Leveraged Intelligence

Measure With a Micrometer, Mark With Chalk, Cut With an Axe!

When they first planned this oil exploration, they really didn’t think it would go this way in the Gulf.  The plans were beautiful!  Trust me!

Engineers laughingly recognize the reality in the title of this post.  All too often, things are laid out in meticulous detail in the planning stage.  Down to the proverbial gnat’s ass.  Then, it comes time to implement, and you find that reality often intrudes and the plans begin to find themselves carried out in a slightly looser fashion – but, still close.

By the time the job is done, though, you find that life a mile down is more than a mile from the drawing board!  Nature is powerful.  Nature is brutal.  It is amazing that so many of these operations go as well as they do.

The problem is that, eventually, nature will catch up with you.  Complexity will catch up with you.  And human nature will catch up with you.  You can count on it and – eventually – there will be a catastrophic failure if it was possible in the first place.  NASA is the best at what they do that you can find, but astronauts have died.  The oil rig engineers may be the best, but this happened before in the Gulf in 1979 and it took nine months to cap.  Some beaches received 18 inches of sludge!  But, a huge tropical storm came very soon after, the ecology of the beaches was simpler, most of it happened at Mexican coastline, it recovered in three years – and we conveniently forgot.

Let’s at least not forget this time.  This will happen again.  Complex ecologies – and economies – like Louisiana has will not recover as quickly.  I’m not looking for simple answers, for we have far too many pundits supplying those.  For each solution, there are risks and side-effects.  For example, I hear we are raping Canadian wilderness to get the heavy metals for our current battery technology as I speak, the batteries that go into our hybrid cars and possibly the batteries that will be used to store solar energy.  Solutions don’t come simply or easily.

What I am saying is that we need to address this in an unflinching way and start a VERY aggressive dialogue about what can be done to create solutions.  Experts, tell us the bad with the good.  Not only can we take it – we demand it.  I believe we can do much better if we try.

Next time, be honest about where we will no doubt need to bring out the axe …

I’m Close to the President

At least, I was.  About this close this morning, in fact.

OK, OK!  So he is a little hard to see in this pic, but I have another that I can zoom a bit.

I ran out the front door when I felt the house start to shake.  Seriously.  These are war machines and they churn some HEAVY air.  They always fly in pairs and from the outside, they are identical.  They are armed to the teeth and I imagine jet assisted and fast.

The first time I saw the Presidential Helicopters, Air Force One while the POTUS is aboard, was standing back of the White House with my father-in-law while the first President Bush came in for a landing.  They swung around the Washington Monument and came in fast, one of them peeling off at the very last second.  This is so that potential attackers are not sure what to attack and so that there is more firepower in case someone is so foolish.  To be in front of these machines is chilling for more reasons than that one of them is carrying the President, because you are looking right down the barrels of deliverance!

When they flew over this past weekend, it never occurred to me what they were practicing for, but I knew they were impressive.

Bill Gates Finally Understands

Safety Nets

Carly spent a year taking trapeze lessons – and became pretty good!  The picture you see above is of her being caught when flying from a trapeze to the catcher.  As you can see, at this stage she had on a training harness so that a person on the ground could control her flight in the situation where she lost control.  Later, she flew on the trapeze without the training harness and could manage various somersaults into a catch!

Now, it is always a possibility that you might fall and it is also true that you need to get down from that height, a height of about 25 feet.  In both cases, the landing is in a large safety net below.  For very similar reasons, societies and individuals have various safety nets.  Some are insurance policies in case of illness or accident.  Some are savings in case of unemployment or to fund retirement.

Then, we have various society wide safety nets, like fire departments and social security and state disability insurance and emergency room treatments.  These safety nets are paid for by the society at large and, unless you are a member of a militia living in the woods, you probably support at least a few of them, even if you are conservative and believe in small government.  You just don’t think of the military or the police as part of society’s safety net for its citizens – but you should.  We all need SOME kind of protection from a catastrophic fall.  Some people really are permanently disabled and there should be no shame connected with receiving legitimate assistance and care.  A compassionate society should not begrudge their aid.

However, there is a problem with a certain kind of person who falls into the safety net.  They learn to depend upon it for support with little effort on their own behalf.  They either are lazy and feel entitled to being cared for by others or they have just given up incorrectly on getting out.  For them, the safety net becomes a hammock.

This is our next door neighbor, two days older than Carly, and he is not representative of this type of person.  He just happened to be lying in our hammock at a little get together.

But, his relaxation nicely illustrates the point.  For others in our life right now, we are currently tipping the hammock.  Don’t worry, the ground is a lot closer than 25 feet now so they will land with much chagrin – but little damage.

I Just Hate It When …

… they make me drive on the wrong side of the road and don’t tell me all the rules, that some bridges are one lane … and I hit the bridge with the wheel on the side of the car that I am not quite sure how far over it is …

… and my wife has to call for help with the car …

… and they deem it undriveable (it was only tie rods that were bent, for heavens sake, and the engine worked fine) and load it on a carrier to haul it back to the rental agency …

… and some people …

… still think life is funny!!!

gaelikaa put this topic out for the Blogger’s Consortium Friday offering!  It is a funny topic and I’m looking forward to seeing what the others have to say.  You can find the group and links to their blogs on the left hand side under Loose Blogger Consortium.  You owe it to yourself to see what they are posting on this.

The Object of My Desire

Magpie suggested this topic for our Bloggers Consortium.  As you can see, for the first time I am unable to meet the Consortium posting time schedule.  As you see why, I think you will find yourself in amazement at the synchronicity of the universe!

Right now???  A computer that is working!  Vishal and Ravi, Microsoft engineers in Pune, India – yes, that Pune – have been working with me to try to resolve a very tricky thing that has happened to my system.  It is preventing me from installing the software necessary to develop something for my main client.  It means I am making no money.  It means I am making my client uneasy.

And Vishal advises patience.  He says I can live with it for a month or two, but promised a callback yesterday to take the next step – a call that did not come.  Ramana, I need for you to go over to Vishal and tell him to call me and waste no more time, for not making a living is not an option at this point.  Besides, it has made me late for the Consortium!!!

Ahhh … now that I have that off my chest … I find that it did nothing to repair my computer.  But, I breathe deeply … enjoy the nice weather … and try the next thing …

Just a Question

Did this blog just seemingly spontaneously heal itself?

This is becoming suspicious!

New Test for Leveraged Intelligence

This is some text. Now it is bold. Now it is a different color.

Palace of Fine Arts

Not bad, if this editor works like it seems.  Especially for the price – FREE. But, it has the same exact problem as with Windows Live Writer – and I am not the first to suddenly be experiencing this.

I Have a Blog Problem

This is some fancy text.

This a different kind of text.

This is some quoted text.

• Here is bulleted item 1.
• bulleted item 2.
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This is what the above looks like when sent from my editor right now:

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A Visit … To The Barber

Our LBC topic this week is on a Visit or Visitors.  You can read the takes of others on this topic, suggested by Grannymar, by using the links to the Loose Bloggers Consortium members on the left.

Each week we take a single topic tossed in by a member and then we write on it totally independently, posting simultaneously.  This might yield anything from the silly to the sublime.  But, what you can guarantee is that it will be fun and unique!

My idea is to write on the American ritual chore right behind mowing the lawn in regularity and popularity – visiting the barber.  It takes time, it takes money, and often the result isn’t exactly what you were hoping for.

I have found a solution to this that works very nicely for me, thank you very much and I thought I would present it to you in the following video: