Magnetic Levitation Trains

The passenger rail services in the US is pretty slow compared to some systems in other countries. This link provides a comparison as well as the potential for maglev trains in the US.

http://www.portfolio.com/interactive-features/2008/09/Magnetic-Train-Plans

The Amtrak line of Acela Express between Boston and Washington DC runs between 75 and 150 mph. These run on existing tracks and uses tilting to allow for higher speeds even at sharp turns.

The Shinkansen in Japan runs upto 188 mph.

The TGV in France runs upto 200 mph.

The Shanghai Transrapid in China cruises at 268 mph.

And under demonstration conditions, 361 mph is the record set in Japan's maglev train.

For comparison, a Boeing 787 would fly at 550 mph.

Maglev trains would be a move in the direction of reducing oil consumption, provided that the electricity be generated with clean, renewable sources. In short inter-city distances, maglev trains could compete well with airplanes and thus reduce the use of jet fuel. Going from LA to Las Vegas in 1 hour and 10 minutes? Wow.

The problem with maglev is that they don't run on existing tracks, so the rail infrastructure needs to be rebuilt. The cost of existing technologies is about $50-60 million per mile, although some companies like AMT claims their system would cost $19 million per mile.

Evidence indicates that we will move to more electrical forms of transportation with electric cars and trains. Generating electrons from renewable sources is the responsible thing to do.

Feeling down about economy?

This picture shows how we stand in the 3rd quarter of 2008 compared to the past 28 years on key economic indicators. The original article explains these figures in more detail.

I.O.U.S.A. & W.

Recently I went to see W. at a theater. It is a well shot film, and I walked out the theater not feeling much about the movie or the charcters portrayed in it. It does give a perspective on George W. Bush and the path he has walked so far. The film has a neutral flavor to it such that it is not trying to cast a judgement on Bush being a good or a bad guy, but only to show as a matter of fact, what shaped him into the president he is today.

Yesterday I caught a chance to see I.O.U.S.A. at a local college screening. There was only about 10 people in the auditorium; I thought it would be full. The film is a documentary, but it painted a picture for the US financial future that is so bleak that made me cringe. It was a powerful message, purposely made to act like a wake up call to Americans. Some parts of it are exaggerated, but it is overall informative and gets the message through. It tells us about our federal budge deficit and how today's situation compares to all other times in the history of the United States. It gives some projection for the future and claims that if we don't do anything to change the course, the government will be paying social security, medicare, military, and the interest on the federal debt and have no money for anything else by 2030. Most likely income tax will have to double and a lot of the government programs will have to shut down. By that time, the fed won't be able to fulfill its social security promises and thus bankrupt.

I recommend you see both of these movies. If you care about your future, get your voice out there and vote. Some people have doubts about whether their votes will matter or not. Think about it, if enough people think this way and end up not voting, then it will surely matter. So everyone should vote unless they don't care about their own future.

Obama the Wealthy?

You can find out how much money each political candidate has raised in their campaign by going to the Federal Election Commission website. The Obama campaign has raised more than $450 million vs. McCain's $210 million. There is some debate about the public financing for the presidential election because Obama decided to not take the taxpayer public fund that comes from the $3 you and I check on the income tax return form. He instead raises funds separately, asking individual contributors to give small amounts each. McCain decided to take the public financing fund, which limits his direct spending to around $84 million. McCain needs to rely on the $66 million raised by the Republican National Committee for his campaign agenda. Obama does not need to rely on the Democratic party, which I think makes him more independent and free to choose his campaign style.

The individual donations you can make to the candidates is limited to $2300 for each election. Obama said that the public financing system is broken and he opted for a more democratic way of financing the elections. Although the intent of the public financing system is to ensure each candidate gets to spend the same amount of money for fairness, we know that there are ways to circumvent it so that someone other than the candidate can spend money for campagining on the candidates behalf. Some argue that this leads to nastier and dirtier campagin styles with negative ads toward opponents. I don't agree with the $3 donation on the income tax form because I think we should choose specifically who we want to support and when and how much we want to donate. If it is just $3 and goes equally to every candidate before I even know who the candidates are, then I don't feel justified to check that box. The Obama model is better because nowadays a lot of people in the US have connections to the Internet and have credit cards, which makes it a lot easier for everyone to donate.

If someone donated to support a candidate, that person is likely to vote, so this is also a good way to get people involved. I checked the list of donations for my zip code, and I see only a handful of names. Only a very small percentage of people care enough to actually donate.

Obama has enough cash on hand so he bought some half-hour blocks of primetime TV for his campaign for later this month. I am curious what they will do with that time.

Raising Public Awareness

Recently a few movies caught my attention. W. is coming to theaters on Oct. 17. It is about the life of our current president, George W. Bush, and how he came to where he is now. I think it is interesting because despite all the negative things said about him, he still served as the president of the US for 8 years, and I really don't know much about him. I wish the movie can give the viewer a honest look at Bush's life and his time in the White House.

W. reminded me of another recent movie, I.O.U.S.A., also a movie with a title that ends with a period. This movie is a documentary made by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation (PGPF), and it talks about our national debt and how it is a huge problem for our future if we don't do something about it quickly. I wanted to watch it when it came out in August 2008, but it was only shown in major cities like New York and Philadelphia, not close to where I live. Fortunately it will be shown at Union College on Oct. 23rd so maybe I can get a seat at that showing.

The gist of it is that Americans and the US government have been living on borrowed money for decades, savings rate has gone down the drain, and as the Baby Boomer generation starts to retire, we will not be able to continue to fund our government programs and health care benefits and everything else by borrowing more from other countries. Just recently on Sep. 30, the National Debt Clock in New York City ran out of digits to display the $10 trillion figure. When they made the display in 1989, they didn't anticipate that the debt will go over 13 digits. Actually, if you include outstanding Social Security and Medicare benefits that are due in the future, the debt is close to $53 trillion. Currently we don't know how we are going to fund these benefits.

Something I learned today is that David Walker is now PGPF's CEO and he is trying to raise public awareness on issues that will affect the future generations of Americans. David Walker was the US Comptroller General from 1998 to March 2008, and he must have seen and understood the problem in the federal government when it comes to budgets and spending.

There are also some related books on this topic: Empire of Debt and I.O.U.S.A.

Recent Highlights

China successfully completed its first space walk 340km above the Earth surface. China plans to continue space technology development, put a space station in 2010-2020 time frame, and eventually a mission to the moon.

US space programs will get $17.6 billion for 2009. They continue to explore the origin and future of the universe and looking for Earth-like planets. There are plans to put a base on the moon to facilitate missions to Mars and other destinations. Well, the US budget is $2,700 billion, so we really aren't trying very hard in the space programs. The NASA budget grows on par or less than the inflation.

Warren Buffett, a wealthy investor, recently went shopping. He got good deals with $5 billion of Goldman Sachs and $3 billion of GE in preferred stocks. Response to this is two-sided. Some people think that if Warren Buffett is investing in these firms, they must be doing well. Some think that if these firms so desperately need cash, they must be in trouble. I think Warren Buffett is not stupid, and he is looking at the long-term prospects of these companies, so that just means he thinks the current price is cheap. Warren Buffett also said the congress needs to pass the bail-out plan.

Today the House of Representatives passed the revised bail-out plan 263-171. It was quickly signed into law by Bush. The bill authorizes $1.8 trillion from the government to help the economy. Reuters has a detailed coverage on this: http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/creditcrisis

The senate bill is 451 pages long and I wonder if each House Representative actually gone over it all in detail before voting yes. There are items in there that doesn't help the economy, like tax cuts for wooden arrow companies, rum industry, and renewable energy tax credits. They call these small items sweeteners, or "pork". Nonetheless, these items are valued at hundreds of million dollars each. The $700 billion of buying power that is granted to Secretary of Treasury is just scary, because Henry Paulson can now appoint whoever he wants to be the asset managers and buy anything he thinks would help the economy. We don't really know if this new law is going to help the US economy, and the potential for fraud is great.

Building New Computer

Recently I have been looking and finalizing my plan to buy a new computer. Last night I finally pulled the trigger. Here's what I am getting:

Case: Thermaltake Lanbox Lite
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H uATX motherboard
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition
RAM: CORSAIR XMS2 2GB DDR2 800 SDRAM TWIN2X2048-6400C4
HDD: Western Digital Raptor X WD1500AHFD 10000RPM 16MB SATA
Power Supply:Enermax EIN720AWT Infiniti 720W
CPU cooler: Thermalright SI-128 SE
DVD Drive: ASUS DVD+-R SATA w/ LightScribe DRW-2014L1T

The computer case is a small form factor case designed for gamers who goes to LAN parties. This case is made of steel so the case itself is already 15 pounds. It's got clear windows on left and right sides to show what's inside and I can put lights inside to decorate it. Its cooling is from a 90mm fan in front and 2 60mm fans in rear. The power supply can be mounted to either draw cool air from the top or exhuast warm air from above the CPU. I think I will go with the second mounting orientation. One of the limitation of this case is that the power supply is above the CPU so the choice for CPU coolers is quite limited. The height of the cooler cannot exceed about 100mm, so those tower passive heatsinks are out of the question. On the other hand, there are some cases where the power supply is place above the expansion slots so you can choose a wide variety of CPU coolers, but for me I wanted to get a graphics card and install a large passive heat sink on it and it wouldn't work if the power supply is above the graphics card. I think the CPU I choose will be low power enough that it won't need the large tower heat sinks to run passively.

Originally I was going to get the Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H, but that board uses 1" tall capacitors near its CPU socket so I cannot fit certain CPU coolers there, namely, the Zalman CNPS8700NT. For that reason I looked into getting the Thermalright SI-128 SE as the CPU heatsink and hope that it can run passively in conjunction with the case fans nearby. The two motherboards are very similar, the MA69GM uses AMD 690G as its northbridge chip while the MA78GM uses 780G. There are many advantages in getting the 780G one. It has better integrated graphics onboard (Radeon HD 3200), supports 6 SATA, 12 USB, can support newer CPUs such as the quad-core Phenoms. It support Hybrid CrossFire, which lets you utilize the onboard graphics processor together with another graphics card for more graphics processing power. It supports PCI-express 2.0 and HyperTransport 3.0. The 780G is manufactured in the 65nm process and consumes 11.4W at full load. Since the price for the two boards were about $80 and $90, I thought that getting the new version for $10 more was a better deal.

If I get the MA78GM then I could use the Zalman CPU cooler, but I think the thermalright one is better looking and maybe I can eliminate the CPU fan for lower noise.

I insisted on getting the AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ black edition because I can overclock this from 2.6 GHz to 3 GHz by just raising the multiplyer, since the multiplyer is unlocked in the black edition. This CPU has good performance to price ratio so I think it should be a good choice.

RAM is an upgrade from my current 1GB DDR-400. The DDR2 800 module has an effective data rate of 800 MHz because while the memory chips themselves still run at 200MHz like the old DDR-400, the memory bus speed is doubled to 400MHz. Since the memory chip is still as slow as before but the bus clock is faster, the effective latency in terms of number of clock cycles has gone up from 8 to 15. It's not clear how much the memory system has improved, if at all. But since DDR2 runs on 1.8V instead of 2.5V, maybe there is power reduction.

The harddrive is chosen because it has a clear window to see its operation. It is one of those things where you are not paying for the storage space nor speed. But the Raptor series are fast harddrives suitable for the system drive and installing applications. I plan to install dual boot XP and Vista and also have emergency backup of the disk image in a separate partition. Usually even if your case has a side window, you won't be able to see the window on the harddrive, but the Lanbox can mount the harddrive sideways to show this special drive. I see reviews about this drive saying it is pretty quiet at idle but pretty loud when seeking. I hope the noise will be acceptable.

I was deciding between 3 power supplies from Enermax; Liberty, Infiniti, and Modu82+. These 3 product lines are from 3 different generations and each generation boosts its efficiency a few percentage points. I think the Liberty's efficiency is around 78% - 80%, Infiniti is 80% - 82%, and Modu82+ is 82% - 85%. The Infiniti and Modu82+ also have bigger 13.5cm cooling fans whereas the Liberty has 12cm. Infiniti has status light and warning beeper in case it senses malfunction, and it continues to run the fan and other system fans after computer shut down to cool the case. All of them have modular cables which is pretty important in the Lanbox because the space will be tight. I like Enermax in that it has a fan speed monitor header that I can use to monitor its fan speed. And also I have been using their power supplies for years and never had a problem, so I think their products are very reliable.

This purchase will get the computer up and running, but it lacks a good graphics card and other case mods. In the future I would like to buy 2 Western Digital Caviar GP to make it into a RAID configuration to store movies and other files. Right now I don't need it as much becuase I have a 750 GB external HD. Right now I am looking at getting the Radeon HD 3870 graphics card. Maybe if I wait a while it will drop in price when I finally decide to get it. I also want other things like UV light, UV reactive connectors and wiring sleeves. I may also want to change the stock case fans to better ones for lower noise. I will have to put the initial parts together to get a sense of what if anything I want to improve.

Airport Security

A lot of people seems to have bad experiences going through the security check points at airports around the country. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) manages the policy regarding the procedure of making airports safe for passengers and the airport. Recently they started a blog http://www.tsa.gov/blog that let people leave comments and ask questions about their practice and why they do certain things. Apparently very soon afterwards, some users indicate that certain airports require travellers to take out all electronic items like iPods and power cords, which puzzle and frustrate them. The TSA then investigated the issue and was able to correct it. The local TSA offices had set up that practice on its own.

Many comments I read were negative because the commenter had bad experience such as unfriendly security officers or officers who give unreasonable requests and that the commenter felt the TSA was getting in the way of their getting through and onto their travels smoothly. My personal experience with airpot security had been good. I think it is necessary for everyone's safety. Recently, I noticed that the security measures had been getting more lax. They don't have guards holding M16 assult rifles at the check point anymore; they don't test my checked luggage with chemical sensors anymore; they don't check my ID when I board at the gate anymore. Another thing I noticed was that they now have more sophisticated scanners that look like a CT scanner for luggages and what looked like better metal detectors.

There's one more curious change: I saw a booth for a service called CLEAR, that supposedly help you get through the security check point faster. It works by first storing your biometric data such as fingerprint and iris image. When you go to the airport, you would first let them ID you using your finger or eye, then they will let the security people know who you are so you can get through the check point faster. At least that's my understanding of it. It seems to be a new thing only availble at a few major airports and it's still pretty costly; at $150 a year. The price can probably come down once they get the economy of scale. The things I wonder about it though, is how do they tell the security check point who this person is, such that there is no mistakes in the communication? Even if they know who I am, it doesn't mean I am automatically a non-threat, right? The benefit is that fingerprint and iris patterns are much harder to fake than ID cards so they will be pretty certain who I am, and whether or not I bought a ticket to fly on a certain flight.

Love Affair and Differential Equations

In nonlinear dynamics class today, we reviewed linear algebra, differential equations, eigenvalues, and eigenvectors. Professor Strogatz was bored with this stuff, but he managed to keep his cool and proceeded at a fast yet organized speed. He showed the different classes of system dynamics that can arise from a 2-D system, as this will become useful when we start talking about nonlinear systems.

At the end of that review session, he made a comment about how you can model the love affairs between two people in a relationship using such second order differential equations. Just when the class laughed thinking he was kidding, he said that he once wrote a paper with the title, "Love Affairs and Differential Equations". Just as the class burst into more laughter, he claims that it is listed as the 3rd strangest title among mathmatics papers. I searched for it, and indeed that paper was written in 1988 for the Math Magazine, and it has also been cited by other papers discussing love dynamics.

The most hilarious part was when he said he wrote it in Freshman year while having trouble with a girlfriend and he was trying to analyze it with that model, but an older boyfriend makes the system a 3rd order nonlinear system, so it was too complicated for him.

After a little search for that ranking, I found a book called Wonders of Numbers: Adventures in Mathmatics, Mind, and Meaning. On page 102 it lists the top 10 serious mathmatical papers with strange, indecipherable, and/or amusing titles. The first one is "Zaphod Beeblebrox's brain and the fifty-ninth row of Pascal's Triangle", and the second one is "When homogeneous continua are Hausdorff circles (or yes, we Hausdorff bananas)". The fourth one is "Super super large numbers".

I also found a 2005 paper titled "Dynamical Models of Happiness" published in Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Sciences.

Interesting huh?

Microsoft vs. Google

To try to compete with Google in online search and advertisements, Microsoft is offering to buy Yahoo at a 60% markup price of $31 a share on Friday Feb. 1. Yahoo stock went up 40% immediately from $19 to $28. It is still rising slowly as of today. This stirred a lot of discussion, and I see some articles such as "Making sense of Microhoo" and "Why Yahoo should say yes to Microsoft". I find it interesting to follow the commotion, even though I didn't buy those particular stocks. I also don't feel bad that I didn't buy the stocks beforehand, maybe because I don't have cash to begin with. It is something to keep in mind though; maybe in the future I will have a chance to see another such sudden jump in stock value when I happen to hold the stocks. I will see what happens to Microhoo in a few weeks.

Company Image

I just read an article on Computer World. DELL closed its kiosks around US and moved its products into major retailers like Walmart and Staples. That was the right business decision to make, but for the closed kiosks, they had to lay off a few hundred people. Some commenters say they went to their kiosks to work in the morning and the kiosks were simply not there. They then realized that they got laid off without notice and compensation. That ticked off some other people and say they won't ever buy DELL products again. I think when a company wants to lay off its employees, they should treat them with support, otherwise the consequence could be bad company image. In this case I think the execution was poor.

The Economics of PhD

While walking home today on a lonely road at 9 pm today, I suddenly realized something important that never crossed my mind before. If doing a PhD is similar to a real job, then what is its performance metrics? I've heard the saying, "publish or perish", which means professors and graduate students are judged by how many papers they publish each year. But it costs money to run a research lab, lots of money. Where do the money come from? They come from grants and deals that the professor has to go and seek out. The professor writes proposals and try to convince a number of different organizations and sources to fund a particular research project. While doing one project, a grad student can explore related problems and propose new possible solutions, which in turn can be used in new proposals for continued funding. Thus a grad student should be judged by how well they can come up with these deal-making proposal materials in a timely manner, because professors have to pay a lot of money to fund each student.

I would say that is one of the most important thing to realize as a grad student and it's something I need to work on.

Personality Type

Today a friend of mine asked me what personality type I am. By that I am talking about the INTP, ESTJ, INFJ, etc. This popular personality test and labeling has been around for a long time. The first time I did it was maybe around 2002. Basically they divide all human beings into 2^4 = 16 different types of people. Each of the 4 letters can have one of two values:

Introvert / Extravert
iNtuitive / Sensor
Thinker / Feeler
Judger / Perceiver

Each of the four terms characterize a person's behavior in a general but distinct way. You can go to one of those websites to see what each term means. I think they do a good job categorizing people, but they also seem to use this as a great marketing scheme to sell their related books that can tell you what career is good for you, what kind of mate is a better match, and how to treat your children of a particular type. Although some of the arguements are plausible, I think people should be cautious about getting influenced too much by labeling people as a certain type. I think the human race is more complicated than 2^4.

Lastly, just for the record, my type is ISTP, which means I direct my energy inwards, notices facts & details, makes logical decisions, like to be flexible, curious, and nonconforming.

Feeling a refreshed motivation to be productive

Recently I have start doing more productive thing rather than reading online novel and playing computer games. I was inspired by a friend's friend's blog to start a blog of my own. It's actually a really good thing; I feel more purposeful this way, and there might be a big payoff too! What exactly that might be I don't know but I can see the possibility. I will explain what I mean in a later post.