Blue Collar Scientist

Over at Cosmic Variance, Julianne alerts us to a commanding advantage of the iPhone if you work in the fields of physics, astrophysics, or orbital mechanics:

I’ve written before about my husband’s affection, or rather, obsession with Apple. Like all good converts, he feels compelled to proselytize, particularly about my perceived need for an iPhone. “But honey, you can check your email!” “Hey look! Google Maps knows where you are!”. I remain unconvinced.

However, the other day, he nearly got me:

“Did you know it can emulate the HP-15C?”

Be. Still. My. Heart.

The HP-15C is simply the finest piece of handheld computing technology ever.

The 15C is no longer made. On eBay, used ones sell for nearly the price of a new iPhone. Go over to Cosmic Variance to get your 15C emulator for iPhone, and sign the petition to get HP to bring the classic calculator back.

Oh, by the way - I’m pretty sure that the Bad Astronomer said some very nice things about the 15C at TAM 5.5, after telling a story about his first scientific calculator, which came with (gak) biorhythm software.

This neat little robot has DARPA written all over it. Take special note of how it channels Bambi while on ice a bit more than a minute into the video; all that is really needs are some slide whistle cartoon sound effects.

I’m glad I’m seeing this thing first in video. If I’d met it out in the woods I’m pretty sure I would have had a terminal surreal moment and never been quite the same again.

The noise that thing makes reminds me of the stepper motors that drive some telescopes. That noise can be cut drastically, either by switching to servos, by driving the steppers differently, or by getting different steppers and not microstepping them¹.

I’m very impressed with the balance control capabilities of this robot; I’d always assumed that sort of thing would be wicked hard to program. I’m sure it is no mean feat mechanically to get limbs, which have some mass I’m sure, to react that quickly when it gets shoved. What I’m wondering about is the power supply. How much range does this thing have - and how long can it go between refueling or recharging? How efficient is quadrupedy, compared to four-wheel drive, or track drive? And how much better is it at dealing with obstacles and difficult terrain? This is the kind of engineering project that not only raises questions like can you build it, but should you.

Your blogger is too lazy today to actually go do the research necessary to answer these questions. Enjoy the video.

1. Assuming, of course, that it really is stepper noise - I’m making an educated guess that could easily be wrong. [↩]

Because honestly, I have no clue, and from what I’ve read, I really don’t want to. I’m sure I heard about this from Pharyngula and Skepchick and a bunch of others, but it was Orac, who I read religiously, that compelled me to consume some of his material, through quotations.

Apparently this Vox person wrote (please steel yourself for some gut-wrenching misogyny):

The idea of biology classes being taught by lesbian professors who believe that heterosexual procreation is a myth or calculus courses being taught by women who can’t do long division may sound impossible today, but tell that to any software developer, and he’ll be able to provide you with plenty of current examples of computer science engineers, some with advanced CS degrees, who have no idea how to even begin writing a computer program.

The crap about women there is something I completely and utterly reject as false, reprehensible, and uncivilized, and I’m going to ignore it, as it has been adequately discussed elsewhere. I’d like to remark on the bold material, if you please.

Yes, there are plenty of current examples of computer scientists who can’t write a computer program, as the term “computer program” is popularly conceived. To oversimplify a bit, computer science is a special case of math. Basically, computer scientists are mathematicians with a peculiar focus. There’s nothing about being a computer scientist per se that requires you be able to write computer programs.

I’m not sure what a computer science engineer is. My understanding is that someone is either a computer scientist or an engineer. Not that there isn’t overlap, and not that there aren’t developers who are highly qualified computer scientists. But someone who is making their living in the engineering of computer software probably can write a computer program.

I say “probably” because some computer scientists are algorithmic specialists, or design specialists. Some of them don’t actually know any languages and don’t have any experience with an integrated development environment. These people nevertheless have an important function.

Now, I’m in this business. I know some computer science types who got hired as developers and couldn’t really do the work. Development requires some vocational education, it doesn’t spring full-blown from the rarified academics of computer science theory. We all understand this.

But - and pay attention, because this is important: None of these people couldn’t code because their teacher was a woman.

The flip side of this: My own career at one time involved solving what some computer scientists tell me is a difficult computational problem. I solved it with a really simple piece of code. I didn’t know any better at the time, so I sat down to solve my problem, wrote out a little flow chart of what had to be done, then coded it.

Voila - hard problem solved in a way nobody else had done it before.

Is this really a big deal? Does it make me some kind of coding god? No. It is barely an exaggeration to say that a howler monkey could have coded the problem the way I did it.

I had no formal computing science education, or development education, when I sat down to solve that little problem. Does this mean that qualified computer scientists are superfluous?

No. One of them sat down with me and my heuristic one day and showed me about fifty ways to make it simpler, better, easier, faster to solve, etc. It was a humbling experience. I had written spaghetti and didn’t know it. Although I didn’t have any illusions about my competence before the meeting, afterward I had a better understanding of my limitations. And although these days I’m more formally credentialed, I can still present empirical evidence that I’m not god’s gift to computer science.

The point: Vox Day is a real idiot. There’s a lot more than a credential that goes into ability, and most people understand this. Credentials may contribute to a preponderance of evidence that someone is capable, but it isn’t the sole risk factor.

Hell, Michael Behe even has a doctorate.

Anyway, take this ramble as saying that not only does Vox Day not know anything about biology, or women, or calculus, or long division, he also knows nothing about computer science.