Why I Love History: Example 1,369,274

The following is a passage from "Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America" by David Hackett Fischer:

“Sussex Puritans made heavy use of hortatory names such as Be-courteous Cole (in the Parish of Pevensey), Safely-on-high Snat (Uckfield), Fight-the-good-fight-of-faith White (Ewhurst), Small-hope Biggs (Rye), Humiliation Scratcher (Westham), Kill-sin Pemble (also Westham), and Mortifie Hicks (Hailsham). A classic example was an unfortunate woman named Ffly Fornication Bull, of Hailsham, Sussex, who was made pregnant in the shop of a yeoman improbably called Goodman Woodman.” *

It took me about five minutes to stop giggling enough to continue reading.

*Note: Weird spellings are directly from the book. Spelling in the 1600's required a bit more creativity than nowadays.

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Smorgasboard

1) Due to the presence of Fiesta Texas, Sea World and the nearby Schlitterbahn, residents of San Antonio take theme parks & their rides quite seriously. So, reading this story, can I just say “Yikes!”. The picture is completely disturbing:

I’m really glad the company picnic isn’t at Sea World again this year. Suddenly, a nice, sedate dinner and some bingo for prizes sounds delightful.

2) Crossword Puzzles! Watch out though, it gets hard after 1 or 2 rounds.

3) For tonight’s NBA final, I give you Spurs fans gone wrong…

OR Don’t make banners while drunk. (Thanks to my co-worker for the pic)

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Why How Novel!

Our office subscribes to several automotive industry e-zines to keep us informed about markets & technologies. In today’s edition, the following article appeared:

“Ford Idea: Give Engineers More Time to Engineer : Ford Motor Co. is giving its engineers two days per week free of meetings and distractions to devote entirely to engineering work, says The Detroit News.
“Obvious? Sure, but it’s still revolutionary at the famously bureaucratic Ford, according to the newspaper. Ford head of global product development Derrick Kuzak, who is behind the move, says each engineering team can choose which two days are meeting-free. The idea is to help shorten Ford’s product development cycle.”

Speaking from experience, you can get to the point where all of your regular hours are spent in various meetings and you don’t actually sit down to work until the end of the day after everyone leaves. There have been occasional weeks where I’m in this very situation although, thankfully, they aren’t that frequent for me.

But aren’t you in trouble when the company has to specifically delinate time to actually work as opposed to merely talking about work?

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What I Did With My Weekend

Watched a heck of a lot of TV......

“Starter Wife” on USA: Every now & again I force myself to watch a non-sci-fi show just to spread my wings a little. This is how I discovered “Bones”*, and the now deservedly defunct “Veronica Mars”. Occasionally, I’m left highly unimpressed (I’m looking at you “Grey’s Anatomy”!). The “Starter Wife” is in the middle ground between those two. The two-hour pilot had some very funny, touching and scathingly cynical moments. Debra Messing plays the main character understated but quite well as a woman who both knows exactly what’s going on and is completely baffled by it. In a fine use of both overseas and sci-fi talent, it has both Miranda Otto & Gigi Edgley in the supporting cast. You may remember them from the last two “LOTR” movies and “Farscape”, respectively.

Also viewed this weekend:
“My Super Ex-Girlfriend” : Pretty funny movie. I’m surprised it didn’t do better in its original release. Fast-paced, good action sequences (best use of stunt shark since "Jaws"). Uma Thurman was outrageously funny in this. Luke Wilson played the regular Joe love-interest in a very likable way. Also, any movie with Eddie Izzard playing a super-nemesis is must-see.

“The Devil Wears Prada” : Excellent. I never read the book but there were many things I liked about this movie. It manages to walk a fine line between critique and show-casing. The characters Nigel, Emily & even the Dragon-Lady herself all convey (completely correctly I think) the actual, valid work of creating modern fashion. This contrasts well with Anne Hatheway’s character who is not very likable in the beginning or middle of the movie. In the beginning she’s very condescending (although that is reciprocated wholly) and in the middle she’s hypocritical and self-righteous. But, the pay-off’s worth it. For nothing else, you need to see this movie for Meryl Streep’s performance as Miranda Priestley. I do not usually like her work but here, completely mesmerizing. Best almost two hours I’ve spent in a long time.

Spurs Game Last Night: MY JINX IS BROKEN! I went over to a friend's to watch the game and they actually ended up winning. Discovered Watermelon Martinis in the process.

*I only provide links to shows/movies that do not currently suck.

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Book Review: Radical Evolution

Heaven, Hell, Prevail & Transcend. These are the four scenarios discussed within Joel Garreau’s “Radical Evolution”. The scenarios are possibilities for our future based on the promise & peril of the emerging GRIN technologies: Genetic engineering, Robotics, Information and Nanotechnology. The author presented each scenario with very even-hand and was especially balanced in comparing both the different scenarios & the personalities advocating each. He also managed a truly rare feat, to make his opinions clear without hijacking the argument to advocate his take on the whole thing. At each of the chapter breaks there was a short synopsis, including some broad guidelines for determining which scenario is beginning to appear.

Overall, this book is exactly the kind of thoughtful and balanced review of technological change that I’d been hoping for when I bought it. You come away with a desire to learn more and a heightened awareness of technology in your own life. The author makes excellent use of both academic citations, widely-published references, statistics and anecdotal evidence. In one of the most telling signs of my enjoyment, I read the notes & suggested reading sections. Indeed my “To-Read” list has several new entries today. This is one of those bibliographies that you keep score on: Books I already own or have read = 4, Books on my To-Read List Already = 10.

What made the book so enjoyable for me, was my own reaction to it. This reaction was not surprising, given my personal & political beliefs. Neither Heaven nor Hell appealed. I was equally disturbed reading both sections. The “Heaven” scenario struck me as bland and uninspiring, almost horrifying in its reductionism. The Hell scenario, while all-too-plausible, renders humanity into a mob to be controlled, dictated to and ultimately, robbed of possible enlightenment in the name of precaution. Both mind-sets express a similar arrogance, that individuated humanity can be reduced to extreme futures of uniform salvation or damnation.

But, such extreme prophesizing reminds me of an old quote (which I believe is originally Greek), “Nothing in Excess”. In the balance between optimism & pessimism, Prevail & Transcend options are so more intuitively-reasonable to me. Both readily acknowledge the complex individuality of volitional human nature. These scenarios and their followers demonstrate a greater comfort with that which they cannot control, know or predict. And, especially appealing to me, both tie moral development to humanity’s future. In creating this future, we will be morally and ethically challenged to be better, not “just” making ourselves smarter, faster or healthier.

Both the Heaven & Hell scenarios, as presented in the book, ignore this aspect of the problem. The Heaven scenario acts as if as we become more machine such questions will cease to apply. The Hell scenario assumes humanity must be bound, restricted and held down for our own good because the consequences of bad moral judgment are too high to bear.

Needless to say, this book made me think while also being hugely entertaining. I will definitely be turning the ideas presented over in my head for some time to come.

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GO! SPURS! GO!

Prayers have been answered. I give you the Salesian Sisters of Mary Immaculate Province.



Awesome. Before moving to SA, the only sports events I had ever followed with regularity were my little brother’s soccer games. But it’s hard to ignore Spurs fans; they’re just so darn sincere. Not to mention the team which for the most part has an excellent sense of sportsmanship and good graces. Listening to these guys is the cure for anyone tired of the spoilt, pampered brats that pass for athletes nowadays.

Unfortunately, my latent superpower is jinxing the Spurs. If I tune into a Spurs game for even 30 seconds, they will immediately begin to lose. But, highlight reel can be very exciting, so I cheer then.

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Stone + Brick = NO

With all the construction going on in San Antonio, my morning commute involves scenic views of many a new-born subdivision. Most of the time, I like to stare & daydream...Except this one place.

There's tons of limestone in this area so it's not uncommon to see older houses done in stone or, in the nicer new neighborhoods, homes with stone accents. But in these places, usually, it's stone OR brick NOT both. This subdivision is therefore an exception, a visually overdone and tacky exception.

For example:
1)
Every time I drive by this place, I see this house and other just like it. I always wonder if they just couldn't get enough of one material or the other so decided to use both*. It's gaudy and overdone, both of which are things you don't usually see in San Antonio. Houston, however...

2)
This looks slightly better. At least the brick chosen compliments the stone better. But, when you compare it with this:


This is an unfinished house with only the stone put in. The house is a world of better looking than the other two (and of course facing away from the main road) It's composed and classy. Everything you see goes together and has an understated but confident appeal.

After years of houses that look like wooden replicas of pillboxes, I'm glad builders in this area are offering some greater variety & quality options like the stone-work. Indeed, a great deal of the older buildings in this area are stone. But, I will be marking down the name of this builder and, when I buy a house, they're off the list.

*It is possible. My parents, when building their house last year, ran into a similar problem & had to choose different brick when the supplier of their original choice got audited by the EPA (no joke). Apparently, the materials used to color the bricks were "hazardous" and they had to be regularly checked out to ensure the bad dust is handled properly before it goes into bricks for people's homes.

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The Future is Now

Via, The Speculist, go check out this video of new tabletop computers. They look fantastic and like they would be quite fun to use. I especially like how easy it is to transfer files between devices. Right now, I have to carry around a variable size memory card drive & a USB cable in my purse to accomplish that at work and home.

PS - The Speculist has had a number of good posts recently. It's always worth taking the time to read.

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Things I Learned on Wednesday

1) Scientists discover 24 new species, including this pretty little amphibian:


2) Season 4 will be Battlestar Galactica’s last, but at least it sounds like the producers decided to go out with a bang. I’m glad I don’t have to wait quite as long for a new episode (2hr “Razor” in November 2007).

3) The Planetary Society has some pictures up of entrants into the Lunar Regolith Challenge to design an automated digging machine that could work on the Moon or Mars. The pictures include everything from the super simple to the weirdly complex. It sounds like the technology’s there; a couple of the current entrants made progress but did not meet the criteria necessary to win the challenge. I am really glad NASA seems to be doing more challenges and the like.

There are several other open challenges. From the NASA Centennial Challenges website, the following are all underway:


4) This day in history: D-Day. I'm a little ashamed to admit I almost forgot about this. Interesting information & background here. The comments include some excellent stuff as well such as musings on the leftovers from WWII still present on the British coast and that fact the allies made ginormous floating ports to supply the troops after the invasion.

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Don't Mess With Old People: Redux

While I’m always happy to know our nation’s elderly continuing to be productive & useful members of society, this quote is disheartening:

"I had looked around the plane for help, and all the younger guys had averted their eyes. When I asked the guy next to me if he was up to it, all he said was, 'Retired captain. USMC.' I said, 'You'll do,' " Hayden recalled. "So, basically, a couple of grandfathers took care of the situation." (emphasis mine)

Young men of America (or at least the Minneapolis-Boston corridor), you’re not looking good here.

The wife of the retired cop also had an absolutely awesome attitude:

"The woman sitting in front of us was very upset and asked me how I could just sit there reading," Katie Hayden said. "Bob's been shot at. He's been stabbed. He's taken knives away. He knows how to handle those situations. I figured he would go up there and step on somebody's neck, and that would be the end of it. I knew how that situation would end. I didn't know how the book would end."

I can only hope that if I am ever in a similar situation, there’s plenty of retired military around to talk me through it. Since I live in San Antonio with it's plethora of military bases, that’s probably a good bet.

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Monday Stuff

Putin Threatens Europe : In one of the most un-surprising events of the weekend, Russia’s thuggish former-spy-in-chief acts like, well, a thug. There are so many things wrong with what he’s saying, I just don’t know where to begin. I bet a lot of Eastern European countries are feeling very justified about joining in the missile defense shield right now. Is Putin an untrustworthy bastard or what?

“Fearless” starring Jet Li. I did not watch this when it first came out due the anti-western nature of the trailer. However, the actual movie does not focus on that at all. Jet Li does an excellent job playing a character that’s not always likeable and as usual, has wonderfully emotive facial expressions. He really is underappreciated in that regard. The film is well-paced, fights are nicely spaced out and just when the drama/angst gets boring, well, time for another smack-down. The movie does focus on a time unpleasant for China but it does not make the foreigners faceless bad guys. Some are good guys, some are not. Some aspects of western civilization are shown without criticism and some are shown in their historically accurate unfavorable light. I especially liked the relationship between Jet Li’s character & the Japanese fighter, Tanaka.

Hilarious Item of the Day: While catching up at the Motivational Poster thread on Television without Pity, I found this. Scroll down three-quarters of the page to Notorious JMG’s entry.
Three words: Daleks, kittens and…..self-fulfillment.

Coming up this week Book review/essay (I don’t quite know which yet) and, possibly, a music post

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Fanfiction & Censorship

I read a lot of fanfiction in various fandoms and enjoy it greatly. In the last year or so, I have discovered LJ or LiveJournal. Although it is populated with, by my tastes, strange & weird people who write about some topics I’m not always comfortable with, I love it because occasionally I come across a story or a recommendation for something that really blows my mind, changes how I re-read the book, watch the TV show or experience a movie. This is everything great about fan-created works and part of that greatness is the weird, outlandish, wonderfully stream-of-consciousness, anything-goes attitude.

In light of LiveJournal’s recent crackdown, one person decided to get a little bit of their own back….by writing anthropomorphic porn. Ladies & Gentlemen, I give you “Making Up Is Hard To Do (Fandom/LJ, NC-17)” by china_shop. Here’s a quote:

“Look, just get out of my face for a while, okay? I’m so mad at you, I could— I could—”

“What?” LJ eyed her warily. An angry Fandom was unpredictable and quite possibly dangerous.

Fandom’s lips curled bitterly. “If I say ‘kill you’, will you suspend me for death threats?”

Hehehe. I love the internet soooo much.

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Hilarious Spoof of 9/11 Conspriacy Theorists

Wow, 2 posts in one day...This is a first.

I saw this youtube video over at Conservative Jedi. It's hilarious! I don't know what show it is from but this is the best counter to those ridiculous theories I've seen yet!

My favorite part:
Host: "You're saying fire melts steel?"
LL: (deadpan) "Yes, that's how they make steel."
Host: (shocked & skeptical) "They make steel?"

HA! If there's one thing I love, it's humiliating the technologically ignorant.

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Updated Blogroll

See Right Column. Updated to more accurately reflect reading habits.

Changed “Daily Reads” to “Favorites” and added the following:
David Brin’s Website – Website & blog of, in my opinion, one of the more innovative modern sci-fi writers and an absolutely brilliant futurist/essayist.
Baen Books – The pinnacle of modern Military Sci-Fi. Offers books free on-line after 3-6 months of paperback publishing. Start with the 1632 or Honor Harrington series for the best of the best.

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NASA Report on Asteroid Deflection

Ok, based on my previous post, I decided to read the NASA report on asteroid deflection (warning: link is to a large .pdf file). Previously, I had commented that there could be some relationship between setting up a space-SOSUS network & asteroid tracking. My purpose in reading this report was to determine if I was right.

The short, short, short version (original report was 271 pages):

Facts & Terms I did not know:
1) Atens & IEOs – neither type of asteroid is easy to find because they either never cross Earth’s orbit (IEO are Inner-Earth Orbits, always inside Earth’s orbit, so detecting them in the presence of the sun is difficult) or they criss-cross it relatively quickly (have very eccentric orbits, like a stretched out oval).

2) Radar has a limited range of 0.3 AU (~45 million miles, which sounds like a lot until you realize the Solar System is 100+ AU across) so it can’t be very useful to find asteroids and can only be helpful for characterizing asteroids if they approach close to Earth (where the best radar detection equipment is).
3) Precovery – When an asteroid is discovered, astronomers go back to scan old data to see if it was recorded but not identified before. The interesting part is that amateur astronomers most often perform this service thanks to several shared databases.

Good News:
We can theoretically stop most types of potential impacts. The report studied 4 scenarios & performed analysis using the variety of impact prevention (called “mitigation”) techniques. The results demonstrated that is it physically possible & technically feasible for us to stop most impacts (see “Terrifying News” for exception). The catch is getting enough warning to design & deploy the mitigation equipment/material in a timely manner.

Once this survey is complete, we should be able to predict asteroid orbits for up to a century barring interaction with other bodies. This means two things (1) if an asteroid is a danger we had more time to do something about it and (2) if something happens to change orbit of a NEO, we will be able to identify it quicker. In terms of solar system surveillance, this is a step in the right direction.

The most effective means of asteroid deflection require the least information about the asteroid. Without question, nuclear explosives were the most effective means of asteroid deflection (as in orders of magnitude more effective). This is good news because this is the technology we have the most experience in and considering, we may only get one shot at deflection, reliability & development time are big factors in success. It also means we don’t need to do too much characterization (ie – send probes to find out info about possible threat). Once we know the target’s size & mass, mitigation is possible. More info is good & could help reduce the need for multiple mitigation attempts but it is not strictly necessary.

Not-so-Good News:
Some of the results, including the feasibility analysis, are dependent on hardware not currently in use such as the proposed Ares V rocket. There are also several mentions of in-orbit assembly of systems beyond the lift capacity of even the Ares. Unfortunately, NASA has a bad habit of counting on equipment or processes that either don’t get built or don’t perform as well as they planned (see Space Shuttle). I don’t particularly like the idea that the fate of the planet could depend on NASA’s sluggish & over-constrained design processes.

Bad News:
We need a lot more mission reliability in order to pull off mitigation for all but easiest scenarios. Most of the 4 scenarios mention multiple mitigation attempts as a worst-case (ie – things don’t work as we expect them, always a good bet in space travel). There is a very real possibility that initial mitigation attempts will not be successful. Currently, interplanetary missions have a 10% failure rate. In order to be competent at mitigation (ie – be able to deflect all different types of threats), we need a <1% failure rate. Very little is mentioned about how to go about getting from point A to B.

Terrifying News:
We can’t do anything about long-period (LP) comets. Now, don’t panic. They are pretty rare. Unfortunately, they are also nature’s own “worst-case scenario”. The reason they are difficult to mitigate is that long-period have unpredictable (long-period means they rarely show up in the inner solar system) routes, fast velocities (longer to “fall” into the gravity well) and, most dangerously, are difficult to detect because the volatiles on the surface would not render the comet visible until it was a mere 9-24 months from impact. The only slightly good thing here is that LP comets are a tiny fraction of all possible impact scenarios. But again, they are also likely to be among the worst situations: little warning, large size & speed (meaning more required to change its course), the effect of composition more important to mitigation (more likely to fragment and/or require multiple, complicated mitigation strategies).

Interesting / Thought-Provoking News:
Appendix O: Cross-Over potential with DoD. This appendix was apparently written by DoD personnel as a classified report. They did this for the appendix on nuclear explosive design as well. I didn’t even know this was an option although in retrospect I’m not surprised. The resulting consensus from the DoD states that there is not much cross-over potential between DoD plans & asteroid survey/mitigation due to different constraints imposed by the different agencies. Obviously, they didn’t go into too much detail. But the opinion does not lead much credence to my relating asteroid detection to a possible space-SOSUS.

After the NEO survey is complete, the improved tracking assets could be re-tasked to find Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs). One particularly compelling estimate states that if just 10% of the “Dedicated LSST” survey option is re-tasked to search for KBOs, they predict it could find up to 100,000! I don’t know how to judge that number but the report lists several reasons why studying the Kuiper belt could be useful, most of these sound worthwhile.


The Bottom Line:
Space-SOSUS is a LOOONNGG way off which is not really a big surprise. However, this report did clarify for me as to why. Constraints are everything in a design. If we have nowhere near enough even for situations like asteroid detection and deflection that we are able to define and quantify well than designing a system to detect possible alien contact it not currently feasible (damn, it really sounds weird when I say it like that). The technical issues revolving around these missions predict future and more complex problems with space-SOSUS. Also, the budgetary issues are significant. Generally speaking, the less specific you are, the most your design will cost. I still consider preparing & countering asteroid impacts a good “test” run for multiple reasons but the pay-off is far in the future. Until there is a justification, will remain nothing more than a potential for future good.

The results of the study clearly show what people on sci-fi space battle sites have long theorized. Nothing is as effective or versatile against space targets, in this case asteroids & comets, as nuclear explosives. However, deploying said explosives to prevent an impact could be a violation of the current UN Space treaties or possibly the Nuclear Test Ban treaties. Not to mention the issues involved in testing such devices. This report explicitly points this out in several places. How that situation gets resolved on a policy level will probably be a very interesting learning experience all-round.

Also, although the long-period comets remain a fairly hopeless situation, the work we do surveying & mitigating other threats will greatly increase our ability to do something about this particular scenario. While this will always be worst-case for impacts, in time, I believe we can be more ready for it.

Looking at it though, I honestly cannot see the US* spending the kind of money needed to create this system without at least credible evidence of a threat first. The original SOSUS network was only created after Soviet & American nuclear submarines were around for several years. And, the Soviets had achieved enough technical prowess with nuclear submarines for them to be a credible threat to NATO. If such a system would ever be worth the money & effort of creating it, there would have to be significantly more justification than is currently available.

*Why not anyone else? Well, who built the original SOSUS? Who spends the most on Defense research? Who has the largest space-military infrastructure? If it’s done at all, it’ll be by the US, US plus allies or nobody.

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