Ringger

My Thanksgiving Letter to Senator Mike Lee

2011-11-26T08:20:00.000-08:00

Senator Lee,

I hope that you and your family are enjoying the holiday weekend. My family and I are enjoying some down time, even as one of my sons is visiting Oahu with his high school band to commemorate the loss of our servicemen at Pearl Harbor 70 years ago.

At a recent town hall meeting at Provo City Hall I watched you stake out some hard principled positions. I have seen your Democrat counterparts do likewise over the years. Between the two positions there is a gulf, a tangible divide. I posed one question at the meeting about how we as a nation can make progress when the two sides stake out such positions across the divide without a hint of bridging it. Your reply indicated that you are willing to support any measure that takes even a small step in the right direction; you’re not holding out for the perfect solution that takes us all the way to where you want to be. I can sympathize with this approach.

However, I am concerned that we are stuck. The recent debt-reduction super-committee reached an impasse. The consequences are not pretty. My understanding is that the Democrats approached the committee in a substantially conciliatory and pragmatic mode and offered some of their important causes in exchange for additional revenue. The Republicans did not budge. I may not have my facts right, but that’s the situation as I understand it. I’m disappointed that the Republicans did not find a way to strike a bargain and to accept some progress on reducing entitlements for the poor in exchange for some progress on reducing entitlements for the rich. As an independent who registers with the major parties opportunistically (due to closed primaries), I cannot support an approach that avoids give and take. I believe a genuine opportunity has been squandered. Furthermore, I believe that you, as my representative, should reach across the aisle and strike a more pragmatic approach.

(As an aside, I do think we are out of control and that the federal government needs to be re-org’ed and that the president and his departments need hiring and firing power in the exec. branch in order make the government leaner and meaner. I also recognize it will take some work to get there.)

Yours,

--Eric Ringger

Provo, Utah

Converting Document Images to Text

2011-01-27T12:50:00.000-08:00

In my experience in the NLP Lab, ABBYY FineReader is the best OCR engine around. A recent review in PC World agrees. If you need to convert image to text, start with ABBYY.

Costco is the Bomb

2010-09-08T11:58:00.001-07:00

Saturday morning, Kirsti assigned me to return a composter to Costco. When assembled, the composter looked like a WW2 sea mine -- a big black plastic sphere with a circular lid -- but without the spikes. The problem was that it wouldn't open, try as we might, after it had been sitting for a day with some compost inside. I wheeled the composter up to the entrance of our local Costco on a flat-bed cart, and you would have thought from the stares of the other customers that I was the Uruk-hai planting that big bomb under the wall at Helm's Deep in The Two Towers. The clerk at the return desk was unphased and processed my refund. I did have the courtesy to encourage him to move the object, since it didn't smell very nice; he made a prompt phone call.

Time's up!

2010-08-30T15:27:00.000-07:00

I went looking for some software to help me better manage our home computer use. I found TimesUpKidz. http://www.timesupkidz.com/ Looks like a great addition to our PC. Windows Parental Controls allows you to set the time of day during which the computer can be used. TimesUpKidz allows you to limit total time during that window of opportunity.

The Summit

2009-12-28T10:28:00.000-08:00

My Grandfather’s home-teacher, Steve Frisbee, spoke at his funeral in November and shared the following quotation from a French mountaineer as part of his remarks:

You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know. —Rene Daumal, Mount Analogue

This got me thinking in all kinds of ways. I spoke about some of my thoughts on this topic in church on Sunday, December 27, 2009. Happy to discuss offline or in person online. Happy New Year!

Samichlaus

2009-12-08T16:36:00.000-08:00

St. Nicholas Day is celebrated on December 6th. In Switzerland, he's called "Samichlaus" or "Santiklaus", depending on where you're from. On that day St. Nicholas comes to your house to visit. If you've been good, then you receive gifts. If you've been bad, then he threatens to stuff you in a sack and take you to the Black Forest to peel carrots for a year.

On various occasions, my Grandfather Louis E. Ringger would tell us a story about St. Nikolaus Day from his youth:

As a young boy, Grandpa (Louis) was in fact stuffed in the bag by St. Nicholas. As he was being hauled down the stairs, he squirmed and managed to retrieve his pocket-knife. He sliced a hole in the bag and tumbled out, while St. Nicholas crashed down the stairway. Louis scrambled back up the stairs into his apartment and slammed and locked the door. The next morning, he noticed his dad limping around the house.

My (second) cousin says this story would make a great Swiss children's book. Anyone want to help? Simeen?

In Honor of Apollo

2009-07-22T16:26:00.000-07:00

The 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing has come and gone. With all of the coverage, I was feeling like a kid again. This find was especially impressive: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/apollosites.html

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has imaged all but one of the Apollo landing sites. Keep up the good work, NASA.

Poetic Proof

2008-11-21T17:03:00.000-08:00

If you're a computer scientist, then you've heard of the halting problem. If you're a mathematician or even a middle school geometer, then you've heard of proof by contradiction. If you're an English-speaking child, then you know Dr. Seuss. Put them together, and what do you get? An amazing Seuss-esque poetic proof of the undecidability of the halting problem, one of the most famous results in mathematics and computer science. Look here: http://ling.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/loopsnoop.pdf . Wow.

Thou shalt blog

2007-12-18T21:56:00.000-08:00

Elder M. Russell Ballard, as a leader of and spokesman for the LDS Church, encouraged members of the Church to share their stories and feelings about things that matter in life here on the web. I'm not a frequent blogger (check the dates of my posts!) and my predilection is for privacy, but I am happy to share glimpses of the reasons for the hope that is in me, even if only in small ways. (Here's the full speech.)

John Dehlin Stirs it Up

2007-12-18T21:49:00.000-08:00

My friend John Dehlin is a prolific blogger and podcaster and occasional screencaster. His primary topic of choice? Mormons and their stories. For a view into the diversity of Mormon people, their hopes, their challenges, their contrarians, and their stories, check out John's blogs:
http://www.mormonstories.org/
http://www.mormonmatters.org/
and
http://www.johndehlin.com/
I wish I could keep up with it all.

Free Web Content Filter for Home

2007-04-04T06:44:00.000-07:00

I have encountered plenty of material on the web that is unsuitable for my family. We're now using a free web filter from BlueCoat called K9. It appears to use a registry of rated URLs and to provide on the fly page classification. BlueCoat's focus is the corporate market, so it's a nice gesture to provide a free, professional package for home users. Here's the link: http://www.k9webprotection.com/
ContentWatch has a respected product as well.

Before Braille in Seattle July 2005

2006-11-26T21:49:00.000-08:00

I put up some photos from the last time I saw my brother play with his band Before Braille before they parted ways. Great show. Brandon S. showed up to play a few numbers on the bass to relive old times.

Before Braille Seattle July 2005

History of the Near East in 90 seconds

2006-10-25T21:38:00.000-07:00

I have been reading for years now about the Ancient Near East and the texts it has produced. The Holy Scriptures and related documents are an important part of my life, so I have a healthy curiosity for how they came to be. That said, it can be downright fun to step away from scholarly books and their extensive footnotes, at least for a moment, and to see history portrayed in an accessible way. This Flash illustration of the imperial conquests of the Near East, into modern times, speaks for itself. Enjoy: http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/imperial-history.html

Clear Context Revisited

2006-09-26T21:47:00.000-07:00

ClearContext continues to help me prioritize my email in meaningful ways. I'm using it together with the excellent SpeedFiler from Claritude Software (http://www.claritude.com/ ). Combining Outlook, Windows Desktop Search, plenty of RAM, and these two Outlook add-ins has enabled me to plow through email, remain responsive, and keep a large and useful email archive.

I like CC enough that I'm including a plug for them here: If you're interested in trying ClearContext, you can save $15 on your license by using the following coupon code: CC15-15400. The code is included with permission from the ClearContext folks.

State of the Art in Desktop Dictation

2006-09-26T21:36:00.000-07:00

Nuance’s Dragon Naturally Speaking v. 9 receives an excellent evaluation at ArsTechnica: http://arstechnica.com/reviews/apps/speaking.ars . I notice the excellent facility for training and updating the recognizer's language and acoustic models. Almost makes me want to try to use speech recognition on a day-to-day basis again. The last time I tried a few years ago I was not sufficiently productive to make it worth my while.

Smart Web Crawlers

2006-01-25T23:45:00.000-08:00

To classify web pages well, you need to know who's linking to them and who they link to. Features of those linking and linked pages can be helpful in making that choice. In an article at http://directmag.com/searchline/1-25-06-Google-BigDaddy/index.html , I'm reminded that crawlers aren't just about text:

"For example, Google has also begun using a search crawler built on a Mozilla browser. The new search bot is more flexible, seems faster and can read non-text content more readily; that should mean that in time, it will be able to read links within images and even within Flash video, matter that gets ignored by bots that can’t speak Javascript."

Bottom line: Crawlers have to be as good at interpreting web content as browsers.

Pistachios

2006-01-04T22:36:00.000-08:00

I usually receive a 5 lb. bag of Costco pistachios for Christmas. They remind me of an interview with one of the members of the Grateful Dead I once saw on TV. When asked (paraphrasing) "How has success made a difference in your life?", he replied, "You know those pistachios that are too hard to open with your fingers, I just throw those away."

Clear Context

2006-01-03T21:21:00.000-08:00

If you like SNARF but want to get things done within Outlook, take a look at Clear Context at http://www.clearcontext.com/beta/ . I'm running the beta of v2 and finding it to be a real help in prioritizing and taking action on email.

SNARF

2005-12-02T12:37:00.000-08:00

If you're running Outlook, try SNARF for triaging your messages based on your social relationships. Article at CNET SNARF Download

New York Doll

2005-11-11T22:08:00.000-08:00

Saw www.newyorkdollmovie.com this evening. Amazing story.

Jacob Hamblin Arch

2005-11-10T19:32:00.000-08:00

Down in Coyote Gulch

Chamonix

2004-08-31T20:47:00.000-07:00

Mont Blanc in the clouds behind me and Olac.