Cloud Computing and Math

I've just spent the better part of two hours now trying to figure out Cloud Computing. I'm focused of course on where my product line can fit in this latest hyped paradigm. While it's positioned right now as more of a disruptive technology than anything else, there's clearly going to be some kind of future here. There are a number of nuggets out there, but so much of what I'm seeing is based either on scalable storage (seems that this one is almost solved with things like Hadoop and Map-Reduce). Which is fine for the data center people, but what about the analysts? How do you distribute your long-running simulations in these environments?

Grid technologies have been around for a long time now. The Globus Toolkit has been around for more than a decade. I've actually set this up a few years ago on a couple dual CPU Linux boxes that have been retired to my basement - so I know it's real and works. This is certainly one avenue to the distribute math solution, but it's very different than all these "cloud" solutions. Web Services underlies the communication is many architectures, but Grid isn't about SOA or SaaS.

So if you have "real" problems to solve (beyond SQL queries and other general database/data center type problems), how do you get there? I'm just not seeing it. What's actually running on the Cloud? And how do you get there? With volatile virtual Xen images, where do my compilers live? What runtime libraries are available? I haven't found anything real here at all. One of our customers is actively looking at Amazon's EC2 in concert with our Java library and he's worried about licensing issues as the solution possibly scales out to 1000s of nodes. Of course we have pricing for this having lived in the MPI world for a long time, but this isn't your father's parallel computing environment anymore.

Apparently you can create your own Amazon Machine Image with all your software on it. But how do these images talk to each other? If you spin up 500 images to run a simulation, what are the APIs for getting your data back out? Is it really just like having 500 of the same machine sitting in the back room and you just have each one dump data to a web service running on a master node on your desktop?

I guess nobody is writing articles to address these kinds of questions, so I'll have to immerse myself in Amazon's developer forums -- but that's immensely frustrating as 99% of them are solving regular old data center things and not doing anything interesting.

Loving For All

Yesterday I learned a bit about Mildred Loving. It's fascinating the stuff you learn about in History and Social Studies classes in high school and the stuff they just skip right over. This is probably somebody (or an issue) that I should have been aware of. Even with all the gay marriage stuff going on now, it actually never occurred to me that it was literally illegal to marry someone from another race. Sure, it was clearly not socially acceptable for a long time there, but I didn't think there were actual laws against it.

About a year ago, Mildred Loving released a statement on the 40th anniversary of her lawsuit against the state of Virgina. The details of the case can be found in Wikipedia and elsewhere, but I've pasted her statement below (taken from the Positive Liberty web site) because it's very revealing of the culture at the time -- note the judge's comments.

As a "privileged" straight white male in America, there are lots of things I haven't had to contend with directly. Sexism, racism, and heterosexism are words and issues I know -- but I've never had to deal directly with them. It is appalling to me that people think the way the judge's comments reveal; like I said, it just never occurred to me that this kind of marriage would be illegal. I figure it's about time I become a little more vocal on these issues. I'm not sure where to begin with that, but starting off at UUCY is probably as good of a starting point as any.

I can only hope my kids someday will read something similar about this time period and be similarly appalled about today's restrictions on marriage.



Loving for All

By Mildred Loving, June 12, 2007, the 40th Anniversary of Loving vs. Virginia

When my late husband, Richard, and I got married in Washington, DC in 1958, it wasn’t to make a political statement or start a fight. We were in love, and we wanted to be married.

We didn’t get married in Washington because we wanted to marry there. We did it there because the government wouldn’t allow us to marry back home in Virginia where we grew up, where we met, where we fell in love, and where we wanted to be together and build our family. You see, I am a woman of color and Richard was white, and at that time people believed it was okay to keep us from marrying because of their ideas of who should marry whom.

When Richard and I came back to our home in Virginia, happily married, we had no intention of battling over the law. We made a commitment to each other in our love and lives, and now had the legal commitment, called marriage, to match. Isn’t that what marriage is?

Not long after our wedding, we were awakened in the middle of the night in our own bedroom by deputy sheriffs and actually arrested for the “crime” of marrying the wrong kind of person. Our marriage certificate was hanging on the wall above the bed. The state prosecuted Richard and me, and after we were found guilty, the judge declared: “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.” He sentenced us to a year in prison, but offered to suspend the sentence if we left our home in Virginia for 25 years exile.

We left, and got a lawyer. Richard and I had to fight, but still were not fighting for a cause. We were fighting for our love.

Though it turned out we had to fight, happily Richard and I didn’t have to fight alone. Thanks to groups like the ACLU and the NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund, and so many good people around the country willing to speak up, we took our case for the freedom to marry all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. And on June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that, “The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men,” a “basic civil right.”

My generation was bitterly divided over something that should have been so clear and right. The majority believed that what the judge said, that it was God’s plan to keep people apart, and that government should discriminate against people in love. But I have lived long enough now to see big changes. The older generation’s fears and prejudices have given way, and today’s young people realize that if someone loves someone they have a right to marry.

Surrounded as I am now by wonderful children and grandchildren, not a day goes by that I don’t think of Richard and our love, our right to marry, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the “wrong kind of person” for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people’s religious beliefs over others. Especially if it denies people’s civil rights.

I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.

Some recent movies

I'm not much of a movie reviewer, but here's a snapshot of some recent ones we've seen:

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - Not bad. A little over the top with the effects in the end and the story line is a little fishier and convoluted compared to the earlier movies. However, it certainly gets back to the fanciful and adventurous theme of the first one. My expectations were a little high, and so felt a little underwhelmed afterwards. But all in all, not really bad and worth seeing in the theater.

Iron Man - Very good. Full of action with good effects. The effects were well done and never distracting. The story was very true to the version I know as well. Downey was perfect for the part -- maybe he can stay off the blow long enough to do a few more good movies. This one also opens the door for more second-string hero movies and/or more Black Sabbath song movies. War Pigs anyone??

Semi-Pro - Average. I'm a big fan of Will Ferrel's stuff, but this just kind of falls flat. Some good chuckles here and there, but this wasn't even as good as Blades of Glory - which was just above average helped by the supporting cast. I can't recommend spending money to see this, but there are worse movies out there.

Mr. Brooks - Interesting. It's a Costner movie, so is short at 2 hours. A fairly dark movie, but kept moving and in good directions. The twists weren't all that surprising, but you find yourself rooting for characters here and there. Demi Moore was not all that good, and this role was a stretch for Dane Cook -- but Costner and William Hurt were good for their parts.

The Jane Austen Book Club - Better than I thought. Yes, it's a chick flick that I grabbed for the wife. However, it wasn't overly sappy and was pretty well done. It's got a nice happy ending too, which isn't the way I'd have written it but should make Jane Austen fans happy. Maria Bello is still hot, but Jimmy Smits looks like crap.

The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything - Not good. As a family, we like a good deal of the Veggie Tales music, but I really can't stand it when they get preachy. However, most of the moral stuff is decent and, well, moral. I couldn't see how they'd make a decent move out of a song (even if it is a fun, good song). And they didn't. Weak story and very little singing. A few action scenes kept the kids involved, but the story was so convoluted it didn't really make much overall sense. Skip it.

Horton Hears a Who! - Not bad. Better than expected and Jim Carry wasn't too over the top this time. The book just isn't that long to go beyond about a 45 minute movie, but they did a pretty good job. Some of the side characters were pretty well done, but that should almost be expected with the all-star supporting cast.

And a few more one-liners:
Rambo 2008 -- good action ending, but a bit rough. If you like Stallone/Rambo, it's really not that bad.
Bee Movie -- yes, Jerry Seinfeld's voice gets annoying, even as a bee, but this is a cute well-done movie worth renting.
Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium -- the kids didn't get a lot out of it, but it's an imaginative and interesting movie. Dustin Hoffman was excellent, and Natalie Portman looked pretty good too.
Sweeny Todd -- not as good as I though it would be and I love Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp.

Freedom From Religion

I just ran across the following essay in a corner of the web today. A lot of it sounds familiar, so I probably have read it before. However, it's fairly dated now and a quick search didn't find the text in other places as readily as I think it should have. While the message is clearly atheistic and specifically directed towards Fundamentalist Christianity, there's a good deal of Universalism in there as well.

This piece was written by Dan Baker of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc. The date of the post I copied it from is 1987, but it could have been written earlier. I have not done any research for the original source.

However, I find a lot of value in the essay and will reproduce it here for posterity. This is not my work and I make no claim of authorship, but the version I found did not contain a copyright notice. I do not know if it is in the public domain or not.

Dear Christian:

I have heard the message of salvation many times: we are all sinners, and we can have forgiveness and eternal life if we confess and accept Jesus as Savior and Lord. I have heard that there can be no morality outside of God's laws, and that no one can be truly good without being transformed by the Spirit. I have also heard that there is no peace, love, joy, or meaning without Christ. Christians feel that unbelievers are empty slaves to carnality and selfish pride, unable to grasp the truth, and must humble themselves before God's plan.

I have heard that the bible contains the "inspired word of God" -a message of ultimate importance- and that many scholars claim to have proven its uniqueness and reliability. Some Christians say that they have verified the truth by personal experience.

This is all very interesting. I want the best for my life. If there is an eternal paradise, I would hate to miss it; and I definitely would not want to roast in a literal hell. It would be unwise to ignore something like a god, especially one who takes interest in my life. I would ask a thousand questions of an all-knowing mind.

You and I breathe the air of the same planet, and truth should be the same for us both. The basic question which should be asked about any religion is: is it TRUE? If the basic claims of theism, sin, miracles, and revelation are true, then maybe your "good news" is truly good.

However, I am an unbeliever. It's not that I particularly want to doubt; it's just that I have no choice. I have examined your claims and I am not convinced that they are true. I may even wish them to be true (or I may not) -but I am not so naive to think that something can be true or false just because I desire it. There must be some reason, beyond wishful thinking.

I'm sure you agree. You certainly doubt that thunder is caused by the anger of Zeus, or that Allah is the one true god. Like myself, you see them as myths created to explain the unknown, to give life some kind of meaning, to enhance culture, or to empower the ruling caste. They are born in human imagination, and can be explained without reference to a supernatural world. There are many gods which Christians reject. I just believe in one less god than you do. The reasons that you might give for your atheism toward Roman gods are likely the same reasons I would give for not believing in Jesus.

You and I are alike. We have minds which perceive, analyze, integrate, and react. Our only difference in this regard is that you have judged (or assumed) the premises of your religion to be factual, while I have not. You would not want to commit yourself to an idea of which you were not convinced, would you?

You are welcome to try and convince me that Christianity is true, but you should know that I am not going to "just believe" by faith. I will demand substantiation. If you say that the bible is reliable, I will ask you to prove it. I may ask why the bible contains so many errors and contradictions. If you are not familiar with the findings of critical bible scholars with diverse points of view, I will view your conclusions with suspicion.

Neither will I believe because millions of others do. Truth is not determined by vote. If it were, the earth would still be flat.

I will ask if your conclusions are logical. If you want me to consider your beliefs, then be ready to tackle questions like these:

• Is there a higher judge of truth than reason?
• After centuries of bitter religious fighting, why is your mind suddenly blessed with the true way of thinking?
• What is morality, and is it possible without a deity?
• Is the violent history of the Church consistent with a message of love?
• What is a contradiction, and what would the bible have to say in order to be discrepant?
• Why did your god create evil? (Isaiah 45:7)
• Is there anything wrong with skepticism?
• Why should inner religious experience point to anything outside of the mind?
• Historians must assume natural regularity over time, so how can the bible be completely historical when it contains miracles, which violate nature?
• What is a god, exactly, and why do you think one exists?

What could be said about Christianity which, if true, would make it false? If you can't answer that question, then your conclusions may be based on something other than honesty. You can't expect me to respectfully listen to you if you are closed to full, honest inquiry-if you are unwilling to allow, theoretically, that you might be wrong. I am open-minded and willing to change my position, if warranted. Can you also be fair enough to follow the facts, wherever they lead?

Many unbelievers have carefully considered these questions, perhaps even more deeply than you have. And some of us were at one time just as religious as you are now. After honest examination, I am convinced that the bible is primitive mythology, that there is no evidence for a god, that Christians are not more moral or tolerant than atheists, and that religion has caused more harm than good. Why should my conclusions be less valid than yours?

You feel that the complexity of life demands a designer; but the mind of such a creature would be at least as complex as the rest of nature, requiring a designer itself, wouldn't it? If everything needs a cause, then there can be no first cause; and if you nonetheless assert a First Cause, I will ask how you know (assume) that there can be an uncaused cause. If a deity can be thought eternal, so can the universe. God-belief does not answer any question; it just replaces a mystery with a mystery: if god made anything, who made god?

If the mind of a god is the measure for morality, then there is no way to measure if god's actions are "good." The murderous, sexist, intolerant activities of the biblical deity and the presence of chaos, ugliness and pain in the universe portray your "supreme" god as supremely immoral, by my standards. I could invent a nicer god than that, and so could you.

If you have new concrete evidence or rational arguments, then I will be glad to hear them. But please don't waste my time preaching the same old sermons I have been hearing for years.

I am quite happy with life. I have purpose and peace of mind -I prefer goodwill over repentance. I don't want to die, but I accept death as natural. I sense no need to worship, confess, or apologize to anyone. I feel no guilt, and therefore no desire to be "saved" from anything: sin is a primitive idea, and salvation is religion's offer to solve a problem of its own making.

I happily admit I am a skeptic; and I am proud of the way I think. Although humans are not perfect, I respect the human mind and I am optimistic about our abilities to continue to solve life's problems, with reason and kindness.

I don't claim to have all the answers; but if you want me to hear your message than I will ask you to listen to mine.

Dan Baker

Awesome Dinner!

I found this recipe in a cook book my wife's best friend published as a fund raiser for the hospital she worked at in Rhode Island. (keep in mind that this was from a book with a hospital's name on the cover)

Here's the recipe from the book:

• 4 boneless chicken breasts
• 3/4 cup sour cream
• 1 lb bacon

Yields 4 servings

• In a heavy skillet, fry bacon, remove to a paper towel lined plate to soak up the grease.
• Chop bacon into pieces and set aside.
• Leave the bacon grease in the skillet on medium-low heat.
• Add chicken and cover.
• Turn the chicken occasionally until cooked through, about 30 minutes.
• Remove chicken from skillet, add 3/4 to 1 pint of source cream to skillet and mix.
• Add chicken to mixture, coating generously and remove to plate.
• Drizzle some of the source cream mixture onto chicken and add chopped bacon on top.
  

I've adapted the above a bit. I just use a pound of chicken from the grocery store and a pound of center-cut bacon. There's less grease then, but there's a bit less chicken too. Then I just use 8 ounces of sour cream. But in the end here's what you've got: BACON, CHICKEN, FAT. Who could ask for a better dish?

I can feel my arteries clogging already!

Smelling Ammonia

A couple weeks ago, I set a PR bench pressing (150% of my body weight). Right afterwards, I stood up exhausted but satisfied and started to help clear the weights off the bar. At that point I felt a little light headed and noticed the distinct smell of ammonia. The light-headedness is easily explained as a lot of blood was redirected to muscles for the lift. But the ammonia smell really caught me off guard. I mentioned this to my trainer, and he started to explain, but got a phone call, then got sidetracked. So I left the gym that day feeling really good, but wondering about the smell.

Searching online didn't give me any real answers at all. There are lots of reports where people are sweating and smelling like ammonia, but this was not happening here. What I experienced lasted only a couple seconds, but it really seemed like I was actually exhaling ammonia. I couldn't find any real information about that. I also read where people sometimes smell like this when on the Atkins's Diet and their body starts breaking down proteins because they have no carbohydrates left in their system to burn for fuel (i.e., they've entered ketosis).

It will typically take several days or longer for a healthy person to enter ketosis on a no-carb diet. I am far and away nowhere near a low-carb diet. I try to eat a lot of protein, but low-carb is NOT me. Plus, you don't instantaneously go into systemic ketosis.

A bit more reading, thinking and discussing, and then talking to my trainer today has let me piece together a little more of the story. Turns out your body has only a limited amount of energy on hand for immediate use. You'll burn through this in 3 to 5 seconds of sustained maximum exertion. Once you've pushed through and burned that available energy out, your body switches modes to continue supplying energy as quickly as possible. The easiest thing for your body to break down is protein (basically amino acids), so this is where it goes first in the reserves under this condition of maximum exertion. (Still following?) Amino acids all have an "amino group" which is NH2. Ammonia is NH3 - see the connection now? So this nitrogen group is not going to be used by your body in it's strive for more energy, so it's a waste product. In ketosis, it'll probably be blood-born and eventually re-used or flushed away by the kidneys. In the short-circuit version of the cycle going on here, I guess it's just exhaled.

This bench press I did probably lasted 4 to 6 s4econds. My body was probably entirely energy starved and started breaking down proteins to keep me going, at which time I exhaled ammonia for a few seconds (surely less than a minute). After the 100% exertion stopped, my body quickly stabilized and went about it's normal activities.

DISCLAIMER: Even though I have 2 graduate degrees, I last took biology in 10th grade. I took 2 semesters of Chemistry in college, but it was "chem for engineers" and not bio-chem or anything that rigorous. I may have all this completely wrong. In this case, I welcome any and all corrections. However, let me again point out that it was not my sweat that smelled like ammonia, but it was "inside my head", hence my assumption that I was exhaling it. This explanation seems plausible enough to me to put forward.

Discussing this today and given my workout history, that day I was probably exactly at 100% of what I could do. Not 2 pounds either way, but right there. I had already done squats with about 200lb on the bar (I'm told you have to add in your body weight for an accurate measure there, but it's easier to track the bar), and felt good and strong. All the pathways were open and my body was rested and ready to work. I imagine that having done one more lift earlier in working up to that weight, or adding a few more pounds to the bar for that attempt, probably would have resulted in a crushing defeat where I just couldn't get the bar moving upwards. But that day I was able to do it. Probably with my body using every bit of energy it had available to it. Good job, body.

At least nowhere on line did I find "if you smell ammonia in your head, it's probably brain cancer"!

Back On Line!!

So, I transferred all my old Yahoo content over here. After crossing some threshold of posts, I started to have to enter one of those cryptic anti-spam phrases. But I kept going, and finally migrated all the old posts. And then logged in the next day to find a message that my blog was blocked. The robots thought I was a "link spammer" and locked my blog.

To get it unlocked, I just had to request it. They'd review and unlock in 4 days. Well, 6 days later, it was still locked. After that, every couple days I would re-request an unlock because there was a dire message that if I did nothing, it all gets deleted in 20 days.

I finally posted a google groups message asking for help and was told there was a long back log. I guess if their bots are going to be this sensitive they should expect a huge list. Anyway, FINALLY today I am unlocked again!

Now I just need to remember all the things I wanted to blog about in the last month....