I got a “pile” of books for Christmas to add to my two I am currently reading. When King’s 11/22/63 and Issacson’s Steve Jobs are finished, I’ll crack the binding of Crichton’s Micro, I think. I still like a real book – I like the heft of a hardbound book in my hands and the tactile feel of a page of paper. I haven’t quite warmed up to e-books, yet.

So, to all my friends, new and old, and to everyone else in the world, too, Merry Christmas and Nappy New Year! I hope 2012 is a good year for us all.

I haven’t blogged for several months – just realized that my last post was in October – SHAME on ME…

I still have my nose pressed against the TV watching the politics parade pass us. This is theatre. President Obama has cleverly let frustrations fester among the voters – he couldn’t point at an ineffective Congress for 24 months, or he would  sound tired, and his message would be lost at election time. He has timed his attention to the problems at hand to suit the short attention span of average voters, and he will not only point to an ineffective Congress throughout 2012, but he will prove that they are ineffective when they accomplish nothing of note in the months leading up to the election. This may be a very effective strategy – perhaps the only effective strategy for him in his reelection campaign.

In the Republican “tent” of this circus, we still have a side show worth watching as the Republicans point to the “obvious” failures of the Democrats, though I don’t see it in the same light. Gingrich isn’t registered for the Virginia primary? What were his people doing? Perry, too? My forecast is that Perry will drop from sight, and Gingrich will find some wily way to climb back into the Virginia primaries. Just you watch! Mr. Paul doesn’t mince words, and he sticks honorably to his principles – he is still refreshing, but his views are much too far from the main stream for any affect. In this right wing of the circus tent, I still like Mr. Huntsman, but I am afraid that his cause is ultimately lost. My money is still on Mr. Romney to survive the primaries contest – he has nice hair.

Just the political fro of the Presidential elections will make 2012 an interesting year. And Congressional contenders have yet to make a peep… I’m listening…

Zakaria’s Christmas day program segment on CNN about leaders with an interesting Pulitzer price author raised a few ponderous thoughts in my mind and a friend’s in Palo Alto:

1) Four years is a long time to suffer a bad leader when the rest of the world spins so fast around us – do we need a Lack of Confidence vote mechanism like Canada and many other democracies in the world have?

2) Congress and much of the rest of the Federal government struggles to assure a failure and not a success as the parties fight each other (Boehner said he “fought the good fight”) for influence and affect. A leader would find a significant common cause worthy of all of Congress passionately fighting for a success.

3) The value of human life and the role of the United States in the world has changed wildly over the centuries since the founding fathers wrote the Constitution, and that makes the Tea Party’s call to return to the values of the founding fathers highly questionable and naively ill thought. We wonder what the Tea Partiers talk about over dinner (the days before the Modet T?)…

4) Law is “additive” – Congress creates new law continuously – that seems to be their present day mission, and Congress does not easily or often abolish law – and every law has a price or a burden, and the total burden of our laws is mounting! Should every law expire?

Not much leadership is required to “sail the present course”, but a leader of exceptional quality is required to change course and transition society to avoid a crisis or respond to one.  Zakariah’s commentary on leadership said that History has a kinder view, and that is quite correct, but he didn’t address the recognition of or solution to poor leadership in the present. That’s the problem of the average voter, and I am reminded of an old saying I have:

“The average person is very average.”

Well, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! 2012 will be an interesting year, indeed. I sincerely hope we all have a great year!

Here are a few thoughts from my brain. Let’s see what the Republican debaters say tomorrow! Probably not much of any substance.

Tax Reform -

The current fallacy of modern taxation – the fairness pitfall is that money working for money (an investment) currently has a lower tax rate (15% capital gains rate) than labor or intellect working for money (up to 35% marginal tax rate). Money Talks – heck, the Supreme Court has ruled on more than one occasion that money is a protected vehicle of Free Speech. Corporations are afforded many of the same rights as people, and in some instances more rights and new rights that people don’t get to tap. My fear is that corporate influence will easily defeat meaningful tax reform.

Tax policy can drive significant elements of our economy. Want to encourage domestic investment? Lower the capital gains tax rate below the personal income tax rate. I bet that was the rationale for creating a lower capital gains tax rate in the first place – to keep investment dollars here in the US rather than see them go to Europe or Japan, though I have never seen that thought in print. I wonder what Congress’ actual rationale for establishing the lower gains rate was?

My view of personal income taxation is that all taxes – social security, medicare and internal revenue taxes should start to be assessed on the first dollar in excess of the annualized minimum wage plus some amount related to the number of dependents. A minimum wage worker, a welfare recipient or someone living in poverty should not be burdened by any taxes. Internal Revenue taxation is not too far from this principle. What is the justification, though, for the ceiling on Social Security wages  - why excuse the wealthy from this particular tax burden? Why excuse realized investment gains from social security and medicare taxes? I am genuinely asking the question – why was it done this way?

Market Volatility and the Occupy Wall Street Movement -

I am amazed that the “masses” who have lost relatively large portions of their 401K plan values and home value are complacent to “sit and take it” as they contemplate disappointing retirement prospects. They are still hopeful, I guess… One day, their losses will drive them to pick up signs and step beside the Occupy Wall Street protesters nationwide. There could be a ground swell of protest as the markets continue to dance around until dipping sharply with the next European financial calamity. My bet is that the Occupy Wall Street movement will grow dramatically next year.

Want to make the securities markets rational and suck the volatility from programmed trading out of the markets? Charge a Federal sales tax on every securities transaction whether at the market, an option or a future! I wonder how much tax revenue a 1% Federal financial transaction tax would generate? Hmmm… It won’t return the losses to the invested middle class, though.

Budget Deficits and Jobs

President Obama knows that troubled finances demand reform on the inflow and the outflow – on both ends. He “gets it”. I like President Obama, but he has a tendency to begin negotiations with an intransigent opponent with a meager appeal from the middle ground, and not something dramatic from the edge – you can’t move someone who is uncompromising towards the middle by starting from the middle – you can’t make radical change happen with baby steps. The President said that cutting the Federal Government’s mission and scope cuts jobs – he’s right. Cutting the Federal budget by 10% would potentially cut almost a half million Government jobs by my estimate at the very time when the President has challenged Congress to expand employment. The real challenge is to spend money smarter. I like President Obama, but I have to admit that I am disappointed by his small ambition to fix big problems.

I wish Robert Reich, President Clinton’s Secretary of Labour would run for President. He understands a thing or two about the “jobs economy”. He “get’s it” like few others do. I like Dr. Reich.

If Congress forms an “Infrastructure Bank” to rebuild roads and bridges and FAA systems and waterway systems to spur employment, it will only employ a small fraction of the unemployed. And it is unlikely to be sustained into the long term. A good idea with a small employment impact… But borrowing the money to rebuild infrastructures right now is cheap – a bargain! The newly reemployed in these programs would be dominantly manual laborers. There are vast numbers of highly skilled unemployed and underemployed who represent a huge untapped potential if employed and working hard – the “tails” are significantly unemployed – the least experienced and the most experienced face enormous hurdles in the labor market, and these programs do not address these highly (and narrowly) skilled workers very aggressively.

Speaking of unemployment, it is laughable that the official rate and the generally acknowledged actual rates are different by between a factor a half or a third…  The Government is wasting money to count a statistic that is simply and utterly wrong, and openly acknowledged as such. It’s a waste of my taxes for the Government to determine the unemployment rate. CNN can do better (and does). 14M unemployed; 11M underemployed; and how many uncounted?

My real concern for the future state of unemployment, in all candor, is that I’m not wealthy enough to employ security people to insulate me from the hardship of the unemployed. I don’t want indigents camping in our city parks or in my front yard or knocking on my door for food and other handouts. And they are already starting to knock on my door… This is one likely kind of societal impact from unemployment if it grows by a few more percent amidst Federal and State budget cuts that whack “survival” benefits.

This isn’t too organized a rant. Sorry about that. More later – maybe next Monday.

MACOSX LION - I installed MacOSX Lion over the weekend. Lion Server, actually… I am not overly impressed – a bit “doggy” – “pokey”. There are spinning beach balls now and then – haven’t seen them for years – they need to go away…

Often, a new OSX installation is slow for the first few days as the OS updates pre bindings, locate databases, Spotlight and other metadata. Lots of stuff can go on in the background processes for a while. I think performance has improved 10% or so since Saturday.

I have the server implementation. Server services and processes are prioritized even though there are none running. Find and uncheck the box to prioritize server services, and “Presto-Chango” – much better.

The Server applications did not launch initially – a server daemon did not launch. Thanks to Apple Enterprise Tech Support for spotting this quickly and defining a plist file to launch the process whenever it was required.

Some permissions bugs – files on an external HD were not viewable until I adjusted permissions. The Sandbox is quirky – jpg’s in an unzipped file downloaded from the Internet are treated as applications with each demanding an approval to open with Preview. Opening any file the first time that launches an Apple application, for that matter, has a noticeable delay – as the Sandbox process is run, I presume. Using the embedded MacOSX archiving utility and the native Preview applications work in tandem to manifest this awkward problem. Use Stuffit , and no problem for Preview. Use the MacOSX unzipped and no problem for a media cataloger viewer such as the old Microsoft Expression Media. This is a “must fix” bug.

Lots of memory paging, spell checking everywhere… Apple is going to make IOS an exclusive subset MacOSX, and they are changing MacOSX to coincide precisely with IOS features. Look at LaunchPad to see for yourself. Speaking of which, I simply don’t see the justification for Lion’s new LaunchPad or MissionControl banner features. I don’t “grok” it.

And (Apple – are you listening?), why hasn’t the IOS e-book reader app been ported to Lion, yet. I would like to buy an e-book in iTunes and read it at the desktop.

BEER – made a new batch with a good friend – did good – a nice British style ale – very drinkable! After two weeks fermenting and another two weeks getting fizzy in bottles – that’s four long weeks of waiting, it proved to be a good brew.

The Samuel Adams Harvest Collection box is outstanding!

THE EVENT – an NBC SiFi show available for Uverse customers on Hulu.com – the entire season. Maybe you can watch it if you aren’t a Uverse customer… Very clever and dynamic show – the Aliens are among us – some were captured in Alaska in the 1940′s and detained in a secret prison until the President stumbled upon it. Lots of conflicts, diverging priorities, intrigue. I never heard of this show when it aired last fall/winter. This is worth watching for a scifi buff like me!

IMMIGRATION – An employee on an OPT extension of an F1 visa needs a Green Card or an Hi visa that my company sponsors. This is a big problem. It is expensive for my employee, and it is expensive for my company. It is really, really complicated. A priority 2 Green Card application is taking four years for processing, and a priority 1 Green Card application is taking between six months and a year to process. An Hi visa also takes about 6 months to process. A lot happens in six months. Business staffing decisions need to happen much faster than this.

This is my employee – she needs this job and the subsequent opportunity, and I need precisely her and no one else – she has a year of experience with my company and several years invested refining the technology and techniques we employ. There are so many DOL and INS forms and so many rules and so many quotas and limits and the like that it is almost impossible to understand the boundaries of the problem and potential solutions. Congress needs to fix this.

An immigrant scientist who was educated here, stays here and works here pays taxes and helps build a bigger opportunity – those benefits evaporate if the employee must stop work, and worse, if the employee leaves the USA to take the opportunity to a different country’s economy. What was Congress thinking? Gotta fix this…

BANKING FEES – Why is it that services provided by expensive employees from plush “brick and mortar” banking facilities are free, and services performed on-line or by robot ATM machines cost money. I would think that anytime you walk into a bank to conduct conventional business with a teller, you should have to pay a fee.  Anytime you avoid the costly trappings of a bank office, it should be fee-free. The current fee structure prompts me to use high cost bank resources for low-value services because the cost to me is $0 when the alternative service resources cost me a fee. One of the big banks will catch onto this…

When I was a child, my bank charged me $1 per withdrawal after one free every quarter. This made me rather angry for an 8 year-old. A dollar was a lot of money. I would simply close my account after my one free withdrawal per quarter, and then walk over to the New Accounts desk to open a new account if I needed to raid my savings account. After more than three years of this (and countless new accounts), the bank President stopped me in the lobby and kindly asked me to close my account and take my business elsewhere. He explained that it cost the bank more than $20 each time I closed my account and opened another one. I simply said that he could have “saved a bunch of money if he hadn’t started charging a fee.” He called the guard and asked that I be escorted off the property. I returned a few days later with a permit to protest, with a sign, and with determination to show the bank manager a thing or two. The local TV stations interviewed me, and I could see the bank President pacing nervously behind the cameras… There was no graceful way for him to recover.

Well, this bank fee nonsense will become a game for some, and the bankers are not smart enough to see where this could eventually lead. Where is that old picket sign???

SUMMER’S ALMOST OVER – Whew – it was a hot one. The days are still in the 80′s, though, and one day last week was 97. Before long, I will complain about the cold. Brrrrr – don’t like the cold below about 40…

MY FRIEND MIKE – I heard from my stamp collecting friend Mike in Herford. He has adopted a Quaker school class and it sounds like he is enjoying that very much. He sent me some Zimbabwean stamps to add to my collection with a nice letter. We don’t write letters anymore, and we should. It was good to hear from Mike – he’s doing fine. I need to write back!

ISHA IS A BEAUTIFUL BABY GIRL – It was a treat to visit over the weekend and see this precious little one! And her parents, too! And the proud Grandmother, too! A baby transforms the world into a better place.

SKYLER’S SLEEPING ON MY DESK THESE DAYS - ah, the life of a cat… Hard to work, though – he takes up a lot of space. In the winter, he sleeps with his nose pressed against one of the flat panel displays where the backlight is (it’s warm there). He can turn on the scanner, answer the phone – actually knock it out of the cradle when it rings, and help me grab just the right pen when I ask him to. He even types for me when I leave for the restroom. Ah, the life of a cat…

ALL FOR NOW…

So, what does this have to do with neighbors? While “cruising” Riyadh, I had a little trouble finding my old house from the early ’80′s. I found the mosque, and the strip center I shopped at, and the major roadways nearby, but the old house was gone. But the mosque – they added onto the structure – it was much bigger. The mosque was directly across the dirt street from our home. We had some trouble with the mosque when I moved into the house. The Imam didn’t like having “infidel” neighbors – he told us so on one occasion. I remember thinking, “You don’t know me. How can you not like me? I’m a good neighbor.”

One Thursday afternoon coming home from work, I noticed that the mosque was in chaos with people in panic and water running out from the mosque onto the street – broken plumbing where the men washed before prayer… After dinner, after the chaos was over and the plumbing repaired, I walked across the the street to see a terrible mess. I grabbed a broom, and started to sweep the mud off the tile floor in the main hall. The Imam and I were the only two people in the mosque, and I knew how important it was for the mosque to be ready for Friday prayers. The Imam walked up to me, thanked me for helping him clean, and he said in Arabic, “You are the only neighbor of the mosque who is here to help me clean. None of the Moslem neighbors are here. I am so glad you are our neighbor. Please call me Abdul Aziz.” I tried to tell the Imam that a good neighbor is always around to help out when no one else can. I wasn’t sure he understood my awkward Arabic.

The next day, we had a dozen or so people stop to knock on our gate during the course of the busy prayer day. After the customary greeting, each visitor made a point to say thank you “Shukran”, and then in English, “Neighbor”. From that day forward, we were warmly greeted by everyone in the street. That Imam and I shared tea a few times a month for about three years, and we would spend some time afterward to clean the mosque together as I practiced my Arabic. I miss Abdul Aziz. I am certain that the members of the mosque would have been in my home helping me if there was ever a need. I sincerely hoped the best for Abdul Aziz and our neighbors when I left Riyadh. Our Riyadh house is the only home I have had that is no longer standing.

Today, our neighborhood is struggling a bit with unemployed homeowners and high crime – the last few years have been hard for a number of my neighbors. This week, our neighborhood participated in the City’s National Night Out Against Crime. Less than 15% of our homeowners participated. Our neighborhood is very diverse – there are 27 languages I know of that are spoken in the home here in our neighborhood. As the HOA President over the past 8 years or so (and fanatical engineer), I have generated a few “culture maps” of the neighborhood. I can clearly see that the cultural differences here have become barriers between neighbors during difficult times – particularly between the different Asian cultures here. I think I need to inspire a few homeowners to be better neighbors. If I am just a little bit lucky, that effort will snowball.

We need a “broken pipe” to fix and clean up afterward together.  I need to find a way to draw a few unwilling homeowners strategically into our Crime Watch team. They have to all want to do this together. I’ll “think on that”… There is high value in good will when neighbors are “good neighbors”!

Thank you for entertaining.

Thank you for delivering.

Thank you for taking me along on a technological journey with you!

Have you ever “cast a stone” to mete out justice? I have – I have been witness to an execution and asked to participate.  It made me sick to my stomach. I realized then that the world was less civilized than I wish it were. Let’s turn back the clock nearly thirty years: In Shororah, Saudi Arabia, In that small city’s central square one Friday morning while buying some food for breakfast, I was lead by the arm by a Mutawah – a member of the religious police force – to participate in an execution. I was handed a stone, marched close to the front of the spectacle, and commanded to throw the stone at the criminal along with the more than one hundred other people who had gathered there. I tossed my stone at his feet, and I left.  It was striking – I could see fear in the criminal’s eyes, and anger in the eyes of each person in the crowd who had gathered to execute this man’s sentence. I guess that I don’t believe in “an eye for an eye”. I believe in justice, but I know that I believe in “throwing away the key” in lieu of “casting the stone”.

I wonder why people don’t value life more. I wonder why justice does not strive to salvage the criminal’s future value more. I read somewhere that it costs more than $40,000 to incarcerate someone for a year. For three or four times that, you could employ a psychiatrist  to “repair” a number of criminals and perhaps significantly stem the repeat offender syndrome for a group of convicts – and save a significant amount of money, I bet. But we don’t look carefully at the lifecycle cost of social issues – we look almost exclusively at a minimal cost for a minimal mission and a minimal return. And most criminals just continue to be criminals after their sentence is served with little future value in society.

Suddenly, I don’t seem to sound much like an engineer… But I am certain that almost every life has some value, and society’s challenge is to find a way to eke the value from the most evil criminals rather that simply taking their lives. I am sure that is a challenge, but a noble one, and a civilized one.

I thought this would be a simple problem to solve.  I contacted 3M and Henkel (Loctite) – I figure I need a notch or two below the exotic, and these two companies should be able to help me. These companies have comprehensive product lines, tech support staffs are accessible, and there are plenty of publications from these companies to refer to. Now, have you ever called the IRS with a complicated question? And you called back to see if the second answer you got matched the first answer? They didn’t? Well, it seems that adhesives are a little like taxes…

Here is the problem description:

• Substrates: 316L stainless steel to 316L stainless steel;
• Static Forces: 100Kg of sheer force and 10Kg cleavage force (like bell peel) – pulling and twisting, in other works – no compressive force;
• Dynamic Forces: Occasional impulses of force that double and triple the sheer and cleavage stress – no vibration;
• Ordinary Physical Environment: 35C to 45C, 95% humidity (noncondensing – slightly acid from sea salt) – no submersion; may be exposed to water, detergent and drying heat to clean every month or so;
• Color: Colorless, off-white, tan, light grey would be good – not black;
• Join #1: Plate to plate (flat to .1mm) 1cm x 1.5 cm;
• Join #2: Wire to plate – 3mm diameter wire with 1 cm over the plate.
• Working time: At least several minutes – almost anything will work – not an issue…;
• Cure time: over night, but up to 3 days will work – can heat cure if necessary – also not an issue;
• Non-sag (viscous): not an issue for Join #1 – a high viscosity adhesive may be helpful for Join #2;
• Production: several per week maximum; adhesive budget for up to $50/week.

With all that, I would have thought that someone would have said, “You obviously need product A for Join #1 and B for #2.  Those are obviously your best choices.” But, I got a different answer every time I talked to someone. How frustrating. No one who was accessible had any experience using the adhesive products they were discussing. These companies were not paying for experience that was facing the customer! Dad-gum-it. Experience for products with a broad range of critical applications is crucial, and it wasn’t there.

To 3M’s credit, I eventually got indirect access to a chemist, but I couldn’t talk to this employee directly. To Henkel’s credit, I eventually got direct access to the product line manager who knew the product line frontwards and backwards. These individuals were ultimately helpful. To the credit of both of these companies, they sent me several free samples of a variety of products (in lieu of a definitive answer) to play with and determine for myself what would work best. 3M sent me a dispensing gun, and Loctite made sure I had plenty of hard to get 10:1 static mixing nozzles. These companies did everything possible to get their products in my hands.

So, I still have a few unanswered questions:

1. What material is 316L stainless most similar to with regard to surface bonding? Aluminum or cold-rolled steel (these two materials are commonly tested for manufacturer test data)? Is there a different answer for epoxies and for acrylic adhesives?
2. What is the optimum bond thickness for each candidate adhesive for Join #1 (not always stated on the tech data sheet)?
3. What is the optimum surface preparation technique for epoxies and for acrylic adhesives (there is a difference of opinion between companies)?
4. What is the effect of monthly thermal cycling from 40C to 120C to 40C on the bond lifetime?
5. What is the typical viscosity of a paste? A light paste?

Here are the products I have to trial – anyone recognize a winner:

3M – for Join #1 – VHB Transfer Tape, DP420, DP460; for join #2 – DP460NS (three epoxies);

Devcon – Metal Welder (an acrylic);

JB Industries – JB Weld;

Loctite H4710, H8500, H8600 (three acrylics for Join #1), E-60HP, E-214HP (two epoxies for Join #2); E-60HP may also work for Join #1.

LORD – 310 (medium viscosity, general purpose epoxy).

This will be a fun Thanksgiving project! I’ll report back… Anyone know answers to my questions???

I turned around and said, “Alaikum as-salaam. Kif Hallik?”

“Kwaise,” he answered.  ”You speak Arabic? “

“Some,” I said.

“Are you Muslim?” (such a serious look in his face for just a moment)

“No,” I answered. “I lived in Saudi Arabia for a long time,” I explained.

“Did you know that tomorrow is the first day of Ramadan?”

“Yes. Are you going to fast?”

“Yes, this is the first year for me – it will be so hard…’ and his voice trailed off. “Ramadan mubarak,” he said with a note of excitement, and he ran off to find his parents with a broad smile on his face and the boundless enthusiasm for life that a child from any culture from anywhere in the world has.

So, on this first night of Ramadan, I want to repeat the simple sincere expression of good wishes from a child and say, “Ramadan Mubarak – Ramadan Kareem” to my Muslim friends. I hope we all find peace, engage in charity to help the less fortunate, and celebrate the good in the world.

When I was at Rice, the space shuttle program was in it’s early days. At that time, the shuttles were test flown, and then routinely “shuttled” across the country on the top of a Boeing 747. One weekend, the Enterprise was on public display at Ellington Air Force Base, and I went to see it up close. It was interesting – exciting. Look at all the pristine tiles (I have close-up photo). Look at the attachment structure (I have a close-up of the nose structure, and it is stout). Look at the source of the 747 – a leased plane from American Airlines. I recall that I could not see “American” painted on the side of the plane, but it is obvious in the picture – must be some infrared film sensitivity. If I return to edit this post, I’ll add those close-ups I mentioned.

I was rather intrigued by the variety of people who came to the base to see the shuttle, and with camera in hand, I spent the better part of an hour waiting for an interesting variety of people to assemble in the viewfinder. See the people walking their dogs? I never would have thought to bring the dog… See the rancher snapping a photo of his wife with the shuttle in the background? And some fellow obviously looking for someone. It was a great morning.

While waiting for an opportunity for an interesting picture, a photographer from the Houston Post and I talked casually, and the paper later paid me a fee for the right to publish this picture. I never saw my photo on the “back page”, but the $50 check I received went toward textbooks (or was it beer). Well, however I spent the money, it was well spent!

So, as the space shuttle program comes to an end, I wanted to share one photo – maybe a few more later.  Now, the Russians will take us into space – and maybe the Chinese and Indians someday – maybe even the French!