Apple Products and Getting Old

I've been an Apple-product user for a long time.  For a really long time, actually, ever since the Mac Plus in 1986.

Memories of Dark Castle, anyone?

To put it simply, even in the dark, "beleaguered" days of Apple in the late 1990's, I liked Apple's business model because they controlled the hardware, they controlled the operating system, and they set the tone for a lot of the software.  In my opinion, that kind of vertical integration was worth the additional cost and, admittedly, the relative dearth of software.

As such, you tend to accumulate hardware, cables, connectors, and other computer detritus over the years. I was excited when I thought I would be able to finally put to use an old firewire-to-Apple connector that has been lying around for many years, now that I am the proud new owner of an iPhone.

Rats.  They don't even support charging with an old firewire cable.  That hurt.

A Roadmap for America

In his State of the Union Address, President Obama made reference to getting manufacturing back in America.  In fact, he explicitly said that "this blueprint begins with American manufacturing."

That made me squirm.  This post is to describe why I think all of America should squirm, and what we should do instead.

The Problem

I squirmed because it strikes me as a wistful desire to return to a bygone era, one that has passed us on and we need to embrace the new change.  We've been through this before, with housing prices:

In the 2009-2010 era, I distinctly remember politicians saying "we have got to restore housing prices! Get them back up to where they used to be!"  (Sadly, a Google News search couldn't bring up any direct quotes.)  But the ugly truth was that housing prices were a bubble, and prices were not going to go back up.  For the housing market, it was a great ride up from 2003 to 2007, and we've been "taking our medicine" ever since.

I feel similarly, although not identically, towards manufacturing.  There has been a fervor recently over how iPhones and solar cells are manufactured in China and not in the US.  Why is that?

First of all, the Chinese are willing to work in conditions that would not be tolerated in the US today.  This is described eloquently in the famous piece done a few weeks ago by This American Life.

Secondly, they're willing to do it for far less than minimum wage.  Shenzhen has the highest minimum wage of any city, at about $207 per month.

Third, the Chinese government is backing production in a big, big way:

• They built their own production factory, at government expense, anticipating the next order from Apple.
• China has outlayed almost $800 billion for its solar cell manufacturing from 2011 - 2020.  Compare that to the outcry over Solyndra going under, at a cost of about $500 million.  

Admittedly, the electronics industry has the worst labor practices of any industry, but it's telling of how far the "other guys" are willing to go.  When President Obama asked Steve Jobs about why Apple can't make iPhones in the US, Steve replied, "Those jobs aren't coming back."

He's absolutely right.  Manufacturing in China is a step or three below what manufacturing was like in Pittsburgh in the early 20th century:

I openly admit -- and heartily welcome -- the fact that Chinese wages are rising (21% last year alone).  I hope that someday in the near future the Chinese worker will have parity with a laborer in the western world.  But that does not mean that the manufacture of iPhones, or most other commodities, will move back to the US.  Instead, they will move to southeast Asia ... or possibly Africa ... wherever the cheapest labor in the world can be found.

The Solution
So, what do we do instead?  America should strive to be an innovator, and stick to the high technology, high capital investment stuff, where the employee has to be smart, skilled, and resourceful.

Here's one example: a government sponsored, nationwide wireless network.  I have no idea how legal this would be, and here's where I need help.

In the 1950's, then-President Eisenhower embarked upon the Eisenhower Interstate System: a network of high-speed roads that would connect the US and allow commerce to flow freely and quickly.  It immodestly touts itself as "The Greatest Public Works Project in History."  The cost in 1991 was estimated to be $128.9 billion (starting in 1956), but wow has it enabled growth in this country.

Why not do something similar for the wireless / networked world?  Roll out a "wireless highway" that anyone can get on to, with bandwidth limits (the 21st century equivalent of speed limits) so that all may partake?

I see two hard parts:

1. Making it forward compatible.  Unlike today's LTE / WiMax / 4G battles, the US network would ideally be upgradeable as technology advances.  The US government has tons of frequencies available for its, so more headroom exists for it to grow than exists in private industry.  I'm not an actual network engineer, but I'm willing to bet this isn't easy.
2. Making Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile happy.  There are laws prohibiting the government from competing with private industry.  And those 4 mobile carriers (and many other, non-national carriers) have spent billions of their own nickels in developing and deploying their own super-fast wireless networks.  But maybe if the government makes the frequencies available to all, then it wouldn't really be competing?  After all, the US Postal Service, FedEx, and UPS all seem to get along okay, right?

This would be innovative.  It would require a large cadre of network engineers to design, deploy, and maintain.  It would train the next generation of electrical engineers, electricians, construction crews, phone developers, and computer makers to take advantage of our "wireless highway system."  And it might unleash a whole new division of commerce (well, actually, just continue to boost the industry we already have) to take advantage of this new highway system.

That, and examples like it, are my idea of a blueprint for America.

Symbols - Am I Getting Old? Fast?

I fear that the infusion of new symbols in today's society may be leaving me in the dust.

But let me develop this concern in a logical manner for you.

A few months ago, I was troubleshooting some computer problem that my parents were having.  Forgive me, I forget the exact nature, but it probably had something to do with iTunes or playing music on my mom's cellphone or something.  So, take a look at the below picture: do you immediately know what the symbols represent?

I remember saying to my mom, "Now, press the 'pause' button."
"Where's 'pause'?" she responded.

It struck me that the Reverse / Play / Pause / Fast Forward symbols that have become second nature to most people in my generation may not be universally recognized.  I only vaguely knew what the symbols meant from my 1975-era Panasonic Take-N-Tape, and that knowledge may not have transferred to those born before 1960.

But those symbols aren't bad.  Perhaps I'm biased, but you can pretty quickly figure out what the symbols mean: they are simple shapes that represent relatively simple actions.  But in today's complex, multifunctional world, symbols are losing their utility.

How about this one?

If you haven't been indoctrinated through the use of iMacs, XBoxes, and countless other electronica, you would have no idea that thing thing means "Power."  Some smug engineer is probably very happy with himself somewhere, comfortable in his clever mixing of the old "0" and "1" that used to be painted on rocker switches from Olden Times.

I specifically say "him" because there is no way that the fairer sex would dream up something as convoluted as today's "power" button.  Seriously; look at that thing that represents Power today.  How on earth do you describe it to someone who may be looking at a bank of buttons and is trying to turn the thing on? "Hit the button that has the circle on it that kind of has a vertical line going through it, and is surrounded by a bigger circle..."  No way.

But that's just one button.  We now come back to the original purpose of this post, which is that I'm getting lost in today's proliferation of symbols -- and the computer engineer's penchant for favoring these obscure symbols over WORDS.

This is a screen shot from my web Gmail account.
My eye is immediately drawn to the top row of buttons.

• Where is the Reply? Or the Reply All?  Or the Forward, for heaven's sake?
• What does that arrow to the left mean?
• What does that picture of a box with a down arrow do, and how is it different from the other folder with a down arrow?
• Where are the words to tell me what each button does?

For the last bullet, I admit they do have tooltips that pop up when you hover your mouse over them.  But, come on, they have *tons* of real estate up there, and I hate having to scrub the mouse over each button just to find out what its function is.  Adding a few words would not mar the appearance at all, and would markedly improve the usability of their product.

It's not elegant; it's too clever by half.  I pick on Gmail because it most recently irked me, but I see this "proliferation of symbols" everywhere.  I worry that, since many of us are not the OMGLikeTotallyTweenWTFBBQ24/7 persona that peruses this stuff all day, we're getting left behind.

Moon Bases and Other Baloney

The political grandstanding -- and pandering to potential voters -- is in full swing, and it absolutely drives me up the wall.

The most recent blood-boiling incident is Newt Gingrich's promise to Florida voters that he would have a moon base established by the end of his second term, or 2021.  Mr. Gingrich is either lying through his teeth in a shameless pitch to grab the votes of the hopelessly uneducated, or is mind-numbingly ignorant about the difficulties of what he is proposing.  In either case, such a gross mis-representation of what a President can (and cannot do) in today's society puts him in the same league as Michelle Bachmann, who promised back in August that if she were President, she would make gasoline $2 per gallon.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong.  When politicians put forth abject lies like that, in my opinion it should disqualify them for being President.

Colleagues of mine look at me funny when I rant about this.  They say, "They're politicians; that's what they do.  They lie."  I'm reminded of an old adage from a former job: What do valves do? They leak.  (You normally think of a valve stopping flow in a pipe, but in real-world applications, they leak.  And sometimes on purpose.)

I guess it's the naive schoolboy in me still poking through, wistfully hoping that our vaunted politicians would have the highest ethics and the highest moral standards as they pursue these powerful and important positions governing the United States.  Alas, human nature comes through and shows that people will be as slimy as they can to garner votes, and are willing to say whatever they need to say.  Perhaps the ends justify the means, in their minds.

The truth is, to build a base on the moon requires a heavy-lift human-rated rocket, which the United States does not begin to have.  As I have posted previously, a GAO Report stated that the now-defunct Constellation program would have cost $97 billion to complete, through 2020 (and this was back in 2009).  And the $97 billion doesn't begin to cover the costs of the actual lunar base.  If I had to estimate, a lunar base would be at least half as hard as building the International Space Station -- which had an all-in cost of about $100 billion.  NASA's budget in 2012 is almost $18 billion -- which includes a lot of staffing and a whole host of ongoing missions. The Augustine Report from 2009 recognized early on that the grandiose plans people had from NASA were not going to happen without a major retooling.

Look, as an engineer, I would like nothing more than to have a high profile, shoot-for-the-moon project like this country had with Apollo.  It would be so inspiring, it would have so many offshoot benefits, it would motivate a whole new generation of scientists and engineers ... but it is flat-out not going to happen in today's economic times.  I believe it is irresponsible to be considering those types of projects when our financial debt has now exceeded 100% of our annual GDP.  We have got to get our own house in order first before doing these grand science projects.

I sincerely hope the people of Florida are smart enough to see through these ridiculous promises.

A Time To Be Thankful

I really enjoy this Thanksgiving / Christmas / New Year's time of year, as it provides some time off from work to appreciate some of the smaller stuff and take your bearings.

So, I'd like to take a moment and thank the folks who work diligently, without much credit or fanfare, helping make this thing we call "society" work.

1.  Car safety engineers.  A while ago, I got in a car accident.  This was my car:

This picture was taken from the junkyard, well after the accident.  Multiple airbags deployed, two cars totalled (including mine), a third was seriously dented, and everyone walked away from it.  I think that's pretty amazing, and would like to extend a heartfelt "thank you" to all the engineers out there who carefully consider accident scenarios in the design of their cars.  Wow.

2.  All the folks at Amazon's Fulfillment Centers who dutifully take our orders.

Amazon fulfillment center.  Click for YouTube video of how it all works.

Amazon does crazy, crazy amounts of business: on the Monday after Thanksgiving, Amazon sold more than 158 items per second.  Actually selling that much stuff is one impressive feat; I think an even more impressive feat (logistically) is shipping and tracking all that stuff.  So, my hat is off to the folks who set that up, and my hat is off doubly so for the people who worked hard to fulfill all our orders.  They don't get enough credit.

3.  The software engineers and hardware techs who were able to successfully absorb the impact of 6.8 million devices being activated on Christmas Day.  Happily, I can count myself among those 6.8 million, but you don't survive that kind of hit on your network without a lot of forethought and intelligence.   

About a quarter of a billion apps were downloaded on Christmas, which is twice the normal load in December and three times what was downloaded last year.  So, a profound thank you to the network administrators and people who kept the servers humming, even under a crushing load like that on Christmas.

The list could go on and on: police officers, radio and TV engineers, security guards at important places, mail delivery folks (UPS, FedEx, USPS, DHL, etc.) ... The fact is, there are a tremendous number of unsung heroes who quietly but determinedly go about their business, ensuring that the rest of us can have safe and happy holidays.  Society doesn't just run automatically; it works through the hard work and dedication of millions of folks.

Thanks to all of you for making our society work.  Here's to best wishes for a safe and prosperous 2012.

The Differential

When I was about six years old, I remember playing with my Matchbox toys and noticing that, on a curve, the outside wheels had to spin faster than the inside wheels.  Matchbox toys at the time were connected by a simple axle, and the little bit of skidding had no impact on those smooth, plastic wheels.


I asked my Dad how it worked on real cars.  My Dad, a lawyer, had no idea, and just responded, "It's very complicated machinery in there."  (Well, to be honest, he could very well have been tired with my questioning and did not want to get into the inner workings of a the gears.)


The complicated machinery is now known as a differential, and I've always thought it was a little piece of magic.  (The other impressive piece of magic is the now old-style planetary gear system used on automatic transmissions, but that's for another day.)  So, I present to you, for your enjoyment, a 1937 movie about differentials and how they work.  It's very impressive and very instructive. (Skip ahead to the 3:30 mark to jump over the repetitive, long introduction material.)





I only wish I had YouTube when I was six.

The nuclear industry is taking some hits...

I started this post a while ago (back in March, to be exact), and recent events have made it still more relevant.  In the immediate wake of the Fukushima accident, there were a couple of bad news announcements:

• This story reports in very good detail how the South Texas Project appears to be winding down.  For a nuclear engineer, this is kind of a sad day. I can't tell you how many hopes and dreams were pinned on the South Texas Project.  People actually started building new nuclear reactors, well before the "nuclear renaissance" even became popular.  And now it's pretty much toast.  I'm sad to see it go.
• And then AREVA kills its plans to develop a manufacturing plant in Newport News, VA, back in May.  This was to be a major, major manufacturing hub for a lot of domestic manufacturing capability that was not otherwise available in the domestic US.  It would have dovetailed well with the naval shipyard in the area, and with Newport News Shipyard just down the road.  That would have been the nuclear manufacturing Trifecta for the world.  But, no, it just didn't make sense for Areva to do it.
• Just recently, Areva has announced a $1.95 billion write-down and a severe slow down to its uranium enrichment plant in Eagle Rock, Idaho -- a project near and dear to my heart, but that's water over the dam now.  
• Lastly, the scandal erupting at the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is just awful.  The other four NRC Commissioners have taken the unprecedented step of complaining in a letter to the White House Chief of Staff that the NRC Chairman is abusing his powers, abusing staff, and withholding information from the other Commissioners.  Even the nuclear industry is chiming in to  get the matter taken care of quickly.  The House of Representative's Official Report is pretty damning.

If you read the letter that Jaczko sent back to the White House Chief of Staff, it really reads like a megalomaniac trying to plead his case.  Throw the bum out.  Or at least, put Ostendorff in as the new Chairman.

Anyhow.  The above incidents are pretty detrimental to the nuclear industry, that was trying to make a go of it again in the US.  And it certainly makes the road a little rougher for the Small Modular Reactor crowd.

Which is unfortunate.  SMR's are a promising way to create domestic jobs and power our future.

Innovation

"Propose to an Englishman any principle, or any instrument, however admirable, and you will observe that the whole effort of the English mind is directed to find a difficulty, a defect, or an impossibility in it. If you speak to him of a machine for peeling a potato, he will pronounce it impossible: if you peel a potato with it before his eyes, he will declare it useless, because it will not slice a pineapple. Impart the same principle or show the same machine to an American or to one of our Colonists, and you will observe that the whole effort of his mind is to find some new application of the principle, some new use for the instrument."
Charles Babbage, 1832.

Charles Babbage is most famous for his difference engine, which could arguably be considered the first computer ... but he was a very smart individual in other fields as well, including astronomy, cryptography, and is even credited with inventing the cow catcher.

This post is just a wish that more Americans would act like the Americans depicted by Babbage nearly two hundred years ago, and less like the Englishmen.  Ask yourself daily which camp you're acting in.