Movie Review: Travelling Salesman: P=NP

This is a movie about a subject that only computer people generally are familiar with, so a little background discussion is needed. For those of you in the know, forgive my oversimplification.

In computer science, the kinds of problems that could be attempted by a computer are divided roughly in to two categories.  Those that can be solved in a reasonable length of time are called "P".  Those for which it is possible to solve them, but they aren't put on computers because they would take MUCH too long, maybe thousand of years even on the fastest computers, are called "NP".  The title, Travelling Salesman refers to a famous problem in the second category.  The problem is simple to explain.  Suppose you are a travelling salesman who must visit a list of cities.  Knowing the locations of the cities and the distances between them, what is the shortest route you can take which will take you to every city?  For a short list of cities, it's not a bad problem.  But, when you start adding cities, soon it becomes unbelievably hard to solve, even on a computer.   Theoretical computer scientists spend a lot of time studying this problem. 

The basic premise of the movie, which doesn't become entirely clear until about the last 10 or 15 minutes, is that a group of 4 of the most brilliant computer scientists have been hired (for a LOT of money) by the NSA to find a way of solving "NP" problems.  According to the movie, they were successful!   First, they found a proof that there is a way to convert "NP" problems into "P" problems, and second, they created a new kind of computer processor that would do just that.  So, with the new processor, lots of problems that were previously unsolvable (like the travelling salesman problem) would become solvable. 

The technical details of the new processor are never really discussed, because that's not the point of the movie.  The point is that the NSA wants to keep it secret, and only let the government use it for its own purposes, and not let it out to the world.  The movie consists of the computer scientists sitting around a table with a representative of the NSA discussing the legal, moral, ethical, and social effects of such a move.  The computer scientists were not expecting this.  They thought their discovery would be of benefit to all mankind, not just the NSA. 

I think it is a fascinating movie.  There are lots of references to famous computer scientists and mathematicians, such as G. H. Hardy, generally recognized as one of the best mathematicians of all time.  One of the computer scientists is supposed to be among the extra-brilliant, on par with Hardy, and he is the one that turns out to be most bothered by the situation. 

Watch the movie and let me know what  you think.

Pointing and laughing.

It is the next-to-last day of finals week.  A student in the next room is taking his final for the directed study we did this semester.  He did fairly well in the course, so I am expecting a pretty good score on the test.  The rest of my work is as close to caught up as it generally gets.  I spent some of this week sorting my accumulated things-to-do into two piles:  "Do it NOW"  and "It could wait until after Christmas."  Almost everything in the "Do it NOW" pile is done, so I'm feeling pretty good.   As it was in my previous job, the administrative work takes more time than the school says it ought to. 

In the meantime, when I get a few minutes to think about things other than work or other day-to-day life tasks, it is great to think about my retirement plans.  Now that I know when I am retiring (next summer), and where I will be going (back down south to my home state), I can think about what I will be doing.  I have a very long list of things I would like to do!   A friend who recently (a year ago?) retired told me he was still adjusting.  My cousin has also been retired about a year, and she told me she has still not adjusted.  With so many things I want to do, I believe it will  take me about a week to adjust.  Maybe not that long!  Maybe 45 minutes. 

In a conversation last week at a Christmas get-together, the subject turned to the upcoming Mega Million lottery.  One of the guys said that if he won a big lottery sum, his plans were to point and laugh (I assume at the rest of us poor stiffs who did not win.)  I like that image!  I plan on doing pointing and laughing next summer. 

Memory lane

 

IBM 1130 - circa 1970

 

Since Southern Man posted a picture of the first computer he worked on, it inspired me to post the first computer I worked on.  The college I attended actually paid me (just minimum wage) to develop software - not for a class, but for the college to use. I had no idea what I was doing.  I had taken one course in programming, and earned a C.  But, they were desperate.  I worked in Fortran, and had a whopping 8K of memory.   I produced software for both accounts payable and payroll.  The payroll system was used until they got a new machine (an HP) in the late 70's.

 

If you look at the picture, you see the  computer on the left, with the disks on a rack on the top.  One would open the blue door to remove and insert the disks. Too bad the picture is too small to see, but just above the keyboard is a row of toggle switches for input, and above that are lights that show the binary content of all of the main registers. Just to the right is the IBM 1132 printer, capable of a blinding 80 lines per minute.  You could hear each letter strike separately.  On the far right is the card reader. 

Hard numbers (very hard)

We finally got a current (as of Monday) enrollment count.  It stands at 1342.  That will likely go up a little this week - probably settling in at about 1400. 

Not as bad as rumors would have it, but 2011 fall enrollment was 2346.  2012 fall was 1837, down 22%.  If our final count this fall is about 1400, that's down 24% from last fall. 

This is heartbreaking for me.  It's a very good little school, with excellent faculty, and finally good administration.  But all I can do is save myself by retiring.

A strange start to school.

Our back-to-school faculty meetings are this week.  The big one (8 hours!) was yesterday.  Yes, 8 hours, because it included lunch, and to pay for our lunch we had to listen to speeches while we ate. 

The college president spoke early, and usually he is informative.  I was hoping for some solid enrollment numbers from him, but nope.  During the q & a session, someone asked about enrollment.  The admissions lady was called up to the podium, and she said a lot of hemming and hawing and gee, not everyone has enrolled yet, and it's hard to compare from last year, and we have no solid numbers, and gee, we really hope it's not down too much, and blah, blah.  She either did not know or did not want to say.  I'm not sure which is worse.  All of the faculty, of course, noticed that the question was never actually answered. 

However, one of the faculty in this department has a wife who works in the tutoring center.  She somehow has better access to this kind of information than we do.  Her latest information is that the enrollment is at about 1100 as of yesterday, which is a little better than we feared, but not by much.  We are expected a group of internationals to go to advisement/ enrollment tomorrow morning.  Hoping for the best.

Last week I heard a rumor that the big student cafeteria would be closed this fall and that all of the dorm students would be fed at the snack bar, due to the small number of students in the dorms.  Yesterday, we were informed that the cafeteria would indeed be closed, though the announcement did not mention the number of people in the dorms.  They said it was due to the fact that the students would prefer the snack bar because of the TV and pool table.  But, there is no way they could do it if the dorm numbers were not down significantly. 

So, here we go. 

Goodbye, Old Paint

Earlier this spring, I decided that the time for my retirement would be in the summer of 2014.  I have already talked to the dean about it, and I will announce to the department when school starts.  I am happy here, but I am starting to get burned out, and it's time to move on. 

In the last few weeks, I have discovered something else that reinforces the fact that this is a good time to retire.  This blog has been full of reports about the difficulties that this little college has had to work through.  We have eliminated the problems, and the people that were the source of the problems, and soon (probably October) the accrediting body will rule, and we are all expecting a good report.  So far, so good.  But enrollment was down last fall, and I knew we would be down again this fall.  I expected a relatively small down tick, which I thought would be reversed in a year after we get our expected clean bill of health. 

BUT, I just found out that our expected enrollment this fall is only about 1000 students.  This is down a whopping 50% from 2 years ago.  Holy macaroni and cheese!  Much of this is due to the problems we have had to work through.  Much of it, however, is due to the local paper printing exaggerating and misleading reports on this.  Just a couple of weeks ago, they printed on the front page of the Sunday paper an article about another college in another state that lost its accreditation, but the picture was of this college, and the headlines implied we were headed in the same direction.  I found out later that the situation at that other college was entirely different.  Does the paper want us to die?  It would seem so. 

We were able to hire a new math professor, who will start in January.  The good news is that this person can also teach some computer science.  Given that, the college may not feel the need to replace me next year!

The road home is looking better and better. 

Despicable them.

I am an alumni of a college in the same state where they had a lot of recent tornadoes.  I also worked there for a long time.  As an alumni, I get letters asking for money quite frequently.  They are generally routine, and I just toss them.  But recently, I got a letter from them that was out of the ordinary.  Even though the campus was not close to any tornado or tornado damage, they somehow tried to tap into sympathy for tornado victims to encourage donations to the school.  What crap.  That's low, even for them.    Enrollment there is down and faculty are being laid off.  Well deserved.  

Isn't his U-Haul a pretty orange color?

If you will refer to my February 12 post, you will see that I remarked that our Chancellor for higher education was extraordinarily unpopular.  He has done a lot in the last few months to go further down that road, including an editorial in the local paper which essentially insulted everyone in the state.  Then, he seemed to be clueless as to why no one liked him. 

Today we got great news.  He has been "released" from his contract!  How much did that cost?  Don't know.  Whatever it was, it was worth it.  If they take up a collection, I'll contribute.  Good-bye, good luck, good riddance. 

Dr. X strikes again - indirectly

I thought I was finished with Dr. X, now that he is out of his office, and rumored to be moving out of state in a few days.  Not so. 

A group of students from one of his classes came to me complaining about their grades.  In the process of inquiry, I discovered several things that Dr. X done.

We, as faculty members, are required to put on the course syllabus the way we compute grades.  In looking at this course syllabus, there was a narrative and a chart on this subject.  They did not agree.  On top of that, Dr. X had sent all of his students information on how he computed their grades.  The method he used did not agree with either the narrative or the chart on the syllabus. 

But, the astonishing thing was that he had decided that this course, which was a 4 credit hour course, needed to meet only 3 days a week.  The Thursday classes were cancelled.  He told the students that the room he was assigned for Thursdays (the class met in a computer lab the other 3 days) did not have a computer, so that was the problem.  But, the room he was assigned for Thursday DOES have a computer.  Perhaps he was just mistaken?  No.  He never asked either me or the department secretary to find a different room.  This is not a fellow who is shy about asking for what he wants or needs. 

I supported the students' request for a grade adjustment, and sent all the material to the dean.  Now, I am wondering what else about Dr. X will come to light. 

Survived another semester!

Finals are over, graduation ceremony over.  Dr. X (see 2 posts previous) sent me only one more tacky email, but now he is gone, turned in his keys, left Dodge for good.  Summer school has fallen into place.  The last big (all day long!) committee meeting has been survived. If you saw the movie "Airplane" and remember the lady that hanged herself because she was sitting by the guy that wouldn't shut up, you have some idea how I felt in that meeting.  But, no more meetings until August.  I hope.

Now to tackle all the stuff I delayed to do in the summer, including one last heroic effort on my textbook in progress.  There seems to be ZERO textbooks in computer science education.  I would like to increase that count to one. 

I even treated myself to the new Star Trek movie.  It was entertaining, but, gee whiz, why can't they find some writers who can do something original??   I don't mind that they brought back a previous bad guy, but a dramatic part of the script was plagiarized (at least in concept) from that earler movie, also.  And that part really had nothing to do with the bad guy - they just used it anyway. 

Speaking of scripts, I just re-watched last year's Star Trek and was reminded of this dramatic device called Red Matter.  It's red, and it makes black holes.  I can just see the script writers around a table trying to figure out how to imagine a technology to create black holes, and someone says "Let's just have some red stuff, and we don't have to explain how it works."  And everyone says "Great!  Except Red Matter sound better than Red Stuff".  And there we are. 

Yes, it's April

In a college, crazy stuff always happens in April.  It's only the 16th.  More crazy stuff just happened.  Do I have 2 more weeks of crazy?

Another faculty meltdown.  This time several faculty from another department (natural science) were up in arms about one of our math teachers.  I have never had to deal with this kind of situation before.  Complaints from students, from administration, from student's parents, even from other faculty within the department, but never from other departments.  The science majors do need to take a significant amount of math, so they certainly have a right to voice any concerns they have about math courses and/or teaching.  They talked to me and the dean about their upsets, and the dean and I foolishly thought that if they could have a nice sit-down chat all together with the math teacher in question, all the little differences could be worked out.   Not so.  The dean and I obviously watch too many Disney movies. 

It just so happens that our department secretary works for our department in the morning and the natural science department in the afternoon, so I had a spy.  The above mentioned meeting took place in the natural science offices in the afternoon.  The secretary told me this morning that during that meeting she could hear the shouting through the closed door of the conference room. 

The math teacher talked to me afterwords and seemed to be irritated with the science faculty, but gave no hint about what came a week later.  He sent a 3 page single spaced letter to the school president (bypassing me, the dean, and the provost).  At the end of the letter, he tendered his resignation, effective at the end of the current semester.  All 3 of us (me, dean, and provost) tried to talk him out of it.   Nope.  

So, now, I must do a faculty search with little chance of success.  Few people want to move to this remote and cold state.  Besides, it's really too late in the school year.  But, I must try. 

As soon as I start to see the light at the end of the tunnel, someone brings me more tunnel.  

People - go figure

There is a faculty member in my department who was denied tenure last year, so this is his last year. I'll call him Dr. X. His reaction to this has been, in my view, spiteful and childish.  He has refused to come to any faculty meetings, at any level.  He has refused to post his office hours by his door, as the University requires, though hopefully he has told his classes.  He has not been seen in the hallways by his office except in very rare occasions, and his office door is never open.  The dean says that unless we get student complaints, just let him stew in his own juices. 

A week before spring break, one of our students came to me and told me there had been a death in the family, and that he needed to be out the entire week.  He asked me to pass the word to two CS faculty members, one of which was Dr. X.  I sent an email to both faculty members to this effect.  This particular student is an international student, and he has a nickname that everyone (or so I thought) knew him by, so that's the name I used in the email.

After spring break, the student came to me and told me that Dr. X was angry with him because he had not notified him that he would be missing class.  I assured the student that I had indeed sent an email to Dr. X., but perhaps he didn't get it.  Not knowing if his email was trustworthy,  I printed off a copy of the email I has sent him previously and added a handwritten note, and slipped it under his door.  I thought the note was polite, even friendly, simply asking him to not blame the student for lack of notification.  This was done on or about March 20. 

Then, 2 days ago, I get a scathing email from Dr. X, angry about either the email or the note or both - still not sure what his real complaint was about, except I was just a horrible person or something.  One of the reason that I was horrible was that I referred to the student by his nickname, and I should have used his real name, and included the class he was enrolled in.  I replied, apologizing (for what, I don't know) and told him it was not my intent to be rude or disrespectful, and restated what I had tried to get across in the first place.  Then, he emails back saying that he considered that we were friends, and that I should feel free to call him with any student concerns.  Evidently phone calls are OK but emails and handwritten notes are not. 

Friends??   Are you nuts?  After all that?  No way, Jose.  Call you?  Not a chance in hell, unless the dean orders me to or there is some other disaster. 

Anyway, I am now wondering - has Dr. X even been in his office since March 20? If I call him, what are the chances of getting him in his office? 

Our secretary, one of the few people Dr. X will talk to these days, told me that the last time he had talked to her he said he had not found a new job.  Maybe he has been blaming me for giving him a bad reference; however not a single soul has asked me for one.   Maybe this has put him in an extra bad mood.  I have little sympathy for him, given that he is older than I am and could easily retire, and especially because his family is from the oil rich Arab world and seems to have significant money.  And there is no excuse for acting like a turd, in any case.

So, there is another reason to count the days until the end of the school year!  

Welcome to the Pokky-Lips

Hey!  The end of the world started yesterday.  Didn't you hear?  Washington called it the sequester.  Everyone is all upset.  Look out your window.  You can see the disaster unfold.  Dogs are having sex with cats, and the cats don't like it.  ATMs are spewing money at random moments.  The volcano under Yellowstone has erupted.  The animals have all escaped from the zoos.  The Pope was so upset about the coming events, he quit rather than having to guide the church throught it.  See the little bits of blue shards on the sidewalks?  That's the sky falling. And everyone is having a bad hair day. 

Oh, wait.  You can't see these things?  None of this has happened, except perhaps the bad hair day?  (Of course, the Pope really did quit, but I think for other reasons.)

My Republican friends are convinced that Obama is leading us all to hell in a handbasket.  My Democrat friends are equally convinced the the Republican congress is leading us all to hell in a handbasket.   No and no.  No hell, no handbasket, just a bad hair day. 

Settle down, everyone!  We will all be fine. 

Afghanistan = Son of Vietnam

Last August, I created a post about the heartbreak of the Vietnam war. 

The war in Afghanistan has worried me a lot.  The reason is...if you take most news items about Afghanistan, and make the following substitutions...

Instead of  "mountains"  insert "jungle"
Similarly:
                  "Taliban"      "Viet Cong"
                   "Pakistan"     "North Vietnam" 
  the result would be indistinguishable from a news article from the 60's about Vietnam.  It was the same sort of thing.  In the post last August, I noted about how during the Vietnam war, young men bled and died to take a hill that was abandoned after a day or two.  Just a few days ago, there was a TV news item about a soldier in Afghanistan who was receiving a medal for heroic action during a fight for a hill, which, guess what, was abandoned 2 days later.  Why????  The Viet Cong figured this out.  Just wait - the Americans will leave.  Why do we think the Taliban won't? 

Thank GOD we are getting out.  In Viet Nam, it was the only solution.  In Afghanistan, it is also the only solution.  The Taliban may come roaring back as soon as we leave - or not.  It cannot be helped.  Here's the big difference - this time we are leaving before hundreds of thousands are dead. 

Heads roll surprisingly well here.

Last year, I posted several items about people being fired (or at least encouraged to quit) here at the college where I work.  This was because of their involvement in unscrupulous activities that were evidently spearheaded by our fired president. 

There have been lots of folks that have left the University since then.  It is not know by anyone of my close aquaintence how many of these resignations were due to the scandal, or just due to individuals finding better jobs.  But, these folks are gone.  Following, there was a lot of office restructuring, reorganization, physical movement (I can't find any of the offices I need now), and general confusion.

Now, there is something new.  The state's chancellor for higher education retired last year, not long after our president was fired.  The new chancellor was unpopular from day one, and his list of enemies is growing.  Now the state House and Senate are getting into the fray.  Although they can't actually fire the chancellor, they can appropriate funds for a buy-out of his contract, and one bill has been introduced to do just that. 

I think I have been going about my career all wrong.  If they chancellor can get hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for doing nothing...gee...where do I sign up for that??

Movie Review - Hansel and Gretel

I had a little free time last weekend and I thought I would take in a movie.  I picked Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters.  Bad choice.

Normally, I have no trouble suspending disbelief for fantasy-type movies, and this one sounded interesting.  It starts with the traditional children's tale, then the premise is that these two grow up to be professional witch hunters, hired by villages to get rid of children-eating crones.  It could have been very entertaining.  Parts of it were interesting - a very few parts - such as what really happened to their parents.

But somehow, in the middle of midieval Europe, Hansel and Gretel have machine guns.  Also, it seems that because of the original incident in which the twins are forced to eat a lot of candy,  Hansel somehow develops type 2 diabetes, and must inject himself with insulin every 2 hours, with a very midieval-looking syringe.  It is never made clear where the insulin came from. 

At one point in the movie, a group of people behind me started laughing out loud in a spot where I really doubt the movie producers intended humor.  You get the idea.  Just too stupid for words. 

Why I did not vote for Mitt

Election post-mortems are always interesting, especially this one.  The Republicans have some interesting views on why more people did not vote for Mitt Romney, or other Republicans.  Some seem to think the message wasn't conservative enough, or explained well enough, or some odd thing or other.  I am wondering if they actually asked anyone - especially someone who was undecided just before the election - who voted for the other guy, just what it was that tipped the scales. 

Here's the thing - even if my political philosophy were more closely alligned with Mitt's, there were still some things about that candidate that disturbed me. 

1.  One of the things that Romney campaigned hard about was the evilness that was Obamacare.  Turns out that legislation was patterned closely after the Massechussets program that Romney himself pushed through, and said later he was "proud of it".  Huh??   No one every really explained that major inconsistincy. 

2.  Romney was always changing his message and his mind about many, many issues.  He seemed to bend with every breeze. 

3.  He never said much of anything about foreign policy. 

4.  I understand the concerns over the economy.  Many folks voted for him thinking that he could somehow turn things around instantly.  What they did not realize was that his plan was very much like what Herbert Hoover did when the Great Depression hit, and we all know how that worked out. 

5.  During the primary debates, he offered to bet Rick Perry $10,000 on something (can't remember just what now).  I well remember the look on Rick's face as he tried to decide how to respond.  I have a feeling that even though Rick has a lot more money than I do, the price of that bet was a shock to him.  Romney thinks that $10,000 is chump change, and thinks a lot of other people have a similar attitude. 

6.  But the big thing for me was his 47% remark, and his reaction after it became public.  He seemed to be totally ignorant of the fact that many, many, of the 47% were working poor, not people on public assistance.  And he was totally ignorant of the fact that many of the working poor were conservatives who would certainly vote for him.  But what was worse was the abject disgust he had for these people.  We are talking about the people I grew up around, the people in my neighborhood.  The people who worked 2 low paying jobs in some attempt to make it up the ladder of the American dream.  Yet, somehow they are no better than pond scum.  If I could have been in the same room with Mitt, it would have been hard for me to  not punch him. 

Then, when these remarks became public, he simply said he could have said the same thing more "elegantly.'  What the hell does that mean? 

My baby boy???

I was able to visit my baby boy (who is now 36) over Christmas, and received several surprises. 
A lot has changed in the year since last I saw him.

1.  This child who would not come within several feet of most vegetables was snacking on celery, carrots, raw cauliflower, and other such items. (I don't even eat celery.  Nasty stuff).
2.  He is training to compete in a triathalon.  This involves arising at 5:30 a.m. most mornings for either an intensive swimming class or similar difficult workout.  5:30 a.m. for something he doesn't have to do.  Did he have a twin?  I don't remember giving birth to twins.
3.  He is eating onions.  This is the same son who would not even taste his uncle's spaghetti sauce because he spotted a piece of onion in it. 
4.  He is drinking herb tea.  (more nasty stuff).
5.  He has never been what one would call chubby (except for a brief period when he was 10 or so), but now he is thinner and more muscular than ever.  He was complaining about having trouble finding clothes that fit. 

   I don't think I would have been more surprised if he had started wearing fingernail polish (which he wasn't, thank God.)  Just goes to show...you never know when our offspring will change.