You have no doubt heard LifeLock's ad on the radio. It's where the CEO of LifeLock says: "My name is Todd Davis. My social security number is xxx-xx-xxxx" (he actually provides his real social security number in this ad, and you can also find it on LifeLock's home page). The point of the ad is that LifeLock protects you from identify theft, and Mr. Davis is so confident of their service that he is quite comfortable publicly sharing his social security number. When I first heard the ad, it definitely piqued my curiousity.
So how does this service work and, more importantly, is it effective? Not surprisingly, there's been a lot of controversy in the news about whether or not it works. Bruce Schneier has a great post on the controversy and how LifeLock works. The controversy really stems from the core of what LifeLock does: they put fraud alerts on your credit reports from the three major credit reporting agencies, forcing lenders to verify your identity before they can issue credit cards in your name. Lenders and the credit reporting agencies hate this (it makes it harder to give credit), and so they've started a smear campaign against LifeLock (thus the controversy). In addition to the fraud alerts, LifeLock apparently does a bunch of other clever things to limit your exposure to identify theft.
So is this a service you should run out and sign up for? Probably note. Schneier notes: "At $120 a year, it's just not worth it." It's unlikely you'll be a victim of identity theft. And even if you are, it has become relatively easy to clean up the mess. Furthermore: "... it's hard to get any data on how effective LifeLock really is."
And the best part is: "...you can do most of what these companies do yourself." The second link (from the blog at savingadvice.com) is particularly useful. They provide a series of relatively easy steps you can take to protect yourself from identity theft. One key step is to regularly monitor your credit reports. And here's what they say about doing that for free:
You are entitled to one free credit report per year from each of the three major credit reporting agencies, Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax. You get these reports through AnnualCreditReport.com. Only use this site. Others that sound similar require you to pay.
The important point here is that you should go to AnnualCreditReport.com for your free credit reports---don't sign up for any other service that's going to charge you for this free service.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Unbelievable!
I just saw Tiger Woods birdie the 72nd hole at the US Open to force an 18 hole playoff tomorrow with Rocco Mediate! And this after his tee shot went in the bunker, his bunker shot landed in the rough, and the shot from the rough landed on the green but required a long putt. And he made it! Amazing! The man has nerves of steel!
Monday, June 9, 2008
Bristlebot
Ever since we saw the Bristlebot created by Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, the kids and I have been wanting to build our own! It's taken us a few months to get to it, but last weekend we finally did it! Here it is for your viewing pleasure:
We basically followed the instructions provided in the original. A few things of note:
We basically followed the instructions provided in the original. A few things of note:
- You can get the pager motor out of an old cell phone. I tried doing that, but I didn't have the right kind of small screw driver, and I found it hard to open up the cell phone. So instead I went to pagermotors.com and bought a few 7mm Namiki pager motors.
- The pager motors I bought come with leads attached, so there was no need for any soldering. You simply place one lead under the battery, with the lead and the battery stuck to the foam tape. We attached a piece of tape to the other lead and stuck it to the top of the battery to start the motor running. The tape at the top worked nicely as a switch: simply pull off the tape to stop the motor.
- Make sure that the back of your toothbrush is smooth. Some of the newer Crest toothbrushes have raised patterns on the back, and the foam tape doesn't stick properly to it.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Ubuntu
I knew of Ubuntu as a Linux distribution, but I didn't know what the word meant. Then this morning, while I was belting out a 45 minute run at they gym, I heard on TV that the Boston Celtics break their huddle with a shout of "Ubuntu!". It seems Ubuntu roughly means "I am what I am because of who we are".
Wikipedia tells us that it is a Bantu word describing "...an ethic or humanist philosophy focusing on people's allegiances and relations with each other." It is one of the founding principles of the new Republic of South Africa emphasizing "...the need for unity or consensus in decision-making, as well as the need for a suitably humanitarian ethic to inform those decisions".
What a nice meaning for this simple word. I look at much of the professional success I've had over the last 15 odd years, and I can unequivocally say that the main reason for that success has been the amazing people I've worked with---I am what I am truly because of the teams that I've been a part of. Ubuntu!
Wikipedia tells us that it is a Bantu word describing "...an ethic or humanist philosophy focusing on people's allegiances and relations with each other." It is one of the founding principles of the new Republic of South Africa emphasizing "...the need for unity or consensus in decision-making, as well as the need for a suitably humanitarian ethic to inform those decisions".
What a nice meaning for this simple word. I look at much of the professional success I've had over the last 15 odd years, and I can unequivocally say that the main reason for that success has been the amazing people I've worked with---I am what I am truly because of the teams that I've been a part of. Ubuntu!
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Remote Agent
The Phoenix Mars Lander touched down successfully on the surface of Mars on Sunday. It was no mean feat. The landing sequence was considered so risky that the official mission page on the NASA web site describes it as Seven Minutes of Terror! They note that
...in the international history of the space age, only five of 13 attempts to land on Mars have succeeded.
Check out this great picture of the part of the landing sequence where Phoenix descends into the Martian atmosphere with its parachute.
A crucial mission sequence is called a critical sequence. In a critical sequence you get one and only one chance to to execute the sequence right, with a failed sequence implying a failed mission. Critical sequences include landings (like the one that Phoenix executed flawlessly), orbit insertions (such as Cassini inserting itself into Saturn's orbit), and some flybys (such as Stardust's flyby of Comet Wild 2 to collect and return comet dust).
Talk of critical sequences reminds me of our work on the Remote Agent. I was at NASA through much of the 1990s working as a research scientist in an Artificial Intelligence (AI) research lab. Some time in 1995 the NASA Administrator, Dan Goldin, gave an inspiring speech. In it he outlined a vision that would allow NASA to significantly step up space exploration in spite of shrinking budgets. The key, he said, was to develop new technologies in such diverse areas as propulsion, MEMS, and autonomy. And he established the New Millennium Program to carry out his vision.
We (i.e., a group of AI researchers) were energized by this speech and decided to do something about it. Specifically, we thought that we could build a Remote Agent---an on-board autonomous agent to provide high-level control to achieve mission objectives. We pitched our idea to spacecraft engineers at JPL. Naturally, the spacecraft engineers were skeptical---after all, what did a bunch of AI researchers know about spacecraft autonomy? But they were open minded---they said they'd believe us if we could show them how the Remote Agent would handle Cassini's critical sequence (Saturn orbit insertion) in a simulated environment. And to make sure that the simulated environment didn't abstract away the hard parts of the critical sequence, they assigned an accomplished spacecraft engineer to lead the project.
We worked hard for the next 5 months or so, leading up to a demonstration of the system to various senior engineers at JPL. Everything was going smoothly, when suddenly an unexpected bug hit us (unexpected in the sense that it was not part of the demonstration script, though we were aware of this bug in our earlier testing but hadn't had the chance to track it down and fix it). The bug was in the communication between the Remote Agent and the underlying spacecraft simulation, and it manifested itself as a failure of the main rocket engines just as they were being turned on to slow down the spacecraft in preparation for orbit insertion!
The Remote Agent responded beautifully to this unexpected turn of events! It noticed that the main rocket engine had failed, switched to the back up engine, replanned the insertion sequence, and successfully inserted the spacecraft into orbit around Saturn (all in simulation of course---the real Cassini mission didn't use the Remote Agent!).
The success of this demonstration led directly to doing this for real on Deep Space 1, the first of the New Millennium missions. On May 17, 1999, the Remote Agent took control of Deep Space 1 to start the first of two on-board autonomy experiments. Being in mission control during these experiments was one of the most thrilling moments of my professional life!
You can read all about the Remote Agent here and about the actual experiments here. No discussion of a space mission is complete without a photograph of the spacecraft. I wanted to include a photograph of me with Deep Space 1 (in the testing bay at JPL). Unfortunately, I couldn't locate that photograph :-( So instead, you'll have to make do with the following poster. I have a big version of this poster at home---a parting gift from my NASA colleagues when I left NASA.
...in the international history of the space age, only five of 13 attempts to land on Mars have succeeded.
Check out this great picture of the part of the landing sequence where Phoenix descends into the Martian atmosphere with its parachute.
A crucial mission sequence is called a critical sequence. In a critical sequence you get one and only one chance to to execute the sequence right, with a failed sequence implying a failed mission. Critical sequences include landings (like the one that Phoenix executed flawlessly), orbit insertions (such as Cassini inserting itself into Saturn's orbit), and some flybys (such as Stardust's flyby of Comet Wild 2 to collect and return comet dust).
Talk of critical sequences reminds me of our work on the Remote Agent. I was at NASA through much of the 1990s working as a research scientist in an Artificial Intelligence (AI) research lab. Some time in 1995 the NASA Administrator, Dan Goldin, gave an inspiring speech. In it he outlined a vision that would allow NASA to significantly step up space exploration in spite of shrinking budgets. The key, he said, was to develop new technologies in such diverse areas as propulsion, MEMS, and autonomy. And he established the New Millennium Program to carry out his vision.
We (i.e., a group of AI researchers) were energized by this speech and decided to do something about it. Specifically, we thought that we could build a Remote Agent---an on-board autonomous agent to provide high-level control to achieve mission objectives. We pitched our idea to spacecraft engineers at JPL. Naturally, the spacecraft engineers were skeptical---after all, what did a bunch of AI researchers know about spacecraft autonomy? But they were open minded---they said they'd believe us if we could show them how the Remote Agent would handle Cassini's critical sequence (Saturn orbit insertion) in a simulated environment. And to make sure that the simulated environment didn't abstract away the hard parts of the critical sequence, they assigned an accomplished spacecraft engineer to lead the project.
We worked hard for the next 5 months or so, leading up to a demonstration of the system to various senior engineers at JPL. Everything was going smoothly, when suddenly an unexpected bug hit us (unexpected in the sense that it was not part of the demonstration script, though we were aware of this bug in our earlier testing but hadn't had the chance to track it down and fix it). The bug was in the communication between the Remote Agent and the underlying spacecraft simulation, and it manifested itself as a failure of the main rocket engines just as they were being turned on to slow down the spacecraft in preparation for orbit insertion!
The Remote Agent responded beautifully to this unexpected turn of events! It noticed that the main rocket engine had failed, switched to the back up engine, replanned the insertion sequence, and successfully inserted the spacecraft into orbit around Saturn (all in simulation of course---the real Cassini mission didn't use the Remote Agent!).
The success of this demonstration led directly to doing this for real on Deep Space 1, the first of the New Millennium missions. On May 17, 1999, the Remote Agent took control of Deep Space 1 to start the first of two on-board autonomy experiments. Being in mission control during these experiments was one of the most thrilling moments of my professional life!
You can read all about the Remote Agent here and about the actual experiments here. No discussion of a space mission is complete without a photograph of the spacecraft. I wanted to include a photograph of me with Deep Space 1 (in the testing bay at JPL). Unfortunately, I couldn't locate that photograph :-( So instead, you'll have to make do with the following poster. I have a big version of this poster at home---a parting gift from my NASA colleagues when I left NASA.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Phoenix Mars Lander
Growing Vegetables in EarthBoxes
Some days ago I wrote about the possibility of growing vegetables in EarthBoxes. Last weekend I converted cheap talk into action---I bought 3 EarthBoxes and planted a variety of vegetables! Here's a picture of 2 of the EarthBoxes (I got the third after I took this photograph).
The EarthBox on the right has two varieties of tomatoes, while the EarthBox on the left has basil, serrano peppers, and two varieties of bell peppers (two golden bells and a purple bell). The third EarthBox is full of bush beans. So following Michael Pollan's advice, I've taken the first step toward growing some of our own food (given my expertise in the matter, we'll be happy if we get at least one meal out of this!).
In terms of the the EarthBox promise of "virtually no effort", it's looking pretty good right now. Over the last week, taking care of the plants has involved simply topping off the water reservoir through the fill tube that you can see at the front right of each EarthBox. It takes less than 5 minutes a day. And, except for the basils, the plants are looking well hydrated. (The basils' leaves are slightly curled up, which may mean that they aren't getting quite enough water, though they're clearly getting water; they're not obviously dried up or anything.) So there is a good chance that we might actually land up with something we can eat!
The EarthBox on the right has two varieties of tomatoes, while the EarthBox on the left has basil, serrano peppers, and two varieties of bell peppers (two golden bells and a purple bell). The third EarthBox is full of bush beans. So following Michael Pollan's advice, I've taken the first step toward growing some of our own food (given my expertise in the matter, we'll be happy if we get at least one meal out of this!).
In terms of the the EarthBox promise of "virtually no effort", it's looking pretty good right now. Over the last week, taking care of the plants has involved simply topping off the water reservoir through the fill tube that you can see at the front right of each EarthBox. It takes less than 5 minutes a day. And, except for the basils, the plants are looking well hydrated. (The basils' leaves are slightly curled up, which may mean that they aren't getting quite enough water, though they're clearly getting water; they're not obviously dried up or anything.) So there is a good chance that we might actually land up with something we can eat!
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