Hashemian Blog Web Tools, Financial Markets, Technology Saturday, May 24, 2008 Phoenix's Mars Landing  I bet the team in charge of the Phoenix spacecraft is not going to enjoy a restful night as they prepare to land this hunk of metal near Mars's north pole tomorrow. I'll probably sleep fine, but I'm hoping for good news tomorrow. This landing is specially poignant, since the last craft (Mars Polar Lander) that attempted a powered landing using retro rockets went MIA on Mars over 8 years ago. The rovers sent up since then have all utilized successful airbag landings, but Phoenix is going for the traditional soft landing and that means edgy nerves while awaiting a successful touchdown signal nearly 9 ½ months after its launch. Unlike the rovers, Phoenix is a stationary craft, designed to survey the area for water and primordial matter. Depending on its discoveries, it could pave the way for future missions, culminating in manned exploration of the red planet. For me this is an incredible triumph of science and engineering, specially since I'm still amazed at seeing 500-ton airplanes getting airborne and traveling vast distances. The fact that a tiny craft can be controlled from 35 million miles away is nothing short of miraculous. Here is the Phoenix blogs updating the events surrounding this mission. Good luck, guys. space,mars,nasa Labels: science, space <Phoenix's Mars Landing> // posted by rh 0 comments | Friday, May 23, 2008 Sales, Politics, and Religion  For a brief period in my career I was encouraged to try my hand at sales. I was ok at it and made decent commissions but in the end I knew that sales wasn't my calling and I returned to my passion, technology, mainly programming. That brief stint taught me one lesson in salesmanship. When on a sales call, steer away from passionate topics, specially when you don't know which way the prospect is leaning. References to religion and politics should be avoided in favor of more neutral topics, unless the product is geared towards a certain persuasion. Today I was shown an online demo of a Web product. The salesman had worked hard to secure a slice of my time to showcase his product. The part I found curious was the demo Web pages I was being shown. They included news articles about the Pope's Visit with Bush, Christianity, and the Church. Now I have no problem with these topics when used in the context of product demonstration, but I wondered if the salesperson knew about my liberal, religion-free mindset, would he have still picked these topics for his product demo. The salesman never lead the conversation towards politics or religion, and we kept the conversation on-topic, centered around the features of the product and the cost of implementation. But I could imagine that another liberal person might have reacted negatively to all this and written the whole thing off. The point is that avoiding emotionally charged topics such as religion and politics, however indirect, is a prudent policy when making a sales pitch to someone you don't know. This salesman may experience much higher success if he picks safer, more neutral examples for his demonstrations. For example, I'm not interested in team sports, but I doubt anyone would have a negative reaction to samples depicting baseball bats . Why take a chance on distracting or alienating your prospects when your goal is to secure their business? sales,politics,religion,pope Labels: politics, religion, sales <Sales, Politics, and Religion> // posted by rh 0 comments | Wednesday, May 21, 2008 Particle Accelerator and Black Holes  I'm no scientist, but I do have a keen interest in science. That's why I was fascinated with the The Large Hadron Collider experiment that's about to be commenced at CERN in Switzerland. The basic idea is to replicate (or try to) the conditions moments after the alleged Big Bang by creating a high-energy collision of sub-atomic particles in a gargantuan tunnel and see what happens next, as in, if that results in any matter being created. The reason I use the word "alleged" with Big Bang is that the phenomenon is really a theory. No one knows exactly how the world came to be and obviously that has been a dead-locked debate between creationists and evolutionists. But before this cosmic experiment can reach its full momentum, there are a couple of earthly hurdles for CERN to clear in the form of lawsuits. Apparently a few scientists are worried that this experiment could create a man-made Black Hole which could envelope Earth and extinguish life as we know it. So they are trying to put a stop to the experiment to save mankind. Perhaps CERN should play the song "It's the End of the World as We Know It" by R.E.M. as they fire up the instruments. Or how about "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden? Most of the scientific community dismisses such claims as baseless, but one wonders about the what-if factor. I suppose there's a slight probability that a cataclysm could occur as a result of the collision which may engulf our planet. If that comes to pass, I hope it's quick and painless. I'd hate to wake up one day and see a black hole encroaching on my yard, sucking in everything in its path as it expands. At current gas prices, I might think twice about jumping in my car and speeding away. cern,black holes,big bang,quantum theory,physicsrem Labels: science <Particle Accelerator and Black Holes> // posted by rh 1 comments | Tuesday, May 13, 2008 Seatbelts and Risks  Since my last seatbelt ticket I have given the seatbelt law some thoughts. While in my mind this is an oppressive rule, there is one other side of this law that I hadn't considered before. I have always argued against mandatory seatbelts due to infringement on personal freedom. I don't disagree that they can help save lives and minimize bodily harm. And yes, there is the potential for curbing additional societal cost (police, medical, etc.), but that could lead to the slippery slope of banning many activities since there's always some level of risk and potential financial loss associated with them. My position is that as long as the risk is generally on the risk-taker, personal freedom should trump protection of self by coercion. In extending that argument to seatbelts, I had neglected to consider another side of this issue and that is the possibility of severe financial and emotional risk to others. The new perspective popped into my head while driving to work the other day. Suppose that due to my negligence I cause an accident. And suppose the other driver wasn't wearing his seatbelt and as a result he is gravely injured or he dies. Since the accident was my fault I would be faced with a large financial liability, not to mention the emotional guilt I would suffer for causing injury or death to another individual. If only he was wearing his seatbelt, he might have walked away from the accident with superficial wounds. I would still be liable for property damage and medical treatment, but the scope of damages would be much smaller and my emotional stress would be nowhere near that of the first scenario. So it can be argued that by not wearing my seatbelt I'm creating additional risk not only for myself but more importantly for other drivers as well. Looking at this argument from a non-selfish point of view I have now begun to realize that if I am the cause of an accident I hope that the other driver was buckled up. But even if the fault was with the other driver and he wasn't buckled up, I might still suffer the trauma of having been involved in a fatal collision. Judging on that, perhaps the seatbelt law isn't as oppressive as I had initially thought. Of course this argument can again enter a slippery slope and extend far beyond wearing seatbelts, but that's a subject for another time. btw, which is the correct spelling, seatbelt or seat belt, or both? If had to guess I'd go with the latter (Wikipedia also has the latter), but I have also seen the former used frequently. seatbelts,traffic laws,accidents,lawsuits Labels: law, seatbelts <Seatbelts and Risks> // posted by rh 0 comments | Thursday, May 08, 2008 Seatbelt Ticket, Again  And so the law caught up with me again for the third time, barely 9 months after my last seatbelt ticket. This time I was caught in my own little hometown while driving to work. I was alert enough to see the cop standing by the side of the road looking into cars. I scrambled to grab the belt but it kept slipping out of my hand and by the time I had a good grip, I was spotted and got pointed out of the traffic. Game over. As I waited for the cop while he was checking my license and registration, I thought the only thing I hated more than wearing the seatbelt was to pay the fine. I could mount no defense. I had clearly broken the law and the officer was just doing his job. Other than that, I consider myself a law-abiding driver. I drive defensively, observe all traffic rules, and I don’t chatter on a cell phone. I don't even have a cell phone. The policeman's gruff manner had changed by the time he returned. He actually apologized for taking long to check my papers (I had handed him an expired registration) and gave me a $37 ticket. Not too painful, considering the fact that my last one was over $100. I suppose being a town resident had something to do with softening him up. The police department is requesting a sizeable budget from the town for upgrades and there's a lot of grumbling from the taxpayers who are fed up with high taxes. The referendum is coming up soon and there's no need to harass the already irritated residents. As I continued my commute with the seatbelt fastened I kept fighting the contraption to get some breathing room. I felt like a shackled prisoner in my car, trapped and pinned down to my seat. Several times I was distracted from the road while I kept yanking on the belt to loosen the death grip. Clearly this wasn't going to work. Obviously fighting this law through civil disobedience was going to cost me a lot of money and a bad record. The apparent solution was in the form of a small keychain store card. I pulled the belt far enough to keep it loose about me and then jammed the card through the slit on the top hook. That put enough pressure on the belt preventing it from being recoiled by the spring. After adjusting the length several times, I think I finally achieved a good balance between looseness and a buckled seatbelt. I'm not sure if what I've done is illegal or constitutes tampering, worthy of a fine. while I have slightly inhibited the natural operation of the seatbelt, I haven’t made any changes to the mechanism itself. I consider it more of a superficial adjustment, but I suppose it has somewhat reduced the belt's safety factor. For now this allows me to be a more alert driver, while hopefully dodging another ticket. By the way, I don't recommend anyone doing this. Drive safely and wear your seatbelts. seatbelts,law,seatbelt law,traffic,police,traffic laws Labels: law, seatbelts <Seatbelt Ticket, Again> // posted by rh 0 comments | Sunday, May 04, 2008 Yahoo's Fate After Microsoft  While many are preparing for a dark day for Yahoo's share when the market opens on Monday, I don't think the shares will get battered too roughly, although there will be volatility. Microsoft's withdrawing of its offer isn't good news to many, but speculation on what Yahoo may have up its sleeve might keep the stock from slipping too far. It's possible that Yahoo overplayed its hand, but it's also possible that Yahoo may have had other plans, yet to be revealed. The plans could involve Google, or private equity, or even something far-fetched like Oracle. And in the end, nothing says they can't get back to negotiating with Microsoft. Only this time, they would probably keep it quiet, until a final deal is stuck. Yahoo,microsoft,google,oracle,finance Labels: business-finance, google, Microsoft, yahoo <Yahoo's Fate After Microsoft> // posted by rh 0 comments | Amazon Bezos Kindle Letter  Amazon.com has been displaying a letter from its founder/CEO Jeff Besoz on its homepage touting Kindle. In case you don’t know, Kindle is Amazon's ebook gadget. After users buy the book-sized device, they can download and read various books and publications from amazon for a fee. Apparently Amazon underestimated demand on initial release, but now it has caught up and that's what Bozos' homepage letter is trying to convey. What's interesting about this letter is that it is entirely a PNG image, not HTML text and tags as one might expect. An image map is used to activate a few hyperlinks in the letter. I can't figure out why this letter needed to be an image. At first I though that perhaps its content is being protected from search engines, but then I noticed that the entire letter content was stuffed into the alt parameter of the <img> tag, something search engines can easily read. The images is served from the host "g-ecx.images-amazon.com." Interestingly entering this URL in the browser redirects the page to "www.imdb.com", an Amazon company. Surely most people wouldn’t even notice the format and the ones who do will have a who-cares reaction. In my case I like to understand why things are done in a certain way. I've seen amateurish sites constructing Web pages from images. Amazon is a technology powerhouse. There had to be a reason this homepage letter was not in standard HTML, but that reason escapes me. Someone must know. amazon,web,kindle,jeff besoz,html Labels: amazon <Amazon Bezos Kindle Letter> // posted by rh 0 comments | Thursday, May 01, 2008 Google Image Labeler  Here comes Google with yet another Beta version of a product. Only this one is like a game with a fun twist and could get quite addictive. The object of the program is to use human intelligence to label images. As powerful and ubiquitous as computers have become, there are still many tasks that us humans are still more skilled at. In this case, identifying a photo or an image (especially a blurry or a vague one) is a task best left to the human brain. Amazon has capitalized on the same concept with its Mechanical Turk site. In that site people create tasks, called HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks) and invite others to respond. They could be research quizzes, surveys, categorizing web sites, or writing articles. Responders are paid for successfully finishing the tasks and Amazon keeps a commission. In Google Image Labeler, Google harnesses its vast visitor pool to assign labels to images. Two people are paired at random for each round and for 2 minutes are shown random images in sequence. Participants are tasked with coming up with as many labels as they can for each image. One side doesn't see the other side's suggestions. If one of the labels match, the participants are given a score and they move on to the next image. Or they can skip the image. What's in it for the participants? A journey into the psyches of 2 randomly connected people for 2 minutes at a time, and accumulating scores, perhaps for bragging rights. And for Google? A cost-free experiment to more accurately identify the images in its vast database. Since participants don't know each other and time is short, they are motivated to quickly suggest the most appropriate labels based on their visceral reactions. If you get a chance, give Google Image Labeler a shot. Just be warned that it could get addictive. I had to stop myself after a few rounds, lest I waste hours in oblivion. Speaking of Google, the stock climbed another 19 points or 3.25% percent today to $593. Since its low of $413 on March 10 (barely 7 weeks ago), it has risen nearly 37%. Could've, should've, would've. google,amazon,images,human intelligence,mechanical turk,psychology Labels: amazon, google, web <Google Image Labeler> // posted by rh 0 comments |

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