Iowa Dave's Blog

If something critical quits working, switch to the backup, right?

If the backup quits, switch to its backup. So far so good.

If that quits, thank goodness you had Plan C ready to go.

So, what do you do if Plan C doesn’t work?

That was my dilemma today. The morning began with a discovery that the e-mail system at my office went offline during the night. Let me tell you about e-mail from the business owner’s point of view. I started out “hosting” e-mail on our own server computer in the office. We would lose e-mail when the power went out so I switched to a bigtime “hosting” company that promised 24/7 reliability.

They broke down bigtime overnight. A day later, still offline. Their emergency website says they are working “diligently” to  fix it. Deadlines come and go. But no problem, right? I still have my server. Plan B for Backup is to just switch e-mail back onto our own equipment.

At mid morning the power failed in our office. No, not our office, the whole building. No, not the building, the entire east side of River City. The power company reports it is working diligently to fix it. Deadlines come and go.

But no problem we have Plan C. We grab the laptops and everybody heads to my house. I have a wireless network. Our computers are configured to work anywhere. Off we go.

Thwarted again! The computers can all detect the wireless network at home but cannot connect to it. I call our I-T consultant who actually drives over to the house. Even he is stumped. We try one computer after another, delving deep into the innards of wireless configurations and properties.

By now we are laughing. What else can you do? The problem is finally solved by installing a new wireless network router. My old one apparently stopped working. The smallest things can make the biggest difference.

So here it is 3:45 in the afternoon and we can finally get some work done. Check the e-mail. Hmm, no joy there. Oh well.

But here in our house with the team tapping away there is a high, happy spirit. We popped and downed a bowl of popcorn and made what progress we could do against extraordinary odds. Three, independent systems failed on the same day. What are the chances of that?

Non-pilots think that multi-engine aircraft carry the extra powerplants as a backup. If one fails, the other one picks up the slack (so people imagine.) The truth is that each engine typically provides enough thrust to keep the plane in the air for a while but the aircraft needs them all in order to be fully maneuverable. When one goes out, it is time to start heading toward an airport with maintenance facilities.

When they all lose power then you are operating a multi-engine glider. Time to pick out the smoothest place you can see and go land there.

We felt like salmon swimming upstream through swift, opposing currents, waterfalls, and hungry bears. What did we do with our powerless day? We landed, got out, had a laugh and some popcorn, figured out something to do.

That’s what you do when all plans fail: get your feet back on the ground and go from there.

So. The “top kill” failed to quench the runaway oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. What gripping video it was to watch through the camera of a robot submarine as great gouts of mud shot with volcanic force through gashes in that broken pipe. As noted below, they hoped to push enough of that mud down into the well at the same time to seal it off.

No such luck. After three days the decision came: stop the mud; try something else.

Anyone in the world with an internet connection and a love of the Earth has surely watched this drama unfold at some point the past few weeks. What hopes we have shared! What sorrow at the failure of what looked like such a sure-fire solution.

Yes, I know about the probability of failure given at the outset by the executives of British Petroleum (BP), the company responsible for this well and the damage it has done. They said it had a 60% to 70% chance of working. Let’s put that in perspective. Talk baseball for a minute. 70% chance of success means a hitter with a 700 batting average. We think 300 is good, which is just 30% success. They were talking 700.

So many eyes watching. Such confidence when the mighty pumps poured it on. So much hope that this play would bring the victory so earnestly desired by all! But after three days of spectacular fountains of costly mud, no joy. The opposite of joy.

These are the moments that God made poetry for. Thank Heaven, we have a poem for this.  It is that classic baseball poem by Earnest Thayer, first published 122 years ago this week, Casey At The Bat. You can read the whole thing many places online. Here’s a link to one of them: Casey At The Bat on the Baseball Almanac web site.

If you have never read the poem, you should. The Mudville Nine are at home against their arch rivals. They are in trouble, down four to two in the bottom of the ninth with two outs already. But hope rises in the hearts of the multitude. By some miracle they have a man safe on third base and the tying run on second. And now comes Casey, Mighty Casey, Home Run Hero, King Calm himself, to stand beside the plate.

He allows the first two pitches to go by—Strike One! Strike Two!—for no reason except he deemed them unworthy of his ferocious attention. Let the poet take it from there.

They saw his face grow stern and cold,
they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn’t
let that ball go by again.

The sneer is gone from Casey’s lip,
his teeth are clenched in hate;
He pounds with cruel violence
his bat upon the plate.
And now the pitcher holds the ball,
and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered
by the force of Casey’s blow.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land
the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere,
and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing,
and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville –
mighty Casey has struck out.

The name of this post harks back to the good old days when it meant how an Apple ][ computer worked. However we are here to remark on the future, not dwell on the past.

Unfortunately, I use the word these days to mean how Apple Corporation is turning into one of the heedless behemoths of technology it organized originally to compete against. It is becoming like Microsoft. Apple… Microsoft… blurring, blurrrrring, stirrrrrrrrrrring… applesauce… Applesoft!

In fact, on a recent day the total stock market valuation of Apple actually got bigger than Microsoft. When you multiply the number of shares of a company’s stock times the market price per share you get a very large number called “market capitalization.” Imagine if all of the company’s stockholders were willing to sell their shares at that same price. Then the market “cap” is how big a check you would have to write to pay for all those shares and own the whole company.

By that measure, some people apparently think Apple is actually worth more than Microsoft. Maybe so, maybe not. This ain’t an investment blog so no opinions are expressed. Here’s another factoid: according to what I read recently Apple’s total sales of computers, phones, gadgets, music, apps, books, videos and so forth add up to almost as much as Microsoft gets for selling Windows, Office, XBox, search advertising and whatnot.

I make no point about anything in the previous paragraph except to note that Apple is not playing little hero David against the Goliath of Bellevue any longer. Apple has become Goliath in its own right. And it’s acting the part.

For example, consider Adobe Flash. It is a technology used by a very large number of modern web sites (you know those sites with that “Skip the Welcome Screen…” animation? That’s Flash.) Apple decreed that Flash shall not be permitted to run on its iPhone and iPad devices. Nevermind what the customers want, who shell out $$$hundreds to buy one. Apple, standing tall like Goliath above the shopping throng decrees it. Well, I can live without Flash.

But here is something that irks at a deeper level. Apple jawboned to raise the price we pay for so-called “e-books” by 20% or more. The story begins last year, when Amazon was selling its popular Kindle book reader with the proposition that books could be delivered in electronic form for about ten bucks. (Kindle books can be read on a wide variety of devices, including many personal computers, Blackerry handsets and iPhones.)

Then Apple let it be known the coming iPad would be a book reader to compete with Kindle, but with books in a different and incompatible format. Great! you’re imagining. Competition would drive down the price of books! Well, yeah, normally. But you’re forgetting how Goliaths operate.

Apple said it figured to sell a whole lot of iPads, and indicated that e-books ought to cost more like $12 to $15. The publishers would presumably get a big slice of that extra cheese. At least one publisher turned around and said to Amazon, “Look here. E-books should sell for more like $12 to $15.” And in a flash (so to speak) the price of e-books started going up. As I write this, three of Kindle’s top ten best sellers cost $12.99 on Amazon.

That, friends, is how a Goliath deals with his adversaries. Get bigger. Push people around. Grab more. Microsoft did it to Apple ‘way back when. Now, I always cheer for the underdog; unfortunately in this case Apple is turning from underdog into alpha dog into OverDog, and turn about is not fair play from the customers’ point of view.

Savannah, our cat, recently informed me that effects matter more than their causes. You might think differently. That would mean that you are not a cat.

Our picture window looks east. The sun slants in at a low angle these Spring mornings, tiling the carpet with warm, bright trapezoids of light. The cat uses them to investigate how many different ways she can lie prone without allowing any part of her to touch shadow.

Recently I happened to let my left arm swing through a shaft of sunlight. The bezel on my wristwatch reflected a round beam about an inch in diameter. It flashed across the floor in front of Savannah.

Bam! she sprung to her feet and flew after it. The fastest way to learn to catch fish is when they are biting, and Savannah taught me to control that light beam in no time flat. When the sun angle is just so I can flash it  to every corner of the room. She goes right after it.

Since we discovered The Reflection it has become her favorite toy. On sunny mornings she disdains all else and demands the delirious dot. Loudly. Somehow she calculates that I have something to do with it.

However, she ignores me once the action starts. She devotes her entire attention to chasing the sunlight reflecting off my watch. It does not dent her enthusiasm at all that she may catch it but never grasp it.

Silly, mistaken cat. But she is not alone. People make this mistake, ignoring causes while pursuing effects. For anyone who doubts this, I have one word: Cosmetics.

Woe to him or her who places too much value on effects. I gain the advantage over my cat because I practice the angles of light while she has eyes only for reflections.  J. P. Morgan, the early-20th-Century financier for whom the modern-day bank is named, got rich lending money and brokering business deals, in effect positioning himself to charge people for pursuing their own dreams.

I mention Morgan in transition to an example that looks at the exercise equipment trade. Morgan famously said this about exercise: “I get my exercise being pallbearer for my friends who exercise!”

Morgan would recognize the business logic behind those TV advertisements with scanty-clad young people flexing flat, sweatless bellies on this or that piece of apparatus.  The profit potential depends on keeping the customers paying: (1)  attention to the desired effect and (2) higher prices for paraphernalia.

Ha! It was youthfulness itself—and the right choice of parents—that produced those admirable bellies. The machine did not flatten the ad actors’ abs, nor would it mine.

I’m better off to keep my money in my pocket and focus on causes. Then I would eat less and healthier, walk more, accept, allow, and enjoy myself as I am, and let the effects be what they will. Prediction:  serenity.

Here endeth the rant.

Postscript: I have noticed that since Savannah started chasing that spot of light she has lost a couple of ounces and firmed up her midsection. Do you suppose…? Naw, forget it.

As I write this post, Andrea is driving us along Interstate 88 westbound across Illinois, homeward from a visit to our niece in Chicago. A thundershower completes the scene.

The technology in use at the moment includes a laptop computer with an internet connection through a cell phone service provider. What really amazes me is not that it works or even that it works quite well, but that it seems so natural and obvious.

As someone who has been interested in computers since the days of Heathkits I am by turns gratified and astonished at the change in how we use them. The finance side of my mind marvels at the investment required to build what it takes.

“Wipe with a damp sponge,” said the Housekeeping Tip, as I glared at a smudge of jelly on the tabletop. It had an oil-finished surface that should not really get wet, but a dry rag would not wipe it clean

“Okay,” said I. Now, to my mind damp means uniformly moist but dry enough that no water leaks out. That implies first soaking it wet then squeezing. The difficulty is to coax all the excess water back out of the thing.

A hasty squeeze will fail. An impudent spurt always lurks within a quick-squeezed sponge waiting to squirt upon the worst possible place. It takes time to make a sponge be just damp.

Squeeze hard–and hold it there. Water drains and drips, first in a rush, then a steady flow, then slowly tapers off. Relax the grip too soon and the sponge will slurp up any loose water on the hand, with intent to splatter.

I glimpse the physics of this just slightly. It has to do with surface tension and turbulence in fluids. Even dry materials are affected. For example, sand does not dump all at once out of a bucket but flows like water, complete with last dribbles and a clinging residue.

Turbulence makes everything take longer than we think it should. Even thought itself can push ahead only so fast before it bogs down in distraction and stress. We are stuff of the world we occupy and subject to its limitations.

At a deep level turbulence evades human understanding, the way that frogs’ brains cannot compass the concept of a wall. Encountering one in the garden they will jump and bump against it instead of going around; there is just no way for them to know better.

One of the 20th Century’s great physicists, Werner Heisenberg, originated the Uncertainty Principle that contributed to formulating the quantum theory. Even such a deep thinker as he felt baffled by turbulence and, presumably, the time it takes to squeeze a sponge. He is famously quoted explaining what he will do upon entering Heaven and meeting God. “I will ask Him two questions: why Relativity? and why Turbulence? I expect He will have an answer for the first.”

My guess would be that turbulence is necessary in order for Time to exist. Here is what I mean. Water stored in a sponge and strength pent up in the hand muscles of an arm represent imbalanced concentrations of energy in nature. So are people, and planets, stars and galaxies.

Unfortunately, the space-time continuum dislikes having its energy puddle about so unevenly; it wants to be, well, uniformly damp. The process by which such concentrations smooth out is called Entropy. It is also known as the Second Law of Thermodynamics, that energy flows naturally in one direction only: outward from concentrated conditions, but never back in. We depend upon it; nothing moves in this world without a flow of energy.

However, the ultimate end result of Entropy is nothingness. When all energy rests in perfect balance, the world stops. My point is that if not for turbulence all the imbalances in the universe would settle in an instant. There would be no time, literally. Therefore no space, no place, no us.

Turbulence is why squeezing a sponge takes time. While it drips in your grip consider how limitations make desirable things possible. The tabletop–and the cosmos–will look better if you do.

I have been busy elsewhere. Now it is time to write again, here on the blog.

No, not about the weather. Iowa lays quietly tonight gathering more inches of snow. We have not seen the ground since early December. Yet I have faith that soil, like Truth, will be revealed when the time comes. More than four feet of the stuff has fallen on us this winter. But other places suffered so much more that I’ll not comment on ours.

No, not about politics, either. My most liberal friends surprise me with their vehement repudiations of President Obama. “One-Termer,” they call him. Wow. If only there were someone else worthy of the job and willing to pursue it. Unfortunately, neither one of the major political parties houses a plausible candidate.

I could write about Memory, that elusive property that makes us whom we are.  Imagine going one day to look for memory but not finding it. On second thought, forget that. Too awful.

 Here’s something. Andrea spent the past couple of weeks visiting friends near Phoenix. By all accounts they had a great time. She kept in contact with me through phone calls, e-mail, and texting. For all of those channels she used the same instrument: her cell phone.

Like the PC and the fax machine before it, the smart cell phone proves to be a disruptive technology. Until you have one, you don’t see what is such a big deal. After you get one, you see things differently. Here to stay in our house, it is.

So now Andrea belongs to the Blackberry generation. But not me, yet. I kind-of like being off-line for part of the day. We shall see how long I manage to hold onto my old, “dumb” flip phone.

OK, that will do for now.