Author: John

John Mueller is a freelance author and technical editor. He has writing in his blood, having produced 123 books and over 600 articles to date. The topics range from networking to artificial intelligence and from database management to heads-down programming. Some of his current offerings include topics on machine learning, AI, Python programming, Android programming, and C++ programming. His technical editing skills have helped over more than 70 authors refine the content of their manuscripts. John also provides a wealth of other services, such as writing certification exams, performing technical edits, and writing articles to custom specifications. You can reach John on the Internet at [email protected].

Keeping Track of Wind Chills

This is the time of year when wind chills become especially problematic for those of us who spend substantial time outdoors. The wind chill doesn’t actually make things any colder. If your thermometer reports that it’s –9 degrees outside, then no matter what else happens, anything left outside long enough will cool to –9. However, the wind chill affects how fast the item cools. Obviously, staying outside until you body cools to that temperature will be deadly. In fact, the risk that you’re trying to avoid by monitoring the wind chill is hypothermia—a condition where your body cools faster than it can produce heat. Your normal body temperature is about 98.6 degrees. When your core temperature reaches 95 degrees, you begin experiencing hypothermia.

A simple way to monitor your risk is to take your temperature before and after you’re outside. If there is a risk of hypothermia, your temperature reading will go down. Of course, you can take an easier route by using any of the charts available for assessing your maximum time outdoors.

Using a Wind Chill Computer will help you determine how long you can stay outside if you’re absolutely healthy in every other way. You input the temperature and wind speed outside your door, rather than the temperature and wind speed reported on the radio. The wind chill will actually differ based on your location. For example, I live on a hill where the wind speed tends to be higher than it is in the nearby town, so the wind chill also tends to be higher here. If I used the wind chill reported in town, I could stay outside too long. I waited to go out this morning until the temperature rose to –7 and the wind gusts were at 12 mph. That made the wind chill –26 and my maximum time outdoors 30 minutes.

The wind chill charts assume that you’re in great shape and that you don’t take any medications that could affect your body’s ability to produce heat. If you have health issues, then you must reduce the time you spend outdoors when wind chill becomes a factor. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find a resource that speaks to these issues, possibly because trying to calculate an outdoor time under these conditions would prove to be too complex. The best idea is to exercise caution and always stay out as little as you can.

My winter work coat is roomy. I bought it that way on purpose to make it easier for me to work. However, the roominess also lets me wear two shirts under my coat. I also wear a knit cap under the hood of my jacket to reduce heat loss through the top of my head. The gloves I wear are quite heavy and I wear long johns under my pants (which are also cut roomy for winter use). It’s essential to cover up if you want to avoid getting hypothermia.

Taking care outside is an essential part of surviving the winter. Always assume that something could happen to keep you outdoors longer than you planned and act accordingly. Make sure that someone knows where you’re at if at all possible so that help could arrive in time if you get into trouble. When in doubt, the work can probably wait until tomorrow, so wait until then to complete it when possible. Let me know your thoughts about wind chills at [email protected].

 

Winter Egg Production (Part 2)

I thought I had exhausted this topic with the first Winter Egg Production post. I had known for a long time about the effects of light on chickens. Farmers typically use lights to keep chickens producing during the winter months. Lamps are even used in smaller operations because the electricity is usually less expensive than letting the chickens stop laying. However, the first post pointed out the reasons that I don’t use lighting.

All of my chickens are cold hearty breeds, such as Americanas and Australorps. So, I don’t heat the coop in winter. If it’s an especially cold day, I keep the coop closed. Even though the coop isn’t insulated, it’s extremely wind resistant due to the construction methods used, so it really has to get exceptionally cold to affect the chickens. If you don’t have cold hearty breeds, you must always heat your coop to keep the chickens from dying in extreme cold conditions.

I keep track of the coop temperature as part of monitoring the birds. The trend I noticed is that chickens will lay more eggs when conditions are warmer, even if the amount of daylight falls below the 12 to 14 hour level. In fact, egg production can get to near half levels. For example, my chickens will typically lay 248 eggs in August. With the right winter temperatures, egg production can near 124 eggs, instead of the 63 I normally get. This fact was borne out recently during a warm spell when egg production unexpectedly increased.

My personal research led me to look for verification online. One article, What Minimum Temperature Do Hens Need to Lay Eggs?, actually sets temperature levels for egg laying. The information doesn’t completely coincide with my own statistics, but the author seems to be talking about chickens in general and mine are definitely cold hearty. The eggs you get will depend on all sorts of factors, including the amount of time that the chickens are allowed to wander around outside foraging. Mine are free to roam my properly as long as I don’t see any hawks circling overhead.

There are a number of articles that also discuss the effects of humidity—something I haven’t measured to date, but intend do start doing. So, it appears that my earlier post was a little light on details. Yes, you need appropriate light to obtain decent egg production, but chickens also appear to need proper temperatures and humidity as well. The environment also has an effect on egg laying, as well as the quality of the eggs you receive.

As with anything, the output you receive is directly proportional to the input you provide. Egg laying is a science that is misunderstood by many people who raise chickens. Understanding how to help you chickens produce better eggs is essential if you want to obtain the maximum benefits from your investment. Let me know your thoughts about chickens and egg laying at [email protected].

 

Seeing as a Human

Neural networks intrigue me because of their ability to change the way in which computers work at a basic level. I last talked about them in my Considering the Future of Processing Power post. This post fed into the A Question of Balancing Robot Technologies post that explored possible ways in which neural networks could be used. The idea that neural networks provide a means of learning and of pattern recognition is central to the goals that this technology seeks to achieve. Even though robots are interesting, neural networks must first solve an even more basic problem. Current robot technology is hindered by an inability of the robot to see properly, so that it can avoid things like chairs in a room. There are all sorts of workarounds for the problem, but they all end up being kludges in the end. A recent ComputerWorld article, Computer vision finally matches primates’ ability, gives me hope that we may finally be turning the corner on making robots that can interact well with the real world.

In this case, the focus is on making it possible for a robot to see just like humans do. Actually, the sensors would be used for all sorts of other technologies, but it’s the use in robots that interests me most. A robot that can truly see as well as a human would be invaluable when it comes to performing complex tasks, such as monitoring a patient or fighting a fire. In both cases, it’s the ability to actually determine what is being seen that is important. In the case of a robotic nurse, it becomes possible to see the same sorts of things a human nurse sees, such as the start of an infection. When looking at a fire fighting robot, it becomes possible to pick out the body of someone to rescue amidst the flames. Video cameras alone can’t allow a robot to see what the camera is providing in the form of data. That being said, thanks to exciting developments in 3D hands data and other computer vision techniques, these possibilities could soon become a reality.

However, just seeing isn’t enough either. Yes, picking out patterns in the display and understanding where each object begins and ends is important. However, in order to use the data, a robot would also need to comprehend what each object is and determine whether that object is important. A burning piece of wood in a fire might not be important, but the human lying in the corner needing help is. The robot would need to comprehend that the object it sees is a human and not a burning piece of wood.

Using standard processors would never work for these applications because standard processors work too slow and can’t remember knowledge learned. Neural networks make it possible for a robot to detect objects, determine which objects are important, focus on specific objects, and then perform tasks based on those selected objects. A human would still need to make certain decisions, but a robot could quickly assess a situation, tell the human operator only the information needed to make a decision, and then act on that decision in the operator’s stead. In short, neural networks make it possible to begin looking at robots as valuable companions to humans in critical situations.

Robot technology still has a long way to go before you start seeing robots of the sort presented in Star Wars. However, each step brings us a little closer to realizing the potential of robots to reduce human suffering and to reduce the potential for injuries. Let me know your thoughts about neural networks at [email protected].

Expressions of Gratitude

As this year ends, I realize just how much has happened and how much I’ve grown as a person. The turmoil actually began when my wife became ill over six years ago, but intensified when she died in April. Since that time I’ve had to answer a lot of questions about my life and how it would change without Rebecca in it. Some answers are coming, some are still unknown, and a few have been satisfied. The most important question I had is whether my friends would be there to support me during this trying time and they’ve been more than up to the challenge. It’s good to have people you can rely upon to help keep the blog posts written, the books and articles in process, and the new fields of endeavor in progress. It would be impossible for me to name everything my friends have done for me and I wouldn’t even try. All I can do is express my extreme gratitude for them and hope they know how much they mean to me.

I’ve talked many times about how self-sufficiency is more about trying to do things on your own in as much as possible, but then realizing that no one can make it completely alone. Self-sufficiency can and does go wrong when people think that it means living like a hermit away from all human contact. Yes, I’m self-sufficient in many ways, but I’m also smart enough to know that I depend on others for help when needed. Getting that help is one thing—ensuring they know how much their help means is quite another. Expressing gratitude, even for the seemingly simple things, is an essential part of the self-sufficiency experience. It’s not possible to go wrong when you’re grateful for the help you receive.

As this year ends, I hope that you’re truly grateful for all of the small ways in which people have helped you this last year and every year to come. More importantly, I hope that you’ll actually take the time to thank your helpers in person, through a phone call, or by sending them a card (or possibly all three). The people you can count on, those few true friends in your life, are more important than anything else here on earth.

With this in mind, I also want to take time in this post to thank all my readers.  Every purchase you’ve made has helped keep me in business so that I can continue helping others. Every question you’ve asked has helped me produce better materials. The gracious contributions of my beta readers have been appreciated most of all. Goodbye to the old year; happy new year one and all!

 

Sensors and Animals

I still remember my early days in the Navy, when accelerometers were relatively large and most definitely expensive. They also weren’t all that reliable at times. (An accelerometer measures the amount of acceleration in a specific direction.) However, they were necessary equipment components because they helped ensure that any measurements compensated for the ship’s yaw, pitch, and roll. In fact, accelerometers continue to have a high visibility role in performing this task as part of Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) used in all sorts of equipment. Fortunately, modern accelerometers are extremely reliable, quite small, and cheap.

You probably have several accelerometers on your person. For example, they’re used to change the orientation of the picture produced by your smartphone. In fact, accelerometers are one of the most common sensors in use today because they provide much needed information about the manner in which the environment is changing for a particular technology. There are all sorts of ways in which you could use accelerometers to determine how an object is interacting with the real world.

Using accelerometers with animals has gone on for a long time now. In fact, they’re used so often that there is an actual name for the practice, animal biotelemetry. Most uses for animal biotelemetry affect wild animals in some way, but you can find uses for domesticated animals as well. I recently read about a new use for accelerometers in working with animals, Moove it! Tracking the common cow. The title would have you believe the accelerometers are used to monitor cow movement, which is partly true, but the purpose is to determine when the best time is to breed the cow so that she produces offspring at the most efficient time for everyone (including herself). I really enjoy learning about animals and conducting research to find ways to help them better when it comes to illness etc. I should probably start looking for animal research jobs in the UK since that would be my dream career! I guess it’s something for me to consider in the future.

The article points out that sensors are often used in ways that weren’t envisioned by their creator. In this case, the accelerometer is actually used for monitoring, rather than measuring direction. I look for continued new uses for sensors to come to light. These uses will help us overcome many of the issues that people face today in interacting with their environment. Let me know your thoughts about how accelerometers and other sensors might be used to track, monitor, and otherwise help both people and animals to lead better lives at [email protected].

 

Python 2.7.9 Update

Beginning Programming with Python For Dummies is based on Python 3.3. However, I know that some of you are using Python 2.x installations instead. My book does discuss some of the differences between the two releases and makes you aware of examples that won’t work. However, if you do decide to use Python 2.x despite the limitations when it comes to the book, I highly recommend you get the Python 2.7.9 update. The update contains a slew of important bug fixes, many of which affect security, which is always an important issue when it comes to applications.

A reader recently sent me an InfoWorld Tech Watch article that highlights the updates in the 2.7.9 release for you. The most important thing to know from a book perspective is that the update doesn’t offer any new features. This means that if an example didn’t work with 2.x in the past, it won’t work with 2.7.9 either.

A number of readers feel that the Python 2.x releases are better and the bug updates simply mean that it remains popular. Because the 3.x release is the preferred release, I chose to focus on it when I wrote the book. Yes, you can use my book with the 2.x release, but I guarantee some examples simply won’t work with it.

Please let me know if you have any other questions about my book, the level of Python support it provides, or whether the Python 2.7.9 release will provide any book-related advantage other than ensuring your system will remain safe at [email protected]. I want to ensure you have the best reading experience possible. However, there isn’t any chance at all that I’ll rewrite book examples to work with 2.x unless there is a significant number of readers who want this feature. Even then, some examples simply won’t work because there is no workaround to make them work (essentially the reason we needed the 3.x update).

 

Merry Christmas!

It’s Christmas Eve! I’m actually out of the office today and will be tomorrow as well. Taking time off to visit with family and friends, and to remember the real reason for the holiday, are important for me. I hope that you have an absolutely amazing holiday with family and friends. I’ll see you again the day after Christmas, on the 26th. In the meantime, take time to rest. It’s good for your health and your outlook on life.

More People Noticing that Green Technology Really Isn’t

A lot of people have sent me e-mail about my negative viewpoints on a lot of the supposedly green technology that we use today. The fact is that many of these green technologies simply move pollution to someone else’s backyard and may actually increase the amount of pollution created, rather than reducing it. My latest essays on the topic appear in A Discussion About Green Technology Pollution and A Discussion About Green Technology Pollution (Part 2). I’m most definitely not against technologies that really are green—I’m just against technologies that pose as green when they really aren’t. The consequences of pseudo-green technologies are real. We’ll eventually pay for the pollution we’re creating and spilling into the air, water, and land.

I’ve noticed that more people are starting to see the same things I do when it comes to pollution. The article I like best in this category is Study: Your all-electric car may not be so green from the Associated Press. Although the article doesn’t even begin to discuss the sources of pollution that electric cars generate (such as those rare earth mines in various parts of the world), it does point out that even the electricity is dirty. An electric car powered by electricity from a coal-fueled plant produces 3.6 times the amount of pollution as a gasoline car. If you absolutely must attack the problems created by gasoline fueled cars, use a hybrid instead. No, it doesn’t get rid of the pollution produced by materials used to build the car, but at least it actually does produce less pollution locally.

Some readers have pointed out that there is some speculation that the whole global warming debate is a fraud. There is even some discussion that governments are stepping in and simply telling anyone who works for the government not to tall about global warming at all. Yes, the debate has proven difficult and will remain difficult as some researchers begin to claim that we’re actually going to experience a cooling trend in the near future. The fact is that few people actually have the knowledge required to make a guess and my understanding is that no one has actually accumulated enough information to prove the issue one way or the other. What I do know is that it’s a bad idea to keep spewing contaminants into our environment. You can see the effects of pollution all around you.

This all leads me back to my basic premise about pollution. You need to make it personal. Deciding how pollution affects you personally can help direct your efforts in making our world a cleaner place to live. Doing things like turning off lights you don’t need, driving only when you actually need to, and lowering the thermostat a few degrees will all help. Your personal gain from such efforts is the money you’ll save and the health you’ll keep. Using fewer resources means having more money in your pocket for the things you’d like to have. Less pollution means that you’ll have a longer, healthier life.

What is your take on the claims to green technology that really isn’t? There currently aren’t any laws that specifically keep a manufacturer from claiming that a technology is green when it really isn’t. I’d like to see laws that place the burden of proof on the manufacturer. Before a product is sold as being green, the manufacturer should have to prove that it’s not only manufactured in ways that will produce less pollution (something that is nearly impossible right now), but that using the item will also produce less pollution and that the product’s eventual disposal will help keep pollution under control as well. Let me know your thoughts on the topic at [email protected].

 

Winter Warmup

Winter weather is anything but predictable. It’s not consistent either. Every year we prepare our property for the worst but sometimes you can barely tell it’s winter! Last year we made sure we got our heating looked at. It’s always best to get everything checked by professionals, so they can spot issues before they’ve even happened. You could get premierhvacservicesllc.com/heating/ to have a look at everything even though you can’t see or hear anything wrong with it. We also got a roofing company in to look at our roof because we didn’t want any leaks happening over the winter and then it only snowed about 4 inches all season.
This doesn’t mean we won’t do the same this year though – if it’s been a while since you had your roof checked out then I recommend hiring a company like Action Roof Repairs & Roof Restorations Canberra so you know whether or not you need to do any repairs before winter. The only true statement you can make is that the weather is interesting. Exciting might work as another term for it. So, I’m not at all surprised that November turned out quite cold with temperatures well below normal, and now December is turning out a bit warm. In fact, we’ve had a number of days that have been above freezing. From a personal perspective, I’m not complaining even a little. My wood pile continues to look nice too. In fact, the house got a bit too warm last night using the minimum amount of wood. I may not even start a fire this evening given that I used one this morning to dry my clothes (hey, driers cost money to operate-clothes racks are pretty much free except for the initial investment).

Just because I personally like the weather though, doesn’t mean there aren’t concerns. When the weather is like this, the ground doesn’t freeze completely. Bugs that are overwintering in the ground and on plants aren’t killed off when the weather is too warm. In fact, I’m thinking if the weather doesn’t get colder soon, I may end up with a bumper crop of tent caterpillars this spring.

Even though people don’t like the cold winds of winter, the plants need it to remain viable. Nature has evolved to require the presence of extreme cold in order to keep insects under control. When the insects aren’t controlled, the plants have a hard time surviving (normally it’s the plants you want most that die the easiest). For example, tent caterpillars can easily strip my plum trees and because the trees don’t get a second set of leaves, the trees are bald for the entire summer (resulting in their death).

Unfortunately, the weather can also get too cold. Last winter we experienced day after day of colder than usual temperatures. The result was that about half of my grape vines died. Interestingly enough, the grape roots survived and new vines came up from the root. I’ll still have to wait for three or four years to get my first batch of grapes from the new vines, but it won’t be as long as if I had to replant them using new plants. The point is that there is a range of temperatures that plants expect during the winter months and when those temperatures aren’t met, the plants die or the insects overwhelm them.

A number of people have asked where global warming is given the temperatures we’ve been having for the most part. Global warming is a technically correct, but misleading term. The more I read, the more I come to understand that the overall warming of the earth’s temperature causes wider variations in climate, not necessarily overall warming. While we have experienced colder weather here in Wisconsin, overall, the earth has continued to warm. I was reading about the effects of the warming in other areas of the world just this morning.

I’ll eventually provide some additional input regarding global warming because there seems to be a great deal of confusion about things. I do believe there is some level of global warming based on the weather I’ve seen personally. Whether global warming is due to natural climatic variations or the result of mankind’s mistreatment of the planet remains to be seen (although, fouling the planet’s atmosphere, water, and soil is a bad idea no matter what the effect might be). No matter the cause, I look for the effects to become more prominent in the future. Let me know your thoughts about our interesting winter weather at [email protected].

Thinking About the Continuing Loss of Privacy

It’s easy to wonder whether there will ever come a time when humans will no longer have any privacy of any sort. In part, the problem is one of our own making. We open ourselves up to all sorts of intrusions for the sake of using technology we really don’t need. I’ve discussed this issue in the past with posts such as Exercising Personal Privacy. As people become more addicted to technology, the thinking process is affected. The technology becomes a sort of narcotic that people feel they can’t do without. Of course, it’s quite possible to do without the technology, but the will to do so is lacking.

A couple of articles that I read recently have served to highlight the consequences of unbridled technology overuse. The first, Getting Hacked Is in Your Future, describes the trend in hacking modern technology. Of course, avoiding getting hacked is simple—just stop using the technology. For example, people have gotten along just fine without remote car starts to heat their cars. Actually, it’s simply a bad idea because the practice wastes a considerable amount of gas. The point of the article is that hackers aren’t ever going to stop. You can count on this group continuing to test technology, finding the holes, and then exploiting the holes to do something horrid.

Wearable technology is also becoming more of a problem. The ComputerWorld article, Data from wearable devices could soon land you in jail, describes how police will eventually use the devices you use to monitor yourself against you. The problem isn’t the wearable technology, but the fact that many people will use it indiscriminately. Even though logic would tell you that wearing the device just during exercise is fine, people will become addicted to wearing them all the time. It won’t be long and you’ll see people monitoring every bodily function 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The use of cameras to view static locations on a street will soon seem tame in light of the intrusions of new technologies.

A reader recently asked whether I think technology is bad based on some of my recent blog posts. Quite the contrary—I see the careful use of technology as a means of freeing people to become more productive. The problem I have is with the misuse and overuse of technology. Technology should be a tool that helps, not hinders, human development of all sorts. I see technology playing a huge role in helping people with special needs become fully productive citizens whose special need all but disappears (or possibly does disappear to the point where even the technology user doesn’t realize there is a special need any longer).

What is your take on the direction that technology is taking? Do you see technology use continuing to increase, despite the problems that it can pose? Let me know your thoughts on the good uses for technology and the means you use to decide when technology has gone too far at [email protected].