CIS Blog 4 - Computer Systems in Daily Life

I chose an electromechanical timer as my computer system of daily life. It is something I use everyday for the lights in my house. Youtube has a video of how one works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeRLG0CWsic, but this is not like the one I have. Mine has pins for every half hour. You push the pins down for the times you want the current to be on and leave them up for when the current should be off.

According to this wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timer, electromechanical timers were well developed by the 1950s because of their use for aerospace and weapons projects. There doesn’t seem to be a single inventor, though.

I guess timers of various types are similar. For instance, an alarm clock does much the same thing; switching on at the programmed time and off by a manual switch. The time is stored within the alarm clock, so that it doesn’t have to be reset everyday.

Life without any kind of a timer, would be much more difficult. Watches, clocks, and smartphone clocks are all timers because they keep track of time according to a 24 or 48 hour cycle. Everything in standard, modern American culture is relative to time. Classes, work, appointments, and business hours are all set to a specific, recurring time. Without timers it would be difficult to organized large groups of people, because they wouldn’t know the specific time to show up. Other types of timers, like the one I use on my lights or any timer that has a setting for both on and off states, do not seem as necessary to my daily life as timers that simply keep track of time. Without my timer, life would just be more inconvenient and for the same thing to occur it would rely on me remembering to do it every day.

Timers in the form of clocks are very important to our daily technological lives. I know that accurate timing is essential for the correct functioning of GPS. Without accurate time, an accurate location cannot be derived. I look forward to self-driving cars becoming mainstream and that is something that relies on GPS and therefore time technology to work.

Not finding an inventor for on/off timers made me curious about who invented the watch. The inventor of the watch was Peter Henlein (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Henlein). It isn’t certain that he was the first to start making small, portable clocks, but he was one of the first. It is interesting that at the time, clockmaking was a new field that he was able to enter because of his experience as a locksmith.

CIS Blog 3 - Algorithms

I am choosing to describe my nightly routine of getting ready for bed as an algorithm. I think it may not be that hard to program the steps, but programming a robot that could actually do it would be much harder.

Moving in a three-dimensional space would probably be the toughest thing to program. The robot would have to be able to detect obstacles and maneuver around them, because my bedroom isn’t the neatest and there are random objects on the floor. They would also have to have dexterity programmed and built into them that would allow them to handle objects. This would require sensors equivalent to eyes to detect objects, but also touch sensors, so that an appropriate amount of force can be applied to varying objects depending upon their fragility.

Assuming the robot has the basics of movement and senses programmed into it, the robot’s algorithm for my nightly routine could begin with a signal. In myself that would be the levels of chemicals in my brain indicating that I have been awake long enough and sleep would be welcome. There could be an equivalent indicator for the robot, such as a low battery.

Once that indicator has set the process in motion, the robot would begin a sequence of operations like this:

• Go to bathroom
• Turn on light
• Open cabinet
• Remove contact lens case
• Empty contact lens solution into sink
• Insert contacts (I have OrthoK lenses that I wear at night)

-  If the lenses are not comfortable do the following or else continue with main routine:

- Remove lenses

- Rinse lenses in saline solution

- Reinsert lenses

- Repeat until comfortable, then resume main routine

     - Pick up toothbrush

     - Open cabinet

     - Remove toothpaste

     - Unscrew toothpaste lid

     - Put a specified amount of toothpaste onto the toothbrush bristles

     - Screw lid back on toothpaste

     - Place toothpaste in cabinet

     - Close cabinet

     - Brush teeth

- This would have to be a sub-routine that would involve moving the toothbrush in circular         motions, left and right, up and down, while simultaneously moving around the mouth, with these steps repeating for a time like the recommended 2 minutes

     - Rinse mouth with water

     - Rinse toothpaste with water

     - Return toothpaste to toothpaste holder

     - Etc.

I think the seemingly simple task of brushing my teeth is a good demonstration of how there are many steps even for something humans think of as simple. The other things I would do to get ready would have similarly long instructions. Peeing would require a sensor to indicate urgency, then that urgency would have to be evaluated for desire to pee before going to bed. There would be steps for preparing to pee, aiming, steps afterward including flushing the toilet and washing my hands. After washing my hands I would dry my hands. There would be an algorithm for how the robot moves his hands within the towel to dry them and an analysis of the specific level of dryness it is acceptable to stop drying his hands.

There are many more aspects to my routine, each with equivalently long break-downs of how they are done. Doors and light switches are maneuvered, food and drink is prepared and eaten. Smoking devices are prepared and smoken. All of this while taking into account comfort in terms of temperature, body position, bedding position, and the inconvenient positioning of a dog who isn’t good at sharing space. It would certainly be possible to teach a robot this routine and every other routine in my life, but it would require very lengthy and complicated algorithms for even simple routines.

My nighttime routine probably is not the most efficient, because I don’t do the same thing every night or maintain the same order every night, so a lot of thought processes go into decided what to do and when to do it, even though it ends up being roughly the same each night.

    

CIS Blog 2 - Historical Figure in Computing

Alan Turing is the most interesting person to me in the history of computer science at this time. I say at this time, because the history of computer science is very new to me and I am not familiar with many of the people that were involved in it’s history.

He is the most interesting to me, because of the legal case brought against him for being homosexual, the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death, and the confidential nature of his code-decryption work for the British government.

It is only 63 years later and gay marriage is now legal in Britain and the United States. At the time, Turing was charged with a crime just for being homosexual and was required to undergo hormonal treatment to reduce libido, but which actually made him impotent. That seems like such an extreme punishment for something that is not considered a crime today. The black and white nature of laws troubles me. People in more recent times have been sentenced to life in prison for drug offenses. Any law that heavily punishes people for nonviolent crimes is morally unjust to me. I wish these unjust laws would be abolished quicker. Why should it take 60 years to change laws that demonize harmless individuals?

His death is interesting, because he was only 41, and there is speculation about whether it was accidental or a suicide. He achieved a great amount in a relatively short lifetime. His death was due to cyanide poisoning, but an apparatus he had for gold electroplating means he could have inhaled cyanide accidentally or he intentionally ingested it with an apple that was found with him. It is very interesting to me that his mental state at the time will forever remain a mystery; was he profoundly despaired by his legal case and subsequent hormonal treatment or was he just careless with potentially deadly chemicals?

Without studying in detail his work toward deciphering German ciphers during World War II, it seems apparent by his colleagues’ admiration and the length of time some of his papers were kept confidential that he contributed substantially to the war-time decryption efforts. Not being very well versed in math, I find it hard to fathom the mathematical intricacies it would require to break any code that was designed by Germany’s smartest military scientists.

While reading about his decryption work, it surprised me to learn of his athletic prowess. He occasionally ran the 40 miles to London for high-level meetings. I have read a few books by modern-day Ultramarathoners (Dean Karnazes and Pam Reed). Modern day ultramarathons seem to range from 50 - 100 miles, regularly, but they are technically any distance over the standard marathon. I thought ultramarathons were a relatively new development, so I was surprised to learn that their history in England goes back to the Victorian Era (1837 - 1901).

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing#Cryptanalysis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultramarathon#Europe