Rocket Scientist

Yep, I said I had a bunch.  Feel free to add a favorite of yours or write your own!

A file that big?
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
– David J. Liszewski

The Web site you seek
Cannot be located but
Endless others exist.
– Joy Rothke

Errors have occurred.
We won’t tell you where or why -
Lazy programmers!
– Charlie Gibbs

Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot
Order will return.
– Suzie Wagner

ABORTED effort:
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.
– Mike Hagler

Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.
– Margaret Segall

First snow, then silence.
This thousand dollar screen dies
So beautifully.
– Simon Firth

With searching comes loss
And the presence of absence:
“My Novel” not found.
– Howard Korder

The Tao that is seen
Is not the true Tao until
You bring fresh toner.
– Bill Torcaso

A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.
– James Lopez

Three things are certain:
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
– David Dixon

You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.
– Cass Whittington

Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.
– Francis Heaney

Having been erased,
The document you’re seeking
Must now be retyped.
– Judy Birmingham

Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.
–Ian Hughes

Server: poor response
Not quick enough for browser
Time out, plum blossom.
– Rik Jespersen

Rather than beep
Or a rude error message:
These words: “File Not Found”.
– Len Dvorkin

The code was willing!
It considered your request,
But the chips were weak.
– Barry L. Brumitt

Everything is gone.
Your life’s work has been destroyed.
Squeeze trigger? (yes/no)
– David Carlson

No keyboard present
Hit F1 to continue
Zen engineering?
– Jim Griffith

This site has been moved
We’d tell you where, but then we’d
Have to delete you.
– Charles Matthews

Printer not ready.
Could be a fatal error.
Have a pen handy?
– Pat Davis

Logon incorrect!
Only perfect spellers may
Enter this system!
– Jason Axley

Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.
– David Ansel

Ten thousand things
How long do any persist?
Explorer is gone.
– Jason Willoughby

Seeing my great fault
Through darkening blue windows
I begin again.
– Chris Walsh

This site uses frames
And yet your browser does not.
One of these will change.

For a new PC,
Center of my universe,
I abandon all.

Yes, it’s Friday and I should put up something fabulous, but I can’t because I won’t be here.  Why, you say?  Because I’m going to the theater to watch Les Misérables, one of my favorite modern musicals.  Love the music.  Love the chorale pieces.  It’s one of a very very small number of musicals I’ve seen on stage (where I paid a lot to sit in the nosebleed section) and I get to see it again tonight.  WooHoo!  And my ticket is much better and I get to hang with my friend who has season tickets so it’s all good.  (Poor Lee, really must let him get out of the house some this weekend).

Now, I have a number of friends (and a husband) who all love classical music.  I like classical music, too, but I like it best if I can sing to it.  Classic choir, opera, lieder, operetta, and, yes, musicals.  I like pop and R&B and other stuff as well.  I’m REALLY eclectic.

Interestingly enough, as I’m writing this sort of fill in the blank post on why I won’t be here because I’ll be enjoying music, oldwestmom of ForeverFamily is starting a new blog on classical music appreciation (called Symphony Rocks!).    Seriously, if you like music, but not the classic kind, you should check it out and find out what you’re missing.  And, if you love classical music, you should check it out so you can share and discuss that love.

Hey, getting together (virtually) to discuss what we love, that’s kind of what blogging is all about.  Isn’t it?

Today, of course, is the day I steal my own comment from (usually) someone else blog and make a post about it.  Kudos to Relax Max of Clarity2009 for giving me a doozy.  He wrote a blog , actually, in response to a quote I’d given on Saturday: 

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.” -Dwight David Eisenhower, 1953, a speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

He noted that, though he thought he poor should be fed, he also saw a use for defense.  Actually, he said a great deal of useful thoughtful things, some of which I agreed with.  But I was intrigued by the implication that Eisenhower, although he may have said this is in a speech, was unlikely to have really felt this way.  I’m not so sure.

Now, let me be clear.  I am not objective.  I am mostly pacifist by nature and I won’t pretend otherwise.  If the draft included women and I were drafted, I would have to be a contientious objector because I could never kill someone for wearing a different uniform (though I recognize it is necessary in war, I could not do it).  That doesn’t make me strictly nonviolent, mind you.  I can think of several circumstances where I could kill, probably with a clean conscience, but it would be personal and I would know that the individual I was killing was a monster, not presuming it.  But I digress.  

I also think, personally, that this country spends far too much on defense and, worse, spends the money poorly.  I’m of the opinion that warfare as we knew it in WWII has long outlived it’s usefulness and and that carpet bombing civilians and attacking with hordes of impressionable young people is no longer useful.  No, I was not a fan of the Iraq war or even the one in Afghanistan.  In my opinion, war is an action of last resort, when you have exhausted every alternative  and you are faced with a future even worse than war if no action is taken.  War, even when well justified (as we were in WWII) is horrible.  In my opinion, if war is used for anything less than absolute necessity, it is treason, it is a betrayal not only of the the trust our soldiers who signed up for our military put in their leadership and a the people of this nation, but also a crime against those killed.  Note, I don’t say you have to agree with me.  But it’s how I feel about it.

This nation spends more than the entire rest of the world on defense.  That it spends more than 10X what more weapons for our infantry and bigger and better conventional weapons when we’re already tops on this is nothing but a gravy train for contractors.  Better to spend it on training for our most elite corps and using intelligence and brains to deal with threats surgically rather than with blunt force; we’d be doing ourselves a favor.

Anyway, back to my original point.  As most of you know, I gather quotes.  One day when I was trolling through Wikiquote, I stumbled upon the topic of “war” and was surprised by the views of so many I would have expected to be warmongers or were involved in war, how much my own thinking reflects their own.   OK, there are some pacifists in here, too.

I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
–Albert Einstein

Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things.
–Russell Baker

History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.
–Ronald Reagan

They serve so that we don’t have to. They offer to give up their lives so that we can be free. It is, remarkably, their gift to us. And all they ask for in return is that we never send them into harm’s way unless it is absolutely necessary. Will they ever trust us again?
–Michael Moore

What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children — not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women — not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.
–John F. Kennedy

We are defined by how we use our power.
–Gerry Spence

When war is declared, truth is the first casualty.
–Arthur Ponsonby

The sons of torture victims make good terrorists.
–André Malraux

War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children.
–Jimmy Carter

Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.
–John F. Kennedy

No nation is fit to sit in judgement upon any other nation.
–Woodrow Wilson

Look, there is one statement that bothers me more than anything else, and that’s the idea that when the troops are in combat everybody has to shut up. Imagine if we put troops in combat with a faulty rifle, and that rifle was malfunctioning and troops were dying as a result. I can’t think anyone would allow that to happen, that would not speak up. Well, what’s the difference between a faulty plan and strategy that’s getting just as many troops killed?
–Gen. Anthony Zinni, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.), former CENTCOM Commander-in-Chief, 2004-05-21, television interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes”

Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out…and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel … and in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for “the universal brotherhood of man” — with his mouth.
–What Is Man? (1906) by Mark Twain

O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle-be Thou near them! With them, in spirit, we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it-for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
–The War Prayer by Mark Twain [Twain, as you know, was a sarcastic ass, but apparently a pacifist]

Göring: Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.
Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
– Interview in Göring’s jail cell during the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials (18 April 1946) [did anyone else think this sounded familiar?]

A pre-emptive war in ‘defense’ of freedom would surely destroy freedom, because one simply cannot engage in barbarous action without becoming a barbarian, because one cannot defend human values by calculated and unprovoked violence without doing mortal damage to the values one is trying to defend.
–J. William Fullbright

I have concluded, there is no war, in the history of man, that could not have been avoided by 15 minutes of honest diplomacy.
–Andrew Mutton

I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war.
–Franklin Delano Roosevelt

I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a method of settling international disputes.
–Douglas MacArthur

It is a tribute to the humanity of ordinary people that horrible acts must be camouflaged [with words] like security, peace, freedom, democracy, the ‘national interest’.
–Howard Zinn, Boston U professor & former WWII bomber pilot, USA.

Let no one ever, from henceforth say one word in any way countenancing war. It is dangerous even to speak of how here and there the individual may gain some hardship of soul by it. For war is hell, and those who institute it are criminals. Were there even anything to say for it, it should not be said; for its spiritual disasters far outweigh any of its advantages.
–Robert Nichols

Peace cannot be achieved by force, only by understanding.
–Albert Einstein

War in our time has become an anachronism. Whatever the case in the past, war in the future can serve no useful purpose. A war which became general, as any limited action might, would only result in the virtual destruction of mankind.
–General Dwight David Eisenhower

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?
–Mahatma Gandhi

There never was a good war, or a bad peace.
–Benjamin Franklin

War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it.
–Desiderius Erasmus

When the rich make war it’s the poor that die.
–Jean-Paul Sartre

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. … Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
–Martin Luther King, Jr.

Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root.
–Ronald Reagan

You can build a throne with bayonets, but you can’t sit on it for long.
–Boris Yeltsin

Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a “necessary evil,” it begins to look more and more necessary and less and less evil.
–Sydney J. Harris

 Just sayin’.

I’m going to take a break from short stories (sort of) because I read a post on Bookish’ blog wherein someone wrote a book transforming the classic Pride and Prejudice to an alternate book:  Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. 

OK.  Zombies aren’t my thing and I’m very fond of the original.  However, bookish quoted a portion of the new book including a swashbuckling Mr. Darcy (and a courteously puking Mr. Bingley) and that got me to thinking.  Even if this particular incarnation doesn’t appeal, wouldn’t it be fun to play with taking a bit of classic and give it a different twist, either environment or condition?

Now I could tell you some possibilities, but here, I’ll show you.  Like “The Cask of Amontillado”…

“He is an ignoramus,” interrupted my friend, as he stepped unsteadily forward, while I followed immediately at his heels. At a small cozy room, and realizing he had reached the extremity of the corridor, and finding his progress arrested by the wall, stood stupidly bewildered. A moment more and I had fettered him to the couch. In its surface were two iron staples. From one of these depended a short chain, from the other a padlock. Throwing the links about his waist, it was but the work of a few seconds to secure it. He was too much astounded to resist. Withdrawing the key I stepped back from the recess.

“Pass your hand,” I said, “over the table; you will find a catalog for tupperware. Indeed, it is the very latest lineup. I implore you again, would you not care to give me a ride so I can leave my damn house? No? Then I must positively tell you all about our new spring colors.  And let’s not forget our new core decor items!”

“I thought we were having coffee!” ejaculated my friend, not yet recovered from his astonishment.

“Too bad,” I replied; “You could have sprung for Starbucks.”

Or, perhaps, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”

They had now reached the road which turns off to Sleepy Hollow; but D8N40, who’s programming was clearly in need of an overhall, instead of keeping to the road, made an opposite turn and plunged headlong down hill to the left, it’s hovering capability malfunctioning so that the ride was unreasonably rough. This road leads through a delapidated ghetto shaded by disintegrating skyscrapers for about a four blocks, where it crosses the laserbridge which formed the boundary to the standard monitored city, where help was readily available.

As yet the the robotic steeds errors prompted full speed so that it gave him advantage in the chase; but just as he had got halfway through the ghetto the antigrav unit gave way and he felt the unit stutter and fail beneath him. He tried to fumble a backup program into place and run a diagnostic, but the unit whined back into power before he had a chance to do anything, but it was only half power and stuttered across the ground on one side, jolting him terrifically.  Now he could hear them, his pursuers, greedy for his technology, despite the malfunctions. For a moment the terror of his boss intruded as this was his transportation unit; but this was no time for petty fears; the aliens were hard on his heels, and (unskilled rider that he was) he had much ado to maintain his seat, sometimes slipping on one side, sometimes on another, and sometimes jerked backwards with a violence that he verily feared would rend him on the back lip.

A glow in the distance now cheered him with the hopes that the laserbridge was at hand. The wavering reflection of a blue glow in the bosom of the brook told him that he was not mistaken. He saw the gleam of the bridge dimly glowing under the broken street lights ahead. He recollected the place where other travelers had disappeared. “If I can but reach that bridge,” thought Ichabod, “I am safe.” Just then he heard the, black chittering, the panting and blowing close behind him; he even fancied that he felt their hot breath. Another clumsy fumbling at the control panel and he got the unit to lurch forward slightly faster; he thundered over the surface made of naught but light; he gained the opposite side; and now Ichabod cast a look behind to see if his pursuers should vanish, according to rule, unable to follow him across the beam of light. Just then he saw the aliens cluster at the laser’s edge and, as one, spit some vile concoction over the small river. Ichabod endeavored to dodge the horrible missile, but too late. It encountered his cranium with a tremendous crash; he was tumbled headlong into the plascrete, and transportation unit, the aliens and their greedy followers passed by like a whirlwind.

 So, you try.  I would stick to books or stories in the public domain, but, hey, knock yourself out.

Or, if you don’t want to go to that much trouble, hey, I’ll just field your ideas of new ways to transform old classics.  After all, it’s supposed to be fun.

Sometimes it amazes me.  Just as something triggers a train of thought in my brain, like the response to yesterday’s blog, the New York Times (or a blog or something else) will spit forth something that goes along with what I’m thinking.  In this case, it was the New York Times again with this article . 

 But what was I thinking, you might ask (unless, of course, you know by now that I’ll tell you whether you ask or not).   I was thinking about people noting that Wikipedia is fallible, that you have to take some of what you read with a grain of salt, that you can’t take everything you read at face value.

Granted.  But, then, shouldn’t we do that all the time? Skipping, for the instant, religion and religious texts (where I find the advice still applicable, but I don’t intend to tell anyone else what to do or believe), what source is so authoritative, so infallible, so incontrovertible that you shouldn’t read it critically?  Seriously.  And, yes, that includes me.

Newton was a genius.  Do you think he never made a mistake?  Or Einstein?  Or Gallileo?  Gallileo struggled, in fact, because the notions and logic of Aristotle (or Archimedes - some Greek with a name that started with A) were considered definitively true and, therefore, couldn’t be challenged.  Even though they were wrong.  It should be noted that being wrong doesn’t mean you’re not bright or brilliant or intelligent.  (Refusing to acknowledge you’re wrong even when data presents itself may be a different matter but that is another blog post.)  Everyone gets stuff wrong.  

However, you’ll get a lot less wrong if you don’t forgo your own thinking.  Give it the sniff test.  Sure, so-and-so is an expert or has been write about X before, but is he right now? And this is where the article came in.  It’s all about exercises in a book called Guesstimation: Solving the World’s Problems on the Back of a Cocktail Napkin where guesstimation exercises (as Enrico Fermi used to impose) are provided to help you learn to guesstimate big things.  They’re more than just an exercises in math, though, they’re exercises in doing quick and dirty calculations that can give you a quick sense of whether something makes sense or not.  Ok, ok, so math isn’t everyone’s bag, but the concept isn’t just about math.

Where I work, I call it the sanity check.  Someone makes an assertion and my first reaction is to double check it in my mind.  In some cases it might be validating an analysis - I do a ballpark estimate and, if they’re pretty close, I know it’s probably fine.  If they’re off by a decimal place, I need to look closer because one of us is likely wrong (and, yes, I’ve caught other people’s errors that way - and many of my own).  But it applies to logic.  If someone asks for funding because their current model is underpredicting risk (as compared to actual damage), but then the new improved model comes out and it says the risk is half what was originally predicted - that should send up flags.  Something doesn’t smell right.  (And, yes, I’ve seen that happen too - and I’m the only one it bothered).

We’ve grown too lazy, willing to put off our thinking to someone else.  Politics is one of the worst.  I’m mostly liberal, but I have some conservative tendencies.  Why?  Because I decide for myself what I believe is best on each individual issue.  No one decided for me.  I did.  I like Obama, but I don’t assume he’s always right or infallible.  No one is.  We agree on some topics, but not on others.  I don’t have a problem with someone else disagreeing with him either, but I do have a problem with someone regurgitating tired arguments (that have been readily disproved) or making unsubstantiated allegations with no basis.  I would feel the same if someone did it to Sarah Palin.  People, in my opinion, are entitled to any opinion they want, but I won’t waste my time arguing with someone who hasn’t bothered putting thought behind it nor will I respect it.

If we thought for ourselves, we would realize that interest only loans and adjustable rate mortgages were too good to be true.  If we think for ourselves, we can understand the difference between our rights and a moral imperative to impose our beliefs on others.  We can listen to an expert or a scientist or a skeptic without ignoring the small voice inside our own heads that says, “that doesn’t sound right.”  If it doesn’t sound right, find out more.  Your view on the world might change or you might realize that a lot of things that sound authoritative really are nonsense dressed up like something meaningful.  

Asking someone to do our thinking for us is a dangerous proposition, for two reasons if no others.  First, because those with the most definitive and authoritative voices often have a vested interest in getting you to think they way they want you to and, secondly, because you will have to live with the end result, whether you trusted someone else’s thinking or your own.

Update:  Speak of the devil, here’s a perfect example.  I don’t object to the joke but I do object to the yahoos who swallow it without thinking.

Hard on the heels of the New York Times article I referred to yesterday, I found yet another article that made me think.  This time, it was talking about Wikipedia .  I’m not going to quote the article (I try to avoid that - better you should read it directly), but it was mostly pointing out that, despite the criticisms, it was mostly quite accurate for the same reasons it is sometimes, particularly on the more obscure entries, misleading.  The more people that read it, the more likely it is that something wrong will be caught, will be flagged, will be noted for its lacks.  And, with all these people, working together, looking over each other’s shoulder for one purpose–to share knowledge with anyone who asks–it’s a marvel of surprising caliber.

I couldn’t agree more.

Man, I love Wikipedia.  Give me a computer and a week with no one wanting anything and I could spend all day wandering through Wikipedia (OK, I have spent all day(s) wandering through Wikipedia). Ever wanted to know about Japanese history ?  Hey, it’s in there.  Lady Jane Grey ?  It’s in there.  String Theory ?  You betcha.  Nuthatches ?  It’s there.  Space accidents ?  They got it.  African American astronauts ?  Yep.  The Hope Diamond?  Fruits Basket ?  Dracula (pick one)? They have it, all cross-linked so you can start with Alfred the Great and follow it all the way to Elizabeth II (I’ve stopped linking ’cause, hey, it’s fun to search).  The article I mentioned in the NYT times noted that too.  Man, you can look up Nellie Bly and just wander around following links for hours.  Again, this is the voice of experience. 

But what about accuracy?  After all, can’t anyone just edit it?  Yes they can and anyone else can fix it if it’s broken.  Citations run rampant through Wikipedia (I wish most encyclopedias cited their sources so definitively and completely), often with links so you can check them out.  Related wikipedia articles are usually listed as well as outside sites that are applicable.  And, I have to tell you, I’ve read a LOT of articles on Wikipedia.  I have found errors, but, for the most part, I’ve been blown away by the completeness and accuracy of the information.  Esoteric science articles, detailed animal descriptions, obscure but pivotal historical figures.  Want to know where to find diamonds or how to smelt iron?  It’s there.  Want to know what the actual tenets of hindism are?  We got that too.  It’s a smorgasbord of everything you ever wanted to know, laid out and cross-referenced intuitively so you can find it. Even if I don’t end up citing Wikipedia, I can still use it as a resource for finding source documents for any number of subjects.  I want to look something up for work, for myself, Wikipedia is my first stop, though usually not my last.

That’s not all though.  Wikipedia, built and maintained by experts and laymen alike, is amazingingly readable and accessible.  Not just finding the topics you want, but reading about complex topics in approachable language that makes it understandable.  Many’s the time I’ve been stymied by some theoretical physics question that’s outside my expertise, only to find a very usable and helpful description in Wikipedia.

And all the other resources associated with it:  wikisource (public domain literature and art), wikiquote (great resource for the quote happy), wikibooks (free textbooks), and much much more.   All this, with no advertising, no apparent agenda other than knowledge is power and we should share it.

Damn, I love Wikipedia.

Once again, the editorial pages of the New York Times have provided me food for thought.  And, when I get to thinking, I try to put it on my blog so you all can share it.  In this case, it was it was Kristoff’s column on the experts who were apparently caught flat-footed by what, in hindsight, was the inevitable economic meltdown we’re all dealing with right now (some more severely than others).   It actually wasn’t really the column that caught my eye so much as the Dr. Fox effect and the findings of a Philip Tetlock of the University of California Berkeley who studied 82,000 predictions by some 284 experts (and described it in his book:  Expert Political Judgement ).

The Dr. Fox effect was the way of describing an experiment where an actor was paid to present himself as an expert (Dr. Fox) and give a completely pointless and nonsensical presentation to a group of professional educators.  The presentation was presented well (with jokes and likely excellent power point slides, perhaps animation) and left the educators by and large impressed, which either meant that they were too intimidated to admit they didn’t understand or were too amused to protest that it was garbage.  Believe me, I’ve seen the Dr. Fox effect in action.

But I found the results of Mr. Tetlock’s study even more fascinating.  Apparently, if one examines the predictions of “experts” and compares them to reality, he discovered that their predictions vs. actuality were accurate only slightly better than random.  Think about that, not slightly better than, say, the general public, slightly better than “chimps throwing darts at a dartboard.”  This was true regardless of the area of expertise, education or years of experience.

In fact, the only differentiation was fame and not how you might expect.  The more famous the “expert” the less likely they were to be accurate.   The reason Mr. Tetlock decided, was that the media prefers folks that give a definitive answer without codicils or signs conditionals.  But I think it’s possible that people feel pressured to give definitive answers when in front of the camera as well.

However, this just reinforces one of my own litmus tests when it comes to scientists (or really an expert):  the less open they are to question or adamant that their view is the only view, the less likely they are to really know what they’re talking about.  In other words, no real scientist refuses questions or belittles people who disagree.  A real scientist understands the limitations of his own knowledge and welcomes anyone who wants to understand.  A “bad” scientist thinks that his expertise should quiet all dissent.  That’s someone who cares more about appearing right than the truth - which is the antithesis of a real scientist in my opinion.  I guess that applies to more than science.

Well, it’s always nice to get data to back my opinion.

I didn’t want to pursue a theme today.  Couldn’t settle on one, so I thought I’d just scroll randomly through my long list of quotes and nab a few for this Saturday.  Enjoy the eclectic weirdness of the kinds of quotes I collect.

One of the difficulties of politics is that politicians are shocked by those who are really prepared to let their thinking reach any conclusion. Political thinking consists in deciding upon the conclusion first and then finding good arguments for it. An open mind is considered irresponsible– and perhaps it really is.
                           – Richard Crossman

One of the functions of intelligence is to take account of the dangers that come from trusting solely to the intelligence.
                        – Lewis Mumford

On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!], ‘Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?’ I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
                            – Charles Babbage

Perhaps it is impossible for a person who does no good to do no harm.
                                 – Harriet Beecher Stowe

Pride is concerned with who is right. Humility is concerned with what is right.
                           – Ezra Taft Benson

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.
                          – Confucius

Remember the five-step response of all experts when first confronted with a new development in their field: IGNORE, RIDICULE, ATTACK, COPY, STEAL.
                          – Arthur Jones

Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the airplane, the pessimist invents the parachute.

                   -George Bernard Shaw

We lived like that “Happy Family” you sometimes see in traveling zoos: a lion caged with a lamb. It is a startling exhibit but the lamb has to be replaced frequently.
                  -Robert Heinlein

The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he who, by peddling second-rate technology, led them into it in the first place.

                        -Douglas Adams

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

    -Dwight David Eisenhower, 1953, a speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors

I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once.

–Ashleigh Brilliant    

Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think.
–Jean De La Bruyre

A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.
–George Patton

The Americans will always do the right thing… After they’ve exhausted all the alternatives.

–Winston Churchill

I don’t know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

–Albert Einstein

Softmindedness often invades religion. … Softminded persons have revised the Beautitudes to read “Blessed are the pure in ignorance: for they shall see God.” This has led to a widespread belief that there is a conflict between science and religion. But this is not true. There may be a conflict between softminded religionists and toughminded scientists, but not between science and religion. … Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. They are complementary.

                        -Martin Luther King, Jr.

Biologically speaking, if something bites you, it is more likely to be female.
- Desmond Morris

America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.
- Oscar Wilde

Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.
– Peter Rothman

Today, it’s time to take care of some housekeeping.

First, those of you who are Today.com bloggers already know that entrecard is now taboo.  For the rest of you, I’ll be leaving entrecard soon and thought I’d give you a heads up in case that’s how you find me.  I’ve got ads in place until April 2, so I’ll leave my widget up until they run out, but it will be taken down some time next week.  I have mixed feelings about that.  On the one hand, I think entrecard got me noticed by some who would never have found me otherwise (and my readers are the best!).  I also know I stumbled upon some blogs I absolutely treasure through EC, so I’m a little sad.  Naturally, I expect a dip in hits, but I wasn’t here for the traffic, though I’m sure Today feels differently about it. On the other hand, my favorite hits are those that come back to read my blog and perhaps comment, rather than find a quick way to run up 300.  I’m expecting the traffic that remains to be of the quality I like best, so that’s a good thing.

I have endeavored to be a spot worth coming to, for whatever reason draws you and I’m not closing shop.  I still plan on writing quality blogs and encourage you to make a link or a bookmark so you can get your daily dose of Rocket Scientist (and/or Ask Me Anything , which I’ll be touching on a bit later, too).  By the time I remove the EC widget, I’m hoping I’ll have an RSS feed to replace it.  However, you’re always welcome to bookmark it or put a blog link somewhere so I don’t miss out on you and you don’t miss out on me. 

I’ve loved the interaction here.  I do get much more discussion than my traffic would justify and I think that’s super cool.  Quality, you know, rather than quantity.

Also, as a reminder, I do have that second blog.  As it has had less of a chance to build a following, the EC change will hit it much harder.  Also, without comments or questions to feed Ask Me Anything , there’s nothing to post on it.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m perfectly capable of asking myself questions I find thought-provoking and will do so if necessary, but I really wrote it so people could ask me, well, anything.

Sure, I can ask myself questions, but, hey, I already know the answers.

Alright, today I really did it.  Usually, my Thursday thievery involves stealing my own comments from someone else’s blog.  But, today, I really stealing someone else’s brilliance to populate my blog, though I had her permission.  What am I stealing?  Well, the beauty of one daughter and the talent of another.  See, as some of you know, the photography gene, like the plant growing gene, has thoroughly passed me by.  I take a picture of my baby and she’s either a blurr turning the other way or just enough out of focus to make my pictures unusable.  I quick look at my photo gallery on my website , you’ll see that most of them are due to my uber-photographically talented Aunt Sue.  My father was also a gifted photographer.

 Me, I stink.

But my daughter doesn’t.  She’d asked for a camera for Christmas and repays me in beautiful pictures of Roxy I can’t seem to take myself.  I thought I’d post a few for you so you can see how blessed I really am in daughters.

And how about a round of applause for our beautiful model.  And, to prove that Alex is no less photogenic:  

For those of you thinking this would be another Moon posting, hey, it’s Wednesday and so it’s time for a writing exercise, which, eventually, someone will do. 

 So, what can you do with a few words?  Well, you’d be surprised.  When I hung out on Gather a great deal, there were a couple of groups that specialized in assigning prompts for short stories.  Among the shortest was the group that calls for 50 word stories.  

FIFTY WORDS!  Yes, that was my reaction, too.  What can you say in 50 words.  Half my sentences are longer than that.  But, you know what, it was easier than I ever expected.  And fun.  I’m not expecting a full up story story, mind you, but you should be able to show me why someone is crying - without coming out and saying it.

Since short stories are all about keepin’ it short, I thought we could try this.  Normally the rules are 50 words, no more no less.  I’m willing to let you go +/-5 words on the limit.

So, in 45-55 words, tell me why ___________ is weeping.

Here’s an example:

 The clatter jarred her from her stirring.  She spun and gasped, as her toddler lay in a crumpled heap at the foot of the stairs.  “Tommy!”  Instantly, she was on her knees, afraid to touch him, to know if–.  Tommy stirred and began to cry. Only then did she weep.

Or

 With an exhausted sigh, she collapsed on the couch.  Home at last.  Without thinking, she reached to the nearby cushion, then stopped, tears starting to her eyes.  Her sister wanted her to get a kitten, but a kitten could never replace Romeo.  Without him, it just wasn’t home any more.

Now, you try.

Also, since you all are so patient, here’s a photo of the moon, courtesy of morguefile.

For those of you that jumped the gun with my last post to jump from exploring the moon into making a colony: .  Smarties!  And I bet you’ll have no problem guessing whether I’m all for it or not.  That’s right, I am.

Hava noted that making a colony on the moon, a real long-term self-sustaining facility, is no easy matter, despite what we’ve read in books or seen in movies.  She ain’t lying.  Making a self-sustaining colony on the moon is a complete pain in the whatsit.  Everything we need (air, water, food) will either have to be brought from here and 100% recycled or made from unpromising natural ingredients.  Power will need to be generated but, more than that, propulsion will have to be devised in order to make coming and going viable for the long run.  (Some of you might note that these same technologies and capabilities could be damn useful right hear on the planet, too.)

Do I see it likely within my lifetime?  Honestly, no.  Bits and pieces of what you’d need for a long term commitment, maybe, but not all of it.  But we don’t have to succeed soon to make pursuing  the goal of a self-sustaining colony worthwhile today.

Why?

Because I do believe that human exploration is more important that climbing Mount Everest because it’s there.  I don’t know what’s in our future, on this planet, and I know that getting to where we have other options if something cataclysmic would happen is going to be a long and painful road.  I don’t know if we’ll ever need it, but I’d much rather have the option and not need it than find out we need it in thirty years, but the path to escape is fifty years long.  But it’s more than that.

I believe that, if we are ever to do real exploring outside our solar system, we’d better know our way around space, we’d better know how to live on little or nothing and how to make the most of whatever natural resources we can find because we aren’t going to just stumble (conveniently) across dilithium crystals nor can we count on friendly (or touchy) natives to supply our wants.  And I think that should be our goal.  Our planet is precious and beautiful and wonderfully nurturing; I love the Earth.  But I dream of exploring elsewhere, finding more places, more people, more systems than I can imagine today.  I want that, if not for my children, for my children’s children.

The moon, as it was as an exploration test bed, is a perfect place to learn how to survive on very inhospitable land, how to use the resources we have to the fullest, how to grow food and create a living ecosystem out of very very little.  All within easy reach of earth, in case of setbacks, but under some of the harshest terms.  There is no welcome on the moon.  To stake a permanent claim, we’re going to have to be brilliant and creative and resourceful, just as we’re going to need to do to travel beyond our sun’s influence.  And, if we can beat her, we will not only have perfected any number of necessary steps that will set the foundation for future exploration, we’ll have proved that it’s possible, that man need not be fettered to this planet for all eternity.

Every day we wait or refuse to set our feet upon that path, success retreats at least one more day away.

Not that I’m opinionated or nothin’.

This comes up a lot when people talk about space exploration - why go back to the moon?  (For those that don’t think manned spaceflight is a worthwhile endeavor - as I do - you can see my reasoning here and here )  Why not skip the moon and go straight to Mars?  What’s the value? 

I’m here to tell you, I think it’s very valuable, very worthwhile, even essential.  The moon is like a specially made test bed we can get our feet wet with, test our theories and our hardware, learn our lessons (even the hard way) before the really tough stuff happens.  It has no atmosphere, no life.  If we want to live on the moon, we’re going to have to make our own habitat, find our own opportunities, make the most of the forbidding landscape.  If we want to conquer the moon, we’re going to have to deal with dust and temperature extremes and low gravity (which isn’t always a good thing) and meteors and radiation and everything else that is part and parcel of moving outside our magetosphere, going outside of earth’s orbit.  We’re going to have to learn to recycle like never before and get blood (or something useful) from stone.

If we can beat the moon, we can beat Mars or any other planet or moon even marginally friendly.

And we’re lucky because we have the opportunity to do so within relatively easy reach of earth.

We can test engines on a smaller scale for a lander on the moon than we’ll need on Mars.  We can address dust mitigation techniques on the Moon where resupply and rework is a relatively easy thing.  We can figure out what upmass is REALLY required to make even a temporary home on another planetary surface before we commit to 3 year trip where there will be no rest stops along the way, no chance to recover if something we really needed, but didn’t know we needed, is safely on earth instead of with our Mars explorers.

Truth is, space exploration in orbit is a risky business, but we can get up there quickly if we need to.  We can escape quickly if we need to.  Someone gets a hot appendix on the Moon, we can get him back on earth before it’s too late.  That beautiful sphere that lights the night sky has a thousand lessons on her we don’t have to learn on Mars where there’s no chance for rescue or resupply.

Should we go to the Moon?  We’d be damn fools if we don’t.  Believe me, in our lifetime, someone will walk her dusty hills again.

I love the Moon .  I love the crescent moon, slicing a bit of silver through the diamond-studded night.  I love the full glow of the moon when it’s heavy and round in the sky, sometimes silver, sometimes gold, sometimes copper, depending on the vagaries of orbital mechanics and our own atmosphere.  I love it when it’s growing or shrinking, shining on us.

I love it veiled in clouds, sometimes just a misty glow behind the dense cover, sometimes just slightly out of focus behind the diaphanous fingers of cirrus.

I love that having that gorgeous chunk of  celestial beauty is within reach, is hanging so close that it affects the tides, that it’s so in sync with us that it always shows us the same face.

It awes me that we walked there, set foot on another celestial body (and, yes, we were there).  It awes me that it’s taken so much damage and looks on us with it’s scarred visage, undaunted and undone.

So, yes, I’ve been painting a copy of the moon on my hallway wall.  And I can’t do justice to it with my own pictures (sorry), although I recommend anyone interested in beautiful and interesting pictures of the moon to check out Black Holes and Astrostuff - Bob takes and shows superlative images, often taken in the (literally) breath-taking cold.

As I keep painting, I’ll probably talk about the moon a bit more.  And, when I start on other planets, I’ll do more.  Do check out the moon link above.  It will take you to The Nine Planets , a great source for finding out more about our solar system.

Don’t ask me why, but this seems the right topic today.

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.

                              –John Adams

The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss, and commit to memory the one, and pass over the other.

                              –Sir Francis Bacon

If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction.

                          –Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Why do they lock gas station bathrooms? Are they afraid someone will clean them?

                          –George Carlin

CLAIRVOYANT, n. A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron — namely, that he is a blockhead.
                              –Ambrose Bierce

The word good has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man.
                              –G.K. Chesterton

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
                                –Winston Churchill

Tact is the act of making a point without making an enemy.

                               –Clarence Darrow

A man of honour should never forget what he is because he sees what others are.
                           –Baltasar Gracián

Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a “necessary evil,” it begins to look more and more necessary and less and less evil.
                            –Sydney J. Harris

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
                          –Robert Heinlein

Many a man’s reputation would not know his character if they met on the street.
                                   –Elbert Hubbard

Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny.

                           –Kin Hubbard

Maybe this world is another planet’s hell.
                                   –Aldous Huxley

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.

                            –Thomas Jefferson

Washington is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm.

                      –John F. Kennedy

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, it’s just possible you haven’t grasped the situation.

                                                                        –Jean Kerr

That’s right, I am.  It’s my turn to speak my mind on the discussion of the bonuses for employees of the companies that have accepted billions of taxpayer dollars.  The general public is outraged.  So am I.  Some reporters have noted that this is just a blip, a distraction from the big picture.  The public has not agreed.  Neither do I.  It’s a matter of principle.

When I read stories in the New York Times about business leaders complaining that taxing or retracting  those bonuses, making wild (and utterly unconvincing) predictions of losing masses of “brainiacs” and “talent” (and doom predictions that their knowledge would be destructive when they were “snapped up” by someone else), that companies will have nothing to do with government run businesses, that they have no choice legally but to provide those bonuses, I have to call BS.  Then, when that was ineffective, they started in on how those employees, facing the loss of million dollar bonuses, came into their bosses office “in tears”.  Boo hoo.  To face the loss of their unearned gain at the taxpayer’s expense when millions of people have faced job loss as a result of their incompetent/greedy/dishonest behavior?  Let me tell you how sad I am for them.  The individual with a $25 million bonus (Merrill Lynch) has already spent his bonus on a $37 million dollar apartment.  Boo hoo.  Just like hundreds of thousands of people in this country who face the loss of their homes, and have done less to deserve it.

Yeah, I’m with the outraged public.  I always thought a bonus was all about a reward for going above and beyond the expected, the normal.  It bothers me already that we give restaurants leave to short their wait staff on salaries because it’s expected we’ll happily cough up an additional 10-25% tax  so they don’t have to pay them even minimum wage.  Instead of being an indication of gratitude for extraordinary service, it’s an obligation or an opportunity to indulge in a little malice at the waiter’s expense.  Likewise, bonuses have been come obligations instead of what I believe they were originally intended to be:  a reward for exceptional service, over and above the original job one was hired to do.  For a company to go tens or hundreds of billions of dollars into the hole over a year and then think that millions (or, like Merrill Lynch, billions) of dollars of bonuses are justified just demonstrates how far from realities these “brainiacs” really are.

But it’s more than just the bankers.  I’d like to see this carried forward into government contracts in general.  It is disheartening for someone who loves and believes in the space program to see contracts written in such a way as to reward failure.  To get the contract, a company often drastically underpredicts how long a task will take, what they can deliver and what it will cost - and they can do so confident that if things run somewhat over or somewhat long or not what was asked, the government usually responds by pulling out its checkbook.  I’ve seen a major contractor deliver hardware that notably didn’t meet well established requirements, only to be provided beaucoup more money to fix the deficiencies.  I’ve seen sole source contracts awarded to companies because “only” they have the expertise to do a particular job in a particular timeframe, only to see them complain after the award how they can’t deliver what was asked and demanding requirement changes (and let’s not forget delivering it late and over budget).  I’ve seen companies with abysmal ratings from the government who still walked away with 90% of the “award” fee, effectively a bonus over and above the contract itself.

In the “real” world, accountants who mismanage your money are liable, perhaps criminally.  In the “real” world, people who contract to perform a service will go out of business if they don’t deliver what they promise, not only not getting paid, but not getting future business. 

As a taxpayer, I don’t mind paying for a space program or to assure our economy doesn’t take a nosedive, for the good of all, but I still deserve to get value for my investment.  My interest in space or the economy (or defense or any other program for the good of all) should not be used as a windfall with nothing in return. 

I’m hoping the government takes on the role of a discerning customer and begins to demand value.  I know we can deliver if only we are held to it.  I look at our history and I see how we’ve accomplished so much when so much has been demanded of us.  Here’s another opportunity if we only take it.

Sometimes I never see where these blog postings are going until I get there.

So, I was struggling to identify a comment I made that was worth stealing.  Sadly, I really didn’t.  I didn’t, however, let that stop me.  So, I noted my failure and decided to write about that.  Here’s an example from this week (taken from JD’s excellent blog “I Crush Children’s Dreams So You Don’t Have To “):

Motto: If you’ll listen to lizards for car insurance, why not a frog for lawn care. After all, we’re GREEN.

Whoops. that was so bad, by brain just left in disgust. Damn, I hope it comes back.

To put something like that on a clever and brilliant blog like JD’s should be some sort of crime.  She doesn’t take it out on me, of course, because (a) she’s a sweet person and (b) everyone has brain aberrations.

I just have more than my fair share of them.  Cleverness comes and goes and when it’s gone, I can’t write a clever comment to save my life.  Fortunately, some things come back and I’m hot.  But when it’s gone, it’s really really gone.

But, I think more frustrating than when my brain is dialed to “dull,” is when I’m being all smart and clever or informative or clever and my fingers and mind are not in sync.  That’s when I leave letters off words so I look like I can’t spell.  Or I leave words out entirely (my favorite is “not” - so that what I write is - surprise! the opposite of my intent).  Or I mix up the order of the words so that the sentence, which is filled with intelligent and perceptive words, doesn’t make sense.

So, I said we all had brain aberrations.  Was I lying?  Or is it just me?

We are still on short stories.  One of the interesting things about short stories is that much of what I’ll talk about is true for novels as well as short stories.  However, the tactics for how you do things in a short story vs. how you work them in a novel aren’t the same.  In a short story, as I mentioned last week, you need to set a scene briefly, but, in my opinion, more sharply than you do with a novel.  A short story needs to have a sense of immediacy, yanking the reader in at once instead of easing them in as you can in a novel.

This is true of dialogue as well.  As a character person, I’m really fond of dialogue.  Perhaps too much.  It is almost always the most effective way to get to know a character, listening to what they say and how they say it.  But, as with setting, you need to get the most bang for the words you use.  Each statement, each comment, should add to the story or the character.  What’s more, you need to make how they say things reinforce the character every time they speak, much like the sound can reinforce the meaning of words in poetry.

If what they say and how they say are at cross-purposes, the reader will be confused or, worse, knocked out of the story and it’s hard to pull them back in when you only have a few thousand words to work with.  Losing the reader in a short story is often unrecoverable.

So, how do you do that?  Actions, words, attitude should all be in concert.  From my short story, “Cauchemar “

“You had best move on, old man,” a fierce voice hissed from the tiny figure swathed in black. “You would do well to sleep further on this night.”

“But the road is open to all, child,” Marin said placidly in her rasping contralto, shuffling forward slowly to see better. “And the sun is setting.”

A bitter laugh escaped from the black-draped stranger. “None would know better than I when the sun sets, old man. All the more reason for you to make haste in leaving this place. You are not safe here.” 

Marin’s seamed face broke into a smile. “Brave soldier,” Marin clucked reprovingly, resting her slight weight on a staff of rowan wood. “To stab an old man as he sleeps. In truth, there are few who would harm one of my clan, child.”

The figure in black pulled herself up to stand more straightly. “I waste no love on men,” she spat. “Even old men would do well to flee.”

The tone, words, syntax are distinctly different.  Ideally, one can tell the difference between one character and the other by what they say, rather than the names we apply.  An old fashioned way of talking can be reminiscent of old lore or tradition (useful in fantasy like I write).  Youthful speakers are likely to use slang and unlikely to speak with good grammar or in complete sentences.  In fact, most people don’t.  However, having someone who does and speaks articulately, again, can emphasize characteristics and give a reader a good feel for someone right away.  It’s an opportunity that should not be discarded.

Contrast:

“Where are you going?” she asked, eyes slit with suspicion.

“I am not going to tell you,” he replied hotly.

“I would like you to tell me.  If you will not tell me, I will feel compelled to either cause you pain or report your behavior.  You have not completed the chores assigned you.”  Her voice was menacing and he had no doubt she meant it.

“What have you done to merit that information from me?” he asked more meekly.

With:

 ”Where do you thing you’re going?” she asked, eyes slit with suspicion.

“None o’ your business!” he replied hotly.

“You’ll tell me, boyo, or I’ll beat you blue or tell ma you left without finishin’ your chores.”  Her voice was menacing and he had no doubt she meant it.

“Why can’t you let nothin’ be?” he asked more meekly.

By changing only the words spoken, without changing the meanings, I have completely changed the tone of the conversation.  Originally the dialogue was stilted and unrealistic and there was nothing really to indicate anything about that characters.  It was so unauthentic, the characters were not even characters.  In the second rendition, however, they are clearly young, likely siblings, and there’s a rivalry and a secret.  It’s not perfect, of course, but clearly better than what was done before.

Now, your assignment is to take this following exchange and rewrite it so that the individuals are made individuals, without changing the gist of the conversation or anything outside of quotes.  Extra credit for trying it more than once and instilling genuine voices.

“What are you saying?”she challenged him, her eyes holding his own intently.

“I have deep feelings for you,” he said, dropping his eyes.  “I’ve never cared about anyone like I care about you.  I love you.  I expect you’ll laugh at me or scoff, but I’m telling you, I love you very very much.”

Her hand was gentle on his cheek, but he didn’t look up.  “I appreciate your honesty.  You and I both know why it can never be.”

Talking about the orbital debris situation usually brings us back around to talking about environmental issues.  Unfortunately, while some environmental issues are well accepted, others which threaten the status quo (and the lucretive energy market) are still hounded by whispers of doubt and accusations of the impossibility of change.

That makes no damn sense, though.  Whenever I’m told that, I remember the same song when we talked about cleaning air in Los Angeles or rivers in many parts of the nation, but air quality in Los Angeles has improved drastically and many many places that were a wasteland 30 years ago are coming back into their own.

I think a salutory lesson resides in the discussion of ozone depletion .  

Thirty years ago, CFCs were “perfect”.  Nonreactive, rarely toxic, wonderful thermal qualities.  A Dr. Lovelack (the biologist) did a self-funded study to measure CFCs in the atmosphere in the early 1970’s.  But it took the thinking of Frank Sherman and Mario Merino (1974)  to hypothesize that the nonreactive nature of CFCs could allow it to stay intact up to the stratosphere where, when it rose high enough, it could be disassociated by UV radiation and leaving a free chlorine ion.  A chlorine ion is murder on ozone because it works as a catalyst in turning ozone back into molecular oxygen, while remaining unchanged itself, free to convert again.

To say that this hypothesis was treated with skepticism would be putting it mildly.  Even if it were true, people argued, we were so dependent on CFCs that we would go through untold hardship if we were asked to give them up.  Economic ruin.  Impossible.  Besides the notion that we could affect the atmosphere that was preposterous!

Sure enough, some of the early NASA readings specifically to measure ozone seemed to put the notion of an ozone hole to bed.  Except, it turns out that an algorithm was discounting the measured readings because they were so far different from the expected values that the software for the measurement was throwing them out as errors.  When we got the real picture(1985), no one expected it to be as bad as it actually was.

Fortunately, the scientists who supported this were taken seriously even before 1985 and many countries were already reducing or eliminating CFCs (including the US).  Within the decade, nearly every country was doing the same.  And we’re seeing some improvements with the ozone layer despite the vast quantities of CFC that were still filtering upwards.  It looks like the damage will be undone within 40 years. 

And what was the impact on you?  Did you have to give up refrigeration?  Air conditioning?  Aerosal cans?  Nope, once we committed to change, we made it happen with minimal if any effect on regular folks.  Amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it. 

When I think of the difference in energy costs of the homes in Palm Desert, California , going from costing $1400/month in energy costs to $500/YEAR with city financed solar arrays (repaid via property tax), I know we can do more than we think we can.

For the second time in a week, the ISS folks are addressing what, if anything, to do about a close encounter with more space debris.  Last week (3/12/2009), ISS crewmembers camped out in the Soyuz for a few minutes as a “yo” weight from a PAM-D upperstage less than 5 inches across ventured into ISS’ vicinity.  Word that it was going to pass too closely for safety came too late to maneuver the ISS out of the way, so the crew waited in the Soyuz in case there was a critical impact.  Fortunately, there wasn’t.

Before anyone gets too critical of USSATCOM, which tracks our debris, for the late notification, they might want to realize how difficult it is to track something ~10 cm across.  Think about being able, from a ground station looking through the atmosphere, spot something whizzing by, several times faster than a bullet and hundreds of km above the surface of the earth. Now imagine it’s just five inches long.

Several factors combined to make this difficult.  First, it’s small.  Big honkin’ expended rocket boosters and stuff are easy to track, even without transponders, because, hey, they’re big and easy for radars to never miss.  As you get smaller, though, only your best radars can catch stuff.  Smaller yet, and they only catch stuff once in a while, say every third orbit or once or twice a week.  What that means is that there is more uncertainty in its position.  When you have lots of data on a debris item, i.e. you catch its position several times a day with several radars, you can be pretty sure you have a handle on its orbit and can predict well where it will be several days in advance with good confidence.  Something smaller, with only a few and diverse data points to work with, it’s not so easy and predictions are less exact.

Additionally, this was on a very eccentric orbit, dipping into space that is affected by atmosphere and then moving into a very high orbit.  That atmospheric friction changes the orbit, and, although that can be taken into account, it adds to uncertainty.  

Today, yet another smaller bit of debris, this time from a Kosmos 1275 that broke up for reasons we’ve never entirely nailed down, also in an unusual orbit, also ~10 cm, is being discussed by the ISS team, to see if they should move out of the way.  I believe, at this time, that they now believe it will pass by far enough away to preclude needing a maneuver, but, coming close on the heels of the other scare, it’s a pretty impressive reminder of the difficulties of hanging around in space cluttered with debris.  And, as the ASAT detritis and fallout from theIridium collision work their way down things will only get worse.

Update:  NASA did determine that the junk would be far enough away to be outside the danger zone and did not require a maneuver.