Tag Archives: Museum of Science and Industry

The Rocket Trip

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The Rocket

The Rocket

Contrary to what I want to believe and what any reader of this blog might mistakenly think, we are not still on vacation in California. Anne and I returned from LA, early, early Monday morning. She somehow dragged herself into school later that morning, still too early, and successfully concluded her three-month stint as a long-term substitute for the second grade. This was a major achievement that she threw her heart and soul into. She deserves all the kudos that she has already received and more. Congratulations to Anne!

Even before we landed, I was already feeling under the weather. I missed some work, but then soldiered on. On Thursday, at uh-oh dark-thirty I blasted off to Dayton for a business trip. We actually flew into Cincinnati, because the flights were better. While Cincy is in Ohio, its airport is across the river in Kentucky. Walking through the airport I noticed a banner proclaiming that this airport had been named best regional airport in North America, five years in a row. To my colleagues, I suggested that Saint Louis compete for this honor too, but then thought no, still too soon, still too much pride there.

We drove north to Dayton, past the old GE aircraft engine plant, whose parking lots looked way more full than the ones in Saint Louis. I also saw a certain statue. Is the new statue called Big Butter Jesus and the old one called Touchdown Jesus or what? Their relative appearances would suggest this name change. It is hard to keep your idolatry straight, especially, when the finger of God occasionally lances down from the heavens and changes things.

The meeting was three-hours long, of which my part was only half-an-hour and near then end. So, thirteen-hours of travel for half-an hour of meeting, but like with Anne earlier this week that meeting put paid for my last three-months of work too. It made for a very long day. On the way back to the airport, traffic caused us to detour around downtown. We ended up going into Indiana on our way from Ohio to Kentucky. It was quite the rocket trip, out and back in a day.

The photo with this post is of the Rocket a locomotive designed by Robert Stephenson in 1829. While not the first steam locomotive, the Rocket was the first to bring together several innovations that produced the most advanced locomotive of its day. It is the most famous example of an evolving design of locomotives by Stephenson that became the template for most steam engines for the next 150 years. Pictured is a contemporary replica of the Rocket, also made by Stephenson. It can be seen at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.

Riddle, wapped in Mystery, an Enigma

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Chicago's U-505 Enigma Machine

Chicago’s U-505 Enigma Machine

Fifty years ago this week, Gordon Moore published a paper that predicted our ever-expanding computer age. What became known as Moore’s law, forecast the doubling of the power of computers every two years. What began more as a guideline, has proven presciently true, the original forecast was for only ten years, now fifty years on it is still going strong. Moore and the computational revolution he foretold owes its existence in large part to the thinking of Alan Turing, who hypothesized the idea of an automatic machine, a thinking machine, epitomized by his self-styled Turing Machine. Turing was a mathematical genius and a bit of an ass. He broke the Nazi’s WW II Enigma code, but because of secrecy and other concerns, he was not recognized as the war hero that he was. Those other concerns include the fact that he was convicted of homosexuality, which was a crime then. I studied the Turing Machine in college, in the seventies. His groundbreaking research was hailed by my professors. Computer Science didn’t have much of a history, so it could ill afford to toss aside one of its founding fathers. Now, in more enlightened times, Turing’s reputation has undergone a renaissance. In 2013, the crown pardoned him posthumously for his crime of “sexual deviancy”. Last year, the Alan Turing biopic, “The Imitation Game”, was nominated for several Oscars. The movie told his code breaking story well, but incompletely, IMHO.

While little Gordy Moore was still undergoing puberty, Alan Turning was cracking the Nazi’s Enigma code with repurposed telephone exchange equipment, mathematics and his wits. A history lesson within this history lesson is needed here, so please bear with me. At the beginning of WW I the Allies captured a copy of ‘the’ German code book. The Allies were then able to read all of the German radio transmissions throughout the rest of the war and the Germans never suspected this until much after the war. Winston Churchill among others, later disclosed this secret to sensualize their own histories. This news caused outrage within the then nascent Nazi war machine. Admiral Doenitz, commander of the German navy vowed that this would never happen again. This is how the Enigma machine was born. The German army and air force also adopted Enigma, but never with the same rigor as Doenitz’s U-boats.

Turing and his crew, routinely broke the German army and air force codes, long before they could crack the German Navy’s code, such was the lack of discipline in the tradecraft of those two services. And it was tradecraft that cracked the U-boat code. As “Imitation Game” explains that routine 6 AM weather reports give today’s new code, with yesterday’s message, “All the German that you need to know is, Heil Hitler!” It is way easier to break a code if you know what is being said. This aspect of Turing’s code breaking strategy was adequately captured in the movie. My complaint deals with the “flaw” in Enigma and that it wasn’t highlighted in the movie. It would have played perfectly with the Turing persona. While the Enigma machine could freely substitute one letter for another, even changing the substituted letter again and again, it couldn’t substitute the original letter with itself. This minor flaw in Enigma was magnified by the German language, with its many words with repeated letters. German for weather is “wetter”. The two t-letters that aren’t T eliminate two, not one possible settings.

Mars, Like a Warm Wet Kiss

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MOOOOONWALK, part of Cows on Parade, by Craig Wartman

MOOOOONWALK, part of Cows on Parade, by Craig Wartman

Last night, Anne, Joanie and I attended Washington University’s January Science on Tap lecture by its own Professor Raymond E. Arvidson. The title of his talk was Early Mars: Warm, Wet, and Habitable. In his talk, Dr. Arvidson asserted that at one time there was free-flowing water on the surface of Mars and that the conditions for life existed there, like three to four billion years ago, but he was not willing to venture so far as to assert that there was free-flowing beer on the surface of Mars, even if he was giving his talk at the Schlafly Bottleworks, where there was plenty of beer flowing.

There were horrible audio-visual issues, one could either use the microphone of the projector, but not both simultaneously. Arvidson manage to rise above these technical difficulties and carry on. Then there was the issue of the new seating arrangement. The chairs up front were fine, but the long rows of tables, oriented perpendicular to the direction of the speaker meant that half of those people sitting at these tables had to somehow squirm around, in very tight quarters. The geriatric nature of the audiences at these Science on Tap lectures are not very conducive to squirming. I think that orienting the tables, in shorter rows, but parallel to the direction of the speaker, would be better. Also apparently, the fire marshal had taken issue with past overcrowding at these events. A ticketing system was instituted. I don’t think that anyone was turned away, but I cannot be sure. “Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”

It was a great talk, on a subject of keen personal interest. Dr. Arvidson and his team have been and continue to be involved with the myriad of Mars probes, past, present and future. His talk keyed-in on the two still active Mars rovers, Opportunity and Curiosity. Opportunity and its twin Spirit were launched years ago. Both rovers have by now, far exceeded their original warranties. Spirit eventually got stuck in sand and was abandoned in place. Opportunity is still operational, even if it now suffers from both Alzheimer’s and arthritis. After each nightly shutdown, to conserve power, its memory has to be reloaded the next morning. Its mechanical arm has lost enough degrees of motion that it now has to traverse the planet’s surface in what looked like to me as a Hitler salute. The new kid on the block is Curiosity and she is a she. Compared to its predecessors, she is a behemoth. Arvidson was able to tell us what these two still active rovers would be doing that night, today and tomorrow, in great detail. It was a great talk! Plus, the Q&A session after his talk was good too. During this part, Arvidson was able to speculate on Mars projects yet to come.

Green-Eyed Toad

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Green-Eyed Toad

Green-Eyed Toad

I heard a new term of art today for the evolving New England Patriots scandal, Ballghazi. Still no word yet, whether or not Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) will be jumping on this investigative bandwagon too. In a press conference today, Patriots quarterback, Tom Brady, weighed in on the controversy. The following paragraph is a mashup of Brady press conference quotes about balls. One thing you have to admit about this situation, no matter which side that you are on, this is some of the best Super Bowl hype ever.

“Our equipment guys do a great job of breaking the balls. To me they’re perfect. … I don’t want anyone rubbing ’em. … I wouldn’t want anyone touching those. … Whatever feels good that day … I’m not squeezing the balls. It’s not part of my process. … Breaking the balls. … Some guys like old balls. … I tell them how great they are.”

The photo with this post is of a toad not a Tom. This particular toad, well frog actually, but toad has more alliteration here than frog. Anyway, this organism has been genetically modified. The frog’s eyes are green because scientists inserted a jellyfish gene into the frogs’ DNA. Scientists engineered the gene so that it would only work in the eye. Hence, this post’s title, “Green-Eyed Toad”.

I’ve been having problems lately with another green-eyed toad. This one yells at me a lot and for no good reason, at least as far as I can see. He’ll also physically brush me aside in the hall, if I don’t jump out of his way. In short, he is a bully. None of this behavior is overt enough to warrant me calling him out on it, because I’d have to have a much better case than I have now to go down that route. I’ll just have to bide my time and keep a wary eye over my shoulder. Besides time is on my side. I expect that his past will soon catch up with him.

This Way

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This Way

This Way

Saturday night, at the behest of DJ and Captain Don we attended a trivia night. Trivia night is usually a large group event and this was the largest that I have ever attended, with about 50 tables, and is usually staged to benefit a charitable cause. This one was staged to raise money to pay the medical bills, of a 15 year-old boy who has leukemia. During this trivia night, there were ten rounds of ten questions each. The questions are answered by the different tables; a team typically consisted of eight people who have paid an admission fee to participate ($25 per head). I figure that they must have grossed $10,000 on admissions alone and probably double that what with all of the extras ($10 for Mulligans, which were priceless, $2 for heads and tails, which we both lost quickly in and $20 for the raffle baskets, more on the raffles later). At the end of each round, the teams turn in their answers and judges then calculate the scores. The teams compete against one another with the top teams receiving prizes. Trivia nights are held throughout the United States, but are particularly popular in the Saint Louis, where dozens of different trivia nights occur on any given weekend.

A good night was had by all. Free beer and wine probably helped with that. It probably also helped to loosen our wallets, which was its prime objective anyway. Anne and I have only done a handful of these trivia nights, but we usually do pretty well, generally finishing in the top 25%. This night was a little different. After a slow start, by halftime, we found ourselves in the lead. We spent the remainder of the contest beating back that pesky table #49 and eventually won it all. Anne was a major contributor to this victory, naturally, but DJ’s daughter, Angela, her husband Louis and their friends Eric and Mary were also major contributors too. I did a little bit more good than damage and not the other way around as is usual, but I couldn’t even define the acronym RADAR. In spite of me and not because of me, table #4 really was the home of the alpha geeks! We all received little medals, some gift certificates and were refunded our admission fees. Anne and I donated ours back again to the cause, because by then we were both feeling a bit chagrined. We had by then won five of the raffled gift baskets, not bad for $20. We re-gifted the spa themed basket to Angela, because she had done so much, what with setting up the table’s team and writing down all our correct answers. We kept the juicer and the movie, foodie, coffee and snack themed baskets and headed for home with all our loot.

Take Me To Your Leader

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Futuristic 1932 Diving Helmet

Futuristic 1932 Diving Helmet

Anne and I were trying to get our daily constitutional in one day last week, when it was so freaking cold out that we elected to walk to the grocery store and back. We figured that we could get our miles in and have a warmup break halfway through the walk. As we were outbound, we passed a neighbor’s house and noticed that there was a paper box in their front yard. Only instead of being one of the normal yellow or blue paper boxes that are commonly found about town, this one was olive-green, with multicolored speckles embedded in the paint. In its window, in bright pink lettering, was the message, “I WANT TO BE YOUR PRESIDENT”, in all caps. I opened the box and took one of the white broadsheets from inside. It was too cold to read it there, but when we got to the store, I examined it further. On one side of the sheet was just the pink headline, but on the other side was a rather lengthy black and white text. It was printed in 12-point Times New Roman. Interestingly, you could see the outline of the strips of text, where individual words, phrases or whole sentences had been cut out and then pasted together, just like a kidnapper would do to write their ransom note. Occasionally though individual letters were capitalized by hand-printing, like at the start of a sentence. All of this cutting and pasting and printing had been photo copied, so that on the sheet that I held, only the faint outlines of the process remained.

Reading the text, it became clear that it was an acceptance speech that someone would give if they were nominated to be our president. There was nothing odd in the speech, at least not compared to its delivery method. Its gist seemed relatively mainstream, full of solemn platitudes and promises. The only hint that I could find for any political motivation to manufacture such a document was at the very bottom of the page and in the tiniest font imaginable. It explained that this speech was an amalgamation of Barack Obama’s 2008 and Mitt Romney’s 2012 party convention’s acceptance speeches. I’m still wondering what sort of message this person was trying to convey. I mean, a lot of work went into this project. Maybe when the temperature gets above freezing again, I’ll ask them. I’m also left to wonder, hasn’t this person heard of the Internet? In 2016, Obama will not be running again for president, but just this week Romney announced that he is going to make a third try for election. This was in response to Jeb Bush’s gathering momentum in his attempt to be the third President Bush. As if, the first two Bush presidencies were such rollicking success stories. Isn’t there a law against third terms? Still, there is the alternative of another Clinton. It seems strange to me that the gene pool for president has dwindled so much.

I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
– The Who, “Won’t Get Fooled Again”