Joe Zawodny

I’m sorry, but I can’t support Universal Health Care (as currently envisioned). It creates an open ended liability for the taxpayers with no control over future costs/liabilities. I’ve already seen enough of the social abuse of entitlements to know that universal coverage without a REAL DECREASE in the cost of health care is a huge mistake (future cost). We need to decrease the cost of health care by decoupling the market motives behind health care. Being healthy and living forever have infinite value. People will do/pay anything to be healthy and live long (the value is infinite!). The health system needs to be a regulated utility. It needs to become detached from the legal and insurance systems which feed off of it. If we could achieve a true reduction in medical costs, universality would be assured. The best way to provide coverage/availability for all is to make it affordable. Congress is headed down the wrong path and a brief reprieve from the legislative process might result in clarity of thought.

… but I’m not holding my breath.

I’m not sure how congress managed to conceive of and pass legislation that actually makes sense, but the “Cash for Clunkers” program is the one stimulus that seems to work. After bailing out the auto industry and amid high unemployment, the idea of paying consumers much more than their auto trade-ins are worth if they buy a new (hopefully American – whatever that really means) car is simply brilliant. The $3500-$4500 cost to the taxpayer leverages its stimulating effect on the economy by getting the consumer to spend a lot more of their money at a time when an increase in consumer participation in the recovery is needed. The fact that the program went through the (hopefully first) billion dollars in only 5 or 6 days indicated the degree of pent up demand for big ticket items like automobiles. The additional impact the program has on boosting the overall fuel efficiency of the cars on the roads is a further win for the economy since it reduces the demand for foreign oil and lessens the trade deficit.

How can it be that congress managed to pass this into effect? I’m stunned. Perhaps there is hope for us after all.

I’ve been doing sudoku for a couple of years now and I have developed a simple notation that keeps track of what numbers can go where in the 3×3 blocks. I do not track all combinations, only 6 basic “shapes” and their various permutations (rotations and reflections). I have found these simple shapes are all that is needed to work almost any puzzle. The more complex patterns you may think are important eventually simplify to one of my basic shapes as your solution for the puzzle progresses. The notation is very simple, easy to learn, and easy to manage (alter/edit as the solution progresses). A key property of any notation is that it needs to be easy to interpret and unambiguous in its meaning. I’ve seen a lot of people working puzzles by filling each block with all of the possible numbers that can go in each square. That is hideously busy, difficult to read, and impossible to manage. It can be an effective technique near the end of solving some of the most difficult puzzles though, so I won’t completely deny its value because I have resorted to using it exactly twice.

Adjacent

First a bit on how to read my figures. The black numbers are the numbers that the puzzle either started with or we have added in trying to solve the puzzle. The blue numbers are the ones that limit where in a 3×3 block that same number can be placed. The possible locations are denoted by numbers in gray. Finally, my notation is indicated in red. When working a puzzle I use a very fine mechanical pencil. I prefer 0.3mm lead, but that can be hard to find. A good clean soft eraser is also a must. With that out of the way, here are the six basic shapes I use to work sudoku puzzles.

The first I call Adjacent. When a number’s location is limited to only two cells that are adjacent, either in the same row or column, I place that number in the center of the line shared by the two cells. In this example I’m considering the possible locations of the number 2 in the Left Middle 3×3 block. The bottom two rows are blocked and the top row already has one value filled. The only two possible locations are next to each other. So, I place a small 2 on the line between those cells.

Line

The next shape I call Line. It is an extension of the Adjacent shape in that it is comprised of three cells in the same row or column instead of just two as found in Adjacent. If the pattern falls in a column, I place the number centered vertically and near the left edge of the center cell. If it is a row, I’ll place the value centered at the bottom of the center cell. It is important to apply the notation consistently since the primary meaning is derived from the location of the values. It will be hard at first to remember where everything is supposed to go. It will also be difficult to read what the notation is telling you. As with anything, practice makes a big difference and I hope you’ll find this can be learned quickly.

Ends

The third pattern which contains cells within a single row or column I call Ends. It is exactly what is sounds like. The possible locations are at opposite ends of a row or column. Since the pattern spans the full length of a row or column, I’ve chosen to place the value in the center block. If the pattern is found in a column, place the value centered on the right side of the center cell (yes, in the cell where the number cannot actually go). If it is in a row, place the value centered at the top of the center cell. You should note that this is exactly opposite from where you’d place the value if the pattern was the Line and this demonstrates the importance of applying the notation consistently.

Block

The next pattern is the Block. It is formed by a 2×2 sub-square in the larger 3×3 sudoku cells. The notation places the value on the intersection of the lines where the four cells of the block share a common corner. Each of the 4 cells does not have to be empty for the notation to be valid. If one of the cells already had a value filled in, you would still use this notation to indicate that the value could go in any of the remaining three cells. There is also one way to have two of the cells already filled in and still use this notation. If the two empty cells touch only at the common corner, like two white squares on a checker board, then this notation applies. The other pattern of two squares is actually the Adjacent shape.

Corners

The Corners pattern is somewhat similar to the Block. For this pattern, the locations are found in the 4 corners of the 3×3 sudoku cell. As was the case with the Block pattern, one or two of these cells can be filled with a value already and the notation is still valid. The two empty cell form has the two possible cells in different rows and columns (kitty corner, catty corner, cady corner, … whatever you call it). The notation goes in the outer most corner of one of the corner cells. I prefer to place the notation in the corner of a cell that is on the outside edge of the whole 9×9 puzzle grid. If that is not possible (e.g., the center 3×3 grid) then I go with the upper left if it is empty. Which cell you select is not too critical for this pattern.

The L

The last pattern is a three cell pattern that has many permutations. It is called the L. It is a combination of the Adjacent and Ends patterns where one of the cells is common to both. This means that the long axis of the two patterns forms a right angle, hence the name L. The notation places the value in the cell at the corner of the pattern. The value is placed in the outermost corner of that cell which is also between the two touching cells (of the Adjacent pattern). Just look at the image.

As you use the notation, you will eventually need to place multiple numbers in the same pattern (e.g., both 2 and 8 need to be in the same Adjacent). Simply place the numbers close to each other, either side-by-side or one over the other, you’ll quickly learn which way works best in each situation. Being able to write small is a big help. The real power of the notation is that it allows you to see at a glance that some of the cells are not available. If two numbers are assigned to the same Adjacent (or Edge) pattern (e.g., 2 and 8 as in the previous example), then the cells of that pattern cannot be used to make any other pattern for another number. Four values assigned to the same Block means those four cells are out of play for any other numbers/patterns. You may not yet know where each number goes in these full patterns, but you do know that they do end up in there somewhere. The beauty of the notation is that there are no conflicts in position so the placement and interpretation of the notes is unambiguous.

So that is my notation. Try it out and let me know how it works for you. I’m always interested in hearing about more tips and tricks too.

I received a book of Sudoku puzzles for giftmas 2007. The title is “X-treme SUDOKU” by the editors at Nikoli Publishing. The book offers 160 difficult puzzles and 160 more very difficult puzzles – 320 in all. I found the book to be a fabulous waste of time when I had no choice other than to waste time (e.g., waiting in the doctor’s office). I just finished the book and feel like I have accomplished something. There were two puzzles that stood out as being deviously difficult – at least for me. (Hint: try solving the puzzle in my first figure!)

MLAS Video (click to view)

I know this was just a test to demonstrate a proof of concept for an alternate launch abort system for Constellation, but it does seem to be quite complex and rather impractical given all of the excess mass of the system. Nevertheless, it worked amazingly well and will hopefully contribute to the overall safety of NASA’s new vehicle. It was tinkered together in a very short time. Some folks have great jobs!

This post was motivated by a recent experience at a local grocery store, although the experience can be had at just about any large store. Every store I have been to has either numbered or lettered checkout lanes. Some stores also have a set of lanes dedicated to self-checkout. If you visit a store frequently, you probably already know which checkout clerks to avoid, but wouldn’t it be great if problem customers could be avoided also? In order achieve this I propose that stores replace the simple number/letter labels on their checkout lanes with descriptive labels. Here is my list …

“Ultra Express Lane” for the Self-Important Terminal Type-A Personalities: This lane is for people who are obviously more important than you or I and who do not deserve to wait in line with common folk. This lane exists but is never open. Its sole purpose is to attract these customers to the store in the hope that the lane might be open. If it were open, it would only allow one customer at a time – no line allowed. The light at the register indicating whether the lane is open or not would be turned on until one of THEM approached the register. The light would then be turned out until the transaction was completed and the customer has left.

“I Do Not Begin to Write a Check Until I See the Total” Lane: At least this is the abbreviated title which has a subtitle “and then balance my checkbook before I hand the check to the clerk”. These folks often add to the misery of those behind them because they do not get their personal identification out of the bottom of their purse/wallet until asked to do so. For whatever reason, they will not fill out anything on the check beforehand – the store name, date, or signature. I can spot these types pretty accurately, I’ve developed a stereotype that generates some false positives, but never traps me behind a false negative. The mere existence of the personalities gives rise to the following lane.

“I Frequently Jump to Between Checkouts Hoping the New One Will Move Faster” Lane: These folks are never happy, but are not as full of themselves as those in the Ultra Express lane. They will jump from lane to lane on a whim. They also tend not to actually enter the physical lane between the magazines, candy, and junk-toy displays that leads to the register in the hopes that a new register might open that they could pounce on. They also tend not to put their items on the conveyor belt until they begin checking out.

Lane for the “Technically Challenged”: These folks always seem to have trouble making payment. They never use cash and pay with credit or debit cards which never seem to work. They know all of the tricks, rubbing the stripe on the back with their finger or piece of clothing, wrapping the card in a plastic shopping bag, changing the speed of the swipe, etc. If they make it past the swipe stage, they probably need to find a piece of paper in their purse/wallet that has their pin number on it which they either can’t quickly find or invariably mis-key the first try at the keypad.

The “I Always Question the Price of at Least One Item” Lane: There is just something about these folks that cause scanners to misread the bar-code or the store product price databases to become corrupt. If those failures don’t occur, they seem to bring along out of date store ads or expired coupons – just in case. These folks usually cause the entire lane of customers behind them to become, at least temporarily, one of the other types of customer.

The “People on Cell Phones” Lane: They start out in line talking, for all to hear, about things that should be kept private. At the register, the clerk must guide them through every step of making payment via hand signals or semaphore flags. It is as though they have never bought anything before – the part of their brain still functioning in our reality probably hasn’t the capacity to remember how transactions work.

“I’m Actually Making Multiple Separate Purchases” Lane: I get burned by this one too often. At first it looks like they are going to by 10 items, but you soon find out that will be achieved through at least 3 separate transactions: one for themselves, one for mom, and one for some other relative or neighbor. They  do mean well, but they need their own lane.

The “I Can’t Count” Express Lane: These lanes always have an item limit of 10, 20, or sometimes 30. Some folks simply can’t count, have inventive ways to group several items into one abstract (I was going to say logical but …) item, or they are really Type-A’s who’ve found the Ultra Express lane closed again. Quite simply, these folks should be spanked – HARD.

I’ve probably missed a few, but this should be a good start.

Just a quick note on replacing the 7200RPM HD in my Wind with an OCZ SSD. Again the backup/restore using Acronis True Image Home 2009 went quickly and flawlessly. Formatting the 120GB SSD with NTFS took 140 seconds. Boot time of the Wind using a fast Scorpion drive took exactly 30 seconds, 10 of which were spent while the BIOS did its thing. Booting with the OCZ Vertex SSD took 23 seconds. When I first booted with the SSD, I thought something horrible had gone wrong. The fan came on and then the entire system went completely silent. Nary a peep nor hum. Only when the login screen appeared moments later did I realize that this total silence was now normal. Very nice.

Fit-PC2 Front

After using my MSI Wind to run the observatory for a while I found out about this tiny little 1.6GHz Atom-based Windows PC. Doing a little research into its size and other specs, I bought one. The reasons? It will fit inside my AP 900GTO mount, it has 6 USB 2.0 ports, and is fast enough to run the mount, autoguide, manage a filter wheel, and operate my camera. My hope is to monitor observatory ops from inside the house during those cold winter or bug-ridden summer nights. Placing the computer so close to the equipment will significantly reduce the usual tangle of cables associated with digital astrophotography.

Fit-PC2 Rear

One challenge I face is to get Remote Desktop Server running on this system. It came with Window$ XP Home SP3. I have a spare XP Pro license, but I can’t upgrade directly from SP3 (Thanks Micro$oft). So, I’m going to fake it and force RDP to run on Home – or at least try before taking the normal path. I have not tested a headless boot of the Fit-PC2, sans KVM, yet as RDP is required. I do have a fall back position where I put a Keyboard, Video, & Mouse in the observatory at the end of long cable runs.

Since the temperature extremes out in the observatory can be more than you might want to expose a computer to, I plan to swap out the 160GB HD in the Fit-PC2 for a 30GB SSD. 30GB should be plenty for everything I do except for planetary and lunar imaging. For that I have a Sager NP9850 laptop on order with three 320GB 7200 RPM HDs in a RAID-0 configuration, but that is a topic for a future post. I’ll have a fair amount of testing to do, the wireless network throughput out into the middle of my back yard in particular.

Fit-PC2 Top with 2.5" SSD

For those considering the Fit-PC2, here are a couple of initial impressions. It IS small. Build quality seems quite good. I did manage to crash the system once and that will be something I will monitor closely and followup with a more detailed review. You can hear the HD (it was sitting right in front of me during testing, however). The HDMI to DVI adapter cable terminates in a female DVI, so you need a regular male-to-male DVI cable to hook it up to a monitor. Personally, I would have liked a short cable that I could use to directly connect the Fit to monitor, at least initially. I suppose there will be those that can make good use of the supplied cable – folks who intend to use this as a media center. If I need to use a monitor in the observatory, the supplied adapter cable will be replaced by a long HDMI to DVI cable. The power supply brick is small and the cables are pretty short – outlet to Fit is just a hair over 6′ with the brick 2′ from the outlet. It is a standard cable going from the outlet to the brick, so you probably already have a longer cable in your possession.

I have an 80GB music library accessible/shared through my iMac. I’d like to use an iPod Touch to control the library and stream it via AirTunes to my stereo system out by the pool. As ‘with it’ as as Apple seems to be, why is this not a default capability of the iPod Touch?

I’ve been trying to use the computational “search” engine WolframAlpha for several days now. The short version is that the overwhelming majority of my “requests” and inquiries come back with the dreaded “I do not know what to do” response. Alpha is not ready for prime time. It does know how to turn 0.06V*e/(h-bar) into 91.2THz, but that ain’t gonna cut it. It was supposed to be so much more. It does know how to answer all sorts of cutesy questions like “what are you?”, but try to use it for real work and you will be disappointed.

Let me know when WolframBeta is ready to test.

I’ve recently read a couple of stories on the web that had a common element to them. This one from John Feehery CNN is one I’d like to comment on. Not knowing just how long CNN will keep this link live, I’ll summarize his points here. The title of the piece is “Commentary: What’s driving the U.S. over a cliff?”. In it he addresses 4 questions which he claims are relevant. With one underlying theme being that most people want the government to spend less on everyone and everything other than the benefits they personally rely on. (well Duh! Welcome to America – home of Created Equal, as long as I’m first.)

First, why do we let people retire too early and then expect them to live so long without working? He points out that long ago, before real antibiotics, most people simply died before they retired. They died on average around the age of 52 and those that made it to 72 typically retired. Nowadays, people retire 10 years earlier and live significantly longer. So, how is it that people have come to expect that they should retire so early only to be carried by the government entitlement programs?

This is a very sensitive subject. Quite frankly I think 30 years of service is enough. I’m not talking about the 40 quarters spread over 30 years that qualifies folks for Social Security either – 30 years of work. If you put in 30 years I believe you are tired of working and entitled to retirement. The real rub comes in when you talk about inflation, especially in the cost of medicine, and the fact that folks will continue to live longer and longer. Right now we (the US) live 3 months longer for every year that goes by. Soon, we will be seeing life extension that exceeds 1 year per year. When that happens, a whole lot of people are not going to die except by accident. Tinkering with the Social Security taxes, ages, and benefits will not be able to handle that problem. There needs to be a different solution altogether.

Second, why do most Americans spend so much of their health care expenditures in the last three months of their life? His statistics show that 27% percent of medicare costs are incurred by people in the last 3 months of life. Rightly, he equates this to services that do not work. Medical treatment that does not change the outcome.

What he did not say is that in the old days people simply died rather than do everything within their (or the government’s program’s) means to get a little more time. At what level of quality? Is this linked to the decline in morals – which are certainly linked to the decreased importance of religion and the associated increase in the fear of death? We certainly need to have an open discussion/debate of how much effort/expense is appropriate, but once again it is not really the effort, just the expense.

Third, why do so many people pay nothing in federal income taxes? The numbers are pretty shocking. A third of the people in the US pay no federal taxes – at all. The new tax changes working their way through congress could potentially raise that to nearly 50%! This indicates one of two things: either we have a lot of very poor people or some folks aren’t pulling any weight (I won’t get into a discussion of what “their fair share” might mean – you’ll find some of that over at Hooda Thunkit although I’m not quite clear where he stands on the issue).

I think the income and inheritance taxes, both personal and corporate should be scrapped – completely. In its place I would propose a Value Added Tax (VAT). This VAT would also include the costs to government for things like infrastructure (roads & bridges) and other uncovered costs (tobacco and alcohol taxes as well as a carbon tax – not a cap and trade system) so, it would have different VAT levels depending upon the product. This assures that those who spend support the system and those that save/invest provide the growth. Things will and should cost more in many cases – we’ve been living a false sense of wealth or a false low rate of inflation for too long. If you think the projections are bad now, just consider the fact that these same non-tax-paying demographic groups are also those that rely heavily on entitlements and are proliferating more quickly than those that pay the taxes. They vote too so, any change had better come pretty quickly.

Fourth, why is it more profitable to work in the government than to work in the private sector? His fourth and last point is that the statistics show that the average wage/compensation of a public worker is much higher than that found in the private sector. He concludes that public servants are simply over paid.

Show me how many public servants work in fast food restaurants, wash cars, clean houses, or answer phones for a living. Otherwise, make your case for why police, fire, military workers are on the same level and should be paid the minimum wage. Let’s also take the salaries of the president and those in other leadership positions in government and compare them to the CEOs of major corporations. You guessed it. This is simply a case of comparing apples to oranges. No firm conclusion can be drawn from those averages he sites and draws his outrageous conclusion from.

Since I agree with the basic premise of the title of the article – that we are indeed driving off of a cliff – what is the real problem and is there a solution? In my biased view, the problem is that we have shipped a lot of the work out of the country. It has taken a good 20 years to do so, but we have stopped being a producer and become simply the market for the goods of others. The theory that supported this switch was that we needed to send our money overseas so that those folks could raise their standard of living and buy more of our stuff. The problem is that they don’t want our stuff. If you doubt that just look at the trade deficit for the past 20 years. A lot of that money just never makes it down to the average person, but they also do not have the same style of living that we do. They aren’t going to buy a CD or rent a movie or get on a plane built in the US and take a vacation in Las Vegas. It just ain’t gonna happen.

Instead of raising their standard of living we are and have been lowering ours. Some of that is in hidden inflation, but as we are now beginning to see a lot of that will simply be realized through decreased valuations of property (of all types) and a loss of jobs -  for good. The cliff we are driving off of is built out of high expectations. We are not entitled to very much let alone living so well at the expense of others. I had a discussion at lunch recently with a renowned economist, Jeffery Sachs. I had just asked him whether inflation was required to keep the economy functioning – basically whether it was just a giant ponzi scheme. He dodged the question I asked, but said that it was much easier for folks to accept inflation than it was for the system to absorb rapid decreases in prices. I read between the lines of his reply to my unanswerable question and saw that I may have hit the nail on the head. The cost of a lot of things is going to have to come down. Whether this is by inflation or deflation does not matter. The result is that the value in producing those things will require that wages in those related industries to come down or jobs be completely eliminated through automation.

It is a tangled web especially when you, for example, look at the intertwined industries of medicine, insurance, and lawyers. Who could possibly put a price on life? The balance of a market economy is not relevant in this instance. Looking at the long-term budget of the US, the cost of entitlements and their growth is dominated by the growth in medical costs. I seriously doubt whether congress can come up with and pass a plan that will solve this problem. It is our problem only, because we expect too much from the system. We need to change, personally, and not push the problem over to Washington for congress to solve. We must accept the fact that we are spoiled and expect too much.

Except for me that is. (and so it continues)