The Noodle Book

Newt’s Rockets

2012-02-02T11:32:00.000-08:00

You’d think that, as a lifelong spaceflight enthusiast and shameless space geek, I’d be thrilled by Newt Gingrich’s well publicized assertion that under his presidency the United States would erect a permanent lunar colony by the end of the decade. You’d think that I’d applaud this plan as the sort of decisive, visionary, audacious goal that space science needs.

But far from that – I see it as proof that Newt Gingrich simply cannot be our next president.

Now I don’t know much about Newt or his politics beyond the fact that he’s had a whole series of marriage-affair-divorce cycles and that a lot of his supporters scare the crap out of me. For the most part, I’d left the man alone, but now he's messing with My Thing. Honestly, I wish I could say that My Thing was something like personal liberties or reproductive freedom or equitable taxation or international trade balances. But while I’ve got opinions in each of those areas, they aren’t where my passion lies. My passion lies with space.

Newt's absurd boasting about lunar colonies shows him to be a man not just out of touch with the fiscal and social aspects of spaceflight but also utterly unaware of the realities of engineering. It shows him to be a man who believes that he can wield power by decree, without understanding the implications, limits, or sources of that power. And it risks doing irreparable damage (and indeed may already have done irreparable damage) to this country’s tenuous willingness to spend any effort at all trying to understand our universe.

First things first. Rocketry is hard.

I don’t take campaign promises literally – if a politician says “if you elect me, I will balance the budget,” what I'll actually hear is “if you elect me, and my opponents don’t utterly stonewall my efforts to do so and there isn’t some sort of unforeseen crisis that completely derails all my plans, I will balance the budget.” So of course I evaluate Newt’s lunar colony claims with that caveat in place.

Suppose that congress and the American public rally around Newt’s lunar colony idea and suppose Newt goes Ron Paul on a few federal agencies and diverts all their funding towards getting a permanent settlement on the moon.

Public and political will and lots of cash can only go so far towards solving the considerable challenge of designing, building, and testing a launch vehicle able to get a creditable payload into cislunar space. Then of designing, building, and testing some sort of landing system that can get meaningful amounts of cargo and quantities of people down to the lunar surface and keeping them supplied with the raw materials necessary for surviving until, presumably, the lunar hydroponics come up to speed. There is also the matter of the actual domes or pods or lunar-concrete shelters or whatever that this colony would be built out of. I could keep going, but you get the idea.

It takes a lot of work to establish an outpost in an environment that is for all practical purposes instantly fatal. And it doesn’t take long with a slide rule or calculator to run the mass fraction numbers and realize that putting that kind of mass on the lunar surface would require simply enormous, regular launches at a rate that the world has never seen.

And no, it just aint’ going to happen, not in eight years.

And that leads to point two. It is one thing to make an bold and daring claim or promise. But to take a flying leap into the impossible, a blind assertion that you will accomplish something when that thing is so plainly beyond our scope, is indicative of a decision maker who is not thinking things through, is not aware of the means by which things are accomplished and the costs which must be paid to accomplish them.

This is the one that really worries me, considering that this man is striving to be the next president of our country. Presidents get to kick off a lot of exciting projects with grand claims. They get to promise reconstructions, liberations, containments, victories, inclusions, exclusions, reinventions. They get to promise good things and terrible things. And, inevitably, they rely on others to bring these promises to fruition. So be it, that’s what a leader does, inspire or order or motivate (or all three).

But leadership requires an awareness of what can and can’t be done and what challenges and costs lie ahead. I don’t expect a president to be an expert on aerospace engineering, but I do expect a president to have a reasonable grasp on reality and to consult with someone who is an expert. But tossing off a promise that you’ll build a moon colony shows, to me, a man who views leadership as the issuance of decrees from on high, decrees that will simply be taken care of and will simply be achieved.

Finally, and most sadly, Newt’s rash and outlandish proposition risks making spaceflight a laughing stock, the topic of late-night jokes and eye rolling disbelief. As it is, those of us who believe in the exploration of our universe as a profound and serious calling, a noble goal for humanity to set itself, must contend with ignorance, parochialism, selfishness, short-sightedness, and a certain depressing lack of imagination…not to mention countless other entirely deserving projects out there crying out for time, money, and attention. So when I see a presumably serious advocate of space exploration risk doing so much harm to the whole enterprise, I have only one thing to say: Thanks Newt, but with friends like you, space exploration hardly needs enemies.

But really this is about the presidency. I don’t see campaigns or campaign promises as literal things, I see them as auditions, opportunities to understand a candidate’s decision making process. The world is an evolving and dynamic place, politics involves the intersection of multiple groups, diverse opinions, harsh realities, and unforeseen complications. And so I want to understand how a candidate is going to react to those unknowns, what sorts of decisions they will make and compromises they will seek, how they will cope with areas outside their expertise, for no politician can be a master of everything.

Well, irrespective of any other issues of character, politics, history, or policies, Newt has now given me enough information to see that he's failed this audition.

Forty And Looking Back

2011-06-19T22:05:00.000-07:00

Today, I turn forty years old. Not bad, all things considered. Beautiful wife, two amazing kids, home in a town I love, a fecund backyard garden.

As I roll over another zero into the units digit of the odometer of life, something interesting happened that has caused me to reconnect with - and think about - a lot of the people I went to high school with.

That something interesting is Facebook. Over the the span of two years, my entire graduating class from Davis Senior High School seemed to suddenly show up and start friending each other. I kept in touch with very few people from home and so I've been reconnecting, after twenty years, with the people I grew up with. I've learned about their lives and seen photos of their kids and read about their travels.

And I mean your lives and your kids and your travels: because I'm talking to you, graduating class of 1989. And, to be fair, a few of you who graduated a year or two earlier or later who I was close enough with that I think of you as part of my class.

Back then we were, with apologies to John Hughes, brains, musicians, jocks, partiers, and goths. We hung out in our cliques and did our different activities. We crossed social boundaries sometimes, uneasily and tentatively. But it was high school and we all had our domains and our coteries. But we were also all a bunch of kids growing up in a reasonably affluent university town on the edge of some very good farmland.

We didn't know it then, but we were all so damn alike that the only thing we could focus on was our differences.

Fast forward twenty years or more.

What are we now? Who are we now?

We are fathers, we are mothers, we are married, we are single, we are divorced.

We are gay, we are straight, we are flexible.

We are conservative, we are liberal, we are undecided.

We are project managers, we are musicians, we are farmers, we are entrepreneurs, we are artists, we are lawyers, we are restauranteurs, we are law enforcement officers, we are opera singers, we are bartenders, we are writers, we are programmers, we are veterinary pathologists.

A staggering number of us are teachers.

Some of us are expatriates, some of us never left town, some of us have come back home.

At least one of us has been to war.

A very few of us have died.

So much diversity, so much variety of experience and outcome. And yet today I feel closer to a broader range of the people that made up my graduating class than I ever have.

What happened?

We all went on that strange, crooked pathway called life. No one took a path that quite matched what they expected or what anyone else expected for them. Some paths were radically surprising, some merely crooked. Some triumphant, some quotidian.

If there had been a yearbook category "Most likely to play in a major symphony orchestra," I think the predictions might have been pretty good. But I doubt that the eventual winners of "Most likely to raise backyard chickens" or "Most likely to post photomicrographs to Facebook" or "Most likely to become the leading academic authority on American Idol" would have been so obvious back in 1989.

In 2011, we all sit down at the end of the day and try to unwind from the stresses of an adult life, whatever form that life might take. We might worry about the economy or climate change or health care or school selection or taxes or bills or the future. We might have a glass of beer or wine or bourbon or tea or coffee to help us relax. We might unwind playing a LARP or watching a show or hitting a round of golf or going for a run or pushing through a Crossfit WOD.

But it is the journey, from a small town on the outskirts of Sacramento to here, wherever here is and whatever waypoints passed on the way, that has brought us closer. We've learned about ourselves and about each other, about what it means to be a man or a woman in the world.

Twenty years on, we are all now so different that all we can do is focus on our similarities.

Hello again, graduating class of 1989, it is a real pleasure to get to know you.

What Is (Or Isn't) Going On?

2011-03-14T12:11:00.000-07:00

I've been watching the coverage of the events in Japan - the earthquake, the tsunami, and now the brooding risk of three cantankerous nuclear reactors - with a mixture of horror, fascination, and frustration.

Horror - obviously. The loss of so many lives and the irrecoverable changes to the lives of the survivors is the greatest disaster in my recent memory. Fascination - yes, I will admit it. There is a sort of twisted fascination with keeping abreast of a terrible event, something akin to the "oh, let me try that spoiled milk too" urge that we feel. I'm not talking Schadenfreude, that's what keeps us watching Charlie Sheen. There is no twisted joy in this, no chuckling man-that-dude-is-nuts, no self esteem boosting confirmation that our decision not to shack up with porn stars was a good one. But there is some urge none the less.

Frustration - that too, and that is what this blog is about. Frustration not with the events themselves or with responses to them, but frustration with the coverage itself. Some years back, I wrote a post about watching the invasion of Iraq, and feeling like I should be able to "reload the war" and get things to move along at the pace I expected. That post was about the pace of coverage, and about how or expectations as an audience had grown divorced from the reality of life.

This frustration is more about the quality and accuracy of coverage - and how the same infrastructure that made reload-the-war expectations possible also makes massively divergent coverage possible. Take a look at this little snippet of Google news, captured at 12:42pm Pacific Daylight (uugh) time:

By the way, here is the Reuters article: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/14/japan-nuclear-radiation-risk-idUSLDE72D19720110314

And here is The Guardian's article: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/14/japan-nuclear-radiation-risk-idUSLDE72D19720110314

Ok, which is right? Is the disaster risk fading or escalating?

Now contradictory headlines are nothing new. I'm sure that if you brought up Fox News and MSNBC and simply looked at what they had to say about the President, you'd find some very contradictory interpretations. Even in the pre-internet days (remember those?) different news agencies would have different spins. Most cities had a Republican newspaper and a Democrat newspaper. That is until the general demise of print news changed this so that most cities now just have a newspaper, sometimes.

But of editorial license, selective coverage, and yellow journalism, none of these are new.

Timeliness, that's what is new. No longer do we wait for a news source (paper, 5:00 broadcast, whatever) to amass, collate, analyze, and summarize. We can go direct to Twitter and Facebook for our own personal updates on what that-dude-with-the-camera-phone-saw. Such reports are obviously snapshots (no pun intended), highly localized, and biased. To satisfy our reload-the-war pacing, however, those news agencies that used to be responsible for amassing, collating, analyzing, and summarizing events increasingly rely on the same firsthand observers, passing along tweets and chat room comments and in so doing imbuing localized, biased snapshots with an air of authority.

Of course this isn't helped by rush-to-a-headline coverage, sensationalism, and general ignorance of the subtleties of a very technical trade. Even when news agencies are amassing, collating, and all that other stuff, they can display very different results. Nuclear energy makes great news fodder - it has a sort of brooding-menace, a mysterious ability to harm from afar, sits astride a highly politicized divide, and frankly is poorly understood by enough of the public and the news media that it is easy to fill dead air with speculation and gossip and not risk getting called out fudging, exaggerating, or just not knowing what the hell you are talking about.

My case in point being the two articles form Reuters and The Guardian. Both are legitimate press, written my (presumably) legitimate reporters. Both, let us assume, trying to do good reporting and to accomplish all those goals of traditional media. Yet here are two wildly divergent assessments(or at least headlines) sitting right next to each other, both showcased as "new" news. So what is going on?

Part of this is simply the confusing time compression of real-time access to news. Some news sources are updated with the latest to-the-minute information. Others update a little behind the times. Why? Who knows...better effort at confirming sources, an ill-timed bathroom break, different editorial update policies, the intrusion of night-time. News scraping engines like Google may catch both updates as "new" news while one really reflect the situation six or eight or more hours ago. Which one is current?

In such situations, people tend to believe the news that agrees with their preconceived notions and expectations of what is going on. Convinced nukes are bad? Then a meltdown is right around the corner and that is very, very bad. Confident in man's ability to tame the atom? Well then that meltdown risk is totally under control and wouldn't have been that bad anyway.

Of course media outlets, determined to keep you watching and/or clicking, are going to choose to feature whatever details imply the most rapidly evolving don't-miss-a-minute situation possible (good or bad, but bad things really do tend to keep people tuned in a whole lot more). By the time the situation settles down it will be, well, settled down. Charlie Sheen will, yet again, be an F-18 and so no one will bother to report (or to pay attention to, if it was reported) what really went down. Bad things happened or they didn't, it'll all depend on the mind of the beholder.

We are at a point where our ability to access information is nearly instant. We can get the latest news that is available at a mouse-click. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it is the latest development. This adds to that unhealthy obsession to get the latest. Because the rippling waves of update create a further false impression of development.

Oh good, the plant is getting better!

Oh no, the plant is getting worse!

Oh really? Perhaps nothing has changed and we are just seeing the illusory dynamic of waves of news, some moving at different speeds, propagating outward from the source.

It is enough to drive you nuts. Skepticism, patience, and some sort of ability to perceive the moving average of the drama, to sense the error bars surrounding today's median how-fucked-is-the-world-ometer reading is the only way to stay sane.

Confessions of a Tomato Hater

2011-02-23T10:26:00.000-08:00

I grew up in a tomato town.

At the north end of California's irrigated agricultural wonderland, the Central Valley, we grew a lot of tomatoes. Fields of them ringed the town. Cropdusters buzzed low keeping them pest and disease free. Trucks of them drove in to town, to the local cannery and processing factory.

Every summer, tomatoes, spilled off the top of overloaded trucks, lay rotting in the gutters all through the July and August heat.

When someone says "the smell of boiling tomatoes" to you, it may conjure up the image of a nice tomato sauce or soup, simmering away on the stove. To me it conjures up months of steamy emissions from the plant, drifting in to town, an indecisive miasma, unsure if it was sweet or savory.

Sometimes, when money for our family was tight, my mom would take seasonal work at the factory, working on the line and later at their paste processing facility. She came home redolent of tomatoes, the smell impregnated into her clothing.

So perhaps I have a love/hate relationship with the tomato. It, after all, brought in a non-trivial part of my family's income through some tough years. My grandmother was a bookkeeper at the plant, and my grandfather flew some of those cropdusters for many years until he wrecked and was relegated to golfing and reading about the Civil War.

Out in my own garden, while we try our best to raise a decent crop, I'll rail against their overly-hybridized fussiness. I'll complain about their sprawling untidiness. I'll jump on any excuse to get these unnatural things, never meant for the maritime northwest, out of the garden.

But I must be honest with myself and acknowledge a couple of things about the tomato. First off, it is all those things - hybridized to the point of absurdity and totally ill suited for where we grow it. But these very characteristics are the source of the challenge, a sort of backyard agronomic "because it is there" factor, that forces all of us gardeners west of the Rain Shadow to test their mettle against this thing.

Because if you can grow it, get your crops to ripen up into something more than pickled, fried, or salsafied green tomatoes, then you have truly shown what you are worth.

You are a gardener, you have not shirked from the greatest of challenges but embraced them. And you have come away the champion.

And after a few years of perseverance (or of head-into-wall-beating, if you prefer) a good crop will come up. Tomatoes are a heartbreak crop, in the words of my brother in law - they reward you just on the edge of abandonment, dole out a good harvest to keep you going. Those good crops, when they happen, are so good and so worth it. Romas, big slicers, cherries and grapes, crazy heirlooms in all variety of colors from tacky lipstick pink to the deepest of purples. The thousand and one flavors, not the giant soggy slicers of supermarket burger filling fame.

So remind me of this, next time I'm standing ankle deep in rotting tomato flesh, pulling fungus dappled vines out of the ground, raising my fist at the sky and reliving every tomato-stinking summer of my youth. Remind me that sometimes they do work out and when it happens, the rewards are rich!

Footnote: while researching this post and looking for photos, I found out that the factory in question was demolished. I knew it had closed, and good riddance at this point, but as much as my memories of it are of bad smells, night-shift-working-mom, and traffic snarling trucks, a part of my youth is now gone.

My Urban Homesteads

2011-02-20T18:36:00.000-08:00

I live in at least two different Urban Homesteads.

One of them is the one that I return to, every night, at the end of a dead end street in a small town just north of Seattle. It is the homestead that grows most of our vegetables, that does not yet have chickens, that often smells of slowly simmering stews or reducing sauces. Erica writes about it, I brew beer in it, we raise our family in it.

It is home.

But I have another urban homestead. It is somewhere on the banks of a fast moving river, a couple of acres of fields growing organic garlic to sell on the farmer's market circuit, some raised beds for our own veggies, a stand of hop vines trellising a dozen or so feet into the air, chickens running underfoot, a detached garage for the tractor.

At this second homestead, nothing ever breaks or needs maintenance, not even the John Deere. The weather is always just challenging enough to test our agricultural mettle but never so threatening as to actually spoil a crop. At this homestead, I've traded my high rise job for something virtual - perhaps I've finally sold a novel or parleyed my occasional speaking gigs to some sort of guru position in the business intelligence world and now sell online consulting time and the occasionally well compensated keynote.

By now you may realize that this second urban homestead doesn't really exist - not anywhere you can find, at least. And isn't all that urban, come to think of it. It is the homestead of my dreams, my escape and my folly, a happy place that sustains me when the here and the now bring their dull, unrewarding, tedious best to bear.

That first homstead, the one with an address, the one you can spot on Google Earth, is a great place and every night it welcomes me home.

But when I can't be there, the other homestead that helps me through, the fantasy homestead. So when the conference calls are particularly boring, the traffic across the bridge particularly tedious, or the speaker meandering on far too long, there is always something to do:

Shopping for tractors on the John Deere website.

Reviewing organic garlic production techniques put out by the NSAIS.

Choosing favorite breeds from Hnderson's Chicken Breed Chart.

Planning alternative energy systems.

Catching up on reading from the local agriculture extension program.

Yes, I'm a dreamer. But anyone chasing the urban homestead dream is almost by definition a dreamer. Even my real urban homestead has a place for dreams - chickens, more cheese making, more trees, the next batch of beer I'm brewing, tree selection for the expanded orchard, a rainwater recycling system. So dream on, urban homesteaders. Dreams go with the territory.

An Open Letter to the Dervaes'

2011-02-17T15:10:00.000-08:00

Well it is a mighty fine mess you have created. Yes, Dervaes family, urbanhomestead.org, you have really managed to do something profound to the community you helped create.

You have chosen to trademark a whole host of terms, ostensibly seeking to protect them from those who would misuse and abuse them for their own profit. I’ve got some respect for this – after all, it is easy enough to imagine the Monsanto Urban Homesteader collection of seeds or the Lowe’s Urban Homesteader Twice-A-Year Sale.

Unfortunately, there are a couple of problems with this.

First off, you weren’t there first. A quick bit of online research finds the phrase “urban homestead” in some variation or the other dating back to the 1970s or before. But the legitimacy of your claim isn't the greatest issue here.

The urban homesteading movement (by whatever name you wish it to go by) is a tenuous thing. We are decentralized. We come from a range of social, political, and moral backgrounds. We’ve come to this for a variety of reasons: health, environment, economics, survival, enjoyment. We practice in varied ways as suit our varied natures and regions: poultry, fruit, vegetables, livestock, dairy.

We run the risk of appearing as freaks and finding ourselves further marginalized just as we are gaining traction and awareness.

So here we stand, not on the cusp of victory by any means, but on the cusp of moving to a greater playing field. The values we espouse are being picked up by authors, chefs, and social commentators and spreading to an ever broader audience. The tools and supplies we need are available more easily as more and more people show an interest in a backyard orchard or some raised beds or a chicken coop. Laws are making it easier for us to practice what we believe in (I’m talking about how my town repealed a ban on backyard poultry last year…but I’m sure there are others).

Just as things start to take off, do we really want to risk going from respect to mockery? Think of it this way: which headline would you rather see CNN or The New York Times run next week?

In yards around the nation, Urban Homesteading taking off!

Urban gardens taking off, but don’t call them homesteads!

Do we want to risk drifting into that part of the news day usually called “the lighter side” where mainstream America pokes fun (often deservedly) at people who lie just a little too far outside the bell curve or normality?

Perhaps even more critically, do we want to see the common idea that binds us together torn asunder because of the lack of a word, an all important linguistic thread that weaves between all of our diverse backgrounds, motivations, and interests? For words have meaning and power well beyond their superficial sounds and definitions. They provide identity, meaning, and community. They define and establish boundaries of inclusion and exclusion. Their proper use is a Shibboleth demarking true believers from tourists and pretenders.

Do we want to risk Balkanizing ourselves into urban homesteaders, city farmers, metropolitan agronomists, backyard growers, and the hundreds of other permutations I could devise, each one separated by a shade of meaning, a subtlety of belief or background or motivation? “Oh no, I’m not a city farmer, those are people with apartments. I’m a metropolitan agronomist because I practice square-foot techniques outside of the city core.”

Hyperbole on my part? Yes, but exaggeration and humor to make a point.

So perhaps, Derveases, we misunderstood you and your intentions were pure if ill communicated. Personally, I don’t think you were trying to shut down the use of the words Urban and Homesteading. I think you were trying to drive site (and store) traffic by intimidating bloggers, libraries, and authors into offering you a credit and a link. But my suspicious are beside the point.

Your blog posts and tweets profess surprise at the community’s reaction and accuse those of us with some spleen to vent of misunderstanding your intentions. They read accusingly, saying that this misunderstanding is our fault. They make us feel bad for the hurt they have caused your family, the tears brought on by our impassioned words.

Then why, I ask, were your first attempts to control the use of these terms targeted at a library and a blogger? Why do you respond with a series of defensive tweets and a blog update that cries out how hard this has been on you?

Welcome to the big time, Urban Homestead. Success is a bitch, that high profile you’ve worked to build up means there are a lot of people watching you – but that’s what you wanted, right? You came across as the big bad, swinging a legal claim, no matter how indefensible it may be, to get your way and get your due credit. People reacted in a way you didn't expect (really?), in a way that hurt you.

And the result has been bad, very bad. Whether you intended to deny use of these terms to the community at large or not, that is how we have understood your actions. And that is what is driving our reaction.

The point is that your actions, however they were intended, have jeopardized the movement you helped spawn. Your intentions are irrelevant. The results of your implementation and the broader community’s perception of that implementation are what matter – and the perception of that perception, but I risk losing my way. You have children and so know that intentions count for only so much. Results, whether those intended or expected or not, are what matter. And so you must choose your future actions based not around your professed or actual intent but around the reality in which you find yourself – an unpleasant reality with no easy choices.

And it is by those actions that the rest of us urban homesteaders, who owe you so much, will judge you and assess your intentions.

How should you react now that you’ve enraged a good portion of the community? Your blog and tweets profess surprise at this reaction, accuse us of misunderstanding your intentions.

I’m going to assume that you genuinely believe in the movement of which you have been such a part and that you have the best interest of that movement at heart – and you should, for to try to put your own business success ahead of that of the movement at large is to jeopardize not only your relationship with the movement but the very success of the movement itself. And I hope that you recognize this relationship and do what is best not for your own short-sighted gain but rather for the continued growth of this community and your relationship with it.

What you need to do is take charge of this situation. Yes, I said take charge. After accusing you of heavy handedness (intentional or not) why do I say you should take charge?

Because you have a window of opportunity to try and save some face. You will never regain the full respect you had in the community, but that’s done. Time for damage control, time for clear words and clear actions. Time to do things that will not be misunderstood (again).

Cede the word to the community.

Stand up and in clear simple words admit that you erred:

Say “we never intended to deny the broader use of these words.”

Say “but unfortunately our actions were misunderstood.”

Say “we never anticipated the depth of feeling our actions would arouse.”

Say “but observing the passion of the community we helped foster is as gratifying as it has been troubling.”

Say “and so we waive our claim to these trademarks.”

Say “we recognize that these phrases are something larger than our family and our farm.”

Say “these words are our movement and they are your movement.”

And then shut the hell up.

We will have our community. There is the risk that these words will get misused, co-opted. But we do not need your protection and we know what an urban homestead really is without your oversight and editing.

As it stands right now, your website leaves you an opening. Make that promised press release a thing of nobility, of admission, and of generosity. Play it right and you might even come out looking pretty good.

I fear that you will take one of the easier paths. Perhaps you will take the easiest, that of stepping away from the issue, never following up on your letters, of hoping that things die down. And they might. Your reputation will never rebuild, not with those of us who live at the core of this movement. We’ll make jokes. We’ll refer to someone as “pulling a Dervaes” when they try a petty trade marking or some cheesy legal intimidation.

There is another path I fear, one that is harder for you and worse for the community. It is the path of pride, of stonewalling and digging in. Of perceiving the community’s response as some sort of a threat to some position of hierarchy that you believe you deserve. This is the path that leads to mockery of our movement, of factionalized collapse into urban homesteaders vs. metropolitan farmers vs. city gardeners. This is the path that leads to a legal fight you will not win, that will only drain your finances and threaten your very livelihood.

So I ask you, think it through. Make a decision, a tough decision. Retake what you can of the leadership you had in this community. Give us that community, without a fight, without shame, and without guilt.

As I write this, your latest blog entry is "we are urban homesteaders." I do not deny that. But so are we.

UPDATED 2/18/2011

For starters I want to thank everyone for their kind comments. I'm glad I could help lend some voice to everyone's emotions.

I deliberately tried to keep the issue of the legitimacy of the Dervaes' claims - whether legal or moral - out of this. For starters the two are quite different - they might legally be able to maintain control over a trademark that we do not feel they morally should be able to. But more than that, I'm no lawyer and while my experience around issues like this gives me some opinions and expectations, I don't want to put my foot in it by delving into idle speculations.

In the meantime, as well, the promised press release is out. It offers (a little) more information about their intentions, but generally continues the theme of "we didn't do what you are saying we did" that permeated the output from urbanhomestead.org on 2/17. Granted, it is in nicer language and they fixed some of the grammar problems (yes, I get irritated at tweets with grammar or vocabulary mistakes, that's one of the side effects of having a BA in English).

It still, however, misses a crucial point: what do you INTEND to do. They deny filing legal actions, however "informational letters" are typically a prelude to some other sort of action. They do not mention the DMCA requests to Google. It continues a disingenuous attempt to portray them as victims of a disproportionate response to innocent actions. It will do little, if anything, to quell the communities reaction.

What is made clearer is that the Dervaes family views the growing popularity of this movement as a threat to their perceived position of leadership. Too soon, guys, too soon. Yes, the time will come for squabbling and internecine fighting, but that time is not now. We are still in the "a rising tide lifts all boats" stage where supporting the greater cause will build the market. This attempt to gain control may help build market share but controlling a larger portion of a smaller or more slowly growing market is not advantageous in an absolute sense.

Pyhrric victory, anyone? A scorched earth retreat across the burning fields of urban homesteads is not the way to maintain position.

Right now we are still growing, still need to build community and identity. I work in an industry that is at market saturation and so we see crazy legal actions all the time, companies claiming too have invented whole ideas. Why? Because everyone already wants a cell phone. Every one knows what they are. Everyone wants one. So the bickering begins.

But imagine if, in the 1970's Bell Labs had trademarked the phrase "Cell Phone" and variants and then, in the 1980's when the devices started to become popular, chosen to protect that trademark. Things might have turned out differently if we had lacked a common phrase to describe that thing that we hold up to our ear to talk on when we aren't at home. Granted, there are dozens of synonyms (including bizarre new ones like "converged device"...I mean...really?) but the term "cell phone" got us started.

On Facebook, I've contrasted the Dervaes' attempted actions with Charlie Papazian, one of the founders of the American homebrewing movement. His first book came out in 1976 - homebrewing in the US wouldn't be legalized until two years later, by the way. For a couple of decades, he had the only continuously in-print book on the topic. Of his seven published books, the canonical The Complete Joy of Homebrewing
has run to thee editions and nearly a million copies sold. And then there are the six other books he wrote... Papazian is revered as a guru, a founder, an inspiration. I actually don't particularly care for his writing (a little too 1970's "relax and have a homebrew for me...I like a little more microbiology in my beer books) but if I ran into him at a convention (and if I could get through the rings of people looking for his autograph, opinion, photo op, etc.) I'd shake his hand and know I'd touched someone without whom my hobby may not exist.

Yet he, despite having at least as much right to claim ownership of homebrewing as the Dervaes' do of urban homesteading, never made any move to protect that claim. Perhaps it was that 1970's "relax and have a homebrew" attitude. Instead he threw his weight into growing the movement as a whole, founding organizations, writing books, promoting the entire idea. And now, like I said, guru status and a million books out there.

Compare and contrast. And remember, a rising tide lifts all boats. Take care of those around you and they will take care of you.

You, Dervaes' are in the unenviable position of needing to react to a situation that is now well and truly out of your control. You are dealing with a cluster f@ck you did not intend to create. But no one intends to create a cluster f@ck. They just happen. By definition, this is a self destructive situation with no easy, cost free solution. No outcome will wind the clock back a week. No outcome will be to everyone's satisfaction.

Perceptions are reality and you cannot continue to react to the message you intended to send , whatever it was, with your informational letters and DMCA requests. You must react to the message that was perceived by the community at large. Only by doing so can you bring this situation back under control.

So I ask you to make the tough call, show true leadership within this community, show that your intentions have the best interests of the community at heart, regain as much respect as possible within this community. Take the path I outlined, cede these trademarks. Let your actions be ones we can celebrate as a growing community - not ones that are derided and mocked to our shared suffering.

But now with that said, the urbanhomestead.org blog does make the point that we've all got crops to water, goats to feed (I don't, not yet), eggs to collect (ok, I don't actually have eggs to collect either...yet), retaining walls to build (I actually DO have that on my project list) and all the rest.

I appreciate all your kind comments on the original version of this open letter and, as with many of you who have commented, hope that it finds a receptive audience in those who most need to read it.

Just What Is "Drinkability"?

2010-03-31T15:40:00.000-07:00

I can't get away from ads for Bud Light Golden Wheat.

I know, for a guy who doesn't even have cable (and lives in a valley, and so doesn't get a meaningful broadcast signal), I manage to see a shocking number of ads for this stuff. I blame streaming network television, of course, and the Biggest Looser marathon I indulged in while stuck home sick.

But seriously, every twelve minutes I was inundated with an advertisement proclaiming a new beer offering the refreshing taste of wheat with the drinkability of Bud Light.

Ok, I have some idea of what the refreshing taste of wheat is. Wheat in beer, of course, because last time I sat down with a mug full of freshly husked wheat and tried to drink it I severly lacerated my moutn. Well not really. But you get the idea.

In a true beer (a statement that seems to imply that Bud Light Golden Wheat is not a true beer), wheat adds a slightly sweet graniness. I always find that beers with a high wheat content posess a slightly astringent quality, similar to the dryness of a very highly fermented beer. I don't know what causes this sensation, but it seems to naturally balance the malty sweetness that comes from the wheat malt itself.

Anyway, I don't as a rule go for beers with a very high wheat content, but have really enjoyed working with it as a component to add a little "something special" to everything from IPA's to light ales.

But I digress.

This was about bashing Budweiser.

And this idea of "drinkability." What is "drinkable?" Are they saying that their beer can be consumed in liquid form, in exactly the whay that a cup full of ground wheat cannot? Perhaps that it is relatively thin, low in viscosity, and therefore can be consumed more readily than, say, molasses.

But I don't think so. I think that what they are saying is this:

"Don't worry, you won't be asked to take a risk when you consume this beer!"

Yes, "drinkability" is essentially a statement of conformity to the general flavor profile of what we hombrewer's like to call ALL's -- American Light Lagers.

"Don't worry, you won't be challenged to try something unfamiliar and don't need to risk not liking it."

Trying new things always carries a risk. Because, after all, if we spend the energy (time, money, emotional cost) to do something out of the ordinary (say trying a new beer or throwing ourselves out of an airplane with only a rolled up piece of nylon stuffed into a backpack to slow us down), we are investing in that experience. In general, people tend to prefer favorable experiences. It takes a fairly dedicated person to have an unplesant experience and then want to go back for more.

Take, for example, the movie Avatar. I didn't like it. After seeing it, while I was glad that I'd done so (and therefore gotten to partake in the whole big deal). But I did look back on that evening and think that perhaps something better might, ultimately, have been a better way to go. On the way home, my wife and I ended up stopping at a Red Robin and consuming a large amount of spicy chicken wings just so we'd be able to point to something enjoyable about the evening.

So perhaps the same thing could apply to beer. "Hey," says Joe Sixpack, "I've heard of these new craft brews. I should try one." So Joe goes out and buys a sixer of something tasty. Who knows what...let's assume he isn't really into the subtle (or not so subtle) differences between a Maibock and an IIPA. Perhaps he ends up with a few bottles of Old Rasputin or Dogfish 120 or perhaps with something as prosaic as a Mirror Pond. Let us suppose that Joe dislikes this beer. I wouldn't be surprised if this were to happen -- no disrespect to Joe -- because the entire drinking experience would be wildly different from what he'd expect. Hell, a bottle of Dogfish 120 has been known to send experienced beer aficionados to therapy for weeks. Even if he chose something less extreme it would probably not be a light, thirst quenching, (dare I say) "drinkable" beer. Probably something meant to be consumed more slowly, to be savored.

And so our Joe Six Pack, for his daring and courage, would be rewarded with five bottles of something he can't stand sitting there in his fridge. He'd tuck back into the turtle shell of macro-brews and never go outside again.

Until along comes Golden Wheat and loudly says "yes, you can deviate from the dull tired routine of your life and yet take no risk at all that you'll be surprised by change." Yes, Golden Wheat promises change without change.

And that's what this whole blog, that started off talking about beer and detoured through James Cameron's latest overblown film, is about. It is about fear of change. It is about a cowardly refusal to try new experiences (or to stick with them long enough to see if they work out). In a saturated market (let us assume that the macro-brew market is saturated), the only way to gain customer share is to promise that nothing is going to change. And as in macro-brews, so also in so many other areas.

And that is sad.

40 years ago...

2009-07-17T11:26:00.000-07:00

So as we sit in the midst of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 flight (I prefer to think of the anniversary, like the mission itself, as a multi-day event, not just this single moment of “The Eagle has landed”), CNN ran the following article:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/07/17/moon.landing.hoax/index.html

And incidentally, as I write this, this article has been moved to the prime spot on cnn.com. Read into that exactly what you want to.

The article is a relatively good review of the moon-landing-hoax phenomena. Best of all, it includes a link to the YouTube video of Buzz Aldrin punching a leading conspiracy pusher. You’ve got to love a 72 year old guy who can still lay on one some crank’s chin. Glorious moment.

Anyway, what I find kind of depressing about this whole phenomena isn’t the fact that this amazing piece of history (by the way, I DO believe that we landed on the moon) is being attacked. Fine, go ahead, people, and believe your conspiracies. I can go on at great length about why I think people love conspiracies and so on, and will always recommend Foucault’s Pendulum as a good work about the appeal of such ideas (though the book is kind of a typical Umberto Eco slog at times).

What gets me, about the moon landing conspiracies in particular, is that they so dramatically discount our (humanity’s) ability to do something extraordinary. They are, in other words, profoundly depressing to me.

Most conspiracies, I find, seek to explain titanic events that were actually the result of small actions (e.g. a series of individually minor intelligence failures prevents detection of the attack on Pearl Harbor) as the product of grand and titanic forces (F.D.R. allowed/encouraged the attacks because he needed a way to motivate the American populace). I can get this – we all like someone/thing we can blame. And hanging thousands of lives on a series of minor events just doesn’t have the impact of One Dude Who Did It.

Similar theories about regarding the 9/11 attacks. All of them seem predicated on the idea that No One Could Screw Up That Bad. And they replace the series of minor errors with a Grand Conspiracy.

There is a theme here – an ugly, mundane, chaotic reality is replaced with something dramatic and populated by super-capable heroes or villains.

The moon landing theorists go the other way – and this is what I find so depressing. Instead of a massive, concentrated effort by thousands, pushing technical and human limits, the conspiracy theorists would drag that success down to the level of some 2nd rate work on a sound stage.

It is a sad rejection of the capabilities of humanity to take such an achievement and, in the face of all evidence, reject it.

It is a sad, mediocre mind that can only find a sense of worth by bring others down to their level.

It is a sad commentary that (some) people find it easier to subscribe to a "vision" of mediocrity than to a reality of audacious achievement. Is that number increasing (as the article claims it is) because time is passing and a younger generation (understandably) finds it hard to imagine a world, 40 years gone, where humans could walk on the moon? Or is it increasing out of a gradual settling of goals and visions, a drooping of expectations and efforts from struggling for grand, shared visions to a selfish assumption of ease and entitlement?

Yours, in hope of audacity, that we may remember and recognize what we all (and all of us) are capable of.

--Nick

Boldly going...or is it going boldly?

2009-05-17T10:40:00.001-07:00

Top fifteen things I like about the new Star Trek (and please note that the following list may contain spoilers but will do so somewhat incidentally and is not a plot summary):

15) Has the courage to split the infinitive and go with the original "to boldly go" construction. FYI, I am with that faction of writers and grammarians (probably because I am more writer than grammarian) that accepts that in certain situations a spit infinitive is an entirely acceptable thing to do and may, in fact, have dramatic, narrative, or stylistic advantages (such as here, where "boldly" gets more emphasis by virtue of its placement).

14) Captain Pike shows Kirk up as a girly man. More seriously, I liked the contrast between the old (but somewhat free thinking) commander and the young (and entirely free thinking) commander. Pike is what Kirk will become after he cooks for a few years...and Pike I suspect sees Kirk as what he was like before he'd had a chance to cook himself.

13) No Borg. I was afraid that they'd try to have some Borg backstory going on -- they are a fantastic enemy but are very much a product of the latter instances of the show. And besides, First Contact already did a pretty strong time-travel-Borg themed story (and did it very well).

12) The alternate-history reboot meant that I actually thought some of the principle characters might die. Gone was the easy ability to predict which characters would live and which would die.

11) Speaking of alternate histories, they avoided the "and the boy woke up" conceit and decided to stick with the new history that they created, rather than having some dramatic event result in a bright flash of light and a cut to some scene that made it clear that we were back in the traditional Star Trek history (e.g. Kirk graduating from the Academy with his father proudly looking on).

10) Speaking (more) of alternate histories, I applaud the decision to "reboot" the show. Just as Casino Royal did for the Bond franchise, it is sometimes necessary to clear the decks and start from scratch. The Star Trek timeline had grown so polluted with interpretations, inconsistencies, and conflicts that this was an almost essential move. I know many old school Trekkies were displeased (and I know some of those old school Trekkies who I know were displeased), but (don't take this the wrong way, old school Trekkies) I think there is a degree of curmudgeonly resentment, as if new Trek fans haven't "served their time" dealing with the hideous stretch polyester costumes and Shatner's bizarre speech patterns.

9) Finally breaks the "naval combat" two-dimensionality of the Star Trek space combat scenes. Granted, Star Trek II had the "he only things in two dimensions" moment, but notice that the "descending Enterprise" that ambushes Kahn was settling like some sort of blimp, and not really utilizing the third dimension. Prior to this point, the only true excursion into that wacky third dimension is in the wonderful All Good Things wrap up to The Next Generation when the refitted Enterprise is seen "flying" 90 degrees out of plane to the Klingons.

8) I honestly liked the blue collar villain. I know some weren't as taken, but for starters the guy looks and sounds remarkably like Kevin, one of the trainers at the gym where Erica and I work out (great guy, Kevin). But I really felt for this character -- here he is, some Romulan miner who'd rather just head home, have a few pints of Romulan Ale, and spend time with his family. Instead, an unspeakable tragedy (and a very human-like desire to focus his rage and loss on a single object) drives him mostly-mad and on a quest for vengeance that drives him the rest of the way mad. Quite a change from Christopher Plumber's wonderful Shakespeare-quoting Klingon General to have this plain-talking "Joe the Romulan Miner" character.

7) I was very pleased to see many of the "background" members of the principle cast get stronger stories. E.g. Uhura is now portrayed as a brilliant linguist and Checkov as a math whiz. The Original Show was pioneering for including a black woman and a Russian in the crew. Now we can actually give them some skills. And I thought that Checkov the 17 year old math whiz was actually played relatively well as a 17 year old math whiz -- somewhat geeky but not entirely so. But then again, we live in an age when even geekdom is socially acceptable.

6) I can't possibly express how pleased I am that the Beastie Boy's Sabotage continues to exist in the 23rd century and to serve as an anthem for rebellious midwestern youth.

5) Played with a lot of humor -- and a good balance of action and humor. Star Trek is not an action movie franchise, but it has always incorporated action into the stories. Primarily it has been about ingenuity and clever escapes and the power of friendship and loyalty -- something that is harder to think of and harder to execute than a good shoot-em-up sequence. All was well balanced here. And the humor was, I thought, quite wonderfully played, for Star Trek has always possessed a real wry sense of "eyebrow raising" humor. From the slapstick Dr. Strangelove homage of Kirk's "puffy hands" sequence to the generally well played "signature moment" taglines for each crew member to the dry wit of Spock, the humor was great.

4) No Shatner. 'Nuff said.

3) My favorite moon, Titan, played a significant role. The background shot of Jupiter in that sequence is, I presume, based on a Cassini shot that has often been my little MacBook's desktop background.

2) in their characterization of the original actors. Some, such as Chris Pine's portrayal of Kirk, stopped short of going all the way (e.g. avoided the speech patterns). Others, such as Karl Urban's McCoy ran with the original and gave it some added depth.

1) And the number one thing I liked about the new Star Trek: it breaks the "odd number curse" of the Star Trek films.

Top five things I don't like about the new Star Trek:

5) While most of the "young" characters had a pretty good physical resemblance to their "old" originals (this is starting to sound like the "New Originals" scene in Spinal Tap), Sulu was a pretty wide miss. It turns out (thank you Wikipedia) that John Cho (young Sulu) is Korean-American, which goes some way to explaining the differences of physical build. I'm willing to run with George Takei (old Sulu, if you are ignorant of such things) and his logic that since Sulu was stuck representing for all of Asia in TOS (and, as it would turn out, all of the GLBT community, a group for which I think Takei is one of their finest spokespeople), it was OK to show a little license there.

4) Age, a decade or so of obscurity, and a painkiller habit have not been kind to Winona Ryder.

3) The conceit of having most of the Federation fleet away fighting some action in some other chunk of space, thereby allowing for the convenient crew-of-academy-punks was a little convenient. But, then again, this is Star Trek and such convenient conceits seem to be a integral part of this universe.

2) While I generally really liked the way that the technology was portrayed (generally a little clunkier than in the "later" shows, lots of warning labels, etc., I did think that there were some points where it looked like the bowls of the Enterprise had been converted into a brewery or a winery. I actually seriously think that one scene was shot in a winery, one of those big ones with lots of stainless steel for making low grade white wine.

1) Just one too many of "Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a..."

Overall?

Fifteen points in favor, five against...most of which are moderated to some degree. I'll make it easy and just come out and say that I loved it. A very well balanced film, two hours that passed quickly and have produced a lot of good musing, thinking, and discussion afterwards. Recommended, and worth the theater trip to see it in the full spectacle. I'll be queuing up to buy the BluRay when it comes out!

The Frigate Navy Redux

2009-05-08T20:56:00.001-07:00

For the most part, I would like to be clear, I am downright delighted with what Secretary of Defense Robert (not Bill) Gates is doing. He's got a tough job at a tough time and is really taking a big bull by the horns in some of his efforts to reform the defense acquisitions process and push right-now tools out to the warfighters rather than sexy, slow to mature, high ticket programs that make for nice Popular Science covers. As a further footnote, something that he's doing that I think is absolutely brilliant is taking this agenda to the junior offices of the military. There are a lot more Lieutenants or Captains out there getting ready to lead their platoons or companies patrol somewhere in The Suck than there are queuing up for spots to fly an F-22. And while those smaller voices have a lot less individual pull than the Generals at the top, there are a lot of those smaller voices, and as they rotate through staff or Pentagon assignments, those voices start to wield some weight.

But I digress from a point I have not yet started to make.

This is to be about the Navy, and about naval strategy. One of Gates' favored programs is something called the Littoral Combat Ship, or LCS. Undeniably, it is sexy and dramatic vessel. A fast, agile sort of mini-warship, half Cigarette Boat, half special operations watercraft, half guided missile destroyer. It looks (and here is where I get a little mean) great on the cover of Popular Science. The LCS is a ship for the current war -- a fast and agile vessel designed to fight in close in to enemy shores, coping with "popup" threats, supporting SOF types and Marines, and clearing the way for the regular deep water navy. Peel the skin back on one and it reveals as a remarkable amount of empty space -- designed to be filled with mission kits for anti-sumbarine warfare, minehunting, inland strike, or covert operations.

Conceptually, the LCS is clever. It is designed to offer a game changing degree of modularity, and this modularity allows for a striking range of capabilities to fit in a single hull -- without that hull getting so large that it grows unwieldy and incapable of the in-shore mission. And (perhaps more importantly these days) without having to buy enough gear to equip every hull equally. The math, at this point, seems entirely sound -- the chances of needing to simultaneously land a SEAL team, sweep for mines, and hunt submarines are pretty slim. So build a bunch of ships that can't do all of these things at once and just enough gear to go around, one kit per vessel. You cross-deck the sonar arrays depending on which ship is tasked with sub hunting. Cross-deck the minehunting robots to the needed ships, the special ops kit, etc. all as needed.

The modularity carries with it a drawback -- the fact that these modules need to be changed. I mean, what if you do suddenly need to hunt submarines? Fine, go in to port, swap out the launching ramp and the rubber boats, and the gym and barracks for the SEALS. Load aboard the towed array sonar kit. Fly off the MH-60's that were doing the special ops work and land a couple of SH-60's to drop torpedos and do sonar dips. Let the SEALS go drink some beer and bring on board some mine warfare experts. Lather, rinse, and repeat of the mission changes again.

Great plan, provided you have a friendly port nearby. And, with a bit of a flourish, the drawback to the whole LCS falls in to place. It truly is designed for the current war. By which I mean the Persian Gulf -- a place where it is never too far from a friendly port where it can meet up with a tender for supply and conversion between roles. Which also means, of course, that though capable on paper of some fantastic speeds, the LCS' true speed of deployment is limited by the rate at which logistic support can be brought over to resupply and re-role the vessel when needed.

Now modern navy's have always depended on supply lines -- and since the US Navy perfected underway replenishment during and after World War Two, the need for friendly foreign bases has been much reduced. I fear that the LCS will only take us back a stage, back to the era of the coal fired navy when allied ports were needed every few thousand miles, ready to refill the hungry bunkers of those early, inefficient vessels. Commodore Perry, anyone?

I am as optimistic as the next person that the Obama administration's policies will see a return towards the coalition building that dominated the war fighting of the past few decades -- when the US was working as a member (all be it a dominant one) of a team and could, therefore, pretty reliably count on friendly ports for its efforts. But even so, this reliance has its costs and risks. Does the USS Cole bring back any memories?

Or, to bring up a more timely situation, what about Somalia and the shindiggery going on in the waters of East Africa? More on that later.

Much of naval warfare is about maintaining presence. That is the thing, in this globalized world, that navies can do better than any other branch of the services. A ship can, in a way that no other weapon system can, simply be. It can hang out, outside the twelve mile limit and in international waters, just saying a friendly "hi." The sort of "hi" that can carry Tomahawk missiles (and therefore reach just shy of 1,000 nautical miles inland in the latest version), soak up radio and radar signals and send them back home to the NSA boffins, keep track of hostile or suspect shipping. It is the very epitome of "speak softly and carry a big stick," it is the reason the phrase "gunboat diplomacy" has not been replaced with the phrase "uncrewed air vehicle diplomacy." A warship, or a collection of them, can maintain free passage of the sea lanes that carry the overwhelming majority of the world's commerce...or close them off when blockade and embargo is the order of the day.

The United States Navy currently possess the most capable and versatile floating big sticks in the military world -- the largest fleet of (and the largest) air craft carriers in the world. There are also dozens of CG-47 and DDG-51 class cruisers and destroyers, all with exactly the sort of staying power and strike capability that I'm talking about. Boo-ya. Fly Navy.

But these are big assets -- and many are tied up in the odd sort of self-escorting that is the devil of all deployed military operations. The cruisers are busy escorting the carriers, protecting them, tending to them. All of these vessels are also forward deployed, with their unique and amazing capabilities, around countries like North Korea that have a disturbing to just go ballistic one day (pardon the pun) or fighting the couple of active wars in which we are currently embroiled. Not a lot of these high-ticket ships are left to fill in the little cracks in US foreign policy.

Like Somalia.

There was once a great and noble fleet of Perry class frigates (a different Perry, not the Commodore who opened up Japan), but these little and versatile ships are rapidly disappearing and now less than half of those built remain in US Navy service. Just to give you an idea of the sort of missions that these ships are tasked with, let me relate the history of one particular Perry class frigate, the USS Nicholas, during Gulf War Senior. Now I don't want you to think that I'm disrespecting the contributions of the decks launching strike missions or the cruisers launching Tomahawks. But while these "big guns" stood back and did their deeds from a distance, the Nicholas found herself:

1) recapturing the first piece of Kuwait, an oil platform, and in the process capturing the first Iraqi prisoners of the war.
2) detecting and (in cooperation with a Royal Navy frigate of similar size and their embarked helicopters) sinking about a dozen Iraqi patrol boats.
3) rescuing a downed USAF pilot
4) accidentally being shot at by another USAF pilot (no harm done)
5) destroying several Iraqi laid mines
6) escorting the battleships Missouri and Wisconsin on gunfire missions.

During much of this conflict she was operating 70 miles closer to enemy shores than any other "regular" US Navy vessel. Since then she's kept on with the busy agenda. Read the Wiki page. Oh, and just to brag, ships that share my name have a bit of a history. If you really want a busy naval career, look at the 2nd USS Nicholas (the one I was just writing about was the third).

Now here's where I get to my point -- that list of accomplishments, from Iraq to Bosnia, is a litany you will find on few vessels twice her size. It is an irony of naval history that very often the big ships do not get the big missions.

As the Perrys fade away, proving too expensive to update and too expensive to crew, the LCS' are supposed to be coming online to fill the gap. Well, the Zumwalt is supposed to be as well -- but did anyone catch the price tag there? $3.3 billion. Yes, and perhaps more. That's the reason the big ships don't do exciting things. They cost too much. The Zumwalt is also easily the ugliest warship that anyone has ever contemplated building. Just say "no" to tumblehome, people.

But the little ships -- the new ones, the LCS -- run the risk of simply creating more trouble by requiring more basing, more supply lines, and more reasons to maintain a presence in the first place. It is just a return to the problem of spending so many of your resources protecting and supporting your resources that we you have no resources left to actually do anything.

Do I have a solution, or am I just a crank?

Actually, I have a solution. At one level, this solution is simply "more Perrys." More medium sized vessels, handy enough to operate in the littorals, large enough to play a role in a deep ocean fight and to help with the escort needs of the 1st class navy (carriers, cruisers, amphibious vessels), affordable enough to be built in quantities sufficient to send them where needed, large enough to be self supporting for a reasonable length of mission. Part of what made the Perrys such versatile vessels was that they were just big enough to take on all sorts of odd adjuncts for their interesting missions. During her Gulf War stint, the Nicholas was carrying a Navy SH-60B helicopter, two Army OH-58D helicopters, an add-on infrared sight system (such things are now common), a kluged together minehunting sonar, and a handful of Navy SEALs to do the dirty work that occasionally came along. It had to have been a crowded ship...but it held up.

Currently US shipbuilding is leaving this size range empty. The overly-small LCS hulls are being built, production slowly ramping up to speed. And the fugly Zumwalts are out there, somewhere, presumably striking fear and nightmares into shipyard workers forced to build them.

So for my solution I am going to turn to the French. Yes, the French. Mocked in American military circles for so many reasons (many of which are undeserved, or at least more reasonable when explored in some depth...e.g. why did the French accumulate such a reputation for capitulation and inaction...it might have something to do with a reaction to loosing 1.4 million dead and 4.3 million wounded in World War One while pursuing a strategy of "offensive above all else"...but that is a topic for another blog). But they are a nation of increasingly competent engineering -- even if it is occasionally different in art and concept than that produced by this nation.

The French are facing a similar problem, actually, their own need to maintain a sustained global presence. Ever since the days of de Gaulle, France has styled herself as a "mini superpower," wanting all of the trappings and abilities of the United States and the Soviet Union, all be it in miniature. And so France is one of the few countries of Europe that has always sought to maintain a global capability of power projection. This goal has not always been successful and many struggling deployments exposed weaknesses (much as the Falklands campaign exposed in the English).

As touches mid-size naval combatants (which is the point of this now much diverted blog), France had some interesting and moderately successful experiments with not-quite-warships in the form of the Floreal class, an odd sort of mini-frigate with a disproportionally large helicopter hangar (actually a normal size helicopter hangar on a ship that was by conventional measure "too small" to support it). The resulting package was perfect for low-level flag showing, cooperative work, blockading, etc. But it didn't quite have the chutzpa do really rumble with the real warships and only six were built. The Floreal was half of what I'm looking for -- sustained presence and enforcement, but not enough warfighting.

But facing the obsolescence of several other frigate-sized vessels, and an almost dramatically unsuccessful Franco-Enlish alliance to build an anti-aircraft destroyer, the French got together with the Italians (similar needs, if not quite of the same scale) and produced the FREMM. That stands for something, FREMM, presumably in French but possibly in Italian, that roughly means "European Multi-Mission Frigate." I have found, by the way, that French acronyms are often very nearly (and occasionally exactly) opposite the same acronym in English. So perhaps it is actually "Multi Mission European Frigate" and they kept the R from FRigate in there so it wouldn't be named "femm" which would be too close to "femme" for everyone's comfort. I'm not sure.

The first hull of these new ships to be built for the French is to be the Aquitaine which is a truly beautiful word and much easier to say that "FREMM" and so, even if it is harder to type, I will hereafter call these ships the Aquitaine class.

Now for starters, the Aquitaine is beautiful in a way that very few modern warships are. Boxy, yes, but somewhat less so than many of her peers. The long low foredeck gives a nice pointy look, not quite as Cigarette Boat as the LCS, but perhaps more evocative of the WWII era battleships and cruisers with their long gun covered bows. In a Walter Mitty sort of way, I can picture North (or South) Atlantic (or Pacific) seas dashing back as the bow buries itself in a wave, spray flying aft against the pilothouse windows (and of course, there is Commander Nick, cup of coffee in hand, standing on the heaving deck, scanning the horizon...).

Ahem, back to my morning train ride.

And besides, this is about naval strategy and procurement and not about romanticized places-I'd-rather-be...

At this point I am going to consciously avoid the trap of rattling off a catalog of meaningless statistics about what sorts of missiles are tucked where and how many shells the gun can fire in a minute's time. Generally, these are academic details. In nutshell-land, it would break down like this, going from fore to aft:

Gun for protection against aircraft or, even more critically, small/medium sized boats as are so often used by developing nations and terrorists.

Bank of missiles, some anti-aircraft for self protection and some strike for targeting deep inland.

Bundle of anti ship missiles.

A few odd smaller guns for defense against more of the small-random-boat sort of threat.

LOTS of decoys against missiles, torpedos, etc.

A couple of torpedos to deal with sneaky submarines.

A big hanger and helicopter pad for all the wonderful versatility that helicopters bring to medium-sized warships.

Tucked away is a surprisingly competent sonar system, on par with the best in the world. I say "surprising" because anti-submarine warfare is generally out of fashion among the navies of the West -- and has been so ever since the evaporation of the Soviet threat. That sonar is an important part of why I so like the Aquitaine -- a respectful inclusion of anti-submarine capability. Right now, the US Navy is letting much of its ASW capability go. Granted, the big-bad Soviet submarine force is in decay (with a tendency to catch fire, sink, or sit on the stocks for a decade or two half completed) and their new-building programs have tended to produce more ominous news reports than completed submarines.

But there are other threats out there, and in coastal waters a small submarine, such as those that are proliferating in the developing world, can be a potent force of ambush if well handled. And the proliferation of AIP's means that the sustained submerged endurance that was long the sole province of the nuclear navies (US, UK, France, China, Russia, and occasionally India) has spread. So another highly capable ASW hull is a (sorry Martha) Good Thing.

There is the usual complement of radars and a very capable electronic warfare suite (that IS a lot of antennas you see). I'm not barreling into details because the exact make and model of each piece of hardware is frankly boring. The overall picture, the synergy, is what counts. And here is what that synergy is:

A medium sized, versatile warship. One capable of providing world-class anti-sumbarine efforts from deep ocean escort to hunting diesel boats in the shallows. One capable of protecting itself from air threats and of minimally extending that protection to other vessels. One capable of projecting its sphere of influence and observation beyond the horizon (fancy way of saying "carrying a helicopter"). And, uniquely for its size, one capable of projecting the big-stick-factor several hundred miles inland, for the Scalp Naval will have capabilities not too far removed from the well known Tomahawk cruise missile. So take that persistence I've talked about and notch it up one.

An Americanized Aquitaine would obviously show changes. Swap missiles around (out go ASTERS and Scalp Naval, in go ESSMS and TacTom). Fiddle the radars so you have guidance for the ESSMS'. Whatever. Gain a bit here, loose a bit there. I'm not even going to get involved in the holy war that is medium calibre gun selection. Pick your favorite. The US is gravitating towards Swedish 57mm's, the Aquitaine has an Italian 76mm. Personally, there ain't no replacement for displacement (which is NASCAR for "bigger guns are better").

I'd (and this is a controversial one) actually not replacing the Exocet anti ship missiles with their American counterparts (a weapon called Harpoon). I'm actually only aware of a Harpoon being fired in anger twice, once in the 1980's and once in 1991's original Gulf War. Tac-Tom has a nominal moving target capability and I'd rely on that, saving a few bucks of purchase cost, hours of maintenance, and tons of displacement.

The big helicopter deck is a crucial asset -- the no-hanger DDG-51's taught the US Navy to never again build a large combatant without helicopter capabilities. Particularly in today's small-to-medium size wars, the ability to extend the ship's horizon by anything from a few dozen to a hundred miles provides much of the reach necessary for patrolling and enforcement.

This is, in a very real sense, a return to the role of the Frigate as it was two hundred years ago. A ship capable of holding its own in battle, of fighting amongst and supporting the larger vessels when the conflict reaches "large" size. But a ship optimized for cruising, for endurance at sea and for flexibility in employment. A ship that could support a low level conflict off the coast of a nascent African nation (my Somalia riff again) or anywhere else without requiring controversial or vulnerable ports. A ship capable of maintaining a presence, for purposes of force or policy, of acting when necessary in offense or defense, of protecting interests at sea or on land.

Now I'm not insisting that, right now, the DoD slap down 500-600 million US$ for each of thirty or forty of these ships. I'm a blogger, and therefore have little power to actually insist anything. But here's how things stand -- the LCS was supposed to run about $240 million each and is currently about 100% over budget (and swelling). The Aquitaines are supposed to cost $510 million each. Given the lower technical risk of the less "game changing" design, I'd estimate the chances of cost growth on the FREMM project to be a lot less, say 20%. And the LCS bugs will get ironed out until they cost, say, $350 million each. That would allow for building roughly 32 Aquitaine class vessels for the cost of the planned 55 LCS vessels. 32 vessels with much greater staying power, versatility, adaptability, and utility. And 32 vessels that will not hamstring the navy with increased basing requirements, shorter endurances, and yet more vulnerable and expensive supply lines. Furthermore, with sufficient size, crew, endurance, and capability, the Aquitaine would free up some big DDG-51 and CG-47 vessels, allowing them to operate at somewhat reduced tempos or to focus on global crisis states such as North Korea and its nascent ballistic missile capability.

I don't care how this is implemented. The Aquitaine is pretty and presents exactly the sort of blend that I think a vessel of this class needs (the strategic strike role is genius). But I do know what one of the major hurdles will be -- the submarine force. Facing the same threat of "why do we have them" as other cold war naval assets (reference above on decline of Big Red's submarine forces), the sub guys have pointed out three roles for which they are excellently suited: anti-submarine warfare, strategic strike, and special operations. These are all true -- these are excellent roles for a submarine. But the wonderful nuke boats are expensive to operate, a limited asset numerically, but worst of all their ace card, their stealth, denies them the ability to provide presence. But an Americanized Aquitaine would threaten two (actually all three) of these roles and therefore face opposition from the silent service. Well, no good idea ever went unopposed, and if Gates is willing to face down The Admirals and The Generals over some of the other elements of his agenda, perhaps he can fight this one for me. Besides, there are a lot more naval officers who are going to see surface commands (and therefore have a vested interest in a surface navy) than will ever see an undersea command.

The result of all of this?

Not, perhaps a potential game changer, but a solid and adaptable performer. Something perfectly suited to the crucial need for naval presence in times and places of peace, crisis, and war.

A ship that would enable more projection, and less dependance.

A classic frigate for the 21st century.

Linear Feedback Shift Registers and The Playing Card Cipher

2009-04-18T14:50:00.001-07:00

So I was looking for a name for my playing card cipher that I described a few days ago. I'd go with that, call it PCC for short, but that is the name of a local market chain and therefore has already been taken.

I'd thought of a few more. Realize, please, that ciphers often have acronym names and, particularly for not-so-serious ones like this, the name involves a degree of punning. Hence the following candidates:

CARD: Cipher Algorithm with Randomized Deck
DECK: Deniable Encryption with Card-based Keystream

Personally, I like DECK. And so DECK it shall be known as. At least for the length of this post.

Now, after writing up the initial description, I thought it might be a good idea to expand on the underlying design and design rational. And, by way of that, to talk a little about stream cipher design.

First off, I know that this is by no means the first attempt to produce a cipher based around playing cards. At the very least "Solitaire," developed by Real Cryptologist and crypto-guru Bruce Schneier got there first.

But I think that my Clever Idea is the use of playing cards as indicators of binary state, therefore enabling the translation of any cipher into playing card form -- it is just a matter of producing one that blends simplicity and security in a way as to produce a reasonable amount of security for a reasonable amount of effort.

For various reasons, when I was putting together DECK this "reasonableness requirement" drove me to focus on stream ciphers. In a nutshell, a stream cipher is one where the cipher mechanism operates independently of the plaintext. The output of this independently running stream then modifies the cipher text one bit (in the case of a binary cipher like mine) at a time. Most older stream ciphers are bit-oriented because they were intended to be implemented in dedicated hardware (military radios, bulk encryption hardware, cell phones). Many newer ones are designed to produce 8-bit bytes, 32-bit words, or other chunks of keystream all at once, as ciphers are increasingly expected to run on general purpose computing systems.

But we're dealing with playing cards and need to keep it simple -- so a bitwise stream cipher it was to be.

The most well understood mechanism of stream cipher design is something called a Linear Feedback Shift Register or LSFR. If you look at DECK, you will see that it has three of them -- each of the three rows of six, seven, and eleven cards constitutes an LSFR.

An LSFR consists of a certain number of registers (each card is a register). An LSFR steps, as described in CARD, by pushing the contents of the register one to the right (from the input side to the output), discarding the rightmost bit, and using a combination of bits in the register's previous state to produce a new input bit going in to the new state.

The input bit is produced by XOR of the contents of several specified bits in the register. If the specified bits are chosen correctly (technically they must be primitive polynomials, which is something I don't really understand, but is something I can look up here or here or here) then your LSFR will produce a sequence of output bits (based, say, on the rightmost bit of the register, the one we "discard" with each shift) that does not repeat for 2^n-1 steps (where, predictably, n is the length of the register).

In other words, a properly designed 6-bit LSFR will produce a unique sequence of bits for 63 steps. A properly designed 7-bit LSFR will produce a unique sequence of bits for 127 steps. And a properly designed 11-bit LSFR will produce a unique combination of bits for 2,047 steps. It also means that there are 2n unique patters that each LSFR can produce.

Now I could simply use an LSFR to produce a sequence of bits -- and indeed this approach can be used when a non-secure cipher is needed (e.g. when randomizing an electrical signal to reduce RFI or for some spread-spectrum transmission techniques). But I want to produce a secure cipher and for that a simple LSFR is not going to work.

Here's why:

A Linear Feedback Shift Register has, unsurprisingly given its name, a linear output. That means that the output of the LSFR depends in a simple and obvious way on the contents of the LSFR. If I had a simple LSFR and I recorded the output for a period of time equal to its length, then I would know what the register contents were at the point I started.

Since an LSFR is also deterministic, that is to say that given the state of the register at any given time it is possible to determine the state of the register at any other time, once you know the register at one point in time any future or past output can be determined.

A simple known-plaintext attack then makes breaking a simple LSFR child's play.

Some complications are needed. One option is to combine a single LFSR with some sort of nonlinear stage to generate the output.

This would mean instead of taking the keystream off the right-hand-edge of the cipher I'd do something more complex. Typically this would involve grabbing not just the end value but several values from within the register and combining them together in a more complex way.

At first this was the approach I pursued.

The original draft of DECK (which may yet see some life in a mildly altered form) was a 24-bit (24-card) LFSR. The reason for 24, by the way, was the purely arbitrary decision that the 16-million possible keys to a 24-bit keyspace would produce enough security for my application.

I then developed a simple non-linear function (by flipping a coin during that epic conference call) that took four input bits from the LFSR and used them to determine a single output bit. I had the idea that which four bits in the LFSR were tapped to feed the non-linear function could be part of the keyspace and therefore increase the complexity of the cipher.

This is inspired by a late-cold-war cipher called KEA that was used in some exportable radio equipment that was sold under various Foreign Military Sales efforts. Exact details of KEA (which I believe stands for "Kinetic Encryption Algorithm) are not known, but the variable-taps-to-non-linear-combiner idea comes from there.

Anyhow, it turned out to be rather more difficult to keep track of those 24 cards, stepping all of them every round, then I expected. And, while I'm sure I'd eventually have memorized it, I kept having to consult a table written on a sticky note ("Stick Together!") to produce the output bit.

This lead to a phase of introspection and review. There is, fortunately, another way to generate a less-guessable output from a LFSR. This involves combining the output of several registers together. Several registers with regular stepping can be mixed by a non-linear function, as is done in the E0 cipher used in Bluetooth devices.

While this might break up the stepping from one titanic effort of 24 cards at a time, I'd still be dealing with some sort of memorized nonlinear function (and the one in E0 is a bear, so I'd have to simplify it a lot for my purposes).

Another approach for adding nonlinearity to cipher consisting of several LFSR's is to step them irregularly but combine them simply. This is done in a lot of simple (and theoretical) bitstream ciphers. Read Applied Cryptography to read about them. This is also the approach taken by A5/1, the much mocked GSM cipher.

A5/1 isn't really mocked so much as it is broken. Which, in cryptanalytic circles, is the same thing. It has several known flaws and a sufficiently small keyspace as to make them practical for exploitation. But before we get all cranky about it, let's remember that A5/1 was developed in 1987 -- 22 years ago, an eternity in cipher years and was, if you buy the conspiracy theories, deliberately kept somewhat weak at the request of European police and security agencies. Though much of that intentional weakening is in the key setup, which is out of scope for this discussion.

Despite this, I've always found A5/1 to be a very pleasing cipher. Let's take a look at it:

Note that Wikipedia has very much more attractive illustration of A5/1 here but the diagram runs from RIGHT-to-LEFT, the reverse of all of my other descriptions. My brain must work from left-to-right, the opposite of French cryptologists (A5/1 is French). So I found this image, which I pwned, but since I got it from a ppt about breaking A5/1, I don't feel too naughty.

If you think back to the description of DECK, you may already see similarities. Note the three LFSR's: upper, middle, and lower. The plus-in-a-circle stands for XOR, so you may be able to figure out the three feedback lines, one for each register. The upper and bottom are tapped in four places, the central one in two places. The output is generated by simply XOR'ing the rightmost bits of each of the three registers.

None of this is fancy -- and in fact none of it is particularly secure. Where A5/1 gets interesting is how it clocks the three registers. Look at the three center(ish) bits, C1, C2, and C3. Just like DECK, A5/1 clocks whichever registers have the same value as the majority of the center bits. Two or three registers clock.

What drew me to this construction is that 3/4 of the time, only two registers have to clock. So, when it comes time to flip the playing cards, instead of having to deal with 24 of them every round, there is a chance that our DECK-using agent will only have to flip 13, 17 or 18 cards. On average, that means flipping 18 cards. Labor saving!

To get the numbers down, for DECK, I reduced the contents of all three registers. I also changed the feedback polynomials and tapped all three registers at only two places each. Both have a negative security impact, I'm sure, but also simplify the user's job. The fact that the taps for the shorter two registers work out to the last two positions helps. So the only extra number that needs to be memorized is that the long register taps at the 9th and final spots.

So that is, roughly put, the evolution of DECK. All of the other discussion points of developing a good binary language that were mentioned in the original posting apply.

Now I'm still playing with this playing-card-cipher idea. I still hold out some potential for the single-register version. I also have some thoughts about a "short but wide" cipher that uses five bit values for each stage of the shift register, thereby producing enough output to encipher one "letter" worth of information at a time.

I also wonder if there would be a way to mix a couple of techniques to produce "reasonable" security with greater convenience. Perhaps a fixed permutation (shuffling but not flipping) of a set number of bits at a time (probably five) combined with a more simply generated keystream. This might vaguely resemble Phillip Rogaway's OCB block cipher construction which I'm rather partial to (and not just because he's a prof at Davis, my home town). The permutation could be keyed but constant across a given message. Not sure about the security implications of that, or how much additional convenience it would give.

More musings...likely...

It would get away from the genesis of DECK, which was to use playing cards to implement well understood modern cipher techniques. But hey, its all in fun anyway, isn't it?

The Playing Card Cipher

2009-04-16T21:39:00.001-07:00

UPDATE: I have added an expanded discussion of the thought process behind this cipher and some of the underlying technologies: Linear Feedback Shift Registers and the Playing Card Cipher. Happy reading!

The following post describes a cipher, one with a few unusual properties. First off, it is not intended to be implemented with any of the usual technologies of computers, custom integrated circuits, or even electro-mechanical rotors.

It is intended to be implemented with playing cards.

It was born during an epic conference call (the total call ran to 14 hours, though my role it it lasted just around 12) when I occasionally found myself with little to do but listen and wait for an opportunity to contribute. It proceeded to evolve over several days of tweaking and (I hope) improvement until finally reaching the form I outline below.

In addition to the unusual form of implementation, this cipher was constrained by some equally unique requirements:

1) It should be possible to implement it using the technology of the 17th century.

2) It should require no tools or objects that could arouse suspicion.

3) Ideally, it should be easy to "hide" efforts at using the cipher if discovered

4) It should be possible for a person of slightly above average intelligence, if taught and given opportunity to practice, to implement the cipher from memory.

5) It should possess sufficient security for the times.

The inspiration was the cryptographic subplots of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle and, in particular, the exploits of spy/courtesan Eliza. I'd also recently discovered Sony's very elegant Clefia cipher and found myself in a crypto-mood.

Not being a cryptographer, but rather a fan of cryptography, I chose to base this cipher on a fairly well know and reasonably simple href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_cipher">stream cipher. For various technical reasons related to complexity of implementation, I chose a stream cipher rather than the more complex (but potentially more secure) block cipher approach.

My basis was A5/1, the cipher used to encrypt voice channels in GSM telephones. A5/1 is pretty broadly regarded as completely broken, but is well described and gloriously simple. I simplified it more. And, I'd like to mention, broken has very different meanings in 2009 and 1779. Rather than getting into a lot of design theory and the evolution (which I think is rather interesting...) let's dive in to the beast itself.

I will assume that before producing the cipher that the message to be enciphered has been translated into some sort of binary notation. There is some discussion of this later, but it could be as simple as saying that the pattern 00001 = A, 00010 = B, 00011 = C, 00100 = D, etc. at five bits per character.

But now here is now the cipher works...

Throughout the following, I use the notation that face up cards have the binary value of 1 and face down cards the binary value of 0. The entire cipher is, then, implemented using playing cards in place of binary registers.

Lay out three rows of cards.

The uppermost has (in this version of the cipher) six cards, the next seven cards, and the bottom row eleven cards. I find it easy to "right justify" these rows so that the rightmost cards are all aligned vertically. These three rows constitute the shift registers of the cipher. The leftmost card in each row constitutes the "first" position in that shift register and the rightmost the "last." Binary values will migrate from left to right across each shift register. Face up cards represent binary "1" values and face down cards represent binary "2" values. The arrangement of up and down cards constitutes the initial key of the cipher.

With this arrangement, there are 24 cards, equivalent to a keyspace of 24 bits. Paltry by modern security standards, but remember that we are doing this with playing cards! The intent here is to produce a cipher using modern design concepts but that an 18th century spy could have implemented. Note that I do not specify the method of "keying" the cipher. I have some speculations on that later, but suffice it to say that some scheme for inputting the initial pattern of cards is essential -- and that the decoder be able to produce the same initial state.

To the left of each row of cards, place a single card. This card is not actually part of the keyspace, but is used as a mnemonic to store the new first value before it is fed into the register.

It may also be helpful to place a few markers on the layout to facilitate the stepping of the cipher. The actual marker is up to the individual depending on circumstances of availability, epoch, cover story, personal preference, etc. Think poker chip, other card, pretzel, pen, Post-It note, etc (I used matches because they were handy). Each marker should be set above or below the designated card so that it does not interfere with the manipulation of the card. It will also help to have two different types of markers. Use the first kind, which we will call red, to mark the last (right-most) two cards of the upper two rows (cards 5 and 6 of the upper and cards 6 and 7 of the lower) as well as the last and next-to-las (cards 9 and 11) of the last row. Note that in the illustrations I used matches placed below the indicated cards. Then use the second kind of mark, which we will call black, to mark the 3rd, 4th, and 8th cards in the top, middle, and bottom rows respectively. Note that these cards should all lie in a vertical column if the layout was set up as I suggest. Here I simply placed a pair of matches at the top and bottom of this column.

Now begins the process of "stepping" the cipher and generating the output.

The cipher executes through a series of "rounds," each of which produces one bit of output. Each row consists of three phases (this is starting to sound like some German style board game, isn't it?).

Phase One

During the first phase we produce one bit (one binary value) of cipher output.

Look at the last (rightmost) cards. If there is an even number of 1 (face up) cards then the cipher outputs a 0. If there is an odd number of 1 cards, then the cipher outputs a 1. Note that zero is an even number. Technically this mathematical function is called an XOR and is a very big deal in modern cipher design.

This output (called the keystream) will be combined with the plaintext message bit-by-bit using the same function. If the plaintext and the keystream are both 1's or both 0's, then the ciphertext is a 0. If either the plaintext or the keystream is a 1, then the ciphertext is a 1.

Phase Two

Now we need to step the cipher forward to prepare for the next round. Look at each row's red highlighted spaces (5th and 6th, 6th and 7th, or 9th and 11th). Based on the values in these spots, we will select the new first value of that row. The extra cards laid to the left of the cipher spaces will serve as memory aids in this process.

Again, use an XOR. If the two highlighted spaces are both 1 or both 0, the extra card sets to 0. If exactly one of the highlighted spaces is 1, then the extra card sets to 1.

Phase Three

Finally we will actually step the cipher forward. This is the most time-consuming step in the process and actually involves two sub-phases.

In the first sub-phase we decide which rows will step. The result will either be two or three. Look at the black highlighted column. Based on the three cards in this column, either 1's or 0's will have a majority. If 1's have the majority, step whichever rows have 1's in this column. If 0's have the majority, step whichever rows have 0's in this column.

For example, if the top most row has a 0 in the black highlighted column, the middle row has a 1, and the bottom row has a 1, then the bottom two rows would step and the upper row would remain unchanged for this round.

Note that if all three cards are the same then all three rows step.

To actually step each row, simply start with the right most card and set it to the value of the card immediately to its left. This means that the rightmost value is lost and the "new" value is fed in from the extra cards that we set up in step two.

That's it.

That whole process produces one bit of output. It takes (about) five of those to encipher one letter.

Back then, people had a lot more time.

A few notes:

To decipher, simply start with the same initial setup and repeat this process. The beauty of the XOR is that it is self-reversing. XOR plaintext and keystream together to produce cipher text. XOR cipher text with keystream and the plain text magically reappears.

The use of the cards to represent bits by face up/down state removes any dependancy on the particular variety of card deck in use (such things have not always been as standardized as they are today). One could use Tarot cards, for example.

It may be helpful to run the cipher for some time while noting down the output on a piece of paper and then doing the xor to transform the plaintext into the cipher text. I use the extra cards of the deck to store a batch of output, stacking them face up or face down depending on each step's output.

I make no effort to define the method of key setup. Any of several strings of numbers could be used, sourced in any of several ways. Information from a newspaper, translated into binary could be used. It would, in any case, be very advisable to run the cipher a cycle or two to mix in the new key before starting to actually use the output.

I also make no guarantees of security. Let's face it, this was developed based on a flawed and broken cipher with modifications performed by a guy with little mathematical understanding of cryptology beyond the most shallow and conceptual level (that's me). The value here is purely as an exercise, a game, and a period piece.

One of the obvioius sources of tedium in this cipher is the inefficiency of binary for sending information. Versatile, yes, but it takes more than five symbols to represent the same amount of information contained in one english letter. A carefully chosen scheme for representing the text (assuming the message is in text) in binary is therefore important. Obviously ASCII with its irritatingly liesurely 8-bits per character pace is out, since there is no need to represent upper, lower, and a whole host of wacky special symbols.

Instead, since this is for secret communication, pare down to the minimums.

For starters, I suggest a five-bit code that would allow for the sending of 32 characters. Beyond the basic 26, the extras could represent common words or phrases, punctuation, or a shift character to swap to a different binary alphabet for numbers.

Six-bit characters would allow for the representation of all the numbers even more cleanly and then some (probably a short hand for common words and phrases) since it would allow for 64 possible values. Keep in mind that this binary alphabet must be memorizable.

This is a whole separate discussion, but there are countless options for optimizing the encoding process. A Huffman code is another option, of course, but I have not had the opportunity to see how effective of a Huffman code I can build and if it ends up as more effective than the shorthand I propose above.

To conclude, here is a basic example:

I wish to encode the message "GOOD NIGHT."

I encode this message using this simple binary code:

A: 00001
B: 00010
C: 00011
D: 00100
E: 00101
F: 00110
G: 00111
H: 01000
I: 01001
J: 01010
K: 01011
L: 01100
M: 01101
N: 01110
O: 01111
P: 10000
Q: 10001
R: 10010
S: 10011
T: 10100
U: 10101
V: 10110
W: 10111
X: 11000
Y: 11001
Z: 11010
Space: 11011
Period: 11100

I get:

00111 01111 01111 00100 11011 01110 01001 00111 01000 10100

I will key my cipher with the day's close of the Jow Jones Industrials which happened to be 8125.43 today (not bad, by today's standards!). Since that won't give me quite enough digits, I will concatenate it with the absolute value of the day's change, 95.81. I will ignore any 0's or 9's that come up and encode these digits in a simple three-bit binary where:

1: 000
2: 001
3: 010
4: 011
5: 100
6: 101
7: 110
8: 111

This set of digits 8125439581 sets my key as:

111 000 001 100 011 010 100 111 000

I actually have extra, so I won't end up using the last three bits. The rest I put into the cipher, starting at the upper left and loading the three rows from left to right, top to bottom. The starting position is, then:

X 111000
B RR
X 0011000
B RR
X 11010100111
BR R

Note the highlighted spots in the rows.

The first step of the cipher produces a "1" as output since the rightmost spots have two 0's and a 1.

The intermediate phase of this step sets the extra cards (initially shown as X's) to 0, 0, 0.

O 111000
B RR
O 0011000
B RR
O 11010100111
BR R

Since the upper and middle rows both have 1's in the black highlighted space, they step forward, producing this:

0 011100
B RR
0 0001100
B RR
0 11010100111
BR R

The next step produces another 1 for output (which will, either now or later, be XOR'd with the 2nd bit of the plaintext just as the first output was with the 1st bit of the plaintext).

The cipher then advances:

0 001110
B RR
0 0000110
B RR
0 11010100111
BR R

The third step produces another 1 and the cipher advances:

1 001110
B RR
1 1000011
B RR
0 01101010011
BR R

It produces a 0 and advances...

And so on and so on.

Enjoy. Use it -- with due warnings of security. If you are a 17th century secret agent, please let me know. If you find this interesting, please do so as well. I have done much thinking on this topic and hope to do more.

Oh yes, and it needs a name...I'm working on that. Perhaps at the next conference call?

Anathem

2009-03-25T08:41:00.001-07:00

This blog entry was conceived as a review of Neal Stephenson's new novel Anathem. I say that because half way through you may think that you've wandered into a discussion of the phenomena known as the "sense of wonder" by science fiction pundits, my own personal thoughts on the motivations that keep us reading a given book, my equally personal thoughts about writing and authorship, and the scientific and philosophical viewpoints of Roger Penrose. Despite this potential perceived digression, this entry remains a discussion of Anathem -- and of the train of emotional and philosophical musings that book set into action.

And this brief introductory paragraph serves, also, as an example of something that Anathem lacked -- perhaps inevitably so. More on that later.

Back to the book. And beware, that spoilers are going to occur. Not plot description spoilers. If you want those, google "Anathem" or just go to the book's Wikipedia page which contains a passable plot summary. My spoilers will be more in the way of indirect references to the events and concepts in the book.

Anathem is a book that I believe all science fiction authors are drawn to, at some point in their careers, write. Some get to it right away, others dance around the topic for decades. For Stephenson, known for his near-term post-cyberpunk and historical fiction, this was not the most obvious direction for his writing to take. But, as I said, it is an almost inevitable draw.

A draw to what?

To first contact.

To the first meeting of two races, peoples, biologies, civilizations, or whatever. Sometimes it is humans and bug-eyed monsters, sometimes long lost worlds, or any of a thousand other variations. But the thought of meeting life from elsewhere is an endemic and driving force among us who read, write, or think about science fiction. The reasons should be obvious, and so not need themselves be explored.

Anathem also reminds me fiercely of one of my absolute personal favorite books, Umberto Eco's masterful The Name of the Rose (if you want a more detailed discussion, and some backstory on my reading tastes, please check out my Desert Island Books post). Some similarities are almost immediately obvious. Both books are set in monasteries (of a sort). Both feature first person narratives written, ostensibly, as journals by monks living within said monasteries-of-a-sort. Both involve sub-plots investigating the relationship between cloistered and secular life. Both possess complex stories with interwoven plots and gradually unfolding layers of mystery. And both possess patient pacing that slowly build from a sedentary opening to a violent climax.

There is something interesting in this pacing, for both books, so methodical and conversational and almost plodding. Some books are page-turners. Each page, each scene, each chapter throws something new and electrifying, drawing you onward and onward toward the finish. But some books require tolerance and devotion to finish. They draw you on more subtly and more provocatively: there may be tedious periods of exposition to endure, plot twists to absorb, obtuse narrative to decipher. What keeps us reading, then?

Remember, I promised you this diversion!

I posit that there are four good reasons that keep us reading a book. There are also some less sophisticated (or less healthy) motivations -- bull-headedness, peer pressure, assignments, etc. But as for the reasons that are worth our discussion:

Excitement: This is perhaps the "simplest" reason. The book is compelling by virtue of what happens. The scenes are graphic and fast paced and transporting, by virtue of the moment-to-moment action, to another time and place. Movies do this easily and do it well, and books can muster the same sense of excitement and urgency when the fur is flying. But what if, as happens in the opening scenes of both Anathem and The Name of the Rose, the excitement just isn't there, replaced with philosophical musing or detailed backstory?

Mystery: We humans, at least those of us who enjoy science fiction, are inevitable lovers of mysteries. We want to know and understand what is going on. If we are faced with an puzzle we want to know the solution. It does not matter if the puzzle is complex (what is up with the machinations of the evil warlord?), simple (who killed the monk?), or very complex (what is the very nature of space-time?), we want an answer. Note -- one of those three is from The Name of the Rose, one from Anathem, and the warlord thing I totally made up. A book that poses a sufficiently interesting mystery -- and keeps us interested and following along with clues on the way -- can maintain interest as surely as one that as a rolling series of smack-down fight scenes. Note that I do not just mean mysteries in the sense of an episode of CSI or Matlock, but also the more general sense of "an unknown" that beckons exploration.

Threat: Once we are invested in a character or characters, we want to know that they are OK. If there is a threat of danger -- of death or injury or banishment or whatever other peril is appropriate -- we will keep reading to make sure that threat passes or is defeated. Naturally, threats and mysteries can interweave -- and good bit of excitement can be built up while illustrating the threat. And should be, since a threat must feel real to the reader, just as it does to the characters. And us fickle readers need reminding, every so often, of what perils are out there.

Sense of Wonder: Finally we get to the somewhat cryptic "sense of wonder." This is a term often used in science fiction and fantasy circles to refer to that wonderful moment in a book (or movie) when the reader/audience suddenly realizes that "It looks like we're not in Kansas any more." And there you have it -- one of cinema's most well known "sense of wonder" moments. Another inevitable classic is "That's no moon, that's a space station." Got it?

"Sense of wonder" moments (which I will henceforth call "moments of wonder") nicely pair with mysteries. Think "Jurassic Park": where are we, what is going on? Cut to Laura Dern's reaction shot (and John Williams' rather cliche score) as she sees the grazing dinosaurs. Sometimes (like Jurassic Park) the moment of wonder hits us with the grace of a sledgehammer. Sometimes it creeps in more gently (if you haven't seen Jacob's Ladder, do so, but do so early in the day in a well lighted room while surrounded by a group of close friends who will accompany you everywhere you go for the next 96 hours).

Sense of wonder is a powerful thing. It is in so many ways the opposite of a mystery -- it is a moment of revelation and often explanation. But if done right it is also a moment that opens up even further moments of mystery and wonder -- and that does so by playing on our sense of curiosity and desire to explore the unknown.

Now back to The Name of the Rose, Anathem, and a third book, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clark's wonderful and fantastic (archaic and modern meanings of both words, please) alternative history that truly deserves a review of its own but must be patient and enjoy this brief appearance in a supporting role. All three are books with (depending on your viewpoint) charmingly or lumberingly methodical paces. All three are books that occasionally "go off" on tangents that seem, at the time, of little or no importance. All three rely, then, on some degree of Mystery, Threat, or Sense-of-Wonder to keep the reader going.

The Name of the Rose opens with a mystery -- a dead monk. That alone is interesting and good for a few pages. But when monks continue to die, that mystery deepens. New ones are added as the heroes pursue the responsible party. The inquisition is about to show up, and things are going to get ugly (add Threat). Someone soon tries to eliminate the nosy investigators...more threat... Eco even manages to work in a few Moments-of-Wonder, taking advantage of the 14th century setting. In the end, the sometimes tedious slog through the boring bits proves worth it -- for only by accepting and learning from the philosophical debates and discussions can the motivations behind the crimes truly be understood.

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell relies much more on a sense of wonder, of a dreamy floating journey through an alternate and magic-infused England. The book leans on willfully archaic language and a Jane Austen look-and-feel that is interrupted by moments of wonder and magic to propel the reader along like a punt along the Thames (and that really is the image I have in mind). There is also threat -- the brooding malevolence of "The Gentleman with the Thistledown Hair" and the foreshadowing of Clark's many footnotes.

Anathem is at least as needing of such invigorating motivations as the other books. Perhaps even more so, since its first 500 pages include a free lesson on physics and metaphysics. Normally, the chance to learn is more than enough to keep me reading. And Stephenson, I want to say clearly and loudly, is a brilliant teacher. If he wrote a non-fiction physics textbook I'd buy it in a second and probably read it twenty times. Some of my favorite moments in The Diamond Age are the allegorical tales from The Young Lady's Illustrated Primer. Stephenson works analogy as an instructional tool like no one I have ever read, heard, or known (and this is an area in which I am no slouch myself). And the educational moments in Anathem are as fine as any he has ever written.

There are just too many of them.

When setting a book in a monastery, even one located on an alien world, it is all too easy to fall into the trap of making every scene a dialog between two characters. That is, after all, a large part of what appears to take place in the cloistered world. Discussion. Teaching. Debate. Musing. You can muse with total focus, muse while pruning grapes, muse while eating, muse while perming penance, muse while participating in rites and rituals. And Anathem pretty much works all of these possible musing-settings.

Until I, for one, was pretty well mused out. Because, you see, these wonderfully clear moments of instruction and debate were not discussing the Earthly science and philosophy that I know. They were discussing that of Arbe, the world on which the book is set. Yes, Stephenson has the audacity to teach cosmology, physics, orbital dynamics, configuration space mathematics, cognitive psychology, and a fair bit of metaphysics all while using about 50% made up words. This is what finally got me to the hands-in-the-air point of frustration. How was I to know if a given passage, which I found interesting, was something that I could bring up in conversation with a reasonably well educated and intelligent person and have a reasonable chance that they'd know what I was talking about?

Now don't get me wrong -- Stephenson wasn't making this shit up. It was all dead-to-right academically derived thinking -- mostly that of fox (and not hedgehog) Roger Penrose. But just enough of it was changed that I knew it was different. So why, I kept asking myself, should I invest the energy necessary to put all of this together when it is only good within the context of this one novel (all be it a long novel)? If I wanted to take any of my knowledge home with me, if I wanted any of that transfer that us adult educators crow about so much, I'd have to build a key translating terms, concepts, and theoreticians between the lingo of Arbe and that of 21st century Earth.

Finally, of course, I did reach the throw-my-hands-up point. I didn't literally throw them up, but I began reading a little faster. I'd go into turbo mode -- skim whole pages at one glance looking to see if things had moved on. If they hadn't, I'd kick it forward another page and repeat until I saw some variety.

This was, I know, a morally reprehensible way of acting. But for someone with a family, a career, a house to take care of, and the crowing distractions of Google and Wikipedia present at every turn, sometimes those precious thirty or forty five minutes on the train or in bed at the end of the day feel so oppressively short that the relentless push of the clock forces us to do things we don't want to. Like skip ahead a few pages. And because of this, I know I must accept some of the blame for what follows. But some of that blame must fold back onto the author. For if the traveler is lost, it may not be that they didn't read the map, but that the map is unreadable.

What Stephenson seems to have expected would keep us going was the Sense of Wonder. Anathem is full of little moments where the differences between Arbe and Earth, and the interesting complexities of Arbe's civilization, show up. Each of these was a little kick in the backside, a boost good for a few more pages. There was also threat, brooding, quiet, indistinct, and all together insufficiently threatening. For the first few hundred pages.

Things do start to stiffen up, a little, as the book moves on but it really isn't until almost page three hundred that we start to get the good payoffs. The possibility of aliens. But we still have to noodle around another two hundred or so for things to get concrete and solid and the threat to, rather slowly, materialize. Namely, that the alines Might Not Be Nice.

By that point, however, things have gotten good and solid and there is less and less time to dawdle around with tedious discussions about science and philosophy using made up words. Instead, we have migrated into a pretty good aliens vs. humans (except that the humans aren't really humans, but rather residents of the planet Arbe, and some of the aliens, as we eventually learn, are humans) story. It kept vaguely reminding me of the old Niven/Pournelle book Footfall.

You know the schtick, an overwhelmingly powerful but aloof force is defeated by the element of surprise and cleverness by scrappy not-quite-humans. It was well implemented, and involved a few clever tricks. An almost excessively detailed deviation into orbital dynamics was part of it. And the quantum fuzziness of the multiple-worlds-theory that was so pervasive an object of discussion throughout the rest of the book kept cropping up and providing a waking-dream level of what-narrative-do-I-trust interest.

It was good, quite good. It was compelling and page turning, devoid of excessive musing and discussion. A great deal of conspiracy, potential conspiracy, and just plain confusion kept every one guessing. And it ended with a gratifying tightness and evenness of pace that is wildly out of character for Stephenson. But it wasn't quite worth the investment that I perceived as expected of me, the reader, through the first few hundred pages.

The interesting thing, in retrospect, is that if I had stuck through it and gotten full value out of Stephenson's education in the first 500 pages, I would have found the payoff in the second half of the book, and in particular over the last 150 pages, much more compelling. Instead of a "decent aliens vs. not-quite-humans story" it would have been a much more clever, tightly woven, and possibly even slightly profound aliens vs. not-quite-humans story.

So there is a lesson here, regarding the path we take when the map is nearly unreadable. Sometimes it is, perhaps, intentionally so, and the wandering journey is part of the experience. So with that said, I look forward to re-reading Anathem the next time I truly have a Great Deal of time to kill. I might pursue the audiobook, since that format is much less conducive to "yeah-whatever" fits of page turning. Audible has one, though it appears to be a full-cast recording and I am rather notorious for disliking full-cast recordings.

It is also interesting to note that my immediate reaction, after finishing Anathem was not to foreswear Stephenson as a tedious hack and to run away from any of the ideas that he was considering. No, instead I went and started googling those scientists, philosophers, and scientist/philosophers that clearly influenced the book. And, on my way out the door the following morning, I grabbed Quicksilver, book one of his vast "Baroque Cycle" trilogy. I'd started Quicksilver some time ago, and recalled liking it, but had put it down (as it turns out, based on a receipt from Bouchon that I found pressed into service as a bookmark, the interrupting factor was returning home after a few days vacation).

As I read through Wikis about Roger Penrose and his ideas I kept having retroactive "moments of wonder" -- points where I would flash back to some element in the fast paced final few hundred pages of Anathem and suddenly get it. Understand how it fit into the tangled web that Stephenson had been weaving over those first 500-700 pages. And that is why I now realize that, had I been more patient and methodical (and had Stephenson thrown me some more breadcrumbs to keep the motivation alive), the whole thing might have been much more worth the wait.

Captain Collected

2009-02-05T12:00:00.001-08:00

So I assume you've all been listening to Christian Bale's much publicized rant against the director of photography on the new Terminator movie. I think that, in addition to betraying a certain lack of impulse control, it may indicate a lack of understanding about how movies are made. Let me lay it out for you, Mr. Bale.

You see, there are these things called cameras that you might have heard of. They, together with those bright, glowing objects called lights are under the control of a man called, variously, the cinematographer or director of photography. The important thing to realize, Mr. Bale, is that this is not a live stage play. The audience doesn't see you in all your glory. They see pictures. Pictures that the DP takes. So, you see, it is best to treat him with respect. Unless you want to find your nose hair the best lit and in-focus part of a close up, one day.

Now the DP didn't walk into the shot and spoil a take. He walked around in the background. Perhaps it was a slack-ass move on his part, perhaps he was trying to get the next shot set up so that Mr. Bale wouldn't have to wait or the movie could stay on time or within budget. Who knows.

Today I found another piece of audio. Now you all know that I since the events of US Airways flight 1549, I (along with the rest of the aviation community) have been doing everything possible to hallow Captain Sullenberger and his crew. Well, here is another way to do so: compare temperaments between Capt. Sullenberger and Mr. Bale. Here is an audio recording of the (brief) flight. Don't worry if you don't understand the combination of New York accent and aviation-speak going on for most of the recording. The important parts are clear enough.

Ok, so let's compare Bale with Sullenberger.

One is irritated because some one moved around on set. Now granted, I'm sure this threw off his acting, but you know, it happens all the time that I'm at work and someone comes over and talks to me, throwing off my mojo just when I'm really in the zone.

Now listen to the airplane. They are going to crash. It is not a "we might crash" situation, but a "how bad will we crash?" situation. Will we all freeze/drown in the river? Will we be burned to death in a fireball? Smushed in the impact? Or some sort of more graceful crash?

Do we hear "What the F&*^ are you doing, geese? What are you doing flying in my way? I mean F*&(^, you call yourselves professional?" No. We hear "unable..." repeated over and over.

Someone should take cool lessons, I think. On the other hand, there might be a sort of "Dark Knight" curse. Like Poltergeist had. Or not. Bale could just be a jackass.

Oh, and going back to the airplane, I have a few amusing notes:

I like the guy (he's the tower controller at LGA) who asks for confirmation of which engines failed. What part of "both" don't you understand?

I also wonder if, at some point when the main controller asks "what do you need to land" or some variation, the thought occurred to one of the men in the cockpit "two new engines!"

And even though the controllers get a little confused (briefly talking about flight 1529), it is remarkable that, for all they know, this airplane just ended up a smoking hole in the ground, but they keep shuffling the rest of the airtraffic around.

One final Flight 1549 note -- this incident has been big news in the aviation community. It is rather interesting to think about why. Why do I think everyone is so interested? Because no one died. Since everyone made it off, and the overall tone was one of heroism and miracle, there is no finger pointing going on.

A normal crash investigation is very much of a blame attribution situation. And if there was any serious loss of life or property, then that blame could end up having huge financial and legal consequences. If the NTSB or other investigative agencies report that an engine or aircraft component was substandard, or that maintenance was ill performed, then that report will have obvious influence on the inevitable post-crash legal actions.

But this time, everyone was OK. Some luggage was lost, or at least ended up quite wet, but I don't hear anyone whining about that.

And since the results of the investigation are free of any legal consequence (and therefore there is much, much less of a place for political and industrial pressures to enter into the investigation), those working to understand what happened can focus on understanding what happened. What worked, what didn't, what should be done the same next time and what should be changed.

Besides, it is a hell of a lot less morbid!

Inauguration Day

2009-01-26T21:09:00.001-08:00

In this post, I plan to go to school on Barack Obama. Not as in "I'm going to school you, Barack!" but as in "Barack is going to school me..."

First let me apologize for not having a lot of pictures. I may wedge a shot of President Obama (it is fun to say that) or other speakers along the margin. But as this is a blog entry about words, I thought I would keep the focus on the text and the language itself.

I want to spend some time looking at words and how they are used. Words are, after all, the heart of my craft as a writer, teacher, and, in my limited way, public speaker. And so whenever I see someone (or even more pointedly, hear someone) with a gift for the language, I am drawn to their content and their methods. And President (I get to say that again) Obama is clearly one of those people worth looking at.

At one point during the inauguration speech, during the "hawkish" bit, I was wondering if Bush Jr. was sitting thinking, "Man, if I could talk like that, perhaps things would have gone better for me!" The simple fact is that Obama was doing hawk way better than Bush ever could. (If you would like a reminder of how ill-spoken Bush so often was, I direct you to David Letterman's top-ten list).

Now a bit of a thought on the power of words and speeches. Obama's often criticized as an "empty suit" -- a collection of great words but little in the way of concrete plans. That is perhaps true, but only if one listens only to the speeches. The thing is, though, that what is a speech supposed to be? A detailed policy statement? No, that is called a 200 page document that will put even the most caffeinated person to sleep. The point of a speech is to provide what the corporate types call a "high level overview" of the situation. To establish direction. To outline priorities. To communicate vision. And, at a time like this (massive national crappiness), perhaps above all to provide inspiration. These are tasks ill suited to long discussion.

Let us, for instance, look at one of the most hallowed of modern wartime speeches, that of Winston Churchill to the House of Commons on June 4, 1940. It is the fameous "we shall fight on the X, Y, Z" speech. An excerpt:

I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once more able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.

Even though large parts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old.

Now a couple of things are noteworty. There is no discussion of detailed planning and specific detail. To do so in a speech focused on military affairs is obviously ludicrous: "We shall continue to convoy our ships with ever increasing escort through the generosity of the lend-lease program. We shall deploy our forces to fight the enemy in Africa, then in Italy, and finally landing on the beaches of Normandy..."

But this was a speech given to a public teetering between depression and euphoria, staggered that the last British forces had just fled the continent but ecstatic that they had been rescued ("The Miracle at Dunkirk," FYI). It was vital to maintain a sober optimism throughout the nation, to maintain motivation through the privations and exertions that surely were to follow. And so Churchill brought out his best -- not of details and policy, but of consolation, confidence, and motivation.

Ok, that's out of the way. Now everyone who read's Fox News' commentary has been taken care of. By the way, I've realized what bugs me so much about Fox. It isn't their obviously (and frankly, to their credit, rather openly) biased coverage. Rather it is the way they try to bill themselves as some sort of underground alternative coverage with all that "mainstream media" lingo they use when attacking other people's viewpoints. I mean let's get serious. The FOX network isn't some dude with a talk show on AM radio during safe harbor hours or some guy broadcasting with an HF rig from the middle of Montana. It is one of the big four television networks with a carefully calculated strategy of playing to a particular market. Anyway, that's that. Just had to say something.

On to President Obama and his particular moves. For anyone interested, here are transcripts of two recent significant (and quite linked) speeches of his.

Presidential "victory" speech:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96624326

Inaugural speech:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99590481

Read (or better yet, listen to) both of them. Or just read on if you want to. But my first thought here is a compare and contrast. A commentator (didn't catch the name) on NPR was talking about the comparitively somber tone of the inaugural speech, devoid as it was of the flourishes ("singing" as the commentator kept confusingly putting it) and tricks like the repeating "yes we can" motif used in the victor speech. The acceptance speech is a celebration -- while it acknowledges the challenges ahead, they are as yet distant (months away). This is the time to look back on what has been done, the transformation that this nation has undergone, the progress the world has made, and the remarkable place in history which we all inhabit.

It was, in many ways, an introverted and retrospective speech. When we are successful, we tend to look to ourselves (and those close to us) and say "well done!" We tend to look back on the moments that helped define that success. The crowd is excited, because they have given their time and energy to this cause, and so they deserve time to celebrate. It is their night and it is Barack Obama's night.

The second speech, the inaugural speech, differs in several ways. It is shorter. It is more somber (count the applause -- and notice that there are situations where Obama speaks over the crowd, silencing potential cheers, rather than letting them go or even encouraging them as he did the other night). Personally, I'm not sure somber is exactly the word, though I know it is a descriptor other analysts have used. It is more workmanlike, I suppose. It is a speech used as a tool, much as Churchill would have. It is a speech intended to set a tone and a tenor for the coming four years.

Party time's over, that much is clear. The victory now lies months back and the challenge is immediate. The speech is concise so that it may be quoted, read, and repeated. It is extraverted in as much as it is sending a message OUT from the president to the people of his nation and to the peoples and nations of the world in general. It is forward looking in as much as it seeks to define what will come, and not what has passed. History plays a role, but as a reference to which the challenges of the present and future are compared. "We overcame those, therefore I know we can overcome these" instead of "we overcame those, ain't we grand!"

It is also not a speech by Barack Obama, as the "victory" speech was. It was a speech by the President of the United States, and as such a tool of statescraft carrying messages of cooperation, strength, hope, and threat to people, idiologies (to get a little Huntington-esque), and governments around the world. The difference is subtle but important, and the presence of this shift tells me a lot about Obama's attitude towards his job. The Office of the President may be the most consuming, identity devouring job in the world, but it remains important to separate personal feelings from the necessary decisions of the head of state. We elect our presidents partially because of their values and attitudes, but I at least also hope that they possess a certain professional distance, a degree of cool remove and objective analysis.

This speech was also an attempt to turn the page on an old presidency, years of war, and months of economic decline (feel free to say "years of economic decline" if you want, there is much evidence and argument to support you, but the real hit of the crisis only came to most of us within 2008). The speech turns this page with an admonishment -- a risky move I think. No one likes to be told (even indirectly) that they were irresponsible or careless. But to have your errors pointed out is also to have the path to recovery illuminated.

So setting up the "greed and irresponsibility on the part of some" and "collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age" as elements of the past enables the confinement of the sources of the current crisis to the pages of history. It sets the present up as a time of self improvement and reconstruction. As the speech progresses, we are told that "our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unplesant decisions -- that time has surely passed." And finally, "that the ground has shifted..."

This is a speech that, tough as it is, pushes the underlying source problems to the past. The future is to be a time of hard work, but a time of building something new. It is as if we've all just moved into a new house. The previous tenants took lousy care of it, left a lot of problems behind. But it is our house, and we can look at the things those old tenants did and remind ourselves not to do them (not forgetting that those old tenants were, in fact, us). But that was then and this is now and we'd better get started with the work at hand. It'll be a lot of pizzas in on the kitchen floor before the new range gets installed and the upstairs toilet may act funny for a while yet, but it is a grand old house with good bones.

We are the new tenants and we (and this house) will shine again.

Probing the details there are a few more points in the inaugural speech that drew my eye, some linguistic, some stylistic, some politic.

While enunciating the sacrifices of the past, four battles were named. I was struck by the choice: Concord, Gettysburg, Normandy, and Khe Sahn.

Revolutionary, Civil, Second World, and Vietnam Wars.

Why these? Battles of the distant past are easy to pick out by name -- armies moved in such a way that set piece contact was almost inevitable. Concord and Gettysburg, of that easily named sort, show the growth of the nation and, as such, are essential inclusions. Normandy, the most recognizable single battlefield of the Second World War, points to one of the true high points of the United States as a world power, wielding economic bounty and military might in the cause of freedom. It is the oldest conflict of which significant numbers of veterans still survive (by the way, did anyone notice the cutaways to the Tuskegee Airmen during the speech? Badass bunch of fliers, and certainly an appropriate group to show!).

But more modern wars are tougher, more controvertial. I was surprised to see Korea skipped (Chosin would have fit nicely in there), but there is always a slippery slope factor that a speech writer must face. Four is a good number, three better, five worse, six untenable, seven obscenely rococo. Selecting a battle from the Vietnam war cast a much wider and more recognizable net than one from Korea would have. It is also a very symbolic move (though one that is perhaps more about the times and the march of history than any particular Obama-ism). The Vietnam War, controversial and regrettable, is now listed alongside some of the greatest times of our history. We have moved on (or at least the years have done so) enough that the errors of the politics and the fight no longer need prevent us from letting those who served stand up and be counted and recognized for what they gave.

Incidentally, I have long maintained that we would never elect a president who served in Vietnam and, I suspect, I will be proven right as Obama's election neatly lets us leapfrog that troublesome period of foreign policy.

More contemporary wars are difficult to identify by battle -- the low casualties of the Gulf War make its inclusion in company with the others rediculous and the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have been diffuse and lacking in the foci of named battles. Besides, they are current and ongoing things, and have therefore not yet earned the full right to be held as hallowed symbols of sacrifice. But to include Khe Sahn is to say that yes, the Vietnam War is now a part of our history. We can move on from it. We can look at the veterans who served there and include them along side those who fought in more nobly held wars.

Much of the speech was pointedly addressed -- and often not to the American public but to "the Muslim world" or "the people of poor nations" or "those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror or slaughtering innocents." Again, this is a speech not as much from Barack Obama as it is a speech to This was a message.

Oh, and that phrase "inducing terror or slaughtering innocents" is an interesting one, as is the phrase "far reaching network of violence and hatred." No specific ideology or organization (i.e. Al Qaeda) named. This is an interestingly inclusive act -- in several levels of the word. By not identifying the ends of those called out as our foes, the speech avoids catching supporters (or potential supporters) in an excessively large bursting radius. Instead, it is those who employ a method who are singled out -- and by this approach, the innocent Pakistani villager (caught in the middle of the fight as much as anyone) gets a bye but the Somali pirate gets called to the carpet.

Choice shows up a lot in this speech. First, as that which we failed to do. Second, as an indicator of what we (the people) have done with this election ("hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord"). And finally as what we must do in the future, "choose our better history." The theme of responsibility (choice) continues, and builds, across these three. We shirked choice. Then we chose (well). Now we must choose again (and it will be a hard choice, but we are reminded that it is a choice we have made before).

The phrase "better history" is one of my three favorites in the speech. It implies the existence of multiple histories. One is a history of freedom, ambition, sacrifice, and success. The other is a history of oppression, exploitation, selfishness, and ignorance. Any nation has these dichotomous histories, some even more dramatically divergent than ours. It is all a matter of models, the speech tells us, all a matter of which model we select as our inspiration. And our success in the future is a matter of letting that better vision of the past, those times that we have aspired to and reached our goals, be the one that guides us.

No one who knows me will be surprised that the guy who cheered at the line "We will restore science to its rightful place" is now one of my personal heroes. Now I'm not quite sure what the rightful place Obama envisions is, but I'm hoping that it has something to do with being a place of observation, study, and openness. Science, at least for those of us who care about science, had been a totem for those many things that the Bush administration handled poorly. Few now dispute the allegations of politically based suppression of individuals and findings, hiring pressures and preferences, and other ways in wich the free pursuit of knowledge was tied to maintaining a particular political agenda. This little nod was, to me at least, a nice acknowledgement. And that was, from me, a little rant.

From a political standpoint, the idea that we "reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals" is a powerful jab. It is a dismissal of the entirely zero-sum, with-me-or-against-me attitude of the past administration. It is instead a look to the complexity of the world, that there are no simple black and white choices and that, as a corollary of that fact, there are better pathways than those reflected by the extremes.

My other favorite phrases? "That we are in the midst of a crisis is now well understood." Genius. Compare with the standard construction of that phrase, "It is now well understood that we are in the midst of a crisis." Notice the emphasis shift? The former (Barack's) emphasis the crisis, and even more pointedly that we are in the midst of it. The second is comparatively pedantic, emphasizing our clear understanding of the situation. It is from little moments like this, the sort of moments that I aspire to, that brilliant communication is made.

The last favorite turn of phrase is "Men and women, obscure in their labor." This is another deconstructable one. Not "Men and women, laboring obscurely" or "Obscurely laboring men and women." The last one is just horrible, cumbersome. The other option has that icky is-it-a-split-infinitive-or-not thing going on. But it also shifts the men and women into, well, the act of laboring. There they are, busting humps to make a better world. Couldn't they stop and listen? No, too busy laboring. Obscurely. Instead, "obscure in their labor" makes the labor the cause of the obscurity, and therefore the obscurity the most salient fact of these toiling masses.

From all of this speech, as I reread it again and put the finishing touches on this post, there is one particular area that I take home. And, as Churchill inspired the Britons to continue their labor, fight, and bravery, I hope this phrase keeps me and the rest of the country going. It is an antidote to that comfortable urge to settle for second best and to accept standards that fall comfortably within the range of likely outcomes.

Interestingly, it is not a single declarative phrase, a command. Rather, it is a thought attributed to those who would set us up for failure and mediocrity, those who have not noticed "that the ground has shifted beneath them." Those who "question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans." Those who "have forgotten what this country already has done."

And since I refuse to be one of these, I refuse to succumb to the "nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights."

Not for me. Not for my future. Not for my daughter.

Life on the C-32 and the Obama Burger

2009-01-19T19:27:00.001-08:00

Well, no sooner do I post an open question about the drinking preferences of the (for just about fifteen more hours) president elect when I run across some indication of his culinary preferences: video of his first meal order onboard an USAF aicraft. Actually, that may not be strictly true, since as a Senator he probably spent some time on government transport, at least while flying in to Iraq, even if that was a C-17 or something similarly box-lunchy.

Anyhow, thanks to Flight International's Flight Blogger, there is a video of this first semi-presidential flight now available showing portions of Barack's first trip on a air force executive transport. Despite some dubious editing that conjoins a shot of a 747 cockpit (presumably the big VC-25) with the footage of Barack on the C-32, it is rather amusing. The step-framed "walking into history" shot at the end is pretty cheesy, but I remember watching that moment from the other side while riding a stationary bike at the gym.

If the link doesn't work, try again. Flight International's site has been a bit cranky lately.

I particularly like how the pilot is clearly trying to deliver some set-piece welcome speech, noting that this is a big moment in history. Barack is trying to be disarming and chummy. Doesn't seem to fly so well (pun not intended) with the pilot, but goes better with the steward.

But I digress.

Somehow I occupy a rare intersection in the great Venn Diagram of personal interests, that of foodie and airplane nut. The result is, through an aircraft website, I know how Barack Obama, number 44, prefers his burgers.

Medium well (a good choice form a food safety standpoint)
With cheddar cheese (notice how particular he seems that it be cheddar?)
Dijon mustard (though he settles for the offered Grey Poupon)
Lettuce and tomatoes (a standard topping, nothing to comment on there).
Fries and veggies on the side (which says something about him from a health standpoint, I think: he works out daily, so feels comfortable with the caloric hit of some deep fried russet potatoes but recognizes the health benefits of getting some vegetables in the diet).

Regretfully, Barack chooses not to order a drink, to order it off camera, or alcohol is not served aboard Air Force aircraft. Though try to tell me that there isn't wine available on board the big VC-25 and there wasn't some hard liquor aboard the EC-135's and E-6's and E-4's that flew the doomsday Looking Glass and Nightwatch missions, and I'll call you naive.

So the great (current) burning question of my life, What Does Barack Obama Drink will have to go unanswered until my people in D.C. can get back to me. Which isn't to say that I have a network of dedicated Barack-watchers, but rather that I know a few people who are there. And I fully expect that, should any of them have the amazing fortune to meet the new president and ask him one question, the question they choose will not be "Pardon me, Mr. President, but what is that drink in your hand?"

It might, after all, be a grape nehi, which would pretty much undo the whole image and would have to put the whole thing into that "questions I wish I'd never actually gotten an answer to" category. Kind of like learning that John Popper is a bit of a survivalist nut job (the kind of survivalist nut job who carries a zip-loc of weed and a loaded firearm in his glove compartment, mind you) who occasionally performs on stage while wearing a shoulder holster. I wonder if he ever gets confused and tries to load one of his harmonicas or to play a magazine?

Anyway, yet again, I digress.

So we do now know a little about Barack's eating habits. Pretty good. Also pretty political, I must say, despite the funny foreign mustard. I'm still pulling for whiskey with ice.

Now we move on to part two -- which is actually listed first in the title but I did that for reasons of flow and timing and other writerish stuff. I'm one of those people who is always interested in those things that I don't know. My wife, charitably, describes me as a "lifelong learner." I prefer the term "compulsive learner," carrying with it the (very true) atmosphere of inevitability and inescapability and (sometimes) uncontrollability. Well, give me a question (like "what is it like onboard one of these executive transports?) and I will find an answer.

It turns out that, thanks to someone at the Air Force who (presumably accidentally) posted a bunch of not-exact-classified-but-not-exactly-for-public-consumption reference documents for fire/rescue crash crews, I happen to have a floor plan of said C-32. If anyone wants a nice tour description and some interior pictures, Boeing published a nice article about the C-32 and it's little brother the C-40B. The thing is, these airplanes (along with the VC-25, the true "Air Force One") aren't so much secret as obscure. It is a crucial difference.

So here's the floorplan (nose at the top of the screen -- that little doorway goes to the cockpit).

First section (as Boeing's article will tell you) contains the crew rest area and a communication station ("CSO Station" -- presumably "Communications Systems Officer"). I'm not sure what those six interesting boxes forward of the CSO station are, but I suspect that they are equipment racks.

Abaft the crew/CSO area is the main boarding space (757's are often, unusually among airliners, boarded at an entrance other than the forward-most one). Then comes the "Distinguised (visitors) Stateroom." Not as big or fancy as you might expect -- the ordering scene in the video was, I think, shot in this part.

The balance of the plane grows less interesting as you move further aft. A conference area, first-class or business-class sized seats in a facing club arrangement. Then seating for staff, security, and probably family, press, and other supernumeraries. The Boeing article has a few things to say about where the Secret Service dudes sit and various other stuff. But whatever. At that point, it is just an airliner.

I have to say the air transport has come a long way (as has the campaign) since the days of the DC-9 with the incontinent emergency escape slide.

But this guy, the C-32, is nothing compared to the big VC-25. That's the 747, the airplane that everyone thinks of when they think "Air Force One." Gargantuan, roomy, capable of carrying staffs and support crews and all the host of add-ons that it takes to travel as chief of state of the United States of America. And I want to pause for a moment and clarify why the president has such a damn big plane. It isn't ego. It isn't luxury. It isn't international posturing. Ok, it might end up with a little of any of these, but the thing about any of these executive transports is that they are fitted out to act, to some degree, as a mobile, survivable, airborne command post. And not just in even of nuclear war, terrorist attack, giant tidal wave, or any of the other things that show up in fiction (or the news, for that matter, at least as far as terrorist attack goes).

Even if everything goes fine and the Russians (and everyone else) completely fail to launch a bunch of nuclear missiles at us while the president is at 39,000 feet over the North Atlantic, this aircraft serves as a command post and office that allows for true 24x7 work. Leadership never sleeps, and so a leader must always be equipped with the necessary tools. I have to say the same thing to say about the much maligned use of executive aviation by large corporations. The goal isn't necessary luxury (though, to be sure, a G550 is pretty dish digs) but also an ability to fly, with staff and while working, in privacy and safety. An eight hour flight can transform from dead-time into a productive meeting, a final chance to tune a speech or presentation, a chance to convince a client (or lobbyist or politician, depending on the context).

Besides, in the president's case, a non-trivial chunk of press corps flies onboard Air Force One. And once the press corps has gotten used to direct contact like that, press corps being the way press corps are, asking them to please step off the airplane is a dangerous prospect (as Obama has already encountered, of course).

So while I'll admit that the big VC-25 is a reasonable necessity, I have a suggestion for you, President Obama, should you happen to read this. I don't expect you to, since I haven't gotten a call about the NASA thing and it looks like that gig is going to some Air Force guy. Which is fine with me, since it is someone other than Griffin, which was pretty much my one requirement. But none the less, in the way of bloggers everywhere, I will write in expectation of an audience.

I ask you to do something while our nation is struggling with a staggering economy, and while millions of Americans are out of work, taking voluntary pay cuts or working limited hours. While business are taking the heat for their own travel excesses (even if it is as much about image as anything else) and are cutting costs and restricting their own travel budgets (as strong as my own company is, right now, we are all feeling budgetary restrictions and pressure to conserve where possible), fly the smaller jet.

Yes, if the trip can possibly allow it, if the destination is not so far off and exotic that you must bring a massive support staff and press pool with you, fly the C-32. If crossing the continent (and not the ocean), if visiting Texas and not Afghanistan, if carrying yourself and not your team, show a good example of economy, environmentalism, initiative, and restraint. Fly the C-32.

It'll save a few thousand dollars (probably tens of thousands, frankly, though I don't know for sure) per flight. It'll save some precious fuel. It'll save a little carbon footprint. It will send a message, the sort of message that this country can respect, and it will establish your leadership by example, the best of kinds.

I'll grant that you may not control your own airplane choices -- witness the Blackberry controversy -- but the job title does say "Commander in Chief." The Secret Service is a tough group to master -- and they do have your own safety in mind -- but I think you've got the force of personality to make it stick if you need to.

But however you choose (or are told) to fly, Barack, safe travels, good luck, and bon voyage in this new and daunting job you have chosen.

Footnote: a quick summary of the talked-about airplanes.

VC-25

This is a converted Boeing 747, which entered service at the end of the elder Bush's administration. It is the "Air Force One" of most settings, the biggest airplane of the fleet, the longest ranged and most capacious and capable and obviously most expensive to operate.

E-4B

This is another converted 747, but one used as an airborne command post for either the president or senior military leaders. Originally intended as a survivable command post in case of a nuclear war, it is now used primarily as a mobile command post by FEMA, though I've heard that Cheney used to like to fly in it, apparently getting his ya-ya's off in some "here is the button, I could push the button" sort of way.

C-32

A converted Boeing 757 twinjet, this is sometimes called "Air Force Two" since it is used to fly (less megalomaniacal) vice presidents around. The term is slang, and it often carries first ladies, senior congressional leaders (Nancy Pelosi was often flown in one), and others who don't quite need the full suite that the VC-25 offers. Note that it is actually used by the president when flying to destinations that cannot accommodate a 747 based platform, so my suggestion is not so totally out of whack.

C-40B

Even smaller than the C-32, it is simply one step down in size though apparently quite comparable in communication and command capabilities. Often used by theater commanders (e.g. General Tommy Franks). Barack, if you really want to get on the bandwagon, see if you can't use one of these once in a while.

Update (totally unrelated to airplanes but about Barack's food preferences).

Note that I've been blogging about him enough that I apparently suddenly feel comfortable using his first name. Like we were chums. The Internet age is a strange place to be.

My local market has posted what they claim is "Obama's Favorite Hawaiian Macaroni." I can't speak for how broad the range of Hawaiian Macaroni is (ie, if the existence of this single recipe constitutes the depth and breadth of the genre or if we are dealing with an expansive field here), but it does constitute another datapoint on my quest to understand the man by way of the things that really matter.

Now I'm going to go to bed and stop googling "Obama NASA" and just admit that I haven't got the job.

What does Barack Obama drink?

2009-01-17T14:56:00.001-08:00

Alright, since it is looking increasingly likely that I did not get the nod to head up NASA, I think I'll take a break from my campaign for that position. In reality, I'd no more want to head up that agency, and deal with the challenges it faces and the sheer broken-ness of much of what it oversees, than I would like to do the same for General Motors. Particularly since the latter position apparently no longer comes with a private jet. While the position is as yet undecided, and I'm sure Google's servers are tired of serving up responses to my several-times-daily query "Obama NASA," I just don't think I'm going to get it this time around.

I'm also going to take a breather from joining the giant public orgasm over Captain Sullenberger, as much of a long-distance aeronautical bromance as I might have with the guy.

It is time to get back to the heart of The Noodlebook. The basics, the core of my mission and my calling: cocktails.

But as I do so, and as the inauguration of Number 44, Barack Obama, nears, I think I will not just return to the cocktailing roots of The Noodlebook via the route of politics. And in particular the question:

What does Barack Obama drink?

The origin of this question, which burns within me with a fire only slightly exceeded by a desire to understand the interaction between quantum fluctuations and the large-scale structure of the universe, is from a debate party that basically never happened. Back a few months ago, Erica and I harbored the idea of having a few friends over to watch the debates with us. We were going to have candidate-themed cocktails for the guests and the whole sort of thing.

In the end the party didn't come off at anything like that scale, it debate-watching ended up as a much more quiet series of evenings (with friends, but sans custom cocktails).

But I was left wondering -- what do the various candidates drink? We've discussed it and thought about it but to no successful conclusion. Speculation took us all sorts of ways, except for Sarah Palin who was pretty obvious, and Joe Biden, who never really got our interest.

So now it is left with one question that really matters: what is Obama's drink of choice? I'm not asking the man to be a mono-drinker, a creature of routine that only consumes one (alcoholic) beverage. That's a move usually left to the addicts, and ends up as something off the bottom shelf. Not interesting, in other words.

But much as I describe myself as a bourbon drinker, yet will enjoy a cocktail, bottle of beer, or glass of wine as season, mood, event, accompaniments, and inspiration hit me, I wanted to know what is Obama's favorite.

I tried looking on the Internet, using The Google. No success. Found a lot of "Obama Inspired" cocktails, but none that claimed to represent the candidate's actual taste. All seemed hideous, pursuing an agenda that had nothing to do with mixological integrity and everything to do with symbolism. Black and white cocktails to symbolize unification. Red-white-and-blue cocktails to symbolize patriotism. Cocktails with international mixes of constituents to symbolize change and inclusion. You get the idea. All were of that horribly sweet modern style that goes down easy but leaves you with more of a sugar crash than a hangover. There is nothing, no purpose at all, for which Blue Curacao is even remotely legitimate.

I thought I'd found the mother load when some website claimed to have an interview where they talked with Obama about his drink of choice. That was what Google's synopsis showed, so I was excited. Then I read the interview and it was clear that the whole thing was a piece of satire. Opposing Obama, supporting him, supporting McCain, I couldn't tell. I think just making fun of everyone. As humor writing, it has some hope, but failed by means of over using one piece of schtick.

So I'm still clueless.

If anyone out there has any clues, or informed speculation, drop me a note at strauss(dot)nick(at)gmail(dot)com. I've got an old high school acquaintance who is going to be at the inauguration -- at several of the balls no less -- and has a reasonable chance of bumping into The Man, I figure. I'm not sure she realizes how seriously I take this mission, but I have asked for reports of any beverages that might be observed. So while I burn with jealousy, I also eagerly await any intel.

In the meantime, here here are some acts of speculation. I'll start with McCain because I like to save the best for last.

McCain

Straight Whisky John McCain is a "straight talk" kind of guy. So why not a straight shot of whisky. Bourbon, perhaps, or maybe single malt Scotch. The latter is, after all, the drink of old men, of seasoned soldiers and veteran campaigners. He's also got the budget to have some of the rare and old stuff lying around.

Shaken, not stirred Or would John McCain order a cocktail. A man's cocktail, though. A martini. Dry. Extra dry, perhaps, using the old swirl-and-dump trick for the vermouth. I can see him holding one at a cocktail party, clear and shimmering with cold, a stuffed olive on a stick floating inside. But his favorite? The casual drink of a weary evening? I doubt it.

Rank and file beer The campaign turned into a real "common man" vs. "elitist" thing in a lot of the Republican marketing. So perhaps McCain fits the image he tried to sell, the president a guy like Joe Wurzbacher can share a beer with. Palin, of course, would have a beer. A Bud. In a bottle. But somehow I think that with the half dozen houses and bling laden wife, I don't think the brews, not even the premium microbrews, are the drink of choice.

Wine Let's face it, despite the "friend of Joe-whatever" marketing, McCain is a guy with some cash in the family. And somehow that image (or else Cindy's) fits to a pretty substantial wine cellar. Some really, really good stuff. And somehow, more than beer or whisky, this is what I see John McCain ordering. There isn't a political thing or a diss, I mean my own tiny wine cellar has some non-trivial bottles, but somehow just an image that fits.

Obama

Here it gets more interesting.

Political Obama is a consummate politician. Like him or not, you have to admit that the guy knows how to play political cards. A somewhat uncharitable viewpoint of this could see him as devoid of real opinions -- simply doing what would look good. A Red Hook in Seattle district, wine when visiting Napa, Jim Beam when in Kentucky, and so on. Now I'll give anyone the space for a "when in Rome" attitude and the ability to do what is necessary to blend with guests. But underneath even the most unflattering of portraits there still must be a preference, the drink of home and family.

Arugula Martini A lot was made, particularly early on, during the campaign of Obama's supposedly elitist food attitudes. His arugula consumption became a talking point, as if eating a more character laden variety of lettuce somehow disqualified a guy from making good political decisions. The "arugula eater" characterization would see the guy drinking something fashionable, modern. Probably involving a super-premium vodka, perhaps an infusion of Kaffir lime or lemon grass or something similarly exotic. I'm OK with this. I have a broad spectrum contempt for much modern bartending (it is the whole overly-sweet thing again), but I can quite happily see Barack holding a well made, well balanced cocktail, even if a contemporary one. With, perhaps, an arugula leaf floating in it.

Footnote: wait a second. Arugula in a cocktail...I wonder if I could make that work? A spicy vodka infusion for the base...now what should go in for the sweet and sour components?

Man of his roots I an also see Barack holding a class of whisky, at least as easily as I can see McCain doing the same thing. Perhaps with ice, but definitely Bourbon, not Scotch. I have no evidence for it, but I can see the man enjoying himself a glass of America's own addition to the distilled spirits world. Perhaps it is the "no-drama-Obama" sentiment, his particular brand of no-nonsense conviction and steadiness. Because Bourbon, at least good Bourbon, is a drink for contemplation and reflection. I see Obama taking his with ice, a couple of cubes. Not entirely sure why, but I can make this image stick more than most of the rest.

But you see I have no evidence of substantiation for any of this. Assessments of character, not of culinary taste, are at the heart of this analysis. And some of them are assessments made by the man's opponents. So what is it, then? Wine? Beer? Whisky? Cocktails?

How do you dead-stick an Airbus?

2009-01-16T06:41:00.001-08:00

Well, for starters, you have Cap' "Sully" Sullenberger at the controls. From what I can tell, yesterday's amazing A320 ditching in the Hudson was a case of having the right guy (Sully) in the right place (left hand seat of flight 1549) at the right time (shortly after the impact of a large number of Canadian Geese).

Oh, and regarding those geese, I knew I never liked those things...

Anyhow, as the relevant authorities do their investigative work and aviation-centric press writes its stories (with more insightful information that the one observer, quoted on CNN, who seemed to take pains to point out that it "was not a seaplane.") I thought I'd put a little guidance out there for anyone who wants to try to ditch an 'Bus of their own. You know, on Microsoft Flight Simulator, X-Plane, or the like. If you hold a current ATP certificate and are carrying people in the back, please do not attempt these procedures unless you have recently made the acquaintance of a large number of geese.

Actually, in all seriousness, these are the dual engine failure and ditching drills from a real A320 flight manual -- the drills that would have come in to play yesterday at about 3,000 feet over NY. If you look at Flight International's reconstruction of the aircraft's flight path, it looks like the following unfolded over the span of about four minutes time, beginning at an altitude of about 3,200 feet.

TO help set the scene, he's a snap of the relevant sectional chart, courtesy of the fantastic http://www.airnav.com/airport/KLGA and skyvector.com.

Flight 1549 took off from LGA heading to the Northwest. It is easy to see why Captain Sullenberger chose to head to TEB -- it was more-or-less a straight shot with no need to turn. But given the alignment of the Teterboro runways, he'd have had to aim for a point quite a bit to the South or Northeast before turning to align with the runway (just making it to the relevant dot on the map doesn't count when you've got an aircraft to land). All that maneuvering takes energy, which is exactly what he didn't have.

Anyhow, the Hudson proved conveniently close and full of helpful (in, I'm sure, a gruffly New Yorkish sort of way) ferry boat captains.

And, as promised, the relevant procedures and hopefully a little (if coldly technical) snapshot of what was going on in the cockpit. Airbus' manuals are dry, technical, and descriptive. More Germanic than Gallic, I find, lacking the sort of wry humor that occasionally pervades the worst-case sections of flight manuals (the Space Shuttle manual is, oddly, a great example of such humor). I do, however, like the blunt statement of the obvious at the top of the dual engine failure list: LAND ASAP.

Questions and comments, if you got 'em, to the blog or to strauss(dot)nick(at)gmail(dot)com. Damn spammers, gotta' be all cagy now-a-days.

Go get 'em, Captain Sully!

A Rational, Science Based Space Program - Part 1

2009-01-03T22:04:00.001-08:00

This blog entry was originally to be titled "An Open Letter to the President Elect" but, for two reasons, I retitled it. First off, the multi-part thing just didn't fit the open letter format. I mean, did I really think Obama would read my blog? And more than one entry, particularly at the current pace of production? No way.

Secondly, I wanted to make it clear from the outset that this wasn't a political entry. Not really, at least. It wasn't going to have anything to do with cabinet posts, inauguration day speakers, or any of the other stuff about which people seem inclined to express their opinions at the president elect.

Oh, and I find the phrase "president elect" horribly ungainly. Which, given my sentence structures, is probably saying something.

What this blog is about is space science. And, therefore, at least a little bit about politics. Because, while I will generally steer clear of the whole Griffin-at-NASA thing, a certain degree of politicality is inevitable. But more on that later.

This blog is a suggestion, a plea even, for a well thought out, science based space program. I have some very specific thoughts on what this means -- right down to what missions should get funded. And, frankly, I'd like to be put in charge of this project. Just give me $24 billion. I'll lay the plan out.

As I worked on this entry, I realized that if I wanted it to avoid turning in to a space geek's fantasy laundry list of rocket launches and space missions, I'd need to make the underlying rational clear. And that forced me into a length that well exceeded the patience of even my most devoted readers (who are family members, so you should get the idea I could go on about this for a very, very long time, particularly if whiskey is involved). So today we begin with Part One: what exactly do I mean when I talk about a science based space program.

Well, and I say this partially because I love building suspense, it'll take some time to get there.

I posit that there are five reasons for space exploration. These reasons could apply globally, to an entire national space program or effort, or to a single launch or mission. They can mix and combine and share the drive behind a particular project. An given project can see its genesis in one reason but bear fruit along another axes. Things are complicated. But five reasons is a nice place to start with.

Number One: Achievement
John Kennedy invoked the sense of challenge when he commissioned the high point of American space flight, the Apollo moon landings. The reason was simple: the moon was there, landing a man there was (barely) achievable, and it was a great way to try and compete with the then surging Soviet space effort. The result was a galvanizing technical (and emotional) effort, a great deal of national pride, and a moderate amount of science. Apollo was great. But it was done (to paraphrase Sir Edmond Hillary) "because it was there."

Number Two: Function
Spy satellites, communications satellites, weather satellites all do useful things. They may not be glamorous, and they rarely break tremendous new ground, but they get the job done. Workmanlike, they bring home the results, civilian, military, public sector or private sector.

Number Three: Enabling
Sometimes you do something so that you can actually do something else. Sometimes you spend a great deal of effort building a jig. The jig itself is uninteresting, but the chair that it yields is beautiful. The American Gemini program did this in space -- it taught us how to fly, spacewalk, maneuver, and troubleshoot in the vacuum of space. The Space Shuttle was marketed as a utility truck much along these lines once, and the current International Space Station is often sold as a tool to help us learn how to survive and construct in space.

Number Four: Exploration
Gene Roddenberry, this is your moment. The bold going. Or going boldly. The Pioneers and Voyagers, heading off into regions unknown, to see what has never been seen before. Details are not important -- for every byte of returned information contains precious sights of the here to fore unknown.

Number Five: Science
The explorers set forth with no questions, only open eyes. The scientists set forth with questions, ideas, and theories. They seek explanation and understanding, they want verification or refutation, they require detail and precision. They may find the unknown or unexpected, but they set off not with an empty mind, but a mind full of questions.

Alright, so those are my five. It once started as three, but Enabling and Function appeared as late additions. None of these descriptions are intended to be praising or critical, merely descriptive. For all things can be good in the right time and place. And what, then, is good at this time and place?

Well, let's take a look at Achievement. That one, basically, is politics. It is about doing something (or doing something before someone else does it) for reasons related to motivation, goal setting, national pride, international relations. I am not a politician and do not pretend to a degree of competence or awareness of the full complexities of the international arena beyond that of the average moderately well read adult. And so I check out of this one. Politicians, make your choices. But this is not an area where I will make the call.

And with that goes manned space flight. Sorry, everybody. People aren't part of my program. They are too expensive for what you get back. Great thrills, beautiful video, and a truly motivating and empowering feeling when done right. But the price and the risks are too great to justify human space flight for any reason other than that of Achievement (or politics).

Function is pretty good -- but not with people. I'm tired of the circular logic of a manned space program that justifies its own existence with the endless loop of providing more understanding of how to allow humans to fly in space. Why? What is the point? What is the point of learning how to get people to survive in space for two or five years unless you are really going to Mars. And let's get real. Not happening, that one.

But functional unmanned space flight is doing great. It is very well established by government, military, and commercial agencies.

Exploration is another noble reason that struggles in today's reality. Exploration is about the low hanging fruit in some senses -- you have so little information about something that you are excited to get even a basic glimpse. The implication is that the technological act of getting there is where the challenge lies. Problem is, we've got all the good getting in this regard. Except Pluto and, thank you Allan Stern, New Horizons is on the way and doing great.

Which leaves us science. The serious quest to understand our universe (and a few other things). Not helter-skelter pursuit of goals that look or sound good. But the systematic quest for the deep, subtle, and profound knowledge of how things work. The universe, life, and our planet.

And so from that final remaining reason, we must move on. But first, to review:

Achievement: too political, too expensive (if manned)
Function: already well handled by others
Enabling: only worthwhile if stepping stone to legitimate goals
Exploration: most reachable stuff has been done
Science: bingo!

So what is this science based program supposed to be about, then? How do we make sure we stay on that particular target and don't go wandering into another one. Well, for starters, some wandering is going to happen. Apollo, while a clearly achievement based project proved to be very enabling and did a great deal of exploring. So we accept that.

Secondly, devise a clear definition of what sort of goals we want to achieve. Write these goals down in large letters. And make sure that anything you pick fits within this charter.

Now, for my sake, I admit that this was a case of backing into a definition. Because honestly, I found this was one of those things that, like the old joke about pornography, I may not be able to define, but I know it when I see it. But I wrangled and experimented and finally defined myself a set of three goals that express the ideals of the rational, science based space program. In forming this definition I wanted to avoid the trap of forming a laundry list, a long rambling list of commas and (God forbid) semicolons. I wanted a single, elegant, coherent statement. If you can't break it down (whatever it happens to be) into a single sentence, then you have a problem.

To understand our universe, our planet, and the place of life in the cosmos.

And there you have it. One sentence and with fairly few commas. It works better with three, though:

Understand our universe, its origin, evolution, and nature.
Understand our planet, the forces acting on it, and the changes it is undergoing.
Understand the origins of life, life-bearing systems, and the potential for life to exist elsewhere in the cosmos.

I also gave myself a tidy (if arbitrary) limit of ten missions that I could fly. They should all be achievable by the end of the next decade (2020). And they should fit within a budget of $20 billion ($2 billion each, on average) including launch, support services, margins, and a well crafted outreach and education program.

The resulting ten missions span a range of deep space explorers and earth orbiting environmental probes. They include telescopes, radars, balloons, and sample return capsules. They are based on missions that NASA or ESA has studied or is studying for implementation within my timeframe. Later entries will go into further detail, but here is a preview.

A probe to retrieve and return a pound worth of cometary matter to Earth -- providing a potential insight into the building blocks from which our solar system (and life on Earth) arose.

A probe to explore the outer layers of the Sun, diving into the solar corona to better understand the mechanisms responsible for transporting the Sun's energy and triggering solar storms.

A probe to the complex Saturn system and its moons of Enceladus and Titan, both potential sources of rich and exotic prebiotic chemistry.

A satellite to study chemical processes in the Earth's atmosphere with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution to better understand the mechanisms that generate, transport, and sink atmospheric constituents (including pollutants).

A satellite to measure the shape and texture of Earth's surface, providing increased awareness of geologic processes, moisture content and migration (including ice thicknesses), and biosphere composition.

A satellite to observe the Earth's land and seas as well as atmospheric water and aerosols to better understand weather cycles and the chemical and biological activity of the deep sea and coastal regions.

An observatory to monitor the faint temperature and polarization shifts in the faint cosmic microwave background, probing for traces of the first infinitesimal moments of the universe's history.

An observatory to search for rocky worlds in 300 nearby star systems and to characterize their masses, orbits, temperatures, and atmospheres - including potential markers of biological activity.

An observatory to map thousands of square degrees of the sky to a depth and detail only previously seen in pinpoint images less than 1/300th of a square degree, yielding insight into the evolution of the universe and the nature of dark energy.

An observatory to image the most dramatic and high energy sources and events in the universe in x-rays, probing the physics of these challenging points where quantum theory and relativity collide.

As for the rest of the details, I'll have more for you soon.

Google Voice Search and the Quest for a Tricorder

2008-12-02T05:34:00.001-08:00

Let's face it, Gene Roddenberry invented the perfect universe. Right there, back in Star Trek TOS, they had everything we could ever want.

Matter transport: check
Faster-than-light : check
Flawless communications: check
Magic sensing devices: check
Voice activated computer: check

We're not doing bad on a few of those. Stephen Hawking's leading up the warp drive effort, so I know that is in good hands. Quantum entanglement is getting us some openings into the matter transport, at least of a sort. If you are a single photon, at least. The communication thing is going OK, as long as you are a Verizon customer, and with the iPhone (or G1 or whatever pretender to the throne you want to evangelize), we've got a device that has at least the look-and-feel of a Tricorder.

Though I still find that my iPhone is unable to detect the presence of aline life forms, no matter what combination of buttons I press.

So when I downloaded the new upgrade of Google.app to my Tricorder/iPhone, I was curious to see just how it handled. The big news was voice activated search. And, granted, having a small handheld device show you a map to the nearest market where you could buy some nice bulk tea leaves is not quite the same as saying "Tea, Earl Grey, Hot" and having a cup of the stuff magically appear, but it would be a start.

And yes, I know that I just mixed my generations. Back off, fanboy.

I saw the news -- it was available -- went to the AppStore and downloaded -- and promptly had to deal with the beginnings of a very busy week for a few hours. But then, the moment of much excitement arrived and, while coming back from checking out the setup in one of the training rooms here at the office, I paused, tapped the Google icon, pressed the little microphone image, held the phone to my lips and said:

"Calories burned climbing stairs."

A neat little waveform appeared on the screen. Apple's sleek circling dashes icon appeared for a moment.

Search Results: "Chlamydia."

Woah there, Google, woah! Do you know something I should? Becuase I've got to say that that result was definitely NSFW.

I proceeded to climb said stairs (eleven flights worth) without knowing how much good I was doing my self for the act (a number I actually continue to remain ignorant of because I'm fairly convinced that it will prove to be much smaller than I hope it to be and therefore the knowledge would actually prove entirely dis-motivating). I was disappointed, but resolved to try again later.

And, later, I had another chance. I figured that perhaps the clever developers at Google had intended this thing to be used for more typical phone searches, the sort of things that you'd search for while driving hands-free.

"Red Robin"

There is a dirty bird just across the street, actually, so I thought this might be throwing the app a nice, easy underhand ball. This time the results were beautiful. Red Robin's corporate site, directions to the one across the street (it linked in with the location services to know where I was -- take that, Roddenberry!), phone number ready to go.

So is Google Voice Search biased towards weight gain rather than a healthier lifestyle? Or was some other force at work. In any case, it was all rather disappointing. Oh well, we are even further from the Tea-Earl-Grey-Hot stage of technology than I expected. Unless you want a burger, and in that case we're fine.

I hid. I sulked. I typed all my searches. I made tea using bags taken from cupboards and hot water from sinks.

But you know time passes -- and time heals all wounds. Even those deep cutting injuries caused by disappointment in an overhyped new product.

So this morning I fired up Google Voice Search. Just to reassure myself of its inadequacy.

"Calories burned climbing stairs"

Search Results: "Calories burned climbing stairs"

You've got to be kidding me, right?

"Cosmic microwave background"

Search Results: "Cosmic microwave background"

Whoa, there, what are you guys at the Googleplex up to? Rolling out a revised backend, perhaps? In any case, I had to take my hat off. A tool that I was about to consign to the dubious utility of enabling hands free searches while driving -- a convenience that would still leave the technique of viewing search results undefined and unrefined -- suddenly grew into an interesting and potentially powerful interactive device. Now I can sit alone in a corner, mumbling to myself, learning about astrophysics!

Now if we can get those folks over at Google working double time on the rest of the situation, perhaps get Hawking to join the staff even, we should really start making some progress. And once that gets underway, paltry tools like voice search will seem like noting.

Particularly when you'll be able to just slingshot the Enterprise back in time and go fiture out exactly what WAS going on back there in the epoch of reionization.

Does this surprise anyone?

2008-11-25T18:54:00.001-08:00

Eclipse Aviation Files Chapter 11

Well, does this surprise anyone?

Naturally, they are blaming the current economic crisis. Now I don't want to go saying that aforsaid economic crisis is some sort of small time setback, but I'd like to make the point that when the going gets tough, the tough had better have decent business plans. And when you have a fundamentally flawed model -- and are selling a fundamentally flawed product -- and have fundamentally flawed management and customer relations practices -- you are basically screwed no matter what happens.

Eclipse was a company that might have survived a few more years had the original timing worked out. They'd have launched towards the beginning of the boom and managed to get a few hundred products delivered before the carpet was so cruelly yanked out from under them. Odds are a lot of those little jets would have been repo'd, but that's another story. But I think that a longer life (and more sales) would only have lead to their death by other means -- the fundamental design, production, QA, QC, and customer services issues would have had enough time to come (further) to light and killed Eclipse off just as surely, all be it more slowly, than the economy tanking appears to have.

It is a bit like the arguments that circulate around assisted suicide or on nighttime crime dramas: if you take a life of someone who is going to die soon enough anyway, how much of a murder is it, really?

The missed payroll two weeks ago was the final warning bell, the tocsin announcing that the end was mere days away. I am sad for those employees of Eclipse who were toughing it out until the end, hoping that the dream had been built upon firmer footings. But I've been part of a business plagued by systemic strategic, ethical, operational, and managerial issues just like Eclipse. And you could sort those of us at that operation into two camps: those of us who knew the place was a s&*% hole and were looking for a way out and those of us who knew the place was a s&*% hole and were too scared to take action. Either way, each person's destiny was came down to their own active or passive decisions and pointing at the company's flaws will only get you so much pity, not when the writing is on the wall for anyone to see.

So my best wishes to those of you at Eclipse who were trying to keep the dream alive -- and when things rebound and lessons are learned, I hope to see a new product of your efforts in the air. And before anyone goes pointing this out to me -- I know that Chap'11 isn't the true death of a company. Many concerns have emerged, successful and vibrant, from protection. But it is such a dramatic indicator of failure at so many levels that in this case, I do think, it spells the end of Eclipse as we have known it.

But in the meantime, as ever, aerospace remains a harsh mistress.

The fun of bringing light to the dark -- metaphorically

2008-11-24T12:29:00.001-08:00

So I decided it was time to give politics a rest. This isn't, after all, a political blog. It is a blog about odd, rambling things like wind tunnels and cocktails and cipher systems. And so, after the quiescent period following the election, as I slowly bring The Noodlebook back to life, I thought I'd get it going with a little science.

Dark energy, to be precise.

And not even dark energy as such because, let's face it, both my own small skill as an elucidator and the period of time I have available for this endeavor are dramatically inadequate for tackling so deep a mystery. Instead, in the classic talk-about-the-talking postmodernism of blogs, my attention turns to the investigations seeking to understand this phenomena rather than the phenomena itself.

I have, after all, always been much more of an experimentalist than a theoretician.

But to recap, dark energy is a postulated force that would explain some rather odd behavior of the universe. The oddity in question (for there are several oddities about our universe that require postulated things to explain them) is that the universe seems to be expanding at an ever increasing rate. Now that the universe is expanding is not at all odd. We've known about this since Edwin Hubble, a man brilliantly characterized as a "large mass of ego" by Bill Bryson, noticed that all the galaxies in the universe are expanding away from each other. Subsequently, a series of theories beginning with the "big bang" and moving on to modern inflationary cosmology have homed in on the idea of the universe originating at some sort of very small beginning (there are a few variations) and expanding outward from some sort of initial impulse (again, there are a few variations).

This is all fine and good and if you want some ideas about the how/why on that it won't surprise anyone that I now recommend Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos. But this expansion should be slowing -- as the shared gravitational attraction of all the, well, stuff in the universe gathers together and pulls on itself. And for a few billion years, it appears that it did. But then a few billion years ago, the rate of expansion began accelerating again. There is no good reason for this, not with the rule that we've been playing by.

It is as if, to invoke a classic Feynmanism, we were watching a chess game, thought we'd got the rules and moves pretty much figured out, and then someone castled. Uh-oh, what the hell was that?

Since then, cosmologists, astrophysicists, particle physicists, and plain old ordinary physicists have all gotten in on the bandwagon to try and explain why. The lure of being the first to explain a new (or dramatically revised) physical force is a pretty big one!

Alright, enough of that back-explanation. I said that actually trying to explain dark energy was beyond me. Oh, but it is different from dark matter. I know. They could have come up with some more varied names. Like "The Smuckers Effect" or perhaps "The Universal Choo-Choo." Either one might have been better.

So this dark energy stuff, whatever it is, is suddenly pushing the universe apart faster and faster. Or not so suddenly. Or it remains constant or decreases as a quadratic function while gravity decreases as a cubic function. Sorry. Got distracted again. The point is, we have no idea what this force, this dark energy, is. We can only observe what it does. And that makes it a wonderful place to study and understand the interplay between observation (experiment, if you like) and theory.

Science proceeds, in an idealized and perfect world, as a series of iterative steps. Someone observes a phenomena (say the increased rate of expansion of the universe). That person (and a few others) say "Damn, we didn't expect that!" Everyone then retires to their chalkboards and starts thinking of theories to explain what is causing this phenomena. The theories will span a broad range. Some might involve zero point energy, others extra dimensions, still others giant turtles. As the theorists theorize, the experimenters begin to contemplate the next round of experiment or observation (I think of experiment as an active act -- where we do something, such as at a particle collider -- while observation is a passive act where we take data on what the universe is already up to -- as with a telescope).

Theorists and experiments/observers are different. The former are the ones with the unkempt hair, the latter the ones with the dirty clothes and coffee addictions (particularly in astronomy).

Anyhow, while the theorists are using their imaginations and running the numbers, the experimenters/observers are doing their thing and building the next generation of machines. What proceeds then is something like a lottery. Or perhaps a reality TV show, though I doubt "Survivor: CERN" or "America's Next Top Scientists" or "Theorizing with the Stars" will take off anytime soon.

Any good theory brings a few ingredients to the table. It must offer an explanation for why the phenomenon under consideration occurs. It ideally should offer a mechanism to explain how it occurs. And it should provide some sort of mathematical formula that can fit the observed data to a high degree of accuracy. Lastly, that mathematical rigor should allow for some degree of prediction of as yet unobserved phenomena that can test the accuracy of the theory. This prediction might simply involve taking the measured predictions to a few orders of magnitude more precision. Or it might involve a wholly new physical manifestation. Either way, it provides some way of telling if the theory will have the winning number come lottery time -- the return of experimental results.

We go round and round like this. The results from each round of experiment feed the next round of theory. The predictions of a given round of theory guide the direction in which the experimenters/observers turn their searching. Rarely, however, are things so precisely beautiful as this, like turns in a board game. Usually, after a while, everything gets all out of synch and the experimental and theoretical processes get all overlapped.

But dark energy is new. It was accidental in a wonderful way, and the demands of further experiment have allowed for a long and fruitful phase of theoretical contemplation. And now the experimenalists are about to have their day. And by now I mean in about eight years, because that is how long it takes to get a space mission from budgetary contemplation to launch pad. And then a few more years of taking data.

Science is for the patient, these days.

This whole process of theory-experiment (or observation) is crucial to the scientific quest for understanding. It always galls me when people talk about how scientists don't actually know anything -- they just have a bunch of guesses. This points to a fundamental misunderstanding of what a theory is. It isn't a guess. If it was, there might be some credence to the idea of giant turtles playing a role in dark energy. Rather, a theory is an educated attempt to explain a phenomena. It is a look by a very experienced observer at a set of behaviors, an assessment of what those behaviors might mean, and an attempt to predict what they might mean for the future.

We all form theories all the time. When we spot a car swerving erratically while driving at 2am, we say "Woah, look how that dude is driving. I betcha' he's drunk. Look out, he might miss that turn..." We observed phenomena, offered an explanation, and attempted a prediction. The depth of prediction can be tricky. If we only say "This driver will keep swerving around" it may not eliminate other possibilities such as looking for something he dropped, having an epileptic seizure, or making out with the passenger. But it is entirely possible that a drunk will in fact make that next turn too. Or never intend to take it.

The scientific process is nothing different. It is not (and does not pretend to be) a fixed rulebook. It is an evolving set of understanding of the universe. Science is not a set series of answers as it is so often (and so wrongly) presented. Rather it is a process, a pursuit of those answers.

And so when more accurate measurements gave rise to results that disagreed with the predictions inspired by Hubble's results, the result was not joy and frustration, but excitement at the opportunity to solve a new puzzle. An Asimov quote that those who have read email coming from my work address will recognize summarizes this mood better than anything:

The most exciting phrase in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" but "That's funny..."

And now the prospect of dark energy is out there, proposing a grand enough prize and an exciting enough pursuit that seemingly everyone is getting into the game. Established scientists, cranks, those hawking ideas from the fringe, conspiracy theorists, random posters on the Internet: each one has some idea, spun slightly to reflect individual specialities and biases, for what might be at work.

The observational guys have been at it just as enthusiastically, constantly devising new approaches to reflect the latest ideas of the theorists and the latest technological developments in measurement apparatus. Dark energy isn't something we can test in a laboratory with a dark-energy-ometer or create with a steel cased apparatus connected to several thick cables. It acts, by all accounts, over vast distances and only manifests to a measurable degree when other forces (namely gravity) are at their most feeble. And so an earth-bound measurement (even if we knew what to look for) seems doomed to be swamped by noise.

This results in observatories. For various reasons, these would be observatories best sited in space, at the L2 point about a billion miles from earth, where it is dark and cold and not much gets in the way. The idea would be to observe, with great precision, the distances and recessional velocities of several thousand (or million) objects in the middle distance of the universe, the distances over which dark energy starts to manifest -- out to about twenty billion light years (117,580,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles).

A few approaches have shown up. The first involved hunting for something called Type 1A supernovae. These moderately rare explosions function through a well understood mechanism that has the handy feature of producing a reliably predictable brightness. The result is something called a "standard candle" -- an object of known intrinsic brightness which allows the estimation of its distance by comparing that source brightness with the observed brightness. That's good -- and Type 1A's are how this whole dark energy thing got started -- but it turns out it is not good enough.

Clouds of gas and dust can get in the way and it always is possible that we don't understand the Type 1A quite as well as we thought we did. So more recent approaches to understanding dark energy have tried to invoke several different techniques of measurement. Acoustic Baryonic Oscillations (I'm still trying to figure out what those are, but they sound really interesting), weak lensing, and a few others have all surfaced. The result is that any dark energy space mission that actually gets flown will end up as a fantastic multi-disciplinary observatory, quite different from the specialist that was originally envisioned.

The glory of all of these approaches, and of all of the missions that seek to imlement them, is that they will conduct their work through massive "wide and deep" surveys. Taking vast numbers of long exposure images across a large area of the sky, in other words. This is the advantage of a dedicated mission -- Hubble or the James Webb could do the same science, but are general purpose instruments contended over by the entirity of the vast astronomic (and astrophysic) community. But a dedicated mission, running a pre-planned scheme of observation, can produce the staggering amount of data that is necessary for the statistical analysis upon which dark energy studies must be based.

But this vast survey, while intended to specifically test a signle scientific concept, will also have enormous implications for the rest of the community. Currently, we stare through straws, looking across the vast night sky to find things that are interesting. Sometims we do so by chance, but more often we do so by looking at areas that we've already identified as interesting. The terabytes of data coming back from SNAP, DESTINY, ADEPT, JDEM, SPACE, Euclid, or whatever mission or missions end up flying will end up producing an astronomic and astrophysic legacy ready for the picking. A generation or more of astronomers and astrophysicists will mine this legacy to confirm and clarify their theories and hypotheses. And, here and there, they might discover something completely new, something entirely unexpected, something funny, and start the whole glorious process over again.

Final Bumper Sticker Poll

2008-11-03T17:38:00.001-08:00

Obama: 8
McCain: 1

Actually, it was looking like an 8-0 blowout until I decided to include the delivery truck with "N0BAMA" written in the dust of its roll-up rear door.

Election night playbook

2008-11-02T13:39:00.001-08:00

So in about 48 hours, I'm going to start watching presidential election returns come in. American elections, what with the state-by-state system are so wonderful to watch in the "sporting event" sense. The discreet nature of things (win/loose a state) is so much like the quantum units of innings or downs or holes or whatever sporting analogy you want. Much more fun than just watching a direct volte tally increment like some national odometer.

Problem is, I'm working Tuesday night. Filling in to teach a class. I'l have a couple of hours to watch between job-1 and job-2, sitting in a bar (really) watching the election on the TV while eating a pizza and (probably) drinking a beer. I have this all planned out.

But I wanted some way to organize my thoughts, to know what is going to go down. Because well before the polls have closed nationwide, I'll be in class with a much reduced capability to watch the big show. So to minimize the effort needed to keep track of the election, I've put together my own system for analyzing the election -- and guessing how the end will go.

I ended up sorting states into three categories: the Leaners, the Comebacks, and the Undecideds.

The first category consists of the states that are colored either pink or baby-blue in a couple of predictive maps. They are the close-but-leaning states. Their performance on election night is primarily as a predictor of the accuracy of the predictions themselves. If the baby-blues turn dark blue and the pinks turn red, then the models are pretty accurate and we can expect that other things will go as forseen. That doesn't mean an Obama victory -- but it means that the predictions of McCain's must-win states will be accurate and we can probably shift our attention there.

One or two Leaners going opposite the prediction isn't necessarily a cause for hope or alarm, particularly if there are a couple trading places. But a big sweep of pinks into blue says possible slam-dunk, a big sweep of baby-blue into red says possible upset, and too much back-and-forth could say the whole model is off.

McCain Leaners
Georgia
West Virginia
Arkansas
Arizona
Montana

Obama Leaners
Maine
New Hampshire
Wisconsin
Minnesota
New Mexico
Iowa

The second category are the McCain Comeback states. These are the must (mostly) wins for McCain. A strong showing in these guys (assuming that there isn't some counter effect of a bunch of the pinks going blue which is a highly unlikely combination) is what McCain needs to win. Once two many (probably about 50%) go Obama's way it is probably game-over for McCain.

Comebacks
Florida
Virginia
Ohio
Pennsylvania
Colorado
Nevada

Finally there are the Undecideds. These are just the states that are too-close to call right now. 'Nuff said. Obama doesn't need them -- but if he gets them, he gets to talk about a "big mandate" or something. On the other hand, McCain pretty much does need them. Necessary for one, icing on the cake for the other.

Undecideds
Indiana
Michigan
Missouri
North Carolina
North Dakota

The rest are the almost-guaranteed blue or red states. I'm not worrying about them. Unless things get Truly Strange, they will go in the direction forecast. If the Leaners end up way off -- I might have to start paying some attention here, but probably not.

Based on all that, I can see five scenarios for this election to play out. In (roughly) decreasing order of likelihood, here they are:

1) Obama By-The-Book

Things go more-or-less as the predictions forecast. Obama carries most if not all of his leaners, McCain does the same with his. Obama carries enough of the Comeback states to seal the victory. We'll see this one coming if the pink and baby-blue states end up as forecast and we see Obama starting to pick up the Comeback states.

2) Obama eeker

This one is where there is some degree of Bradley effect (or else a real November Surprise -- and that aunt-as-illegal-alian thing doesn't count). Some of the baby-blue states go red, most of the Undecideds do as well, but there is enough of an Obama lead in the key Comeback states that he carries the two or three that it'll take to win.

3) Obama slam dunk

This scenario is primarily about momentum -- if a few big states go blue early in the night, all of the Comebacks and a few of the Undecideds or pink Leaners -- then there will be a real "why bother" attitude going on for some folks out West. That doesn't make a difference in the far West Coast (we go blue anyway) but it could put states like Montana and eve Arizona in the Democrat column. So if Obama grabs some surprisingly strong early returns, look for a rich-get-richer scenario to unfold regarding his delegate count.

4) McCain eeker

This is much like the Obama eeker -- just a little stronger. He'd need to capture pretty much all of the Undecided states plus a few of the Comeback states. So watch for red results in Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, etc. to set this one up. Chances are slim -- even if there is a percent-or-two of polling error, there are a lot of blue boxes that'd need to turn red.

5) Whisky-Tango-Foxtrot

This isn't really a viable option -- but I always include the possibility of the bizarre. Some real misread by the polls could lead to a strong McCain victory, but it would be pretty obvious right away. Like if New York goes red. If things like that start to happen, then all bets are off: Texas might go blue, California might secede, and it would certainly be an interesting night. I leave this option open just to hedge my bets. But I don't really think it has a chance.

So here's the plan:

Keep an eye on the Leaners. If they are acting as predicted, keep an eye on the Comeback states. Once three or more of them are called in Obama's favor, his victory becomes highly likely and the interest comes from observing the degree of victory (we're choosing between outcome 1 and outcome 3, essentially). If McCain is playing strong there and in the Undecideds, then the result will be tougher to call and upset could be in the cards (the results will fall from outcome 2 or outcome 4).

If the pink-blue count (the Leaners) ends up pretty far off what is expected, then we are going to be looking at outcome 2, 3, 4, or 5. If a lot of them are going Red, that sets up outcomes 4 or 5. If a lot of them are going blue, it sets up option 3. If they are all over the map it probably means number 5 -- and no guesses beyond that!

So there you have it -- a decision tree of sorts, an election night checklist to help monitor what is going down. Now go out and vote, order a pizza or some sushi, pour yourself a beer or a glass of wine, and enjoy watching.

842 lbs. of Carbon

2008-10-22T13:46:00.001-07:00

I was originally going to call this post "Nick's Adventures in a Red State" or something similarly political. But in reality, my recent adventures in the lone star state turned out to be surprisingly un-political. Except for this moment when I was in an elevator, going down, with a group of VERY texan women who were discussing whether or not they were willing to gut and clean the deer their husbands shot. Those who wouldn't regarded those who would with a sort of superstitious awe. "Sarah Palin," I thought, "this is your constituency!"

But they were the exception. I was, after all, in a giant mega hotel surrounded by a comfortable bubble of business analysts. By and large, I've noticed these are a relatively apolitical lot, more prone to discussing analytical techniques, R^2 values, and the hideously complicated version landscape of the software package were were all there as users of.

Wait, though, I get ahead of myself. Where was I, and what was I doing here? And what does any of that have to do with 842 lbs. of Carbon? Time machine, back a few months. My company decided to send a couple of representatives off to the annual user's conference for a software package called "Business Objects." They make, as you might have guessed, analytics software used for data mining, business intelligence, and various related fields. My manager and I were the lucky attendees. There were supposed to be more of us, but clever budget hoarding meant that, when the call came down to save a few bucks coming in to Q4, she and I were the only ones to actually go.

It is a flattering thing, to a neophyte like myself, to be sent to one of these things. The whole trip cost a couple of thousand dollars. That's a flattering investment to have made in you. And then I took a look at my Alaska Airlines e-ticket and noticed an interesting line: each leg of my journey would produce 421 lbs. of nasty globally warming, debt incurring carbon. What was I to make of this? Should I have used carbon debt calculations in planning my trip? Chosen another airline that, through better routing or more ecological hardware choices, managed to only drop 411 lbs. of carbon into the upper atmosphere? I decided this was probably some vauge and general estimate, so no excess of detail should be ascribed to it.

Instead, I took it as a note: not only was this trip costing my company a few grand and me four days away from my family, but it was costing our plant too. So listen up, the e-ticket seemed to say to me, you'd better get something good out of this, because a lot of people are putting something down so you can get your corporate junket ya-ya's off down in Dallas.

Which is how we get to Dallas. For reasons I'm not privy to, the conference was in Dallas. Warm, central, and probably cheap. Not Vegas or Orlando, where the last couple were. Dallas. Flat. Hot. Red state.

Rather than trying to tell you some sort of play-by-play note of the conference (which you probably don't care about), I will try to distill the whole experience down into my personal observations and reactions. I really did go into it thinking of this as a serious work event. And it wasn't just the carbon. I'm out of the office for three full days (plus a day of free semi-vacation to make up for my Sunday spent in the air). I'm away from my family for four days. And so I wanted to replay those who sent me on this outing by getting everything out of it I could.

Learning experience the whole thing was great. But you don't probably care about the new software I saw demo'd or the techniques for multi-axis data analysis that I learned. I will tell you about one software package, though. Very interesting, and actually quite applicable to some work people on my team are doing. It analyzed text in a quite holistic and linguistically derived way to generate summaries of text document, searchable breakdowns of text content, and gestalt assessments of mood and tone. The demos all involved an analysis of product reviews. It was pretty start stuff -- able to understand that "though I usually don't like Mazda's styling, the mew MX-6 is anything but stayed" is actually praise, despite the preponderance of negative words.

But the thing that made this interesting was the occasional mention of "government clients." Un-named, non-specific government clients that usually caused the speaker to trail off a little. So I've got this to say: I don't know if the government is reading your email, your blog posts, your newsgroups, or whatever. But if they do, I suspect that I might have a lead on some of the software they are using. I don't want to launch a thousand conspiracy theories. We many not be talking about anything so exotic as some NSA glassbox scheme, it may just be for entirely reasonable analysis of the massive quantities of subpoenaed documents that so often feature in high profile federal litigation. But it was interesting stuff.

The rest of it all was pretty dry.

I will tell you about Texan buffets, though. I don't know what the food safety laws are in this part of the country, but there were some downright Texan sized time/temperature hold violations going on. Erica could fill me in on the actual values, but let me leave you with this quick summary: in no situation should a breakfast sausage patty and yogurt be held at the same temperature for an hour. Like I said, the laws may be different down here, and so may the gastrointestinal systems, but I tried my best to stay away from both, helped by the fact that I just don't like yogurt, even when held at a safe temperature, and that the breakfast sausage had apparently been slowly brought to temperature in a solution if old grease. Nasty stuff.

In fact the food was the biggest disappointment. My expectations were good -- the registration form had displayed an astonishing sensitivity to dietary preferences, with check-boxes for vegetarian, vegan, Kosher, shellfish allergy, wheat allergy, and a few others. Somehow, though, the buffets were the same old (uniform temperature) standards. I did see a few specially marked plate covers going around, though, so I think that next one of these I go to, I'm going to be Kosher for a week. At least the food should be hotter.

Finally we broke down, my manager and I, and skipped second of two free "evening socials" with beer and passed appetizer platters. We headed for the hotel's Mexican restaurant, figuring that while in Texas, go for a form of cuisine that they probably do well. Remember how the massive hotel sort of insulated me from Texan politics? It also apparently insulated me from Texan cooking. The tortillas were ill-heated and probably Cisco. The shrimp were probably imported frozen from the Philippines. The fajitas were very much lacking in veggies. The rice was under seasoned. There was a damn good pinto bean soup, though, that had some real nice heat to it. But the rest? Well, better than another round of snacks.

Now you are probably wondering how I did (am doing -- I'm writing this from DFW) away from my wife and daughter for so long. For this part, I will write a brief journey. For dramatic emphasis, I will use the present tense.

Sunday: So far, so good. This day has been an adventure of travel and, thanks to the two time zone skip, not all that long. By 10pm in Dallas, I've only been away from Erica and Bella for eleven hours -- no longer than I would on a typical workday. And those hours have either been the action of travel or a pleasant chance to do some quiet reading. I've got Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke's interesting alternate history novel of magic and fantasy going on the iPhone and have nearly figured out the Concorde's fly by wire system -- yet again testing my belief that a thorough understanding of an analogue system can often provide a powerful insight into it's more obfuscated digital counterparts. The hotel is decent, kind of dull, and I get a nice chance to talk to Erica before bed.

Monday: First day of the conference -- so much going on! I hardly miss my family at all, I've got so much going on. Sure, I awoke alone, but I usually get up a couple of hours before Erica and Bella, so I'm used to sneaking around alone and in the dark. After that -- hey, it is just like a day at the office if you think about it. Seminar sessions from 8am to 5pm, no different from the workday. Until, oh, about 5:30pm and then suddenly it seems like I should be home. Instead I'm drinking a beer at the first reception party and chasing down platters of sushi in a vain effort to get full. After that comes the after-party. No strippers, not like at those hip-hop after-parties I have never been to, but a fortune teller who tells me the following things:

I am sleeping poorly.
I have back pain.
I am learning a lot at work but it will lead to stability.
There is some stagnation in my relationship and I should "give in" on something to bring the novelty back.

She also turned over a death card, which I found interesting, but never really addressed that, which I found disturbing. Now I figure that from obvious clues (wedding ring, in town for convention, etc) she could probably have made some good guesses, but it was fun none the less. Called Erica and and told her that she has one free "give in" card that she can play, and that she should spend it wisely. But tonight the loneliness is starting to creep in. Barely saw the family yesterday -- but I have three nights a week that are just as bad. But now it is an entire day without seeing either Erica or Bella. Perhaps because I am not aided by as pointed a combination of alcohol and Benadryl, sleep comes a little harder tonight.

Tuesday: I awake to the best email I've seen in a long time. Well, good in the sense that it makes me feel good. Erica missed me and had a hard time falling asleep. Bad for her, though, so I feel sort of sad and wish I'd been there to tell her a story. Now I miss conversations. The morning sessions are pretty dull -- nothing as fun as discovering potential not-so-secret text analysis software. The keynote was very corporate-speak laden. Words like "monatize" (or is it "monitize"?) and "accelerate capitol velocity" and "open partner fabric" and "hire-to-retire process."

I try calling Erica a few times during the morning but can't get through. Its frustrating. Conversation is surprisingly rare here. Everyone you meet at a session is a single serving friend (thank you Fight Club!), and the conversations we had at the after-party were pretty single serving too. So I'm yearning for a conversation with someone where it is just free flowing and casual. Where I'm comfortable talking about any topic and freely expressing myself. While I'm at it, I'd like to know what Bella's up to. I'd like her wonderfully childlike perspective, to tell her about what I'm doing and hear her, doubtless, wonderfully fresh take on it all.

Finally Erica and I do talk, for a while, which is nice, but actually just serves to remind me how much I like her. The afternoon sessions aren't particularly exciting -- there is actually a lot of very good information but it all pertains to a version of the software that, if I'm lucky, we'll be running sometime around the next election. The one after this one, I mean. And I mean presidential elections here, not some little in-between state representative thing.

But the evening gets good -- my manager and I skip out on the reception to get the previously mentioned Mexican dinner. Based on stories she tells, me, I calculate that I have a 7% chance of going insane. By now I have also named several of my fellow convention attendees:

Abe Lincoln
Jim Furyk
Sweater/Thong Woman
Three-Beers Woman
Friend of Three-Beers Woman
Boring Obama (looked, but did not speak, like a young version of the candidate)
Limping Lin

I'm noticing something interesting about this time zone, two hours earlier than Seattle but still one short of the East Coast. It might be that, emotionally and in some ways professionally, I am still on Seattle time, but it seems like world events happen more slowly here. I suspect the reason is this: Like it or not, the news-making-and-reporting center of this country is the East. So most days, when I get in to work and start checking online around 7am, there have already been two hours of news-making business day going. Here, if I check online at the same time, the business day is just beginning. So I don't start with a backlog of news to catch up on. And then checking on events back home, at the office or with my family, I have to wait two hours for them to happen -- or so it seems. So it is as if there is a buffer placed around me, and everything is happening two hours later than it should. Is this why Texas have that slow, easy going drawl?

Second City gives a pretty good improv performance for us. The bad part was the audience suggestions:

Improver: "May I have the name of a profession?"
Audience member: "Business Analyst!"

Later

Improver: "May I have the name of a location that would fit on this stage?"
Audience member: "Trade show!"

You guys get out much?

But then we met up with a fellow who works with us a lot as a consultant and trainer, got some drinks, and got some really fantastic social bonding time. Getting to know the people you work with every day -- in a non work environment -- can be very rewarding. You learn their values, histories, what makes them tick. It is fun but also, frankly, politically astute. Like I know that I have a 7% chance of going crazy.

Wednesday: I slept poorly last night. I talked with Erica a while and that got me all second winded -- not just from talking to her but because she's on Seattle time, two hours more perky than I am. So then I ended up packing up, getting everything ready to go in the morning. Net result, now I am short on sleep.

And my loneliness is now a visceral thing. It is no longer just being bored or wanting a conversation, but it is a true longing, an emotional and, dare I say, hormonal longing to be back with my wife. And my family, lest it sound like I am giving dear Bella some sort of second billing. I miss her energy and enthusiasm and, again, those childlike but brilliant insights, distilling situations down to their essentials. Her snuggling, her creativity, her drawings of pet rockets to take dogs and cats and fish to astronauts in a space station, her emotional intensity, her moments of complete weakness and remarkable strength.

But there are four more presentations, ending with a whimper as a mumbling frenchwoman narrates Quicktime movies of unreleased software. So we skip out early, catch a shuttle, get to the airport. On the way, I count bumper stickers, engaging in my favorite ad-hoc poll. The count, on the President George Bush Turnpike (again I ask -- which one?), the count is Barack Obama: 1, Ron Paul: 1, John McCain: 0. I don't know what that means, but it surprised me.

My boss is taking a nap and I've gone exploring, to a pseudo Irish pub in the international terminal that serves chicken strips and hamburgers. The beer, however, is Irish. A Smithwick's Ale -- a damn nice, solid, full flavored but easy drinking beer. Soon I suspect it will be augmented with that most Irish of dinners, the bacon cheeseburger. And then I'll be back in our terminal, waiting for the last flight of the evening out to Seattle.

And, with a suitcase full of powerpoints and a brain full of new knowledge and new contacts, I will return home.

Watching the Debate Watchers

2008-10-15T20:05:00.001-07:00

So one of my favorite books (don't laugh, but if you are reading this, you probably won't) is Alan Moore's classic graphic novel (that's arugula-eater speak for comic book) Watchmen. It often repeats the phrase "who watches the watchmen?" Meaning, in this case, when a group of people consider themselves to lie above (or outside, if you are Dr. Manhattan) the normal bounds of law and restraint, who is to maintain any sort of code of conduct or behavior to which they must answer?

This is not about that graphic novel (yes, I am again using the "But this is not their story..." device). Rather it is about these multiple online streaming thingies that CNN has got going during the final presidential debate of 2008. I almost said "final presidential debate," but one does have to hope that we will have other presidents elected during other elections and that there will be, in some format, debates during these elections. But I am starting to sound rather too much like Samuel Jackson's character in Pulp Fiction. And I am definitely pulling out a Tarantino-esque level of pop culture referentiality.

These little streaming video bits focus on allowing us multi-taskers out there to watch other people watch the debates. In my case I am not actually multitasking with a dozen TV screens going at once, Ozymandias like (and yes, I did manage to work in another Watchmen reference. Why don't I go for broke and ask if anyone else out there finds themselves thinking so strongly about Dr. Manhattan every time Heroes brings up Silar's watch infatuation?). I actually am trying to find a balance between the fact that Erica is working tonight and I am home. I've got the debates Tivoing in the other room so we can watch it together when she gets home. But I feel my Internet generation addiction to continuous connectivity tugging at me and find it almost impossible to let a potentially history-impacting moment go by without at least some awareness of how it is going down.

So I found a happy compromise. I'd watch the watchmen. There are two windows I've found interesting (the one where two bloggers sit at their respective Macs and argue while Obama and McCain bicker in the background appeals to me only in so far as they are both using Macs which is why my screen capture is actually from the Palin/Biden debate because in the current one I notice the monitors are a lot less prominent).

The first one I find interesting is CNN's live measure of voter response. It has this intensely medical look, doesn't it? Enough that I quite seriously wonder, "How is CNN doing that?" I picture a panel of a dozen voters of each faction (Rep, Dem, Ind) strapped to hospital beds, with electrodes attached to their foreheads, blood pressure cuffs on their arms, heart rate monitors across their chests, and perhaps even a respiration monitor to capture rate and volume of breathing. All, of this, is overseen by Hugh Laurie at his most scruffy and contemptuous.

Incidentally, the fact that I got this capture while Obama was saying something that clearly everyone liked really was pure chance and not some attempt to send a little subliminal signal. But don't think I didn't find it interesting that my pure-chance effort ended up that way.

In reality, I suspect that what we have going on is a few hundred homes holding a Nintendo pad and furiously toggling through some internet connection that their state is "happy," "neutral," or "unhappy." Given how often I get confused when using those game controllers and end up running to the left when I mean to shoot the werewolf or whatever I'd tend to give a pretty low factor of reliability to that approach. Now that I think about it, you could also do something clever with a volume meter, much in the way sports broadcasts often do some bogus pseudo-VU meter thing to show crowd enthusiasm at big games. Given that (in my totally unscientific appraisal of the situation) people tend to make noise after the people they like (cheering or shouting "yeah, you tell him!" or such) but to talk over the people they don't like ("you lying sack of shit!") you could probably gather some information that would have exactly as much validity as any of the other little line-drawing routines. Probably, for that matter, you could have hamsters walk on the mousepad of someone's laptop and generate a graphic sufficiently compelling for people to tune in and stream it.

Now the other little instant feedback display, and the one I actually found more interesting because it reflects not the belief of people I don't know being measured in a way I don't know but rather people I don't know being measured in a way that I do know, was CNN's pole of analysts. Six people, distributed fairly well among liberals, conservatives, and independents on and off of CNN's staff. They register a "point" for or against either debater as they feel that person either made a good move or possible gaffe. Simple. Kind of like at the Olympics or boxing, but more real time.

I also have this technique of "seeing through the haze" of conflicting opinion and commentary that is to quite simply take a gestalt survey of what many people are saying and average it out. I'm no Greg House and am not willing to go so far as to say "Everybody lies," but I do firmly believe that everyone, even the most superficially selfless person in the world, takes actions according to some sort of internal logic of self-interest. It may not be self-interest that is clear, well planned, or even makes sense to an outsider (or even to the person taking the action), but that specificity is for another day.

In this context, I mean that every organization out there, even those that profess disinterested neutrality or an objectively alternative viewpoint, is getting tugged in some direction or another by forces of their own interest. Take NPR, generally regarded as a bastion of objective (or at least alternative) journalism. Now the honestly do a pretty good job of putting out objective coverage, but let's face it, how long do you think the pledges would keep coming in if, all of a sudden, NPR started putting out the same viewpoints as Fox News? Even if the actual events of the day supported Fox's analysis, NPR has a market position to maintain and a certain constituency to play to. Just take a look at Chris Buckley who, in addition to penning some of the best political commentary on this election (in terms of the "what in the sam hell happened to John McCain?" factor), is now out of a job.

Anyway, my point is. People are biased. Even people who are trying really hard to be unbiased might find themselves with an urge to either conform with the masses or to stand apart from them.

So I take the average. I weight the institutions with known biases (Huffington Post and Fox News cancel out nicely), the ones I consider pretty neutral based on past performances, and see where the middle lands. That, I guess, is where (depending on the sort of issue) the truth, the most commonly held belief, reality, or some facsimile of it would, should, or could lie.

And so I like viewpoints that allow me to quickly scan a range of viewpoints, to get the gestalt view of what is afoot. So I like maps that show me pretty colors of how strongly states are registering in pre-election poles, even if it is cheesy and runs enough badly coded Flash to suck my battery capacity down at an absurd rate.

So now take a look at this. At the point I took this capture, perhaps 40 minutes in to the show, things are looking pretty close to tied. 1-McCain, 3-Obama, 2-Tie. Now that we've wrapped up the show the score has leveled out to 3-3 with no ties left on the board (sorry about the spoiler, but since I'm spoiling a live event, I don't feel too bad).

But at another level, I'm interested in how the different pundits scored the candidates. No, not whether they scored Obama or McCain the winner, but how they choose to define "score." Take a look at Gergen. Clearly we have a soccer game going on here, with nthree "scores" on McCain's side and two on Obama's. Now just as clearly, Martin is watching a basketball game where, not even to the first half, there are a total of 73 points on the board among the two sides. As a factor of scoring, King doesn't like to think negative thoughts about other people's performance, with only one negative point out of seventeen (at the time this shot was taken, the end total would be 33 positive, with still only one negative!). Castellanos appears to be watching football, the numbers even working out to reasonable football score values. Presumably the rest are at a baseball game, relying on that perennial source of political catch phrases and trite sports analogies.

But returning to an examination of the numbers, now in their final form, what might I be able to find about the reaction to this debate. Which, I'd like to mention, I have still not seen or heard in any significant quantity. Clearly McCain did better than at the last one, at the very least there was none of the distracted wandering around problem going on. It also seems that both candidates managed to avoid committing too many faux-pas. I'd say that McCain was probably the more aggressive -- partially because I expected him to be so and partially because he, even in the minds of his supporters (except for Bennett, who had the most notably lop-sided evaluation -- and I tend to find that the person with the most lop-sided evaluation is often the one with the most biased evaluation) scored more negative points than Obama. An aggressive strategy is usually one that is likely to involve greater risks and greater chance of error -- even if the gains outweigh the losses.

If we look just at the positive numbers, we see that the score worked out to be Obama-2, McCain-3, Tie-1. I'm doing this by comparing each commentator's ranking a-la match play, because Martin (and to a lesser extent Castellanos) have such high numbers going that they'd skew the whole thing). If we look at the negative numbers only, we see that the score was Obama-5, McCain-1 (keeping in mind that you win this match by scoring fewer points. So yeah, McCain was definitely going for it, and definitely taking some losses in the process. Obama was probably playing it cool and probably on the defensive a few times -- which makes it hard to score points unless you decide to go on the counter-attack. I don't expect there was too much "best defense is a good offensive" action from Obama, though, since I bet that would have brought up more negative points, what with the fact that attack-counter-attack quickly starts to look like bickering.

Now how did it actually go? I'll have to see. Erica's home now and I've got one kiddo to put to bed and then its time to roll the Tivo. So let the final act begin. And we'll see how the analysis worked out...

UPDATE

Well, now I've watched the debate and have to say I think I did a decent job with analyzing a debate that I hadn't seen. Actually watching the thing, I got pretty sick of ol' Joe the Plumber, but it was a nice break from "My friends..." which seemed, now that I think about it, notably absent. Obama was a little defensive, McCain definitely attacking. Obama more issues focused, McCain more personal. I'd say I agree with those who's cards scored Obama with the win.

Bumper Sticker Politics

2008-10-02T17:54:00.001-07:00

So I had a long and kind of tedious commute this evening. But I was having a great time, listening to the radio and rocking out to everything from Carly Simon ("You're so Vain") to The Beastie Boys ("Intergalactic"). Oh, and before I get started, I have something in the odd-observation category to point out. Despite living in Seattle, I haven't heard Pearl Jam played on the radio for months. All of a sudden I hear one song played ("Daughter"). I rock out for a while, get bored, change channels. Right into the beginning of "Even Flow." Couple minutes later, on yet a third channel, I hear "Jeremy." What's up with that? I've noticed it before -- you don't hear a band for a while and then suddenly, in the span of twenty minutes, you hear it on three different stations.

Anyone who happens to work in radio and who reads this -- let me know if stations listen to each other or communicate or something. "Hey, KZOK has broke out the Pearl Jam...let's dust 10 off ourselves!"

But alright, back to the politics. To entertain myself, I thought I'd celebrate the eve of the veepsidential debate with a quick poll: bumper sticker counting. It ended up 8 for Obama 2 for McCain (plus one additional giant flag for Obama but it wasn't technically a bumper sticker and so I didn't count it). Now these numbers should hardly be surprising, being as Washington is about as much of a blue-state as you can get. And the population of Seattle is pretty think with that liberal intellectual/professional demographic that I'll freely admit is part of Obama's core support group and I drove by a PCC Natural Market (one of the Obamas was exiting their parking lot) that probably has a certain predictable voting clump among its patrons. That said, however, I happen to know at least one of those Obama cars belonged to a tile setter, so don't get too focused on my self-selected sample.

Now I was paying really close attention to the cars I was passing and being passed by so that I didn't double count any bumper stickers, to either candidate's advantage (because I'm sending my results off to CNN now -- read about it in the morning, I tell you!). I passed one McCain car (a Buick driven by an old white guy who looked, I kid you not, shockingly like McCain himself) twice, and one Obama car about a half dozen times. Its that thing you get on the freeway in moderate traffic, going back and forth as lanes gain or lose advantage. Now this Obama car that I passed and re-passed had another bumper sticker on it that said, in big Republican party letters "McCain" and then had some smaller letters below that would probably have said "Palin" or something. So on one of our close encounters I looked more closely (and got lucky with a gap in the traffic) and saw something that looked more like this:

This particular version was a little better, or at least more current, had the blue font and looked considerably more official at first pass. Now when I first passed this car I was kind of excited. A car that supports both candidates? Multiple personality disorder? Two owners with different politics? Someone who changed their mind? I always love it when I see a bumper sticker collection that doesn't quite fit up against the simple and obvious types we expect to see: "Hey, you're a Marine and support Green Peace!" or such.

But it wasn't. Instead it was an example of what I consider the very (or at least mildly) irritating trend of the sarcastic bumper sticker. The satirization of a sticker or slogan of your opponent. I've been seeing these more and more over the past few years, roughly through Bush's second term. I usually see them heading in a liberal direction, though that could be as much a product of my local (and the fact that it is easer to satirize the in-power group) as is the 4:1 Obama:McCain ratio I observed.

Now the "third term" slogan is pretty clever, regardless if you agree with it or not. But does it translate to the fast moving pattern recognition world of the freeway? I think not.

Bumper stickers are as much about peer pressure as anything. You are making a statement, to those you know, park near, happen to drive around, or who look at your car in a parking lot, that you believe in (or oppose) a certain person or cause. They work (and I admit this opinion has no basis in science or anything, not any more than believing that the dinosaurs were still hanging around 6,000 years ago) in an nearly subliminal manipulation of our gestalt sense of our peer's beliefs.

I may not know what I'm talking about, but I know how to sell it with the words...

But anyway, my idea is this. You're driving along, undecided or at least unsure of your candidate. You see a bunch of car's sporting stickers for one guy and think, with or without realizing it, "Hm, he must be pretty good to have so many people believing in him..." That thought is exactly why polls can have such a "momentum" effect. Lots of people siding with McCain? More people might take a moment to reconsider. Lots of people switch to Obama? People will take a moment to reconsider in his direction.

Bumper stickers also have an appeal through peer pressure. See a car that you like, that is similar to yours, or that somehow implies a value system you support? You're going to give extra cred to the view espoused on its back side. See a driver with a similar match? It is going to have a similar effect of reinforcing the impact of that endorsement. Think of the McCain supporting Buick I spotted -- fits right into the target audience of that campaign. 'Round here, in 'Bama country, you see his stickers on so many different kinds of cars that it is actually tough to generalize into a particular group: compact import pickup truck, Impala SS, new Mercedes, tired old Honda Civic, as well as the obvious like an outdoorsy Subaru or a hipster VW.

Like I said -- I have no evidence for this, but it sounds good.

The important thing is that bumper stickers act fast. They act on a glance. No one has time to read them -- you shouldn't at least! You see that round Obama swooshy thing. Or the martial samll-caps of McCain. And you register that car's vote. The pun-sticker runs the very serious risk (and I use the term seriously loosely here) of appearing as a vote for the opposite candidate. If there hadn't been the clear and straight forward Obama sticker on the car that sparked this whole thing (it was the tired Honda Civic, by the way, and also had a "Free Leonard Peltier" sticker, and I haven't seen one of those in a long time), I might have registered my count as 7:3, not 8:2.

The fun, the politics, the wit, all make sense if you are Saturday Night Live or John Stewart, but at 75 miles per hour on I-5 (and I again admit that I didn't get anywhere close to 75 miles with the traffic tonight!), you've got to keep it simple!

Oh, and by the way, there were also a bunch of Nader people waving and holding signs and banners from an overpass, trying to get people to honk in support. No one honked.

Cool Hand Luke

2008-09-27T08:26:00.001-07:00

Goodbye, Paul Newman.

But the way I look at it, if you're live into your 80's and are racing Porsches at Le Mans in your 70's, you've done pretty well.

My Debate

2008-09-26T21:54:00.001-07:00

So I'd start by sitting the two candidates down at a bar. Yeah, a bar. Sitting at the barstools -- and you know about my thing with barstools. And ordering each of them a drink. On my tab.

I'm not sure what Obama drinks or what McCain drinks -- I see the former either as some sort of designer martini or straight bourbon, the latter probably as a beer kind of guy. But that would actually be the first question of my debate -- "Senator, what would you like to drink?"

The next question? "Why?"

After that:

"Senator, what is your favorite book?" and "why?"

"What is leadership?"

"Explain, in as much detail as you can, string theory." Not technically a question, I know, but an interrogative statement, and not my first.

"A NASA experiment reveals microbial life exists on Mars. How do you respond?"

"You and your wife are going out for a date. What's your ideal?"

"Dream car?"

"What is the golf course you've most wanted to play but never have?" "Why?"

"Who was the best boss (including military commanders) you ever had and why?" "The worst?"

Somewhere a few questions ago, we'd have ordered the second round.

"Favorite movie?"

There's a certain James Lipton quality to this -- and that is intentional. I don't care about issues. I care about people. I care about the little things, the second and third derivatives of a personality that can really tell you about the personality, where it is going, and where it has been.

"Who cuts your hair?" "How often?"

"How do you like your steaks cooked?"

I'm not trivializing the process. We don't ask our future spouses to answer expected stock phrase questions. We ask them if they think that is a beautiful sunset.

"Favorite season?"

"If you had to throw it all away and start over, what would you do for a living? And no cheating!"

I ask that one of my students -- and they are not allowed to say "fighter pilot" or "1st baseman" -- it should be "bartender" or "gardener" or "cabinet maker" (all answers I've heard -- I let one guy say 1st baseman, but he was already a Navy flier so I figured it was cool.).

"Favorite element?"

"Swim, bike, or run?"

"Favorite vacation destination?"

"Why do you love your wife?"

"What is the greatest thing your children have taught you?"

"What is the most significant event in the history of the 20th century?"

"TOS, TNG, DS9, or Voyager?"

"Is that a beautiful sunset?"

"Would you like another drink?"

Has John McCain lost his mind?

2008-09-24T19:13:00.001-07:00

Ok, so it is time for another political blog post. I've actually been planning a political post for some time, one titled "The Vilification of Arugula." It was supposed to be about my irritation at the use of "arugula eating" as a negative character description not too far removed from, say, "crack smoking." That and how this whole irritating Sarah Palin bubble and the bad-Disney-movie "Hocky Mom VP" story line was, well, like a bad Disney movie. Possibly even about how undeserved her MILF label was and how completely non-MILF-able I found her, probably not least because I find her stultifyingly not-intellectually-interesting-at-all and have some serious issues with her Jesus-in-our-lifetime belief and her understanding of the physical laws which govern the universe. But mostly about how the whole evil-arugula thing and the Palin thing both pointed to what I find to be a depressing over-appreciation of mediocrity and rejection of excellence that seems to be sweeping our country. Oh no, let's reject people who try too hard, because they might make us feel like I could be doing something challenging or interesting instead of (literally or figuratively) sitting on my ass...

But that's not what this is about. This is actually somewhat more pointed (though I managed to sneak in a summary of the planned post quite nicely). This is about the interesting choices being made by the McCain campaign and/or the Senator himself. It's about this campaign-on-hold/skip-the-debate thing. Now I'm sure that, just as, as an Obama supporter, I am predisposed to see this move entirely in a tactical light, there are plenty of McCain supporters who see the Senator's decisions as those of a selfless patriot willing to put aside his own ambitions and instead do what the nation needs in a time of crisis.

Balderdash, I say! But if you disagree with my call of balderdash, so be it. I have a separate line of reasoning should my initial judgement call be false. It comes later.

For the moment, assume that this is a tactical decision. "I know," says Karl Rove, John McCain, or some unnamed strategist, "We'll sit out the debate and stop running ads and play the moral superiority card!" There is something to be said for that -- it is certainly an act of differentiation and in line with McCain's image as a hip-shooting rogue. And never mind that I feel like we've had quite enough hip-shootery around this country of late. It is a strategy, if strategy it is, that lies so far outside of the normal conduct of electoral politics as to constitute very nearly an ace of desperation. Remember that Palin thing? I also viewed that as an almost-act-of-desperation move. And coming from a guy who, at the time of both of these decisions, was not exactly running away with the race but was far from out of touch with the lead.

So, if you are still in touch and don't need to pull out the desperate rogue strategy, why do so? And what does it say of your decision making that, with 40 days to go and a yet close race, you opt to make this sort of move?

Now let me return to the more charitable viewpoint that John McCain really did make these decisions based solely out of concern for the financial well-being of his country. That this is a selfless gesture, a unilateral move aimed only at helping fix a trillion-plus dollar cluster f*&%. That there is no intention of stealing some press attention, reinforcing the "rebel" image, or scrubbing the VP debates and keeping Palin under cover or of forcing the Obama camp into a potentially loose-loose situation.

What selflessness. But, and I'm going to go back to that hip-shootin' thing again, why? If you, Senator McCain, really do believe that you are the best (or at least better) man to run this country, shouldn't you be devoting a good portion of your attention to that pursuit? The presidency is not just a vanity prize and a ticket to a recording contract (by the way, Clay Aiken's coming out -- the only thing less surprising would be Jodie Foster's. Yawn. But I digress).

If you want to be president you must believe (or should -- and should project the image that) you are the best man for the job. You should, in my mind, therefore think strategically and recognize that your campaign is not just a foolish act of vanity but something vitally important to the future of our nation. And you should know that pursuing that goal is a strategic necessity. In other words, you should not drop your campaign at the drop of a hat and rush (almost eagerly) to the first emergency that comes along.

I know that I occasionally see this sort of opportunity at work. You're running behind on a project, things aren't going well, you can't get buy-in from your supposed "enterprise partners" (that's a phrase word 'round the office these days) or vendors, and then all of a sudden the database crashes in flames and you get to (oh, I'm sorry, I mean "have to") spend the day managing recovery efforts and can (I mean "have to") push back whatever it was that was giving you fits in the first place and take a fresh start at it. And I'll certainly admit to having had a few "convenient crises" in my time.

Convenient from what? Convenient to revitalize a campaign that might have been loosing some momentum (though, and see above for more, not enough to warrant such drastic action). Convenient to delay a debate that the McCain camp appeared to have less optimism about lately (recent comments seeming to downplay his expected performance against the admittedly streaky Obama). Convenient to push the presidential debate back into the slot reserved for Palin vs. Biden (and don't forget how dramatically media sheltered Palin has been).

But, again, what if this is an honestly motivated reaction -- exactly as it is claimed to be? A drop-it-all-to-deal-with-an-emergency reaction. That might be a fine way to handle things when your toddler spills a glass of milk on the hardwood floor and you have to put down whatever it is you're doing for five or ten minutes of wiping. But when you want to be president, that ain't cool. Stay on target, multitask it out between the strategic vision and the immediate emergency. That is, after all, what you will have to do when you are president -- at least if you want to do well or even excel. You can't afford to sacrifice this goal -- that you are (or should be) convinced is the best possible thing for the nation you love.

So in a whole different way, I find this version of McCain's actions equally questioning of his ability to serve as president. Reflexive reactions, hip shooting, and instinct trusting are something that I'm very, very tired of. The last guy to try "suspending his campaign" or anything similar was Ross Perot -- who will surface in this post again later -- and we all know how well it did him. Ross was a different, and larger eared, situation and was already facing the stiff challenge of running as a third-party candidate. But there while maverick can be a desirable trait, so can direction, discipline, and consistency.

Three months ago I had quite an appreciation for John McCain, Senator, pilot, war hero. I respect the hell out of that kind of background. He was, at the very least, the most attractive of his Republican counterparts and I approach the primary season with the goal of supporting the best candidate of each party so that, regardless how things turn out in November, I'm left with, at the worst, the best-of-the-bad. Unfortunately, since that time he seems to have begun running a very enthusiastic smear campaign against himself. Three months ago I supported Obama because I welcomed his vitality, intellectualism, and spirit of change. Increasingly, however, his merits matter less and less to me as I find McCain's erratic and questionable decision making -- and therefore capacity to act as president -- more and more of a real and palpable concern.

Either way I look at it, McCain's actions increasingly remind me of the brilliant Saturday Night Live satire, performed, I believe by the late, great Phil Hartman, of Ross Perot's one-time running mate and McCain's fellow former naval aviator and POW, Admiral James Stockdale, and Stockdale's very nearly incoherent performance at a vice presidential debate during Perot's ill-fated and, perhaps significantly, at times bizarrely and indecisively managed, campaign of 1992.

For the record, coming at the conclusion of a post where I've managed to outdo even myself for comma use and intricate constructions, that might be the most complex single sentence I've ever written. Draw, from that, your own conclusions about my politics and my opinion of arugula.

Today, Phil Gets to Be The Big Man...Sort Of

2008-09-21T21:05:00.001-07:00

In golf, there are two kinds of people:

People who like Tiger.

And People who like Phil.

It is truly one of the age old conflicts: cats vs. dogs, vampires vs. werewolves, Mac vs PC. There are those who successfully end up taking the middle road or remaining apart from the fight (iguana owners, zombies, Linux users) but, in the end, even those who are not directly enmeshed in the fray find themselves with an opinion.

Phil fans find Tiger aloof, arrogant, and overly polished. Tiger fans find Phil false, arrogant, and erratic. I could try to draw some parallel with how Obama and McCain fans feel about their respective foes, but the thought isn't fully formed yet and this is about golf and not politics anyway.

I'm in the Tiger camp, I'll say that clearly and fervently. So if you are a Phil Phanatic (a phrase that always makes me feel like I'm at a Phish concert) you may find a lot of what I have to say offensive or the inaccurate ravings of someone who has swallowed the Tiger Kool-Aid. But then again, consider reading on, you may find a grain of truth.

When Tiger announced his year-long leave of absence to heal (and make more babies -- that's what I'd do if I was stuck at home with Elin all day) golf viewership tanked worse that WaMu stock. And, I secretly think a lot of the fighting-for-second crowd secretly made sacrifices at their little voodoo shrines for the chance to possibly be number one for a year. Number one among those who are not the best golfer in the world, that is.

And now we're going to get to the Ryder Cup, that international America vs. Europe contest that has, for so many years, been the province of the European teams. And why, this year, without the participation of the finest golfer in the world (Tiger), the US finally managed to win the thing back. You'd think, naturally, that with its star player wounded, the US team should have been a walkover for Nick Faldo's Euro-squad. But it proved anything but -- a stunningly strong opening, a passable second day, an up and down but ultimately highly successful third day, and the Ryder Cup came back to the USA squad for the first time since 1999 and only the third time in 25 years.

How'd it happen? Was this some spectacular "Win one for Tiger!" moment, complete with stirring music (I'm picturing either Also Sprach Zarathustra, something from Howard Shore's score to Henry V, or possibly something by the Beastie Boys), emotional choked up speeches, and silent vows? Or was it something more psychologically intricate and subtle? A few thoughts, then, on teams, motivation, Phil, and the Ryder Cup.

For starters, Team Europe has long played an "underdog" card. And that was fine, for a long time. Golf's Bright Lights were from the USA, and the Europeans could very rationally claim to be in the disadvantaged position. Anyone knows that an underdog team can come together and pull of a great collective performance when well lead. But after how many years (or decades) of dominance, that downtrodden underdog position gets harder and harder to claim. Not only in the press but also internally, motivationally. Toss in Tiger's outage and Team Europe had to feel that they were the favorites going on this year. And perhaps my virtue of feeling like the favorites, the players of Team Europe may have tasted some of that complacency that everyone will acknowledge was part of the undoing of past American squads.

So perhaps something changed in Team Europe. But something must have changed in Team USA. What? Just as Europe may have finally gotten bit by "expected winner's syndrome" perhaps USA might have finally dodged "expected looser's syndrome." Just as being in the underdog position can give some individuals or teams the devil-may-care, damn-the-torpedos attitude to reach in and grab victory in the most improbably of situations, it can give others a happy reason to not risk it and play it safe and perform exactly as well as is expected of them.

I see this occasionally with students of mine -- instead of going balls-out and really pushing themselves, they opt to settle for doing about as well as they have previously done. Of course they don't come out and say "Hey, Nick, I'm scared of excelling because excelling requires that you set expectations that you might fail to meet. So instead I'm going to tell myself that I can do OK and really am not ready to do better than that." Instead they construct carefully (all be it subconsciously) planned, internally consistent systems of excuses and apologies for why they can't take my instruction, advice, coaching, etc.

And I think that Team USA was settling into that trap -- everyone knew that they were going to loose, so they didn't really go out there and take risks that could appear as really failing. It is a defense mechanism -- if you expect to fail, you distance yourself from the event so it doesn't matter as much and you aren't hurt when you do fail. And of course this effectively guarantees that you will fail. Ok, I over explained that enough.

Perhaps, with the big star gone (or possibly Paul Azinger's captainship has something to do with this too) they were finally willing to take those risk and push themselves. Perhaps they were frustrated. Perhaps there was less of a sensation of diffusion of responsibility ("Tiger will carry us through!"). Perhaps the relatively high rookie fraction helped break the miasma of expected failure. Who knows, but watching Anthony Kim fist-pump his way through the opening holes of his singles match has to have started a few motors running and got the team's motivation moving.

Past American teams have been criticized for playing not, as a team, but as a collection of superstars who happen to dress alike. Its a lesson that the "Redeem Team" could well remember, since it is a challenge they had to overcome a couple of months ago in Beijing. And they did. For at least the past two Ryder Cup's, however, all the pre-event press was full of promises to play as a team, to not fly in their individual jets, to drink the same beers, whatever. But saying such things is not the same as playing or acting that way. The difference between words and actions, as we all know, is the difference between cheap and expensive.

But here we get to that cats vs. dogs thing. Phil and Tiger -- the two best American golfers and the natural on-the-field leaders of the American team -- are not broadly compatible people. I've always had the feeling that, in the PGA locker room, you line up on Phil's side or on Tiger's side. Possibly you line up somewhere entirely different, but that's only if you are a genuinely out there dude like Rocco Mediate. So you put the two guys in the same room and, well, guys are going to line up. You are, at best, going to have two teams there.

So, oddly, being missing a top player might have made the team stronger.

And then there is Phil himself. Every team needs a leader -- a guy on the field who brings the spirit. A sergeant who leads from the front, inspires by example. The guy who the crowd cheers for and the players play for. Anthony Kim looks like he might be the new darling/hero of the event, stepping up to put away Sergio, fist pumping away in the opening holes, getting the crowd and the team in to it.

But before the start, before the accidental or unexpected hero emerges, there is the expected leader. Phil. The senior member, the top ranked member of either squad, in a lot of ways the senior statesman of the PGA. Phil's a great golfer. He was supposed to be the greatest golfer in the world. I have a book, written in the early 1990's that describes him this way, as the heir apparent to the throne of Nicklaus and company. Then that Tiger guy sprung fully formed onto the scene. And Phil went from number one (expected) to number two (perpetually). Ouch.

I'm not sure if having the carpet yanked out from under him is what did it, but Phil's a weak guy. He's a solid golfer, a master of the trick shot, the most profoundly analytical player of any sport (except possibly chess, which is a game and not a sport anyway) I've ever seen. But he's emotionally un-solid. He doubts, he frets, he thinks (and thinks and thinks and thinks and thinks and thinks). I don't think he actually has the belief in himself that he projects. And golf (along with trauma surgery and air-to-air combat) requires complete belief in self. You make your plan, choose your shot, and from that moment on, any doubt or debate in your head is going to do you in. Half way between shots, pick the longer club and hit it soft and you MUST commit your head, heart and muscles to that decision or you'll overswing and drill that damn dimpled sphere fifteen yards beyond the green and into the baby back grilling on someone's Weber.

When self-doubters are faced with a threat (by which, in Phil's case, I mean Tiger) they do one (or several) of several things. They hide away, don't take the chance of putting themselves up against the threat (and therefore face the threat of being found wanting) and so don't perform to their full potential as leaders or individuals. Or they overcompensate, push it out to stand above, take unnecessary risks and make marginal choices because they feel they need to over achieve in order to rise above the threat. Or, and this is Phil, they doubt themselves and second guess their decisions and vacillate between strong and bold decisions and the indecision or analysis paralysis.

There is a brilliant line in a terrible movie (Balls of Fury -- don't ask, it was free): "You suck when you are nervous." That's exactly what this is all about. Feel confident, play like a rockstar. Doubt yourself, choke up and get unnatural. Phil.

No Tiger, to threat, strong Phil.

No Tiger, no conflict, solid team.

No Tiger, no excuses, inspired performance.

So sometimes weakness can lead to strength. I'm not sure if this reverse-Tiger-factor is the sole or even dominant factor in Team USA's victory. But the analyst in me always thinks like this: when you have a different result, look at what "ingredients" were different. Odds are that any connection you see isn't a coincidence. I'm not sure that had Phil broken his leg and missed the tournament the same factors might not have come in to play (though I do suspect that Phil, with a broken leg, would not have concealed his injury and proceeded to win a major!).

And I'd like to wrap up with the point that, despite having all of these roads paved for him, Phil has failed to actually metamorphose into the superstar leader that he had the opportunity to become. Other, younger players ("Boo...Boo...Boo...") have done so. Phil's played workmanlike and well. Ish. He's struggled to close the deal out (day two, final hole, final putt). But that's where the analysis paralysis comes in -- regardless of what else goes on -- as the stakes get higher, the fear of risk and error grows to overwhelm the possible promise of success. And then the indecision, the doubt, and the meltdown. We never got a meltdown, we just got workmanlike. From number two in the world, we should have gotten better. Particularly with all the cards lined up to set Phil up for a ticker tape parade and a new Gulfstream. But enough of that.

Now Tiger, in case you are reading this (which is unlikely, if you remember that earlier comment about being stuck at home with Elin), get well and get your game back on. I miss you, golf needs you, and despite their voodoo shrines, I'm sure all those fighting-for-second-place guys would really prefer to be out there measuring themselves against the best in the world.

Beamlines and Black Holes

2008-09-12T16:35:00.001-07:00

Collisions happen -- world fails to end.

That's pretty much all the fame and fortune that the most powerful (and expensive) single high energy physics experiment in history has received. I'm not going to go into the whole history or controversy surrounding the amazing new atom smasher (I love that phrase!) down by Geneva, LHC. But rather to relate the events at the Large Hadron Collider to some of my own experiences working at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center -- SLAC. Everyone's favorite string theorist, Brian Greene, wrote a wonderful piece for the New York Times that better explains the search for the Higgs and the whole tiny-black-hole scare way better than I could.

My time at SLAC, to move on, is one of those crazy things on my resume that has, unfortunately, rolled off below the fold and so I don't get to talk about it at job interviews anymore. Along with my time at Amazon, my time at SLAC has the feel of being part of something more than my immediate job. At one, we changed the way people looked at business and commerce. At another, we added to the depth of our understanding of the universe.

Whereas at Amazon we may all have been acolytes following the word of The Bezos, at SLAC we were all acolytes performing arcane rituals of devotion and sacrifice to a multi-mile long vacuum filled tube and a collection of magnets, giant RF amplifiers called klystrons, and the associated cast of power supplies, measuring systems, controls, pumps, and all the rest. Electrons were hurled down the pipe, hammered along my enormous amounts of radio energy, looped through a heart-shaped half-circle and slammed into a corresponding beam of their antimatter counterparts, positrons. When these teensy particles are accelerated, thanks to some clever connections in the fundamental ground rules of the universe, they actually increase in mass/energy. So the resulting collision released an enormous amount of energy -- and in all kinds of interesting particles. A massive cryogenically cooled detector could track these heavyweight fragments and provide data on their behavior.

These behaviors served to confirm, refute, or inspire the work of theorists. Science works (in theory) like this: a phenomena is observed. Scientists devise a theory that explains the cause and behavior of the phenomena. Scientists use this theory to predict some as-yet-unseen phenomena. Experimenters then go looking for this new phenomena to verify the veracity of the theory -- or to force a re-examination.

At SLAC, we were poking at some odd asymmetries in particle production. Simple theory says that at the point of the creation of the universe -- the big bang -- equal numbers of "conventional" and "anti-matter" particles should have been produced. Anti-matter is nothing like as weird as they make it sound in Star Trek. Any given particle just has the opposite charge of its normal partner (incidentally, this means there are no anti-neutrons). And if examples of the two ever meet, they annihilate each other in a total conversion of mass into energy, but that's no big deal. When we talk about "massive" amounts of energy we are talking about massive for the scale of the objects colliding. SLAC collisions produced less energy than the impact of a settling grain of dust. LHC collisions are on par with two mosquitos ramming each other head on.

Remember Churchill's classic quote that Russia was an enigma wrapped inside a mystery wrapped inside a pierogi or something like that? SLAC was much the same way -- though the wrappings were not nearly so clear cut or tasty.

The old 1960's vintage technology has been updated countless times in 40 years of physics life. And when I say "updated" I don't necessarily mean "replaced." When I was working there, at a facility merely thirty years old, traces of the original control system remained. Buried in a dusty room somewhere was the original control console for the two mile linac. The console was dusty too -- but an amazing artifact of that era of engineering that I find so fascinating. Entirely electromechanical it had some absolutely crazy things going on -- one that I remember was a series of potentiometers (knobs) about 2/3 of an inch around that had the readout gauge for some corresponding parameter built into the face of the knob. My undergraduate brain marveled (and still does marvel) at the complexity of creating such a system. No touch-screen-and-slider back then...

But back to this console, it a dusty room. It was a big room, stacked with semi-discarded gear, and the console had been shoved over to one side of it, pretty much out of the way. But it was clearly still active -- several fat bundles of cable came out of the back and snaked across the short distance from floor to wall. Turns out that when the SLAC control system had been updated as part of the SLD project (or perhaps sooner) the hadn't actually replaced the old control system. They'd just spliced the new computerized system onto it. This control panel was still active! Inputs came in to it from the computerized system and then back out again to actually run the system.

I pictured the machine running something like this: engineer makes parameter changes on a DEC Station or whatever kind of UNIX boxes we were using for the front end. That uses our 10BASE2 Ethernet to talk to the big VAX 11/780 that was sitting in a glass-paneled room in the Main Control Center looking very much like the WOPR from Wargames. That communicates by some arcane variable voltage or pulse counting analogue signal to the mysterious control console which passively relays the engineer's request out to the actual magnet or power supply or pulse generator.

From what I remember, that old console's gone now, junked alongside the SAGE consoles and all the other detritus of 1960's engineering. And SLAC is undoubtedly better for it: more reliable, simpler, and easier to keep running.

But the point is that that old machine was a living thing. And I'm not talking about the mutant cockroaches that would sometimes call up from the higher rad parts of the beamline. The machine was moody, irritable, frustrating, and occasionally satisfying. When people in the Sacramento Valley turned on their air conditioners in the summer and our power supply wiggled about, parameters on the machine would start to waiver and falter. When large trucks drove by (or for that matter tiny earthquakes -- we were a more sensitive seismograph than anything the USGS possessed) the beam would waver. Actually the beam didn't waver -- it kept going still -- the machine wavered around it.

My point is that we needn't expect the universe to end anytime soon. I'm sure that CERN has, with the LHC, put together an extremely well engineered and carefully planned machine. One that will, I hope, suffer from few of the artifacts of kluging that beset SLAC. That said, the LHC does rely on the existing SPS for initial acceleration, but in a much less critically integrated way. Instead I'm sure they will face the challenges typical of an entirely new system -- challenges of converting the theory and plan of operation in to practice.

At SLAC that moment finally happened late one night when an operator off the late shift decided to experiment with some beam parameters in an unconventional way. For months the LEP collider (footnote -- the LHC is built in the tunnel originally constructed for LEP) had been providing a good deal more luminosity than us -- working in the same energy range but producing a LOT more collisions. Particle physics is, to a very great extent, a statistical science and it takes a good sample of behaviors to understand how you need to plot the graph. Our individual collisions produced cleaner data, but they were winning in a quantity-over-quality fight.

We'd been struggling to get the machine to do what it was supposed to be doing. On paper, our luminosity figures were good enough to return some really nice science -- but reality wasn't corresponding with paper. I don't remember the exact story anymore, but for some reason, one night, this operator had an excuse to get a little creative with the settings on our two-mile-plus electron gun. She tweaked things in a way that I recall being, in retrospect, very intuitive but entirely opposite of the "party line" for how the thing was supposed to be set up. Suddenly we got a spike in collisions and the luminosity figures were trending towards what they were supposed to (and needed to) be.

From nightshift operator to hero, in just a few key parameters.

I'm sure that LHC will have its similar moments where you realize that either the individual protons or antiprotons aren't quite doing what you thought they would (and wrangling protons offers a whole host of different challenges from electrons). Or moments where it is realized that the phenomenally complex system of machine and detectors interacts in ways that no one quite expected them to.

In the meantime, I hope that the ignorant doom-criers will take a break. I understand that the ethereal reaches of physics are neither easily comprehensible nor of immediate appeal. But I find the fact that every single article I've read on the LHC startup has focused on the fringe element's efforts to spread fear or to shut the project down.

People repeat the overused phrase "God particle" like physicist are either a bunch of blaspheming heretics or else expect Yahweh to a appear over the CERN campus near Geneva in all of his billowing-cloud Old Testament wrath. People talk about the whole black-hole thing in a way that implies their only knowledge of a black hole is from the Disney movie and that they expect Maximillian Schell and a homicidal robot to pop out of the beams and start sucking the entire planet, Anthony Perkins, Earnest Borgnine, and all, to their doom.

To get slightly political, I find this yet another symptom of a creeping acceptance of ignorant mediocrity that has spread to the point that we, at least in this nation, appear to consider flawed normality more valuable and noble than educated eloquence. This anti-intellectualism may well be a globally creeping trend, for all I know, and the anti-LHC ranters are certainly not confined to this nation and much of the outcry over the "Deep Impact" comet probe arose from outside our borders.

But this is all beside the point -- if you've been reading this for any time you know my feelings about the conservatism of space exploration (read the New Horizons blog!) and pursuit of "safe" solutions rather than ones that run the risk of producing dramatic advances.

I want to end on a cheerful and optimistic note so, as I wrap up, let me say this. To all the scientists and engineers at CERN, now the undisputed world center of experimental high-energy physics, I have to tip my hat for your perseverance in getting this thing built and wish you the best of luck in getting it tuned up, fully operational, and producing vital science. I'm very curious to see the results start coming out and, even more, to see Brian Greene write another book about it!

Bike Commuter!

2008-09-11T07:27:00.001-07:00

As of this morning, I have reached the ultimate level of hippie-do-gooder-earth-loving-corporate-tool: the bike commuter.

Now granted, I'll tell you right now that I didn't schlep my wheels onto the train and ride across I90. That's on the plan for spring (or perhaps sooner if some very nice day comes along when I'm feeling adventurous and don't have anything on my calendar at work). What I did was go downhill from my house (which is at an elevation of approximately 250 feet above sea level) to the Edmond's train station which is, for all practical purposes, at se level. The total trip was about a mile, which means an average of a 5% downslope. I probably pedaled about twenty times until I reached the parking lot.

But damn you all, I'm going to wear my ankle strap with pride today!

That's ankle strap as in reflective-velcro-tie-to-keep-right-pant-cuff-clean and not ankle bracelet as in under-house-arrest-Martha-Stewart.

So, from my one mile bike commute, I have the following observations:

The Edmonds train station needs a bike rack. I am currently chained to a AC power conduit attached to a phone pole. It works, but feels rather makeshift in this day of REI specialty gear for every application. I figure, however, that the "massive electrical voltage and instant death inside" sticker affixed to the power conduit (I paraphrase) effectively acts as a theft deterrent.

Someone would be well advised to make nice dress shoes with Shimano compatible cleats in the bottom. Since it was a short (downhill) ride I just rode on my little stubby pedals rather than bring a change of footwear. We'll see how that goes on the uphill.

I need a new coffee mug. The disposable I brought with me from home kept spurting out over bumps despite my best efforts to seek stability. But when you're doing 22mph down a bumpy road coming up on a six lane intersection, coffee (amazingly) takes second priority. I was afraid that my left arm was going to look like the oil stained cowling of some World War Two bomber, what with all the coffee blow back, but in the end the damage was unnoticeable. What's more is how can I claim to my bike commuter green if I'm tossing out my beverage container every day? So now I need a closable, reusable, thermal mug (Erica, should you read this, I'd like to mention the wonderful collection of thermal mugs with witty sayings on them at the new PCC).

Riding (on the aforementioned 22mph bumpy downhill and other parts) with my laptop bag over my shoulder and my insulated lunch bag clipped to it turned out to be much easier than I expected. I haven't lost all of that Davis California growing-up-on-a-bike ease that I once had. That felt good.

The morning downhill was one of the most peaceful and relaxing times I've had recently. Gulls cawing, ferry boats tooting, the sun gently reflecting off of the clouds. And hardly a car on the road.

Cutting the one mile car ride out of my day may not seem like its doing that much for the pocketbook, the carbon debt in particular or the environment in general, the dependance on foreign oil, or any of those other hot buttons. But my dad always taught me that the toughest part of a car's life, from the maintenance, efficiency, and lifespan points of view is that initial startup and first few miles. So though it only saves a little bit, it saves a little bit.

If I keep this up (and by that I mean "actually ride back up the hill") I'll start to get in shape in no time -- and then yeah, I90 will be on the menu. Then I'll be sporting the the replica Discovery Channel team jersey and taking advantage of the new company provided bike locker and shower facilities and really putting the package together. Until then, I'm happy to be doing my own little thing, making my own little difference and having some fun on the way.

My Friends (in space)

2008-09-10T18:02:00.001-07:00

So feel free to hum "My Friends" from Sweeny Todd if you like, but this has nothing to do with homicidally vindictive barbers or straight razors. It is actually a little look at one of my favorite things (if you go over to the right hand section of the blog you'll notice things like favorite calculators and favorite elements and, yes, a favorite space probe).

Today is New Horizon's day in the sun. Which is good, because out beyond Saturn there is less and less Sun to go around. Today we focus on a biography and an explanation of this one little project and its journey to flight and why, exactly, I choose it above and beyond all other comers for the title of "favorite space probe."

I don't want to start by drowning this whole blog in a sea of specifications and technical data -- if you really care about how many milliradians the ifov of the LORRI imager is, look it up. Rather I'd like to start by recounting a rejected name from the day's of New Horizon's development. Apparently naming the damn thing was proving quite a challenge. As I've heard it told, it was almost a case of analysis paralysis, and some interesting candidates were circulating around, mostly tongue-in-cheek. One that actually made a big impression on me was FARR: Finally A Return to Reconnaissance.

Ok, no space probe is ever going to have a name beginning with "Finally" and the crankiness it implies. But there is a message in that name -- for decades we've been going back to revisit worlds already explored to gather more data. Missions have grown more focused on particular themes ("Follow the Water!") or areas of understanding. The approach reminds me a bit of what Hollywood has been doing of late -- remakes, sequels, and adaptations. Don't take the risk (the studios and executive producers seem to think) of going into completely new territory because you might gaffe it entirely and end up with an expensive flop. Instead, pick a relatively well known subject with a somewhat predictable audience and go for that.

There's some legitimacy. I'll go see Ocean's 14 or whatever they are up to now. At least I'll rent the video. My daughter will definitely go see Shreck the 4th. But you know, that first Matrix movie could have been one hell of a flop. And with film budgets what they are now, that thinking is going to force a real drive to conservatism. Plan (1) says you could make $200 million or loose $100 million. Plan (2) says you are almost guaranteed to make $150 million. Bottom line choices make that easy. Balls-out risk takers are rare, now a days.

Spaceflight's gotten the same way, to an extent. We're revisiting worlds we know. We're looking at the details, following exploratory themes. This is great science, and a lot is learned from it. There is, I think, some extra conservatism even within this overall trend to avoid looking directly at the big issues (exobiology is what I'm talking about here) because as long as the big questions are unanswered there is still a chance of flying more missions and learnign plenty about the interesting but undramatic other stuff.

Don't get me wrong. I love this thorough understanding of our neighborhood. I'm more of a deep-space astrophysics guy myself, but Titan, comets, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Io, all of 'em are fascinating places. And I'm certinly not a fan of the overly-cowboy manned spaceflight program promoted under the Bush administration. But that's another issue.

I was raised, however, on the pioneering flights of the Pioneers and Voyagers. I remember staying up until unusual (for a nine year old) hours to watch episodes of Nova or other specials on PBS (channel six!) as the probes encountered Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and finally Neptune. I remember that feeling of seeing new worlds and new moons for the first time. The Saturnian system (apparently it is technically accurate to call it Kronian but unnecessarily arrogant to do so) was the most vivid memory, because it really was a special event for a precocious 9 year old with a space infatuation. The rings, beautiful and so much more complex than ever imagined, moons, moons, and more moons, from shrouded and active Titan to icy

The robotic engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory were my idols, and the planetary scientists gathering and interpreting the results that these probes brought back filled my imagination the way the tales of Lewis and Clark filled the imagination of boys generations ago. But with that one titanic act of exploration, that once in a zillion chance alignment of the great gas giant and ice giant planets, it was done. We'd been everywhere. It was like the scene in The Truman Show where young Truman tells his class he wants to be an explorer and the teacher quashes his dreams by pulling down a world map and saying (I paraphrase) "It's all been explored!"

From this point on, Lewis and Clark could rest at home, take it easy. Follow-on explorers would set about to filling in the details, trading with the natives, exploiting whatever resources they could find, and finally building shopping malls. No wonder Lewis killed himself in the end.

But then along comes the chance to go out and explore a new world. One so distant, so remote, and superficially so boring that it had never really been considered for exploration. The gung-ho "faster better cheaper" 1990's begat a few sketches, edge-of-the-envelope designs that pulled out all the stops in an effort to get an ultra-lightweight spacecraft out on a flyby trajectory. PFF, the Pluto Fast Flyby was a poster child for (yet another set of) plans to develop a common set of instruments and back end technologies to facilitate missions to all sorts of cool and exotic places -- Europa, Comets, Neptune, you name it.

None flew.

Through the fast moving space policy shifts of Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush (and a couple of dramatic economic cycles thrown in for the bargain), Pluto missions were on and off and on again in a half dozen different variations. International missions launched by Russian Proton boosters...ultralight weight "twin" missions launched by Titan IV boosters to catch both sides of the planet...and then death. Complete and total demise of the whole Pluto mission thing.

In the meantime the planet itself kept getting more interesting. It had an atmosphere. It had a moon. It might have meteorologic or prebiotic processes. We mapped some of its surface features (crudely). Suddenly this pinpoint of light in the distance was a solid world with features of, well, a real planet.

Soon the letters started coming in. Alan Stern, long time Plutophile (read his book!) and a few earnest space enthusiasts kept the dream alive and via the newest tool for space science outreach organized an Internet campaign to revive a Pluto mission. It worked. Congressional fiat inserted (and mandated) funding for a competitively selected Pluto mission. The folks at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab put forward a proposal -- headed by Stern. JPL put forward a proposal of their own, but I suspect it was mostly just to keep the APL honest. This was Stern's baby, and everyone knew it.

He finally settled on a name -- New Horizons -- and so the mockingly appropriate FARR was retired to the mists of history and blogging. New Horizons works -- I grant them that -- and is a proper name and not just an acronym. But I miss something of the spirit of FARR.

It took a few years -- and a few near fatal setbacks -- to get the thing on the way. A security scare shut down processing of the Plutonium fuel pellets necessary to keep NH warm and powered. Scrambling managed to get enough Plutonium together to ensure a successful mission. Anti-nuke protesters made desultory threats at preventing the launch -- but other than a few ill-informed crazies and a pacifist grandmother or two, the public failed to mobilize to their cause. The Boeing strike season meant that the workers who would have prepared the 3rd stage motor were walking the picket lines so salaried managers pitched in to ready the motor -- and the protests of the strikers went generally unheard except by the anti-nuke crazies. Winds delayed the first launch attempt. A freakish power outage prevented day two. And clouds almost shut down day three -- until luck and a hole in the weather resulted in one of the most spectacular unmanned launches I've ever seen.

Aviation Week's wonderful article tells the details of the complexity of supporting this little spacecraft's journey. I find the final part of the article -- the throttling profile of the RD-180 first stage engine -- to be particularly telling. Most flights bang the throttle to the stops until the very end when you might start to go easy to avoid pulling parts off. But this flight pushed the profile optimization for every meter per second of delta-V it could generate.

Roll back to my Why'd We Put the Rockets There post for a video of the NH launch in all of its glory. More thrust than any other current US launcher save the Shuttle. Off the pad like a bat out of hell and from then on, no looking back.

I'll save the "gee whiz" statistics and detailed instrument descriptions for the team's fantastic web presence. In a nutshell the probe is a piano attached to a satellite dish -- a compact body designed to keep heat in and minimize mass attached to the largest dish antenna cheaply available. The radioisotope generator (home of the pesky Plutonium) sticks off to one side to keep its temperature manageable. Gold foil provides much needed insulation so that the waste heat from the electronics and the RTG can keep the vital systems warm, including preventing the propulsion systems propellent from freezing.

The science instruments are like the eyes of a lemur, oversize and blinded by daylight, carefully tuned instead to the dark distance of Pluto. A telephoto camera, a multicolor camera, and infrared and ultraviolet spectrometers comprise the primary remote sensing suite. Three instruments record the nature and intensity of dust and heavy and light charged particles as the craft drifts by Jupiter, through deep space and, later, through the Pluto system. Finally the onboard radios play a part by enabling careful trajectory tracking that reveals in detail the mass of objects in the Pluto system and by a clever bit of passive microwave radiometry that helps determine surface temperature.

The engineering inside the little thermos box of New Horizons is capable of greater autonomy and endurance than any spacecraft before. Indeed it must be -- for the decade long journey would tax the budget and patience of ground crews if controlled in a traditional manner. Electronic and mechanical components would also wear out sooner, so the NH team devised a scheme of "hibernation" where the probe spends the majority of the inflight time with the majority of systems powered down, emitting a low power beacon tone to either reassure controllers that everything is ok or to alert them that there is a problem -- and the need for an intervention.

Back on Earth, Stern's team has run a model of outlook. Perhaps spurred by the grassroots campaign that helped win the mission its day on the launch pad, they have kept their eye on those of us who follow spaceflight with passion and interest. Pluto's very enigma and extremism helps -- everyone likes a mystery. Members of the team -- right up to Dr. Stern himself -- have made frequent appearances on space news boards like my favorite UMSF. In one of the most phenomenal acts of public outreach ever, the team actually accepted the contributions of Internet supporters to the science program.

Approaching their encounter with Jupiter, the official science team was busy doing official science -- planning the aspects of the Jupiter swingby that would generate the most compelling scientific data return. Several enthusiasts on the UMSF boards, however, used trajectory information provided by the NH team to simulate in great detail the probe's journey through the complex Jovian system. Using these simulations, they were able to identify a number of "Kodak Moments" as space probe types call them -- the beauty shots of crescent moons, ring systems, and extraterrestrial volcanic eruptions that actually make it in to the newspaper.

Since the science team actually had more spacecraft resources than they had time to plan for, they accepted these amateur contributions and, instead of sneering at the part-timers, added the suggestions in to the flyby mission plan. And you can bet which images appeared on the newspaper covers -- not the dull-but-scientific ones, but the glamour shots that those of us out on the Internet came up with.

The New Horizons team has also done all the standard things -- a CD carrying names of supporters who registered on the Internet is mounted on the probe (and you can bet that my name -- and the names of those closest to me -- are on there). Podcasts, email updates, and well maintained websites too. And some of the most easily available detailed documentation of a current vehicle I've ever found. They've got the now obligatory Twitter presence (NewHorizons2015, if you want to get the updates) which is pretty chatty right now since the team is working one of the annual checkout periods that will lie between long sessions of hibernation.

For these efforts and others, Stern's gone on to become something of a hero (and very occasional email correspondent) of mine, not least for his brief stint as head of NASA's space science division -- a stint that was oddly parallel to my own stint with my most recent employer in timing and apparent motivations for departure. But now he's back at the APL, flying space probes when he can and getting instruments of his aboard nearly a half dozen other flights. NH is the largest ever PI (Primary Investigator -- as opposed to a NASA laboratory) managed space project NASA's ever flown -- you libertarians can think of PI managed missions as sort of like the charter schools of space exploration. Through blunt perseverance, clever engineering, shrewd campaigning, and tight management, it is bringing a little bit of the mystery back in to space exploration.

And out there, a billion kilometers away and just beyond the orbit of Saturn, finally flies the return to reconnaissance.

By the way, if you want to see some absolutely spectacular photography of not just the New Horizons launch, but several others as well, check out launchphotography.com.

Why'd We Put the Rockets There?

2008-09-05T17:44:00.001-07:00

It happens every Atlantic hurricane season: news reports on all of the popular spaceflight websites about how Hurricane So-and-So delayed the rollout of the Space Shuttle or damaged this rocket on the pad or that important piece of ground equipment. And every year, right around the Atlantic hurricane season, I find myself facing the question: why did the United States put its space launch facilities right in the path of the typical storm track? So every year, just to remind myself that it wasn't a completely ludicrous decision, I go through the physics of the thing.

And physics is exactly why the United States sited its primary national launch site on the south coast of Florida. It wasn't that the land was cheap or that a Floridian senator was on the committee or such (these things may or may not have been true, but even if so, they were not the overriding reason).

One of the reasons for the birth of the Space Coast down there in Florida is safety. Launching rockets was, and indeed remains, a tricky business. The occasionally go...wrong. Even successful flights shed parts (sometines unintentionally but more often intentionally as spent stages and fairings are jettisoned) And for that reason, it is nice to have a large chunk of empty land that your launches can fly over. And, for reasons that we will shortly discuss, most space launches fly to the East, more or less. That would confine a United States launch facility to the East Coast. Conceivably Hawaii could be used as well, since by the time a vehicle launched from that location reaches any significant land mass, it will be flying high enough as to pose no threat. But flying from Hawaii would raise infrastructure and transportation challenges, particularly in the 1950's when the Space Coast was first evolving. One could argue that the wastes of far northern Canada would be safe to fly over and that Alaska would make a reasonable launch facility -- but in addition to the dangerous politics of arguing that anyone's land mass is insignificant there are some good reasons why far Northern launch sites are not the best to pick.

And so now we enter the physics discussion. Before we can go too far, let's pause and think about what a vehicle in orbit is doing. It is going around the Earth at a rate just fast enough to offset gravity's attraction. Objects in orbit are still attracted by the Earth's gravity. It is an easy misconception to imagine that they are some how "beyond" the force of G, but achieving that feat requires a great deal more distance (theoretically an infinite one) and a great deal more velocity. It is just that their motion is such that as gravity relentlessly tries to pull them down to the surface, their own motion offsets the tug -- just like when you whirl a bucket of water, the water's own momentum (as manifested in that handy engineer's shortcut of centrifugal force) holds it in place. In orbit, your whirling velocity around the planet wants to push you off into deep space -- but the attractive force of the massive planet holds you neatly balanced. It is a beautiful thing, really.

The operative point, in case you don't want to spend too much time on the bucket-is-like-a-satellite analogy, is that putting something in space really is all about getting it to go sideways. Not up. Next time you have occasion to watch a space launch on TV (or in person, if you are so lucky) notice the trajectory. It can be a bit hard to follow since the camera guys always zoom way in, but the Shuttle (or whatever) does not go straight up. After just a few seconds, the vehicle begins to pitch over and fly ever more horizontally.

There is a bit of subtlety in the details of the trajectory design, degree of lofting, etc. But the key issue is that a rocket rises a little bit but goes sideways a lot. The first segment of flight is a gradual transition from the vertical (handy for setting things up) where you are climbing out of the irritatingly thick atmosphere to a horizontal motion where you are building up the speed necessary to get your bucket whirling fast enough to offset the planet's gravitational attraction.

Watch this video of the New Horizons launch and notice how the big Atlas V appears to be pitching over to an increasingly horizontal trajectory. It is hard to notice second-to-second, but over the course of a minute of flight it becomes pretty apparent. For a real dramatic illustration, watch for the jettison of the solid rocket boosters just about 2:20 into the video. Then at about 2:36 the rocket executes a very dramatic pitch-down maneuver to bring the direction of its flight increasingly horizontal. Apparently this pitch down was even more noticeable to observers watching the launch in person -- enough so that it caused some moments of real worry for those who did not know to expect it!

As a rule of thumb, it takes a velocity of around 7,800 meters per second (I'm going Metric on you for this one!) relative to the Earth to get something in the lowest possible sustainable orbit (any lower and you will start bumping into enough of the molecules of ethereal atmosphere at that altitude that you'll slow down...and once you start slowing down you hit more atmosphere...slow down more...and the result is obvious). That's awfully fast, and one of the reasons it takes such gargantuan rockets to loft even small payloads is that building up that much velocity takes a lot of energy. As a brief footnote, I'll mention that with practical considerations taken into place, it takes 9,300 to 9,800 m/s of velocity to actually make it to LEO -- the extra is accounted for by aerodynamic drag (100-200 m/s), control and steering losses (200-250m/s), and the losses spent overcoming gravity (the rest).

In such a situation, engineers will try to take advantage of any asset they can. Rockets are built light, fueled with the most desperately energetic propellants possible (and historically some very, very exotic and toxic combinations have been experimented with), and shed unneeded mass at any chance possible. They are also almost always launched to the East. Why? Because the Earth turns.

Picture a sunrise: in the East. A sunset? In the West. Our planet, in addition to a whole complex series of motions relative to various other bodies in nearby space, rotates around its own axis, turning from West to East at a rate such that it completes one full rotation in 24 hours. At the equator, on the surface, that works out to a speed of about 465 meters per second (just about 1,000 mph). Why don't we feel this? Because everything else around us (air, water, train tracks, laptop computers, coffee cups) shares this motion. Actually, there is an important subtlety at work here: at the poles, we have zero velocity due to rotation, we'd just turn in place. Spin a globe. The equator is blurry fast, the middle latitudes (North or South) move at a moderate pace, and the poles barely seem to move at all. The velocity, at a given latitude, is proportional to the distance around the globe at that latitude. Amongst other things, this causes the swirling interactions of atmosphere responsible for no small part of the global weather patterns.

It also provides a powerful incentive for launching rockets to the East, near the Equator. The Earth gives you a boost equal to the rotation-induced velocity of the surface at the latitude of your launch site. At the equator, that amounts to 465 meters per second. At Kennedy Space center, about 28 degrees latitude (of 28/90ths of the way from the equator to the North Pole) this boost is still 450 meters per second. But were I to build a launch pad here in Seattle, at 49 degrees latitude, the boost is only 305 meters per second. If you are curious, the degree of kick varies with the cosine of the latitude.

Given the skin-of-your-teeth challenge of getting something into orbit at all, it is not remarkable that engineers have sought to site launch facilities to take maximum advantage of this simple bit of physics. Now a word of warning -- and clarification for any real rocket scientists who stumble across this: I am ignoring polar orbits, sun-synchronus orbits, non-due-east launches, and the complexities of plane change maneuvers. I know.

Launching from Kennedy, at 28 degrees North, provides a boost of 450 meters per second -- about 5% of our total rule-of-thumb velocity increment. For a hypothetical rocket I've been doodling out in the form of a Numbers spreadsheet, this works out to a payload (to low Earth orbit) launching from KSC allows the payload to increase from 7000kg (for a mythical zero-velocity launch site) to 8500kg! This happens for no increased launch vehicle mass, no increased cost, just a willingness to put up with a few hurricanes.

I know that I have a good time ripping NASA a new one in this blog (except Alan Stern, and he's no longer with NASA). But this is one area in which I have to say they chose well. Kennedy is effectively the southernmost point in the continental US that has a clear space to the east. It is interesting, however, to look at some other launch facilities in light of this information and to try and understand the rational behind their selection.

For starters, look at Russia. Devoid of a "space safe" site to the East (almost any Russian East coast launch site would have to fly over Japan), they are forced to launch from the West side of the nation, taking advantage of the vast reaches of emptiness that fill the middle part of Russia. This approach isn't without very serious drawbacks -- spent 1st stages from Russian Proton launchers litter the steppes of Kazakhstan. The toxic traces of the NTO/UDMH propellant that Proton uses have begun leaching into the groundwater supplies with, well, predictable results.

Their other launch facilities are all in the far (for a launch site) North and get even less help from the Earth than my mythical Spaceport Seattle. To make matters worse, even when launching Zenit or Soyuz boosters (which generally avoid the toxic-waste-dump problem of Proton) decent range safety practice dictates narrow and oddly positioned corridors through which launches can fly -- dramatically restringing the orbital options available to Russian flight planners.

Other launch sites face some even more interesting challenges. Japanese launches often must contend with the fishing season. Plentiful fishing grounds to the East of the launch sites mean that, in an island nation that eats a lot of seafood, space launches must wait until the fishing boats get out of the way rather than imposing an exclusion zone is is done off Florida.

Israel faces perhaps the most challenging geographical launch constraints of anyone. Located around 31 degrees North latitude, things wouldn't seem too bad (not as good as Florida, better than Russia) until the political climate of the region is taken into account. Raining debries from a launch (successful or failed!) down on hostile neighbors to the east poses a grave political risk, and a potential security challenge should any piece fall into the hands of hostile intelligence agencies. There is also the risk of a launch, even announced, over hostile territory being seen as an aggressive act.

What all of this means is that, alone among the space capable states, Israel must launch her satellites DUE EAST -- exactly the wrong direction. Not only do Israili launch vehicles get no assist from the Earth's rotation, but they must actually work to overcome it first! The result is a penalty of about 450 m/s beyond the basic 7,800 m/s required for LEO insertion. Another amusing effect are the unique orbits occupied by satellites launched in this manner.

The European Space Agency launches from French Guiana -- from a point only 310 miles north of the equator. This supplies something like 463 m/s of velocity increment. Compared to the launch site in Plesetsk, a Russian Soyuz rocket launched from the ESA spaceport picks up 1200kg of payload to a geostationary transfer orbit. That is an increase of 80% -- though in all fairness the launch azimuths of Plesetsk are particularly poorly suited to this trajectory and the difference for other orbits range down to only 20% -- but still significant!

Similarly close to the equator is the very clever Sea Launch platform and rocket. This is essentially a Russian Zenit rocket mounted on a converted oil platform that migrates down to sit right on the equator for launch. The result is the full 465 meters per second of possible rotational kick -- and freedom to launch on whatever azimuth or pathway is wanted!

So hurricanes are not, I suppose, such a bad price to pay.

Whither the Rifleman?

2008-09-05T06:55:00.000-07:00

Ever notice how often I start things with whither? Great word. Technically it is an interrogative meaning "to where" or "to what state" but the fact that it sounds so much like wither gives this wonderful sense of mood and foreboding.

A couple of recent events, globally and personally, got me applying wither to war and to the role of the rifleman, the guy with the gun, the man on the front lines. They got me thinking on this topic not in a "build a world beyond war" sort of sense -- I'm much too practical and cynical to believe that conflict, armed or otherwise, will ever cease between people, peoples, and nations. And I appreciate the value of a strong and solid defense, that much is for sure. Instead my musings were (and still are) in an operational sense -- given the current and projected future political and economic climate in the world, what sort of conflicts are likely and what sort of roles should we expect our military to play in them? And, taking it to the next and (personally) more interesting derivative, how do we organize and equip our military to respond to those challenges?

The first thing that got these musings started was an article in Aviation Week that a USAF Reaper UAV (drone, if you're not down with the aerospace lingo) dropped a bomb on an explosive carrying remote controlled car in Iraq. The first thought, based on the remote controlled car thing, was of the two brothers from the cast of Ocean's Eleven. But then the story percolated and the true point of it hit: one robot attacked another.

Now let's be far and stop preparing for the Rise of the Machines. Both vehicles were remote controlled -- that's a far cry from SkyNet and the Terminators. A crew, probably in Langley Virginia, was controlling the Reaper via a satellite link and another crew, probably standing by the side of the road, was controlling the bombed-up Iraqi SUV. Come to think of it, this has got nothing at all on Battlebots. Well, except for the fact that the one remote control robot thingy was trying to kill people and the other remote control robot thingy was linked via satellite to a station half way around the world and dropped a 500lb laser guided bomb on the first remote control robot thingy.

Never the less, this illustrates one of the projected directions of modern air war. Un-crewed (we don't say "unmanned" any more) air vehicles have the wonderful ability to stay on scene for hours and hours and hours -- days even. A Reaper can loiter for NN hours, a Global Hawk for 40 to 48, and that latter figure after flying a 3,000nm round trip from home field to target area. This kind of sustained presence is invaluable in brining the areal perspective to the kind of fight going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. The traditional fast mover can offer little but responsive firepower -- heading in from a loitering point when called for by guys on the ground and depending on them for direction and guidance. Even maintaining that kind of ability -- a "cab rank" of close air support -- requires a couple of dozen aircraft in the field, tankers, and a rotating (and expensive) presence.

Given the proliferation of MANPADS (MAN Portable Air Defense Systems -- here it is OK to be sexist and assume the shooter is a guy) there is also a vast risk in having a two of four ship of F-16's hanging around in the skies near target-land, even if the airspace is nominally under friendly control. This is particularly true when the airspace is more heavily defended, less nominally under friendly control, or is airspace that isn't supposed to have any of our guys operating over it in the first place.

Right now, the use of UAV's as a surveillance and targeting tool (robot vs. robot or robot vs. human) is confined to the tactical -- to supporting troops on the ground, watching convoy routes, and patrolling cities looking for characteristic acts of bad-guy behavior. The weapons employed have typically been in the "lightweight" category: Hellfires and 500lb bombs and a lot of attention is going to even lighter weight weapons like the very clever Viper Strike to enable close-in drops.

But many analysts (including myself) see a future where persistent uncrewed surveillance and targeting assets mix with stand-of missiles to combine near-real-time covert operation with the sort of hard-hitting punch traditionally associated with manned aircraft and, in particular, strategic assets. Which is talk-around speak for B-52's, B-1B's, and B-2's. Granted, a single B-2 can drop something like 16 2,000lb bombs -- and it'll take a lot of missiles to equal that kind of warload. And I'm not going to get into the economic argument of 1 B-2 bomber vs. 200 Tomahawks or such -- because that sort of argument will go back and forth until the cows come home since the numbers inevitably involve a considerable amount of speculation and how-much-a-human-life and where-do-you-draw-the-line logic (which allows them to be tweaked to say whatever you want them to...).

And that's not the point of this blog entry, either. The point -- or at least a stepping stone -- is that I see air combat increasingly the domain of the uncrewed vehicle. Some roles will remain crewed: big assets (bombers), for example, will long continue to have people in them -- putting someone inside an asset of that power (and expense) creates a warm fuzzy feeling of control and responsibility. But you get the point.

The second thing that got me musing on this particular path was the long-delayed fruition of some Internet research. Sometimes things on that fabulously interconnected collection of information go that way: you start looking for something, fail to find it, give up, and three months later find it purely by accident. Perhaps it got posted while you weren't looking. Perhaps someone else found it and put a link someplace you just happened to be looking. Perhaps you subtly shifted your Google search terms just enough to get the right result this time. Anyway, because of this phenomena, I sometimes go back and start tossing out a few searches for questions I'd been trying to answer but had to give up on.

A couple of weeks ago one of these bore fruit. I've long had a fascination with military organizations -- the structuring of military forces to cope with the expected (and unexpected) trials and tribulations of deployment and combat. It is an optimization puzzle -- given a constrained number of people (and money and other assets), how do you best arrange things to bring effective, robust, and sustainable combat power to bear? Philosophies on these organizations shift about every decade or so as the conflicts underway in the world shift from one sort to another. As the NATO armies began to see their roles changing from that of a Cold War roadblock against the Soviet Union to that of flexible, transportable intervention forces, they had to do some hard re-examination of force structures. As the U.S. Army increasingly found itself fighting a long-lasting counterinsurgency as opposed to a fast-moving war of maneuver, it had to do some equally dramatic re-examination of force structures.

As you can imagine, this is a big time of self-examination for the world's armies. Those not directly involved in a fight somewhere are watching and learning lessons and trying to forecast the next fight and therefore, the next round of organization and equipment. So a lot of armed forces are going through periods of structural change -- and change is always disturbing for the changee but interesting and illuminating for the observer. Different organizational approaches and different concepts of restructuring can reveal a lot about the underlying philosophies of the force in question and the operational history through which it has evolved.

This isn't an examination of different TOE organizations or what they mean about the culture of a nation or a military. Suffice it to say that I was having fun looking some over. The unavoidable realization is the continued presence of infantry. Tanks have grown from odd curiosities through charging Blitzkrieg cavalry to indispensable support weapons. Missiles, machine guns, and mortars have expanded to populate units ever more thoroughly and diversely at the squad, platoon, company, battalion, and brigade levels. But there at the heart of it remains a collection of guys with rifles.

Only the guy-with-rifle can clear a stairwell without blowing up the building. Only the guy-with-rifle can rifle through the papers in a bomb-maker's hide looking for contacts. Only the guy-with-rifle can snap interconnected zip-ties across someone's wrists and send him back across the lines. Only the guy-with-rifle can man a roadblock or walk the streets on a dismounted patrol. Only the guy-with-rifle can use his wits and his skill in their purest form to go, see, and report with an intimacy with which no sensor package can compete. And, in the nicer side of the military, only the man-with-rifle can put down that gun and unload supplies or build schools or clear rubble or help the wounded or any of those humanitarian moments.

Only he possesses that unique flexibility and adaptability of the human.

Any given guy-with-rifle might now carry a personal radio and GPS receiver, a laser rangefinder, night vision gear, and a short range guided missile -- all gear inconceivable as personal equipment even twenty years ago. His rifle might have a laser spot projector for nighttime target marking, a flashlight, a grenade launcher, and a 4-power scope clamped and strapped to it. He may wear protective gear offering protection unheard of to previous generations of soldiers. But all of this goes to underscore not his budding obsolescence at the hands of impending robotic marvels but rather continued -- or even increased -- importance.

All these marvels have served to distribute the fight in ways never before imagined, each rifle team's scope of responsibility filling an ever larger circle of geography and threat. And as the infantryman finds himself lugging ever more equipment to confront ever more diverse threats, he is again forming the heart of the world's armed forces.

Reviewing the new organizational structures -- either in place or in the works -- all show a shift in the expected focus of the fight from the rolling armored warfare of a NATO vs. Warsaw Pact fight or Operation Desert Storm style towards a tighter grinding battle more akin to what was seen in Bosnia or Iraq. The expected degree (and nature) of cooperation between those long time rivals of the ground fight, the tanks and the infantry, is an interesting thread to follow in trying to understand these shifts.

These military organizations that are heading into the second decade of the 21st century each show some degree of revision in the thinking about how these arms should cooperate. You don't have to be a military analyst to see how awkward a tank can be moving down a city street and yet how devastating a single shot from a 120mm main gun is when confronted with a sandbagged machine gun post that could hold a company of infantry off for hours. And so the armies of the world progressively push the armor-infantry cooperation ever further down the chain of command.

The rifle platoon has long been the sacrosanct heart of the United States Marines, and that particular force cross-attaches so vigorously that a platoon commander could well find himself with tanks, armored transport, heavy machine guns, ATGMs, snipers, or mortars seconded to his direct control. Nothing here is changing -- conditioned by the intimate island fighting of the Pacific, the Marines have never lost sight of their vision as a rifleman-centered force. Tank and Amtrak battalions have always expected (and trained) to be carved up and subordinated to other units for employment in battle. This particular willingness to play mix-and-match with forces from widely separated branches of the force has long been a uniquely Marine style of operation. Coming from the mindset of an intervention force, rather than an anti-Warsaw-Pact roadblock, they have long fostered creativity and versatility. And, it almost goes without saying, a foundation based on the small unit of riflemen.

The new "square" organization and increasingly "combined arms" structure of the US Army's Armored Brigades shows a clear migration towards a infantry-armor balance. In the brigade, two identical combined arms battalions each contain two tank companies and two mechanized infantry companies. The US Army has never regularly brought the combined arms of armor and infantry together in a unit as small as a battalion before (excepting cavalry organizations, by the way). The two-by-two structure also displays an expectation of the tank and infantry forces as a fighting team, mutually supporting each other to deal with urban obstacles, enemy fighting vehicles, close-in threats, and the maneuver fight.

The French army's new structure looks positively gothic and incomprehensible -- and trust me, I've spent plenty of time trying to wrap my thoughts around it. In addition to a smorgasbord of tactical options at every level, it showcases a unique in-between regimental structure for the Leclerc tank force. Thin on support and supporting arms at the upper level, this structure seems to push reconnaisance, fire support, and combined arms down to the company level in a way that defies understanding. Until, that is, the armored regiment is viewed alongside the two infantry battalions that join it to make up a French battalion (I told you it was almost incomprehensible!). Then the thin-at-the-top, heavy-at-the-bottom structure makes sense. The tank regiment itself is a skeleton force that exists only for training and administrative purposes (plus the rare open-field engagement, one could suppose). When deployed, it would be expected to disperse under the operational control of the two rifle battalions, taking its decentralized supply and maintenance resources with it.

Even the Germans, long a panzer-centric force of armored mobility, are starting to change. The Heeresstrukturs of old emphasized infantry as a supporting arm, screening for the armored spearheads, holding territory after an advance, playing at ambush in withdrawal. But now, increasingly aware of NATO's role as a stabilizing and intervention force, the Bundeswehr is fattening its rifle platoons from a scarecly usable eighteen dismounted troops to an at least marginally effective twenty four. Tank and rifle companies now follow exactly identical structures, intended at least partially to enable routine cross attachment down to the platoon level. The equipping of a significant percentage of their fabulous Leopard 2 tanks with dozer attachment further leads to an expectation that the armored arm would accompany the infantry as an integrated anti-obstacle force. Furthermore, the latest couple of iterations of German army structure (going back to the 1990's) have shifted from the three-tank platoon in their armored units to the four tank platoon. The former has been found optimum for use in tank-on-tank engagements (particularly in open terrain). The latter, incidentally long used by both the US Army and Marines) is much better in a supporting role or urban fight -- the four tanks split into two pairs and can continue to provide mutual support where a three tank unit would either be overkill and hingly cumbersome or leave one orphan tank off (and highly vulnerable) on its own.

All of this makes one thing clear -- the rifleman is here to stay. The reasons for this emphasis shift are obvious -- increasing expectation of urban fighting, prevalance of counter-insurgency fighting, peacekeeping operations where forces work close to the civilian populations rather than in an open field battle -- are obvious and clear to anyone who watches the news. Tanks are retreating from their role as the unstoppable bohemouth's of the battlefield back to the role of supplying escort, protection, and covering fire for the infantry for which they were originally concieved. Air power is threatening to obsolete itself, metamorphosing (at least partially) from resplendant knights of the air into remote control spotters sitting in air-conditioned control vans thousands of miles from conflict.

And through all of it, the most intimate core of combat remains.

Two quotes. One is a half-remembered paraphrase from (I believe) a former commandant of the US Marines. The other is from Mick Jagger. Go figure.

The most powerful force on the battlefield is a single man with a rifle.

Say a prayer for the common foot soldier.

Decision Making

2008-08-30T09:35:00.001-07:00

I've got a few blog entries in the wings, one that looks at Obama's DNCC speech (as an example of oration and not politically) and another that is about the changing-and-yet-unchanging nature of combat. But they are going to have to wait for just a day or so over this weekend while I take a quick look at John McCain's veep-choice.

I'm going to assume that you know he's selected Alaska's governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Now much of what follows depends on a single piece of analysis and its resulting conclusion -- namely that she was selected primarily in a "attract dissatisfied Hilary Clinton voters" move. I'm pretty comfortable with this conclusion:

(1) She's a little thin on general qualifications, particularly as the choice of a guy who has stressed the need for experience. One term as governor leading a geographically large but populationally small state does not seem up to what I was expecting. I can see an effort to play to younger voters, much as Obama's veepchoice was clearly intended to bring some experience to the ticket. I'd be fine with this, but she doesn't seem to be much of a hipster.

(2) The timing was...uh...obvious. I'm fine with trying to grab some thunder, but this announcement, coupled with the "McCain has selected running mate" news stories running the day after Hillary handed the nomination over to Barack seems suspicious. I picture a scene like this:

"Senator, it's obvious he's not picking Clinton for the veep."

"Good, let's see if we can get some dame for our veep. Bring those Clinton fanatics over."

"Sure, but Senator, you can't call them dames anymore."

"What? Ok, then, find me some broad. One with great gams..."

Any way I try to look at it, I find the overriding logic of this selection must be driven by a "get the Hilary voters" logic. And I find that profoundly disappointing on the part of John McCain who, despite occasionally lapsing into the geopolitics of another era, remains a man I have considerable respect for. Here's why:

(1) It is, arguably, offensive to the decision making priorities of women to think that just because you've got a woman on your ticket they will, without presumably regarding other issues, vote for you. This is not my point -- I am not a women and therefore do not feel it is fully within my regard to make claims about how something may or may not have the potential to offend a group. But the point was made in conversations with our (also Obama supporting) guests last night, it was made by a women, and so I repeat it.

(2) It is a choice not for the future and the strength of the potential McCain White House (and let's face it, based on age alone, McCain's veepchoice is a lot more likely to end up in a position of power than is Biden!) but rather for the short-term goal of getting elected. I want a leader who thinks for the long term and takes actions in line with the ultimate goals which he espouses.

(3) It is a profoundly reactionary decision -- Barack Obama called the shots on this one and McCain responded. Coming from a guy who loves to play his bulldog, rebel image, and to portray himself as the guy who can make the tough calls in a crisis, this really let me down. I want to see my nation as a leader in the world, taking the lead on issues and events proactively and not just responding to events or the actions and statements of others.

(4) It feels like a "desperate times" decision -- a friend of ours described it as "McCain's hail Mary" to use the over-used football analogy yet again. But the thing is, there is no need for a desperate, tactically given choice. The race is yet young and there are tons of opportunities to get a qualified, complimentary vice presidential candidate who could contribute not just to a strong ticket but to a strong White House. So just as this choice made McCain look reactionary, it makes him look prematurely and unnecessarily desperate. I want a confident, cool leader.

All in all, I am left feeling kind of shocked (as was apparently everyone) and kind of disappointed by this decision. If you've read any of my other political posts, you know that I put a lot of election cred on how I perceive the candidates as decision makers. The unknown will come up during a four or eight year term, and so I put a lot of value on how I believe candidates reached their decisions, often more than on the actual results of those decisions. Based on the pathway I see Senator McCain having gone down for this one, I am left very unsatisfied -- all the more so because of his rhetoric about experience and image as a tough-guy.

I've been backing Obama this whole race for his vision and enthusiasm and glorious oratory. But I've seen the first actual overt "bad move" by the opposing candidate. Other than getting country names wrong, that is.

Barstools

2008-08-27T22:09:00.001-07:00

This post is going to make me sound like an alcoholic if I'm not careful. But the thing to remember is that this is not a blog about drinking, or indeed about bars. Rather it is a blog about a particular arrangement of people, furniture, and objects.

That said, drinking will figure in to it, but feel free to make that coffee, water, or a smoothie if you prefer. Move it out of a drinking establishment and into a coffee house or

What, in my roundabout way, I am trying to get to is this: I love sitting on a barstool, at a bar, watching the world go by (or participating in it -- barstool does not mandate or even imply passivity). The personal geography of the stool and the bartop are nearly perfect. A great height (if it is not too tall) for working on laptop. A great height for a book or magazine or some old fashioned pen-and-ink notepaper. There is enough space to spread out -- but not so much as to enable uncontrolled sprawling. A plate, a drink, and a book/laptop/magazine fit perfectly. This forces a tidy work habit and the selection of essential resources. The height of the surface also enables a pleasant multitasking -- the sharing of time between food and drink and whatever form of work (or recreation -- for a laptop computer or a book or some notepaper could imply either for me) is at hand.

But almost all of this could happen at a table. The relationship between the tabletop and the body is not too different from that between the bartop and the body. But it is a significant difference. The bartop encourages a leaning, relaxed, elbows-on-the-table mood. The table is a rigorous place, both by arrangement and psychology, where posture must be maintained, children should be seen but not heard, and knife and fork must be used properly.

There is something else about the bar that works well, and that is the back bar and the (almost) inevitable TV playing the news or a sports show. First, the back bar, that glorious collection of multicolored, multistyled bottles against a mirrored backdrop. Cognacs, Scotch whiskies, and super-premium vodkas and bourbons on the top row. Then the blended whiskies, the more commonplace vodkas and bourbons and a necessary range of tequila. Finally, one step above the well, the more ordinary vodkas and rums as well as the additives: the vermouths and the liquors.

I'll admit, right now, that your favorite bar may not exactly mirror that arrangement. This is just (roughly) how I'd do mine.

It is a wonderful visual stimulus -- something to gaze at when you need to look up. Unlike other diners across (or at an adjacent) table, it never looks back (if it ever does, seek help). Unlike an office wall, it is more than eighteen inches away and gives your eyes some sort of a break from the relentlessly myopic staring of the modern knowledge worker.

The TV plays the same role. A quick look away to Larry King or Wolf Blitzer or Keith Olbermann can refresh a stuck thought process or just provide a break from a monotonous task. The intermezzo of a highlight reel can provide a quick break between catching up on work email and diving into the framework of an intricately planned project.

And here, for the first time, we will also encounter the alcohol. From ancient Sumer on, people have found that properly treated fermented grains can produce a relaxed state, inducing of creativity, conversation, risk taking, and even, in the right situations, considerable productivity. In the classic pattern of the "if you mean whisky" fallacy, it can also produce excessively abrupt emails, poor proofreading, a tendency for summary resignations, misuse of Britney Spears crotch shots in PowerPoint presentations, and worst of all corporate Karaoke. But a little self restraint, here, and the benefits out weigh the risk of accidentally showing board members a photograph of Brit's underwear.

Here is a place where you can sit and work and take a moment to rest and someone will bring you (almost) everything you need. What, then, of the noise and the other people there? For starters, I'm the kind of guy who has no problem grabbing a spot at the bar, pulling out his laptop, ordering a beer, and getting to work. If the rest of the patrons are all meeting up and actually watching the game or flirting, so what! If they think I'm an oddball, then that is their problem and not mine -- and if you are uncomfortable with this sort of attitude then you might actually find this whole working-at-a-bar thing isn't for you. But read on, we'll get on to this interpersonal contact stuff soon enough.

The crowd, though, becomes another optional distraction, something to take your interest away when you need (or choose) to let it do so. The rest of the time, it is white noise. Stare at an overly complex scene -- say one of those ultra-hard German crossword puzzles based around an oil painting of a cluttered used bookstore or else a day care center. Then let your eyes loose focus for a moment and suddenly the visual stimulus retreats to manageability. Crowd noise does the same thing. It helps focus by forcing you into yourself. And when you want to, look at the bored girl and the desperate guy hitting on her, or the bachelor party group, or the silent couple, or the would-be executives or... And if you catch enough of one of the conversations, and it should be sufficiently close by, say hi, drop in, offer some advice, tell them the easiest way to the freeway or what you thought of Mama Mia. It is (to gracefully paraphrase Fight Club) a single serving friendship. If you laugh and they laugh, great, everyone wins. If you laugh and they laugh -- at you -- then at least you brought a little joy to the world and you will never meet these people again.

But we do not always come to bars solitary, with laptop. Sometimes we come with another person or even a people. And then the whole barstool thing takes on a new role. It is splendidly isolating -- the crowd noise again. You can say anything, things you wouldn't say at a quiet restaurant, things about each other and what you'd like to do later, things about your friends, things about your co-workers, the economy, or the Large Hadron Collider. Which, by the way, will completely fail to destroy the Earth or even the universe when it switches on. The Large Hadron Collider, that is. But when the things to say run out or need refreshing, there is the full spectrum of human drama there, from the TV screens to the other patrons (tastefully watched in the back bar mirror if there is one). Take a break, look around.

The posture -- remember the posture? Perch in couples holding hands, turn your wonderfully swivelable barstools towards each other for intimacy, turn back to the bartop for food or to read the menu or new magazines or to stare at the liquor bottles. If you are there in a group, lean in, lean out, arrange yourself as needed to talk to the person next to you, or n+1 spaces away. Raise your voice if necessary, scrum together as four for a laughing and shouting shared comment. Its all good, it all goes.

When you're on a barstool.

(Aero)space is a Harsh Mistress

2008-08-26T16:52:00.001-07:00

Q3 has not been pretty for the little guys in aerospace.

First Space-X looses their third Falcon 1 rocket.

Thilert proves that corrupt and fraudulent management and leaving your creditors and customers in the lurch is not an American speciality but rather that the Germans can do quite well at that game too.

Grob, to absolutely no one's surprise, files for insolvency and protection after managing to fatally crash the prototype of an already underfunded and overambitious project.

Columbia Aircraft's subsumation into Cessna (or did that happen in Q2?).

A few other dreamers fell by the wayside, too, unnamed and already forgotten.

And then finally there has been the slow, bitter meltdown of Eclipse Aviation. At some point, I stopped believing and saw this as something that was bound to come. But not always. Five years ago, Vern's promises sounded good. Revolutionary, almost. A personal jet, a family flivver of the air. At long last Lewis Black and I would have our flying cars.

The marketing materials made that little jet seem so much like that vision of the future. Not quite The Jetsons but pretty damn good. In the post 9/11 world of increased aviation security it seemed like a great idea to get the heck out of the controlled gate-check world and start flying via air taxi or personal jet. The milage was even pretty good -- and the price? Fantastic.

The prototype flew -- did about one turn through the pattern from what I gather, and promptly landed. The engine, Vern insisted, was to blame. I'm willing to believe them. If Williams had, in fact, not completely failed to produce a viable super-mini turbofan then someone else would be trying to put that powerplant back into the air. How's that for a sentence construction, eh? But the FJ22 appears entirely moribund, off the website, almost a memory. Like Keyser Söze, perhaps the FJ22 is now a spook story that jet propulsion engineers tell their kids. Over reach the state of the art...and the FJ22 will get you!

It would not be fair to forget about this debacle of the powerplant. Ever revolution in aircraft design has been preceded or accompanied by a similar advance in engine technology. Without Williams' promised miracle, a quick substitution had to be performed in the form of Pratt & Whitney Canada's glorious little PW610. This was also a baby -- not quite the super-midget of the rejected motor, but still going deeper in to miniature-jet-engine technology than anyone (certainly anyone with the cred of P&W) had gone before. The timing was perfect, even though the fuel consumption, weight, and cost were all going to be higher.

Now I'm not going to let anyone start to toss a bunch of blame onto Pratt & Whitney. There's a genetic thing at work -- my grandfather would pretty much only fly things with P&W motors in them, possibly for superstitious reasons, but the point is the same. They build tanks. P&W Canada's been building miniature turbines in the form of helicopter engines since the 1950's and probably has more operational experience with this size class of jet than all the rest put together. So they know of what they speak and, while the end result may not have been quite as spectacular as was hoped for, it remains an excellent motor.

And perhaps more to the point, the press out of Eclipse was confident and smooth. The new engine would have greater thrust (a feature!) and only slightly higher fuel consumption (a bug) requiring tip tanks (that, I believe, had been planned anyway). No problem, a bit of a delay, just a flesh wound, everything is fine. Flight testing pretty much ground to a halt until a series of design revisions produced more production-like prototypes. These, in due time flew, obtained certification, and appeared on a lot of magazine covers.

And then things started to get a little icky. Customers were obtaining their jets, but with some of the much-vaunted Eclipse features omitted. FIKI (Flight Into Known Icing) certification seemed to draw on forever. Avionics features were placarded off. Blown tires started to become a frequent occurrence (Eclipse blamed operator error but I don't need to spend much time pointing out that a systemic spike in a particular sort of operator error can point to a design flaw that encourages this error...).

Then things got weird. Eclipses were going to be built in Russia. The single engine Eclipse 400 started playing the air show circuit. The hyped avionics architecture was being scrapped in favor of a less integrated system including a couple of off-the-shelf Garmin units. Blogs and chat rooms populated by frustrated, venting customers faced unprecedented legal threats. You'd think that one of the landmark cases on Internet anonymity would revolve around some huge megacorp, but apparently Amazon and Microsoft and General Motors and Delta Air Lines know well enough to let cranky customers have their space and not try to shut them down.

I wonder if they'll try to shut down this blog?

Then, in a so-shocking-it-wasn't-shocking move, Vern Raburn the founder, mouthpiece, and driving force of Eclipse was gone. Forced out by investors. He was to be in charge of "internationlization of production" or something like that. The Russia thing, in other words. Then 100 temps got pink-slipped. Then Vern was gone -- completely. Then a few hundred more got their thank-you-and-goodby (and not all of them temps, I hear).

Now the FAA is conducting a review of the certification process to ensure that the E500 is, indeed, fit to fly and (perhaps more to the point) that the agency followed its own procedures and didn't, like a lot of us, get a bit too excited reading the marketing white papers.

Alright now, this isn't a history lesson or a debrief. I'm not an aerospace engineer or a business analyst but I know a little about both fields. I am a blogger, and therefore have staked out my little piece of the Internet, opinions and all. Eclipse may pull itself together. God knows, when I was among the 25% of Amazon.com staff who got their notice one February afternoon seven years ago, I knew that they were making a necessary move. So this double-pass downsizing at Eclipse may be just such a necessary consolidation of forces. But Amazon was a hugely successful company -- one that had built success by throwing resources (mostly people) at problems and which needed to adapt to a sustainable, profitable architecture. They made the hard choices and did re-architect into something that is doing very well now.

Well, this is a history lesson and a debrief in another sense. I find myself, for the second time in less than a month, writing about over-promising aerospace revolutionaries. I find myself thinking about the seduction of a "better way to do things" and the danger of ignoring the lessons of history. Vern and Elon both knew that the established players were doing things wrong and that they could do it in a different way. So they built teams of like-minded individuals -- doubtless very talented teams with excellent theoretical and practical backgrounds.

I've been part of such teams -- and the Amazon.com thing is going to have to come up again. They/we were a team of folks with brilliant qualifications -- vastly over qualified in many cases -- but just little enough experience to not know that we couldn't do what we are doing. Yes, by the way, I know I'm really working the multiple-negatives here. And yet there was a solid business plan and vision lying on top of all of that. There was a solid financial base -- willing to give enough rope (particularly early on) to run at a staggering loss for a staggeringly long (but ultimately necessary) time.

I used to have a little saying, back in those days, about why Amazon survived when so many struggled and died: some Internet startups were begun by people with good business plans but little grasp of the technology. Others were the products of people with good technological backgrounds and innovative ideas -- but a flawed understanding of the business world. Naturally, there were a few that failed in both regards -- but they didn't usually make it long enough to discuss. Amazon, by contrast, was one of the first (and now the few) to combine a solid business plan with solid technology. Through ups and downs, bad decisions and good decisions, they held close (enough) to the original vision, adapted when necessary, and managed to make it work.

And now back to Eclipse (and perhaps Space-X). Where is the flaw? Business plan? Technology? Both? Neither? I lean to both -- a technological product that was designed with enough giddy naivety as to be brittle and intolerant of setback and failure -- the failure of the FJ22 and the original avionics system -- and enough cut corners as to generate problems once in service. A business plan that depended on successes in volume production and demand generation that have, so far, eluded them. Eclipse isn't the first to fall to this error -- of assuming or expecting a demand that fails to appear. McDonnell (now Boeing) made the same sad error in planning the Delta IV rocket. Externally a beautiful vehicle, the Delta's approach to cost-effective launch pricing was based around generating a large demand and benefitting from economies of scale in production and launch. For various unfortunate reasons, this failed to appear.

So now how do I wrap this up? Eclipse has problems -- big problems. I don't think that their layoffs are that sort of "thinning the herd" that can bring a troubled company back. They made big promises and generated and promulgated a lot of enthusiasm. So should we fear companies or products that generate too much enthusiasm? "Woah, there, let's not get too excited..." Should we mistrust companies that promise great change and revolution?

Any of these ideas are naive and simplistic. The reality is, yet again, caveat emptor. When dramatic promises are made -- read the fine print and run your own numbers. When someone promises just a little too much more than everyone else -- make sure you understand how they plan to (or already have) achieved this.

And be sad, at least a little sad, that promise has once again faded into cynicism, layoff, and frustration.

Cirrus is out there, with a successful line of piston singles and a sexy little jet on the drawing board. Cessna's managed to keep true to their word and move from strength to strength -- including the wonderful little Mustang that just might have contributed more than a little to Eclipse's troubles. Orbital is building a larger-yet rocket from their well understood and consolidated base. So the startups can continue and grow secure. The big guys can show some flexibility and innovation.

So a little sad, but not too much.

Values and Tools

2008-08-23T09:31:00.001-07:00

So Erica said something the other day that I thought was very interesting and it got me thinking. I'll paraphrase, because that was about three nights ago and we'd had (no shocker here) some wine:

The highest praise you can offer a woman is to say that she is striking, and the greatest criticism you can offer a person is to say that they have no imagination.

I promptly added to that, saying that the highest praise I can offer a piece of engineering is to say that it is elegant.

And, for the purposes of this discussion, I will add another criticism: lack of curiosity, going hand in hand with the lack of imagination. To allow me to consider these values in light of things and people, I'll agglomerate curiosity and flexibility -- it'll make sense, trust me.

These are interesting statements, and I probably say something about me. I don't actually know that they are atypical, but there is at least a little more sophistication that "has nice titties!" at work.

Elegant

Embracing and accepting the constraints offered and finding the best solution possible.

Never throwing resources at a problem and instead carefully selecting areas of innovation or expenditure and never substituting garishness or complexity when a little thought will provide a better solution.

Avoiding excess or imbalance in characteristics or actions.

Striking

Noticeably distinct in approach and/or results from comparable things or people.

Willing to embrace areas of character and to play to their strengths (as opposed to seeking a "common" solution at the expense of natural areas of excellence).

Curious & Flexible

Desiring (and able to) go beyond the obviously and readily apparent.

Wanting to go to the 2nd or 3rd derivatives: to understand how and why things happen and happen the way they do.

Able to adapt to situations outside of the norm, the preferred, or the intended. Soft in failure when limits are exceeded.

Imaginative

Perceiving, processing, and appreciative of things outside of one's direct experience.

Solving problems by using solutions that are not necessarily obvious or from within the same discipline as the one in which the problem occurred.

Ability to examine one's own actions from an outside perspective.

It is interesting, but with a minimum of inelegant stretching, these can all apply to people and to things. An engineered product can be elegant and striking, by these definitions, embody imaginative design and possess the flexibility I align with curiosity. A person can even more easily possess these traits.

Incidentally, the appearance of golfer Kim Welch in this post is because I find her a very nice example of someone who is both striking and elegant (I can't speak to her curiosity or imagination, though golf requires a certain problem solving that implies at least a little of the latter). She has, understands, and owns her look, and it is a look that is relatively spare one. Her look and her golf game both play to her strengths.

NASA's New Horizons space probe appears for the same reason -- it is an effective examples of these values when applied to engineering. Focused on its mission and defined by those requirements, New Horizons is pared down to the minimum complexity possible by virtue of some very creative thinking and problem solving.

I considered adding a fifth value -- balance -- but decided that (in the quest for elegance) that I wanted to avoid producing a laundry list. Balance fits under elegance -- it is impossible to be imbalanced and elegant.

On a marginally related note, some recent conversations have brought an old insult back into play around the Strauss residence: TOOL. It was one of those cases where we knew what a tool was, knew what a tool wasn't, but couldn't quite decide on the definition. Erica suggested starting from the literal definition: someone who lets them self be used (willingly or not, knowingly or not) by others. I decided to extend this definition to include someone who is, ironically a slave to themselves.

A tool, therefore, is someone who submerges their own identity and is a slave to some agency such that they have little room for free or creative thought. The agency in question could be external (e.g. "a tool for the man" or someone who absolutely subsumes their identity to fit a spouse's vision of them) or it could be internal (e.g. someone who strives to fit a certain image they wish to project at the expense of being their true self).

If you look up at the values, it is amazing how broadly "tool" manages to hit across them. A tool is, by definition, not elegant, striking, curious, or possessed of imagination. At least they aren't when all tooled up.

Cool Idea, Lame Execution

2008-08-22T21:55:00.001-07:00

So I just watched the women's Modern Pentathlon. I also just watched the women's 20k speed walk, which was weird and tactical and involved vomiting in a disturbingly compelling way. But this is the Pentathlon, the fiveathlon. Five events:

Shooting

Fencing

Swimming

Equestrian Jumping

Cross Country Running

The skills required of a messenger in the era of the Napoleonic wars to deliver a message to (or perhaps from, I don't remember the details) behind enemy lines. Sounds pretty badass. Tough, gritty, compelling. Uh, no. Actual experience? Lame, pussy, boring. How could that be?

The shooting is 10m air pistol. Ridiculously ritualized and pathetically slow. And completely devoid of bang, smoke, or recoil. I couldn't tell when they'd fired!

The fencing was actually pretty cool, so I'll leave that one alone.

THe swimming was 200m pool -- so my imagined version of this as some sort of badassed-up triathlon with shooting was already heading out the window.

The equestrian was cool -- show jumping is actually something I sort of enjoy.

And the run was missing both the cross and the country. 4km, around a weaving stretch of Tensabarrier that made the competitors look like they were trying to get through an airport check-in line rather than win a race.

All in all, not nearly what it could be. So I propose something new. An adaptation of the pentathlon to bring some grit, some hardness, and a little more athleticism to the event. First off, I propose timed transitions as in a triathlon or duathlon. Second, I propose a carry-your-gear approach much like the biathlon. Borrowing another page from the biathlon (which really is as badass as it sounds -- skiing and shooting), I propose eliminating the "points" system entirely and going to a strictly time-based system where errors or misses in un-timed component events would result in extra distance on the subsequent event. I also want to ensure that the environment is as natural and outdoors as possible. And I want a blend of "timed" and "scored" events so that neither monopolizes the overall challenge.

My thinking has now diverged into two different threads. One follows the "officer and a gentleman" approach of the original modern pentathlon (that sounds strange!) but updates it and intensifies it. The other takes the whole thing in a slightly more "outdoorsy" direction.

The 21st Century Pentathlon

Much like the original, an event modeled on the skills required of a soldier. The challenge was to avoid it becoming a paramilitary contest and keep the focus athletic. The format grew out of the idea of soldier in an airborne assault: gathering after a dispersed (possibly bungled!) drop, attacking an enemy position, and then evading counterattack to make it back into contact with friendly forces. I keep picturing the parachute landings of D-Day. It is, then, perhaps most based on the golden age of modern infantry combat, the 2nd World War. We could even call it the "Band of Brothers" -- but anyone who knows me recognizes that I (along with the late, great Stephen Ambrose) have something of a crush on the exploits of the 506th PIR.

Orienteering
You've come down behind enemy lines, scattered, in an unknown location.

In reality, you depart the starting line, navigate using map and compass through a series of checkpoints, to arrive back at the start line. I'd like to make the competitor schlep their rifle along with them, but safety concerns might prevent this. They could, instead, haul a dummy weapon like drill teams use.

Shooting (Rifle)
Having arrived at the objective, you attack.

Run to the range, retrieve your rifle, load, fire prone at ten targets. Run a specified distance (say 200 meters) around a close course and then return to the range to fire, standing, at another ten targets. For every target missed, run a penalty lap or have a minute added to your time or such. Putting the shooting after a cardio event massively increases the challenge of this part -- just like in a biathlon.

Swimming (open water)
After the attack, outnumbered, you flee across a river to evade pursuit.

An open water swim, perhaps 800m. Go ahead and ditch the rifle back at the range.

Running (cross country)
Having emerged from the river, run like hell to friendly lines.

A 5 or 10km cross country run. It needn't be literally cross country in the sense of natural terrain -- it could be an urban course and probably would be best if it was at least partially so -- but it should not just be laps around a stadium or such.

The airborne assault theme would have been even better served with something like parachuting as the initial test, but that is too much of a specialized skill and would push the whole event more into the military training exercise than the "themed" athletic contest. For the same reason I avoided an obstacle course and tried to build it up from things that have an existing and established place in competetive sport.

I'd also like to have a fifth event, but can't quite decide what that should be. Fencing is too French and too old. Equestrian is too english and too old. I'd like a non-shooting but "scored" sort of event -- and I'll have to keep thinking to decide what it should be.

Interestingly, as I research this event (Google!), I realize that there is something called biathlon orienteering and, yet again, have that slightly sinking "someone already thought of this" feeling. However it only appears to have been thought of in Swedish, so if I can bone up on my translation skills, I might be able to pull of credit for this here in the US...

The biathlon orienteering, however, only seems (as best I can translate) an orienteering exercise followed by some shooting. I'd like to see it extended, at a minimum, to a three-athlon involving orienteering, shooting, and running (navigate to objective, assault objective, return from objective). It would be the land-locked version of my event, then, and possibly an equally or even more appealing event. A long length orienteering event (60 minutes), a series of run-shot sequences at, say 50, 100, 150, and 200 meter ranges. Then a cross country run of 10km to the finish.

The Lewis and Clark

The model here is the skills required of an explorer in the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest (or thereabouts). It eliminates the need to avoid "dated" events such as equestrian and the temptation to add excessively modern and militaristic events such as "locate and disarm IED." I fancy a two day event with three events per day. The first day is timed from departure to arrival at some camp site. Once there, using only gear they packed in, the competitors must spend the night. There is no score for how well you camp (this isn't Survivor!), but decisions on what gear is brought with might influence sleep and performance the next day. Departure times to the 2nd days events are based on arrival times at the end of the first day.

Since competitors are schlepping a bunch of gear on day one, it is the "heavy" day. The second day is the "light" day since they can leave their campsite behind.

Erica and I discussed this a little bit and came up with two different ideas. Her philosophy was "make it to camp and then perform various actions while based at camp. I followed a different approach. I'll outline hers and then elaborate on mine (only because I know it better!)

Erica's Approach
Day One
Kayak/Canoe
Equestrian Orienteering
Cross Country Run
Day Two
Shooting
?
Short Run

Nick's Approach
Day One
Sailing
Orienteering Run
Shooting
Day Two
Kayak/Canoe
Cross Country Riding
Cross Country Run

Here's the thinking behind my approach:

You take a ship across to your destination. You land in unknown territory and need to find your way to a good campsite. On the way, you need to hunt for food. You make contact with a friendly tribe and obtain a horse and a a canoe to explore more. Finally, you must flee after an attack from hostile natives.

This could easily add an addition event per day (at the cost of completely destroying the competitors!). Possibly some sort of rock climbing the first or second day and something like fencing or archery (fighting off the hostiles) on the second. But I think that the three per day are a pretty good outline.

Erica's approach economizes by putting the navigation exercise on top of the riding exercise -- and by eliminating the somewhat cumbersome small boat sailing. That would allow for more "skill" based events like another shooting contest (pistol or shotgun?), archery, fencing, bouldering, etc. I ended exercised some discretion and ended it with a run again, so that there is a dramatic finish-line-crossing. I'd use some sort of a time penalty system or what-not to bring the performance from target disciplines and their kin into the event as a whole.

Would either of these be fair? Popular? Successful? I'm not sure. But I think they'd be more dramatic and probably more TV friendly. I think they'd have an appeal to the REI sporting set (for the Lewis and Clark) and the crossfit/military set (for the Band of Brothers).

A Bloggy Parade of Nations

2008-08-22T20:30:00.000-07:00

I'd like to take a brief moment to thank my readers. I know I have some regulars, most of whom are friends and family. But every day when I check my stat-counter, I'm shocked to see how far and wide the range of people who have stumbled across these writings is. I collect a little bit of information that lets me see how many people hit my blog, a little about what they look at, and a couple of other random bits of information.

Perhaps some of you arrived by accident and quickly left, disappointed that I didn't actually have topless photos of Cameron Diaz (though what sort of search would make you think that I can't imagine). Perhaps some of you read the page you landed on and then went away, never to return. Maybe some of you read a page or two, or have stopped by once or twice more. In any case, thank you.

But in many cases the most interesting uses the reader's IP address to generate a (rough) idea of the location from which the request came. I'm always surprised to see the breadth of nations which readers come from. And so as the Olympics wrap up, here's a little look (in alphabetical order, just like the opening ceremonies) at the nations of The Noodlebook:

Australia
Austria
Brazil
Canada
Finland
Georgia
Germany
India
Indonesia
Israel
Luxembourg
Malaysia
Netherlands
New Zealand
Nigeria
Norway
Romania
South Africa
United Kingdom
United States

Note - the ones in italics were added to the list on 8/27/2008. The parade continues.

It is amazing what the Internet enables. A guy living just north of Seattle can toss some information, ideas, and opinions out there and the world will, in an "if you build it they will come" sort of way, somehow manage to stumble across it.