After probably 20 years, I’ve finally finished my first book. It’s been on my Bucket List ever since I recognized the term. Already, in the last 2 months, I’ve published two novels and two novellas. They’re all on Amazon.com and Apple Books, all as eBooks, most at paperbacks. (Stay tuned for more formats.) Search for my name as author “William Altmann”. And visit the imprint page I’ve started with my son: https://www.altmann.haus. If you read any of my books, I’d really like to hear your feedback.
“Emperor First” and “Emperor Second” are political fiction. They will soon be followed by “Emperor Third”.
“The Mary Jane Gang” is becoming a series, with two now and one following soon, of lighthearted tales centered around a small group of nonagenarians on a residence facility in Arizona. Any resemblance to people living or dead is likely.
So, imagine, if you will, a country which conceives of the idea that it deserves to add to its territory – a territory owned by another sovereign nation. The “Seeking Country” sends its citizens into the territory. They settle there, become successful and influential. Some even adopt citizenship and the religion of the other country. Eventually, the residents decide they do not want to continue as part of their host nation. They appeal to their homeland for help. The homeland stations troops at the border – and inside the disputed territory. Tensions mount. Diplomacy fails, although it’s attempted in a half-hearted way.
The day arrives! The homeland sends its troops in, takes over the infrastructure and deposes the government in the host territory. The new group declares itself part of the homeland, claiming that it is the will of the people and harks back to their long history of claims. some even say it is fair in order to protect the security of the host country’s border and the military stationed thereabouts.
What does the U.S. do in this situation?
Perhaps the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch get up in arms – figuratively, but not literally – and protest to the international community that the “homeland country” has violated the sovereignty of the host country. “Give it back!” they demand.
The ‘settlers’ in the disputed territory reply with, “Come and Take It!”
Is this the Crimea in Ukraine?
Is this the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia?
Or is this Texas in Mexico in 1836? “Remember the Alamo!”
Perhaps we should reconsider how we shot many, many Latinos, and took all of their belongings. Maybe we should give it all back? Move “the Wall”?
As long as we’re at it, maybe we should give back California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, part of Colorado, since we acquired all of that in much the same way.
Makes one think. Perhaps this is why the outrage of the Executive and Congress died down so quickly. Imagine Putin replying to Trump, “Give it back? YOU give back what you took from Mexico!”
Quick! Name 6 things we take for granted, but without which our world would be quite different! Read all about it here.
I’ve been racing through a great read: How We Got To Now, by Steven Johnson. He describes 6 innovations that shaped our world. I wish I had a job writing about stuff like that! Making connections from hither and yon. It reminds me of the series “Connections,” with James Burke, on TV long ago. (Johnson’s stories are also from a series: on PBS.)
Medieval Monk with Glasses, 1342
The first chapter is about glass. It’s impact in everything from windows to lenses, to fiber optics. The writing is loaded with fascinating facts. Johnson proposes that while Gutenberg’s printing press made books available to the populace at large (making them affordable, both to buy and to print), it was lenses that made it possible for the majority of people to read. Up until then, with more than half the population far-sighted, it would not have been practical to buy a book and bring it home and read it. This assumes one had already gone to the trouble of learning to read, which was not taught in schools, there being no public schools in the sixteenth centuries!
One aspect of glass that Johnson glosses over (pardon the weak attempt at a pun), is how glass made possible windows. Not windows in homes, which he does describe. But windows in vehicles.
I propose that, although the steam engine and the internal combustion engine made possible long distance travel, none of that would have gone far (okay, a better pun) without glass for windows. One can make a powerful engine, a vehicle, even a carriage way (for trains and then cars). But without windows one would be limited to about 20 miles per hour. Beyond that, the force of wind – and inclement weather – would have made piloting the vehicle impossible. And what about air travel? I suppose one could have an aircraft with a periscope.
There would have been no need for an interstate highway system. No aircraft industry. No long distance vacation travel, except for the wealthy.
It’s fun to contemplate such a world. Maybe a good plot line for a sci-fi novel. Or on a world not made with a silica crust.
So, the next time you look out the car window at the rain pouring down, think about the fall of Constantinople in 1204. Confused? Read the book.
P.P.S. Johnson writes that glass making would not have been possible without 1,000 degree furnaces. Those would not have been possible without ceramic bricks. From whence did furnaces evolve? Although no one knows, it may have been from ceramic glazing or metalworking.
Is the DJIA increase of 1,000 points in “a little more than a month” really something exciting?
On the business news this week: amazement at how quickly the Dow went 1,000 points, from 20,000 to 21,000. “In a little more than a month,” Tanya Rivero exults on Wall Street Journal Video. Yes, a whole 1,000 points.
But I got to thinking: what’s the real math going on here?
21,000 from 20,000 is an increase of about 5 per cent (using my skills at estimating, which I learned in grade school long, long ago). Did the Dow ever increase by more than 5% in “a little more than a month” before this?
Well, looking all the way back to January of this year, we see that the DJIA went from 19,000 to 20,000 in two months. That’s 5.26%. Of course, it was recovering what it lost in the run-up to the election.
Anyway, I created a spreadsheet, added formulae to look back one month, then calculated the “one month increase” in per cent. Here’s the chart:
DJIA Percent Change in 1 Month
You may see that there are many months for which the increase was more than 5%. In 1998, there were months – many months – with more than 10% or 12%!
So? Big deal about 20,000 to 21,000. If the market were all about increases in absolute terms, then we could get excited about an increase of 1,000. But the market is driven by percentage increases: increasing one’s investment to stay ahead of inflation, save for retirement, etc.
I’m not asking for the hyper-growth of 1998, because we all remember what happened next back then. But let’s keep things in perspective.
Well, American, you’re behind the times. United has had this lack-of-media on their 747s for years. I’ve enjoyed the lack of movie choices on flights as long as 14 hours to Hong Kong.
“Lack of choice,” you say? “United provides in-seat charging ports.” Well, yes, they do: there are two AC sockets for every three seats. (United doesn’t mention this on their web page.) How does that work when the flights are fully-booked? You do the math. And reaching down between your neighbor’s calves to reinsert your charger (with its half-meter-long cord) can be a little too close for comfort).
It’s not as bad as all that. I get to watch the movie on the big screen in the front of the cabin. It’s interesting to guess at when the movie will begin if you’ve been trying to sleep. Since one does not get one’s personal choice at when to click ‘Play’, one has to be alert.
And support for multi-lingual cabins? Well, you can have as many as three languages going at once: (1) the original sub-titles in the movie to inform the English speaking audience what the actors’ foreign language lines mean; (2) the superimposed translated sub-titles, usually in the language of the aircraft’s destination [read: Chinese, Korean, etc.]; and (3) the language coming into your audio headset from the selected channel on the armrest. It’s not bad for people who’ve selected an audio language different from English. But the English speakers hear the foreign lines of the actors, and see two sets of superimposed sub-titles, making neither set legible on the screen. Come on, United, this is not rocket science! It’s not even aircraft science!
Then there is the persistent skipping of the video on the screen. The picture freezes for a moment, then continues one or two seconds further along in the film. This is not problem when seeing beautiful scenery and lovely background music, nor during a chase scene. But in the tense dialogue during a murder mystery, missing a few seconds of conversation can throw off the entire plot line! What’s going on here? Overheating in the DVD player? Problems in the streaming source? Again, why wasn’t this detected in the development of the multimedia system?
To “land the plane” on this topic, how should these problems be solved? We’ve all been spoiled by immediate gratification from our Internet connections and smart phones, so these issues on board a long flight really bother us. Maybe we should just think of the 747 overseas flight as a reminder of how things used to be 30 or 40 years ago. And open up a book on our lap, read a bit, and fall asleep to the drone of the engines.
P.S. Thanks to googling, I found this article explaining that United (and Delta) – the only carriers using 747s – will be retiring their 747s by the end of 2017. “So long, farewell, auf wiedersehn, goodbye…”
Okay, I’m still on the subject of Virtual Reality. In our newspaper, the venerable San Jose Mercury News, there’s a big article on the Business page, right up front: “Rent-a-Reality”. (I found the article here, but not yet on the SJMerc’s own page.) The story is about how some amusement parks have combined their rides with virtual reality goggles, to put the physical sensations of roller coasters and the like into a new world of attacking monsters and such.
In concluding the section on Six Flags’ coaster ride, the author, Ryan Nakashima, writes: “Pro tip: go around twice, once with the header on and once without…”
Yeah, I can imagine how captivating the VR experience might be!
But the article goes on with examples of fans being teased by a VR image of their heartthrob, all for $18; and one of shooting at ghosts at the wax museum in New York, for $55.
James Brooks, of the Associated Press, writes of the London experience that “Museum officials say they aren’t worried these experiences might one day replace traditional museums.”
Well, let’s see. Children today are spending more and more time in front of screens of one sort or another. Once VR goggles come down in price and the software and networking challenges are solved (all of which is inevitable), what will hold children of all ages back from spending more and more time wearing goggles, and living in imaginary settings?
How about put on some real goggles and go swimming with your friends? Or run around in the back yard, getting sweaty and stinky for real? Or go climb a real mountain and experience the real thrill of heights and depths of Nature’s creations?
I guess once we perfect virtual reality experiences, we won’t need real wild animals or real national parks or real mountains to climb.
What about applying all we’re seeing with VR glasses to the realty trade? Not local realty, but long-distance realty. Really! Continue reading “VR and Realty”
Work feels good. And it’s not just because it’s new, challenging technology. It reminds me of…
Back at work. It feels good. It feels normal.
Somehow, a lot of my life’s track has been to stay in the groove.
The groove of working on a career, in a field with my experience, bringing home the bacon (pardon the mixed metaphors), and balancing life.
Ironically, I’ve come full circle.
I started my engineering career at Eastman Kodak Company.
Now I’m working at a phenomenal camera company, Light.
I’ve been reading a few scientific articles related to my new job. It’s amazing to see the engineering (and scientific) efforts devoted to enlivening a field that’s mostly remained unchanged for 150 years!
Yes, engineer can be exciting.
Addendum #1: Interesting how others have tried to make a slim camera as good and portable as an SLR: Kodak Disc Camera 4000 (ca. 1982)
According to my sources, the original, lab samples of the film duplicated the quality of SLR photos, Kodak having solved the problem of making extremely small grains. But apparently it was terribly hard to manufacture, and so the pictures were not what people expected. So, back to the drawing board.
Literally!
Addendum #2: This arrived in the mail yesterday. $5 on eBay!
Nice little collection starting. I hope it doesn’t get out of control.
