September 2007

After posting about how fast things change in the computer hardware field, I came across this 25 year-old film by the University of Toronto that compares and contrasts various sorting algorithms. I was fascinated with these algorithms when I was in college and after watching this 30 minute film, I can assure you that I’m still intrigued by the subject.

The most interesting thing I realized from watching it is that sorting algorithms haven’t changed at all since this movie was made. That is, quicksort is still the most widely used sorting algorithm (followed closely, I’m sure, by bubble sort — not because of it’s efficiency, but because it’s the way we humans sort physical things (i.e. playing cards), so naive programmers often “reinvent” this way of sorting in code, only to find out later just how slow O(n²) algorithms actually are). Most modern computer languages provide built in sorting routines these days, and those routines use quicksort.

So, even though our computers are getting faster and smaller at an exponential rate, the theory behind efficiently programming them was largely finished decades ago. Of course, this is all on the verge of disruption as we start dealing with multi-core parallel processing and quantum computers where algorithms like quicksort that we’ve grown to rely on no longer work very well and start to look like poor, old bubble sort.

That’s when I know it’ll be time to retire.

A friend sent me a link to this photo that demonstrates Moore’s Law. For those of you that don’t know what that is and are unwilling to click the link and read about it yourself, Moore’s Law states that “the number of transistors that can be inexpensively placed on an integrated circuit is increasing exponentially, doubling approximately every 18 months.” The big drum-like device in the picture is what it took to store 1 gigabyte 20 years ago, and the little compact flash card that the hand is holding is 1 gigabyte today (well, I guess it’s been like that for a couple of years now — you can now find cards of the same size that hold 16 gigabytes).

This picture reminded me of the first hard drive that I owed, purchased for my new Mac Plus in 1989. It was 20 megabytes (not gigabytes — a megabyte is roughly 1/1000 of a gigabyte) and was about 18 inches x 18 inches x 5 inches in size. Having been programming computers without hard drives for years before that purchase I remember thinking to myself, “I’ll never fill that up.” Of course, 8 months later I was having to delete things off the drive (mostly games) to make room for more term papers. Ah, the good old days.

Compare this with today. I have a RAID5 network-attached storage device (basically, a big hard drive connected to my network rather than a single computer) that has 1.5 terabytes of storage (a terabyte is roughly 1000 gigabytes or approximately 1,000,000 megabytes). Of course, when I bought this device, I avoided the hubris of thinking that I’d never need more space. We’ve already filled half of it.

I kinda saw this one coming ever since I heard the audio tape of Larry Craig’s police interview after his arrest for soliciting sex in a men’s bathroom at the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport.

Now, I’m no Larry “Self-Loathing” Craig fan, but when I heard the under cover police officer interrogate Mr. Craig, I was able to put aside my partisan feelings for a moment and thought to myself, this is a bogus charge that would be easy to railroad a public official with. Of course, I think the ACLU put it best when they said:

It is a crime to have sex in public. It is not a crime to propose or solicit sex in public, whether it’s in a bar or in a bathroom. [...] To be able to solicit sex in private, in public spaces, for instance, is constitutionally protected speech.

-Anthony Romero, Executive Director, ACLU

I’m guessing that the good people working at the ACLU are likely not big Larry Craig fans (probably because if the charges were against someone else, it is unlikely that Mr. Craig, with his history of anti-gay rhetoric and voting record, would have defended them). But, that’s why I love the ACLU. They are the definition of an apolitical organization. They defend Americans’ rights, period, no matter who you are nor how socially abhorrent your speech may be. If your rights are abridged by the government, you can be sure that the ACLU will be on your side. That’s why I’m a card carrying member and it’s why you should be too.

Of course, the ACLU isn’t defending against the fact that Mr. Craig is a hypocrite. It’s up to the citizens of the great state of Idaho to decide if they are bothered by hypocrisy. I, for one, hope Mr. Craig survives this ordeal and comes out the other side as a more tolerant, honest, and self-actualized individual. Conservative or not, no one should lose their job and personal/professional relationships over federally protected free speech.

So, there we were at The Electric Fetus, browsing through the new releases section when we were struck by a light blue CD with a handwritten label above it that said, “If you like Tapes ‘N Tapes, you’ll like Mouthful Of Bees.” Having just ended an overdose month of listening to nothing but Tapes ‘N Tapes, we decided to give it a try, sound unheard.

Imagine my giddiness as I listened to Mouthful Of Bees (my apologies for the myspace link — that’s all they seem to have *sigh*) and heard influences from many of my favorite bands. There was a little Ween, a little Archers Of Loaf, a whole lot of Superchunk, and even a Spoon-ish riff here and there. Finding out that they were a local band (like TnT) only made the find sweeter.

I’m now officially in the middle of an overdose month of MoB and I’m enjoying every minute of it.

Amazon | iTunes | eMusic

Under The Glacier by Mouthful Of Bees from The End

I had a heck of a time picking only one track for my self-imposed rule of “TrackODay” (as opposed to, perhaps, “AlbumODay”). There are no tracks on the album that sound like filler, and better yet, they don’t sound all the same. So, don’t take my choice as a “quintessential” Mouthful Of Bees song because I have no idea what that might sound like. Listen to the album yourself and see if you can spot other influences that I’ve missed and post them as a comment below. I’d be more than interested in checking out any band that sounds like they influenced MoB.

After a short respite from our morning walks due to a business trip for Jennifer and stitches for Babbage, we’re back. Nothing fancy today, just the tried and true Bryn Mawr Meadows walk.

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