A love line in the sandy sky

On By cjx07sterIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
B72 Snake Nebula

It was getting late in the afternoon at the caravan park.  Tents flung all over the place, with spaces of grass and sand between them.  The beach not far away, flocks of seagulls tearing bits of food apart and squabbling as usual.  For most of the people there too, it was getting time to eat.

Alice was sitting on a rock, overlooking the ocean, and the waves.  Sunburnt a bit, she was munching on an apple, a nice red one and considering her palm, a mystery, but she had been told about love lines, marriage lines, heart lines.  It was mystery to her.  It was cooling down and so she got up and walked back to the tent on the beach, and met up with Ferodo, that infuriating guy boyfriend, whatever.

Alice and Ferodo took off up the track together.  Alice offered Ferodo a bite of her apple, and he took one, but was still thinking of fish and chips after all. He thought of holding hands perhaps.  Who would go first, the woman or the man in the equation ? They often thought about crossing the line, that marks the balance point in a relationship.  When tension increased, the strength and straightness of the line as well.  It appeared impassable sometimes, but other times it relaxed into a kind of curvature not starting or ending, but eminently crossable. Still, her hand was all sticky with apple.  Perhaps he would just kiss her instead.

“Ferodo !. Quick, look, what IS that ? ”

“Can’t see a thing mate !”,…  “where ?” he asked..

“Just there, you idiot !” “Look, It’s a snake!”  she said.

“Na, theres no snakes around here !, it’s the beach, don’t worry” he said.

“OK OK I see it !” he added.

There on the path in the darkening, was a curved black line in the sand,  the line was fixed in the sand but the front extended and the back contracted so that the line seemed to move forward in perfect formation.  It was a Taipan by the way, one of Australia’s most deadly snakes, a bit off track, and who knows where it had come from or why, but too dark to make it out clearly….

Alice screamed, “It is headed for that tent over there”. “quick kill it ! Or something !”

Ferodo, didn’t know too much about snakes.  He figured it was dangerous, and that he should take care, but as the light was fading was pretty sure he didn’t want to jump on it.

“Keep your eye on it, and don’t get too close !.  I’ll be back ” he said.

He quickly ran back to his own tent and looked around for a weapon.  There on the bed, where he had left it, was a hammer, perhaps that would do.  He snatched up the hammer and ran back to where Alice was following the snake up the path slowly but surely without deviation advancing on the lighted tent further on.

Ok, so with hammer in hand Ferodo looked at the snake saw that even though the snake was curved and snaking it’s way up the path, and even though he was kind of shaking all over, vibrating with adrenalin, and not knowing really if this was ok, he got the hammer in his hand.  His right hand. Should he use his left ? Wasn’t real sure, his mind started to optimise the situation, but then he realized he just had to go for  broke, forget the optimization.  If he had had a chance to pre-meditate killing the Taipan he certainly would not have chosen a hammer.

His right hand swung out, with the hammer at the smallish head moving in a dead straight line at constant velocity forward, slightly raised off the ground, and with the little minute tongue flicking the air occasionally.

Whack ! Smash, and then a violent eruption in the sand, of fury of the headless snake, whose head had clean come off all mashed on the end of the hammer.  The snake was thrashing around, and it was not clear it was dead, even though it’s head seemed to have come off.  Ferodo relived the last 200ms of it’s life to assure himself, that that was all he had to do.  He was shaking all over, possibly more than the snake itself.  He felt sick, like , way too much excitement that was unplanned and not part of expectations for this holiday.

Alice was standing there… ” what on earth !” she said, you could have got bitten ” what if you had missed the thing, you can hardly see it even now in this light”

Ferodo got his breath back, and said ” ok, ok but well, it’s dead now and at least it’s not going to get into the other people’s tent, whoever they are. ”

Alice and Ferodo looked at each other with a kind of new understanding.  The line had shifted in the sand between them.  Alice stepped forward to meet Ferodo, and stood with her foot clear on the still thrashing body of the snake.  She was standing there like it didn’t count anymore, with a half eaten apple,  and that there in front of her was another mystery to fathom.

After a while, the stars were coming out, as they turned, with apple and hammer in hand and walked off to get fish and chips.

Attribution : Featuring the Photo of the B2 snake nebula http://www.howardedin.com/wp/ creative commons.

One of us on a Tricycle

On By cjx07sterIn TravelLeave a comment

Yes, in the early days of my life, I recall we got a tricycle for a  birthday or Christmas present.  It was a present that we often had to share, all three of us.  We actually didn’t mind sharing presents, it saved our parents looking stupid for buying 3 identical, or different coloured presents, and it also saved them the hassle of fights due to buying different presents, which would always be compared in fine detail to determine exactly who of the three of us were being favoured.

The metal tricycle we got, was pretty ok.  Usually only two of the three of us wanted to play with it at anyone time, and with three, you could have 3 variations on a theme of two people on a bike at anyone time.  The other resting in between turns and laughing like hell about how awkward the other two would look.

But pure serenity, when the other two were off somewhere, and you could take full command of the tricycle for yourself, your own bell, your own destination, and your own time.  Of course, this led to higher risk elements, and no one holding you back with criticism.  You could wander off into the bush, on a bumpy bush track and try not to crash too hard, with a bell to compete with the galahs hanging around in the trees, and the flies, and lizards wandering in and out of view. The three wheels were ok going slow, but instability increased with speed, resulting inevitably in cuts and scrapes and blood and slight bruising, which of course you would pretend did not happen.

Eventually tired and most probably sore, you would just sit, and listen, leaning on the handlebars, waiting to get your breath back, not talking, just listening, and soon more wondering at the bush around you.   The quiet of the bush on entry would start to give way to more and more sound as the pain gave way, as though your hearing were amplified.  Each chirp or rush of wings, or screech of a cockatoo would impinge on the waiting mind, and become more random, more a total soundscape.

After a while you realised, that the chaos of the Australian bush is not something the eye fathom’s real well.  However the ear is perfect.  Stereo listening with eyes closed gives you the panorama of life and what is happening.  If the wind shifts, so does the sound.  If the light shifts, so does the sound.  You wonder what happens when it all goes silent, and you open your eyes, and blink, looking around to see who or what happened, and even what will happen, as though the bush life can sense something coming, like an earth tremor, or like a storm, or some change in the weather

But you would be sitting on the bike, as if to own it, and to prove to the natural world around that you, man, machine, were one, and ready to hike off back home at any point in time. Ready to return to the world of compromise and cooperation and sharing and scrapes.

Close your eyes. Longer than a minute, and listen to what is happening around you. It will inform you of a reality far beyond sight, which is much better suited for other things, like riding a tricycle.

Note:  The sculpture featured in this post is by Stephen Gregory.  If you happen to be near Goodwood UK you can visit the Cass sculpture park and talk to the all hearing tricycle rider sitting there, who itself is trying to fathom by listening, just what is going on.

The Internet : A Terrestrial Climate Controller ?

On By cjx07sterIn Automata, Innovation, Intelligence, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Global warming is a result of a set of complex feedback systems on a planetary scale. The earth has an extraordinary number in of feedback mechanisms and energy transfer systems that tend to balance energy storage worldwide, both in terms of oceanic heat, atmospheric heat and the heat in the more solid components of the earth.  It is a relatively closed system with not much coming in and out except perhaps energy from the sun, black body radiation to space.

Models have been developed to simulate and forecast the rise of the heat capacity and temperature of the earth and it’s systems, and the local effects on sea level, and great work of many scientists is starting to reveal the uncomfortable truth that the globe is warming, and we, humans might just be associated with it’s cause. What science now tells us is that global warming is big in scale and has time factors relating to centuries, or many generations, rather than one or even a fraction of a generation.

Let’s say we readers and all few billions of us on the planet know, that we have a causal relationship to the rate of warming, and that as the planet warms further, our children are likely to suffer on mass as a result.

This knowledge is enough for us to be concerned, but not enough to change our behaviour.  Our evolution is not that way inclined.  We tend to change behaviour based on experience, and generally only if we believe a change in behaviour results in a fairly immediate observable impact on our lives and the lives of those around us.

Global warming is big, its’ long term, and for human endeavour to try to change the outcome for the better, we would all need to act.  All people, towns, cities, states, countries, regions.

We have seen that classic governmental lines of control do not cause massive coordinated change in human behaviour worldwide.  However we have also seen that social networking is universal, carried by the internet, and does provide some means of at least coordinating thought in the right direction.

We have seen evidence of global coordination with the rise of ‘earth hour’ which now travels around the planet, country by country, one day a year to promote reduction of power.  The internet allows for this kind of coordination and action, whereby people can get some kind of feedback related to their behaviour.

Is it possible then, that with global internet availability, that this provides people with an opportunity to coordinate globally in terms of global requirements and resolutions.  That the internet would provide at least a mechanism to allow like minded people to gather global support for a particular urgent behaviour.

There is a new campaign to make an immediate behavioural change in Australia, for a carbon tax.  This is sponsored by a #sayyes campaign also as a tag on twitter.  It remains to be seen whether it can get enough steam to cause a revolution, but it is on the Internet, and anyone, Australian or otherwise could have a say.

Innovation 7 – Miles on Fire as Engineering

On By cjx07sterIn Engineering, Innovation, MusicLeave a comment

It was April 1988.  I was working at Costec in Sydney at the time, a company then designing and making custom simulators for the power industry focussed on the idea of it’s two founders. Each one different, using currently available technology, fit for purpose – to train operators, and difficult to create, hours of work, based on a simple idea.  Wonderful time that was.

My first inkling that there was that kind of special thing was when I went to a concert at the time, It was Miles Davis playing in Sydney.  One of two concerts I think.  I had heard some of his music before, but not much.  I had even bought some sheet music of his and tried to play it. Didn’t understand it.

At that concert, I did experience Miles Davis, and got to know him through his music and ways around the stage. The way he kind of orchestrated on the fly, getting through his ideas in such an innovative way, each time he played a number. Here was one of the most intense people I ever saw or met. Someone who seemed to have an idea, and then do his best to express it through the entire composition, components of which were his trumpet playing, others were his sidemen. Music has a quality that is free of language.  Music speaks straight into the mind of the listeners, his kind of music devoid of lyrics and words, it goes straight in, if you let it. I did.

So it has taken  about 25 years for me to figure out what it was I heard.  What I heard was the physical expression of a burning idea through music. I am sure that non of it that I heard would be repeatable, without the man at the centre of it.  Since it was not just about the music, it was also his attitude, stance, control, and direction of that idea, his total focus on it, in order to have his musicians play it the way he saw it.  There I saw a match and its consequent fire of an idea, a physical thing.  It is here now, and tomorrow it will be there as well, but it may be modified, discarded for a better one, developed. I could be better tomorrow, it could be irrelevant, but for sure, there is a strong will about that idea that has to get out.

Since that time, I have come to understand about innovation in a similar abstraction.

Take an idea and then think about how you would tell someone about that idea musically.  Would it be noise, a lone trumpet song, and orchestra playing, a symphonic movement, which one, first or last ? How solid is the idea.  If someone kicks it, will it last, will it just blow away in the wind ? How permanent is the idea or its expression.  How quick does it have to be made ? How long does it have to last ? What color is it ? How much of that color is in fashion ? When will it go out of fashion ?……

Would you care ?

Innovations are true to the idea, its clarity and purpose. They reflect the idea so that others can see it.  The innovation itself has a timeframe, a purpose and a reason. So engineering too, it full of innovation and surprise, resulting in physical things others can see and appreciate, for what they are worth, their repeatability, and value, and for how long they are around.