A short one—finally!

I confess an untested bias, and ask your help in a little unscientific effort to quantify it a bit.

It is my impression that being observant and analytic, once a generally esteemed combination, is now passé, even 'unkewl,' in the era of hyper-specialization. ("I mean, like, why should we even worry about stuff that is, like, already taken care of for us?")


Would you take a minute to briefly comment on this post, answering these questions?

1) Have you ever consciously noted that manhole covers are always round?
2) Have you tried to figure out why, or to find out why?
3) What year were you born?
4) Are you male?

NOTE: Please do not actually answer the question of why manhole covers are round! It is interesting and not trivial, but besides the point I am pressing here. I will come back to it later.

Trophy shot, RIP

The golden age of the consumer single-lens reflex (SLR) camera was mid 1960's to about 1995, when the manufacturers' attention was distracted generally by the rise of reliable miniature electro-mechanical devices and compact and powerful chips to run them, and in particular by the promises of auto-focus, image stabilization, and digital image capture.

I cut my serious-hobbyist-teeth in the mid Sixties and remember fondly a few cameras that, in hindsight, were very high quality for reasonable price. Yashica, Nikon, Canon, Minolta, Pentax, Miranda, Bessler and others tended to bundle, in 'consumer grade' cameras, features that even today are not available, sometimes even at any cost, on the higher end 'pro-sumer' or even the all-out 'pro' models.

My 'mechanical bodied' Minolta SRT 101 (bought in 1972, stolen in 1978) came with a sharp f1.4 52mm lens, push-button depth-of-field preview, and mirror lock-up, all situated to allow access without removing eye from viewfinder and to allow hand-held existing light photography feats that cannot be approximated today unless one lays out some very, very serious bucks and does not mind hefting a weighty top-of-the line Canon or Nikon. Serious young enthusiasts today have no idea what a really 'fast' lens is... the hegemony of autofocus and its ring-motor ghettoized the f2.0 or faster normal lens to the provence of the professional who can fork over $1500+ (that is just for the lens) and does not mind a very weighty protuberance. Other than keeping old stuff repaired and staying with film, there were not mainstream options, after 1992 or so, to sport a truly fast lens on a reasonably priced new camera... none.

Depth-of field preview has gradually crept back into the electronic bodied SLRs, from the high end down, and can be used with differing degrees of menu-scrolling and clicking difficulty. Mirror lock-up (for elimination of the camera's main vibration on long hand-held shots) is not often found even on the upper lines, nor is it just a simple flick, which is what was always needed.

I specialized in those days taking 400 speed black & white film into bars, clubs, and night-time baseball games with my friends, and coming away with very nice and usable images that captured, in a distinctly graphic and now very dated way, the atmosphere and personalities of my young adulthood. Not every shot made it- I took plenty of risks hand-holding 1/15th or even 1/8th of a second, fully open (f1.4), sometimes also flicking the mirror up as I did my breath control and shutter button 'slow squeeze.' The celebrated keepers were appreciated because they were a challenge and not assured.

Today's 20 year-old wanting to do the same with anything made since 1995 is 'S. O. L.' It will be a flash shot (there goes your atmosphere) and not entail any risks at all in the 'craft' of capturing a usable image in challenging circumstances. With their f2.8 and slower lenses, they would need to hand-hold 4x as long, fully open, as I did in a comparable setting.

Now, with my weakening 54 year-old eyes, I LIKE autofocus, but wish I had the choice for an affordable new fast manual focus lens at each of focal lengths I like. I see many situations in which I would have made an attempt at something very 'atmoshperic' or creative, 35 years ago, where today's consumer grade cameras offer no viable options at all... interior of Notre Dame by only existing light, street scene by dusk or streetlight only, unobtrusive (no flash!) candids in subdued light with a short telephoto lens...

Many of the controls I used most were effectively taken away by the masses demanding autofocus and other whistles and bells. All too few have any real idea of what was lost in the deal.

I applaud the young-turks who push themselves hard in today's Xtreme sports expanding envelopes, inventing and exercising craft, and taking risks. Truth be told, though, in my day we were practicing Xtreme photography, where one had to simultaneously do a host of things perfectly to come away with a winner... but now the craft does not ask you or even afford you opportunities to take technological chances... the hard-earned 'trophy shot' is a thing of the past.

Many today do not even know how to look at an strong photograph taken in the decades before they were born... it does not occur to them that whatever corrections were made had nothing to do with PhotoShop, or its masks, effects and filters. Aesthetics aside, it is virtually guaranteed that anyone can come out of any situation with a technically sound image... 'Nerf' photography has displaced calculated risks.

I am waiting for the day when the digital SLR will give me f2.0 or faster in a 'normal' focal length for the equivalent of 2 weeks' work at minimum wage. I am withholding full enthusiasm for the digital revolution until it restores some of the great stuff it took away.

You're so young!

Professor Thomas Suprenant's course, which might be informally titled 'History and Importance of Computers and Computing,' is the impetus for this blog, and his anecdotes are part of the inspiration. My initial readers will include many of my 20- and 30-something classmates, for whom I am virtually as fossilized as the prof. He could be my older brother, I could be their father, their kinda old father in some cases.

The professor likes to bring in 30 year old hard drives and memory chips to show us progress over what a minority of us see as relatively short periods. Mine is often the sole hand going up when he asks "who remembers...?" It is as though he and I were on the same side when the annual email circulates to 'faculty of a certain age,' reminding them that this year's freshman never lived at the same time as Amelda Marcos (so just put a lid on that old shoe joke).

Herewith, then, a few random things to make most of my classmates feel very young, rather than the obverse. (Hey, it's MY blog!)

-When an occasional car does emit visible or smellable exhaust, I can definitively diagnose a host of different specific conditions, but you kids, fortunately, rarely see visible vehicle exhaust. (Holed piston, bad rings, running rich, blown head gasket). No one my age finds this remarkable in the least, by the way.

-The young turks that persist, at this late date, in smoking tobacco as a hallmark of their rebeliosness or personal immortality, might envy me and my age-set for our slightly more innocent era. I had a flashback yesterday on campus to my 18-year-old self, in the front row of Philosophy 101, smoking a pipe. The only reaction all semester was someone wanting to know which tobacco blend that smelled so nice.

-I (or my brothers) watch the '40s movie where the soldier has to change a tire on the captured foreign car before he can drive back to his captain and save the day... and we have no trouble imagining ourselves in his place. We are the last generation (in the US at least) where our average peer could be plopped down in front of an unfamiliar car and still do basic things to it. Not necessarily smugly, we feel we could be plopped down in any previous era and readily adapt to the technology. Backwards compatibility, if you will.

It has gotten far beyond practical for even the highly motivated, to 'tour the factory,' or otherwise become familiar with the making and fixing of the things we depend on today. All of us, globally, are increasingly interdependent. Individually and nationally, we are getting inexorably more narrow and specialized. Some of us wonder if the old sense of personal technological independence which is now flickering out may be a metaphor for the new vulnerabilities our society has as it 'advances' to a service one from the more 'primitive' producing one...

New Improves Old—After Teething

Lest readers think I am against all things new... today's revelatory post on progress.

Long before the general proclamations of the incipient death of the internal combustion engine (on the heels of the first powerful federal anti-emissions regulations in the late 1960s), the engineers knew most of the variables they would love to finely monitor and control to maximize various efficiencies and output, but did not have available components scaled and priced to go under the hood of production cars.

An American market auto engine in 1968 was still very straightforward, not reactive to (at the beginning) onerous mandates to cut sulphur dioxide and hydrocarbons. Fuel injection was for exotic cars and only very recently electronic (vs. mechanical), and the standard carburettor did not monitor much more than engine temperature (by various means) to control the automatic choke. There were no oxygen sensors, and the only incursion on traditional simplicity of late was the PCV (positive crankcase ventilation) valve, to scavenge hot engine oil vapors and combustion blow-by gasses into the intake air for 'proper' burning instead of free venting to the atmosphere.

As Bosch began electronic injection ('fool infection,' per mechanics of the day), European engine compartments sprouted lots of sensors telling the 'brain' the temperature of heads, barometric pressure, throttle position, exhaust gas temperature, and others. Wiring and more plumbing overlayed the familiar old beast beneath. Early US manufacturer attempts to meet standards had us, into the early 1980s, pumping compressed air into the exhaust gas stream hoping for a bit of follow-on 'external' combustion, but it was tricky to get both categories of emission low; engines had to run a little richer and cooler to cut the sulphur during combustion, and the 'afterburn' had to deal with much less than full or ideal fuel combustion in the chamber.

The artificial pressure of legislation on innovation actually worked, with the invention of the rather elegant catalytic converter. It resimplified things and more directly and efficiently got the industry on track for meeting tightening standards. Cars were retuned for better fuel economy and power, and the exhaust was able to support support it's own substantial cleaning in this pricey new component of the exhaust system. And the entire industry knew that, if it could be made reliable and durable, EFI (electronic fuel injection) would let them finely control fuel-air mix and volume, thousands of times a second, responding to a score of relevant variables, each involving a sensing and electonic feedback loop to one or more interconnected 'black boxes.'

Underhood today, one sees mostly black plastic containing the overlayer of sensing, monitoring and controlling apparatus. Beneath it all, the old internal combustion engine guts have been continuously benefiting from advances in computer aided engineering, new materials and exceedingly precise manufacturing methods, so that we do not need to, say, replace that water pump at 60,000 miles.

There was a difficult era, from about 1975 to 1985, when the industry was scrambling to refine all the needed components, but the upshot is substantial. In perfect tune, the family sedan of 1970 would put its weight in hydrocarbons into the atmosphere three times in 12,000 miles of driving. A similar car now emits about 1/6th the waste and virtually none of it is sulphur dioxides. We would have been delighted then with 20 mpg on the highway, but now are expecting almost 50% better in a comparable car.

My fraternity brother George used to stand on the ground, inside the engine compartment of his 1966 Chevrolet Bel-Air straight six while tuning it up. Long gone are the days when you could look 'through' and see the ground.

I am glad that other fraternity brothers were improving computers, sensors and materials, and paying attention to combustion dynamics. While the death announcements of the infernal combustion engine were at least 30 years premature, societal attempts to limit fossil fuel consumption have always been on cue and all our collective investment in efficiency and alternatives may save the planet, if we are very lucky.

Newsflash: technophobia in tech marketing

Three years ago, a future-thinking friend got one of the second style Toyota Priuses (Prii, for fellow Latin students). Given my old interest in electrics and hybrids (I was once President of the Electric Vehicle Association of Greater Washington; see: http://www.evadc.org/) I wanted to learn all about how advances in computers, magnets, traction batteries, motor design, motor control, and component interfacing had evolved in 25 years. Toyota has a good record for gently easing new tech into lower lines then migrating it upward as it is proven (see: http://www.billzilla.org/vvtvtec.htm), and now the reliable hybrid drivetrain is available on the Camry.

His '05 model does not reveal much on direct inspection- smooth grey covers under hood, and no clear indication of what, or even where, the main motive and transmission elements and battery sit. So, to the Owner's Manual! The specs page contained what I was sure had to be a typo; the compression ratio was listed as 13.1 : 1. That should require that we feed our baby DIESEL, not 89 octane. On to the web, where I confirmed that unusually high number on the Toyota website. (Regular gasoline, in a regular air mixture for internal combustion engines, in a warmed engine, will 'pre-ignite' or 'diesel' [sic] if compressed much past 9 : 1; the old Chrysler hemis famously required higher octane fuels to go with their higher compression and output, so that detonation of the charge prior to the piston hitting top-dead-center would not 'knock' and cut power output. High octane fuels can contain their excitement, so to speak, until the moment of controlled and timed spark ignition.)

Surely, Toyota knew the compression ratio of their enigmatic little three-banger in their hig-tech flagship, and I myself had actually put regular gas in it and seen the great result—50 mpg is just a 'so-so' mileage, and he has eclipsed 61mpg on more than one tank in 60k miles.

More web searching. Toyota had said something about an 'Atkinson cycle' engine.... see: http://www.keveney.com/ Atkinson.html Now, if a major manufacturer rendered a production line version of a never-made 1903 patent, in the time my generation was growing up underneath car hoods, there would have been lots of press and lots of talk. Toyota's marketing folks probably know exactly what they are doing in not even mentioning the way they accomplish several different 'miracles' inside their seamlessly sleek package, and in some ways I feel as if I am with Dorothy and Toto, the Cowardly Lion and the Tin Man, being told to "Ignore that man behind the curtain!!!" I find it sad and remarkable that innovations which would have fostered a year-long 'bragging rights' ad campaign to a receptive public a generation ago, go pretty much hidden from view, even from the moderately interested and motivated.

If you are still reading, you may be one of them. My last treat, explaining how the Toyota compression number given is sort of correct, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkinson_cycle

I would submit that they should refer to "13.1 : 1" as the EXPANSION ratio, but since no one has ever given separate compression and expansion numbers for an internal combustion engine before, they might have tipped their hand to many more than just me, by so doing. (Yes, it seems as if they really would rather NOT talk about it.)

I will try to get out from underneath automobile hoods soon, dear readers, soon.

Looking under the hood... going, going, gone!

For all of my life, to now, it was standard 'guy' practice: a (male) friend or relative shows of the new (or new to him) set of wheels. The standard walk around and running critiques ALWAYS ended with a look at the engine, even if one was a little fuzzy on all the stuff there. Always.

Older brother Jerry came home a few months ago with a brand new midsized SUV that is really fun to drive, fuel efficient, and very well designed inside and out. Under the hood: a big plastic cover hiding our access—even view—of any of the workings, other than dip stick and oil filler hole. They don't want us to even try to top off coolant. For the included 100K mile waranty period taking him up to the first scheduled tune up, he is discouraged from getting even lightly involved in any of the intimacies he shared with every vehicle he has owned since his '47 Ford coupe as a teenager in the late 1950s.

We used to HAVE TO check plugs, points, condenser (and valve adjustments if you had non hydraulic lifters) every 15,000 miles or so, before say 1985. They often needed attention sooner, and rarely needed no adjustment at the specified interval.

It is nice to now be able to not worry about astoundingly more reliable and durable cars, but is being completely isolated from their main workings all good? Younger readers of both sexes, and most women in mine and previous generations, may see it as unmitigated progress, and accuse me of being sentimental for an era when I could be the hero by popping a stranger's distributor cap and running a matchbook cover between the points to clean them and get him or her on their way again... (Remember matchbooks? Remember distributors you could find, or open without any tools?) Well, yes there IS a bit of sentiment, but there is more, too. Stay tuned, so to speak.

Statement of purpose / credo

I am both young and old for my age, 54. I was lucky enough to grow up in a household with older brothers and a Dad who liked to work with tools, took pride in their work, and thought things through. Mom was artistic, crafty and creative. While both parents and all siblings went to college, we never had any hesitations to 'do-it-ourselves,' and we actually enjoyed learning while doing, then having useful, durable things to show for our efforts. When we did call in the occasional plumber, mason or carpenter, they had to accept a two generation audience of 'apprentices.'

Besides specific useful skills for a host of this world's 'mechanical' challenges, I have developed an educated if unschooled perspective on the history of technology, and increasingly feel I have witnessed about half of it in my own lifetime!

I will offer short little essays and rants on skills and technologies that are going or gone, in a context. Some are to be mourned; for others, it is 'good riddance.' Philosophically, ten years ago I would have said that the modern era merely fails to reward the genralist, but today I am prepared to say it is far worse: You will be punished if you have not embraced a narrow specialty, and there are all too few 'extra points' for being able to competently navigate in fields other than your ordained single cubbyhole.

Will mine be the last generation, at least in the technologically advanced cultures, that has the feeling of self sufficiency, of viability in the rough, natural, elemental world? In my mind, I am certain, if stranded with a handful of like-mindeds on Gilligan's Island, we would have comfortable shelter by the first night, hot running water by the end of the first week, and all maner of 'appropriate technology' in short order. I fear that most younger folks would not survive without the support of the producers of a reality [sic] TV show behind it all, just off camera.

I suspect that the average intelligent citizen of a moderately developed country, for whatever other hardships and privations they endure—possibly even because of these—has in good measure a confidence which, in the US, will die with my generation.

I hope I am wrong. I can nearly as easily imagine settings where the day is saved by a 20-something who paid lots of attention to how computer networks were constructed and might be repairded in a national catastrophe. What I hope they will have, in same or greater measure as my 'can-do' generation, is the feeling that they have problem solving skills and analytic abilities that can usefully generalize to myriad situations, and that they are potent as individuals to make a positive difference, even IF the marketplace and 99% of their contemporaries 'don't get it.'

I know that the average 'consumer' is further removed, every year, from the processes of designing, making and maintaining the (increasingly complex) things around them on which they rely for comfort and much more.

As a society, we may be more secure and strong if the average citizen is both able to change a flat AND unistall crummy software that is slowing down an operating system. As individuals, we are enriched to embrace lifelong learning in diverse practical and esoteric areas, and celebrate same in others. Breadth AND depth, forever!