Welcome to I Am. When?, the personal blog for Andrew Maxim (that's me over there --> ), as well as the previous web space for Proverbs, LLC. On this blog you will find entries dealing with robotics, information systems & technologies, and miscellaneous "whatever thought gets stuck in my head" type stuff.
If you are looking for software products previously offered by Proverbs, they are all gone except for the web event calendar, which can be accessed using the navigation menu above. If this is your first visit I would recommend starting by clicking here and reading my first entry.
Again, welcome to I Am. When? I hope you enjoy the madness that is my mind.
Tuesday, June 23. 2009
Tutorial and Other Updates
As promised, I have finished up the Omnidirectional Tactile Whisker Sensor tutorial. Complete instructions are available in the tutorial section (linked in the main bar above). I think when all is said and done, each sensor comes out to a price of about $0.75 (yes, 75 cents) or less. I have made about a half dozen of these Whisker Sensors thus far and each has come out working quite well with little to no problems. The intention is to post this tutorial up on the Society of Robots website as well. Good stuffs all around.
Speaking of the Society of Robots (linked in the side bar over there <-- ), the website received much love in the July/August edition of Robot magazine. To be honest, it is about time the website got this attention, as there is so much information available at the Society of Robots for every level of roboticist. It really deserves a full featured article, or at the very least an interview with founder John Palmisano. Congratulations SoR! Well deserved.
I am also in the process of updating my Science Scout badges page to include my latest badge, as well as updating all the image links to the new Science Scout page. Even if you have no interest in sciencey stuff, I do recommend reading the badge page. It is quite the humorous compilation, if I do say so myself. It is linked off my About Me page (main bar above) or directly by clicking here.
The last update here is that I am hoping to have the next in my series on Computer Security up before end of week, where I will be covering User Permissions. Stay tuned...
Speaking of the Society of Robots (linked in the side bar over there <-- ), the website received much love in the July/August edition of Robot magazine. To be honest, it is about time the website got this attention, as there is so much information available at the Society of Robots for every level of roboticist. It really deserves a full featured article, or at the very least an interview with founder John Palmisano. Congratulations SoR! Well deserved.
I am also in the process of updating my Science Scout badges page to include my latest badge, as well as updating all the image links to the new Science Scout page. Even if you have no interest in sciencey stuff, I do recommend reading the badge page. It is quite the humorous compilation, if I do say so myself. It is linked off my About Me page (main bar above) or directly by clicking here.
The last update here is that I am hoping to have the next in my series on Computer Security up before end of week, where I will be covering User Permissions. Stay tuned...
Stumble ThisFriday, June 12. 2009
Pull And Pray Is Not The Way
Oh my dear God. I found this article on birth-control from over at LICD Webcomic who got it from one of his readers, and I am just shocked. It seems every time I think there might be a glimmer of hope for the scientific community, they throw a curve ball over to the stands.
Seeing as I know (thanks to Google analytics) that most of my readers won't bother to click the above link, I will say that the article is about medical doctors wanting the withdrawal method, better known as the pull and pray method to be considered a viable form of contraceptive. And by "viable", I mean one in which the doctors should be discussing as a possible contraceptive method between partners. I will give them one tiny mark for admitting it is not a full-proof method, but just to acknowledge it is ludicrous to begin with. You know it, I know it, but apparently some doctors don't know it.
So how on Earth did they decide it should be a viable method of contraceptive? The answer is statistics. Many people have been using the pull-and-pray method with some success, which makes it statistically viable according to the doctor in the article. But what they never seem to teach in school is that statistics lie. Statistics are biased and opinionated and they, well, they lie. Except for the statistical correlation between the decline in Pirates and global warming. That one is truthful.
In order to see just how bad statistics can lie let's take a look at two examples of other methods of birth-control that should be thrown on the table from a statistical point of view. The first is an old wives tale that you hear from time to time and which has even made it into various movies: You can't get pregnant if you are a virgin. I will bet my life's savings that if you were to do a study on the number of teens who have practiced this method of birth-control, there would be less than a 50% conception rate. Probably somewhere below 20%. I can make that statement because of the next method of birth-control that should receive equal time with the withdrawal method.
The Just Have Sex Method of birth-control. Poll any couple who has tried to have a baby as to the frequency of their "unprotected" sexual activity prior to conception and you will be seeing averages of 30-60 days. Even on the low end of that, 30 days of "unprotected" sex, assuming an average of once per day, means that the couple had sex 31 times with one instance resulting in conception. That is a 96.7% effective rate for just having sex as a viable form of contraceptive. That's almost the level of condoms for FSMs sake. Statistically speaking of course.
Not buying it? Well, let’s look at the facts then. The average menstrual cycle of a woman is 28 days. Of those 28 days, ovulation occurs around day 14, which is when the egg comes flying down the fallopian tube (the process starts around day 12). The egg is viable for about 2 days after that, meaning it can be fertilized by a sperm. Looking at the statistics for this, and being generous by allowing for 3 days of actual conception, we can see that for 89.3% of the days in a menstrual cycle conception is not going to happen.
"But Andrew," you say, "the most fertile period of a woman is from 5 days before to 2 days after ovulation. Wikipedia told me so." And you would be right. The reason for this is that sperm can actual survive inside a woman for 5-6 days or so. Meaning they can be waiting for the ovum like well trained Ninja, ready to strike at first sight. One would think that this would increase the odds of conception to something higher than 11%, right? Wrong.
Sperm are not well trained Ninja. At best they are undertrained Ninja. And Ninja are weak when compared with Pirates. Instead of swimming up to wait for the ovum to arrive, sperm, in their Ninja fashion, wander around aimlessly without a well thought out plan of attack. Most actually drip out of the woman after sexual intercourse is complete (hence the need for towels). The rest crash into each other, try to swim through the walls of the uterus, and general look like the three stooges. Basically, Ninja-like. This behavior greatly reduces the chance of conception overall.
Some do get lucky, however. This is why the human race has not died off, and the reason that there is a slight chance of conception. It is also the reason it is still called the "miracle" of life. This leads me to my last point regarding the so called withdrawal method of contraception.
When a man is sexually excited, even before intercourse, small amounts of semen are released from the penis. This helps in providing lubrication during intercourse. This semen contains viable sperm. It is just as likely that one of these viable sperm, released prior to ejaculation, could blunder upon the ovum and result in conception. Notice this little part: released prior to ejaculation. Meaning before the pull-and-pray method has even had a chance to take place.
If you put all of this together, you will see that the withdrawal method has roughly the same chances of conception (or prevention) as sleeping with only virginal women and just going for it (or the anti-withdrawal method). Stealing from my Pastafarian brothers and the Prophet Bobby Henderson, if you are going to teach the withdrawal method as a viable form of contraception, the other two methods listed here should receive equal time. Either that or some doctors need to go back to school to learn about reproduction and statistics. Thank You.
Seeing as I know (thanks to Google analytics) that most of my readers won't bother to click the above link, I will say that the article is about medical doctors wanting the withdrawal method, better known as the pull and pray method to be considered a viable form of contraceptive. And by "viable", I mean one in which the doctors should be discussing as a possible contraceptive method between partners. I will give them one tiny mark for admitting it is not a full-proof method, but just to acknowledge it is ludicrous to begin with. You know it, I know it, but apparently some doctors don't know it.
So how on Earth did they decide it should be a viable method of contraceptive? The answer is statistics. Many people have been using the pull-and-pray method with some success, which makes it statistically viable according to the doctor in the article. But what they never seem to teach in school is that statistics lie. Statistics are biased and opinionated and they, well, they lie. Except for the statistical correlation between the decline in Pirates and global warming. That one is truthful.
In order to see just how bad statistics can lie let's take a look at two examples of other methods of birth-control that should be thrown on the table from a statistical point of view. The first is an old wives tale that you hear from time to time and which has even made it into various movies: You can't get pregnant if you are a virgin. I will bet my life's savings that if you were to do a study on the number of teens who have practiced this method of birth-control, there would be less than a 50% conception rate. Probably somewhere below 20%. I can make that statement because of the next method of birth-control that should receive equal time with the withdrawal method.
The Just Have Sex Method of birth-control. Poll any couple who has tried to have a baby as to the frequency of their "unprotected" sexual activity prior to conception and you will be seeing averages of 30-60 days. Even on the low end of that, 30 days of "unprotected" sex, assuming an average of once per day, means that the couple had sex 31 times with one instance resulting in conception. That is a 96.7% effective rate for just having sex as a viable form of contraceptive. That's almost the level of condoms for FSMs sake. Statistically speaking of course.
Not buying it? Well, let’s look at the facts then. The average menstrual cycle of a woman is 28 days. Of those 28 days, ovulation occurs around day 14, which is when the egg comes flying down the fallopian tube (the process starts around day 12). The egg is viable for about 2 days after that, meaning it can be fertilized by a sperm. Looking at the statistics for this, and being generous by allowing for 3 days of actual conception, we can see that for 89.3% of the days in a menstrual cycle conception is not going to happen.
"But Andrew," you say, "the most fertile period of a woman is from 5 days before to 2 days after ovulation. Wikipedia told me so." And you would be right. The reason for this is that sperm can actual survive inside a woman for 5-6 days or so. Meaning they can be waiting for the ovum like well trained Ninja, ready to strike at first sight. One would think that this would increase the odds of conception to something higher than 11%, right? Wrong.
Sperm are not well trained Ninja. At best they are undertrained Ninja. And Ninja are weak when compared with Pirates. Instead of swimming up to wait for the ovum to arrive, sperm, in their Ninja fashion, wander around aimlessly without a well thought out plan of attack. Most actually drip out of the woman after sexual intercourse is complete (hence the need for towels). The rest crash into each other, try to swim through the walls of the uterus, and general look like the three stooges. Basically, Ninja-like. This behavior greatly reduces the chance of conception overall.
Some do get lucky, however. This is why the human race has not died off, and the reason that there is a slight chance of conception. It is also the reason it is still called the "miracle" of life. This leads me to my last point regarding the so called withdrawal method of contraception.
When a man is sexually excited, even before intercourse, small amounts of semen are released from the penis. This helps in providing lubrication during intercourse. This semen contains viable sperm. It is just as likely that one of these viable sperm, released prior to ejaculation, could blunder upon the ovum and result in conception. Notice this little part: released prior to ejaculation. Meaning before the pull-and-pray method has even had a chance to take place.
If you put all of this together, you will see that the withdrawal method has roughly the same chances of conception (or prevention) as sleeping with only virginal women and just going for it (or the anti-withdrawal method). Stealing from my Pastafarian brothers and the Prophet Bobby Henderson, if you are going to teach the withdrawal method as a viable form of contraception, the other two methods listed here should receive equal time. Either that or some doctors need to go back to school to learn about reproduction and statistics. Thank You.
Thursday, June 4. 2009
Orbitals Do Not Exist
Once upon a time in the land of Bohr's atom, scientists tried to explain electrons floating around the nucleus and came up with the magical faerie tale of orbitals. Orbitals are on par with medieval Christian medicine; that is, the physicians explained ailments in terms of demons, curses and sin. Sometimes the physicians got lucky with the diagnosis and treatment, but there was no concrete method to prove when they were wrong, it was just the sinner’s disbelief that killed them, not a misdiagnosis. You have just got to love absolute truths. Orbitals are one of those truths.
Orbitals are a faerie tale. A story. A guess. An educated guess perhaps, but a guess all the same. When you describe something as being "90% likely to be located someplace in this region" you are guessing, just like medieval physicians did. They based their guess work on the religion of the Christian God; modern scientists base their guess work on one incorrect theory, which in turn grew to hundreds and thousands of incorrect theories. Or at least, incorrectly based theories.
Let's put a little truth back into those theories. For simplicity's sake we are only going to talk about the "original three" subatomic particles: electrons, protons and neutrons. The remainder of the particles actually fall in line and make much more sense with what I am going to point out. Ready then?
Electron's move in logical, predictable orbits around the nucleus of an atom.
Bold and brash, right? Wrong. Here's the simple understanding of it all.
1) Electrons are influenced by the positive-to-negative electromagnetic pull of the nucleus of the atom. Given this, an electron should get sucked into and become part of the nucleus of the atom (this is why physicists first started to make stuff up).
2) The distance between the source of a given force and an object the force is acting upon changes the strength of that force. Meaning an electron located in North Carolina is not going to get sucked into the nucleus of an atom located in Virginia. Still means that electron is going to get sucked into its own nucleus though.
3) Enter my Hypothesis (I'm about ready to do a nice write up to move this officially to a theory, as well as a slight rewrite to bring it more inline with scientific wording): The faster an object is moving relative to a source of energy/force, the less influence said force exerts upon the object. You can read my initial write-up entitled Classical Mechanics Rule to see how this affects an electron. Basically, electrons move too damn fast to allow the electromagnetic pull of the protons to suck it into the nucleus; instead the force gets reduced thanks to the electron's speed and a stable orbit is created.
Based on this first part, a hydrogen atom in a complete void would have an orbital pattern that looks exactly like what everyone thinks an orbit should look like. There is even a mathematical formula for this orbital pattern, because it is the same mathematical formula for any circular orbit. Of course, not all atoms are hydrogen atoms and none reside in a complete void, nor are all hydrogen atoms simple one proton nucleus atoms. This is where things really are complicated. If only there was a mathematical formula that could accurately describe that complicated orbit just as well as one describing a circular orbit, but surely if there was such a mathematical formula someone would have come up with it by now (and won a Nobel Prize as a result).
The good news is there is one. The even better news is that, to my knowledge, no one has won a Nobel Prize for it yet. There might have been, and I just missed it, but given that the world is still using (and teaching) quantum physics, I am fairly certain that no one has released said formula. What is the mathematical formula then? I don't know. Crap, so much for that Nobel Prize.
Alright, that is partially a lie or I wouldn't be bothering to write up an entry about all this. I know almost all the pieces of the formula, or rather I know what all the pieces are and the mathematical formulas for most of those pieces. Being a nice person, and thinking science should be expanded for sciences sake, here are the components that make up the mathematical formula of a stable orbit (planets, electrons, black hole event horizons, etc):
1. The mathematical formula for a standard orbit (Trigonometry, baby).
2. The mathematical formula for force applied based upon distance (available in Physics or Chemistry books incase you don't know it by heart).
3. The mathematical formula for force applied based upon speed (yea, this is the missing one, but can actually be easily figured out. Heck, someone might actually know it already, but if not, there are simple experiments).
4. The mathematical formula for force applied to an object through specific barriers (neutrons are a barrier, as are certain solar phenomena).
5. The constant values of each force for each object.
6. The speed of each object.
Pretty simple right? Number five is a "gotcha" in that not only does a proton pull on an electron and a star pull on a planet, but electrons repel one another and planets have gravitational forces of their own. Number six is an easy one, except when additional energy is applied, but that can be factored in; we do after all know the speed of an electron in a vacuum, and, well, between the electron and the nucleus is a vacuum (pretty clever).
When you throw all this together you can model a complete, stable orbital system. Sooner or later I will get around to producing this formula in its entirety. Of course this will require all the textbooks to be rewritten as well as many of the existing theories (like, because I mentioned them previously, a ton of the stuff on black holes), but that is what science is all about. Change based on new information, and currently the new information is that Orbitals do no exist. Do the math and you will agree.
Orbitals are a faerie tale. A story. A guess. An educated guess perhaps, but a guess all the same. When you describe something as being "90% likely to be located someplace in this region" you are guessing, just like medieval physicians did. They based their guess work on the religion of the Christian God; modern scientists base their guess work on one incorrect theory, which in turn grew to hundreds and thousands of incorrect theories. Or at least, incorrectly based theories.
Let's put a little truth back into those theories. For simplicity's sake we are only going to talk about the "original three" subatomic particles: electrons, protons and neutrons. The remainder of the particles actually fall in line and make much more sense with what I am going to point out. Ready then?
Electron's move in logical, predictable orbits around the nucleus of an atom.
Bold and brash, right? Wrong. Here's the simple understanding of it all.
1) Electrons are influenced by the positive-to-negative electromagnetic pull of the nucleus of the atom. Given this, an electron should get sucked into and become part of the nucleus of the atom (this is why physicists first started to make stuff up).
2) The distance between the source of a given force and an object the force is acting upon changes the strength of that force. Meaning an electron located in North Carolina is not going to get sucked into the nucleus of an atom located in Virginia. Still means that electron is going to get sucked into its own nucleus though.
3) Enter my Hypothesis (I'm about ready to do a nice write up to move this officially to a theory, as well as a slight rewrite to bring it more inline with scientific wording): The faster an object is moving relative to a source of energy/force, the less influence said force exerts upon the object. You can read my initial write-up entitled Classical Mechanics Rule to see how this affects an electron. Basically, electrons move too damn fast to allow the electromagnetic pull of the protons to suck it into the nucleus; instead the force gets reduced thanks to the electron's speed and a stable orbit is created.
Based on this first part, a hydrogen atom in a complete void would have an orbital pattern that looks exactly like what everyone thinks an orbit should look like. There is even a mathematical formula for this orbital pattern, because it is the same mathematical formula for any circular orbit. Of course, not all atoms are hydrogen atoms and none reside in a complete void, nor are all hydrogen atoms simple one proton nucleus atoms. This is where things really are complicated. If only there was a mathematical formula that could accurately describe that complicated orbit just as well as one describing a circular orbit, but surely if there was such a mathematical formula someone would have come up with it by now (and won a Nobel Prize as a result).
The good news is there is one. The even better news is that, to my knowledge, no one has won a Nobel Prize for it yet. There might have been, and I just missed it, but given that the world is still using (and teaching) quantum physics, I am fairly certain that no one has released said formula. What is the mathematical formula then? I don't know. Crap, so much for that Nobel Prize.
Alright, that is partially a lie or I wouldn't be bothering to write up an entry about all this. I know almost all the pieces of the formula, or rather I know what all the pieces are and the mathematical formulas for most of those pieces. Being a nice person, and thinking science should be expanded for sciences sake, here are the components that make up the mathematical formula of a stable orbit (planets, electrons, black hole event horizons, etc):
1. The mathematical formula for a standard orbit (Trigonometry, baby).
2. The mathematical formula for force applied based upon distance (available in Physics or Chemistry books incase you don't know it by heart).
3. The mathematical formula for force applied based upon speed (yea, this is the missing one, but can actually be easily figured out. Heck, someone might actually know it already, but if not, there are simple experiments).
4. The mathematical formula for force applied to an object through specific barriers (neutrons are a barrier, as are certain solar phenomena).
5. The constant values of each force for each object.
6. The speed of each object.
Pretty simple right? Number five is a "gotcha" in that not only does a proton pull on an electron and a star pull on a planet, but electrons repel one another and planets have gravitational forces of their own. Number six is an easy one, except when additional energy is applied, but that can be factored in; we do after all know the speed of an electron in a vacuum, and, well, between the electron and the nucleus is a vacuum (pretty clever).
When you throw all this together you can model a complete, stable orbital system. Sooner or later I will get around to producing this formula in its entirety. Of course this will require all the textbooks to be rewritten as well as many of the existing theories (like, because I mentioned them previously, a ton of the stuff on black holes), but that is what science is all about. Change based on new information, and currently the new information is that Orbitals do no exist. Do the math and you will agree.
Thursday, May 21. 2009
Cloning the Pink Panther
I have decided that scientists need to devote a large portion of their time and energy into cloning Peter Sellers and rapidly growing him back to adulthood. Yes, I am saying we should resurrect Peter Sellers. I am certain everyone out there can think of a million reasons that this would be desirable, with not having Steve Martin portray Inspector Clouseau on the top of everyone's list, but I have alternate motivations.
My reasons for wanting to bring Peter Sellers back to life might be dated by a few weeks, but still valid:
1. Every time the media uses the phrase "Swine Flu" there should be a law stating that the words would be dubbed in by Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau.
2. The Pink Panther movies should be remade, with every instance of the word "swine" replaced by "H1N1", just to bring the movies up to date.
3. Because the only decent thing Steve Martin did in the media was The Jerk and he should not be allowed to ruin another Pink Panther movie.
If someone could startup an Internet petition to make this happen, I would be forever grateful. Thanks.
My reasons for wanting to bring Peter Sellers back to life might be dated by a few weeks, but still valid:
1. Every time the media uses the phrase "Swine Flu" there should be a law stating that the words would be dubbed in by Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau.
2. The Pink Panther movies should be remade, with every instance of the word "swine" replaced by "H1N1", just to bring the movies up to date.
3. Because the only decent thing Steve Martin did in the media was The Jerk and he should not be allowed to ruin another Pink Panther movie.
If someone could startup an Internet petition to make this happen, I would be forever grateful. Thanks.
Saturday, April 18. 2009
A Few Site Changes
I love Serendipity. The word and the blog. Going through and making changes to this blog has been so simple thanks to all the work the developers have put into the core product and the plugins. There are a few things I have had to tweak in the PHP code, but that is only because I like to make it "all my own."
For those of you who could not tell already, I did in fact decide to go with the sticky entry to provide a quick blurb for new visitors. I have also opted to whore myself out and throw up the Google AdSense plugin. If all of my readers decide to click an advertisement I could probably afford to pay for 20 seconds of my monthly web hosting bill. Sweet. That aside, I am quite happy that it has been showing advertisements related to networks and security, as opposed to porn. Of course I think I disallowed porn advertisements when I setup my AdSense account, so that might explain it.
Speaking of whoring myself, you might also notice I changed the picture of me in the right hand corner. That is the most recent photo of myself from all of two days ago (there is one from yesterday someplace, but I don't have it yet). A new photo just in time for me to have cut my hair off and make the new photo no longer accurate. Good stuffs.
For those of you who could not tell already, I did in fact decide to go with the sticky entry to provide a quick blurb for new visitors. I have also opted to whore myself out and throw up the Google AdSense plugin. If all of my readers decide to click an advertisement I could probably afford to pay for 20 seconds of my monthly web hosting bill. Sweet. That aside, I am quite happy that it has been showing advertisements related to networks and security, as opposed to porn. Of course I think I disallowed porn advertisements when I setup my AdSense account, so that might explain it.
Speaking of whoring myself, you might also notice I changed the picture of me in the right hand corner. That is the most recent photo of myself from all of two days ago (there is one from yesterday someplace, but I don't have it yet). A new photo just in time for me to have cut my hair off and make the new photo no longer accurate. Good stuffs.
