John S Denker is both a scientist and pilot. Now, I have no doubt that there are many scientists who are pilots, and that many of them combine these interests in a variety of ways. So in what way is he “remarkable”?
Experts as communicators
Sometimes experts dedicate considerable effort to communicate their understanding for the benefit of people who are much less knowledgeable. It is probably important that this happens, because it is the main means by which substantial topics are understood in any depth by other people. Without the experts’ thorough knowledge of a specific subject area, very little understanding is likely to be transferred. Continue reading “Remarkable people: John S Denker”→
In the various posts that I have contributed here on the “Learning from Dogs” blog, my approach to the general topic of integrity has been broadly related to people, their behaviour and their contribution. However, it is noticeable that I have barely mentioned any professional interests; so, this post relates to an area which I have usually discussed elsewhere: it is reproduced from my personal blog.
Go, Nokia, go!
You have nothing to fear and everything to gain!
The mobile internet is becoming mainstream, so the smartphone market is booming. Nokia occupy the strongest position in the smartphone market, has loyal customers and a reputation for phones that, relative to other mainstream phones, are user friendly.
Tim Clodfelter of the local Winston-Salem Journal wrote a very interesting piece on the future of brick-and-mortar
Tim Clodfelter
video stores and video rental places such as NetFlix and Red Hat.
I happened to be quoted in the article as an economist (the comment about “reducing the average cost every time we watch a purchased video” was supposed to be a joke!), but actually met up with Tim in my role as mom and pseudo-agent! Let me explain.
My 15-year-old daughter was standing in a very long line of young ladies waiting to audition for the Coen Brother’s remake of True Grit. Tim was there to get the story on the open casting. I asked him over hoping he would talk to my daughter. He and I got to talking instead; he found out that I was an economics teacher, and pulled out his notes on the Video Store story. He ended up talking to me and several other parents in line, all of whom had a different approach to viewing movies. The resulting article follows with permission to publish on Learning from Dogs.
Not really understanding but knowing it’s important!
I recently read a glowing review of the latest book by Sir Roger Penrose, the eminent mathematical physicist, called The Road To Reality. Having previously read his book The Emperors’ New Mind and just understanding it, I thought
Roger Penrose
his next one would be a welcome companion for long winter evenings. Wrong!
I managed to the bottom of the third page of the preface before “According to the mathematician’s “equivalence class” notion …..” had me grasping for meaning. Well over a 1,000 pages of content was destined to gather dust on the bookshelf.
But wrong again!
The idea of matter out there in the universe that is essential to the universe as we know it but is unseen has been sufficiently fascinating for the popular media to refer to it from time to time. Most people are familiar with the term even if like me don’t really have a clue as to what dark matter is all about.
So a recent press release in a popular English newspaper suggesting that dark matter has been ‘discovered’, if discover is the appropriate term, had me reaching out for Penrose’s book again. There under the chapter headed Speculative theories of the early universe was, on page 773, a few sentences that almost made sense. Let me quote them:
For many years, it had become clear that the dynamics of stars within galaxies does not make sense, according to standard theory unless there is a good deal of more material in the neighbourhood of the galaxy than is directly seen in stars. A similar comment applies to the dynamics of individual galaxies within clusters. Overall, there seems to be about 10 times more matter than is perceived in ordinary baryonic form. This is the mysterious dark matter whose actual nature is still not agreed upon by astronomers, and which may even be of some material different from any that is definitely known to particle physicists – though there is much speculation about this at the present time.
What does the much delayed maiden flight of the Boeing 787 tell us about integrity?
But how difficult can it be for Boeing to make yet another new aircraft? The answer depends on how different the 787 aircraft is from anything the company has built in the past. Some initial indication that is significantly different can be taken from its being named Dreamliner.
There’s a new power on the streets and it may make politicians feel very uncomfortable!
The Rt Hon Gordon Brown
Like me, you probably haven’t heard of Greg Craven. I hadn’t until about 24 hours before starting to write this Post (that would be Friday afternoon, Mountain Time, on the 11th December).
I was doing some research for an earlier Post about Copenhagen and came across a YouTube video created by Greg. More details and links later after making a more fundamental point.
This video of Greg’s has had 2,704,000 viewings! The information on that YouTube ‘page’ has had over 7,500,000 viewings. Greg has now written a book and so on, and so on.
In other words, the personal message that Greg is conveying has reached an unbelievable number of people. That would have been impossible without the power and reach of modern social media software systems: YouTube, Facebook, Linked-In, Twitter, MySpace, Digg, at al.
In the past, information has flowed outwards in a much more ‘top down’ way. Hierarchical, as it is called. That has suited those that wish, in some way, to control the message. While individuals would always chatter and gossip with their peers, there was a finite limit to that before “Send reinforcements, we are going to advance” morphed into “Send three and fourpence, we are going to a dance”!
The example of Greg Craven shows only too well how information can now flow. Out of anyone’s control, spreading virally.
Having made my point, I want to return to the subject matter that Greg is championing – but will include that in a separate Post.
Politicians! Be very careful what you say. We are all listening now, in one way or another, and ready to pounce if we don’t trust your words!
The almost surreal area where aircraft are ‘laid to rest’.
The Mojave Desert is one of the places in the world where aircraft, both military and civil, are placed when they are at the end of their life, whatever that means.
Anyway, came across some nice material and wanted to share it.
In an earlier copy of Mental Floss Magazine (seriously) there’s a very good article about this area. Fabulous pictures, by the way. (Both pics in this Post are from that article.)
Next this is a YouTube video using Google Earth in flyover mode:
To lead the project which took an old clay pit in a remote corner of the UK and converted it into a world class environmental visitor attraction is a tremendous achievement.
Homo sapiens? A game show!
Tim Smit had some fun with the business community at the 2009 Annual Convention of the UK Institute of Directors. Everyone, including he, was in their best business attire, but very few people could get away with crumpled shirt and jeans!
However, he has a serious message about the environment (1:55) and he knows a thing or two about people as well!
It would be fair to say that my knowledge about what I am writing in this Post is minimal to the point of total ignorance. So why open my mouth and prove it! Because the conquest of fundamental questions about our world is not only an example of mankind at its greatest but also something of broad appeal.
That is proved by the continuing popularity of the BBC Television Series – Horizon. In that series there have recently been two fascinating programmes: Who’s afraid of a big Black Hole? and How long is a piece of string? (Readers outside the UK will not be able to view these programmes.)
Here are the programme summaries:
Black holes are one of the most destructive forces in the universe, capable of tearing a planet apart and swallowing an entire star. Yet scientists now believe they could hold the key to answering the ultimate question – what was there before the Big Bang?
The trouble is that researching them is next to impossible. Black holes are by definition invisible and there’s no scientific theory able to explain them. Despite these obvious obstacles, Horizon meets the astronomers attempting to image a black hole for the very first time and the theoretical physicists getting ever closer to unlocking their mysteries. It’s a story that takes us into the heart of a black hole and to the very edge of what we think we know about the universe.
and
Alan Davies attempts to answer the proverbial question: how long is a piece of string? But what appears to be a simple task soon turns into a mind-bending voyage of discovery where nothing is as it seems.
An encounter with leading mathematician Marcus du Sautoy reveals that Alan’s short length of string may in fact be infinitely long. When Alan attempts to measure his string at the atomic scale, events take an even stranger turn. Not only do objects appear in many places at once, but reality itself seems to be an illusion.
Ultimately, Alan finds that measuring his piece of string could – in theory at least – create a black hole, bringing about the end of the world.
NASA reveals that there is a significant amount of water on the Moon.
In a rather awful pun, NASA published update on the LCROSS Mission starts with the words, “The argument that the moon is a dry, desolate place no longer holds water.”
The visible camera image showing the ejecta plume at about 20 seconds after impact.
Anyway, the significance of the update is enormous. As the NASA release goes on to say,
Scientists have long speculated about the source of vast quantities of hydrogen that have been observed at the lunar poles. The LCROSS findings are shedding new light on the question of water, which could be more widespread and in greater quantity than previously suspected.
Permanently shadowed regions could hold a key to the history and evolution of the solar system, much as an ice core sample taken on Earth reveals ancient data. In addition, water, and other compounds represent potential resources that could sustain future lunar exploration.
The BBC also reports the NASA data but, I am bound to say, in a rather more reader-friendly format.
Learning from Dogs 