The Cold, Hard Truth About Scott Maxwell

Most Recent Change: Fri Aug 3 08:54:01 2001 UTC.

by someone who knows

Despite the blatant lies he tells you on Scott Maxwell's Magical Electric Home Page, Scott is an occasionally serious human being. For example, he often manages to be serious while working on the Automated Command Tracker, his major current programming project for JPL.

ACT is used by the Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Climate Orbiter, Mars Polar Lander, Stardust, and Deep Space 1 spacecraft teams.

Sorry, I can't show or tell you more about ACT, since JPL is anal about stuff like that (with good reason, I suppose).

Scott spends most of his time waiting for C++ programs to compile, which is why he prefers Perl.

Some Random Things

"I will show you the life of the mind! I will show you the life of the mind!" -- John Goodman, in Barton Fink

Scientific Experimentation

Whose software makes the Web go 'round? Find out in my Web server survey.

Java Applets

In the best tradition of the Internet, all of these applets include source code -- just follow the links to the applet of interest, and there will be a link to the Java source code. Naturally, viewing these applets requires Java support from your browser, but you don't need Java support to read the discussions or to get the source code.

I test these applets using Netscape 4.05 under Red Hat Linux 5.0 and on a Macintosh; when possible, I also test them using Netscape 4.05 on a Sun workstation.

Evolutionary Applets

These applets now form exhibits in MEAL, the Museum of Evolution and Artificial Life.

The Weasel demonstrates the power of evolutionary techniques to solve huge problems fast.
BiomorphBounce illustrates the effect of slow walks through large ``DNA-spaces.''
SimEvol shows bugs adapting to a harsh environment. Unlike the others, this applet requires Java 1.1.

Other Applets

Here's a pretty basic linear cellular automata applet.
Here's a replacement for horizontal rules.

Because I'm sure you can't wait to know, why not read my opinion of Java?

Software You Can Have

Bulletproof your Linux box with these patches to common utilities.
I'm writing Plan B, a budget planner for Linux. It will shortly be released under the GPL.
I'm also writing MGM, a Swiss Army Knife of process/file/system monitoring.

Topics in Innumeracy

Innumeracy is the math equivalent of illiteracy. (The word was coined by the mathematician John Allen Paulos and is the title of one of his books.) I believe innumeracy is a growing but under-recognized problem in America. Once you know about it, you see its effects everywhere -- from those who protested Cassini's launch to the folks who buy that ``Bible Codes'' nonsense. I myself have a few thoughts on those and related subjects:

One of my pet peeves is to hear that the next millennium starts in 2000. It doesn't -- it starts in 2001, and I can prove it.
I've written a small program to scan for "hidden" phrases in the King James version of the Bible. From time to time I'll update its list of phrases found and phrases not found. (I also have a list of offensive phrases found and offensive phrases not found, but that's not up here yet.)
(Well, okay, I have some more thoughts on these topics, they're just not here yet. Soon, baby.)

Places I'd Rather Be

Bora Bora

The exotic isle of Bora Bora speaks for itself. The most beautiful place on Earth, expensive and well worth it.

Disney

I love Disneyland and Walt Disney World. I can't be there all the time, but at least Disney is kind enough to provide us Web surfers this live picture of the Magic Kingdom (updated every five minutes):

Up to Zenobia's Home Page.

s-max@pacbell.net