With Love and Geo-hashing

xkcd is a web comic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

Who's responsible for xkcd?

Randall Munroe has been writing xkcd for at least five years. Maybe longer.

Unknown territory of love and math

He describes himself as

... just this guy, you know? I'm a CNU graduate with a degree in physics. Before starting xkcd, I worked on robots at NASA's Langley Research Center.

What do the letters x-k-c-d stand for?

Is it an abbreviation or an acronym? Mr. Munroe says:

It's not actually an acronym. It's just a word with no phonetic pronunciation -- a treasured and carefully-guarded point in the space of four-character strings.

Regarding the matter of sorting algorithms, if in a quandary about which to use (because they taught you so many) Mr. Munroe observes:

This is tricky. Most of what they teach you in school is just as an example of how to think about algorithms; 99% of the time you shouldn't worry about optimizing your sorts. Just learn to implement Quicksort (which is very good) and use that without fretting about it too much.

Geo-hashing 
achievement 
badge

Note: If you're interviewing for a company for a position with a focus on algorithms, the above is not an excuse not to know your stuff.

xkcd also offers an interesting little game.

Let's go geo-hashing!

Geo-hashing involves meet-ups which accomplish the admirable goal of getting us away from our computers, getting out doors, exploring the great wide open. That is not the stated objective of the game, merely my editorial commentary.

It resembles geo-caching but is a bit more complex, at least up front. Overcoming the initial hurdle is a completely sedentary activity. It only requires careful study of the instructions.

I confess that I haven't tried it, but it seemed at least as pleasant as geo-caching.

The xckd wiki provides complete details, including detailed accounts of many years of past geo-hashing events. I noticed that these geo-hashing excursions were held, literally, all over the world.

The Algorithm as shown in xkcd comic #426

CC 2.0

The Algorithm captures the basics. I confess that I understood it very briefly, then not at all. But the wiki is extensive, and explains the rules quite clearly.

Randall Munroe is actually quite a talented illustrator. I scattered a selection of his geo-hashing illustrations throughout.

*All of Mr. Munroe's work is  reproduced here under terms of Creative Commons License 2.0, see icon above.

Microsoft Tag at the Crossroads of Virtual and Physical Worlds

Will Microsoft clear the field as it enters the location-based service market? Microsoft provides this definition of Tag, whose scope is larger than I realized:

"A Tag is a high-capacity color bar code... Organizations and individuals can create specific Tags by using the Microsoft Tag Manager Web service. When the Microsoft Tag Reader application is installed on a mobile device, [it] can be used to scan a Tag using the built-in device camera. When a Tag is scanned by the Tag Reader, the information encoded into the Tag becomes available on the mobile device."

Cyber sheep?

A tag is similar to a QR code. A tag must be

• created and placed so that users can locate it in the physical world, NOT the virtual world of the interwebs AND 
• rendered with adequate size and detail so it may be scanned accurately by mobile device cameras.

The purpose of this was not obvious to me. I had to approach it in steps.

Tag taxonomy

Let's start by defining a tag as a descriptive word or phrase associated with a noun, verb or idiom. I think of these as basic "virtual tags". Examples would be the word or word expression description associated by customers with Amazon.com merchandise. Since my own cognitive processes are driven by analogy to basic concepts learned, well, in elementary or middle-school, I think of a tag as a super-synonym. Better yet, a tag is a synonym with a promising future.

This is a mini-taxonomy of virtual and real-world tags:

• Virtual Tags describe people, animals, objects and actions, but are applied within the virtual world, usually the internet.
• Virtual Geo-tags are specific to physical location, and usually correspond to geo-spatial coordinates (GIS). Examples are the inverted teardrop place markers used to indicate locations in Google Maps and Mapquest. This type of tag is a virtual construct, despite its reference to a physical location.
• Microsoft Tags are physical objects. They are associated with specific geo-spatial data, i.e. geographical locations in the real world. Using the Microsoft tag reader and a mobile phone camera, these physical Microsoft Tags can then be converted to Virtual Geo-tags.

Comprehension increases after viewing the image gallery of Microsoft Tag examples created by current users, or the implementation guide for web and mobile phone users. The latter is available as a PDF download.

Microsoft is offering its Tag service free of charge. They make no promises about the future though.

Intersection

Microsoft Tag reminds me of Floating Sheep's visualization of the urban cyberscape, or maybe "cyberspace". Floatingsheep is focused on mapping and analyzing:

"a hybrid place: the online extension of the socially constructed human landscape in which the lines between material place and digital representations of place blur."

The internet is evolving at a brisk clip.

Urban Cyberscape

The image above, which seemed fanciful a year ago, is growing into a reality with QR codes and now Microsoft Tag.

CF-18 Crash Alberta International Airshow

Pilot ejects moments prior to crash, narrowly escaping certain death from the impact and fiery wreckage.

Canadian Forces pilot Capt. Brian Bews ejects as his CF-18 fighter jet plummets to the ground during a practice flight on Friday, July 23, 2010. He was preparing for the weekend airshow.

Witnesses hear odd engine sounds

Pilot parachuting safe and clear of nosediving fighter jet

CF-18 Aircraft escape system works according to intended design

Flaming crash in Lethbridge County, Alberta

All photo images by Ian Martens, Lethbridge Herald via Associate Press

The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook

I thought that the face peering out from the hole in the wall looked like Mark Zuckerberg rather than Google. It has curly hair like Mark although he isn't purple ... yet. 

The critter that is supposed to be Facebook is definitely gross, and might be a better fit with Google. Google is everywhere; however, today's post is about Facebook's incursion into users' privacy.

Horror once users realize their exposure to
intrusive online services! Overstated slightly...

Are Facebook users adequately aware of the status of their private or personally identifying information? Probably not.

The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook is a recent analysis by IBM Research scientist Matt McKeon. (He did this as a personal project, not as part of work for his employer, IBM).

Matt's analysis was thorough and revealing. It is summarized by a series of charts depicting user growth and information sharing on Facebook, at multiple points in time: 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009 (Nov), 2009 (Dec), and last month, April 2010.

Earliest "snapshot" of Facebook user privacy 2005

Matt's article analyzes the 6 charts in chronological order. 

Arizona Immigration Law

As you can see in the sidebar, my Annex is located in Arizona. I am part of the majority of the people of the State of Arizona in favor of our recently passed immigration law.

I am also a Jewish woman, and know the difference between the Nazi modus operandi of World War II versus the intent of Arizona Senate Bill 1070. Apparently, the current general manager of the Phoenix Suns, our local NBA basketball team, does not know the difference. Yesterday, he compared Arizona law to Nazi Germany. It bothered me, a lot.

Today, I was pleased to read this succinct description via a now-moribund website about our immigration law, AZ SB 1070:

...[SB 1070], according to constitutional lawyers, mimics federal immigration. All it does is give local authorities the same enforcement ability afforded to federal law enforcement.

Also,

Did you know that every non-citizen in the US has been required to carry 'proof of status' documents since Congress passed the Alien Registration Act in 1940?

And finally,

... an Arizona State University constitutional law professor who helped to draft this Arizona bill states that law enforcement officers "may not consider race, color or national origin" in making any stops* or determining any aliens' immigration status. That is in the bill...

Why has there been such a backlash in the national media? Perhaps it is because residents of other states do not have personal exposure to the impact of illegal immigration on their economy in a myriad of ways. Our current governor is Republican. There was support amongst non-Republicans too; approximately 70% were in favor of the bill.

AZ SB 1070 is merely a state-level mirror of already existing federal law, which is applicable in most instances, nationwide.

* Yes, I acknowledge that it would be difficult for police to avoid using appearance (as the basis for probable cause) in initiating an immigration document request.

Microwave Cooking For One

SF Weekly did a follow-up to their review of Microwave Cooking for One. On April 5, 2010, SFoodie (San Francisco Restaurants and Dining) featured the cookbook cover as the Pic of the Day:

"Let's make one thing clear: there's nothing wrong with eating alone. We do it all the time, not just out of necessity but because sometimes it's nice to enjoy a meal in solitude. As for microwave cooking, well, sometimes you're in a hurry...

But we wouldn't go so far as Marie T. Smith and cook what might be steak in a microwave. And while we're sure Marie is probably actually a very happy lady, we're going to have to blame the photographer for producing such a pained portrait. Is there someone standing off to the side with a gun, demanding that Marie hover over that microwave produced buffet of pastel-colored food?"

SFoodie's caption for this image seemed apt, "The Saddest Cookbook Ever: Microwaving For One".

It was even more poignant when Marie T. Smith's daughter, Theresa, responded half-way through the 47-count SFoodie reader comment thread, describing her mother at the time of the book's publication in 1984. Marie Smith knew how it could be living alone, and felt that a single, divorced or widowed person deserved to eat as well as someone with a family. She had noticed the increasing numbers of single-person households in the early 1980's, according to her daughter. Marie addressed these concerns by offering free cooking classes for women who were trying to acclimate to such changes. Marie held many cooking classes in her own home.

Marie T. Smith passed away in 1987. However, her daughter thanked the publishers of SFoodie, and the commenters too, for the publicity. Apparently the Microwave Cooking for One cookbook remains in print, with its own website, still generating revenue 24 years later! There is a nice assortment of Pyrex antique cookware on the site, and a lot more of interest.

There are some amazing YouTube.com videos of Marie demonstrating how to cook a sunny-side up egg, cheeseburgers and more, in a microwave oven. Theresa uploaded them. All are segments from a Lakeland, FL network-news affiliate. Most were on-air in 1986. Instead of embedding here, I recommend a visit to YouTube, to the microwave cooking channel, to watch Marie T. Smith cook.

Blue Box - The Free Information Society

Blue Box - The Free Information Society

Any idea what this is? Circuit diagram (schematic) says Copyright 2001, Whirlwind Software, lower right-hand corner and in the middle right is "2-chip Blue Box" and www.artofhacking.com . Size is 25.354kB pdf file, says "for experimental purposes only, not to be used for toll evasion"!!!