Brandon E Taylor's Weblog Cogitations, Meditations, and Ruminations

Heroes of Engineering

The ASME is publishing a monthly online comic series devoted to significant personages and events in mechanical engineering. To date, the following issues have been released:

• 01/05 - Robert Thurston - "Closing the gap between practive and theory"
• 02/05 - Michael Owenw - "The Automatic Glassblower"
• 03/05 - Wright Brothers - "Wind Tunnel Visionaries"

Caleb's First Mass

Tiffany and I took Caleb to his first Mass this evening. He was wide awake for most of the Mass and very well behaved. His mother and I were very proud.

This Sunday's Readings:

• Exodus 17:3-7
• Romans 5:1-2,5-8
• John 4:5-42

Words to Live By

"Christ, 'the living bread which came down from heaven,' is the only one who can satisfy man's hunger at all times and in all parts of the earth." - Pope John Paul II, Year of the Eucharist Homily, 06/10/04
( Feb 27 2005, 07:48:07 PM PST ) Permalink Comments [0]

Sun Fire V40Z Reviewed

AnandTech has recently published a nice review of the Sun Fire V40Z, our 3U four-way x64 server. Here are a few choice quotes:

"Sun has a speed daemon on their hands, and they know it."

"...the enthusiastic approach to Linux coupled with high quality design and management already assure that Sun has won the battle to most, without even raising a finger for benchmarks."

"As far as stability goes, we know that the Sun Fire V40z is certainly best of breed."
( Feb 25 2005, 11:47:10 PM PST ) Permalink Comments [0]

Word of the Day

gravamen

noun - the material or significant part of a grievance or complaint
( Feb 25 2005, 08:45:19 PM PST ) Permalink Comments [0]

2004 Turing Award

Vinton G. Cerf and Robert E. Kahn have received the 2004 A.M. Turing Award. The 2004 award was presented "For pioneering work on internetworking, including the design and implementation of the Internet's basic communications protocols, TCP/IP, and for inspired leadership in networking."

Recommended Reading:

• V. G. Cerf and R. E. Kahn. "A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection." IEEE Transactions on Communications, 22(5), May 1974, pp. 637-648

Mathematical Model of Eiffel Tower

University of Colorado Assistant Professor Patrick Weidman and Michigan Technological University Professor Iosif Pinelis have recently published a paper - "Model Equations for the Eiffel Tower Profile: Historical Perspective and New Results" - in the French journal Comptes Rendus Mecanique. In this paper, Weidman and Pinelis present a nonlinear integral-differential equation whose solution yields the shape of the Eiffel Tower. The tower's profile is "composed of two piecewise continuous exponentials with different growth rate".
( Feb 23 2005, 10:41:13 AM PST ) Permalink Comments [0]

PatternShare Community

The PatternShare community site "brings together software patterns from different authors in one place to show relationships between existing patterns and to encourage you to contribute new ones."

A large number of patterns are already included in the repository. Included are patterns from:

• Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture - M.Fowler
• Pattern Oriented Software Architecture - F.Buschmann, et al.
• Design Patterns - E.Gamma, et al.
• Patterns & Practices - Microsoft
• Domain Driven Design - E.Evans
• Enterprise Integration Patterns - G.Hohpe and B.Woolf

Two Week Checkup

Tiffany and Caleb have both now had their two week checkups. Both mother and baby are doing fine. Caleb is a bit underweight, but we expect that a bit of formula supplementation will turn that around quickly.

Other than with respect to his weight, Caleb is developing nicely. He continues to be extremely alert and his muscle control is impressive. I expect that he will be precocious in many ways, but that could just be the proud father in me showing through.
( Feb 21 2005, 12:15:09 PM PST ) Permalink Comments [0]

Gordon Wins at Daytona

Jeff Gordon won his 3rd Daytona 500 today in a wild finish. Gordon needed a bit of a push from Jimmie Johnson to take the lead - the fourth lead change in the last nine laps - and then hung on for the win. It didn't hurt that Johnson continued to block Tony Stewart throughout the last laps either.

Kurt Busch, Little E, Scott Riggs, and Jimmie Johnson rounded out the top 5. In all, 4 Chevrolets finished in the top 5 - not surprising for a superspeedway race.
( Feb 20 2005, 11:59:14 PM PST ) Permalink Comments [0]

Words to Live By

Ecclesiastes 7:14

In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider; God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.
( Feb 20 2005, 11:58:01 PM PST ) Permalink Comments [0]

Caleb Likes Bach

To my great delight, Caleb seems to share my love for baroque music - Bach in particular. We have found that Bach's music has an almost immediate calming effect on him when he starts to get fussy. I recently purchased the Baby Einstein - Baby Bach CD and Caleb and I listen to it almost daily. His favorite tracks seem to be Minuet in G from the Anna Magdalena Notebooks; Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring, BWV 147; and Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D, Air, BWV 1068.

My only complaint about the Baby Bach CD is that the arrangement could certainly be improved. For instance, I would prefer that the tracks got gradually less polyphonic and slower in tempo as the CD nears its end.
( Feb 19 2005, 11:57:18 PM PST ) Permalink Comments [0]

The Rule of Four

The Rule of Four - Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason (2004)

*** (out of 5)

Based on the runaway success of The Da Vinci Code, a number of authors have decided to produce books in a similar vein - thrillers combining historical arcana and conspiracy. The Rule of Four is one such book. In this novel, a pair of Princeton students - Tom Sullivan and Paul Harris - are working on unraveling the steganographic mysteries of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, an enigmatic 15th century Italian text written in Latin, Italian, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Chaldean and Egyptian hieroglyphics. The duo gain possession of a diary that promises to be an important key in this effort. Soon after the find, a fellow researcher is murdered and it dawns upon the two students that more is at stake than a thesis paper.

It is inevitable that readers and critics are comparing the Rule of Four with Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code. I found the Rule of Four to be a more thoughtful book and less guilty of factual errors and misrepresentations (interestingly, Caldwell and Thomason provided a set of authors' notes listing the intentional mistakes, inventions, and creative liberties that they included in the book). Like The Da Vinci Code, however, the book succeeds primarily on the strength of its plot rather than its characters and themes. In my opinion, the characters were flat and their relationships uninteresting.

All in all, The Rule of Four is a credible first attempt by the authors. Not a great book, certainly, but one worth giving a try.

Also Recommended:

• The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco (1983)

Don't Bother:

• Codex - Lev Grossman (2004)

Word of the Day

vertiginous

adjective - inclined to frequent and often pointless change : inconstant
( Feb 18 2005, 09:44:58 AM PST ) Permalink Comments [0]

Trivial Tidbits

Abraham Lincoln was born on 02/12/1809 in Hardin County, Kentucky. He was the first president born outside of the original thirteen colonies.

Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on Good Friday, 04/14, in 1865. He was shot by John Wilkes Booth while watching a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. Our American Cousin was also running at the McVerick Theatre in Chicago, Illinois, when Lincoln was nominated for president in Chicago on 05/18/1860.

Abraham Lincoln received U.S. Patent No. 6469 on 05/22/1849 for a "Manner of Bouying Vessels"
( Feb 17 2005, 10:00:25 AM PST ) Permalink Comments [0]