Proudly Selfish

Big Sky Montana

2012-01-03T20:30:00.000-05:00

Every year my friend Ray has a tradition to go on a new adventure for New Years. This year it was Big Sky Montana for Snowmobiling.

Going up the magic carpet

The resort is beautiful, nestled between several large mountains. 5,000 acres of fun with the highest peak at 11,150'. I didn't get that high as my snowboarding skills aren't ready for the black diamonds up at the peak.

Our room was at Village Center and had a fridge, microwave, and sink. I managed to cook some Boar's Head bacon purchased at the village mall a very short walk away. Gluten free beer was available at Whisky Jack's bar and all the restaurants were very helpful with steering me in a gluten free direction. Breakfast at Chet's even had gluten and other allergy information on the signs. I mostly stuck to cracked-egg omelets for breakfast. For lunch, bison burgers with no bun or cheese. Dinner was sometimes bison burgers, but I also had steak and Montana lamb. Once we went down to By Word of Mouth which is a few short miles from the resort (a bus can take you too) and had the best chopped lamb steak I've ever tasted.

As far as activities we did it all. First there was lots of relaxing in front of the fireplace with a mountain view in the window. Also, we did the snowshoe and zipline tours. I really enjoyed snowshoeing and took several pictures. It was snowing so it is hard to see much of the background. It was so quiet and serene with the snow and the trees. The zipline was a lot of fun. This was my second time doing something like that. I did hang upside down and have the picture to prove it.

My tracks

The second day we had our fun with the snowmobiles. Ray got a touch of elevation sickness as we moved from 6k to 10k feet up the mountain. We got stuck four times up in the meadow with the deep powder. We weren't really on the bigger snowmobiles made for that. Our guide said that we were driving very well and could have probably used the larger ones. I had done trail riding before but the powder is so different. It is hard work getting unstuck. We would have probably been in serious trouble without our helpful guide.

Old Faithful

We also had a wonderful day at Yellowstone. We started in West Yellowstone and took a huge bus with tracks into the snowy park. I saw lots of wildlife including bison, bald eagles, elk, fish, and flies. The hot springs are very hot but even the flies can live there and some bacteria. The colors were amazing in some of the pools. We were there all day and barely scratched the sufface of the park. Also, I had to drive all the way from Big Sky to W. Yellowstone because it was snowing and foggy at the same time. I thought Ray was going to have a heart attack he was so nervous in the passenger seat!

I really improved on snowboarding through my Monday lesson and Tuesday on my own. By the end of Tuesday I navigated an entire run without sitting down. Only once did I sort of 'stop' on my heel edge before turning back to my toe side which was to avoid a nasty bit of snow that I'm sure I would have face-planted on. I can't wait to get back out again!

I'm not done uploading all the pictures yet but you can find most of them here.

Big Sky New Years 2012

2011 Review

2012-01-03T16:31:00.001-05:00

Travel

2011 started in Oklahoma City with Ray and one of his friends for his tradition of visiting a new place on New Years. We had a great time on som electric go carts.

SNOWCON was so much fun and I got to meet a bunch of Atlanta people for the first time. I can't wait to come down and hang out with them again. OCON was a blast even though it was smaller and less people were there. Chicago Mini-Con was also a load of fun and I really enjoyed hanging out with Earl, Jason and a bunch of the Chicago folks.

Went to Michigan a few times, like for a wedding, ChicagoCon and Thanksgiving.

My first Cruise ever was down to the Bahamas. I had such a great time and I can't possibly summarize how awesome it was.

Work trips included: St. Louis, Ft. Bragg, Kings Point,

Work

January I jumped right into a short deployment and the work drama that comes with it. I accomplished enough to get an award, but not as much as I wanted to. Took on a new position as Technical Director and I've been learning the ropes. Completed two major revisions to the software we develop. Hired as well as trained some very bright new folks.

Got my MCITP certifications (EA and SA). Renewed my CISSP.

Fitness

Started the year by stopping cross fit. I was enjoying it only sometimes. I noticed that on met-con days that my sleep was seriously disturbed and it would take me a week or more to recover. I also started rock climbing after a date took me there and fell in love with it. I've been belay certified and have taken most of my friends there at least once to see how much fun it is. I also took a Lead Belay class and will probably take the test in spring 2012. I look forward to some outdoor climbing in 2012.

I also started a 100 pushup challenge and while I've stalled in recent weeks due to my old shoulder injury, I expect to have 100 in a row under my belt by my birthday.

Also picked up Snowboarding!

Relationships

I feel a lot closer to my CCOS friends. We have a great group now. There was even some romance between some members, which didn't work out but was still fun to see. I had my first serious relationship in a long time, which also sort of halted quickly. I have been working hard expanding my social circles and have met a lot of cool people climbing and online. Went on a cruise with a friend who I now count as one of my closest (and probably youngest) friend. There have been some frustrations and tears in 2011. Those were worth it for the insights into what I want in a romance and in friendship.

Etc.

Bought a motorocycle after taking the safety class. Passed the MVA test after a failed attempt with a non-english speaking tester.

Snowboarding

2011-12-27T21:24:00.002-05:00

Monday I went snowboarding for the first time. Elaine and I drove up to Blue Mountain, which is in Palmerton, PA north of Allentown.

I signed up for their first time ski & board package which included all the rentals I needed and access to unlimited lessons and the green hills.

We drove about 3 hours up there and arrived to get in line for tickets. Next time we will order online. We entered all or information into the rental computer and then walked over to get our shoes, board and helmet. Elaine went off to the lift and her first run while I spent a few hours with the high school boys who are the instructors. They were really great at helping me.

First I learned how to skate around with one foot in the bindings. I picked that up fairly quickly. Next we started learning J turns. I practiced that a bunch with one foot and then two feet strapped in. I moved on to the next station and started to learn how to traverse. This was really hard. I only practiced it once before Elaine asked if I was ready for lunch. We had a few bun-less burgers and sweet potato fries before I braved my first lift and green hill.

I managed getting on the lift no problem and got a few feet away before falling at the top. That first run down was a lot of falls though. I went 4 times total down the green hill. The line was really long for the lift or I would have done more. Sometimes Elaine came with me and other times I was by myself.

I couldn't stop turning heal side (ie. right) and would end up wiping out after coming all the way around fakie. I'm not quite ready for fakie! On the 3rd run I got going really well and ended up beating Elaine down the mountain (she was going to take my picture at the top and bottom but I made it down before she could strap in and turn the corner).

Since I had the problem going all the way around all the time I decided to go back to the lesson hill and try to work it out. Two of the guys watched me and diagnosed the problem. First, I was distributing my weight too far back. I need to bend my knees when I feel unstable, not lean back, which only brings the board around faster.

Second, I needed to find and feel the balance point on the board. So we spent the next 45 minutes practicing edging on both my heal and toe sides. Took a while but once it clicked I could do it with surprising confidence.

At this point both of us were ready to leave after a hard day on the slopes. I can't wait to get back and try to learn more. Special thanks to Diana for suggesting proper safety equipment. My butt still hurts but I'm sure I would have broken my wrists as I have a bad habit of catching my falls on my right hand.

The Music of Thomas Coates

2011-08-28T11:37:00.000-04:00

If you follow me on twitter you know that I play French Horn and Alto Horn in a few groups in the Baltimore area. An Alto Horn is a kind of instrument used in modern British style brass bands that, oddly enough, plays the alto line of the music. I play it primarily in the Benfield Brass Band as one of the Solo part players. The other is long time member and section leader Beryl Flynn. I am in no shape way or form close to a professional player. We have some awesome musical moments in the group and from hearing our live recordings and audience reactions we do pretty well.

Out of the blue back in June I got an email from a person I didn't know, Michael O'Connor with the subject of "Alto Horn Needed".

I’m looking for a solid alto horn player to help with a professional recording of Civil War Band music in August. The group recording is my 47th PA Regt Band. The group is made up of professional brass players (some don’t actually make their living in music, but could have) from NY, PA, NH, MD, and I’m in FL. We are recording mostly the music of Thomas Coates, who led the 47th PA band from 1861-62. We can provide an authentic 1860s instrument and mouthpiece for you and pay [you].

A professional that I have played with in a few groups referred me which is how they knew to reach out to me. The idea of doing a recording was pretty scary but wasn't something I was going to pass up.

So a few weeks ago I got in the car, drove for 5 hours and showed up at a church in Pawling, NY to play an instrument I've never played before for a professional recording. The instrument in question, pictured below, is over 100 years old.

From Thomas Coates Recording

This horn is tuned 'high pitch'. At the time there was some disagreement on what frequency to tune instruments to. The music we recorded was all tuned to A = 452, which gives it a very interesting sound (A is usually 440 or 441 in modern orchestras). If you check out the rest of the pictures in the link above you will see that it has a strange pigtail. This can be replaced with a elbow to convert it from a rear-facing 'field' configuration to an upright 'concert' configuration. I played it rear facing which meant I had my very own microphone!

I took a few qik.com videos including this one which has pretty good sound quality. Most of the others are too poor to link to but you can see them all if you dig around. We played for 45 minutes to an hour at a time and then took 15 minute breaks, taking each song section by section until everyone was at least satisfied they got a few good takes.

Blowing Hard

2011-08-25T14:22:00.003-04:00

I got into a conversation regarding wind power I'd like to share. Since I had listened to Alex Epstein's great Power Hour Interview with Robert Bryce I was a bit more informed then my left leaning friend on energy issues. He did manage to stump me at one point so here is how the conversation went.

First, I brought up the fact that "When power demand is highest, wind energy’s output is generally low. The reverse is also true: Wind-energy production is usually highest during the middle of the night, when electricity use is lowest." (NRO) . The "intermittency and extreme variability of wind energy" means that you have to build as much conventional (coal, natural gas, nuclear, etc.) capacity wherever you build wind turbines.

Next I pointed out that wind has a very low power density. To understand what this means imagine filling a pool with a garden hose. When I turn the water on it will take a really long time to fill. Now imagine I do the same thing and fill the pool with a fire hose. This time the pool fills very quickly. In both cases the amount of water (ie. energy) is the same, but when I used the firehouse I put the water in much faster. That is what power is -- how fast I can produce (or consume) energy in a given amount of time. It is measured in kilowatt-hours. Solar, notorious for low power density kicks wind's ass. Wind is especially poor when you consider the amount of resources (steel and concrete for example) that it takes per kilowatt hour.

I did get asked a question though that stumped me initially. My friend asked me, why if wind is so poor is Denmark in the process of switching almost entierly to wind? Well the answer can be found in Chapter 10 of Bryson's book "Power Hungry":

Denmark has the most expensive electricity in the modern world due to exorbitant taxes
2/3 of the wind power generated is exported to neighboring countries below cost (wind blows a lot when you don't need it)
Hydroelectric power is purchased at peak demand rates ($expensive$) to meet high demand (wind doesn't blow when you need it)

If the goal is using the least amount of resources to generate ever greater energy at increasing rates, then the free market is the best way to determine this. We see it now, where the market isn't distorted by government, from natural gas power generation. I'd encourage folks to pick up Bryson's book for some great facts. The only criticism I would have to say up front is that he talks a lot about reducing dependence on foreign oil and on lowering carbon emissions. Some of that is accepting bad premises that these things are bad or can be solved by government intervention into economics. If you can look past those side discussions there is a lot you can take away.

Motorcycle

2011-07-17T18:28:00.000-04:00

YF was nice enough to take this photo right after I put the money down on my new 2007 Buell Blast. It only has about 500 miles on it and I plan to put a lot more on there over the next year or two. If I continue to have as much fun riding as I am now, I may invest in a bigger/better bike down the road.

For those of you safety conscious folk out there notice my Snell 2010 safety rated helmet, sunglasses, boots, and motorcycle jacket. I need to upgrade the pants and the gloves.

Stretch Goals

2011-07-08T15:39:00.001-04:00

In the last few months I've found a new obsession -- rock climbing. I randomly met someone online and one of the first activities we did together was to visit EarthTreks in Columbia. I am really looking forward to getting good enough to boulder and climb outdoors, perhaps by the end of this summer early far and defiantly by next year taking on some sport/lead climbing.

Thanks to the introduction to climbing class and the great help of my new climbing friends Vince, Neta and Mike, I've seen some tremendous improvements in the difficulty I can complete at the gym. My grip is improving and I've went from not being able to do any pull-ups, even after working on it in crossfit last year, to being able to do 5 pull-ups without any difficulty.

Climbing has exposed a bunch of things I didn't know about myself. First, this is a physical activity that is very taxing that I LOVE doing. That is new for me. I like the body composition improvements and upper body mass gains I've seen which is probably more due to being a beginner than anything else. I also have noticed just who inflexible I am, especially in my legs, which is funny since those are by far my strongest and largest muscles. I've started learning what I can about flexibility and stretching.

There are lots of different ways to stretch. I found a great explanation of the different types of stretching and which ones can improve what kinds of flexibility. The most effective kind of stretching for static-passive flexibility (the kind I need to improve for climbing) is PNF. "PNF is an acronym for proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation. It is not really a type of stretching but is a technique of combining passive stretching (see section Passive Stretching) and isometric stretching (see section Isometric Stretching) in order to achieve maximum static flexibility." (see link above). This is the kind of stretching my massage therapist and cross fit coach had both tried to explain to me. I know I get it a lot better after reading about it so I'm going to try to mix it in to my workouts.

"Kids React" videos

2011-05-08T09:41:00.001-04:00

Just discovered this halarity on youtube. Kids reacting to viral videos. Here is a sample:If you liked that one check out the Charlie Sheen one.. I LOVE Emma's words of wisdom.

Overheard: Conversation With My Nephews

2010-12-24T18:31:00.001-05:00

Cast: Elaine (my sister), David (my brother), Dace and Dover (my nephews)

Dover: "Aunt E, how come you are not married?"

Elaine: "Baby, no one has asked me to marry them yet."

Dace: "Why don't you marry Uncle David?"

Elaine: "I can't marry Uncle David because he is my brother."

Dace: shaking his head, "That stupid law."

Making Wrong Decisions

2010-12-16T15:12:00.001-05:00

Moving from individual contributor (IC) to taking on management responsibility I have observed two important (and probably obvious) facts. First, a manager ends up making a lot more incorrect decisions then a IC; Second, (and perhaps most obviously) those decisions effect more people. So how do you cope when you make a wrong decision?

I've found the hardest part for me is dealing with different reactions when things go wrong. My first reaction is to start fixing right away. My idea of taking responsibility is to try to resolve the issue if possible and start damage control if it isn't. The error here is that I didn't stop long enough to think about how the team will react.

Here is an example: working on a (hypothetical) project with delivery date for a software module. Discussing it with the team, one member is concerned about the risk of meeting the delivery date and proposes an alternate date. After some back and forth I make a judgement call and decide that it is worth taking the risk since getting the module out early will lower cost. Half way in, it is clear that my judgement was wrong. Now the team member is very upset. Not only was he proven right about the risk, now he is going to be asked (by his jerk manager me!) to work harder / stay extra to try to finish the module within the required deadline.

Putting the poor guy (or gal) at ease has to start with eating crow. I think the idea here is to communicate that the mistake was mine and that I'm going to try to fix it. I think it is important to say it (provided I think it was my mistake). I have to admit though I don't know exactly the best way to do this.

Let's reverse the situation and say that it was the team member that made the case for the risky decision that turned out to be wrong. In that case, I think it is important to take responsibility for decisions you approved. Identify if the team member made an error of knowledge or a breach of judgement. Sometimes information was wrong or not clearly understood.

I know I have more questions than answers at this point so I'll turn to you. What are your strategies for dealing with wrong decisions?

SmartSleep and Secure Virtual Memory

2010-12-05T13:24:00.002-05:00

I used SmartSleep for a long time to control my MacBook Pro's sleeping habits. I've finally discovered that this utility doesn't work with Secure Virtual Memory. First, some background.

There are essentially 2 ways a Mac can sleep. The first is 'regular sleep', or for you Windows users, suspend. In this mode the computer saves power by shutting down peripheral hardware (like the disks, screen and keyboard light) while keeping the processor in a low power state. The battery is used to keep the RAM powered so that when you resume (ie. open the lid) the computer can turn everything back on and start right back where it left off.

The second is called 'safe sleep'. This is like hibernate mode for Windows users. In this mode the computer RAM and processor state is written out to disk and the computer is turned off. Obviously this is very power efficient (off == good for battery life!). The problem with this mode is that when you want to use the computer you have to wait a LONG time for the resume process to complete. On my machine I have 8 GB of RAM (on a laptop - how far we've come!). It takes almost 2 minutes to resume my machine in safe sleep.

SmartSleep is supposed to let you control and choose these modes. There is also a hybrid mode that will suspend AND hibernate, but only power down the machine if the battery goes too low. If the battery is removed or dies, you can then resume like you did from a hibernate. It takes a long time but it works and you loose no data. In the best case it resumes quickly because the state of the processor/RAM was preserved by the battery power.

Now enters Secure Virtual Memory. I use this setting because I don't want data like key material and passwords leaking into my swap file. It has almost no impact on performance and in the case that my laptop is stolen or captured at the border it will protect my privacy rights. You can turn on Secure Virtual Memory in the Security System Preferences Pane.

SmartSleep doesn't take the Secure Virtual Memory setting into account. This means that if you have it turned on it sets the hibernatemode option incorrectly. When my machine goes into safe-sleep, it can't recover and I'm forced to reboot (and loose data!). Here is the settings that should be used:

The hibernatemode option in power management settings selects the suspend policy:
$ sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0
always regular sleep (disable safe-sleep)
$ sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 1
always safe-sleep (disable regular sleep)
$ sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 3
regular sleep first, safe-sleep if the battery is very low on power or is unplugged
$ sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 5
always safe-sleep with secure virtual memory
$ sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 7
regular sleep first then safe-sleep with secure virtual memory

To find out what setting you are currently just type:

pmset -g | grep hibernatemode

I've uninstalled SmartSleep for now and will send this feedback to the author to see if it can be fixed.

Jenga pistol

2010-11-24T23:08:00.000-05:00

This looks like tuns of fun! HT Michael Balint for pointing it out.

The Looming Credit Disaster

2010-11-24T05:13:00.001-05:00

I took Scott Powell's "Crash Course on the Coming Crash" and I have to say I recommend it highly. I didn't get to participate much in the class due to technological issues (I was at my parents' house in Michigan and had company drop in WHILE I was taking the course). The first result of this course was to send an email to my financial planner and sell my sizable municipal bond holding. I've made a pretty good tax free profit on it so far. The risk, unfortunately, is much higher then I was led to believe. Nick, my planner, is in complete agreement about getting out of the market. His reasons include the cash being infused in the QE2 plan by the Fed. I'm not sure when the bubble will burst so it is time to leave now.

The question I'm trying to figure out next is what to do with the cash. Keeping it as cash is a bad idea (especially dollars). Gold is for retaining value and is expensive now (though could go much higher). I would rather invest it somewhere. I just started "Crash Proof 2.0" so maybe I'll find some advice in there.

Break Your Heart

2010-11-10T03:49:00.000-05:00

I know some of you who listen to the radio this song might be really annoying. Since I don't listen to the radio and haven't been overexposed to it (or even heard the real version to my knowledge), I really enjoy this cover of "Break Your Heart".

iPhone4 Hatred

2010-07-18T15:13:00.001-04:00

There is a lot of iPhone 4 hatred out there. Apple has recently come under a lot of fire for antenna performance, lack of so called 4G (actually 3.9G LTE). Let's examine the first criticism objectively in this post and I'll address the others in upcoming posts. First a comedic interlude.

So what is really going on with these antenna issues? Consumer Reports rated the new iPhone 4 as the top smart phone it has ever tested, only to not recommend it due to the antenna issues. I keep saying issues because it can be broken down into two parts. First, the way iOS4 reported signal strength gave people a false sense that signal was stronger then it really was. Anandtec has a great illustration of the difference between what iOS reported in 4.0 to 4.0.1.
As you can see the middle range was very compressed. The new way will tell people just how crappy we all know the 3G GSM network is that AT&T provides. For those of you Android fans, I suggest you check the link out and see what Droid reports. iOS4 now reports the least compressed bar range out of any smartphone.

The second issue is hand placement. This generated a lot of play in the press and is a real problem for some users. If you place your hand on a certain spot, you can drop your phone performance considerably. Anandtec discusses it in the above article and Apple has posted about their testing. Compared to other phones, Apple made a different design decision -- they opted for good performance in low signal situations. Considering the fact that they are on AT&T's network this is probably a wise choice. A case and better hand placement can reduce the impact of that giant attenuator known as the human body. I usually use my bluetooth anyway (I'm one of those that only seem to call while driving or walking through the city) so I've not been as impacted as others.

Other phone manufactures have responded with weasel words, but have not challenged any of the findings published on Apples website. Apple has offered free cases to iPhone purchasers, Details on how to order a free Bumper or case will be available soon on apple.com.

Objectivist Roundup

2010-06-26T18:14:00.000-04:00

Trey Givens has the honor of hosting 154th Objectivist Roundup go check it out!

Delegation

2010-06-26T13:33:00.000-04:00

Those of you who follow me on twitter or facebook know that in the last 6 months I've was put in a more managerial position and in the last few weeks was promoted. My work is a little weird with the positions disconnected from your level so it is confusing. The point is that I'm getting paid more and more is expected of me now. The team I lead is suffering from success. We were so good at doing are job that now we can't stop doing it! Not even to teach new people to our team how to do the job. Basically everyone is swamped. Sound familiar?

One of the hard things that I've had to start doing is sticking my neck out to prioritize things. This is pretty scary since I could end up telling someone not to do something that I find out later was A #1 PRIORITY OMG! Fortunately ~~everything is priority 1~~ my manager is flexible with prioritization. I'm trying to plot out a course of where we will be in 6 months and figure out team goals for individual development, team development and tool development. If only I could find the time!

The problem is I'm used to being a DOER. When someone comes to me with a problem or task I immediately think -- is this something I am capable of doing? Often that is about as far as I think before I start getting caught up in the planing and doing of the task at hand. I'm trying to catch myself now before I commit to anything and think about a few other questions:

Is this something important to our team goals? Is it something that the customer needs but is better done by someone else?
How important is this? What are the deadlines and how hard are they?
Can it be broken into pieces? Who else on my team is capable of taking on part or all of those pieces?

This leads me to the last thing I've noticed -- I need to delegate more. There is too much to do and not enough time for me to do it all! Besides I have this awesome group of people who can do my bidding! If I can learn to set priorities and pass the right things off to the right people things will improve and people will feel that while there is still more to be done then time to do, they can know that what they have done was important and is taking the team in the right direction.

Mohammed

2010-05-18T21:12:00.002-04:00

The Objective Standard is hosting a "Drawings in Defense of Life" drive to participate in “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day,” which is May 20. Here is my submission.

OLists

2010-05-18T20:18:00.000-04:00

I've been a member of OEvolve, OShooting and OProducers and have enjoyed the steady stream of useful information. Diana has selected terrific moderators to keep the lists on topic. I hope to join OActivists and Obloggers soon as well! Please take a look and see if you'd be interested in any of the topics. You don't have to be an Objectivist to lurk on many of the lists.

Hi, I’m Diana Hsieh. I’m an Objectivist and a recent Ph.D in philosophy.

I oversee an independent network of e-mail lists for friendly discussion and information-sharing among advocates of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. They are the “OLists” : http://www.OList.com

The common goal of the OLists is to serve the real-life values and interests common to subscribers — such as activism, blogging, parenting, health, productivity, firearms, gardening, and academia. These lists have been active, informative, and useful to their hundreds of subscribers; they’ve helped connect Objectivists with values in common. In case you’ve not heard of them, I invite you to see whether they might foster your values too.

Please note that these lists are not free-for-all discussion lists. Each list has a clear purpose, as well as definite membership criteria. Also, some lists are limited to Objectivists, while others welcome non-Objectivist lurkers. Please check the list’s purpose and membership criteria before you request a subscription.

Without further ado, the OList e-mail lists are…

OActivists: http://www.OList.com/oactivists

OActivists is an e-mail list for Objectivists committed to fostering positive cultural and political change. Its purpose is to encourage and assist effective advocacy of Objectivist ideas in non-Objectivist forums by facilitating communication between Objectivist activists. Membership is limited to Objectivist activists. It is managed by Tammy Perkins.

OBloggers: http://www.OList.com/obloggers

OBloggers is an e-mail list for Objectivist bloggers. Its purpose is to facilitate communication about matters of mutual interest, such as upcoming events, blogworthy links, posts of interest, blog promotion, and best blogging practices. Membership is limited to Objectivist bloggers. It is managed by Kate Gerber of CareerMama (http://www.careermama.com).

OGrownups: http://www.OList.com/ogrownups

OGrownups is an informal e-mail list for for Objectivists and others interested in raising and educating children well. Its basic purpose is to facilitate discussion amongst Objectivists about child development, discipline techniques, education methods, parenting resources, and more. Non-Objectivist lurkers are welcome. It is managed by Jenn Casey of Rational Jenn (http://rationaljenn.blogspot.com).

OEvolve: http://www.OList.com/oevolve

OEvolve is an informal e-mail list for Objectivists and others interested in the proper application of evolutionary principles to diet, fitness, and health. Its basic purpose is to facilitate discussion and information-sharing amongst Objectivists about the practical sciences of cooking, nutrition, fitness, health, and more. Non-Objectivist lurkers are welcome. It is managed by Monica Hughes of Ancestral Generation (http://ancestralgeneration.com).

OProducers: http://www.OList.com/oproducers

OProducers is an e-mail list for Objectivists and others committed to improving their habits of productivity in their careers, projects, and other pursuits. Its purpose is to facilitate discussion and information-sharing amongst Objectivists about practical methods for better management of time, projects, money, people, and other resources. Non-Objectivist lurkers are welcome. It is managed by Tod of Optimal Living (http://blog.bytod.com).

OShooters: http://www.OList.com/oshooters

OShooters is an e-mail list for Objectivists and others enthused about firearms and committed to gun rights. Its basic purpose is to facilitate discussion and information-sharing amongst Objectivists about firearm models, shooting techniques, gun ranges, gun laws, and the like. Non-Objectivist lurkers are welcome. It is managed by Santiago Valenzuela.

OGardeners: http://www.OList.com/ogardeners

OGardeners is an informal e-mail list for Objectivists and others interested in gardening and landscaping. Its purpose is to facilitate discussion and information-sharing amongst Objectivists about the cultivation of flowers, vegetables, shrubs, and trees. Non-Objectivist lurkers are welcome. It is managed by Kelly Elmore of Reepicheep’s Coracle (http://reepicheepscoracle.blogspot.com).

OAcademics: http://www.OList.com/oacademics

OAcademics is an e-mail list for Objectivist academics to discuss teaching, research, coursework, dissertations, job prospects, publication, and all other aspects of life in (or after) academia. Membership is limited to Objectivist academics. It is managed by Diana Hsieh of NoodleFood (http://blog.dianahsieh.com).

If you have any questions or comments about the OLists, please feel free to e-mail me at diana@dianahsieh.com.
– DMH

Diana Hsieh (Ph.D, Philosophy, CU Boulder)
E-mail: diana@dianahsieh.com
NoodleFood: http://www.dianahsieh.com/blog
NoodleCast: http://www.dianahsieh.com/cast
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Comcast Update

2010-04-16T13:48:00.000-04:00

A big Thank You! to someone over at Comcast Corporate. They managed to restore one of my cable cards! The Tivo is now operating at half capacity until Sunday when a new cable card can be delivered by the repair guy. I only hope they bring a cable card...

Comcast Help

2010-04-15T12:54:00.001-04:00

I am always frightened when I have to call Comcast to update my cable service. Every time I call to change my lineup the following events happen:

1. The account is coded wrong and I end up getting bumped out of my promotion, and my next bill is much higher then it should be. To counter this I always call 2 days later and confirm the price I should get.

2. One (or both) of my Tivo cable cards get 'zapped'. For unknown reasons Comcast looses all the details of my cable cards causing me to have to call them on the phone. This call helps fix the problem 2 of the 5 times this has happened.

3. The support call listed in 2 causes the other cable card information to disappear from Comcast's system. Now I have a Tivo that can only see local stations. The poor support folks can't get their computers to take the magic numbers in order to give me service. I schedule a tech, they come out, swap cards about 5 times until the one person in the NOC who knows what they are doing gets my card information into the system. 3 of the 4 times I've had this happen it has involved multiple techs because the cards 'don't work'.

If you are that one person in the NOC who knows what they are doing, here is my information that you need to make this happen:

Tivo Series 3 (2 single stream cards required)

Account number 09518405122023

Motorola MediaCipher M-CARD
Card1 S/N MA0817CABVX5
CableCard ID 000-008-174-088-8
Host ID: 035-011-305-285-5
Data: 361-764-662-86

Card2 S/N MA0817CAAOZ4 (note that last is a letter O afaik)
CableCard ID 000-008-174-074-8
Host ID: 035-011-305-284-8
Data: 251-674-807-37

Response to "Total Money Makeover"

2010-04-13T20:15:00.000-04:00

Dave Ramsey is one of the largest money talk franchises on radio with more than 4.5 million weekly listeners on 400-plus affiliates. He has written several books, including “The Total Money Makeover - A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness”, where he outlines his philosophy on personal finance and the steps for building personal wealth.

Ramsey has a strong opinion on debt -- he sees debt as dangerous to your financial health. “Debt brings on enough risk to offset any advantage that could be gained through leverage of debt.” (Pg 21) The only debt he tolerates, and only grudgingly, is a 15 year mortgage, and only if you are paying over the payment due every month. Ramsey himself felt he was victimized by debt when he went from a rich 26 year old to bankruptcy within a few years. He says that his views on debt were codified after this experience.

The first five chapters are completely infected with Ramsey’s anti-debt bias -- any debt is bad debt. These chapters focus more on psychological motivation then sound financial arguments. He argues that there are five hurdles that someone must overcome in order to makeover their financial situation. Denial, debt myths, money myths, ignorance and keeping up with the Joneses. Evading reality and holding onto wrong ideas about money, debt and happiness lead people to make bad financial choices.

Ramsey is correct to call for people to make an objective assessment of their financial situation. Many people evade that they have a problem, spending money and taking on debt they can not afford while raising their risk of insolvency. People don’t want to think about the possibility of disaster or set goals necessary for financial success. Spending as much as you are brining in is not a long term strategy for reaching financial goal. Growth, on the other hand, is the sign of financial health. I think Ramsey hits very close to the mark on this section since most people do not integrate their personal goals (or even take time to identify them) with their financial goals to the depth required to implement them. This is part of the reason I talk with my financial planner at least once a year to make sure I have an independent objective and expert assessment.

Ramsey’s book is basically a self-help book full of infomercial style testimonials and bible versus. His style is almost that of a preacher arguing with his congregation to repent for the sin of debt. His advice is very basic, though much of it is sound and needed by people struggling for financial health.
Despite giving some sound advice there are problems with Ramsey’s arguments. First is his reliance on testimonials as evidence for the success of his financial plan. While a few anecdotes could be useful, there are so many that you loose track of what the lesson is from the stories. Going more in depth with at most 1 or 2 stories per chapter, showing the numbers in spreadsheet style would have been a more effective way to demonstrate effectiveness even to a laymen. People can only hold so many examples in their mind when learning new concepts and strategies.

The problems don’t stop at the testimonials -- he attempts to argue by appeals to religion. I understand that religion may be important to some, but Proverbs 22:7, “The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender” (NKJV) is not an argument. Arguments are made with appeals to reality and logic, in the case of personal finance, this has to involve numbers and not verses. Implicit in the verse he selects is that creditors and people who go into debt are immoral. This is a grave mistake from someone who presents himself as a financial expert.

Credit is just money -- unconsumed goods -- loaned by one productive person (or a group of them) to another. Interest (in a free market, which is not what we enjoy today) represents the costs of consuming those goods now versus using them for some other purpose. Interest also factors in the risk associated with the person who is receiving the loan. If the loan is not repaid by default, then the goods that money represented, the saved productivity, is consumed without a productive return. The investor loses his money. If the venture succeeds, the producer pays the interest out of the profits which he was able to earn through the productive use of the loan. Debt then is a tool when viewed from this perspective: a way to leverage productivity. What works for a corporation works the same for an individual. A company using loans to meet payroll is in serious trouble. A man using credit for food, rent, and other consumption items is in the same kind of trouble. This is why loans are good for houses (and even cars, provided you use it for productive purposes and measure your choice on how well it gets you to work). This is the kind of argument the author could have replaced the bible versus with that would be more compelling and in line with his recommendations.

A third issue with his arguments represent the method he used to identify them -- an epistemological error. First presented here in the book, but often repeated, is variations of this:

I have found that if you look into the lives of the kind of people you want to be like, you will find common themes. If you want to be skinny, study skinny people, and if you want to be rich, do what lots of rich people do, not what some mythsayer (sic) says to do.

To understand the error in this kind of argument I’m going to use an example I first heard from Dr. Doug McGuff and John Little in their book “Body By Science”. People look at champion swimmers and bodybuilders and want to change their body composition to match theirs. The way many people think leads them to conclude if they want to look like Michael Phelps, they should train and eat like he does. If they would like to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, they should do what he did preparing for the Mr. Universe competition. After all, all the swimmers in the olympic finals all have the same body type, as do all the competitors in a body building competition. The error lies in the conclusion that the cause of the swimmer body type is their training and diet.. To put the hypothesis that swimming causes a swimmers body you can simply visit a national AAU swim meet. At the start of the meet you will see competitors with all different body types during the initial qualifiers. Over the course of the day, this variety changes dramatically, becoming less and less diverse, until in the finals almost all the swimmers have the same body type. The reason is a self-selection process, the swimmer’s body type is the best for swimming. What you are observing is an accelerated evolution at work. The erroneous conclusion that swimming causes the body type is reversing cause and effect -- the body type is what enables exemplary performance at swimming. So when using observational statistics it is important to keep the entire context and not assume a cause-effect relationship from a correlation.

Looking at rich people and seeing that they have little or no debt is interesting but does not demonstrate a causal relationship. As with the swimmers, the cause/effect relationship could be reversed. Perhaps the fact that they were able to earn money productively early on caused them to stay out of debt. It could be that the two things are totally unrelated when business credit and personal credit are combined for a given individual. Perhaps the virtues or values of productive people (ie. their productivity, creativity, integrity, etc.) are the cause of both their financial success and their lack of debt. Observational statistics can help find patterns and lead to inductive theories that must be tested by holding the whole context of the situation avoiding the pitfall of assumed cause and effect.

The second half of the book discusses Ramsey’s seven “baby steps” to financial makeover. Each step on it’s own I for the most part agree with him, especially his retirement advice and savings advice. His concept of a debt snowball is a good strategy for people trying to pay off debts quickly.

Start an emergency fund of $1,000.
Pay off all debt fast using the “debt snowball” method (except mortgage).
Build emergency fund to cover 3-6 months of expenses.
Invest 15% of household income into Roth IRAs and other pre-tax retirement accounts.
Save for your child’s college fund
Pay off home early
Build wealth and give! (Mutual Funds & Real Estate)

His wealth building advice is much shakier then his debt reduction strategy. He talks about investing in real estate and mutual funds. Most mutual funds do not beet the S&P 500 index over the long term so selecting the right mutual fund is crucial and understanding the risks and alternative are key to making that kind of investment decision. Real estate is also risky, as demonstrated by the recent credit bubble puffing up the market which is now in the process of correcting for over-investment through lowering prices. Many people have put more cash into their houses then they could now get on the open market for much of the foreseeable future.

Overall, I would not recommend the book. His strategies for debt reduction are implementable and can be found all over his website and radio show. For all the advice Ramsey gives about avoiding debt there is an awful lot of expensive training materials, books and seminars offered at the end of the book. People would be better off spending that money on reducing their debt and listening to his free radio show for the motivation, or better yet, picking up another book that can show you how to get the numbers. Sites like Mint.com can help people see exactly where their money is going which can be very motivational in addressing budget, debt and investment priorities objectively. Ramsey’s training material, books and seminars appear to be an expensive way to motivate yourself to financial health.

Benfield Brass Band on Brasscast

2010-03-07T14:48:00.001-05:00

Benfield Brass (I play Solo Alto Horn) was featured on this weeks Brasscast!. Numbers played this week include Baltimore American March by C.P. Burton, I Will Follow Him by Plante and Purcel arranged by Goff Richards, Alone with My Thoughts by E. Spence arranged by A. Duncan and America the Beautiful by Ward arranged by R. Neilson. Check it out!

Technological Innovation: The Road to Prosperity

2010-02-15T15:11:00.003-05:00

My first assignment in my Technical Innovation class I was tasked with a 'concept diagram' with my view on the importance of technical innovation. I wasn't the only one to take a more philosophic bend on the task though I was the only one who quoted Rand :-)

Technological innovation is bringing something new into existence combining knowledge gained from scientific study to solve practical problems. It is different from traditional engineering practice, since there the principles are known and while creativity and problem-solving are required they are in the application of existing and tested principles. When an architect builds a building out of steel and concrete he can lean on all of the knowledge about existing structures and their performance to aid him in his design. He also has an established business market to sell his building in. When Bell invented the telephone, he had neither. The engineering principles (and some of the scientific ones) had to be discovered and the market needed to be created. If the Wright brothers had chose to publish a paper on wing warping after their discovery of that aerodynamic process in their bike garage it would have been a great scientific accomplishment. Taking it all the way to the 1903 Wright Flyer made it a technical innovation. Clearly there is an extra step taken after the laws of nature are discovered by science before they are of practical use to man.

So why is technical innovation important? Technology innovation is the creation of new applications of scientific discoveries to productive problems of man. It is how we get from the discovery of radio waves to iPhones and from the steam engine (known as far back as ancient Greece) to the modern jet engine. Man's ability to be more productive (and live better, more flourishing life) is bounded only by the creativity and ability of the people who innovate. This is why it is important: it makes YOUR life better.

Most of the rest of the class focused on the military and cultural superiority that comes from leading technical innovation. I wanted to bring in especially Rand's quote that technology is the implicit and ultimate purpose of man's pursuit of knowledge.

British to American Music Terms

2010-02-14T20:42:00.002-05:00

Many of you who follow my twitter feed have probably watched one of the videos with me practicing my Alto Horn. I play in a British Brass Band. We have had the pleasure over my 4 year tenure to be visited by composer/conductor Nigel Horne. Getting the British style just right is changeling for any group and Nigel's passion and demand from the podium always leaves us playing one notch better then we though possible and about 300x better then where we started at the beginning of practice!

For an odd reason Nigel and us in the band often run into major communication difficulties. I'm not talking about the typical torch/flashlight stuff -- British musical terms come from a wholly different musical tradition then our common musical terms in America. For the most part we keep the frustration level low by staring at each other blankly as someone in the section quickly figures out what Nigel is talking about. I'm no musical linguist (Alton Brown style pause...) so here are my translations for some of the terms I've heard before stolen from various parts of the interwebs.

leader (UK) = concertmaster (USA)
produce (an opera) (UK) = conduct an opera (USA)
Conservatoire - Conservatory
bar (UK) = measure (USA)

Notes (UK - USA):

Breve - A note of two bars' length (a count of 8) in 4/4 time (no AmE equivalent of which I'm aware)
Crotchet - Quarter note
Minim - Half note
Quaver - Eighth note
Semiquaver - Sixteenth note
Demisemiquaver - Thirty-second note
Hemidemisemiquaver - Sixty-fourth note
Semibreve - Whole note
Semitone - Half step

Anyone want to add to the list? I know there are some folks who are fluent in the Queen's English out there!

Stop the Maslow Madness

2010-02-02T20:49:00.000-05:00

I'm tired of every class ramming Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs down my throat. In 1943 Maslow published "A Theory of Human Motivation". His basic idea was that there are five abstract goals that he called basic needs: physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization. These basic goals are in a "hierarchy of prepotency" meaning that people focus on the former ones until a minimum satisfaction is achieved before moving to the higher ones. Man, as a "perpetually wanting animal", is on average most often partially unsatisfied in all of his wants. Maslow traces all psychopathology to things that threaten the achievement of these basic human goals. This is the most enlightening part of his paper:

The role of gratified needs. -- It has been pointed out above several times that our needs usually emerge only when more prepotent needs have been gratified. Thus gratification has an important role in motivation theory. Apart from this, however, needs cease to play an active determining or organizing role as soon as they are gratified.

What this means is that, e.g., a basically satisfied person no longer has the needs for esteem, love, safety, etc. The only sense in which he might be said to have them is in the almost metaphysical sense that a sated man has hunger, or a filled bottle has emptiness. If we are interested in what actually motivates us, and not in what has, will or might motivate us, then a satisfied need is not a motivator. It must be considered for al pratical purposes simply not to exist, to have disappeared.... The perfectly heatlhy, normal, fortunate man has no sex needs, or hunger needs, or needs for safety, or for love, or for prestige, or self-esteem, except in stray moments of a quickly passing threat.

I think this is full of rationalism. First, there is no evidence that man is born with a built-in need hierarchy. In fact, as Objectivists we know that to live man requires three fundemntal values: reason, purpose, self-esteem. These needs, though, must be discovered by man as he matures and he isn't born with them. He chooses his values and their hierarchy either by conscious effort or default. Dr. Locke points out that:

Certain types of deprivation do result in death faster than other types; for example, oxygen deprivation causes irreversible brain damage within about 2 minutes, whereas people can live without water for several days and without food (if there is water) for several weeks. But this does not prevent people from risking their lives to save loved ones from drowning. Nor do physical needs automatically take priority over psychological needs. For example, a person with very low self-esteem may not eat or may commit suicide.

Dr. Locke further points out that people do figure out some of their needs in part by having them deprived, for example the growling of your stomach tells you that you are hungry. People don't know automatically what to do about it though. The growling doesn't tell you how to get food. Someone who feels worthless doesn't automatically know how to build his self-esteem. I know I tend to buy food at the store before I'm hungry, anticipating my needs before I'm deprived. Reason is the way people learn to discover their needs and how to satisfy them.

Examine also the view of man held by Maslow. A man with unsatisfied needs is a sick one and by contrast a man who is healthy has no needs. Man though must constantly take action to sustain his values -- and there is no limit to a man's need for self-esteem (or sex!). Happiness is not the absnese of needs:

The maintenance of life and the pursuit of happiness are not two separate issues. To hold one’s own life as one’s ultimate value, and one’s own happiness as one’s highest purpose are two aspects of the same achievement. Existentially, the activity of pursuing rational goals is the activity of maintaining one’s life; psychologically, its result, reward and concomitant is an emotional state of happiness. It is by experiencing happiness that one lives one’s life, in any hour, year or the whole of it. And when one experiences the kind of pure happiness that is an end in itself—the kind that makes one think: “This is worth living for”—what one is greeting and affirming in emotional terms is the metaphysical fact that life is an end in itself. (Rand)

These are the reasons why I'm tired of having to hear about Maslow. His theory isn't useful to me. Does this make sense to you? Post your comments and lets discuss!

.Net, Mono and Unmanaged Divas

2010-01-03T19:27:00.001-05:00

From the hopper of interesting articles here is one from slashdot back at the end of November discussing how many of Microsoft's top OS programmers use many old school tools in their development processes. Durring a pannel at the PDC this year there was a bit of a negative attitude directed at GUI programming tools:

"Graphical programming environments are usable when they are useless, but unusable when they would be useful," said Jeffrey Snover, another Microsoft distinguished engineer and creator of Microsoft's PowerShell scripting tool for Windows. "When there are five things on the screen, you can burp that out [in text]. But when there are 500 things, [graphical programming] is completely unusable. You zoom in and zoom out and you lose all context. I think it's just smokin' dope."

Managed code, such as Microsoft's .Net was not left out either:

Managed code runs inside a virtual machine. That makes it easier and faster to write, and more secure, say proponents. Managed code also lets developers "perform above their level of competence," Snover said.

"Managed code is like antilock brakes," he added. "You used to have to be a good driver on ice or you would die. Now you don't have to pump your brakes anymore."

You can see where this is going. The most insightful quote is what I'd like to focus on for this post:

Herb Sutter, lead designer of Microsoft's C++/CLI : "I think we have maybe five to 10 years left [with Moore's Law]," he said. "Optimizations will get very, very sexy again, when people realize how we pay for abstractions."

In what way do we pay for the abstractions provided by managed code and is it worth the price? Are abstractions good and how do we know when to use them?

When I start teaching people in my office about .Net many of them come from a Java or C++ background with some basic understanding of object oriented programming. Learning when to generalize something into a class or function is almost considered a black art.

Let's say you are writing a order processing system. There are Orders, Customers, and Items all needing to be tracked and processed in this application. This suggests a simple class structure, one for an order that has a customer and a collection of items. I haven't told you the kind of items that we are selling though. What if I told you it was a combination of commodity items, like light bulbs, and lot items, like diabetic test strips, where the number sold from each lot and to whom must be tracked. Now you have to decided to I try to cram all of that logic into a single Item class, or do I make an inherited class structure, perhaps Item as a parent with LotItem. The crucial reason I would decide on here is can one person understand what the class does if I stuff all the logic for both item types into it. In other words, is it maintainable? This is an example of "Rand's Razor" applied to the abstractions in programming.

The requirements of cognition determine the objective criteria of conceptualization. They can be summed up best in the form of an epistemological “razor”: concepts are not to be multiplied beyond necessity—the corollary of which is: nor are they to be integrated in disregard of necessity.

Applied to the class example, I don't want to generate classes beyond necessity or to have too few when I need more. In programming the requirements are maintainability, testing, performance, and others depending on the problem you are working on.

The problem of performance in higher abstraction languages are often more then offset by the power they give programmers to solve complex problems. I designed a inventory management system right out of college as one of my first large scale C# programming projects. I could not have done it in C++. Part of the reason is that the abstractions allowed me to focus on modeling the problem, which was very difficult in itself, rather then all the implementation details, memory management, persistance and communications plumbing needed to get all the pieces to talk together.

Every concept is formed for a reason. Every abstraction in programming should be as well. When those reasons don't match your problem, you must select less abstract tools, but this just means you will be creating your own abstractions specialized for your problem.

New Year 2010

2010-01-03T18:50:00.000-05:00

Welcome to 2010 (that is spoken twenty-ten)! I'm back from my travels to visit my family and will not start the interlude at work before classes start again in late January. I plan on posting much more frequently in that time and will see how well I can keep up the pace once classes start again. Only one more semester to go until I'm done with my Masters in Technical Management at JHU!

Chrome OS

2009-11-29T23:45:00.000-05:00

Reading through the excitement around the ChromeiumOS release I thought I'd try to explain what the big deal is and add my two cents. Many people want to put this under the tired lens of Microsoft vs. Google and end up missing the point.

Chromium OS is targeted netbooks, those machines that lie somewhere between a small traditional notebook and a high powered smartphone. With Andriod Google has positioned itself as a software OS provider on smartphones and wants to leverage that to Netbook devices. This makes sense to the boys in marketing. It also makes sense for two other important technical reasons that most of the industry press is missing: usability and security.

I've got a netbook user in my household. My roommate had work buy him a netbook so that he could reach back into the office from home. His tired laptop wasn't up to the task, and at $300 a pop, it was an easy decision for his employer to be able to keep him productive from anywhere. Add on a sprint 4g usb modem and he is tethered from home and on the road. I can tell you most of the time he is remoted into their terminal server, checking email, browsing the web, and catching up on facebook. This is probably much like what he is doing at work. From a usability standpoint, something like Chromium OS would work great in this case, provided a remote desktop web client is provided (which I think is a no brainer).

Now lets talk security. Google has a plan for baking in security early and a roadmap for the future. Even my favorite metrics guru Andrew Jaquith has been impressed and he has a great highlight of the security features. I am impressed with the trusted boot/OS integrity check process, which I think will probably involve some of the trusted computing/TPM technologies I've worked on at work. The main takeaway from all of this is that this device will be easier to defend from web based attacks. Disallowing the user to install software and sand-boxing all web apps will limit the exposure to any malicious web contents that manage to trick the users into clicking on them.

Right now my roommate is running a full blown Windows XP (gasp!) which takes us right back to Facebook. Users are going to do things that they do, include going to websites, purposefully or through trickery, that will put data at risk. Google is presenting businesses an alternative in the Netbook area where trusted access and limited exposure can help protect corporate data while still allowing users to browse the Internet and have access to their web applications. Mix this with the low price point (free, anyone?) and I think you have a winning combination.

Does this replace or threaten Microsoft? I say, no. There is a place on Netbooks for a real, traditional OS. Games jump out as obvious, but so does office applications, photo editing, and others that aren't useful as web apps (yet). What this may do is spur faster adoption of trusted computing technology by Microsoft in Windows 7 and future platforms. I'd love to see hypervisor dynamically protecting the OS and verifying integrity of IE sand-boxing. This could be the catalyst to bring this technology to the mainstream desktop.

We have witnessed falling notebooks prices for a long while. Google may be giving us the best Christmas gift of all -- a sub $200 productive Netbook -- next Christmas.

Systems Engineering

2009-10-27T17:52:00.003-04:00

After finishing my 15 page marathon take-home exam in Intro to Systems Engineering you would think I've had enough of it -- and you would be wrong! I thought that now that my brain is full of systems engineering that it would a great time to write up exactly what I think it is.

The big caveat is that I am not a practicing systems engineer. I've spent almost my entire career as a consultant working on small team software projects. I started this degree program (technical management) as a stepping stone ffor working on larger scale projects, culminating in creating my own software product. I'm obviously half way through my class so I think now is a great time to gather my thoughts which I'm sure will evolve greatly as I start applying them when I return to work in May.

A complex system is one with diverse elements having intricate interrelationships. (Kossiakoff pg. 3) The text provides a three point criteria for a system that would need systems engineering:

Engineered product that satisfies a specific need
Contains diverse components with intricate interrelationships requiring multiple engineering disciplines.
Advanced technologies are used in fundamental ways to meet the system goal

SpaceShipOne, winner of the Ansari X PRIZE, is a perfect example of a complex system. I could probably write a whole post on that but this one is getting long so take my word for now.

In order to understand what systems engineering is we also need a conceptual framework for how a complex system is developed. Kossiakoff and Sweet presents a conceptualized systems engineering lifecycle that shares transitions with DoD 5000 phases, ISO/IEC 15288 stages, and NSPE stages.

Concept Development	Needs Analysis	Concept Exploration	Concept Definition
Engineering Development	Advanced Development	Engineering Design	Integration & Evaluation
Post Development	Production	Operation & Support

He divides the life cycle into 3 stages, each comprised of phases. The names indicate the primary activities performed in that part of the process. In the concept development stage the focus is on conceptually defining the system to meet validated customer needs. In engineering development this concept system is translated into a validated physical system design that satisfies the triple constraints of cost, schedule and scope (requirements). Post development stage is the actual construction of the deliverable system and its operation/support. Each of these phases are usually formal decision points for the development of the system with costs and risk impact increasing in each phase reaching a peak resource commitment during production. At each phase the documentation and design representations become more detailed and complete.

The system engineering method is the “systematic application of the scientific method to the engineering of a complex system.” (Kossiakoff pg. 69) Kossiakoff proposes a four step process that conceptualizes the set of activities that repeat from one life cycle phase to the next.

The first step is Requirements Analysis or problem definition. Functional Analysis and Allocation as the second step helps ensure a disciplined approach to effectively organizing functions while allowing for a configuration of functions that best balances the desired characteristics of the system. Third, Physical Definition is “the translation of the functional design into hardware and software components, and the integration of these components into the total system.” (Kossiakoff pg. 75) The final step is Design Validation (also called verification or evaluation) which is an explicit validation of the design through modeling, testing and test data analysis.

Each of these four steps are applied over each phase of the system life cycle. While the steps are the same, the focus shifts in the phases as the system materializes from system-level in the needs analysis to component and parts level in the engineering design phase.

Applying the systematic approach of the system engineering method to each phase in the system life cycle results in a process that takes abstract needs and maps them to a set of actual components. These components are integrated into a system to perform complex functions to realize those needs. This process is called System Materialization.

System Materialization starts at the highest level called the system level. All the subsystems are visualized and the operational objectives of the system are defined in the needs analysis phase. Each phase visualizes the next level down in terms of the system design hierarchy as depicted in Table 3-1 from the book with the shaded areas indicated the primary focus of that phase.The current state of system definition at any point in the life cycle is the current system model.3 Even early on a general vision of the physical embodiment of the system is essential, though this vision may differ radically from the fully materialized system.

This process of systematically bringing a complex system from customer need to delivered product requires a disciplined approach in order to meet cost, time and requirements. Systems engineering provides a systematic method for managing the complex technical issues involved. Closely related is the project planning and control aspect (but since I haven't had that class I will not comment for now).

Public School Learning Compact - Hugs Mandatory, Learning Optional

2009-10-08T17:10:00.000-04:00

My mom sent me something she found in my nephew's Friday Folder this last week. It is a Learning Compact. Getting past the "it takes a village" preamble, contrast what the teacher is committing to versus what the parent are patronizingly encouraged to commit to. Teachers will provide a "safe, positive environment" (free from trans-fats, no doubt), have "high expectations" (what about results?), work with "other teaching professionals" (those precious professional development days in the middle of the school year), and "bringing parents into the classroom" (with background checks I hope!).

Now look at what parents are supposed to do. Some of them are outright none of your business ("send your child to school with a positive hug"). Others are required by the men with guns ("See that child attends school daily and on time").

My mom has told me she after consulting an educational authority and a lawyer she has decided not to return the compact.