Behrooz Parhami Home & Contact Behrooz Parhami's Blog & Books Page Page last updated on 2015 December 31 Curriculum Vitae Research This page was created in March 2009 as an outgrowth of the section entitled "Books Read or Heard" in my personal page. The rapid expansion of the list of Computer arithmetic books warranted devoting a separate page to it. Given that the book introductions and reviews constituted a form of personal blog, I decided to title Parallel processing this page "Blog & Books," to also allow discussion of interesting topics Fault tolerance unrelated to books from time to time. Lately, non-book items (such as political Broader research news, tech news, puzzles, oddities, trivia, humor, art, and music) have formed the vast majority of the entries. Research history List of publications Entries in each section appear in reverse chronological order. Teaching Blog entries for 2015 Archived blogs for 2014 ECE1 Freshman sem Archived blogs for 2012-13 ECE154 Comp arch Archived blogs up to 2011 ECE252B Comp arith Blog Entries for 2015 ECE252C Adv dig des 2015/12/31 (Thursday): Here are five items of potential interest. ECE254B Par proc (1) Photographer Angela Pan's fantastic capture of the Vietnam veterans' ECE257A Fault toler memorial in Washington, DC. (2) Muslim sufis play traditional Christmas music. Student supervision (3) Media circus about Bill Cosby: I am so very glad that Bill Cosby has finally Math + Fun! been charged with sexual crimes. I am not glad at all that an ugly media frenzy and trial by pundits has already begun. It was okay to discuss the issue earlier Textbooks because years of accusations by dozens of women were not being taken seriously. Now that formal charges have been brought against the disgraced comedian, we Computer arithmetic should let the case proceed and the man to have his day in court. Parallel processing (4) It was bound to happen some day: Late tonight, twin girls were born in Dependable comp Ventura's Community Memorial Hospital 4 minutes apart, but in different years. (5) Returning to my normal life after a memorable trip: I traveled with some Comp architecture family members in France, Deduring cember 20-29. Here are some general Other books impressions about the 10-day trip. - Seeing, for the first time, several locales and historical monuments was educational and awe-inspiring. Paris Service was, of course, a delight, but so were our other stops: Nice, Avignon, Carcassonne, and Bordeaux. The experience went a long way toward correcting the skewed and incomplete version of French history I had Professional activities learned in Iran. Academic service - It was reassuring to see Bordeaux, the city where my daughter has been studying for the past 4.5 months and Community service to share in her experiences: the neighborhood where she lived, the cafes and shops she frequented, and the rich culture she interacted with daily. Industrial consulting - Spending time with family, including my younger son Sepand and my daughter Sepideh, as well as my youngest sister Farnaz, along with her husband Armin and daughter Kimia, was very pleasurable and also Files & Documents served to strengthen our bonds. Useful Links - Extensive walking to visit historical sites, or to get from one place to another, was a welcome change in my routine. I now understand why the French stay slim and fit, while endulging in rich food. All the walking to get Personal to the metro or train station, within the station to get to the platform or from one train to another, and from the last station to the final destination does add up. Blog & books - Our enjoyment was maximized by the weather being unseasonably warm and there being no precipitation to https://www.ece.ucsb.edu/~parhami/pers_blog.htm[1/2/2016 1:47:19 AM] Behrooz Parhami Favorite quotations speak of. Interestingly, we missed the rain by a few hours on several occasions. For example, Paris became rainy just as we were leaving France. Poetry - For many years, Paris was synonymous for us with Fakhteh Borhan, a long-time family friend who lived there. Pet peeve Her passing away in 2013 deprived us of the opportunity to meet and spend some time with a treasured friend. Virtual retirement My aunt Tal'at, a long-time resident of Montpellier, is no longer with us also. However, we did get to meet her older son Kia and his wife Linda, who kindly drove long distance to Carcassonne to dine with us. CE Program - Now it's back to teaching/research for me, back to work for Sepand, and getting resettled at UCLA for the final two quarters of the neuroscience program for Sepideh. Farnaz and her family face similar transitions. We ECE Department will all remember France fondly! UCSB Engineering 2015/12/19 (Saturday): I will be off-line until December 30. Here is a math puzzle as my signing-off post. UC Santa Barbara Discover the rule and fill in the right-hand-side of the last equation below. When visiting a friend in Palo Alto today, we each produced a distinct solution for x + y = f(x, y), but the two solutions proved the same, given that y = x + 1 in all the instances provided. 1 + 2 = 7 | 3 + 4 = 31 | 5 + 6 = 71 | 7 + 8 = 127 | 9 + 10 = ? 2015/12/18 (Friday): Here are five items of potential interest. (1) Uber's meteoric rise in China: In this image from Time magazine, issue of December 21, 2015, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick displays a chart at a tech conference to show how much more quickly Uber has risen in Chinese cites (red lines) compared with the rest of the world. (2) Time magazine's top-10 hashtags for 2015 (I had to look up some of these): January (#AskHerMore, #JeSuisCharlie); June (#LoveWins); August (#YouStink, #StandWithPP); September (#RefugeesWelcome); October (#IAmAChristian); November (#ConcernedStudent1950, #ItsJustACup); December (#PorteOuverte). (3) Quote of the day: "Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud." ~ Hermann Hesse (4) UCSB partners to bring large solar installations to campus: "Six new solar arrays will be installed at UCSB as a result of the agreement with Silicon Valley-based SunPower, a global solar technology and energy services company. SunPower will erect, operate and maintain the arrays and sell the harvested green power to UCSB at a significantly lower rate than what the campus currently pays for electricity. UCSB estimates the project to net the campus savings of nearly $270,000 in its first year, with the potential to save some $14 million over 20 years." (5) Pharma CEO arrested for securities fraud: Martin Shkreli, the CEO who recently increased the price of a 62-year-old drug for treating a dangerous parasitic infection from $13.50 to $750.00 upon taking over the company that made it, has been accused of running his companies essentially like a Ponzi scheme. There are speculations that Shkreli may have needed increased income from the drug to pay back investors, a typical occurrence in Ponzi schemes before their collapse. 2015/12/16 (Wednesday): Here are four items of potential interest. (1) How much do politicians lie? A lot it seems, but some lie more than others. Here is a New York Times chart posted on-line on December 11, 2015. I am not claiming that the chart is totally accurate or unbiased, but the numbers appear to be in the right ballpark. Please keep in mind that not all lies are malicious or designed to deceive. Some may be due to misinformation or covering up for lack of information. (2) Cool product of the season: A smoke detector that sends notifications to your cell phone. I'll wait until the price goes well below the current $99. The Nest Company also offers a cool learning thermostat. (3) A great graduation speech at University of Western Australia: Nine life lessons from alum Tim Minchin. (4) I have not seen much karaoke music for Persian songs. These instrumental piano versions by Mohsen Karbassi may serve the purpose. Some come with lyrics; for others, enter the song name plus "lyrics" on Google. https://www.ece.ucsb.edu/~parhami/pers_blog.htm[1/2/2016 1:47:19 AM] Behrooz Parhami Ageh Yeh Rooz | Ashegham Man | Ashegh Shodam Man | Cheshm-e Man | Daryacheh-ye Noor | Do Panjareh | Dokhtar-e Boyer Ahmadi | Ghogha-ye Setaregan | Gol-e Pamchal | Gol-e Sangam | Ham-Khooneh | Jan-e Maryam | Kieh Kieh Dar Mi-Zaneh | Komakam Kon | Masti | Morgh-e Sahar | Nemisheh Ghosseh Ma Ro | Sang-e Khara | Shab Bood Biaban Bood | Shahzadeh-ye Roya-ye Man | Soghati | Soltan-e Ghalbha | Zemestoon 2015/12/15 (Tuesday): Here are five items of potential interest. (1) Ada's Legacy: This is the short title of a book published by Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) to commemorate the bicentennial of Ada Lovelace's birth in December 1815. Lovelace is widely recognized as the world's first computer programmer and is given credit for inventing several programming constructs, including subroutines. The full title of the book, written by Robin Hammerman and Andrew L. Russell, is: Ada's Legacy: Cultures of Computing from the Victorian to the Digital Age (Morgan & Claypool / ACM, 2015). (2) A video I found on the NRA Web site: It responds to the slogan "God Isn't Fixing This" (used to impart the notion that prayers for victims of gun violence aren't enough and that we must also enact sensible gun laws), as the "God-less left" trying to tear apart the foundations of America, the rights to believe and to survive. Very typical of the hateful rhetoric propagated by the extreme right! (3) How well do you know religion? Well, there is an easy way to find out.