Sam Stokes on Research in your life and studies : Win7

Climategate: The future in the past

SoCal Sam — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:43:56 GMT

In a Dec. 1970 article titled: “Polar Ice and the Global Climate Machine” in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, page 40, author: Joseph O. Fletcher, the concern was that there was no model for the vast thermodynamic engine that was the atmosphere and oceans. That there appeared to be a potential influence by CO2 and other chemicals on the atmosphere, this was 40 years ago.

I would recommend that you take a look at this article (and the Bulletin of Atomic Sci if you are interested in the Climate modeling, it appears to me that it is the paper that asks the questions we are attempting to answer.

Interesting though that the article was written during a time where scientists sometimes would make recommendations that use engineering solutions.

Trident Workbench and SQL Express

SoCal Sam — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:25:38 GMT

I hope you have successfully downloaded and installed Trident Workbench, with the Word Add-in, which is a cool way to document your research. You will also need to have SQL Express installed on your system, with SP1 installed. Keep in mind, as a non-commercial researcher, you should have access to the full versions of SQL, such as SQL Standard or SQL Enterprise through your local MSDNAA program. If not, comment to this post and I will definitely help you out. Please do not think that I am going to deluged with requests, I won’t, so make sure I am aware of your inability to get your free copy of SQL IF you are an academic, that is: College student (graduate or undergraduate) or Professor (Lecturer, Professor, or non-profit researcher). MAKE SURE TO UPGRADE TO THE LATEST SERVICE PACK!

Let’s talk about SQL Express, which should be an easy to install product, it is, but the default settings can be confusing. It took me a few times to figure out how to use it, and since this is a definite show stopper, I am going to cover this today.

You will need to get to this screen, make sure that your SQL Server is running. I use manual start mode to make sure I get the fastest boot up, any database system, MySQL, Oracle, SQL, running on the desktop will slow down your initial start-up. If you see the word “Other” under the Start Mode column, then you will need to right click on the SQL Server(SQLEXPRESS) and select properties.

When you select properties you will see a dialog box, now select the “service” tab:

Now select the “Start Mode” and then click on the drop down box next to that cell. Select Automatic or Manual.

If you select manual, you will have to start your instance of SQL EXPRESS each time you want to use Trident Workbench. On my student demo machine, which is running Win7 x86, with Readyboost, 3.2 Gigabytes of memory usable and a slow CPU, I usually keep the SQL EXPRESS in manual mode.

And I usually forget to turn it on before starting the Trident Workbench, silly me. So it wastes a little time.

Big deal for day to day, but if SQL EXPRESS isn’t turned on for the installation, then you will need to during the installation process.

Climategate, Global Warming, Provenance: Why

SoCal Sam — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:24:39 GMT

Well the Global Warming discussion seems to be ignoring the lack of provenance for the investigation into the causes. Emails do not make a scientific investigation, it might make an engineering investigations, or a production investigation. Presenting the data for many eyes to view, utilization of true peer review of the science, and maintaining the data so that the many eyes in the future can repeat the experiment.

For example Aristotle, who was looking for the perfect form of thought, stated that heavy objects fall faster than lighter objects. Then for the next 1900 or so years, this statement became fact to religious organizations and engineers as well as the general population.

Galileo came along and might have stated:

“Watch this, I will drop two objects, one heavier than the other, and let’s see if the heavy one really falls faster.”

Oops, Aristotle was wrong, and so was the Catholic Church which viewed Aristotle’s writings as perfect at the time. Other observers did the same experiment and got consistent results.

Aristotle is a philosopher and Galileo is a scientist.

Galileo wasn’t looking for truth, he was simply looking at how the world works.

So in today’s world how can we look at things?

One way would be to use the Trident Workbench as a way for all of us to be able to repeat complicated experiments that use statistical data and databases that contain telemetry data from satellites.

Does this mean that people don’t agree with you will read the data in a way that seems whacky? Yep, after all Galileo was seen by some in his time as a whack job.

To prepare for these videos of the Trident Workbench, please make sure to download and install the Trident Workbench as well as SQL Express, make sure to upgrade your SQL Express installation with SP1 or it won’t work.

Climategate, global warming and provenance

SoCal Sam — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 19:50:29 GMT

Ok, taking a chance here: I reviewed the emails and don’t really get the whole “global warming” as a scam. Clearly the globe is warming after the mini-ice age between 1500 and 1825 or so. During the period since the mini-ice age, the human population has grown, built beautiful cities, roadways and generally turned the earth into a wonderful place to be alive. Sure there are a large number of people who live in poverty that I can’t even understand, but in an earlier era these people simply would not exist. Now the people who are impoverished have an opportunity to survive and to build a better world for them.

No, what I take away from Climategate is that the science was poorly documented and the process of peer review was shunted into an ego driven process. This does not mean that the climate isn’t being changed by human input, it means that the investigation into the processes and science (as they say in the public media) is suspect. Why? Because a reasonable person, who has knowledge of the scientific method cannot reproduce the results claimed by the so called global warming researchers.

You might be thinking, well the global warming researchers used tools I have no access to, and science I can’t understand. Fortunately, the reality is that the science is quite simple, it is the processes of data collection or workflow that were complex and hidden from you.

If you are reading this blog, I think it is safe to say you have the talent and intelligence to follow the global warming science, it isn’t anymore complicated than the way that Dancing with the Stars, or America’s Top Model judging is accomplished, perhaps less so. Science is the process of using simple observations to gain knowledge about the universe. Even the Cern accelerator is basically getting data from the mass of the objects that break off when you collide electrons at speeds near the speed of light.

The main part of the scientific method is that any results must be reproducible by other researchers, with respect to the CERN, you would go there to repeat the experiments. For global warming you might use observations about where you live and add the observations to data input by many other people.

What this means that the data used by the initial researchers must be available for the future researchers to confirm using similar but not identical equipment, processes and so forth. Ok, maybe some researchers will use identical equipment, but with all the equipment most universities have these days it is unlikely that the equipment will be the same, but the equipment will be calibrated back to certain standards. If the research, such as the research using tree rings, would mean that tree rings from one part of the region where they were taken would match other tree rings from the similar region. Also, if tree rings are used, then there would be a certain way for the tree rings to be measured that is reproducible, and if, for example, tree rings were used, then tree rings would be able to reproduce the temperature of the air in a reliable manner, or produce data that is an analog that anyone could utilize.

All of this data would be stored into a system that would allow other scientists to reproduce the research, this is part of the research is called the workflow. How can you get involved in examining workflows and create your own? Take a look at the Trident Workbench, just out from Microsoft Research, this is an awesome tool that allows you to use free tools from Microsoft to create open source workflows that you can share with others! You will need to install SQL Express on your laptop or desktop, but this is a free download from http://www.microsoft.com, type in SQL Express into the search bar at Microsoft.com, if you use google or bing, then there are some sites that will attempt to get you to pay money for the download, and this product is entirely free! When you do the installation make sure to add the service pack 1 or the engine won’t run.

More in the next blog on climate gate. For now make sure to take a look at the following videos and web pages to get up to speed on the pro and anti-global warming groups:

Pro-global warming: Real Climate Website

Anti-global warming: ClimateGate's Michael Mann Being Investigated

Political anti-global warming (US): Senator James Inhofe

Political pro-global warming (US): Senator Lugar Praises Pew Dialogue

Reason to not curse when doing a video interview (it’s at the end of the video, also, note to self: make sure to get a haircut)

More to come, this is fun stuff!

Cryptography: From ancient science to Win7 and Bing!

SoCal Sam — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:55:08 GMT

Microsoft is continuing to improve the science of cryptography. There are a number of approaches to cryptography and its application to securing the identity of people, data and systems.

Historically, the first codes were used by the Spartans, by wrapping a piece of paper around a stick and writing the message and then taking the paper off in a spiral manner. It could only be read if you used the same diameter stick. In some ways this is similar to current methods.

Later, the playwright Francis Bacon wrote about encryption in his Advancement of Learning, The Sixth Book, Chapter I.:

“But the virtues of them whereby they are to be preferr'd are Three; That they be ready, and not laborious to write; That they be sure, and lie not open to Deciphering; And lastly, if it be possible, that they may be managed without suspition [sic].”

This is a fair definition of the modern science of cryptography, during World War II, encryption systems on both sides of the war were broken, mainly through poor discipline. The operators would not change keys at the correct time, send key information unencrypted, and use old map grids that would reveal information, etc.

Currently cryptography is supported inside of the Windows CLR via a

Cryptography is the use of codes to convert data so that only a specific recipient will be able to read it, using a key.

Windows 2008, Vista and Win7 use the latest versions of cryptography, and this isn’t just utilization of more codes and a slight modification of the first generation processes like RSA. What is the process used in the cryptography API?

Starting around 2006, Microsoft will support the Crypto API, but will utilize more advance processes such as Elliptic Curve Cryptography through the Cryptography Next Generation (CNG) in all systems like Win7.

I am digging into these “new” ways of doing cryptography, especially the elliptic curve approach. But if you don’t really care how the cryptographic engine runs, just that it does run, you will need to dig into the Crypto Next Generation, if you haven’t already.

I also have found an article titled: “On Parallelization of High-Speed Processors for

Elliptic Curve Cryptography” on the IEEE Digital Library, it gives a good overview of how the Elliptic Curve Cryptography works. Interesting enough, it really is an excellent review of your basic algebra and a few simple use of matrix.

A little background, the top figure is the cryptographic process called Symmetric keys work.

The lower image is Public Key Encryption which many people think is the current crypto systems in use, this is hopefully the legacy system and most systems are switching to CNG

There are no images, right now, of how elliptic curve encryption, decryption works.

In conclusion, if you are building or upgrading existing systems you need to consider the CNG cryptography systems.