Human Spark with Alan Alda on PBS

Have been watching PBS's Human Spark with Alan Alda.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Alda

Always like Alan Alda in science shows. But the science in this show is especially interesting.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/humanspark/

There are threads in the show that what makes us human is our imagination and our urge to understand the world around us. And we seek as humans to map the intentions of others, remember our past and map our future and be outside the limits of our self. In a way, this show is both about that and helps us to some extent do that.

It is especially exciting to learn something new when that new something is about how we learn something new, or the conditions around our interactions and innovations. That is precisely what this show proposes to touch.

Learned some great stuff about to what level we can read others intentions... "Mary is thinking that, Jim is thinking that Bob may be worried about his children." Doubly neat that the same areas of the brain that work on these problems of intent may be what allow us to imagine other times and places.

Snippet about mimicry was very enlightening.

The idea that we attribute intent, beyond merely social interactions, to everything sheds a powerful light on why we think about a universe driven by externalities. It almost sets one at ease to know, writ small, this is extremely useful, but also that, writ large, it may be a simple source of some of our deepest social problems.

Mars and Jupiter January 2010

It is January 2010 and a great time to see Jupiter and Mars.

The opposition of Mars happens on January 29, 2010. Mars is in the constellation Cancer. What does that mean? Most websites go into lots of details. That's fine, but where is Mars in layman's terms? Just after sunset (the sun sets in the West by the way) look directly East and there should be a bright star that is "not quite right". Mars is reddish and it is a disk (not a point source of light like a star) and will not really twinkle (at least it will twinkle less than a star). As the evening progresses Mars will rise and cross the sky (like the moon/sun/stars do).
http://www.earthsky.org/tonightpost/astronomy-essentials/best-time-to-see-mars-in-2010-is-january-and-february

Jupiter is in the southwest in January. Jupiter is in the constellation Aquarius. It was probably best on January 17, 2010 when one could find it near the crescent moon. But it is still there late January 2010, though low in the sky. It takes fairly dark regions to be able to see anything well near the horizon at sunset. Jupiter sets following the sun in the West, so you cannot see it all night. Jupiter is not really very colorful, but it is a disk (not a point source of light like a star) and will not really twinkle (at least it will twinkle less than a star). If you have a telescope or pair of binoculars, you can go hunting bright spots and, if you find Jupiter, you will be rewarded with it having a disk shape (maybe with some bars seen) and a nice little line-group of Jupiter's moons around it. If you watch night to night, and make little drawings of what you see you might be able to track Jupiter's moons' motions. Jupiter's moons are easier to track than Saturn's because they are more-or-less on a line. Saturn's are in a cloud because of our tilted view of their orbits.
http://www.earthsky.org/tonightpost/es-tonight/moon-and-jupiter-move-eastward-through-the-stars

My biggest gripe about Astronomy webposts and blogs is they often omit what YEAR they are writing about. You can spend a half hour trying to figure out what they mean about Saturn only to realize they mean February 14, 2004 (not 2010 or whatever). Please everyone, write out a date and include the YEAR when giving guidance.

Ideas for a first time traveller to Japan

Ideas for first trip to Japan.

1. Go with someone who has been to Japan.

2. Keep to areas of navigation where at least some signs are in English. That would say stay in Tokyo and Osaka and stick to train lines between city locations and to and from the airport.

3. It is a cash based society. So take/acquire cash. Get some from those who have been before. Check if your ATM will work with some of the big banks and withdraw in local currency. UBJ comes to mind.

4. DO NOT drive.

5. No special visa is required for Japan for US, Canadian/Commonwealth citcizens.

6. Fly JAL or ANA if you can afford it. Their service is much better than United, Northwest and American and on the long flight it is worth it.

7. Get a phrasebook and try to get the following:
-W5 (Who, What, Where, When, Why) and How,
-Greetings (bear in mind honorific and differences in first greetings vs later and family),
-Numbers (though deeper topic than expected in Japanese where counting depends on what is counted),
-Phrases for transit/directions, fast food, restaurants, washrooms, and your hobby/work/interests.
-Basic alphabet/syllabary (go for Katakana for foreign words first - more fun)
-Something interesting related to your work/goal/hobby (just one or two words).
-"Particles" are interesting to give you a picture of how the language works.If it helps the techno-types, Japanese is more of a stack context language than most. If you push an item onto the stack/context in a given role, it remains until you change that item.

8. Get a JR railpass (period - unless you are only there for a few days). There is no better mass-transit/train-pass deal in the world, and for any techno-types the Shinkansen is a must see. In Tokyo and Osaka the JR "subway" system is extremely useful. So even if you never leave Tokyo the JR Railpass is a great deal. Do not hesitate to try a short Shinkansen hop (like say out to Yokohama and back). Or ride out to the first stop north of Ueno and back. If you do rides at times of fair density you will only have to wait a few minutes for the return trip on major lines... or try a local train. Learn the stops on the Yamanote or Osaka-Loop Line.

9. See a museum related to your field.

10. Eat at Depato. Go to top floors or basement. Look at food models. Try something new. Enjoy. You will not generally run into anything too exotic first time out in a food hall (no fugu or whale or dolphin or horse or...). Try katsu. Try tempura.

11. Pick a cultural site to see. Tokyo: Asakusa Temples, Akihabara Electronic Town, Imperial Palace, Meiji Park, Ueno Park/Zoo, Tokyo University. Osaka: Temples, Den Den Town, shopping arcades.

12. Get an international cell phone plan or a Skype/SIP type device for WiFi. Getting plans inside Japan is hard becasue of ID and residency requirements (in post 9/11 world).

13. Japan is safe. If someone looks like they will help you, ask them for help. Accept their graciousness and be polite.

14. Exchange of business cards is important. You only get one shot at getting it right at first meeting. Have your cards clean and near at hand. Hand it over with two hands facing the recipient. Accept with two hands from those giving. Consider the card a moment. A polite question is not inappropriate (like what part of Yokohama is this district in your address? Or how do you exactly pronounce "x"?). Status is often assessed by card exchange.When you put away cards do not shove them in pants pockets. Show the card the same respect as the giver. Put it in a jacket pocket or a case or in your portfolio.

15. Stay at an international hotel near a JR station on a major metropolitan rail line. Leave ryokan and minshuku and such for later trips.

16. If you go off the beaten path in a metro area, you will probably get lost unless you have a great sense of absolute direction. It is not much of a worry if you have time to shift around a bit. Japan is safe. Try to find a map at an intersection. Try to get to a JR station.

17. Toilets: Western/Asian. Most hotels and department stores have western style toliets (at least as an option). It is helpful to know the Kanji for male/female in some off the beaten path spots, but if the postings are only in Kanji you will probably only get Asian style toilets.Carry some tissue (and a handkerchief?) with you. Some public toilets have no toilet paper or paper towels or dryers.Tissue lucklily is easy to come by from all the hawkers near major JR stations, shopping districts and department stores. Do not be offended by hawker snubs. It is probably more the case that hawkers are targetting male/females then Asian/foreign recipents. Be thankful you do not end up carrying arround tissues which have advertisements for hygiene products for the opposite sex.

18. Watch out for language restrictions in Internet/WiFi and web access. Not saying they will be there, but they have tripped users up before.

The following little PDF might be interesting...
http://www.links.net/vita/trip/japan/tokyo/guide/
http://www.links.net/vita/trip/japan/tokyo/guide/onscreen.html
Search for "Justin Tokyo" or "Just in Tokyo".

Green at Work, Nexus

Stumbled across this book, and have been using it as a sort of checklist as to how my workplace is "green"
http://www.amazon.com/True-Green-Work-Environment-Geographic/dp/1426202636

Not everything applies, but it is amazing how much does apply.

Interesting resource on all things green
http://www.nexusboston.org/

Nexus has a nice showroom and library and host interesting events. They have courses for LEED and sustainable practice.

Books and Wikis

I favour books over other media. Books have a tangible quality and a permanence (up to issues of fire and flood).

The web is a fine thing. I could not get through a working day without a search engine and knowledgebase wikis. I often sprinkle Wikipedia
http://www.wikipedia.org/
references through my notes. But Wikipedia is more about what is believed to be true, than what is true, but, sometimes, that is actually what one is seeking. The key is realizing this.

I think my favorite reference works are technical tomes from just before the micro-electronics era - good solid volumes about gears and fasteners and levers. They are books with lots of tables and diagrams. The micro-electronics era made it easier to skim over the details and leave solutions to software. Do not misunderstand me, this hiding of complexity is a fine approach to real world problems, but it makes for unsatisfying reading in pursuit of knowledge.

I always used to enjoy leafing through the multi-volume McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. I guess they have a sort of reflection of it in
http://www.mhest.com/
But the paper copies had lots of interesting 1960's diagrams and explanations of how complex things work.

Flow and Consumption

The most basic metrology, no matter what you are actually measuring, comes down to two basic things FLOW and CONSUMPTION. Beyond that there can be issues of qualities of what flows or is consumed. And there can be issues of the toppolgical/spatial distribution of flow/consumption. For the sharp, FLOW is just the time rate of change of CONSUMPTION (dCONSUMPTION/dt), but it is sometimes thought of inversely as CONSUMPTION being the accumulation of FLOW over time (the time integral of FLOW).

Enough generalities. Water is a good concrete thing to think about. We can measure its flow, or we can measure totals of water consumed. One can look at qualities of water too like temperature or purity/salinity.

Electricity is the omniprsent modern meterable. And it is the most often confused. One loses sight of Energy=CONSUMPTION and Power=FLOW at one's peril. Too many people lightly ask "How much Power am I using?" when they really mean Energy. Most people understand interest versus principle/capital better (which is also arcane at best), and that is part of why we have such problems getting the rational economics of energy policy right.

Natural Gas and Steam are much like water, though pressure and changes of "quality" due to the nature of the plumbing/transport system are key for gases.

Oil flow tends to be exactly analagous to water.

Then one can go to more exotic materials like printing ink in a printing plant, or grain in a feedmill, or spirits in a distillery, soda cans in a vending system, bits in a router, or even coins/bills in a cash control system.

And one can go to smaller or larger scale. It is one thing to talk about flow past a given point through a given conduit. A network of meters demands a topological analysis, and there are economies to be had through understanding detailed distribution.

Think about why people use just in time manufacturing and ask how they could do such without monitoring flow in the supply network.

"Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start"

Apologies to the writers allied with the "Sound of Music".
The first thing I have to figure out is how to make sure my postings go smootly to archive and I do NOT end up with a page that has to load over a thousand objects so that people can read my post from the middle of 2010.

My plan is to muse about energy and metrology and other things which interest me.
Those things might include:
Travel - like to Japan, Britain and Russia.
Trains - both real and in models and fiction - like in Japan and Europe.
Complex interfaces - like those in trains and air or space craft.
Energy - conserving it, measuring it, undestanding its science, technology and sociolology.
Virtual systems - machines, services and so on.