Channel 9 on United Airlines

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I spent this past week in Orlando at Sapphire, SAP’s annual convention. This year it was combined with the annual ASUG meeting, the America’s SAP User’s Group meeting. But that’s not the subject of this post.

I flew UAL on the return flight. UAL is the only airline that makes air traffic control (ATC) available to passengers. It is found onj channel 9. When I was travelling a lot for business, I was a big UAL flyer. 1K for three years running (ok, big, but not great since many people fly more than I did and for more years running). I really enjoyed the ATC banter.

On this flight, about an hour before arrival, the captain invited us to listen in for a discussion about the flight. He spoke for 30 minutes on a whole variety of topics. It was really a hoot. He spoke about:

  • Which controller is in talking to the plane as you go from gate to take off
  • The statistics of the 757 — the most efficient plane in the sky
  • What causes turbulence
  • What kind of turbulence is dangerous and why
  • The approach and how the pilots interact with ATC
  • The seniority system at UAL

It was really great to hear him talk about his job. At one point, he said “I don’t have any idea if anyone at all is listening to this, so if you are listening and you want me to continue, please turn your call button on and then off.” Many people around the plane (including myself) pinged him with the call buttons. He was very appreciative of the support.

It was very nice to have a senior person with the airline speak so highly and professionally about both his company and the overall air traffic system.

Symphony Live vs. Recording

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One of my pet peeves with recorded classical music is that you have to turn the volume way up to hear the soft parts (a nice oboe solo) but then be ready to crank it down when the whole orchestra chimes in. In the concert hall, the soft comes out very clearly and the loudest loud doesn’t hurt the ears.

I suppose it is a combination of a very quiet environment and the fact that the orchestra never gets that loud. Amplified music can get very loud. I wonder if the actual dynamic range is compressed somehow in the hall. I doubt it. I bet it is a phenomenon of the quiet of the hall allowing you to hear the quiet and the loud never being as loud as top volume on the iPod.

Ballona Wetlands

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Near our house there is a large development called Playa Vista. It has fought its way through numerous lawsuits, oppositions, Dreamworks pulling out, etc. Part of the deal for building on the site was that the developer would restore and maintain wetlands in the area. This post is about the restored area west of Lincoln Boulevard and south of Jefferson Boulevard.

Before the restoration, this area was flat and grassy, not interesting. I watched as they built smoothed channels and berms. It looked very manufactured. Trees and shrubs were planted, water was let in. It began to look better.

A couple of weeks ago, there was an event at these new, manufactured, wetlands. Many groups, from the DWP to the Ballona Creek Renaissance were there. It was great fun and what made it great was the wildlife we could see in the wetlands. Yes, the manufactured wetlands.

Last weekend, we went for a walk in the wetlands area. At the start, my wife didn’t want the binoculars, and my daughter thought it would be boring (although she knew better than to complain). It turned out to be a great experience. We saw red winged blackbirds, American coots, a killdeer, and best of all, a family of mallards.

The mallard family was a mother and seven ducklings. We watched as the swam along the shore feeding. Mother mallard decided she wanted to look at an area beyond a small man-made berm. She jumped over, but it was a challenge for the ducklings. We watched as she went back and encouraged them to jump over the berm. And then she went back. Watching these little ducklings, not too much larger than an egg and very fluffing, was tremendous fun. It made the whole visit.

And all just about a mile from our house.

More Microsoft Attitude

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Cooper wrote about “Microsoft Attitude” where an application steals focus while you are doing something. I just experienced it inside a Microsoft Application.

I was using Visio, a fairly nice application until Microsoft made it too smart. It tries to do far too much itself so often your diagram gets all out of whack when it decides to make an adjustment based on its rules. But that’s not the point I was going to make. When I was typing a change to the page, the autosave feature started, and stole focus from my typing. Focus reverted to the last item selected on the screen, a piece of text, that was then replaced as I continued typing the new name for the page. It is a good thing undo works.

Symphony Live

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Last November, I gave into a very effective telephone solicitation and bought a series of concerts at the Disney Hall in Los Angeles. It sounded good and I felt a desire to support the LA Philharmonic, just as I support the public radio and TV stations I listen to or watch.

The salesman was excellent. Perhaps I should say representative, but he was a salesman in the best meaning of the word. He had complete knowledge of the program, the seats, the other benefits. I bought. And I am happy with my purchase. Very happy.

This last weekend we went to our second concert (we missed the first, but since it was a minimalist presentation, we were OK with missing it). It included a performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

I first heard Beethoven’s Fifth when I was 11 and my parents bought a reel-to-reel tape deck and locals provided tapes of the Fifth, the Brandenburg Concertos, and other works. I listened to this music many times over, so it holds a special place in my memory.

The performance was amazing. Our seats are behind the basses, looking across the stage toward the conductor. I love watching the music move around the orchestra. Feeling the sound of the basses playing as you hear and see it.

The seeing it with hearing it is the real key. To see how a single oboe fills an entire concert hall. To be confused and then realize how a an element has moved from the woodwinds to the horns. WOW. I am hooked. And you see how the conductor interacts with the orchestra.

When I listen to the Fifth now I have a whole new perspective that has added tremendous depth to my appreciation. Whenever you have the chance, see music performed!

What’s With the Hotmail Spam Filter?

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I maintain a Hotmail account. It is convenient for those subscriptions, registrations, and other sign-ups that, should my account get inundated by spam, I could easily abandon.

Over the last month, I have noticed that the spam filter consistently misses obvious spam. Misses it even after the offending topic and approach have been marked as spam and reported. Are these spammers paying a premium for delivery? Or are the Hotmail coders just missing the boat?

My Yahoo! and gmail accounts work fine. If anything, their spam filters are a tad too aggressive. But once marked, a spam approach never succeeds again.

It’s a Jungle Out Here

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I wrote a while ago about how my wiki was hacked. All that was posted was a bunch of links to what looked like pharmaceutical sites. I did not follow any of the links.

At the time, I switched from PHPWiki to TikiWiki because the latter has real security. I did keep the old wiki around. That was a mistake. A similar hacking has occurred, so the old wiki has been deleted. No hacking allowed.

By the way, I also updated my favicon (it shows up next to the URL) with a cool Saturn shot.

Star Party I

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As I wrote earlier, we donated a star viewing party for our daughter’s school. Tonight was the targeted night.

We had planned to have the event several weeks ago but we were worried about rain and clouds (of course). Based on the forecasts from the NWS and Weather.com, we cancelled the event on the Thursday before the Saturday event. Up to the afternoon forecast on Saturday “mostly cloudy” skies were forecast. I did note that the Mar Vista Clear Sky Clock predicted clear skies. And the skies were clear. I got some great images of Saturn that night.

This time, I refused to bow to the forecast. The day was mostly cloudy. I spoke with our guests in the afternoon and we decided to wait to make a decision. NWS said partly cloudy, 20% chance of rain. Clear Sky Clock said brief clearing around and just after twilight, then cloudy. It cleared at 5:30 pm and we started the preparations. There was a low clouds scare at 6:30, but then the guests called at 7:00, it looked good.

Then the clouds arrived, followed by our guests. We got a couple of nice views of Saturn and Mars, but no real chance to Explore the Night Sky as we had promised. We have rescheduled.

The guests left and we put everything away. Just in time. RAIN. Yes, rain. Not 10 minutes after the observatory was closed, the 8″ scope put away, the laptop moved inside, it rained. If we had spoken with our guests for another 10 minutes there would have been untold damage. But the good Lord was looking our for us and nothing was damaged.

But just as I am committed to observe and image in the face of light pollution, I will not postpone a star party without unconditional prediction of clouds and rain.

New Themes

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I have added a some new themes to the blog, and added a plug-in that will allow you to change between themes. I have been using a slightly customized version of Connections, but I found I wanted something without the backgound images. The current default theme is Neat!, and I like how the horsehead and flame nebulae look at the top. Also installed are Benevolence, Minima Plus, and the two default WordPress themes.

You can switch between themes using the theme switcher. As always, comments are welcome.

The Internet Makes You Smart

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I read a good article in Scientfic American the other night. The point of the article was that social learning among great apes (orangutans in the article) was critical to learing higher level skills. And that without social interaction, these skills were not learned. The key hypothesis in the article is

My own explanation, which is not incompatible with these other forces, puts the emphasis on social learning. In humans, intelligence develops over time. A child learns primarily from the guidance of patient adults. Without strong social–that is, cultural–inputs, even a potential wunderkind will end up a bungling bumpkin as an adult.

The core learning method is interaction with others. The area they studied had a high number of orangutans, causing more social interaction than is normal among these apes. The apes they studied used tools much more than other apes.

One of our first finds in this unlikely setting astonished us: the Suaq orangutans created and wielded a variety of tools. Although captive red apes are avid tool users, the most strik­ing feature of tool use among the wild orangutans observed until then was its absence.

The increased use of tools does not represent a higher intelligence among this group of apes.

We doubt that the animals at Suaq are intrinsically smarter: the observation that most captive members of this species can learn to use tools suggests that the basic brain capacity to do so is present.

In looking at this behaviour, they looked at a number of reasons why it would occur in this group. In an well presented analysis (you need to read the article), they show that the reason is clearly cultural learning. The orangutans learn from interaction with other orangutans. Social interaction increases intelligence.

So I draw the conclusion that the internet increases human intelligence. Why?

  • The internet is primarly a means of interaction between people
  • It enables interaction without regard to geographic separation
  • Communities develop that allow people with similar interests to share their skills
  • My own experience in astrophotography is that my skills are better because of what I have learned from others in internet newsgroups

I wrote about the benefit of newsgroups in an earlier post. This Scientific American article gives a scientific basis to the benefit for all of us of collaboration enabled by the internet. So surfing and chatting and blogging and newsgrouping makes you smarter! Almost an invitiation to do this at work.