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Sunday, September 30, 2012

Update


The Knox ballistics gel worked better than expected.  The 8oz box yielded a cylinder of gel about 8” tall with a 5” diameter. The gel stopped a BB and a .22 round but allowed higher velocity rounds to pass through it and split into 3 sections when struck by a 20 gauge slug. The gel was surprisingly dense and resilient to breaking. Even when thrown high into the air and subsequently falling to the ground the sections thrown did not break apart.
On other matters it turns out that brown corduroy pants that have outlasted their usability produce black smoke when given a Jedi’s burial over a camp fire.  I loved those pants. I was sad to see them go.  I take comfort in knowing that the carbon sequestered in their worn down wales will be absorbed by the wilderness that claimed their last usefulness and converted back into sugars, proteins and the other components that assemble to create a most beautiful wilderness.

Saturday, September 29, 2012

AFM

Active Fire Management, or AFM, is an important part of intentional recreation.

Friday, September 28, 2012

Uncommon


Innovation is simply finding uncommon connections between things that already exist. This morning I heard one of these innovators describe his craft. The podcast was Star Talk with Neil deGrasse Tyson and the topic was video games. If you are familiar with the format of the podcast you know that Neil has typically assembled an interview with someone of note or interest and then he and his rotation of comic guest hosts listen to and discuss the topics around the interview. This episodes interview featured the creator of Sim City (and all the other Sim related games) Will Wright.
I was never a fan of the Sim games, mostly because I’ve never been able to make much investment (time or financial) in video gaming, but to hear Wright explain the game in terms of the human experience was very interesting. As it turns out there is more to Wright and the Sims series than just some dumb game.
The quote below is from the Will Wright Wikipedia page but he expressed many of the same thoughts throughout the interview.
The problem with our education system is we’ve taken this kind of narrow, reductionist, Aristotelian approach to what learning is. It’s not designed for experimenting with complex systems and navigating your way through them in an intuitive way, which is what games teach. It’s not really designed for failure, which is also something games teach. I mean, I think that failure is a better teacher than success. Trial and error, reverse-engineering stuff in your mind—all the ways that kids interact with games—that’s the kind of thinking schools should be teaching. And I would argue that as the world becomes more complex, and as outcomes become less about success or failure, games are better at preparing you. The education system is going to realize this sooner or later. It’s starting. Teachers are entering the system who grew up playing games. They’re going to want to engage with the kids using games.
Who knew such good ideas about teaching and learning could come from a video game designer. In closing I’ll end with another quote from Wright that is amusing but also bolsters the notion that innovation comes from the uncommon.
“I'm uncollecting. I buy collections on ebay, and I disperse them out to people again. I have to be like an entropic force to collectors, otherwise all of this stuff will get sorted.”
BTW Blog fans, tomorrow I’ll be writing on harvested birch bark with the once glowing embers of a recently snuffed campfire and along with that I’ll be away from the internet so posting may be problematic.  I’ll do what I can to put something up, plenty of pals with strong and smart cellular phones.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

DIY Ballistics


I’ve got my annual clay pigeon hunt this  weekend. I’m sure I’ll fill my limit of orange disks, I always do, but there is always an elusive trophy to bag. This year I hope to have my shot at it by shooting at ballistics gel.
Real ballistics gel is really expensive but the internet tells me that a properly prepared envelope of Knox gelatin can serve as a suitable replacement. So I’ll try it. We’ll see how it goes.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

The Rule of 2


In life it is essential to have rules. Rules to live by help us guide our decision making especially when the decisions aren’t easy. So I have a rule of 2. In the presence of ice cream sandwiches if I eat one, I eat two. If I eat three I don’t have to agonize whether or not to eat another. The rule of 2 says that if I eat one I eat 2. Having eaten 2 already the third is 1 more. The rule of 2 says I eat a fourth.
The rule of 2 is applicable for cookies, brownies, fun size candy, slices of pie, slices of pizza, orange slices, etc.  Life is chaos without rules. Establish, live, never deviate.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

I’ve Been Searching


Since I was a young teenager I have been content with the decision I made.  It was really always easy for me because I knew what I wanted and I liked it. There was really no reason to view things any differently.
Then for the last few years my content devolved to melancholy with bouts of dissatisfaction. And so I’ve been searching. Tonight I think I may have turned a corner.
For the longest time my Blizzard was Oreo/Snickers/M&M but as I said that lost its luster. I’ve consistently tried something new with each visit with variable results but tonight’s Oreo Cheesquake struck a chord that hasn’t been plucked since my regular visits to the 2nd floor DQ in the Baker building.
This all just goes to show that when you find yourself in dark times the best policy is to press on, keep chopping that wood and work your way down the Blizzard menu until something works.

Monday, September 24, 2012

Did You Know?


The pressure exerted on the inside of your finger tip provides that tip with extra sensitivity.
Nails grow at about 3mm per month.
Nails are a form of hair.  

Sunday, September 23, 2012

So Close Yet So Far Away


About a week ago a friend of mine took me by surprise with a pretty simple question, “How can I get to know you better?” I wasn’t sure what to say. What don’t you know? My life is an open book. Ask me anything, I guess? We left it about right there.
I’ve known this guy for over 12 years. We go to church together, we’ve ridden bike together, and we even lived a block from each other before wither one of us knew we existed. In percentage of time, proximity and consistency this is one of the people I have spent the most time with. But what do we know about each other? We both ride bikes, we know where each other works, we know each other’s kids… What else?
If I look around I can see that this represents one of the most reliable norms in my life. What do I know about my friends and what do they know about me? We are all so close, yet in many real ways so far away. In many ways this is what I want, because it is easiest, but is it what's best?

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Puppet


Being John Malcovich is a really weird movie. Really weird. Really. I’m not even sure what to say about it besides that it is weird. That’s it.

Friday, September 21, 2012

Companion Animal


We’ve got a second dog in the house this weekend, a close friend of our dog. They hang and play and go to bed early, almost like they were sisters in a pack of domesticated dogs. They are animals whose genetic pallet has been molded from pack hunters to specialized retrievers and now they chase squirrels up trees and stalk sparrows on 2 ½ scoops of food every morning (to help them control their weight).
About a month ago I got a sudden urge, even sense of responsibility, to take my dog out into the wilderness to hunt. To give my dog a chance to run around in a field, chasing other animals, would be the best gift I could give her. But I don’t know how to hunt and I definitely don’t know how to help my dog hunt.  So, she’ll chase birds and tree squirrels and have play dates until I figure it out, or until she gets too old to run and play.

Thursday, September 20, 2012

What are these ladies trying to accomplish here?


Tonight we watched Baggage, the dating show hosted by Jerry Springer.  The premise of the show is that three women divulge increasingly revealing (and typically embarrassing) secrets about themselves all in an attempt to be picked by the guy. The girls get increasingly catty with each other in order to avoid elimination.
I’m just not sure what these ladies are trying to accomplish with their appearance. In the end the winner gets a date at a fancy restaurant with the guy but I can’t image that the cost out ways the benefits.  TV and the odd people on it are really weird these days. Hmm

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Inconceivable


Inconceivable is a word that starts with the letter I. I had something else that started with the letter I but that wasn’t going to work so I just kept going with inconceivable. As it turns out I never would have conceived of writing about something so inane. The end. Publish.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Questionable Redesign


My biggest complaint about the Culvers butter burger was that it was super soggy.  The big burger wrapped in paper just couldn’t get home without soaking the bun in grease. Tonight, rather than wrapped in paper, my Culvers burger came in a box. The bun was far from soggy, so far in fact that it was dry. I say back to the drawing board Mr. Culver because I’m still chasing that first Culvers butter burger with cheese and the perfectly soft and slightly greased bun. Still chasing, but losing the thrill of the hunt.  

Monday, September 17, 2012

Get it done


How do you get something done without getting anything done?
Make a to-do list.
Go ahead try it. It feels great, like you’ve accomplished something. But in the end you haven’t, until you do. We’ll see how it goes.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Front Page News


My middle son loves football. He loves to watch, manage his fantasy team and play in the back yard. He really wants to play on an organized team too. But we won’t let him.
The whole brain injury business is the driving factor in our decision. And we tell our middle boy that. He disagrees.
Today as he was searching for the sports page I offered the front page and a story about a former Viking who died a few years ago. Died in his 60’s. When he died his diagnoses was ALS but his brain was also donated to scientific study. As it turns out his death wasn’t caused by ALS, he didn’t have ALS at all. His symptoms, and eventual death, were caused by accumulated brain injuries, all sustained during his career as a football player. As we’ve always told our son, his brains were basically scrambled.
You’d think the prospect of early death and increasingly disabling brain trauma would be enough to convince a kid that a future in football is inherently flawed. It isn’t. He thinks he’s invincible. He also thinks he would specialize as a punter and that middle school football couldn’t possibly scramble his brains. To which I thought, “Oh crap, he’ll be in middle school next year.”

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Foreign Trash Pays Big Dividends


I am a big PBS fan. I have been for a long time. The rest of my household hasn’t shared my enthusiasm. Sure the kids watch the kid’s shows but when it comes to news, science, art, etc at night I only watch when the house is empty. But yesterday we had a breakthrough.
With some second rate Will Ferrell movie queued up on Netflix I turned to PBS as the kids were still making their way to bed. The show described the importance of arts education and happened to feature a few well known Hollywood actors. As I mentioned I’ve always had a fondness for PBS but these familiar faces were key in engaging the curiosity of the second half of our homes audience of two. PBS took it from there. As usual the show was engaging and educational and by the end it wasn’t I but my PBSphobic viewing partner who said, “Maybe we’ll only watch PBS from now on.”
Boy did my heart sing. I had to stifle my “I told you so” inclinations and only let my boasting surface to a degree that expressed my excitement for a new discovery of a jewel that had been sitting in our shared living room for the last 12 years.
And it happened again. Tonight, with Will at the ready, Antiques Road Show revealed $2 garage sale items yielding auctionable values of $2000 and collected comics appraising at $450,000.  The hook was set, but there was still a big battle to win before tonight’s trophy would be landed safely in the boat.
The Road Show prompted curiosity in the next show but the momentum for PBS’s foothold in our household hit a serious barrier, a program highlighting the impact of Sci-Fi on American culture. This may have been the PBS equivalent of Kryptonite because if there is one thing that the lady doesn’t like it is Sci-Fi.
Fortunately there were cookies in the oven. For one I love cookies, but more importantly that also meant there were also cookies to put in the oven which delayed the start of the Ferrell flick. To be sure, I was given notice, but between each batch the magic of PBS played its part in making my dreams come true and by the time all the cookies were cooling we were both engaged in the documentary. Wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, my wife was watching PBS and a show about Sci-Fi.
So what’s next? Well, in between the Sci-Fi doc and a film about the trash trade in Egypt, tomorrows behind the scenes show on Broadway musicals was advertised, and we made a date. I just hope it can compete with Sunday Night Football.

Friday, September 14, 2012

3x1 3x1


Three sat behind me and three behind and across the aisle.  Six on their way to a new place, new language, new life. Fleeing from persecution? Genocide?  Flying from family, friends and foe. 3x1 3x1.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Hearing Voices in my Head


I am enjoying the occasional voice of Richard Dawkins in my head.  I should explain.

Several months ago I “read” The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins and by “read” I mean I listened to the audio book.  The book was read by Dawkins himself (and his wife) and that very fact made it all the more understandable and enjoyable.

Authors have the advantage of reading their work exactly as they have written it and consequently every inflection and pause performed focuses the meaning of the words on the page with even more clarity than the words themselves.  Now reading Dawkins’ earlier book The Selfish Gene I’m hearing stretches in which Dawkins is almost reading the words to me. Though it is just a voice in my head the memory of his delivery imparts the special emphasis that only an author can employ. In fact if I find myself swimming through a passages, not particularly picking up their meaning, I’ll go back, channel my inner Dawkins, and read the words again with the clarity humor and nuance they embody because they were written, then spoken as they should be.

Analogy of all Analogies


The Pacific Ocean is like… the Pacific Ocean.  Enough said.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Extended Tour


Today really started yesterday when I learned that the group I would be training wouldn’t be in town until tomorrow. As such, I along with my travel companions, were granted a whole extra half day to explore the varied landscapes of Los Angeles County.
Starting at 8am I enjoyed a running tour of LAX. The run was intentional but the tour was not as my running companion and I misjudged the haste required for changing direction and ended up in the 1.5 mile loop of exit doors and hotel shuttle busses departing from the massive baggage claim. Once out of the loop we managed to run a few miles north through a pseudo storefront town that transitioned into neighborhoods. The route provided some excellent large trees to shade the morning sun and the large trees provided ample roots to periodically raise the route upwards up to 3 feet, which made for a nice break from the inevitable monotony of a run.
The day included a $15 egg sandwich at the hotel restaurant and a $7 plate of 3 tacos from a shop in which you walked into the kitchen in order to order and pay for the food. The tacos were one of many highlights of the portion of the day at the ocean, specifically the beaches between the original and modern muscle beaches. The original was cooler. The equipment was awesome (rings, ropes, pull-up and parallel bars) and the people were cool and strong.
A few dozen minutes in the car brought us to the hills of Beverly Hills. High up in the hills the houses were crazy and the views were stunning. At the bottom of the hill the shops were ridiculous but the people not as much as we expected.
The tour closed at the Improve in Hollywood for dinner and comedy. The comics were funny and leveraged their insecurities (a classic comedic trick) to help us all laugh at our own. This worked until the headliner lost his leverage when his insecurities distracted him to the point of begging less engaged onlookers to enjoy his jokes because he was obviously funny because he had been hired to tell jokes at this club. There’s no doubt that he was a student of his craft but I think he may need to bone up on another comedic classic, how to point out the ridiculousness of circular arguments.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Shelving Dystopia for a Balanced Diet


Unintentionally I found  myself engaged in a string of dystopic novels. These, typically science fiction leaning what if scenario, books are appealing because, when done well, they show us something about ourselves and our own assumptions about the world. I’ve previously noted on these pages a quote (whose reference I can’t remember) that, in paraphrase says; good fiction is the great lie that tells us the truth about ourselves. This statement is equally and jarringly true of dystopic science fiction, especially as the line between hero, villain and foil become blurred on the pages and within the greater framework of our reading experience. 
These stories work because they engage the intellectual and entertainment centers of our brains but they cannot sustain us completely. Just as man cannot live on bread alone (from a spiritual, intellectual or nutritional level) it would be malnutritious to consume science fiction without heaping portions of real science literature e onto our literary plates.  
Dystopias have a reputation for controversy, a characteristic they share with some popular science books.  The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins is one of these controversial titles.  However as Dawkins describes in the preface to TSG the book enjoys the rare distinction of having transitioned from early accepted orthodoxy toward a growing cultural controversy.
Today we still live in a time when many Christians would reject a meal like TSG in their literary diet because Dawkins has a reputation for being an evolutionist, an atheist and perhaps worst of all, rude!. However I suspect that many who draw these conclusions haven’t read Dawkins. In the first 7% of his book you will surely confirm that he is an evolutionist, may further support that he is an atheist (which he is) though you may see you have more common ground with his positions than you thought, but I don’t suspect that you will bolster your conclusion that Dawkins is rude.  Instead you will likely realize that he is a thoughtful and skilled educator and, if given the chance, you may even find yourself wanting to follow his evidence further, rather than continuously thinking of reasons to object to it.

Monday, September 10, 2012

Posting from phone again

I wrote on the plane today but I can't get to a real Internet connection. I'll have more later.

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Notes for an audience of one


DoD_Rover_Creo2.pdf
Nice work using color to indicate click targets. The instructions work well with just one (or two) glitches.
Activity 1 - Step 5: The highlighted parts remain highlighted as I click additional parts. The parts don’t stay selected in the model tree but the highlights accumulate on the assembly itself so after all have been clicked from the model tree the whole assembly is green.  Clicking in the graphics area deselects the parts sometimes but not reliably.  I found that if I pull the insert here arrow up the model tree then back to the bottom the parts refresh and are no longer selected. This could very well be related to the graphics processing on my laptop and have nothing to do with the models themselves. However if we don’t know what machines we’ll be working with at the conference we may see something similar.
There is another graphics related anomalies that I have noticed.  Sometimes the right half of the graphics area will go black and whatever rover image is on the screen will remain, almost as an imprint, on that side of the screen.  The modeling/assembly still works fine. The accumulating visual noise is just a bit distracting. When I added a background in Activity 8 Step 3 the issue was gone and the background was replaced with the image I selected and without any further issues.  Again this may related to the machine I am using.
DoD_Radar_Cre02.pdf
Instructions work well.  Didn’t find any issues with the modeling instructions.

Saturday, September 8, 2012

End of an Era


There are two guys who ate faster than me today. This hasn’t happened in 11 years. I may never eat competitively again.  

Friday, September 7, 2012

Crash


4:40 alarm ,petal out of garage a few after 5:00, across the city before 6, meet buddy and ride into work by 7:10, busy morning, busy kids needy kids, busy afternoon, BIG WIND– Big push, big dinner out with friends, 9:00 hit the couch, CRASH, sleep, sink, 9:07 request, 9:07:30 request, 9:07:56 car away, kids to bed, write the blog.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Back in the Saddle


Bag is packed, podcasts loaded, alarm set, lady loaner in the garage. It’s ganna be a great day!

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

My Kind of Propaganda


I really don’t like the political scene.  So much of it is a matter of trading insults to the point that my inclination is to tune out rather than wade through all the crap that is spewed. Of course this isn’t limited to US presidential politics but I did find some propaganda on the world scene that I can get behind.
Tonight a New York Daily News post highlighted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ongoing campaign to increase his image as a manly man. Maybe his efforts and practices (as described in the article) have shades of corruption but still, piloting a hang glider to lead endangered birds along a migration route is awesome, even if it is part of a larger propaganda campaign.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Pintworthy


Sautee chicken apple sausage in butter with green cabbage. Serve in shallow bowl. Apply cracked salt and pepper to taste. Pair with short tumbler of Dos Equis. Enjoy.

Monday, September 3, 2012

Can You?


I’ve been thinking about a box made of wood that, if rotated can stand up 20”, 24” or 30”. I’m confident that the box could be built but not confident that the 30” configuration would be stable if you jump on top of it.
Ok after a quick Google search it looks like you can buy this exact box for about $160-200 so I guess it’s not that bad of an idea. I’m sure it could be build for under $50.
I’m not sure if I regret the weeks I’ve spent intermittently thinking about this project but I do wonder what I would have thought of if I would have done the search initially. I guess the world will never know.

Sunday, September 2, 2012

After Effects


The friendly author of the video tutorial ended the intro by proclaiming that the program is not only amazingly powerful but it is also fun and easy. After 10 minutes of his tutorial my companion and I were skeptical about the easy part. Those 10 minutes were dense.

Then, after a few more tutorials we ventured out onto the internet and found a specific tutorial for creating an effect we were interested in. This author moved quickly but we also quickly saw that starting a project was a lot less daunting than deconstructing a completed one. After 30 minutes with the 10 minute tutorial we had a cool new animation and a lot more confidence that the program was useable and like the original trainer claimed relatively easy.

Next stop – Kinetic Typography

Saturday, September 1, 2012

A Good BLUF is the Perfect Tell


There is no other organization as prolific at acronymizing as the US Military. I learned an excellent acronym recently whose full explanation (and implications) are as sweetly succinct as its abbreviated version. BLUF, Bottom Line Up Front. As you can now see a good bluf is the perfect tell.