Derek K. Miller - Penmachine words music comment - Vancouver, Canada

"Situation Terminal" (via Philip Greenspun) laments the generally lousy state of modern airport design. Author Paul Goldberger writes that:

Airports are essentially machines for processing people, airplanes, automobiles, cargo, and luggage—all of which move in different ways, and which need to be connected at certain points and separated by rigid security at others.

The problem, he notes, is that in most current facilities are:

....an efficient layout for airport operations, as long as you don't consider passenger pleasure to be a part of airport operations.

I don't have a lot of experience with airports around the world—I've never been to the new terminals in China and Europe that Goldberger profiles as rare successful airport architecture—but I think Vancouver's YVR does a surprisingly decent job of it.

While many Vancouverites continue to complain about the "Airport Improvement Fee," instituted in the early '90s when the Canadian government leased the facility to the Vancouver Airport Authority, the money from that fee has transformed what was a small, drab, concrete slab during my childhood into a much larger, more interesting, well-lit, and beautiful space.

One thing I do find puzzling at YVR: most of the huge collection of Northwest Coast native art is well displayed, but it's in the international arrivals area. That's the one part of the facility where people are moving as fast as they can to get off their planes, through Customs, and out—where they'll spend little to no time looking at the artwork. There's a lot less of that stuff in the departure areas, which is where passengers are sometimes waiting around for hours, and where they might find some use looking at the art. Weird.

Labels: airport, vancouver

There are a lot of moms in my life—most importantly my wife, of course, who's the mother of our two daughters. There are also my own mom, my mother-in-law, my aunt, my cousin, many of our friends, and, most recently, my long-time pal and one-time roommate Tara, who had a daughter in February.

I think when your kids are young, they really don't fundamentally understand the concept of sleeping in at all. Pretty much any child past infancy treats sleep as an enemy. It's a measure of still being a kid, like aiming for puddles instead of avoiding them. Mother's Day is probably the prime example.

I remember bringing my mom breakfast way too early on Mother's Day Sundays when I was old enough to cook, in the late '70s. It never occurred to me that she might rather sleep than eat the delicious food that I spent so much time messing up (but not cleaning up) the kitchen over. No. Idea. At. All.

Today, my own kids were already awake at 8:30 when I carefully tiptoed out of the bedroom and closed the door, letting my wife sleep while I went to the bathroom and got ready to start the day. By the time I'd come back upstairs, our bedroom door was open and their mom, with a tired smile, had eaten some eggs prepared by our older daughter, who makes a pretty decent omelette. After some Mother's Day morning greetings from our younger girl, my wife was, blessedly, able to go back to sleep, and the girls went back to playing The Sims.

So, here's a toast to all of you moms who got woken up too early today for a kid-prepared breakfast. I hope it was tasty.

I've persuaded the kids to bring the Mother's Day gift to their grandmother, my mom, closer to lunchtime.

Labels: family, food, holiday, memories

Via Kottke, here is a gallery of UPI photos of a thunderstorm meeting the volcanic plume from the Chaitén volcano in Chile this week. Check out picture #11:

Whoa, as Keanu would say. I never knew the Spanish term for thunderstorm before, but it's pretty nifty: tormenta eléctrica.

Labels: americas, disaster, environment, news, photography, science

Spring weather is coming, and with my new shaved head I'll have to remember to wear a hat and sunscreen—especially because chemotherapy side effects also mean I should avoid prolonged sun exposure.

More positively, my family has been looking at accommodations on B.C.'s Sunshine Coast for a weekend getaway, possibly sometime in June. We're the sort who avoid camping, and much prefer places with restaurants and perhaps a pool. There are a few such places up the coast from here, including Rockwater, Pender Harbour Resort (beware, flashy Flashness), the Sunshine Coast Resort, and the West Coast Wilderness Lodge (not really that much wilderness).

Does anyone have experience and recommendations for fun family places to stay between Gibsons and Egmont for a couple of nights?

Labels: cancer, chemotherapy, family, holiday, oceans, travel

In a recent CBC podcast, writer Malcolm Gladwell noted that "those of you who are familiar with my writing will know that this practice of talking about X by discussing Y is my only rhetorical move." His recent excellent article in The New Yorker, about scientists who independently discovered or invented things at the same time (via Angela Gunn), is a prime example.

The article is about 7000 words long. Here is Gladwell's thesis statement:

This phenomenon of simultaneous discovery—what science historians call "multiples"—turns out to be extremely common.

You don't get to read that until more than 3500 words have passed: if you skip the title of the piece ("In the Air: Who Says Big Ideas Are Rare?"), Gladwell doesn't tell you what his essay is about until it's more than half over. It's nevertheless fascinating, but even (or perhaps especially) if you have read the title, you might be like me. As you read the first half, you may very well keep thinking, "Yeah, Malcolm, so what's your point?"

When the time is right

His main one is that many inventions and scientific discoveries happen because the time is right. Many people are working on certain types of ideas (the mathematics of changing systems, the relationships of fossil organisms after discovering that the earth is very old, the next step of electrical communications after the telegraph), so it's very likely that someone—maybe several someones—will come up with a key new concept based on those ideas (calculus, evolution by natural selection, the telephone).

I just finished reading Walter Isaacson's wonderful 2007 biography of Albert Einstein, the first published after the release of many of Einstein's private letters and writings. Einstein was so remarkable that his last name has become a noun, a synonym for genius around the world.

Yet of course he didn't generate his world-changing ideas out of the ether (nor, since he disproved the existence of the ether, out of a vacuum). Einstein's synthesis of the ideas of Planck and Mach and Maxwell and others with the experimental results of Faraday, Curie, Michelson and Morley, and still others would have happened eventually. But it might have taken a few decades, and probably a number of eminent scientists, to reveal that atoms actually existed, that light is a wave-particle duality, that gravity can be thought of as the warping of space-time, and the dozens of other ideas that Einstein figured out largely on his own during feverish bursts of creativity in between 1905 and 1917.

So what is genius?

Gladwell doesn't talk about Einstein at all, but he also doesn't diminish genius in his article. Rather, he reframes it: someone like Einstein (or Newton, or Kelvin) is brilliant enough to make a wide range of discoveries. To get a similar range of insights or inventions, you'd need a brainstorming session, or a committee, or an "invention session" of smart, but not genius-level, people. And they might not come up with genius-level ideas all at once.

In other words, in science and technology, a genius can do the work of a big group of regular people. And so geniuses often contribute to "multiples," but also do more. Newton and Leibniz both invented calculus, but Leibniz didn't come up with anything like Newton's discoveries in optics or gravity.

Gladwell also has a third point, one that helps distinguish science from art. Namely, that a scientific genius and an artistic genius are different things, even though we use the same word:

You can't pool the talents of a dozen Salieris and get Mozart's Requiem. You can’t put together a committee of really talented art students and get Matisse's "La Danse." A work of artistic genius is singular.

Creating and discovering

That makes intuitive sense—there is a difference between creating something and discovering something. Einstein himself was profoundly uncomfortable with quantum theory and wave mechanics, even though he established that field of study. He spent the last half of his life fighting against their probabilistic implications. Yet quantum theory was still there, whether Einstein was involved or not.

Conversely, let's take another example that Gladwell doesn't use. Sure, without the Beatles there would still have been some kind of rock and roll after Elvis, and maybe even psychedelia in the '60s. But there wouldn't have been Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, nor maybe any record quite like it. (I doubt the Rolling Stones would have made Their Satanic Majesties Request, for instance.)

Similarly, the work of Watson, Crick, and Franklin in discovering DNA was part of a feverish mid-century effort throughout biology to determine what genes might be made of. Somebody was going to find the double helix. But nobody made paintings exactly like Picasso, or sang just like Ella. Without them, maybe no one ever would.

We are social creatures, so the twining influences and effects of our creativity can be hard to tease out. That's part of what's so cool about them.

Labels: einstein, geekery, history, malcolmgladwell, music, newyork, science, writing

Ethan Gutmann at Ars Technica writes about the remarkable properties of rose petals when water drops land on them. Not only are rose petals superhydrophobic, like many plant leaves (water drops ball up on the surface), but unlike those leaves, those cool water drops also stick to the surface rather than rolling off.

What makes that happen is the microscopic structure of the surface of the leaf. The petal surface is covered in tiny bumps, and the surfaces of those bumps are covered in even smaller, tiny tiny folds. But those tiny tiny folds are far enough apart that water at the bottom of a drop can get into them and stick to the surface; on most leaves, the folds are closer together, so the water can't stick and slides off.

Here's the research paper.

Labels: biology, science

More than 15 years ago, the house I was renting with a couple of roommates was burglarized. The thieves stole the usual kinds of things—CDs and other stuff that's easy to fence—and included among that was my Nikon FG SLR and lenses. I had insurance, which replaced that camera with the early-'90s equivalent, the F-601.

The new camera came with a pretty decent Nikon lens, a 35–70 mm zoom. But a few months after I got the camera, the zoom ring on the lens became loose and didn't work properly. I sent it in for warranty repair, and then used the lens through two additional cameras (another F601 I bought after the original got dropped, and my current D50) until last spring.

That's when the zoom ring started misbehaving again, and I replaced it with a new Nikon lens, an 18–135 mm zoom that has worked very well for me, and is usually the kit lens for the higher-end D80 SLR. Until the past few days, when the zoom intermittently stopped autofocusing properly. The barrel of the lens also started to feel a bit loose. So I've sent it, like its predecessor, off to Nikon for repair.

I supposed there's a reason the lower-cost lenses aren't as robust as their professional siblings, but it's not like I abuse them. And that old lens did work great for me for a decade and a half after its initial repair. I still have it downstairs, in fact. Maybe if I can get it to behave I can use it while the other one is in the shop—but there's really no need. I have three other lenses that seem to be working just fine.

Labels: geekery, nikon, photography, repairs

I met with my oncologist, Dr. Kennecke, today. When I go to see him, I try to moderate my expectations. Pragmatically, I plan on the metastatic tumours in my lungs maybe having grown a little bit, or maybe shrunk a little bit, or maybe stayed stable. I don't go there thinking they will have miraculously disappeared, or that they will have grown dramatically.

And fortunately, that's pretty much where I am. Last week's CT scan showed that the largest of my four lung mets has grown slightly, but is still less than a centimetre across. A second one might also be a little bigger than before. The others seem like they're stable. So my chemo isn't eliminating them, but it appears to be keeping them somewhat at bay.

In the short term, I'm pleased with the other plans Dr. K and I worked out today. I have two more chemo treatments planned this month, the 15th and 16th of this round, which started back in October. Then, finally, I get to take a bit of a break through June, and with luck I might begin a clinical trial of a new artificial monoclonal antibody (more advanced than the Avastin I'm taking now), which may be able to enhance the action of the other chemotherapy agents, perhaps in July.

Having a few weeks off from chemo side effects will be nice. Maybe we'll take a weekend trip to Victoria or something. As nice things go, I'll take what I can get.

Labels: cancer, chemotherapy, holiday, travel, victoria

It's difficult for me to understand what it's like for my family and friends as I go through cancer treatment. As I've written before, in some ways it's easier for me than for them, because at any time I know how I feel, and at least tell myself that I have a decent sense of how I'm doing. That's not always clear to those close to me, and I know they worry.

I think I have a better understanding of it this week, because my wife had elective surgery a few days ago. She was in hospital overnight (which the doctors had expected and planned for, but which we didn't know about in advance), and has been recovering here at home. Since I'm not on chemotherapy this week, I'm in reasonably good shape and have been able to keep the house running fairly well.

But I wish there was more I could do to alleviate her pain and other discomfort. I also have little sense, from hour to hour, how she's feeling. I feel a bit useless. And this is relatively short term—she's been taking care of me, and doing a great job of it, as I've been through surgeries, chemo, radiation, drastic weight loss, and much more for well over a year.

This is that "in sickness and in health" part they talk about when you get married. I'm glad we can be there for each other.

Labels: family, hospital, pain, surgery

Tomorrow, for the second time this year, I'll be giving a speech at a memorial service. This time it's for my mom's oldest friend Sonia, who died last November. She would have turned 70 in January.

I had no trouble at all putting together a eulogy for my friend Martin in January, but this time around it's a bit more difficult. My relationship with Sonia was different—she was my mother's friend, after all, so every time I saw her it was related to something they were doing together—but also lifelong. By the time I was born in 1969, they had been friends for well over 20 years.

Sonia's three best friends (my mom included) compiled some information and stories for me to work with, and I have some ideas on how to turn them into a speech, but I feel already like there will be too much left out. It's hard to distill 60 years of friendship into five or six minutes, maybe one minute for each decade. And the group at the memorial will be much smaller than Martin's, maybe 50 or 60 people instead of several hundred. I actually find it easier to speak in front of large groups than small.

Anyway, I'll find the key things to talk about, plus some extras I know myself, and I think it will go just fine. I hope I can do Sonia and her friends justice.

I feel a little guilty about one thing: I'm sort of glad to make speeches like this. That's because each memorial I attend means I've made it long enough not to have my own.

Labels: death, family, friends

The Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum in Paderborn, Germany, bills itself as the world's largest computer museum. James Harton at Flickr has some photos of key elements of the collection, which include old typewriters and an Enigma machine.

Labels: apple, encryption, geekery, retro, travel

This book about home chemistry experiments looks pretty darn cool. (Via PZ Myers.)

Labels: family, home, science

From Salon: "More and more, the strict new [U.S.-Canada] border rules appear to be a huge cultural and economic mistake. As the United States walls itself off against illegal immigration and terrorism, the relationship between Americans and Canadians will be a casualty."

Labels: americas, politics, security, travel

Almost five years ago, I wrote about my favourite keyboards. Alas, things have changed somewhat: most of the links in my original post are broken, and Apple has stopped making the old transparent black-keyed Pro Keyboard and now produces some interesting but very different super-thin models instead (in between, the company made a tolerable but ho-hum white keyboard that also acted as an excellent crumb tray).

This week, John Gruber and Dan Benjamin wax rhapsodic on their podcast about the ancient Apple Extended Keyboard II, pictured. I have three, as well as two Apple Keyboards (not the Keyboard II) that use the same keys, several miscellaneous USB keyboards, a decent basic PC PS/2 keyboard, and a treasured IBM 101. The 101 is currently hooked up to my eMac with a PS/2-USB adapter, with keys remapped with the Mac's System Preferences.

The Extended Keyboard II and the IBM 101 are the twin holy grails of keyboard nerds. Unfortunately, my EKIIs have been sitting in a cupboard for years because I never got around to buying an adapter to make their Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) connectors work with newer USB Macs. But now Gruber and Benjamin may have inspired me to track one down.

I spent many a year pounding my fingers on an Extended II, in university and as a freelance technical writer. The IBM 101 is a very different beast, also built like a tank but with a more metallic, punchy feel, and an audible note to its astoundingly loud typing sound. As yet no one has been able to replicate what's good about these devices, so if you're a serious computer typist, you'll need to track down a vintage one.

And no, you can't have mine.

Labels: apple, geekery, history, podcast

You already heard the full-length unedited version of my interview with Nora Young (pictured) of CBC Radio's "Spark." Now here's the edited version in the latest complete episode of the show, with extra bonus material including me reading some of my blog posts, and my podsafe tune "Striking Silver" as background music.

You can download the whole episode as an MP3 file, or if you're subscribed to the Spark podcast, you'll get it automatically. If you prefer to hear "Spark" on the radio, it airs Wednesday, April 30 (tomorrow) at 11:30 a.m. and Saturday, May 3 at 4:00 p.m. (a half hour later in Newfoundland, of course), on CBC's Radio One network, which is 690 AM in Vancouver. This episode also features internetfamous blogebrities such as Merlin Mann and Amber Mac.

Finally, if you have any doubt at all that "Spark" is a cool show, they just received a promo message recorded by freakin' Strong Bad! How awesome is that? (MP3 also available.)

Labels: cbc, ego, podcast, radio

Well, here we go.

No details on pricing or plans, of course.

Labels: apple, iphone, telecommunications

When it's raining like this outside...

...there's only one thing to do:

Oh yeah, baby!

Labels: family, nintendo, videogames, weather, wii

UPDATE: Yup, the AirPort Extreme Base Station worked like a charm. Back to normal now.

Evidence indicates that it is indeed our wireless router at fault for the slug-like behaviour of the Wi-Fi networking in our house. I think this will be a good excuse to purge the ungainly stack of networking gear...

...and replace it with a single wireless router that can do everything with fewer wires and, with luck, less general flakiness. Some of that stuff is only 10BaseT or 10Base2 speed, and has been blinking away in our den closet for a decade.

Labels: apple, geekery, techsupport, web