Quantum Packages

I recently bought some items online from a retailer I don't commonly use.  A few days later I got an e-mail from "UPS Quantum View" with a tracking number.  I had to wonder if anyone else thinks of the Heisenberg uncertainty when they think of "Quantum Package Tracking".  Can I know the state and location of my package or do I have to pick one?


If someone uses the word quantum and you aren't talking about particle physics they are likely making an appeal to sciencie sounding mumbo-jumbo and should be questioned.


Like the "HD" paint I saw at Lowe's recently or the "Digitally Ground" lenses my mother bought for her glasses this is a troubling trend.  Apparently advertising agencies have figured out that they only have to through a sciencie sounding technical word in the mix to up the credibility of the product with their target audience.  It's up to us to call them out on it, if the geeks don't ridicule (the proper reaction to something that is ridiculous) this stuff the rest of the world wont get why "UPS Quantum View" is laughable.

A New Kind of Celebrity

There has never been a cooler time to be alive.  It wasn't possible for someone from the outside to look so far in ever before. I saw the video below today on a favorite blog of mine (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/) and it nearly brought a tear to my eye.  I own a book by over half of the great scientists featured in the video and have read meaningful work by all but two.  We live in a time where the definition of celebrity will change.  None of these scientists are celebrities in the classic sense (well maybe Sagan) but they are all celebrities in my global in-group. Whenever anyone romanticizes the renaissance or any other epoch I keep thinking in an accidental quote from Rage Aginst the Machine "what better place than here, what better time than now".





Head to http://symphonyofscience.com/ for dozens of amazing videos. I have posted a few other favorites after the "Read more" break.

Twitter

It occurs to me that much of what I wish to say through SelfTaughtLife is not conducive to a long form blog. Small updates about what I'm reading will be posted to the twitter feed book reviews and longer editorials may still find their way into the blog. You can read my twitter feed or follow me from the panel to the right.

The Ultimate Computer Utility

Learning to program even a little is the ultimate computer utility.  I've been reminded of that many times recently. Just a few days ago a it occurred to me the right way to finally right the clipboard enhancing tool I've been dreaming of for years.  I'm calling it "DeepClip" I plan over the weekend to post it here with complete source code and hopefully a full line by line walk through of how it works.

Some friends of mine at work have been asking for me to come up with some more AutoIt tutorials. I think "DeepClip" will end up being the first of them.

But for now I thought I would post a super simple little 10 line snippet that was for a game I was playing last week where clicking quickly was needed.

The statement numbers aren't part of the code

1. Sleep(2000) 

2. HotKeySet("{esc}", "_exit")

3. While 1
        MouseClick("Left")
    WEnd

4. Func _exit()
         Exit
    EndFunc

1. First I needed a way to run this script then get to the window with the game in it before it started clicking madly.

2. HotKeySet() is a built in function in AutoIt function that registers a hotkey with windows and binds that to a function. The list of hotkeys is in the AutoIt help file.

3. A basic loop type called while, when a while loop starts it checks the argument to the right of the "while". As long as that statment returns "True" meaning a non-zero number it continues. While 1 is a way to loop forever. While looping forever we want to click the left mouse button. Then WEnd ends the while statement.

4. Here we setup the exit function we bound to the escape key since we wont be able to click our way out of this script we need a way to get out easily.

Anyhow there you go this is the sort of thing AutoIt does in just a few lines very well that other languages would have to mill around a bit longer to accomplish.

You can download AutoIt from their download page located here. Its a great starter language and (despite what others may say) a great language for medium to large windows utilities.

Always Ask Stupid Questions

What do you mean always ask?

The basic gist of this rule to live by is if you don't understand what someone is saying, ask.  Most people will allow other people to use words or phrases they don't understand without ever asking.

By forcing yourself to always ask the stupid questions you will be surprised at how much you will learn.

How do you apply this to your life?

Living a self taught life is not just about reading books and leaning obscure factoids.  Sometimes its about just asking the simple questions.

I work for a large company in a technical job.  That means we have acronyms for everything, whenever a new system is made our naming practice is basically to come up with a sentence that describes it, then make that into an acronym.

Sometimes its about being honest...

It is intellectually dishonest to not challenge something someone tells you if you do not understand it.

When someone says something complicated or uses words you don't know if you don't ask it is assumed you understood them.  As a long time tech guy I have experienced this far too often, a co-worker will tell me "First shift checked this and that but we need to make sure the connections coming from the ABC cabinet have continuity.".  I then ask "Where is the ABC cabinet?" and they don't know.

But what if I look stupid!

This is going to happen; you will sometimes look stupid for asking what something means.  A hazard of being self taught is asking allot of questions.  My practice of always asking is so well known people expect it.  When someone is explaining a new process or system and they says something that no one understands my peers often look to me to be the one to ask.  This has helped to foster an environment of more open communication and honesty.

You will end up getting more respect from your co-workers when they understand this is how you operate.  When someone tells me to do something at work and I agree to do it, they know I understand how it is done.  If I don't ask any questions they know I fully understood what they meant.  This is a good feeling, the impact of this minor behavioral change can improve your entire team.

Your not the only one who doesn't know this stuff.

You're not the only one in the dark, I assure you.  People use words and acronyms they don't know more then you may think.  Several acronyms at my work had been used for years without anyone asking what they mean.  In a few cases no one knew what they meant; it was just something they said.  Don't let this happen to you!  Let hearing something you don't know be a chance to learn, not a reason to feel bad about not knowing it.

A baseline on AutoIt

I have been a big fan of the programming language AutoIt for several years now and wanted to set a baseline to build on explaining why I feel it is an invaluable tool for any Windows user and why I will surely be talking about it and posting code in the the future.

AutoIt's Strong Points

• Simple easy to use BASIC like syntax.
• Easy to read straight forward help file.
• Compiles to a single executable no run-time environment to install.
• A healthy community of enthusiastic contributors.

Reasons not to use AutoIt

• It's not cross platform, Windows only.
• It's not main stream so it may not look as good on a resume as another popular language.

From time to time AutoIt solves all sorts of small problems for me I'm sure I will post some of them or some AutoIt examples in the future.

AutoIt started life as user interface manipulation system designed for instillation automation. It quickly gained a some use from the community for other user interface manipulation tasks like game bots.

A video of a (not necessarily well executed) minesweeper bot.




Another fun example of AutoIt playing a game.



AutoIt is good for much more then game bots, I use it daily at work for all sorts of tasks.

Programming today is too easy for everyone not to do it.  

Please leave a comment!

Ben Goldacre - The Placebo Effect

A fun little tidbit found on Pharyngula. Ben Goldacre is a British doctor and journalist, and the author of the The Guardian newspaper's weekly Bad Science column. I have to admit I had never read Bad Science before but its now part of my daily feed. In under 5 minutes he teaches us some really interesting things about drug trials and the placebo effect.

Check it out...