Now There's Epic Google for When You're Feeling Expansive

Last April I noticed and posted about someone getting here from something called Weenie Google - for when you're feeling inadequate.



This week someone got here from Weenie's big brother Epic Google.

Why do I bother with such posts?  That always lurking underlying theme here is 'how do you know what you know?"  So I'm particularly fond of things that make us see things we take for granted in a new light.  It reminds us that what is, doesn't have to be that way.  We have lots of alternatives.  We shouldn't be surprised when what is, isn't any more.


UPDATE:  Also check out posts on Weenie Google,  Mr. Doob's Google Gravity, and the Revolving Internet. ]

Why Were We Surprised? Tunisia, Egypt, Libya

Let's see:

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (Hungarian: 1956-os forradalom) was a spontaneous nationwide revolt against the government of the People's Republic of Hungary and its Soviet-imposed policies, lasting from 23 October until 10 November 1956. . .
The revolt spread quickly across Hungary, and the government fell. Thousands organized into militias, battling the State Security Police (ÁVH) and Soviet troops. Pro-Soviet communists and ÁVH members were often executed or imprisoned, as former prisoners were released and armed. Impromptu councils wrested municipal control from the ruling Hungarian Working People's Party and demanded political changes. The new government formally disbanded the ÁVH, declared its intention to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact and pledged to re-establish free elections. By the end of October, fighting had almost stopped and a sense of normality began to return.
After announcing a willingness to negotiate a withdrawal of Soviet forces, the Politburo changed its mind and moved to crush the revolution. On 4 November, a large Soviet force invaded Budapest and other regions of the country. Hungarian resistance continued until 10 November. Over 2,500 Hungarians and 700 Soviet troops were killed in the conflict, and 200,000 Hungarians fled as refugees.[Wikipedia]

The Prague Spring (Czech: Pražské jaro, Slovak: Pražská jar) was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Slovak Alexander Dubček came to power, and continued until 21 August when the Soviet Union and members of its Warsaw Pact allies invaded the country to halt the reforms. [Wikipedia]

The Iranian Revolution (also known as the Islamic Revolution or 1979 Revolution Persian: انقلاب اسلامی, Enghelābe Eslāmi or انقلاب بیست و دو بهمن) refers to events involving the overthrow of Iran's monarchy (Pahlavi dynasty) under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its replacement with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the revolution.
Demonstrations against the Shah are sometimes said to have begun in January 1978.   However, they actually commenced earlier, in October 1977, developing into a campaign of civil resistance that was partly secular and partly religious. Between August and December 1978 strikes and demonstrations paralyzed the country. The Shah left Iran for exile in mid-January 1979, and in the resulting power vacuum two weeks later Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Tehran to a greeting by several million Iranians. [Wikipedia]

Solidarity was the first non-communist party-controlled trade union in a Warsaw Pact country.  In the 1980s it constituted a broad anti-bureaucratic social movement. The government attempted to destroy the union during the period of martial law in the early 1980s and several years of political repression, but in the end it was forced to start negotiating with the union.
The Round Table Talks between the government and the Solidarity-led opposition led to semi-free elections in 1989. By the end of August a Solidarity-led coalition government was formed and in December 1990 Wałęsa was elected President of Poland. Since then it has become a more traditional, liberal trade union. [Wikipedia]

The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, also known as the Tiananmen Square massacre and the June Fourth Incident (in part to avoid confusion with two prior Tiananmen Square protests), were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing in the People's Republic of China (PRC) beginning on 15 April 1989. The movement used mainly non-violent methods and can be considered a case of civil resistance. Led mainly by students and intellectuals, the protests occurred in the year that was to see the collapse of a number of communist governments in eastern Europe.The movement lasted seven weeks after Hu's death on 15 April. In early June, the People's Liberation Army moved into the streets of Beijing with troops and tanks and cleared the square with live fire. [Wikipedia]

I'm sure you are getting my drift.   And then the Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Union dissolved, Romanians got rid of Ceauşescu.   The Ukraine had its Orange Revolution.  Just to name a few. 


Why are we surprised?

Popular demonstrations against dictatorships, whether ultimately successful or not, are not all that uncommon.  We've had a series of  'unimaginable' changes.

So, why are the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions seen as a surprise?

And then, why are we surprised when Libyan rebels get brutally attacked?

A few hypotheses come to mind: 

1.   Our models of power don't handle sudden massive power shifts easily.
2.   Our fear mongers want us to be afraid of Islam, want us to see all Muslims as radical anit-Western fanatics.  And many Americans (and Europeans) are only too glad to oblige them. Fear of outside evil, or foreigners amongst us, unifies a population behind its leaders and stifles opposition.  
3.   Our ignorance of the world outside our borders means we have no clue about what is happening in other countries unless it's an international sporting event.   So we generalize to "the Iranians" or "the Egyptians" rather than recognize all countries have a wide range of political points of view, just as we have. 

These events are unimaginable only to those with less than robust imaginations.

Such change - popular demonstrations against seemingly entrenched powers, some of which succeed* and some of which fail - isn't all that unique.  The right set of conditions have to come together.  Some typical conditions might include:

1. General unrest and unhappiness due to severe long-term restrictions, oppression, and usually widespread corruption in the ruling government.
2. Some event that inflames that unrest and gets people into the streets
3. Effective forms of communication with each other and with the Outside world
4. Some charismatic leaders

Then there's the regime's reaction.  Will they just start shooting or will they show restraint?   I'm not sure what factors play a consistent role.  Perhaps:

1. Support or opposition from outsiders. (Lots of possible combinations and outcomes here.  It could give the rebels courage, restrain the leader, or not.)
2. General cultural norms of the current leaders.  (Does the culture promote dialogue and democratic principles?)
3. Existence of face saving exit strategies for corrupt leaders.  

It's not be easy to predict exactly where and when the next world class revolution  will occur.  Even if we scan the countries with high levels of discontent, knowing when some event will be the catalyst to get people out into the streets is hard.  BUT, we should realize that it is going to happen somewhere and we shouldn't be surprised.

But I guess this calls for some knowledge of history, of other cultures, of world conditions, and a myriad of other things that we don't have time to learn while we keep track of celebrity breakups, what our friends are eating for dinner (as reported every few minutes on Facebook and Twitter),  buy ever bigger televisions and smaller computers.

*'Success' is a relative term. And it maybe be short-lived. Or it may just refer to the overthrow, but may not be a good term to describe the next permanent government.

Delta to Pathways - Juneau to Anchorage

The last two days I've been at the DELTA meeting. I could never remember what DELTA stood for because the acronym didn't really match the words. Apparently everyone else had the same trouble and now it is called Pathways. That's good. This group has developed a statewide plan for Intimate Partner Violence Prevention. I've blogged about it before.


I'll just put a couple pictures up now since I'm in the airport getting ready to return from Juneau to Anchorage. I'm really, really ready to be home and see my wife again. It's been a little over three weeks. Anyway, here are some shots and I'll talk more about what we did later.

 These photos are from yesterday.

We went around the room and people talked about things they had accomplished that related to the goals of Pathways.  They were then stuck up on the wall in random order.

Then we tried to figure out where they fit with the goals (On the white papers).  A number fit several goals.

And here things are all sorted out, or at least a lot better than at first.

My brief comment at this moment is to say that I was pleased to see that a lot of progress has been made.  Though there is still a lot to do.


I better post this quick before I have to board.  As you can tell, there is still free wifi in the Juneau airport.

Want to Make Your Own iPhone App?

A couple of months ago the question, "How do people make apps?," popped into my head.  I asked my computer savvy son and his answer was vague about writing programs for them.  So when Craig Hockenberry's iPhone App Development:  The Missing Manual showed up at the Alaska Apple User Group review desk, I grabbed it.  I wasn't planning on making any apps, but I was just wanted to get a sense about how they are made.  So the rest is basically the review I did for the Apple User Group.  The style is a little different from how I usually write.  I'd just say, writing an App sounds possible (for someone like me) but would take a fair amount of work to learn.  I'd need to have a killer app to do it.  One thing I learned is that you can write your own app for your iPhone or iPod Touch. You don't need to buy them if you can figure out how to make one.  [UPDATE 3/29: a reader corrected me here.  You can test the APP on your computer, but the iPhone is not open source so you apparently can't (without more complicated workarounds that void your warranty) make it just for your own iPhone.  But you can make your own Apps for Androids.  Thanks J.]

I was surprised, to find in the first chapter, there was something called Xcode already on my Mac startup disk, but it's one of the extras that aren't included in the basic package of software most people load.  And then once you get Xcode installed you have to get another free software - iPhone SDK - and you have to join the iPhone Developer Program to get that.  But then you have software set up especially to make Apps.

But by chapter 2 it already wasn't going to be that easy.  Hockenberry starts talking about Objective-C language.  Since the last computer language I could do anything with was Fortran - and some basic HTML for my blog - this was getting beyond what I might be able to  do without some serious effort.  For those who already program I suspect this chapter will mean a lot more.  It is just an overview and in the end he refers readers to Apple's free online book The Objective-C 2.0 Programming Language.

Chapter 3 is about Cocoa Touch frameworks - "the building blocks" - the parts of Cocoa Touch frameworks that get pieced together with your new adhesive [Objective-C].  The handy acronym to remember these by is MVC - Models, Viewers, and Controllers.

The Views are "all those buttons, scrolling lists, web browsers, and everything else that appears on your iPhone screen. . .Views know how to present your application's data.  Some views also know how to react to user input.‚" (p. 67)

Models  "are your application's heart and soul because they are responsible for managing the data.  . . A model's only function is to manipulate and process the user's data within the application.  Models often implement internal logic that provides these basic behaviors.‚"(p. 67)

Finally, Controllers "act as an intermediary between the view objects and the model objects."p. 68)  

Chapter 4 goes in a totally new direction, one that I was able to follow completely:  it's about the designing of tools.  It is aimed at the techie who needs to work with a non-techie designer and discusses designing goals, unique designing issues for iPhones (such as the small size and low weight, left and right handed users, display rotation.)  Then it goes through the design process - starting with paper and pencil - and how to get along with your designer, as well as getting feedback from beta testing and other methods.  I had no trouble understanding this chapter and it is well done.

Part II of the book gets into much more programming depth and I only skimmed it.

Part III gets back into language and culture I understand - The Business End.  It takes an App developer step-by-step from Beta testing through advertising. It covers pricing and user feedback and updating your product.

Based on the parts I could understand, I'd recommend this book to someone who was serious about getting into the App business.  It's an intro to the technical part with links to get more information and it's a well written guide to the non-technical parts.  I think that if I wanted to build an App, this book would be my basic guide and I'd be able to figure it out (going to the links it provides, of course.)  And it also avoids the cutesiness of a lot of computer books.

As you can tell, I'm not going to be designing any apps soon, but I achieved my objective of getting a basic understanding of the App building process.

What Do Peace Corps Volunteers Do? Juneau Returned Volunteers

Some Juneau Returned Peace Corps Volunteers gathered Monday night to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of JFK signing the law that created the Peace Corps.  In these two short videos they tell you what country they served in and what they did.








The first video includes people who went to Ukraine, Thailand, Nepal, Rwanda, and Morocco.












The second video has people who were in Nigeria, Afghanistan, El Salvador, India, Cambodia, Guinnea-Bissau, and Paraguay.

Here's an older post with a few Anchorage and Fairbanks Returned Peace Corps Volunteer pictures and what they've been doing after Peace Corps.

Kitty Litter Technology - Who Knew?

This last week in Juneau my hosts have been out of town and I'm house and cat sitting. I like cats including this one. My son's allergic to cats, so I really have been out of touch with the cat world.




So among my chores here - besides picking up the mail and the Full Circle Farm box today - is to feed Nori in the morning and empty the litter box at night.






The feeding part is pretty easy - though it means I don't sleep too late because someone is hungry.

But what were these huge flat burger like things in the litter box? And so many? I've taken care of my son's dog and know she doesn't poop that much or nearly that big. What gives?

Consider what a good cat litter should do: It should suppress odors, absorb, be biodegradable, nontoxic, and inexpensive. If you have more than one cat, both should be willing to use it. It shouldn't stick to paws, or between claws; yet it should clump enough to localize waste. And it's nice if it's flushable. But none of these features matters if your cat doesn't want to use it.

Now writer Curt Wohleber traces the design evolution of the stuff. Litter boxes existed before 1947. Owners had simply lined them with sand, sawdust, or torn-up newspapers. Then one of those moments -- like Newton's Apple or Goodyear's spilled chemicals:

Edward Lowe, back from the army was working in his father's supply store when a next door neighbor asked him if he had any sawdust for her litter box. [You can read the rest of this history at  John H. Lienhard's Engines of Our Ingenuity Episode 2103 or you can get the audio here.]

It took me a while to figure out that modern science now gives us kitty litter that soaks up the urine into these patties.

While I've been watching electronic technology, kitty litter technology took off.

The Lights Are Back On

I was sitting here at the computer when the room went dark.  I'm not even sure how long ago it was or how long it lasted.  The Capitol building was still lit, but looking south and east it was dark.  It was probably around 9:30pm and maybe lasted an hour.  My computer at least went to battery and I found the candles and matches. 

What Happens at Energy Council? Here's Rep. Berta Gardner's Take

About 28 Alaskan legislators went to DC for the "Energy Council" Conference in Washington DC last week. I did a short post on this last week, but most information I could find seemed to be the same descriptions being quoted and requoted. I couldn't find an "Energy Council" website. I did find PNWER - Pacific Northwest Economic Region but I couldn't find any clear links between it and the Energy Conference. I mention this because Rep. Gardner mentioned PNWER as the sponsor. Their site presents them as a non-partisan coalition of states and provinces, not as an industry backed organization.

But Gardner did say the conference is a conservative, pro-development organization and that she was disappointed at the 'gratuitous attacks' on the Obama administration. It's not clear to me at all who organized and paid for the conference, but the Alaska legislators who went used state money to go. Gardner said (not on the video) that the House Minority decides how its travel money is spent.

A key point Gardner made was that they did a lot more than energy issues while in DC.  They took advantage of the trip to talk to national level legislators about a myriad of issues important to Alaska.  You can hear her take on the conference in the video tape below.  It's about ten minutes long so I've taken advantage of Viddler's comments function to mark different topics.  There are little white dots on the blue play bar under the video.  If you put the cursor over the dots, you can see the topics I've marked.  (Actually, anyone can add a comment, so if anyone does, there will be more dots.)




I did ask, off camera, about legislators getting a slanted view since they are getting the story from one side. She said that can be a problem if legislators don't know enough about the topic or aren't critical. In one part of the video Gardner talks about shale gas in Pennsylvania and how much progress the industry has made on this. I wonder what she'd say about this if a more balanced presentation were made. (She does say air pollution is becoming a big problem with this technology.)

Others I've talked to question state money (they said tax payer money, but, of course, individuals do not pay state taxes in Alaska) going to send legislators to industry sponsored conferences like this. I see no problem if the same legislators also go to hear what the other side has to say. After all, we elect officials to become educated on the issues. If they aren't smart enough to get it, that's the fault of the voters, isn't it?

"Does you hotel have any vasectomies next week?" Auto-correct Laughs

Laugh break time.  Someone sent me these two links.  I'd never seen this site.  For some reason these hit my funny bone hard.  Here's a screen shot of one of these phone text messages that auto-correct corrupted:

This was from either the ten best of December or  fifteen best of January from a site called "Damn You Auto-correct."

OK, I know they aren't that funny on their own, but imagining the two people in the conversation working through these messages  - I did have to laugh pretty hard.  Thanks L.

This reminds me that I was able to use spell check to save myself from embarrassing typos.  Since I used to write the words 'public administration' a lot, I realized that if I removed 'pubic' from my spell check, then it would get caught if I accidentally left the 'l' out. 

Todd Poage on Tok School Biomass Project

I've said this many times, but once again, if you hang around the State Capitol and talk to folks, you'll meet lots of interesting people doing interesting things. 

Here's Todd Poage, Superintendent of the Alaska Gateway School District talking about the Tok School Biomass Project. 



I asked for a link to a website, but instead got a newsprint size paper with bits and pieces of information and photos.  Things like:

• The Eagle Trail Fire incinerated more forest fuel in five hours than the biomass boiler at Tok School will use in 30 years
• Tok Forestry recommends the removal of 200 acres of hazardous [I think this means it's a fire danger] fuel each year.
• The costs of heating Tok School with an oil furnace averages $12,600 per month at current oil prices.  
• The costs of heating Tok School thru biomass, at $40 per ton, averages $3200 per month.

Others have covered this.  The Alaska Journal of Commerce wrote Dec. 10:

...In the past 25 years, nearly 2 million acres in the area have burned, costing more than $60 million in fire suppression and causing six evacuations, according to the state. Last year, the Eagle Trail fire scorched 18,000 acres.

"The fire history in Tok has basically demonstrated that Tok is going to burn unless we take action," said Jeff Hermanns, Tok area forester and a spearhead of the boiler project.

A recent wildfire protection plan recommended that 3,000 acres of black and white spruce forest in Tok be removed to make the community safer, including an area around the school, Hermanns said. Foresters usually try to sell or repurpose good wood, but the trees were junk wood, he said.

"Most of them aren't any bigger than three inches. Most people won't cut that tree for firewood. It's too small. You can't sell board out of it," Hermanns said.

Foresters thinned 100 acres of trees around the school and stacked them into decks. Then they set them on fire, a pricey and smoky last resort.

"All of those BTUs, all of that energy, just went up in smoke," Hermanns said. "By the school using this material, it's saving me a minimum of $1,000 an acre."...

Green Turbine, a Dutch blog that appears linked to a company that makes small turbines reposted some of the Journal article.

Putting this into a larger context is a 2009 United States Department of Agriculture report on Wood Energy in Alaska:  A Case Study Evaluation of Selected Facilities.  Here's the abstract:

Nicholls, David. 2009. Wood energy in Alaska—case study evaluations of selected facilities. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-793. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 33 p. 

Biomass resources in Alaska are extensive and diverse, comprising millions of acres of standing small-diameter trees, diseased or dead trees, and trees having low- grade timber. Limited amounts of logging and mill residues, urban wood residues, and waste products are also available. Recent wildfires in interior Alaska have left substantial volumes of burned timber, potentially usable for biomass energy. Moti- vated, in part, by rising fuel prices, organizations across the state—including busi- nesses, schools, and government agencies—have all expressed an interest in wood energy applications. Numerous sites have pursued feasibility studies or engineering design analysis, and others have moved forward with project construction. Recent advances in biomass utilization in Alaska have been enabled by numerous factors, and involve various fuel sources, scales of operation, and end products. Already, thermal wood energy systems are using sawmill residues to heat lumber dry kilns, and a public school heating system is in operation. Management policies on national forests and state forests in Alaska could determine the type and amounts of available biomass from managed forests, from wildland-urban interface regions, and from salvage timber operations. Biomass products in Alaska having potential for development are as diverse as wood pellets, cordwood (firewood), compost, wood-plastic composite products, and liquid fuels. In addition, new technologies are allowing for more efficient use of biomass resources for heating and electrical generation at scales appropriate for community power. This case study review con- siders successes and lessons learned from current wood energy systems in Alaska, and also considers opportunities for future bioenergy development.
Keywords: Alaska, biomass, bioenergy, wood energy, renewable, cordwood, sawmill residues.