Technology Bytes

Allright. Today is March 14th or 3/14, meaning that it’s national Pi day.

So, rather than ask how many digits *do* people know, let’s ask how many digits people *did* know.

The Bible lists the value as three.

In 480, Chung-Chih calulated the value to six digits.

In 1610, Ludolph Van Cuelen worked out an estimation to 34 places.

In 1706, John Machin calculated 100 decimal digits of pi.

In 1807, William Shanks cranked out 707 digits of pi, though only the first 527 were correct.

In 1944, the actual 528th decimal place was discovered.

In 1947, the total was raised to 808.

Today, in the era of supercomputers, we’re able to compute the value of pi out to hundreds of millions of digits.

So how can you remember all those digits? With a simple song, of course!

Here we go!

That’s it for your Pi Day Nemonic and that’s that for BarretTime.

Leap Day episode! Peter Hughes was out sick and phliKtid was running a little late so the rhythm was a little off. Eventually the host found their stride and pulled off a Leap Day miracle.

Technology bytes Podcast For February 29, 2012 [ 1:59:24 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

All right. Happy Leap Day, everyone. We’re 60 days into the Gregorian calendar in a year that is evenly divisible by four, which means that everyone gets an extra day. The situation arises because we have 365 days in our calendar, yet it takes the Earth 365 days and six hours to make a complete revolution around the sun. I think the whole problem could be solved by changing the name of the state of Mississippi to Missississippi, which should effectively elongate the standard measurement of the second enough to account for the extra six hours.

As of yet, no one has really gotten on board with my plan. Which is sad, because it was the first step in my twelve step program to conquer the world. If you’re facing similar issues while sitting in front of your drawing board, maybe you just need the collaboration of the other evil geniuses that will be attending the March installment of the Technology Bytes Geek Gathering.

The important thing here is not to get discouraged, but rather to learn from your mistakes and the mistakes of others.

So, I’m thinking that we may make a little more progress if we identify some plans and some players that haven’t seen so much success in the past.

If you plan starts off with stealing underpants and ends in making a profit, you’d better get poppin’, because a highly motivated, lowly situated group of people is already on the task. Any guesses?

The Underpants Gnomes. They haven’t completely failed, but they haven’t really succeeded yet, either. If you happen to be an Underpants Gnome, you’re still welcome to attend the Gathering this Friday night.

Our first real villain started off life with a full head of red hair, but due to an artist’s mistake, quickly lost it. In one plot, he tries to become president of the United States of America by winning the election on a platform of promoting technological progress. His first action as president would be to take a proposed moratorium on fossil-based fuels to Congress.

So, red hair, pro-technology, wants to cut our dependence on fossil fuels… Sounds pretty solid. Any idea who this villain is?

Hint: His plot usually included 1) Kill Superman 2) ??? 3) Profit!

Lex Luthor.

So let’s not give up on domination through technology just yet…

Maybe you could amass a secret portfolio of patents that may cover the world’s most popular Open Source operating system? Then maybe you could talk a few companies into paying you royalties or settling the infringement case out of court, then use those precedents to sway other companies into paying you, too, all without actually divulging the patents? Has that been done? I think maybe that’s been done… Any idea who tried and failed?

Darl McBride of SCO.

Now, if you feel a little maligned or that maybe you’re a bit of a mutant, you might want to thing twice before trying to lock up all the regular people. It’s been tried. It failed. Any guesses as to who was behind this one?

Magneto, enemy of Professor Xavier of the X-Men.

Now, if reasoning, regular emotions, and all rationality go out the window when you sit down to hatch a plan, you may want to take a note from our next villain. In the movies, he was played by such greats as Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, and (cough) Mark Hamil. Of course,
Heath Ledger is probably the give-away.

With green hair and a wide smile, we have?

The Joker.

Pretty much if your plan includes, Kill the Batman, then you’re sunk. Even with Michael Keaton in the mix. He kicked butt and took names as Batman, Mister Mom, and a business manager trying to keep jobs in his hometown automotive factory.

So, what if your plans include a re-branding based on the letters of your name and a reorganization of your entity into other spin-off ventures? What if your co-workers describe you as a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people’s suffering? What if you like salesmen? Hint: It’s not Michael Keaton. Oh – and did I say Salesmen? I meant snakes.

Voldemort.

And lastly, if your plan involves fighting a multi-fronted war with an under supplied army, attacking Stalingrad instead of Moscow, and setting up Panzer and infantry rally points hundreds of miles behind enemy lines, you can go ahead and find a ditch and some petrol right now.

Things get started this Friday a little after seven PM at the Coffee Groundz in Midtown Houston. 2503 Bagby at McGowan is where you want to be. Coffee, tea and smoothies are on site, and beer and wine are within walking distance. Hit our site at www.geekradio.com for the bigger than life flyer and details on the Geek Gathering. Hope to see you all Friday, but for now…

That’s it for your cautionary call to arms and that’s that for BarretTime.

Allright.

We’re coming up on the fourth Satuday of February, which means that its time to flip over the framed photo of Bill Gates you keep on your night stand before heading over to HAL-PC for the Houston Linux Users Group Bi-Monthly Meeting. The group gets together from two to four in the afternoon this Saturday at the HAL-PC headquarters, located at 4543 Post Oak Place Drive. If you’re new to Linux, never fear. The meeting takes the form of an hour and a half presentation over some *practical* aspect of the Linux operating system or the applications that support it. If you still feel like Socially Awkward Penguin, know that 1) Linux people love penguins. And 2) Adobe is abandoning future updates of their flash player for Linux. Going forward, they will remove all Linux downloads from their website and will offer the player only as part of Google Chrome for Linux.

So, you’re now armed with a feeling of social acceptance *and* an appropriate level of Adobe angst. You should fit in just fine…

If you want to show up an hour early, you can check out the Robotics Lab. This group takes a step by step approach to building and programming robotics, and will even prepare you to observe or even participate in nearby robotics competitions. The lab is actually a four hour session set aside for lab work, assembly, programming and individual
instruction.

Both meetups happen at HAL PC, the Houston Area League of PC Users. Hit www.hal-pc.org for details and directions.

And with high powered microcontrollers coming down in price, many roboticists are turning toward Linux as a robotic platform rather than rolling their own operating systems from scratch.

Which could play out very well for you if your plan for world domination requires the use of robotic armies. Of course, I’m talking about the March installment of the Technology Bytes Geek Gathering. It’s not for another two weeks, but I wanted to raise the alarm early so that everyone has an ample amount of time to get their blueprints for world domination converted to Power Point.

If this is news to you, then you haven’t seen the brilliantly big flyer for next month’s Geek Gathering featuring the Penguin (A-ha! A theme!) and the Joker being photo-bombed by some guy in an eye mask and a spandex shirt. If you happen to know the identity of this man, please let us know. Until then, it will have to remain an Enigma.

Hit www.geekradio.com to make a positive identification and get details on the next Gathering.

And lastly, a birthday. If you’ve had to Google anything today, then you’ve probably noticed the squiggly moving line on their home page. If that reminds you of how you drive a rental car while vacationing in a new city, then you’re on the money. The man who pioneered the rental car industry, John D. Hertz, was born on April 10th, 1879, just 22 years and 12 days apart from Heinrich Hertz, the German physicist who clarified and expanded the electromagnetic theory of light. The scientific unit of measurement for frequency, or cycles per second, was named Hertz, in his honor.

For example, the speed of the processor in your computer is measured in gigahertz, a combination of Hertz, again meaning cycles per second, and Giga, named after Joseph Giga, the man who invented very large numbers.

So, does anyone know the clock speed of Technology Bytes?

I’ll give everyone a second to do the math while that one listener at home fact checks me on the Joseph Giga reference. (I made it up.)

OK. Let’s do this The Price is Right Style: whoever comes closest without going over wins. No negative numbers, please.

Answers or guesses, gentlemen?

Groove: : ABSTAINS

Dwight: : 89.5

PhliKtid: : 901MH

Peter: : 9.01

JayLee: : 90.1

The actual retail price, as expressed in hertz, is:

One – Six hundred and four thousandths and eight hundredths hertz.

That’s .000 001 65 hertz.

Oh no! You’ve all over bid!

If you’d like to see the new TechBytes is Right in person, send yourself, sans a self addressed stamped envelope to Tickets, at 2503 Bagby, Houston Texas, 77006, on Friday March 2nd, but for now…

That’s it for your missive of mis-info and that’s that for BarretTime.

All right. We survived yet another pledge drive without losing a single member to fund raiser flu. Which means we’re back with a little BarretTime trivia.

What actor or actress do all of these television shows have in common:

Howdy Doody, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Twilight Zone, 77 Sunset Strip, Route 66, The Outer Limits, The Reporter, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Fugitive, Hawaii Five-O, Columbo, and 3rd Rock from the Sun?

How about: Boston Legal.

And the gimme: TJ Hooker.

If we had needed it, the ringer would have been Star Trek.

Of course, we’re talking about Bill, aka Billy aka The Shat, aka William Alan Shatner. Wil Weaton, the actor who played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek, The Next Generation, had an early experience with Shatner. Upon their first meeting, William refused to shake Wil’s hand. Wheaton said he explained what his character did on the Enterprise-D, and all Shatner could do was tell him, “I’d never let a kid come onto my bridge” and walked away.

Weaton writes, “Capt. James Tiberious Kirk, of the Starship Enterprise 1701, and Enterprise 1701-A, the only person in Starfleet to ever defeat the Kobiyashi Maru, the man behind the Corbomite Maneuver, the man who took the Enterprise to the Genesis planet to return Spock’s
katra, the man who I had admired since I was 8 years old, was immediately transformed into ‘William F’ing Shatner.'”

Of course, that’s been cleaned up for radio.

Regardless of how you feel about the good Captain, he’ll be in Houston on March 23rd at Jones Hall for a speaking engagement. Called Shatner’s World, the one-man show may not be all Trek, but it’s definitely a shot to see the legend locally. The show opened Yesterday on Broadway with the tagline, It’s Shatner’s world. We just live in it.”

If you can’t wait until March to scratch your Star Trek itch, look no farther than Starbase Houston, Houston’s oldest and largest Trek Fan Club. Their URL is starbasehouston.org and they conduct most of their business online. If you want an actual meetup, you’ll want to beam
up to the USS Zavala NC-100101, the new ship assigned to Starfleet International Region 3 serving Southeast Texas. The next Crew Muster will be an away mission to get some tacos this Sunday at 1400 hours. Hit usszavala.org for details on the departure. And since they’ll be
beaming down to West Belfort, you’ll definitely want to leave the red uniform at home.

If you think all of this Star Trek nonsense is silly, that Kirk was a wimp or that Deep Space 9 was a waste of time, then you’re an excellent candidate for the Space City Trade Federation, Houston’s official Star Wars fan club. Movie outings, conventions, picnics, parties and
light saber duels round out the groups bi-monthly meeting schedule. For details, hit the Jedi Council Forums at boards.theforce.net and drill down to the Houston page. We’ve actually done some light light saber repair work a few Geek Gatherings ago. That’s off the record, of
course… I’m not union and I don’t want to get loopylow in trouble.

And just to keep myself out of trouble, I’d better mention our last group of the night, the Houston Browncoats. Can anyone in the studio guess what show these guys support?

The Houston Browncoats are the Houston area Firefly/Serenity Fan Base. If you’re not familiar with Firefly, it was a single season television series, an American Space Western, if you will, produced by Joss Whedon. Whedon originally pitched the show as “nine people looking
into the blackness of space and seeing nine different things”. The show explores the lives of some people who fought on the losing side of a civil war and others who now make a living on the outskirts of society, as part of the pioneer culture that exists on the fringes of their star system. In addition, it is a future where the only two surviving superpowers, the United States and China, fused to form the central federal government, called the Alliance, resulting in the fusion of the two cultures. While it’s a very good watch, be prepared for disappointment, as the show was not renewed after the first season. There’s a movie to make things a little better, but the television version turned out to be the beginnings of a story that would never see an end.

And lastly, apologies to any Babylon 5 fans out there… Maybe it’s time you pick a real Sci-Fi franchise…

That’s that for talking Shat and that’s it for BarretTime.