codyg1985’s Think Tank

High-speed rail travel is very lucrative. The prospect of hopping on a train in Chicago and arriving in New York City an hour later is all but a pipe dream at this point. For one, the train would have to make a bee line from Chicago to NYC without stopping. Second, the train would have to be a high speed train operating on an entirely new rail line that is designed for high speed travel (no grade crossings, at least two tracks, minimal curvature and elevation change along the route). This is fine for Chicago and NYC, but what if a friend from Cleveland wants to join you on the trip? How would he get on the train if it doesn’t stop?

Well, the high speed train you are on doesn’t have to stop. Instead, your friend would hop on a shuttle train at Cleveland. The shuttle train would depart Cleveland before your train passes through Cleveland. The shuttle train would get up to full-speed just as your train catches up to meet with the shuttle train. The shuttle train, being on another track beside your train, would then connect with your train to allow passengers to switch. People bound for NYC would switch to your train, and those bound for Pittsburgh would switch over to the shuttle train, which would then disengage and slow down for the trip to Pittsburgh. The same process would repeat for those that wish to go to NYC from Pittsburgh.

Obviously, this is a highly synchronized dance at 350 mph, but it would provide the best of both worlds for high speed rail service.

I love to visit social bookmarking sites such as Digg and Reddit. Those sites comprise about 75% of my news gathering on a typical day.  It is a great way of keeping up with not only news events, but funny, informative, and even sometimes blasphemous material. However, these sites are a two-way street: your reputation on these websites is not only related to what you vote up or down, but also by what items and comments you submit, and how those things are judged by other users.

You find something that’s interesting and newsworthy, and you try to submit it. Chances are though that someone has beaten you to the punch. So what do you do? Submit anyway?

On most of these sites, the more votes you get for your story, the higher your reputation becomes, and the more visible that story becomes. If your story has already been submitted, then your story is a duplicate, or dupe for short. Dupe stories rarely make their way to the top, and if they do become more visible then it may receive many down-votes from other users who have noticed that the story is indeed a dupe. However,  this does not always apply to those people with an extremely high rep. The person with the higher rep could submit an item that has already been submitted, but since that person has a higher rep, the site algorithm promotes the story faster, and as a result it gets more votes, even though it is a dupe story.

So this is a chicken and egg problem. In order to make sure your story is promoted to the front page, you have to have a high rep, but in order to have a high rep, you need to have stories that get promoted to the front page.  What does a person that doesn’t have a high rep do here? What if that person just wants to submit a story that may have already been submitted?

My point is that dupes should not be frowned upon. Sure, you may see seventeen thousand stories about Apple releasing a polished turd that wipes your butt for you, but the point is that these people are making a contribution to the site. Dupes should also contribute to rep. Obviously not as much as original stories, but they should still count. The amount of rep that should be awarded should be a function of 1) How many dupes have been posted beforehand 2) The time elapsed between the original article and this dupe, and 3) If a different source was used from the original article.

Suppose there is a topic about Microsoft announcing details concerning Windows 7.  Submitter A may submit an article from source A, which may have a slight bias towards Microsoft. Submitter B may submit an article about the same subject, but it may originate from source B, which has a slight bias against Microsoft. Submitter C may submit an article from source C, which may analyze the details of the subject at hand.  Submitter A may be first, but submitter B may submit 10 minutes later, while submitter C may submit two hours later. Should submitter A get all the rep while B and C gets no rep?

One solution to this would be to form a sort of “topic tree” where a single item is listed, and underneath that tree you have each and every submission that is related to that item. For example, for our example with Windows 7, it may look something like this:

• Microsoft announces Windows 7 Details
  • Windows 7 to deliver faster performance, new interface
  • Windows 7 to deliver new interface, performance tweaks
  • Windows 7 to be incompatible with many hardware, new drivers needed
  • A closer look at Windows 7 Beta 1
  • Screenshots of leaked Windows 7 Build 6023
  • Microsoft won’t be able to deliver in time with changes

All of the items have to do with Windows 7 and the new details surrounding it, but each article takes a different look at the topic. Some of the items may be dupes, but it contributes to the overall topic at hand. Perhaps the amount of dupes an article receives may contribute to the rep of the article or subject matter itself.

What do you think?

The more and more I read about Barack Obama, the more I liked about him. He champions net neutrality. He supports funding education and health care. He wants to bring our troops home, and he says it without being a hypocrite. I attended a Barack Obama rally in Birmingham, AL in January right before the Super Tuesday primaries, and I liked him even more.

Unfortunately, there is a big dealbreaker for Obama that calls my support for him into question. NASA currently is developing the next vehicles and support systems for a return to the Moon and later to Mars.  Those systems will replace the aging Space Shuttle. As it stands now, this system, called the Constellation and Ares programs, will become operational around 2015, five years after the Space Shuttles are retired. That is a five year gap in which we have no way to send a human to low earth orbit, let alone anywhere beyond. Barack Obama wishes to delay the Ares and Contellation programs by five years in order to fund education:

Barack Obama’s early education and K-12 plan package costs about $18 billion per year. He will maintain fiscal responsibility and prevent any increase in the deficit by offsetting cuts and revenue sources in other parts of the government. The early education plan will be paid for by delaying the NASA Constellation Program for five years, using purchase cards and the negotiating power of the government to reduce costs of standardized procurement, auctioning surplus federal property, and reducing the erroneous payments identified by the Government Accountability Office, and closing the CEO pay deductibility loophole.

That does not sit well with me. At all.

Education is on life support in this country. It needs fixing. However, cutting NASA to fund it is simply the wrong thing to do. NASA has always operated on a budget that just barely keeps up with inflation; however, the return on the investment that comes from NASA programs far exceeds that of any other government agency. Let’s be honest, NASA does have a bit of a bad rap since most good programs go ignored by the media while mishaps get all the attention (but that’s another discussion). Going back to the Moon will be the shot in the arm that NASA needs to not only recruit more employees, but inspire many young children to study science and mathematics. Take that inspiration away, and what is there left to inspire them? What will be there to inspire kids to follow their dreams? Maybe that can be taught somehow under Mr. Obama’s education plan.

A lot of people are upset as it is because after the Space Shuttle is retired in 2010, we will be relying on the Russian Soyeuz in order to deliver humans to and from the International Space Station.  Delay Ares and Constellation, then the Russians or even the Chinese will hold the keys to human space flight while we sit back and watch our space program cycle around the drain in the sink.

Mr. Obama has said that NASA is “no longer associated with inspiration.” If the Ares and Constellation programs are delayed, then how exactly will that change?  I agree that right now NASA isn’t exactly associated with inspiration, but my question is what do you, Mr. Obama, plan to do about it? Cutting funding and changing the NASA vision once again will put yet another nail in the coffin of our space program. There will be a lot of inspiration when China makes it to the moon and plants their flag there.

Until Mr. Obama lays out a detailed space plan, I support no candidate for President.

I am a pretty good student. I don’t like to brag (I have a 3.85 GPA). I get a lot of offers to join these honors societies, and I have been getting them ever since last year.  Some are open to engineers. Others don’t discriminate based on major.  Many others are service organizations. Still others are not really so much honors societies at all as much as they are organizations that serve a purpose both inside and outside of academia.

What do all of these have in common? Well, no matter how distinguished your resume is or how high your GPA is, no matter how many clubs or organizations you are involved in, you get to pay dues to join the honors society.  Of course, these organizations have to fund themselves some way. Most of them offer scholarship money to those that are distinguished enough (read above). Some honors societies charge a one-time fee to join and that is it while others charge a membership fee to join and then an annual membership due.

Again, these organizations have to fund themselves, but it makes you wonder: are you paying someone to provide you with an impressive resume entry? After all, some of these honors societies are just that: honors societies whose sole purpose of existence is to recognize those who work hard and earn a high GPA. So the trade-off is that you pay a one-time membership fee (or yearly dues, depending on the organization) and in exchange you get to say you are a part of this honors society. It is not a lot to ask from the person paying the due; maybe it is asking too little?

I may as well keep up with a list of things I would like to do before I die. I have a few of them so far:

• Spend a day at Cajon Pass in southern California: I am a big railroad fan, so anytime I see a train or a locomotive, I enjoy watching it pass by. Cajon Pass is the gateway for many railroad lines into the Los Angeles Basin and therefore the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. As a result, many trains pass through this area (pun intended). Combined with the majestic scenery of the mountains and the trains roaring through, this would surely be a day I would not soon forget.
• Camp out at Lyon’s Ferry State Park in southeast Washington:  Lyon’s Ferry State Park is situated right next to the massive Joso Bridge which carries a railroad line across the Snake River.  The area would be pretty during sunset, and it would not be a bad place to camp out anyway. It is also quite arid in that area, something I am certainly not used to here in the humid southeast.
• Ride the TGV in France: since we’ll never see a true high speed rail network in the United States in my lifetime, I would like the opportunity to ride the high-speed rail network in France. Maybe ride a train from London to England so I can ride through the Chunnel.

I am in the thinking mood tonight.

The candidates for President are on the campaign trail talking about the usual talking points. For the Republicans it is all about national security, family values, immigration, and lowering taxes while for the Democrats it is about health care, the economy, the war in Iraq, education, and tax breaks for the middle class.  However, neither party seems to want to talk about a few issues that may be just as important, but few people have thought about or know about.

The first issue is funding for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA. Funding for the agency has risen since its formation in the 1960’s, but when adjusted for inflation, NASA’s funding maxed out during the Apollo program.  With plans to develop the Ares I and V rockets as the successors to the Space Shuttle and further plans to return to the Moon and to Mars, funding for developing those rockets is needed now. Without it, our link to space will be severed once the space shuttle is retired, which will have tremendous implications for the completion of the International Space Station, satellite repair missions, and the return to the Moon.  Maybe space should not be something to be spending money on right now, but the fact is that much of today’s modern gadgets were developed from technology used in NASA missions. The pursuit of knowledge by mankind as well as more advancements in technology are more than enough to sustain funding for this agency.

The second issue that I consider to be important is net neutrality.  Basically, the issue rests upon who has control over what you can access on the internet. As the popularity of video websites such as YouTube soar, telecommunications companies are claiming that there simply isn’t enough bandwidth available for everyone to have a slice of the pie. Not everyone will be able to keep downloading videos, movies, music, games, the kitchen sink, and the bathtub.

Some telecommunications corporations propose that a fee be charged if someone accesses websites that fall into the high-bandwidth category. This leads to internet “packages” if you will: you pay a basic rate to get access to about half the internet. Want to check your MySpace or see that video on YouTube of the guy breaking his leg after jumping onto a trampoline? Then that will cost you more money per month.  Want to run a website? That extra bandwidth will cost you too. Time Warner Cable has already unveiled a plan to charge customers a rate if the customer exceeds their monthly bandwidth quota. Information should not be restricted from access based on how much of it there is.  Restricting access to that information based on its format or distribution medium puts too much power in the hands of telecom companies, and it threatens the free flow of information across the internet, which up until now has been considered a free medium.

The third issue that I consider to be important some people may think is hogwash.  That is the idea of a national high speed rail network.  Right now the only operating high speed rail system in the United States is Amtrak’s Acela line between Washington, D.C. and Boston, MA. It operates on an electrified rail line at speeds up to 150 miles per hour (mph). For many taking the train is a less expensive and faster alternative to driving or flying in the Northeast. However, outside of the Northeast, there is little passenger rail access outside of Amtrak and local commuter rail operations. Most of the time the only alternatives are flying and driving. For cross-country distances, flying would probably be preferable to high-speed rail, but inside of a region, high-speed rail would be more economically feasible for some than flying or driving. Just print the ticket online or at the train station, wait for your train to arrive, and you are good to go. No metal detectors, no security checks, and no taking your shoes off.

There are plans underway to extend the Northeast corridor south from Washington, D.C. through Richmond, VA, Raleigh-Durham, NC, and Charlotte, NC on a segment called the Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor (SEHSR). Extensions from Charlotte would bring the line to Atlanta, GA and Birmingham, AL.  California has also developed an authority to oversee the design and construction of a high speed rail system within that state. Other states have shown interest in their own systems.

Many of the proposed systems are not affiliated with Amtrak. Amtrak is notorious for poor, unreliable service, and few locations are served.  The interstate system is a great way to move people across the country, but something needs to fill the gap between driving and flying. A high speed rail network would provide an alternative to flying or driving between inter-regional cities, which would unclog some of the highways and airports across the country.  In order to develop a high speed rail network, new track will need to be laid that can be grade-separated. Funding is needed to expedite the existing projects from the drawing board to reality. Interconnecting our cities with high-speed rail will help to make our country that much smaller and easier to access. Which would you rather do if given the choice to travel between Nashville, TN and Atlanta, GA? Would you rather drive I-24 and I-75 and negotiate with traffic and big rigs, go to the airport, get searched, fly for an hour or so and deal with the mess that is Hartsfield Jackson Airport in Atlanta, or hop on aboard a train and watch the scenery go by?

This is going to be one of the most contested elections for President since the election of Dwight D Eisenhower in 1952. The 2008 Presidential Election could also be a historic one, since it will be the first change in president since September 11^th. There are many hot-button issues these days, and there are a lot of candidates for both parties to match. For me, personally, there are a few key issues that will greatly influence my decision for who I shall vote for, and those issues are health care, immigration, foreign policy, and the economy.

Health care costs hit close to home. As a Type 1 diabetic, insulin and testing materials are my lifeline, Put bluntly, without these, I am dead. Approximately 48 million people in this country are uninsured. Many others are under-insured and have to pay steep co-pays for prescription medications and doctor’s visits. Health care in this country is top-notch; however, it comes at a steep cost. Many senior citizens are forced to choose between their medication and food, and both medication costs and food costs are soaring. Most college students such as me are alright under their parents’ health insurance, but at age 23, many of those people will be kicked off their parents’ policy. If a college student doesn’t graduate from college by that point and have a job with health benefits, then that college student had better not get sick or have a pre-existing condition.

The United States is one of a handful of first-world countries without some sort of universal health care system. Why is that? Free health care for everyone; it sounds like a good idea right? A government health care program would just increase the size of government. Someone is going to have to pay for that system, and that would be you and me. Such a system would have to be paid for somehow, and it would be likely that taxes would have to be increased in order to fund the system. Also, let’s not forget that hard-working Joe will get money drawn from his paycheck to pay for Bob’s stomach-stapling surgery that Bob could have avoided if only he would have practiced better dieting and exercising.

Moreover, with no competition, a government system would be a monopoly with no incentive to innovate or speed things up. Wait times could be through the roof, but since the government is running it, there is no incentive to change anything. Not only would wait times be long at the doctor’s office (which you may have not choice in picking for yourself), but if you need an operation, there could be a long wait before your turn comes up. Sure, it would be free, but you may die while waiting for that critical, life-saving surgery.

Instead, maybe the government can bid out a contract to a low bidder for a health care policy for seniors and lower-income individuals. Basically, such a system would provide the same level of health care that most employee policies provide, and it would be there for those that can’t afford an individual policy or for those that have been denied for whatever reason. Competition between insurance companies can drive the cost down, and it could also help to lower the costs of prescription medications.

Let me pose this question: can you go up to someone, look that person in the eye, and tell that person that he or she is going to die because they can’t afford to pay the cost for open-heart surgery? If you can, then you are much stronger than I.

In my next blog post, I shall discuss why immigration reform is imperative to driving costs down here at home.

How small does the earth have to be before I am ripped to shreds?

No, this is not a suicide note.  Hardly.  Let’s suppose that the Earth maintained the same mass, but it was to shrink at a constant rate.   As you may know, as the density of the earth increases, the magnitude of tidal forces increases as well.  In a nutshell, tidal forces result from the force of gravity being stronger at one point on a rigid body (such as a human) than on another point.  The tidal force, or gradient, is not noticeable on the surface of the earth, but close to a black hole the gradient is strong enough to stretch your body like a piece of spaghetti in a process called, amusingly enough, spaghettification.

To perform the calculations, we need some data. First, know the mass of the earth to be 5.97 x 10^24 kilograms and the radius of the earth to be 6.378 x 10^6 meters. The gravitational constant, G, is 6.673 x 10^-11 m^3 kg^-1 s^-2. For the human subject, I am the guinea pi, so we are using my weight (68.039 kg) and height (1.651 m) in the test.  Next, we make a few assumptions.  Firstly, we assume that the cross-sectional area of my ankle bone is 3.32 x 10^-3 m^2 and the cross-sectional area of my thigh bone is 1.91 x 10^-2 m^-2.  We also assume that the ultimate breaking strength of human bone is 1.24 x 10^8 Pa.

Next, we need some equations in which to calculate the appropriate values.  Firstly, the value of the tidal force is calculated by taking the difference in gravitational force at my head and the gravitational force at my feet.  That is:

We also need to calculate the normal stress at my ankles and thighs. The formula for stress, represented by the lowercase Greek letter sigma, is

From those equations it is easy to calculate the forces and stresses at different radii, leaving everything else constant. We have to do a lot of shrinking before we start disconnecting any bones. Once the radius of the earth reaches 5 km, the tidal forces are enough to rip your ankles clean off.  Shrinking even more to where the radius is 125 m, then your leg goes bye-bye.  If we keep going until the Earth is the size of a ping pong ball (radius of 8.87 mm) then we have ourselves a black hole. That value is calculated from the Schwarzschild Radius equation.

As the former administrator of an online community, I learned a few things about what it takes to run a forum.  As I look back I also realized a few things that should have been done differently.  Often I wonder what it would take to start a community to begin with. What does it take to build a community from the ground up, and what does it take to give a community that element that keeps people coming back for more?

A community in the sense of this article is a common website on the internet and the people that frequent that website. If people visit the website on a regular basis, then those people can be called members of that community.  The more members a community it has, the more vibrant and attractive it becomes for more people to join. The website often, but doesn’t have to, includes a forum for community members to voice their opinion and interact with each other. The forum often contains the mechanisms necessary for the members to communicate with each other on an individual basis.

If you are running a successful website, then chances are you have a pretty large following of people that visit on a regular basis.  Even a blog can become large enough to be considered a community. All that is needed is to give people a way to communicate on a more direct level; either through a forum or with a personal message system. However, if you don’t have a website or if you don’t have a website with a large following, then how do you create a community?

First thing is to find a unifying element or theme.   It can be anything you have a profound interest or knowledge of.  Maybe it is something that people may have in common with each other.  For example, you may know a lot about underwater basketweaving.  You may be able to use that knowledge to create a website about it.  You may go to school at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (shameless plug, I know). Since you know other people that go to the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), maybe you want to create a website for UAH students to visit for the latest dirt on their professors.  Perhaps there is a cause that you believe strongly in. Maybe you think that Election Day should fall on a weekend. Maybe you want to create a website that explains your argument that Election Day should fall on a weekend.

Next you should ask yourself whether a forum would be needed on the website. You may not know a lot of people falling head first to ask you questions about underwater basketweaving, but you have a lot of people that are wanting to share info about their boorish professor at UAH.   If you believe that people are going to want to interact with each other on your website, then a forum or comment system would be a good idea to implement into your website.  Those things will help to develop a community.

Are you the only one that will be working on the website?  Starting a website on your own is not a bad idea, but developing a website into a community takes a lot of work. If there are no people around, then other people are not going to want to join the party. The more people you have to help you get your website/community off the ground, the seeds of the community will have been planted, and the interaction between the staff members can attract members.

Of course, your mileage may vary.  The strategies you use and the unifying element that you choose to build a community around will determine the type of people that will join your community.  Running a website about politics will be much different from running a website about kittens. If you make the right decisions and recruit the right help, then your website could grow quickly into a vibrant community. The possibilities are endless.

Have you stocked up on milk and bread? Do you have a generator? If not, then you may not survive the great Blizzard of 2008. The TV people say it is gonna get worse and that people must be careful. After all, snow causes accidents. Just one flake can cause massive amounts of accidents and panic.

Every year it is the same thing. There is the potential for wintry precipitation (snow, sleet, or freezing rain), and the media machine begins to warm up. It is going to snow. It could accumulate. Travel conditions could be tricky. The only word people hear is snow, and then the people take the message and run. Grocery stores are packed as folks stock up as if Armageddon was upon the world. People act like the road all of a sudden is an ice rink.  All for what? The snow rarely does come down in an amount that justifies the media frenzy that is as predictable as humid, hazy summer in Alabama.  Every year the media perpetuates the notion that southerners don’t know how to act in a snow storm. Just imagine what would happen if there was an actual blizzard here.  The news anchors would collectively sh*t their pants and squeal with delight.

I am not a snow hater, but I am a realist. The ambient temperatures are just above freezing, and the snow will change to rain as warmer air makes its way in the mid layers of the atmosphere. So even if it is snowing so much that white out conditions are prevalent, soon the rain will spread in and melt away any snow that does stick. We will all wake up the next morning and for the most part not have any issues getting to work or school. Maybe in NE Alabama there will be some icy spots, but there won’t too much in the way of snow.  You wouldn’t believe that if you visit your local grocery store or if you listen to five minutes of TV coverage.