Ones and Zeros

There’s a couple big steps to make in designing software. First, the initial idea that I have or that someone comes to me with isn’t very detailed yet. It’s usually more of, “I need something that has a window on screen with a button that does this cool feature and fields you can type in the useful information to do that other cool feature!”.

So, the first step is to translate that initial idea into the internal structure of the geometric shapes in my head. Well, actually, the first step is to explore that initial idea and see what needs editing and changing. Ideas are great, but the first idea isn’t always the best one. Usually things improve with consideration no matter how much I get enamored with that first idea. So I have to be able to think it before I can write it.

There’s lots of ways to do this stage of design. But basically all the approaches for this are often rule-of-thumb approaches that work in some types of cases and not in others. Experience comes in handy for figuring how to do this.

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Thomas Friedman is on the trailing edge of the obvious. In his new book “Hot, Flat, and Crowded” he finally figures out that the economy is driven by energy, not by politics. And, that we’re way behind on addressing our energy problems.

I’ll give him faint praise in that Friedman isn’t a pollyanna merrily denying any problems with our energy infrastructure. But I’ll take that back by saying that his thesis in this book is neither original nor very perceptive. While he highlights incidents and particular stories, his prescription is the same thing that others have been writing and saying for many years now.

Nice that he’s finally caught up.

He takes the Bush administration to task for essentially not defining a useful energy policy, yet doesn’t recognize his own culpability in his early support of that administration. He also thinks that McCain’s has “the right instincts” on energy policy despite McCain’s almost total agreement with the Bush administration.

I’m guessing it’ll take Freidman another five years to figure out that he was wrong on that one too.

Aeronautical charts periodically expire and are replaced with new versions that incorporate new features and other new information. Sectionals, the charts I used, expire every six months. It’s not that plate tectonics is moving things around that fast, but towers are built, frequencies and navigation aids change and sometimes airspace dimensions change too.

Since I’m a VFR pilot I fly with sectional charts and terminal area charts (TACs). Old ones are useful for packing material or better yet, gift wrapping as they are printed on good quality paper. In the past I bought my charts at my local airport but this time they were temporarily out. So, I decided to just order the three charts I needed directly from NACO, the National Aeronautical Charting Office of the FAA.

They arrived the other day in an envelope with the very dramatic and important-looking sticker:

U.S. GOVERNMENT CHARTS / PUBLICATIONS
CRITICAL TO NAVIGATION SAFETY
DO NOT DELAY
The return address for NACO is on Good Luck Road in Maryland. Either this is an amazing coincidence or someone in the FAA had a wonderfully offbeat sense of humor.

The sectionals are double-sided with the north half on one side of the chart and the south half on the other. The TAC is a tri-fold. The first thing I do is refold them both so the area I use is exposed. My re-folding allows me to flip between adjacent areas easily both east-west, and north-south. The cockpit is a small and a sectional chart fully open will use up most of the space in front of me and my right-seat passenger.

So, despite my reluctance when I was a student pilot to fold, bend, or mark on the maps, I’ve come to realize they’re an expendable resource. While I am a librarian’s son, I’m an adaptable one.

The new charts with their crisp folds, new smell, and unworn corners have the promise of adventure. Maps abstract the real world and show selected parts. They tell us just enough to make me curious to find out more detail by actually going there.

The Washington Post and other sources had a news story from the US Census: By 2050 the projections say that most of the people in the US will not be caucasian. There’s the predictable hand-wringing from various commenters about this of course. Some if it is the usual racism couched in supposedly acceptable terms, some is just classism.

My response to the news is, “So what?”.

First, this isn’t a new piece of information. After all some parts of the US are minority caucasian now. I remember predictions like this from the 1970s, and again in the 80’s and 90’s. So, if this is news to you then you’re either young or not paying attention. California is one of the leading economic engines of this country in both technology and in agriculture and is largely non-caucasian.

Second, this sort of immigrant bashing is an unfortunate constant in US history. It happened for the Irish, Germans, Italians, Polish, now Hispanics and Asians. It probably happened with the English too, after all what were the Indian wars all about? I wonder how many of those now objecting to immigration had their parents or grandparents discriminated against when they moved to the US?

Third, unlike many historical countries, the US is not founded on ethic or religious ideals but on the ideal of justice, liberty, and freedom. (Our success in actually achieving these is an ongoing struggle.) That is, the color of your skin or where you’re from isn’t supposed to be relevant. No matter what some anti-immigration supporters think now.

Last, there’s the simple fact that after every immigration boom in this country’s history, there’s been a corresponding long-term economic boom. The wealth and capability of our country is historically founded on the vigorous new ideas and new people coming here. Immigrants chose to come here, to leave their homes and all that they were used to and start fresh in a new country. They “voted with their feet” on what they wanted in their government, economy, and country.

All of us born as citizens, myself included, simply came into this as our birthright. All we had to do to be citizens was to not leave. Immigrants have to apply, give up all they know, often learn a language, and relocate. Geez, moving across the country is hard enough for me!

No anti-immigration support has so far been able to convince me that other people shouldn’t have the same benefits your ancestors and mine had in coming to the US.