Paul's blog

Last year, on August 4th, I wrote, although not immediately apparent, about the launch of a Delta rocket that would put the Phoenix space craft on its way to Mars.

After having traveled some nine months at around 74,000 miles an hour, Phoenix is almost at the end of its 423 million mile journey:
Tomorrow afternoon it will make its landing attempt: when is starts its harrowing descent to the Martian surface it will be flying over 12,000 miles per hour (relative to Mars).
Seven minutes later it should be touching down on the cold rocky planet.

Unlike the previous rovers, this is not a big airbag that is dropped and bounces around for a while: this is a real lander that is supposed to make a controlled soft landing using a parachute, retro-rockets, radar, lots of computer power and … quite a bit of luck: so far, only 55% of all Mars landings have been successful.

Is the Phoenix team confident they will pull this off?
Not quite:

I do not feel confident. But in my heart I’m an optimist, and I think this is going to be a very successful mission,” said principal investigator Peter Smith, an optical scientist with the University of Arizona. “The thrill of victory is so much more exciting than the agony of defeat.

The number of things that can go wrong in the seven minutes it takes the lander from going from almost 13,000 mph to gently stepping on Mars’ surface is mind boggling. One single small failure will make the difference between success and Mars having yet another impact crater. This is why the Phoenix team refers to this landing event as “The Seven Minutes of Terror”.

I will be watching the landing coverage tomorrow on TV and it will be a nail biting experience.

And if we’re lucky and Phoenix survives this mission critical maneuver, we’re in for yet another nail biting experience.

After all, Phoenix’ mission is to hopefully find a conclusive answer to that centuries old question:

Is there life “out there”?

Assume you’re in the market for a new car. You have picked your car: a ‘Standard’ model from car maker XYZ.
Your new car has everything you need. And the price is right: say $30,000.
The model you chose also comes in a ‘Pro’ version.
It’s basically the same car, but it has some additional gadgets like a sunroof, GPS and leather seats.
Some of these extra gadgets are really nice, and you may even use some of them once or twice in the car’s lifetime.
You briefly contemplate this ‘Pro’ model, until you see its price tag: $80,000.
Hiding your astonishment about this strange pricing strategy you stick to your ‘Standard’ model.
Then you learn something else:
If you have owned a car before, then, for some reason, you get a $10,000 discount!
That’s a cool deal. Too bad this is your first car.
But wait!
There is more!
XYZ has a stripped down version of your ‘Standard’ model available as test car!
As I said, it’s heavily stripped down, bare bones, but it gets you from A to B.
You can test drive it for as long as you want for FREE! No cost! Gratis. All you pay is the gas.
Now .. if you DO borrow that car, then THAT counts towards this ‘had-car-previously’-discount!
So you drive that loaner for a day or two, and now you can buy your ‘Standard’ for $20,000.
But wait … you THEN find out that if you DON’T buy directly from XYZ, but order it through Amazon.com, they knock off yet another $2,000!

You secretly wonder if the guy who came up with these somewhat odd pricing schemes will still have a job tomorrow.

Strange story, you say?
Well, this actually happened to me yesterday!

No, not with buying a car from XYZ through Amazon.

It happened with buying software from Microsoft.

I needed Visual Studio 2008.
It’s not for enterprise or development groups purposes, so I basically have the choice between Visual Studio 2008 ‘Standard’ and ‘Professional’.
Standard costs $300.
Professional, which is Standard + gadgets, costs $800.
If you ‘upgrade’ from a previous version, Standard only costs $200.
“Previous versions” INCLUDE non-Microsoft, Open Source (free) Eclipse software  AND Microsoft’s own FREE Visual Studio 2008 Express software!
I double checked the price with Amazon, since I have free 2-day shipping with them, and they listed Visual Studio 2008 Standard Upgrade for $179.99.

Who on earth would ever pay $300 for the full Standard version? (Probably the people who didn’t read the upgrade policy!)
And how would they feel if they learn, that they could have had it for $120 less, LEGITEMATELY! By first installing (I doubt you actually need to do that) either the free Eclipse software or the free Visual Studio Express version?

They would probably be as pissed off as I was when, after buying a full version of Windows XP, I found out I could have gotten it for half the price by first simply ‘borrowing’ it, and then fessing up to Microsoft that I ‘borrowed’ it and want to pay for it afterall.  Granted, this is not QUITE the same, because in this scheme there IS some illegality involved. NOT so in the Visual Studio case! (For this XP story, see: link)

Bizarre!

Suppose there is a people somewhere that has not yet been corrupted by what we like to call civilization.

Their mathematical skills allow them to count up to five, but not beyond. Anything over 5 is considered ‘many’.

Does that mean they consider all collections of over 5 items as quantitively equal?

No, of course not. They fully realize that there are different kinds of ‘many’: a handful of peanuts is not quite as ‘many’ as a bucket full of peanuts!

Somewhat similarly, ‘civilized’ mathematicians have come to realize that there are different kinds of infinities. Even though we can’t count them, we know that there are infinite sets that differ in ‘size’.

But things get a bit weird when it comes to infinities.

Take for instance the infinite set of all integers.

It’s obvious, and one can also show mathematically, that the set of all EVEN integers is as ‘big’ (or strong) as the set of all ODD integers.

To get you to think a bit about infinities, I’ll end this short introductory post to a (finite!) set of posts on infinities here with a small ‘test’.

I intend to explain later where I’m going with all this. For now, I’d like to keep it simple.

Question:
Let ‘I’ be the set of all integers, ‘E’ the set of all EVEN integers and ‘S(s)’ the size  of set ‘s’.
What can be said about the size of I?

Answers ¹⁾
a. S(I) < S(E)
b. S(I) = S(E)
c. S(I) > S(E)
d. Huh?

Bonus question:
What is the most dangerous remark in the above post, especially with regards to the correct answer?

I just returned from signing an employment agreement with High Fidelity Engineering, a small (less than 10 people) startup here in Melbourne, that is active in integrated ubiquitous national two-way, low-speed, data communications networks,  utilizing HF frequencies and FM or XM radio as the inbound and outbound communications, respectively. 

So, yes, I’m employed again. As of Feb. 25th that is. I’ll be their firmware guy and I will start by porting an 8051 based system to an ARM7-TDMI-S processor based one.

I already know a thing or two about 802.11, and in a few weeks from now you can ask me anything about 802.15.4 (ZigBee) as well! 😉

Really looking forward to it!

Today was the first WORK day of my unemployment. And what did I do? Yes … I had an interview!

I was on my way to the interview, singing and just enjoying the nice weather, the small flock of Sandhill Cranes that flew by and just realizing it’s not so bad to be unemployed when your wife still has a very well paid job.

And then the phone rang (gotta love cars with bluetooth enabled ‘entertainment’ centers).

This is a blog, not a novel, so let me just skip to the facts: she lost her job too (military, contracting, bidding for new contracts, blah blah).

I was a bit concerned. I had several irons in the fire (one of which I particularly liked) but hadn’t heard back from any of them.

The company I would be interviewing with today … I don’t know. A colleague of mine showed me their job ad and I emailed him my resumé which he forwarded to them: hey: I AM a fimware engineer! (and I have seen and done it all!).

I didn’t quite get what they were doing, making, selling. But hey .. a job is a job.

The very first thing that impressed me with these folks was the fact that they called me, only TWO hours after I forwarded my resumé to this co-worker of mine. And they wanted to talk to me ‘tomorrow’! (no ‘telephone’ interview!).

I couldn’t do ‘tomorrow’ (had procrastinated a bit with cleaning out my cubicle), but went there the next working day: today.  I was still not sure what to think about it .. still secretly hoping for the other guys to call me .. I went to the interview. I ignored my wife’s advice to ‘dress up’ and went in jeans. Glad I did. I was not the only one in that meeting room in jeans! Anyway …

My buddy and friend Eddy has been to MANY more interviews than I have (in fact, this was my first one), and he recalls interviews that went absolutely perfectly! Done deal. And then .. he would get a call, telling him he didn’t fit in with the team.

So… I probably shouldn’t get my hopes up too high …

But let me tell you .. the more I think about it, the more I understand the product, the more I understand the challenge … the more I think of the people I interacted with today … the whole package … even though I was hoping for something else (and the other guys DID email me today, after I got home) … the more I think THIS is a PERFECT match! With a very exciting future! (the many more things that can be done with THAT technology!).

The only dark cloud I can see is pay: I got VERY well paid in my previous job (6 figures), so I know I’ll have to take a heavy hit in the money department, but .. we’ll see. An interesting and fun job is worth something too (can’t say I have had too much fun the past few years!).

I know I shouldn’t (yet) … but I’m ‘pumped’!

(okay, okay, for all the smartiepants who pointed out that both Dawnell and I are wearing the same wrist watch … so, I did some very sloppy rudimentary photoshopping … just click on the picture to see the originals .. if you really must! Jeesh!)

Monday, September 2nd, 1974, was the first day of my career as a professional software engineer.

Today, for the first time in that 33+ year career, is my first day of my first interruption of that career: I’m now practically ^*) unemployed.

I’m sitting here today, a sunny Saturday in February, in my office at home, surrounded by boxes full of computer books and 33+ years worth of computer related junk.

I’m kinda sad it ^**) happened, but on the other hand … I’m ready to tackle something new and exciting.

Now … if only someone would offer me an opportunity to do just that …

I’ll keep y’all informed.

^*) I said practically, because technically my severance deal will keep me on the payroll till mid May. But my office is empty, the lights are off, I handed in my entry badge and we drank beer all yesterday afternoon at the local pub with the last diehards of the ‘transition’ team (clean-up crew) that I was part of.

^**) Conexant closes wireless division

Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play …  

Anyway, I promised to post here a picture of myself with long hair, if and when my bluddy Rob would post a picture of his recent, partly self-administered and self-maintained, crew cut.

He kept his side of the deal here: http://lagesse.org/the-crew-cut-photo/

So, here’s my part of the deal … (This was when I was a teenager and thought I knew it all … oh wait, I still do!).

I meant to make this my Xmas post, but hey, I’m a procrastinator.  Bite me!

Anyway, I recently read the CNN commentary “You can’t take Christ out of Christmas” by a certain Roland S. Martin. You can read it here:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/20/roland.martin/index.html

Somewhere in the article Mr. Martin tells us:

And I’m sorry, forget X-M-A-S. Malcolm X? Yes. X replacing Christ? No. 

I immediately decided to write a post about this in order to clarify this misconception to ignorant people like Mr. Martin. Share knowledge and educate .. you know.

But before I get to XMAS and the origin of the word, I must confess that I was somewhat surprised that an obvious deeply religious man like Mr. Martin can be so ignorant concerning ages old habits and traditions of his own religion. After reading such a grand blooper, I wondered who IS this Mr. Martin? Forunately, the footnotes in his article shed some some light on this question:

Roland S. Martin is a nationally award-winning journalist and CNN contributor. Martin is studying to receive his master’s degree in Christian communications at Louisiana Baptist University, and he is the author of “Listening to the Spirit Within: 50 Perspectives on Faith.”

I admit, I had no clue what “Christian Communications” meant. So I looked it up: you can get an idea here:

http://www.gotquestions.org/Christian-communication.html

I guess the command “Be kind to one another – Ephesians 4:32” sums it all up nicely. And in that respect, I fear that Mr. Martin, in calling people “idiots” and their different views “ridiculous” and “pathetic”, still has a looooong way to go in his studies.

I can’t resist quoting a few more gems from this article. Says Mr. Martin:

What the heck are “Seasons Greetings”? Can someone tell me what season we are greeting folks about? 

Then a bit later he answers his own question by the befuddling:

we should continue to remember that Jesus is the reason for the season.

Thereby a) acknowledging that he DOES know what season we’re greeting and b) acknowledging his ignorance concerning the REAL reason for the seasons (the Earth’s axis being tilted to its orbital plane).

Here’s another curious remark:

Don’t get me wrong; I’m very respectful of other religions.

A rather non-Christian attitude! The Bible is less respectful of other religions (Deuteronomy 13:6-10). And I won’t even mention the Inquisition.

And when Mr. Martin said:

we shouldn’t dismiss Muslims when the annual pilgrimage to Mecca is held during December. In fact, Americans are so ignorant of other faiths..

Speaking of “ignorant of other faiths”: I wonder if Mr. Martin is aware of the fact that the annual pilgrimage to Mecca is not necessarily always in December. But what IS clear, is that Mr. Martin is ignorant of certain aspects of even his OWN faith, which brings us back to his nonsensical remark about the word Xmas.

I won’t touch on the mystifying reference to Malcolm X (which is, to adopt Mr. Martin’s Christian Communications writing style, “so ridiculous that it’s pathetic”). I only would like to explain that the X in Xmas, contrary to what Mr. Martin seems to believe, does NOT stand for ‘crossing out Christ from Christmas’. To abbreviate ‘Christ’ by the letter X is a centuries old CHRISTIAN tradition and is based on the Greek spelling of “Christ”. This ages old symbol for Christ(usually depicted as a combination of an X and P) is known as Labarum. In modern typesetting, the P is now often dropped and just the X remains. But it is STILL a thoroughly Christian (Xian!) symbol and tradition.

It’s ironic that Mr. Martin is now discarding part of his own Christian heritage, solely based on a religious ignorance that he so easily accuses other Americans of.

Mr. Martin… here are some simple research tips for you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xmas:

In ancient Christian art, X and XP are abbreviations for Christ’s name. In many manuscripts of the New Testament and icons, X is an abbreviation for Christos ..

http://www.christmaspast.info/forums/Main01/messages/647932485.html

The scribes who copied New Testament manuscripts had no intention of taking Christ out of the New Testament. They used the abbreviation simply to save time and space. …

http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/xmasabbr.asp

Oh, and yes, I DO know that Xmas is a holiday that got hijacked by Christianity from a much older Pagan tradition and that it’s based on celebrating the winter solstice (in the Northern hemisphere), but I fear that would be too advanced a topic for Mr. Martin.

See for instance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas#Pre-Christian_origins

In part, the Christmas celebration was created by the early Church in order to entice pagan Romans to convert to Christianity without losing their own winter celebrations

For a long time, Judeo-Christian people have considered the number 666 to be the mark of The Beast (The Devil Himself).

Interestingly, it now appears that this number once had a lower value: 616 to be exact.

See:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_the_Beast

In May 2005, it was reported that scholars at Oxford University using advanced imaging techniques[9] had been able to read previously illegible portions of the earliest known record of the Book of Revelation, from the Oxyrhynchus site, Papyrus 115 or P115, dating to the mid to late third century. The fragment gives the Number of the Beast as 616 (chi, iota, stigma), rather than the majority text 666 (chi, xi, stigma).[1] The other early witness Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (C) has it written in full: hexakosiai deka hex(lit. six hundred sixteen).[10]

Significantly, P115 aligns with Codex Alexandrinus (A) and Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (C) which are generally regarded as providing the best testimony to Revelation. Thus, P115 has superior testimony to that of P47 which aligns with Codex Sinaiticus and together form the second-best witness to the Book of Revelation. This has led some scholars to conclude that 616 is the original number of the beast

This means that the devil’s number is subject to inflation!

Which made me wonder what the devil’s number is TODAY.

So, after two years of focussing my considerable mathematical knowledge and skills on this problem I can now reveal the 21st century value of the number of The Beast.

It’s …

 749.

(I’m SO sorry for the folks in Reeves, Louisiana:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,318765,00.html)

I just got back from a trip to Amsterdam.

I booked my flight to Amsterdam with Northwest Airlines, the first leg (to Newark) was operated by Continental, the transatlantic leg by KLM.

Guess where my frequent flyer miles for this trip ended up.

Right! In my Delta Airlines account.