Fourteen days and counting - 10 March 2022

The Russian 2022 Invasion of Ukraine continues and we have reached the two-week point.  I just watched a video of a YouTuber that I generally follow.  He left Ukraine shortly after the 2022 Invasion started and made his way to Budapest, Hungary.  His name is Johnny and his recent video is here.  It makes me think a bit more about Putin's motives, options, intentions, and the invasion.  

The people who expect this Invasion to be over soon are severely optimistic.  The good-hearted people of Hungary and Poland are responding with great generosity.  They are accepting a large influx of displaced peoples and making arrangements for the people to have a place to stay and food to eat.  Other countries are constructing special immigration conditions and visas to allow the displaced people to move out across Europe.  This is great now, but how long can it last?  How long can someone in Budapest have a small family living in a spare bedroom?  How long can the collective countries provide a river of food and supplies for this guests?  Even the good-hearted have their limits.

And what about the displaced peoples themselves?  They do not want hand-outs.  They do not want a life of living in the corners of someone else's life.  They want to live and work in a society.  They want to build a better society.  All the goodwill and handouts in the world will not give them purpose.  In the West, we need to understand this situation.  We need to understand Putin's intentions and what will make him stop.

As I mentioned a couple days ago, he may leave this mortal coil.  That would bring a quick end, but then we need to think about Putin's successor.  Will that person be better?  Or worse?  Lenin was a monster, but Stalin was worse.  Gorbachev and Yeltsin showed some degree of improvement, but then Putin came along.  This is a great, looming question.

It seems reasonable to predict that Putin will continue to prosecute his war.  It may not take the few days that he expected but the sunk cost and the consequences of failure will keep Putin and the entire Russian military moving forward.  If the military machine stalls, we could have a stalemate, a front that lives in-place.  That is the lesson of Crimea.  Putin could be happy with that outcome for another decade.  He would declare the de-Nazification suffessful and complete, and everyting would settle down along some line of battle.  The (generally) eastern portions of Ukraine would gradually become fully integrated into Russia; the (generally) western portions of Ukraine would assemble some sense of normalcy and resume a shadowed existence.  The shadow hanging over them would be the next Putin invasion, somewhere around 2027-2030 to grab the next bit of Ukraine.  This is something like the Korea model, now approaching 70 years old.  If some sort of guerilla war continues, it would be more like the Viet Nam model.

It seems highly unlikely that the Russian army would do any meaningful sort of retreat.  Such would be predicated on the end of Putin, either via the mortal coil departure, via some internal struggle or replacement by parties in Moscow, or a combination of the two.  Putin can stop the Russian Army but he cannot retreat.

All of the above could take years to resolve, during which the fighting will continue with some degree of intensity.  As the weather gets better in the summer and fall, the fighting will probably get more intense, while the winter cold and spring rains will probably reduce the level of fighting, although not stopping it.

During those years, what will the western nations do?  And what will China do?  It seems that China will exploit the situation, leverage its position as the only large trading partner remaining wiht Russia.  The US can do little about this because of the massive Chinese Manufacturing System.  If China stops or merely slows the manufacture of electronics, clothing, appliances, and component parts necessary for comfort in the western countries, there will be sudden changes in support.  The price of gasoline (petrol) has gone up in the last two weeks and people (Fox News) are already questioning why we are against Russia in Ukraine.  (For the record, Tucker Carlson of FOX News on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  Laura Ingraham is not far from Carlson.)  So China will continue to support Russia and keep something resembling an economy alive in Russia.  This will be done in some manner beneficial to China, but it shall be done.

And what will happen to support for Ukraine in the US when the newest Apple iPhone is delayed?  When the clothing stores start to run out of all that stuff?  Will Americans continue to accept explanations that blame the "supply chain" or will they demand that their electronic addiction be satisfied?  Will they pay more for jeans made in the US or will they demand cheap clothing from China?  

The good news is that the COVID-19 pandemic seems to be moving to the chronic stage and will kill fewer people.  The COVID-19 story of the last two years is (sort of) going away.  The bad news is that Putin invaded Ukraine and it will take years to recover.

Spring is springing - 8 March 2022

 After the sunny days of recent times, I expected another sunny day today, but no such luck.  After the rain passage this morning, I got out for a little clean-up in the yard.  In particular, I scraped rust and flaking paint from the trellises, sanded them, and applied a rust converter.  They are actually in pretty good shape, so it was not a lot of work.  I will let the rust converter dry overnight and then apply another anti-rust spray before I finally apply some finish paint.

The photo has nothing to do with the yardwork or the rust work, but it presents a sense of the spring-like weather we have had in the last few days.

Twelve days and counting... for many more days - 8 March 2022

Putin directed the Russian forces to invade the non-Crimea part of Ukraine on 24 Feb 2022, about twelve days ago.  The larger war started in about February 2014 when Putin annexed Crimea and started an on-going conflict in Donbas.  Many American citizens, American journalists, and people around the world are cheering the military resistance of the Ukrainian forces and take some sort of a positive view of the imminent results.

I regret to say that I believe this is going to be a long war.  Years long, if not perpetual (for a poetic definition of "perpetuity").  I will lay out my thinking here.

Afghanistan.  The Soviet-Afghan war ran a decade, from about 24 Dec 1979 to 15 Feb 1989 (says Wikipedia).  This was a bloody war, an expensive war, and a losing war, but they pursued it doggedly.  (I am sad to add that the American political leaders learned nothing from this and proceeded to repeat the foolishness from about 2001-2021, but that is another screed.)  The Soviets learned nothing from their Afghan invasion and are applying that same stupidity to their present war.  This is a repeating theme.  Another way of saying this is to observe that blood and treasure mean little to the Russian elite in their attempts to gain land and prestige; I do not pretend to understand what they see as "prestige" but it is clear that it is important to that leadership.

Chechnya.   The Russians fought a scortched-earth policy to pursue the Chechen wars and all they got was a phyrric victory or two.  As in Afghanistan, the (now) Russians poured blood and treasure into the wars, claimed land and prestige, and learned nothing.

Crimea.  The Russians annexed Crimea in about March 2014 at minor cost.  They continued some form of war in Donbas at minor cost.  They learned something from this case - that military force can be applied without major consequences.

Trump.  The Russians learned that a stooge like Trump can give them everything they want without overt cost.  It has taken a year, but Putin has finally realized that the stooge is out of office, so he has returned to traditional methods - military force.

Ukraine.  Although the early days of the Russian invastion of Ukraine in 2022 are going badly for Russia, the willingness of Putin to pour blood and treasure into the invasion in order to achieve his political goal of restoring Ukraine to the Russian Empire will make it impossible for him to give up or turn back.  The blood and treasure are not important to him, but the land and prestive are - as we have seen before.  

This leads to consideration of the possible outcomes.  In no particular order, I shall tread heavily where learned people fear to tread.

Low-level war for an extended period.  I suspect this is the most likely outcome.  The Ukraine government and people will resist with the covert and overt support of other countries throughout the world, but featuring support from the US, EU/NATO, and allied countries.  As in Viet Nam and the East, as in the colonial struggles across Africa, and as in South America, one bloc of the world will stimulate military action and the other bloc of the world will support efforts to resist military action.  Nominally, the Ukrainian resistance will be a democratic government against the autocracy of Putin, but the West has shown that this is not required.  Expected duration is on the order of a decade and the expected result is unclear (hard to predict).  In any outcome, it will not be pretty for Ukraine.  One big unknown is the duration of the firm resistance (sanctions) by other governments.  If Biden or Macron are replaced by weaker individuals, the alliances could well slip into posturing and this would allow Putin to survive and even prosper.  The bumbling of Boris Johnson and the UK government is a case study, especially as they are distracted by the aftermath of Brexit.  If Biden is replaced in 2024 by a dimwit from the Republican ranks, resistance to Putin will quickly go the way of BJ et al.

Putin's exit.  If things get bad enough in Ukraine and in Russia, the autocrats and bureaucracy in Russia could find a convenient replacement for Vladimir Putin.  This is very unpredictable.  Putin is happy to crack down on the population to quell opposition and independent journalism, so it is unlikely that the populus will rise up against Putin.  That means the oligarchs and autocrats must manage and direct the bureaucracy (and the military) to move Putin out of the picture, either suddenly (perhaps through violent means) or gradually (less violent).  Putin will not go willingly, and he has spent the better part of the last two decades pruning the bureaucracy to eliminate dissent and nurturing the oligarchs to cement their loyalty.  The pressure of sanctions must hit hard against the wealthy in Russia, hard enough to make their lives miserable, before they will even consider action.  Eventually, one of them will be brave enough to restack the apples on the cart so that Putin is rolled into the bin.

Putin's trauma.  Senator Lindsay Graham has called for the assassination of Putin (I find it strange  and seriously out-of-character that Senator Ted Cruz opposes this, but the idea is so blindly stupid that even Cruz sees it as a bridge too far;  so far, we have no word from the nutcakes like Greene and Boebert, so maybe the spoke to Cruz before blathering in public).  To be complete, there is a remote chance that Putin will suffer a sudden health set-back, either through natural forces or as induced by an otherwise unpredictable vector.  I call this The Mule Factor after the character in the Asimov Foundation novels.  The character of The Mule is an unpredictable factor that intrudes on the orderly predictions of Hari Seldon and his mathematics, destablizing the Foundation and placing the Galatic order at risk.  Putin, himself, is somewhat of a Mule, and an anti-Putin would also be a Mule.  While we can make predictions about large groups of people, the actions and decision of a single individual are very difficult to anticipate.  Therefore, the singular event of trauma that removes Putin from consideration cannot be predicted with any confidence at all.  

The rise of Putin has been a singular event and that event or process can end in many ways.  There is a much longer screed that could be written about this, but Yeltsin (a Mule) gave way to Putin (a Mule), creating much unpredictability and confusion.  In a similar way, the incompenance and stupidity of Trump (a Mule) was easily manipulated by Putin, creating much unpredictability and confusion.  In light of this compounded confusion of unpredictable players and forces, the rest of the world has fallen back into traditional patterns that are derived from the Cold War.  We are looking at a restoration of a Communist bloc and a Western bloc with new names and revised players.  There is also the possibility of a Chinese bloc rising, but the world would align along two or three great divisions.  We may learn yet more from the foresight of Orwell.

I would like to hope that Putin slips away in his sleep in the next few days, but then we have to think about his replacement and it is not at all clear who that would be or what policies they might pursue.  The future is very hard to predict, so let us think of cats.

The Official First Mowing of 2022 - 6 March 2022

Yesterday was the last day for which sunset is before 6pm until late October.  The Vernal Equinox arrives in two weeks.  After much snow and rain, the weather has started to warm a bit into the upper 40s and touching 50F.  Therefore, the grass has decided to grow again and it is necessary to start to mow again.  With a break in the rains and a few sunny days, I charged up the batteries overnight to be ready for today.  I pulled out the new mower, an EGO battery-powered self-propelled mulching mower; there is probably an acronym for that, but EGO BPSPMM does not roll off the tongue and I shall not use it.  I was confident that I was prepared and ready to mow.  How hard can this be?

I put on my safety shoes, a pair of old hiking boots now retired.  I pulled the mower handle to full length and locked it in place.  I rotated the handle to the middle position to be comfortable for my height.  I slotted in the battery with a solid push, punched the ON/OFF button, pulled the safety bail, and pushed the go-forward palm-buttons.  The mower lit up and moved forward.  Unfortunately, the mower was strangely quiet and there did not seem to be any mowing action taking place.  The grass was pushed over but did not appear trimmed behind me.  

I probably violated a dozen safety warnings when I put the mower up on a pair of sawhorses so that I could see what was going on underneath.  The oddly quiet bit that I had noticed earlier was confirmed by inspection: the blades were not rotating.  I started with some simple diagnostics: battery fully seated (the mower propelled itself but maybe another contact was not supplying power for the blades), reseat the battery, switches fully depressed, headlights work, mower handle fully extended and locked in place.  No joy, so I came into the house to check some YouTube videos.

The first two videos both concluded that a safety switch in the handle extension/lock device was the problem and the solution was to bypass the switch.  I was reluctant to bypass a safety device, so I watched a third video.  This guy started going down the same path, dismantling various housings to inspect the wiring and switches beneath each.  When he got to the main housing where my hands go (as the operator), he took apart and demonstrated how the main power switch works.  This was the aha! moment.  I had taken the ON/OFF switch as the usual push-on-push-off momentary toggle switch.  Not so!  There is a mechanical interlock involved with the starting bail, so one pushes the ON/OFF switch and holds it while pulling on the starting bail.  I had released the ON/OFF switch, so the mechanical interlock did not engage when I pulled back the bail.  

User error.

Once I held the ON/OFF switch will engaging the bail, everything worked fine.  I mowed the three tranches of the lawn with no problems.  I have not yet turned the outside water back on, so the hose cleaning will have to wait until the next mowing party.  After mowing the front yard, the battery has only descended by one bar (from 5-full to 4-partial).

Two notes on the grass.  The grass seed that I applied a month ago did little.  I speculate that it has been too cold to sprout, therefore it went to feed the birds.  Furthermore, any seed that may have remained was probably washed away by the rains.  The other note is that the moss is doing well.  Major swathes of the bright green lawn are moss rather than grass, so I have to get out the dethatcher for a workout.  Given that I am also struggling with moss on the asphalt of the driveway and the cement of the walkways, this is no surprise.  This has been a really good year for moss.

Doctor and Scouter Doug Lambrecht - 2 March 2022

Yesterday was the two-year anniversary of the death of Dr. Doug Lambrecht.  I knew Doug through BSA Scouting as well as his sons and family.  COVID reached the shores of the United States in 2020 through a nursing home in Kirkland.

First Covid-19 outbreak in a U.S. nursing home raises concerns

Doug was recovering from medical treatment in the Kirkland nursing home when he was stricken.  He succumbed on 1 March 2020.

Obituary - James Douglas Lambrecht, MD

Doug should not be remembered as an early American casuality of COVID-19 for he was more than that.  Beyond his role as a father and his position as an emergency medicine doctor, both important and significant roles, he was a great scouter and a fine friend.  Doug was an Assistant Scoutmaster for BSA Troop 573 in Woodinville WA.  I do not know for how long, probably a solid 10 years and likely longer.  He was not a scouter in name, but a supporter and active scout.  Two of his sons were active scouts and Doug was never far behind.  I recall many outings and events with Doug, but the one I recall best is a backpacking trip on the Pacific coast near Lake Ozette WA.  That trip was not monumental, but Doug was there, he was present, and he was in it for the scouts.  He knew when to help and when to observe.  He knew when a few word were right and when silence was best.  He was a rock of good humor against which problems could splash and then fade away.  Doug walked and talked the Scout Law.

An Interesting Hiring Situation - 24 February 2022

News is circulating today (US time) that Russia has invaded Ukraine.  In a show of force, the Ukrainians are fighting back but they are badly outnumbered.  To take my mind off of the news, I was musing about the current "antiwork" movement of individuals that seek to avoid work and the rat-race.  It is complicated, but it caused me to think back to a time when I was working for United Airlines in the late 1980s.

I was working in an organization that was geographically split between suburban Chicago and Denver, named EXOKT and DENKT.  In the EXOKT branch, we were recruiting for a programmer.  After the usual series of interviews, we found a candidate, made an offer, and he accepted.  

He showed up on the Monday that was his start date.  Unfortunately, he did not show up on Tuesday.  Concerned that something may have happened, my boss (and his new boss) called the new employee's home to see that he was OK.  The employee's wife answered the phone to say that Employee was "at work".  My boss was quick witted enough to ask, "oh, can you give me his number at work?"  The wife gave it, so our boss called the Employee "at work".  The Employee answered the phone, "Employee, XYZ Corp.", where XYZ was not United Airlines.  Our boss identified himself and said "you are fired."

Evidently the Employee had not resigned from his old job and was trying out both to see which one he liked.  His choices were quickly truncated.  This was about 1987 or so. 

File Extensions - 19 February 2022

Many moons ago, in the times known as 1997 or so, I was working for Digital Equipment Corporation, commonly known as DEC.  Although the use of the name "DEC" was disparaged by much of the corporation in favor of "digital" (with the small 'd'), I was working in a location proudly known as DECwest in Bellevue WA.  I had been working in the UNIX OS storage software group, named variously Ultrix, DEC OSF/1, and eventually DEC UNIX, but it became time for a change, so I was interviewing for a position in the Windows group.  

In one of the interviews, I was talking to an engineer (rather senior, as I recall) and he asked a question:  how would my program check the file type.  In brief diversion, the file type was simply the type of information contained within a file, be it a directory, a text file, a photo file, an executable file, and so on.  Knowing he was in the Windows group, I gave first the Windows answer; viz., check the file extension.  In this way, ".txt" is a text file, ".jpg" is a photo file in JPEG format, ",exe" is an executable, ".doc" is a text file in WORD format, and so on.  Before he could go on to the next question, I added quickly that this was totally unreliable.  with a trivial name change ('rename'), a file could be marked as any type of file with no regard to the actual contents.  This would cause endless user confusion; "I open the '.doc' file and the application crashes all the time" because someone had renamed a '.txt' file to end with a '.doc'.  Therefore, I counseled, a careful programmer would open the file and look for signature information.  This signature inspection might be guided by the file extension, but the extension should only be treated as a hint or a starting point.  The interviewer did not like this answer because it was, in fact, a major short-coming in Windows.  

I got the job, anyway.

Siriously - 15 February 2022

After a trial period of three months, after repeated hounding, and with a final offer, I have succumbed to SiriusXM.

My then-new car came with a trial subscription to SiriusXM.  It was free (or included), so I gave it a try.  It had come with a rental car and  I had enjoyed that little experience, so I figured it would be something useful to listen to on those long highway drives.  During the trial, my actual results were mixed.  There were spots where service faded out.  I was not really surprised by the tunnels and overpasses, but driving down tree-lined roads seemed to be a problem.  In particular, there is a stretch of a nearby arterial, an uphill bit with overhanging trees, that repeatedly faded out.  At the end of my free trial, I decided that the value simply was not there.  The situation was compounded because COVID hit, and my time in the car dropped dramatically.  I will soon work out the numbers, but my daily car driving went to the odd trip out, so the implied value of the SiriusXM service dropped.  I let the free trial drop.

In December, I received a three-month trial offer from SiriusXM.  As it did not require a credit card, I was free of the automatic-sign-up problem and I took it.  I have been trying it in the car, and it has been OK.  Initially, there was a lot of Christmas music and then I switched over to Beatles and Oldies with a bit of Jazz.  It has been OK, but the fading seems to be unchanged (that same hilly bit on the nearby arterial continues to fade).  However, SiriusXM is branching out and now has a streaming service that works through the SiriusXM app and through Amazon Alexa.  That is a nice addition, and I am getting rather addicted to the capability.  

The final straw came when SiriusXM offered me a final-final-final deal:  five bucks a month for a year, plus the "premium" service (I think that means the streaming), and a free Amazon Alexa device.  Although I do not need yet another Alexa device, that basically makes the offer free, so I bit.  I have subscribed for a year.  We shall see where this leads us.  I did set a reminder for about 12 months from now so that I remember to make a decision about renewal.

 

Oscars 2022 announced - 10 January 2022

Nominees for the movie industry Oscar awards were announced the other day.   I took brief notice, the radio report ended, and I went on with my day.  I have never been impressed with the Oscars, but probably not for the usual reasons.

Some people are wrapped up in the Oscars.  They have a favorite movie, or a preferred actor/actress/director that they feel makes the finest films in the world, films or roles deserving of permanent positions in the firmament.  So-and-so really captures the heart of a character, a writer or composer nails the story, or a cinematographer sets the perfect mood.  All this may be true.  But.

We get Oscar winners ever year.  For 2022, there is guaranteed to be a Best Movie, a Best Actor, a Best Producer, a Best Foley Actor, and so on, even if there is really nothing outstanding in those fields.  Oh, but surely there is a Best Actor, just look at the performance by <insert name here>!  And, yes, some individual will have the best performance doing some aspect of a move in 2022, but does that person deserve to be remembered?  Quick - who won Best Director in 2000?  Maybe you know that one, so do you remember the plot of the Best Movie in 1997?  I have no idea, and those are relatively recent.  If I were to go back to the 1950s, how many Oscar winners could  you remember?  According to oscars.org, Sam Mendes for American Beauty, The English Patient, and the 1950s were the days of Brando, Bogart, Kelly, Dandridge, Wyman, and others.  I have seen neither American Beauty nor The English Patient, or, if I have seen them, I do not recall them in any way.   This is not to say that they are bad movies or bad actors, but that the bulk of the Oscar movies are not memorable, therefore they do not really deserve awards.

If the Oscars were to hold to the vision of the Academy of Motion Pictures, there would be a None Of The Above choice and it would win on a routine basis.  Those years when no particular movie was better than average would have None designated as the winner of the Best Movie or No One designated as Best Supporting Actor.  If this were done, I might believe that the Oscars were memorable, but as long as the Academy keeps giving awards to unmemorable practitioners of the motion picture arts, I will have a hard time remembering (or caring) who wins what Oscar.  For me, the Oscars, like most of these organized and annual award ceremonies, are often Participation Ribbons, forgotten when the new season starts.

To compensate for my negative message, I will leave you, dear Reader, with a picture of a cat.

Another shooting - 9 February 2022

Although my blog headline is a tad misleading, the problem remains the same.  The particular shooting that triggered this note is not from today, but I am sure there will be another shooting today or any moment.  It has become impossible to keep up with the shootings; we have so many.  But I refuse to accept that this is acceptable.

For reference, an article complains that the recent Richland shooter  "had been experiencing declining mental health for weeks."   Richland Fred Meyer shooter: A tale of fraying mental health and early warnings  The article explains that the sooter was showing signs of instability and he had been seen with a gun.  As of now, it appears premeditated, although I cannot find a report that says what the motive might have been.

We are trapped.  A large minority has prevented governments in the US from taking guns out of ciculation.  Opponents say that this deprives law-abiding citizens from their right to own guns.  (This is completely bogus, but that is for another day.)  The opponents give no suggestions or methods to identify the law-abiding gun owners from the (one assumes) criminals.  As a result, everyone gets guns, lawful or criminal, sane or insane, stable or declining.  As a result, innocent people die.

A key element of the problem is that we (as a society) have no way to determine who is "sane" and who is not until a victim is dead.  We have psychologists, psychoanalysists, sociologists, and counselors, but none of them are able to identify risky groups or individuals. 

Until we can figure out what is going on, we have to restrict guns.

That's amore! - 7 February 2022

We were in Sorrento a couple years ago (2005?). We arrived on the train, late in the evening, tired, and not knowing anything about the place, two tired adults and two overstimulated kids. We happened past a pizza parlor on our way from the train station to our hotel.  Walking by, we saw that the pizza parlor was packed, just packed.  The waiters walked among the tables to take orders and deliver pizzas, the fire in the pizza oven glowed warmly in the back, and the rough rafters were almost completely obscured by hanging legs of proscuitto. The town was generally dark and this magnified the presence of the little pizza parlor.  A few blocks of walking got us and our luggage to our hotel.

The kids were famished and nothing else seemed open at that hour on a Sunday night, so two of us headed back to the pizza parlor.  We got some pizza for take-out and returned to the hotel with our feast.  It was fabulous.  Time have changed, Sorrento has changed, it is really hard to be definitive, but I am going to guess it was the Pizzeria de Franco.  It is about the right location, hard by the Circumvesuviana train station for Sorrento.  

We went back to Sorrento a few years later (2010?) and found the same pizzeria.  This time, we got a table and ate there.  It was just as good as the first visit.

Espresso and Preparing for Spring - 7 February 2022

Espresso machines have proven to be more complicate that I thought.  And the last couple days have had sunny spots that broke out of the pattern of rain.  I used the sunny bits to get some yard work done.   

I recently came into the possession of an older espresso machine made by La Pavoni, a manual machine called the Professional.  It is an advancement over the prior machine called the Europiccola by adding a pressure gauge, a drip tray, and a wand for steaming milk.  The particular machine was purchased in about 1980-1990 from a store in San Francisco CA that has since closed.  To test the machine, I need to get a drip tray and a portafilter-basket combination.  The drip tray should be simple (about $30) but the portafilter is proving to be harder to find.  It seems a design change was made in the closing days of 1999 and that affects the size of the portafilter.  The "pre-millennial" units have a 49mm portafilter while the Millennial units have a 51mm portafilter. I may have my acquisition date wrong because I think I have a 51mm unit, but I am not sure what to measure.  At $80, I am not in a hurry to make a speculative purchase.

There are some stickers on the bottom with potentially useful information.  The readable sticker gives the name of the retail shop, the one that has since closed.  The hard-to-read sticker admits the Professional name and a few other details, but not a serial number, model number, or date of manufacture.  I am in the process of opening the base to see if there is anything inside that admits to a date or identifying number. 

I do not actually need another espresso machine, but I would like to get this one working on general principles.  It was a fine device when manufactured and has many years of life remaining.  I can say that now because I have not examined the state of the internals.

We did have snow recently, but it is since gone.  It was a significant amount for this area - six to eight inches - and it shut down a lot of activities in the area, but it melted within about three days and was followed by a week of nice weather (see earlier posts about snowshoe trips).  The routine winter rains have resettled over the area but we still get "sun breaks", some as long as a day.  I use these breaks to get out, address garden tasks, and fill up the compost bin.    For reference, I think the compost bin has an official volume of 96 gallons and gets picked up each week (mostly).  In addition to yard waste, we are able to throw in food waste, so it is busy all-year round. The contents go to a professionally operated compost facility.  Back to our story.

One day, I pruned the roses by our back deck and filled the compost bin with trimmings (a climbing rose).  Other days, I have pruned the hydrangea shrubs we have scattered about.  I have lost count, but there are at least six, with sizes that were 6-8-feet-plus in diameter.  I also pruned some of the large rhododendron shrubs.  In the summer, I chip them into mulch, but because the winter ground is so soft, it is hard to get the chipper to the work areas, so they go off to the commercial compost pile.  More recently, I have trimmed back many of the ferns, especially along the walkway behind the garage and house.  Today, I pruned the apple tree and the holly.  I have cut back the holly more times than I can count; it is a vigorous tree.  I am pretty sure it is a volunteer.  Usually lurking among the plants are blackberry canes, so I must be sure to wear leather gloves.  I got ahead of myself this weekend.  After filling the compost bin with hydrangea trimmings, I got a second load from the apple tree, so the bin will be full again as soon as they haul away the hydrangea contents.  I may have to get out the chipper.

While I am on the topic of landscaping, I am glad that I do not yet have to mow.  The grass is growing, but growing slowly, so I can postpone mowing.  I have a spiffy new mower - battery powered and self-propelled - but I would rather not start the mowing season.  Further, I have spread some grass seed to fill in the muddy patches and I want to do a run with the dethatcher to get out more moss.  This is proving to be another good year for moss (that is - if you are the moss).  The demoss treatment for the roof has worked well, and we shall reapply later this year to stay on top of the problem.  I should find out more about the materials used so that I can apply them at Keats.

Snowshoe hike and video for 28 January 2022

Mount Rainier was a good hike but we decided it was not enough so on Friday, 28 Jan 2022, we did a snowshoe hike at Mount Baker.

Summary - 3.0 miles, 2:30 hours, 767 feet elevation gain.

We drove up toward the Mt. Baker ski area and then to the parking above Artist Point around Heather Meadows.  As a Friday, there was plenty of room to park.  As we passed the Mt. Baker White Salmon ski area, it looked pretty busy (three of four cars turned off there and we continued past).  The Heather Meadows facilities were closed as was the ski area, and that gave us some relief.

There were a few skiers but most were snowshoers.  The remaining few were in boots, often with Yak-traks or similar traction devices.  If one wanted to stick to the well-trodden trails, boots were sufficient.  We went off-trail in several places and the snowshoes were necessary to avoid postholes.  The day was sunny and warm, the wind relatively still.  It was not as warm as it had been on Rainier earlier in the week, so I kept a jacket on.  This was probably a mistake as the jacket arms were sodden at the end of the hike.  I unzipped the main zipper and the pit-zips, so my torso stayed dry.  

I have a lot of still photos from this area, in summer and in winter, so I used this as a chance to practice more with my GoPro (Hero 8 Black).  On Rainier, I generally went for long shots, many minutes at a time but on Baker, I tried a different filming technique.  I took more short shots, mostly panning shots of the scenery when I stopped, and a couple of walking shots on the way out.  I used my GravGrip stabilization device for the first half-hour, but it proved annoying to get in and out of my pocket.  More importantly, it did not seem to be doing anything to help.  I wanted it to help keep a level horizon, but it seemed to want to settle off-kilter.  I have a recollection that the counterweight could pivot to balance better, but it wouldn't move.  As a result, it did stabilize the shots a little but it was not aligned with the horizon.  I will play with it to find better technique, but I when to conventional handheld for the rest of the hike.  The in-camera stabilization seemed to work pretty well; I have forgotten if the camera does any horizon leveling, but the results are acceptable.

At the top of the hike, overlooking Mt. Baker and a large valley (must have been the Chain Lakes Loop Trailhead overlooking Ptarmigan Ridge), I got a phone call.  Given the quirks of geology and topology, it was a service area for cell phones.

Snowshoe hike and video on Monday - 26 January 2022

Trapped for days in a ground-hugging fog, we sought escape on Monday, 24 January 2022.  The weather report had gotten monotonous: day after day of heavy fog warnings in "lowland areas" covered the entire Puget Sound area.  Fog filled the valleys of metropolitan Seattle all day and the Weather Service extended the warnings each day for yet another day.  We had some days of pretty steady rain before that, so we were getting stir-crazy.  Another case of COVID cabin fever struck.  The fog went up to about 3000 feet and there was rumored to be sun above, so we knew where we had to go - to the mountains.  But not just any "mountains".  Stevens Pass is only about 3000 feet, barely above the fog, so we decided to go for Mount Rainier.

We usually head for the Henry Jackson Visitor Center at the Paradise area in Mount Rainier National Park (MRNP).  We have been there many times over the years, usualy a couple times each year.  It is easy access, has plenty of parking (if you arrive early enough), and the Paradise area is open year-round.  We visit the Sunrise area during the summer and shoulder seasons, but it is a bit farther and, well, it closes in the winter so it is not open until June or so?  The route to Paradise takes us through Puyallup, Elbe, Longmire, and up the part road to Paradise.  Our travel was uneventful.  We left the house about 9am (against an 8:30am target departure) and arrived with plenty of room to be found.  Of course, the 24th of January was a Monday, so we were riding the benefits of a retired life.  On the weekend, the crowds are sure to be much larger.

We grabbed our snowshoes, poles, and packs, and headed for the trail to Camp Muir.  Normally, there are some broad stairs and asphalt trails to welcome visitors, but all that was buried under snow.   We rather followed the asphalt trails but they are hard to find under the snow - and irrelevant.  However, muscle memory in the legs from all those summer visits lead one to familiar routes.  A few people were out with hiking boots but we were glad to have snowshoes.  Very simply, we did not have to look where we were walking.  Postholing was not a concern and we did not have to choose compacted routes;  the area of the snowshoes spreads our weight.  With the claws and heals on the snowshoes, we could walk a straight line that took us straight up a slope or allowed us to wander without fear of sliding sideways.  The younger set may not need poles, but the older crew finds them helpful to pull or restrain on slopes and very handy for balance.  We walked to a point a bit above the Dancefloor, closer to the Nisqually canyon, appreciated the views, and then headed down by the Dancefloor.  

The views were grand.  We could see the whole area above the fog in the valleys.  Mt. Adams and Mt. St. Helens stood proud on the horizon to the south, the Tatoosh Range clearly visible, and, of course, Tahoma herself to the north.  There was the odd cloud or contrail across the sky, but bright blue burned all around and above.  The temperatures were astounding - hot.  We did not measure the temperature, but a fellow hiker told us it was in the upper-60F range.  He said 67F, and while I am reluctant to believe that exact number, I did have to stop twice to remove layers of insulation.  I ended up wearing a wicking t-shirt and a "fishing" shirt.  It did get chilly in the shade, but we spent most of the time above the tree-line, so the sun warmed us virtually the entire time.  It was quite comfortable when walking, but I did put on my puffy sweater when we stopped.  Most of the people around us were also hiking in various ways (mostly snowshoes but several boots), and one guy even had a sled that he was pulling.  I guess he was going to spend the night at Camp Muir.  And there were a handful of skiers.  The overall hike was 2.5 miles (round-trip) in 2:00 hours, and the vertical rise was 870 feet.  Paradise is right around 5000 feet altitude.  

I grabbed some photos, but I used this outing as a training ground for GoPro video.  In the past, I have done timelapse and even Time Warp to some degree of success, but with this trip I wanted to do some post-processing to produce a more structured video. I did skip the bit about preparing a story - my "story" was to be a snowshoe hike on Mount Rainier - so I planned for a series of clips.  To this end, I chose Video > Cinematic at 4K, 24fps, SuperView, and auto-steady (I think GoPro calls it hypersteady or similar).  I used handheld with no special adaptations (no external stabilizer, just the in-camera features).  On the route up, I started with shorter clips, a minute or so each and mostly panoramas, and on the return down, I took longer clips while in motion.  I ended up with about 20 minutes of video that I cut down to 14 minutes in DaVinci Resolve 17.  My first edit ran over the YouTube limit of 15 minutes, so my second version cut that down to almost exactly 14 minutes and I added some titles.  I did nothing with the audio and I only used fades on the title sections - no fancy crossfades.  

(Note - although I can adjust the placement of the photos, Blogger insists on centering the video.)

A Wreck Not the Edmund Fitzgerald - 23 January 2022

In Vancouver BC there is a barge.  Washed up in a storm, it has come to rest in a park.  The analysis seems to conclude that it has found a final resting place; it will not move under natural causes.  So someone wrote a song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnqFpswfquI

Seeding for Spring - 21 January 2022

Early, I know, but I have put down some grass seed.  We have had a period of dry weather (meaning 24-36 hours without rain), so it remains relatively cold, but I am optimistic that the seed will germinate given a chance.  The bag officially says 60-80 degrees, and we are in the 40's, so consider this an experiment.

The daffodils are peeking abovve the ground, a good six inches up, and the hellebores have been showing for a couple weeks, so life is active.  At the worst, I am feeding the birds.  I admit that I did apply it far more thickly than advised.

Most of the delivery trucks are fine, but a couple of them are challenged by the long, narrow driveway.  The occasional driver will leave the drive and plow through the grass.  One would think that the cement curbs could serve as a hint, but they seem insufficient in practice.  I try to ignore the stripes, but they eventually get to me and I head out with yet more seed.  Further, there are a couple areas that get limited sun, so I reseed often.  I am starting to think that I need a couple patches of shade garden.

I am also looking into pruning.  The apple tree will need to be pruned and the raspberries will be helped by a good pruning.  I did prune the apple tree last year at this time, but evidence suggests I did precisely the wrong things.  We ended up with about four (4) apples even though the tree appears healthy.  Clearly, I cut all the wrong bits.

  

Forest Forensics - Figuring out what happened here - 19 January 2022

Interesting things happen in the forest all the time.  Whether we hear the tree fall or not, we can look around to deduce what has happened.  I know a little bit about this, for example, stumps that indicate logging or root-dishes from a tree that has fallen over, but (professor) Tom Wessels goes far beyond my poor abilities to extract key events from subtle clues.  He includes obvious clues such as stone fences running through the woods to more subtle clues such as the flatness of the area in the forest (or not).  Fires, farming, hurricanes, logging, disease, snowstorms - each leaves different imprints on the land and on the trees that survive the event. With careful observations and deductions, he can even give rough time estimates for the event, some of which can correlate back to recorded history (e.g., "the hurricane of 1857" and such).   I am going to read his book and see what I can deduce about the forests in this area.  His work seems to be primarily on the forests of New England, so I will have to do some adaptations for the forests of the Pacific Northwest.  Should be fun.

Forest Forensics, or Reading the Forest: Episode 1, Episode 2, and Episode 3

He has books, too.

Recruiting and hiring - 13 January 2022

Recruiting to hire is the hardest task that any manager has. There are other tasks that require more emotional energy, but recruiting has the largest single impact over the longest time.  If a manager hires the wrong people, the team will go to crap, productivity will sour, and the whole team will be eliminated.  Yes, this is a worst-case scenario, but no manager wants to have 20% or even 10% of their team to be misfits or unproductive.  The way to build up the team to prevent bad endings is through recruiting and hiring.

So why do managers encourage the use of trick questions and simple coding tests to evaluate candidates?  Entire companies are proud to tell you that they hire based on these criteria.  Stupid.  They should know better.

How many utility covers are there in Seattle?  How many gas stations are there in LA?  why are utility covers round?  What is the volume of water flowing in the Mississippi as it passes New Orleans?  What is the length of a catenary chain hanging under the following conditions?  Do you really have a job that requires the skills needed to answer these questions?  If so, you must work in a library.  

Write code to reverse a linked list in-place.  Write code for itoa() (returns a character string given an integer).  Give me ways to detect loops in linked lists.  These are useful questions for an aspiring programmer, but the hiring manager needs far more information to make a good hiring decision.  Unless the hiring manager runs a coding sweatshop, in which case, carry on.

None of these questions reveals sufficient substance about the candidate or their skills.  There are many, better ways to get information about the candidate so that the hiring manager can make an informed choice.  Consider.

0. Start with the job description and the resume (CV).

Work from the information on the candidate's resume (CV) and in the job description.  (You do not have a job description?  Go back and start again.  You are not ready to hire.)  Ask questions about what the candidate did regarding an entry on the resume, what problems they solved, and how they achieved success.  Many candidates will respond with answers about the team or the project - repeat the question and emphasize that you want to know what the candidate personally did.

1. Read the resume in advance.  Make notes.  Plan  your interview strategy.  Be consistent.

2. Read the job description in advance.  Understand what skills and experience are required for the role.  If there is flexibility, understand the dimensions and the limits. If you are not sure, contact the hiring manager for clarification.

3. Understand the skill levels required for the position.  The skill mastery for an entry-level position is not the same as for a senior-level position.

Give the candidate a chance to breathe and to think if they do not answer immediately.  Or if their answer is terse.  Just listen in silence, and the candidate should respond.  If the silence goes on for too long, prompt the candidate with something benign such as "tell me more" or "please expand on that".  Often the candidate will be reluctant to speculate, so you can invite speculation ("if you need to speculate, you can tell me your thoughts").  

NB - some candidates will be limited by NDAs, non-disclosure agreements, or other confidentiality requirements.  Ask if that is limiting their answer.

If you ask a challenging question beyond that required in the role or the level of the position, that can give you insight as to the growth potential of the candidate.  A person willing to speculate may or may not succeed in your environment.

Some candidates will reply that a topic was so long ago that they do not recall details.  While this is a valid response, I have found that people with long memories are often better able to apply a wide range of skills - skills that they have retained over time.

4. Divide the questions across the interview team.

5. Include an outlier on the interview team to help assess breadth of the candidate.

Everyone on the interview team should have a primary area on which to focus their questions.  These areas can be defined based on the resume (demonstrated skills and training) and from the job description (required skills and training).  The interviewer is not bound to precisely their primary area, but they should explore that primary assigned area in depth before they ask questions outside the primary area.  This avoids the problem of everyone asking about the most recent job (or school) assignment.  That only gives the hiring manager multiple copies of the same snapshot of the candidate;  distributing the areas allows the hiring manager to see a broader picture of the candidate.

The hiring manager can defend the ultimate hiring decision by referring to the primary areas that were explored in the interview and relate those to the requirements in the job description.  Some will argue that "fit with the team" is important, and we will cover that shortly.

6. The candidate should do most of the talking during the interview.

7. Beware of hiring for "fit".  This can lead to unconscious bias.

simply, if the interviewer is doing too much talking,  the interview is evaluating the wrong person.  The interview is to evaluate the candidate, therefore the candidate should talk the most.  That said, the interviewer is responsible to cover the topic areas of interest, so the interviewer must control or drive the interview.  A talkative candidate may give insights to areas not of interest, and the interviewer must drive the conversation back to the important topics.  

In the wrap-up meetings, interviewers will casually say things like "I liked the candidate".  This is not a dating site; the hiring manager is not choosing a sports team.  It is easy for human beings to like others who are most like them, people who have had shared experiences or who have common likes.  this can lead quickly down a path to EEO hell (equal employment opportunity).  Hiring for "fit" is interesting, but it must be relegated to a low priority in the hiring decision.  It may break a tie between candidates who are similar on many other criteria - and, even then, should be used carefully and as a last resort.  Now, some people are hard to deal with or are unclear in their communications.  A candidate who has left seven prior positions after 12-18 months with a story about "stupid management" will probably leave your position after 12-18 months with a new story about the hiring manager's stupidity, but there may be critical skills or environment differences that would allow that person to succeed in your organization.  Do not hire such a candidate blindly, but neither should the hiring manager shun them.  If the team consistently hires for "fit", not only can the hiring manager run afoul of EEO requirements, but the hiring manager can end up with group-think and a shortage of creativity across the team, leading to a fatal lack of diverse ideas. 

8. When the interviewer finds themselves leaning toward a decision, shift the questions to try to disprove the emerging decision.  

9. Stretch the candidate.

As mentioned earlier, include someone outside the nominal boundaries of the job description and the resume.  The hiring manager may be surprised to find that the candidate has broader skills than represented on paper.  this breadth may be a valuable addition to the team.

10.  There is no such thing as an "OK" candidate or an interviewer being "on the fence" (undecided).  The hiring manager must treat "OK" and "undecided" as no-hire.

All candidates should receive equal and fair treatment.  To support a hiring recommendation, each interviewer owns their decision and they should each test that decision.  If I start to "like" a candidate, I may start asking easy questions, which makes it easy to hire them.  To increase confidence in your hiring recommendation, challenge yourself when you start to lean toward a decision.  

Interviewers are human and will tend toward "good news" - or, at least, will avoid bad news.  It is tempting to say "OK" or "on the fence" rather than to say "no".  A "no" could harm someone's career or deny them a job that they need.  No one wants to be the bad guy.  

11. Hold an debrief meeting shortly after the interview (same day is ideal but next-day is more common).  

12. Each interviewer must state clearly their results and recommendation.

Thus, each interviewer must state a clear hire/no-hire recommendation and back it up with particulars.  The interviewers do not need to agree and they The hiring manager is responsible to collect the input and use it to determine a hiring decision.  The hiring manager may disagree with the collective recommendation, sometimes for reasons that must be kept private, but all interviewers should speak and each must make a clear recommendation.  there should be no silent interviewers.  If someone is silent, you did not need to include them and you wasted the time of the interviewer and the candidate.

13. Collect and keep records. 

Candidates will return.  sometimes a candidate will find a position that does not fit and they will return quickly to the hiring pool.  the hiring manager can review the records to determine how aggressively to pursue the candidate - or let them continue to look elsewhere.  NB - some interview process, perhaps abbreviated, is always appropriate, so a prior interview is not to be treated as a sure-hire ticket.  Situations change and requirements change, so a refresh interview is necessary unless the interval since the last interview is extremely short.

finally, we live in a litigious world.  Keep critical records for a reasonable time.  The hiring manager does not need to keep all records for all time, but a summary document should be retained for a few years.  It is not sufficient to keep the records with "HR".  To protect themselves, the hiring managers should keep a confidential file for their own use.  In the worst case, the hiring manager may be sued as an individual (e.g., the corporation will simply say "here is a list of all the training we gave the hiring manager and we let the hiring manager have the final decision - go sue the hiring manager and leave us out of it").  when sued as an individual, the corporation may not provide access to all the files; the corporation may routinely delete the necessary files.  In the end, the hiring manager must protect themselves.

Hiring can be great.  Although the process may be onerous, the hiring manager will find talented people to add to the team for every more success.  Just be sure to interview wisely.

Photo: sourdough bread takes time and effort to make, but the results are worth it.

 

Seals and Chops - 11 January 2022

In 1215, King John applied the royal seal to the Magna Carta, indicating his assent to the terms therein.  We in the West think of a physical seal or signet ring largely as an historical practice, one long since replaced with a signature or modern cryptographic "signatures".  The idea of a physical Great Seal struck into a blob of hot wax that might represent us in a legal sense is a complete anachronism.  The seal was also somewhat of a security device in terms of protecting the contents of a letter.  Recent articles reinforce this.  Among them ,the New York Times was so struck by a recent discovery that they ran an article, saying:

To safeguard the most important royal correspondence against snoops and spies in the 16th century, writers employed a complicated means of security. They’d fold the letter, then cut a dangling strip, using that as an improvised thread to sew stitches that locked the letter and turned the flat writing paper into its own envelope. To get inside, a spy would have to snip the lock open, an act impossible to go undetected.

Catherine de’ Medici used the method in 1570 — a time she governed France while her ill son, King Charles IX, sat on its throne. Queen Elizabeth did so in 1573 as the sovereign ruler of England and Ireland. And Mary Queen of Scots used it in 1587 just hours before her long effort to unite Britain ended in her beheading.

The "dangling strip" was extended the identification stamp to seal a letter for security purposes.  Presumably the combined task of recreating the wax seal and the folding of the strip was beyond the ability of craftspeople to counterfeit. The idea of a seal is long gone in the West.  But it remains significant in some Asian cultures, especially in PRC-China.

As reported in The Register:

Crucially, Wu [the CEO of ARM-China] retains Arm China's company chop — an item akin to a company's official seal. Under Chinese law, possessing the chop gives Wu authority over the company regardless of its board's intentions. Transferring possession of a chop is not straightforward so even though he's not wanted by Arm, Wu remains in charge. Lawsuits battling over the future of the outfit are percolating through the courts.

Arm is not happy Wu remains in charge, and continues to engage with China's government to explore a resolution.

Ref. Arm says it has 'successful working relationship' with Chinese joint venture run by CEO who refuses to leave

In the West, if a CEO is deposed, their signature is no longer legally binding.  The signature of John Doe, CEO, is superseded by the signature of Jane Smith, CEO.  Done.  None of John's pens or pencils can validate a check or conclude a contract once Jane is declared CEO.  In contrast, Mr. Wu retains the chop of AMD-China and therefore remains in control.  Mr. Wu can conclude contracts, validate large payments through checks, and conclude other legal business.  The parent company of ARM can only look on.

About five years ago, I was in PRC-China and a colleague there had a chop carved for me.  I was thinking about posting an image of the stamp face here, but it occurred to me that would make forgery trivial.  I may not view the chop as a legal commitment, but others may.  So here is the chop with the associated ink pad.

Powers of Ten, Submicroscopically - 9 January 2022

Scales can be fascinating.  In this use, I am not referring to fishy bits but to computing bits, physical and computational.

On the physical side, I recently discovered a Powers of Ten redux video located on YouTube, Powers of Ten 2.  The video starts from a couple having a picnic lunch on a beach near Sicily and expands through the planets and galaxies to reach the cosmic microwave background.  In a similar spirit, there is an interactive website called Scale of the Universe 2 that allows a user to find things of a very small scale, from people and dinosaurs down to atoms, neutrinos, quarks, and the Plank limit.  In this spectrum, the website shows a "transistor gate" at 25 nanometers (25nm).  I cannot find a date on the site to know when it was prepared, but the information is now long stale.  As I write in January 2022, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is shipping products in large volume using 6nm technology from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).  The next AMD products will be in 5nm technology and Apple is already using that (TSMC 5nm) for their chips.  TSMC has already announced plans for 3nm and 2nm technology.  Intel, although having troubles for the last several years, is projecting products that will be built using 5nm and smaller.  When I started my engineering schooling (Purdue University and UC-Berkeley), we were grappling with the emerging opportunities of 1 micron technology, that is 1000nm, and we are now close to 1nm.  It is becoming inconvenient to talk about these sizes - no one wants to talk about 1/4nm or 0.25nm, so Intel has recently switched to Angstroms as the unit of measure.  Therefore, Intel talks about 20A (2nm) and 5A (0.5nm) as future technologies.  In the past, engineers would compare transistor sizes to the thickness of a human hair, but we must now compare to the size of atoms.  In a silicon crystal (used to manufacture chips), the interatom spacing is about 3A or 1/3rd of a nanometer.  Therefore, speaking loosely, a 3nm transistor is about 10 atoms across. 

On the computing side, we used to build supercomputers as very large single computers.  Somewhere in the 1990s, the "wolfpack" approach to cluster smaller computers took over the supercomputer world.  Instead of building a single computer that ran faster and faster, we would partition the computational work across  "clusters" of small computers.  Working together, communicating, the many small computers would solve problems faster than the biggest single computer.  Today, thousands of small computers (each more powerful than the single supercomputers of old) solve enormous problems.  The race for the fastest computer in the world is described by the "Top 500" list maintained out of a research group at the University of Tennessee.  As I write, the current fastest computer in the world in is Japan and is measured at about 400-some petaflops; that is 400 x 10^15 floating point operations (FLOPS) per second.  A new supercomputer is being built in Tennessee called Frontier, at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, ORNL.  It will run at 1.5 Exaflops, or 1.5 x 10^18 FLOPS/second -- over three times faster than the current record-holder.  There are rumors of similar supercomputers in China (PRC), but no one has published data to confirm this.  When I started engineering school, the fast computers were measured in MIPS, approximately millions of operations per second, or megaflops (10^6).  In another year of so, the El Capitan supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore National Labs (LLNL) will turn on and deliver even more exaflops, probably more than 2 exaflops. (If the step from 1.5 to 2 sounds unimpressive, recall that the fastest documented supercomputer today is about 0.5 exaflops).

The fastest computer in the world in 1975 was the Cray-1, pictured below.  It achieved about 160 megaflops.  I took this photo at the Supercomputing Conference in 2018.

Pointers, A Look Back - 8 January 2022

Programming languages for computers come in many varieties and styles, each trying to solve a particular problem.  Although I started substantial programming in Dartmouth BASIC, then FORTRAN, and then MUMPS & assembler, I quickly latched on to the C programming language as a favorite when it became available to me.  This was about 1974 or 1975 at Purdue University using Kernighan & Ritchie C on a VAX running UNIX BSD.  Coming from BASIC, FORTRAN, & MUMPS, I was new when it came to the pointer data type, but I leveraged my assembler knowledge to get a working understanding.  Although I may have mastered the syntactical aspects of pointers and most of the operational aspects, there was a key concept that confused me.  (For those that like to jump ahead, "char *foo" is not the same as "char foo[]".)

I was working at Bell Labs on the AT&T 3B2 computer system that was still under development.  In fact, I had architected the first IO card and then started working on the development of software for the first smart IO card.  The smart IO card had an Intel 80186 on it; that is about it, because it was a prototype.  The intent was to design a test card that would accept commands and return results.  To this end, I wrote a small "IO application" that would run on the smart IO card.  I have forgotten quite what "work" the IO card was to do, but the on-card firmware needed to allocate an array and to some kind of work on it.  The style at the time was that one should have short files and short functions, on the order of a printed page (60 lines or so), so I wrote the firmware in two files.  One file to set up the programming environment and interface with the CPU, and a second file that contained the "worker" code that would be invoked by the main file.  As I recall, I wrote the main file to declare

    char    work[1000];

I was trying to be super-clever, so the worker file had a matching declaration of

    char    *work;

To be charitable to myself, I thought this bit of cleverness would get me around the problem of the size of the array - the data types and names aligned, and the programmer needed to set the right size in the main file.  My intentions were pure.

Unfortunately, this code did not run.  I thought I found a hardware bug in that the interrupt table that was so carefully constructed in the main file was coming up as all zeros as soon as the first IO command was dispatched.  Pat Walsh and a gentleman whose name I forget were the hardware guys for the IO bus.  I took my bug to them.  Aha, guys!  Your hardware is busted!  They accepted my analysis and started work to find the hardware bug.  After two days of careful work, they came back to me with a question: why did I have code that was writing zero to 1000 bytes starting with the interrupt vector table?  As I recall, the 80186 had important control tables starting at physical address zero, tables such as the interrupt vector table.  A little research reveals this is correct - "[addresses] 0000h - 03FFh are reserved for interrupt vectors."  My code was writing over the interrupt table.  When the next interrupt came in - crash!

Someone reading carefully will notice that the main declaration allocates 1000 bytes of memory named "work", while the worker file declared two bytes of space named "work" as a pointer type.  Oops.  As I learned, compilers at the time would set the initial value of "work" to zero, so when the code dereferenced "work" (*work=0 or work[0]=0), the code would write over the interrupt table at location zero, exactly like the code instructed.  The solution was simple: the code simply should to declare the array "work" consistentlly in both files.  After changing everything to "char work[WORK_SIZE]", the code worked.

I found out today that Patrick M. Walsh, 57, of Wheaton IL, passed away July 12, 2016 after a battle with cancer.  Rest in peace, Pat.

COVID-19 Omicron Thoughts - 7 January 2022

This is not a happy prediction, but I see no other likely path.

We will all get COVID-19 before this is over.

The Omicron variant has overtaken the Delta variant in the last couple of weeks.  The exact charts vary, but in December 2021, Delta was fading as Omicron took dominance.  By January 2022, Omicron has all but replaced Delta in the US for new infections.  

People being careful and taking precautions are being tested as COVID-positive.  Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, two prominent talk-show hosts who have responded intelligently throughout the COVID pandemic have tested positive and cancelled their shows.  As a reference, here is an NPR article on Fallon and Meyers, dated 4 January 2022.  

Finally, we have known for over a year that the virus spreads by air.  Some fraction of the US population, some estimates are in the 30-40% range, are resisting vaccination.  Even if it is only 20%, this leaves a vibrant pool in which the COVID virus can live, mutate, and spread because we all need to breathe.  Wearing masks can help, self-isolation can help, and postponing interactions can help, but we must ultimately visit grocery stores and perform other tasks that will put is in exposure to people who either do not care or will lie about their vaxx status.  

When I add these together, there is simply no way to avoid exposure.  If you run this over a month or so, that is a handful of visits, and the probabilities add up to certainty.

The only protection is the vaccination protocol - (usually) two vaccinations plus a booster.  To extend protection, another booster is very possible, perhaps in the mid-year of 2022.

Happy New Year!

New rising - 1 January 2022

Back in January 2020, I started baking sourdough bread.  I had no specific reason beyond resuming a hobby from the 1990's in Westford, a suburb of Boston.  We had returned from a trip to France where the bread is universally excellent.  It is so good that bread is not some mere addition to a meal but an element of the meal just like the meat, the spices, and the vegetables.  I thought I would try to recreate the crusty, chewy, holey bread of France.  A lofty goal, but maybe I could get close enough for daily use.  This was before the Time of COVID.  We heard odd snippets of reports out of Wuhan, but surely we would be protected by modern medicine.  

By the end of February 2020, it was clear that COVID was coming and the first deaths were reported in nearby Kirkland WA.  By the first days of March 2020, I knew that one of those first deaths was Doug Lambrecht, a friend from BSA Scouting.  By 4 March 2020, the risk of COVID was clear and immediate, so I closed the AMD Bellevue office and directed people to work from home.  We all thought it would blow over by June or July 2020, and we started looking for hobbies.  Some people started knitting while others turned to bread.  The store shelves quickly ran out of flour (as well as toilet paper - not correlated!).  I had already resumed bread-making, so I was all set to become stereotypical.

In resuming my bread-making, I used a simple method to start the sourdough starter using cultured yeast and then let it go wild on the kitchen counter.  Many recipes are available and I started with a simple one.  A cup of flour, a cup of water, a tablespoon of sugar, a packet or two of dry yeast, and some vigorous stiring.  Put the mixture in a Tupperware pitcher and let it sit, open-topped, on the kitchen counter for a few days.  Stir periodically, maybe twice a day.  The flour is unbleached and organic; in Westford, I used King Arthur's all-purpose but the Redmond Costco provides a flour sourced from Utah that works well.  Let the culture bubble and rise a bit as the yeast devours the sugar and starts to work on the flour.  Microbes in the kitchen air will join the mix.  We hope that these will provide the "sour" portions of the flavor profile while the yeast remains the worker to lift and stretch the gluten formed in the flour.  Eventually, the starter will settle down and the morning will bring a layered product at rest.  This happens more quickly in warm climates and in the summer, more slowly in cooler climates and in the winter - anything from one to three days.  My Tupperware pitcher is translucent, so I can clearly see a white (lightly tan-colored) layer on the bottom and a darker but clear "liquor" on the top with a slightly sourish aroma.  Note that my food has an aroma rather than a "smell".  I feed the sourdough culture with a cup of flour and a cup of fresh water, then let it sit overnight one more time.  The pitcher comes with a close-fitting lid.  It is not air- or water-tight, but it protects the starter by limiting evaporation.  And it prevents against odd things that might otherwise fall in.

Digression on history.  The western pioneers (often seeking gold) carried their sourdough starter in a doughier, drier form.  They simply used less water so that the sourdough starter was more like a ball of dough than a liquid.  This ball of dough went in the flour barrel and rested on top.  Closing the barrel protected the contents from animals.  These pioneers took the name "sourdoughs" from the bread that formed a major part of their diets.

Digression on flour measurements.  I have always used measuring cups to measure flour in my recipes.  I have seen the videos and read the articles about how important it is to weigh flour.  I have received all the lectures on packing flour and how the volumetric measurements can vary while weight measurements stay true. I even started to believe this so I bought a scale.  I argue that bread is a product of feel, and so weight or volume are simply a starting point that does not require accuracy.  Let me repeat that:  a scale is not necessary for home baking.  As the dough develops, an observant baker will add a little water or or a little flour to adjust the texture to obtain the desired results. Consistency is important, so if you, as a baker, cannot measure flour consistently, you might want to consider a different hobby.  So please do not whine at me about grams or weight.  Measure your ingredients carefully, volume or weight, and adjust. 

To make my bread, I started with the King Arthur Flour recipe and adapted it.  I put a cup of my sourdough starter, well stirred, in a mixing bowl and add three cups of flour and 1-1/2 cups of water.  I mix this up and loosely cover it to rest overnight.  I feed my starter with one cup of flour and one cup of water.  When the starter starts to bubble again, I put the lid on the pitcher and return it to the refrigerator after a good stir.

A note on maintaining the starter.  When I pull the starter out the refrigerator where it is stored, the starter has settled into two layers.  The bottom layer is pretty solid, almost like a potter's clay, and the upper layer is a dark liquid.  After pulling the starter from the refrigerator, I stir it to mix the two layers.  It takes a minute or two to stir the layers together, but keep mixing until the starter is uniform.  Then I feed the starter as noted above.  This regular feeding makes more volune than the one cup of starter that I withdrew for the bread, so I periodically skip a feeding or go to half-and-half on the flour and water so that the level of the starter does not overflow the container.  After feeding, I let the starter sit overnight, then store it in the refrigerator for up to three weeks before feeding again.  If you need to go longer than three weeks between feedings, either dry out some starter or freeze some.  I think the starter can go months in the refrigerator between feedings, but having a backup is prudent.

Let the starter-flour-water mix sit overnight, covered loosely, to develop.  By the next day, the "slack" dough should be showing a lot of bubbles.  This is the risk of sourdough - sometimes the yeast just does not want to work, but this is extremely rare and often indicates some mishandling (e.g., a too cold kitchen).  A "slack" dough is simply a dough that has a lot of water in it, it is very pourable.  To the dough, add a cup of flour.  On the flour, sprinkle a tablespoon of sugar and a half tablespoon of salt.  The sugar is to feed the yeast and the salt is mainly for flavor.  Common advice is that you do not want the sugar or salt to touch the dough directly, thus the comment about "on the flour".  (I made a salt-free bread, but the flavor is not right.  That said, if no-salt is required, leave it out.)  Add a second cup of flour on top of the sugar and salt.  Start mixing.  I like to use a rubber spatula (probably one made from silicone, but I still call it a rubber spatula).  You want a generally uniform mix, but you do not have to be a perfectionist.  It is too easy to leave unmixed flour on the bottom, so keep mixing and turning the dough until it is broadly uniform, especially at the bottom.  In times of low humidity, the flour will be dry and need some help.  I add anyting from a tablespoon to a quarter-cup of water to smooth out the dough, either at this point or after the first kneading.

I combine my dough in a mixer bowl because I use a breadhook to knead.  I used to do it by hand, but the slacker (wetter) doughs are hard to handle and a mixer makes it easier.

So take that dough and knead by hand or mount the bowl on the mixer stand.  I knead for 4-5 minutes, in either mode, then let the dough rest for 4-5 minutes and knead again for a final 4-5 minutes.  The goal is to get smooth, elastic dough that is well mixed.  I let this rise in the mixer bowl for 1-2 hours.  I set a timer for one hour and check how the rise is going.  To control the temperature, I put the dough in an unheated oven and turn on the oven light; the oven light keeps the temperatures around 90F, which works well for me.  Some ovens have a "warm" or "rise" temperature setting, but I find this is too warm and it encourages the bread dough to rise too quickly.  After the first hour, check the dough, looking for a doubled volume.  If not yet doubled, add 30-60 minutes and check again.  If it has doubled, "knock down" or "punch down" the dough.  the phrase "punch down" captures the spirit - make a fist and stick it in the middle of the dough, collapsing the air out. 

Some bakers will recommend a light kneading or "folding" process at this point.  This is "to build the structure" of the dough.  I find this is not necessary.  Handle the dough enough to collapse the air bubbles and you are good.  Handling a slack dough is hard, the dough is sticky, so I try to handle it as little as possible.  

Do a general folding (repeated folding of the dough will squeeze out the bubbles) and shaping.  I like a boule, a ball-shaped loaf, so I drop the defalted dough into a dutch oven pot.  You can cut the dough into long loaves to get baguette shapes, or cut pieces of dough to fit into rectangular bread loaf pans - up to your preference.  The boule gives an artistic sense of "peasant" and "rustic" that I like, so that is my usual choice. 

If you leave it too long, the dough will rise and collapse, leaving you with a dished top.  All is not lost, just do the folding and be more attentive during the second rise.  The dough is robust and will usually recover in the second rise.

I usually do a second rise in the dutch oven pot.  This second rise is said to develop the flavor of the bread but you can skip the second rise if you are busy.  I line the dutch oven with a piece of parchment paper to minimize any sticking.  You can also grease the dutch oven, but I find the parchment paper to be more reliable.  I just let the excess paper stick out the top and will later use the "ears" to pull the bread from the dutch oven when baking is done.

After much experimentation, I find the dutch oven to be an important tool.  It helps maintain and control the shape of the loaf, and it seems to help the crunchy crust develop.  Alternatively, I used to put the parchment paper on a baking sheet and plop the boule in the middle of the sheet.  This works well, but the slack dough tends to spread out while the dutch oven will hold the circle and encourage the dough to rise.  The baking sheet bread tends to be shorter and the dutch oven encourages taller bread.  I prefer the later.  Furthermore, the lid of the dutch oven helps to keep in moisture while baking, and that seems to help the crust develop.  Professional bakeries have ovens that will inject steam during baking and the dutch oven will do something similar with the moisture already in the dough.  There is nothing special about the dutch oven - you can use the steel dutch oven that came with your cookset, get a fancy French enamelled dutch oven, or use a camping-style cast iron dutch oven.  Just choose one that is large enough for your loaf (about 5-6 quarts) and has an oven-safe lit and handles.

For the second rise, put the lid on the dutch oven and return it (containing the dough) to the warm oven.  Again, I use the oven light and do not turn on the oven.  Be careful to watch the second rise for that doubling in size.  Unlike the first rise, it is difficult to recover an over-risen dough on the second rise; you will either need a third rise or will need to make do with a concave loaf (tastes fine but looks funny).

You can skip the second rise if you are in a hurry.  I also skip the slashing of the dough and let it crack naturally as the bread bakes.

When the rising is done, it is time to bake the bread.  I start from a cold oven.  In fact, I have the bread rising in the oven, sitting in the dutch oven, and just turn on the oven to bake.  I do not recall what source suggested it, but it works fine to start baking in a cold oven wiht the lid on the dutch oven.  Set the oven to 450F and set a timer for 25 minutes.  The oven temperature will rise to 450F during the 25 minutes and the bread will continue to rise a bit within the dutch oven, eventually starting to form that crust in the steamy environment within.  After 25 minutes, remove the lid from the dutch oven and reset the timer for another 25 minutes.  

After 50 minutes overall, your bread is done when you decide the top is suitable brown.  Pull the lidless dutch oven from the oven.  I remove the bread from the dutch oven using the "ears" of the parchment paper.  Leaving the bread in the dutch oven too long will allow escaping moisture to make the loaf soggy.

After cooling for an hour or so, I slice boule in half.  Although the slices will vary in size, it is easy to slice slices from the demiloaf.  

Variations.  When the dough is slack, the air bubbles in the final bread will tend to be larger and the texture will be closer to rustic bread.  A dry dough is easier to handle in the baking process and produces finer bubbles, producing a texture closer to commercial bread.  You can experiment to find your favorite texture.  And instead of a boule, you can shape the bread to regular loafs or baguettes as noted before.  You can also use the dough to make pizza or focaccia on a baking sheet.  Finally, you can make dinner rolls.  I suppose one can make hamburger buns but I have never tried it.  The sourdough flavor and texture improve all these forms.

The original King Arthur Flour recipe has one add baking soda to the dough with the sugar and salt.  I just started leaving it out and have not gone back.  You do not need the baking soda.