I have to link to one of the many articles about how Palin is so annoying, because how often do you get a quote like this:

"This is basically an incredibly expensive project that doesn't help commuters, doesn't help create jobs and may drive whales to extinction"

These Panasonic RP-HC500 noise-cancelling headphones are pretty boss. So much so that I've composed an ad.

Are children and wild animals constantly making noise at you? To hell with them. They'll get theirs. Until then, chill them out with the RP-HC500. The headband adjusts so that you don't get a stupid crease in your head. The ears swivel 90° in case you are a rabbit. The power is supplied by one battery, which for some reason was never enough for any gadget until now. It's plenty. Stop making me use so many batteries. Make me use up the 80 AAA's that I've accumulated for no reason at all.
The bass is deep enough to listen to Boston, while the treble is high enough to listen to Boston, so everyone should be happy. A blue light comes on to let people know that you are on the moon. The noise cancellation is second only to actually being deaf. We even include an extra two-pronged gadget that no one can figure out what it does. It's better than Bose and it's way better than putting a bowl of water over your head, plus you can listen to music, although it probably costs more.
By Panasonic. We Make And Sell Things^®

"Opinions are only worth having if you are willing to strangle people who disagree with you."

-Ryan

Which explains why his political vector had the same direction as mine but more than twice the magnitude.

Fun Math Exercise -- Solutions!

If you're not trying to program a spaceship, you should probably skip this blog entry.

Two methods that I've discovered so far:

1. Straight-up geometry.

   • Starting with a collection of points, start with any random point in space (e.g., the average of the point set, or one of the points in the set, or whatever). Take this initial point as your initial sphere center. Find the maximum distance from that point to any other point in the set. This maximum-distance point will be the first point defining your sphere.
   • Define the sphere as being centered on that initial point, and the radius as the distance to that far point. Keeping the radius as the distance between center and far point, start moving the initial center towards the far point (thereby shrinking the radius). Calculate how close the center point can get to that far point before another point in the set hits the sphere radius. Whichever point hits the sphere radius next is the second point defining your sphere.
   • Keep the sphere radius attached to these two points. The center is now an equal distance between the two points. Start moving the center towards the halfway point between the two radius points, shrinking the radius appropriately. Wait for a third point to hit the radius. This point will be the third point defining your sphere.
     • If there is no third point before the center reaches the halfway point, then the sphere is defined by the halfway point as the center and the radius as the distance from the halfway point to one of the radius points. Done!
   • With three points defined, calculate the circumcenter of the triangle that they define. Start moving the center towards the circumcenter, shrinking the radius to keep the three points attached to the radius. Calculate when a fourth point will hit the radius. You then have your sphere. Done!
     • If there is no fourth point before the center reaches the plane of the three radius points, then the center is the triangle circumcenter and the radius is the distance to any of the three radius points. Done!

2. Recursion.

   • Do some crazy shit found in Christer Ericson's Real-time Collision Detection called Welzl's algorithm.

I'm assuming this field is vague enough that the first method, which I sort of intuited, can be Malling's algorithm. If so, please label it properly.

Paying a fixed rate for utilities really changes your lifestyle dramatically. I didn't realize the freedom I had until my landlord offered to install an A/C unit in my room for free. He's partly doing it because he's a nice guy and partly because, if he doesn't do it, I'm going to end up installing an old 100,000 BTU unit. I can do it because I pay a fixed rate for utilities. When the situation finally settled in my brain, I started realizing that I could totally have a night-light again. And it could consist of five 60-watt bulbs.

I've essentially tapped an unbounded source of power, somewhat akin to harnessing the zero point energy. I could sell some of my room's electricity to Warwick and Pawtucket (indeed, the only other towns I know of in Rhode Island). By my calculations, which come exclusively from playing SimCity, I could make around $1000 / month on power alone.

I'm actually using most of the energy to play Ninja Gaiden II. My Xbox has started making occasional odd sounds, like a deep low-frequency hum that shakes my floor, which I attribute to having to pump additional megawatt-hours into my ninja so that he can keep up with all the bullshit in that game, like packs of wolves with what I think are knives. Let it be known that ninjas do not require limbs or a direct means of locomotion to be able to attack you from far away.

Fun Math Exercise!

I need someone to give me an algorithm for finding the smallest bounding sphere for a set of points, which doesn't require me going terribly far out of my way to solve a system of linear equations. For example, if it can be slammed into a for loop, that would be superb. If you don't know what a for loop is, get away from me. I can't be touched right now.

I've been asked more than once why we should bother sending humans into space to do the work at which our robotic landers and rovers have been so successful. The answer is: because they actually aren't terribly successful.

The probes we send to other planets have a very narrow set of tasks they are able to perform. The Viking landers could take pictures of stuff. Spirit and Opportunity can roll around, and they can drill things. The Phoenix lander can dig a bit, but it can't move. Our latter Mars missions also have a bunch of fancy equipment for measuring flux capacitance and theta radiation. Which is good. We can learn a lot from that.

All of those pieces of equipment which are specially designed for use by the robots, however, can easily be stocked into a small human laboratory. Plus a lot more bulky equipment. Large centrifuges and whatnot. I hear scientists enjoy those. Need a soil sample? Send Johnson outside with a trowel and a Ziploc baggie. Five minute process. See something interesting a few miles away? Hop on a little rover and go take a look. A few hours at worst. Basically, if there is interesting science to do, just do it.

Robots can't particularly match that versatility at the rate we're currently progressing. Robots must be told what to do at every step of the way, so that they don't become permanently stuck in a sand dune or run out of juice during dust storm season. This is a little annoying, because signals between here and Mars take between three and 20 minutes one-way. So, if you're navigating a robot through a dense rocky field, and you tell it to move about ten feet per communication and then wait for confirmation that you haven't driven the robot off a cliff, your average speed is at best 1.7 ft/min and at worst 0.25 ft/min. That's lame. I'd just jump over that shit, because I'm a human, and I'll do as I please.

Of course, we can eventually wring a bunch of interesting science out of the rovers and landers. However, we can only learn as much as we think we already know. At the cost of tens to hundreds of millions per robot, you only invest in robot science that you know will find something definitive, like an answer to the question of water on Mars with the possibility of ancient life. The rover isn't keeping its eyes pealed for interesting and strange phenomena outside the realm of its narrowly-focused mission. Humans, by nature, excel at that. That's why we have things like antibiotics and radios. Science born of random observation ought to be sustained, even at high cost.

I'm currently gathering the balls to post this to the grad student listserv, amid the torrent of more legitimate offers.

Roommate Wanted for $500 Shithole on Brook St

I'm a Brown physics grad student who enjoys listening to Akon and is generally disrespectful towards people and property, looking for anyone of a similar caliber to fill a vacancy in my apartment located approximately 1600 ft from campus. Window blinds are closed at all times. Washer and dryer in inaccessible locked basement, as if to taunt you. Landlords are nice people who live upstairs and enjoy rolling heavy objects back and forth on the floor at odd hours of the morning for no reason. Third-floor apartment rented by nudist. Kitchen counter tilted at 10-degree angle due to new dishwasher. Electricity oscillates at a mean of 71 Hz. A stone's throw from the fire station and a giant church. Two-hour street parking available. Call to set up a time.

I can't wait to go to the movies.

1:38:29 PM davemallingsband: i cant even get excited about seeing this upcoming The Happening movie
1:38:36 PM zwieselite: i don't even know what it is
1:38:51 PM davemallingsband: its m night shyamalan. and a happening occurs. now.
1:38:59 PM zwieselite: jesus
1:39:30 PM davemallingsband: and since its m night shyamalan its probably the inverse of what youd expect. i.e., its actually not happening
1:39:38 PM zwieselite: or its happening backwards
1:39:45 PM zwieselite: or inside a box
1:39:56 PM zwieselite: but nobody knwos they're in a box
1:40:15 PM davemallingsband: but we will know
1:40:18 PM davemallingsband: after it happens

I've used Matlab, which is the greatest program in the world, to plot the success of M. Night Shyamalan's career:

I've also rigged up a scale projecting the success of this Happening movie in terms of how radical it will be:

Here's something that fucking sucks: try getting a drop of SoBe Adrenaline Rush in your eye. Try it. I'll wait.

Yes, it fucking sucks, doesn't it? It's probably the 28 different acidic compounds in the drink that makes it so fucking suckish to get in your eye. That, in turn, makes me wonder about how healthy it is to put it into your stomach, which is pointless because I'm drinking it to combat sleep, and anything that fights sleep is inherently bad for you anyway. It's also very hard to write a presentation with SoBe in your eye, which slows me down, which makes me need more SoBe to keep awake, which increases my risk of getting more in my eye. Or worse. ... Physics is starting to piss me off.