Impossible Triangle

 Here I thought I know a lot about math, geometry, patterns, numbers .... till my little son yesterday told me he wants to draw and Impossible Triangle! "What is that?", I ask.  "A triangle that you can draw but cannot exist in real world! It is an illusion." he says.  Wow, and I looked it up and it is exactly that!  I have learned many many things every day since becoming a mother that I could not keep up with in this blog, as the long pauses suggest, but never thought a triangle would be one of them!  The Impossible Triangle is also called a Penrose Triangle*.

Image Credit: https://www.andinet.de/en/images/optical_illusions/penrose_triangle.jpg

*Reference:  Penrose triangle - Wikipedia

Why people may not seek treatment?

There are many people with undiagnosed mental health issues. There are also many who refuse seeking treatment despite being asked to do so by their family, friends, employer, or primary care giver.  Why is that? Why would not want to seek help and get better, or just figure out if they need help or not, when well-intended individuals advise them to do. Well, there can be many reasons:

1. They may not trust their privacy is honored. They may think this information will be shared with others, or be used against them in future.
2. They may not have a good health insurance and not have the financial means to seek help.
3. They may be too sick, too depressed to even see things clearly or have the energy and will power to do anything.
4. They may not see anything is wrong with them since that is the only way of life they have known. They have normalized and rationalized their behavior.
5. They think they are smart and capable enough to be able to cure themselves.
6. Subconsciously they do not believe they deserve to get better or have a better life.

While they may have good reasons to believe any of the above, not seeking treatment affects their quality of life and loved ones around them. The very first step, is to make an appointment. To accept help, or acknowledge needing it.

Pt/Co scale

One of the measures of water quality, or pollution levels in water, is its color; How is this color measured? The scale for such color measurement for water quality is Platinum-Cobalt (Pt/Co) scale or alpha-Hazen scale introduced by Allen Hazen, a chemist in 1892.   This scale measured how yellow tinted water samples are. One Pt/Co unit is how much 1 milligram of Pt/Co taints/colors 1 liter of water!  How they measure it is another story, and apparently there are standard tests defined for this purpose.

Reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pt/Co_scale

Mentor vs Career Coach

I was wondering what is the difference between a mentor and career coach at work. Here is what I learned today:

A mentor is someone more experienced who shows you the way to do something and help you navigate a preexisting, well-defined path. So, if you are a new hire, joined a new program, ... you can ask a more senior person, a veteran in that position, perhaps your predecessor, to be your mentor and show you how things are done.

A career coach is someone who helps you create a new way, find a new path, to better fulfill your professional goals.  If you are an innovator, entrepreneur, leader, wanting to do something for the first time, build a new initiative or program, develop a company or product, you can benefit from a career coach to create that new way of doing things.

Nybble

It amazes me that during all my years of studies and career as a computer scientist, I just came across the term nibble or nybble, meaning half a byte, or 4 bits.

In the Nick of Time

In the Nick of Time: just in time, just before it is too late, the last moment.

Jupiter! We are almost there.

As most Americans get ready to enjoy the fourth of July long weekend with barbeques, fireworks, or traveling to new places, NASA is getting ready for their own celebrations and fireworks, and exploring new worlds! Juno mission is expected to enter Jupiter's orbit after a five year journey! It will then orbit the gassy planet for a year to achieve many scientific objectives like mapping Jupiter's magnetic field, looking for its solid core, understanding its origins and evolution, and as a result origins and evolution of our Solar System.

No spacecraft has ever got this close to Jupiter. Jupiter poses many dangers and risks to Juno among it is the high levels of radiation so deep in the radiation belt. Juno orbit insertion (JOI) is challenging.  In fact, Juno spacecraft will risk Jupiter's fireworks for Science.  Here is our 4th of July movie trailer:

So this 4th of July, when gathered with friends and family, if you want a SciFi thriller movie to watch, watch the real deal!

p.s. I cannot believe I had started this blog exactly 5 years ago on July 5 and even wrote about Juno's launch.


References:

[1] http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/main/index.html
[2] https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/
[3] http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-announces-coverage-media-activities-for-juno-mission-arrival-at-jupiter
[4] http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6538