Here is a film by Ken Burns. I had failed to appreciate the role of vowels in American History. Better start paying attention, I guess. And who knew about Abigail Adams?
The Vowels
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Outlier
Gaussling’s kid, GK, made an interesting point. Last night we were assembling my father’s day gift in the living room. It is a battery powered electric lawn mower. Somewhere in the repartee that always accompanies such activities, my 15-year old pointed out that I was an … outlier. GK understood what this meant qualitatively and used the term properly. This was very amusing. With kids, sometimes you’ll get a glimpse of yourself that no mirror could ever show. For better or worse, GK’s right.
The Puyehue Volcano
The Puyehue (poo-YAY-way) volcano in Chile is presently in an eruptive phase. This stratovolcano is part of the Puyehue-Cordón Caulle Volcanic Complex (PCCVC). The Andean Cordillera is zoned with isolated volcanic belts along the length of the continent. As is the case along the rest of the Ring of Fire around the Pacific rim, the vulcanism is due to subduction, in this case of the Nazca and Antarctic plates.
- Eruption of Puyehue Volcano in Chile (photo AFP)
It was suggested (tongue in cheek) that the volcano be renamed Mount Doom from the Lord of the Rings.
Puyehue Eruption, June 2011. (Earth Observatory)Puyehue Eruption (June 14, 2011, Earth Observatroy)
Today’s image (below) from the Earth Observatory is telling of the scale of the ash cloud. It has traversed the width of the continent due east- from the Andea’s on the Pacific to the Atlantic and beyond.
Puyehue Eruption 6/14/11 (Earth Observatory photo)
American Pie in Grand Rapids
I have to share this link going around on Facebook. This video is amazing. Have a look …
Notice the young men in the video? This is what they should be doing- dancing with their girl or playing guitar or just enjoying life. Not getting their brains scrambled by IED’s in the violent sandy places on earth. We need to produce fewer veterans. And the veterans we do produce need to carry around fewer horrific memories.
The very real injuries to citizen soldiers today have their origins in foreign policy set into motion sometimes generations earlier. Try reading The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power, by Daniel Yergin.
A day in the sun
Fun day today. Th’ Gaussling served as a judge in a talent show. We had 11 acts to review. The highlight of the experience was watching two particular vocal performances consisting of a soloist and a duet. These vocalists were outstanding. Two of the three vocalists had performed in some of our recent plays and we knew that they had talent. But today the show was about them and they were just stunning. It is gratifying to see these folks deliver such great performances. I’m very proud of them and sorry that I have to be so cryptic about their identities.
Challenging the paradigm
Increasingly I am a fan of LinkTV. It is one of the very few alternative content networks around. I try to catch Deutche Wella and Al Jazeera on Link a few times per week for a different perspective of world events.
News programming in the US evolved decades ago into a business model which delivers manufactured consent to those who’ll pay for it. News programmers in the US for the most part seem to have a notion that only they know what we really want to see. So they roll their tape for us. Who really decides where the beady eye of scrutiny is pointed?
Really now. Why do we have the same tedious group of talking heads making the rounds on the news programs? In a country of 300 million, we can’t find a few others who will say something new or at least unexpected? It’s just like the stars who appear on Leno. In exchange for a free “performance”on the show, they get to promote their latest gig. It’s about low cost content.
In the case of news, the network gets “compelling commentary” for free by a guest who is calculated to cause eyeballs to linger a few moments. News content has the shelflife of squid. It is no good tomorrow.
If you’re not alarmed by this kind of thing then you’re not paying attention. Knock knock!! I’m talking to the 2/3 of the bell curve who may suspect that Fox, for instance, occasionally makes things up to suit the needs of its backers. The 1/3 who watch Fox assiduously are perhaps not recoverable from their trance.
Numerous coworkers claim to be independent thinkers, but to a man or woman, will spout the same vocabulary and pre-framed concepts. They get their talking points from Fox, as directed. I love these people, but their view of the world is a cartoon drawn by a couple of guys in a sound booth. It is sad.
US Chemical Business Innovation. Policy or Culture?
The May 23rd, 2011, issue of C&EN, pp 30-31, printed an article titled “Innovation Policy Urged for U.S.”. The article addresses more than a few considerations regarding the matter of innovation aspirations in the US. You can read the article for yourself. It details some silliness about government programs meant to stimulate startup’s.
Startups are always in need of money. Like the salmon’s struggle to swim past the grizzlies to the upstream breeding waters, the struggle for resources is part of the Darwinistic screening process. The struggle for operating funds is a way of screening out weak management. The trouble is, entrepreneurs are often awful managers so good products and services may die for the wrong reason. Investor money is always loaded with conditions, as any startup operator knows.
The article quotes Richard Bendis, president and CEO of the consulting firm Innovation America. To quote Bendis, “Major research universities are the primary drivers of the future economy and job growth, mostly through science and technology. Global economic competitiveness requires the confluence of scientific discovery and the enabling resources of government and industry.”
Well, Ok. It’s hard to take him to task here. But the last sentence is gobbledygook. What government cannot provide is the motivation or gumption on the part of chemists to start a company. Chemists need to be exposed to entrepreneuralism well before the day they set out to hatch a startup. The current course of study in the bachelors program at virtually any US college or university is proctored by faculty who almost without exception come from a purely academic background. They know nothing about “industry” other than the salaries are probably better.
As Bendis rightly states, “Major research universities are the primary drivers of the future economy and job growth, mostly through science and technology.” But major research universities, with a few exceptions, are poorly equipped to find and train chemists to be the future captains of of industry. It is a culture problem. The structure of the university chemistry department is not constructed to groom anything but scholarship. The American Chemical Society certification is part of the problem. The ACS recognizes and endorses a particular kind of curriculum. Most all chemistry departments have secured this endorsement long ago. While the curriculum defines the minimum standards for a degree in chemistry, it also has the effect of freezing out much real innovation or adaptability in the field.
Faculty with business or industrial backgrounds are largely deselected from joining the club, if for no other reason than publication rates. Industrial chemists rarely have the opportunity to publish their work in the normal spread of journals owing to IP restrictions. I’ve been a part of a few search committees and I know how it can go.
The main exception to my generalization is MIT. Whatever it is that MIT is doing to stimulate startups, it’s does it very well. They are practically a force of nature by themselves. I would argue that the Mojo that MIT plainly possesses has more to do with culture than policy.
And it’s not just chemistry faculty that have to adapt to a new endgame in the program. The matter of turning a program to applied science must necessarily involve deans and university presidents. They will all want to have their say. In the end, to most presidents, getting in the top 25 of whatever group of schools they aspire to be in is what matters. And that involves keeping the enrollment numbers and the endowment figures up. That is how they are measured and that is what they will look after.
Putting out applied science oriented majors will involve considerable cultural change in the academy. I’ve seen nothing to indicate that the academy is ready to embrace a real step towards the kind of entrepreneurial spirit in the aspirations expressed in the article in C&EN. It is very difficult to be heard over the clucking in the academic henhouse.
A Modest Proposal for the Eurozone
Here is what I propose as a solution for the European debt crisis. Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal, and Ireland should be given the option of swapping land in exchange for their debt. What land? Take a line of latitude from the southernmost tip northward until an area of land redeemed is equal to (debt (Euro) / 5000 Euro/hectare) which covers the debt.
It should be pointed out that Napoleon voluntarily swapped the Louisiana territory for cash to raise operating funds for his adventures. After all, he was coming into new property in Europe.
As my consulting fee, I’ll take the Dingle Peninsula in Ireland. It’s a charming spit of land and will be more than suitable.
Memorial Day and Inventors Conscience
Here is an interesting post called When Chemists go to War. It is a good reminder of how our work can be taken to places where we ourselves wouldn’t go. Ever develop chemistry that has killed someone? What would you do if you developed a substance that was used for destructive purposes? Would it bother you? Some scientists from the Manhattan Project were troubled by their work on the bomb, but others slept quite well.
I suppose it could be considered similar to the situation with the inventor of the baseball bat. Could this inventor have forseen the use of the bat in committing violence? Probably didn’t cross his mind. But if you’re inventing new military explosives, how do you cope with the knowledge that your invention’s use is specifically for more precise application of killing power? The fact is that there are many scientists who have no difficulty with this at all. I’ve met a few of them and they are very sober folks. They know exactly what their invention does and they are eager to do even better.
I think it is this ability to stand behind the abstract technical details, sheltered from the blood and guts reality, that allows scientists to rationalize their work on killing technology. Scientists will never have to carry with them the olfactory battlefield memories of bomb smoke and shredded bowel. Weapons labs are relatively safe places to work. The weapons scientists biggest hazard, realistically, is the commute to and from the lab. Perhaps weapons designers and munitions manufacturers should have to clean up after a car bomb or carry bodies from the scene so as to emphasize the exact consequences of this work.
Maybe the most important thing we can do to honor soldiers lost and wounded in battle is to resolve that we will produce fewer dead and wounded soldiers. One approach embraced by many is to make war more effiicient and more automated. Send machines into battle rather than people. The other approach is to be a bit less warlike. Throttle back on weapons spending. Take the view that war isn’t really glorious, but rather that it is an uncivilized duty we are called upon to do on occasion.
Amassing huge armed forces presents the temptation to use them. The goal for our national leaders should be … lead us not into temptation.
Cyanide-Based Legislative Voting Machine
The US patent literature is full of wondrous inventions and its easy access by computer-machine over the internets is a real boon to historians and hacks like myself. In the course of my studies into 19th century gold metallurgy, I stumbled across US 7,521, issued July 22, 1850. This patent was issued to Albert N. Henderson of Buffalo, NY. Mr. Henderson’s invention is entitled IMPROVEMENT IN THE APPLICATION OF ELECTRO-CHEMICAL PRINTING IN COLORS FOR TAKING AYES AND NOES.
Henderson describes an apparatus for taking the ayes and noes by galvanic electricity and specifically proposed it for use in legislative assemblies. The concept was that at each desk in the assembly would be two keys (switches, as we now call them) for voting either Aye of No. The member would press one of the keys when called to vote, with the result of an electric current passing to a central apparatus with specially treated paper pressed between electrodes. The action of the current in the damp treated paper would be that a vote would be registered as a mark on the paper, recording the vote of the member. In the end, the only gold connection in the patent related to gold electrodes as a preferred embodiment.
Claim 1. This patent claims a mode of imprinting words, letters, & figures, etc, upon paper or other fibrous substances between two surfaces of a metal which is not acted upon by the substances employed, on one of which the letters or figures are raised by passing a current of galvanic electricity through the prepared material, substantially as above described.
Claim 2. Passing the electric current between metallic surfaces, as above described, through damp paper otherwise unprepared, and afterward applying a chemical solution, by which the effect of the electricity becomes visible whenever it has passed through the paper, for the purposes above described- telegraphing, etc.
Substances which may be used as part of the solution for the preparation of the paper- Copper sulfate (gives black impression), Potassium cyanide which may be acidified with H2SO4 or HNO3 (!!) to impart a green color with the galvanic current. A strong solution of KCN with Ag chloride gives a green impression. All above leave white paper until acted upon by electricity. A weak soln of potassium ferrocyanide (prussiate of potassia) colors the paper slightly and leaves a deep blue impression by the electricity. Henderson prefers to use electrodes of gold or platinum.
This invention has a kind of steampunk aspect that I find very appealing. On the other hand, it is hard to know what knowledge the inventor had with regard to the hazards of KCN or acidified solutions thereof. The patent is silent with regard to the chemical safety questions arising from the use of KCN treated paper.
Lamentations on Chemistry 