fooWare!

One of the people I follow on Twitter, @ccseed, tweeted a question earlier today “What was the best class you ever took, at any level, and why?”. My answer to this was short (limited by the 140 character limit on Twitter, “Aerospace Propulsion, senior year in Eng. at SU. Very challenging, coupled with very motivating and encouraging professor.” I wanted to take a minute to tell the rest of the story.

Spring term, senior year in Aerospace Engineering at Syracuse University was a rough place to be. I was taking 7 classes, including Thermo 2 and Rocket Propulsion (an “elective” with the Dean of Aerospace). I was in the second half of Aerospace Design, which was a year-long course required of Aero students in which each student was required to complete the design of a 150 passenger commercial jet. Most of them ended up looking very much like a Boeing 737. In addition, I was also working 2 different work-study jobs; dining hall supervisor and overnight dorm security. I was also required to take Aerospace Propulsion with Dr. T. Q. Dang.

I remember the first day of class, Dr. Dang diagrammed the internals of the engines on the SR71 Blackbird. The SR71 Blackbird utilizes a ramjet at supersonic speeds, but a more conventional jet turbine engine at subsonic speeds. I was fascinated. This was real stuff, this was where theory left the pavement and took flight. But it was also just the beginning. Propulsion was no joke. But what I remember of the course was Dr. Dang’s ability to make the very complex information accessible, even to a student such as myself with no spare braincells.

I showed up one Thursday morning for class (8:30am), after working a double shift of dorm security the night before. I had probably slept no more than 6 hours since the class on Tuesday morning. I had a cup of coffee, but I fully expected to struggle to stay awake. Quite the opposite! I was riveted by Dr. Dang’s lecture on force triangles within the turbine section of an engine. Everything was making sense, it was “flow”. And it seemed as if he was lecturing just to me.

Again though, the reality of it was, I was taking far too many courses to do well in all of them. By the time finals came around, I was failing the class on the basis of homeworks (though my projects and quizzes were reasonable). The grading was heavily weighted to the final exam. We were told on the first day of class the final exam would have 4 questions, and we were told the answer to one of them. So I walked into the final expecting I had one question locked up. Problem was, Dr. Dang left that question off. I had a reasonable grasp of 3 questions. On the fourth, I was stumped. I ended up starting from Newton’s third law, and deriving the entire solution from the raw fundamentals. But I still needed to pass Aero Propulsion in order to graduate. I went to graduation practice not knowing if I would actually have the grades to walk. Went from graduation practice to Dr. Dang’s office to find my performance on the final exam had pulled my grade up (almost to an A, I think). I might have hugged Dr. Dang, I know he could tell how excited I was. This was the last hurdle in my 4 year quest to call myself an Aerospace Engineer.

Richard Reeve asked a follow-on question, “What makes for an exceptional teacher?” which I didn’t get a chance to respond to. But to me, Dr. Dang was exceptional.

1. He saw I had the potential
2. He made sure he got through to me
3. He didn’t cut me any breaks
4. He celebrated my triumphs with me
5. He probably never realized the difference he made

That is the rest of the story behind my most memorable class and the exceptional teacher who taught it.

An interesting side effect of the connected world, the emergence of the citizen journalist. I’m not the first one to make this observation; consider the reporting of the US invasion of Baghdad as reported by Salam Pax in his blog Where is Raed?. Blogs have allowed anyone to report “the news” as they see it, in their corner of the world, from their perspective.

But this morning I came across another interesting angle on this, the citizen meteorologist.  New England Cable News was only able to provide weather readings from a small number of reporting stations due to widespread power outages caused by an ice storm.  These power outages had lasted long enough to wipe out the battery backups on their reporting stations.  However, they were still able to report the approximate location of the freezing line based on viewer observations.  People at home were calling in to fill in the gaps!  And in most cases, they didn’t have any sophisticated weather tools at home, they just had a thermometer outside their kitchen window and could make a visual observation of the weather.

There are other cases of this as well.  People phoning in about traffic conditions.  Massachusetts, sadly, did away with the *1 connection to SmartTraveler. But back in the day, that was an easy way for anyone to give an instant on-the-spot traffic report.  You don’t need traffic cameras every mile if you have an army of citizen observers reporting the conditions they are traveling in. You just need to make it easy for them. [Note, pilots have been doing this for years with PIREPS]

Another good example is gaspricewatch.com, which enables people to report gas prices to a central website.  I drive 2 hours to work (not every day, thank goodness) each way, and it is nice to check along the route and see where the best price is for gas.  I’m even able to make a judgement as to the accuracy based on the last time a reporting was made for a particular gas station.

These are examples of social media.  People coming together online for a common purpose to share their observations.  And the power behind social media is the openness, allowing for an army of citizen journalists (or meteorologists or traffic reporters) to contribute for the common purpose.  More information flowing into the system. 

But can you trust all the information you see?  Citizen journalism can lead people wrong.  A fake story about Steve Jobs having a heart attack was picked up by major news sources and widely spread before it was verified.  The false rumor, spreading through reputable channels, had a measurable effect on Apple’s stock price.  The message, caveat lector – let the reader beware.  But the hope is that the communities, each and every community, can police itself and ensure that the community members are distributing the best information around.

I did my civic duty earlier today, and cast my vote in the presidential election, as well as the local elections and ballot questions here in Massachusetts. And I have to say that as I did, what was most important to me was the act of voting. Regardless of your political persuasion or choice, whether I agree or not with your choices or reasons for choosing, what matters most to this democracy is your participation. I listened to the debates, I did my research, and I made my choices. I hope that many many of my fellow citizens did the same thing.

And when the sun rises tomorrow, there will be a newly elected President of the United States, who is going to have huge challenges to face. So participating does not end with the election, it is only the beginning. Write your Senator, write your Representative, write your state officials, stay in touch with what is happening at the local, state, and national level as closely as you followed your candidate for President. Know and understand what is happening in government, because at the end of the day it is our government.

That is my soapbox for the evening, back to watching the results.

Here in Boston, it’s a beautiful day. Perfect spring weather, warm in the sun and cool in the shade. But I’m working my cha-cha off because of three different major projects, each with critical deliverables this week. Blood pressure spikes everytime the Blackberry buzzes. Worked 70+ hours last week, expect in the 80s next week, have only had two days this year I haven’t done any work. My wife and son are in FL with her family for Passover…I gotta get out of Dodge…

My first car was a 1977 white Mustang II that I had in high school. An amazing piece of crap, leaked oil like Exxon Valdez. But it had doors that were about 9 inches thick and made of pretty solid metal. Came in handy when I bounced off a cement truck. Fast forward almost 20 (yikes) years. I now drive a Ford Mustang GT, perfect for going for a drive to the coast.

So packed everything up and hopped in the car. The great thing about where I live is that I can get to the ocean in less than 45 minutes. I end up on the patio of a coffee shop in Tiverton RI, right on the water. You know it’s a good coffee shop when the dark roast is called Honduran Hero. It was a good “airing out”…

Now, back to my oars…Red Sox game in an hour!

When U2 released “The Joshua Tree”, it was a pretty cool album. It was 1987, sophomore year at HHS for me…

It was so cool, I thought, I want to go find and see the Joshua Tree. It’s not shown on the album cover (I checked to be sure). Nobody told me there was more than just one…way more…

Fast forward to the late 90’s. I’m a software engineer, and I end up with a consulting job in Los Angeles. I spent 3 weeks out of every month there for about a year and a half. My wife was not thrilled. But, I did get to do a lot of hiking and general wandering about SoCal, up to SF to visit a longtime friend, out to San Bernadino to visit another friend, and made the most of it.

Soon after I started going out there, I felt the absolutely need to drive out to Joshua Tree National Forest. National Forest. That should have been my first clue. There’s tons of Joshua Trees. They’re all over the place. I don’t know where they took the album cover photo, but they must have looked at JTNF and figured, that’s no bloody good, there’s too many Joshua Trees there for an album called “the” Joshua Tree.

JTNF is a really cool place to wander about. Even better than hiking and trekking during the day (Ryan Mountain at 100 degrees F!) is staring at the sky at night and watching satellites fly by.

“It’s In The Way That You Use It” - Eric Clapton

Nice guitar riffs (of course, this is Eric Clapton we’re talking about) and a good drumline.

“Bleed It Out” - Linkin Park

I wasn’t so impressed by the iTunes clips of the other songs on the “Minutes To Midnight” album (except “What I’ve Done”), but this is a good screamer; even though it’s only about 2 minutes long.

“Tarantula” – Smashing Pumpkins

Another good screamer, reminds me of some of the tracks off “Siamese Dream”.

“You’re Not Alone” (Airplay Mix) – ATB

This is a song for driving down the West Side highway in New York City at 1am. It’s been a while since I’ve done that, but this is what I would have on the stereo.

“Werewolves of London” – Warren Zevon

This is a Chuck’s song. If you went to Syracuse in the early 90’s, you know what I mean. Long live Hungry Charley!

This is a test posting from Word 2007. I’ll go ahead and admit it from the start, I’m a Microsoft fan (quick, get the flame-retardant trousers). How can I not be? For more than a decade I’ve been writing software for Windows using all kinds of Microsoft technologies. Say what you want about Microsoft being the evil empire, but they help me keep a roof over my head and food on my table.

I’m sure there are other tools out there to do the same thing, but one feature that I like about Microsoft Word 2007 is the fact that I can write my blog posts from it, and post them right to my site. Nice integration folks, seems to work like a treat. While I’m at it; a comment on the RibbonBar. I read an article in the Wall Street Journal before the release of Office 2007 about Microsoft’s gamble on the RibbonBar, being a major UI change to such a widely-used piece of software. I like it. Very much so. Took maybe a day to get used to, and mainly because it changes where you find things. Now I’m used to it, and I actually find it tough to go back to a regular menu.

This is the new foo-Ware! Well, as of summer 2007…

foo-Ware! started out as a site supporting my shareware development, and then supported my consulting and contracting jobs. Now I work full time as the Application Development Manager for a global economics consulting firm, CRA International. CRA keeps me pretty very busy, so foo-Ware! has taken a backseat for the past 3 years or so. But, after feeling guilty about letting the virtual cobwebs grow, I decided to rebuild as a site for me periodic thoughts and interests. We’ll see how things go with foo-Ware! v3.0…