Lawrence Yang documents the obvious problem with Verizon’s $100 million integrated ad campaign for the Google/Droid phone. He was inspired by Nancy Friedman, who is a delight to read.

(Be sure also to read Nancy’s linked discussion of anthimeria, which is, loosely speaking, when someone verbs a noun.)

(Below: the actual $100 million ad campaign.)

Automated systems in aircraft reduce some risks at the cost of increasing other risks. Incorrect or inconsistent applications of automation to complex human-machine systems can have unexpected and even deadly consequences.

NASA Ames Research facility has done a lot of thinking about the proper ways to design these systems. Dr. Charles Billings, in particular, has published a number of excellent papers on the subject. Here’s an excerpt from his 1995 paper, “Human-Centered Aviation Automation: Principles and Guidelines”, where he asks (and answers) a fundamental design question:

If the human operator cannot effectively oversee and retain management authority over his tools, he has lost authority over the entire operation. Will this be a tenable situation?

I believe it comes down to a matter of trust. Will we provide pilots with full authority, train them carefully, and trust them to do “the right thing”, whatever it is in particular circumstances? Or will we circumscribe pilot authority by making it impossible to damage the airplane, and in the process perhaps make it impossible to use its ultimate capabilities if they really need them…? My bias, based on a number of cases in which pilots have been able to recover from extreme emergencies, and other cases in which they did not recover but could have had they used all available resources, is that command authority should be limited only for the most compelling reasons, and only after extensive consultation with both test and line pilots or controllers at “the sharp end” of the system.

Boeing and Airbus, the world’s largest manufacturers of transport aircraft, seem to draw the “compelling reasons” line in different places. Under the Airbus computers’ “Normal Law” operating mode, the pilots cannot command inputs that would cause the airplane to enter an dangerous condition (for instance: they cannot stall the plane by increasing the angle of attack without adding thrust; the computer will prevent a stall from happening). Whereas Boeing’s approach is to make dangerous conditions increasingly difficult to cause (for instance: the Boeing’s control column will provide increased resistance against a pilot who is about to stall the airplane, making it physically more difficult for the pilot to cause this condition, but still allowing the possibility).

This continues to be an area of active study and discussion throughout the aviation community, and it has broader application as we interact more often with complex machine-controlled systems. Many pilots decry the apparent loss of airmanship due to the increase in cockpit automation.

The problem with wind energy is that it drives prices down! From Bloomberg news:

After years of getting government incentives to install windmills, operators in Europe may have become their own worst enemy, reducing the total price paid for electricity in Germany, Europe’s biggest power market, by as much as 5 billion euros some years, according to a study this week by Poeyry, a Helsinki-based industry consultant.

Jerome a Paris has an excellent discussion of the article over at The Oil Drum. He also links from there to an excellent (and entirely wonky) discussion of the proper pricing of wind power. It is a great article – one key takeaway is that wind power actually brings electricity prices down! Understanding that assertion requires a discussion of marginal costs, initial investments, demand curves, spot pricing, intermittency, externalities, and Spitzenlast (see above), but it’s totally worth it.

Another key point is that “market” pricing actually tilts the playing field toward fuel-based generation of electricity, because of its lower capital and debt-servicing requirements:

selecting market mechanisms to set electricity prices (rather than regulating them) is, again, not technology neutral: here as well, deregulated markets are structurally more favorable to fossil fuel-based generation sources than publicly regulated price environments.

So while I definitely wanted to highlight the issues around wind power (and point you to some excellent, informed commentary), I mostly just wanted an excuse to show that graph! SPITZENLAST!

Candelpin bowling is making a comeback! The Boston Globe Magazine is on the story this Sunday, featuring a local star bowler named Jeff Surette:

he just wants to bowl, just wants to take what he can get from the most difficult form of bowling on the planet, a particularly New England pursuit that is as hard as a Maine winter.

Classic!

Regular readers of the blog (hi Mutt!) will recall that we mentioned the story of another local bowler back in December, when his record-breaking three-string score of 514 was kept out of the record books because the foul line sensor was not turned on.

The image above is the National Weather Service’s Quantitative Precipitation Forecast for the next 48 hours. It predicts 4-5 inches of rain for the Boston metro area between now and midday Wednesday!

If you’re like me – and I know I am – you love trying to understand and predict the weather. On the off chance you’re not like me, I’m reposting below my favorite recent “Area Forecast Discussion” product from the National Weather Service’s Taunton, MA office. Even with the jargon and peculiar typographic conventions, you can get a pretty keen sense of how weather systems and forecasts work by reading this discussion:

838
FXUS61 KBOX 220357
AFDBOX

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TAUNTON MA
1057 PM EST SUN FEB 21 2010

.SYNOPSIS…
TWO LOW PRESSURE SYSTEMS ARE FORECAST TO DEVELOP OFF THE MID ATLANTIC COAST THIS WEEK AND COULD BRING PERIODS OF WINTRY WEATHER…MAINLY TO THE INTERIOR. THE FIRST SYSTEM IS LIKELY TO AFFECT THE REGION TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY AS IT TRACKS ACROSS SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND. A SECOND COASTAL STORM MAY AFFECT THE AREA LATE THURSDAY INTO FRIDAY AS IT TAKES A SIMILAR TRACK THROUGH OUR AREA.

&&

.NEAR TERM /UNTIL 6 AM MONDAY MORNING/… FOR THE OVERNIGHT FORECAST…HAVE LOWERED SKY COVER GRIDS TO ALMOST CLEAR OVER MOST OF THE AREA. SOME CIRRUS ADVANCING THROUGH EASTERN NY…SOME LOW CLOUDS IN THE HIGHER ELEVATIONS OF CHESHIRE COUNTY ARE THE TWO EXCEPTIONS. SATELLITE IMAGERY SHOWS HIGH CLOUDINESS SPILLING SOUTHWESTWARD OVER THE GULF OF MAINE AS ANOTHER SPOKE OF VORTICITY ROTATES AROUND THE UPPER LOW. 00Z NAM BRINGS THE CLOUD COVER INTO MASS BAY BY DAYBREAK THEN BACK EASTWARD OUT TO SEA…SO ADDED THIS TO SKY COVER GRIDS. NO CHANGES TO TEMPERATURE FORECAST OVERNIGHT. LOWERED WIND GUSTS IN WESTERN MA BUT KEPT WINDS AS FORECAST ALONG THE COAST OVERNIGHT SINCE BOS STILL GUSTING TO 24 KTS AS OF 10 PM.

&&

.SHORT TERM /6 AM MONDAY MORNING THROUGH MONDAY NIGHT/…
MONDAY…THE FORECAST AREA WILL RESIDE WITHIN A COL AREA BETWEEN HIGH AND LOW PRESSURE SYSTEMS. ANTICYCLONIC FLOW ALOFT WILL ALLOW FOR SUBSIDENCE AND MOSTLY CLEAR SKIES. WILL NOTE SOME INCREASING HIGH CLOUDS LATE IN THE DAY WELL AHEAD OF ADVANCING LOW PRESSURE ACROSS THE GREAT LAKES.

TEMPERATURES ARE EXPECTED TO REBOUND TO ABOVE SEASONAL NORMS…IN THE 40S MOST LOCATIONS. DEVELOPING LIGHT ONSHORE FLOW WILL ALLOW FOR COOLING TEMPERATURES ALONG THE COAST DURING THE AFTERNOON. STAYED FAIRLY CLOSE TO THE MILDER MAV MOS GUIDANCE MOST AREAS.

MONDAY NIGHT…THE WEAK H5 RIDGE WILL BE MOVING EAST OF THE AREA. NOTED AN APPROACHING H7 MID LEVEL JET PROVIDING INCREASING MID LEVEL CONVERGENCE ACROSS THE SOUTHWESTERN ZONES APPROACHING DAYBREAK FROM THE LATEST OPERATIONAL NAM/GFS. A LOW LEVEL ESE JET AHEAD OF DEVELOPING LOW PRESSURE OFF THE NORTH CAROLINA COAST WILL PROVIDE SOME INCREASING LOW LEVEL CONVERGENCE AND ATLANTIC MOISTURE AFTER 06Z ACROSS THE SOUTHWEST ZONES. THE MAIN FOCUS FOR DEEP LIFT WILL LIKELY OCCUR WELL AFTER 06Z.

THERE ARE TIMING ISSUES REGARDING THE ARRIVAL TIME OF PRECIPITATION BUT FEEL IT WILL TAKE SOME TIME FOR THE LOWER LEVELS FROM H85 TO THE SURFACE TO MOISTEN. THUS HAVE CHANCE POPS ADVERTISED FROM 06Z THROUGH 12Z ACROSS THE WESTERN ZONES…BUT REMAINING DRY UNTIL AFTER DAYBREAK ACROSS THE EAST. TEMPERATURE PROFILES REMAIN COLD ENOUGH TO SUPPORT MOSTLY SNOW THROUGH DAYBREAK.

&&

.LONG TERM /TUESDAY THROUGH SUNDAY/…
VERY COMPLEX WX PATTERN DURING THIS EXTENDED PERIOD WITH PERSISTENT NORTH ATLANTIC BLOCKING REMAINING IN PLACE. SIGNIFICANT TROF AMPLIFICATION OCCURS OVER MIDWEST AND OHIO VALLEY EARLY IN THE PERIOD AS PIECE OF ENERGY BREAKS OFF FROM HUDSON BAY VORTEX AND FORMS ANOTHER CLOSED VORTEX WHICH DROPS SWD ACROSS OHIO VALLEY EVENTUALLY SHIFTING EAST OVER NEW ENG TOWARD THE END OF THE WEEK. POTENTIAL FOR 2 STORMS TO AFFECT SNE DURING THE PERIOD.

HIGH CONFIDENCE IN A PROLONGED WINTER WEATHER EVENT ACROSS SNE THROUGH AT LEAST WED ALTHOUGH THERE REMAINS CONSIDERABLE UNCERTAINTY IN DETAILS OF QPF AND PTYPE. GREATEST PROABILITY FOR SIGNIFICANT SNOW ACCUM DURING TUE-WED PERIOD WILL MOST LIKELY BE OVER NW HIGH TERRAIN.

COASTAL STORM DEVELOPS OFF MID ATLC COAST TUE AS PIECE OF SHORTWAVE ENERGY BREAKS OFF FROM DEVELOPING VORTEX DROPPING SOUTH INTO THE MIDWEST. THERE IS CONSIDERABLE MODEL SPREAD WITH THE TRACK OF THIS STORM SO CONFIDENCE IN THE DETAILS OF QPF/PTYPE IS LOW. GFS/NAM FURTHEST EAST AS THEY DEVELOP THE STORM WELL OFFSHORE ALTHOUGH INVERTED TROF HANGING BACK TO THE WEST ENSURES PRECIP ACROSS SNE. OP GFS HAS NO SUPPORT FROM MAJORITY OF ITS ENSEMBLE MEMBERS WHICH ARE FURTHER WEST BUT ALSO CONDISERABLE SPREAD AMONG ALL MEMBERS. GGEM ON WESTERN ENVELOPE OF SOLUTIONS TRACKING STORM NWD THROUGH NYS. ANSWER PROBABLY LIES SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN MORE IN LINE WITH ECMWF/GEFS MEAN/SREF BLEND WHICH TRACK STORM SLOWLY NWD INTO E NEW ENG DURING WED.

CURRENT THINKING IS PRECIP WILL OVERSPREAD THE REGION FROM WEST TO EAST DURING TUE…BUT HEAVIER QPF WILL PROBABLY BE FOCUSED ACROSS LOWER CT VALLEY TUE WITH STEADIER PRECIP MOVING EAST ACROSS REST OF SNE TUE NIGHT.

PTYPE IS TRICKY. PRECIP COULD BEGIN AS A PERIOD OF SNOW IN THE COASTAL PLAIN BUT WE THINK THERE IS TOO MUCH LOW LEVEL ELY FLOW WHICH SHOULD OVERWHELM THE BOUNDARY LAYER RESULTING IN MOSTLY RAIN FROM BOS-PVD SEWD WITH SOME MIXING POSSIBLE TUE NIGHT. NOT BUYING THE COLD NAM SOLUTION FOR BOS/PVD AS MAIN STORM IS LIKELY TOO FAR EAST. BEST CHANCE FOR ALL SNOW WILL BE OVER ELEVATED TERRAIN IN BERKSHIRES…MONADNOCKS AND HILLS ACROSS NORTHERN ORH COUNTY. IN BETWEEN THESE 2 AREAS FROM N CT AND MASS PIKE REGION NORTHWARD ALONG I495 BELT IS WHERE CONFIDENCE IS LOWEST IN PTYPE. WILL PROBABLY SEE A PERIOD OF SNOW THEN MIXED RAIN/SNOW AS BOUNDARY LAYER WARMS.

PRECIP CONTINUES INTO WED…BUT SHOULD BEGIN TO TAPER OFF FROM SOUTH TO NORTH DURING AFTERNOON/EVENING AS DRY SLOT MOVES IN WITH APPROACH OF SFC LOW. HIGHEST PROBABILITY FOR GREATER THAN 6″ WITH LOCALLY UP TO A FOOT WILL BE OVER NW HIGHER TERRAIN…WITH ADVSY SNOWFALL POSSIBLE IN INTERIOR NW OF I95. FOR THE COASTAL PLAIN…THINKING RIGHT NOW IS LITTLE ACCUM EXPECTED.

THEN THERE IS THE SECOND COASTAL STORM WHICH DEVELOPS IN RESPONSE TO VORTEX MOVING EWD FROM OHIO VALLEY AND OFF THE MID ATLC COAST THU INTO FRI. AGAIN THERE IS CONSIDERABLE UNCERTAINTY ON THE EVOLUTION OF THIS STORM AS THE INTERACTION OF SEVERAL SHORTWAVES WILL ULTIMATELY DETERMINE THE POSITION OF THE VORTEX AND EVENTUAL DEVELOPMENT/TRACK OF COASTAL STORM. STILL WAY TOO EARLY TO EVEN ATTEMPT TO PIN ANYTHING DOWN SO WE JUST HAVE CHC POPS FOR NOW.

UNSETTLED WEATHER COULD LINGER INTO SAT WITH SOME IMPROVEMENT POSSIBLE BY NEXT SUNDAY.

&&

.AVIATION /04Z MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY/…
OVERNIGHT…HIGH CONFIDENCE VFR.

MONDAY…HIGH CONFIDENCE VFR.

MONDAY NIGHT…VFR CEILINGS EXCEPT LOW TO MODERATE CONFIDENCE MVFR/IFR CEILINGS AND VSBYS IN DEVELOPING -SN KBAF-KBDL-WST BY 09Z.

OUTLOOK…TUESDAY THROUGH FRIDAY…

TUE-WED…HIGH CONFIDENCE OF MVFR CIGS/VSBYS IN MIXED RAIN/SNOW WITH PERIODS OF IFR POSSIBLE. GUSTY EASTERLY WINDS ALONG THE COAST.

THU-FRI…CONDITIONS DEPEND ON DEVELOPMENT/TRACK OF SECOND COASTAL STORM. THERE COULD BE MORE MVFR/IFR CONDITIONS AND GUSTY WINDS BUT CONFIDENCE IS VERY LOW.

&&

.MARINE…
OVERNIGHT…SMALL CRAFT ADVISORIES REMAIN IN EFFECT FOR THE OFFSHORE WATERS AS OF 10 PM…STILL HAD GUSTS TO 29 KTS AT BUOY 44018 AND TO 27 KTS AT 44013. ALSO SEAS WILL AVERAGE 4 TO 6 FEET OVERNIGHT.

MONDAY…A SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY WILL MAY NEED TO BE EXTENDED UNTIL AROUND NOON FOR LEFTOVER HAZARDOUS SEAS ACROSS THE OUTER COASTAL WATERS.

MONDAY NIGHT…A SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY MAY BE NECESSARY APPROACHING DAYBREAK TUESDAY ACROSS THE SOUTHWESTERN WATERS AS LOW PRESSURE DEVELOPS OFF THE NORTH CAROLINA COAST.

OUTLOOK…TUESDAY THROUGH FRIDAY…

TUE-WED…INCREASING E-NE WINDS WITH PROLONGED PERIOD OF GUSTS TO 30 KT EXPECTED. LOWER PROB OF GALE FORCE GUSTS DEPENDING ON TRACK/DEVLOPMENT OF THE FIRST COASTAL STORM. ECMWF WOULD BRING STRONG GALES TUE NIGHT INTO WED FOR EASTERN WATERS BUT GFS IS WEAKER. SEAS LIKELY BUILDING TO OVER 10 FEET OVER OUTER WATERS BY WED…POTENTIALLY STRONGER IF ECMWF SOLUTION VERIFIES.

THU-FRI…WINDS/SEAS WILL DEPEND ON DEVELOPMENT/TRACK OF POSSIBLE SECOND COASTAL STORM. THERE IS CONSIDERABLE MODEL SPREAD WHICH RESULTS IN VERY LOW CONFIDENCE ON WIND SPEED AND DIRECTION.

&&

.TIDES/COASTAL FLOODING…
COASTAL FLOOD TREAT IS LOW THROUGH TUE DUE TO LOW ASTRO TIDES AND SEAS NOT HAVING BUILT UP ENOUGH BY THEN. COASTAL FLOOD POTENTIAL INCREASES FOR THE WED MORNING HIGH TIDE. STORM SURGE OF 2 FEET COMBINED WITH 10-15 FT SEAS OFFSHORE COULD YIELD WORST CASE SCENARIO OF MINOR FLOODING.

HOWEVER…BEACH EROSION MAY BECOME A PROBLEM ON EAST FACING BEACHES DUE TO PERSISTENT EASTERLY FLOW OVER MULTIPLE HIGH TIDE CYCLES.

NEXT STORM AFFECTING REGION TOWARD END OF WEEK ALSO BEARS WATCHING AS ASTRO TIDES ARE HIGHER.

&&

.BOX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES…
CT…NONE.
MA…NONE.
NH…NONE.
RI…NONE.
MARINE…SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY UNTIL 6 AM EST MONDAY FOR ANZ250-254>256.

&&

$$
SYNOPSIS…KJC/STRAUSS/GAF
NEAR TERM…GAF
SHORT TERM…STRAUSS
LONG TERM…KJC
AVIATION…KJC/STRAUSS
MARINE…KJC/STRAUSS
TIDES/COASTAL FLOODING…KJC

Just when you thought CRT monitors were dead….

LG’s new retro TV. Includes B&W and Sepia modes, rabbit ears, and knobs for adjusting channels.

Christine Smallwood, writing at the Baffler blog, examines the question, “What Does the Internet Look Like?” It’s a long way from the question to the answer, and the journey is well worth it.

After noting that many visions of the Internet rely on images of connectedness, she explores the essentially solitary nature of the Internet search:

We are born alone, we die alone, and we use the Internet alone. You may gather round the screen with friends to watch a video clip (turning the Internet into a television), or hang out while you play music on Pandora (turning the Internet into a radio), or post to your blog, or “comment” on someone else’s blog (turning the Internet into a roundtable, or a bathroom wall, depending). But these are subsidiary Internet uses. The essence of the Internet, the thing it does that nothing else can do, its Internet-ness, is the search. Comedian Dave Chappelle captured this with the skit “If the Internet Were a Real Place,” in which he loitered in a seedy mall like a modern Odysseus, ransacking CD stores, ducking into curtained rooms to indulge various temptations, and running away from spammers. Wandering around the Internet, the thing we are always searching for is the door—the exit ramp off the superhighway, the way home. But it’s hard to find. How do you know when you’re done doing nothing?

Please, read the whole thing.

(h/t to Dr. Hoo for noting that Thomas Frank is one again producing The Baffler in print!)

Buckminster Fuller, in Critical Path (hello, Dr. Hoo!), answers a child’s query, “What is fire?”:

“Fire is the Sun unwinding from the tree’s log. The Earth revolves and the trees revolve as the radiation from the Sun’s flame reaches the revolving planet Earth. By photosynthesis the green buds and leaves of the tree convert that Sun radiation into hydrocarbon molecules, which form into the bio-cells of the green, outer, cambium layer of the tree. The tree is a tetrahedron that makes a cone as it revolves. The tree’s three tetrahedral roots spread out into the ground to anchor the tree and get water. Each year the new, outer-layer, green-tree cone revolves 365 turns, and every year the tree grows its new tender-green, bio-cell cone layer just under the bark and over the accumulating cones of previous years. Each ring of the many rings of the saw-cut log is one year’s Sun-energy impoundment. So the fire is the many-years-of-Sun-flame-winding now unwinding from the tree. When the log fire pop-sparks, it is letting go a very sunny day long ago, and doing so in a hurry.”

The image above is the daily trace of data from the weather station atop the Green Building at MIT (pictured below). The top box shows you the temperature, which dropped from 32°F to 10°F in 24 hours… the second box shows the steadily rising barometric pressure… the third box shows the wind speeds with gusts above 60 MPH and sustained wind speeds well above 40 MPH – the Green Building is about 300 feet tall, so it’s well above any obstructions and hence records higher wind speeds than ground stations.

All of which is to say… Damn it’s cold!