Audio books are much better than I thought.
I have occasionally listened to radio readings every now and again, they were on at strange times and were usually serialised into timeslots that I could never arrange into consistent listening sessions. I borrowed the star wars trilogy dramatisation on CD from a friend and was blown away by the show in audio.
A number of years ago I spotted some free audio books on iTunes, notably EarthCore by Scott Sigler from PodioBooks or iTunes. The story was great and well told. I consumed the entire novel in a few nights then hunted around for other free audio books. I downloaded a couple from non iTunes sources such as PodioBooks and Cory Doctorow, but never got around to putting them into iTunes.
There were always plenty of podcasts to listen to. Many of these podcasts have Audible as a sponsor. I would listen to the podcaster's book recommendations with interest and always nod and think that I should sign up some day, but I had these other books that I should listen to before I did that.
A couple days ago I just signed up. I picked Audible's $7.50/month for three months deal and selected "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert Heinlein for no other reason than I thought I should have read that classic by now. Initially I was very disappointed as the sound quality was metallic (bit rate of 32kbps), however I quickly got used to it and just fell right into the story.
Audio books are awesome! I highly highly recommend seeking out the freely available books, then when you realise that you are hooked, sign up for an audible account and start listening some new and classic books. The major downside is that being Australian we have a small subset of books available due to the restrictive trade practices of the publication industry. It appears that publishers are forcing their customers to misrepresent themselves as a US resident, seek out non mainstream books, resort to piracy or go without.
2009-05-26
2009-04-21
Shutdown Windows Later
at 23:45 shutdown -s
For when you want to leave the computer on but have it shutdown at some later point in time. Just open up a command prompt (click "Start" (and "RUN" in XP) and type CMD and tap enter) then type the above command tap enter. Yes you can close the CMD prompt dialogue.
To get this to work in Windows Vista you are going to have to get the command prompt to run as administrator. Right click on the CMD Prompt Icon if you can find it, Properties, Shortcuts, Advanced, "Run as administrator". Now you get an annoying warning everytime you start the command prompt, but you don't get "Access Denied" error when using the AT command.
The "AT" command is quite powerful, allowing you to schedule all sorts of tasks, but over the years it is just the late shutdowns that I use it for on my home windows machines.
With Mac OS X I guess I would just issue a "sudo shutdown" with a time at a terminal code, but I have my Mac's set up with nice energy saver settings so haven't used that command in ages. Just "man shutdown" for more info.
For when you want to leave the computer on but have it shutdown at some later point in time. Just open up a command prompt (click "Start" (and "RUN" in XP) and type CMD and tap enter) then type the above command tap enter. Yes you can close the CMD prompt dialogue.To get this to work in Windows Vista you are going to have to get the command prompt to run as administrator. Right click on the CMD Prompt Icon if you can find it, Properties, Shortcuts, Advanced, "Run as administrator". Now you get an annoying warning everytime you start the command prompt, but you don't get "Access Denied" error when using the AT command.
The "AT" command is quite powerful, allowing you to schedule all sorts of tasks, but over the years it is just the late shutdowns that I use it for on my home windows machines.
With Mac OS X I guess I would just issue a "sudo shutdown" with a time at a terminal code, but I have my Mac's set up with nice energy saver settings so haven't used that command in ages. Just "man shutdown" for more info.
2009-03-08
Save the whales, again.
The International Whaling Commission had placed a moratorium on whaling since the mid 80s with an exception for scientific studies which Japan has been abusing ever since. Norway just ignores the moratorium and hunts under its own regulations. The moratorium was to allow for the conservation of whale stock because of over hunting.
During the 18 year Japanese scientific whaling program there were 6,800 whales killed and only 4 papers published. It isn't science, it would never pass an ethics committee. Extracted from ABC radio national.
There are several hundred thousand minke whales left, which sounds like a lot, but really isn't that many. You don't want to wait until they are endangered before stopping the hunt.
Japan also claims they hunt a limited number of endangered fin whales and threatened humpback whales under the guise of science. This really isn't on at all, and for my mind, is justification for everything the Sea Shepherd group does.
There are approx over 1 billion sheep and 1.5 billion cattle and 16 trillion chickens. Over 1.5 billion of combined goats, pigs, buffalo. Compare this with the several hundred thousand whales.
Give the whales a break. Eat a pig, put some whale flavouring on it.
For those that want to support the Sea Shepherd, they have a nice little donate button. SeaShepherd.Org After you click donate there is a PayPal option on the left.
If you support the other side then fly to Japan and chew some blubber.
There are, of course, other ways to push your opinion than donating money to the sea shepherd. Hayden Panettiere (Heroes) has started a petition to save the whales. See, it has her picture on it, you want to sign it now, right?
You could also write to your government representative and let them know your support either way you fall.
You may be asking yourself "What is this advertising of Apple and Samsung?" Well, for simply showing these adverts, money gets donated to the Whaleman Foundation. That and I like products from Apple and Samsung. Mostly. You can do this too, you just have to sign up for a free account at Social Vibe then place the ads on you blogs or what have you.
During the 18 year Japanese scientific whaling program there were 6,800 whales killed and only 4 papers published. It isn't science, it would never pass an ethics committee. Extracted from ABC radio national.
There are several hundred thousand minke whales left, which sounds like a lot, but really isn't that many. You don't want to wait until they are endangered before stopping the hunt.
Japan also claims they hunt a limited number of endangered fin whales and threatened humpback whales under the guise of science. This really isn't on at all, and for my mind, is justification for everything the Sea Shepherd group does.
There are approx over 1 billion sheep and 1.5 billion cattle and 16 trillion chickens. Over 1.5 billion of combined goats, pigs, buffalo. Compare this with the several hundred thousand whales.
Give the whales a break. Eat a pig, put some whale flavouring on it.
For those that want to support the Sea Shepherd, they have a nice little donate button. SeaShepherd.Org After you click donate there is a PayPal option on the left.
If you support the other side then fly to Japan and chew some blubber.
There are, of course, other ways to push your opinion than donating money to the sea shepherd. Hayden Panettiere (Heroes) has started a petition to save the whales. See, it has her picture on it, you want to sign it now, right?
You could also write to your government representative and let them know your support either way you fall.
You may be asking yourself "What is this advertising of Apple and Samsung?" Well, for simply showing these adverts, money gets donated to the Whaleman Foundation. That and I like products from Apple and Samsung. Mostly. You can do this too, you just have to sign up for a free account at Social Vibe then place the ads on you blogs or what have you.
2009-02-06
Microsoft Access SQL bug
There are many bugs in Microsoft Access. Here's one that I found today.
LEFT JOIN a table to a query where the query has a literal in the SELECT clause will replicate the literal for non joined records.
LEFT JOIN a table to a query where the query has a literal in the SELECT clause will replicate the literal for non joined records.
| Table1 |
| ||||||||||||||||||||
| Table2 |
| ||||||||||||||||||||
| Query1 Introduce a literal. SELECT Key, "XYZ" AS myLit, myNum FROM Table2; |
| ||||||||||||||||||||
| Query2 The bug. SELECT Table1.Key, myText, myNum, myLit FROM Table1 LEFT JOIN Query1 ON Table1.Key=Query1.Key; |
| ||||||||||||||||||||
| Query3 The fix. SELECT DISTINCT * FROM Query1 WHERE myLit="XYZ"; |
| ||||||||||||||||||||
| Query4 Bug Free! SELECT Table1.Key, myText, myNum, myLit FROM Table1 LEFT JOIN Query3 ON Table1.Key=Query3.Key; |
|
2009-01-05
Climate is cool. Or is it?
Fun with numbers. Here are some hypotheses and testing with actual data. In fact the data that most sceptics prefer, good ol' University of Alabama in Huntsville.
Hypothesis (1) : Warming due to CO2 is approximated as 3 times the log of the ratio of carbon dioxide levels.
Hypothesis (2) : Temperatures in 2008 have returned to 1983 values. Problem: (a) 1983 has a nasty little peak in it thanks to an el nino and PDO positive; potential cherry picking accusations. (b) 2008 has an anomalous drop thanks to la nina, PDO cooling and a solar minimum; potential cherry picking accusations. (c) Even if true, has little/no meaning as these are global temperature instances and not trends.
Using carbon level data from Carbonify we have:
CO2 in 1983 = 341ppm
CO2 in 2008 = 384ppm
Increase = 3 x ln(384/341) = 0.37C
Using the data from UAH we get the graph below (note the 12 month mean smoothing). The simple regression line shows a 0.42C increase. Hypothesis (1) has done very well. Yay IPCC.
Hypothesis (2) somewhat true but technically inaccurate. The top of the peak in 1983 does seem to be at a level with the bottom of the drop at the end of 2008. However the average temperature increase in 2008 is 0.11 and in 1983 is -0.02. So using year is somewhat disingenuous and the hypothesis should be restated to the minimums of three months in 2008 were below the maximum month of 1983. Apart from a nice sounding factoid this actually demonstrates nothing about climate change. In fact this should be exceedingly worrying, 1983 with el nino and heating PDO can only get to the minimum of 2008 with a la nina, cooling PDO and solar minimum.
Hypothesis (3) : There has been cooling since 1998. Problem: (a) That's a very short time to find climate change effects. (b) 1998 was an exceedingly warm year thanks to el nino and a warming PDO; potential cherry picking accusations. (c) 2008 is affected by la nina, PDO cooling and solar minimum which should easily overshadow the minuscule rise in temperature attributed to carbon dioxide over this short time period.
Use the same data, fit a regression line. Oh dear, hypothesis (3) fails. There is actually a slight increase (obviously not statistically significant given the obvious climatic variation, you will want a longer time period to identify a trend). VERY worrying given the conditions of 2008, a cooling PDO and a low solar output - we should have cooling but do not!
All of these experiments are easily repeatable with the UAH data and a little spreadsheet skill. Usually simple linear regression lines are a click away. Alternatively you can use the SLOPE() function.
An even quicker way is to use WoodForTrees site to do it all for you. Check the 30 year trend from 1979 to 2009. On this site you can play with multiple temperature data sets as well as graph the total solar irradiance, the PDO, sunspots, CO2 levels and so on. Check out the lower PDO and TSI in the last decade of the 1979-2009 year trend: PDO down, TSI way down, however temperatures remain steady/increasing.
Pacific decadal oscillation PDO, PDO data
Southern Oscillation El nino / La nina
Solar cycle Solar minimum / maximum
For data on PDO, la nina, el nino and Solar cycle years.
These are very simple data to graph constructions. There are no other factors or alterations of that data over and above what UAH may have done. If anyone can see where I am going wrong please feel free to point it out with clear precise instructions on what algorithms will improve it or what I may be failing to take into account. Opinion and belief need not apply.
More Data
The following is a list of data of various types from various sources for anyone who fancies playing with the numbers themselves.
Temperature data UAH Here
Temperate data (etc) GISS Here
Temperature data RSS Here
Temperature data CRU Here
PDO data JISAO Here
TSI data NOAA Here
TSI data NASA Here
TSI data Max Planck Here
CO2 data Siple Station Ice Core Here
CO2 data Mauna Loa Here
GHCN raw data Here
USHCN raw data Here
UCAR raw data Here
Antarctic data: Here
European ECA raw (and gridded) data: Here
Italian Meterological Association's raw data Here
Satellite data (raw and otherwise, including solar irradiance) Here, Here, Here
The tide gauge raw data: Here
World glacier raw data: Here
ARGO (floats) data: Here
ICOADS: Here
Aerosol information: Here
More paleoclimate raw data: Here, Here, Here, Here, Here
Mann's data (for his first reconstruction) is available both on his site and at Nature: Here, Here, Here
NOAA global temperatures Here
Breaking (2009-Jan-22)
I just went back to the source data at UAH to see if the final month for 2008 had been added. The data has changed format, and the values have largely been changed from the original data set that I had downloaded. I am currently trying to find the source of the sudden vast changes to the UAH LT values but there is little information other than they are integrating in new satellite information with their current data. Frankly if their data is so unreliable that it changes by +/- 0.2C then I don't know how any credible research can be presented using these values.
Hypothesis (1) : Warming due to CO2 is approximated as 3 times the log of the ratio of carbon dioxide levels.
Hypothesis (2) : Temperatures in 2008 have returned to 1983 values. Problem: (a) 1983 has a nasty little peak in it thanks to an el nino and PDO positive; potential cherry picking accusations. (b) 2008 has an anomalous drop thanks to la nina, PDO cooling and a solar minimum; potential cherry picking accusations. (c) Even if true, has little/no meaning as these are global temperature instances and not trends.
Using carbon level data from Carbonify we have:
CO2 in 1983 = 341ppm
CO2 in 2008 = 384ppm
Increase = 3 x ln(384/341) = 0.37C
Using the data from UAH we get the graph below (note the 12 month mean smoothing). The simple regression line shows a 0.42C increase. Hypothesis (1) has done very well. Yay IPCC.
Hypothesis (2) somewhat true but technically inaccurate. The top of the peak in 1983 does seem to be at a level with the bottom of the drop at the end of 2008. However the average temperature increase in 2008 is 0.11 and in 1983 is -0.02. So using year is somewhat disingenuous and the hypothesis should be restated to the minimums of three months in 2008 were below the maximum month of 1983. Apart from a nice sounding factoid this actually demonstrates nothing about climate change. In fact this should be exceedingly worrying, 1983 with el nino and heating PDO can only get to the minimum of 2008 with a la nina, cooling PDO and solar minimum.
Hypothesis (3) : There has been cooling since 1998. Problem: (a) That's a very short time to find climate change effects. (b) 1998 was an exceedingly warm year thanks to el nino and a warming PDO; potential cherry picking accusations. (c) 2008 is affected by la nina, PDO cooling and solar minimum which should easily overshadow the minuscule rise in temperature attributed to carbon dioxide over this short time period.
Use the same data, fit a regression line. Oh dear, hypothesis (3) fails. There is actually a slight increase (obviously not statistically significant given the obvious climatic variation, you will want a longer time period to identify a trend). VERY worrying given the conditions of 2008, a cooling PDO and a low solar output - we should have cooling but do not!
All of these experiments are easily repeatable with the UAH data and a little spreadsheet skill. Usually simple linear regression lines are a click away. Alternatively you can use the SLOPE() function.
An even quicker way is to use WoodForTrees site to do it all for you. Check the 30 year trend from 1979 to 2009. On this site you can play with multiple temperature data sets as well as graph the total solar irradiance, the PDO, sunspots, CO2 levels and so on. Check out the lower PDO and TSI in the last decade of the 1979-2009 year trend: PDO down, TSI way down, however temperatures remain steady/increasing.
Pacific decadal oscillation PDO, PDO data
Southern Oscillation El nino / La nina
Solar cycle Solar minimum / maximum
For data on PDO, la nina, el nino and Solar cycle years.
These are very simple data to graph constructions. There are no other factors or alterations of that data over and above what UAH may have done. If anyone can see where I am going wrong please feel free to point it out with clear precise instructions on what algorithms will improve it or what I may be failing to take into account. Opinion and belief need not apply.
More Data
The following is a list of data of various types from various sources for anyone who fancies playing with the numbers themselves.
Temperature data UAH Here
Temperate data (etc) GISS Here
Temperature data RSS Here
Temperature data CRU Here
PDO data JISAO Here
TSI data NOAA Here
TSI data NASA Here
TSI data Max Planck Here
CO2 data Siple Station Ice Core Here
CO2 data Mauna Loa Here
GHCN raw data Here
USHCN raw data Here
UCAR raw data Here
Antarctic data: Here
European ECA raw (and gridded) data: Here
Italian Meterological Association's raw data Here
Satellite data (raw and otherwise, including solar irradiance) Here, Here, Here
The tide gauge raw data: Here
World glacier raw data: Here
ARGO (floats) data: Here
ICOADS: Here
Aerosol information: Here
More paleoclimate raw data: Here, Here, Here, Here, Here
Mann's data (for his first reconstruction) is available both on his site and at Nature: Here, Here, Here
NOAA global temperatures Here
Breaking (2009-Jan-22)
I just went back to the source data at UAH to see if the final month for 2008 had been added. The data has changed format, and the values have largely been changed from the original data set that I had downloaded. I am currently trying to find the source of the sudden vast changes to the UAH LT values but there is little information other than they are integrating in new satellite information with their current data. Frankly if their data is so unreliable that it changes by +/- 0.2C then I don't know how any credible research can be presented using these values.
2008-11-06
No to Australian Clean Feed
The "Clean Feed" sounds like a really good idea. But it is not.A plan is afoot in Australian Federal government that is going to make the internet worse for nearly everybody to stop a tiny minority of pervs who will easily bypass these measures anyway. A large investment and inconvenience for no effect other than being seen to do something.
The "Clean Feed" will slow your internet access down, making it unusable for some purposes that rely on speed.
The "Clean Feed" will block legitimate web sites, not on purpose, but because they will trigger flags in the filter algorithms, such as breast cancer sites.
The "Clean Feed" opens the way for future abuse, where the filter is used to block unflattering information and legitimate criticisms of the government or of companies with effective lobbyists in the government.
The "Clean Feed" will cost a lot to implement.
The "Clean Feed" won't prevent the determined people from obtaining the illegal or explicit material that they want.
The "Clean Feed" cannot guarantee that explicit material will never accidentally slip past and be viewed by children.
Just stupid. Stop the failure before it begins.
Thought Police (CourierMail)
Worst minister for communication ... ever (smh.com.au) 2
Filter advocates need to check their facts (abc.net.au)
Alternative three-step safe Net plan for families (sage-au.org.au)
ISP-level content filtering won't work (zdnet.com.au)
Filtering trial a failure (efa.org.au)
The Net Censorship: Liberty or Tyranny (libertus.net)
Net censorship backlash (theAge.com.au) 2
Giants say no to porn filter trial (AustralianIT.news.com.au) 2
Clean Feed Backdoor (PCAuthority.com.au)
Worse than Iran (BrisbaneTimes.com.au)
Conroy misleads the Senate on 'illegal material' (DefendingScoundrels.com)
2008-10-16
Microsoft Access Runs Slow
*** Check the printer (see below)
Why MS Access?
Ugh. Most of the research that I am involved with has the requirement that data be collected in isolated settings. Which means no internet, no network, no support and sometimes not even any power. Still, the principle investigators would like data to be entered on site. I like using a web front end on a nice enterprise rated database management system, however this just doesn't cut it for the remote sites.
Inevitably, after examining the offerings of Epi Info or EpiData, we fall back to Microsoft Access. Not because MS Access has any particular inherent quality over these other packages, but more because if there is any local support then they may very well be able to handle MS Access rather than EpiData. Plus most investigators know of MS Access and have seen some of the slick databases that we have produced as opposed to the almost hideous but functional results one gets from other software.
What is wrong with Microsoft Access? Many things. The worst of which is that the databases tend to bloat themselves full of air rather quickly, esp if I start dynamically modifying forms; in 2007 you can tell access to compact itself on exit ... but if you're running the database on a network drive then you might just find the entire database has deleted itself, I kid you not. 250 fields per table is a very sad limitation with regards to questionnaires despite what some normal form nazis would say. Occasionally MS Access will put itself in a state where it will crash for no readily apparent reason when editing forms, although I have to say that version 2007 does this far less frequently. The object oriented nature of things means that vital options are splattered all over the place in hard to locate places. Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) can make discovering that vital little property a rather lengthy investigation (but nothing as bad SAS). Form construction can be a right dog compared to HTML. The creation wizards (forms, reports, tables etc) are almost worse than useless.
However the results can be pleasing, and the level of control is well above that of most other packages. Once you have built up a set of standard VBA modules then you can become quite efficient at producing solid forms which can produce codebooks, analysis conversion code, some statistical output and so forth.
When Microsoft Access runs slow
Occasionally you run into a nasty problem; like when Microsoft Access (2007) starts operating exceedingly slowly when you are editing forms or reports. Clearing temporary files, removing and reinstalling Microsoft Office, cleaning the registry (thank you CCleaner) just doesn't seem to do squat. Then just as you are about to defrag the drive and are contemplating wiping the whole system to reinstall everything from the operating system up, you realise the network printer server is down. Set the default printer to something local and MS Access speeds right back up again. What the hell?!
Why MS Access?
Ugh. Most of the research that I am involved with has the requirement that data be collected in isolated settings. Which means no internet, no network, no support and sometimes not even any power. Still, the principle investigators would like data to be entered on site. I like using a web front end on a nice enterprise rated database management system, however this just doesn't cut it for the remote sites.
Inevitably, after examining the offerings of Epi Info or EpiData, we fall back to Microsoft Access. Not because MS Access has any particular inherent quality over these other packages, but more because if there is any local support then they may very well be able to handle MS Access rather than EpiData. Plus most investigators know of MS Access and have seen some of the slick databases that we have produced as opposed to the almost hideous but functional results one gets from other software.
What is wrong with Microsoft Access? Many things. The worst of which is that the databases tend to bloat themselves full of air rather quickly, esp if I start dynamically modifying forms; in 2007 you can tell access to compact itself on exit ... but if you're running the database on a network drive then you might just find the entire database has deleted itself, I kid you not. 250 fields per table is a very sad limitation with regards to questionnaires despite what some normal form nazis would say. Occasionally MS Access will put itself in a state where it will crash for no readily apparent reason when editing forms, although I have to say that version 2007 does this far less frequently. The object oriented nature of things means that vital options are splattered all over the place in hard to locate places. Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) can make discovering that vital little property a rather lengthy investigation (but nothing as bad SAS). Form construction can be a right dog compared to HTML. The creation wizards (forms, reports, tables etc) are almost worse than useless.
However the results can be pleasing, and the level of control is well above that of most other packages. Once you have built up a set of standard VBA modules then you can become quite efficient at producing solid forms which can produce codebooks, analysis conversion code, some statistical output and so forth.
When Microsoft Access runs slow
Occasionally you run into a nasty problem; like when Microsoft Access (2007) starts operating exceedingly slowly when you are editing forms or reports. Clearing temporary files, removing and reinstalling Microsoft Office, cleaning the registry (thank you CCleaner) just doesn't seem to do squat. Then just as you are about to defrag the drive and are contemplating wiping the whole system to reinstall everything from the operating system up, you realise the network printer server is down. Set the default printer to something local and MS Access speeds right back up again. What the hell?!
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