Hi.

        Pull up a chair and set a spell.

                                                        -- Dave

Sunday 2007 July 1

Since no Art Center College students signed up for the summer term (not too unusual for summers) I decided to host a small class at JPL. We met three Wednesday evenings in a row at JPL, first in Von Karman auditorium, which I had reconfigured for small-group seating, and then in one of the Space Flight Ops Center's conference rooms. Went very well, and so I'll mount a campaign to see if JPL will want to provide the small budget needed for repeating it at regular intervals.

Monday 2007 July 9

The Bush Administration has made us the bad guys. Railroading invasion of sovereign Iraq. Putting Bremer in charge to summarily dismantle what could have been made to work (Bremer had a field day with his decreed "Free" Trade laws). A populace forced to want to oppose us because of the horrendous acts we have undertaken against women, children, old and young civilians alike while lying and hiding the facts. Abu Ghraib. Note also the loss of primordial treasures from the Baghdad Museum. Neglecting domestic issues except to clamp down on the unembedded press. Diminishing the rights of citizens while expanding those of the Corporation. Letting Palestine-Israel fester unchecked.*   Pouring tax dollars into the Church. Saddling enormous debt on the children, grandchildren, if indeed they have any country left to grow up in. Wreaking havoc on the biosphere that sustains life itself.

And now the neocons want to start "spreading freedom" to Iran.

No. We are the deciders. It takes, unfortunately, a bit of digging to find the truth, given the major media's new unwillingness to face important issues. But the clearer the picture becomes, the more it's obvious that it's time for another Tea Party.

Start by impeaching the Cheney-in-charge.

P.S. Here's a good read: Blackwater by Jeremy Scahill.

Sunday 2007 August 26

The show, by Michael Michetti, was marvelous. The psyche-evolution meta-story was expressed intuitively, beautifully, and concisely. It was set to awesome, literally heart-penetrating music (the one Taiko drummer I could see directly, of the two, was up in the mezzanine beside Music Director Greg Chun. He sat erect and perfectly still between his turns to wield whole body into the drums to radiate throughout the small auditorium. Bravo!). The beautiful young actors were clad in punk-suggestive battle-torn clothing, in the roles of Logos, his sister Exstatis, Ignis, Gravitas, and company. Lots of spikey hair, including on the MD, whose gestures were visible to the performers via a couple of well-placed black & white monitors. Brings you right through the "being here temporarily without your wings," to "being given a clue" (in the form of a gistening box that lets out a heard of shining butterflies when opened, to "learning of the existence of a key to a door you've recently discovered" as a result of the shimmering box of butterflies. On, of course to Fervio escaping, but soon returning after realizing he was actually alone. The only flaw in Steven Young's otherwise great lighting (and projection of anime and effects) was that there was no brilliant spotlight on Greg Chun and the musicians during the applause sessions. Too bad this show is sold out through closing. It'll probably go to or near Broadway.

When I looked north after exiting the theater, the plume of smoke was gone.

* The words "fester unchecked," up there in the last entry, looked right away like they would be loaded with anagrams if one were to spend half a minute. Here's a funny one: "retched fuck seen."

Friday 2007 August 31

This evening, as some of the flight team meets at a reception at Caltech marking thirty years in flight, the round trip elapsed time for routine radio signals, travelling at light speed to Voyager-1 and back, is 28 hours and 36 minutes. For comparison, round-trip light time to the Moon and back is 3 seconds.

Yesterday, Bob Nelson, Dennis Byrnes, and twenty-six of my other colleagues at JPL, under counsel of Hadsell and Stormer, filed suit in an attempt to stop an absurd, enormously wasteful and dangerous campaign by NASA to force all employees (well, most. There are some very glaring and contentious exceptions) to "voluntarily" authorize explicitly unlimited background investigations for two years, repeating every five.

The Bigger Picture:

• George W. Bush directs that all U.S. Government employees and their contractors (such as the employees of Caltech at JPL, contracted to NASA) are to undergo deep, intrusive, extensive and expensive background investigations. Homeland Security Presidential Directive Number 12, HSPD12, seems pretty innoccuous, requiring reliable and consistent identification of badge-holders, including a biometric, like fingerprints. No problem there. But it's the way the government agencies are being strong-armed into implementing it, that is objectionable.

• The for-profit company, United States Investigations Services, USIS, gets $3 Billion for the grunt-work of doing the background checks.
• One of USIS's two major investors seems to be The Carlyle Group.
• And who do we find sitting on the Board of Directors of The Carlyle Group? Why, look, it's George H. W. Bush! What a coincdence!

This privatization aspect is very relative here. The corporations being empowered to blend in with government have no interest in acknowledging the effects of those who are enriching the thin film of gasses encompassing the only biosphere ever known with enormous masses of carbon. They would prefer to keep all these inconvenient facts out of public view, and they are fighting as fiercely as they can to do so. Big Coal and Big Oil and Big Transportation and Big Private Government do not want to be reigned in by a non-Corporate government — a republic ofbyandfor the people.

The "badging" campaign now in full swing serves as a filter: those who care about that film of gas and the generations of humans and others that it must sustain, and those that care deeply about forms of government, are being edged out of the task of connecting our current form of government with actual facts and actual sciences and actual responsibilities.

Speaking of Privatization, this video is a great summary of the book, Blackwater, by none other than the author.

It's a must-see.

Sunday 2007 September 2

Volts, not degrees Farenheit. And I'm surprised, pleasantly. It's a very warm day out here at the end of a mile of grid-power distribution. Almost every year I've lived here, which is nearly nine now, there have at least been regulation problems during the hot summer days. Last two years in a row, it failed entirely for a few days. But today it's holding steady.

It's a hundred and three in the shade. Degrees F, not volts. But that's on the north side, where the Fujitsu compressor, condenser, and fans are depositing thermal energy taken from two of the three indoor evaporator units I installed a couple years ago. The slender units are up near the ceiling in three separate parts of the house.

Seems to be a moderately efficient system. Last month the electric bill was a dollar forty-five cents, given the photovoltaic distributed-generation plant in the back yard. But this month it will be more, since we turned on the A/C. It's been running maybe twelve hours a day for three days, and will probably run tomorrow too. I see a net of about 500 Watts on one of the 240-volt legs, being sucked in off the grid. The other leg must have around 500 too, because the A/C uses both legs at once. So 12kWh per day for a cool interior seems acceptable, sort of, if not perfect.

It would be zero if I were the energy czar around these parts. That would be so easy for millions of residences to achieve. But no,ooo, no, $000,000,000. The state and federal governments prefer we buy Big Coal, Big Oil and Gas, and pay Big Centralized Energy to distribute the power to us.

There I go again.

But it would be easy.

The image above is the most recent gardening slant landscaping project. Mitch and I designed it, and I dug the many postholes and built these planters on the NE corner of the lot. Mitch and I are planting mostly succulents there, and weeding. I love the way the Boston Ivy has fulfilled its assignment: three plants have entirely graced the redwood perimeter fence on the north and east sides.

Tomorrow, I'll give them some extra water. Good Boston ivy.

Monday 2007 September 3

Right after uploading yesterday's post, the grid failed, and didn't come back until early this morning. I'm disappointed that we can't implement a grid that works. Very. Every year it's the same thing, "oh, it's the heat because it's summer" says Southern California Edison, who has done very little if anything to improve the grid, or add distributed power sources.

And the electrical power went out again a few minutes ago, around 4:40 pm. I've got the air conditioner turned off. Maybe other grid users will do the same so it won't fail again tonight.

It's a hundred and four. Volts, that is.

At least I've got the battery pack charged up now, so the fridge can keep running if the grid crashes again tonight.

Saturn's Day 2007 September 15

Wednesday 2007 September 26

I took today off from work, a day of vacation, to stay home and wrap my feeble mind around LaTex (iTexMac2) far enough to set up a good, robust structure for my book, for which I just signed with Praxis, Deep Space Craft. A lot of LaTex, which is pronounced "Lah Tech," sort of parallels HTML, but the system succeeds in perplexing me often, with the simplest of things. I also had planned writing much of Chapter One, once the structure of files is in place. Chapter Three, on Attitude Control, is largely done.

It's a world-class gorgeous day here in the canyons. Shirt-off temperature, low humidity in between some marine-layer dominated days, no wind to speak of. I rate it "severe clear" looking everywhere but south, where the marine layer is at bay.

Sunday 2007 September 30

I'm getting flowers in my hair.

But I'm not going to San Francisco. That was so forty years ago.

Our congressman visited the local Coffee Gallery yesterday. I put on some clean clothes and got there early enough to meet some friends and new aquaintences. The congressman popped in nearly on time, after three of his staffers arrived and set up balloons outside. I was the fourth or so to offer comment, after others brought up their compelling, and well-received issues. I called upon Representative Adam Schiff to publically support HR333, Dennis Kucinich's bill to impeach Vice President Cheney. I told him of the 231 signatures from constituents, that I had just given his staffer, on a petition for the same. Mitch had collected them, and I was pleased that my comments received two rounds of applause from the bunch in the Coffee Gallery, maybe 80 or so people. But Schiff was still cold to the idea, offering some excuses that I don't believe stand up anywhere near to the gravity of the situation. He offered me a chance to rebut, and I asked what pecentage of his constituents would have to sign, in order for him to represent our wishes on this. He basically said to keep sending them in, and that he "never says never."

It wasn't difficult to raise 231 signatures at all. Thanks, Mitch.

Sunday 2007 October 7

• Animals, including humans, are in a relationship to plants and other kingdoms in a way that resembles a child to its mother. The plant world directly feeds us. Or if we eat meat, it feeds our immediate supply. The mineral and elemental kingdoms give us water to drink. Even more immediate, plants offer us animals minute-by-minute, second-by-second, a double moleucle of oxygen that enables us to see and to speak.
• Much of this, though not in the exquisite detail we have confirmed as of the start of this century, has been basically known throughout human history. To wit the American Native lore, and that of other ancient cultures. Today's view validates, but unfortunately, characterizes such lore as quaint.
• If we can steady ourselves for a moment, quit thinking and doing, and just be and observe, it becomes clear: this is actually a valid way to view the relationship. This is the Nature of nature.

Saturday 2007 November 10

Wednesday 2007 November 28

Sunday 2007 December 2

I snapped this photo from the podium this morning during "continental breakfast". Clicking it brings up a blurb. I was a little awed to learn that people came to it from far and wide... CA of course, but also Florida, Georgia, even one from Switzerland.

My esteemed colleagues in the Public Education Office contributed extraordinary "behind the scenes" support. Everything went so smoothly and in stride: the elaborate Von-K setup and operation, including a different spacecraft scale model on every table, the handout production and distribution, the Caltech catering and cleanup, administering 65 guests and making them all feel welcome. The adjacent spacecraft museum was open both days, and was a real hit. What a pleasure!

Wednesday 2008 February 20

But I just ran into a really good talk by Carolyn Porco, who was on the Voyager imaging team, and is now our imaging science team lead on Cassini. Her talk was on TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. The TED website says it started out in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Its annual conference brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Click her picture to watch the video.

Carolyn's talk is similar to the (slightly longer) ones I give to colleges, service clubs, and astronomy clubs. Hey, she even uses the same kind of remote control. But the big difference is: she's the principal. It's her cameras that took the images.

I ran into this site after watching an extraordinary DVD that a colleague lent me, titled, "The Priveliged Planet." (Gee, you can even watch it online.) It features some other colleagues as well, and is very thought provoking. Its imagery, technical content, production, music, even the narration, are exquisite. It causes one to appreciate the astounding circumstance we find ourselves living in, it does this very well, and it expounds Albert Einstein's famous quote, "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible." Above all, for me the video underscored the urgent need to take care of our planet.

While it did not end with an admonition to go to church and get baptized post hast, one of the contibutors who appears in the video is Jay Richards who is a senior fellow with the renowned ID conservative think tank DI, the Discovery Institute. So, I thought I'd google a bit, and found where Phil Plait indicates about the DI on his great website, Bad Astronomy, that the organization was largely responsible for, well putting Dover, Pennsylvania on the map. He put it differently. To refresh the memory, in 2004-05, the Dover Area School District voted to include this statement about intelligent design in the biology curriculum of its schools:

Adjacent to the DI/ID entry in his Bad Blog, was the video of Carolyn.

Thanks, Bad Astronomy, for posting it.

Now back to the book.

Saturday 2009 April 12

A little while back, a friend asked me what I thought of Intelligent Design. Thanks to a colleague, I've had a good glimpse at some of the ID publicity. My quick answer was that I am agnostic on the question (as to whether we should conclude that there is/was a designer of the universe). But it is a serious question, and what with Ben Stien's movie coming out, I think it's called, "Expelled," whose trailers seem to make it like "intelligence is expelled" from school, it deserves my best crack at a thoughtful answer.

The ID videos that I've seen are brilliant compilations of views of life: The uniqueness of our planet, and all the wonders it holds; the awesome intricacy of life at the cellular and molecular levels, and all the way down to the atomic and fundamental cosmology levels. Everything is very astounding. Does this mean it is all designed and executed by a designer?

My answer is that these aspects of life are all truly astounding, and an appropriate attitude toward it all is to be in awe of life's existence. It demands the utmost in respectful attitude in everything we humans do. It says take care of it. Be curious, learn, teach.

But does it signify existence of a creator? First I have to ponder that existence and non-existence itself, that duality of thought and many others, is just the way we humans behold this and other questions with the way our brains and our emotions function. We apprehend everything in binary fashion. That's how we work. Good, bad. Tasty, icky. God, self. Self, other. Humans, world. Nature, supernature. Church, Sierras. Up, down.

In my humble opinion, don't buy it. See beyond the binary image. Experience being, every instant of the present. In doing so, one naturally becomes less dependent on all those binary aspects, sees them for what they are, and is inclined to open the mind wider, listen and watch and see and truly love.

As for, well how did it really all happen, what about all that "irreducable complexity"? I'm not inclined to jump to conclusions right now. It could have evolved naturally; even one thousand million years is a mighty long time, and we've had three of those and more. We just don't know how yet, and that's ok. Let's keep exploring with an open mind and see where it leads in two or three hundred more years. It's an amzing journey.

Ok, now back to the homework. Tax time, book deadline. Eeeek.

But the bottom line, really, is that giving it a name (like "Brahman" or whatever the coloquial connotation happens to be with a capital g) just ruins it. It puts it in the realm of thinking and expecting and imagining. Limiting. Putting it all in a little box, or on a leash, or on your lap, go visit it inside a beautiful architectural setting once a week. Giving it a pope.

Saturday 2008 April 12

Tuesday 2008 July 22

Sunday 2008 August 24

Sunday 2008 September 28

Click image to enlarge

Sunday 2009 February 15

Saturday 2009 May 30

Here's a link to his full article online, under "annals of medicine," titled, "THE COST CONUNDRUM: What a Texas town can teach us about health care."

Don't just listen to the mega-corporations.

Sunday 2009 July 19

The House Education and Labor Committee has approved HR3200.

It propels the growing single payer health care movement at the state level. There are at least ten states which have active single payer efforts in their legislatures. They are California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington. The amendment mandates a single payer state will receive the right to waive the application of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), which has in the past been used to nullify efforts to expand state or local government health care.

A state's application for a waiver from ERISA is granted automatically if the state has signed into law a single payer plan. Thus, the state single payer health care option is shielded from an ERISA-based legal attack.

HR3200 brings into standard coverage for the first time complementary and alternative medicine (integrative medicine). It also ends pharmaceutical industry's manipulating physician prescribing habits. It stops insurance industry from increasing premiums at the time when people are not permitted to change health plans. And it requires the pharmaceutical industry to disclose the cost of advertising, marketing and executive compensation expenses (which ultimately divert money from patient care).

This is very good news. Let's see if we can make sure the provisions of HR3200 succeed in getting signed into law.

Friday 2010 July 23

Laura Blankenship called me from Coupeville with the news. I told Greg, my boss, breaking into tears. I called Mitch with the news. Then I went outside. I stood on the third-floor balcony of Building 230, the Space Flight Operations Facility; it was hot and the sky was clear. I headed out and went for a walk up a quiet natural canyon in the hills of the JPL campus. Once I got past the upper debris dam, the canyon rising to the north had probably not been modified by humans for centuries. I sat down beneath an old oak. I walked around.

After an hour or so, I got in touch with the funeral home, and confirmed plans for cremation. I cancelled my meetings at JPL for the rest of the day and went home.

I had gotten airline tickets the previous week, and had meant to tell Beah that I would be there for a visit on the following Thursday. Last time we saw each other happened to be on Mother's Day 2010, and one of the CareAge staff members mentioned my visiting my "mother." Beah did look old. I think she seemed to have aged several years over the course of the past year. Now my trip had a different purpose. Mitch called from work -- he was driving an ambulance for American Medical Response -- and told me he would free up time to go with me, so I added him to the flight and extended our stay.

After a while I made the decision to keep an appointment I had down the Arroyo at The Planetary Society's new headquarters. I had promised to install the one-quarter-scale model of their latest spacecraft, LightSail-1. I had been working on the model for several weeks, and it was intended to be on display during their Open House on August 5.

When I arrived outside their new building, I met Lu and Andrea on their way in from lunch. I told them my sad news, and that I had decided to use the time during installation to help me focus. They helped me carry everything in, except the ladder, which I brought in a few minutes later.

Inside, I repeated the news to staff as I ran into them, and set about the task at hand. Lou Friedman and Bill Nye showed up in a little while. With consolations from all, Bill climbed the ladder with my portable drill, measured twice, and set the cuphooks while Lou looked on.

I attached the small metal scale model of thespacecraft bus on the wall, along with the temporaty rigging hardware that would allow us to set the four right-trianglular sails. Bill and I fastened the "clews" of the sails, which are made of real solar-sail material, while I routed and made fast their halyards on temporary belaying pins. After the fourth sail was in place, we stepped back and admired our work.

Bill took off, and I finished trimming the sails and removing the temporary rigging. Then I went home and continued plans to change my "quick visit to say hi to Beah again" to a longer stay, with Mitch along, to attend Beah's memorial. Last time I visited her was in May. The airlines, the Whidbey Seatac Shuttle, and the Inn at Penn Cove were all very helpful in waiving the fees normally required when you change plans.

The following week when we had returned home, I found an email from Lou with a link to pictures in the local paoer of the scale model.

Setting sail, as it were, marked a day in my memory that I will be certain to remember in its every detail until the time of my own death.

Hey, here's a picture of Buzz Aldrin in front of my LightSail-1 model.

Saturday 2010 July 29

BACK TO ALMITRA

Fly this on your website.