ah spring, the buzz of drones in the air!

One of the things that I am excited about for this coming spring (other than relief from the cold weather) is the opportunity to play with the soon arriving modular drone. Modular drones, or for that matter, any drone, as long as you have the gimbal assembly, allow you to swap out what you are measuring or seeing with the drone. Hat includes sonar, the Flir systems (infrared camera, etc.), and of course, the more traditional 4k. Some newer modular drones allow you to land and take off on water!

Add to that the expanding capabilities (and significantly lower cost) of the ROV world, and exploring will be a lot of fun this year! There was a time when I was young when I was the ROV. I climbed the steep rock wall to see what was there. I was the one climbing the hill. Now, I fly a drone up to see if I should take the time to climb! I guess I climb smarter now. Going and diving into the water was never something I was unwilling to do, but you can explore 50 or more feet down with an ROV.

So it will be exciting this spring to explore a bit! My love of this kind of stuff comes directly from my grandfather and father. Grandpa taught me how to read water. When you read water, you pay attention to where the fish are! My dad taught me to read and pay attention to the weather. What I need to do now is build a landing platform for the drone. We can easily put it on the front of the Kayak, and the drone can take off and land from there. But that is a project for later in the spring!

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Come on man…

If the simplest answer is often the best answer, why is there complexity in the world? Do we as a species drive towards complexity? As I get older, I find myself moving more and more to the center. The reality of both sides right now is that they are often simply extreme. If you build a better mousetrap, you deserve to get paid for that. We should celebrate people’s great ideas, and if they make money because of their great idea, we should accept that and move on. The reality that it is wrong to make money isn’t reasonable.

History says this will pass. It will be messy (history sadly says that as well). But it will eventually pass, for the world has seen this level of extremism before (the Calvinists were asked to leave England, then came to the Colonies later).

Enough of the political rants for today, It just makes me sad. Cold weather tech has improved over the years. One of the things that I love is rechargeable hand warmers. In the past, these were often metal, and you plugged them into a USB hub. But Ravean made them with cork. Cork holds heat longer than metal does. It means the hard warmers stay warm for a while after the battery stops heating them. I like that – and when it is really cold, so do my fingers!

Ravean was a crowdfunded company that has sadly gone out of business.

Now, I wish cold weather would go out of business (along with really hot weather), but cold weather is still around. So, my hand warmers get a lot of use!

I want a HUD for walking and biking—simply projected onto googles or a screen that comes down from my hat. One I can see through would let me interact with my phone while my hand was wrapped around my hand warmers. Oakley made a pair of them 3 or more years ago, but they stopped producing them. Too bad I would buy a pair!

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update on the Snapmaker 350 3d printer

90% done with the upgrades to our 3d printer (they upgraded the base, printer head, and the laser engraving system). They upgraded the laser engraving unit and the 3d plastic print head in this upgrade. They had offered a previous upgrade to the CNC carving until, including a lathe. I am excited to try smaller, more complex prints and will happily do a follow on review. Snapmaker is an interesting business model; their printers are upgradable (they start with the 150 and go to the 350).

By changing the power supply, print heads move up within the models. With the new T function, You can adds a new power supply as well. Overall the company is easy to work with. Their forum on Facebook is full of fun ideas. The software is good overall. The Snapmaker connects to your home wifi network. You can then connect to the printer from your computer. That means you don’t have to walk to the 3d printer, install a USB key, or connect the printer to your computer via a USB cable.

The software is called Luban; it works well! The newest version also has a quieter power supply. 3d printers can be very loud. The new power supply drops the volume in the room considerably. I moved it away from my home office (people asked what the horrible noise is during calls). It is still loud but nowhere near distracting loud now. I will share an updated review of the Snapmaker A 350T or the newest version. I am waiting for the new laser engraving module before I review the unit again.

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Questions, sorry I can’t help it.

I’ve been reading “A hidden Reality,” a view of the field of physics about the rise and acceptance of multi-verse theories. Out of that, I have questions. What can I say? I ask myself questions all the time, and sometimes I have to share those with the rest of you!

1. What if the brain were a universe?
2. The concept of emptiness and a universe that is empty is interesting. What would paint by numbers kit have in an empty universe?
3. Is Walmart a separate universe?

I know the last one is more of a dad joke, but those are a specialty of mine as well. My dad always said to be a lifelong learner. I haven’t thought about physics since college. We had an “elementary physics” class that was required for teachers. I have to say I was bored then. It went to Newton’s second law and stopped. A lot of what physics is today started after Einstein published his General Theory of Relativity. The math is pushing me to think a lot more than I expected!

To Learn is active. To be learning, still active. I learned that 20 years ago, it was passive. In the passive voice, we are at risk. I know, for example, that at least one dinosaur I learned about (Brontosaurus) is no longer considered an actual creature. I can also say we had a dinosaur for dinner last night (chicken)!

Have fun with the questions. As always, I am sure there are more of them to come!

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Please sir, i used to be a robot sir….

I’ve been thinking about the point of convergence, where humans and machines can become one. There are several names for the concept, but I was thinking about the complexity of a system that merged humans and machines. Not just the number of bytes required for storage, but the reality of what gets stored. Today. We struggle to get and build neuron connections for humans when they are managed. Nerves can regrow, but we don’t have a consistent way to do it.

If we think about what the solution would look like, it would be the size of a human (well, wishful thinking there) and quickly replicate itself into new hardware. I’ve lived through so many failed upgrades in my life I can tell you that upgrading a human/machine mix cannot fail. What would be lost cannot be replaced. If my computer dies during the upgrade, I can quickly reinstall all my software. Most of my documents and pictures are backed up and not stored on my PC.

But failing during the upgrade of a human would require a lot more thinking. But that is likely just a backup. What interests me is the concept beyond the merging. What ethical constraints must be placed on this upcoming convergence? Would give that a merged being committed a heinous crime, would the ultimate punishment be sentencing them to return to corporal form? That would, in effect, be a death sentence. Not in the take them to a chair and fry them sense. But, the immortality of the merge would be lost.

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The difference architecture process

Yesterday I brought up the concept of reference architectures. Something I’ve worked on for many years. But I also brought up a topic I haven’t discussed in a long time. Many years ago, I developed the concept called difference architecture. The goal of a different architecture is to take the existing reference architecture and note or document the differences between the reference architecture and what was deployed. The reason for developing that concept was that I spent some time with a couple of companies that had completed enterprise architecture projects a few years before. I know it was a few years because the reference architecture was behind the CIOs desk. In about 11 binders the maybe 15 binders when upon the company, of course. But all the binders were covered in that.

I used to call those thud factor architectures as in a big sound they make when they hit the table. I need to envision the person delivering that architecture walking into the office with a stack of binders and walking them on the desk. The resulting sound was why I called it the thud factor. Enterprise architectures are still big, is nothing that can be done about that. Except the reality is your documenting services available within an enterprise. It has to be big if you offer capabilities for multiple worker types. Research and development scientists will have different application requirements, then will a knowledge worker documenting how your product works on the cell phone. You will have very different computer environments overall.

A lot of that, I started talking about the concept of the different architects. Document the things that are different. Today I try to use that minimalist approach whenever I can. Unfortunately, I’m being asked to build the reference architecture, and you need to document the variables in a reference architecture—a big difference for sure. But I still applied the minimalist principles to what I’m documenting. This is how I learned to be a software architect. I started in the days when software architecture was in its infancy—started in what an architect would be called later before software architecture was in its infancy. It’s funny that I watch things grow up, yet I’m still talking about a concept I made up 20 years ago.

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On reference architectures…

Lately, which is funny because 20 years ago I spent a lot of time on this topic, and now 20 years later, I’m back to the same topic. I’m spending a lot of time thinking about building reference architectures. I used to do that years ago, is not invented a process called the difference architectural where you simply present to a customer or internally the difference between a reference architecture and what you deploy. It makes it simpler and smaller when documenting the existing architecture. Because reference architecture refers to the perfect state architecture, if everything were done exactly the way the vendor wants it, the reference architecture would look like.

Reference architectures have to be adaptable. They can’t be static. They have to be living documents. The interesting thing about reference architectures is that most big companies that today produce software and technology solutions are no problem turning out reference architects. But organizations and businesses often don’t. The simple reality of having an organizational framework, sometimes called enterprise architecture, is a reference architecture for the company. That makes it easier to understand what deployment looks like for new technology fully. Many years ago, I had a conversation with a business leader, and he told me that they didn’t do technology for technology’s sake. Now my first boss in IT taught me that rule. I can honestly say that I live by that rule. I never deployed technology for customers or for an internal IT shop to deploy the technology.

So I explained to the person we work deploying technology for technology’s sake. We were deploying technology for future features that were promised to come. I wrote an article about was 5G more than just a faster download of movies to my cellular phone? It is, but that is the reality of the framework most people and companies operate from. New technology can be scary. But a failure to understand technology is dangerous. Because not understanding technology means that you’re going to make a mistake, this is why the concept of reference architecture becomes critical. And not a 280-page document that’s published once and never touched, sitting behind the CIOs desk gathering dust. A living, ongoing reference architecture project that aligns the enterprise to technology.

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Probability vs likelihood

I have to say so far this winter we’ve had very strange weather pattern right now. It started last year because in 2019, 2018 2017, we didn’t have a lot of snow. Last year we would have a snowstorm, then we would have a thought, and a freeze, that another thought, and then a snowstorm. We pretty much had the same pattern this year—the vast majority of the days above freezing. I think, or I suspect that truly makes me cold days ten times colder. Because you get used to be above freezing, and then suddenly it’s freezing again. It doesn’t bother me if I’m outside when it’s cold. It only bothers me that I always get the common cold this time of year from the fluctuations. I haven’t got a cold this year, so we’re going to count this one as a better year so far.

Because I walked outside, I spent a lot of time focused on the weather. The difference between a pleasant day fishing and a miserable day spent sitting on a wet boat is simply knowing what the weather forecast will be, and of course, if you choose to go fishing when it’s raining, making sure you have an umbrella or a raincoat, even a poncho. It so knows the weather is important. I suspect one could come up with a cute little saying, just like the those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Those who don’t pay attention to the weather are doomed to wear it. Anyway, today wasn’t going to focus on the weather, but I did kind of notice the pattern and thought I would share that pattern with the rest of the world.

All in all, it was an interesting weekend. When I was younger, I watched a lot more football than I do now. But I still love to watch playoff football. I have to say the ability offered for the telestrator, and other technology additions to the game make it even more fun to watch football now than it used to be. It’s interesting to me, in fairness when they utilize the next generation stats. The relevance of probability is an event that hasn’t happened yet. Once an event happens, its probability goes to whatever level, i.e., success or failure. So while it’s interesting that they include next-generation stats, I find it interesting that they still list the probability because once somebody does something and they are successful, their success is 100%. The likelihood of their success is then back to the statistical denotation of the origin. I.e., if the likelihood of said path being completed was less than 3%. Then the likelihood of that task being completed remains 3%. The probability of that class being completed based on the fact that it was just completed is now 100%.

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Whiteboard junkie!

I am a whiteboard junkie. I fully acknowledge that, plus I was a chalkboard junkie. When I was teaching school, I laid out problems on my chalkboard when the kids weren’t in the room. Especially back then, I was working on the impact of Acid Rain. I finally designed an experiment the kids and I could do in the classroom that wasn’t way beyond what the kids could know. The learning manager bought the lesson plans, a write-up, and the experiment results. I was quite proud of that. I wasn’t, however, ready for the results we got.

The experiment was simple. We had buckets placed on school grounds and then moved west towards the coal-fired power plant in Bloomington. We collected water in those buckets and kept the buckets sealed. When we were ready to start, we had around a ½ bucket of water 3 miles from the plant (and north), 2 miles from the plant, and 1 mile from the plant. My initial hypothesis was that the closet water would have the highest pH. Remember, by nature; all rain is a little acidic. The greater acidity or lower pH is dangerous and called acid rain.

The water closet to the school was the most acidic. I have to say I was skeptical and asked the janitor (who was a great person, helped a lot!)if he would put a bucket in the schoolroom. He did, and the results were the same. By the way, the results were interesting; corn, exposed to the greater acid rain, didn’t grow as fast as the corn exposed to normal rainwater. We created acidic water to test our results, adding acid (sulphuric) to water to create the same pH levels we had seen in the actual rainwater. The kids had a blast, and we all learned something about acid rain.

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Say it ain’t so

Ethics are not returning a 20 dollar bill everyone saw you find and pick up. That is simply being a good person.

Ethics is what you do when you find that 20 dollar bill and no one is around.

Yesterday, we found out why former president Donald J Trump was fighting to keep his papers from the January 6^th committee. I cannot tell you how sad I am. I can; I am as sad now as I was in 1974. My illusions of the value and honesty of elected officials took a big hit in the summer of 1974. It has come back a bit from that, but now, based on the released papers, it has taken a huge hit again. Based on Hawaii in 1960, I understand why every state with open litigation submitted two separate electoral ballots. That is the predicament set in 1960 when initially, before the recount, it appears that Richard Nixon won Hawaii, it was later found that JFK won, and the second ballot was accepted as the official ballot.

We live in sad times. But we have lived in sad before. We rise above the sadness and make the world a better place. In that quest, we rise to the level f our humanity in that journey. I would love to see a dollar amount of restitution added to every single person that stormed the capital on Jan 6, 2021. One person shouldn’t have to pay for all the damage. But a lot of the people did clear manage. You can see them breaking glass and other things. They should get a bill for the manager. Knowing that the reality of the impact could be their wallets might slow some people down in the future.

I was taught many years ago when you point the finger at someone else; you are also pointing at yourself. I would hope that saner heads prevail.

Tomorrow is a new day. With any luck, we will slowly move back to the reality of FDR’s “normalcy.” Until then, it is probably best that we carefully consider the following question. Anyone that fights hard not to have anything they wrote shared or viewed is likely hiding something. If there is nothing to see, you don’t fight. You cannot flaunt precedent at every turn and then hide behind the tradition of precedents.

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