October 12, 2011

I am a Technologist, I study technologies. From the most primitive "sticks and stones" technologies of our prehuman ancestors to the latest technologies just coming out of discoveries reported in the pages of scientific journals.

30 year career in military avionics, both hardware and software.
First system I worked on had 8 custom computers (6 digital and 2 hybrid) packed in a box 6 inches square by 2 feet long. Lovely machine! That was an age when analog computers were still thought to have their place rather than being obsolete. Personally I think they DO still have their place but most engineers get no training on them, so they ignore them.

Have had both Confidential and Secret clearances, but they are long expired. Don't ask about what I worked on under them. NDAs still apply. It can be irritating having the FBI investigating the last 10 years or more of your life, including all medical records...

Spent roughly 10 years of volunteer work for the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA; mostly doing computer restorations (IBM 1620, DEC PDP-1, and IBM 1401).

My current fascinations are Computer History, Nuclear Energy/Weapons/Testing/Effects, GPS, Ice-cream making (Balsamic Vinegar Ice-cream is one of my more interesting flavors), FOIA, Technologies developed by man's ancestors before there was modern man...

Favorite patent number: GB630726, filed in 1934.

Received ECO Trophy from my 2010 Honda Insight (Hybrid) car at 7754 miles on October 13, 2011!
Reset ECO Score on November 1, 2011.

FOIA Documents received (if I received electronic copies, PDF, etc., and you are interested, I am free to distribute if you send me a request):

• IS-GPS-153D (redacted PDF), previous version was called ICD-GPS-153C. This is a protocol specification for GSSIP, Rockwell-Collin's developed binary serial protocol for communication between GPS Receivers and computers. This is an unclassified document, but with some FOUO sections that refer to classified data, all FOUO information was redacted in my copy.

Reading list:
Priority active -

• --

Active -

• Swords of Armageddon (Volume 6 of 8)
• Speed and Fun with Figures
• Mathematical Machines, Analog Devices
• Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (Charles Babbage)
• ARM Architecture Reference Manual
• Nuclear Physics in a Nutshell

In the Queue -

• Underdevelopments and Marxism, from Marx to the theories of Imperialism and Dependency
• String Theory in a Nutshell
• Elementary Surveying
• Dealing with Risk, Why the Public and the Experts Disagree on Environmental Issues
• Hydrodynamics and Vector Field Theory
• RADAR and Electronic Navigation
• Quantum Man, Richard Feynman's Life in Science
• Quantum Mechanics and Path Integrals
• The First Computers: History and Architecture
• Assuring Public Safety In Continental Weapons Tests
• How to build a Nuclear Bomb

References in library -

• The Effects of Nuclear Weapons w/ circular sliderule effects computer
• EMP Radiation & Protective Techniques
• Radiological Defense (4 Volumes)
• The Making of the Atomic Bomb
• Dark Sun
• Nucleonics Fundamentals (good table of isotopes, halflifes, and crosssections)
• The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (While on Nuclear Weapons, it gives important insights into reasons for failures of any complex system.)
• Atomic Harvest
• The Radiochemical Manual
• Applied Nuclear Physics
• Applied Atomic Power
• Textbook of Nuclear medicine technology
• Introduction to Nuclear Engineering
• The Pursuit of the Atom
• Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War
• Stalin and the Bomb
• The Ghost of the Executed Engineer
• The Soviet Tragedy - A History of Socialism in Russia, 1917-1991
• Beloved Enemies
• Feynman's Thesis, A New Approach to Quantum Mechanics
• The Key to Genius: Manic-Depression and the Creative Life
• Gas, Gasoline, and Oil Engines (©1911)
• Giant Brains or Machines that Think
• Mathematical Machines, Digital Computers
• A Few Good Men from Univac
• Finite-State Models for Logical Machines
• ILLIAC IV - Systems Characteristics and Programming Manual
• Storage Tubes and Their Basic Principles (25 types, including 4 types used for main memory on early computers)
• Digital Computer Fundamentals
• Electronic Digital Integrating Computers: Digital Differential Analyzers
• Digital Computing Systems
• Supercomputers: Class VI Systems, Hardware and Software
• Parallel Programming
• Quantum Mechanics in a Nutshell