Cop Car's Beat

People are hard to hate close up. Move in. - Brené Brown

Three Body Problem

This artist's concept illustrates Kepler-47, the first transiting circumbinary system.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle

One graduate-level course, alone, nearly convinced me to give up the study of physics altogether. I felt that I spent 30 years in a one-semester class on the three body problem; thus, I found the following item from Slashdot.org really interesting - if 50 years too late!

AI Cracks Centuries-Old 'Three Body Problem' In Under a Second (livescience.com) 122

Posted by EditorDavid on Saturday November 09, 2019 @02:34PM from the matters-of-great-gravity dept.

 

Long-time Slashdot reader taiwanjohn shared this article from Live Science: The mind-bending calculations required to predict how three heavenly bodies orbit each other have baffled physicists since the time of Sir Isaac Newton. Now artificial intelligence (A.I.) has shown that it can solve the problem in a fraction of the time required by previous approaches.

Newton was the first to formulate the problem in the 17th century, but finding a simple way to solve it has proved incredibly difficult. The gravitational interactions between three celestial objects like planets, stars and moons result in a chaotic system -- one that is complex and highly sensitive to the starting positions of each body. Current approaches to solving these problems involve using software that can take weeks or even months to complete calculations. So researchers decided to see if a neural network -- a type of pattern recognizing A.I. that loosely mimics how the brain works -- could do better.

The algorithm they built provided accurate solutions up to 100 million times faster than the most advanced software program, known as Brutus. That could prove invaluable to astronomers trying to understand things like the behavior of star clusters and the broader evolution of the universe, said Chris Foley, a biostatistician at the University of Cambridge and co-author of a paper to the arXiv database, which has yet to be peer-reviewed.

 

Slashdot.org's wise saying of the day: "Numeric stability is probably not all that important when you're guessing."

Woods cleanup - Fall 2019

Benny and his crew, of JoJac's  Lawn & Tree Service, did their usual fine job, yesterday. I took "before" photos, but they were all blurred. I had thought the shutter speed fast enough that my shakiness wouldn't matter. Boy! Was I wrong! More activity in our woods shows Benny and his crew in action last April. I have them come out nearly every spring and fall.

Below is a photo that is the best I can give as a "before" shot. It was 31 days ago. It is before the cold snap made the trees lose their leaves and, indeed, before I had completed cutting down the trees that I sawed down, myself. There were only four or five trees left for Benny.

Below is a photo of Benny and his crew at work. The man at the left is grinding out the stumps of the trees that they and I had cut down. That is Benny lugging the cart full of logs up to the trailer. Shortly after this photo, Benny took over grinding stumps and sent his two guys to the dump - one with the truck full of chips, the other with a flat trailer full of logs. They ran out of space to put things - not unusual when they work here.

Below is the "after" photo that I took a few minutes ago.

As I told Benny, I'm already planning what I'll ask them to do next spring. My long-range plan is to get trees farther from our house - for fire safety. Some of those efforts were chronicled in Love it when a plan comes together, 18 months ago. I have a couple of gingko trees on order to be planted back about 40 feet beyond the bluebird nesting box (left side of photo). I also want to get some choke cherries back there. During the past couple of years I've transplanted a walnut and a catalpa tree back in the area closer to the creek.

Sometimes, the timing is perfect

While awaiting the arrival of the JoJac crew who are to do more cleanup work in our woods, today, I watched the podcast of the abort test of Boeing's Starliner Spacecraft, in real time. The best part starts at about 23:30 into the video. There had been a hold of about 15 minutes.

More from slashdot.org - autolanding system

Graphic from AOPA website

Would You Trust a Self-Landing Plane? (aopa.org) 59

Posted by EditorDavid on Sunday November 03, 2019 @12:34PM from the fright-or-flight dept.

"Lots of hay has been made over self-driving, self-parking, and summon features of new cars," writes Shotgun (Slashdot reader #30,919). "Now Garmin has a system that will land your plane for you."

He shares this new report from the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association: During this first-ever autoland for me, nothing felt terribly out of the ordinary until the final 100 feet or so when it finally sunk in that in a few seconds we would be hitting the pavement and no one had their hands on the yoke.

But just as briefed, the airplane "decrabbed" from the 10-knot left crosswind and soon plunked us down just left of center on Runway 18 at New Century AirCenter in Olathe, Kansas, and then quickly tracked us back to the centerline. A few seconds later we rolled to a stop... Such was my introduction to Garmin's new autoland system, a first in general aviation...

While the notion of an autoland system seems futuristic, Garmin has been quietly working on it since 2011 and conducted its first autoland in a Columbia piston-powered airplane in 2014 and first briefed the FAA on it in 2015. Since then it has conducted some 800 autolands... Someday, with more experience and the FAA more comfortable with the notion, perhaps Autoland will be available on any given flight where the pilot doesn't feel up to the landing. Meanwhile, it's a great safety feature. "This will save lives," said Ron Gunnarson, Piper's vice president of sales, marketing, and customer support. Once certified, the system will be standard on the 2020 M600 SLS models... Cirrus plans to offer Autoland as a standard feature on the 2020 models.
The article describes it as "a digital parachute" for the pilot and passengers in emergency situations. And the original submission argues that it brings to general aviation a safety feature that the big airliners have already had for years.

Laughing along with HH

It was 1:00am, following a light lunch, today. I was kicking back in my reading chair, spreading a light quilt over myself to see if I could catch a short nap. Sometimes I manage, sometimes I don't. Before I had quite settled in, Hunky Husband came into my den with a question.

HH: Where's your phone?

CC: In my purse [on my non-computer desk, across the room].

HH: [Retrieving my purse and setting it into my lap.] Would you please call me? I've looked all over the house for my phone and can't find it.

CC: [Hits the speed dial for HH's phone.]

HH's Phone: [Plays the ring tone assigned to calls from me. Sounds close.]

HH: Oh!

The phone was in HH's shirt pocket. It's hard to get to sleep following a raucous belly laugh.

It's not supposed to be that way

The photo, below, was taken at about 8:30am, yesterday, October 30, 2019. The sky was overcast and the temperature was 25 degrees Fahrenheit. What is wrong with this scene?

Zooming in on a portion of the scene, below, gives a huge clue.

Yes, that's a male ruby-throated hummingbird sitting on the frozen nectar feeder. Why is the feeder out? Because we get migrants coming through here, normally through the first week of October. In this case, the little guy showed up three or four weeks ago - and stayed.

When we first moved here, I stopped feeding hummingbirds in mid-September. However, the migrating birds were having none of that. I noticed a female ruby-throated hummingbird hovering just outside our glass-sliding doors onto the back porch, beak to glass. It was on the 9th of October, and it was cold and miserable outside. Hurriedly, I boiled up some fresh nectar to put out for her. Whether she availed herself of the nectar, I never knew. That experience caused me to keep a "last feeder" of nectar out for the hummers a bit later - until mid-October.

I don't know what the current hummer's plans are for the winter. Can't you see me replacing the feeder of nectar every hour throughout the winter? This guy has a history of coming to the door to beg - previously, when I've allowed the heat to evaporate the nectar.

At 8:00am, this morning, it's being 18-20 degrees Fahrenheit outside (depending upon the side of the house consulted), I  replaced the frozen feeder with the feeder that I had brought in yesterday morning. He showed up (photo, below).

Yes, we had sleet and snow and freezing rain, yesterday - off-and-on, all day. I was glad that I had used the warmish weather that we had Sunday to winterize the back-flow valve of the lawn irrigation system. The system is scheduled to be drained and blown out next Tuesday or later in next week. Next year, I've decided to ask that the system be serviced for the winter by October 20. I'm tired of the work of winterizing the darned thing - then worrying about it as the temperatures plunge.

PUNishment: A good pun is it's own reword.

Since I've been otherwise engaged this week, I didn't finish a posting for the week. Instead, I'll pass along a listing from a friend with whom I worked at Cessna. He sent it to me by an email date-stamped 8/27/2002. (Yes, I understand that not all items on the listing are puns!)

Energizer Bunny arrested - charged with battery.

A pessimist's blood type is always B-Negative.

Practice safe eating: Always use condiments.

A Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother.

Shotgun wedding: A case of wife or death.

I used to work in a blanket factory; but, it folded.

If electricity comes from electrons, does that mean that morality comes from morons?

Marriage is the mourning after the knot before.

A hangover is the wrath of grapes.

Corduroy pillows are making headlines.

Is a book on voyeurism a peeping tome?

Dancing cheek-to-cheek is really a form of floor play.

Sea captains don't like crew cuts.

Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?

A successful diet is the triumph of mind over platter.

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

A gossip is someone with a great sense of rumor.

Without geometry, life is pointless.

When you dream in color, it's a pigment of your imagination.

Reading whilst sunbathing makes you well-red.

When two egotists meet, it's an I for an I.

A little more up-to-date are the following:

 

Week in Review - 10/19/2019

Tuesday, as I mentioned in a comment to a post on Liz's Finding life hard? I had a neat, weather-related experience. As I wrote, there, "While working in the yard, this morning (a balmy 17 degrees C when I went out), I noticed that my clothes were suddenly soggy - and that the concrete patio was completely dampened. The dew point dropped, suddenly, and the moisture came out of the air in an instant! I've been caught in sudden fog while flying, but this was a new experience."

About an hour later, I noticed that the sun had come out, again. Looking out the window, I saw the fog bank that had just moved out. Grabbing a camera, I photographed the beautiful scene. In the first photo, below, The fog bank is the lower, dark mass of cloud, separated from the higher-level clouds, in the photo, by a small strip of blue sky.

Below is a zoomed-in photo of the largest piece of blue sky. Obviously, as is generally true when fog is present, the winds were light-to-non-existent; but, eventually, we had a totally blue sky.

 

This was the week to get a bunch of paperwork/licensure completed. Last week my renewed passport arrived, the old passport having expired in 2017 or 2018. This week, I took that passport plus a bunch of other paperwork to our local driver's license office (about 1 mile from our home) to get my "Real ID" driver's license, along with early renewal of the old license that was to expire next spring.

Below is a copy of information from Kansas Real ID web page delineating paperwork requirements. I have high-lighted the documents that I actually took with me. Please note that, by taking my passport, I was not required to present any of the documents listed in item 4. That would have been a real drag since I've changed my name twice and I'm not convinced that I have original copies of the documents attesting to those changes. Fortunately, for me, I proved to the Federal government, many years ago, that I am who I say I am, using my current name that was assumed in 1979, and they no longer require me to present documentation of name changes.

That same web site explains the need filled by a Real ID.

The REAL ID Act was passed by federal lawmakers in 2005 to enact the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation for a “set standard for the issuance of sources of identification.” This established a minimum security standard for state-issued driver’s licenses.

Beginning October 1, 2020, anyone 18 years and older will need a REAL ID compliant driver’s license or another acceptable form of ID to fly within the United States.

In addition, a REAL ID will be required to enter federal facilities where identification is currently required for entrance.

Courts, Post Offices, Social Security offices do not require identification for entrance, so they are exempt.

Kansas began issuing REAL ID credentials in August 2017. REAL ID is not a required credential but will help ease the check-in process when flying or entering a federally protected facility.

Since I no longer volunteer as a Government Liaison, I don't know why I should need to enter a federally protected facility - nor do I anticipate any need to fly; but, I've learned in life that I should be prepared. A couple of times I've been caught short by previously-made short-sighted decisions. The consequences of those decisions cost me money, time, and convenience.

Earlier in the week, I went into Wichita to renew my car tag which was set to expire at the end of October. Unfortunately, during the past year, the car tag office that had been in our City of Derby for several years had been closed. I wanted to go online to renew my tag; but, unfortunately, if I ever received a notice for renewal, I could not find it and a PIN from that notice is required to renew online. After waiting for 1.5 hours, my phone number appeared on the queue display as being the next person to be called. At that point, one of the employees got in front of our crowd of about 100 people to announce that another tag office, about a 7-minute drive away by freeway, had only one person to serve. About half of the crowd disappeared to avail themselves of a shorter wait. As I had taken Hunky Husband's tag renewal notice and check with me, I was able to pay for and receive the little stickers to add to each of our license plates (below photo).

Hunky Husband finally got around to opening the box to extract his new computer. In the olden days, one received an Owner's Manual with electronics. It was, for a computer, perhaps 100-200 pages long. Prominently featured in that booklet would be a cartoon of the front and back of the unit with arrows pointing to each feature and assigning a number. That number could then be looked up on the same/next page to give the name/description of the feature. Not anymore!

With this computer came an 8-page booklet, Quick Setup Guide. The front of the guide shows cartoons of only the ports into which one is to insert a plug with a representation of the plug to be plugged into each port. Well, I set about hooking it up (without need for the 8-page booklet!) and got to this point (photo, below) when I was stumped. Arrgh! This computer, being a new model, has no VGA port. Oh, swell. I hadn't even thought about HH's monitor being so old that it is VGA. **Gnashing teeth** Now, I must decide whether to go with an adaptive cable or bite the bullet and get HH a modern monitor. As this will probably be HH's last desktop computer system, I'll purchase the monitor. It'll work out better, in the end, I'm sure.

Take another look at the above photo. At the upper right-hand corner of the back of the unit you'll see "something" (closeup, below).

It looks like a short-wire antenna (WIFI?) to me. Whatever it is, it is flimsy. The upturned leg at the bottom was bent at about 45 degrees when I first saw it. I decided that it was supposed to have a plastic cover similar to the black plastic box 6" below it, below the upper fan. I looked for it in the plastic bag in which the unit had been encased, and found it; so, the fragile thing, whatever it is, is now protected by a black plastic box. (I can't really read the lettering on the thing or I might be able to learn definitively what it is.) I've made an exhaustive search, online, for labeled diagrams/photos of this computer. The online "User's Guide" to this computer has zero graphics included! In fact, by reading it one might conclude that software setup is the only real problem with computers.

Below are scans of the two pages (front cover and inside front cover) in the HP Quick Setup Guide that include graphics.

More absolute trivia - 10/12/2019

Usually, I have two books going at any one time - a habit established back in about 1983 when I lived in Albuquerque. One book is by my reading chair, the other by my bed. Usually, but not always, the one by my bed is lighter - something that I don't have to work at to keep track of (The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn having been one notable exception). Currently, I am nearly finished with The Big Kahuna by Janet Evanovich and Peter Evanovich. Unfortunately, Janet E who is known for writing chick books that are somewhat sexy and boisterously funny, had disappointed me with this book. (Should I blame it on Peter since this is the first book I've read on which he was listed as co-author?) Be that as it may, I read one sentence, this evening, that made it worth reading the other 267 pages that I'd gone through to get to it.

Kate (FBI), her father Jake (retired Navy Seal), and Nick (Kate's FBI partner) have abducted a leading crime figure from his well-guarded home in New Zealand by paragliding, at night, into his compound. After setting explosives off to light fires throughout the bad guy's vineyard as a distraction, they make their way into his house and taze him into submission. They send him, via dumb waiter, down into the commercial kitchen of his home.

Nick retrieved a shopping cart full of groceries and dumped its contents onto the floor. "Come on, Viktor. Time to go." He and Jake heaved the still scramble-brained [Viktor] Neklan into the cart.

I've high-lighted the "worth it" sentence. I'll give you a hint as to why by quoting from a radio program to which I listened as a kid: The Lone Ranger. As we heard horses riding off into the distance, the main characters shouted:

Lone Ranger: Hi-Yo, Silver!

Tonto: Get 'em up, Scout!

Dan (LR's nephew): Come on, Victor!

I'm pretty sure that the allusion was intentional since, in the preceding 15-30 pages several quotations from various sources are given as dialogue by one of the characters while another character identifies the source of each.

Perhaps I should go to bed, now.

Status Report - October 12, 2019

The bad news: In backing up my hard drive, Friday, my Outlook files got deleted (I'm blaming wonky response to mouse inputs, a problem experienced for the past several days that had driven me to pursue the massive backup to my laptop!) - and - the backup files won't work. All of my old emails are gone from Outlook. Only emails from the past few days were available from Webmail. I'm not a happy camper over that. I'll be installing Outlook on my laptop, shortly! BTW: Now the response to mouse inputs is "normal"! 

The good news: Hunky Husband's birthday computer arrived, Wednesday. When he feels like he has the patience to put up with it, HH will open the box. Part of his birthday present is that I will set up the computer; although, in light of item 1....

The best news: I had, at HH's last (left eye) post-op session with his surgeon, Dr Winn, asked if a different anesthesia could be used when she operated on his right eye - one that wouldn't cause cognitive dysfunction for a week. She seemed surprised that he had had that reaction. Dr Winn told us that she would ask that only half as much anesthesia be given HH for the right eye surgery - and made a note in his records.

A friend works at the eye surgery center. She came over to chat with us while we were in the waiting room, Thursday, and confirmed that the note about using less anesthesia was in HH's record. The "exit team" also mentioned that HH had been given less anesthetic - and - they gave him preventive treatment to keep the pressure from building up in his right eye (as it had done in his left eye) - eye drops and a huge (oral) capsule.

Yay! Although his memory was affected by the anesthesia, as expected, HH's cognitive dysfunction was much less this time and lasted but a very few hours - as far as I could tell. (My own cognitive dysfunction may make my judgement less than perfect – lol.) This was a completely different experience from last time.

When the pressure was measured at HH's (right eye) post-op appointment, yesterday, it was only 10 mm Hg. Terrific!!