Jack Henderson

In the course of writing and researching, as I run across things I’d like to share I’ll post them here.

As time goes on, I plan to build a chapter-by-chapter set of resources that I hope will add another dimension to your reading. If you want to learn more about what’s behind the story as you read, you can dig into some of the same source material I used as I wrote it. All of that is/will be under the CoD/MI Notes category link, to the right.

And please post here as much as you like; it’s always interesting to hear from you.
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It was a birthplace of a wealth of advances that fueled the technology revolution. Now, as reported in this article from Wired, the mother corporation of Bell Labs has announced a pull-back from basic research and an increased focus on more immediately marketable avenues of development.

It’s their prerogative to do so, of course. Had they adopted this new focus in the 1950s they still might have come up with the first transistor, pictured here. On the other hand, it’s also likely that we’d have had to wait for many of the other Nobel Prize-winning Bell Labs discoveries until there was a product on the drawing board that required their invention. Which means for a good number of them, we’d probably still be waiting.

Nothing against R&D tied to a profit incentive. It’s just that there was a time when even a total monopoly like AT&T had the vision to fund and house all those bright minds, and to give them a goal that was a little more long-range: Finding the answers to questions we didn’t even know to ask. Bell Labs became legendary with that approach, and as it happened, its parent company did just fine as well.

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Wider than my front lawn and heavier than your car, with enough internal wiring to make a tin-can phone to my Mom’s house 500 miles away, the Mark I was truly a milestone in computing.

I was playing Texas Hold ‘em on my cell phone the other night in a waiting room, and getting a little impatient with the second or two of thinking time as my phone decided whether I was bluffing or not. We’ve come an awfully long way in a little over half a million hours.

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From the LA Times

The West might have a stronger argument in questioning China’s potential for intrusive surveillance if it weren’t moving rapidly in the same direction. London is believed to have the largest number of closed-circuit TV cameras of any city in the world. Many countries have seen vast troves of personal data lost or stolen. Financial records and phone calls are now routinely monitored.

The difference is that Western countries have better checks on police power, some human rights activists said, even as they expressed concern that the U.S. could soon be using technologies developed in China.

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In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousandfold in the future.”

I started to type the word “dissident” here to describe Solzhenitsyn, and it occurred to me how inadequate such a perfectly accurate term can sound. It’s the first word I thought of, I believe because it was so closely associated with Solzhenitsyn when I first heard of him many years ago. On reflection, though, dissident is exactly right. It’s not about what the word means to me now, but how much it meant at the time.

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from Salon.com

If the now-deceased Ivins really was the culprit behind the attacks, then that means that the anthrax came from a U.S. Government lab, sent by a top U.S. Army scientist at Ft. Detrick. Without resort to any speculation or inferences at all, it is hard to overstate the significance of that fact. From the beginning, there was a clear intent on the part of the anthrax attacker to create a link between the anthrax attacks and both Islamic radicals and the 9/11 attacks.

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From the Washington Post

A top U.S. biodefense researcher has apparently committed suicide just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him in the anthrax mailings that traumatized the nation in the weeks following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

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Check out the video that comes along with this story from the Telegraph, or just go here if you’re impatient. The Antikythera device itself is stunning, but the technology they’re using to try to recreate a working model is cool, too.

The secrets of the worlds oldest calculating machine are revealed today, showing that it had dials to mark the timing of eclipses and the Olympic games. Since the spectacular bronze device was discovered in 1900, it was found to have existed long before the birth of Christ and was one of the wonders of the ancient world.

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I love seeing stuff like this.

A fellow named Hans Andersson borrowed his kids’ Lego Mindstorms NXT set and decided to try something that’s not in the manual. No computer or extra tech is involved; just what’s in the retail box.

Watch his video and then visit his site for more details on this very brainy build.

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I’m never sorry to have taken the time to read and absorb what Glenn Greenwald writes.

The current approval rating of the U.S. legislative branch is 14%, and my own explanation of that is simple: they’re the people’s representatives in these very challenging and worrisome times, and they’re not (at all) doing what we elected them to do. Greenwald’s premise here is that they behave this way because there are no meaningful consequences for ignoring our best interests and acting in their own. This is not a Republican or a Democratic issue; as you might have noticed, in terms of their actions the line between the parties has effectively disappeared in recent years.

It doesn’t take long to think of several examples of government entities breaking the law and then retroactively excusing themselves and their partners. The FISA “compromise” is only the most recent example. And with 1 in 100 Americans in jail or prison (read that again) and over 1,000,000 citizens on the DHS terrorist watch list, the way our public servants view accountability (theirs vs. ours) appears seriously out of kilter. The why of it all is what Greenwald explores in this article.

…the idea that the Rule of Law is only for common people, but not for our political leaders and Washington elite, is pervasive among the political and pundit class, in both parties. While common Americans should be imprisoned in record numbers when they break the law, the worst that should happen to the political elite when they commit crimes is that they should be voted out of office. That’s the dominant mentality governing how our political system works.”

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He was long a jewel of the MIT faculty. Now, after a devastating brain injury, mathematician Seymour Papert is struggling bravely to learn again how to think like, speak like, be like the man of genius he was. Papert has a devoted group of caregivers working around the clock, including nurses, a physical trainer, and a speech therapist.

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The economy showed the depth of its twin problems on Tuesday, slow growth and rising inflation, as the nation wrestled with a teetering financial system, a slumping dollar and rising prices for food and fuel. Soaring costs for gasoline and food pushed inflation at the fastest pace in more than a quarter-century.

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A fairly major plot-point in my first novel involves the widespread use of digitally-altered “news,” and it’s easy to forget how often this sort of thing actually happens in real life. I’m sure you’re familiar with this recent missile-test image by now, from Iran:

A number of international news agencies ran with the photo, before some savvy someone out there realized it was ’shopped to make 4 missiles out of 3, and published evidence to that effect. It didn’t take long, then, for all of those Internet smart-asses to ramp-up the image, all the way to 11:

Here are a few more examples of intentional image enhancement in the news, from the Chicago Tribune.

This use of altered or manufactured truth has gone on for centuries, of course. It’s just a lot easier now, and it’s spread much faster, which means we all have to watch that much more closely if we’re looking for the truth.

The whistleblower at the heart of a lawsuit against AT&T for illegal eavesdropping says Congress is set to stage a ‘coup against the Constitution’ as it nears passage of a new spying bill. Former AT&T technician Mark Klein provided internal company documents that he claims show that AT&T spied on the internet inside the United States.

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The first headline that caught my eye this morning was George Carlin, 71, Irreverent Standup Comedian at the New York Times. I thought it was a PR piece promoting a new tour or some other project, or maybe an induction into some hall of fame somewhere. Nope. Dead.

(The NYT headline has since been corrected.)

Carlin once said that inside every cynical person there’s a disappointed idealist. He sometimes sounded like a fatalist, especially in his later work, but I never thought he really believed there was no hope for the human race, even if none of us get out of here alive.

He started out in comedy as a rather mild, mainstream guy, and then risked all of that early success with the decision that his real voice was the one that needed to be heard. He changed comedy in the process, and then he stayed around long enough for a few generations to appreciate the subtle genius of his work.

Sorry you’re gone, GC, but so glad you were here.

So yeah, I’m kind of a big deal. ;^)

Seriously, though, this feels pretty darn good. The Crime category covers a lot of books on a lot of shelves out there, and it’s a real honor for Circumference of Darkness / Maximum Impact to be recognized in this way. The Booklist starred review (you can read it here) was one of the first I received when the book first came out, and it was a real shot in the arm for a new author.

Okay now. Back to business.

The paperback release of Maximum Impact is now out on the shelves throughout the United Kingdom!

My friends  and colleagues at Sphere have done an outstanding job with this edition of the book, and I hope it finds its way into your hands. Read some reviews, think it over, and then by all means buy a copy or two at Amazon, Tesco, Asda, or a favorite bookseller near you.

If we can do this, it seems, we can do just about anything.

People like to debate the value of the space program, and I’d be a lot more sympathetic to the arguments against it if wasn’t for one thing. Our record of Earthly innovation over the past few thousand years is nothing to sneeze at, but as often as not the advances down here have morphed into tools of destruction, or more commonly, into paths to further pollution and depletion of dwindling resources. The gadgetization of the human condition continues, and it sometimes feels like only a fraction of today’s R&D is devoted to changing the world for the better, as opposed to merely for the cooler. (Exceptions abound, of course.)

The space program has always seemed different to me. With the unlikely combination of sharp ambitious minds, small budgets, and lofty goals, this push outward into near-space has been an almost-pure testament to the value of science for its own sake. It’s the unrelenting search, beyond our daily boundaries, begun before it’s even knowable what might be found, that could yield the most amazing things.

To the layman, though, it’s a much simpler appeal. In some strange and basic way, when we look up and imagine these machines we’ve made touching down on other worlds, they send back a promise, or at least a pathway, along with their pictures. The future could be a wonderful place, if only we can make it there.

Click on that picture above, and you’ll see a photo of the Phoenix Lander on its parachute descent to the Martian surface. The photo was taken from another spacecraft, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, that happened to be in the neighborhood at the time. Absolutely outstanding, IMHO.

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It’s been a while since the last post.

The fact is I’ve been writing a lot more than I’ve been researching these days, and that’s a good thing. The second book is coming along nicely, but work there has meant that updates here have been a lot less frequent. So, let’s catch up for a minute with some things I would have posted here if I’d had the time:

1. Contrary to some speculation, I’m not dead.

2. Likewise, telecom immunity and the Protect America Act are also not dead. No, once again both “parties” have joined hands to revive rampant warrantless wiretapping of American citizens while removing accountability to the people.

3. Deborah Jean Palfrey, the so-called DC Madam, apparently hangs herself, despite her very recent assertions that she would never do anything of the sort. Early last year, one of Palfrey’s employees also apparently hanged herself on the eve of what would have likely been a high-profile, tell-all trial.

4. From $23.00 a barrel in 2001, crude oil prices passed $121.00 yesterday. $200.00 predicted.

Meanwhile, I’m working hard to finish my next novel before it all comes true.

-jh

I’ll get to the eye-Phone in just a minute, after a bit of context.

The series of books that I’m in the middle of writing all take place in the first 5 years of the 21st century. For you and me, that’s only a few years ago, but in future decades I hope these books will be seen more as historical fiction than as stories that could have happened at any time. None of this means anything to the person buying a first edition today, but my hope is that the accuracy of facts, personalities, and social/political forces will become even more interesting as years pass and our current time period becomes part of more distant history.

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A few minutes after I’d read the announcement that IBM is now shipping a five-billion-instructions-per-second processor, I noticed another story about computing that I thought you might find interesting in contrast.

Charles Babbage died in 1871, having designed but never constructed the very first programmable computer. Incomplete pieces of his Difference Engine #2 had been on display for many years in the London Science Museum. In 1991, though, the museum actually constructed a complete model of the Difference Engine, based on Babbage’s detailed plans. And what do you know? It worked.

It’s hard to overestimate the mechanical and mathematical smarts that went into this design, using materials and concepts from the 19th century. Oh, sure, it’s a billion times slower than the calculator in your drawer, it’s operated by a hand-crank, weighs 4.5 tons, and it’s not as advanced as Babbage’s later Analytical Engine. But still, it’s one sweet machine.

Three years ago, Nathan Myhrvold asked the museum to build another full-sized model for his own personal edification, and now it’s been delivered. You can read more about this magnificent device here.

(Photo credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

from Stephen Barr, for The Washington Post

Small and secretive, DARPA has compiled a number of impressive achievements in the past 50 years. It pulled together researchers who created the blueprint for the Internet. It sponsored the inventor of the computer mouse (the first was carved from wood and had one button).

It developed the Saturn rocket engine program that allowed the nation to go to the moon. It came up with the technologies that have made possible stealth fighters and bombers, precision munitions and the pilot-less Predator planes used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Sir Arthur C. Clarke died the other day at 90. There are some great obits out there, and if you’re a fan of Clarke’s work I’m sure you’ve already read them, so I’ll make no attempt here for one of my own. I’ll just say that his Nine Billion Names of God is the first short story I remember reading, which is to say that it was my first unforgettable experience with fiction as a boy.

Here’s his last address via video, including his final three wishes for the earthbound.

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Boston Dynamics is one of those stunning pockets of genius that reminds me that the spirit of invention is alive and well in 2008. Take a look at this video of BigDog, and if you’re not at least a little blown away you’ve got a higher wow threshold than I do.

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University student Emil Ernerfeldt has written a truly amazing, PC-based physics playground for his Master’s thesis, and it’s free to download and try.

If you’re anything close to my age you probably played Mousetrap when you were a kid. And I don’t know about you, but I hardly ever played the game as it was intended; I set up and played with its Rube-Goldberg marble-track machine instead. Well, this is like that, only you can draw and manipulate any apparatus you can imagine (within the confines of Phun’s 2-D world), quickly and intuitively.
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So what can you build today?

Because of the high profile nature of the mission and the diplomatic tensions surrounding it, it’s reported that Defense Secretary Gates gave the launch order for the Navy SM-3 missile himself. The video is compelling, but a more detailed breakdown of the mission sequence is here, from the BBC.

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from The Washington Post

Researchers in New York reported this month that they have created a paper-thin material that absorbs 99.955 percent of the light that hits it, making it by far the darkest substance ever made — about 30 times as dark as the government’s current standard for blackest black.

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Update: No crashes, not even a hiccup, after 3 weeks of continuous running following this fix.

This subject matter is a little out of character for this site, I know. I had so much trouble finding an answer to this problem that I wanted to post my solution here, in the hopes that it would help someone else.

I’d built a Linux box out of old parts and installed the latest release of Ubuntu (Gutsy), only to be met with constant, random crashes. Sometimes it would take a minute, other times an hour or two, but from the middle of nowhere everything would lock up in a kernel panic, with the scroll-lock and caps-lock lights flashing on the keyboard.

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In yet another move that underscores the ongoing, bipartisan lack of anything resembling representative government in the U.S., the Senate caved to the lobbyists yesterday and approved of warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, past, present and future.

Angry about this, but unsure what to do? If you need the advice of a guy who writes thrillers, it’s really pretty simple.

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I’ve been a little busy over the past several days, and I’ve neglected to post here as a result. This seems like an apt article for a gentle slide back into daily attention to this place.

I tend to fall into the Tesla camp when it comes to the greatest-inventor-of-this-era argument, and Tesla people tend to think of Thomas Edison as, well, kind of a dick. As I scrolled down the Top-10 list of little-known Edison facts at this link, I got a little worried that they’d left out the elephant-electrocution tidbit.

Thankfully, it’s #10.

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