Fun Times with The Great American Eclipse

Until yesterday, I never understood why people would spend huge sums of money and travel to far off reaches of the globe to watch an eclipse risking disappointment if clouds happened to obscure the sky that day. Seriously, you do all that work and some cumulonimbus screws up months or years of planning. Who needs it?

Being in San Francisco, we’d have a large percentage of the sun obscured, so a pretty good partial view without any work. Fog is common, although a short 30-60 mile drive in any direction that isn’t the ocean provides plenty of sun. We could have stayed here with eclipse glasses and had a good show for very little work. Reaching Totality required traveling at least 500 miles north to Oregon.

On a Whim

Six or seven weeks ago on a whim I decided to go and see the eclipse from somewhere within totality. Sometimes I’m a planner, sometimes I’m not. I mentioned to my son I was thinking about going and he jumped on it and said he’d definitely come with me. That was the motivation I was looking for. I knew my daughter, who’s fourteen and about to enter high school, would be a harder sell. In fact, she wouldn’t want to go at all. I knew she was going to join us, she just hadn’t realized it, yet.

I bought the last set of eclipse glasses REI had in San Francisco. I read about everyone’s months long planning on Facebook and announced there I was thinking about going. Friends were great and had plenty of advice. Getting all the technology (telescopes, filters, computers, tracking, cameras) felt like too much work for someone interested in the sky, but who doesn’t already have that equipment. No, for me, the main objective was reaching maximal totality or as near maximum without running into too many people.

Camp site reservations and hotel rooms were off the list and were long since gone, anyway. Western Oregon was predicted to be a madhouse (I have no idea if it was). Same for Madras, Oregon. However, the maps showed plenty of forests there (meaning water, meaning clouds) and I-5 and 101 are straight shots north from California. That was too easy access for folks, so I ruled that out. Having some prior experience with BLM land (free for 14 days of camping), I figured I’d look for some remote, dry, dusty gravel road into the middle of nowhere in Eastern Oregon. I picked two spots - one was basically on the maximal totality path and the other was a little bit south west of that and even more remote. If the former was swamped, the latter would do.

Day One - Preparation and Traveling

Saturday morning, my daughter was still feeling a little bit sick, and we hadn’t finished getting everything we needed for camping, so Mason and I ran errands around SF getting last minute things: water, a new gas burner, cans of corn, chili and beans, hot chocolate powder and instant coffee (discount mocha). I printed a portion of a BLM eclipse map (it showed BLM areas and eclipse path) and a couple of google maps with roads hand marked. These would have to do. We loaded the car and left the house at 4pm, but didn’t leave the city until 5pm (got to have a coffee for the road and tissues for the girl).

The Interstate 80 drive to Tahoe is a pretty fast one for me; having done it on and off for the last 25 years, I know it well. That went by in a blink of the eye. In Sparks, NV, In-n-Out burgers refueled our bodies (the receipt said we were ticket #1, a harbinger of good things to come) and the gas station right next it took care of the car. I had decided to sleep in Winnemucca, NV and if we couldn’t get a room, we'd keep going to Elko or just camp somewhere somehow. While I was trying to call hotels, I hadn’t noticed that Mason was driving 92mph. The cop’s radar did. Whoops. He freaked out a little, good thing I was there. The cop asked him how fast he was going. He told the truth. Cop wrote him up for 81mph because he was honest. Nice guy and saved my son $200 while still teaching him a lesson or two.

We rolled into town at 11:30pm and were roundly screwed by all of the long term eclipse planners. What idiot presumes he can get a hotel room at the last minute a couple of days before the most amazing sky show ever even in the middle of nowhere? Apparently, me.

The fifth place I called told me that someone still hadn’t checked in and to call back in 5 minutes. We drove straight there and politely stood in their lobby. Someone who had made a reservation a year ago had given a credit card that had expired last January and wasn’t answering their phone. Three voicemails and fifteen minutes later, they gave me the room. Yipee! We crashed for the night.

Day Two - More Traveling

Our alarms were set for 5:40am - we considered getting breakfast in town before heading north on 95 into Oregon. Mason observed the motel parking lot was still full, perhaps we had some time before everyone else woke up. Still, best get on the road ahead of as many people was we could. After, we refueled the car and ate apples, carrots and uncooked tortillas for breakfast, we hit the road. Nevada and Southeastern Oregon are pretty desolate. There were cars on the road, but I certainly wouldn’t call it busy; although it might have been for non-eclipse traffic on that road. There was a feeling of excitement. Really, it felt like everyone out there was heading somewhere towards the path of totality.

We stopped in Jordan Valley, OR for gas and at this cute little place that had mochas, smoothies, cinnamon buns and Asiago bagels. Nice town, polite people, pretty area. Google maps then took us into Idaho for a short stretch. I let the kids out to stand on the ground. We have a rule - you’ve only been to a state if your feet have touched the earth there. If you just drive through, it doesn’t count. After all, what’s the difference between driving and flying, right? Idaho.

Back into Oregon and google maps wraps us through some agriculture fields and eventually, after much driving, we reach the Brogan, OR area around 11am Pacific time (we are actually in mountain time there). No cell service at this point, although GPS on the phones still works. Mason has the maps I printed, plus whatever data was left in his google maps phone application and our seven year old car’s electronic map of the area. We stop for a moment and check out our options deciding on the location underneath totality because there’s no one around. We head down that dusty gravel road I was hoping for, and he navigates comparing all four maps (two paper, two electronic) calling out BLM land as we pass through.

We drive up a slot canyon while I spot some really crappy flat areas we could camp on and then hike up, if worse comes to worst. We keep going because we aren’t near maximal, yet, and it’s desolate and still no people. When the road starts climbing, we figure that’s a good sign. We probably climb a several hundred feet off the valley floor and a couple of miles drive in after we turn a corner, there’s a little flatish spit of land with six cars and some tents. We pull over, walk around and pick the most level patch of earth to call home for the next 24 hours.

Day Two - Camping

After parking the car, we said hello to the neighbors. I grabbed a gardening trowel out of the car (brought for latrine purposes) and started pitching cow patties from our site. Whoever said Lacrosse skills wouldn't come in handy in real life? Our next door neighbor asked if we wanted to use a couple of portable shovels he had. Nice guy. Mason and I used the shovels to clear the remaining patties and level off the area a little bit. We pitched the tent and moved the car to its north to block the wind we were told rolls in nightly, pulled out the portable chairs and cooked and ate lunch.

Nice place.

After lunch, Becky set up a chair in the shade of the car and read and Mason and I took a scouting hike to the top of a nearby hill. Our plan, if the hill looked good, was to go up there the next day. With no paths out here in the middle of nowhere, we took 25-30 minutes to bushwhack through the shrubs and shin high grasses to the top. From our campsite, the eclipse would have been just fine. From the top of that hill, it looked to be spectacular. We weren’t on the highest peak, but it was reasonably high and it’s southerly face was proud of the other peaks; we had an incredible view of the Brogan valley floor and beyond, plus the mountain ranges to our west and to our east. Perfect viewing for when the shadow descended and receded.

All we needed were clear skies. The place is bone dry. Scrub brush, not forested (who wants trees at your eclipse viewing party, anyway). Weather maps called for the area to be sunny and cloudless through Tuesday. We had as good a shot as any.

Wind picked up as our neighbor predicted. He is a retired marine. More about him later.

We cooked dinner and watched a few other folks straggle in. One group settled next door; the marine and I debated their country of origin based upon their language. He thought he heard German, I thought I heard a Nordic country, but was pretty certain it wasn’t German. He said he wasn’t ever sent to invade white people’s countries, so he wasn’t familiar with their language. Later on, we found out they were Austrian, so we were both right. One of them is a PhD student studying childhood cancers at Stanford and the two friends had come to visit. His friend is an amateur astronomer and had brought along his really cool telescope, mount and a solar filter. Awesome. I just needed to convince them to climb the hill and we’d be set.

Kids and I made dinner. More chili, beans, corn, tortillas, and some canned artichoke hearts packed in water. We weren’t here for the dinning experience. After we finished the meal, both of them agreed we should be camping more, even when there wasn’t an eclipse. Wow. Not unexpected, but really great to hear. It was wonderful to be out there with them.

Day Two - Shooting the Shit

After clean up, our neighbor the marine, David from Riverside, said he had a bottle of scotch he didn’t want to camp back out and offered me a glass. He also had ice. Amazing! The guy was definitely camping at a level well above ours. I grabbed two chairs (one for mason) and a couple of cups and we sat down with him, sipped scotch on the rocks and traded stories. Eventually, Becky wandered over and joined us.

We heard how he had gotten into the service (joined at 17!), married within weeks of that, had a couple of sons, and was sent to Beirut just after the bombing in ’93. He took his only shot then. A through and through in the left shoulder by some 14 year old sniper. His buddies killed the kid. They patched him up, gave him a purple heart and he did a few more tours: Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq. He got a college degree through the GI Bill after his first tour. He now trains new recruits and is a project manager for the marines.

Nice guy. We talked about the politics of the military, about AI and drones and engaging the enemy directly vs. from far away and fighting a long, long war (his son went Iraq, too). About a country disengaged from the people it sends off to fight for it and how that isn’t good. Mostly, though, we swapped stories and laughed and he got me really drunk on his scotch, so much so that I could barely stand up straight to relieve myself. My kids got a big kick out of that.

I suggested he join us on the hilltop the next day, but he wanted to hightail it out of there the moment totality had finished. He didn’t want the crowded roads. He liked being out on his own alone (not lonely). He had been there for a few days and the weekend brought a bunch of people. That was OK, but there’s a time for moving along.

Neat man.

Day Three - Ascent into Darkness

We didn’t put up the rain fly and the stars were out in force. I watched them on and off throughout the night. Clear skies were a good sign. Left the tent at dawn, checked out a bright Venus and then peered through our neighbor’s telescope at the planet; she was nearly full. We chatted about climbing the nearby hill and when to head up, which time zone we were in and when the partial would start.

Kids and I made breakfast, more chile and beans and drank our discount mochas. We cleaned up, broke camp and stowed all of the gear in the car. Then, we lathered on sunscreen, loaded our portable chairs with water, eclipse glasses, books, rubix’s cube, bug spray, and a 4K video camera and headed up the hill about 15 behind the Austrians and a group of four people who had driven in from Boise that morning. The parents were from New Mexico and their adult daughter and her boyfriend had flown in from SF. The California continent was strong up there.

Eventually, a tall older gentleman from Seattle who was a retired Boeing Aeronautical Engineer and who had a graduate degree in Mathematics joined us. He had arrived at the campsite about 30 minutes before we did on Sunday in his Prius, slept the night in his small car and had a pair of welding goggles with him (“cheap man’s eclipse glasses”). We chatted about the history of the Rubix’s Cube.

The astronomer had his telescope set up with the filter and we all broke out our glasses when the partial eclipse started about 70 minutes before totality. We had plenty of time to chat and look through the scope at the sun’s spots and wonder about the state of the corona and what the moon’s shadow would look like coming across the horizon.

After 35 minutes, the light was noticeably different. It had an odd dimness to it. You could tell that the world wasn’t as well lit, but the light didn’t have the pink and light blue hues of a sunset; the light was white. It was more like a room well lit with dim florescent bulbs. The world got colder and everyone got excited. Becky sat in her chair and read. Waiting can be boring sometimes.

About 15 minutes before totality, the astronomer connected his camera to the scope, no more viewing with our eyeballs. Later, Mason got his email to trade video for his photographs.

There was so much to look at. The world was getting darker to the East. It was still lighter in the West. The valley floor was slowly dimming. The sun still peeked past the moon and was far too bright to look at (yes, I snuck a quick look from time to time). I watched for the diamond ring effect and balley’s beads, but 2x eclipse glasses just don’t do the trick. The world was getting darker and darker and suddenly, boom, that was it.

Day Three - Totality

Words cannot do justice to Totality. Really, they can’t. If I were reading this last week, I’m not sure what I’d understand. I will do my best here to convey what we saw and felt.

You can cover 99% of the sun, and it is still the sun. It is freaking bright, it hurts your eyes and it lights the world around you.

100% of the sun covered is a jewel in the sky. It’s a beautiful, hanging bright white and black jewel. The moon’s shadowed side, the one we know and love at full moon is an inky black hole in the sun. The corona (and we had a good one) streams out from a glowing white ring. The corona is white and brilliant and ethereal. It shines so bright and softly lights the world around you. The sky isn’t black as night, stars don’t come out (or perhaps, because of our height, we had more light in our field of view). I saw Venus and Mercury. The Boeing Engineer saw Mars.

You almost can’t take your eyes off of the sun/moon combination. It is simultaneously amazing, unnerving and thrilling. It’s like some angry beast up there, beautiful and terrible. And, it’s far, far too short. We were lucky as it lasted over two minutes. If we weren’t under the maximal totality, we were extremely close.

The difference between totality and a 99% partial eclipse is like drinking iced lemonade on a hot summer day while listening a beautiful symphony in park and the other is like grinding salt into an open wound - that is, there is no comparison. One will move and uplift you and the other will stab your eyes.

The world around us was dark for a blink and for eternity. The sun and moon hung up there making a thing not from this world. Then, it was over. The shadow lifted, the moon shadow swept East, the West lightened and the sun came back. Some of our group started to descend. Mason and the astronomer traded info. Becky turned to me, told me it was incredible, that she was really happy to have seen it and that she was glad she came. We said our goodbyes to the Austrians and headed down the hillside towards our car and back out into the world. Mason noticed that far below us David, true to his word, was already driving his truck south on that dusty road.

Day Three - Post Totality & Denouement

The drive back was uneventful. There was some madness on the two lane country road that is 95 with 5% of the cars passing the rest of us for really, no reason whatsoever. We refueled back in Jordan Valley; both the car and the people. We stopped again in Sparks for burgers for dinner and were home before midnight in San Francisco.

I can’t say I’m a changed person, but I can say now more than ever I firmly believe that experiences are far more important than things. Whenever you have a choice in your life, take an experience over a thing. We had very little when we headed out into the Eastern Oregon desolation. Some stuff, some calories, plenty of water, each other and the promise of an adventure. We made camp friends, traded stories, shared stuff and experienced something amazing together.

It was wonderful.

What a trip.

A Most Horrible Holiday Poster from American Eagle

It's the day before Thanksgiving and I'm walking through a mall in downtown San Francisco to do some holiday shopping. Of course, every store has their holiday advertising up and available. I wander past the American Eagle store and see this poster.

Double-take. Now, I've been living in this city for a couple of decades now, I'm not a prude. That said, I found this poster shocking and truly horrible. I have no idea how old that model is, but in person, she looks to be a young girl. Here's a close up.

There had to be nearly a dozen young women on staff in that store. I spoke with the manager about the poster, and she admitted she hadn't even really looked at it before I mentioned it to her. I understand we've become inured to how much advertising uses sex to sell us things.

However, what exactly is being sold here? What is being sexualized and objectified? Who is the 'I' in "All I Want"? The girl laying on the white fur rug or the observer staring at her underwear? What exactly does 'I' want? Underwear? The girl? Her ass?

At this point, may I strongly urge all who read this to (a) ask American Eagle to pull down all of these posters (website here, look for "Feedback" link) and (b) shop somewhere else this season until they remove them.

A Cross Country Trip

filled with Barbecue, a Ballgame and a ton of driving.

Day 1: Bethesda, MD to Warren, OH
Day 2: Warren, OH to Bettendorf, IA
Day 3: Bettendorf, IA to York, NE
Day 4: York, NE to Laramie, WY
Day 5: Laramie, WY to Winnemucca, NV
Day 6: Winnemucca, NV to San Francisco, CA

Chemo Done, Let the Healing Begin

Just got back from my oncologist appointment. As he heard very slight crackle at the base of my lungs, indicative of possible lung disfunction due to Bleomycin, we agreed to cancel my last chemo infusion, so, as of today, I'm done with chemotherapy infusions. Strictly speaking, I'm not done with chemotherapy as this third cycle won't be complete until Day 21, which is July 7th, and more importantly, the Cisplatin I received last week is still floating around my body and will be so for quite some time. I continue to experience nausea, weird sensations and slight side effects from the treatment like clumsiness (related to the platinum eating nerve endings in fingers and toes).

Diane managed to get me to walk a mile, yesterday, which, to be honest, felt awful, but I know was good for me. I look forward to continuing to build my health from there.

The doctor and I discussed what is next in store for me, both (1) follow-up/monitoring and (2) getting back in shape. For the former, I have scans at the end of the summer to detect any remaining tumors. We killed the idea of a PET scan as none of my tumors were large enough to justify the scan nor the exposure to the additional radiation. So, assuming those come back negative (no reason to believe they will be otherwise), we reset my status to Year One and start whatever the standard observation schedule is recommended.

As far as getting back in shape, after a blood test in a couple of weeks just to be sure my blood levels return to normal, I plan to resume bicycling. Nothing crazy, just something to ease my way back into the biking life. In the meantime, I will walk, run and swim until I feel strong enough to endure a CrossFit session with Nate Helming. Perhaps, it's possible I'll be in shape enough to do a Sprint Tri by the Fall, if I can find one.

The last bit is going to be a bit more complicated, trying to figure out what the heck all of this business did to me. I look forward to spending the summer rebuilding my body while building my company. I've received great support from friends and family. Thanks to all of you for your words of wisdom, food for the family, texts, and emails.

It's 2 AM - Do You Know Where Your Cancer Patient Is?

Yesterday, or earlier this morning depending upon how you feel like counting, I received my last dose of heavy chemotherapy drugs. No more Cisplatin or Etoposide Phosphorous pouring into my veins. I have two more weeks, two more days of infusions of Bleomycin. Really, all of these drugs are pretty heavy duty, some are just heavier than others. As part of the pre-infusion treatment, I'm given a steroid. It's that steroid that has me up at 2am.

I've been up at 2am every night this past week and was so every night my first two cycles of treatment. They've given me drugs that can help calm me, but I'm leery of side effects and trade a little bit of exhaustion for a reason to nap in the afternoon. Where we currently live, the water should be filtered before drinking, and the kitchen fridge has the only filter. So, I sleep on the living room couch, makes trips to the first floor bathroom and do my best to take in fluids, graze from the refrigerator and keep the nausea at bay. The classical music cable station sometimes helps. I'm always tired by 5am.

This last cycle is a strange one. I seem to tolerate it better and am not sure why. My kids comment on it and they don't miss a beat. One cannot discount the psychological impact of that light at the end of the tunnel. On the other hand, I really muscled through Cycle 2. During Cycle 1, I went to the ER 4 times (twice during the failed start and twice during the reboot). I resolved to have no ER visits the second cycle and laid on the couch through Day Eleven. By that day, my lungs were slightly bubbly at the bottom, a possible sign I was reacting poorly to the Bleo. I mentioned to my oncologist my very lazy week and we agreed it could possibly be a very slight pneumonia. A chest Xray was ordered for a few days later.

In the meantime, not wanting to make myself any more sick, Day 12 I walked a mile. Day 13, I walked three miles. Day 14, I swam 500 yards (10 x 50 yds). That swim wiped me out; I knew it when I sat down, then laid down on a bench with my eyes closed and the world was spinning. 500 yards used to be a good warm up or light work out - not that day. My Xray was scheduled for Monday (Day 15), so I ran 1.5 miles beforehand, I wanted to clear my lungs of anything over which I had control. The test came back negative. Great! I could continue the Bleomycin because I did not want a fourth round of EP (heavy chemo), for sure. I ran 3 miles on Day 20, then swam a half mile on Day 21. Pre-Cancer Therapy Andy called that a light exercise week. Chemotherapy Andy considers that a sound recovery week.

It also helped to have two great business meetings for the startup (Route Vu). My brain still functions, if not at tip, top levels.

So, here I am, it's 2am, and I wonder how the next few days will go. In the past two cycles, these have been the worst days, for sure. Perhaps, I'll try to get out and walk a little bit. Nothing hard or exciting, just move the body and see how much I tolerate. We know walking is the single most effective thing anyone can do to help their health, if they are unable to do anything else.

My prognosis remains very, very good - nearly 100%. In four to eight weeks, I will have a PET scan to search for any remaining metabolically active tumors. After that, we will set a follow-up observation schedule spanning years perhaps a decade. Most importantly, I should be done with all of this nasty business.

Despite my weakened state from all of the poison, I am buoyed somewhat by the prospect of never having to physically deal with this disease, ever again.

May was Action Month

Highlights for chemotherapy this month:

1. Started chemo, had allergic reaction to the Etoposide, while treating the reaction, I was accidentally overdosed on Epinephrine. I thought I was going to die. HR stayed around 120bpm and BP was 220/110. ER Trip #1 with overnight stay. Hoping for no longterm side effects.
2. Restarted chemo cycle a week later with Etopophos (Etoposide Phosphorus).
3. Weight swing (down) of fifteen pounds put me in the ER (Trip #2) because my temperature spiked to 101.8 (over 100.4 I have to go to ER for possible septic infection). That was a two day hospital visit.
4. Back in ER (Trip #3) for chest pains, which turned out to be a panic attack.
5. I managed to do a couple of light runs and get in some two light and one respectable CrossFit workout.
6. Started second cycle of chemo this week. More fatigue and nausea this time around.

Switched to BEPx3.  I decided that I have enough lung function to spare and will let them take the hit in order to reduce the chance of neuropathy in fingers and toes.  As I am a non-smoker under the age of 50, lung impact is minimal.  Spoke with Dr. Einhorn, famed TC researcher and Lance Armstrong's doctor, he urged me to consider 3xBEP for these reasons.

Me and My Tumors...

Up until today, I've been telling people individually about my cancer diagnosis mostly because we didn't have complete tests run on all aspects of the disease.  As of earlier today, the final (biopsy) results are in and it turns out my seminoma from 2009 and 2011 has returned.  I have three swollen lymph nodes larger than 1 cm.  There are two in my neck I've nicknamed the twins (20mm and 17mm) and one (14mm) in my upper chest just behind my esophagus.  I found the twins and after a CT scan earlier this week and a biopsy last Friday with final results today, the doctors have determined that it's all completely Seminoma (Testicular).  Organ invasion is negative, which means my prognosis is very high.

There are enough successful treatment options for this type of cancer that managing long term side effects become more important in determining the particular course of treatment.  These days, the choices are between BEP and EP.  The 'B' in BEP is Bleomycin, which is known to cause irreversible lung disfunction in a non-insignificant percentage of patients.  As post-chemo lifestyle is important, particularly continuing my athletics, I have opted to avoid the Bleo.  Instead, I'm doing four cycles of EP.  This does increase my lifetime chances of getting a nasty form of leukemia (from 1% to 1.33%), so it too is not without risks.  Everything's a trade off.

Chemotherapy starts April 29th.  Each cycle is three weeks (1 week infusions, 2 weeks rest).  So, that's 10 weeks elapsed with a few months recovery.  Checking the calendar, I'll have Chemo one week in each of the next four months (Apr 29, May 20, Jun 10, Jul 1).  It's so nice of San Francisco to schedule some fireworks the night before my last infusion day.  I'm hoping you all will celebrate with fireworks wherever you are, too.

To whatever extent possible, I will continue to exercise (run and CrossFit) through this period and rest when I can't.  I have plenty to keep me busy, including getting a product launched for the company Rupesh and I are building.

In the meantime, for those of whom I've already told, thank you for your concern, advice and well wishes.  Your support buoys me.  If any of you have any doubt about me fighting through this and winning, I refer you to one of my favorite XKCD comics (yes, I had radiation treatments for my first recurrence in 2011).

Cancer Sing Along Songs

Those fabulous hits you remember so well, reworked to help you through those troubling times all packed into one incredible CD:

1. It's My Cancer and I'll Cry If I Want To
2. Me and my Tumors (melting from the Che-ee-mo)
3. My Cancer's Back (and I'm gonna be in trouble)

Check back here for more tunes.

Pose Running and Forward Thrust

I've been having a debate with some folks about Pose Running and Forward Thrust. The heart of the debate is whether or not there is any forward thrust generated during Post Running. In Pose Running, the forward leg lands and presses upward only into a post (while simultaneously leaning forward). The idea is to minimize bob while stiffening the leg and letting gravitational torque carry the body forward. It is only the forward component of the body's acceleration due to gravity that imparts forward motion. That no backward kick form the leg is necessary, nor even desired. A backward kick is a fault in execution.

I argue that the idea of eliminating the backward kick has created a false hypothesis that during Pose Running, there is no forward thrust (force imparted from the legs against the ground propelling the body forward). In fact, studying the running system, the body must push against the ground to overcome internal joint friction, other internal forms of friction, wind resistance, ground resistance, etc.

To answer this question, first, we should examine the literature and review the running models proposed in Pose Running.  Then, we should review scientific papers looking for data on Ground Reaction Forces.

See list of links for possible info:

1. Running on Ice Video
2. Geometry of Running Paper
3. Scientific Basis of Pose Running
4. Scientific Research & Pose Method
5. Running is a Post Falling
6. Impact Forces at Knee Joint
7. Compare Pose & Heel Running

Digital Echoes

You know when you get one of those strange out of time email messages and wonder what the heck that was about until you realize your friend's outbox finally was able to connect to the mail server and deliver a reply. They deserve haiku.

Appears from nowhere
An email stuck in limbo
Digital echoes

Or, perhaps this one:

Why did I get this
Month-old and suddenly-free
Delivered message?

The thing about haiku is that once you start, it can be hard to stop.

Surprising message
A server never forgets
Past conversations

Yes on Proposition 37

Recently, I participated in a Facebook discussion of Prop 37.

After reviewing links there and discussion, I'm voting YES on 37.

I dug into the original article Dan posted at the start of the thread. That article has zero science and is an opinion position containing ad hominem attacks on GMO study authors, no refutation of Prop 37, position that scaring people tactics will tire people from real issues surrounding Prop 37. I dug into other articles he wrote on Slate and on his Blog, plus articles he referenced in support of his positions. He likes ad hominem attacks and happily uses them against every pro-37 individual (eg, Michael Pollan).

The FDA process for GMO food testing relies on the PRODUCERS of GMO to test their product. That is, NOT A PEER REVIEWED study. This throws any arguments that the food is safe out the window. Note, that does not make GMOs inherently unsafe, but it cuts the legs out from under any safety argument.

Genetically Engineered GMO foods (the ones I am most concerned about) have the opportunity to introduce genes which may induce allergic reactions either directly or through the novel change. I, myself, have a number of food allergies and am vigilant in my consumption of those allergens.

This is a side argument not directly in support of 37, but I make it nonetheless, the economics and history of food and big ag is a complete mess, when you examine it from the world perspective (and not just the success of a business perspective). The lives of local farmers in third world countries have been decimated by first world economic farming practices. The economics of farming has been turned upside down under the auspices for the betterment of mankind. However, the results are questionable (yields often do not increase) and, more importantly, farmers are displaced losing their way of life (creating poverty, joblessness and devastating local life). I recently saw a documentary on Indian farmers and BT cotton (Monsanto) - I'm saddened by the film. It is mentioned in the radio piece (around 38 minutes) pointed at within the FB thread.

I will concede one point, I wish that the labeling was an Informational Note and not a Warning.

Here's an article countering some arguments against 37.

Whichever way you lean, get out and vote today.

Collection of Mobility WOD Highlights

If you're an athlete, you should check out Mobility WOD. If you're a human, you are an athlete.

1. Legs: get in your Paleolithic Chair with episode one and retest two months later.
2. Lungs: fix your breathing and everything lungs attach to with Parts One, Two and Three.
3. Feet: rebuild them, Part One and Part Two.
4. Shoulders: need end range? Try this fix. Then, modify your grip for a better pull-up.
5. Icing Bad: why you should stop icing.

Open Letter to my Hero: Come Clean

Lance,

(Please excuse the informal, but you've become familiar to us all).

You are my Hero and will always be my Hero. Not for the seven Tours you won (but, that was pretty cool). You are my hero for what you've done with LiveStrong. I recommend your book, It's Not About the Bike, to anyone I know diagnosed with cancer. You fought through incredible physical and emotional pain and survived to make a career for yourself, raise kids and create an amazing foundation that has touched millions of lives.

We have something in common - I, too, was diagnosed with and fought against testicular cancer. Your story supported me. Now, I'd like to support you.

Lance, you have a great opportunity set before you. You can be a leader, a shining beacon. You can once again be at the top and touch the world. You can do what other athletes at the very top have never done (like Alex Rodriguez or Barry Bonds). In one fell swoop, you can clean up pro cycling and, quite possibly, many other professional sports.

Please, tell the world the entire story. Be honest and open with us. You apologize, we forgive you. We forgive you, you are redeemed. Your redemption will make you one of the greatest athletes who ever lived. You will be remembered for your many achievements, including the one moment when you bravely stood before the world and tried to change it.

Sincerely,

A fan.

Trip Report: Salesforce.com's Cloudstock

Cloudstock

On March 15th, I attended Salesforce.com's Cloudstock (& Cloudforce).

First off, Marc Benioff has built an incredible company - for the industry, for their customers and for their employees. I know at least a handle of current and previous employees that have nothing but good things to say about their employer.

As for the event, if you are even remotely involved in High Tech, I would encourage you to attend.  They did a 2.5 hour keynote in the morning that featured C-level employees, customers and, of course, Marc. Marc is inspiring and paints a great picture of where we are in the technological evolution of computing (mainframe, PC, client-server, web, mobile, social). It's not an earth shattering story (if you've been around awhile, you know it), but what is apparent is Salesforce's ability to pivot and take advantage of the last three.

Confession: I left the keynote after 90 minutes, that was enough for me.

Mid-day, the expo floor opened. There were two main sections: Cloudstock and Cloudforce. The former was for developers, so I headed over there. I never did make it to Cloudforce.

One thing that stood out, among many stand out items, was the high quality conversations I had with every person I met at the show.

The Expo

DataSift.com - Far and away, the most impressive product was from DataSift.com. Imagine your company wants to see every social media tweet, post, facebook, yelp, digg, etc. about itself. Furthermore, the data should be tagged and categorized by geo location, sentiment, and whatever else the marketing research department wants. You could build a feed reader for the 30 or so social media platforms and collect the portion of the data they send you (you won't get everything you want). Or, you could go through Data Sift's interface, build a simple query (via GUI or by hand), and have your data feed running in less than a minute. Output is in JSON and easily handled by current tools. Definitely, check them out.

Heroku - Salesforce bought Heroku, recently. Heroku is a cloud platform development platform whose backend runs in AWS. If you like to code in their provided languages (Java, Ruby, PHP), you can use their system "out of the box". If not, you can provide your own libraries for install. They also integrate with Database.com (another Salesforce acquisition). They have a dyno model, in which your system runs. They claimed this provides some higher levels of security. Securing cloud services against back-end attacks should be the chief security concern for every cloud application. I'm skeptical of the level of protection, however, they said a security white paper was forthcoming. Stay tuned.

StackMob - Another backend system, this one dedicated to running your server side operations without having to do any infrastructure work. Basically, think of having to write only the Java classes that respond to GET/POST calls for an Apache Tomcat plug-in with some nice glue into a SQL database. That's StackMob.

Database.com - I didn't speak with these folks at great length, but they have a nice product. Check them out.

Force.com - This is Salesforce's cloud development platform. They've pivoted hard into the social part of the web, leveraging their Chatter application and creating a social media datastream for the Enterprise. There's some great stuff in there that I won't review, you can check out their site. There are, however, some items worthy to note, they have two programming models for handling mobile: an SDK and a hybrid wrapper. The SDK provides calls into the force.com system and is to be integrated into a native application (iOS/Objective-C). The hybrid wrapper uses PhoneGap (below) to wrap HTML/JavaScript.

PhoneGap - These folks provide a shell that wraps HTML and JavaScript web pages. They have developed a JS library to provide native access to phone hardware (camera, GPS, etc.). If you like, you can even build your own native operations and map them to JS calls compiled into the wrapper. The wrapped code gets submitted to the application store. Although I'm a big fan of the mobile web, some applications do best using the mobile platform's look and feel and will continue to be coded in iOS or Java. I think if you're in a hurry, this is a good way to go.

Sencha - These folks have a back end web server that can build for the mobile web browser (HTML5/CSS) or for Desktop browser. I wasn't clear if the browser required a plug-in, but the mobile web pages they showed me looked quite clean. Worth checking them out if you want standard, mobile web browsing.

In the notable mention side, I'd like to put a plug in for Brain Engine and GitHub.

Brain Engine provides an augmented IDE that runs in the cloud and sits atop the Force.com infrastructure. As I have not done a lot of Force.com development, I couldn't tell you if they truly benefit the user, but they seemed convinced and seemed to know what they were talking about. In addition, we discussed a downfall of the Force.com platform, something they are not able to fix, either.

Apparently, Force.com doesn't have a good (or any) source control. All programs are checked into the DB, and there's no branching or merging. That has to be a nightmare for development. Salesforce should address this problem and their users should demand a change.

GitHub - They provide hosted source control and, also, an issue tracker. There are plenty of cloud based source control systems out there. My friend uses GitHub and is quite happy. YMMV.

Finally, an SalesForce architect and I were discussing securing at rest data on the phone and may have found what could a huge security misunderstanding for mobile development work. We are researching the problem and will write a paper, if true. Be on the lookout.

Audio Delay

I've always wanted to build an audio delay box, something that would take an audio input (mono or stereo) and delay it by some variable amount (user determined). Why? Because when I've watched the Saturday afternoon game and the baseball playoffs for my home team (SF Giants), I realize just how lousy those national league announcers are. But, playing an out of sync radio broadcast with the TV broadcast is the stuff of nightmare. The radio is always ahead of the TV broadcast because the radio is transmitted locally and the TV broadcast goes around and around, up and down, cable, satellite, whatever.

So, I need an audio delay device. The Arduino family seems like a great place to start building such a device. Just before starting to build this project, I looked around to see if anyone had built one of these. There are plenty of options for products between $60 and $200 that delay between 1 second and 1 minute. I found one product that could delay up to 20 minutes.

I only need a delay of max 5 seconds, but I'm an engineer, so as big as I can make it will make me happy. Plus, I need to build it for less than $60 in parts, or I might as well buy it. Actually, that's not exactly true, any cost over $60 pays for my enjoyment in building the project, but you get what I mean.

If I use the Arduino (or the Mega) that's half or all of my budget, so this engineering process should get interesting.

I have a few ideas for designs and will make follow up posts detailing them with some pros and cons. In short, here's what I've thought through so far:

1. ADC -> MEM -> DAC + CPLD/FPGA + Arduino
2. ADC -> Flash Mem -> DAC + CPLD/FPGA/Arduino
3. ADC -> MEM -> DAC + Arduino Mega (which has lots of address pins)
4. Delta-Sigma Modulator + Delay Queue (implemented w/ Arduino + majolsurf mem expansion)

For MEM, I was thinking of an old DDR2 board.

Basically, the designs come down to some combination of the following elements:

• An Analog to Digital Converter that outputs one or two channel (mono v. stereo) and 1 bit or N bit (generally, 16 bits). However, even the N-bit ADCs really stack up 1 bit outputs and then release them as N bits, but on a serial line! Therefore, the N-bit ADCs are simply bursty one bit ADCs. None of them have 8 or 16 parallel output, so their output needs to be thrown into a shift register if to be used in parallel.
• A Digital to Analog Converter (1 bit or N bit). If data held in parallel, then it needs to be placed in an SR and sent to DAC, serially. N-bit DACs don't accept input in parallel.
• Memory
• Flash memory accepts input as a bit stream and it should be in page chunks, that is, written or read sequentially. Flash memory really isn't meant to be Random Access, or least NAND based flash isn't.
• DDR2 has some interesting requirements (a section of low addressed memory that is off limits for storage) and 200 PINs to drive or read. The Arduino Mega could run a DDR2 board.
• Data Transfer Protocols
• I²C or SPI or Parallel or NIH (Not Invented Here or Roll My Own).
• The challenge of the first two are lack of familiarity and/or speed limitations.
• The challenge of the second is a heck of a lot of wiring - ugh!
• The challenge of the third is inventing a stable (serial) protocol better than I²C or SPI.
• Delay Control - one or two knobs that allow the user to dial in a delay (coarse/fine grained delay). It would be great if the delay could be from sub microsecond up to limit of the system. Also, if the system delay maximum is large, the coarse grained control should be non-linear in response (smaller steps closer to zero).
• Display Delay - it would be nice if the user could see how much of a delay the system was using.
• Controller/Control Signaling - somehow, all of these elements need to communicate with each other and do the delay work.

In the end, the system converts analog voltage levels into frequency bit streams that get delayed then returned back into a voltage signal. Everything else is just implementation.

Hardware Hacking

There are some fabulous hardware devices out there for hardware hacking - it warms my EE heart. Having been out of the field for decades (really, only played with this stuff in college and high school), I'm enjoying getting back into things.

That said, folks who've never studied the material before can still play.

First, get yourself and arduino or similar device.

Then, learn some basic electronics - youtube is a great place to start.

Then, build and enjoy...

Watch a Memory Bit Switch

Want to watch a memory bit flip at the atomic scale?

Calling all my fellow EE's and any other physics/geek aficionados, check out this 5 min interview explaining latest research in ferroelectric memory. Why is it cool? Because you can see the material change state (the field sweep) through the memory layer. Bonus: this imaging of the process was unexpected, current models do not represent this effect. They need to be revised. So cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I-G9TzfDYY

Don't know about that youtube title - I doubt this effect is "real time". It has to have been slowed down.

Great Post - My Sentiments Exactly

This post on Seeking Alpha represents my feelings on the market at this time.

The point by point summary (see post for explanation):

1. Not enough money for bond guarantees. 2. Covers financing needs through mid 2013. 3. A 20%-25% guarantee is insufficient. 4. The guarantee is not credible. 5. Germany doesn’t want to assume risk as guarantor. 6. Outside investors will not participate meaningfully.7. Bank recapitalizations not credible.8. Core credit risk. 9. Insane cost.10. EFSF as preferred creditor. 11. Fake Brady Bonds.12. No restructuring. 13. Reference interest rates too high. 14. Without ECB money creation, any plan will fail. 

From the conclusion.

Thus, I believe that the correct posture at the moment is for investors to be entirely in cash, or at least equity neutral via paired trades and/or hedges...  The question is this: Do you have the courage to stand aside and possibly leave 10%-20% or even 30% on the table? Or would you rather not take the “risk” of missing out on that gain -- even if it means assuming the possibility losing 30%-50% when and if the European plan unravels?

November 5th

V day, change your bank account day and the day, allegedly, that Anonymous will go after Fox News.