Zark's

Fainting at the Sight of Blood

I have needle phobia.  I can get whoozy just thinking about being poked by a needle.  And blood - I cannot look at it without likewise getting lightheaded.  I've been that way since I was 'knee-high to a grasshopper'.  I might have been a medical doctor if ...  No check that, I am an engineer because I love the rush of creating. 

There is an indescribable emotional rush from creating a new product.  It might have a few bugs, but you stand back in amazement when it works.  If you remember in Back to the Future, Doc Brown first meets Marty wearing a metal colander on his head.  When he incorrectly guesses what Marty has come to see him about, he exclaims, "You know what this means - this *#*@ thing doesn't work at all!"   

After completing my first novel - see the page marked "Roman DNA", I also experienced the same rush when I breezed back through the book.  'I created a character like that?' and 'wow, that really fits together neatly,' are similar experiences to product design.  However, I digress...

According to Why Does Blood Make Some People Squeamish But Not Others? , fainting at the sight of blood is because of an overactive vasovagal response.  The article goes on to say that it becomes less intense after continued exposure to blood.  So buck up, bucko!  Maybe if I had worked at a butcher shop as a teenager, I could have been something else.  But no, my calling was to create, just as an actor's calling is to perform on the stage.

Energy Needed Sooner Than Later

I know - I need to write about peak oil.  In the meantime, if you are interested, an interesting site is The Oil Drum .  What caught my attention earlier this week is  MIT Fights for Clean Power With Holy Grail of Fusion in Reach .  The nuclear power plants deployed around the world today are based upon nuclear fission .  This means that a larger atom such as Uranium-235 is split into a smaller atom, producing radioactive particles and heat which is used to power electrical generators.  As the public is very aware, there are substantial downsides to fission: a) waste products and b) dangerous and toxic fuel.  As if that is not enough, you should include c) possibility of uncontrolled reaction released to the outside world.

Nuclear fusion is the opposite of nuclear fission, because the process is to combine smaller atoms into a larger atom, producing energy and smaller amounts of radioactive products.  Fusion is almost nirvana, because it is much safer - the three items listed for fission are not applicable to fusion.  The problem is, nuclear fusion is almost as difficult to achieve as anti-matter.  (That would be the real nirvana.)  In order to make atoms fuse together, it takes tremendous heat and pressure.  The atoms do not want to fuse together and repel each other.  The only way to achieve the necessary condition for fusion is tremendous magnetic fields.  And despite the strongest magnetic fields produced on the planet, the fusion process can only last for a handful of seconds today. 

After reading the latest research from MIT, it sounds too complex.  After years of product design, I have developed intuition about the feasibility of a product.  If the idea behind the product is complex, it will probably never make it as a commercial success.  That doesn't mean that the product has to be as simple as a screwdriver, but the current nuclear fusion research doesn't pass the simplicity test.  Even the advocates in the MIT report indicate commercial fusion is decades away. 

Unfortunately, we don't have decade(s) before we have a serious energy crunch.  We need better and simpler solutions deployed within a decade.  For the short term, we are probably going to need more nuclear fission power generation plants.  Accompanying the availability is the high risk that we will have a more serious Chernobyl.  We are a civilization in need of a solution.

Cell Phones and Radiation

Not as frequently as four or five years ago, but there are reports such as Fertility study builds buzz around cellphones .  I'm not arguing that cell phones have no effect upon the human body, but it is important to understand electromagnetics. 

A cell phone antenna does not stream particles like an x-ray machine.  Imagine that you had a beach ball charged with static electricity such that it would attract bits of paper.  Now suppose you  repetitively carry that beach ball up and down a ladder .  If a second person had a static electricity meter they could detect where that beach ball was at every moment in time.

In your cell phone, the transmitter moves electrons up and down the antenna just like our beach ball example.  It takes work or energy to move those electrons up and down the antenna, thus draining the battery much more quickly when you are talking.  When these electrons move, they create an electromagnetic wave.  It is important to realize this electromagnetic wave does not consist of particles, but is a field being broadcast by the antenna. 

The electromagnetic field can be absorbed and attenuated by materials such as the walls of a house or the metal of an automobile. The absorption of the electromagnetic waves  is dependent upon the material and the frequency of the radio signal.  A microwave oven operates because water molecules are highly resonant at a frequency of 2.45 GHz, which is the frequency of the magnetron or transmitter in your microwave.

Yes, it would be very bad to have a cell phone operating at 2.45 GHz next to your head, but they operate at typically 900 MHz and 1.9 GHz, not where the body would absorb all the transmitted energy.  So the story is - yes cell phones can have an effect upon human tissue but because of electromagnetic absorption, not because they are blasting away at our bodies with x-rays and other particles.

In case you are interested, a receive antenna operates with reciprocity.  The base station that receives your cell phone transmissions has electrons stimulated in the antenna.  The electrons create a small current that a receiver can amplify and detect.  It is kind of cool, don't you think?

Good Shot, Navy!

I’m impressed.  Pentagon: Smashed Satellite Debris Poses No Danger . I know there are those that will say, ‘that’s what missiles are supposed to do.’ In a sense, they are right, but that still doesn’t make it easy. To launch a pulverizer from a ship at sea and then strike the errant satellite at 130 miles overhead and closing at 22,000 miles per hour is more than good.

The Standard Missile 3 is a 3-stage, solid-fuel propelled missile launched by the Aegis weapon system on the ship and launched from the vertical launching system. The warhead, or kill vehicle also has solid-fuel thrusters/diverters. I’m most impressed that it worked without any rehearsal or dry-run. The Navy modified the software and designed the mission on a very short notice. 

As a product developer, I can tell you that any time software is modified and other product modifications made, it takes a few trials to eliminate the bugs. The Navy didn’t have that opportunity – it worked the first time. (And in front of the world.) I’m sure there were some white knuckles on those associated with the launch. There are plenty of reasons why it could have failed.  I like to see first-time successes.  Actually, I like to see success, period; even it takes a few attempts.

Light and Cancer

At first, the title seemed to be another one of the internet tales.  New research links nighttime illumination with breast cancer rates  I was skeptical, but I clicked to read it anyway.  An Israeli scientist has correlated breast cancer with regions of night brightness.  The actual mechanism responsible for the increased cancer rate is not known, but melatonin is suspected.  This hormone plays a role in the 24-hour cycle of humans.  More importantly it appears to be a protector for nuclear and mitochondria DNA. 

Although melatonin is produced in small amounts by bone marrow, it is largely produced by the  pineal gland.  If you've forgotten some of your anatomy, this is a small gland in the center of the brain.  Now the link is that the photoreceptor processing in the brain somehow inhibits the production of melatonin.  In other words, when your eyes are exposed to light, the pineal gland shuts down production of the hormone.  Also, blue-spectrum light has the largest effect upon melatonin production.

Other recent studies have linked the graveyard shift (those working the late night shift) with an increase in cancer, Night shift a 'probable' carcinogen .  Obviously this could be a huge revelation, and also a great cause of worry for those that must work at night.  I wonder if we increase our melatonin production by wearing nightshades in our sleep? 

I am continually amazed at how complex the human body is, and how wonderfully it matches our physical world.  Who would have known? 

The Price of Oil

Most have heard of peak oil - at some point in time petroleum production is going to start reducing simply because there isn't any more oil to ship to the refineries.  (That might be why it is called a non-renewable resource.) Worldwide production has been steady since about 2006, which probably indicates that we are on a plateau.  The "big question on everybody's chapped lips", (sorry - wrong movie) is when does oil production actually start falling off?  The next question is how fast will it decrease?  In the future, I will write considerably more about this topic. 

My question today though, is why is gasoline is so cheap?  Where I live, gasoline is selling about $3.05 a gallon.  Today's petroleum prices were about $100 a barrel.  Since there are 42 gallons per barrel, the raw cost of the gasoline is about $2.32 a gallon.  That is before transportation, refining, and transportation again.  Oh, and don't forget taxes. 

My experience in manufacturing is that raw materials are roughly 30% of the finished product cost.  That would yield an estimate of $7.14 a gallon for gasoline.  Regardless of whether you accept a 30% raw cost percentage, when you include the infrastructure cost and retail profit, and again, taxes, gasoline should be more expensive than what we are paying. 

I dunno ...

What Happens Next

A thought provoking  article in this weeks's Fortune  (the article is not online yet) compares the proposed purchase of Yahoo by Microsoft to  Time Warner purchasing AOL in 2001.  Remember that?  That was supposed to be nirvana, remember?

I don't think I can add anything to the current business debate about the Microsoft/Yahoo deal, but a photograph in the article reminded me of a quote by Steve Case , the one-time visionary of AOL.  Paraphrasing, he said, "I find that I can predict the future.  I just cannot predict when."  Steve was brilliant in steering AOL to provide exactly the services the early online users were wanting.  He ushered the transition from geeky  text entries to catchy eye-candy and gee-whiz web portals. 

Steve's quotation has been bugging me lately because until recently, I could have said exactly the same thing.  Today though, I don't have clue about what will happen next.  Which of the three major presidential candidates will be elected?  Or will it even be someone else? 

In the technology area, which I know much better than politics, I am equally clueless.  We are running out of frequency spectrum for wireless applications, we are even running out of petroleum for energy.  From first-hand observation of teenagers, I know they are not seeking out information on the web, but instead spending hours text-messaging.  The big box stores such as Circuit City and Best Buy are pushing HDTVs instead of computers.  There are lots of conflicting data points.

I think our culture is on the top of a bubble on where it turns next.  (We could race off anywhere in the 360 degrees of freedom.)  I think that is why it is so difficult to extrapolate from where we are today to where we will be in 5 years; hence my inability to piece together what will happen next.  I'm  not predicting doom and gloom, but just stating that the world seems to be at a crossroads.  The United States does not have full control of the steering wheel.  China and India probably have more influence on the world's future than the U.S.  The next 4 or 5 years are going to be interesting and certainly unpredictable!

Kindle Experience

Last week my Kindle arrived from Amazon after being on backorder for 3 weeks.  There have been lots of reviews trashing the product, so  apprehension was mounting on whether I had purchased a $399 turkey, sight unseen.  Some have described the Sony Reader Digital Book as a well-designed product, but the Amazon offering as more like a toy.

The Kindle impressed me immediately.  It is way - cool.  Not slick like the iPhone, but cool - innovative.  After producing millions of iPods, Apple's industrial designers have great experience in producing something sturdy, producible, and with with a good user interface.  Each new product release from Apple has been incrementally better.  I'm confident the Kindle will become better in subsequent product releases, but it is already a good product now.  It doesn't look like an Apple product, but that is not an altogether bad thing - for starters it has a replaceable battery.

The first innovation is the wireless distribution.  You simply turn the device on and you can download books, newspapers, etc., in less than a minute.  I confess the first Kindle book I downloaded was Roman DNA , my first novel.  I have a couple of technical texts in print, but it was fun writing a credible techno-adventure and developing some very interesting characters in the story.  In terms of size, complexity, and style, I compare it to Clancy or Crichton, but your mileage may differ ;-).  I have also priced it at $1.00, which makes it a very inexpensive download.  (By the way, as the author, I receive roughly 35% of the price as a royalty from Amazon.)

While scanning through Roman DNA, I learned how to use the Kindle.  You advance the pages by depressing large buttons on the sides of the display  The display is the second big innovation.  The electronic ink display is very different than an LCD display - it does not tire the eyes because it does not require backlighting.  The Kindle also has a built-in MP3 player.  I downloaded some files into the Kindle via a USB cable and was soon listening to music through the Kindle's built-in speaker as I breezed through my novel.  (It also has a headphone jack.)

Since I already knew the ending to my novel, I decided to download another novel.  My choice was Byzantium, by Stephen Lawhead.  It is a historical novel that I have read and reread many times.  I selected something I knew well, because I wanted to compare the Kindle experience with my previous book experience.  Guys - I'm hooked.  This is way better.  I can hold the thin Kindle in one hand, unlike the thick adventure novels I typically read.  I'm listening to some of my favorite tunes as I read.  Oh - and if I come across a word that I want to look up on the web, I can instantly access Wikipedia, or anything else on the web.  AND there is no additional charge for this experience - wireless access comes free with the Kindle.  It was an easy determination that reading with Kindle is far better than traditional ink and paper.

I'm hopeful that Kindle will reintroduce reading to the American public.  The cost is not insignificant and there are many households that cannot afford it.  Perhaps the price can drop as technology and distribution improves.  On the other hand, how many iPhones were purchased at $599?  For me, the Kindle is way-better than the iPhone.  As a product developer, I give Amazon an 'A' for the Kindle.  It will get better with subsequent releases, but you can enjoy it now. 

 

Mr. Roboto

Through circumstances too difficult to describe, I listened to Styx's Mr. Roboto yesterday.  Several times in fact, because I find the the track addicting, like Hotel California .  When the song was released in 1983, Japan was a rising global competitor.  The nation had announced a fifth generation computer project that frightened other countries like the U.S. into initiating similar projects.  The fear was that Japan would be the first to develop artificial intelligence. 

In 1983, electronics and robotics were far less advanced than today.  Yet, as Mr. Roboto sings, machinery was feared to be the future of humanity.  Teenagers today cannot understand the angst that Mr. Roboto voiced.  I think that fear has vanished; we no longer fear becoming a machine.  Our future today is one of genetic tinkering, whether chemically/biologically altered athletes or choosing our own designer genes.

Once we thought that machinery would provide us a flawed and inhuman immortality.  Today we anticipate immortality through our clones without losing our humanity.  But only our DNA has this potential to achieve immortality.  Our first consciousness, experiences, wisdom, etc., will vanish upon our individual deaths.  Yet our wiring diagram, the DNA, will be left to the world for endless replication.

I wonder what the response of our culture will be when it realizes this is not fulfilling and that's all there is.  Domo arigato Mr. Roboto.  

The Super Bug

There is a super bug out there known as  MRSA , short for methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus. Another and perhaps better description of the acronym would be multiply resistant, because the bacterium is also resistant to penicillin and cephalosporins. Infection by the bacterium occurs very simply – through some opening in the skin such as a sore or cut. Something interesting is that people may be carriers of the disease but not exhibiting symptoms.  Health Alert: Super Bug states that 30% to 40% of health care workers are carriers. The best defense is proper hand washing at all times. 

How did we get here? Is it because we have over-medicated for decades? Yes,  Superdrugs for superbugs explains there was little economic incentive for the big pharmacy companies to develop new antibiotics. It was perceived at big pharma, that you could not make money on antibiotics. Fortunately new antibiotics are being developed by biotechs. That is a good thing, because the super bug keeps spreading.