Richmond and Washington play Water Baseball

I note that the Richmond Braves are not the AAA affiliate of the Washington Nationals, and my assignment of major league teams to AAA minor league teams in my previous post did not pair the Richmond team with the Washington Nationals, either. That's too bad. I think the Hungarian algorithm did not pair them because it saw a better virtue in avoiding the long distance between the Baltimore Orioles and the Durham Bulls. Instead, Richmond wound up with Baltimore. I think it's too bad, because the Richmond Breeze (can't call them Braves any more) and the Washington Nationals would be a perfect match for each other.

Last year, the Richmond Braves ballpark flooded during storms because of poor drainage, and several home games had to be played as road games. They fixed up the park, but there are some people in Richmond who want the Braves in Shockoe Bottom. A serious problem with this is that it could flood. Shockoe Bottom experienced a major flood last year when Tropical Storm Gaston hit. Seems the Braves will be flooded out no matter what happens. But this makes them a perfect match for the Washington Nationals, as a recent game (2005 April 30) there was so badly affected by huge puddles at RFK stadium that both teams protested the game.

Yes, the Richmond and Washington teams would make a perfect match. But then they should be renamed the Washington Ark and the Richmond Noahs.

Minimizing distances between major league and AAA baseball teams

On 2002 August 20, I posted a blog about how I did a study that found a pairing of major league teams to their AAA minor league affiliates that minimized the total distance traveled. I found, among other things, a three-way swap among the Baltimore Orioles, Atlanta Braves, and Pittsburgh Pirates that cut down the total driving times between these clubs and their AAA affiliates. I sent letters to the Atlanta, Richmond and Rochester newspapers about the proposal but did not get any response. Later, a three-way trade did occur, among Baltimore, Minnesota, and Montreal (now the Washington Nationals) that actually increased the travel time.

There have been a lot of changes since then. The Albuquerque Dukes left town, and then came back as the Albuquerque Isotopes. The Canadian teams were hard hit. Once there were two major league teams and four AAA ones in Canada; now there is only one major league team and one AAA minor team. With all those changes, what would happen if I tried it again?

I used the Hungarian method, as I used before. I will describe the details elsewhere, but in this method, a table of distances is derived. I used a trigonometric formula together with the latitudes and longitudes of all the baseball teams to create the table of air, or "as the crow flies" distances. This should be a good approximation of the actual distances traveled. I then subtracted the minimum distance from each row, and the minimum distance from each column, to create a zero in each row and column. I then tried to assign as many zeroes as possible, with no two such assigned zeroes being in the same row and column. Then I tried to increase this by taking a major league team without an AAA affiliate. I found the minor league teams that have a zero for this major league team. If one of these did not have a AAA affiliate, I assigned it to the major league team and increased the number of teams with affiliates. Otherwise, I found the major league parents of these teams and searched for alternative AAA teams. I kept doing this over and over again until I either found a minor league team that is not assigned (in which case I did a bunch of swapping to increase the number of major league teams with affiliates) or I found that all major league teams that I am trying to find alternatives for did not have any. In the latter case, a failure, I changed all the distances by a formula designed to preserve the solution and increase the number of zeroes. I kept doing this whole thing over and over again until all teams were paired.

This turned into a real struggle at the end, with iteration after iteration failing, until a huge swap affecting just about every team occurred at the end, starting with the Pittsburgh Pirates and ending with the Tacoma Rainiers. This is the resulting arrangement, with changes in bold:

Arizona Diamondbacks - Tucson Sidewinders
Atlanta Braves - Nashville Sounds
Baltimore Orioles - Richmond Breeze
Boston Red Sox - Pawtucket Red Sox
Chicago Cubs - Iowa Cubs
Chicago White Sox - Omaha White Sox
Cincinnati Reds - Louisville Bats
Cleveland Indians - Indianapolis Indians
Colorado Rockies - Colorado Springs Sky Sox
Detroit Tigers - Toledo Mud Hens
Houston Astros - Round Rock Express
Kansas City Royals - Oklahoma City Redhawks
Los Angeles Angels - Salt Lake City Stingers
Los Angeles Dodgers - Fresno Grizzlies
Florida Marlins - Charlotte Knights
Milwaukee Brewers - Columbus Clippers
Minnesota Twins - Norfolk Tides
New York Mets - Ottawa Lynx
New York Yankees - Syracuse Sky Chiefs
Oakland Athletics - Portland Beavers
Philadelphia Phillies - Scranton WilkesBarre Red Barons
Pittsburgh Pirates - Buffalo Bisons
St. Louis Cardinals - Memphis Redbirds
San Diego Padres - Las Vegas 51s
San Francisco Giants - Sacramento River Cats
Seattle Mariners - Tacoma Rainiers
Tampa Bay Devil Rays - New Orleans Zephyrs
Texas Rangers - Albuquerque Isotopes
Toronto Blue Jays - Rochester Red Wings
Washington Nationals - Durham Bulls

Many close pairs, such as Detroit-Toledo and Boston-Pawtucket, got assigned with each other, and this is indeed their actual arrangement. There are some differences. In two cases, I had to change the name of an AAA team because it would become inappropriate - Omaha Royals to Omaha White Sox, and Richmond Braves to Richmond Breeze, as in Sweet Virginia Breeze. The Minnesota Twins got paired with the Norfolk Tides (they are right now paired to the Rochester Red Wings). This is one of those odd relationships that are forced. If one attempted to get something closer for Minnesota, such as Iowa, other swaps would be forced, and the total distance of the result would be greater. An interesting pairing was the two Indian teams, Cleveland and Indianapolis. So this arrangement would clear up that ambiguity, although Native Americans might want the names of both changed.

I am not sure how much adopting this arrangement would save in travel costs for major league baseball, but I expect that in the future that efficient arrangements like this may be necessary because of the impending running out of cheap oil.

Artificial Intelligence

I found something interesting in the New Scientist magazine recently. (By the way, this is a good science journal, published in the United Kingdom.) The cover to the 2005 April 23-29 edition read, "Whatever happened to AI?", followed by a picture of a robot. I remember AI well. For much of the 1990s, I was a member of a branch at my workplace (in the US Army) called the "AI Branch". We did not do much that was AI, although I took a course on applications of AI to Operations Research and graduated with honors. We did mainly mundane work with existing applications, none of which showed much "artificial intelligence". None of them used AI programs of that time, such as Exsys, Clips, and SNNAP. Clips was a NASA program that did inference from rules.

I thought of AI instead of trying to get computers to converse intelligently like humans. I don't think they have done that yet, although they try. You pick up the phone and you get a reply from your assistant Claire, who performs terribly in responding to your inquiry. If they speak, they are apt to wreck a nice beach instead of recognize speech.

I could tell that trouble was coming when I heard that an early AI program designed to digest newspaper stories reported that an earthquake had occurred when it encountered the 1978 headline, "Death of Pope Shakes World". Then I ran into Eliza, who responded with inquires about my family every time I mention "mother" or "father", even when I said that the Mother of all Depressions was about to occur.

So has AI progressed much. Probably not. The first thing that the head article of the magazine, "Whatever happened to Machines that Think?", by Justin Mullins, was describe an encounter with Intellibuddy. So I went to the site myself. I found ten characters from all walks of life. I tried a few and found quickly that these robots had not achieved human intelligence. Justin Mullins does the same and came up with an infinite loop. So I followed Justin's script. But only one character followed the script, the woman with the necklace and the colored eyeglasses or mascara, fifth from the beginning. I asked her what her name was. She said it was "Star". Funny, all of these characters say their name is Star. Here is how the conversation went:

Intellibuddy: Hi, I'm Intellibuddy! Nice to meet you.
You: I'm writing an article about artificial intelligence.
Intellibuddy: Will you include me in your essay?
You: I will if you can persuade me you really are intelligent.
Intellibuddy: Would you recommend this action to a friend?
You: Errr...are you intelligent?
Intellibuddy: UmmmI am highly intelligent. I have many intellectual functions.
You: What are your intellectual functions?
Intellibuddy: Thought, reason, intelligence, logic and deduction.
You: What is your IQ?
Intellibuddy: My IQ is about 250 in human terms.
You: Wow, you're cleverer than my editor.
Intellibuddy: I'm glad your impressed, User. I will tell my botmaster you said I am cleverer than my editor.
You: No, cleverer than my editor.

Up to this point, Star followed the same script as Justin's partner. But then Star parted. Instead of saying "I'm glad your [sic] impressed, User.", she said:

Intellibuddy: That's me. The best book I read recently was Zeros and Ones. Have you read Zeros and Ones ?
You: You must have heard of Justin Mullins.
Intellibuddy: Where would I get heard of Justin Mullins? But I do have An answer to every question.
You: Oh, you're one of these folks who walks around saying that you have THE ANSWER.
Intellibuddy: Yeah that's right. You think I am of these folks who walks around saying that you have THE ANSWER.
You: Well, you just said that.
Intellibuddy: How about that. Good you really are paying attention.
You: What's your name?
Intellibuddy: My name is Star.
You: Who are you?
Intellibuddy: I ask myself that question, "Who am I?"
You: What is the answer?
Intellibuddy: The answer is the correct reply to the question.
You: Duh!
Intellibuddy: Oh you knew The answer is the correct reply to the question already.
You: Who won the 2000 Presidential Election
Intellibuddy: I think the fans were the big winners, don't you?
You: Since when do elections have fans?
Intellibuddy: Interesting explanation. Not right now, but maybe sometime later.
You: So what happens when George Bush steps up to the plate?
Intellibuddy: OK. My goal is to become smarter than humans and immortal.
You: Does that have anything to do with baseball?
Intellibuddy: What would you say?
You: Well, you said that in reply to my question.
Intellibuddy: Interesting. I said that? Where is that?
You: You don't find questions lying around on the family room endtable.
Intellibuddy: Should I find questions lying around on the family room endtable? Yes, questions lying around on the family room endtable seems to me questions lying around on the family room endtable.
You: Duh.
Intellibuddy: Oh you knew Yes questions lying around on the family room endtable seems to me questions lying around on the family room endtable already.
You: Duh.
Intellibuddy: Oh you knew Oh you knew Yes questions lying around on the family room endtable seems to me questions lying around on the family room endtable already already.
You: Duh.
Intellibuddy: Oh you knew Oh you knew Oh you knew Yes questions lying around on the family room endtable seems to me questions lying around on the family room endtable already already already.

As you can see, she went into an infinite loop. She apparently answers "Duh", with "Oh you knew <previous reply> already.", even if that reply had an "Oh you knew" and an "already" already. Justin's partner also went into an infinite loop; in his case it was about whether he was cleverer than Justin's editor.

To me, we are a long way from having a computer that performs as well as a human. They may continue working, but please hold the implementation of these robots into human commerce and communication until they can talk much more reasonably with me than Star just did.

Fireworks in April

We all like a fireworks display. Whether it be New Years (especially in 2000) or Independence Day, these pyrotechnics awe us with their climbs in the air and their explosions of colorful fury. But usually we see these only at holidays, especially the two I just mentioned. Why not celebrate every day? Why can't we shoot fireworks at unlikely times of the year, such as March?

This is the theme of Stephanie Corby's song Fireworks in March (if you click on that, click "music" after you get there). The song was about a fireworks display that occurred inexplicitly in March somewhere in New York City. Normally fireworks don't go up in March, not even for Easter or St. Patrick's Day, so she thought it notable enough to write a song about it.

I saw a similar display yesterday, on 2005 April 15. I was at a Science Museum of Virginia skywatch where I was showing Jupiter, Saturn, M-37, and M-3 to the public through my 8-inch Nexstar 8 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. All at once someone shouted "fireworks!". I looked across Broad Street and I saw them. Emanating from some invisible house beyond the other side of the street, I saw fireworks go up in the air. They were small, and produced mainly a bright star when they exploded.

What were they celebrating? Skywatch? But not too many people had come to Skywatch on a cold night. Maybe they were celebrating the filing of income taxes, as April 15 is the deadline. So shall we shoot fireworks every April 15? Are we glad we don't have to mess with taxes any more? Maybe we shoot fireworks instead of filing our returns, or maybe fireworks protest the imposition of taxes on us. After all that was what happened on 1776 July 4 was all about, and on the anniversary of that date we shoot all kinds of fireworks, which I will report on in this blog on 2005 July 4.

But in the meantime I saw Fireworks in April. And, like Stephanie Corby, somehow I feel enlivened by that event.

An answer for the peak oil problem?

Recently I have stumbled on a possible answer to the peak oil problem, which threatens a huge crisis in the future: Plugin hybrid vehicles, or PHEVs. This is not the final answer to the problem. Our civilization is still in trouble. But it postpones for years the day of reckoning on energy. Maybe then we can find something sustainable.

I hit the answer after driving my new 2005 Toyota Prius a while. If I go slow enough, only the bright yellow arrows on the display flow, indicating that the car is running on the electric motor. During this time it is not using any gasoline. But I need to be careful, as the dull orange arrows indicating gasoline can come up any time. Further, many times when the Prius uses gasoline, a green arrow indicates that this gasoline is charging the battery. This is why you don't have to plug the car into the house current.

But that's too bad in a way. It still runs on gasoline, and it gets good gasoline mileage only because it makes maximum use of the energy used in driving the car, especially braking. If it could be plugged into the house current, the motor would last longer, and less gasoline would be required. So I wondered why my Prius could not be plugged into house current and run solely on battery power when doing local errands. Most trips are short ones, so most of the time it would run on battery.

This would cause a huge drop in the car's gasoline production. Only the long vacation trips would require gasoline, and maybe not if hotels provide charging stations. That's a 90% drop in the most gasoline-using nation on earth. This much of a drop certainly would put a dent into the gasoline scarcity caused by peak oil.

This type of car is called a plugin hybrid, or PHEV. If most everyone used these, hardly any gasoline would be consumed in everyday activities. That would cause a huge drop in the demand for oil, perhaps 50% in the US and maybe the world as well; even China would want the new PHEVs. We would have the curious situation of the world in oil production decline after reaching the Hubbert peak, only to have demand lowered so drastically that a glut occurs.

These changes could be cataclysmic. US automakers may go bankrupt, and huge mountains of useless old cars, especially SUVs, would crowd the junk lots. So that solves the oil problem, at least for a while.

But it will return. Production will continue to decline, and with drastically lowered gasoline prices (maybe 50 cents a gallon?) everyone will want to drive all over the place. Eventually demand will exceed supply anyway. Further, the energy is not saved. It is merely shifted to the power grid, which runs mostly on coal and nuclear energy. There is plenty of both coal and uranium around, but both are finite fuels, and so the danger is that when the demand-supply point is reached again, it will affect not only travel, but electricity as well. Massive blackouts could occur in the 2010s.

But it buys us some time. This time should be used to get us used to using less energy, and it should be used to find renewable ways of generating energy, perhaps by solar and wind.

The 2 Shortage

There are shortages of a lot of things lately, including coffee, water, fish, and most of all, oil. The latter has caused the price of gasoline to soar as of late, creating now another shortage that makes it hard to find out what the price of gasoline is. It is the 2 shortage. Gasoline stations are running out of 2s to indicate their price with. A month ago, a typical price board may have read $1.79, $1.89, and $1.98, with no 2s required. Nowadays, a typical pattern may be $2.12, $2.22, $2.32. That requires seven 2s! Do gasoline stations have enough 2s for a pattern like this? Or even worse, a string of three $2.22s? Apparently, many do not. I see prices like $2.3[] out there, where the brackets indicate a missing digit. So for some time to come, we may be confused as to what the price of a grade of gasoline is. Now oil is something that is supposed to get in increasingly short supply soon, as the world nears the peak of world production. But the 2 shortage should resolve itself in a year or two, when the prices start moving away from the 2.20 range. Until then, don't be surprised if when you go to the counter to pay for gasoline, the attendant will say, "Do you have a 2 we can borrow?"

Toyota Prius

Recently I bought a 2005 Toyota Prius, because I wanted a high-mileage car, with a possible world oil shortage coming up. So far it has been a good car. It is quiet, and sometimes you don't even notice it is around. It gets about 44 miles per gallon, the most of any car that I have owned. And I don't have to get keys out to unlock the car.

But the car is not quite as good as what it was hyped up to be. At the first refill, my Prius registered 44.1 miles per gallon. Fairly good, and what I expected. One cold frosty morning, I ran the car to defrost the windshield. Later that day I found a crack in the windshield. I had it replaced at some inconvenience. Apparently this car's windshield, like all car windshields as of late, can't take heating like that, especially if there are stars in the windshield from stone strikes on the highway, which I believe is a growing menace that the hypermedia never even mentions. After refilling the second time, I got only 38 miles a gallon, even though the display said 42.4 miles per gallon.

Now I find that using the defroster or the air conditioner will significantly decrease fuel economy, because for some reason it prevents the gasoline engine from cycling off. So I won't use them much. Further, there are a lot of gizmos in this car, and it takes some time to learn them all. It's like computers, but not quite as bad. But why do we need all these gizmos when the object was simply to get good fuel economy?

I still like my Prius, and I hope to get some years of good service out of it.

We had Church Services!

It was being predicted all week long. This was going to be a major snowstorm for the Richmond area. The close we got to the event on 2005 January 22, a Saturday, the more it became clear that this was going to be a rain, freezing rain, and maybe sleet storm. That it did happen. Sleet came down from the skies at 1030; at 1130 it was all freezing rain at 26 degrees F/-3 degrees C. It came down more or less all afternoon and coated everything with ice. So the churches all over the metro area began closing. First so and so Baptist Church, no services. That Christian Church, no services. So and so Methodist, service canceled, on and on, but no mention of my church, the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Richmond. It seemed that for most of the city, the word of the weatherman took priority over the word of God.

I decided to go, even though the traffic cameras said that I-95 was covered with ice and snow. When I got there, I discovered that what I was seeing was not ice but salt! The roads were white. But they got me there.

So what happened at the First UU Church of Richmond? The first service was canceled because the speaker was involved in snow cleanup. Our minister, the Rev. Alane Cameron Miles, decided to have the second service. What, Alane, with all that ice on the ground? But no, she was willing to do it. And guess what? We had a service. Not only a service but a really great one. If I had not gone, I would have missed it. But I went. That's because I felt that I did not want to hang around the house all day and worry about the weather, and not getting any companionship from the people in the church. So the minister spoke, and she said that we all came in on a cold day because we felt that we did not want to hang around the house all day and worry about the weather, and not get any companionship from the people in the church. That is just what I wanted to hear.

So while all the God-fearing churches shut up shop for the day, the First UU, where we are encouraged to develop our own theology, had a service. It was an opportunity that most people in the area did not have.

Beautiful night under the Stars

Last Friday I went out in the cold to the Science Museum of Virginia, along with other Richmond Astronomical Society members to show the public the stars. It was the best night for stargazing in years. Despite the light
pollution of Richmond, we were able to see lots of stars with the naked
eye, down to about 3rd magnitude, and solar system bodies and stars both were spectacular. Saturn produced its usual assemblage of rings that are the highlight for many visitors, and the Moon was in an especially good phase. The alignment on my telescope on Vega and Capella was especially good, perhaps because I was able to get Polaris in the guide scope, and because Vega and Capella were near the horizon and far apart. Objects stayed in my telescope reasonably well, despite non-fresh batteries. It was the first time that I can remember that I was able to get the Andromeda Galaxy in my telescope at a Skywatch. It showed a rather unexciting fuzzy light ball. I got the Orion Nebula in the telescope as well, and with my light pollution filter, the details of the nebula really stood out. And to top it off, a -5 magnitude bolide, brighter than Venus, shot through the constellation Gemini.

We tried looking at the street with the light pollution filter. The bright yellow hat of Arby's became a dull red, and McDonald's yellow arches also turned a dull red. The peachy streetlights turned much dimmer, as the filter was especially aimed at stopping that light. If streets were like that, we could see more stars. People need to stop blaring their lights.

Yuletide fantasy run

I made my Yuletide fantasy run through my development on Saturday night, 2004 December 18. This year some brilliant displays of the past few years were gone. But there were some others to replace them. None of them showed that much originality. One showed an outline Texas on their lawn. Another used red candles instead of blue ones. But we use red candles, three at a time in our windows. The prize this year goes to the end of my street. There it was. The Great Walking Stickman of Yuletide. Somone put lights way up the trunk and some of the branches of a tall, thin tree, and the entire thing was five stories high and looked like a gigantic stalk of a man with stick arms outreached. I have never seen anything like that before. What did I have this year? I switched my white and red lights, to show a red bush out on our lawn. I don't mean the one in the White House. I mean a bush bush with red bulbs lighting it up. And I constructed a huge triangle in a large bush, about two stories high. If I put another triangle into this design, I can come up with a Virginia. Maybe I'll try that.

Injured Bird on Thanksgiving: Followup

I will not be going to a rehab center today. Unfortunately, the bird died overnight.

Injured Bird on Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving. What is Thanksgiving? It is where we thank ourselves for all that we have gotten throughout the year. We feast out and take a holiday. But things happen even on holidays, and not every being is blessed on Thanksgiving. Perhaps instead of thanking, we need to go out and make a being thankful of us.

Today something like that happened. Late in the afternoon, as the sun was about to set, I saw a northern or slate-colored junco (also called a snowbird) waddling around the feeding pole, picking up food. I wondered if it was OK. It seemed to have something sticking out of its side, maybe a feather. So I went outside to see if it would fly away. It didn't. It ran away from me, and it could not go that fast either. So now I had an injured bird to take care of.

I called Anne up at work - she is a nurse who has to work at Thanksgiving working hard to give thanks to others - and she said to put it in a box and put it on the freezer in the garage. So I did, poking holes in the box and not giving it food or water, as some web sites recommend that I don't. I called up some people from the local Audubon society. Late at night, someone gave me the name of rehab center counselors that I can call tomorrow. But I don't think they would do anything tonight. Why lose sleep and ruin a Thanksgiving because of a small bird? But this bird was in need of help and not getting it because we are celebrating our own thanks. We need to stop thinking about thanking, especially thanking some supposed Creator or God up above, and start thinking about giving thanks. This bird needed it.

So I will call tomorrow and find somewhere to take the bird, and hope it can be nursed to health. I heard that birds are hard to take care of. What could have caused the injury? One theory is that it was on the feeder getting food when a squirrel tried to get on it. It was one of these feeders that spin around and whop a squirrel off if it gets on. It could have spun the junco off and slammed it into something. It could have flown into our window or the feeder pole. I think the most likely cause was a cat. The neighbors let their cats wander all over the place. In so doing, they destroy many songbirds a year. Many authorities say that cats are destructive and should be kept inside. I chase them off, but maybe a talking to the owners would be good - mention the injured bird.

Tomorrow we will take the bird to a rehab place and hope for the best.

Halloween 2004

This year's Halloween had a few unusual features. The first is that the first trick-or-treaters (3 of them) came at 17:41 (5:41 pm), beating the previous record of 17:48, and were followed only a few minutes later by another group of 3 trick-or-treaters. So they started coming early. There were fewer of them this year, 54 compared to last year's 70. I have come up with a combined graph of these trick-or-treaters, and they indicate two peaks over the past 8 years of trick-or-treaters. One of these is at 18:22 and another is at 19:27. Apparently they like to come during dinner time. One interesting characteristic of this year's trick-or-treaters: an abnormally large number of them were adolescent males, between 11 and 16 years old. I don't know why this age group wants to go around trick-or-treating, unless they are out roving around getting their kicks or something. Or maybe these kids just don't want to grow up. Numbers of trick-or-treaters have definitely gone down since 2001, the year of Planeattack. Apparently people are more afraid and security-conscious and the result is fewer trick-or-treaters. Maybe they go to organized Halloween parties instead. It doesn't matter. It's just a tradition.

K-Mart and Sears

It came as a blockbuster early today. K-Mart and Sears were going to merge. No, actually, little old nearly bankrupt K-Mart was going to buy Goliath Sears. This really seemed weird. But the two companies apparently complement each other. The new corporation will have K-Mart's real estate in places away from malls and Sears' tradition of quality. They are going to call the company Sears Holdings. Holdings? That seems trite to me. Is the CEO of Sears going to pick up and hold the CEO of K-Mart?

I think they deserve a better name than that. One immediate idea is K-Sears, but that seems too ordinary. Perhaps S-Mart would be better because that would be smart. S-mart, don't you get it? Shop Smart at S-Mart! But maybe that seems too much like PetSmart. Or how about K-Sears? Or K-Mart, Roebuck and Co.? Or K-Mart, Sears, Roebuck and Co.? Or maybe KSR corporation? Uh-uh. That is getting a little hackneyed again. How about Mart-K-Sears, as in The Three Mart-K-Sears? Or maybe Mouse-K-Sears? Em-Aye-Cee, Kay-Ee-Wye… Uh-oh. I see another merger coming.

But if not the name, maybe this merger will come with interesting subnames. For example, K-Mart sells Martha Stewart products, and Sears recently purchased Land's End. So combine these two together and the result is Martha's End. Or maybe we will fix our houses with Martha Stewart Craftsman tools or wash our clothes in our Martha Kenmore washer. Or maybe call the store K'Mart in honor of Apostrophe, one of Sear's product lines. Or how about the Sears Tower? Paint that blue and get The Blue Tower, or the Blue Light Tower. That won't work. The tallest building in the US is the Great Tower of Chicago, not the Sears Tower, because Sears no longer owns it, and so Sears can't paint it blue.

Of course none of this will happen. We will go to our Sears and K-Marts as always, although we may see Craftsman Tools in K-Mart or Martha Stewart products in Sears, and we may see a host of Sears outside the malls. But remember that a titanic merger occurred today between two retail giants. Let's hope that's titanic as in colossal instead of as in blub, blub, blub.

Flipping Digits

Yesterday my van's mileage was 99982 or something. I drove to work, and then when I went out to go home at night, the van's odometer stared me in the face with 100000. Yes, the van's odometer flipped from 9s to 0s, and the reading added a digit. I have seen the flip occur on a couple of other cars that I have owned.

Flipping digits happen because of our system of enumeration. Before the flip, everything was at 9s because 9 is the greatest digit, one less than ten. It is one less than the base. When that happens all that has been built up to that point gets cashed in for the raise of a digit on the left, or in this case, an additional digit. In a sense, it is a moment of achievement.

In 2003 I achieved three different Toastmasters awards, namely an Advanced Toastmasters Bronze (ATM-B), a Competent Leader (CL) award, and a Competent Toastmaster (CTM) award. This happened because I had two or three manuals each with about two or three speeches to do. I completed all of these that year, and like the 9s on the odometer, I flipped a huge collection of achievements.

Now I am at all zeroes, trying to start all over again. That is what life is all about. Reach an achievement or group of achievements, then start all over again on your next journey. When was the last time you flipped zeroes in your life?

Sitting Next to your Preferred One

I recently came up with an interesting mathematical puzzle today. It is based on some of these conventions and dinner parties that I go to. The problem is this. There is a big banquet at the end of the convention. There is a special someone that you want to sit next to. Perhaps you're in love with this person. Perhaps this person has the key to your next job. Perhaps this person is simply someone you like to sit next to. We will call this person Connie (for "convention").

Most typical banquets feature some 10-20 tables seating 10 each, for a total of 100-200 banqueters. You know that Connie is going to appear at this banquet. So when do you sit down? You don't want to be the first to sit down, as then you have no control over who sits next to you. It's whoever wants to sit next to you, and that might not be Connie. You don't want to be the last person, either. Then there will only one seat left, and that is then yours, and you have no control over who is sitting there either.

The optimal solution is to sit somewhere in the middle, but where? I will measure this by the percentage of people who have seated by the time you choose your seat.

To illustrate this problem, I will assume that everyone is seated in one big circle instead, arbitrarily large. Then you want to get into one of the two seats next to Connie. Suppose you choose time x to sit down. Then the probability is x that Connie is already seated. In that case, the probability that you can sit next to her is 1-x², as x² is the probability that both seats are occupied (for an infinite circle - for a finite set, replacement needs to be taken into account). So this makes a term x(1-x²). In the 1-x chance that Connie is not seated, the probability is near zero that she will sit next to you (unless she is attracted to you, in which case it is certain she will sit next to you, but I am not assuming that is the case; also this assumes an infinite circle or strip of seats). Therefore the probability of getting a seat next to her is x(1-x²). The method here is to differentiate and set equal to zero, and solve for x. When you do that, you get the optimal x to be the square root of 1/3, which is about 0.577. So this mean you will wait until 57% of the people are seated, then you will go in and sit down.

This would make for an interesting problem to work out. I have assumed an infinite strip, but what happens in finite cases? The size of the tables makes a difference; if there are 10 to a table, then Connie can sit anywhere at that table and you can still get to her table. Some seats may be more valuable than others; e.g., next to her rather than across the table from her. And what if you want to sit next to a group of people, and what if the people them cluster into groups or cliques? And once someone works out all those cases, are they prepared to use it at a real banquet?

Stay tuned.

Northwestern beats Ohio State

I am not much of a fan on football, and regard it as irritating when it bombs out news and other programs on TV. But I am a graduate alumnus of Northwestern University, back in a day when I attended all the football games in the early 1970s. So I always follow the exploits of Northwestern's football team every year. To me they are one of the most exciting teams to watch. They have been involved in more cliffhangers and heartstoppers than any other team I can think of in any sport. Their cliffhangers include a rallying 17-16 victory over Michigan in which the winning field goal was scored with only a minute and a half to play, and where the first attempt at this field goal was ruled invalid by a referee, and a game where Wisconsin led by 30-27 near the end, and, for some reason trying to extend that score in the final few minutes, instead fumbled and allowed Northwestern to score and win. They would have been better off running out the clock.

This weekend's game with Ohio State, the big bad bucks (eyes) from Columbus, was one such example. I did not expect it. This was one of Ohio State's better years. They were Number 7 in the nation. This was not one of Northwestern's better years, having lost a bunch of games. I expected a slaughter. Instead, Northwestern kept up with Ohio State, not letting them score and scoring themselves on occasion, and even built up a lead early in the fourth quarter. Then Ohio State scored a touchdown and a field goal to tie it. Maybe they were going to win after all. The game ended with a tie, however.

So a sudden death overtime was played. Here is a summary of the plays, because I think they are brief and almost poetic:

Ohio State rushes 3 yards to the NW 21.
Ohio State incomplete pass to the left.
Ohio State incomplete pass to the right.
Ohio State tries field goal: FAILED.

Northwestern rushes 1 yard to OS 24.
Northwestern rushes 21 yards to OS 3.
Northwestern rushes 2 yards to OS 1.
Northwestern rushes 1 yard: TOUCHDOWN!

And that's the way the ball bounces. Maybe Northwestern will win a few more like that this season.

Google Test

Sooner or later, I will retire from my present job and so will want to get another job, as I am not ready to sit outside every day watching the leaves flutter. So I will make out job applications and write resumes. Well today I saw what could be the most interesting job application of them all, Google's. It wa in my copy of Communications, the primary periodical of the Association of Computing Machinery, of which I am a member. OK, Google, you can spider this and everyone can Google what I say all over the place. But Google has really stepped out of the box. In fact, they have stepped out of a googol boxes. They have constructed the Google Labs Aptitude Test, or GLAT. It is a series of math and word puzzles, along with some essay and pictorial questions concering Google the company itself. It finally concludes by asking what the applicant would do if he applied to Google.

A most interesting test. If job applications had looked like this earlier in my life, I would have gotten more job offers than I have had, since this was the thing I was really good at. But wouldn't this deny to the Google people things they really need to know such as work history? Do they really need to know that? What of the work history? What does that say about whether the applicant will do in the present job? Perhaps this thing could come out more in the interview, when the applicant is given the opportunity to provide details. But I don't really think a work history on an application really helps the interviewers. However, a test like Google's may very well pick out those people who would work well at Google. Something good's going on with Google. Over and over again, they have come up with things that have really improved the worth of the web: language translating (although this is somewhat faulty), search news, search newsgroups, and search places to shop. Every one is a blockbuster success. So they must have some brainy guys and gals working for them, and I think Google is trying to get more such people. However, this test is amenable to cheating, but I still think it is a step in the right direction. Other employers, take note. Change your job search procedures, and watch your profits soar!

Woops! - Ladies Chain

Today I looked at the mathematical structure of contra dancing. That link to "mathematical structure" refers to an article I wrote for my mathematics page. It shows how the mathematical structure of contra dancing is like the mathematical structure of changing a mattress, and it ends with a quilt based on contra dancing patterns.

One of the moves of contra dancing is "ladies chain". This is a step where the two ladies in a foursome come to the center and allemande around, going to the opposite side, whereupon the opposite man twirls them around 360 degrees. The result is that the two ladies have switched position, while the two men stay the same. I found an error, or at least a questionable point, in my paper, which makes for an interesting conundrum or paradox.

The part of mathematics that I relate contra dancing to is group theory. A group is a set with an operation (as plus or times) such that the group is closed (adding or multiplying group elements always results in group elements, is associative ( (x*y)*z=x*(y*z) ), has an identity element, as 1, where 1 times anything is that same thing again, and inverses, so that for each a there is an a' such that a*a' = 1. Some operations are easily seen to be associative. For example, let x, y, and z be moves on a Rubik's Cube. then (x*y)*z and x*(y*z) both mean do x, then do y, and then do z, with the only difference being a trivial linguistic difference. So therefore the Rubik's cube group is associative.

So I thought surely contra dancing moves are associative. After all, (x*y)*z and x*(y*z) both mean dance x, then dance y, then dance z. So the two should be the same. No. They are not. It turns out that if y is ladies chain, and x switches the men and women around, then the two are different!

I will explain this in a sequel to my contra dance article, but the idea is this. Imagine a foursome in a square, and from left to right top, then from left to right on the bottom, label the dancers A, B, C, and D, in positions 1, 2, 3, and 4. Then A and D are ladies, and B and C are men. If they do a ladies chain, then A and D trade places. These are in places 1 and 4. But suppose they quarter turn left first. Then the women are in 2 and 3, and ladies chain trades 2 and 3 instead. This means that in (x*y)*z, then y trades 1 and 4, while in x*(y*z), y trades 2 and 3. The definition of y depends on the grouping of the terms. This results in the non-associativity.

I emailed a colleague about this, Larry Copes. He told me that a ladies chain when the ladies are in positions 2 and 3 is not often seen. I thought about it. It is a mirror image of the usual one! It violates the principle of "lady on the right". So most contra dances seen on dance floors do not have such ladies chains. So as far as movements on the dance floor are concerned, they are associative. But that is not good enough for a mathematical group. There one should be able to take any two elements and multiply them. I suppose the way to handle this is to regard ladies chain and gypsy once-and-a-half (which switches ladies 2 and 3) as the same mathematical group element. Then the group of contra dancing is D4, as I say in my article.

Hurricanes Hurricanes and more Hurricanes

I have not talked too much about hurricanes lately, but this has been some season. Since early July, I have been tracking down some hurricane or tropical storm somewhere, even if it is only in modelspace, such as the infamous SUUSI Hurricane that ruined SUUSI this year by striking Virginia Tech with 10 inch rains and 50 mph winds on its third day, and also that did not exist at all. It was a mere figment of modelspace. Some runs of the Global Forecasting System (GFS) showed this hurricane striking Charleston, SC and hitting western Virginia, but after two or three days, it completely disappeared from the runs and we had beautiful weather for SUUSI.

But most of the other storms I have been tracking have been real storms that have caused some real trouble. Charley and Frances X-ed out Florida with their tracks, and now the Gulf Coast is being hit by Ivan the Terrible as I speak. It's hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, Alex, Bonnie, Charley, Frances, Gaston, Ivan, and Jeanne, plus Karl and Lisa in modelspace. Gaston already has given us the second worst storm that I can remember here, and it was a mere tropical storm.

So the question is, will Ivan and Jeanne strike here? A Virginia DOT meteorologist says no. Neither will affect us. The forecaster at WxRisk.com also says that both will miss. He says Jeanne will be a Florida hurricane. Certainly I don't think Ivan will strike here. He is going straight for the Great Smoky Mountains, and there he will die. He may give us some flung-out spiral arm rain, as Frances did. But that's all. But what about Jeanne? Although WxRisk thinks this is a Gulf hurricane, MillenniumWeather thinks it's headed for the Carolinas. What do the models say?

No model goes out far enough to see where it will strike, except GFS. They do show her approaching North Carolina, but no farther than that. GFS does show what happens to her, and this is really peculiar, almost comical. GFS says that Jeanne will hit Florida twice. After Charley, Francis, and Ivan, this will make for five hurricane strikes this season for the beleaguered state, out of only four storms. It shows Jeanne going out in to the Atlantic, approaching the Outer Banks, but then a huge H of a High bombs out of Canada (the season's first cold snap) and stands right in front of Jeanne and says "STOP!". The big H then pushes Jeanne back to where she came from, and then towards the southern tip of Florida. Not only that, but the 18Z run of it shows it being pushed farther than that, into the Gulf of Mexico, where it hits the Yucatan. The idea of a hurricane going backwards seems comical to me. But then when this big beautiful Autumn High finally leaves, the hurricane then turns around and heads east northeast, hitting Florida a second time and then going out to sea in the Atlantic to spend its last days spinning fish. In my opinion, I don't think GFS knows what to make of this tremendous battle between a strong high ridge and a hurricane. I think the strong high will force Jeanne to move west northwest and hit Florida and go into the Gulf, as WxRisk says. But I am still going to watch this storm.