After the crotchbomb there has been a lot of noise about airplane security again—you can see how stupid the leaked new flight rules are here. But what’s the actual risk of an airplane attack? Here’s the definitive chart: http://gizmodo.com/5435954/the-true-odds-of-airborne-terror-chart

The stats are from Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com

There is an Asian story about a farmer who saw a tiger’s tail swishing between two large rocks. In a moment of haste, he grabbed the tail and pulled.  All of a sudden he realized he had an angry tiger by the tail and only two rocks stood between him and the tiger’s teeth and claws! So there he remained, afraid to loosen his grip on the enraged animal’s tail lest he surely be killed.

A monk happened by and the farmer called out in desperation, “Come over here and help me kill this tiger!”

The holy man said, “Oh, no. I cannot do that. I cannot take the life of another.” Then he went on to deliver a homily against killing. All the while, the farmer was holding tightly to the tail of an angry tiger.

When the monk finally finished his sermon, the farmer pleaded, “If you won’t kill the tiger, then at least come hold its tail while I kill it.”

The monk thought that perhaps it would be all right to simply hold the tiger’s tail, so he grabbed hold and pulled. The farmer, however, turned and walked
away down the road.

The monk shouted after him, “Come back here and kill the tiger!”

“Oh, no,” the farmer replied. “You have converted me!”

There seems to be a fine line between situational ethics on one side and idealism on the other.  It’s so easy to think of the world in black/white terms, but in reality, there are just so many shades of gray.

There’s also probably a message here about hasty actions.

http://www.arin.net/knowledge/about_resources/ceo_letter.pdf

They point out that we have about two years remaining in the life of of the IPv4 address space, and that we should be preparing to transition to IPv6 now.  Are you ready?

I like to watch the TED talks.  Most are merely good, some are exceptional.  I just watched a most excellent talk given by Elizabeth Gilbert (bio) titled “A Different Way to Think About Creative Genius”  In her 19-minute talk, she explains the two ways Western thought has considered our creativity.  Ancient Romans and Greeks believed that creativity was a cooperation between humans and the gods.  Since the Renaissance, rational humanism has assigned the creative process to us mortals alone.  Gilbert thinks the ancients had it right and explains why.

Listen to her talk here.

Check out the interview and read the post from a former Republican and conservative author Frank Schaeffer here.  I agree with everything the man says.

http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_10.html

Mainframe

In fact, computers do not have brains like we do.  They cannot really think for themselves except when they are doing complicated arithmetic. The important thinking is done by humans who feed them with information called programs. If computers are not regularly fed, they may become listless and unhappy.

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/12/24/how-it-works-the-com.html

This first chord that starts A Hard Day’s Night is one of the most recognizable and famous opening chords in rock & roll. It’s played by George Harrison on his 12 string Rickenbacker.

The other reason that it’s famous is because for 40 years nobody knew for sure what it was. Many guitar players have tried in vain to recreate the sound but have usually failed miserably.

Well, someone has figured it out definitively – not a musician, but a Dalhousie mathematician.

Four years ago, Jason Brown was inspired by reading news coverage about the song’s 40th anniversary – so much so that he decided to try and see if he could apply a mathematical calculation known as Fourier transform to solve the Beatles’ riddle. The process allowed him to break the sound into distinct frequencies using computer software to find out exactly which notes were on the record.

What he found was interesting: the frequencies he found didn’t match theinstruments on the song. George played a 12-string Rickenbacker, John Lennon played his 6 string, Paul had his bass – none of them quite fit what he found. He then realized what was missing – the 5th Beatle. George Martin was also on the record, playing a piano in the opening chord, which accounted for the problematic frequencies.”

“I started playing guitar because I heard a Beatles record—that was it for my piano lessons,” says Brown. “I had tried to play the first chord of the song many takes over the years. It sounds outlandish that someone could create a mystery around a chord from a time where artists used such simple recording techniques. It’s quite remarkable.”

The Beatles producer added a piano chord that included an F note, impossible to play with the other notes on the guitar. The resulting chord was completely different than anything found in songbooks and scores for the song, which is one reason why Dr. Brown’s findings garnered international attention. He laughs that he may be the only mathematician ever to be published in Guitar Player magazine.

The original PDF published by Dr. Brown is online here.