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Links for December 5, 2011

ernie — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 05:00:00 +0000

These are my links for December 5, 2011

Has the Devilish Math Problem “P vs NP” Finally Been Solved? | 80beats | Discover Magazine – “P is not equal to NP. Seems simple enough. But if it’s true, it could be the answer to a problem computer scientists have wrestled for decades.
Vinay Deolalikar, who is with Hewlett-Packard Labs, has sent to peers copies of a proof he did stating that P is not equal to NP. “
The Status of the P Versus NP Problem | September 2009 | Communications of the ACM – “The theory of NP-completeness helps us understand these limitations and the P versus NP problem begins to loom large not just as an interesting theoretical question in computer science, but as a basic principle that permeates all the sciences.”
A compendium of NP optimization problems – “This is a continuously updated catalog of approximability results for NP optimization problems. The compendium is also a part of the book Complexity and Approximation. The compendium has not been updated for a while, so there might exist recent results that are not mentioned in the compendium. If you happen to notice such a missing result, please report it to us using the web forms.”
CMU professor honored for computational complexity breakthrough – ” In a paper presented at the Symposium on Theory of Computing in 1994 and published in 1997 in the Journal of Computer and System Sciences, they showed that a wide class of proof techniques they call “natural proofs” can’t solve the P vs. NP question. What’s more, they found that those previous results turned out to have an almost contradictory double life, providing methods for breaking a wide class of cryptosystems.”

Reading List

ernie — Sun, 17 May 2009 14:35:52 +0000

A few books to read that might go on the reading list I use for my classes.

Flesh and machines : how robots will change us / Rodney A. Brooks

Here comes everybody : the power of organizing without organizations / Clay Shirky.

In the beginning- was the command line / Neal Stephens.

Mobilizing generation 2.0 : a practical guide to using Web 2.0 technologies to recruit, organize, and engage youth / Ben Rigby ; foreword by Rock the Vote.

Planet Google : one company’s audacious plan to organize everything we know / Randall Stross.

Reinventing knowledge : from Alexandria to the Internet / Ian F. McNeely ; with Lisa Wolverton.

Smart mobs : the next social revolution / Howard Rheingold

Stalking Death

ernie — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:01:55 +0000

Stalking Death was the first of Kate Flora’s books that I read.

This is a “Thea Kozak Mystery”, and like her other works like the others traces the thoughts and actions of a protagonist who appears in several of Flora’s novels in a series. Thea Kozak isn’t a private detective or police officer, but is a member of a consulting firm that works with private schools in New England that are facing a crisis. In this case the school’s headmaster wants to expel a student who he claims has been a problem. The student claims she is being stalked. A murder is committed along the way, Thea is physically threatened and attacked, and the plot twists through a backdrop of deception, hatred, and violence. Still, it is written in a way that keeps you involved wanting to know how the story is revealed.

I’ve read several of her books since this one, and have others on my dresser to get to next. I am glad to have found her stories. Building them in a series based on a main character, such as Thea Kozak, allows Kate Flora to keep the reader involved in a story that spans several works, and the experience is enhanced if you’ve read several of the books in a series.

Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream

ernie — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 23:32:31 +0000

Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream: A Day in the Life of Your Body
Jennifer Ackerman takes you through a day starting with a detailed description of waking in the morning and finishing with just as detailed a description of going to sleep in the evening. Throughout she mixes obsrevations, quips, and the reports of scientific studies to keep the reader interested and entertained. Here’s an example: “It’s true the brain is good at processing sound while we sleep; that’s why we buy audible alarm clocks. We don’t buy odor alarms for equally good reason. Though some people swear they are aroused form deep sleep by the putrid stink of skunk or the heady aroma of percolating coffee, a new study suggests otherwise: Scientists at Brown University documented a complete failure of response during all but the earliest phase of sleep to powerful odors such as peppermint and the distinctly noxious pyridine, a component of coal tar often used as a herbicide for firewood. Don’t count on the nose as a sentinel system, say the researchers: “Human olfaction is not reliably capable of alerting a sleeper.”

References to the effects of time of day on what we do, what we can accomplish, and even on our reactions to medicines – chronotherapy, are throughout the text. The science is well documented and blended with familiar, common occurrences. This was a pleasure to read.

Service Included

ernie — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 18:54:42 +0000

A witty and informative story of a woman who works her way up to the wait staff of a four-star NY restaurant, Per Se. This very readable book goes through the establishment of a new restaurant, and it’s striving for a great review from the NY Times food critic. The story also mirrors the author’s involvement in the restaurant and her romantic involvements to the point where she is ready to move on form the restaurant but happy to stay with her current lover and companion. As you read the story you are also let in on the secrets of a successful restaurant, and the characteristics of great servers. This is highly recommended if you like food, like learning about restaurant life, and like a good read. Enjoy yourself, go to a good restaurant but first read “">Service Included.”

Book Project – Web Server Applications

ernie — Fri, 30 Jan 2004 01:08:44 +0000

Once again, I’m working with a co-author, Karen Anewalt on a book project. It’s a text-book with working title “A Practical Introduction to Web Server Applications.” A book for students who want to know how to set up and use a Web server to provide applications on the Web. It deals almost entirely with tools, methods, techniques, and concepts on the server-side of any Web presence. As we write it we’re using it in a course we’re teaching this semester. I teach one section, and Karen teaches another.

This will be the seventh book project I’ve worked on with others. You can see a list of many of the books I’ve done at amazon.com. I’ve also done few on my own, and they are also listed at amazon, or you can see a list on my home page.

A Shortcut Through Time

ernie — Mon, 14 Jul 2003 21:26:51 +0000

I found the book “A Shortcut Through Time” By George Johnson, published by Alfred A Knopf, 2003, ISBN 0-375-41193-3 on the recent additions shelf of the Central Rappahannock Regional Library.

It was the subtitle, “The Path to the Quantum Computer” , that really got me interested. I teach computer science at Mary Washington College and I didn’t know the first thing about quantum computing before reading this book. Now I feel like I know something! Johnson’s explanations are clear and to the point. They really made sense to me given my back ground in mathematics and the fact that I’ve been teaching computer science for lots of years. I’d recommend this book to anyone with an interest in science and with the ability to follow a technical discussion in general terms. He does an excellent job of exposition of a subtle and difficult subject. He states in the preface that “science writing involves spinning an illusion.” The illusion is that the material came to be understood in a straight forward manner, and so it is easy for the reader to grasp and comprehend. It’s not very easy to do that when discussing quantum mechanics and quantum computing, but George Johnson does a very good job at it. Read this book!

“A Quantum Leap in Cryptography” appeared in on July 15, 2003 in Business Week Online.