Driving to the Moon

 My 2005 Honda Civic turned 238,900 miles, the median distance to the Moon.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

ONE LIGHT SECOND 

TECHNICAL WRITER JOB DESCRIPTION

THE FUTURE OF MONEY

ARMADILLO CON 41 DAY 3

Nerdvana: Working with Engineers (and a Scientist)

Since mid-July, I have been working for an industrial manufacturing firm. We make machines that make things. Of course, everything runs on software. So, we have a lot of the usual folks, but in addition to them, we have real engineers, and even a physicist.

Entertaining moments can be as simple as dropping a disk magnet down a copper tube and watching it float to the bottom. 

One of the guys has been collecting and disassembling microwave ovens in order to re-purpose the induction coils. With enough of them, he can make an array of electro-magnets to lift a person off the ground. (We are still waiting on that.) One of  the first projects was a spot welder. The cellphone charger does not work very well; I suggested that he should hook it to one of the Xebex machines in the gym. The other day, we went out back and watched him burn wood. 

More than you ever wanted to know about Figure 2B on Quora here:

“How many volts does the output of a transformer of a microwave have?”

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Where All the Children are Above Average 

She’s Such a Geek! 

Teaching Ethics to Student Engineers 

Big Bang Theory: More Friends than Seinfeld 

World Peace Through Massive Retaliation 

A Partial Index of Ideas within this Blog

I write about whatever interests me.  Below is a representative sample from the 454 previous posts.

Language and Thought

• Art as Ordered Narrative
• Language and Thought: As You Think, So You Speak 
• Linguistics Debate: What Colors are Your Rainbow? 
• The Living Fish Swims Under Water 
• Indian English: Totally Legend Like Anything  
• Akkadian Roots of Modern Semitic Languages  
• Sandor Kőrösi Csoma 
• Readability is the Only Metric  
• Not Less Grammar Errors  

Philosophy

• Understanding Objectivism  
• The Influence of Ayn Rand’s Objectivism 
• Gregory M. Browne’s Necessary Factual Truths  
• More on Necessary Factual Truths  
• Harriman’s Logical Leap  
• Harriman’s Logical Leap AlmostMakes It  
• Browne on Kuhn 
• The Validity of the Senses  
• Imaginary Numbers are Real; Pegasus is Not  
• The Problem of Induction: Karl Popper and His Enemies  
• Knowledge Maps  
• George Boole’s Laws of Thought  
• Teaching Ethics to Student Engineers  
• Choose Your Virtues
• Morality and Ethics  
• Bringing Philosophy to Athens: Aspasia of Miletos  
• Hypatia of Alexandria  

Computers and Computer Security

• Documentation is Specification
• When Old Technologies Were New  
• Fortune Cookie in Hex Code 
• John Kemeny Knew: We Shall Have Computed 
• BASIC: Turing’s Truth 
• A Successful Imitation of AlanTuring  
• Turing’s Cathedral  
• Claude M. Watson (1922-2013) 
• Hackers Heart Small Talk 
• Passwords  
• Brian Krebs’s Spam Nation  
• The Code Book  
• BSides Austin 2016  
• BSides Austin 2015  
• LASCON 2014  
• Bleeding Data

Military 

• Your State Defense Force  
• State Guard Song: Texans ServingTexans 
• Leadership
• Primary Leadership Training 
• Texas State Guard BasicNon-Commissioned Officer Training 
• Hurricane Tejas  
• Away from the Keyboard 
• Challenge Coins  
• The Fourth Star  
• We Were Soldiers Once – and Young
• Love My Rifle More Than You
• Plenty of Time When We Get Home
• Atheists in Foxholes  
• Armies Without Weapons  
• Peace is More Powerful

Criminology and Protective Services

• The Fallibility of Fingerprinting  
• Shifting the Paradigm of Private Security  
• Laissez Faire Criminology 
• Integrating Criminologies  
• Criminalistics: Science or Folkway?  
• A Forensics Bibliography  
• Police in a Global Culture  
• Alternatives to Prison (Part 3)  
• Active Defense and Passive Aggression (Part 2) 

Scientific Fraud and Research Misconduct

• Misconduct in Scientific Research  
• 20% of Scientists are Crooks  
• Four Books about Bad Science  
• Science Fairs and Science Frauds  
• Another Case of Fraud in University Research
• Retraction Watch

Science and Mathematics

• The Unit Circle  
• Happy Pi Day of the Century  
• Visualizing Complex Data  
• The Man Who Loved Only Numbers   
• The Map that Changed the World  
• Epigenetics  
• Is Physics a Science?  
• BioBash Replicates Success  
• Biohackers  
• U.S. Patent Law Does Not Add Up  
• Teaching Ethics to Engineering Students    

Nerds

• Where All the Children are Above Average  
• She’s Such a Geek!   
• World Peace Through Massive Retaliation   
• Nerd Nation 
• Nerd Nation 4.5   
• Big Bang Theory vs. Modern Philosophy
• Genius by James Gleick  
• Feynman’sRainbow  

Science Fiction 

• Firefly: Fact and Value Aboard Serenity  
• Fantastic Voyages: Teaching Science with ScienceFiction  
• Monsters from the Id  
• From Texas to the Moon with John Leonard Riddell  
• The Girl Who Owned a City  
• Star Trek: Not Too Far Beyond  
• The Ferengi Rules of Commerce  

Industrial Design, Consumerism, Austin Culture

• The Genius of Design  
• Start the Presses  
• Objectified  
• Raymond Loewy  
• Creature Comforts Show No End to History
• Art & Copy
• Sunday at the Co-Op  
• Awesome Austin Foods  
• Brain Juice for Austin and the World 
• Hot Dang Vegie Burger Mix
• Sweet Deal: Epic Honey
• Epic Meat Bars
• Great Bean Chocolate
• Kalliope 
• Images from SXSW 2013 
• Formulas for Success  

Numismatics and Economics

• Numismatics informs Economics  
• Numismatics: the Standard of Proof in Economics 

• Money is Speech
• Money as Press and Speech
• Money as Living History
• The Art of Finance 
• Sacred Silver from the Roof of the World  

• Forgery and Fraud in Numismatics  
• William Sheldon: Psychologist, Numismatist, Thief

• The Remarkable Story of Risk
• To Make Money 
• Gresham’s Conjecture 
• Money as a Crusoe Concept 
• Debt: the Seed of Civilization  
• The Success of the WEIRD People  

MISCELLANEOUS

• Thank You Notes
• Before Email
• Reflections on the Passing of a Comrade
• The First Dagny

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS
Most Popular Page Views
Ten Most Popular Page Views
100,000 Pageviews
Most Popular Necessary Facts

Ahmed Mohamed Doesn't Live Here Any More

A good news story polarizes friends. Ahmed Mohamed and his family are moving to Qatar after his meeting the President of the United States following his arrest for bringing a clock to school. Apparently, the clock was old Radio Shack from the 70s. He took it from its housing and put it in a "pencil box" (metal art supply box). The third teacher who saw it called it a bomb and the principal called the police. It was easy for me to see Ahmed's point of view. My conservative comrades disagreed.

We did agree that no news story provided all of the same significant facts. Read Huffington Post, Breitbart, and Wikipedia to piece the story together -- and consider the sources.

Huffington Post 9/21: "The clock, which he invented, and built in 20 minutes using basic materials, led to his arrest ..."  
​Still on 10./22: "... arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school,..."​

​But putting "ahmed mohamed did not build clock" into Bing and Google returned a slew of articles from right wing sources.  Among those, though, was Mark Zuckerberg's interview in which he conceded that the kid spoke intelligently about electronics, but that he could hear Ahmed's sister in the background coaching him on the politics of the incident.

From Wikipedia:  "Some of Mohamed's teachers at Sam Houston middle school were surprised to learn that staff at the high school called police, as they have known Mohamed to bring more elaborate gizmos to their school."[7] [7]  Selk, Avi (September 26, 2015).Before Ahmed's fame: fantastic inventions and a fight with authority". The Dallas Morning News. Archived from the original on September 27, 2015. Retrieved September 27, 2015.

An "elaborate gizmo" is pretty much in the eye of the beholder. Last winter when Laurel wanted to build a security system for the house, I took out the Radio Shack project kit that she bought me one Christmas long ago. In a couple of weeks, we had integrated circuits on breadboards, and she was programming the controller.It is pretty easy to do.  But by comparison, I went to a computer security conference a couple of weeks ago, and one of the vendors had two motorized animals built from Leggos. I thought that was impressive.

Then, consider that this is about politicizing the behaviors of children. And the response of the police to an ignoramus.  The teacher who sounded the alarm teaches English.  Ahmed's technical teachers had no problem with what to them was obviously a clock.  

All of My Friends Got in Trouble in School

Texas law, it is said in an article, makes it illegal to possess a fake bomb. Well, OK, that's like robbing a bank with a fake gun, so I get that, but in order to fake a bomb (or fake a gun), it has to resemble the intended object.  In Iraq, they set off IEDs with cell phones.  So, are cell phones fake bombs?  The kid had a clock.  A clock is a clock -- unless you are an English teacher.

As for his having built a clicker to take control of the classroom projector, so what?  It's a prank for a moment.  Laurel had an uncle. When he was in high school, he brought a brown paper bag to class and told the girl next to him that it was candy for later....  knowing full well that the girl in front of him would put her hand in the bag... and find a snake. 

At our Model United Nations meeting in 1966, one of the delegations came with a "bomb" in a briefcase: a tape recorder that played tick-tock tick-tock .... and then boom!  

Of course that was before Columbine., 9/11, Homeland Security, and the militarization of the police. Those new conditions are real. For an insightful analysis of the sociology of mass violence, see "Thresholds of Violence" in a recent The New Yorker article by Malcolm Gladwell.

Also on Necessary Facts
World Peace Through Massive Retaliation: Educating the Gifted and Talented in Cleveland, Ohio
Nerd Nation
Teaching Science Through Science Fiction
The CSI Effect

100,000 Page Views

This blog earned its 100,000th page view on December 10.  The Google metrics are somewhat questionable. I read through all of the numbers provided individually and found many more that were popular, but not listed.  Also, it is hard to understand why so many hits come from France, the Ukraine, Russia, China, and Malaysia.  Perhaps hackers automatically probe all blogs looking for weaknesses.

Many of my Objectivist comrades visit, as I post out-takes, or cross-link articles from here to Rebirth of Reason, Objectivist Living, and the very popular Galt's Gulch Online.  Unfortunately, from what I can tell by the metrics, they seldom have read more than the target link, even though most of the articles here close with "Also on Necessary Facts" (sometimes "Previously on Necessary Facts").  I also get some traffic from Michael "wintercow" Rizzo, professor of economics at the University of Rochester (New York), who writes the Unbroken Window blog. A few more viewers come in via Organizations & Markets.

Although "Alongside Night" jumped to first place this year, historically, the top post had been "What (if anything) did Dorothy Learn?" The conclusion to the famous 1939 movie version of The Wizard of Oz still leaves people around the world wanting to know.

The other subject of perhaps truly wider appeal that did not make even the top 30 this year was "Firefly: Fact and Value Aboard Serenity."  A libertarian friend recommended the series on the Objectivist Living discussion board.  I found it favorably reviewed on the Atlas Society website.  I got the disks from the library; and we both enjoyed the series. My ex enlightened me about Joss Whedon. From there, I found more works, such as his Astronishing X-Men issues; and I understood why the "Serenity" page won so many looks.  (We just watched Season One of Buffy the Vampire Slayer last month.)

I created the Score by dividing the Days into the Views. I figured that about One per Day was good.

Title	Date	Views	Days	Score
Alongside Night to Run in Austin	27-May-14	1856	195	9.52
There is no John Galt – and that’s worse	13-Sep-14	388	89	4.36
Republicans for Voldemort	20-May-14	362	202	1.79
William Sheldon: Psychologist, Numismatist, Thief	1-Sep-13	792	461	1.72
Your State Defense Force	23-Nov-14	32	19	1.68
Contradictions in the Constitution	13-Aug-13	781	479	1.63
What (if Anything) Did Dorothy Learn?	6-Jan-12	1329	1056	1.26
LASCON 2014	24-Oct-14	60	48	1.25
Megacities	19-Aug-14	122	113	1.08
Scripophily	10-Aug-13	510	482	1.06
Money as Living History	9-Jan-14	344	333	1.03
Bob Swanson and Genentech	3-Jul-13	500	519	0.96

Personally, I have my own favorites.

• Newton versus the Counterfeiter  (This version of my book review was rejected by the Ohio State University Law Journal because I missed their cut-off for timeliness. The ANA granted me a Heath Literary Award for my biography of Newton's tenure as warden and master of the British Royal Mint.  So, when Thomas Levenson's book came out, I was enthusiastic and placed several book reviews.)
• The Big Whimper of Modern Philosophy   A group of academic philosophers spin essays based on popular television shows. As a fan of "Big Bang Theory" I believe that it was over their heads.
• Sergei Magnitsky  His death (murder, actually) was a brief news story and generated some bills in Congress.  It was one of many rocks in the road of Russian foreign relations.
• Laissez-faire Criminology   Asking rhetorical questions while praising sleeping policemen.
• Visualizing Complex Data and Knowledge Maps  These related essays display some of the many ways to organize information.

Over all, topics on this blog ride a wide range because it is my alternative to paid work.  As a technical writer, I enjoy delivering information about products and services to the clients and customers of those who hire me.  Here, I write for myself.  Many of the posts fall under a few rubrics.

• Numismatics: The Standard of Proof in Economics, Informing Economics, Money as Speech and Press,… 
• Graphic design and typography: Creative Genius, Art & Copy, Start the Presses, … and others…
• Astronomy, Physics, Biotech; the History and Philosophy of Science: Seeing in the Dark, Monsters from the Id, Science in the Middle Ages, Misconduct in Research
• Criminology: The Fallacy of Fingerprinting, Shifting the Paradigm of Private Security, Security in the 21st Century, Integrating Criminologies, Minimizing the Likelihood of Bad Cops, Junk Science in the Courtroom
• Nerd Nation: Big Bang Theory, Numb3rs and NCIS;  Educating the Gifted, Where All the Children are Above Average; Liberal Education and Sociology; the Dragon's Lair store here in Austin.
• Cities: Megacities, City Air Makes You Free, etc.
• Austin culture and foods

Some necessarily cross the demarcations. John Jay Ford and William Sheldon perpetrated their crimes within the field of numismatics. Similarly, misconduct in laboratory procedure is one of the causes of false convictions. So, I have a different site, entirely, CSI:Flint (2011) which I created for a "Super Science Friday" session for middle schoolers visiting the University of Michigan.

Lovers Offline

“Lovers Offline”

Anonymous, Telegraphic Journal, January 15, 1875.

(written by a telegraph clerk on the back of a message form)

In times that are over, full many a lover

Was won by the power of electrical fire;

There was working; then sporting -- conversing, then courting,

And letters by post followed wooing by wire.

Telegraph Vignette uncredited from
A Brief History of Communications
by IEEE Communications Society, 2002. 

The couples then mated are closer related,
And many a one who was helped in his work,

By patience, attention, and care beyond mention,

Has found a kind helpmeet in his fellow clerk.

But, now, things are changing, stern rules are estranging

The workers, and striving all likings to baulk;

Lest people should choose them, and Government lose them,

"The Staff, on the wires, are forbidden to talk!"

Odd moments of leisure, once given to pleasure,

Are spent in dull idleness through the day;

And kept thus asunder, can anyone wonder

If patience, at times quite exhausted, gives way?

It is so annoying, one might be enjoying

The cosiest chat with the nicest of friends;

But there's always the fear now that somebody's near now,

And "taking us down from the slip" at both ends.

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS

Love, Loss, and Redemption in Atlas Shrugged

She's Such a Geek

Natalie Portman, Danica McKellar, Felicia Day

Ma Kiley: Railroad Telegrapher

India Two Point Oh: Amita and Raj

Both Aristotle and William Graham Sumner pointed out that laws are only expressions of tradition.  To cite the terminology of Thomas Kuhn, only a paradigm shift can change a folkway.  A hundred years ago, Bhagat Singh Thind (a veteran of the U.S. Army in World War I) was denied citizenship on racial grounds: though admittedly a speaker of an “Aryan” language, the U.S. Supreme Court found that he was “Asian” and therefore not qualified to become a citizen, despite his honorable service in the armed forces.  Almost at that very moment, the self-taught Srinivasa Ramanujan was astounding the mathematics faculty at Cambridge.

Therefore, it is fitting beyond coincidence that Navi Rawat portrayed Dr. Amita Ramunjan in the six seasons of Numb3rs (CBS 2005-2010).  Rawat herself is quite interesting, but actresses often are.  More to the point is the character created for her by the writers.

Though nominally an “Indian” it comes out in the show that she was born and raised in California.  She recognizes one word of Tamil but speaks even fewer.  Off-screen Ramanujan goes to her grandmother for insight into their “native” culture.  (Her own native culture is Californian.)  In addition to her helping Charley Epps in his consultations with the FBI, she announced her intention to earn a second doctorate, this one in astrophysics.  (All that and more on Wikipedia about “Amita Ramanujan” here. )

Kumal Nayyar plays  Raj Koothrappali in Big Bang Theory.  Although he is a comic character, they all are.  His quirks and foibles are not qualitatively different or quantitatively less than those of Sheldon Cooper, Leonard Hofstadter, or Howard Wolowitz – or Dr. Amy Farah Fowler, Dr. Bernadette Rostankowski,. Dr. Leslie Winkle, or Penny, the normal foil for all these nerds. Raj earns his achievements. 

Dr. Rajesh Koothrappali is an astrophysicist and faculty member at Caltech's Physics Department. For his discovery of a planetary object beyond the Kuiper belt, 2008 NQ17 (which he calls "Planet Bollywood"), he is included in People magazine's "30 Under 30 to Watch", granting him some form of celebrity status and a larger office for his work. He is also known for a publication on Kuiper belt object size distribution, having run a simulation to correct for the observational efficiency, and was awarded the Newcomb Medal. His expertise even extends to searching for Trojan asteroids at the Earth-Sun L5 Lagrange point. (See the BBT fan wiki here about Raj here.)

 With the possible exception of Ronald Reagan, actors are not their roles.  Nonetheless, the biographies of Navi Rawat and Kumal Nayyar do echo their popular characterizations if only because life and art are two sides of a relationship. What constant or factor, if any, makes the relationship an equation may remain debatable.  The cast of NUMB3RS (CBS 2005-2010) may have been the exception, as Dylan Bruno holds a BS from MIT, and Judd Hirsch’s degree is in physics. Hirsch later appeared in Big Bang Theory as Leonard's father. Also among the Big Bang cast, Mayim Bialik (“Amy Farah Fowler”) really has a doctorate in neuroscience. The exception tests the rule.

Previously on Necessary Facts

Where all the Children are Above Average

Nerd Nation

Nerd Nation 4.5

Indian English: Totally Legend Like Anything