Author Archives: Rick Ladd

About Rick Ladd

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I retired over14 years ago, though I've continued to work on and off since then. Mostly I'm just cruising, making the most of what time I have remaining. Although my time is nearly up, I still care deeply about the kind of world I'll be leaving to those who follow me and, to that end, I am devoted to seeing the forces of repression and authoritarianism are at least held at bay, if not crushed out of existence. I write about things that interest me and, as an eclectic soul, my interests run the gamut from science to spirituality, governance to economics, art and engineering. I'm hopeful one day my children will read what I've left behind.
19 January 2012

Giving this a test drive on my iPad

By Rick Ladd
iBooks Author

iBooks and iBooks Author

Giving this a test drive on my iPad. Apple just released the updated version of iBooks today. They seem to be adding textbooks as I look. I’m downloading a free version of “Life on Earth: An Introduction” to see what it’s like. Text books are $14.99 or less!

NB – I posted this using HootSuite. Wasn’t sure how it would come out and I’m not enitrely happy with the result, but I’m editing it so I can keep it here.

UPDATE:

After installing the free textbook “Life on Earth: An Introduction”, I opened the book to see what it looked like. It started with a video that only played the audio and, when done, I found myself stuck in the app with nothing more than a grey, linen-like background and no discernible way to exit the app. I’m not sure how I eventually got out of it, but I did. I invoked the book again and this time the video played nicely. When it was done a table of contents appeared and started to skim the book. There is lots of interactive content available. However, after tapping on one of the numerous videos I was completely dropped out of the app (a problem that happens all-too-frequently with my iPad, I’m afraid) and, when I returned I was brought back to the very beginning, having to listen to the introduction again. I resumed my exploration and once again had problems with a video not playing properly, leaving me with that dismal grey screen again. This time I shut down the device and started it again. I assume that’s the equivalent of a cold boot.

After exiting the app entirely, I just started it up again. Unfortunately, although it brought me to the page I had left from, no sooner did it load then it dropped me back to the grey screen of death. At least I’ve been disabused of the notion that Apple’s just might be far superior to PCs. Sometimes I find myself sorry I didn’t spend my money on something else. I’m not pleased at this point. What I’ve seen of the textbook I have is exciting and makes me wish I was a few decades younger, as I think learning in school would have been far more interesting had I access to this type of book. Now I just need to figure out why the damn thing keeps dropping me out so thoroughly.

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17 January 2012

I Can Be This Boring. Really!

By Rick Ladd

How many incredibly boring presentations have you sat through? How many times have you either missed just about everything that was presented because it was impossible to concentrate or you desperately wanted to get up and leave, only to remain because you didn’t want people to think you were uninterested in the subject or disrespectful of the presenter? As a former employee (now retired) of a large aerospace organization, I can tell you I have struggled mightily to stay awake through many a presentation consisting of literally dozens of bulleted PowerPoint charts being read, word-for-word, by the presenter, usually an Engineer . . . as a class not well-known for being the most exciting of speakers.

There is nothing quite so boring as a presentation where the person standing in front is reading the words you are quite capable of reading yourself, much faster than they can be spoken. As pointed out by both Edward Tufte and Richard Feynman, this kind of presentation is not only boring, but can be quite dangerous when used to convey (or obfuscate) critical information needed to make a life-and-death decision, such as those made with respect to both the Challenger and the Columbia disasters.

Admittedly, most presentations don’t convey life-and-death information, and I’m surely not implying they be given the same weight and import. However, there’s usually a reason, frequently a very good one, a presentation is being given and people are spending a portion of their precious time attending it. In that spirit and, thanks to Gil Yehuda and a Facebook share, I give you:

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12 January 2012

Swimming, Floating, and Flying

By Rick Ladd

I came across an interesting post by Justine Musk the other day, courtesy of John Hagel, who I subscribe to on Facebook. In her piece, Justine talks about (among other other things) the “Tetris Effect” that describes the phenomenon whereby playing Tetris leaves people seeing residual moving pieces of the game after they’ve completed playing, usually during periods of rest or prior to falling asleep. I’ve played Tetris in the past and haven’t experienced this, but it did remind me of something I have experienced that I think is related.

Flying by Wire

To Float; Perchance to Dream

I was fortunate enough to have a swimming pool at home from the time I was 9 years old. We had just moved back to the San Fernando Valley, from West Los Angeles, after an ill-fated attempt by my father to work in a partnership with his brother. My parents purchased a new tract home on the border between North Hollywood and Sun Valley and they decided a pool was a good idea. This was Southern California, after all!

During the warm months of late spring and throughout the summer, I used to spend as much as eight hours in that pool. This was before the advent – to my knowledge – of sunscreen and is no doubt a direct contributor to my having a Melanoma surgically removed a couple of years ago. My parents use to call me a fish because of the inordinate amount of time I spent in the pool. Later on I swam competitively in High School, earning a school letter and several medal and trophies in free style and butterfly.

Many times, at night, I would have these vivid dreams that I could simply float and swim through the air, casually treading or stroking my way above the trees and houses in my neighborhood. These dreams were powerful and clear and I could feel the movement as I ascended and moved down the street. I remember well how I would have to keep treading if I wanted to hover over a neighbor’s house and how I could ease myself back down to the ground by merely slowing the speed with which I was treading. It was exhilarating.

Later on, when I was old enough to drive, I used to go surfing in the morning and return in the afternoon to go swimming in our pool. For a while, I could feel the waves in the pool, though they obviously weren’t really there. It was an interesting feeling that I remember quite fondly. I’m sure many others have experienced this “Tetris Effect” from things they’ve done in their lives. How about you?

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6 January 2012

How Networked Science is Stretching Our Vision

By Rick Ladd
Making Sense of it All

Making Sense of it All

My original intent for this blog was something far different than it’s become. I don’t think it’s a problem, as I seem to be morphing my approach into something that can easily accommodate that original intent. In case you aren’t aware of what I wanted to do when I began this little journey, I have described it somewhat here. I intend on updating that page periodically to keep up with the developments and changes as they occur (or, hopefully, shortly thereafter). This continues to be a work-in-process and I think that’s how I want it.

I have had a deep love and respect for the concept of Systems Thinking a good part of my adult life. As a young man I didn’t even know it was something people studied or wrote about; just that it seemed to be a useful way to look at the world and try to make sense of it. Recognizing the systemic nature of things and seeing the interrelationship (no matter how distant or tenuous) between them can, in my opinion, make them far more intelligible while increasing the odds of understanding consequences and why certain things happen.

Today I came across a wonderful article on Facebook from The Atlantic, through a post by John Hagel of the Deloitte Center for the Edge. I’m not “friends” with John, though I have sent him a request. In the meantime (and I assume he will likely ignore me) I do “subscribe” to his public updates. He shares some truly fascinating and interesting information.

The article is entitled “To Know, but Not Understand: David Weinberger on Science and Big Data” and he discusses and explains how the prolific growth of data, information, storage capabilities, and computing power is facilitating the understanding of large-scale or highly complex systems, despite their being beyond our ken as mere human beings. He points out that, despite our limitations as individuals to understand why some things work as they do, the growth of networked science is providing us with a capacity for making use of this data, information, and knowledge. I found it truly fascinating and want to share it here. If you have 10 – 15 minutes, I highly recommend you take the time to read it. Here’s the link.

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31 December 2011

Another Visit to Spamalot

By Rick Ladd
Screenshot of comment spam

A Sampling of How Akismet Flags Comment Spam

A while back I wrote about some of the spam comments I have gotten on this site. According to the plug-in, Akismet, which WordPress provides me, I have had 18,202 spam comments intercepted by them. By the way, I use WordPress “dot com”, not “dot org”, though I have been considering moving over. I have been very happy with WordPress’s offering and it’s really tough to beat the price.

After I wrote that particular post, the number of spam comments I received seemed to level off at a tolerable rate; sometimes going for days with no flagged activity. However, during this holiday season it picked up dramatically and, in the past month I have probably been protected from a couple hundred spam comments. I think the biggest violator of my space has been Ugg boots (which hasn’t gone unnoticed by others), followed at a distance by Louis Vuitton. I have permanently deleted, collectively, a long essay’s worth of Cyrillic, some Chinese, a smattering of Hebrew, and quite a few short stories that made absolutely no sense at all. Invariably, the writing is atrocious. The most entertaining are the ones that seek to praise my writing style or the organization of the “site”, etc., presumably to flatter me so I won’t want to delete the comment. Fat chance!

At any rate, I took a partial screenshot of some of the latest (they’re coming in at a furious pace lately) before I deleted them. I’m including it so you can see what I see. I imagine each one of these represents a person who has been suckered into paying money for these attempted backlinks, though my knowledge of SEO (especially “Black Hat SEO“) is insufficient to be sure I fully understand why so many would continue doing this sort of thing.

I guess I’m naive. Fortunately, I’m not terribly gullible.

PS – To all my readers, thank you so much for taking the time to come here. I wish you a very Happy and Prosperous New Year. May 2012 bring you greater joy and contentment than you have enjoyed previously, and less damn fools to darken your doorstep 😦

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19 December 2011

One Way To Impress Your Colleagues

By Rick Ladd
Kimchi Ingredients

Basic Kimchi Ingredients

I have been a lover of Asian food for most of my adult life. Among my favorites are Korean pickled vegetables, called Kimchi. Most people are only familiar with the one you’ll find in the supermarket, which is made of (generally) Napa cabbage and contains red chili pepper flakes. However, there are hundreds of varieties. There was until recently a pretty good Korean BBQ restaurant nearby that served a variety consisting of potatoes and sesame oil that I could make a meal out of. This, of course, is not a traditional variety of Kimchi but, being raised as a meat and potatoes kind of a guy, I found it immensely enjoyable.

Our Personal Stash

A good friend of ours has been making us one-gallon jars of Kimchi for many years. Usually it consists of quartered cabbage heads, vinegar, salt, dill, garlic, and yellow peppers, plus a few other spices. My wife, who is Sansei (3rd generation American-born Japanese), calls it Koko (similar to Tsukemono) and we enjoy it shredded with many a meal. Every once in a while our friend tries something else. For instance, just the other day she gave me a jar of pickled sweet onion. We have yet to taste them so the jury’s out on whether we’ll be happy with the result.

A while ago – like maybe ten years (my, how time flies!) – she made a batch of Kimchi out of Daikon radish, dill, and garlic. Now another of the kinds of pickles I’m really fond of, and consider comfort food, is kosher pickles; the more garlic, the better. She had cut up the Daikon into spears about the size of a quarter of a pickling cucumber and they were magnificent. To my taste buds, these pieces of pickled radish tasted like the best kosher pickles I had ever had and I couldn’t get enough of them.

At the time I took my lunch to work every day at ate at my desk. I brought some of these pickles with me one day and was sharing them with a colleague and friend who sat on the other side of our 1/2 height cubicle wall. We were marveling at the fullness of the flavor when I noticed people standing up at their desks and looking around. The term used back then for what I witnessed was “prairie dogging” and I soon heard someone say “what’s that smell?” I looked at my friend and, frankly, we didn’t smell anything. We were too busy enjoying the incredible, garlicky flavor of this wonderful condiment. In retrospect, I think we were insulated from the truth because we were so enamored of the flavor, and we chose to ignore what others were agitated about lest we had to stop eating.

Not Again?

The following day, I brought a container of pickled Daikon again and was sharing them over the wall as I had the day before. Sure enough, as the aroma spread out I noted a “wave” of people standing up to try and figure out what was going on. This time I called my wife at her place of work. “You know that Daikon Kimchi Chea Yon made for us?”, I asked. She replied in the affirmative. “Have you ever brought it to work?” Her reply, “Hell No! That stuff stinks!!”

I later discovered someone had actually called Environmental to suggest something had died in the ducting and request an inspection. I know I ultimately explained what the cause of the stink was, but I don’t think it was until much later. Chea Yon has never again made that particular kind of Kimchi for us, but I would kill to relive the experience.

Photo Courtesy of Korea.net

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16 December 2011

The Collapse of Christmas

By Rick Ladd
Santa Claus, Garfield, & Frosty

Santa & Friends After a Rough Night

HOW SAD

As the nefarious forces of darkness and unbelieverness wage their ubiquitous war on Christmas, it’s time we recognized a significant tragedy taking place every morning between Thanksgiving and New Years. While I realize just how seriously Christmas is suffering under the onslaught of the heathens and pagans of the world, I am gravely concerned over the unending collapse of the Christmas spirit I witness every morning.

MANLY CHAUFFEURING

As Mr. Mom, one of my responsibilities to my family is to chauffeur my two children to school each morning they’re required by the State to be in attendance. Lately, as I diligently perform my daddly duty, I am reminded of the early morning sadness and the deflated feeling so many must experience as they encounter what were earlier bright, cheerful, and completely inflated characters – now languishing in flaccid, wilted sorrow on many a front lawn. Santa, Frosty, Garfield, and Tigger – down for the count, or at least during daylight hours.

PUMP IT UP

It’s difficult for me to see these miserable characters, once so bright and bouncy, laying expended and useless on numerous lawns scattered throughout our neighborhood. Perhaps they could be enlisted for a spot with Pfizer or Lilly. Surely they must have a cure for this malady, though I’m pretty sure these things are erect each night for longer than four hours.

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Personal, Random Thoughts

10 December 2011

A Spiritual Experience

By Rick Ladd
Total Eclipse of the Moon

Eclipse of The Moon on June 15, 2011

Who Needs Sleep!

For an atheist such as myself, the closest I come to having a religious experience is usually associated with some sort of spectacular natural event; something that makes it clear to me just how awesome the Universe is. This morning was one of those times. I got up at 4:45 am to watch the last total eclipse of the Moon until some time in 2014. It was well worth getting out of my warm bed to do so.

I took out a pair of low-power binoculars and two cameras. I hand-held my Canon EOS 10D and mounted my wife’s 50D on a tripod. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the foresight to learn how to set up the auto shutter release on her camera and, when the Moon entered totality there just wasn’t enough light to get a shot without using a long exposure. I got some decent pictures as the Earth’s penumbra slowly moved across the lunar surface and I’m hopeful they’re better than I expect. My eyesight is slowly dwindling and it’s difficult for me to tell if things are truly in proper focus. I’ll check them out later when I take the time to upload them from the card on which they now reside.

Cosmic Awesomeness

Nevertheless, as I watched our nearby satellite slowly fall behind our planet’s shadow, I was mesmerized by the thought of how enormous the three celestial bodies involved in this display are – compared to us – and how insignificant the whole show is in relationship to the rest of the Universe. I find these events incredibly awe-inspiring and am always humbled when I contemplate their scale. Think about it. The Moon is approximately two days away at the greatest speeds we’ve been able to achieve. It’s only about two light-seconds away. Our galaxy (The Milky Way) is approximately 100,000 light years in diameter and contains, perhaps, as many a 200 Billion stars. Current estimates put the number of Galaxies in the Universe at up to 500 Billion! That makes for an awful lot of stars.

The sure knowledge that I may be incredibly important to my wife and my children (not to mention me, myself, and I), but I really don’t matter much in the grand scheme of things is damn near paralyzing in its implications. Somehow, though, I have managed to meander fairly meaningfully through my life. I’m grateful for that!

The best views I got were with my small, 8-power binoculars I chose as a service award when I worked for The Boeing Company at what is now Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne. I’ve had them quite some time and they do come in handy on occasion. I watched until the Moon was just about to disappear behind a tree, though distant, high, wispy clouds had pretty much obscured my view.

I also woke my 10-year-old, put my jacket on her, and carried her outside so she could see it. Last night she was anxious to view an eclipse of the Moon, but this morning was a slightly different story. So she got to see it, then got to go right back to sleep. Hope she remembers. I know I will.

Photo courtesy of The Sustainability Ninja

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2 December 2011

Shake, Rattle, & Roll

By Rick Ladd
Shaken, not stirred

The Mmmoon and Vvvenus!

Mmmoving Dddown the Rrroad

It’s incredibly disconcerting to raise a forkful of food to one’s mouth, only to have most of it fall off due to the shaking brought on by essential tremors. Not actually complaining. After all, I’ve had a pretty damn good life, and this is really more like a speed bump.

Still, I’m really beginning to understand – viscerally – the phrase “Growing old is not for the faint-of-heart”. Neither am I asking for sympathy. I’m merely sharing something that comes to mind almost every time I eat, shave, or hold a glass of liquid. I recall it happening to my mother; now it’s happening to me.

As I round the last turn and head into the home stretch, the changes are fascinating and, as a Baby Boomer (born in 1947), soon many of you will be following along. So get your whip ready. The race is getting interesting and it’s going to take all you can muster to finish respectably. Thanks for listening to me bitch and moan. http://amplify.com/u/a1j8xd

6 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Family, Personal, Random Thoughts

28 November 2011

Acronyms and the Indefinite Article

By Rick Ladd
Raw Material for Acronyms

Acronym Raw Materials

A Trivial Pursuit

If you work in a large organization, chances are you’re familiar with a reasonably large number of acronyms. At the aerospace company for which I once labored there were hundreds upon hundreds; so many we required a company-specific dictionary to understand what they were. There were certain acronyms for which most people hadn’t the faintest idea what they actually stood for. They just became the names people used for the component or report the acronym designated.

There’s a question I often wrestled with – and argued over with others – regarding the proper use of the indefinite article when writing contains one or more of these acronyms. For the grammar police (of which I am a proud member), this isn’t a trivial question. It goes like this. For an acronym, when spoken (or sub-vocalized) with a vowel sound at its beginning, but for which the full pronunciation of the term begins with a consonant sound, which is more correct? “A” or “an”?

For instance, the acronym LOL stands for “laugh out loud”. When saying the acronym itself it begins with the vowel sound “eh”. However, when saying the entire phrase it begins with the consonant sound “l”. From my POV (which, btw, is an acronym that begins with a consonant sound regardless of which way it’s spoken), I have always used the indefinite article “an” if it begins with a vowel sound.

This may seem trivial, especially with an acronym like LOL. However, one of the most widely used terms at my former place of business was SSME, which stands for Space Shuttle Main Engine. It was used a lot and when I used the acronym I would always use it as “an SSME”. However, because when the entire name of the product was used it began with the consonant sound “S”, some people would use “a SSME”. Of course, if you were to see the acronym, but read it as the entire phrase, this would make sense. However, my experience was the opposite; almost everybody used the four letters. Hence, I thought it appropriate to write “an SSME”.

Mystery Solved

As I said, this will be to many a very trivial issue. Nevertheless, inasmuch as the correct use of language is important to many (including moi), I was reminded of this distinction last night when commenting on a Facebook post by a friend. As I was writing today’s post, I was preparing to say I’ve not seen a rule that specifically addresses this issue, but I paused and did a quick Google search. Much to my surprise, and with not a little satisfaction, I found it addressed at Purdue’s “Online Writing Lab” (OWL). Here’s the specific rule.

So . . . if you have occasion to use acronyms which start with a vowel sound, whereas the item for which the acronym is a replacement starts with a consonant sound, the rule is to use the indefinite article “an”, as opposed to “a”.

I believe World Peace is just around the corner!

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