James L Adams—People and Products

Virtual Reallity —Media Flavor of the Month

I trust you had a happy Thanksgiving.  The University (and I) take a thorough vacation being thankful, so I am being a bit sloppy on posts.  But I am back, for better or worse.

Judging from the media, the world is agog with the thought of virtual reality devices and programs being available at a reasonable cost.  VR, as it is sometimes called, is being heralded as the next best thing, the replacement for television, and so on.  Apparently billions of dollars are being spent on developing the hardware by major players in the digital world and which is imminent on the market.  I am definitely not involved, and my only experience with VR is because a few  weekends ago the Sunday New York Times put together a down-loadable sample of how their material could be presented in VR, and included one of Google’s cardboard box viewers with their paper. 

 At this stage of the game, one cannot expect to receive a technologically mature product for free, but we had had a lot of fun playing with it. and it is indeed mind-boggling to be able to turn your head and watch the world swim by.  The image in the sample was not comparable in quality to that presently available on a TV or computer screen, but probably superior to the first TV image I ever saw, and if the decreasing cost and increasing ability to handle data continue, it will continue to improve.

 But I have had the privilege of observing movies  go to color and sophisticated sound and projection equipment and now three-d, TV going to color and larger screens with ever-increasing resolution and accompanying surround sound, opera doing a wonderful job with "hi-def", and everything from theater through vocal performance to classic orchestras taking advantage of technology.  These improvements have definitely made for a more complete experience, but I am not sure how much they have revolutionized the experience, because people seem to adapt to technological innovation, and take it for granted. 

In my opinion, the main factor in entertainment, is the quality of the message being presented.  Three dimensional films have not obsoleted the “old fashioned” film approach, which does not totally surprise me, because I happen to know a few people who have lost sight in one eye, and do not claim a great loss in their enjoyment of life.  My wife and I seem not to desire a TV screen that covers most of a wall.  Neither do we need woofers that cause discernable changes  in the size of our chest cavities.  In fact, we are often drawn to presentation of first class material presented in a more primitive way (old movies?)

 So my question about VR, which obviously requires more complex and therefore expensive camera and viewing equipment, is what is it best to be used for?  Obviously it will be used for games —it will add to the realism of war games if one has to worry about being shot in the back or bombed from straight over head.  But I recently looked again at the New York Times sample news presentation and found the VR to be somewhat distracting to its purpose.   The New York Times story in the sample concerned  children who had been displaced by war, something with which we should be very concerned,  but the wheat fields behind my head, seemed to fill no great need, especially because I kept checking what was there rather than focusing on the children and their problems.

  Theater often has great power because it focuses on a few characters and a set which adds to the story.  I am not aware of a travelogue movie that has used three d.  In fact, travelogues are usually made more interesting by including interesting characters and some sort of plot, on which the viewer can focus.  Even then, I am not sure that they are superior to high quality still  photos. Advertisements in Grocery stores tend to try to focus our attention, not allow us to see the merchandise behind us.

 So I think the future of virtual reality, other than in games and as a novel way to present information (for a while), depends on the ability to generate programs that can accomplish things that can not be done more cheaply, with simpler equipment, and perhaps more effectively due to less distraction by material not germane to the intention of those producing the material.  Good luck to it, but I plan to focus on real reality for a while.  

Edible Automobile Wiring - Homo Sapiens vs. Rodentia

My wife has a 2004 Acura TSX, which she loves greatly.  But maybe due to where we live (lots of greenery), maybe due to where she parks it, maybe due to changes in the environment, we have had a few sessions of rodent damage to the wiring, a couple of them worrisomely expensive.

Rats, mice, and squirrels love to nestle around or in cars, build nests, and chew on automobile wiring.  This has happened as long as I remember, but it used to be possible to see the damage, wrap some electrical tape around the bare copper, and get on with life.  No longer.  Wiring harnesses become increasingly complex as owners demand more and more electronic and electrical gadgets in their cars, so that the damage is often not visible, and can be found only by weird behavior on the part of engines, transmissions, lights, instruments, etc. etc. etc.  And as near as I can tell, wiring harnesses are installed early in the assembly process and are often buried within the body, so often even I, who pride myself on my ability to fix anything that is broken, have to rely upon mechanics who have the proper equipment and detailed knowledge. 

 Our last adventure took place a couple of weeks ago, and cost us a thousand dollars and a good bit of inconvenience.  My wife was parking the car in our carport, and it was not only protected from rain, but when she returned from driving it, the engine compartment was  warm and snug —a rodent’s dream. A new wiring harness was required.  The day after we brought the car home, there was a beautiful new nest and signs of more gnawing.  I was able to tape over the bare copper and destroy the nest, we moved the the car's parking spot (many rodents can remember how to find food spatially as well as by smell), and we sprayed one of the many available “rodent repellants” in the engine compartment and on the exposed wiring.  Most of these don’t work very well, and the next day it happened again.  Upon looking more carefully to see where the soft and clean nest material came from, we found that the source was a mat of uncovered insulation fastened to the front of the fire wall, probably to reduce noise.  What could be more convenient for our invaders?

 So, we went into full war mode, complete with deep research and many traps, poisons, bought and hand made potions, noisemakers, lights, and changing parking locations.  So far we are holding our own against the enemy.

One thing I learned, is that we are certainly not alone, although people seem to be a bit reluctant to talk about this problem.  Maybe they feel kind of stupid, as we did since we had been through it before. A check of the internet by putting something like “rodent damage to car wiring” in one's browser results in an explosion of outrage and advice.  As an example, look at this thread.  The people who are writing to it are probably nice gentle family folk, who have been driven to say things such as “I want these little f***ers to stop chewing the wires in my car. Ideally, this would be because they are dead, with their bleached skulls posted on stakes around the driveway as a warning to the next generation”. The thread shows an interesting contrast between people who love rodents (they are small, cute, and fun to watch —I even got my daughter a pair of white rats as pets when she was small) and have not had their wiring eaten, and those who have.

 Apparently some rodents have teeth that continually grow and they must gnaw to keep them in control.  Also, apparently some car wiring insulation is made of soy, and is very tasty to rats. But although there are many commercial products available, and much advise on what to do to your automobile and cute fuzzy animals that all of a sudden have become “pests”, the problem continues.

 Of course, being a simplistic engineer, I wonder why automobile manufacturers do not make cars with wiring that is repellent to rodents.  It would certainly make for good advertising, and if one manufacturer did so, the others would probably be pressured to follow.  Maybe rodent damage is a boon to the repair part of the automotive business.  And it probably would take a bit of research to figure out what to do, since looking at the ground squirrel population in the local hills, the tree squirrels leaping happily from branch to branch, and the amount of rat and mouse poop that builds up in unused, and especially warm nooks and crannies, the rodent population is wide spread, and in parts of the world, growing.  And probably rodents have been around longer than people and will continue to be here long after we are long gone.

 But I consider the appetizing nature of wiring to be a serious quality flaw in at least some automobiles.  I have always loved Honda (the mother of Acura) products, and in fact my wife’s car is fun to drive and a great success in all other aspects that are important to her.  But we have other vehicles around, and rodents seem to give them less attention, so this may be a factor for us in determining future purchases.  I asked my son who works at Tesla whether they were worrying about this problem, and he assured me that they were.

Flaws in Complex Systems

As systems become more complex, flaws tend to appear.  A few weeks ago, the lining began to peel in our microwave oven, exposing a worrisome expanse of metal.  It was old and we clearly needed a new one, so we ordered one from Amazon, a usually straightforward action.  We promptly received an acknowledgement, saying it would arrive in two weeks, which seemed a surprisingly long time.  In a week or so  we received a message from “Tempus & Co. – Amazon Marketplace”, telling us that our oven had been packed and shipped, and it arrived soon after, and we walked out of our door one morning to find a large box with our new oven.  But strangely, although it was brand new and made by a different manufacturer than our old one, the lining was also peeling off of it.

 The shipping/billing receipt in the plastic envelope on the side of the box showed that it came from Home Depot, with no mention of either Amazon or Tempus & Co., so we called the local Home Depot store customer service people to find out what to do.  They were not sure but told us to bring it into the store and they would refund our money.  But we had paid Amazon, and there was no shipping order for them to get back to either Amazon, or Tempus & Co., nor any of the usual Amazon return literature.  So they started phoning, and could not find any way to connect the faulty oven we had brought them, with the Amazon payment.  Finally, after an hour or more (seemed like three) of phoning (difficult if you have ever  have tried to phone Amazon) and the participation of the store manager, they made some kind of connection, found the original shipping number and figured out how to refund our money.  Apparently the oven had been purchased from another Home Depot store (not specified on the paper work), they guessed by Tempus & Co.,who when I checked on the internet, looked like a toy store, so none of us were sure what “Amazon Marketplace” meant.  I think we all ended up confused, and my wife and I had no fun at all cooling our heels in the Home Depot store and not knowing how and whether we were going to get a refund on a damaged  piece of merchandise.

 We had returned items to Amazon before, and had no trouble.  But I got the distinct feeling from this interaction and some of the comments made by the Home Depot store people that Amazon's operation has become so large and complicated that it is perhaps picking up more problems associated with size and complexity.

 As an interesting similar experience, our washing machine failed at about the same time, so we bought a replacement at Best Buy, a store at which we had always had good experiences.  The one we bought was discounted, since it was not in the box and had a couple small dents in the side, but otherwise appeared brand new.  Best Buy contracts out the delivery of their large appliances, and not only does one have to wait several days for this to happen, but the delivery people have the policy of calling the evening before the delivery and giving a four hour window when they will appear the next day, and someone over 18  years of age must be at the delivery point to receive the merchandise — kind of inconvenient for a younger working couple.  But we are retired, so were there to meet the delivery, but the back of the washer had been brutally smashed in.  The truckers explained that this happens occasionally in the warehouse, and that if they were us, they would not accept the washer.  Not a hard decision for us to make.

 So back we went to the store and bought a new one, went through the ritual again, and are happy with our new washer.  But we spent a great amount of time waiting for the delivery day, the truck to appear (twice) and driving to the store and back (tough to buy and exchange washing machines over the phone or from the information on the internet).  The people in the Big Buy store apologized for delivering the smashed-up one, and not only returned our money but gave us a discount on the new one, so we still like them, but it seemed to me that they should have a bit closer control on their warehouse and delivery schedule.  Are large chains, now that they are selling over the internet as well as from stores, suffering from operating with too few humans, forgetting that humans and computer systems are fallible, and tending to lose a bit of control over contracted and non-computer aspects of their business such as warehousing and delivery?  Not surprising if it is happening.  The more parts there are to fail, the more likely there will be failures.

Bye Bye Tank

I recently sold a small British army tank I have had for some time.  To be formal, it was a British armored reconnaissance vehicle—CVR(T)— Scorpion.  It was classified as a light tank, built in the 1970’s, and at that time it held the speed record for the fastest production tank in the world (51.10 mph).  Photograph at left.

 I acquired this tank perhaps because I had never  owned one, and always thought it would be fun to drive one around, and because this one is light (9 tons – made of aluminum to be air-freighted), small (17 ft.long. 7 ft. wide, 7 ft. high) easy to work on, and equipped with all the bells and whistles available at the time  periscopes, lights, tools, antennas, lots of electronics, equipment boxes all over the place, and even a boiling vessel for making tea (British).  It is also fun to drive, being equipped with a Jaguar engine (I do know Jaguar engines), a centrifugal clutch, and a motorcycle-like foot gear shift.  And lest you worry, it was part of a collection and legally de- militarized (the cannon is not operable, the machine gun had obviously been removed – this is California).

 I also was probably influenced  to buy it because at the time I was on the board of the foundation that owned this collection, the largest private collection in the world of beautifully restored military tracked vehicles, which belonged to a man named Jacques Littlefield, one of my all-time favorite students.  The collection was a magnet for tours, kids, my students  (I taught a course on the historical relationship between technology and war), ex-tank crew people, and generally people who were interested in machinery and military history , and I finally could no longer fight the urge to own one. The collection, incidentally has joined the Collings Foundation headquartered in Stow, Massachussetts, which has an outstanding collection of vintage automobiles and aircraft.

 Other favorable factors were that Jacques  sold it to me for an excellent price, his people were a source of knowledge and extra parts, and my kids and grand kids thought that it was wondrous..  The only slight downside was that my good wife considered that it was symbolic of violence, and should not be in our yard, and might not even be welcome on the Stanford Campus.  So I located it  at my friend's farm up in the Sacramento valley, comfortably covered by a barn and surrounded by lots of dirt roads and open fields.

 But many years passed, my kids were no longer fascinated by it, I was not going to my friend’s farm as often and beginning to worry about it not being looked after, and then the major factor— I could barely get into it and move around any more.  So one of my friends (who took on the responsibility for finding a home for the big collection after Jacques died a few years ago), found a person who was looking for a tank like mine, and who would obviously give it an excellent  new home, so I sold it to him.

  The photo on the right shows it being packed ready to  go.  In a sense, I am glad I sold it, because I wasn’t really using it and don’t have to worry about it any more.  But it is the only one of my hobby machines I have sold—and it was the only tank I owned.  Maybe a little seller’s remorse.

 My wife is not unhappy at all.