care and feeding of graduate students (life as a professor)

I found my self thinking about the differences between “adult-centered” and “youth-centered” organizations. Which of these most reflections what your organization is like?

1. I, (last name, first name), joining the ranks of the  Pioneer Organization, in the presence of my comrades solemnly promise: to passionately love and cherish my Motherland, to live as we were taught, as required by the laws of the Pioneers.  (slightly edited)
2. I am a member of the Young Pioneers. Under the Flag of the Young Pioneers I promise that: I love <my nation>, the motherland, and the people; I will study well and keep myself fit, and to prepare for: contributing my effort to the cause. (slightly edited)
3. In the presence of this blood banner which represents our nation, I swear to devote all my energies and my strength to the  our country. I am willing and ready to give up my life for it, so help me God. (slightly edited)
4. In the name of God and <my leader>, I swear that I will execute his orders and serve the cause of the revolution with all my strength and, if necessary, with my blood. (slightly edited)
5. From this day forward, I sincerely promise to set an example for all youth to follow. I shall never do anything to bring disgrace or dishonor upon my God, my country, its flag, my parents, myself or the <organization>. These I will honor and respect in a manner that will reflect credit upon them and myself.  (slightly edited)
   1. Obey my parents and all others in charge of me whether young or old.
   2. Keep myself neat at all times without other people telling me to.
   3. Keep myself clean in mind by attending the church of my faith.
   4. Keep my mind alert to learn in school, at home, or at play.
   5. Remember having self-discipline will enable me to control my body and mind in case of an emergency.
6. On my honor I will do my best
   To do my duty to God and my country
   and to obey the Scout Law;
   To help other people at all times;
   To keep myself physically strong,
   mentally awake, and morally straight.
   A Scout is:
   1. Trustworthy,
   2. Loyal,
   3. Helpful,
   4. Friendly,
   5. Courteous,
   6. Kind,
   7. Obedient,
   8. Cheerful,
   9. Thrifty,
   10. Brave,
   11. Clean,
   12. Reverent

There is only one of these that focuses at all on our duty to help each other. The others focus much more on obedience. There is something different about that.  Only one of these organizations tries to develop the kind of person that is a citizen of a democracy.

You can probably guess (young poineers (1,2), Itallian Fascist (4), Hitler youth (3), Young Marines with creed(5), and Boy Scouts (6)).

GSU’s internet went down today. Actually the internet-based phone system reached critical numbers of restarts and took down the rest of the network. It was basically a self-inflicted resource denial attack.

In essence, if too many of the phones request a new IP address at once, the delay on the response from the DHCP server takes longer than the time that the phone waits for its IP address. (It is a little more complex than this as the phones also download their system software so the process takes a “measurable” interval.) So the phone stops listening and eventually issues a new request. Which of course, reinitialises the process. If the request does not get addressed in time it issues another request, after a “random” delay. So the whole thing snowballs out of control and soon the network is full of nothing else than DHCP requests and invalid responses.

It would not make sense to size the network and phone-DHCP server for maximum possible load. (although maybe a bigger size might make sense). The capacity would not be needed 99.999% of the time – which is a huge waste of resources.

It uses a stochastic algorithm that works well when the load is moderate and which fails catastrophically above a critical threshold. Is there a way to cross over to a more deterministic algorithm when it would be needed? (Right now they more or less manually reset parts of the network).

A simple solution would be a gated network of physically distinct subnets, where each sub-net was smaller than the maximum capacity of the DHCP server. Then using a deterministic switch between each sub-net would let the the sub-net’s recover, while limiting the damage. This description is a bit simplistic but could work. This is somewhat similar in spirit to “token-ring”, but for DHCP only.

Another simple solution would be to use a different physical layer for the phones and the data. This would work, but defeats the economic advantage of the internet phones. On the other hand, it would preserve the integrity of the data network – which is sort of important when the students are registering online for their courses and faculty are trying to write grant proposals. (but then that’s another cost center).

Edit:
Apparently the crash was caused by “water damage”.

There is a software-only solution though. The central server should monitor the depth of its queue of unresolved requests. When this gets too large, it should issue “shutup” messages to the clients, reset the queue to zero, and then systematically (in O(n)) check and restart as needed. While this may take longer for total reset, it is bounded and more importantly will not shut the network down.

A glock 17/22 (22 caliber conversion) with a holster and 10 rounds of 22lr weighs 753 grams. (the 9mm version would be about 200 grams heavier)

My crew-sized first aid kit, which has everything needed to stabilize some fairly severe injuries (though not gunshots) and treat minor injuries for a couple of weeks, weighs 506 grams.

So which is it that I should carry in the backcountry?

Asterix threw a wobbily and I lost a bit. This is from the last backup and will be udated as I can.

Google’s page caches can be recovered with a search to cache:http://asterix.cs.gsu.edu/blog which gives the first few pages.

Thanks,

The BBC had an article about the benefits of walking for depression. More evidence, if any were needed, that getting outside is good for you.

Adult leaders in boy scouts are what is called mandatory reporters. This means that when they have a real suspicion or evidence of an instance of child abuse, or fighting or bullying or harm to a child, they have to report it to the relevant authorities. If it is an event at a scout event the relevant authority is the scout executive – otherwise it is your local child protection agency.

This is one of the responses that the BSA has taken to head off a scandal because of weak responses in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Unlike Penn State or the Catholic church, they took the problem seriously and are now in the lead with a good reputation.

I recently had to go through this process (I cannot say anything about why or where). What happens is that you eventually get through to a skilled professional scouter. He (at AAC) listens to what you are aware of and if he thinks it may be reportable gets a written description. The written description is then reviewed by BSA’s legal counsel at National Headquarters and then the executive is told whether to report it or not. Simple, easy and straightforward.

The difficult part of this is not the professionals. You will upset some people in your unit. I’ve had threats, insults and demands to resign. All for following as closely as time allowed the guide to safe scouting. No one ever said doing the right thing was easy – but it is part of what we teach the scouts and what we swear to do as eagles.

The UK National Health Service (NHS) was highly bashed during last year’s heated debates about health care in the US. “Socialist Medicine”, “rationed care” and “second rate care” were high among the comments.

We had a chance (unfortunately) to use it for emergency treatment, and the criticism is highly misplaced.  Unlike the US, we were admitted without an extensive fiscal check before the physical check – indeed the emergency part of the treatment was covered (though we may have a bill awaiting for a second visit).  It took less time than is usual in Atlanta.  The standard of care was as high, if not higher, than here.   (I’ve never had a US M.D. re-xray a broken bone the next day after putting it in a cast to make sure it was still in place)

To be honest, the NHS has its problems, but it has undeniable strengths.  Having used it, I find it hard to argue against.

P.S.
The total bill from the UK, including a visit to an orthopedic specialist and two x-rays, was 154 pounds.

Now I know why so many southerner’s are libertarians – local government doesn’t work!  Three inches of snow followed by a small amount of sleet and the city of Atlanta is shut for two days (at least).

Anyway I got some cross-country skiing in – and on major roads that should have been cleared for emergency services if nothing else.

Being familiar with driving on this sort of stuff I could get out, but where would I go? Everything else is shut (slight exaggeration, some of the grocery stores are open).

I think it was Arthur Clarke who pointed out that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I didn’t think I’d live to see that happen. But the Republican candidate for senator in Delaware had “dabbled in witchcraft”, and many (but certainly not all) of the conservatives as well as a fair number of the “green left” show an abysmal lack of understanding of science and technology.

While I certainly can’t claim to understand all of the details of every bit of semiconductor technology, the ‘gentleman’s acquaintance’ with material physics I had as an undergraduate is still valid and I can appreciate the mechanism of solid state electronics – including the rather complex ones that run our computers. However, if I didn’t have that it would be easy to drift into magical thinking about the most interesting machines people have built.

Technology must be scary to the ignorant.

With the recent passage of the health insurance reforms, there is a lot of hot air, about states’ rights and the right not to be insured. There are a couple of rights that are forgotten, and I want to state them.

1. The Right Not to Pay for Unnecessary Critical Care.  It costs between $2000 and $4000 to pay for anyone to visit the emergency room.  When that person is indigent or simply doesn’t have insurance, then that cost gets passed on through taxes and fees to the rest of us.   Most of the time, these people are coming in with problems that had they been treated earlier at a community clinic or regular Dr.’s office or in fact were simply treated in a non-emergency manner would be $10-$100 to treat.  I want the right not to pay my part of that cost difference!
2. The Right to Not Sin Gratuitously. I don’t usually wax religiously or self-righteously, but really is a sin to leave people ill and in pain.  As a society we are judged not by how treat the rich, but how we treat the weak.  Most of the right wing, who are highly upset about the reforms, claim to be Christians, yet Jesus repeatedly said, if you believe the gospels, that it is how we treat the poor and the ill that matters.  That’s why he said “love your neighbor” was the central commandment.  He said almost nothing (at least nothing recorded) about the rest of them, and Paul makes it clear in Romans that the formalisms of Jewish life don’t really apply to gentiles.  (which is good since I like my barbeque ).  I don’t claim to be very good about this, personally, I’m not one to hand change to the multitudinous professional beggars that try to harass the students and faculty around my institution (which is downtown), mostly because I can’t tell the professionals – who don’t need help from the amateurs – who do.  That’s why our society has organized social services.  I want the right to be responsible for my sins, not yours.

Actually, it is sort of funny.  There was a philosophy in the early part of the last century, known as “social Darwinism”, which tried to use natural selection and “survival of the fittest” as an excuse to do away with or ignore (which amounts to the same thing) poor and other unsatisfactory people.  The right wing decries this theory, just as they invoke it in terms of “unregulated free markets” and the “freedom to fail”.  What makes this especially ironic, is that “survival of the fittest” in humans has led to selection for fairness and altruism.  Take a bunch of nice food or candy and place it in a room of people and they automatically work out a means of sharing.  It won’t be perfect, but it will be there.  Do the same with our cousins, the Chimpanzees, and you have a riot.  This doesn’t mean that we don’t still have conflicts and wars, but it does mean that we are selected to cooperate.  We are naturally selected to work together and do much better than we can as individuals.

You might want to read this if you don’t believe me.

While it is in the disclaimer in the “about” section, these are my opinions (right now) and shouldn’t be confused with anybody else’s including the univeristies.