Choice Management

Why Politics is Important

2012-03-06T13:03:00.000-05:00

As a Scientist, I'm often asked why I bother to be so passionate about Politics. As a Systems Scientist I recognize that Politics is one of the five equal dimensions in society:

Economics - The Flow of Wealth and Goods
Art - The Flow of Membership
Theology - The Flow of Values
Science - The Flow of Truth
Politics - The Flow of Power

When Power resides with the Individual, Power is the Power to Choose. When Power resides with the state, Power is the Power to Control. This balance has been argued for the entirety of human civilization and we find ourselves at yet another coherence point.

The scientist in me was awakened by the Apollo Space Program. I surrounded myself with toys, shows, magazines, pajamas, models, posters, and everything NASA. I worked through several boxes of crayons and pencils designing spacecraft, machines, computers, and space stations.

When we lost Challenger in 1986, the Politicians followed through with a promise to replace her with Endeavour at a price tag of $2 Billion -- we would find the money somewhere because it was important.

After finishing my Ph.D. in 1992, soon after the Gulf War, Politics Changed. We no longer had the money for big science projects. I turned down a job to help build the International Space Station while Congress went back and forth on whether to kill the project. I instead helped to design the F-22 and technologies for the F-35. The U.S. stopped production on the F-22 in 2006 and today the F-35 in its three variants is near termination. In July 2011, Shuttle Atlantis returned from the final shuttle flight.

Today, the U.S. government spends over $1 Billion per day in interest on the U.S. Debt -- enough to build three space shuttles per week. While Politicians clamor for additional education in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, they continue to shut down Research and Development in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics because society has so many ills to support. Perhaps the ills of society are due to our lack of exploration and high paying, solid employment in the R&D sector.

If you are a Scientist, Technologist, Engineer, or Mathematician, the next time a Political post floats past your stream that says the Days of Innovation are behind us, say something. Or at least rally behind those of us that do.

Do You Want Fries with That?

2011-05-06T11:18:00.001-04:00

Education for a High Technology Workforce

I absolutely love fast food. Back in the day when my metabolic system actually functioned, my standard fare included a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, large Fries, 8-piece McNuggets with barbecue and mustard sauce, and a large Coke. While studying abroad at Mansfield College, Oxford I even made it a point to taste this combination in Oxford, London, Cambridge, Bath and Stratford-Upon-Avon -- just so I could say my love of Quarter Pounders with Cheese demonstrated my taste in foreign cuisine.

But after reading about today's unemployment figure climbing back up to 9% and then learning that of the 244,000 jobs created last April, 62,000 (a full 25%) of those positions are at McDonald's; it continues to make it difficult to explain to my college students why they and their parents are financing such a fortune for a college degree.

Hooray for McDonald's for operating a great business that provides a fantastic service. This is welcome news for those young persons needing that first job. Young person unemployment is reportedly around 25%. But I hope all of those college-educated economists that decide administration policy and regulations will use this information to guide their thoughts on the effectiveness of their designs.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report, 51,000 jobs were created in the area of Professional and Business Services during the same period. Given this month's college graduation ceremonies that will inject an estimated 1.75 Million new graduates into the system, those policy makers may wish to choose a different approach. Unless this situation is unfolding exactly according to plan. My university offers courses in comparative philosophy and comparative religion. I'm assuming our leaders have studied comparative economic theory. As a science major I took a course in Political Systems & Ideologies over twenty years ago. While others often complain about the liberal arts, I acutely remember the concepts covered in this class. And I am currently witnessing their application.

Fair Winds and Following Seas

2011-05-05T09:15:00.000-04:00

Navy to Christen USS Michael Murphy (DDG 112)

(From the Navy News Service)
The Navy will christen the newest guided-missile destroyer, Michael Murphy, Saturday May 7 during a 10 a.m. EDT ceremony at General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine.

The new destroyer honors Navy SEAL (Sea, Air, Land) Lt. Michael P. Murphy who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions during Operation Red Wings in Afghanistan June 28, 2005.

Murphy led a four-man team tasked with finding a key Taliban leader in the mountainous terrain near Asadabad, Afghanistan, when they came under fire from a much larger enemy force with superior tactical position. Mortally wounded while exposing himself to enemy fire, Murphy knowingly left his position of cover to get a clear signal in order to communicate with his headquarters. While being shot at repeatedly, Murphy calmly provided his unit's location and requested immediate support for his element. He returned to his cover position to continue the fight until finally succumbing to his wounds.

Designated DDG 112, Michael Murphy, the 62nd Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, will be able to conduct a variety of operations, from peacetime presence and crisis management to sea control and power projection. Michael Murphy will be capable of fighting air, surface and subsurface battles simultaneously and will contain a myriad of offensive and defensive weapons designed to support maritime warfare in keeping with "A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower."

USS Michael Murphy DDG 112 ship's crest

Shield: The shape is taken from the shield on the New York shield to indicate Michael Murphy's home state. Navy blue and gold are the traditional colors of the Navy and the shield is divided by a chevron which symbolizes the ship on a dark blue sea horizoned by a starry sky which here is the light blue chief with seven white stars that recalls the Medal Of Honor colors with the stars elluding to the ship's and the SEAL Team operations across the Seven Seas. The Maltese Cross stands as recognition of the FDNY Engine Company 43 which was used as inspiration for LT Murphy's SEAL Team and tied his motivation to the events of 9-11. The flaming sword of Michael the Archangel, for whom he is named and the Spartan shield are reflective of his fateful battle and SEAL ethos. The purple detail line on the sword, double saltire and chevron reversed on the Spartan shield is representative of the Purple Heart awarded to the 20 Americans who were part of Operation RED WINGS and all the service men and women who have sacrificed for their country. The Medal Of Honor, the nation's highest declaration for valor, draped as being worn by LT Murphy , is a reminder of his ultimate sacrifice for his Teammates and his being the first Medal Of Honor recipient from the war in Afghanistan and the first Navy recipient since the Vietnam War.

Crest: the rolled and turned Red, White and Blue Ribbon honors the patriotic service of the SEAL Teams since their formation, surmounted here by the SEAL Trident which LT Murphy was proud to wear.

Supports: The sword and the cutlass represent the officers and crew of the USS Michael Murphy.

Motto: A Navy blue scroll bordered and turned gold and forming the initials M and M are a tribute to the ship's namesake and his mother Maureen Murphy and inscribed "LEAD THE FIGHT" in gold letters.

May God bless and keep all who serve on the USS Michael Murphy!!

Of Ignorance and Bliss

2011-05-04T09:44:00.004-04:00

Outsmarted by a Gadget, Again.

Today, May 4th, is special for a couple of reasons. Of course it is Star Wars Day. "May the 4th Be With You". It is also special in my little corner of the universe as it is the day SiriusXM satellite radio shuffled its channel assignments to bring the merged services into concert. It was very inconvenient and I'm sure costly to have a single broadcast feed that had to announce and advertise its channel assignments on the previously separate networks.

Folks that know me in real life constantly get assailed by enthusiasm for my satellite radio. The thought of not having the correct presets on my little unit this morning prompted me to visit the SiriusXM website and jot down the new channel assignments. Much like setting the clocks for Daylight Saving Time at bedtime rather than 2 am, I took the time to reassign the presets last night so that I would not have to fiddle with the unit during my morning commute. Three of my ten presets could not be changed as the new channels were currently unused or not part of my subscription. Those channels I planned to change in the morning during breakfast.

So first thing this morning I powered up the unit to marvel at my handy work and was greeted by a French-speaking announcer. Whoa. Must have made a mistake. After some short hopping through my presets I realized the smart little unit migrated its presets to the new channels automatically. The three that I could not change last night were correct and the seven that I did were most definitely off my listening preference reservation. A return to the list and another seven preset assignments later my world was right again. It didn't ask me to press OK and it didn't alert me. It just performed the necessary function.

If I had not messed with it, all things would have been well. I probably would not have even noticed the change in channel number as I often refer to the channel by name. I'm sure the mystery of the nomadic channels would have turned up sometime in the future, but I'm not sure the time spent attempting to manage the event was worth it. I guess the adage holds true - It is much better to act and ask forgiveness than to ask permission and never act. If it is the right thing to do, the forgiveness is rarely required.

Double Your Failure Rate

2011-05-03T12:30:00.000-04:00

A Leader is not Defined by their Followers

This past week Atlas Shrugged producer John Aglialoro told the New York Times, "Critics, you won," adding, "I'm having deep second thoughts on why I should do Part 2." Given a release on only 299 screens and the reality of openly hostile critics of such a conservative/libertarian free market opus from Ayn Rand, I'm surprised it was seen by as many people as it was.

Published in 1957, it has taken over 50 years for this classic tale to make it onto the big screen and Mr. Aglialoro is contemplating failure only two weeks after the film has been released? Oh my.

How long did it take Hank Rearden to perfect the alloy recipe for Rearden Metal? How long did it take John Galt to create his new motor? How long did it take for Ayn Rand to develop her philosophy of Objectivism? Even getting this movie to the screen took Mr. Aglialoro 20 years.

Some things are ahead of their time. Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center invented the desktop PC in the mid 1970s but shelved it. Steve Job's NeXT Computer used an optical CD-ROM drive, but it failed. MySpace was to create an entirely new discipline of Social Media. Star Trek the Original Series used the Floppy Disk, the Flip Phone and the Tricorder handheld smart device -- in 1966.

A few days later Mr. Aglialoro suggested he should spend more money on traditional advertising before he pulls the plug on Episodes II & III. Perhaps we simply need to wait until more folks realize the folly of centralized government control.

Justice is Served

2011-05-02T09:25:00.000-04:00

Congratulations and gratitude to all those who choose to serve.

A Victimless Time

2011-05-01T09:43:00.001-04:00

A Rare Celebration of Excellence

My daily commute inserts me among a throng of automobiles between 6:00 am and 7:00 am Eastern Standard Time. As I often proselytize to everyone within earshot, my XM satellite radio provides literally hours of enjoyment while I make the trek to and from work. This past Friday morning our region of the country was emerging from a rough patch of storms that resulted in one the clearest, blue-sky mornings in quite a long while. The birds were chirping, the tulips were in full bloom, the dogwood trees were bedecked with their vibrant pink and white trappings -- an all around beautiful Spring morning in April.

As I powered up my audio system, I was presented with my morning dilemma -- do I listen to music or talk radio? I have scores of music channels from which to choose and I may discover a new favorite. On the other hand, what did I miss since I was in the car a short twelve hours ago? As a college professor I'm asked a lot of questions as a regular part of my duties. What if I am not up on the latest current events?

But in 2011, learning about the current events is a minor component when compared to the onslaught of opinion and commentary that effuses from my speakers. No matter if it is the Left responding to the Right or the Right responding to the Left, my day will start off hearing about the poor, the under-privileged, the under-represented, the failed programs, the failed institutions, the failing systems. In short, this beautiful God-given morning will be spent obsessing about failure.

To my delight, I was instead greeted by the audio of Catherine Elizabeth Middleton processing up the isle of Westminster Abbey to be wed to Prince William Arthur Philip Louis, Duke of Cambridge. Earlier, commentators were marveling at the clockwork precision of the entire affair as if glancing at a wristwatch or cell phone screen and making it to an appointment on time is major news. The Collegiate Church of St. Peter at Westminster was filled to the brink with relatives, friends and dignitaries sporting their very best who participated a life-celebrating ceremony complete with ancient traditions, wise words, celebratory music and something that I don't often hear from my radio - Existentialism. An honest admission that there is something greater than ourselves. And a something Greater that does not force us to be Lesser. A something Smarter that does not require us to be Dumber. A something Knowledgeable that does not require us to be Ignorant.

A Winner that does not require us to be Losers.

For that brief hour commute there were no Victims. There was only a world-wide audience of observers that celebrated life. Choose. Choose to be a victim and forever permit others to control your destiny. Choose to be responsible for your own condition and permit yourself the enjoyment of Freedom.

So Long and Thanks for all the Fish

2011-04-29T08:38:00.004-04:00

So What's Next?

Back in January of 1986, I was a sophomore in college double-majoring in chemistry and physics. I had been hooked on science and technology since I was a four-year old watching the Apollo 11 moon landing on our black and white television along with just about every other civilized human on the planet. Science, rockets, spaceships and technology took over my life from that point on. That January morning I was eating lunch with friends in the dining hall when one of my dorm mates told me the Shuttle Challenger exploded soon after launch.

After some convincing that he wasn't teasing, I rushed back to my dorm room to watch the news coverage of the event on my small black and white dorm television. All of the guys on the floor knew I was into NASA's Space Shuttle Program and stopped by to get an explanation of the tragedy. While the news anchors were all over the place with theories, I used my large-scale shuttle models to illustrate the various scenarios. (Yes, my roommate covered his side of the room with centerfolds and I had shuttle models and planetary posters captured from the Voyager probes.)

Soon after the loss of Challenger and her brave crew, President Ronald Reagan appropriated 2 Billion dollars to assemble a new shuttle that would ultimately be named Endeavour. And today, over 15 years later, Shuttle Endeavour is scheduled to blast off on its final mission. NASA is bringing its Space Shuttle program to an end without a replacement. The US Debt is now growing at an estimated rate of over 2 Billion dollars per every eight (8) hours - three space shuttles per day. Thousands of people whose careers were associated with the manned space program are being let go. One of the retired shuttles is being shipped to New York City to curry favor with voters rather than resting in Houston, Texas, home to mission control. Worrisome times.

So what is the Next Big Thing? The Political Class demonizes Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Coal, Big Natural Gas and Big Nuclear while celebrating proper tire inflation. They cry out for better education and training in Science, Mathematics and Engineering and then shutter or heavily regulate organizations that innovate. Perhaps this morning's Royal Wedding will spark the inhabitants of this precious blue marble to continue the Big Dream and to strive to accomplish great things -- not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize the measure of the best of our energies and skills...

Happy 6-Month Release Day!

2011-04-28T11:54:00.002-04:00

Taking Natty Narwhal out for a Spin

The end of April 2011 sure took its time getting here. Today marks the release of Ubuntu 11.04 - the latest stable release of the free, linux-based operating system. I have been running the Ubuntu Netbook remix on my EeePC since last Fall and it is fantastic. Today's upgrade displays some upgraded desktop icons along with some very major changes under the hood.

As a Netbook Remix user, I didn't expect to see very drastic changes at first blush as Ubuntu 11.04 now uses the Netbook Remix as the primary UI for this release. The version incorporates LibreOffice rather than the Oracle-owned OpenOffice Productivity Suite, but I switched over to LibreOffice on my desktop a while back and primarily use Google Docs anyway.

The greatest thing so far is that my EeePC running 11.04 now communicates seamlessly with my Samsung T404G phone via Bluetooth. It may be an actual upgrade or just me getting it right after a dozen or so tries, but the link now works as advertised. Now I can scratch Phone/USB cable off my 'nice-to-have' list while I offload a ton of pictures taken with the phone from its 4GB microSD card.

Probably the most exciting fact is that I now have a giant increase in options and ability using hardware I already own. A simple OS upgrade later and I'm giddy all over again without shelling out any money. Thanks as always Canonical. Ubuntu Rocks!

Even Dark Elves Get It

2011-04-27T13:22:00.006-04:00

Are Choice and Personal Responsibility considered Fantasy?

Science Fiction is simply Science Future. I've been around science long enough to see all kinds of surprisingly cool stuff that would have been termed impossible only a few short moments before. Depending on how close your experience lies to the cutting edge of research, many technologies that appear to be total fiction have actually been accomplished and are currently deep within the product development process or the proprietary or classified scientific pipeline and may take years or decades to debut in front of the general public.

As a scientist and a total geek, I much prefer reading Fantasy to science future. The elements of magic and exotic lifeforms provide all manner of surprising solutions to complex problems. Surprise is a key ingredient to learning -- and I love to learn. I continue to be surprised by author R.A. Salvatore as I delightfully make my way through his 13-volume Forgotten Realms series describing The Legend of Drizzt -- a dark elf who chooses to leave the fellow members of his chaotically-evil subterranean race to live above ground among honorable colleagues of various races. Drizzt lives his code of honor through actions and words. A particularly poignant passage from Drizzt contained in Volume IX - Siege of Darkness follows:

In the heart, there is no sting greater that watching the struggles of one you love, knowing that only through such strife will that person grow and recognize the potential of his or her existence. Too many thieves in the Realms believe the formula for happiness lies in an unguarded treasure trove. Too many wizards seek to circumvent the years of study required for true power. They find a spell on a scroll or an enchanted item that is far beyond their understanding, yet they try it anyway, only to be consumed by the powerful magic. Too many priests in the Realms, and too many religious sects in general, ask of themselves and of their congregations only humble servitude.

All of them are doomed to fail in the true test of happiness. There is one ingredient missing in stumbling upon an unguarded treasure hoard; there is one element absent when a minor wizard lays his hands on an archmage's staff; there is one item unaccounted for in humble, unquestioning, and unambitious servitude.

A sense of accomplishment.

It is the most important ingredient in any rational being's formula of happiness. It is the element that builds confidence and allows us to go on to other, greater tasks. It is the item that promotes a sense of self-worth, that allows any person to believe there is value in life itself, that gives a sense of purpose to bolster us as we face life's unanswerable questions.

-Drizzt Do'Urden

So much like Science Fiction is simply Science Future, perhaps Fantasy is simply Reality without the shackles of political correctness.

How Chrome OS Ruined my Music Career

2010-12-30T13:53:00.010-05:00

Or How the Google Cr-48 Netbook is an Extra-Time Evaporator

In addition to being a Geek in the traditional sense of science, technology, computers, SciFi and SciFantasy, I'm also a Band-Geek (using the modern PC term so as to not bruise delicate sensibilities). My parents thankfully paid for years of piano lessons starting in the first grade and I started playing trumpet in elementary school, ultimately resulting in 10 years of Marching Band through Jr High, High School and College; School Orchestra, Jazz Band, Pit Orchestra, along with Chorus in Jr and High School and my Church in addition to school and community Musical Productions. Maybe Band-Geek is too mild of a term to begin to describe how large a part Music has been in my life. Fast forward through tons of study and hours spent in the laboratory in pursuit of an advanced degree in experimental physics and the music gets moved to the back burner.

A few years ago I picked up a Harmonica to play around the fire during our family camping trips. That didn't go over very well and my family voted my harmonica off the island -- I'm still not sure where they have hidden it as they assure me they didn't throw it away -- it just got "misplaced".

This past summer my lovely wife had enough of my harmonica withdrawal and gifted me with an acoustic guitar. It is not as loud as the harmonica as long as I am strumming with fingers and not a pick so my practice jam sessions are tolerable. I store the guitar next to my desk in our finished basement and fell into a pretty tight practice schedule -- Every time I would sit down at my desk to work on my laptop, I would pick up the guitar and strum a few bars while Windows 7 booted up. I have an older single-core laptop that I upgraded from Windows XP so it takes Win7 a full two minutes to boot or resume and another three-five minutes to launch all of the background antivirus, registry scanning and defragmenting utilities and then finally run the Google Chrome Browser. That gave me a solid 10-15 minutes of guitar time, several times a day. Things were going well and the callouses on my left fingers where developing nicely. Until...

I found a Google Cr-48 Chromium OS Netbook on my porch on December 15th and my guitar practice time has evaporated. The Cr-48 takes ten (10) seconds to cold boot from Off to Sign-in and then is instantly in the Chrome browser after I hit return. If the Cr-48 is in suspended mode, the Sign-in screen is ready to go before I have the lid completely open (somewhere around a 30 - 40 degree angle from closed).

So there I am, 15 seconds into the "sit-down at my desk" process and my unopened email, twitter and Facebook accounts are up, luring me in. I don't even have time to reach for the guitar. Moreover, I lost my callouses in the shower this past weekend while washing my hair. I need to choose another location to store the guitar...somewhere where I can grab 10 - 15 min of practice time. Hey, maybe the bathroom. Now that I think of it, that room has concert hall acoustics anyway. I can't wait to tell her...

GMail - Outlook Syncing Views Drop 25 Percent

2010-12-28T05:56:00.003-05:00

I Report, You Decide.

Two years ago, in December of 2008, I published a Google Knol titled GMail and Google Calendar Sync with MS Exchange and Outlook Web Access. It chronicles my employer's choice to upgrade our University's email system from Lotus Notes, to Microsoft Exchange Server. It is a bit of a custom hybrid system with our student accounts being cloud hosted by Microsoft and our employee accounts being hosted locally on the University's Exchange Servers. It's been a fairly stable solution and things have been cruising along.

As a Google Cloud Dweller, I was able to put in my request to become a Google Apps for Education Campus, but the University chose to go with Exchange. Honestly, we really, really, really needed to get away from our 1990's Lotus Notes system so either choice was a sound one.

The University quickly crafted an Employee Policy requiring all university electronic communication between faculty, administrators, staff and students to use the Exchange email addresses, a policy that still stands today. There was, however, a bit of wiggle room in that the University's C-Level Executive Leadership and IT Departments standardized on RIM Blackberry mobile devices -- allowing for IMAP and POP3 symbiosis between our Exchange Servers and User Cloud Access Devices (UCADs). The Google Knol describes the steps one can use to link your GMail UCAD to Microsoft Exchange Server.

A bit surprisingly, the Knol has received over 130,000 visitors to date. Google Analytics reveals that not many folks are enthralled enough with its content to read the entire entry, but this number does reflect the number of folks that were looking for this type of information. The Knol of course overwhelms everything else I have linked to my Analytics account so when its visits vary the change is easy to detect. This past Fall, the number of visits started to decline steadily and visits are now down by 25% as illustrated in the Analytics graph below.

Google Knol changed the web address of this Knol in October of 2009, so the data displayed on the graph only represents the visits from October 2008 through December 2010.

Analysis

So, the data being the data, what (if any) meaning does this have? I can think of a few possibilities:

All of the folks interested in this task have already found a solution
There are better sources for this solution available elsewhere
Use of Outlook Web Access is increasing
The number of GMail users needing to synchronize with MS Exchange is decreasing
The number of GMail users is decreasing

I have my own personal bias that leads me to hypothesize on the correct answer, but I am interested in your thoughts on how to interpret the data. One of the possibilities I have listed? A combination of these possibilities? Additional possibilities not listed here?

Start With Why

2010-08-02T20:22:00.001-04:00

An inspiring presentation by Simon Sinek

Simon Sinek describes how great leaders inspire action in this September 2009 TED talk. His point is very reminiscent of the "One Thing" philosophy in the movie City Slickers. Great stuff. Very worth your time.

Amazon Founder Talks Choice

2010-08-01T20:24:00.001-04:00

We all need a time out for a little inspiration

Founder and CEO of Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos, took time to deliver the Baccalaureate address to Princeton University's graduating class of 2010 back in June. I'm a sucker for insightful and inspirational tales. This one is a keeper. It is well worth your time.

Jeff starts at 6:00 min...

Is its own Reward

2010-05-24T22:42:00.007-04:00

A Rewards Club should be a Win/Win Club

Having been born and raised in rural Lancaster County Pennsylvania, I have a cultural archetype of a convenience store being Turkey Hill Minit Markets. Experiencing High School in the early 1980s I am familiar with the frozen Slushey machines, the introduction of gas pumps in the mid-1970s, the installation of an ATM and the venerable Pac-Man and Defender arcade games that consumed the majority of my quarters while not playing Atari 2600 with my friends. I am also a big fan of the Kroger Company which purchased Turkey Hill in 1985, having spent 11 years in Ohio through graduate school and my initial years of professional employment.

I was thrilled when Turkey Hill built a new Minit Market down the road from my home in the Philadelphia suburbs. Not that I have any ill will toward other regional competitors like Wawa, Sheetz and 7-Eleven, but it is a slice of down-home nostalgia to fill-up at Turkey Hill on my way to work. Plus, like a lot of other folks, I'm addicted to Turkey Hill Iced Tea and even follow their facebook fan page.

I signed up immediately when Turkey Hill issued a Rewards Club program this past April. It involved picking up a plastic sheet containing a magnetic stripe card and barcoded key fobs and an application form to be filled out and returned to the store. I promptly submitted the application and slid the card in my wallet. I showed my card before every eligible purchase for the next month and have so far accumulated 40 points -- well on my way to the milepost of 100 points to receive a reward. The reward being a 10-cent per gallon discount on a single fill up of gasoline. meh.

My fuel-sipping Corolla strains to need 10 gallons at a fill up, only after I've been running on "E" for a few miles. At $2.75 per gallon, that would equal a reward of $1.00 off a fill up of $27.50. Again -- meh. At a rate of 2 points per every $1 spent in the store, that results in a 2% reward. Not that I am whining about a free rewards program, but at my current rate of points accumulation I can budget a $1 reward every two months. For the price of $6/year Turkey Hill gets my email address, my street address, my home phone number, and the ability to track all of my purchases. They can data mine my account and discover I make most of my purchases before 6 am during the weekday and after 6 pm on the weekends. They can know I like Turkey Hill Iced Tea and visit the Minit Market more often when the Iced Tea is the loss-leader special for the month.

So it is not a "free" Rewards Program, it is an "exchange" Rewards Program. They get my information and also my promise to choose to carry the plastic rewards card in my wallet along with the other 8 or so discount membership cards from other vendors. Or I can choose to attach the plastic key fob to my key ring along with the other 8 or so discount membership fobs from other vendors. I also can choose to produce the card to be scanned before every purchase or to say the phrase "No, I don't have my card with me" or "No, I don't want to join the Rewards Program, but thanks anyway" before every purchase. Summing up the amount of effort required to participate or decline to participate in the program over the year, I'm not sure it is worth the exchange price of $6.00.

Perhaps I would be more inclined to participate if we had a universal Rewards Club card. I know I'm going to set the privacy advocates spinning, but I like the thought of having a Universal ID card using RFID that identifies me at the time of purchase. I could manage my information on a single website that would allow me to opt in or opt out of discount and reward programs at all vendor locations. Removing the hassle of managing and transporting my host of plastic cards would reduce the pain of sitting on my wallet all day and would allow me to log my viewing preferences automatically the next time I rent Minority Report.

The New Moon Hoax

2010-05-18T22:44:00.001-04:00

When College Students Know more about Werewolves than the Apollo Program

I have noticed a sad trend over the past decade of teaching fundamental physics to freshman college students. I use a very popular standard college text for a course that teaches the basics of kinematics, energy, momentum and thermodynamics. I can recall my own instructors lamenting the poor algebra skills of their current crop of students and that appears to be a perennial condition. But as with all skills, mathematic gymnastics improve with practice and we all get there eventually.

The bigger problem is with the generational understanding of technology. Scores of authors and futurists have warned of the perils of increasingly rapid technological development -- an exponential explosion of new gadgets and social practices that would leave our current students behind the advances of more forward-looking societies. Well, that does not appear to be the case. Middle school students are born with the ability to text and manage social networking profiles with ease. The inherited instincts to run at the sound of a low growl are apparently being replaced by a proclivity to press buttons and multi-task streams of information.

The difficulty is not in keeping up with the future, but in keeping up with the past. In the United States, courses in History have been replaced by the examination of Social Studies - in an attempt to understand the importance of multiculturalism. While this is a noble goal, social networking is bringing multiculturalism into extinction. With the ability to chat and share files with humans all over the planet our students are forging common experiences that are quickly steering entire societies into a mono-cultural human experience. However, with the loss of History courses, major events in the past are disappearing from our own cultural fabric.

This is extremely evident in the physics textbook we are using. The acceleration of gravity at sea level on the earth, known as "g" is listed to be 9.81 m/s/s at three significant figures. After using this value to calculate distances, velocities and time in projectile motion scenarios, the textbook seeks to reinforce the student's understanding by asking questions about our moon. The gravitational acceleration value "g" on the surface of the Moon is 1.63 m/s/s. This leads to all sorts of questions about falling objects, projectile motion and forces on the Apollo Lunar Module used to safely deposit and remove humans from the Moon's surface. And that is where the importance of History lessons comes in.

When the Apollo 11 mission landed on the Moon in July, 1969, I was a 3-year old toddler that was watching the landing on our family's black and white television in my father's lap. I don't have vivid memories of my preschool years, but I most definitely remember that event. Ever since, refrigerator boxes were immediately converted into space ships, spare sheets of graph paper were strewn with designs for flying saucers, posters of images from the voyager probes adorned my bedroom walls and even my space shuttle models in college became visual props as I explained the Challenger disaster to my classmates. I was mortally wounded a few years back when one of my college freshmen asked a question concerning a problem on the final examination for my physics course -- "Dr. Weaver, what is a Lunar Module?"

Undeterred, I rephrased the question in subsequent versions of the exam to substitute "spaceship". But of course this year, the question came -- "Dr. Weaver, don't we need to know the length of the runway on the moon in order to calculate the answer to this spaceship problem?" I have to keep reminding myself that these college freshmen were born the same year the Challenger's replacement shuttle Endeavor made its maiden voyage, 30 years after we last visited the Moon.

As with all emergent system properties, success has to be continually achieved -- or the knowledge of that success gets stuck in the past. If the success is not memorialized, it is soon forgotten and ultimately treated as myth. That is why we celebrate important milestones in our culture -- birthdays, July 4th, Easter. As I write this, Space Shuttle Atlantis is orbiting the earth on its final mission. Shuttles Discovery and Endeavor are scheduled to make their final flights later this Fall. The International Space Station is scheduled to be defunded five years later in 2016. With all of the political genuflecting about high-technology jobs of the future I am flabbergasted by the lack of vision for manned spaced flight and the exploration of space. After our smart phones soon connect us through the use of automated real-time translation we can spend the time celebrating our mono-culturalism and debating the hoaxes perpetrated through the use of Hollywood sounds stages. But then again, perhaps we will choose to use our new-found collaboration tools to explore the heavens instead of fighting over the redistribution of finite resources here on the Earth.

The Day the Music Died

2010-04-15T12:46:00.004-04:00

When Enabling Technology becomes an Enabler

I choose to live 30 miles from my office. It is not a unique choice. In fact, around 500,000 other folks who commute into and out of Philadelphia each day share my choice to raise their families in a small suburban community. With so many major highways in the area the one-way trip can be as short as 30 minutes. But alas, add my fellow commuters, tourists to the big city and folks just passing through, and the daily quality time that I spend in my car ranges from 2 to 3 hours on an average day. Insert the excitement of sun glare, rain, snow or sleet and 4 to 5 hours becomes the norm.

My Corolla has a 6-disk CD/AM/FM audio system that is energized continuously. My wife is a country music fan so preset #1 is set to our local country station and the radio is tuned to that station whenever she is in the car. That is the simple one.

When it is just me, I'm a channel surfer. I have such a wide and varied palette for entertainment that I am consistently racing between country, rock, R&B, jazz, pop, talk, traffic and religious feeds. Mix in the audio CDs and it is a mobile par-tay. However, after 10 years of the same commute I've memorized all of the commercials and have been through so many new morning show personalities that I can now predict which format each station's program director will try next.

So I asked Santa for an XM satellite radio and started my subscription in early January 2009. I wasn't so sure about paying for audio when we had so many choices in Philadelphia, but it was most definitely a high-tech toy and I'm always down for that. Amazon had a holiday bundle of the Delphi XPressRC XM receiver, the car and home installation kits. I took the plunge and in short order, there was an XM satellite radio that I could move between the car and the kitchen.

So far there are two technology purchases that have been extreme milestones in my life. The first was when my wife and I discovered we could afford a portable video cassette player that fit in our Dodge Caravan. We even refer to it in geologic terms of "before video" (BV) and "after video" (AV). All of a sudden the thought of strapping two car seats into the minivan was no longer a chore. The second was when I discovered XM Satellite Radio. I had no idea. Short of stopping strangers on the street, I have told just about every acquaintance I have about the joy's of XM. Over 200 channels of most every genre of music, live cable news channel feeds, talk radio, play-by-play sports (lots of sports), metropolitan traffic and weather. Moreover, unless the channel is a mirror of a terrestrial feed, the broadcast is commercial free...wow.

Our local terrestrial feed of Radio Disney is broadcast on AM and depending on location, the reception is pretty awful. Now it comes through in crystal clear digital audio no matter where we are in the city or if we are on a trip to the mountains or the shore (that is of course when the kids are not plugged into the headphones of their DVD players). I've fallen into listening to delayed broadcast of the morning show of BBC Radio 1 - something that is just not possible with my analog antenna or a even an HD digital radio.

Instantly my commute became enjoyable. There was no way that I could park myself on the couch and watch the news hour each night but now I can multi-task and listen to the audio of my favorite news programs on the way home. I feel plugged into society. Rather than the commute being lost "down" time it is now my most productive "up" time for business news, commentary and general culture. My wife even now has ten country stations to choose from. I'm the primary cook in our household so meal preparation in the kitchen became "up" time as well. Extreme happiness...

Until Sunday, April 11, 2010... that is the day my Delphi XpressRC XM receiver stopped working. No pop, smoke or whirls... just....dead. No reset button, no secret switch or Ctrl-Alt-Del combo. I scrambled for technical support and learned there are no user-serviceable components. Dead = Dead.

Thats when the panic set in. I was really surprised how poorly I was taking this. It wasn't the price of the equipment - my convertible was totaled a while back and replaced with the Corolla - and I didn't feel nearly this badly. I'm pretty sure it was the loss of connectivity to the "cloud". I have not taken the smart phone plunge but I'm aware of the studies that report an increase in "iPhone addiction". It was the feeling of missing out on the conversation, the conversion back to "down" time.

I spent Monday with my CD/AM/FM system and it was worse than I remembered. Over lunch I surfed for recent customer reviews on the Delphi XPressRC radio and noticed several other users had experienced the same problem - it just stopped working. I was tempted to swap out my radio with a new one but was put off by the Dead = Dead feature. But then I discovered the new XM Onyx radio. The customer reviews were positive. Folks did not have problems with it reseting or dying and it even cost one-third the price of the XPressRC. The Onyx does not record songs nor does it scroll stock prices and sports scores, but it has one big advantage over the XPressRC... it works.

Not willing to wait for UPS, my local Walmart had the Onyx/Car Kit combo in stock so I picked one up on my way home. The technical support folks were not sure if I could use my existing car and home docking installations with a different XM radio, but the Onyx turned out to be 100% compatible with the XPressRC accessories. It plugged directly into the dock and after a simple phone call to XM to swap radio IDs, I was up and running. The Onyx even responds to the remote that was included with my home installation kit.

I'm delighted the Onyx designers chose not to change the form factor. And now I have an additional car kit that I can install into our SUV that we use to haul our toys. I'm not overjoyed that I have to admit my addiction. But I will simply add it to my box of additions already containing water, food and sleep.

Down the Rabbit Hole

2010-03-19T21:50:00.003-04:00

Another Tale of Choice vs. Control

My kids and I enjoyed Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland this evening. Beyond all of the Hollywood fixtures that made this an eye-popping joy to view -- including seamless special effects, Disney 3D animation, great acting and perfect voice-overs -- was the underlying old-school tale of good vs. evil, or more precisely, the tale of Choice vs. Control.

Alice is being forced to marry someone she hardly knows and for whom she does not care. Her sister is married to a philanderer, her would-be mother-in-law is a heartless control freak and her busybody peers insist she must accept the surprise marriage proposal because of the potential groom's political station.

All of this pressure causes Alice to bolt and follow the white rabbit down the rabbit hole leading to Underland, an alternate world she has visited before as a child and referred to as "Wonderland". Upon her return to Underland, she is quickly informed of a prophesy controlling her every action. She rebels again and decides to choose her own path -- all while thinking she is simply dreaming.

The movie is a masterful compilation of the classic Lewis Carroll tales Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass, The Hunting of the Snark, and Jabberwocky. While Carroll's writings are hailed as prime examples of "literary nonsense", this film makes perfect sense. Example after example of the happiness associated with Choice and the misery accompanying Control. The Red Queen laments several times "It is better to be feared than loved."

With the background of economic distress, it is interesting that Disney Studios would produce such a forceful Choice vs. Control project as the Conservatives and Progressives battle to the death over the ideas of free will and limited government vs. supreme central control. Perhaps 150 years from now Wikipedia will characterize this debate as "political nonsense".

Choice as Competitive Advantage

2010-03-12T09:08:00.003-05:00

"Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black."

-Henry Ford, remarking about the 1909 Model T in his autobiography - My Life and Work (1922)

Henry Ford is well recognized as the innovator of the assembly line - enabling the technology of mass production. His game-changing developments in the interchangeability of parts and labor produced mechanized assembly lines that increased the production of automobiles from 2 per day to over 6,000 per day. Instead of requiring each craftsman to master every component of vehicle production, individuals were trained and cross-trained on localized system components. Leveraging advances in tool technology and automation, the individual components were produced at a frenetic rate -- drastically reducing time and cost of production.

The fabled Ford assembly lines are the archetype for the "Mindless Machine System Model". This wild improvement in product availability soon led to customer demands for customization (a not-so subtle code word for "choice"). This Mindless Machine comprised of gears, tools, transmissions and semi-skilled workers only functioned when all of the parts operated in unison. Different visions of how to improve the process could not be incorporated "on-line" or "in-line" -- they required development "off-line" and the upgraded components were included only when the assembly line was retooled. While a fantastic innovation in production efficiency, this solution did not allow for continuous innovation within the system.

Alfred Sloan of MIT Sloan School of Management fame, innovated the creation of Divisions within large organizations which enabled them to "predict and prepare" for inevitable customer choices at a more rapid rate. The resulting "Uniminded Biological System Model" incorporated the use of budgets and forecasts that allowed for planned upgrades and innovations. Individuals were tasked as "Directors" and "Officers" of the organization, charged with researching future customer desires. However, this model suffers from an inability to distribute the vision throughout the organization and the need to manage conflict between competing ideas and divisions.

In 1881, Joseph Wharton - a successful scientist, businessman and co-founder of the Bethlehem Steel company, established the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the world's first collegiate business school. While at Wharton, the late Russell Ackoff, Anheuser-Busch Professor Emeritus of Management Science, developed the "Multiminded Social System Model" of Purposeful Systems. Ackoff championed the innovation that organizations have a purpose. Rather than being formed as a reaction to forecast changes in consumer demand, these systems have choice and can choose their future. Instead of a mindless machine, or a uniminded organism, all stakeholders of a multiminded social system participatively design a future and realize it through experimentation and successive approximation.

As an example of Google's success, Blogger.com this week introduced a new feature called the Blogger Template Designer. Rather than predict the design features and color schemes in vogue with users, the Blogger Template Designer permits deep customization of the blogger's website. Customers can choose black-on-black if they desire, or any other color scheme for that matter. All while Google learns from the compilation of user choices so it can glean trends from the data and learn how better to serve their customers in the future. If folks have difficulty understanding Google's success, it is only because they chose not to look.

Choose to Change

2010-03-11T15:03:00.001-05:00

Change Management is Reactive - Choice Management is Proactive

Teaching in the Department of Integrated Science, Business and Technology, we are all about studying the Process of Innovation. Innovation is defined as

...a new way of doing something or "new stuff that is made useful".

A new way of doing something presumes the existence of an "old way". Presenting the new way can be viewed as an inevitable, unavoidable change, or as an opportunity to accomplish things in a better way. Assuming things will not change is to assume a universe without energy. The study of energy itself relies on the concept of displacement -- "where you are now minus where you were before." If there is no change, then there is no flow of energy and you have a very static, boring system. A system having no flow of energy can very legitimately be referred to as "dead".

As we study systems in the processes of innovating, we find those organisms and organizations that choose to adapt and those that cannot or chose not to adapt. Those that do not embrace change become outmoded and die. The buggy whip maker that choses not to make steering wheels; the floppy disk manufacturer that choses not to make flash memory sticks; the software company that refuses to move their applications into the cloud -- all examples of entire industries that fail "unexpectedly" and blame their failure on uneducated consumers or worse, on the lack of effective regulations needed to prop up a sector that is "too big to fail".

As soon as you deliver the next greatest innovation you and your organization had better have version 2.0 in the pipeline and a vision for 3.0 on the drawing board. To have great success producing a new technology without choosing to anticipate change only hastens the need for its epitaph.

Philadelphia Mayor Proposes 435% Tax on Sugar

2010-03-04T17:55:00.001-05:00

Let the Carbon Taxes Begin

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports today that Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter proposes a 2¢/fluid-ounce tax on beverages containing sugar. That would add 24¢ to the cost of a can of soda from the vending machine, $2.40 to the cost of a six-pack of 20-oz Pepsi bottles and $1.35 to a 2-L bottle of Mountain Dew. The city is in desperate need of cash, so sure... why not randomly add a quarter to every can of Root Beer and $2.56 tax to every gallon of chocolate milk sold within the city limits.

I don't have a degree in mathematics. But I do have a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics, a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry and a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry...Maybe I can use my 3rd grade arithmetic to muddle through the sticky math -- although I assure you it is not sticky due to sugar.

So the Coca-Cola company reports their 12-oz can of Coke Classic contains 140 Dietary Calories (that's 140 kcals for those in the know).

The American Crystal Sugar Company claims 1 gram of sugar contains 4 Calories

If we divide 140 Calories in 12-oz Coke / 4 Calories per gram of sugar we calculate 35 grams of sugar in a 12-oz can of Coke Classic

Dividing 35 grams of sugar per can / 12 oz per can we calculate 2.91 grams of sugar per ounce

The proposed tax of 2¢/oz leads to a calculation of (2¢/ounce)/(2.91grams of sugar per ounce) which equals 0.69¢ tax/1 gram sugar

Sugar is commonly sold at the store in 5-lb bags. Given 5-lbs equals 2,268 grams, (2,268 grams/5-lbs sugar) * (0.69¢ tax/1 gram sugar), simplifies to $15.65 tax/5-lbs sugar

A 5-lb bag of sugar typically sells for $3.60

Calculating the ratio of Tax/Item, ($15.65 tax/$3.60)*100% = 435% Tax per 5-lb bag of sugar

Why stop there, Mayor Nutter? Why don't you propose a 650% tax on coffee and a $20/oz Sewer Usage Fee to dispose of it? The city's reputation as the Cradle of Liberty is going down the drain anyway... might as well tax it.

It Just Works

2009-10-14T21:28:00.011-04:00

Ubuntu Karmic Koala and Happiness

As I described in my previous post, I have kludged together a rag-tag collection of spare and cannibalized parts to create a "computer" system I refer to as the Jalopy.

It is based on a Dell Dimension 8200 I inherited from a relative who had no use for the dusty beast after an upgrade to a newer system. In its day, the 8200 was top of the line and sports a 2.4 GHz P4 with Hyperthreading (HT) technology and 512 MB of system RAM. I received it without a hard drive but had an even older Dell system that I use for spare parts and grabbed it's massive 12 GB Maxtor Fireball.

The Jalopy had no problem booting from the Karmic CD and the system partitioned and formatted the Fireball in ext4 format and installed the OS in around 20 minutes. Working with the the late Beta of Ubuntu 9.10, I went all out and also grabbed the latest development release of Google Chrome for Linux and it runs nicely.

On day two of enjoying blazing speed, nifty graphic effects and 100% free software the integrated network interface circuit on the 8200 motherboard stopped working. At first I thought perhaps our network was down, but after some port swapping and verification with the other systems in my office, the network looked fine. The interface displayed a solid red LED rather than the standard amber so I figured the old network interface had breathed its last breath.

Not be dissuaded from all of the Karmic goodness I ran down to my "junk pile" and grabbed a rusty (no exaggeration) 3COM PCI 10/100 network card, shut down the system and inserted it into an available PCI slot in the 8200. Given my experience with older, less developed operating systems, I fully expected the scenerio to go something like:

Install the new PCI network interface card
Reboot and have the OS inform me it cannot find drivers for the new device
Reopen the case and try to find a model number on the NIC
Use a different computer to surf the web for the NIC drivers
Download the zip file onto a USB
Move the USB over to the Ubuntu system, copy and unzip
Install the new drivers and reboot
Realize there is only about a 50% chance it will work on the first try

So I put on my best frown, slid the case back under my desk, hooked up all of the connections and pressed the power button. Instead of the above senerio it turned out like this:

"New PCI Detected"
"PCI resourse conflict - resolving..."
"Username:"

I'm sorry, what? After logging in my connection to the Internet was restored and all systems back to normal.

What a concept... The machine discovered a problem, resolved a resource conflict, installed the proper drivers and connected to the Internet... automatically.

Good Karma indeed.

Happy Happy, Joy Joy

2009-10-10T12:40:00.014-04:00

Flitting Among the Clouds

As I mentioned in my previous post, I had a slew of reasons to leave my MS Windows-controlled hard disk drive behind and cross-over into the Ubuntu Linux cloud.

Things are, well... Awesome. I actually enjoy sitting in front of the laptop again now that I don't have to stare at the system tray wondering how many files are being fragged, how soon before I will need more virtual memory, when the next virus or Trojan attack will happen or why the heck the MS File Indexing tool is taking up so much system memory while I'm not running any foreground applications or changing any files.

Crossing over wasn't easy. Not that it was the fault of Ubuntu. Microsoft knew I was sprinting off on my Logan's Run and did its best to prevent it. The largest problem was getting an iso copy of the Ubuntu OS. I knew that Ubuntu had recently released the beta of 9.10 Karmic Koala so I figured I would give it a spin.

I used one of the Lenovo ThinkCentre systems at work sporting an Intel Core 2 VPro chip running MS Vista and an RW-DVD drive to create the bootable Karmic CD. I located the iso image file at Argonne National Laboratory Public Software Mirror and downloaded the 700 MB file in under a minute. Things were going well. I planned to simultaneously install Ubuntu on a Toshiba Tecra laptop running a 1.66 GHz T1300 Centrino chip with 1 GB of RAM and a jalopy desktop I kludged together at work that is based on an old 2.4-GHz Pentium 4HT with 512M of RAM.

The jalopy doesn't support booting from the USB so I needed to burn a bootable CD containing the iso image. After my elation of the quick iso download, I was brought down to earth quickly. The Vista system presented options for creating an audio CD or a File Manager formatted data disk, but no iso burner. So I downloaded a copy of Alex Fienman's ISO v2 burner and installed. I send my continual thanks to our IT department for promoting my network account to Admin or I would have been dead in the water.

The next portion of the saga is something I could have avoided with 20/20 hindsight, but suffice it to say my cardiologist will have some more damage to repair on my next visit. Long story, short, the Vista system only created an error-free iso burn on the fourth try. I didn't expect this shinny new Core 2 VPro Vista system to have any problems burning a CD-R. It looks like the classic "This system is about to create files on the writable CD. Please do not run any programs during this operation. Even mouse interrupts can cause errors in your copy." disclaimer of the early-1990's is still in effect in 2009. Ugh.

After I obtained an error free disk, the sun started to shine and the heavens began to sing. Inserting the CD into both systems, answering five configuration questions, including boot sector options, and they were on their way. Both systems took around 20 min to be reborn as a 9.10 Karmic Koala Ubuntu system running from a freshly formated ext4 hard disk drive.

Karmic includes Mozilla Firefox 3.5.3 for Ubuntu and on the laptop it takes 30 seconds from cold boot to login screen and 20 seconds to launched browser after password. Wow... I'm impressed. Neither system required me to troll virus-laden device driver websites to get everything working. It just "works".

Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" will be in official release at the end of October. If this late-stage beta is any measurement, it will be awesome.

Going Rogue

2009-10-05T22:32:00.003-04:00

Off the Reservation

This past summer I did two things that have profoundly changed my world view. I successfully passed a 29-hour examination to earn my 1st Dan and I picked up the 50th Anniversary Edition of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Since the exam my training in the martial arts has begun in earnest and opened a new world of study and possibilities. So far I have only made it through one-third of the 1000+ pages of Rand's magnum opus, but each page contains such exquisitely-worded theses that I need a few days to unravel and digest individual passages. Both events have emphasized the tyranny of the status quo.

Like other early 40-somethings, my love affair with computing started in high school with courses like "computer math" and data processing in accounting. Learning to program in FORTRAN, BASIC and COBOL on the TRS-80, IBM PC, WANG, and IBM VMS was more than a subtle hint that computing was important and something to be looked into. In college, the IBM PS/2 lab was the sparkling wonderland over which all of us geeks volleyed for time. DOS was something that everyone spoke fluently along with PEEKs and POKEs on the Commodore-64. Every new advance in hardware and software brought blazing increases in execution speed.

That was until graduate school. I was busy writing instrument drivers and data analysis software in FORTH under DOS while we all awaited the day when our research group could afford to upgrade to Windows 3.0. This new "WIMPy" operating system using windows, icons, menus and pull downs looked like "the future" and just had to be awesome. I remember huddling around the Gateway2000 PC as we fed it the 5.25" floppies containing WordPerfect for Windows. And then... SLOOOOOOW. This couldn't be possible. Windows HAD to be awesome. DOS had to suck. MS wouldn't intentionally release a product that took us backward in productivity. Ahh... the loss of innocence.

So here I am working on a centrino-powered laptop sporting a "Designed for Windows XP/Microsoft Vista Compatible" sticker. The only thing worse than the performance of this system is my abject fear of actually trying to install Vista on it. Running Windows XP SP3 and its system tray menagerie of anti-virus software, memory manager, disk defrager and malware security sentry results in having to wait 3 - 4 minutes for it to come out of suspended mode, being constantly harassed to remove unused icons from my desktop and installing yet another update to the Windows Genuine Advantage software. YES! I'm running a purchased and licensed copy of Windows XP and Microsoft Office 2003 - the same Office package that takes 60 seconds to import a .docx file.

I've played around with Ubuntu and even had a dual boot instance of it a while back. But not having a few of my important Windows-only applications at the ready prevented me from taking the plunge. Well, no more. I am so far into the cloud that I only use my hard drive to store photos and music. And most of that is co-located on dropbox anyway. My OS is now the Browser. Anything that stands between me and my Internet interface is the enemy. I don't want to defrag. I don't want to virus scan. I don't want to dynamically modify the size of my virtual memory. I want to open the top of my laptop and check my email, glance at my iGoogle page, see what's trending on twitter, upload some photos to facebook, rant on my blog, add the next paragraph to Myebook, review comments on my knols, watch my Youtube subscriptions, check my Adsense account, work with my Google Docs, and add content to my Google Sites.

I'm out. Color me gone. I've taken a train on the John Galt line. I'm grabbing my Ubuntu install CD and reformatting my hard drive. I'll be sure to write from the cloud...

Why people don’t use LabVIEW?

2009-09-16T10:38:00.005-04:00

It's All About the Flow

I recently joined a conversation over on Stackoverflow.com that asked the question:

Why people don’t use LabView for purposes other than data acquisition and virtualization?

After composing my answer, I wanted to post it here with the hope of generating discussion.

I've been thinking about this question for decades (yes, since 1989...)

Like all programming languages, LabVIEW is a high-level tool used to manipulate the flow of electrons. Unless you are a purist and refuse to use anything other than a breadboard and wires; transistors, integrated circuits and programming languages are probably a good thing if you wish to build something of any consequence.

But like all high-level tools, just wielding one does not make you a professional craftsman. Back in the day of soldering irons, op-amps and UARTs it required a large amount of careful study before you could create a system that actually functioned. The modern realm of text-based languages is so overly dominated by syntax that the programmer must get it just right before it will compile and run. In order to write code that works, the programmer must increase their skill level to create systems much larger than "Hello World".

LabVIEW is not dominated by syntax, but by Data Flow. Back in the day, reaching for your flow charting template and developing the diagram of a well-balanced information system was the art and beauty part of the job. Only after you had the reviewed flowchart in hand would you even consider slogging through the drudgery of punching out the code. (yes... punch cards)

LabVIEW is a development system that allows the programmer to use flow charting tools to diagram the complete information system and press "run"..... LabVIEW "punches out the code" and compiles it for you. No need to fight through the syntax of text language A or language B.

With such a powerful tool, novices can build large, working programs rapidly -- implying some level of professional craftsmanship since it runs at all. However, if the system does not perform elegantly, or the source code diagram is a mess, it is not the fault of LabVIEW.

People often point to "LabVIEW is only good for developing large data acquisition systems." Perhaps those people should consider the professionalism of the scientists and engineers that are working in data acquisition. If they know enough to get the actual wires right for the sensors and transducers, it may be a good bet that they are expert at developing LabVIEW wiring diagrams as well.

I would love to hear your thoughts...

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