Well it is Friday, November 13th, 2009

I am not superstitious or anything like that, but I still believe in the supernatural to a degree.

Hey, the universe is just too vast and largely unknown not to at least ponder the idea of strange things going on about in the woods.

But as an engineer 13 is just a number, and it is the is the 7th prime in the series of positive integers (and yes IMHO 1 is a prime since it is divisible by 1 and itself).

Just because the result is the number that you started with doesn’t make it not a prime in my book.

As for -1/-1=1 that is part of number theory that I will not address here.

The G-unit was annoyed that I got home early today, and he can just bite me!

He had Molly locked outside in the cold and she was barking her brains out.

Usually he works out between 1200 and 1300 hours when he is not irrevocably linked to his TV set.

It is now 3:00 in the afternoon, and if he’d get off the damn computer and stop jerkin' off for a few minutes we would not have had a time conflict problem here.

He refuses to workout when I am in the basement; and I have yet to understand why to be quite honest.

But it is fine with me if he doesn’t, he plays his music way too loud fucking loud and I can't concentrate, and he is a tenant after all.

This is my house and I am more than accommodating as such.

If he and the pig decide to move out next month, all I will miss is the $500/month in rent that he pays.

But not him.

It will be a wash since we will no longer have to feed him, 1/3 fewer showers 1/3 fewer laundries,
and we will not to have to come home to a kitchen of disasters every day anymore.

Not to mention he won't be pushing the thermostat up to 80º during the day while Edward and I are at work.

And the the trail of debris that seems to follow him everywhere he goes.

He is in a word a slob.

I have been working on a huge math project in Excel involving Shock Response Spectra for the past two days that will save me loads of time and major headaches.

I have been doing it sort of under the radar because trying to explain what I am doing and why it not only saves me days worth of tedious calculations and the company loads of pissed away money.

That it helps everyone involved (and mostly me).

After all we can charge the customers for it, and data reduction is not free.

I only let Miller (our chief engineer who is in his 70’s) know what I was working on and frankly he was amazed at the solution that I had come up with in Excel.

It was rather complicated and involves calculus and multiple logarithms in 4 axis’s using acceleration, displacement, velocity, and frequency.

Both of which I suck at, but I did it flawlessly (so far).

X1 and Y1 were easy, X2 and Y2 were more complicated because I had to interpolate the values and draw them by hand.

Tom looked at the plots and said; "WOW! How did you do that?!"

Hey, I kick butt in Excel folks.

In any event I got my +40 hours in this week and now I can just relax for a bit.

And 13 is just another prime number it seems, so all and all, it was a good day.

Now if I could just find a date for the weekend, life would be good...

Peace

Namaste’

John

;o)

Happy tales for some former fighting dogs

By CHERYL WITTENAUER
AP
ST. LOUIS (2009-Nov-11) -- Dozens of American pit bull terriers netted in the largest dogfighting raid in U.S. history are finding homes despite some who predicted aggression or trauma would make them unsuitable as pets.

More than 120 of the animals have been placed in foster homes or are headed there this week through the efforts of pit bull rescue groups throughout the U.S. An additional 117, like the scarred but smiling Tulip, await their turn.

"They are not a vicious animal. They are the victims of abuse," said Debbie Hill, vice president of operations for the Humane Society of Missouri. "That face and their eyes tell the story.

They only want to be in someone's home, on a couch, or sleeping at someone's feet, maybe chew up a rug or two for entertainment. They're learning for the first time how to be a dog."

In the days leading up to the July 8 raid, the Humane Society secured a cavernous industrial warehouse in St. Louis that it transformed into an emergency shelter for the hundreds of dogs seized in Missouri and Illinois. About 100 dogs seized in other states were taken by rescue groups elsewhere.

Once at the Missouri shelter, dogs were tested by a national team of certified animal behaviorists, taken on walks, and allowed to chew on bowling balls stuffed with peanut butter. Some finicky eaters were treated to home-cooked chicken breasts to supplement meals of dog food.

The Human Society offered The Associated Press first access to the site Tuesday. During the tour, puppies born since the raid took turns playing tug of war with a chew toy in a play room. Humane Society staff members pulled a catering cart down a long row of dog cages, calling animals by name as they slid them bowls of food.

Some, like Pacific, were shy, quivering in fear of new visitors. Others were extroverts, springing on hind legs to say hello.

The foster homes will acclimate the dogs to the noises and rules of a household, and teach them basic manners.

Animal behaviorist Pamela Reid, who was part of the team that evaluated the dogs, said a surprising two-thirds tested well for nonaggression and adoptability. She's fostering one puppy, although one her favorite dogs had to be euthanized because he showed aggression toward men.

Hill said 160 dogs were put down because of injuries, illness or behavior. None of the puppies showed aggression, Reid said.

Tim Rickey, who heads the Humane Society's anticruelty task force, said the raids proved the underground dogfighting industry is pervasive.

"We scratched the surface," Rickey said. "We could have done several of these (raids) in Missouri alone."

—

On the Net:

Humane Society of Missouri: www.hsmo.org/


I truly love my Stafford-shire American pit bull terrier Molly.

She may be the best dog that I have ever had, nothing but rescue dogs for me from now on...

;o)

Telescopes Make Stunning Galaxy Photo

www.Space.com
(2009-Nov. 10) — A giant composite image of the Milky Way's center has been taken by NASA's three Great Observatories — the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes and the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

The image, unveiled by NASA today, was made to celebrate the International Year of Astronomy, 400 years after Galileo first turned his telescope to the heavens.

This is one of the most detailed images to date of the heart of the Milky Way. The galaxy's center is within the white spot near the right edge of the photo.

NASA released the image Tuesday to mark the 400th anniversary of the telescope. It is a composite of images from three observatories: the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes and the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

The pictures of our galaxy's hub combines a near-infrared view from the Hubble Space Telescope, an infrared view from the Spitzer Space Telescope, and an X-ray view from the Chandra X-ray Observatory into one multiwavelength picture.

Experts from all three observatories carefully assembled the final image from large mosaic photo surveys taken by each telescope. This composite image provides one of the most detailed views ever of our galaxy's mysterious core.

More than 150 planetariums, museums, nature centers, libraries, and schools across the country have received a giant 6-foot-by-3-foot print of the stunning image.

Participating institutions also will display a matched trio of Hubble, Spitzer, and Chandra images of the Milky Way's center on a second large panel measuring 3 feet by 4 feet.

The composite image features the spectacle of stellar evolution: from vibrant regions of star birth, to young hot stars, to old cool stars, to seething remnants of stellar death called black holes.

This activity occurs against a fiery backdrop in the crowded, hostile environment of the galaxy's core, the center of which is dominated by a supermassive black hole nearly four million times more massive than our Sun.

Permeating the region is a diffuse blue haze of X-ray light from gas that has been heated to millions of degrees by outflows from the supermassive black hole as well as by winds from massive stars and by stellar explosions.

Infrared light reveals more than a hundred thousand stars along with glowing dust clouds that create complex structures including compact globules, long filaments, and finger-like "pillars of creation," where newborn stars are just beginning to break out of their dark, dusty cocoons.


WOW that is just awesome!

And it is not 2 million light years away, this is our home...

;o)

AMA Opposes Military's Policy on Gays

Group Also Says Gay Marriage Bans Widen Health Gaps

By LINDSEY TANNER
AP
CHICAGO (2009-Nov-10) -- The American Medical Association on Tuesday voted to oppose the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, and declared that gay marriage bans contribute to health disparities.

The nation's largest doctors' group stopped short of saying it would seek to overturn marriage bans, but its new stance angered conservative activists and provides a fresh boost to lobbying efforts by gay-rights advocates.

"It's highly significant that the AMA as one of this country's leading professional associations has taken a position on both of these issues," said Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, a Washington-based advocacy group.

The health disparities measure "in the long run, will certainly help efforts to win marriage equality," Carey said.

Whether the AMA's lobbying power will hasten efforts to overturn the "don't ask, don't tell" law remains to be seen. President Barack Obama has said he is working with congressional leaders to end the policy, and the AMA's stance will likely help, although gay rights issues have been upstaged by Obama's health care overhaul battle.

The AMA's vote took place at the group's interim policy-making meeting in Houston, a day after AMA delegates voted to affirm their support for health reform.

The health disparities policy is based on evidence showing that married couples are more likely to have health insurance, and that the uninsured have a high risk for "living sicker and dying younger," said Dr. Peter Carmel, an AMA board member.

Same-sex families lack other benefits afforded married couples, including tax breaks, spouse benefits under retirement plans and Social Security survivor benefits — all of which can put their health at risk, according to an AMA council report presented at the meeting.

But Jenny Tyree, a marriage analyst for Focus on the Family Action, a conservative advocacy group, called it a health insurance problem, not a marriage problem. "We all know there are problems with health care so let's solve the problem of the uninsured, rather than messing with marriage," she said.

Doctors who pushed the group to oppose "don't ask, don't tell" say the policy forcing gay service members to keep their sexual orientation secret has "a chilling effect" on open communication between gays and their doctors.

"A law which makes people lie to their physicians is a bad law," said Dr. David Fassler, a University of Vermont psychiatry professor who attended the meeting.

In other action Tuesday, the AMA moved closer to supporting medical marijuana, adopting a measure urging a federal review of marijuana's status as a controlled substance. That would make it easier to do research, which the AMA said could lead to development of marijuana-based medications that don't require smoking. The group said its position doesn't mean it supports legalizing marijuana.

On the Net:

AMA: www.ama-assn.org


Inch by inch bois and gurls...

;o)

Did We Domesticate Dogs, or Did Dogs Domesticate Us?

www.sphere.com
(2009-Nov-06) -- A new book by two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist Jon Franklin concludes that man's best friends may have been responsible for our emergence as the alpha dogs of the animal kingdom.

We wouldn't be who we are without them. So we rewarded them with a lifetime supply of Snausages and Purina Puppy Chow.

Well, it's a little more complicated than that.

Franklin's book, "The Wolf in the Parlor" (Henry Holt, 2009), traces "the eternal connection between humans and dogs" through the millennia. His 20 years of research convinced him that we couldn't have made it without each other.

Dallas critic Bill Marvel calls the author's deductions a stretch. "Franklin seems to suggest that while we were taming the dog, the dog was civilizing us," Marvel wrote. "He reminds me a little of the dyslexic churchgoer who worshipped Dog."

But biological anthropologist Forrest Smith, a professor emeritus at the University of Akron, isn't troubled at all by the results of Franklin's detective work.

"I agree with him 100 percent," Smith said. Wolves and man were once virtually equals at the top of the predatory food chain, he said. It's logical to believe that the species had to collaborate to survive.

He said it's much the same conclusion that Michael Pollan reached in his book about plant life, "The Omnivore's Dilemma." "Did we domesticate corn or did corn domesticate us?" Smith asked. "We needed each other."

Franklin's book is a blend of emotion and science. Which is a lot like his career. His book "Writing for Story" taught a generation of journalists to bolt past details to the emotional center of the story. Yet he's equally respected among scientists. "I've been carrying around something he wrote about the importance of science for more than 10 years," said Dr. Emilie Clemmens, a professor at Cascadia College near Seattle who has a Ph.D. in bioengineering. "It defines who I am."

In an interview with Sphere, Franklin that he's shown the book to scientist friends and received little resistance to his results or his methods. "Science begins with emotion. Something triggers an emotional response, and then we investigate it."

His emotional response was triggered when he met the love of his life, Lynn, in the late 1980s. "Love me, love my dog," was their unspoken pact.

That's how the descendant of the wolf, a standard poodle named Charlie, came into his parlor.

The marriage and his relationship with Charlie flourished. The feelings that grew toward the dog piqued his scientific curiosity about the link between the species.

A decade earlier he had seen a photograph of the fossilized remains of a man who had been buried with a small dog or wolf cub in what is now Syria some 12,000 years ago. The man was reaching furtively toward the small creature.

Franklin stuck the picture in a drawer until he met Charlie. Two more decades of research led to the book.

Scientists generally agree that the first domesticated dogs appeared around 15,000 years ago, give or take a few dozen centuries. In those days, humans, as they still do, left a mess as they wandered about the planet. Some wolves found it was easier to follow the garbage buffet than to hunt for them.

Dr. Ray Coppinger, an animal behaviorist expert, argued in the book "Dogs" that the wolves began to domesticate themselves as they learned to live around humans. "It was natural selection," he said in the New York Times several years ago. "The dogs did it, not people."

Franklin suggested, though, that humans did play a role in the selection process. Sometimes, the wolf cubs made for a convenient dinner. The cuddly ones were less likely to meet the end of a club.

He noted something else unusual was happening then. The man in the photo's death occurred near the end of the ice age. About the same time, fossils show, the human brain was shrinking by as much as 10 percent. Yet we got smarter. "Suddenly and inexplicably we began to herd, dig, build, draw, plan and invent ... we became uncontested masters of the planet," he wrote.

He believes that our evolutionary dance with the wolves made it all happen. As wolves became dogs -- as the genetic research of Dr. Robert K. Wayne of UCLA has shown -- they herded our flocks. They warned us of nearby predators. They helped us hunt more efficiently. That gave us time to think.

Dogs, Franklin reasons, made us better people.

Just as Charlie nurtured him during their dozen years of walking together.

It's a lesson for us all.

"Just remember," Franklin said, "there's an animal on both ends of the leash."

Stuart Warner, an aol.com editor, also teaches journalism at Case Western Reserve University. He has worked with Jon Franklin on several writing projects. Dr. Clemmens is Warner's oldest daughter.


The chicken or the egg huh?

;o)

Hubble Gives Best View Yet of Star Birth

www.Space.com
(2009-Nov-05) — The Hubble Space Telescope's powerful new camera has taken the most detailed image yet of star birth in the nearby spiral galaxy M83. Nicknamed the Southern Pinwheel, M83 is undergoing more rapid star formation than our own Milky Way galaxy, especially in its nucleus.

A new camera installed on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured this amazingly detailed view of stars being born. In galaxy M83, also known as the Southern Pinwheel, hundreds of young star clusters are present, especially in the nucleus.

In this galaxy, the sharp eye of the Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) — newly installed this summer during the telescope's fourth and final servicing mission — has captured hundreds of young star clusters, ancient swarms of globular star clusters, and hundreds of thousands of individual stars, mostly blue supergiants and red supergiants.

WFC3's broad wavelength range, from ultraviolet to near-infrared, reveals stars at different stages of evolution, allowing astronomers to dissect the galaxy's star-formation history.

The new image reveals in unprecedented detail the current rapid rate of star birth in this spiral galaxy. The newest generations of stars are forming largely in clusters on the edges of the dark dust lanes, the backbone of the spiral arms. These fledgling stars, only a few million years old, are bursting out of their dusty cocoons and producing bubbles of reddish glowing hydrogen gas.

Gradually, the young stars' fierce winds (streams of charged particles) blow away the gas, revealing bright blue star clusters. These stars are about 1 million to 10 million years old. The older populations of stars are not as blue.

A bar of stars, gas, and dust slicing across the core of the galaxy may be instigating most of the star birth in the galaxy's core. The bar funnels material to the galaxy's center, where the most active star formation is taking place. The brightest star clusters reside along an arc near the core.

The remains of about 60 supernova blasts, the deaths of massive stars, can be seen in the image, five times more than known previously in this region.

M83 is located 15 million light-years away in the Southern Hemisphere constellation Hydra.


What a kewl instrument Hubble is...

;o)

Baguette-Toting Bird Stalls Atom Smasher

CNN
(2009-Nov-09) -- This is too weird: A bird reportedly has dropped a "bit of baguette" onto the world's largest atom smasher, causing the machine to short out for a period of time.

It's just the latest mishap for the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, which scientists plan to use to get insight into the universe's origins. The LHC, which has a 17-mile track to circulate protons and is located underground on the French-Swiss border outside Geneva, Switzerland, is the largest particle accelerator in the world and cost about $10 billion.

The Large Hadron Collider, represented here by a model at CERN (European Organization For Nuclear Research), was shorted out when a bird dropped part of a baguette into the atom smasher's external machinery.

The LHC booted up in September 2008, but technical problems forced it to shut down shortly after its launch. When the mystery bird reportedly dropped a piece of bread onto the particle accelerator's outdoor machinery earlier this week, the device was not turned on, according to reports, and therefore did not suffer major damage.

Had the machine been activated, the baguette incident could have caused the LHC to go into shutdown mode, the UK's The Register reports. The Register quotes Dr. Mike Lamont, a worker at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (or CERN), as saying that "a bit of baguette" had been dropped on the LHC, possibly by a bird.
A call to CERN's press office was not immediately returned.

ZDNet writes that the baguette in question did not have a chocolate filling:
"The [CERN] spokesperson said the bread, which was 'naked and unfilled,' had caused a short circuit when dropped on an electrical installation that supplies energy to the massive experiment. While the bird was unconfirmed as the definite culprit, it had been spotted beforehand near the substation carrying bread, said the spokesperson."

The avian accident has prompted a number of online parodies and jokes. CNET UK, a CNN content partner, writes jokingly that it's clear the bird was French since it was carrying a baguette: "We're not ones for crude for national stereotyping, but the detail that the bird dropped a bit of baguette suggests this must have occurred on the French side of the LHC. It's unclear whether the bird was actually riding a bike, or indeed wearing onions and a beret."

A Discover blog exclaims: "Zut alors!"

And CrunchGear says the strange incident shows the LHC is "so abhorrent to nature that the universe is contriving to snuff it out."


Never a dull moment over there it seems...

;o)

It is Monday morning and I am a bit worse for wear

1,000mg’s of Seroquel is just way too much, so it is back to 600mg’s in small steps.

And today is the G-unit's 47th birthday.

Not only did I not know that he is two years older than Edward, but for some strange reason I thought it was in February!

Welcome to “The Valley of the Dolls” folks.

God I really just dated myself there didn’t I?

Seeing as I am totally broke right now all he got was a hug and a kiss.

He wants me to fuck him but that ain’t happening.

We shall have hot roast beef sandwiches for dinner and a cannoli cream cake in his honor.

He is a Sicilian after all.

For reasons unknown to myself his name is not really Giuseppe, it’s Joseph.

Perhaps it makes him feel unique.

And boy does it ever, folks in quite a few states know who G is, and have probably fucked him at least once.

I know that when I was a lad that wished that I had been named Sebastian or Bartholomew.

John seemed so boring, but it was my grandfather’s name and so I am II.

Once again I had to take another unpaid sick day because of my doctor dicking about with my meds.

Mercifully my job is very understanding about my health issues.

And I appreciate it a lot, not many companies would put up with my high absenteeism.

We came to an agreement that they would be flexible with my hours and I would be a part-time employee.

I get no benefits, but I do have a job.

Since the State of New Jersey pays for all of my meds and for my healthcare through ADDP and HICP, it is a win-win situation for us all.

My only other option would be to go on total disability as Giuseppe is through Social Security and Medicaid.

And that just won’t pay the bills.

Even with all the medications that I am on (11 scripts last count) I still have days that I physically can’t get out of bed.

Bi-polar Depression is truly a debilitating illness.

Add to that child abuse, being bullied at school, being raped, HIV, and Hepatitis-B and then you have a fine kettle of fish.

And fuck stigma, I am living with it everyday.

I refuse to suffer in silence.

Nor should anyone have to.

My thanks to all of you who read what I write.

It helps me get through the day, honestly.

My lord Ganesh, remover of all obstacles.

Hear my quite prayer.

Clear our way to the true path.

Until the time we meet.

Peace

Namaste’

Shri Ganesh

John

Laundry, a nice cup of green tea, a Marlboro, and serious verbal diarrhea

I can’t say that I have noticed a big difference at this dosing level (aside from my knuckles dragging on the ground).

But the noises have basically stopped which is a good thing.

There is a “nothingness” about it however.

Folks on very high doses of anti-psychotics complain about becoming “disconnected” from the real world.

I agree.

I feel the “nothingness” as well.

As one’s symptoms pass, so does one’s ability to experience anything.

Maybe bad days are a “good” thing after all.

As and engineer and an empirical scientist we rely on standards.

Without a baseline, your data is basically garbage.

Fortunately I have a “standard” of mental health in the G-unit.

He has advanced AIDS dementia complex at age 45.

He functions on the fringe fairly well.

His new coffee machine makes him happy, so who cares if he keeps his pants up.

And the Black Forest Dark Roast it makes will certainly put hair on your balls.

I am having a cup of it right now, it will chase away some of the Temazapam cobwebs in my head.

We are quite the crew it seems, but I would not have it any other way.

My ex-lover Edward, a crazy demented roommate named Giuseppe, his pet pig Napoleon, and my Pit Bull Molly,

Life is good.

For the most part.

All I can say is that I am happy today.

Isn’t that enough?

And yes G is peeing in his coffee cup.

I like it, he is such a pig boy...

Peace

Namaste’

John

;o)

Partitions p(n)

In number theory, a partition of a positive integer n is a way of writing n as a sum of positive integers. Two sums that differ only in the order of their summands are considered to be the same partition; if order matters then the sum becomes a composition. A summand in a partition is also called a part. The number of partitions of n is given by the partition function p(n).

Examples

The partitions of 4 are listed below:

1. 4
2. 3 + 1
3. 2 + 2
4. 2 + 1 + 1
5. 1 + 1 + 1 + 1

The partitions of 8 are listed below:

1. 8
2. 7 + 1
3. 6 + 2
4. 6 + 1 + 1
5. 5 + 3
6. 5 + 2 + 1
7. 5 + 1 + 1 + 1
8. 4 + 4
9. 4 + 3 + 1
10. 4 + 2 + 2
11. 4 + 2 + 1 + 1
12. 4 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1
13. 3 + 3 + 2
14. 3 + 3 + 1 + 1
15. 3 + 2 + 2 + 1
16. 3 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 1
17. 3 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1
18. 2 + 2 + 2 + 2
19. 2 + 2 + 2 + 1 + 1
20. 2 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1
21. 2 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1
22. 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1

Yes this is all real hyper math geek stuff, but it is way kewl.

And no it will not change your life in anyway, but he did solve the puzzle.

Thank you Srinivasa

The entire article is at:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Part..._theory%29

;o)