came out, and they dropped the price on the iPhone 3G, I bought my first iPhone.  I loved my iPod Touch, but I wanted to have access when WiFi was not available.  


Then, I began to think about developing apps for the iPhone.  That would require the purchase of a Mac.  I was eyeing the Macbook, but wound up going for a bit more and buying the Macbook Pro I am typing this on.  Joining the Developer's program, and a large number of books, quickly followed.


By now, I am sure many can see where this is leading...the iPhone 4 arrived, and I upgraded.  A full 32 GB version, of course.  Now I could have all the apps and music I wanted.  


And of course, I had been wanting an iPad, but that was just a bit beyond my reach for while, but I bought one of those as well, the top of the line 64 GB with 3G.  I use it everyday.


And, every Tuesday night, I attend a class in iPhone programming as part of my major in Computer Science.  Apple, and more specifically the genius of Steve Jobs, helped draw me back in to programming.  I had wandered away a few years ago, mainly because of my lack of a degree.  I was self-taught, but that doesn't work these days.  Now I am working on my degree, and my ultimate dream would be to work for Apple.  That, or to teach Computer Science to the next generation of geeks.


But I owe a lot to Steve Jobs.  He will be missed.  It may be a bit trite, but he really did change the world in insanely great ways.

It's Been A Long Time...

Sorry to be so long between posts...but life has been crazy.


I decided to take the plunge and return to school.  I followed by geeky little heart and I am majoring in computer science...and I love it!


During the summer term, I completed a introductory course in C++ programming.  It mostly served as a refresher for me, since we focused on procedural programming and not object oriented.  Now I am continuing with the next course in the series, which will delve more into object orientation.  I am also taking courses in UNIX, Java, and iPhone programming.  My schedule is rounded out with a class for emergency medical responders.  It is primarily for those going into a public safety career (which I have no interest in) but it a) fulfills a graduation requirement, and b) will teach me some really strong first aid skills (and living in San Francisco where we all are waiting on THE BIG ONE that is not a bad thing.  


I realized something...being a student is sort of a natural environment for me.  Or, more specifically, being in an academic environment is.  I have missed this sort of thing.  I love being in class, working on homework, and especially learning new things.


I have been programming for almost forty years.  I wrote my first program in FORTRAN on punch cards in the fall of 1974.  I quickly learned BASIC, and spent several years using a multi-million dollar mainframe as a personal computer before anyone had heard of a personal computer.


Over the years, I moved on to Pascal, C, and other programming languages.  I learned a bit about algorithms, and data structures.  I worked at several jobs as a programmer, and even did some work in hardware design.  But, I was always the one without a degree.  Now, I am formalizing my knowledge.  And I am loving every minute of it.


So, hopefully I will find the time to update things more...besides, Doctor Who returns Saturday, and that is always something to write about.

Songs about Computers...

PC World has an interesting weekly email called "Talk Nerdy to Me."  This week's features the "Top Ten Songs About Computers."  I actually have a pretty good collection of such songs myself, including a few I added from their list:



Code Monkey by Jonathan Coulton
Behind the Scenes at Microsoft by Three Dead Trolls In a Baggie
Binary Code (Makes Sense Wherever I Go) by Nonso Ugbode
Computer Chanty by Dr. SETI
The Gates by DaVinci's Notebook
I Love My Computer by Nonso Ugbode
I Love My Mac by Daphne Kalfon
I Love My iPod by Daphne Kalfon
If This Geek Ruled the World by Geoff Smith
Internet Love Song by Bob Ricci
MySpace by Joshua Grosvent
Log In to You by the Arrogant Worms
On the PC by Tom Smith
PC99 by Tom Smith
The Nerds Who Rule the World by Hot Waffles
Reign of Error by Sudden Death
Reinstalling Windows by Les Barker
The Rise and Fall of the SupaSucka 9000000™ by Flying Like Wilma
Spam by Sudden Death
The System Administrator Song by Three Dead Trolls In a Baggie
Tech Support by Geoff Smith
Tech Support by Tony Goldmark
Welcome to the Internet Help Desk by Three Dead Trolls In a Baggie
What Joe Saw on the Internet by Three Dead Trolls In a Baggie
The System Administrator Song by Three Dead Trolls In a Baggie
2600 by Positive Attitude

And of course one could also include:

Having Trouble Sneezing by Scott Olson (Mac vs. PC ads)
New Soul by Yael Naïm (Macbook Air ads)

Okay, I admit it...I'm a major geek, and an Apple fangirl.  These are just some of the almost 200 songs I have in my "Geek Songs" playlist in iTunes.

A Weekend With The Doctor

Earlier this month I spent the weekend at the 22nd annual Gallifrey One convention in Los Angeles, California.  It was my first science fiction convention.  Gallifrey One is for fans of the British science fiction show, Doctor Who, which I have become a major fan of.


I went along with several other fellow geeks who are also major fans, including the three shown in the photo to the left.  They are all dressed as characters from the very first episode of the show, which aired on November 22, 1963, a date better known for the assassination of President John Kennedy.  From left to right, they are dressed as the First Doctor, and his companions Ian Chesterson and and Barbara Wright.
  
The person dressed as the first doctor is the one directly responsible for recruiting me as a fan of the Doctor.  Originally from England, has has watched the show from his youth.  His father was an actor with the BBC, and he got to visit the original TARDIS set.  (For those not familiar with the show, the TARDIS is the Doctor's spacecraft...and means Time and Relative Dimensions in Space.)


One afternoon he got me to watch the episode Blink and I was hooked.  I started watching every episode I could, and in short order, I was a major fan.


I mean, what is there not to love about a quirky Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey who travels through time and space in a stolen spacecraft that appears to be a Police Call Box.  It has that appearance because the chameleon circuit, which would normally allow it blend in is broken.  Originally conceived as a way to save money, it has become a trademark for the Doctor and is one of the shows many charms.

When the Doctor meets his demise, he regenerates, taking on a new body, and a new personality.  So, there are now 11 Doctors, all the same person, with all the memories, but each also different.  On the right the faces of all the Doctors from the Show.


The Doctor is joined on his journeys by one or more companions.  As I said, the first Doctor was joined by Ian and Barbara, as well as his granddaughter Susan.  The current Doctor is joined by Amy Pond, and her husband Rory Williams, who she married at the end of the last season.

The Doctor, of course, has a number of adversaries.  Some of them have become as much a part of the show as the Doctor himself.  Perhaps the best known of his enemies are the dreaded Daleks. They are mutated Kaleds integrated into a tank-like mechanical casing. The result is a race of beings obsessed with universal conquest and domination, completely devoid of pity, compassion or remorse. The Daleks appear to have had every emotion removed except hate. Their goal is to purge the Universe of all non-Dalek life. On occasion they have shown  other emotions, usually fear, although this is rare. They are the greatest enemies of the Doctor. Their famous catchphrase is "Exterminate!", with each syllable individually synthesised in a frantic electronic voice.

Another major enemy of of the Doctor is the Cybermen.  Originally they were an organic species of humanoids originating on Earth's twin planet Mondas. They added more and more artificial parts to their bodies for self-preservation. They became a race of coldly logical and calculating robots, all but devoid of every emotion. They are also major rivals of the Daleks.


Unlike the Daleks, which seek to exterminate other races, the Cybermen assimilate people, turning them into robots as well.  In this sense, they are reminiscent of the Borg from the Star Trek universe.  In fact, there are a number of elements of Star Trek that seem to possibly have been borrowed from Doctor Who.

The third major enemy of the Doctor is the Master, a fellow Time Lord, who has chosen a path of evil, perhaps because he was driven to madness when he was exposed to the Untempered Schism during his initiation as a Time Lord.  There, one can see into the entire time vortex (the medium through which the TARDIS travels).


His goal is to dominate the Universe.  He can be thought of as a sort of Moriarty to The Doctor's Sherlock Holmes.


During the convention I was treated to appearances by, among others, the Fifth Doctor, who was played by Peter Davidson, as well as those who played his three companions.  Also appearing were Frazer Hines, who played a companion of the Second Doctor, and Waris Hussein who was the director of the very first episode of Doctor Who.


The convention also featured appearance by a pair of life size Daleks, who were quite an intimidating presence.  Also someone brought a very realistic recreation of K-9, a robotic dog acquired  by the Doctor and given to his companion Sarah Jane Smith.


If you have never checked out Doctor Who, I strongly recommend that you do, though I will warn you, it can be a very addictive show.  And if you are a fan of the Doctor, then you should consider a trip to the next Gallifrey One.  It is a wonderful chance to meet fellow fans, and to see some of the people who have worked so hard to bring this great show to the masses.   

Twenty Five Years Ago Today...

I was working for a local computer company in Florida.  It was an unusually cold morning, and on that particular day, I had to go to Vero Beach with a technician to work on a customer's computer.  I remember that it was a Commodore PET.


We were on our way back and I happened to look out the window and I saw the Space Shuttle going up.  I mentioned it to the tech and he asked if we could stop an watch.  I said, "Of course!"


Now, I had watched several shuttle launches down there.  Even as far away as were were, a couple of hundred miles, it was quite visible.  
As I watched the little dot of flame moving upward, leaving a trail of smoke, I thought, "There are people on there going to space..."


Suddenly, there was a sort of a flash, not unlike that seen in the earlier rockets when they stages would separate.  In fact, my first thought was "Well, there goes the first stage...." followed immediately by, "Wait, there are no stages on the shuttle...this is very bad."  The smoke trail formed the now familiar Y-shape as the boosters broke away.


I said, "I hope they are doing an RTLS, a return to landing site."  I just could not wrap my mind around what I knew was happening.


I turned on the radio, and found a station covering the launch.  The first thing I heard was, "Something appears to have gone very wrong..."  Over the next few minutes they talked about how NASA was trying to figure out what was going on, that there had been a major malfunction, and then, there was an odd report that said that paramedics were being dropped into the water.


But the truth quickly became clear.  Seven astronauts had died that cold January morning.

Commander "Dick" Scobee

Pilot Michael J. Smith

Mission Specialist 1 Ellison Onizuka

Mission Specialist 2 Judith Resnik

Mission Specialist 3 Ronald McNair

Payload Specialist 1 Sharon Christa McAuliffe, Teacher in Space

Payload Specialist 2 Gregory Jarvis

That evening, I went home and watch The Right Stuff.  It was my way of processing the tragedy I had witnessed.  I thought back on how risky those early flights were, and how routine space flight seemed to have become.

Over two and a half years later, on September 29, 1988 I was privileged to see the first post-Challenger shuttle launch.  I was in college, and a number of us went out and watched as America returned to space.  We all agreed, if offered the chance, we would have gladly gone along on that flight.

Momma, They Took My Kodachrome Away....

Well, sometime in the next few days, the absolute, final roll of Kodachrome film will be processed.  A place in Kansas, known as Dwayne's Photo is the last lab in the world to process Kodachrome. Kodak stopped making the film about a year or so ago, and Dwayne's is shutting down the final line and selling the machinery for scrap.


Years ago, when I got heavily into photography, I became fascinated by the who mystique of Kodachrome.  Unlike other color films, it could only be processed at certain labs.  The process was extremely complex, and at the time, required specially trained staff, including an on-site chemist.  


Of course, that seemed like a challenge to me.  I wanted to become the first person to "home process" Kodachrome.  I actually managed to talk someone at Kodak into sending me detailed information on the process.  Now, the actual processing manual were described as being the size of a phone book, but I got my hands on a document that included information like the actual chemicals required (they had to be mixed from raw ingredients) and the specific color filters and lighting needed for the three exposures needed to do the color reversals.  It also included other details like the timing, and temperatures for each step.


Kodachrome was not like other color films.  It was, essentially, a black and white film with color filters that created three layers.  The first step required removing a black coating, which could be quite messy.  In fact, if Kodachrome film accidentally found its way into a machine designed to process other films, it would likely cause the other rolls of film to be ruined.


Next, was simply black and white processing.  Then, through a series of steps involving exposure to very specific colors of light, and complex chemical baths, the various color layers were created.  This was where Kodachrome processing became complicated.


The chemicals involved were extremely toxic.  And outrageously expensive.  This was what stopped me dead in my tracks.  I might could have built the processing equipment out of parts scavenged from local labs's outdate equipment.  The filters would have been costly, but would be a one time expense.  But when I checked the Kodak catalog where, amazingly, the chemicals were all listed (though there was no indication what they were actually for) I found that the cost would have run into several thousand dollars. Some of the chemicals were hundreds of dollars for a few grams, and there were a lot of chemicals involved.  In time, Kodak would develop a simpler machine, that used packaged chemicals, but at the time I was looking at the process, that was not available.


I look back fondly on those dreams.  It would have been a grand experiment, and would have surely won me fame, and possibly even fortune.  But, alas, it was simply not to be.


And now, Kodachrome is all but gone.  The last rolls will soon pass through the last processor, and an era will end.

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.