omenti

delightful creations

This week I found myself reflecting on the death of Dennis Ritchie - co-creator of the Unix operating system and the C programming language.  Both of these were revolutionary, paving the way for much of what we know as modern computing.  If you use an iPhone or a Mac, buried in the machine's soul is a form of Unix.  And most other heavily used operating systems and programming languages are based directly on Dennis' work.

 

One of the Dennis' notions that struck me was "death to excessive relevance." Of course some relevance is necessary, but if your goal is change too much relevance is a muddy quagmire from which you will never escape.  His organization - the 1127 Center at Bell Labs - had a gift for killing excessive relevance and the spirit existed throughout Bell Labs until the mid to late '80s when relevance began to kill the magic of the place.

 

A few years ago I was reading some of A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh to my niece Magi over the phone...

 

Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it.

 

A few individuals and fewer organizations think expansively enough to deeply consider their customers (I really dislike the term customer - there must be something better).   Unfortunately too many are bound in getting product out the door, living in the short term and just getting by.  The few that thrive are able to stop the bumping for awhile and think.

 

With that, here are the responses to last week's questions.  Thanks to those of you who replied - some interesting comments.  There is a strong signal that hand-made objects rate among some of you.

 

_____________

What are results of human minds and hands that you love?  

 

Off the top of my head: so many books, so much music, and anything that comes from my 5-year old son putting crayon to paper (but that's emotional; then again so is love). 

 

Things that you evangelize

 

The Blues

Peking Duck

Crisp, cool, autumn air

Accepting that you're bad at golf and enjoying the company you're in and a good walk (unspoiled)

Asimov's Foundation series

 

 

things that fire passion

 

Teaching enthusiastically 

Elegant simplicity

 

 

Name something created by a person or persons that gave you great pleasure for at least a year and write a bit about it

 

I have a few Movado watches, all of the classic museum design, all very similar. Intellectually, both the design and architecture are perfect. That was my attraction so many years ago: their elegant simplicity. Emotionally, my favorite is the one that's paired to my wife's in our "his and hers" set. My second-favorite Movado is the one I've had the longest, since about 1992 or so. I wore that watch every day for 10 years or more. (They are fragile, so I've invested a lot of money in having it repaired a few times... worth every penny.) 

 

 

Name a product or service that gave you great pleasure for at least a year and write away..  

 

I've been a TiVo customer since their launch about 10 years ago. The first eight years were great. My TiVo worked perfectly. It was fairly elegant, if not that simple, but simple enough. I had innumerable discussions with many other CS/techie/IT-types over the years about the advantages of TiVo over systems like MythTV and other "free" options. My argument was that TiVo "just worked" while the other systems required Rube Goldbergian antics to even get running and were impossible to keep running over time because they were too complex. Even though I *could* do it given my background and profession, I didn't *want* to do it, having more interesting things to apply my background and profession to. The additional cost in dollars was nothing compared to the cost of my time and antifrustration. 

 

Once again this is emotional. I love TiVo because it gives me total control of the media I harvest from the fire hose of cable TV. I'm not beholden to time periods, commercials, silly intros, or boring guests on talk shows. I treasure the ability to watch only the segment(s) of 60 Minutes, The Daily Show, Charlie Rose, or Tavis Smiley that I want, skipping the others.

 

 

Name a product or service that gave you great pleasure for over a year and then fell from grace.

 

The last two TiVo years have been filled with a succession of buggy hardware and much frustration. The modern TiVo is also beset with software problems. Their customer "support" is gawd-awful. But it's still the best DVR in the market, so I suffer with it and enjoy the time periods when it's working all the more.

 

 

 

- -- -  - -- -  -

 

 

Re-reading, there is an obvious theme here of elegant simplicity and emotional connection. Advertisers have known of the importance of emotional connection for decades. Now it's common knowledge as so much has been written these past few days about elegant simplicity and emotional connection being the essential ingredients of Apple products. The uncluttered face of the iPhone, with its single button, is quite reminiscent of Movado. I wonder if Apple ever considered putting that button at the top.

 

-Alan

 

______________________

 

when i was 18, i spent the outrageous sum of $185 on a large woodblock

print.  'torero viejo'.   a gaunt somber figure in black and crimson,

cradling a tiny bull in his hands, that somehow manages to convey hope

and resilience. it was a foolhardy purchase, given my minuscule resources

at the time. i had to scrape and squeeze to cover it, and still pay my

rent. many meals were scrounged from friends that month.

 

since that purchase, i've spent much larger sums on cars, vacations,

dinners out, electronic toys, ... the cars are long since rust, the

vacations and dinners only pleasant memories, and the electronics gone

to recycling.

 

the torero hangs in the living room, as somberly gorgeous as ever.

i smile at him every day when i get home.

 

what's more, that purchase gave me the confidence to buy other art.

(this was a thing unheard of in my family -- art was something you went

to a museum to see.) now, every room in the house has a painting or

photograph or pot or sculpture. they're an unfailing source of joy.

 

- Nancy

 

___________

 

 

In answer to your questions:

 

For 1 and 2 the answer is my iPhone 4. It makes me so much more connected to information and to the world via mobility, and by the fact that it works seamlessly and flawlessly. I spend as much time on it as I do my laptop. It's the first computer I check in the morning and the last one I check at night. I never expected it to play such a vital information role in my life. 

 

For question 3, I would say it's the local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle. I subscribed for 25 years and read it each day. Plucking it from the front porch (or the bushes) was a morning ritual, as was reading it with the morning coffee. Because of the paper's curated perspective and voice I felt a kinship with the reporters, columnists and editors. But with the Internet being 24/7, and deeper and more specific, the print newspaper faded in relevance. Pretty soon it was just "paper" with yesterday's news. It went unread. I have great respect for traditional journalism and journalists, and for newspapers, but eventually the paper copy served no purpose and had to go. To me it's a loss, really, because nothing has really supplanted it. It was a shared culture that's given way to fragmentation.

 

Please consider my replies as "Anonymous."

 

___________

 

° Name something created by a person or persons that gave you great pleasure for at least a year and write a bit about it - a sentence to an essay.

 

This is easy, but no one will know the name. When I was very depressed a good friend who was cheering me spent some time and made a portrait that startled me when I saw it.  It was mostly pen and ink, but my hair and eyes had intense color and it made me giggle and smile for the first time in months. Somehow it gave me a bit of hope and better yet it was made for me by someone who knew and loved me.  It still touches me deeply.  The best things are handmade even if the artist may not be the best in the world.

 

° Name a product or service that gave you great pleasure for at least a year and write away..  (this may be the same as the first item)

 

Two things.  The first is my custom bicycle.  She is bright red and I call her Kirsebær, which means cherry.  I am tall but a girl, so it is very hard to find a bike that fits.  She is handbuilt to my exact measurements and everything is to my specifications.  The welds are works of art rather than the mess you see on most bikes and the detail and pride in her construction is everywhere.  She only has one speed and does not coast. You can balance her when you are stopped by pedaling back and forth a bit.  She has brakes, but if you are careful you don’t need them.   I won't ride her in bad weather or for commuting, but only for pure pleasure.  I'm sure she will be with me for the rest of my life.

We have our games on a nice Sunday morning and chase colors here in København.  I think of a color and ride as fast as I can until I see it and then turn at the next street and sprint off to find a new color.  My hair tries to keep up with us.

Kirsebær is the most expensive purchase I have ever made.  She cost maybe five times as much as my commuting bike and I had to wait six months in queue for her.  Of everything I have purchased with my own money she has given me the most in return and the most pleasure.

The other thing is certainly my iPad.  I travel a great deal and it simplifies my life hugely.   There are several other Apple products that are important to me, but this has made travel much easier for me.  

 

° Name a product or service that gave you great pleasure for over a year and then fell from grace.

There are too many of them.  The most recent was a line of clothing that made jeans that came close enough to fit and look good on me.  They just changed the production from Europe to South Asia and the quality is terrible now.  The fabrics are cheap, there is poor control over sizing and the prices are the same.  When I'm in a clothing store, I tell other customers to stay away if they are looking at that brand.

 

• Jheri

________________

Something created by a person - My mother made me a hooked rug according to a design and colors I selected. She has since died but the rug reminds me of her. 

Product/service gave pleasure for at least a year - We have a Gitzo 6x carbon tripod. The tripod's simplicity, elegance and form/function provide enjoyment every time we use it. 

 

Product that fell from grace - I used an ad blocker (WRQ's AtGuard) that early on was a stand alone product. It did the job and I loved it. Within 2-3 years it was sold to Norton who integrated it into Internet Security Suite. Over time it became annoying due to Norton's lack of support. I no longer use Norton.

 

-Margot

___________________

 

iPad

 

Blackberry/Kindle. 

 

But I am back to using both Blackberry and Kindle, since they reinvented them and made them better. 

 

• anonymous

 

______________________

 

° Name something created by a person or persons that gave you great pleasure for at least a year and write a bit about it - a sentence to an essay.

 A painting from my dear and old friend Hava. Although I have now had it for over a decade, I still find it fascinating and see new things in it. It is also precious to me because it draws me back to the times I watched her paint, which was something exquisite in itself. The stroke of brush following an image in her imagination fascinated me.

° Name a product or service that gave you great pleasure for at least a year and write away..  (this may be the same as the first item)

Netflix. I love streaming video. No more objects coming into and out of the house. No time in a store deciding what I want. Social information that helps me select what I will like. Immediacy. 

° Name a product or service that gave you great pleasure for over a year and then fell from grace.

 Cell phones. Each time I get one I am in love with all the new features I get. A year later, I want the newer features. It changes so fast, and we so easily become accustomed even dependent on the features from the last iteration, that I take them for granted. Getting a camera in the phone....then wanted a decent camera in the phone... googlemaps in the phone, and now want faster internet access. Today I want to give up the smart phone all together and merge my computer with my phone by using an ipad.

 

• Jean

 

______________________

 

Something that a person made - I have a great picture of my son that a photographer at his school made over a year ago. It features as the wallpaper of my iPhone, and every time I see it I'm touched by the look, I feel love and pride, but I also feel vulnerable, and it always makes me want to go home, wherever I am... A service that has given me pleasure for at least a year - the gym and my personal coach there. I've been going regularly for a couple of years now, the atmosphere is just right, the attention at a nice level and the provide a free breakfast in the morning, which for me, still is the best way to start my day...all about the people there making me feel at home, and giving me a great optimistic start. A product that fell from grace - my Apple TV, used it quite a lot in the beginning, to watch all the stuff that I downloaded on my TV-screen, but now I haven't put anything new on it for over a year I think (or at least it feels like that). Interestingly though...although it fell from my grace, my son is the biggest user of it at the moment as he is able to watch all his Disney movies on it ;-)

 

• Jörgen

_______________

 

Something created by a person - an idea called "bio-cost" created by michael geogeghan and paul pangaro (i got to embellish and market it), which is a human economy, the stress, time, attention and energy required to get what you (we all) want. this idea has stuck with for 8 years and its importance has grown over time... Products that have stuck with me for over a year - all apple products, of course, and the philips sonicare toothbrush, and "4-wheel drive" suitcases from rimowa...

• CJ

_______________

 

Music!  There is so much awesome music that I can't be specific.

 

Being tall I am constantly bending over, get crushed into seats with no leg room, bend to get a shower,  and crack my head into doorways I don’t notice..  Clothing doesn't fit.   A raised cutting board makes kitchen prep painless:-)  And Indi makes jeans that actually it.  

 

Airlines.  Coach seats don’t fit,  but up until a few years ago the ticket agent would take a look at me and make sure I got an exit row or bulkhead seat. That always made me feel good about them and their company.  Now the planes are full and airlines and the chances of getting a seat are low even if you pay extra.  I've had cross country trips where it takes days for the pain to go away.  The airlines say I need to buy a business class seat, but there is no way I can afford that.  I hate it when someone makes you pay for a physical condition you had no control over.

 

• anonymous

 

__________________

 

It is difficult for me to name one thing that pleases me the most as it would be music, art or something made by a friend with me in mind - or perhaps wonderful a wonderful instrument like the Hubble Space Telescope. But if I limit myself to a product that I have owned, my old eight inch newtonian telescope comes to mind. I had it as a teenager. A few parts were made by a small optical company in Southern California - probably a shop with a couple of people - and I added the rest from here and there including pieces of my own design. It gave me a window into the Universe and sparked my imagination. I learned a bit of optics and mechanical engineering during the day and astronomy at night. I built a spectrometer for it and started to learn a bit how science was done. It gave me a source of questions that I asked of some mentors and my real education ignited. 

 

iPods. We had been working on digital music schemes and portable players where I worked. It was clear small hard disks would soon be cheap enough to pack a hundred hours of music into a handheld device. We built something that could store about fifty tracks, but the next leap presented a huge usability problem. How would you navigate your music? The original Apple iPod gave a great solution. I saw the photos from the first talk and a lightbulb went off. I bought what was probably the first unit sold in New Jersey at one of the first Apple Stores. It was insanely expensive, but it worked and showed a path to something that had been bothering me for some time. It had a wonderful scroll wheel that gave a nice analog feeling to the interface. Its integration with my Mac made earlier attempts, including the one we had built, look like painful jokes. Mine still works - I've had to change the battery a few times, but I use it a few times a year just to remind myself what a leap it represented. Portable music and words (podcasts) mean a lot to me and are a necessary part of my exercise program. The current iPods are much better, although they are fading into iPhones. They have brought me delight. 

 

Several companies that have fallen from grace for me - notably Sony and HP, but Sony probably the most. I once bought their audio and video gear with great confidence. It may not have been at the top of the heap performance wise, but great care was given to how products work and how I experienced them. They had wonderful feeling knobs and their operation was simple. They also tended to be very reliable. All of that changed. Newer products were a cheapened experience and reliability went out the window. The interfaces became frustrating mazes that showed little thought of how people might use something. These days I avoid their kit like the plague and advise others likewise.

 

- Steve

 

 

 

the cool of one hand radiating

Your metabolism probably averages something around 100 watts over the course of a day.¹  Our bodies aren’t terribly efficient at converting this energy into motion, so we have to get rid of quite a bit of waste heat.  Sweating is one of the main mechanisms,  It works particularly well when our sweat can evaporate from our skin - something that gets into a bit of curious physics about water. 

 

These mechanisms work fairly well for most of us, but athletes have a real problem.  I’m far from an athlete, but regular produce about 150 watts of work, in addition to my base load, when I’m rowing.  In an hour I’ll go through over a liter of water and will still be very thirsty with my clothes drenched in sweat.  It turns out, if I’m using good form, I’m about 20% efficient so my 150 watts of work requires about 750 watts from my metabolism.  I’m left with about 600 watts of wasted energy to dump somewhere - most of it as waste heat.  Think about holding a half dozen 100 watt incandescent bulbs...

 

Although I have about two square meters of skin, my sweating primarially takes place in preferential areas we’re all know.  At that power level I am still regulating core temperature well and excessive waste heat is not a roadblock to my performance. 

 

Recently I had a bit of surgery and remember being frigid when I started coming out of the anesthesia.  They had wrapped in blankets to deal with the problem, but there was still quite a bit of shivering .  It turns out the anesthesia disturbs our ability to regulate our core temperature and there in lies an interesting story.

 

About 20 years ago a couple of doctors at Stanford noticed you could warm surgery patients by increasing the blood flow to the skin of their palms.  Very very curious stuff indeed.  It turns out one of the ways we control our core temperature is by regulating the blood flow to the skin in non-hairy parts of our body.  Notably the plams, soles of the feet, and cheeks - another neat mechanism.

 

A real athlete often needs to summon a very intense performance and can produce fairly amazing amounts of power.  Those who specialize in events where burst performances are requried are paritcularly impressive.  Colleen can produce over 700 watts for a half minute - a not far off a horsepower.  She is probably about 20% efficient doing this (many of our athletic motions are in the 15% to low 20% range), so she needs to get rid of about three kilowatts of power.  The burner on your electric range on high radiates about half that much.²  One of the limits of intense bursts of powe  - beyond running out of fuel local to the muscle very early on and then developing too much lactic acid shortly thereafter - is the spike in core body temperature.  A world class sprinter would probably die if they were to maintain their power level for - say - 20 seconds.  Their 10 second intense burst of power can raise their core temperature to a dangerous 105°F.

 

If you could artificially increase blood flow in one of the critical areas, you could help dump some waste heat and perhaps increase the endurance of an athlete. It would be great during breaks in football and, in fact, the effect is being exploited with a device known as “The Glove”.  A player inserts his hand into a chamber that seals at the wrist.  A slight vacuum is applied under the palm to stimulate blood flow and quickly drop the core temperature in a few minutes.

____________

 

¹ An average adult might require about 2100 nutritional Calories a day.  That is roughly equivalent to 2400 watt-hours.  To find the average power in a day, simply divide by the number of hours in a day.  You’re a light bulb:-)

 

² Of course the hot plate only radiates over an area of about 0.1 meters whereas Colleen has 20 times that area, albeit not evenly distributed.  

 

It was too tempting to use this photo of a very sweaty President. In fairness he probably was the most athletic  

a reader's assignment

What are results of human minds and hands that you love?  Things that you evangelize, things that fire passion?  

 

I know most of the readers of this blog and you happen to be a pretty interesting lot.  I'd like to ask a few questions and print the results next Saturday.  

 

° Name something created by a person or persons that gave you great pleasure for at least a year and write a bit about it - a sentence to an essay.

 

° Name a product or service that gave you great pleasure for at least a year and write away..  (this may be the same as the first item)

 

° Name a product or service that gave you great pleasure for over a year and then fell from grace.

 

° any other comments?

 

Don't spend a lot of time pondering what is absolute best unless you want to meditate on the question.   Also I fully recognize that there are other things of much greater importance to us -  family, friends,  nature, and so many other things - I'm just looking at things we make.

 

If you choose to answer,  my email is esc at mac dot com.  Let me know if you want me to use your name or if you would prefer to be anonymous.  Since there aren't many readers (fewer than 30), your comments are very important!

 

thanks!

 

____

image courtesy of www.sxc.hu

the delight of turning potential energy into kinetic energy

There have been too many weighty events this week - it is time for something fun.  

 

There is something wonderful about watching energy move backand forth betwen potential and kinetic energy even if there aren't many osciallations.  Swings, roller coasters, sailplanes, the arc of a tossed ball, chains of dominos ...

 

You've all seen videos of large domino chains.  By standing a domino on end you are increasing its potential energy.  Energy that can be released later when the domino tips, turning stored potential energy into the energy of motion - kinetic energy.  The key is to find an object that is usually stable, but can tip easily and move its center of mass a long distance in the process.  People make wonderful patterns using thousands of them - but there is another way to spend your day for a few seconds of delight ...

 

Wood is elastic and wants to return to its original position when bent - a property that allowed people to build bows that can propel an arrow at a high speed.  You can use this to store potential energy in a wooden stick.  When given a chance to release the stick will seek its normal shape and the resulting motion is a nice display of kinetic energy.  

 

With a bit of cleverness you can weave a pile of wooden sticks into a structure storing the energy that you used to flex them for later release.  Fifty sticks will give you and idea - a thousand will give you something wonderful.

 

A large number of weave patterns can be used - you just want to construct a regular pattern that bends the sticks enough without moving them past their elastic limit. Craft sticks are recommeded and are inexpensive at a few cents each in quantity.¹  A hundred bucks, a gym floor and a lot of kids would create a dramatic event. 

 

Like many things you can ask a few questions and gain a deeper understanding.  There is enough beauty without the questions, but new delights emerge when you look a bit more deeply.  How much energy is stored in a structure?  What is its energy density? What other materials could be used to improve it?  Could the shape and internal stucture of a stick be improved?   What weave patterns would be optimal? How much of the kinetic energy is turned into sound and heat and how much is goes into the bounce of the sticks?  Could you make a musical version? .. and so on.  Like so many interesting things, this is a rich playground for the mind.  

 

The artist and kid in you might try other weaves, adding some color or even making this part of a Rube Goldberg contraption.

 

 ________

 

The energy density of mechanical storage systems is not very high compared with other forms of storage the industrial world uses.   Try calculating the energy density of a hydroelectric project as an example.  What about the maximum energy density of compressed air storage? How do these compare to electric batteries and hydrocarbon combustion or hydrogen combustion?  Are you likely to ever see a spring powered cellphone? 

 

On the other hand mechanical energy storage is very useful and even beautiful at the appropriate scale. That scale turns out to be our scale and it is vitally important to many biological systems.   Among other things it lets us run efficiently and makes nearly every sport possible.  To us even a modest amount can seem significant.  An average person on a six story building stores about the same amount of potential energy as the battery in his smartphone, but even that small amount (small for the purpose of running the machines in our lives) is enough be rather unfortunate in a fall.

 

stay curious

 

__________

¹ stick choice is important. I haven't done this since I was an undergrad, but remember we tried tongue depressors and popsicle sticks - these days you can also buy craft sticks, which I've seen recommended, but I haven't tried.  The amount of "spring" in each of these, their elasticity, varies and will produce very different results.  It probably pays to try small units with a few dozen sticks each before settling on a material for a huge project.

We ended up with tongue depressors mostly because we found a cheap source and made a 500 stick weave.  It was addictive enough that we rebuilt it three times.

 

a bike for the mind

I've been thinking a lot about Steve and can't offer much more than what has been said already.  It is difficult to convey the energy and nimbleness of mind I felt the few times we talked.  He clearly wasn't an engineer or a manager - those conversations reminded me more of having deep talks with an artist or a composer.

 

I wrote a short piece six weeks ago when he retired that sum up my feelings of why I was attracted to his approach

This morning  some of his comments came to mind.  His "bicycle for the mind" notion of computers is both telling and compelling.  He was struck by an article in Scientific American that examined the energy cost of transportation.  Most people, when they see this sort of information, have their eyes glaze over and get manage to get caught in the particular mode of transport, the sources of energy and various externalities.  Jobs was struck only by the joules/km-kg metric.  He noted humans are not very good as animals go - I think he used the phrase "the crown of creation doesn't fare well" and most personal forms of transit are much worse.  But there was one gem …  when it comes to moving a single organism a person on a bike beats anything else.  We had created an elegantly simple mechanical device that managed to beat evolution.  

He continued to admire bikes as practical design.  I had a conversation with him in 2004 or 2005 where he brought it up as a near perfect embodyment of functional design.  He mentioned Italian track bikes from the 70s as accomplishing their goal with incredible beauty and simplicity, completely integrating a person with their own motion even eliminating the need for brakes.  That was the moment when it became clear to me that he needed to strip away the extraneous of any socio-technical initial solution.  Breadth of intellect and a willingness to ponder deeply and struggle with the issues are critical to this approach.  That is where you begin to recognize there are many pieces to a puzzle and begin to connect the dots.  Real creativity becomes an afterthought as it is obvious.

This is often how creativity happens in science - problems need to be expressed in the greatest simplicity as nature is otherwise too confusing.  Jobs was gifted - and hardworking - enough to take on several monumentally complex problems and render them obvious.  His competitors would look at what he did learning at the superficial Cliffs Notes level and trying to pass the test, but they weren't learning at a deeper level.  They weren't investing their intellectual horsepower or that of their organizations in deep understanding.  They were comparatively inefficient intellectually and lacking in real education.

I have great hopes for Apple going forward as I think he built much of his thinking into the organization.  That is a powerful weapon that isn't terribly secret, but is enormously difficult to duplicate.  

This approach should be core to the educational experience.  Forget about simple training for work as the core focus.  A broad general education is critical.  My own early education was deep in a few places rather than broad and I consider it a handicap.  Over the years I've broadened out a bit, but still have a long way to go.  It is something we can all aspire to and something that needs to be built into the education system.  You need art, music, sports, history, philosophy, literature, poetry, math, science, the ability to observe and think critically and several other things to even see the dots involved.   Then, and only then,  you can begin to connect the dots and hopefully you are in an organization that can appreciate that approach.

 

Peace to his family and close friends, but thank you for underscoring the importance of such a powerful way of thinking.  What an incredible ride.

 

Simplicity is incredibly difficult, but its value is enormous 

and a final note

steve

damn it

I was lucky enough to have had long chats with him on several occassions.  An amazing clarity of vision and Apple is his legacy.  So sad for his family and close friends ... 

If you have never seen his Stanford Commencement, watch it now...

very raw thoughts on education

A quick posting over lunch.

Probably because all of us have been involved with education for so many years, all feel we have insight and expertise in the area and complain about many of its problems.  Our solutions may or may not be clueful.  I've spent time in groups worried about STEM education and specifically worry about issues of scientific and numeric literacy. I certainly don't have any prescription for changing the world and the deeper I go the dumber I feel.  I've seen several ideas that I thought brilliant crash and burn.  

Last night I came across some comments on an email list and was reminded of some notes I scribbled somewhere over Kansas a few years ago.  I'm copying it here in an attempt to spark thought and comment.   It is left completely unedited and very rough for a purpose.  

o with that  here are some scattered thoughts about education in no particular order. Feel free to comment or start a conversation.  These are only meant to trigger thought.

__________

what is training vs education?

 training is a commodity

 education gives an advantage

hierarchy

looking it up

solving problems

creatively solving problems

discovering problems and solving creatively

 

basic understanding --  

ask people why it is hotter in the Summer than the Winter,  give them a single wire, a lamp and a battery and ask them to make a light, the difference between power and energy, what a standard deviation is - many college grads can't handle those questions

 unit analysis in the sciences  E != mc³ is obvious

what is necessary for critical thinking?

 

what do you learn - really learn?

 

the difference betwen basic  and professional skills   -- huge topic

 

teaching techniques:

___________________

 

we pretend people learn what we say or what we write - silly us

lessons of Randy Olson 

 

learning by copying, reading through a text without thinking or being unengaged in a lecture is too shallow to be called learning

    how much meditation and wrestling with ideas is necessary?

 

people don’t think like how we draw on the blackboard

 

get out of the business of training. . stop lecturing, stop writing textbooks

 

derivations don’t give insight ... equations explain to those who understand, they are very beautiful if you do understand.  They are still essential, but the order of learning is wrong.

 

understand phenomenon first

 

it has to be fun

 

pencil and paper is crippled compared to playing. ..  

 

how is careful observation encouraged?

how are high quality questions encouraged?

skepticism is healthy, denial of evidence is dangerous and hubric

 

abstracting in the mind is not easy, physical and computer models help a lot

 

give barely possible team projects and see how they do - interaction with peers and mentors is critical

 

visceral understanding  - doing something might influence if you actually do it

 

human component often missing (sometimes seen in sports)

 

mentors are very important for education -- do things with mentors 

phd is really trade school with some creativity mixed in ... real education)

 

WWW as a copy machine is the wrong notion - unlimited access to information as a base, but don't make it the end ...  wikipedia should not be a final destination, but a beginning

 

highly produced may be necessary (good eats teaching about cooking)

 

movie production vs textbooks 

$50M vs $50k ... but impact of a movie usually small compared to a textbook

 

textbooks are done wrong...   work with animator ... rich animation can be a teaching tool

 

animation, interactive learning, time feedback should be short, mentoring is a two person skill 

 

no finals - realize when learning has happened...  in-person oral tests whenever the time seems right

 

 _______

I was always impressed by the depth Feynman understood the world.  He basically rederived a large amount of physics and math for himself in his own somewhat unique fashion and was able to describe aspects of nature with amazing clarity to non-scientists.  I've tried that sort of explanation and find it extremely difficult.  An astronomer I know is well-known to the general public and famous for his apperances on The Colbert Report. He spends nearly a full week in preparation so as not to fail. This sort of thing came naturally to Feynman.

 

 

the streetlight effect

There is an old joke physicists like to tell to their graduate students...

 

It seems a policeman walking his beat at about three in the morning notices a slightly disheveled drunk on his hands and knees searching for something under a streetlight.  The drunk is very engaged and doesn’t take notice that the officer is watching him for about ten minutes.  He goes around and around carefully examining each bit of asphalt and then returning and starting over after the sweep is done.  Finally the policeman approaches the drunk.

 

“Excuse me sir, but what are you looking for?”

 

The drunk is startled, but not enough to stand up.  Getting eye contact he replies

 

“Hello officer.  I dropped my wallet and have been looking for it for at least an hour now.”

 

The policeman scans the area and sees nothing like a wallet.  

 

“Are you certain you dropped it here?”

 

“Oh. I don’t think so officer. I probably dropped it across the street.”

 

The policeman is now confused and a bit amused..

 

“Why aren’t you looking over there?”

 

“Can’t you see?” the drunk replied “the light over there is terrible..”

 

_____

 

Today I read an analysis of some smartphone usage patterns.  It was completely off base given the technique they were using.  Their technique is well known and easy to use, but completely across the street - there is no way they could find what they claimed to be looking for with their measurements and analysis and they pushed a null result.

 

Getting at the question they posed would be difficult, but not impossible.  It would require a different experimental model and they would need to measure different information. It was possible, but they opted to do something non-appropriate and got a result that didn’t make sense.  It was too easy for them to search in an area they knew.

 

You see this sort of thing a lot in pseudoscience and every once and awhile elsewhere.  If you are looking for something make sure you are looking in the right place.  If there isn’t a good streetlight, build one of your own or work out something else that is just as good - perhaps a lawn rake would have worked for the drunk.

 

_____

 

Looking at results in clever ways can make an enormous difference.  Sometimes seemingly complex patterns have simple underpinnings.  I was reminded of that by this beautiful youtube video Jeri forwarded 

 

 

(oddly enough I know three people with similar sounding names: Jeri, Jerry, and Jheri.  All of them happen to be very interesting people)

 

what is the ground speed of a mediæval soldier?

laden or unladen?

 

Steel plate armor seemed like a great idea to protect soldiers in the days before gun powder, but like anything else there are trade-offs between mobility and protection.  An escalating race between armor and weapons brought about heavy suits that weighed thirty to fifty kilograms by the fifteen century.  Breeding programs for larger cavalry horses became necessary, but finding much stronger people is problematic ...  not to mention the user experience issues associated with trying to work in one of these contraptions.

 

Researchers at the University of Leeds were interested in precisely how much effort was required to move around in all of  that steel kit and partnered with the Royal Armouries to study the impact using real people on an instrumented treadmill. (the paper is behind a paywall) 

 

They found the cost of motion - the work required to move - of a person with a 110 pound metal suit increased by about 2.3 times over an unladen person.  This turns out to be worse than the cost of motion increase for someone wearing a modern  backpack of the same weight due to the distribution of the suit’s weight.  The leg protection amounted to about 20 pounds and it was that swinging weight that contributed to the extra cost.

 

The studies were done on smooth treadmills at room temperature.  Real world conditions that often involved poor terrain would make matters much worse.  This led the authors to speculate on one of the more remarkable military upsets in history - the Battle of Agincourt - where Henry V with a small army of men mostly without armor defeated a much larger French army of heavily armored soldiers. 

 

It happened the fields in the area had just been plowed for Winter wheat and heavy rain showers turned them into mud.  The French had to move across the mud burning huge amounts of energy and tiring in the process - the cost of motion may have been well over four times as high as an unladen person moving through similar terrain.  The asymmetrical use of heavy armor may have been the decisive factor in what should have been a huge loss for Henry. Shakespeare maintained Henry was a great orator who moved his troops to greatness, but such is the privilege of the storyteller.

 

_______

 

The cost of motion has been measured for numerous human activities. A nice way to think about this is to consider the power you need to perform an activity above your normal metabolic needs remembering that power is just the energy expended per unit time.  The average person needs about 2,400 watt-hours of energy a day in the form of food (a bit shy of 2,100 Calories).  This corresponds to an average power of 100 watts - you can think of yourself as an incandescent lightbulb equivalent.  We aren’t terribly efficient at converting food into energy our bodies we can use, so we give off much of that in the form of heat.

 

Exercise adds to our input power requirement.  I'm far from an athlete, but I row as a form of aerobic exercise.  Rowing happens to be a nice way to illustrate power at a human level, so if you are willing suffer along I'll detail my exercise story.

 

My rowing machine is an ancient Concept2 Model B ergometer that measures and displays my real power output at a flywheel.¹  When I started to get serious about rowing three years ago I was out of shape and could only manage about 100 watts for ten minutes or so, but with the help of an athlete friend, I've gone to well over an hour at an average power of 150 watts.  This has been a big achievement for me, but is somewhat depressing when you think of the power requirements for stoves, hair dryers, furnace fans and air conditioners.  The scale of human performance differs from the requirements of our modern lifestyles by about two orders of magnitude.

 

A rower in good shape turns food into the mechanical work with an efficiency of about 20 percent.  At 150 output I need 750 watts coming from  food.  Since energy is conserved I'm generating a large amount of waste heat.  Even in the Winter, when the basement temperature is under fifty Fahrenheit, I'm in a tshirt and cutoffs and go through a large amount of water.

 

If you are trying to lose weight human inefficiency is a good thing, although it isn't as good as some would like.  A normal Snickers bar only supplies about about 325 watt-hours of energy.  I need a bit more than two Snickers bars worth of energy for an hour’s worth of rowing.  It is easy to scarf down a few Snickers, but difficult to do that much exercise.  Exercise is good for you, but you have to do a large amount to lose weight.  

 

This chart of my rowing is shows the mechanical work from rowing sessions over a month's time.  The units of work are on the vertical axis and require a bit of explanation.  I'll describe their somewhat messy history in the footnote as it illustrates how creating your own unit system can be ugly and how they can evolve over time.²   Use whatever tracking and motivation mechanism works for you.

 

It takes a lot of time and energy to exercise heavily for long periods.  I rarely go over 90 minutes a day and can only justify the time by using my iPod to time shift some entertainment and news consumption.   When Colleen was training she required north of 5,000 Calories, nearly 6,000 watt-hours of food, a day.  Six kilowatt-hours of electricity goes for less than a dollar in most parts of the country.  Sadly energy in the form of food is much more expensive, although a fine meal is much more pleasant than plugging your body into a wall socket.³

 

Colleen has a lot of explosive power and can easily develop 300 watts for periods of  15 minutes.  Two hundred watts for ten minutes is very difficult for me and 220 is currently impossible.  For very short periods she can burst to much higher levels probably over 700 watts (nearly a horsepower).  She's entirely anaerobic doing this but her fast twitch muscles are not as good as my slow twitch for long periods at lower output levels.  Our genetics can dictate the physical activities we are most likely to survive at intense levels.  Most of us never approach limits so it usually doesn't matter, but it is important for elite athletes.

 

_______

¹ The Concept2 is a serious piece of kit.  Mine is over 20 years old and still is in great shape with a beautifully smooth and natural motion that give a great user experience.  The brand is used by most NCAA Division I rowing programs as well as Olympic training centers.  A home user is likely to have one for a lifetime and the company stocks spares for all of their older models.  Buy a piece of high quality gear and you're more likely to use it.  The current models are quieter than mine, but the basic mechanism is similar, so if you buy one it is likely to be useful for the rest of your life.  The cost per year over a few decades is very low.  A great company with a great product -  I give them my highest recommendation.

 

²  I was thinking about putting a mark on a stud in the basement noting my progress - a nice visual goal I would see every session and a not so subtle hint.  It occurred to us that a goal could be visualized by equating one minute of rowing at 100 watts of work with an inch.  An hour of rowing would represent a five foot high mark and would be nicely visible on the beam.  I met that goal and new goals changed to our respective heights - one minute of rowing at a 100 watt power level was still an inch.   Slowly I began to regularly achieve the goals at a hundred watts, but I would be running out of room as the basement ceiling is only seven feet from the floor.   It was also time to work on the power level of the workouts as that is a lot of time for an exercise session and she thought she could increase my power output.  We added a literally off the basement chart's  goal for days when the workout is going exceptionally well that represents her standing reach (both feet flat on the ground) of 101 inches.  It is good to have something that always seems out of reach when you start, but there are times when you manage to make it.

 

The new power goals were increased to average to 125 watts and finally to 150 watts.  Each  "minute" now represents 150 watt-minutes of work by this crazy goal-driven history (hey - whatever works to help you visualize a goal).  Rowing for 80 minutes represents 12,000 watt-minutes or 200 watt-hours of work . Divide that by  my efficiency (about 0.2) and you get the food energy I "burned" - 1000 watt-hours or a kilowatt-hour in this case.

 

³ A curious thing to think about is the power transfer rate of an electric outlet.  Most 110 volt outlets in the US are limited to about 1,800 watts of power.  Transferring 2,400 watt-hours takes about 80 minutes at the limit the line can supply.  We can eat the food equivalent in under ten minutes if we want.  The chemical energy in our food is a relatively dense energy store.  This is a serious problem for electric vehicles.  The last mile of the infrastructure is not well matched to high densities of electric cars in residential areas. 

 

thinking about tablets...

I'm recovering from what appears to be a successful operation and have been distracting myself from the pain by following some interesting threads and thinking about Android.

Samsung's willingness to remove two UI features in the Galaxy Tab 10 dispute with Apple in Australia represents a big turning point for Android on tablets.  It sends a signal to other tablet makers that they will probably have to follow suit.  The best case for Apple would be if this takes place non-uniformly across time and manufacturer as it would introduce new levels of Android fragmentation across the tablet market that will drive up  costs and frustrations for developers.  The current level of fragmentation is already unpleasant for the developers I know (in full disclosure I'm on the TAB of one of the larger app developers and have a one-time student who has a six person shop that does iOS and Android apps).  Google is already blessing certain phone makers - I wouldn't be surprised if this will have to occur for tablet makers too.  And if Google keeps Motorola and tries to make a go of it life gets even more interesting for the other manufacturers.  (I would now be willing to make smallish bets that Google will do this)

Fragmentation is an interesting phenomena to study in its own right.  It is very difficult to avoid in an "open" software world (this has always been true).  It takes place when there is little in the way of careful UX planning and is one of the larger unintended consequences of letting engineers run the show by themselves.  In some areas this approach doesn't make a lot of difference, but if you want a superior consumer level experience and external software developers it can be poison.  This has been a major topic of conversation among some of my colleagues for about 20 years now.  I became very sour on open projects that use third party software and are  aimed at mass markets where UX is important when I was working with my HCI department.  Life is hard enough for successful "closed" core platforms as different versions emerge over time unless you also lock the hardware to the software as much as possible.  The lack of control can make an already difficult process impossible.

Amazon's OS - I'll call it FlameOS as it is no longer Android and I don't know what to call it  - has the potential to become a very desirable destination for developers if Amazon wants to encourage third party development.  They may not need to though.  It is possible their big market is only at the low end … the people who rarely buy apps (you see this on phones and PCs - I'm impressed by some of the information on app buying habits of feature phone users who are buying smartphones … basically they leave them almost stock.  It is certainly true for a huge number of commercial PC buyers as it is true for most consumer products …  I can offer more thinking on that as it is not counter indicative of mass customization trends).  Amazon has the potential of making FlameOS very stable and with a good enough UX and UI.  They only need a base hit in their first at bat as their ecosystem is so attractive to many consumers. They'll have a year or two to make it good enough and this is going to kill the Android tablet market.  Apple could drive a stake into that market by lowering the price of the iPad2 to $350 when the iPad3 comes out if the 3 is a big improvement over the iPad2 - they used that strategy about three years into the iPod lifecycle.  Margins are so tight at that level that only low end hardware can compete and Amazon will probably own that part of the market.  A not unrelated note is the issue PC makers are having with the MacBook Air and ultrabook margins.

Bezos stated the guys who only make hardware will fail and I can't agree more with him on that observation.  The rush to the bottom will be dramatic.  You can already buy a Playbook for $300 even though it has a different OS and UX/UI.   Based on my experience with it I wouldn't consider it worth more than $200 of my one dollars and I'd much rather use the Fire as the Amazon ecosystem is so much more attractive.

What is interesting and almost beautiful is that we are seeing some successes and failures that are driven by some basic principals of design, open vs closed, and scope of ecosystems.

What a fascinating period.