Dr J's Blog

BP Oil Dissaster is our Chernobyl

2010-06-06T15:14:00.005-05:00

The commentaries have been slow to recognize the BP oil disaster for what it is by making early references to the Exxon Valdez oil spill or the damage done by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The devastation to wildlife, endangered species, and entire ecosystems in the Gulf are just the beginning. Basic laws of physics would suggest that the oil must spread over an ever widening area of the ocean, except for that which gets captured by obstacles like shorelines and marshes. Eventually there will be evidences of it landing all up and down the Atlantic coastline or its effects even further out. Beach workers in the clean up effort have observed how hot the oil is since it is capturing solar heat, which probably means there are disruptive temperature side effects throughout the ecosystem as well. A few people on the newscasts have speculated about decades-long dead-zones for animal life or the long term health care effects on those who continue to live in these coastal areas. Eventually, someone will recognize that clean water and systems that produce drinkable water from it are negatively impacted. Perhaps Chernobyl would seem by some to be an over-the-top analogy for the disaster we face, but I don't think so.

So what is Joe Biden's "pay-grade"?

2009-09-06T16:26:00.001-05:00

Last week Vice President Joe Biden used an old favorite phrase of his, "that's way above my pay grade", as part of a response to a health care policy question. Now that he is a heartbeat away from the chief executive officer of the most powerful country in the world he should retire that phrase. It makes no sense and begs the question of who all these superiors are at various levels above him. The phrase itself is about decision making responsibility and influence, not money. I have always liked Joe and still do. I like the fact that he continues to be himself in this ultra-controlled administration. But if he continues referring to his lowly pay grade it will bug me to no end- like Bush's persistent and stubborn mispronunciation of Nuclear.

The Big Dog is Back

2009-08-09T14:47:00.000-05:00

Comedians had a field day last week after Bill Clinton traveled to North Korea to secure the release of female journalists Ling and Lee. The jokes were the obvious ones that most of us could have written, however the Daily Show showed more creative humor with their "The Big Dog is Back" piece. John Stewart had fun focusing on Bill Clinton's satisfied facial expression and welcomed its return, as if it has been missing for so long; then Stewart showed Clinton's intensely defensive expression from back when he was campaigning for Obama. It was a funny piece. Bravo to the comedy writers who don't just go for low hanging fruit. The Daily Show delivers again.

Obama is human after all

2009-07-26T11:03:00.000-05:00

To me the more interesting and newsworthy element of Obama's "stupidly" remark regarding the arrest of Professor Gates by the Cambridge police is that President Obama has personal feelings on certain issues that probably catch even him by surprise. As controlled as he has been on some of the most difficult and complex of audiences and issues, this is the one that got him in a candid moment, albeit before the press corps, when a thoughtful and measured response is his norm. The fact that Professor Gates was a friend and that the issue itself is one that he and his friends have probably faced just greased the skids. It would be interesting if the news networks would survey their own staff, or ask for a show of hands when they have a group of diverse commentators on air, to see how many of them have been stopped by the police for reasons they felt were suspicious. The commentators talk about how this is a problem or not a problem in the abstract.

Best Sunsets - Southern Iowa

2009-07-23T10:59:00.000-05:00

It’s that time of year when I start noticing the sunsets here in Lamoni, Iowa. I first took notice years ago as a visitor who brought kids to the annual “Sports Spectacular” camp on the campus of Graceland College (now Graceland University). Now I live and work here so I get to see them often. I don’t know what it is about this place—the clouds, the climate, the geography, the jet stream, or whatever. Sunsets here can be brilliant with colors that extend all across a sky of clouds and last forever. An Iowa thunderstorm can prepare the sky for a truly spectacular sunset. I have yet to be anywhere that matched this, be it north, west, east or south, on the seas, Hawaii, Australia, Virgin Islands, or elsewhere. I have certainly seen some great sunsets elsewhere, but if I took the time to get my camera they were gone.

The 100% Solution... Not!

2009-07-22T08:53:00.000-05:00

I saw a CNN story today about a principal who achieved excellent results with his inner city students. Soledad O'Brien asked him how many of his graduates went on to college and he said 100%. Not to take anything away from his particular success story, whenever I hear a high statistic like that I want to know the hidden statistic about those who were disgarded to achieve this statistic. If the goal is 100% then risks will not be taken and perhaps fewer students are served. I wish reporters would dig deeper. Watch out for the 100% statistic (or any statistic used to make someone look good or bad). Years ago I saw a news story rating hospitals based on a simple death statistic. The reporter failed to dig deeper into the meaning of the numbers, most likely provided by someone who felt advantaged by the data. Nothing was said about hospitals who looked "good" because they treated younger and healthier inpatients on average, due to demographics or questionable practices. Rural hospitals with much older inpatient populations naturally looked worse. Another example of this has been professional schools that claim 100% of their graduates pass some licensing exam on the first try. What does this mean? Do the faculty work tirelessly to make every student a success or do they discourage at-risk students from getting in or getting to the end. It may be a little of both, but the 100% statistic is as much a red flag as it is a testimonial.

An IE8 workaround when it brings up a cached page (manual refresh)

2009-07-15T09:27:00.000-05:00

I am running into some issues with IE 8 which is my default browser (I use Firefox and Chrome too, but not as the default). I get email alerts to check my Roaring Penguin pending spam but when I click the link I see the cached page, not the current one. What I should have gotten was the login page. I would have gotten that if IE8 would have loaded a new page rather than retrieved the one from its cache. The solution-- press the refresh button if I am not asked to login. That brings up the login dialog and I see the current list of pending spam. I cannot find (yet) a way to force IE8 to always load any link to a dynamic webpage (e.g., to a php file with our without variables in the URL). I don't know if this will work for AJAX or other dynamic page links.

Gettin Started with Blogging

2009-07-13T10:27:00.000-05:00

Okay, okay, okay--- I am finally trying to enter into a variety of social networking technologies. I guess its about time since I am a computer science professor and have been involved in the CS and IT industry in some fashion since the early 70's. I want to see how to integrate my blog site, twitter, facebook, Google tools (like reader), and my old fashioned technologies (email and web sites). As a Computer Science Professor from Graceland University (Lamoni, Iowa), summer is the time to experiment and learn. However, this summer I have a lot on my plate. I am beating my head against the wall trying to get SAMBA set up properly on some "virtual" Linux servers so that faculty, students, and others will be able to access them in all of the ways that they expect to come fall semester. I am almost there, but the UNC addresses for mapping drives from Windows clients is not working. I broke down and purchased the O'Reilly book on Samba for help. I needed something more comprehensive than my Google searches were getting me. I attended a workshop last week on Social Networking for business and that has diverted my attention from the Samba configuration. In a couple of weeks I get to move into a newly remodelled Science Building and I have to do some administrative things as Director of the Ackerley Computer Science and Technology Scholars Program. Seems like summer flies by too fast to get everything done. That is the nature of computer and network technology. Always something to upgrade, manage, and troubleshoot (hardware, software, or mindware).