Thin Film Tumbling

"Ultimately, the Galactic Empire failed as an enduring organization because of incredibly flawed..."

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:34:45 -0800

“Ultimately, the Galactic Empire failed as an enduring organization because of incredibly flawed leadership at the very top. By building an organizational culture based on fear, lack of independence, and an unwillingness to adapt to changing circumstances, the Emperor set the stage for his own inevitable failure.”

- Five Leadership Mistakes Of The Galactic Empire - Forbes

Galactic Empire meets Harvard case study, courtesy of Forbes.

For a more in-depth analysis of the weaknesses of evil organizations, see The Evil Overlord List.

"In our democratic society the ultimate arbiter of religious authority is the conscience of the..."

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 23:41:57 -0800

“In our democratic society the ultimate arbiter of religious authority is the conscience of the individual believer. It follows that there is no alternative to accepting the members of a religious group as themselves the only legitimate source of the decision to accept their leaders as authorized by God.”

- Birth Control, Bishops and Religious Authority - NYTimes.com

I found this philosophical point very interesting. If 98% of sexually active Catholic women ignore the Church’s instructions on birth control, then where does the supposed authority of the Catholic bishops on the matter come from?

zanshinart: Camellia, First Bud To Break on Flickr. Spring has...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 22:36:48 -0800

zanshinart:

Camellia, First Bud To Break on Flickr.

Spring has been sighted!

By my friend Janet down in Ukiah, CA, though. Not here yet. Oh well.

Symposium AAA: The Business of Nanotechnology IV - 2012 MRS Fall Meeting

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 12:06:34 -0800

Symposium AAA: The Business of Nanotechnology IV - 2012 MRS Fall Meeting:

I mentioned a while back that I’m helping organize a symposium at this fall’s MRS meeting. The Call for Papers is now official.

Formal abstract submission is through the MRS site, with a June 19 deadline. If you’d like to be considered for an invited slot, please contact me directly as soon as possible.

Those who follow the integrated circuit industry may be familiar...

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 16:56:00 -0800

Those who follow the integrated circuit industry may be familiar with chip art, in which the circuit designer tucks logos and cartoons into unused corners of the circuit.

Apparently aerospace engineers do the same thing, they just use a much larger canvas.

(via Today’s ‘Even Aerospace Engineers Have a Sense of Humor’ Entry - James Fallows - Technology - The Atlantic)

theoriginaljoefisher: 42,000 years ago, a Neanderthal sat in a...

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:18:20 -0800

theoriginaljoefisher:

42,000 years ago, a Neanderthal sat in a cave in what would someday be called Spain. He or she had an urge. An urge that was unexplainable. They picked up a piece of coal and approached a stalactite. They drew. Maybe they knew what it was they were drawing, maybe they didn’t. What they didn’t know was why. Why make this? What does it do for me? Why is it here? Why did I want to do this?

Regardless there it was. Looming above them in a cave, leaving them with more questions than answers.

Thousands of years later. Nothing’s changed.

(via Earliest Known Paintings Discovered in Spain)

Bad Decision-Making, Non-Profit Edition

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:08:00 -0800

It gets worse and worse.

First, the Susan G. Komen Foundation announced that it would stop funding Planned Parenthood. Never mind that the money was used to support cancer screening for poor women, something that would seem to fall smack in the middle of the stated missions of both organizations.

(Just so we’re clear on terminology, the mission of Planned Parenthood is to provide high quality, affordable, reproductive health care. The mission of Susan G. Komen for the Cure is to promote breast cancer awareness and treatment.)

Then, it turned out that the decision to stop funding was made because Planned Parenthood is the subject of a Congressional investigation. Which sounds pretty scary, except that any member of Congress can open an investigation for any reason, including political opposition to an organization’s work. The mere existence of an investigation says nothing about the actual behavior of the organization involved. Such a policy is like throwing an individual in jail because a prosecutor requested a search warrant — regardless of whether he actually was granted the warrant or found anything in his search, much less actually pressed charges of any kind.

That’s bad enough. But the latest is this Atlantic article, which argues that the “no investigations” rule was created after the Komen board became aware of the Stearns investigation, specifically in order to provide an excuse for withdrawal of funding. And also after the organization’s professional staff had decided that Planned Parenthood’s cancer screening work was important to the Komen Foundation’s mission.

So. Retroactive and questionable rule-making to support a politically-driven decision that undermines one’s own mission, over the objections of one’s own public health experts. Oops.

Update: The Komen Foundation is now in full retreat from this decision. They have restored Planned Parenthood’s grant and are re-amending their grant criteria “to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political.”

"I don’t like the fact that you sent me a contract; it makes me feel bound to pay you."

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:04:13 -0800

“I don’t like the fact that you sent me a contract; it makes me feel bound to pay you.”

- (via clientsfromhell)

Apparently some people really do think this way.

So this is a thank you to my clients, all of whom do actually believe that vendors should be paid. How quaint. How wonderful. Thank you!

americasgreatoutdoors: On this date in 1915, President Woodrow...

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:14:29 -0800

americasgreatoutdoors:

On this date in 1915, President Woodrow Wilson signed legislation establishing Rocky Mountain National Park. This living showcase of the grandeur of the Rocky Mountains, with elevations ranging from 8,000 feet in the wet, grassy valleys to 14,259 feet at the weather-ravaged top of Longs Peak, provides visitors with opportunities for countless breathtaking experiences and adventures.

Photo: Ann Schonlau - National Park Service

Where Did All the Workers Go? 60 Years of Economic Change in 1 Graph

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:29:10 -0800

Where Did All the Workers Go? 60 Years of Economic Change in 1 Graph :

The Atlantic offers a very clear summary of the transformation of the US economy over the last 60 years, from manufacturing and agriculture-oriented to finance and service-oriented. Unfortunately, the graph also demonstrates how difficult reversing the trend is likely to be: it has much deeper causes than, say, China’s trade practices and lack of worker protections.

White-collar work of all kinds now accounts for nearly half of GDP, while manufacturing is just one-ninth.

"But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it...."

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:21:00 -0800

“

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

”

- Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins : The Poetry Foundation

Supreme Court: Police need warrant to use GPS tracking on cars - latimes.com

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 09:44:52 -0800

Supreme Court: Police need warrant to use GPS tracking on cars - latimes.com:

Good for the Supreme Court. It held — unanimously — that GPS tracking is a “search” under the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, and therefore requires a warrant.

Snow is so unusual here in Seattle that even the trees bundle...

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:34:55 -0800

Snow is so unusual here in Seattle that even the trees bundle up…

Actually, the tree sweaters are a pre-existing project by local artist Suzanne Tidwell. But they did come in handy today.

India marks milestone in fight against polio | ajc.com

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 23:21:04 -0800

India marks milestone in fight against polio | ajc.com:

I belong to one of the last generations to be vaccinated against smallpox, which was declared eradicated in 1980. There’s now hope that kids born today may be among the last to need vaccinations against polio.

Cool: Dragging an image to Google’s Search by Image tool to do a quick search for the original...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:54:26 -0800

Cool: Dragging an image to Google’s Search by Image tool to do a quick search for the original source.

Uncool: Finding that five different sites used the same image, but none included a photo credit.

If you have a smartphone or tablet, there’s a good chance...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:01:00 -0800

If you have a smartphone or tablet, there’s a good chance it uses Gorilla Glass. With a breaking load of more than 120 pounds, the glass will probably survive anything the device can. So Corning is justifiably proud of Gorilla Glass 2, with similar toughness and a 20% thickness reduction.

EBN - OLED Finally Hits the Big Screen - Literally

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:15:00 -0800

EBN - OLED Finally Hits the Big Screen - Literally:

One of the big announcements at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show was a jumbo-sized OLED display from LG Electronics. Still a ways to go before we see a jumbo-sized OLED that people can actually afford.

To answer a few questions posed by comments to the above article:

OLEDs are “organic” in the chemical sense, because the emissive materials are carbon-based polymers. There’s nothing particularly “green” about the materials used.
Two major contributors to cost are the silicon backplane electronics — which are very similar to the backplanes used for LCDs — and the emissive polymers, which are very expensive and proprietary and only starting to be available in large volumes.
The terms OLED and AMOLED are often used interchangeably. “AM” refers to the active matrix driver electronics, which are generally faster than alternatives and work better for larger displays.

(Insert snarky comment about the EBN editor’s understanding of this technology here.)

"Art teaches us, if nothing else, that it’s a good thing to get in touch with our private..."

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 08:51:10 -0800

“Art teaches us, if nothing else, that it’s a good thing to get in touch with our private selves, the place where images and sounds disconnected from meaning live, and to learn how to shape those impulses to create … something.”

- The paleolithic art class. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Jon Carroll on the origins and importance of art.

Stupidity kills

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 09:54:45 -0800

Early in the morning on New Year’s Day, at a party south of Seattle, several people were handing their guns around, playing show-and-tell. One person asked to see a gun, then refused to give it back. A fight broke out. Shots were fired. Four people were injured, and three fled the scene.

People outside the Seattle area might never have heard about this party, except that what happened next made the national news.

One of the gun owners, Benjamin Barnes, apparently decided he needed to hide out for a while. So he loaded up his car with survival gear and drove to Mt. Rainier National Park. He sped through a checkpoint — just a routine check for tire chains, nothing to do with him. Park Rangers pursued. Another Ranger, Margaret Anderson, pulled her patrol car across the road ahead of him.

When Barnes encountered the roadblock, he jumped out of his car and started shooting. The weapon was later identified as an assault rifle with armor-piercing ammunition. Anderson was shot and killed before she got out of the vehicle. The pursuing car was hit, too, but the Ranger driving it retreated, uninjured.

Barnes fled into the snow-covered woods, apparently leaving most of his gear in the car. A massive manhunt ensued. The next day, Barnes was found face down in a creek, wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and one tennis shoe. He drowned, with hypothermia a contributing cause.

Lots of people have tried to tie this tragedy to their own political agendas. But it’s not about gun possession in National Parks, or Iraq veterans with PTSD. It all started in good fun, a bunch of happy people showing off their toys.

But loaded guns aren’t toys. Alcohol and guns, like alcohol and cars, are a stupidly dangerous mix. Don’t go there. Please.

My brother is a Park Ranger. I won’t shed any tears for Benjamin Barnes. My heart does go out to his family, and to Margaret Anderson’s family, and to everyone affected by this terrible, stupid waste.

Ranger Anderson is survived by her husband and two young daughters. Information about the memorial fund is here.

This is not a gun control post or a political post. Any comments on those subjects are off-topic and will be removed.

Part of a very cool collection of nearly a thousand WPA posters...

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:17:00 -0800

Part of a very cool collection of nearly a thousand WPA posters at the Library of Congress. I’d seen a number of individual posters before, but I hadn’t seen the whole collection in one place.