Tulsa: Santayana, Shirley Bassey, VLNUS

• Two Men Arrested Over Racial Shootings in Tulsa

Tulsa has some experience in these matters. The Tulsa Race Riot was a large-scale racially motivated conflict, May 31 - June 1, 1921, between the white and black communities of Tulsa, Oklahoma, in which the wealthiest African-American community in the United States, the Greenwood District also known as 'The Negro Wall St' was burned to the ground.



Aerial fire bombing of black residential neighborhoods was reported. During the 16 hours of the assault, over 800 people were admitted to local hospitals with injuries, more than 6,000 Greenwood residents were arrested and detained at three local facilities. An estimated 10,000 were left homeless, and 35 city blocks composed of 1,256 residences were destroyed by fire. The official count of the dead by the Oklahoma Department of Vital Statistics was 36, but other estimates of black fatalities have been up to about 300.

---

Perhaps someday we'll have a complete American history of domestic aerial bombardment. It certainly would include these events:

• 1921: Incendiary bombs were dropped on black neighborhood during Tulsa race riots
• 1921: gas and explosive bombs dropped on WV union miners, Battle of Blair Mountain
• 1985: Philadelphia police drop an incendiary bomb on MOVE headquarters

And lest we believe we're achieved the mythic "post-racial" status, there's the recent John Derbyshire article explaining "the talk" he recommends that white non-black parents should have with their kids. There's really very little new under the sun (VLNUS).

Google Map Kills Four Area Residents

In the spirit of Milan Kundera, this post is dedicated to our memory of Chicago's fictional young Antanas Rudkus, who drowned when he fell off a sidewalk into a deep puddle. That could never happen here, not today. Perhaps there is very little new under the sun.

---

Pittsburgh has been at a loss to explain Friday's deaths of four area residents, who drowned in rain while driving on routine city thoroughfares.

A host of city bureaus - Public Safety, Public Works, Emergency Readiness, PWSA, Alcosan - all express their regret at the loss of life and wonder what those people were doing, driving on the streets in the rain. Today's press conference shed light on an unexpected possible cause.

At a hastily called press conference, Mayor Ravenstahl reports that computer printouts found in both victim's vehicles indicate that Google Maps directed them to drive through the flooded route.



Mayor Ravenstahl is calling on Pittsburgh's tech community to assist residents in identifying unsafe Google directions that may put the resident in harm's way, with possibly fatal results. "We shouldn't lose any more people to Google's dangerous directions", he said. "Furthermore, over a year ago we asked Google to bring their big pipes to Pittsburgh, and there's no action yet. I'm not saying that their big pipes would have definitely prevented this tragic flooding; I'm just saying."




Mayoral spokesperson Joanna Doven said her smartphone research at a SouthSide WiFi hotspot shows that Google Maps is also offering directions in close proximity to Tepco's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, which became radioactive months ago.

"This may be the tip of the tsunami", said Mayor Ravenstahl. "I think it's important for people to be cautious about where the Google might be taking them, and consider using the tried-and-true Colored Belts - they're for everybody, really - to safely drive around Pittsburgh. My family has used them for years, and nobody's ever drowned in the rain on the Red Belt, I think."

No Google spokesperson was available for comment.

Mr. Honey, the Reindeer, and the Ethics of Fatigue

What advice might you give to help a person know how to proceed? Here's an attempt:

Therefore, go forth, companion: when you find
No highway more, no track, all being blind,
The way to go shall glimmer in the mind.

"The Wanderer" by John Masefield

---

This post tells its story in media res — the first scene is in the vivid recent moment, then the storytelling goes back in time to the beginning, and time proceeds through the opening moment and continues to the denouement. But if you'd rather watch a movie, I recommend that you watch No Highway In the Sky.

Recent and Vivid: Southwest Flight 812

From the Associated Press:

On April 1 2011, a Southwest Boeing 737 with 118 people on board rapidly lost cabin pressure after the plane's fuselage ruptured, causing a 5-foot tear. Passengers reached for oxygen masks as the pilots quickly descended before making an emergency landing at an Arizona military base.

While the incident is still being investigated, the jet had been pressurized and depressurized 39,000 times in its 15 years and metal fatigue is suspected. Cracks were subsequently found on five other Southwest jets with more than 30,000 cycles.

That came as a shock to the industry. Boeing engineers had forecast that the planes wouldn't need to be inspected for metal fatigue until at least 60,000 cycles.

From the Seattle Times, which follows Boeing closely:

...the in-flight rupture of a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 on Friday has raised concerns about part of the fuselage they previously thought wasn't vulnerable.

"It's a much thicker skin there," said John Hart-Smith, a world-renowned expert on metal-aircraft structures and a retired high-level Boeing engineer. "Typically, that area has never been susceptible to cracking at the lap splices." The limited scope "is a blessing," Hart-Smith said. "But it's a warning."

Hans Weber said that maintenance procedures to check for fatigue were established after the Aloha Airlines event. "The whole community worked really hard after Aloha to get full control over this aging-aircraft problem," Weber said. "And until about last year, we basically had no more problems. This is not good. This is really a surprise."

I think Southwest's response has been admirable and consistent with their culture:

After last week's rupture, Southwest grounded 80 737s for immediate inspection, forcing the cancellation of hundreds of flights. Its inspectors found five more planes with signs of lap joint cracks; those remain grounded while the others returned to work.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Southwest Airlines' move to ground dozens of planes last Saturday, just hours after learning of possible structural problems, was an unusual move in the industry. Typically, airlines wait for regulatory direction and manufacturer recommendations before removing planes from service.

Faced with the question of whether to let dozens of 737 jets fly with potential structural problems unlike any faced by the industry in decades, Southwest grounded the planes, canceling more than 620 flights and delaying 2,700 others.

"I give Southwest's leadership credit for not waiting until someone was pounding on them," said Robert Francis, a former member of the NTSB.

You can see Southwest's dilemma. If we ground the 737 fleet then Southwest disappears, and yet they've been very consistent in prioritizing safety over economics.

The question is what we'll learn and then where "somebody" sets the balance point. Would somebody risk 130 passengers to keep Southwest flying, to maintain a major transportation system, and to avoid the economic effects of a travel ban on 737s? Is the loss of 150 people an acceptable cost to maintain a transportation network?

We seem to have no problem with the loss of 32,738 Americans a year in our automobile transportation system. There's no telling where people set the tipping point. The good news is: you're safer in a 737 than in your Volvo.

---

1948 - No Highway In the Sky

Southwest Flight 812 was the intro, the hook, the vivid recent story that we're all aware of. But there's really very little new under the sun (VLNUS); we've seen this several times before. Let's go way back, back to 1948 and a new book by Neville Shute.

Nevil Shute is a favorite author of mine. The first book of his that I read was On The Beach; it is tremendous. His full name is Neville Shute Norway; he writes under a pen-name to keep his engineering work separate from his writing. In a way, he was the Micheal Crichton of his decade.

One of Shute's early books was "No Highway", which was later made into a movie, "No Highway in the Sky".

It tells the (fictional) story of Mr. Theodore Honey, an aeronautical engineer who becomes convinced that the Reindeer, a new airliner his company makes, is likely to suffer from metal fatigue and have a catastrophic failure after a certain number of flights.

The establishment refuses to believe Mr. Honey, shuns him, and eventually attempts to have him declared mentally unfit. Events unfold and, in fact, the Reindeer's empennage falls off while taxiing.

Mr. Honey's reputation is restored, although that seems to mean little to him; he was just doing what he thought was right the whole time. Meanwhile, his demonstration of virtue under pressure makes him attractive to women.

Although the movie is set in 1952's new, glamorous world of aviation the story is ancient: how does a person proceed? How do they behave within their beliefs? How do we handle uncertainty? These are issues that predate Kitty Hawk, and these are questions that make flying seem rather simple.

Life Imitates Art: The de Havilland Comet Disasters of 1954

When pressurized aircraft were developed, and again when jet engines were introduced, the physics of aircraft moved into unprecedented altitudes and speeds. The implications of repeated cycles of pressurizing and depressurizing the cabin were not completely understood.

The deHavilland Comet was the world's first commercial jet airliner. It first flew in 1949 and was a landmark in aeronautical design. A few years after introduction into commercial service, in 1954 the Comet suffered from catastrophic metal fatigue, which in combination with the pressurisation, caused two well-publicized accidents where the aircraft tore apart in mid-flight.

The Comet was withdrawn from service. There were two courts of inquiry, and eventually the effects of compression cycles and the square window designs were understood. The early Comets were not returned to service. A new version, the Comet4, entered passenger service is 1958. (The cockpit photo at the top of this post is a deHavilland Comet4.)

In the meantime, the DC8 and B707 were introduced (both benefiting from the Comet's experience) and the Comet series never regained her initial status as a leading airliner. Some Comet airframes were flown until March 2011 in military service as the Nimrod ASW aircraft.

It appears that de Havilland and the airlines behaved responsibly; the risk was not understood, the aircraft were withdrawn from service after the second 1954 crash, and there was a public inquiry.

Life Repeatedly Imitates Art

A favorite shibboleth is, "The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting", and the questions described by Shute, seen in the Comet inquiries, and repeated in subsequent events demonstrate the need of memory and the value of remembering.

Boeing 737 Rudders

In the 1990's a problem developed with the 737 rudders. There was a crash in 1991 and then a crash in 1992, and there was an event in early 1994 but there was no Theodore Honey involved and the situation never moved from denial to acceptance until something really bad happened.

Back to the Reindeer: Skin Cancer in the 737

In April 1988, a Boeing 737 flying as Aloha Flight 243 suffered extensive damage after an explosive decompression in flight. The crew was able to land safely on Maui. The only fatality was flight attendant C.B. Lansing who was blown out of the airplane.

The age of the aircraft became a key issue (it was 19 years old at the time of the accident and had sustained a remarkable number of takeoff–landing cycles — 89,090, the second most cycles for a plane in the world at the time — well beyond the 75,000 trips it was designed to sustain).

According to the NTSB report, passenger Gayle Yamamoto noticed a crack in the fuselage upon boarding the aircraft prior to the ill-fated flight but did not notify anyone.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) blamed a combination of corrosion and widespread fatigue damage, the result of repeated pressurization cycles during the plane's 89,000-plus flights.

More Skin Cancer in the Boeing 737

• July 2009: Southwest Flight 2294, a Boeing 737, experienced a football-sized hole in the fuselage and made an emergency landing.
  
• October 2010: American Flight 1640, a Boeing 757, had a 1-foot by 2-foot hole develop.
  
• Which brings us back to this post's opening scene:
  April 2010: Southwest Flight 812 had a five-foot hole open up.

This has nothing to do with airplanes

It does seem like there's a problem with the 737 sheet metal, but let me say (again) that you're safer in a 737 than you are in your Volvo.

Nevil Shute's book has nothing to do with airplanes, just like science fiction really doesn't have to do with technology; the frameworks provide a way to examine human behavior in contrived settings. It's about the philosophy of how to proceed within your beliefs.

Fatigue, Perseverance, and Virtue

Nevil Shute's story has a lot to do with modern times. With the country in three wars, the economy tanking, the failure of the political system, the attack on unions, the tax reductions for the rich, the service reductions for the weakest -- fatigue can set in and have pernicious cumulative effects just like the Reindeer experienced.

At what point do we say, "That's enough. Stop." One event? Two events?
Do we stay "stop" after Wisconsin, or Michigan, or Ohio?
In a time of multiple crises, how does one proceed in a crazy world?

Hopefully, by persevering and demonstrating virtue as in Theodore Honey's example.

Military Industrial Complex : 50th Birthday

Today is a day of remembrances, among them President Eisenhower's farewell speech given in the last days of his administration, 50 years ago today, Jan. 17, 1961. The full text of the speech is online. Here's a section of the speech I'd like to consider:

But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. Of these, I mention two only.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States corporations.

Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual --is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades. In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present -- and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

Eisenhower chose to identify two threats: the military-industrial complex, and the power of federal contracts in driving research and the economy. These two threats have become one - federal contracts and a national economy driven by the military-industrial complex.

---

While the phrase "military-industrial complex" has endured, it's not the only formulation of a name for this particular creature.

The phrase began as "war-based" industrial-congressional complex before the word military was inserted in later drafts.^* Later the president chose to remove the word congressional in order to placate members of the legislative branch.

Linguist Noam Chomsky has suggested that "military-industrial complex" is a misnomer because (as he considers it) the phenomenon in question "is not specifically military."^* He claims, "There is no military-industrial complex: it's just the industrial system operating under one or another pretext (defense was a pretext for a long time)."

Norman Solomon has described the Military-Industrial-Media Complex. He has accused the military-industrial-media complex of using their media resources to promote militarism, and offers this example regarding NBC News:

"General Electric (which owns NBC) is a subcontractor for the Tomahawk cruise missile and Patriot II missile both of which were used extensively during the Persian Gulf War. General Electric also manufactures components for the B-2 stealth bomber and B-52 bomber and the E-3 AWACS aircraft which were also used extensively during the conflict. During Gulf War I, General Electric received $2 billion dollars in defense contractors related to weapons which would be used in Gulf War I and Gulf War II."

Chomsky moves further to say that the role of the media in the modern economy is to "manufacture consent" in favor of industry within the democracy. Chomsky identifies five factors that entice media to manufacture consent for industry; his fifth factor was The Cold War, and Chomsky says that role is now performed by the Global War On Terror.

---

We have seen multiple situations where government contracts subsidize industry R&D; overruns are paid for and blamed on the government, not the contractor; and contractors influence the legislators that set government priorities. It becomes a self-licking ice-cream cone. You would never hire a contractor for your house with this arrangement.



Two recent news stories describe the current state of the military-industrial complex: the first is the Washington Post series, "Top Secret America", exposing the way that industry in the guise of contractors and manufacturers has turned 9/11 into a profit center.

Another recent military-industrial complex news story is the decision by the Dept. of Homeland Security (which is, itself, a MIC construct) to shut down development of a high-tech virtual wall along the American-Mexican border, covered here by the NY Times, and here by the Wall Street Journal. The government has spent more than $1 Billion dollars to end up without what they paid for. The primary contractor, Boeing, is an excellent example of the military-industrial complex: they over-promised, under-delivered, they still get paid and make money, they aren't held accountable, and they're bidding for new work next month.

---

When I think of corruption I think of sweetheart deals on road projects and criminals with influence who walk away from charges, but that's penny-ante stuff compared to the military industrial complex.

What amazes me is that Eisenhower saw it coming, warned us about it, and it happened anyway.

Of course, there's very little new under the sun (VLNUS). Eisenhower said his piece in 1961; USMC Major General Smedley Butler (winner of two Medals of Honor) described the same thing in the 1930s with his speech and book, War Is A Racket.

Happy 50th Birthday, Military Industrial Complex.

related: Sure, They Can Cancel a Big Defense Project re the A12

The Limits of Software and the Advanced Automation System (AAS)

Finished reading "The Limits of Software: People, Projects, and Perspectives", by Robert Britcher. This was really an interesting book from a geek perspective and will probably end up as my second favorite book about software projects, along with Frederick Brooks' The Mythical Man-Month.

It was recommended in Don Brown's excellent blog Get The Flick, in separate posts here, here, here, here, and here.

The author describes major programming efforts he was involved in at IBM, starting with the Cold War's SAGE command-and-control system and the Apollo space program, moving into aviation with the 9020 Host and later the ARTS tracking system, and ending with the ill-fated Advanced Automation System (AAS), which was supposed to overhaul the national air traffic control system and ended up being both (1) the most expensive software project ever undertaken and (2) a debacle that all participants agreed to walk away from. One participant said, "It {AAS} may have been the greatest failure in the history of organized work."

Let me quote a brief description of the AAS snafu from the book:

One engineer I know described the AAS this way. You’re living in a modest house and you see the refrgerator going. The ice sometimes melts, and the door isn’t flush, and the repairman comes out, it seems, once a month. And now you notice it’s bulky and doesn’t save energy, and you’ve seen the new ones at Sears. So it’s time.

The first thing you do is look into some land a couple of states over and think about a new house. Then you get I.M. Pei and some of the other great architects and hold a design run-off. This takes awhile, so you have to put up with the fridge, which is now making a buzzing noise that keeps you awake at night. You look at several plans and even build a prototype or two.

Time goes on and you finally choose a design. There is a big bash before building starts. Then you build. And build. The celebrating continues; each brick thrills. Then you change your mind. You really wanted a Japanese house with redwood floors and a formal garden. So you start to re-engineer what you have. Move a few bricks and some sod. Finally, you have something that looks pretty good.

Then, one night, you go to bed and notice the buzzing in the refrigerator is gone. Something’s wrong. The silence keeps you awake. You’ve spent too much money! You don’t really want to move! And now you find out the kids don’t like the new house. In fact, your daughter says “I hate it”. So you cut your losses. Fifteen years and few billion dollars later, the old refridgerator is still running. Somehow.

I was predisposed to like this book for a few reasons: I think we fail to appreciate that there's very little new under the sun (VLNUS) and we fail to recognize that great strides were made in both programming and the art of software projects in the 1950's and 1960's. It didn't start with Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or Tim Berners-Lee; they were late to the scene, and they stood on the shoulders of giants.

In The Limits of Software, the author tells the story of the early integrated systems of computers. Where Brooks wrote about the technical aspects of managing software projects, Britcher writes more about the artistic and cultural aspects, and the nature of programming itself (for instance: it's not a science). He says the secret to managing software projects is to "Superimpose onto the business of symbol writing the management practices of classic production, but allow for the eccentricities of the symbol writers." There are volumes of wisdom in that sentence that probably apply beyond the realm of software projects.

Britcher returns again and again to the importance of thorough and disciplined testing, and bemoans the absence of testing in modern software due to the eagerness to ship the product and the lack of familiarity with rigorous processes. He says he can easily tell which projects will definitely succeed and which will fail; projects that spend 60% of their budget on testing will succeed.

The technical approach used in the Advanced Automation System played a large part in its demise. The emphasis on programming in Ada seems indefensible in retrospect, but at the time it had all the buzz as the next great language and Ada eventually found a place in many critical DOD systems. Unfortunately, the AAS was an early adopter (if not the first adopter) of Ada, and the project bore an expensive learning curve.

Poorly defined requirements, scope creep, and the lack of a testing regime stacked the deck against AAS. The final fatal flaw was the immense funding stream in the hands of outsourced contractors who were paid for their time and not for results. The Beltway Bandits are willing to gorge at the trough even in a doomed project; the money is too good to interrupt the dance. The government contracts from AAS moved from away from IBM and into LORAL, which was then purchased by Lockheed Martin.

The features and business described in the Advanced Automation System did not die. The display work morphed into Sector Suites and Lockheed-Martin's DSR (Display System Replacement) program in the Enroute world, and into Raytheon's STARS program in the Terminal world. The drive for a "paperless" system (no printers) became Mitre's URET. IBM's 9020/Host automation replacement effort was reborn as Lockheed-Martin's ERAM, which may still not be immune to the issues that affected AAS.

Finally, the book seems to present an informed prelude to the impending multi-billion-dollar investment in the NextGen system, and so I hope the future architects take the time to study Britcher's book.

I think this would be an interesting read for those interested in software development, large-scale project management, or aviation automation.

Designing An Integrated Tour De France

At WWVB, we are loathe to criticize without offering an alternative, and it may be that our Myers-Briggs Personality Index leaves us too inclined to (re)organize things, but I would like to offer an alternative design to today's Tour de France.

The criticism I've offered of the Tour De France comes down to two words: White Guys. And to perhaps make it a more nuanced and fair criticism: the Tour de France is the premier event in European cycling, drawing participants from a Euro cycling scene that develops white guys. In that perspective, the TdF is paradoxically both the pinnacle of, and a victim of, the white-guy system that feeds it.

The very high level of competition at the TdF presents high barriers to entry to outsiders, or non-white non-guys. There's over 100 years of competitive sharpening riding in today's Tour. There's no way that a rider or team in Hong Kong can break into that circuit - but imagine the benefit to world cycling (as an industry and a sport) if a team from Hong Kong could have the advantage of experience at this level, and imagine the benefit the ASO would reap if the TdF was being watched in Hong Kong, India, and Africa by people cheering for local riders.

We can increase the participation of both non-whites, and non-guys, in professional cycling without diminishing the cachet of the ASO's Tour de France. The TdF is a European marketing event with larger aspirations, and expanding it's global reach has to be profitable for ASO.

How do we do that? I believe there's very little new under the sun (VLNUS). How have other sports dealt with increasing their span? Put another way, what was once a "white-guy" sport that has successfully grown beyond that, and how did they do it.

Golf : The Other White-Guy Sport

Golf has made the transition. To the arguments, ladies can't play those long holes, they gave us front tee's and offset greens. Does anybody believe that Tiger Woods has been bad for golf?

Profile of an Integrated Stage

Just like golf uses extra tees and greens, the Tour De France can present another event along the same course, on the same day, separated by a time interval. The images below are two stage profiles from the 2009 Tour De France, with an added red line indicated a course segment that could be used by the Femme or World event.




Let's restate our criteria, present an alternative, and then check it against our criteria. We want to:

• increase participation from around the world
• increase women's participation
• enhance the TdF/ASO position

Redesigning the Tour De France ala Golf

We're going to have quasi-simultaneous three tours. Focus groups will develop the final names, but for now, let's talk about the Tour de France (yellow), the Tour de Femme (pink, sorry), and the Tour de World (UN-helmet blue).

Tour De World

The Tour de World is a men's cycling event. Regional teams compete. A rider must have lived in their region for five years at some time in their life to compete for that region. Regional teams may have corporate, government, or NGO sponsors.

Regional Teams will be eligible from: North Africa, Central Africa, Southern Africa, Central America, South America, China, Eastern Asia, Central Asia, Western Asia, Middle East, Oceana, Russia. Six riders to a team.

For team time trials, four riders ride for each team. For individual time trials, two riders ride from each team. The fastest keeps his own time. The rest of the team gets the time of the slowest of the two.

Tour De Femme

Every team chosen for the men's TdF can field a woman's team for the Tour De Femme if they choose to. Other teams may be invited, up to a maximum of 20 teams. Teams may have corporate, government, or NGO sponsors.

Six riders to a team. For team time trials, four riders ride for each team. For individual time trials, two riders ride from each team. The fastest keeps her own time. The rest of the team gets the time of the slowest of the two.

Tour De France

The Tour de France operates just as it does today, with two exceptions.

• If a Tour de Femme or a Tour de World stages starts at a downstream point along the Tour De France route, any Tour De France rider who has not passed the secondary start by the designated time has failed to make a time cut.
  
• Tour de France, Tour de Femme, and Tour de World riders may commingle along the course. The same rules for drafting and pacelines apply.
  

Stage Schedule for an Integrated Tour de France

Stage	Type	Date	Start	Tour de France	Tour de Femme	Tour de World
1	Indiv. TT	4 July	Monaco	15.5 km	15.5 km	15.5 km
2	Plain	5 July	Monaco	187 km	rest	120 km
3	Plain	6 July	Marseille	196.5 km	100 km	rest
4	Team TT	7 July	Montpellier	39 km	rest	39 km
5	Plain	8 July	Le Cap d’Agde	196.5 km	rest	100 km
6	Plain	9 July	Gérone	181.5 km	100 km	rest
7	High Mtns.	10 July	Barcelone	224 km	rest	100 km
8	High Mtns.	11 July	Andorre-la-Vieille	176.5 km	60 km	rest
9	High Mtns.	12 July	Saint-Gaudens	160.5 km	rest	rest
	Indiv. TT	13 July	Limoges	rest	rest	40 km
10	Plain	14 July	Limoges	194.5 km	120 km	rest
11	Plain	15 July	Vatan	192 km	60 km	120 km
12	Plain	16 July	Tonnerre	211.5 km	rest	50 km
13	Med. Mtns.	17 July	Vittel	200 km	60 km	rest
14	Plain	18 July	Colmar	199 km	rest	rest
15	High Mtns.	19 July	Pontarlier	207.5 km	rest	199 km
R	Team TT	20 July	Verbier	rest	30 km	rest
16	High Mtns.	21 July	Martigny	159 km	80km - finis	rest
17	High Mtns.	22 July	B-S-M	169.5 km	--	90km
18	Indiv. TT	23 July	Annecy	40.5 km	--	30km
19	Plain	24 July	Bourgoin-Jallieu	178 km	--	60km finis
20	High Mtns.	25 July	Montélimar	167 km	--	--
21	Plain	26 July	M-F-Y > Paris	164 km	--	--

If you examine the schedule, you'll see that there are no days without racing - television and newspapers will have at least one event each day. The Femme and World schedules are less demanding that for the Tour De France.

There is enough money within the ASO and the Tour De France today to accomplish this schedule. The development of alternative start and finish locations provides additional income - the Tour De France does not ask these towns, May we start in your village? The Tour De France says, who will pay us the most if we start in your village? This brings extra cash into ASO's hands, for roughly the same operating expense.

Sometimes, these riders wear white sleeves to keep you guessing.

Anyway, that's the proposal. If you review our three stated goals - increase global participation, increase women's participation, enhance the TdF/ASO position - I think it meets those criteria. Feedback and comments are welcome.

Jon and Kate Plus Eight, Divided By Two : The New Math

I've written before about how people view things from their own worldview.
Guys in gas stations give directions based on gas stations.
Cops give directions based on doughnut shops.
People who spend a lot of time in bars give directions based on bar locations.
I view the world through the Geek Perspective.

When I first heard my Wife say, Jon and Kate Plus Eight, I just sat waiting for the rest of the equation, as a Geek Paul Harvey might say. I waited for a while, and heard nothing; apparently, to my Wife, (Jon + Kate) + Eight is an equation sufficient unto itself.

My bad; I didn't recognize the formulation. The expression is certainly sufficient to have become an industry in itself. There's a lot of money in (Jon + Kate) + 8.

I've learned that it's really (JOHN - H) + KATE + 2 + 6 , which is to say:
John (take away the H, makes Jon) and Kate plus twins plus sextuplets.

When I lived in Virginia I had a friend, Larry Myers, who would see dirty trucks with "4 x 4" written on the sides, and he'd complete the equation by writing "= 16" in the dust with his finger. Get it? 4 x 4 = 16?

Equals Ten

I think of Larry often, and I definitely think of him when I hear (Jon + Kate) + Eight, because I want to shout "equals Ten!".


I guess these people (Mr. and Mrs. Gosselin) have a Television show about their life. They've got a website. Blogs. Books. Fan clubs. Product endorsements. Wikipedia entry. They live in Pennsylvania. Two parents, eight kids. I'd have called the show "Diapers For Six", and maybe that's why I'm not in that industry.

Jon and Kate : Welfare Queen 2.0

< RANT ON > Please let me diverge from my intended course to speak of these people for a moment. They quite intentionally raise kids that they can't provide for, and the larger economy and society pays the bills. They need a bigger home, they get a bigger home. Need helpers to keep the children changed? They get helpers. They don't raise the kids themselves; they've got too much going on - places to be, events to attend. If these weren't white/asian folks from Pennsylvania, would they be acceptable?

The Associated Press reported in 2005, "Kate Gosselin said she feels society has a responsibility to help with the children, since modern medicine promotes the use of fertility drugs, which can lead to multiple births." Who's paying for this? In the end, you and I are paying for it. She's a Welfare Queen 2.0. < / RANT OFF >

The Geek Perspective

So I've thought about writing a blog entry about (Jon + Kate) + 8, because in my geek perspective what makes it interesting is the equation, and how you'd express that equation on the internet.

Math Markup Language - MathML

Instead of using HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language), you write equations on the web using MathML, or MML (Math Markup Language). You've probably noticed a variety of web page file types - HTM, HTML, ASP (Active Server Pages), CFML (Cold Fusion Markup Language), XML (extensible markup language). Now you've got MML, Math Markup Language.

Math Markup Language allows us to present formulas in webpages such as:

and there's really no way to do it otherwise, except by cheating and making images that look like you want the output to be. One problem with that is that images aren't searchable.

So I wrote up a cool MathML page to demonstrate what's going on with the Mr. and Mrs. Gosselin drama, and I figured I'd use that as entree to a cool blog post about MML, and then I got stopped in my tracks because I couldn't get the MathML section to display inside of Blogger / Blogspot.

Here's a graphic, a screen capture, of what the newest equation in MML looks like in a browser window--


MathML needs to be within an XHTML document, and I can't figure out how to get Blogger/ Blogspot to publish XHTML. I thought I could hack it by using an IFRAME, and placing the XHTML file into the IFRAME, but it wouldn't work. Any help out there?

Success! 7:46 pm

Thanks to Bob M's comment (below) and his link to the MathML Blog, and a susequent link to Peter Jipson's Ascii-MathML via Javascript work, it looks like it's successful. (Good in Opera and Firefox. IE and Chrome need a plug-in {which is a philosophical issue for me}. No luck in Safari. )

Here's a MathML depiction of the new formula, presented in an IFRAME.
You'll see that it's pure, HTML-rendered text and not an image.

My sincere thanks to Bob Mathews, Dr. Dayal D. Purohit, and Dr. Peter Jipson for their informed advice and elegant solutions.

Jon and Kate Plus Eight, Divide By Two Equals Five

Divorce: that's the newest equation, released Friday to build peak buzz over the weekend, just in time for Monday's show. These folks sure now how to run a narrative arc, but it seems like they're rushing it. I'm not sure they're going to be able to sustain it until the kids go to college. Of course, once the kids learn how to Google their parents, all bets are off anyway.

If anybody's got further advice on using MathML within Blogger, I'd sure appreciate hearing from you.

---

In the Beginning, there was the Loud Family.

Anyway, back to Mr. and Mrs. Gosselin. Reverting to my ongoing theme that there's very little new under the sun (VLNUS), I'd like to mention the PBS television documentary, An American Family, in which the Loud family - Bill and Pat, and their children Lance, Kevin, Grant, Delila, and Michele - opened their homes and their lives to the television audience. They were on the cover of magazines. There was considerable controversy, and the family seems to have suffered from the show. Bill and Pat divorced. I remember thinking, "Why would people do this to themselves?" The series "An American Family" was America's first reality TV show. The genre hasn't evolved much. Neither has the species.