Phoenix Mars Lander 2007

link

Klarner, Polya, de Bruijn

Kara Lynn Klarner sent me a scan of a photo of the mathematicians David Klarner, George Polya, and NG de Bruijn. It was taken on the campus of Stanford University in May 1973.

Post-Modern Algebra

link

The standard twentieth-century approach to algebra followed the pattern set by van der Waerden's extremely influential 1931 German Springer text Modern Algebra...

arXiv paper

Automatic Meaning Discovery Using Google

Abstract:

We have found a method to automatically extract the meaning of words and phrases from the world-wide-web using Google page counts. The approach is novel in its unrestricted problem domain, simplicity of implementation, and manifestly ontological underpinnings. The world-wide-web is the largest database on earth, and the latent semantic context information entered by millions of independent users averages out to provide automatic meaning of useful quality. We demonstrate positive correlations, evidencing an underlying semantic structure, in both numerical symbol notations and number-name words in a variety of natural languages and contexts. Next, we demonstrate the ability to distinguish between colors and numbers, and to distinguish between 17th century Dutch painters; the ability to understand electrical terms, religious terms, emergency incidents, and we conduct a massive experiment in understanding WordNet categories; the ability to do a simple automatic English-Spanish translation.

Domain name of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, United States Department of the Treasury

moneyfactory.com.

[Complete with convenient, downloadable images of the new $50 bill. PDF]

Also: Wikipedia article on the "EURion constellation," or special images on US and Euro notes meant to be detectable by software inside scanners:

Users of recent versions of image editors, such as Adobe Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, discovered that these also refuse to process banknotes. According to an article in Wired magazine, the banknote detection code in these applications, called the Counterfeit Deterrence System (CDS), was designed by the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group and supplied to companies such as Adobe as a binary module. However, experiments by Steven J. Murdoch and others showed that this banknote detection code does not rely on the EURion pattern. It detects other features of banknote designs that have yet to be described in public.

[Also: counterfeit detection pen]

Uday Hussein and the Wood Chipper

In the latest issue of Counterpunch, Alexander Cockburn writes:

Discussing an Iraqi fakir touted by the Bush administration, I recently wrote that "In atrocity stories there are some things that don't ring true, even when dealing with such well-credentialed butchers as Saddam and his sons. Take the story, subsequently identified as one concocted by a Western intelligence agency, that Uday had put some of his victims through a wood chipper. Anyone using these chippers knows the damn things jam if inconvenienced by anything with a diameter larger than a stick of asparagus...

....Uday's chipper, whose origin can probably be traced to a scene in the movie Fargo, just didn't passed muster..."

I was being slightly frivolous about the woodchipper, but the letters poured in.

Dear Mr Cockburn, Your fine web piece of Jan 8-9 contains a factual error that you might wish to be aware of. Although the residential, light-commercial, tree-service-type wood chipper might jam if fed a human body (they are designed to chew up brush and limbs), the type used in land clearing (the source of woodchips we use for playground surfacing) and pulp-chip operations would not stutter if fed a regiment—one at a time, of course.

And then a pointer to a company called Morbark, which offers this customer testimonial:

One long-time Morbark customer put it this way: "If you're serious about chipping wood or grinding wood, Morbark is the only way to go."

added later (and not for the squeamish): A Darwin Award

innw

Mysterious billboard in San Jose:

Click the photo.

"I see. ICs? What, Chips? What kind of chips?"

I don't think I want to hear more

From today's Palo Alto Daily News:

Basic Cryptanalysis

*FM 34-40-2

FIELD MANUAL
NO 34-40-2 HEADQUARTERS
DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
Washington, DC, 13 September 1990

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