Ryan Westafer

An article relayed by the ASEE highlights something researchers have known for years – the boundaries between fields are coming down:

MIT Promotes Convergence as Model for 21st Century Research

At first I thought this might imply that people with interdisciplinary knowledge, like me :-), will be necessary to facilitate the teaming of super-specialists.  That is, people acting analogously to catalysts, matching networks, surfactants, etc.  However, I realize that it’s much bigger; it’s global, and it’s universal (essentially by diffusion).  The global availability of information in this era is allowing the diffusion of disparate knowledge to everyone.

Consider the papers published by researchers at CERN… I saw at least one with 50+ authors.

While I agree with recognizing all contributors, it is increasingly apparent to me that a prevalent and perhaps necessary way to “succeed,” “stand out,” or have an “advantage,” will be to withhold information – to create or maintain barriers — to be exclusive.  Trade secrets, what-have-you.  Why patent something?  You have to bother with litigation – the patent is written as broadly as possible, but its protection requires “pockets” as deep as possible ($$$).  Maybe that’s a new metric for IP success: (Claimed Scope)*Capital.  Measuring the scope could be challenging.

As fields intersect, this is why I love open software and designs.  There’s inherent scalability and mutual respect in sharing.  I wonder, though, what the world will be like in 20+ years.  The culture of community innovation may stay, but what will be the scarce resource, the differentiating factor?

When I was at #pcampatl, a speaker from a certain private space flight company discussed very new products and the art of “selling space rides to 7 year-olds.”

It’s an intriguing idea, that you might spend money/effort to help kids believe they will one day get to ride into space. Perhaps the wealthy will buy space rides instead of Porches. This is the art of selling a product to future customers — 20 years from now!

Google's Marketing to Children

It appears Google may be at this by having many many children draw its logo, in hopes of being selected. One drawing is selected, maybe several are featured, but *every* drawing constitutes a labor of pride commissioned by a young child, spending maybe an hour or two drawing Google’s logo. It’s something to think about. Very clever, indeed.

Engineers work with the real world and physicists with the imaginary world; together we sustain the world.

The analogy to real and imaginary can be taken farther if you like; consider the solutions of a 2nd order ODE (general oscillator with damping).  Regardless, take a look at the descriptions below.  Are they appropriate?  What else could we add?

Engineering

• Local
• First-order
• Conditionally or locally stable
• Results at optimal cost
• …

Physics

• Universal
• Nth-order
• Unconditionally stable
• Results at any cost
• …

There are some partial or complete overlaps of the two fields, and I think that’s both important and exciting.

Sustainability

When two or more seemingly complementary fields work together, we obtain sustainable solutions.

Consider the money spent on science.  How and when does it benefit mankind?  Consider the total expenditures for the Large Hadron Collider and associated experiments and staff.  If this money was spent on programs in Africa or southeast Asia, would it help the world more?  These questions are hard to assess or answer, but I think the issues are important to our future.

It turns out that Mike Rowe is an eagle scout – suitably known for glamorizing hard work and “dirty jobs” – or maybe better-yet, for recalibrating the U.S. notion of what a “good job” is.  There was a good interview with him in the eagle scout magazine, the Eagletter (Fall 2009):

Key points

• Troop: 16 (Maryland)
• Eagle Project: worked for Maryland School for the Blind (multiple disability unit)
• Web Site: http://www.mikeroweWORKS.com
• Quote: “I hope to make a case for hard work and skilled labor by challenging the notion that a four-year degree is the only path to a worthwhile career.”

(above information was courtesy of the Eagletter, Fall 2009)

Join NESA

If you’re an Eagle Scout and aren’t in-the-loop with the National Eagle Scout Association (NESA), go to their site and update your information! http://www.nesa.org

Today my car was stolen. I waited on *automatic* hold for about 10 minutes before anyone even knew my problem. A 10 minute wait is fine for a car theft, but only AFTER the 911 center knows my call is not urgent.
Emergency room doctors use a “triage” priority system to line up patients according to urgency. It’s standard procedure, but it is totally worthless if 911 can’t get victims to the E.R. alive. All calls should be very quickly screened and routed/queued according to urgency.
The Atlanta 911 center recently changed management (11 Alive story), but this is no excuse for a lapse in operations. Get it together, Atlanta!

Recommendation

If one has an automated call center, as Atlanta 911 clearly does, then let the system ask the caller to press 1 if the call is “life & death” – or “rank the urgency, where 2 is most urgent and 9 is least”).  Many rational callers (i.e. me, today) will self-sort before even requiring a live person.  Being short-staffed is not an excuse, it is an opportunity to improve!

Another Recommendation

Provide an alternative number which is easily publicized and for less urgent calls, maybe 011 instead of 911.  I don’t know what other number to call to reach A.P.D. other than 911.  Providing an alternative lower-priority communication channel is another common-sense option, and it’s just not difficult implement.

<UPDATE>

My “clunker” was recovered about 2 hours after the police report and “lookout bulletin.”  I was really lucky – got the window replaced this afternoon, there was only minor damage.

So after the phone call from the police, I rode my bike over into Bankhead (ghetto) and drove my car back.  The APD really slam dunked this case – an undercover cop cruising around the Bankhead area spotted the car and roadblocked the guy.  Cops swarmed in and cornered the criminal and he ditched my car on a sidewalk.  There were many unemployed people in the street in front of their boarded up houses watching everything unfold in the middle of the day.  It looked like a TV show.

It’s great that they caught the guy in the car with stolen property from all the other break-ins he did on our street (that makes it a felony auto theft rather than “theft by receiving.”  It also links him to the other felonies on the street.)  He had crack in his pocket, cruising around in my car with loser lottery tickets, blaring music from stolen CD’s, etc.  He really made himself at home in the car in a short time!  I have a new ashtray, Zippo lighter, etc.

This amounts to multiple felonies, the jail can’t keep him (not a crime against persons), and he’ll be back on the streets, unable to get a job even if he somehow cleaned up one day.  It’s a vicious cycle.  I applaud the police and really ponder what can be done about our system which forces police to collect these repeat offenders time after time, never seeming to put a dent in this sort of crime.