The Time For Debate is Over!

The battle has raged back and forth for years. Advocates for each side digging in their heals at the line of demarcation, each calling the other uneducated, one side elitist, the other side backwoods. But now we know, and the time for debate is over.

The GIF image format has been with us now since 1987, and remains to this day the most common graphical element in the Internet age. In 1996, this disturbing little gem made the big time:


Yet as innovative as the technology has been, professionals and amateurs alike have come to blows over the simplest of issues: how do you pronounce GIF? Is it hard-G (as in "get"), or soft-G (as in "Gemini")?

Now we know, and the facts are indisputable. By the authority invested in the creator of the GIF format (emphasis mine):

Since retiring in 2001, Mr. Wilhite has led a quieter existence than his creation. He goes on RV trips. He built a house in the country with a lot of lawn to mow. He dabbles in color photography and Java programming. He uses e-mail and Facebook to keep up with family.

He is proud of the GIF, but remains annoyed that there is still any debate over the pronunciation of the format.

“The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations,” Mr. Wilhite said. “They are wrong. It is a soft ‘G,’ pronounced ‘jif.’ End of story.”

And that's the way it should be.

A Dubious Designation

Being on top is not always the best place to be. So it goes with The Weather Channel's Top 10 Tornado Cities. Guess who comes in at the top of the list? I think I liked it better when this place was just hot and muggy all the time.

Behind the data:

Dr. Forbes gathered data from the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center between 1962-2011. He added up the areas of the tornado paths within 75 miles of the city highlighted, including the tornado damage path widths and lengths. This methodology gives a more realistic probability of a particular location getting hit by a tornado than simply by using the raw numbers of tornado that have occurred within a metro area.

This part of the country, in tornadic weather terms anyway, is known as Dixie Alley. Apparently we're known for long-track, violent tornadoes. I don't remember seeing that on the brochure.

Ah well. Like the lady said, "There's no place like home."

Curiosity: The Movie Trailer

Okay, this is cool. The Curiosity landing with a Hollywood flair. All it needs is a voice over by Gary Sinise.


Courtesy NASA Video Gallery.

JPL Does it Again

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is on a roll. The Mars missions over the last decade, although not problem free, have been simply remarkable. From the twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and now mega-rover Curiosity, JPL continues to show what NASA is capable of accomplishing even in this age of shrinking budgets. Early this morning, Curiosity was set safely on the surface of Mars:

PASADENA, Calif. — In a show of technological wizardry, the robotic explorer Curiosity blazed through the pink skies of Mars, steering itself to a gentle landing inside a giant crater for the most ambitious dig yet into the red planet's past.

A chorus of cheers and applause echoed through the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Sunday night after the most high-tech interplanetary rover ever built sent a signal to Earth. It had survived a harrowing plunge through the thin Mars atmosphere.

"Touchdown confirmed," said engineer Allen Chen. "We're safe on Mars."

...

It was NASA's seventh landing on Earth's neighbor; many other attempts by the U.S. and other countries to zip past, circle or set down on Mars have gone awry.

The arrival was an engineering tour de force, debuting never-before-tried acrobatics packed into "seven minutes of terror" as Curiosity sliced through the Martian atmosphere at 13,000 mph.

In a Hollywood-style finish, cables delicately lowered the rover to the ground at a snail-paced 2 mph.

There are plenty of other places to go to satisfy your, uh, Curiosity. Here is a gallery of images from NASA, the JPL Homepage, and one of my frequent web-stops, Universe Today. Here is a video on YouTube that condenses the live feed from mission control, showing the excitement from before and after confirmation of touchdown, complete with a simulated animation (which runs a little ahead of the live action).

These folks are going to have a lot of fun over the next several months, and longer. Funny thing, though. Everytime we go to Mars, it seems, this guy shows up.

Spectacular Time-Lapse from ISS

This is cool enough that I don't really need to comment. I suggest watching it in full screen mode (the button on the bottom right of the video player). And turn up the volume. What would it be like to see such things with our own eyes?


(h/t: Aaron Miller)

Dauphin Island Adventure

Every year, February's calendar ends up packed to the gills, and this year is no exception. Aside from the standard pinewood derby race preparation for Cub Scouts, and merit badge fairs for Boy Scouts, this month featured a middle school excursion to Dauphin Island Sea Lab (DISL) sandwiched between two math competitions. The first math competition was last Saturday. My oldest son placed 8th in individual performance in the pre-algebra group, out of some 80-100 students, to earn his first individual trophy in his first ever math tournament. He was the sole representative of his school (which doesn't have a middle school math team) out of 22 schools in his division. He is out again this morning, competing in a MathCounts event, again as a sole representative for his school. While he is off doing that, I'm assisting my younger son on his derby car and other Cub Scout work.

The big event of the week, however, was the 4-day, 3 night adventure to Dauphin Island. Officially called a field study, the middle school sends 7th graders down to this small island in Mobile Bay in Alabama. From here, it is about an 9 hour drive by bus, with stops. I served as a chaperone for my son and 68 other 7th graders, and not only did I manage to survive, I actually managed to enjoy the experience (although as an aside, I must confess that the social drama of 13 year olds is really something to behold - I didn't understand it when I was that age, and I don't understand it now).

The students participate in two full days of scientific discussion and activity, pertaining specifically to the unique ecology of the Mobile Bay estuary (all together now, an estuary is where fresh water systems and salt water systems meet). Activities include a trip out into the open waters of the Mississippi Sound and the Gulf of Mexico on board a DISL research vessel, several lectures on the marine and marsh life, a visit to the estuarium, a trip into the salt marsh, and the dissection of a squid. Also included is a look into the history of Dauphin Island and Mobile Bay, with a unique focus on the history of Fort Gaines and its sister forts Powell and Morgan (the site of the decisive Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864). For history buffs, this is the battle where Farragut is reputed to have proclaimed "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"

The DISL program was really very good. My favorite, not surprisingly, was the few hours we spent on the research vessel. The vessel crew cast a net and trawled for a while, pulling in a variety of marine life specimens that the instructor used to educate the fully engaged students. While the trip itself only lasted a couple of hours, I could have stayed out on the water all day. Being on the water does me good, no matter where it is.

Below are a few other pictures of the trip. From the salt marsh:

Inside Fort Gaines:

Of course, I would be remiss if I failed to mention the wildlife adventure that was the boys hallway in our dormitory. Then again, perhaps I should simply be remiss. The species known as the teenage boy is something to behold. By and large though, they are good kids, and I enjoyed getting to know them. One last picture, to remember the all too brief moments of serenity:

Google Buys Motorola - For Patents

I meant to sit down and comment yesterday on the news that Google plans to purchase Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. It is a staggering development that furthers the downward slide of Motorola as an innovating technology pioneer and bellwether.

The deal marks the end of independence for a company that helped pioneer mobile phones and introduced its first consumer handset in the early 1980s.

Motorola announced a plan to spin off its mobile-phone business in March 2008 amid market share losses and pressure from billionaire Icahn. The company completed the split in January, after the global recession delayed the deal. Motorola Inc. became Motorola Solutions Inc., which makes radio equipment for emergency workers and scanning devices for retailers.

I began my career with Motorola, first working for the company (then well over 120,000 employees worldwide) as a cooperative education student until graduating from college, then joining one of the company's telecommunication equipment making facilities as an electrical engineer doing modem design and product sustainment. In my naiveté, I really wanted to be a "company-man" and stay a Motorolan for my entire career. The 1990's saw a fierce battle waged for market position as enablers of the "Information Age" as it was so often described. When I started, we were developing 9600 baud modems, 2400 cellular modems (the beloved "bricks"), and CSUs/DSUs on the digital side. Then as analog communication standards were approved we quickly ramped to 14.4 bps, 28.8 bps, 33.6 bps all the way to the fight for 56K, then purported to be the fastest speed you could get over a standard phone line. Shortly afterwards, however, Motorola pulled the plug on the effort. From a cost of business standpoint, the company just could not compete. For despite the fact that Motorola quality almost always ranked near the top, thanks in part to a rigorous (and over-burdening) quality process (think Six Sigma and blame it on Motorola), the "cost" of that quality made our products less than price competitive. By 1998, the plant was shut down and operations consolidated elsewhere. I tried to stick with the company a little longer, accepting a transfer to the Semiconductor Products Sector, but in time I was forced to accept that unless I was willing to move to Schaumburg to work a Quality Management job, Motorola would not be in my long term future. So I moved on.

I continued to watch the company, although I'm not entirely sure why. I watched over time as they poured more and more resources into cell phones and pagers, and then dropping pagers. Eventually they sold (or spun off, depending on who you read) their semiconductor business. Recently, the company split in two, forming Motorola Mobility (the cell phone / smart phone commodity business unit) and Motorola Solutions (radios, IT and enterprise infrastructure). Now the latter is all that is left.

That the company was bought by Google is a little disconcerting. I find it funny how people scream about oil companies and profits and the like, when in my view the more suspect corporatist machinations revolve around the information industry (Google, Apple, Microsoft). What this deal gives Google is control over all the patents Motorola owns dating back to the early days of cellular and communications technology. Motorola once was an innovator. Now, it seems their value is based less on the work they do now, and more on work done in the past. It is sad, as an ex-Motorolan, to see the one-time leader fall so far. What they have left leaves them as one of many. Motorola is not dead, but they are no longer something special.

In my garage, on my workbench, is an old 1950's era AM radio built by Motorola. Although slow to power up, it still works. But largely, it is a forgotten artifact buried behind piles of toolboxes and scrap wood. Hopefully, the company will fare better than that radio. Because even though I haven't worked for the company in 13 years, I still would like to see them succeed.

Overcoming Inertia, or Carving Out Room for Reflection

One of the drawbacks to taking even an abbreviated respite from writing is having to overcome the resulting inertia. I find myself sitting at the computer, fingertips poised above the keys, eyes staring off into space all the while wondering what to write. There is nothing wrong with taking a break, of course, nor is there any rule that says I must write and post at any particular frequency. But I've enjoyed the last two years of blogging, and would like to continue.

It would be easy, in a way, to simply comment on the news of the day or to expound upon meanings and mysteries for which I still seek wisdom and understanding. Indeed, when I find myself searching for a topic, I will often hit the internet, looking for something that catches my eye. Lately, there hasn't been much that offers fresh soil for cultivation. Besides, I'm in a mode where what stimulates me is not the bounty of information available at the click of a mouse, but rather the simplicity of a quiet moment - unplugged, but not necessarily unconnected.

I know I touch on such themes from time to time. I read an article a while back commenting on the impact of information overload on our ability to think (emphasis mine):

While the Internet has enormous benefits in delivering incredible amounts of information at incredible speed, it's also a distracting and interruption-rich environment.

Carr said it encourages quick shifts in focus -- and discourages sustained attention and the ability to think deeply and creatively about one topic and to challenge conventional wisdom.

Popularity-driven search engines, in one of the ironies of an information-rich Internet, worsen the problem by leading everyone to the same sources, he said.

Social networks, while pleasurable and fun, increase distractedness by bombarding users with brief bits of information.

"We take in so much information so quickly that we are in a constant state of cognitive overload," Carr argued.

"Multitasking erodes cognitive control. We lose our ability to say that this is important, this is unimportant. All we want is new information."

In contrast, when readers open a printed book, "there's nothing else going on except words on a page, no distractions. It helps train us to be deep thinkers."

The older I get, the more aware I become of just how limited our time and our resources truly are. I'm finding that I'm seeking more than basic awareness, however. I do not merely want to know about things; I want to understand, and I want to deepen that understanding. I seek formation - not merely information. I also seek revelation, that flash of insight that illuminates the puzzle pieces of our experience and begets the transformation of our inner being. Is that too transcendental? Too metaphysical? Perhaps so, but I believe the point I'm trying to make is that the pursuit of wisdom is lifelong, and worthy of effort.

The irony, of course, is that the formation I pursue leads to a place that is already known. At least in part. To know fully, the journey must continue. The summit of wisdom is bound to reveal the splendor that is the simplicity of being, the simplicity of our being.

Perhaps the writer of Ecclesiastes was right when he lamented "Everything is meaningless, a chasing after the wind." He spoke this with regard to many endeavors, including the pursuit of wisdom. But he also suggests that even if it is meaningless, the pursuit is better than the alternative. As songwriter Steven Curtis Chapman once penned, "there is more to this life than living and dying, more than just trying to make it through the day."

A key for me is to be intentional about carving out time and space for formative reflection, which itself requires a change in inertia. Indeed, what value is it to be always in motion, but never moving? Always consuming, but never growing?

Dim Bulbs

We interrupt this blog to bring you a somewhat uncharacteristic hissy fit. While it has raised my ire from time to time over the last couple of years, the entire movement to ban the traditional incandescent light bulb continues apace as we approach the time of its permanent dissolution. Pushed by a Democratic Congress and signed by a Republican president in 2007, this silly idea that we have to have energy efficient light bulbs in our homes to save the planet illuminates to me that our policy makers are a bunch of dim bulbs.

Those little swirly compact fluorescents cost too much, are toxic if they break, and generally do a poor job of lighting up a room. Light from the "energy inefficient" traditional bulbs (the horror!) is far easier on the eyes and has served us well for decades upon decades. Now of course, there is a trend toward LED-based lights, a technology far better suited for blinky lights on computers and gadgets than for room illumination. Yes, LED flashlights and camping lamps aren't too bad, but if you've ever been nearly blinded by blue LED headlights while driving down a dark road, then you know why I'm not a fan.

But industry, trying to figure out how to adhere to silly government over-regulation of your bedside lamp, has come up with an LED light bulb to replace "energy guzzling" (roll eyes here) traditional light bulbs. But here's the catch: at the moment, a single one of these bulbs costs a freakin' $50!! 50 bucks! For a light bulb! From the article (emphasis mine):

Two leading makers of lighting products are showcasing LED bulbs that are bright enough to replace energy-guzzling 100-watt light bulbs set to disappear from stores in January.

Their demonstrations at the LightFair trade show in Philadelphia this week mean that brighter LED bulbs will likely go on sale next year, but after a government ban takes effect.

The new bulbs will also be expensive — about $50 each — so the development may not prevent consumers from hoarding traditional bulbs.

Ya think? Count me among those who are officially going into the hoarding business. Traditional light bulbs are getting harder to find, and the price is going up. Nevertheless, I'll be taking inventory of the types of bulbs I need around the house, and will be making periodic purchases to push out the date of transition as far as possible.

50 dollars, for a light bulb? This is the cost of over-regulation. Too save a few cents on the dollar of "energy inefficiency," we're going to have to shell out budget-busting dollars for an "innovation" that hasn't even been perfected yet. Forgive the invective, but this is stupid. And let's not even get into the energy required to mass produce complicated and unproven bulbs.

But, unless the "lights come on" in the halls of government, this is the future being imposed upon us. And in case you missed it, I take a rather dim view of the whole business.

McDonalds and the Future of Fast Food Service

Last week I was having a conversation with some colleagues about the future of application development in a cloud-computing enterprise model (yes, I really have conversations like these - not that I fully understand it all), when one of these colleagues noted that fast food restaurants across the country were utilizing centralized call centers to handle remote drive thru communication. At the forefront of this "innovation" is McDonald's. And what do you know, after a quick trip down the Google highway, I found out that this has been in place for at least 5 years. Basically, when you pull up to the drive thru at McDonald's, you can no longer assume that the person you are speaking to is inside the building. More likely, they are in some cubicle in some facility hundreds of miles away.

I admit, it is hard to fathom that the person I'm talking to at the drive thru squawk box in not inside the restaurant. It's just outside my frame of reference. But of course, I don't know if the McDonalds in my area utilize call centers. But if the model is successful, no doubt they will be someday soon. They just better hope the power, phone and internet lines never go dark. But that hardly ever happens, right?

McDonald's isn't done innovating (and reducing its store workforce footprint). In Europe, the company is introducing self-service kiosks (touchscreens and swipe card readers) into its stores. How this works for people paying cash, I'm not sure. I imagine they'll set up a "cash only" line or something. Nevertheless, there will be fewer cashiers because you will be able to walk up to the counter, punch in your own order, and swipe your credit card. It is only a matter of time before this kind of "customer service" crosses the pond and transforms our American fast food service. Because if it works for McDonald's, you know the competition will follow suit.

In terms of the cost of doing business, the increasing use of self-service touch screens and call centers may very well be better for the bottom line. But if you are a teenager looking for employment, chances are there will be fewer and fewer food service opportunities, at least in the fast food market. Unless, of course, you just want to cook or take out the trash. Jobs requiring people skills, or jobs offering the opportunity to develop said skills, will become few and far between.

This reality aside, I have to confess that I'm not entirely opposed to the transformation. When I travel, I far prefer being able to largely check myself in for my flights using self-service kiosks. And let's face it, isn't this really just an extension of the bank ATM model?

One thing is certain, however. The further away we get from doing business with people face-to-face, the less 'real' they may become to us. Socially, what is the cost of convenience? Stunted growth? Isolation? The inability to discern reality from technology?

Life is looking more and more like the Matrix all the time. But I'll adjust - as long as they get my order right.

Is it live, or is it Memorex?

Well, okay, the title isn't exact, although I date myself by referring to a marketing pitch from a technology now outdated. But check out the video below:


According to this New Scientist article, the entire commercial is computer generated using off-the-shelf software. It's really amazing stuff. Eventually, we may not be able to believe anything we see on TV.

(h/t: HotAir)

Lights Out

Does anybody remember this golden oldie of a commercial:


A few years ago, in response to the environmentalist concern that standard incandescent light bulbs were destroying the world, the government passed legislation that makes it illegal to sell your basic light bulbs. Instead, starting in 2014, the only legal bulbs will be the toxic mercury-filled compact fluorescents (CFLs). The astounding thing about this decision, made back in 2007, is that the only reason to ban the incandescent was that it did not meet arbitrary standards of energy efficiency. Heralded as a progressive breakthrough toward "smarter energy," everyone assumed that manufacturing giants such as GE would simply convert their U.S. factories to making the new bulbs. Precisely the opposite has happened, as reported by the Washington Post:

The last major GE factory making ordinary incandescent light bulbs in the United States is closing this month, marking a small, sad exit for a product and company that can trace their roots to Thomas Alva Edison's innovations in the 1870s. …

During the recession, political and business leaders have held out the promise that American advances, particularly in green technology, might stem the decades-long decline in U.S. manufacturing jobs. But as the lighting industry shows, even when the government pushes companies toward environmental innovations and Americans come up with them, the manufacture of the next generation technology can still end up overseas. …

What made the plant here vulnerable is, in part, a 2007 energy conservation measure passed by Congress that set standards essentially banning ordinary incandescents by 2014. The law will force millions of American households to switch to more efficient bulbs.

The resulting savings in energy and greenhouse-gas emissions are expected to be immense. But the move also had unintended consequences.

Rather than setting off a boom in the U.S. manufacture of replacement lights, the leading replacement lights are compact fluorescents, or CFLs, which are made almost entirely overseas, mostly in China.

The "unintended consequences" quote above is laughable, because the government was warned. CFLs take a lot of hand labor to produce, and as a result is cheaper to produce in countries that, frankly, don't require union wages in their factories. So, by banning a bulb, the government has helped to close the book on a manufacturing heritage that's as old as … er … the light bulb.

Of course, I admit to a bias against CFLs. I just don't like them much. I prefer the good old soft white incandescent. I figure I've got about 2 years at best to stock up on them, before they simply won't be available anymore. The ban is simply one measure of "progress" that I could do without. Still, I'm certain that banning the bulb will extend the life of our planet by a least a month or two.

On a lighter note, this trip through YouTube looking at commercials from the '80s is kind of fun. Here's another nostalgic GE commercial I remember well. And one more.

Your Next UFO Sighting ...

Military technology is not a topic I generally visit, but as I sit here in the airport waiting on the first leg of my weeklong sojourn to Maryland, I came across this: a new prototype UAV (unmanned air vehicle) built by BAE. Actually, this is a UAV on steriods; technically it is referred to as a unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV). Check this out:


Haven't we seen this movie before? You know, the one with Will Smith. About aliens. With that guy from Jurassic Park. And with that other guy in all those chick fli ... er, romance comedies.

Welcome to Earth. (I gotta get me one of these!)

Catching the Wave

Alas, it is not a precursor to a tachyon detection grid. But NASA and the European Space Agency have cooked up an idea that is reminiscent of such imagined technology. The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is being developed in the hopes of detecting gravitational waves. Gravitational waves are a phenomena that was predicted by Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, but so far have never been directly detected. The LISA program aims to do just that, however:

LISA consists of three identical spacecraft flying in a triangular constellation, with equal arms of 5 million kilometers each. As gravitational waves from distant sources reach LISA, they warp space-time, stretching and compressing the triangle. Thus, by precisely monitoring the separation between the spacecraft, we can measure the waves; and by studying the shape and timing of the waves we can learn about the nature and evolution of the systems that emitted them.

These "arms" referred to in the preceding paragraph are actually lasers:

LISA's implementation of interferometric measurements resembles the technique known as spacecraft Doppler tracking, but it is realized with infrared laser light instead of radio waves. The laser light going out from one spacecraft to the other corners is not reflected back directly, because diffraction losses over such long distances would be too great. Instead, the phase of the incoming laser is measured, and used to set the phase of the outgoing laser, which is transmitted back at full intensity: this process is known as transponding. When the transponded laser light arrives back at the original spacecraft, it is superposed with a portion of the original laser beam, and their phases compared.

The physics behind this is quite beyond me, not to mention the challenge of aiming two separate lasers per craft at targets 5 million kilometers away. According to the NASA site, a technology demonstration is scheduled for 2012, so there is still a long way to go before we'll see the fruit of this effort. Nevertheless, if nearly 100 years after Einstein postulated his theory, evidence of gravitation wave energy can be measured, it will say something astounding about the brilliance of a man who did more to shape our modern understanding of physics than anyone else. Dude!

(h/t: Gizmodo)

Zettabytes?

This is almost mind-blowing. The powers that be in the world of digital technology have invented a new unit of measure: the zettabyte.

Humanity’s total digital output currently stands at 8,000,000 petabytes - which each represent a million gigabytes - but is expected to pass 1.2 zettabytes this year.

One zettabyte is equal to one million petabytes, or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 individual bytes.

The current size of the world’s digital content is equivalent to all the information that could be stored on 75bn Apple iPads, or the amount that would be generated by everyone in the world posting messages on the microblogging site Twitter constantly for a century.

The rapid growth of the “digital universe” has been caused by the explosion of social networking, online video, digital photography and mobile phones.

I find it shocking how fully immersed and dependent we have become on digital age technology - in just the last 15 to 20 years. I speak as one who likewise finds himself more immersed and dependent than is probably wise. A zettabyte, like the national debt, is a difficult number for me to comprehend. How many people out there would be utterly shocked to discover that there is a real world out there that does not involve broadband, Apple, and satellite television DVRs?

So while gidgets and gadgets have an undeniable "coolness" factor to them, we would do well to be aware of the great fragility of it all, and take care not to let our lives devolve completely into a series of 0's and 1's. The digital world and all its zettabytes can disappear in the blink of an eye. And if it did, would it be "the end," or would it be the beginning of a new age of rediscovery? I wonder.

Science, Faith and a Big Question

A few years ago, I stumbled upon an online exchange between leading scientists and scholars, hosted by the John Templeton Foundation, attempting to answer a self-described "Big Question: Does the Universe Have a Purpose?" This conversation is captured in a collection of thought-provoking essays that I found both intellectually challenging and stimulating. Reading through these again inspired me to capture my own thoughts on the subject, specifically the question of whether the universe, and life itself, has a purpose.

Picture two men standing one on each side of the issue. The first categorically agrees that the universe, and his life, exist for a reason, and thus have purpose. The second categorically denies that any evidence exists to empirically assert or suggest the possibility of purpose. One on each side of the grand debate, and I submit, both exactly the same. Each takes a stand on the question based on a belief arising out of the context of their human condition, bound by a perspective that cannot transcend that essential barrier that limits their ability to objectively interpret the reality around them. (A complex system cannot be properly observed when the observer himself is part of the system). Can either of them possibly know the truth? One looks at the empirical data without, and draws a conclusion that cannot be definitively proven or disproven, beyond the abstract that scientific reasoning allows. The other also looks at the empirical data without, yet also puzzles over the experiential data within, and too draws a conclusion that cannot be definitively proven or disproven, beyond the abstract that faith allows. One puzzles over the nature of man, the other puzzles over the matter of man in nature. One views religion as an invention created by man to fill some misguided need. The other wonders why he has "need," and wonders why others so easily dismiss that need.

What of logic? Logic is insufficient to explain the workings of the natural world and the laws of physics. Logic is also insufficient to explain the workings of human sentience and emotion. Yet logic is paramount to the constructs of both science and faith. It provides structure to our exploration, and gives voice to our understanding and perception of each.

Faith apart from the reality of nature and nature's laws is but a philosophy - a perspective or way of thinking that is limited to an idea or approach to life that is almost fully contained in the inner being, and thus entirely relativistic and indeterminable. Scientific methods reveal amazing details about the working of nature, its physical laws, and the forces that act upon both animate and inanimate entities in the evolutionary physical environment. Yet the breakdown of the universe into smaller and smaller components, the study of organized systems notwithstanding, fails to fully capture or explain the mechanics of human sentience. It seems that a full representation of the universe supported by a logical framework that includes both faith and science is necessary to properly address the question of purpose.

The drive and passion that inspires our endless thirst for knowledge and understanding of nature and nature's God comes not from physical forces outside us, but from that essential spark of life and need that we find within. Indeed, the pursuit of scientific knowledge is driven by our desire - our inner need - to know. Science alone cannot explain the nature of our own curiosity, our hunger for truth and meaning. The passionate crusade against faith is belied by the fervor with which the argument is pursued. The existential question here is not whether the universe has a purpose that can be revealed by the empirical observations of creation, but rather the nature of an individual's experiences as a sentient being within that universe. One man can look up into a night sky full of brilliant stars, or see images from distant galaxies and become awestruck at the magnitude of this universe. Another man can look at the same stars and same images and see only the chemical compositions, relativistic theory and mathematical algorithms used to create spectrographic visuals. Same stars, same images, but a different experience.

One man's study of science reveals that humanity is but one species on one insignificant planet in a solar system in a remote and unexceptional part of the galaxy in a vast universe of galaxies. One man's study of faith teaches him that the Creator of the universe came to that one insignificant planet and took the form of a man, born in a remote place in an unexceptional part of a lowly country, itself an unexceptional province of the vast Roman Empire. History records the remarkable, transformative events that have literally shaped 2000 years of human civilization. Should the experiences of countless numbers be discounted? Should the lack of experience in countless others be preeminent?

Our understanding of the world, the universe, and our fellow man are directly shaped by our experiences. If experience so strongly impacts and shapes our perspectives, is it right to discount its relevance to our pursuit of understanding and purpose? The empirical data without, and the experiential data within, together may illuminate the majesty and mystery of this creation in which we live. And if on the path of discovery we find and experience revelatory moments with a Creator, does not that answer the question of purpose and meaning?

Snap Circuits

I graduated from Auburn University with a degree in Electrical Engineering. But like all too many, I stopped doing pure engineering work years ago as I began climbing the proverbial corporate ladder. Sadly, I'm likely too far gone to get back into any serious engineering tasking that doesn't involve process and data analysis.

Yesterday was my oldest son's 10th birthday. My wife found an awesome gift that he latched onto immediately: Snap Circuits by Elenco. While the product fares pretty light in explaining the physics, just watching him dive into circuit "design" using these kid-friendly, but still discrete electrical components was enough to make me wonder if an educational tool like this could have aided even college students, at least in terms of general EE concepts for circuit design. It really is pretty nifty.

I may have to, uh, borrow the kit and bring it to work for, um, additional research. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Lunar Water, Lunar Rockets

In my almost daily dive into the informational smorgasbord of the net, I often happen upon essays or articles that peak my interest. If the topic inspires new thought or ideas, I copy down and save off the links for further review and comment. As it is difficult to carve out time for writing in the midst of work and family time, I have assembled quite a backlog of topics for blog posts.

Since I last posted on the topic of manned space flight, the presence of water has been discovered on the moon. Are you kidding me!? This is a monumental discovery that dramatically changes the math for moon exploration. This news came within days of the release of the Augustine Panel's summary report - which among other things suggest that NASA's budget is insufficient to support a moon-to-Mars set of milestones. With the planned retirement of the shuttle next year, and the developmental delays besetting the Ares program, the United States is on the verge of conceding the pioneering edge to other nations. While the vision of both the government and NASA bureacracies bear much of the blame, the issue is a matter of will. In today's political climate, you get the sense that space exploration is fading fast as a national priority. Yet I wonder, how will we as a nation "feel" when countries like India are the ones making discoveries of water on the moon, as perhaps China or the Europeans or even the Russians push towards the moon to exploit the discovery of a potentially viable resource that enables semi-permanent colonization (think Gold Rush here)? I had not yet been born when Sputnik launched, but I would anticipate a similar sense of defeatism should the future of manned space flight be relinquished to others. This is another reason I am an advocate of commercializing the venture. If governments lead the way, space exploration will be as nationalized as our planet. Who gets to draw the borders on the moon? Those who get there first and stay there.

Nevertheless, there are some cool things happening. I don't remember how I found it, so I cannot provide the standard obligatory hat/tip, but a contest is underway called the 2009 Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. The video embedded below is one of two in this brief article at SpaceFellowship.com. You'll have to watch the video until the end to get the proper size perspective of the vehicle. While it might be worth a comment to consider how a vaunted contractor such as Grumman (okay, Northrup-Grumman) has to consider subcontracting designs of a lunar lander after their dominance of the technology during Apollo, I love the fact that innovation hasn't yet disappeared from the American landscape.



The X-Prize Foundation, which is sponsoring the challenge, has more information, including additional video of lander designs from other competitors. Check it out.

Fascinating

While I certainly don't grasp the technology behind this, I admit to being completely fascinated by this accomplishment from scientists at IBM. The image below purports to be a genuine snapsnot of a single pentacene molecule.


The article does not dive into the details of the science, but it is remarkable just how similar our textbook representation of carbon-based molecular structures resemble what may be the actual physical structure of the molecule.

As my father likes to say from time to time, Way cool!

Drowning in Data

Sometimes, the best laid plans go awry. Whereas my goal is to exercise my writing muscle at least every few days, this week found me drowning in the depths of a meaningless data analysis required by my current task. I struggle with tasks that require delivery for the sake of meeting a contract, when I know that the underlying data is essentially useless in terms of quality. You can put a bow on it, and spray some air freshener, but in the end dung will always retain its intrinsic qualities.

In the realm of scientific analysis, test and evaluation, the appetite for collecting data is insatiable. So often, we fail to identify what data we need, and in the absence of a focused plan, we collect all that we can. The result is predictable: mountains of data that likely mean little to our purpose, but require perpetual storage just in case its importance is someday discovered. And so we must take great care in the choices we make for storing that data.

This related article in the Wall Street Journal talks about this challenge. Scientific technologies have advanced our data collection capabilities far beyond what have ever been possible before. Digital data collection holds the promise of archiving vast sums of human knowledge, but the Achilles heel remains the storage mechanism. Indeed, a simple forgotten password, or the fact that common digital storage mediums only have a shelf life of 5-20 years can mean that vast sums of research and effort could be lost and made useless forever. A simple example: in my house, we have an external drive connected to our satellite receiver so that we can save off programs for future viewing. For reasons unknown, however, that drive is no longer recognized by the receiver, meaning that an entire season of ABC's Lost is inaccessible (it's okay, I'll wait for the DVD set). But I also have had numerous important floppy disks that have decayed, and are thus useless. So while the digital revolution has made information more accessible than ever before, it has also made that same information much more vulnerable to decay, corruption and irretrievable loss.

In the long run, no scientific data can outlast the storage media that contains it, unless it can be accurately recopied and reliably re-authenticated. Many computer CDs, DVDs and flash drives last only a decade or so. The oldest known star atlas, inscribed on a scroll discovered in Dunhuang, China, has survived for more than 1,000 years. It might have been traced from an even older star map.

I'll take a real book over a Kindle any day. A book will always hold the promise of treasure; CDs, DVDs and flash drives - debatable. To the point:

"Digital information lasts forever -- or five years," says RAND Corp. computer analyst Jeff Rothenberg, "whichever comes first."

Additional reading: RAND's "Digitial Preservation: The uncertain future of saving the past."

I love the subtitle.