Photons and Electrons

One Year Anniversary of "Three Perfect Days With Slim"

2012-02-03T01:30:00.000-05:00

Today, February 3rd is the one year anniversary of me and Slim picking up my new 2011 Corvette Grand Sport and driving it back to VA. It was such great memories, then I thought is worth reposting. Would I do it again? Absolutely! Would I be worried as hell about the Goodyear F1 Second Generation Supercar tires? Yes.   At the time we picked up the new Grand Sport last February, I had no idea just how much of a hot weather, dry only ONLY tire or Max Summer as they like to say, those tires really are.   I am looking forward to putting the Michelin Pilot Sport 2 (PS2) tires on the Grand Sport. At $500+ a tire, I am not in a REAL hurry though :-)

My father, who I nicknamed Slim in 1976, and I took the perfect three day mini vacation together this past week. First, why I call my father Slim. The nickname Slim came about because I was working for Fairfax County Park Authority (FCPA) my senior year in high school.   During that time period the generic term in the gym was not "hey buddy", but "Slim" when you wanted to talk to someone you did not know. Everyone called everyone Slim in the gym.    I started calling my father Slim and it stuck :-)

Last fall my perfect wife, Julie, says to me, "Dave it has been ten years since you got your Corvette, isn't it time for a new Corvette?" That is just one reason why she is perfect. As luck would have it I was taking my 1998 Corvette into Tony's Corvette Shop for some minor work the next day, so I told Tony what Julie told me.   Tony then said, "you know Dave, Julie is right." Tony then goes on to say that it is starting to get harder and more expensive to get parts for my 1998 Corvette.   GM only has to carry parts for ten years.   He then told that as someone who drives the hell out of their Corvette, that I should think about a newer one. He then told me about the other costs of parts rising on the C5s (1997-2004). The EBCM Electronic Brake Control Module was no longer being made by GM for the C5s and he had to have them rebuilt - not a cheap proposition. Something to think about...

After a week or so thinking about it, I decide Julie and Tony are right. I start looking around for a used Grand Sport.   After a couple of months of scouring the US for the exact one, I decided I was going to order a brand new Corvette, take the museum delivery and bring my father along if his health was up to it. The museum delivery is a $495 option known as R8C. Corvette owners refer a lot to the order codes. Everyone who I talked to said it was well worth it and a once in a lifetime experience. I decided to first go to Pohanka Chevrolet because that is where my buddy John Meyer purchased his new Corvette and had a great experience there.   I went in the day after Thanksgiving with a printout of
the best internet price I could find on a similar model of Grand Sport I wanted. The salesman David Coggin went and ran the numbers and they beat it by $3,000. I just looked at the numbers and said let's do it.   The schedule I was told would be early to mid March for the actual pickup. That was a good schedule because my father's chemo would be finishing up by then and it the weather should be less of a factor between here and Bowling Green, Kentucky where they have the GM Assembly Plant for Corvette and the National Corvette Museum (NCM). First, I was going to get one way flights to Nashville, then drive in from there. With my father's health, sitting in a germ filled airport and germ filled plane did not seem like a good idea. I decided for a one way rental to Nashville airport and then the NCM had a special one-way rental to the NCM from Enterprise.

The driving factor on why and how I decided to time this new purchase of a brand new Corvette Grand Sport was the one year anniversary of my separation package from Sun/Oracle. HUGE thanks Scott McNealy, Bill Joy, Andy Bechtolsheim and Vinod Khosla for having the foresight to have a change in control package for Directors and VPs!     Besides buying a new large screen Sony, I did not spend any of that large check.   So, I decided that part of that check would be used to purchase new Corvette Grand Sport with the museum delivery option. I timed it almost to the exact day of Sun being purchased by Oracle.

The National Corvette Museum is located in Bowling Green, Kentucky.   The plan was that my father and I would be getting a personal factory tour of the Corvette plant, a personal tour of the National Corvette Museum and a personal Corvette Grand Sport overview. That was the plan.

As luck would have it, I got a call that my Grand Sport would be ready to be picked up on February 3rd. This was great providing my father's health (finished four rounds of chemo for his CLL and is getting treatments currently to get the good white blood cells back up where they should be) was up to it and the weather was not an issue. Driving a new Corvette back through the mountains of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia is not anyone's idea of fun.   We obviously had to play it by ear.   The week before, my father told me that he felt he would be fine. Great!   However, the weather was looking to be a real disaster.   It was literally looking like the perfect winter storm.   There was a huge arctic cold front coming deep into the south that would meet with a gulf front to create the mother of all winter storms.     I was monitoring the weather and thought I saw a window on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday early where we could get out in an SUV and deal with any light snow that might hit. The weather was just north of us on Tuesday and Wednesday.   Returning, it looked like Thursday would provide a window if we drove the 750 miles back in one day.   I called the NCM and they said I should reschedule. I said I would make a game time decision at 2pm on February 1st.   Slim and I looked at the weather forecast and thought there would be a small window we could hit - if we were really, really lucky....

Above was the first day of driving from 2pm on. We put in almost 400 hundred miles that included a nice long dinner with my two oldest sons. I knew my father was looking forward to spending all of this quality son/father bonding time when the first thing he does is pull out his audiobook

We had dinner with John and Michael at Sal's in Blacksburg before continuing on to Bristol to spend the night.

It was about 750 miles door to door.

Pulling into the National Corvette Museum with our one-way rental from Enterprise. It was actually 11:48 Central time.

Above is one of the photoshop pictures you can buy when you go through the tour.

These were just two of the many welcome screens they had with our names on them.

The sign in front of my new Grand Sport Corvette.

My new Grand Sport in front of the NCM Delivery Offices. They can do about 8 deliveries a day. Mine was the only that day with weather and the slow sales for Corvette right now. Normally 35,000 Corvettes are sold a year and it is down to 12,000 in the current economy.

Below is from the 2011 Corvette brochure on the Grand Sport:

The best combination of all-out performance and efficiency . Grand Sport coupe beat

every other production car with the exception of the Corvette ZR1 (very limited availability)

and a special $460,000 Lamborghini Murcielago in the 2010 edition of the Car and Driver

Lightning Lap at Virginia International Raceway. It lapped the circuit with a time of 2:58.8,

faster than the Audi R8 V10 and the Porsche 911 Carrera S. On the test track, Grand Sport

coupe delivers 1g of lateral acceleration and goes from 0 to 60 mph in less than four

seconds. Yet it does all this with an EPA estimated 26 MPG highway 1 and without a gas-guzzler tax. That’s what engineers call bandwidth.

What makes a Grand Sport? Start with a wider track, wider tires as well as wider fenders and

quarters. Add a high rear spoiler and special five-spoke Grand Sport wheels. Under the skin

add aggressive dampers and springs, large stabilizer bars, performance gear ratios, additional cooling, and six-piston front and four-piston rear brake calipers engaging cross-drilled rotors.

Slim in front of my Grand Sport at the NCM Delivery area.

Me sitting in the Grand Sport for the first time and getting ready to get an overview on the car's features from Ron. I watched the C6 Owners Video three times to get ready for the trip. There is o substitute for hands-on learning. The NCM has cameras so we sent text messages for family and fellow Corvette owners so they could watch on the NCM cameras.

Back view of the Grand Sport that looks down the hall of the National Corvette Museum.

We had the world's best NCM Tour Guide in Ron Barton. Ron worked for GM making Corvettes 35 years before he started working at NCM ten years ago. Here you can see that Ron is answering one of my countless questions that I had. I thought I knew a lot about Corvettes until I talked with Ron. He spent five hours with us the first day at the museum and the four days the second at the factory tour. My father and I took countless photos. Slim took the best photos. His new camera worked great.

Above is Wendell Strode, the Executive Director of the National Corvette Museum standing with my father. Both served in the Vietnam War with Wendell being awarded a Purple Heart.

I can not recommend the Museum Delivery Option highly enough. It is the best investment you will ever make for your new Corvette!

Wendell, Gary Cockriel, Lori Bieschke and Ron Barton were absolutely fantastic. They made us feel at home and very welcome. It was fantastic!

This is me in front of a 1963 Z06 serial number 1. This was part of the special back stage tour that you get as part of the NCM Delivery Option for a new Corvette.

Above is Slim lifting an all aluminum Z06 frame at the NCM.

Above is just one example of the exhibits in the NCM.

Above is a 74 Stingray that has 1,350 hp.

The Road to Remorses, The Road to Divorces - Our Fiberglass Boulevardier

Car and Driver Magazine editors drive 968 miles along one of the far north's God-awfulest highways, almost to the Artic Ocean-in a Corvette.

Above is the only 1983 Corvette left on planet earth. Chevy made 55 1983 Corvettes. The quality was terrible. Chevy decided to squash the 1983 year and go right to 1984. There were no 1983 Corvettes ever sold. They ordered all 55 to be crushed. Someone pulled one out and hid it. That one is the white one above that sits at the NCM. Great trivia question for your Corvette buddies.

This another of the paid for photoshop photos you can get.

Me and Slim after the five hour NCM tour and the detailed Grand Sport features demonstration on Wednesday night. After that photo, we left my Grand Sport at the museum and had a nice dinner in Bowling Green. When we drove the Grand Sport out of the museum for the final time all the museum employees were there clapping in a long line which was pretty cool.

Above is the brick that will be forever placed inside the National Corvette Museum to mark that day Slim and I picked up my new 2011 Grand Sport Corvette.

Above is me in front of the GM Corvette Assembly Plant Tour Entrance. It was pretty cool having your name up in big letters on the entrance. The tour is fantastic. Three hours watching new Corvettes start off on a 7 mile journey through the 1.5 million square foot plant. The only car they make here are Corvettes. We saw everything with our VIP Museum Delivery Tour by Ron. Having someone like Ron who had worked at Corvette Assembly Plants for 35 years was fantastic. I was also given the opportunity to "birth a new Corvette" by being the first person to start one up after it was completely assembled and ready for final testing. They also showed us a Carbon Edition Z06 that was extremely cool. No pictures are allowed inside of course.

Our NCM Tour Guide Ron Barton giving me the FOB for the new Grand Sport before we drove the 750 miles back home to beat the snow coming up behind us as we head through the mountains of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia.

On of the things included with the purchase (if you took delivery in January through mid February) was two full days at either the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving or the Spring Mountain Advanced Driving School.

Failure was not an option. Slim and I took turns driving the Grand Sport. We used OnStar to get weather and traffic reports on the way back as well as messing with the Navigation system and XM. After dinner, I asked my father if he heard any news on Egypt and the protests going on there. He responded, "How the HELL would I know, we have been listening to 70s on 7 XM Satellite Radio for the past 486 miles!" My plan for father and son bonding had worked! :-)

The weather was not a factor for us but a nightmare for others. The picture above of the US and Canada gives you some idea. Chicago had two feet of snow and 50mph winds. Chicago Schools were closed for the 2nd time in 12 years. Dallas had one inch of ice. The south and midwest were nightmares. Ice storms and massive snows everyplace. The road between St. Lois and Kansas City (rt. 70) was closed for the first time EVER. New York City Schools were closed for the first time in 30 years. We REALLY had to find the right window and the right path to drive both there and back. Going there I had an SUV. Coming back we were in a Corvette - not exactly known for its winter driving :-) Check out these amazing photos of the winter storm of 2011 here.

We made great time heading back and got very lucky. I dropped my father off at about 11:15 pm and then got home around midnight. Julie and Tim got up to check it out. It was good to be home and not have to worry about any weather issues.

Back at home with the snow still on the ground. I now have the "Steve Ferry Problem", which is "Which Corvette Do I Want To Take Today?" :-)

With my two Corvettes and my wife's Mini Cooper S, we have over 1,000hp of sports cars in our garage.

I stated it earlier, and I can not recommend the Museum Delivery Option highly enough. It is the best investment you will ever make for your new Corvette!

With the weather, my father's health, it could have been a real disaster, but instead it turned out to be like one of the MasterCard commercials:

Price of new Corvette Grand Sport after discounts - $55,000
Price of three days of rental cars, hotels, meals, and Corvette souvenirs - $1,500
Spending three days with my father who is beating cancer - PRICELESS

That is why I called this blog entry: Three Perfect Days With Slim.

My First Car a 1970 Firebird Formula 400 Commercial

2012-02-02T20:09:00.002-05:00

I found this commercial on YouTube. This is the commercial for my first car a 1970 Firebird Formula 400. Since my car was highly modified it came with 363HP and was well north of 450hp when I got it. My blue 1970 Formula 400 had an Iskendarian (Isky) cam, HUGE Holly four barrel carb, Hedman headers, traction bars, quadrophonic 8-track and every option you could think of.

Its' mpg was also well south of 8mpg as my father explained to me in a classic story. He asked me, "Dave, how many hours do you have to work to pay for your gas for your Formula 400?" He might as well have asked me the difference between Einsteins' special and general relativity - because I did not know that either. When he showed me the math on 7mpg highway, I came to the conclusion a 1972 240Z might be a better bang for the buck...

The Muppets Attack Fox News

2012-01-31T08:06:00.003-05:00

This is brilliant....

NYC's Academy for Software Engineering

2012-01-31T01:00:00.000-05:00

SD Times has a very interesting article on what NYC is doing with an Academy for Software Engineering:

"Beginning in the 2012-2013 school year, the Department of Education will accept 100 students into the new Academy for Software Engineering, opening on the campus of Washington Irving High School in Manhattan’s Union Square."

This will be very interesting to follow.

MTConnect at AMT's Manufacturing Technology Forum

2012-01-30T01:30:00.000-05:00

AMT Manufacturing Technology Forum

Below is the announcement for this great event:

Mr. Dave Edstrom, President and Chairman of the of the MTConnectInstitute will be providing a presentation at the AMT ManufacturingTechnology Forum to be held March 7-8, 2012, in Orlando,Florida. This forum brings together manufactures to discussnew and innovative trends and technologies in manufacturing.

The Forum is held every other year and this year the theme is"Exploring the Forefront of Industry Innovations". Thekeynote for the event is Dr. Don A. Kinard. He is a SeniorTechnical Fellow for Lockheed Martin and Deputy Director for theF-35 Fighter Production System. His presentation is entitled"Innovative Technologies,Manufacturing and How the F-35 is Made". If you areinterested in reviewing the full agenda:

2012 Washington DC Auto Show With Slim

2012-01-29T14:39:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, I went with my father to attend the 2012 Washington DC Auto Show. Below is my father with the 100 Year Anniversary edition of the 638hp ZR1

Above is me in front of a Lamborghini Aventador. A 700hp rocket, 217mph 0-62mph in 2.9 seconds.

Above is the Ford Boss Mustang

F1 is above.

1962 Fiat

The Fiat 500 Abarth (above) has been getting lots of press.

Audio R8 Spyder

Above is my father with the founder of Freedom Behind The Wheel which is a great organization that is helping wounded warriors drive with hands only controls. This is from their homepage: "Freedom Behind the Wheel is a nonprofit organization developing a unique program to provide wounded soldiers the experience of participating in precision driving activities. In a controlled environment with the support of professional drivers, our goal is to present an opportunity allowing them to regain their freedom behind the wheel. Our approach will offer personal resourcefulness to respect and honor those that have sacrificed so much for our Country."

Shelby GT 350 above

Lotus Evora above

The Super Bee is back :-) Below is a modified Mustang Shelby

Two Year Anniversary of Scott McNealy's Goodbye email

2012-01-26T10:10:00.004-05:00

Two years have gone by and in some ways it seems like an eternity and other ways it seems like it was yesterday....

Subject: Thanks for a great 28 years
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2010
From: Scott McNealy
To: all@Sun.com

Gang,

When I interviewed many of you for employment at Sun over the years, one commitment often made was that things will change above, below, and around you faster than any place you have ever been. Looks like this was one area we exceeded plan for 28 years. While it was never the primary vision to be acquired by Oracle, it was always an interesting option. And this huge event is upon us now. Let's all embrace it with all of the enthusiasm and class and talent that we have to offer.

This combination has the potential to put Sun, its people, and its technology at the center of yet another industry and game-changing inflection point. The opportunity is well-documented and articulated by Larry and the Oracle folks. Not much I can add on this score. This is a very powerful merger. And way better than some of the alternatives we were facing.

So what do I say to all of you, now this is happening?
It turns out that one simple message to the large and diverse Sun community is actually quite hard to craft. Even for a big mouth who is always ready with a clever quip. The community includes our resellers and customers, our current and former employees, their friends and families who supported our employees on their mission to change the industry, our investors, our supply and service partners, students and educators, and even our competitors with whom we often collaborated.
But let me try. Though nothing I could write comes close to matching the unbelievably strong and positive emotions I have for you all. See, I never was able to master dispassion. I truly loved starting, running, and living Sun. And the last four years have not been without serious withdrawal. And the EU approval rocked me more than it should have.
So, to be honest, this is not a note this founder wants to write. Sun, in my mind, should have been the great and surviving consolidator. But I love the market economy and capitalism more than I love my company.
And I sure "hope" America regains its love affair with capitalism. And except for the auto industry, financial industry, health care, and some other places (I digress), the invisible hand is doing its thing quite efficiently. So I am more than willing to accept this outcome.
And my hat is off to one of the greatest capitalists I have ever met, Larry Ellison. He will do well with the assets that Sun brings to Oracle.
What we did right and wrong at Sun over the years might make for interesting reading. However, I am not a book writer. I am a husband, father of four, and a builder and leader of people who want to make a difference.

But spare me a bit of nostalgia. Not of the mistakes we made, and lord knows I made a ton. But of the things we did right and well.
First and foremost, Sun innovated like crazy. We took it to the limit (see Eagles). And though we did not monetize our inventions as well as we could have, few companies have the track record in R&D that we had over the last 28 years. This made working at Sun really cool. Thanks to all of you inventors and risk takers who changed how we live.

Sun cared about its customers. Even more than we cared about our own company at times. We looked at our customer's mission as more important than ours. Maybe we should have asked for more revenue in return, but our employees were always ready to help first. I love this about Sun, which I guess makes me a good capitalist, if not a great capitalist.

Sun did not cheat, lie, or break the rule of law or decency. While we enjoyed breaking the rules of conventional wisdom and archaic business practice, and for sure loved to win in the market, we did so with a solid reputation for integrity. Nearly three decades of competing without a notable incident of our folks going off course morally or legally. Not all executives and big companies are bad. Really. There are good companies out there. Special thanks to all of my employees for this. I never had to hide the newspaper in shame from my children.
Sun was a financial success. We paid billions in taxes, salaries, purchases, leases, training, and even lawyers and accountants for devastatingly cumbersome SOX and legal compliance (oops, more classic digression). Long-term and smart investors made billions in SUNW. And our customers generated revenue and savings using our equipment in countless ways. Many employees started families, bought homes, and put them through school while working at Sun. Our revenues over 28 years exceeded $200B. Few companies make it to the F200. We did. Nice.

Sun employees had way more fun than any other company. By far. From our dress code ("You must!") to beer busts to our April Fools' pranks to SunRise to our quiet enjoyment at night of a long, hard, well-done day of work, no company enjoyed "work" more than Sun. Thanks to all of our employees past and present for making Sun such a blast.

I could go on for a long time reminiscing about the good and great stuff we did at Sun, but just allow me one last one. We shared. Not the greatest attribute for a capitalist. But one I could not change and was not willing to change about Sun while I was in charge. We shared in the success of Sun with our resellers. With our employees through stock options, SunShare, beer busts, and the like (for as long as Congress would allow) and through our efforts to keep as many of them on board for as long as possible during the inevitable down cycles. With our partners through the Java Community Process, through our open-source collaborations, and licensing strategies. With our customers through our commitments to low barriers to exit. Sun was never just about us. It was about we. And that may be a bit of the reason we are where we are today.

But I have few regrets (see Sinatra's "My Way") and will always look back at Sun and its gang with only pride. Enormous pride. You are the best this industry ever had, though few outside of Sun recognized it.
And what we are about will live on in Sparc, Solaris, Java, our products, and our spirit. Well past everyone's recollections of what we did together. I will never forget, though.

Oracle is getting a crown jewel of the technology industry. They will do great things with Sun. Do your best to support them, and keep the Sun spirit alive and well in the industry. Our children will be better for it.
Thanks for the off-the-charts support to everyone who ever carried a Sun badge, used our products, or helped our company through the years.

And thanks to my wonderful wife, Susan, who gave this desperado (see Eagles) a chance to choose the Queen of Hearts before it was too late.
Someday, hopefully, you will all get to see or meet her and my other life's works named Maverick, Dakota, Colt, and Scout. If you do, perhaps you will understand why I stepped back from the CEO role four years ago. And why I feel like the luckiest guy in the whole world.

My best to all of you, and remember:
Kick butt and have fun!

Scott

Making 3D Custom, Solid Robots Video

2012-01-24T11:05:00.000-05:00

Steve Fritzinger sent this to me. It is very cool video from My Robot Nation showing all the steps of additive technology in creating small, solid custom robots using 3D printers using Z Corporations (recently acquired by 3D Systems):

President Obama Is Right on SOPA & PIPA

2012-01-18T09:40:00.001-05:00

The White House issued a statement this past weekend stating "we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global internet". President Obama is right and congress is wrong on this.

SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) are examples of Congress and the Senate trying to do the right thing but not understanding either the law of unintended consequences or the fundamentals of technology.

SOPA and PIPA is analogous to is having a surgeon show up for brain surgery with a chainsaw instead of a scalpel. The bottom line is that one small infraction of copyright violation would be enough to block out the entire domain (all of the nodes at a given site).

Below is Google's and Wikipedia's homepage today. Go here to SPEAK up to your representative at Google's End Piracy, Not Liberty page.

Top 12 Resolutions IMTS 2012 Can Help You Keep

2012-01-18T09:25:00.004-05:00

Below is the link to a video that has the:

Top 12 Resolutions IMTS (International Manufacturing Show) 2012 Can Help You Keep

Citizens For A Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow

2012-01-15T12:00:00.000-05:00

Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart are the most brilliant satirists of our time. This video below clearly demonstrates just how much the Citizens United Supreme Court Ruling will change politics for the worse with Super PACs.

It is interesting to read the disclaimer at the bottom of Citizens For A Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow Super PAC site. I highlighted the unlimited contribution aspect of this.

"Contributions to Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow ("ABTT") are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes. ABTT may accept unlimited corporate contributions, unlimited individual contributions, unlimited labor-union contributions, and unlimited PAC contributions. Contributions from foreign nationals and federal-government contractors will not be accepted. *Federal law requires ABTT's best efforts to obtain and report the name, address, occupation, and employer of any individual who contributes more than $200 in a calendar year."

I do look forward to what Citizens For A Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow Super PAC also known as The Definitely Not Coordinating With Stephen Colbert Super PAC will be coming up with as we get closer to the election :-) You can donate to Stephen's cause here:

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Gardner Publications Announces Additive Manufacturing Publication

2012-01-14T01:00:00.000-05:00

Our good friends at Gardner Publications, recently announced their new Additive Manufacturing publication. This is very cool!

I was at a Sun Microsystems reunion a few weeks ago ( I worked there for 23 years) and the most popular question I got was, "Dave, is this stuff I am seeing on 3D printing and additive REAL?" There is so much excitement out there right now around additive it is just amazing. The open source aspect of additive is particularly exciting and reminds me of the early computer industry when PCs started to take off. Additive will open up manufacturing to the masses.

It is great news that the industry thought leaders at Gardner Publications are doing this. I know it will be absolutely first class!

The Mythical Man-Month Revisited

2012-01-13T07:49:00.000-05:00

The Mythical Man-Month

Jan 11, 2012
By Dave Edstrom
NOTE: This is an article I wrote for the January 2012 IMTS Insider.

In all industries there are seminal books that are in the must-read category as someone is learning their trade. In manufacturing, one of these must-read books is The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldblatt and Jeff Cox.

In the computer industry, there are numerous must-read books and certainly Frederick P. Brooks The Mythical Man-Month, written in 1975, is in that category.

Personally, I prefer the updated version of Brooks’ book as it sheds more light on the topics and he updates his thoughts toward the end of the updated version. My favorite computer book that deals with the challenges of getting a product out the door is the Pulitzer Prize winning book by Tracy Kidder called The Soul of a New Machine.

The lessons from Brooks’ The Mythical Man-Month can also be applied to manufacturing. This is especially true as software becomes more important in manufacturing each and every day. I’d like to discuss “Brooks’ Law,” which is the focus of his book, but the point he brings out is implicit in the other two books as well.

When management makes the decision to throw more people at a software project that is running late, they do so under the firm belief that adding more people is the right and obvious decision to make at that point. The problem is that it is usually the wrong decision. “Brooks’ Law” states “adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.” At first glance, this may seem counterintuitive. The reasons Brooks’ Law is usually right are multiple. I use the term “usually” here because there are exceptions to Brooks' Law. The reasons Brooks’ Law usually holds up are when you bring new software developers onto a project, there are a number of tasks that simply must be done. These include:

Bringing new developers up to speed on the project. This typically involves current software developers and project leads investing time with these new developers.
There might be training for the new developers because the software tools or practices the project is utilizing are different than what they have previously worked on.
The remaining work must be prioritized so the experienced developers are taking on the most difficult parts of the project.
There is also dividing the work among the existing and new software developers — often a daunting task.
This partitioning of work can be extremely difficult if the initial architecture was not cleanly laid out separating out interfaces from implementations.

What I mean by an “interface” is how one communicates with a piece of software. This is typically at a high level. For example, let’s say I want to verify that when a prototype part is being created on a specific machine tool, it is being created by one of our very best machinists. I also want to make sure that these machinists are using a cutting tool that meets certain quality requirements my company has determined will be used by for all prototype parts. What is the software interface that I program my client application to in order to make this happen? Side note - this is where an open and royalty-free protocol such as MTConnect^® provides simple interfaces to get information.

The “implementation” is the low-level set of specifics on what happens when that above request is serviced.

Here’s another way to think about the interface and implementation definition in layman’s terms. The interface for me to get the yard mowed on a Saturday is to yell at one of my three sons, “Get the yard mowed tonight before it gets dark.” If I do not hear anything from them in 14.896 femtoseconds, I then yell, “Are we clear?” If I hear a positive response, then I consider the task done.

The implementation is my son going out to the shed, checking gas in the John Deere tractor and the Honda push mower, then deciding whether they want to mow the front or back yard first and finally getting the yard mowed. I don’t care HOW they mow the yard; just get the yard mowed before it gets dark. If time was tight, I could ask John to mow the back, Michael to mow the front and have Tim trim. However, if I needed my ½ acre mowed in less than three minutes, the partitioning and coordination to make this happen would be an interesting exercise. This partitioning can be easy to do when it comes to a simple task such as mowing the yard when you can simply yell at one of your sons to get it done, but it is very hard for a software project that could require hundreds of thousands of lines (or more) of code to be written.

It also can be a challenge integrating the new software developers into the existing communication framework.

Brooks also states in his book, “the man-month as a unit for measuring the size of a job is a dangerous and deceptive myth – it implies that men and months are interchangeable.” It is well known that your gifted software developers can literally be 10x as productive as other software developers. This makes the dividing up of work even trickier.

A humorous statement that Brooks would make to drive home this point is, “The bearing of a child takes 9 months, no matter how many women are assigned.” This does drive home the point that some things just take time to make and software is certainly in that category.

Have things changed since 1975 with software development? Absolutely. It used to be that everyone thought software should be developed like a boat going down a gentle waterfall. In other words, one went from planning to coding to component test to system test and finally to deployment in a nice logical fashion. Today all the realists know that software development needs to be agile, lean, a clear partitioning of tasks and most importantly, interactive with the end customers. The type of computer languages have also changed a great deal, enabling more partitioning of tasks. When you think about the time frame of 1975 and computing, it is pretty remarkable to realize that even 37 years later, Brooks’ Law is still true many more times than it is false.

Tim Edstrom Dunking 10 Foot Goal Official Basketball

2012-01-06T18:04:00.002-05:00

My 17 year old son Tim (youngest of three) is dunking with ease now on ten foot goal with an official basketball. Tim is now 6'1" All three of my sons dunked on ten foot goals before their 18th birthday AND all were selected to the National Honor Society, so now my job as a father is finished :-)

New System Insights Big Data Blog for Manufacturing

2012-01-03T08:59:00.003-05:00

Dr. Athulan Vijayaraghavan, CTO and co-founder of System Insights, dropped me a note informing me of their new blog called Manufacturing Big Data.

System Insights is the company that Will Sobel and Athulan started specifically to provide MTConnect products and services to the market place. Systems Insights is going great. Both Athulan and Will are tremendous thought leaders in the MTConnect community and it is very cool that they are sharing their knowledge with this new blog!

Cool NBA Video Released on Christmas Day on TNT

2012-01-01T22:56:00.000-05:00

This came out on Christmas Day 2011 and is one of the coolest sports videos I have ever seen:

Great NYC Family Trip - The Book of Mormon

2011-12-31T20:13:00.001-05:00

Julie and I took John, Michael and Tim to the funniest play, event you-name-it I have ever been to - The Book of Mormon play at the Eugene O'Neil Play House. Julie surprised all of us with this great trip. I happened to mention when Matt Stone and Trey Parker were on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart discussing The Book of Mormon back in the spring that I would love to go to to NYC and see that someday. Thanks to Julie, we did.

We went up on Amtrak and stayed at the Hilton at Times Square. Huge thanks to Joy Warfield (and to Cathy Doucette) for her great suggestions on what to do and where to eat. We carried her list with us throughout NYC.

Above is the list of 9/11 Memorial Board Members. Notice Jon Stewart's name as the second name on the second column.

Above is Phil Rosenzweig who was a Sun Microsystems employee who lost his life on flight 93.

Above is the 9/11 memorial chopper by Paul Jr. that is being auctioned off for charity.

Inside Ellis Island's main building.

We enjoyed a quick pizza at one of NYC's thousands of great pizza joints.

Above is Julie and John in front of the apartment building on 93rd street where Julie's dad, Ray and her uncle John crew up in Brooklyn.

The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was visible from Julie's Grandfather's apartment window.

Above and below is the high school that Julie's dad, uncle as well as Bernard and Albert King went to.

Above is Lincoln Center.

Above is the Brooklyn Bridge.

Tim, my only son who is into cars, spotted this $150,000 Audi R8 in NYC.

Above is the Guggenheim Museum.

Of course we had to go to Zucotti Park. NYPD had kicked everyone out.

Above is Julie and I in front of The Dakota at the exact spot that John Lennon was murdered.

Below are the boys in Central Park at night as we walked to the Imagine area.

Above is the famous Apollo Theater in Harlem.

The Book of Mormon was HILARIOUS. Tickets were not cheap, but well worth it. .

It was COLD when the 30mph winds and 30 degree temperatures and you are on top of a tour bus.

We were on the 42nd story on 42nd street in Times Square with amazing views from our room.

Lots of great restaurants! Immediately above we are at PJ Clarke's which is a very famous NY restaurant. We also went to John DiCarlo's cousins restaurant Forlini's in Little Italy.

The famous ball at Ti mes Square.

The Complete Myth of Voter Fraud

2011-12-30T10:29:00.002-05:00

How completely ironic is it that all of this manufactured nonsense about voter fraud is now biting the Republicans in the VA presidential primary. In a great article by Ezra Klein of the Washington Post, Ezra Klein brings out a couple of great points:

"But other Republicans — and most of the candidates — have turned their fire on Virginia. Ken Cuccinelli, the state’s attorney general, was particularly unsparing about the access laws. “Virginia won’t be nearly as ‘fought over’ as it should be in the midst of such a wide open nomination contest,” he wrote in an e-mail to supporters. “Our own laws have reduced our relevance. Sad. I hope our new GOP majorities will fix this problem so that neither party confronts it again.”

He hopes, in other words, that Virginia will make it easier for Republican candidates to get on the ballot, so Virginia’s voters are better able to participate in the election. It’s a noble goal, and one many Republicans share. But it runs counter to the efforts Republicans have mounted in dozens of states to make it more difficult for ordinary Americans to participate in the 2012 election."

This manufactured problem by the Republicans is best exemplified by this Ari Berman article in Rolling Stone that Ezra Klein points out in his article:

"As Ari Berman detailed in an article this summer for Rolling Stone, these laws have mostly been introduced by Republicans, who have justified them largely on fraud-prevention grounds. The only problem is that it’s been extremely hard for advocates of more restrictive voting laws to prove that fraud is a problem.

As Berman wrote, “A major probe by the Justice Department between 2002 and 2007 failed to prosecute a single person for going to the polls and impersonating an eligible voter, which the anti-fraud laws are supposedly designed to stop. Out of the 300 million votes cast in that period, federal prosecutors convicted only 86 people for voter fraud — and many of the cases involved immigrants and former felons who were simply unaware of their ineligibility.”

Stated another way, that is a problem that happens at MOST .0000286666 percent of the time.

Perhaps Stephen Colbert said it best as Ezra Klein brings out in his article:

Joked comedian and political satirist Stephen Colbert: “Our democracy is under siege from an enemy so small it could be hiding anywhere.”

John Edstrom Graduates VT With Masters Degree in Computer Science

2011-12-21T17:18:00.000-05:00

A week ago on December 16th 2011, John Edstrom, our oldest son, graduated from Virgina Tech with a Masters in Computer Science. He graduated from Virgina Tech with a BS in Computer Science in May 2010.

John sharing a laugh with the graduate next to him.

This was a close up of John as he was walking up to get his degree.

Above is John receiving his degree.

Above is the conferring of degrees at VT

At John and Michael's favorite restaurant "Home Place Restaurant"

John between his grandpa and grandma Edstrom. Below, Steve joined the grandparents and John.

John with his proud and happy parents. One down, two to go :-)

John and Janet with Steve above.

MTConnect Is Not an Application - MTConnect Is Not Middleware

2011-12-21T14:30:00.002-05:00

MTConnect Is Not an Application - MTConnect Is Not Middleware

Dec 15, 2011 (Note: I wrote this for the IMTS Insider)

By Dave Edstrom

Last month, I discussed what MTConnect is. This month I am going to discuss what MTConnect is not.

Many times I am asked, “What is MTConnect?” I always enjoy the conversation, no matter how many times I am asked. Sometimes, it can be a little bit of a challenge describing what MTConnect is and is not, because it is not something that you can touch, like a machine tool, or see, such as a software application. MTConnect is the protocol, or the “rules of the road,” that connects these two together.

MTConnect is important for manufacturing because it is the game-changing protocol that is allowing plug-and-play connectivity for manufacturing equipment and applications. Think of MTConnect as the “Bluetooth for manufacturing.” MTConnect’s mantra is, “Different Devices, Common Connection.” Now let’s look at both ends of the “what MTConnect is not” spectrum.

At one end is the shop owner, plant manager or manufacturing professional who has just been introduced to MTConnect. At IMTS 2010, more than a few times someone would walk up and ask to buy a copy of it. Sometimes, folks would even pull out their credit card. It is great that people are excited about MTConnect, but it is also important that it is clear what MTConnect is and is not — and it is not something you buy. But it is perfectly understandable that someone would look at the screens we had set up in the Emerging Technology Center at IMTS and assume that MTConnect is an application such as Microsoft Excel.

It can sometimes be a challenge to explain that MTConnect simply is the protocol or rules of the road on how an application speaks to a piece of manufacturing equipment. Sometimes it is helpful to show people what a protocol is. The easiest way to think about what a protocol does is a simple question and answer scenario between an application and a machine tool.

The diagram above shows the simple two-step MTConnect protocol:

1. A client application makes a request – such as an MTConnect “sample” command.

2. The MTConnect agent at the machine tool answers the sample command with an XML document that has all of the sample information in it.

That’s really all there is to it at the highest level — a simple request-reply protocol. MTConnect is quite elegant in its simplicity. Simplicity is important when both deploying a technology as well as scaling a technology. Complexity breaks protocols. I wish my sons were MTConnect compliant because then I could put in a simple request and it would be done the first time. I would not have to ask them 10 times (or more!). But I digress from the topic at hand.

The other end of the spectrum is the software vendor in manufacturing. It is not reasonable to expect an end user to understand what a protocol is, but it is certainly reasonable to expect someone in the business of software to understand. Recently I was told, “Dave, MTConnect is middleware.” I asked, “who told you that?” When I was told it was a company that was supposed to be in the manufacturing software business, I knew there could only be two reasons for this.

First, this company, which should absolutely know better, took a cursory, 100,000-foot view of MTConnect for a fraction of a femtosecond and then jumped to the wrong conclusion. The other possibility is that they view the open and royalty-free protocol of MTConnect as a competitor and stated this view to purposely confuse the marketplace. Let’s give this company the benefit of the doubt and assume they were simply confused and take this opportunity to discuss what MTConnect is not.

I will provide a definition of what is middleware is so hopefully we can clear up this incorrect analysis of MTConnect.

A definition that is clear and well written definition of middleware is from webopedia:
(mid´&l-war) (n.) Software that connects two otherwise separate applications. For example, there are a number of middleware products that link a database system to a Web server. This allows users to request data from the database using forms displayed on a Web browser, and it enables the Web server to return dynamic Web pages based on the user's requests and profile.

The term middleware is used to describe separate products that serve as the glue between two applications. It is, therefore, distinct from import and export features that may be built into one of the applications. Middleware is sometimes called plumbing because it connects two sides of an application and passes data between them. Common middleware categories include:

ESBs
TP monitors
DCE environments
RPC systems
Object Request Brokers (ORBs)
Database access systems
Message Passing

The above definition is the most basic definition of middleware. Middleware connects two applications with ANOTHER application. MTConnect is a protocol. MTConnect is not middleware, because MTConnect is not an application. MTConnect cannot control a machine tool or any other piece of manufacturing equipment. MTConnect is a very simple, read-only protocol based on http and XML that makes information available in a common universal format.

A very simple example is that you could have a sensor that was MTConnect enabled. Applications could simply ask the MTConnect enabled sensor for data and it is returned to the application. That is not an example of two different applications that are speaking to a third middleware application. The webopedia definition makes it clear that middleware is distinct from import and export features that may be built into applications.

We are sometimes guilty of over simplifying MTConnect when we say, “think of MTConnect as a simple and secure webserver.” That is not technically accurate, but it can sometimes help folks visualize MTConnect. We do this because most people know what a web site is. However, that does a disservice to those individuals who really want to know what MTConnect is. To state that MTConnect is a webserver is incorrect. The logic fallacy of this can be demonstrated by the following. A Corvette is transportation. A boat is transportation. Therefore, a Corvette is a boat. Just because a protocol CAN use a webserver does not mean that it is webserver.

To be 100% clear, MTConnect is a communications protocol. A communications protocol is simply the set of rules for exchanging messages.

MTConnect is not an application. MTConnect is not middleware.

For those not in technology, this might fall into the “who cares” category. The reason to care is that words and correct definitions of words matter – especially in technology. As MTConnect continues to grow globally, the proper definition becomes even more important when we introduce different country languages into the equation. MTConnect is an open and royalty-free protocol for manufacturing.

Christmas 2011 Ashburn Deer

2011-12-14T01:00:00.000-05:00

I received this very nice anonymous card in the mail this year regarding my deer:

Richard Clark's "CHEW' Four Types of Cyber Crime

2011-12-13T01:00:00.000-05:00

Interesting article at SD Times:

Richard Clarke talks cyber crime

By Alyson Behr

Clarke invented an acronym, CHEW, to describe the four pre-eminent types of attacks as he sees them.

C stands for crime.
H belongs to “hacktivism.”
E is for espionage
W stands for war

I thought this was an interesting comment in the article:

"About 20 to 30 countries, including the U.S., have formed cyber war units. The Pentagon has also established a huge new organization, designed for offensive purposes, called the Cyber Command; it is of composed of the Army, Navy and Air Force. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is also developing offensive tools."

Another Great Mark Albert MTConnect and [MC]2 Article

2011-12-12T08:44:00.001-05:00

We have no better friend of MTConnect than Modern Machine Shop's Mark Albert. Here Mark has another great article on [MC]2 MTConnect Connecting Manufacturing Conference and MTConnect.

Thanks Mark!

Not Again....

2011-12-12T08:25:00.001-05:00

This past Thursday, December 8th at 1:14pm, I get the following text from my son Michael, who is a junior at VT:

We are alright FYI

When you are a parent who had a son at VT for that horrific day on the 16th of April in 2007, the absolute first thoughts are, "oh my god, another gunman at VT?"

I did not think they was a fire, or some type of car accident or any other rationale thought. I immediately thought a gunman at VT. Thank god it was NOT another 4/16 event. My mind immediately went to VT's Collegiate Times photo back in 2007.

I remember how hard my son John worked on the Collegiate Times with his room mate Gabe Martinez as they were the two individuals that were responsible for the website. They had to rebuild the website when it got over 50 MILLION hits that day.

Thankfully, this time VT did react properly and let everyone know what the hell was going on. This was much different than how they handled it 2007 where certain VT staff members decided to let their family and friends know of the first shooting on April 16th, 2007, but chose not to tell the rest of the VT students and faculty until almost two hours later. How NO ONE WAS FIRED FOR THAT is still a freaking mystery to me and that they are appealing the $55,000 fine is morally wrong. It was tragically ironic that senior VT police officers and university officials were all in DC as the university appealed that $55,000 fine by the Education Department inconnection with the 2007 rampage at the time of this latest gunman on campus.

VA continues to be a backward state and allows the gun show loophole. I also called into the Kojo Nnamdi Show when he had an anniversary show on the VT shooting. If you go to the 11:52 mark, you can hear my statements and question that goes until the 13:14 mark.

The best news that came out of this is that VT's admins appear to have learned a very valuable lesson and are now a model for the rest of the world in terms of how to deal with a loose gunman on campus....

My Question of Dr. Vint Cerf on Internet Authentication

2011-12-07T01:00:00.000-05:00

I was at Google Atmosphere 2011 and asked Dr. Vint Cerf a question on Internet authentication. I asked the question at the 18:10 mark in the webinar.

As I stated previously regarding Dr. Cerf, but it is worth me quoting me here :-) Above is a true living legend - Dr. Vint Cerf. Vint now works for Google. I have had the privilege of speaking with Vint on a number of occasions. It is better to be lucky than good and I have been lucky enough to get invited to events where Vint was at. Vint is VP & Chief Internet Evangelist for Google. I asked Vint the very first question of the entire conference. The question was a security question regarding true user authentication on the Internet today and what needs to be done to enable this. Vint said it was a tough question and gave a very thoughtful and detailed answer. He apologized to the audience for "geeking out" during his answer, but I appreciated it.

He, Bob Kahn and a few others claim the joint title of "father of the Internet". What is absolutely true is if you reduce the "father of the Internet" status down to just TCP/IP then the two individuals who claim that title are Cerf and Kahn. I was fortunate to meet both and have both sign the original TCP/IP white paper (twice). I have one and Neil Groundwater has the other original. As Bob Kahn told me at the time, "this better not be on eBay tonight!" I told him, "no, I will hold off until tomorrow." I then had to say, "I am kidding - this will never be sold." Both men are brilliant.

Every time I have seen Vint he is in a 3 piece suite which is his style. One of the interesting stories he told was that he has temperature and humidity sensors in his house grabbing readings every 5 minutes to properly balance out his ducts. Now THAT is a true geek :-)

The first time I met Vint was at Yorktown High School in VA when he was giving a talk on interplanetary IP. I walked into the auditorium a little ahead of Dr. Harry Foxwell who I was with at the time. Both Harry and I worked at Sun. I am walking toward the front when Vint says, "hey, come here and help me with this." I come running down. I do all the things Vint asked me to do - move some stuff, sweep up some things and help him get ready. I then ask, "Dr. Cerf, would you please sign this book." Vint then says, "who are you?" I reply, " I am Dave Edstrom from Sun Microsystems and I am here to listen to your talk." He then laughs, "I thought you were the janitor. Thanks for helping me out." It was great talk then and he is a great guy - even if he does think that I am this janitor stalker that follows him around the country asking him questions :-)

All of the Google Atmosphere 2011 videos are located here.

Google's Driverless Car TED Presentation

2011-12-06T13:27:00.001-05:00

I saw this car live and listened to a presentation on this - very, very cool at Google Atmosphere 2011.

DMC - Defense Manufacturing Conference 2011

2011-12-02T16:28:00.001-05:00

DMC - Defense Manufacturing Conference 2011 was a good conference at Anaheim this past week. The booth traffic could have been better, but it was worth the trip for some of the meetings and conversations we had regarding MTConnect. I went to the Factory of the Future presentation/panel and 4 out of 5 of them panelists had MTConnect in their slide decks.

Below are some short videos of the MTConnect companies in our booth at DMC 2011:

Social Media and Manufacturing

2011-11-27T18:42:00.001-05:00

Thanks to npg for sending this to me. This is an interesting article by Michele Rempel at media vine marketing with an articled titled:

Social Media? But We’re a Manufacturing Company!

Here is a snippet:

"Jim Carr, President of CARR Machine and Tool Company in Elk Grove, Illinois, has been successfully using social media for a while now and believes that social media will be leading the way in helping small and larger corporations reach out to a new customer base. When his company experienced hardship during the economic downturn, Carr turned to a marketing company to design a strong web and social media presence. He believes that, going forward, corporations need to embrace the online culture because that’s where their next generation of customers already exist. Source "

The primary points I agree with are the following from Michele Rempel's article:

Give value. If you just think of social media as a place where you are just going to sell your products, your efforts will drop like a lead balloon. Instead, think about information you can share with your potential customers that will be beneficial to them- as well as remove barriers to the buying process. Good content makes prospects notice your company. Blogs and videos accomplish this goal very well.

Encourage interaction and be prepared to listen. Many manufacturers are using social media as a forum to connect with prospects and receive feedback that can be used to improve product quality, stay current, and improve customer service.

Let your products tell stories. Like many manufacturers, your products probably end up becoming part of another product, and so on. Use photos and videos to tell a story of how your products become part of something larger. And if you can connect your products to people’s lives, so much the better! Most people have little information about how their favorite products come to be. Although you probably don’t sell directly to consumers, you can still connect with prospects in a unique and strong way when they are in the information-gathering phase.

Yet Another Reason Why You Go To The Track

2011-11-27T01:30:00.000-05:00

There are a million reasons why you don't race on the streets. Pay the small amount of money and go to the track so you can do it safely. Look at these two knuckleheads - one in a C5 (5th generation Corvette) and the other in a C6 (6th generation Corvette):

Stanford's Jung-Tsung Shen's "Fun With Light" aka Quantum Computing Talk at Google

2011-11-26T01:30:00.000-05:00

Nanophotonics and Quantum Dots

2011-11-25T01:00:00.000-05:00

Digital Manufacturing Report has a very interesting article on nanophotonics written by John Kirkley on November 22nd. The article discusses Ubiquitous High Performance Computing (UHPC) and the challenges with power.

Below is a snippet:

According to the release, "A team at Stanford's School of Engineering has demonstrated an ultrafast nanoscale light-emitting diode (LED) that is orders of magnitude lower in power consumption than today's laser-based systems and is able to transmit data at the very rapid rate of 10 billion bits per second.
The researchers say it is a major step forward in providing a practical ultrafast, low-power light source for on-chip data transmission." Their findings have been published in the most recent edition of the journal Nature Communications.

Earlier this year the Stanford researchers had come up with a nanoscale laser that was also very efficient and fast, but it only operated at temperatures below 150 degrees Kelvin – a trifle cool for your standard datacenter. However, the new laser-based system can operate at room temperature, making it a prime candidate for next generation computer chips. The researchers say the device is a major step forward in providing a practical, ultrafast, low-power light source for on-chip data transmission.
The new device is a miracle of engineering that employs the scientific discipline known as nanophotonics. The Stanford team has inserted "quantum dots," tiny flecks of material made of indium arsenide which, when pulsed with electricity, emit light. A photonic crystal surrounding the dots acts as a mirror that bounces the light into the center of the LED and forces it to resonate at a single frequency.
Of interest to exascale designers is the fact that tests of the device show it can transmit information 10X faster than conventional devices while consuming 1,000 times less energy.
According to the Stanford press release, "In tech-speak, the new LED device transmits data, on average, at 0.25 femto-joules per bit of data." By comparison, today's typical "low" power laser device requires about 500 femto-joules to transmit the same bit.
"Our device is some 2,000 times more energy efficient than best devices in use today," said Jelena Vuckovic, an associate professor of electrical engineering at Stanford and the lead on the project.

Rumored as (but not) The First Known Cyber Attack on American Utility

2011-11-24T01:30:00.000-05:00

This was very interesting article by By Ellen Nakashima at The Washington Post titled:

Foreign hackers targeted U.S. water plant in apparent malicious cyber attack, expert says

Below is the first paragraph from Ellen Nashima's very interesting article:

"Foreign hackers caused a pump at an Illinois water plant to fail last week, according to a preliminary state report. Experts said the cyber-attack, if confirmed, would be the first known to have damaged one of the systems that supply Americans with water, electricity and other essentials of modern life."

Below is a snippet regarding that the facts are still being gathered:

"Federal officials confirmed that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security were investigating damage to the water plant but cautioned against concluding that it was necessarily a cyber-attack before all the facts could be learned. “At this time there is no credible corroborated data that indicates a risk to critical infrastructure entities or a threat to public safety,” said DHS spokesman Peter Boogaard."

After Y2K efforts, I was under the wrong assumption that the security of the utility systems were being addressed. It would be interesting to know exactly what the utilities have been doing for the past 11 years. This is why we need more emphasis and cross pollination of computer security in colleges and universities in disciplines outside of computer science such as mechanical engineering.

Later, this was update by Ellen Nakashima with the following (thanks npg):

Federal officials said Wednesday they have found no evidence to support an initial state report that foreign hackers caused a pump at an Illinois water plant to fail this month.

Below is from the article that was quite surprising to read: "The contractor, who had remote access to the computer system, was in Russia on personal business, the source added."

I could certainly see why that would get someone's attention :-)

Friends Don't Let Friends Watch Fox News

2011-11-22T11:12:00.001-05:00

Quantifying Unfair and Unbalanced:

Fox News Viewers Know Less Than People Who Don't Watch Any News: Study

Below are two snippets from the article:

"Fox News viewers are less informed than people who don't watch any news, according to a new poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University."

"This isn't the first study that has found that Fox News viewers more misinformed in comparison to others. Last year, a study from the University of Maryland found that Fox News viewers were more likely to believe false information about politics."

Is MSNBC any better? I have not seen any studies, but would be very interested to know...

Visit With My Godmother - Dorothy Johnson

2011-11-22T02:00:00.000-05:00

A week ago on Wednesday the 16th I was in Mountain View, CA and drove out to have lunch with my aunt Dorothy who is also my godmother. She lives in Glen Ellen which is the heart of wine country and a beautiful little town.

Below is my aunt with her youngest son - Lynn.

It was a beautiful day and Lynn took Dorothy and me for a ride. Below is just one of the wineries we saw.

We had lunch across the street from Lynn's wife Janie's (seated next to Dorothy) workplace. We had a very nice lunch at The Black Bear Restaurant in Sonoma.

Richard Muller of UCB Changes His Tune on Global Warming

2011-11-22T01:30:00.000-05:00

Richard Muller was funded by the Koch brothers to examine global warming. Below is a snippet from NY Daily News on October 31st, 2011.

"One of the most prominent global warming skeptics is changing is his tune. Richard Muller, a physicist who spent two years trying to see if mainstream climate scientists were wrong about the earth's climate changes, determined that they were right, the Associated Press reported. His findings showed the temperature had risen about 1.6 degrees since the 1950s."

It sill absolutely amazes me the number of people who insist the global climate change is not real. They need to stop watching Fox News. Of the current Republican candidates, only Jon Huntsman seems to have the courage to embrace science when he tweeted, "To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy." Too bad that the Republican base is so anti-science, because Jon Huntsman seems a very capable candidate who could capture the all important central part of the voting block.

Below is a snippet from a Washington Post editorial.

A bad month for climate-change skeptics

A Washington Post Editorial, Published: November 18, 2011

THE PAST MONTH hasn’t been good for climate-change skeptics. At a congressional hearing Monday, Richard Muller, a former global-warming skeptic at the University of California, Berkeley, told lawmakers that, after a two-year review of historical world temperature data, he has verified the scientific consensus that the earth is warming — by about 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 50 years. This is not surprising; as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported last year, the warming of the planet, detected in multiple, independent lines of evidence, is “unequivocal.”

Mr. Muller said that exactly how much humans contribute to such warming is difficult to calculate. But, as the Economist pointed out last year, even if the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is off by a factor of five in its reckoning of the climate’s sensitivity to an eventual doubling of the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, that still leaves only a 50 percent chance of relatively minor temperature change. The developed world and large developing nations, meanwhile, continue to pump immense amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. The Energy Department released an analysis this month concluding that global carbon emissions in 2010 increased by the largest amount ever, to a higher level than the IPCC’s worst-case projection.

Return of the IOCCC - International Obfuscated C Code Competition

2011-11-21T01:30:00.000-05:00

Another interesting article by
Alex Handy of SD Times on:
Obfuscated C competition returns

Below is a snippet and the whole article is very interesting. This was always an interesting topic at Sun Microsystems when the winning code examples were announced.

"When Landon Curt “Chongo” Noll was trying to fix a bug in an early BSD version of Finger on March 23, 1984, it was a moment of enlightenment. He and cohort Larry Bassel (who had been trying to fix a bug in the Bourne shell) were chewing the fat between bug-squishing sessions at National Semiconductor when the pair compared their woes, surmising that they couldn't write more confusing and difficult code if they had tried.

And with that, the International Obfuscated C Code Competition was born. The pair put out a call on Usenet asking for C coders to submit their own confounding programs within a preset size limit. The goal of the competition was to write C code that compiled to a functional application, but upon closer inspection of the source code, the connections between the functionality and the code itself should not have been obvious."

[MC]2 Google Earth Fly Over of [MC]2 Sponsor Companies

2011-11-20T14:02:00.001-05:00

Below is a very cool video that Mike Geldner of Google put together for the [MC]2 MTConnect Conecting Manufacturing Conference's Sponsoring companies.

Unfortunately, the internet at The Hyatt Regency (wired, not wireless) was having some latency issues, so this was not shown at [MC]2. I wanted to share it now. Mike had a number of very cool videos that he had lined up, but the latency issues forced Mike to do a real time adjustment and Mike did a fantastic job adjusting in his great keynote

<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Abvo&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;</p>

The MTConnect® Institute Awards Institute Partner to MacKintok Information Architects and Designers

2011-11-19T16:12:00.001-05:00

November 8, 2011

Contact:
David A. Edstrom
President, Chairman of the Board
MTConnect Institute
703-728-8885
davidallenedstrom@gmail.com

The MTConnect® Institute Awards Institute Partner to MacKintok Information Architects and Designers

McLean, Va. … The MTConnect Institute is very pleased to announce MacKintok Information Architects and Designers as an MTConnect® Institute Partner for their creation of the new, state-of-the- art MTConnect web site. This new web site features a complete redesign and includes news and information about MTConnect, a list of Institute members, a special section for developers and more.

The new web site is the result of 6 months of intense work and collaboration. MacKintok Information Architects and Designers are unique in that they are MTConnect members and also have a broad array of capabilities, including web site design. Dave Edstrom, President and Chairman of the Board for the MTConnect Institute said, "The new MTConnect web site will allow us to do things that we could never do before to promote MTConnect and collaborate with our members. We could not be more pleased with our relationship with MacKintok, as well as the quality of the new MTConnect web site."

The new MTConnect web site was designed to go live in conjunction with the [MC]2 MTConnect: Connecting Manufacturing Conference. In addition to the overall upgrades in usability and navigation, the new web site will support the many hours of video content that will be generated at [MC]2.

Ken Tock and Gary Bronson, principals of MacKintok were the lead architects in creating the new MTConnect web site and will work jointly with the MTConnect Institute for updates. The new MTConnect web site is based on Umbraco, which is an open-source content management system and is used to run more than 110,000 web sites, including Wired, Fox and Microsoft, to name just a few.

Some improved features of the new MTConnect web site include:

• Directory of MTConnect members, including their services, experience, products and contact information
• User-friendly navigation
• Robust site-wide XML-based search function
• Improved video player interface

Future upgrades to the website will include social media and news feeds, an MTConnect case studies section and a training and learning center.

The new web site also includes historical information about MTConnect, as well as a list of MTConnect’s business and technical benefits. Edstrom continued, “The entire manufacturing community can benefit from this groundbreaking, open and royalty-free communications standard called MTConnect. Shop owners, plant managers, manufacturing equipment manufacturers, software developers and anyone who wants to learn more about this open standard absolutely must visit the new MTConnect web site to see everything it has to offer.”

# # #

MTConnect® Institute
MTConnect Institute is an organization that develops and provides open standards intended to foster greater interoperability between manufacturing controls, devices and software applications by publishing data over networks using the Internet Protocol (IP). The standards offer a solution to the exchange of data from shop floor devices to higher level systems. For membership information, visit www.MTConnect.org.

Stairway To Heaven Turned 40 Years Old On Nov 11th

2011-11-19T16:05:00.001-05:00

Thanks to npg for sending this to me on Stairway To Heaven turning 40 years old 8 days ago. Here is the history of how the song came about - on NPR of course :-)

HTML 5 Overview

2011-11-19T15:59:00.001-05:00

This was mentioned at Google Atmosphere 2011 last week as worth checking out on HTML 5 http://HTML5Rocks.com

New MTConnect Website

2011-11-18T01:00:00.000-05:00

Below is the press release on the new MTConnect website. We owe this to the great work by Ken Tock and Gary Bronson of MacKintok Information Architects and Designers!

November 8, 2011 - The MTConnect Institute upgraded its website. This website features a complete redesign and includes news and information about MTConnect, a list of Institute members, a special section for developers, and more.

Dave Edstrom, President and Chairman of the Board for the MTConnect Institute said, "The new MTConnect website will allow us to do things that we could never do before to promote MTConnect and collaborate with our members."

The new MTConnect website was designed to go live in conjunction with the [MC]2 MTConnect: Connecting Manufacturing Conference. In addition to the overall upgrades in usability and navigation, the new website will support the many hours of video content that will be generated at [MC]2.

Some improved features of the new MTConnect website include:

Directory of MTConnect members, including their services, experience, products and contact information.
User-friendly navigation
Robust site-wide XML-based search function
Improved video player interface

Future upgrades to the website will include social media and news feeds, an MTConnect case studies section, and a raining and learning center.

The new website also includes historical information about MTConnect, as well as a list of MTConnect’s business and technical benefits. Edstom continued, “The entire manufacturing community can benefit from this groundbreaking, open and royalty-free communications standard called MTConnect. Shop owners, plant managers, manufacturing equipment manufacturers, software developers and anyone who wants to learn more about this open standard absolutely must visit the new MTConnect website to see everything it has to offer.”

MTConnect Institute
MTConnect Institute is an organization that develops and provides open standards intended to foster greater interoperability between manufacturing controls, devices and software applications by publishing data over networks using the Internet Protocol (IP). The standards offer a solution to the exchange of data from shop floor devices to higher level systems.

How Congress Trades Behind Closed Doors To Their Benefit

2011-11-17T20:11:00.001-05:00

As is stated at the 60 Minutes site--> "Peter Schweizer of the Hoover Institution says the most valuable intelligence is often traded behind closed doors."

This 60 Minutes episode on how Congress is legally allowed to be insider traders is a must watch.

New Corvette 2012 Brochure Is Out

2011-11-17T19:51:00.001-05:00

The new Corvette 2012 brochure is out.

It is different than our typical car brochure and has interesting stories, lots of specs and great pictures. Tommy is Tommy Milner who is just one of four Corvette Race drivers. Doug is Doug Fehan and is the Corvette Racing Program Manager. Below is a snippet on the 24 Hours At LeMans which is very cool:

TOMMY With six hours remaining in the race, we were looking good. our sister car, the No. 74 Corvette, was in the lead, and we’d been running the No. 73 steadily in the top five for 17 hours. Then— bang!—the 74 Corvette gets tangled up with a Porsche, and suddenly ferrari’s now in first and we’re a lap down. But as a team, we told ourselves: “We can make that up.”

DOUG Louis Chevrolet was himself a racer, and his motto, “Never give
up!” is a philosophy we embraced from our first visit here. Tommy’s
codriver, Antonio Garcia, just started chipping away at the ferrari,
cutting the margin every lap. Tommy took over at the 21st hour and
continued to reel in the ferrari, gaining as much as six seconds per
lap during his stint. With about two hours and 10 minutes to go,
he made the pass for the lead on the Mulsanne straight. Antonio
brought it home for the win, just one lap separating first and second.

TOMMY That was the hardest race of my life. I’d been super
comfortable in the car all day long, but I was not comfortable right
then, when I caught the ferrari. We still had a few hours to go, and
the pressure was crazy. I was just trying to drive the car to what the
track would allow. Every lap it changed, every corner it changed.
for 24 hours, the only thing you’re living, breathing and sleeping is
racing. You drive into the night and through the night. The sun comes
up and you go, “oK, we’re almost there, right?” You look at your watch
again—another eight hours to go. You’re just completely engulfed in
this one race.

DOUG Le Mans is a test of man and machine, and testing yourself
and your limits, and seeing how well you can perform for 24 hours
straight without making any mistakes. I think our come-frombehind win embodied the spirit of our Chevrolet cofounder.

Google Atmoshere 2011 and SUNW Memory Lane Tour

2011-11-15T19:56:00.001-05:00

This blog entry is a combination discussion Google Atmosphere 2011, which started Sunday the 13th with a nice reception on Sand Hill Road at a high end resort as well as a trip back down SUNW memory lane. Thanks to Mike Geldner of Google for putting my name into for consideration to attend Google Atmosphere 2011.

This was trip of mixed emotions. The Google Atmosphere 2011 was great and seeing the ghost of Sun Microsystems was less than great :-) Just as an FYI, Sand Hill Road is a very famous road in the history of Silicon Valley.

Atmosphere 2011: A View from the Cloud

Google Atmosphere 2011 was held on November 14th and 15th at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California.

As Google states on their website: "This annual event unites 350 of the world’s leading CIOs to explore how successful businesses are using the cloud to develop innovative solutions to today’s business challenges. As with previous events, the focus will include thought leadership from noteworthy speakers and lively debates with business leaders, well-known authors and industry experts"

Above is me standing in front of Bldg. 40 at Google and the logo for Google Atmosphere.

Above are Google valets so Googlers (what they call Google employees) do not have to waste time parking their own cars. I am serious...

Above are two photos of the old "Sun Quentin" Campus that Facebook now owns. I sent the photos to some old Sun employees and the response was the same, "well, that is depressing...." Yep... What did crack me up is that Facebook just put Facebook stickers over the old Sun Microsystems signs. Everything else looks the same. As Forbes Magazine stated at the time (January 2nd, 2011):

Facebook appears to be on the verge of moving its headquarters to Sun Quentin.

Not San Quentin, the notorious Marin County prison-by-the-bay that is home to California’s Death Row, but “Sun Quentin,” the sprawling former Sun Microsystems campus on San Francisco Bay in Menlo Park, California, at 1601 Willow Road near the western end of the Dumbarton Bridge. TechCrunch reported on Saturday that Facebook is close to a deal to move to the former Sun site from its current 150,000 square foot home on California Avenue in Palo Alto, close to the Stanford University campus. Note that reports Facebook was considering a move to the 2.5 million square foot Sun site first cropped up in late November.

For long-time Facebook staffers, this might not be such happy news. Remember that less than two years ago, Facebook moved its home base from downtown Palo Alto, close to restaurants, shops and Caltrain, to the current location on the edge of the residential neighborhood known as College Terrace. The new site is in walking distance to almost nothing, a nice spot if you happen to be commuting from the East Bay, but otherwise a fairly isolated location in terms of services and transportation options.

But the site has plenty of space. And nice views.

I don't come to SF without going down to Scoma's for great meal. Dungeness crabs with lots of garlic below.

Above is the host - Harvard Professor - Jonathan Zittrain. He did a very nice job running the conference.

That's right 24.71% of ALL Internet traffic is Netflix!

Google is getting serious for business with specific SLAs and support.

Above is a true living legend - Dr. Vint Cerf. Vint now works for Google. I have had the privilege of speaking with Vint on a number of occasions. It is better to be lucky than good and I have been lucky enough to get invited to events where Vint was at. Vint is VP & Chief Internet Evangelist for Google. I asked Vint the very first question of the entire conference. The question was a security question regarding true user authentication on the Internet today and what needs to be done to enable this. Vint said it was a tough question and gave a very thoughtful and detailed answer. He apologized to the audience for "geeking out" during his answer, but I appreciated it.

He, Bob Kahn and a few others claim the joint title of "father of the Internet". What is absolutely true is if you reduce the "father of the Internet" status down to just TCP/IP then the two individuals who claim that title are Cerf and Kahn. I was fortunate to meet both and have both sign the original TCP/IP white paper (twice). I have one and Neil Groundwater has the other original. As Bob Kahn told me at the time, "this better not be on eBay tonight!" I told him, "no, I will hold off until tomorrow." I then had to say, "I am kidding - this will never be sold." Both men are brilliant.

Below is from Cloud Beat's Jolie O'Dell who covered the conference. Below is where Vint address my question and this comes from the Cloud Beat article titled:

Vint Cerf: The government is going overboard in Internet copyright control

Cerf also talked about a topic quite close to Google’s heart: the ability to traverse the Internet anonymously, if one so chooses. Google’s own suite of social tools, Google+, recently came under heavy fire for allowing its users to sign up only with their “given names,” linking their online activities with their real-world identities.

However, this decision has been reversed, due in no small part to the backlash from hackers inside Google’s own campus — including Cerf.
“We should preserve our ability to be anonymous or pseudonymous,” he said today, “but we also need strong authentication tools.” While certificates, Cerf said, are “not working too well,” users still and will always need secure ways to prove who they really are.
“We have serious work to do as a community to implement new technologies and… improve security on the Net.”

One of the main points Cerf made about security wasn’t about the need for better programmatic ways of thwarting attacks; rather, he said, consumers themselves need to get smarter about where their information goes when they click and browse around the web.
“I am comfortable that we have some good technologies for basic cryptography,” he said. “What worries me are all the other avenues that people can get information without having to break code.”
He said a recent episode of >spear phishing attacks on Gmail users “is a case in point… People clicked on those messages because they look credible.”

Cerf continued, “I’m much more worried about these open avenues for attack [including social and email attacks and malware from browsers], the social engineering, the tricking… we’re going to have to teach our children and each other much more about… the risk factors of doing certain things on the Net.”

Every time I have seen Vint he is in a 3 piece suite which is his style. One of the interesting stories he told was that he has temperature and humidity sensors in his house grabbing readings every 5 minutes to properly balance out his ducts. Now THAT is a true geek :-)

The first time I met Vint was at Yorktown High School in VA when he was giving a talk on interplanetary IP. I walked into the auditorium a little ahead of Dr. Harry Foxwell who I was with at the time. Both Harry and I worked at Sun. I am walking toward the front when Vint says, "hey, come here and help me with this." I come running down. I do all the things Vint asked me to do - move some stuff, sweep up some things and help him get ready. I then ask, "Dr. Cerf, would you please sign this book." Vint then says, "who are you?" I reply, " I am Dave Edstrom from Sun Microsystems and I am here to listen to your talk." He then laughs, "I thought you were the janitor. Thanks for helping me out." It was great talk then and he is a great guy - even if he does think that I am this janitor stalker that follows him around the country asking him questions :-)

Above is a photo of the morning keynote: "Chance Favors the Connected Mind" - Steven Johnson - Author, ‘Where Good Ideas Come From. It was a very interesting keynote. Google gave us lots of SWAG and one of them was Steven Johnson's book in paperback. As luck would have it, I bought his hardback version was reading it on the way out. I now have two copies :-)

The basic premise of his talk is that there are very few "Eureka" moments in innovation. It is a combination of hard work and taking input from a variety of individuals and sources, thus the title of his talk "Chance Favors the Connected Mind". The fuzzy DNA like looking chart you see above was a picture I took from his slide where Steven spoke about a book he wrote called The Ghost Map. What you are looking at is the number of deaths from the worst cholera outbreak in Victorian London. In the book, Johnson discusses how Dr. John Snow's solution revolutionized the way we think about disease by using data via graphics. The data that was represented by deaths at street addresses showed graphically and led him to believe that cholera was not airborne, but in the water.

I go to use the restroom and above the urinal is a Design Patterns quiz on Java code. Only at Google would you see this :-)

Short video of the first morning.

Google bike for Google Maps.

Above was a very interesting talk by Dr. Astro Teller. As Wikipedia states:

Astro Teller was born Eric Z. Teller in Cambridge, England. He is the grandson of both Gérard Debreu and Edward Teller.^[1] Dr. Teller holds a Bachelor of Science in computer science from Stanford University, Masters of Science in symbolic computation (symbolic and heuristic computation), also from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence from Carnegie Mellon University, where he was a recipient of the prestigious Hertz fellowship.^[2] After working as a teacher at Stanford University, Teller became a business executive.

The talk was titled "Building the Impossible". The basic premise is that history is rich with very smart people who claimed that something was impossible only to be proven dead wrong.

Talk about a great gene pool - BOTH of your grandfathers are famous Nobel Prize winners?

He was asked the obvious question, "how did you get the name Astro?" I am thinking Jetsons, but I was wrong. The story he told was that when he was filling out his registration form for Stanford, there was a blank left over in the "nick name" box. He thought, "well, it is never a good idea to leave anything blank on the form, so he put in "Astro". The individual who type in the info at Stanford accidently switched his real name and nick names into the computer. At that point, it became too hard to go back to Eric and he stayed with Astro.

A live Google self driving car video I took. Google shut down a block in Menlo Park and rented out the Fox Theater for the second private party we had.

I met tons of interesting folks that were both attendees, speakers and Googlers. My standard line is to look at someone's badge and ask, "so, what do you do?" It usually takes off from there :-)

My main goal was to have a detailed understanding of Google App Engine and if Google is interested in working with MTConnect partners. After speaking with lots of Googlers, it became very clear to me what the business and technical play is here.

Google App Engine is one of Google's Top Five Properties as they refer to it. Most everything Google builds is on Google App Engine or GAE as they sometimes refer to it as.    There are very important technical distinctions between Amazon's Elastic Cloud Computing (EC2), Simple Storage Service (S3) and GAE. EC2 and S3 are an IaaS or Infrastructure as a Service and GAE is PaaS or Platform as a Service.

Google is trying to remove the complexity of the entire Virtual Machine Image (VMI) paradigm by providing a platform where the developer worries neither about computing or storage speed or latency issues.    This is a big difference that might play well for the MTConnect developers. The basic idea is that Google will provide lightning fast computing and storage scaling and the developer does not worry about those level details as they must with EC2 and S3. For MTInsight, the project I am on at AMT for BI, Amazon was and is the best solution for that.

There are limitations for GAE that might hinder the MTConnect developers. These are around the languages and frameworks supported. Most manufacturing software developers do not view Linux and Java as their first choices in OSes and programming languages.

A big issue I see with GAE and MTConnect is that Google does not have any PS or consulting services. I told their Executives that this was a big mistake in my opinion because if you rely entirely on Partners, you can never give the customer the "single throat to choke" which many customers demand.    Google does offer developer support though.

I am going to explore having one of the many Google Partners for GAE I met present either in person or remotely at an MTCTAG meeting so they understand the capabilities of GAE.

After speaking with numerous Google employees, I understand where they are going and why. The net/net is a pure partner play and therefore Google is not interested in having direct relationships with an organization like the MTConnect Institute. It is nothing against MTConnect, it is simply in line with their business framework as pure partner play.

All the Google Atmosphere 2011 videos are here

After the Google Conference, I drove by the original Sun buildings on Garcia Avenue. 2550 Garcia Avenue was Sun's Headquarters address for many, many years. The Building 6 sign is where we had tons of System Engineers field events where all the Sun execs, engineering managers, marketing folks and you name it would come by to speak to the field employees.

Speaking of Sun alumni, I ran into Peter van der Linden at Google Atmosphere 2011. Peter is a computer legend, great author and we both started at Sun Microsystems at the same time. It is always great to speak with the old Sun folks.

You can not come to Silicon Valley and not have lunch at In-n-Out Burger, then go over to KrispyKreme (goto the ones on Rengstorf as that is a shopping center that has both about 100 yards apart :-) and then stop by fry's electronics after that :-)

Great First [MC]2 MTConnect Connecting Manufacturing Conference!

2011-11-13T17:17:00.001-05:00

By any metric, the first ever[MC]2 MTConnect: ConnectingManufacturing Conference was a resounding success. This conferencetook place November 8^th to the 10th, 2011 in Cincinnati,Ohio, and had something for everyone from distributors to end users,to manufacturing technology builders, to software developers, to C-levelexecutives, to students, to professors and to anyone who just wanted to reallyunderstand MTConnect. [MC]2 was very unique in that there were sessions for both business and technical tracks, threetwo hour hands-on technical workshops, as well as 26exhibitors who were showcasing their commercially available products utilizingthe MTConnect standard.

We recorded all the tracks, have all the presentations and will make this available to attendees the 2nd week of December.

•Thanksto ALL of you for making [MC]2 a big success!

•Thanksto the [MC]2 presenters, instructors, and panelists!

•Thanksto our sponsors!

•Thanksto the [MC]2 Planning Committee!

•Thanksto MTConnect’s Board of Directors!

•Thanksto all of those folks at AMT who, without their hard and smart work, [MC]2 isnot possible!

•Specialthanks to all of the attendees!

The Hyatt Regency in Cincinnati, Ohio ended up being a great location. Here was the view from the registration area just outside the main Regency Ball Room where we held the General/Business Sessions, The Buckeye Room where we held the Technical Sessions/Workshops and Regency B where we had the 25 exhibitors

Above is the very beginning of the Tuesday night opening reception.

On the evening of Tuesday November 8^th there was anopening night reception for the 175 attendees from around the globe who came toCincinnati for [MC]2. Tuesday eveningprovided the opportunity for everyone to share their own opportunities as wellas spend some time with [MC]2 speakers, instructors and exhibitors. Wednesday morning Dave Edstrom, presidentand Chairman of the Board for the MTConnect Institute, kicked off the generalsession. Dave discussed the agenda forthe new few days where their would be parallel business and technical tracks. Attendees were very pleased to learn that allbusiness and technical sessions as well as the technical workshops were beingrecorded. This allowed individuals toselect the session they wanted to attend live with the opportunity to watchother sessions later when these are posted to the new MTConnect website. We expect these to be posted in the earlypart of December.

Above is part of the table for all the registered attendees, speakers, instructors and exhibitors.

Above are the MTConnect Institute Founders.

Above are the [MC]2 sponsors.

Above is the [MC]2 audience before we kicked off the first day. Dr. Dean Bartles is the gentleman in the blue blazer in the foreground.

Above is me kicking off the [MC]2. I modeled this after Java One and it worked. Thank god! :-) Below was a very important slide in my kickoff for [MC]2.

• Many,many talented individuals helped make MTConnect real

• Withoutthese two, MTConnect never gets off the ground in 2006.

• JohnByrd,President of AMT

• DougWoods,Chairman of AMT

• Withoutthe tremendous leadership and incredible hard work of these next three, there is NOMTConnect

• PaulWarndorf, VP of Technology - CTO for AMT

• WillSobel, President of System Insights

• JohnTurner,Director FA Consulting & Technology

Above Penny DiCarlo of AMT is interviewing Mike Geldner of Google after he registered.

Above is Mike Geldner of Google giving his keynote, "Inside The World of Google".

Above Mike Geldner is showing off the first computer he worked on. Yes, I am old and so are my closest friends :-)

I am thanking Mike for a GREAT keynote!

Mike Geldner of Google gave the first keynote. Mike has extensive background in the computerindustry and has been aware of MTConnect for a couple of years. Mike gave a talk entitled, “Inside The Worldof Google”. Mike fascinated the audiencewith what it is like to work at the company that literally has over one millionjob applicants every year. Here is a very cool video that Mike Geldner of Google put together for the [MC]2 MTConnect Conecting Manufacturing Conference's Sponsoring companies.

After Mike’skeynote, the attendees had the opportunity to attend either the business ortechnical tracks that would define exactly what MTConnect is all about. The technical tracks on Wednesday also includedexcellent workshops taught by Joel Neidig of ITAMCO on “MTConnect 101: TheFundamental of MTConnect” and Nat Frampton of Real Time Development who taught “MTConnect Architecture:Understanding and Building MTConnect Agents and Adapters” in theafternoon. The were five tremendous businesssessions on Wednesday on a variety of topics including “What Is MTConnect”,“Getting Started With MTConnect Connectivity Guide”, “Expert Panel onMonitoring Your Shop Floor With MTConnect”, “Making Money and Saving Time WithMTConnect” and “Business Intelligence For Manufacturing”.

Above, John Turner, President of FA Consulting and Technology is presenting, "Getting Started With MTConnect - Connectivity Guide" with Dave McPhail, President of MEMEX Automation who is seated on the left.

Above, I am speaking Joel Neidig of ITAMCO, who taught the MTConnect 101: Fundamentals of MTConnect Course. Joel's company was also an [MC]2 sponsor. Joel wrote the first MTConnect mobile app for the iPhone and Android. Joel open sourced both sets of code. Joel was also on the "MTConnect In Real Life Panel" that I hosted. Joel is a great guy and real thought leader in manufacturing.

Above is a view of just two of the exhibitors during [MC]2.

Above, Randy Lewis of LNS, is discussing the state of the art interconnectivity demo that he worked with seven other companies on for [MC]2 with Will Sobel being the lead.

Above is a view of one side of the [MC]2 exhibitor section.

The technical and business sessionstook a break between noon and 2pm to enjoy lunch while walking among the 26MTConnect exhibitors showing off their hardware and software MTConnect enabledproducts. Later that afternoon bothsessions combined again for thought provoking discussions on “MTConnect In RealLife – MTConnect Users Panel” and “Smart Grid and Smart Manufacturing WithMTConnect”. At 6pm we had dinner in the exhibitorareas as well as at 7:30 we started the three Birds Of a Feather (BoFs) whichwere open discussions on a variety of topics such as connectivity with legacymachine tools, MTConnect-OPC UA, open discussions with MTConnect’s ChiefArchitect Will Sobel to real life MTConnect case study at TechSolve. We even introduced the new term BBoF – BarBirds of a Feather where 30 attendees kept talking about MTConnect well intoThursday morning. It was a long but veryproductive day.

Above is the other side of the [MC]2 exhibitor section.

Above is a CNC HMI (Computer Numerical Control Human Machine Interface).

Above is a closeup of a screen showing machine tool data.

Above are cutting tools from the Kennametal exhibit area.

Above is Dr. Eraldo Jannone da Silva presenting MTConnect as an Integration Tool for the Shop Floor Environment

Prof. Eraldo Jannone da Silva, School of Engineering, University of Sao Paulo

The business andtechnical tracks were also in place for Thursday with the technical trackcovering an interesting talk by Dr. Eraldo Jannone da Silva who discussed howthey are using the cloud with MTConnect for analytics and scheduling. Chris Tacke president of OpenNetCF led abrilliant session on “MTConnect Hello World: Building Your First MTConnectApplication Using The SDK”. The businesssessions included great sessions on “Supply Chain Visibility Using MTConnect”and “Sustainable Aerospace Manufacturing”.

Above is Pat McGibbon, VP of SIR for AMT and Mark Kennedy, Director of Membership for AMT and leading the MTInsight Software Sales effort. Pat runs all of MTInsight.

Above is Ralph Resnick, President of NCDMM, discussing Sustainable Aerospace Manufacturing. Amit Deshpande of TechSolve was the co-presenter with Ralph. Ralph was pitching in for Corey Kovalcik of NCDMM who had an family emergency.

Above is Paul Warndorf, VP of Technology and CTO for AMT, introducing Steve Luckowski (below).

The highlight of theconference may have been the final session by Steve Luckowski (above). Steve is theChief for Materials, Mfg. and Prototype Technology Division at Army ResearchDevelopment Engineering Command (ARDEC). His talk was titled, “The Role of MTConnect in DefenseManufacturing” and was extremely well received by the audience with lots offollow up questions. Steve’s talkdiscussed the experiences DoD has had with MTConnect, Steve’s advice on how tokeep moving forward with the open and royalty free protocol as well as an offerto keep working together to improve DoD manufacturing productivity and quality through MTConnect. Dave Edstrom thanked Steve and remarked, “wecould not have asked for a better final [MC]2 session and we are absolutelythrilled to continue working with DoD on improving manufacturing withMTConnect.” Many attendees commented on theimportance of this final session.

The Role of MTConnect in Defense Manufacturing

Above on the left is Nat Frampton, President of Real Time Development Corporation and the instructor for the MTConnect Adapters and Agents Class at [MC]2. In the middle is Chris Melissinos waiting to check in with Beth Czupil of AMT.

Above is Chris Melissinos, VP of Verisign and Sun Microsystems former Chief Gaming Officer. The photo in the upper left is Chris playing with a video game as a kid. He has not lost the fire, which is great! Chris gave a talk on "Anytime, Anywhere Manufacturing".

Chris is making a point to the audience.

Above I am thanking Chris for a GREAT keynote!

Above in the blue shirt is Ralph Resnick, President of NCDMM. In the green shirt is Red Heitkamp, VP of Engineering for Remelle Engineering. On the far right is Don Martin, President of Lion Precision. All three are HUGE supporters of MTConnect.

Above is Will Sobel, President of Systems Insights and MTConnect's Chief Architect teaching the "MTConnect: A Technical Perspective". I was presenting "MTConnect: A Business Perspective" at the same time in the main Regency Ball Room. I decided to have these sessions in parallel to address the very technical and the CxOs.

Above is Doug Woods, President of AMT, during the final wrap up session that he and I did together. Doug Woods has been a true champion for MTConnect and without Doug's leadership, there is no MTConnect.

Above I am giving the final wrap up presentation thanking everyone for a great [MC]2 and with a call to action and summarizing some of the comments attendees had made. A very popular request from most attendees on the [MC]2 surveys was it is time for Siemens to become an MTConnect Technical Advisory Group Member. Siemens was previously an MTConnect observer and we removed the observer status in 2011 because there is so much information on the web about MTConnect it no longer made sense to have it. I was very pleased that Siemens sent four individuals to [MC]2 and believe if Siemens does join MTConnect, it will be a win for Siemens, a win for MTConnect, but most importantly a win for manufacturing!

• Ifyou are not a member, please join – free to join, free to deploy

• Ifyou are a member, stay involved or get involved with MTConnect Working Groups

• Helpget the word out on MTConnect by asking manufacturing equipment providers andsoftware vendors if they ALSO support MTConnect.

“MTConnectwill do more for manufacturing in the 21stcentury than CNC did in the 20thcentury.”

JohnByrd,former President of AMT – The Association for Manufacturing Technology

MarkAlbert’s fantasticDecember 2009 MTConnect article in MMS was truly a game changer.

Mark Albert has a very nice blog post here on [MC]2 - thanks Mark!

Thanksfor a GREAT [MC]!

Let’sKick Butt and

Put A Dent In The Manufacturing Universe

WithMTConnect in 2012!

Below was the complete schedule of [MC]2

Schedule

Show: All Sessions | Technical Sessions & Workshops | Business Sessions

All Sessions

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

1:00 pm – 7:00 pm	MC² Conference Registration
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm	Opening Reception

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

7:00 am – 5:30 pm	MC² Conference Registration
7:00 am – 8:00 am	Continental Breakfast
8:00 am	MC² Welcome Dave Edstrom President and Chairman of the Board The MTConnect Institute
8:15 am – 9:00 am	Keynote: Inside The World of Google Michael Geldner, Federal Account Manager, Google Inc.
9:10 am – 12:00 pm	Technical Workshop and Sessions
9:10 am – 9:55 am	Technical Session: What is MTConnect: A Technical Perspective Will Sobel, President & CEO, Manufacturing System Insights
9:10 am – 9:55 am	Business Session: What is MTConnect - A Business Perspective Dave Edstrom, President & Chairman of the Board, MTConnect Institute
9:55 am – 10:15 am	Morning Break
10:15 am – 11:00 am	Business Session: Getting Started with MTConnect David McPhail, President & CEO, Memex Automation Inc. John Turner, Director of Technology, FA Consulting and Technology
10:15 am – 12:00 pm	Technical Workshop: MTConnect 101: Fundamentals of MTConnect Joel Neidig, Systems Engineer, ITAMCO
11:00 am – 12:00 pm	Business Session: Expert Panel: Monitoring Your Shop Floor Using the MTConnect Protocol Panel Host: Mark Doyle, VP of Sales, IGear Online, LLC
12:00 pm – 2:00 pm	Lunch and Exhibits: Exhibit Hall
2:15 pm – 4:00 pm	Technical Workshop and Sessions
2:15 pm – 4:00 pm	Technical Workshop: MTConnect Architecture: Understanding and Building MTConnect Agents and Adapters Nat Frampton, President, Real Time Development Corporation
2:15 pm – 3:05pm	Business Session: Panel: How Do I Make Money and Save Time with MTConnect? Dave Edstrom, President & Chairman of the Board, MTConnect Institute
3:10 pm – 4:00 pm	Business Session: Business Intelligence For Manufacturing Gautam Goswami, Senior Director & General Manager, BIRT on Demand
4:00 pm – 4:20 pm	Afternoon Break
4:20 pm – 5:30 pm	MTConnect in Real Life - MTConnect Users Panel Panel Hosts: Ron Pieper, Program Director- MTConnect Solutions, TechSolve, Inc. Paul Warndorf, VP - Technology, AMT-The Association For Manufacturing Technology
5:30 pm - 6:00 pm	Smart Grid and Smart Manufacturing with MTConnect Rob Pratt, Program Manager at Energy and Environment Directorate, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm	MC² Reception and Exhibits
7:30 pm	Room #1: Birds of a Feather: Integrating Flow Meter Data to Monitor Usage of Compressed Air Sri H. Atluru, Research Assistant, TechSolve, Inc. Room #2: Birds of a Feather: TBD
8:30 pm	Room #1: Birds of a Feather: MTConnect Open Q&A with MTConnect's Chief Software Architect Will Sobel, President & CEO, Manufacturing System Insights Room #2: Birds of a Feather: TBD
9:30 pm	Room #1: Birds of a Feather: MTConnect-OPC UA - A Business Perspective Tom Burke, President, OPC Foundation Room #2: Birds of a Feather: TBD

Thursday, November 10, 2011

7:00 am – 12:30 pm	MC² Conference Registration
7:00 am – 8:00 am	Continental Breakfast
8:00 am	MC² Welcome
8:15 am – 9:00 am	Keynote: Anytime, Anywhere Manufacturing in the 21st Century Chris Melissinos VP at Verisign and formerly Sun Microsystems Chief Gaming Officer
9:10 am – 12:00 pm	Technical Workshop and Sessions
9:10 am – 9:55 am	Technical Session: MTConnect as an Integration Tool for the Shop Floor Environment Prof. Eraldo Jannone da Silva, School of Engineering, University of Sao Paulo
9:10 am – 9:55 am	Business Session: Panel: Supply Chain Visibility Using MTConnect Panel Hosts: Ron Pieper, Program Director-MTConnect Solutions, TechSolve, Inc. Ralph Resnick, President & Executive Director, NCDMM
9:55 am – 10:15 am	Morning Break
10:15 am – 11:00 am	Business Session: Sustainable Aerospace Manufacturing Corey Kovalcik, Program Manager, NCDMM Amit Deshpande, Machining Systems Engineer, TechSolve, Inc.
10:15 am – 12:00 pm	Technical Workshop: MTConnect Hello World: Building Your First MTConnect Application Using the SDK Chris Tacke, President, OpenNetCF Consulting
11:00 am – 12:00 pm	Business Session: The Role of MTConnect in Defense Manufacturing Steve Luckowski, Chief, Materials, Mfg. and Prototype Technology Division, ARDEC
12:10 pm – 12:45 pm	Closing Session: The Future of MTConnect Dave Edstrom, President & Chairman of the Board, MTConnect Institute Doug Woods, President, AMT - The Association For Manufacturing Technology

Technical Sessions & Workshops

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

9:10 am – 9:55 am	Technical Session: What is MTConnect: A Technical Perspective Will Sobel, President & CEO, Manufacturing System Insights
10:15 am – 12:00 pm	MTConnect 101: Fundamentals of MTConnect Workshop Joel Neidig, Systems Engineer, ITAMCO
2:15 pm – 4:00 pm	MTConnect Architecture: Understanding and Building MTConnect Agents and Adapters Workshop Nat Frampton, President, Real Time Development Corporation
4:20 pm – 5:30 pm	MTConnect in Real Life - MTConnect Users Panel Panel Hosts: Ron Pieper, Program Director-MTConnect Solutions, TechSolve, Inc. Paul Warndorf, VP - Technology, AMT-The Association For Manufacturing

Thursday, November 10, 2011

9:10 am – 9:55 am	Technical Session: MTConnect as an Integration Tool for the Shop Floor Environment Prof. Eraldo Jannone da Silva, School of Engineering, University of Sao Paulo
10:15 am – 12:00 pm	MTConnect Hello World: Building Your First MTConnect Application Using the SDK Workshop Chris Tacke, President, OpenNetCF Consulting

Business Sessions

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

9:10 am – 9:55 am	Business Session: What is MTConnect - A Business Perspective Dave Edstrom, President & Chairman of the Board, MTConnect Institute
10:15 am – 11:00 am	Business Session: Getting Started with MTConnect David McPhail, President & CEO, Memex Automation Inc. John Turner, Director of Technology, FA Consulting and Technology
11:00 am – 12:00 pm	Business Session: Expert Panel: Monitoring Your Shop Floor Using the MTConnect Protocol Panel Host: Mark Doyle, VP of Sales, I/Gear Online, LLC
2:15 pm – 3:05 pm	Business Session: Panel: How Do I Make Money and Save Time with MTConnect? Dave Edstrom, President & Chairman of the Board, MTConnect Institute
3:10 pm – 4:00 pm	Business Session: Business Intelligence For Manufacturing Gautam Goswami, Senor Director & General Manager BIRT onDemand
4:20 pm – 5:30 pm	MTConnect in Real Life - MTConnect Users Panel Panel Hosts: Ron Pieper, Program Director-MTConnect Solutions, TechSolve, Inc. Paul Warndorf, VP - Technology, AMT-The Association For Manufacturing
5:30 pm - 6:00 pm	Smart Grid and Smart Manufacturing with MTConnect Rob Pratt, Program Manager at Energy and Environment Directorate, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Thursday, November 10, 2011

9:10 am – 9:55 am	Business Session: Panel: Supply Chain Visibility Using MTConnect Panel Hosts: Ron Pieper, Program Director-MTConnect Solutions, TechSolve, Inc. Ralph Resnick, President & Executive Director, NCDMM
10:15 am – 11:00 am	Business Session: Sustainable Aerospace Manufacturing Corey, Kovalcik, Program Manager, NCDMM Amit Deshpande, Machining Systems Engineer, TechSolve, Inc.
11:00 am – 12:00 pm	Business Session: The Role of MTConnect in Defense Manufacturing Steve Luckowski, Chief, Materials, Mfg. and Prototype Technology Division, ARDEC

The Three Open Pillars of MTConnect

2011-11-13T01:00:00.000-05:00

The Three Open Pillars of MTConnect

Nov 10, 2011 – Dave Edstrom

(NOTE: I wrote this article for the November 2011 IMTS Insider.)

MTConnect is based on three open pillars of technology: HTTP, XML and open source. While many readers will understand what these technologies are, the most important point to understand are the key implications of these three technologies to manufacturing from a business standpoint.

As a brief reminder, let’s define these terms before we look at the implications.

HTTP stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. HTTP is simply the protocol or rules of the road for communications on the web. HTTP is what you type in your browser when you go to http://MTConnectConference.org for example. HTTP has a small number of verbs to get information from a website such as get, put and post. When you enter in your favorite website in the browser window, what happens below the covers is our browser sends an HTTP “GET” command to your favorite website and website returns the text and images back to your browser for display. A very simple protocol that just works.

XML stands eXtensible Markup Language. XML is THE language and data dictionary of the Internet that is used for exchange of information between computers and applications. One of the unique aspects of XML is that it is both human and machine-readable. Another way of saying this is to state that XML is self-describing. The absolute key part of XML is the eXtensible part. What eXtensible means is the ability for anyone to add their new words and definitions by simply using XML. There are literally millions of examples of companies, organizations and individuals using XML for the exchange of information on the Internet. This exchange can be between devices, applications and anything that wants to exchange information in a clean simple format so that no bits are dropped in meaning. A simple example would be this snippet of XML:

Humans and computers can easily read the XML. This example could be used to exchange information on the MC2 conference’s presenters with two pieces of data for each presenter – first_name and age. The age is obviously my age in years and first_name is my first name, but how does a computer easily know that? Because there is another file that is basically the XML dictionary or schema for this simple five line XML example that defines that age must be an integer and first_name must be characters in the alphabet. If someone would put in a number or special character for the first_name that would not be valid in XML. If someone were to type in “Fifty-two” for age that would not be valid because that is not how we defined age. The tag simply means, “I am defining an element called “MC2”. What comes after the are the parts that make up “MC.” The tagsimply means, “I am finished defining an element called “MC2.” There is obviously more to know on XML, but these are the basics that one needs.

What exactly does open source mean? Open source refers to how others are able to use the source code or the instructions that a programmer types in to create software. The important part of open source is not simply making those instructions available for individuals to read, but also for others to take that software and build upon that software. There is an official definition of open source at the Open Source Initiative atOpenSource.org.

The definition provided by the Open Source Initiative is simply one organization's definition of the principles that must be followed if organization is going to call its software open source. There are a lot of different source code licenses out there that have their different twists on those ten definitions, but the overall principles remain the same.

Now that we know what these technologies are and how they basically work, let’s examine the most important question – what are the business implications of MTConnect using these technologies.

For the most part, end users typically do not care about protocols. Protocols are the details that are below the covers. Do you really care about the protocol that is used for your mass air flow sensor on your car’s engine when it speaks to your car’s various computer systems in the engine compartment? Not unless you are a true gear head do you care.

However, there are examples where users absolutely do care about protocols. What end users do care about is choice. When someone buys a new cellphone they expect it to have Bluetooth. When someone purchases a new notebook computer, they expect it to come with Wi-Fi. When someone downloads a new browser, they expect it to support HTTP. Why do users care about these protocols? Simple, they want connectivity to a huge number of devices, hotspots and websites – they want choice. The key business implication of using HTTP and XML for MTConnect is that by using the protocol and language of the Internet we are providing tremendous choice of applications.

The first key business implication of the power of MTConnect using HTTP and XML is very easy to show. Let’s look at the most ubiquitous applications out there – browsers. Pull up your favorite browser and type in http://agent.mtconnect.org/probe. What do you see? You will see a few pages of XML that are basically describing three things. First, you will see general XML explaining where the schema or dictionary for this device lives on the Internet. Second, you will see Components which is a physical description of this device. Third, you will see Data Items which simply describe what information can be read from this device. Even if you know absolutely zero about XML, you can read this file and understand to a large degree what this device is and what information can be read from it. This is quite obviously not an end user application because this is not how you want information presented to users. They key point here is that you did not have to have a special program just to read the data, the browser easily read the data when you just pointed your browser at the MTConnect simulator.

Another example is that you can go into Excel to easily read MTConnect data. Here is the url http://photonsandelectrons.blogspot.com/2011/06/easy-mtconnect-and-microsoft-excel.html to see the exact steps.

Are you going to be using just a browser or Excel as your manufacturing floor dashboard? No, of course not. You will be using one of the many monitoring programs out there that support MTConnect. ALL applications on the Internet today that were not written in a cave in the 1960s can speak XML and use HTTP right out of the box. What this means is that it is just brain dead easy for software developers to EASILY add the ability to read MTConnect data. When I have conversations with software vendors about MTConnect and explain how we designed MTConnect with HTTP and XML, the response is universal “this will not be a problem at all for us to add MTConnect support because we support HTTP and XML today.” It’s all about applications and when you make it brain dead easy for application providers to embrace your protocol that means choice for end users.

The second business implication of using HTTP and XML for MTConnect is that it is NOT an either/or proposition with a company which has a proprietary mechanism to connect to their manufacturing equipment. This is a BIG area of confusion. Some manufacturing equipment providers are even confused. For example, some manufacturing equipment providers think, “well, if I support MTConnect, that means I can’t support my current proprietary protocol.” That makes about as much sense as saying, “well, if I put the Firefox browser on my PC I have to then take off Internet Explorer.” No, you don’t. The two are not mutually exclusive. As a matter of fact, providing BOTH is the best strategy in the beginning. In this way, the maker of the manufacturing equipment can offer the benefits of a truly open protocol that is easily capable of talking to countless applications along with their legacy, proprietary protocol. What does this do for customers? It gives them choice!

If you are a shop owner, plant manager or anyone in manufacturing for that matter, the question you should be asking all of your manufacturing equipment providers and your software companies is, “do you also support MTConnect?” If the answer is no, then your follow up response should be, “you should because MTConnect is an open and royalty free protocol that gives users choice and it opens up a world of applications.” You can have them checkout MTConnect.org or drop me a note and I will reach out to them to them if they need further convincing.

Happy Spinal Tap Day

2011-11-11T23:11:00.000-05:00

11/11/11 at 11:11pm

Veterans Day 2011

2011-11-11T18:01:00.001-05:00

Thanks to my father John Kenneth Edstrom who did two tours of duty in Vietnam as an officer in the Air Force. My father is also in the very unique category in that he was awarded TWO BRONZE STARS for the two tours of duty for his countless acts of bravery in his two years in Vietnam. The Bronze Star Medal is a United States Armed Forces military decoration that may be awarded for bravery, acts of merit, or meritorious service.

Thanks to my cousin Chris Edstrom who has done two tours of duty in Iraq and two in Afghanistan. Thanks to Dr. Harry Foxwell, Paul Warndorf and Brad Kirley for their service to our country.

History of Veterans Day as stated at TimeAndDate.com

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 an armistice between Germany and the Allied nations came into effect. On November 11, 1919, Armistice Day was commemorated for the first time. In 1919, President Wilson proclaimed the day should be "filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory". There were plans for parades, public meetings and a brief suspension of business activities at 11am.

In 1926, the United States Congress officially recognized the end of World War I and declared that the anniversary of the armistice should be commemorated with prayer and thanksgiving. The Congress also requested that the president should "issue a proclamation calling upon the officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on November 11 and inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches, or other suitable places, with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples."

An Act (52 Stat. 351; 5 U. S. Code, Sec. 87a) was approved on May 13, 1938, which made November 11 in each year a legal holiday, known as Armistice Day. This day was originally intended to honor veterans of World War I. A few years later, World War II required the largest mobilization of service men in the history of the United States and the American forces fought in Korea. In 1954, the veterans service organizations urged Congress to change the word "Armistice" to "Veterans". Congress approved this change and on June 1, 1954, November 11 became a day to honor all American veterans, where ever and whenever they had served.

In 1968 the Uniforms Holiday Bill (Public Law 90-363 (82 Stat. 250)) made an attempt to move Veterans Day to the fourth Monday of October. The bill took effect in 1971. However, this caused a lot of confusion as many states disagreed with this decision and continued to hold Veterans Day activities on November 11. In 1975, President Gerald R. Ford signed Public Law 94-97 (89 Stat. 479), which stated that Veterans Day would again be observed on November 11 from 1978 onwards. Veterans Day is still observed on November 11.

Harry Foxwell always sends out a nice email to Sun employees (and I imagine others). Two years ago, he asked the question: Do you know where your veterans are?

Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery:
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.org/visitor_information/tomb_of_the_unknowns.html
National World War II Memorial: http://www.wwiimemorial.com/
Marine Corps Memorial: http://www.nps.gov/archive/gwmp/usmc.htm
US Navy Memorial: http://www.navymemorial.org/
Air Force Memorial: http://www.airforcememorial.org/
Korean War Veterans Memorial: http://www.nps.gov/kowa//index.htm
Vietnam Veterans Memorial: http://www.nps.gov/vive/index.htm
Vietnam Women's Memorial: http://www.visitingdc.com/memorial/vietnam-women%27s-memorial.htm
Iraq Veterans Memorial: http://iraqmemorial.org/

Department of Veterans Affairs: http://www.va.gov/

MTAG - MTConnect Technical Advisory Group Meeting

2011-11-09T06:18:00.001-05:00

We finished up our MTAG - (MTConnect Technical Advisory Group Meeting) here yesterday in Cincinnati. The meeting was full of great ideas on from the members. We discussed MTConnect 1.2 in detail, rolled out the new MTConnect website, and went through a plethora of topics including what we are doing with MTConnect in 2012.

Last night we had the [MC]2 MTConnect Connecting Manufacturing Conference Reception and in less than two hours I will kick off the first ever:

What REALLY Caused The Financial Crisis?

2011-11-06T10:22:00.001-05:00

This is an excellent article on the REAL reasons for the financial crisis. Below is a snippet from The Washington Post today. The article is written by Barry Ritholtz who is the chief executive of FusionIQ, a quantitative research firm. He is the author of “Bailout Nation” and runs a finance blog, the Big Picture.

"Rather than admit the error of their ways — Repent! — these people are engaged in an active campaign to rewrite history. They are not, of course, exonerated in doing so. And beyond that, they damage the process of repairing what was broken. They muddy the waters when it comes to holding guilty parties responsible. They prevent measures from being put into place to prevent another crisis.

Here is the surprising takeaway: They are winning. Thanks to the endless repetition of the Big Lie.
A Big Lie is so colossal that no one would believe that someone could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. There are many examples: Claims that Earth is not warming, or that evolution is not the best thesis we have for how humans developed. Those opposed to stimulus spending have gone so far as to claim that the infrastructure of the United States is just fine, Grade A (not D, as the we discussed last month), and needs little repair.

Wall Street has its own version: Its Big Lie is that banks and investment houses are merely victims of the crash. You see, the entire boom and bust was caused by misguided government policies. It was not irresponsible lending or derivative or excess leverage or misguided compensation packages, but rather long-standing housing policies that were at fault.

Indeed, the arguments these folks make fail to withstand even casual scrutiny. But that has not stopped people who should know better from repeating them."

The da Vinci of Robots is at Virginia Tech - Dr. Dennis Hong

2011-11-06T09:13:00.004-05:00

This is a GREAT article in The Washington Post Magazine by Daniel de Vise on robotics AND it is where my two oldest sons are going to college at Virginia Tech. Below is just a small snippet:

"Virginia Tech’s engineering school ranks 24th in the nation, according to the latest graduate rankings by U.S. News & World Report. Stanford, MIT, Carnegie Mellon and Penn all field bigger, older, better-funded robotics programs.
But none of them has Hong.
He arrived at Virginia Tech in 2003, still in his early 30s, with a baby face and a thick shock of black hair. There, working with a small team of bleary-eyed graduate students and a shoestring budget, Hong built several of the most compelling designs to emerge in American robotics.
Hong and his students “are really trying to change the world,” said Daniel Lee, a robotics researcher at Penn who collaborates with Hong.
Hong’s dream, though, has always been to win RoboCup, a little-known international competition that is one of the premier academic events in robotics.
RoboCup is an annual soccer tournament for robots. Designing a robot that can find and kick a soccer ball is termed the ultimate challenge in robot design; not long ago, no humanoid robot on Earth could do it. The goal is to field a robot team by 2050 that can beat the human World Cup champions."

Just 2 Days Left -- Still Time To Register for [MC]2!

2011-11-06T01:00:00.000-04:00

If you haven't yet registered for [MC]2, there's still time.

In addition, the first 150 [MC]2 registrants will receive a free polo shirt, courtesy of Okuma, we are getting very close to the limit, so don't wait!

Check out our great lineup of sessions. Two tracks -- one technical, one business -- offer a mix of interactive discussions and hands-on workshops. There will be never-before-seen demos that will show the emerging possibilities for using the MTConnect standard. You can also talk with exhibitors and learn about the commercially available products utilizing the standard right now.

Whether you've already implemented MTConnect into your business operations, or you're just curious about what it has to offer, [MC]2 is the place that will give you all those answers and more!

Register today!

Mazak Continues To Do A Great Job With MTConnect

2011-11-05T21:42:00.000-04:00

Mazak continues to be a thought and execution leader with MTConnect. I really like this brochure they put together on MTConnect.

MTConnect Case Study and it is Curtis Wright Controls in Shelby, NC using System Insights vimana software

2011-11-05T19:12:00.000-04:00

I am thrilled to announce our first MTConnect Case Study and it is Curtis Wright Controls in Shelby, NC using System Insights vimana software.

Thanks to Will Sobel and the entire System Insights team as well as to Curtis Wright Controls!

Just 3 Days Left

2011-11-05T01:00:00.000-04:00

The Daily Show - Science and Republicans

2011-11-04T02:00:00.000-04:00

Science and Republicans - this is priceless :-)

This Is Super Cool - Quantum Levitation

2011-11-04T01:30:00.000-04:00

Actuate Names 2011 BIRT Excellence Award Recipient at ActuateOne Live! San Francisco

2011-11-03T20:46:00.002-04:00

This is very cool! The MTInsight team has worked extremely hard and this is a real highlight!

Actuate Names 2011 BIRT Excellence Award Recipient at ActuateOne Live! San Francisco

AMT Recognized for Their Leading Cloud-Based Business Intelligence and Analytics Deployment

November 03, 2011 01:33 PM Eastern Daylight Time

SAN FRANCISCO--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--ActuateOne Live! - Actuate Corporation (NASDAQ:BIRT), The people behind BIRT^® and the leading open source Business Intelligence (BI) vendor, today announced that it has recognized AMT - The Association For Manufacturing Technology - with a 2011 Excellence Award in the BIRT Implementation category.

“Overall, MTInsight powered by BIRT onDemand enables our members to resolve their own questions, saving them a huge amount of time and money. With the ability to quickly access and analyze huge data repositories, MTInsight is a game-changing application for the manufacturing industry.”

AMT - The Association For Manufacturing Technology won in the BIRT Implementation category by contracting with Actuate to create MTInsight, the state-of-the-art business intelligence platform that runs on BIRT onDemand. In teaming up with Actuate on this project, AMT was able to incorporate the entire body of knowledge into one BI application to allow its users to interact with the data in an easy to use and understandable visual format. With BIRT, AMT’s MTInsight has become the premier stop for market data, trends and intelligence in the manufacturing landscape, increasing their credibility and keeping them at the forefront of the technology sector.

“BIRT onDemand provides AMT and its members with a unique plug-and-play platform. Our team required a solution that could eliminate server management costs and reduce IT involvement, as well as integrating BIRT natively into popular mobile platforms for our large base of end users. The flexibility in delivery model really provided an edge over its competitors,” says Douglas K. Woods, President, AMT. “Overall, MTInsight powered by BIRT onDemand enables our members to resolve their own questions, saving them a huge amount of time and money. With the ability to quickly access and analyze huge data repositories, MTInsight is a game-changing application for the manufacturing industry.”

“AMT was able to leverage BIRT onDemand to create the most interactive and usable BI platform for their industry,” said Nobby Akiha, Senior Vice President, Marketing, Actuate. “MTInsight demonstrates how Actuate and BIRT can help achieve excellence in a short timeframe, assisting AMT’s efforts in helping to spread these best practices within the manufacturing industry.”

Winners of the BIRT Excellence awards will be honored today at ActuateOne Live! in San Francisco, with other events coming up in New York, Paris, London, Frankfurt and Singapore. More information about ActuateOne Live! can be found by visiting www.actuate.com/acd. Don’t forget to follow the conversation on Twitter by tracking #A1Live.

AMT - The Association For Manufacturing Technology
Founded in 1902 as the National Machine Tool Builders' Association, AMT supports and promotes the U.S. manufacturing technology industry. The association provides U.S. builders of manufacturing systems with the latest information on technical developments, trade and marketing opportunities, and economic issues. It also gathers and disseminates information about world markets, promotes its members' products in those markets, and acts as a representative on manufacturing technology matters to governments and trade organizations throughout the world. Visit the AMT web site at www.AMTonline.org or visit the MTInsight web site at www.MTInsight.org.
Actuate – The people behind BIRT

Actuate founded and co-leads the Eclipse BIRT open source project. ActuateOne^™ is a unified suite of products for rapidly developing and deploying BIRT-based custom Business Intelligence applications and information applications. Applications built with ActuateOne provide one user experience regardless of task or skill level; are supported by one server for any deployment including cloud and are built with one BIRT design that can access and integrate any data source - including high volume print streams. ActuateOne adds rich data visualizations, including interactivity, dashboards, analytics, and deployment options to web and mobile BIRT applications, helping organizations drive revenue through higher customer satisfaction and improved operational performance.
Actuate has over 4,800 customers globally in a diverse range of business areas including financial services and the public sector. Founded in 1993, Actuate is headquartered in San Mateo, California, with offices worldwide. Actuate is listed on NASDAQ under the symbol BIRT. For more information, visit the company's web site at www.actuate.com or visit the BIRT community at www.birt-exchange.com.

Copyright © 2011 Actuate Corporation. All rights reserved. Actuate and the Actuate logo are registered trademarks of Actuate Corporation and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and certain other countries. All other brands, names or trademarks mentioned may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Contacts

Actuate Corporation
Leena Bengani, 650-645-3837
lbengani@actuate.com
Twitter: @Actuate

Top Five Cool Things From Eclipse SD Times article

2011-11-03T15:07:00.001-04:00

Top Five Cool Things From Eclipse by Alex Handy at SD Times. Below is just one of the top five cool things on JDT. What got my attention was WindowBuilder Pro. Having a very nice and full feature GUI builder was badly needed.

Java Development Tools

JDT may have started it all, but it remains the biggest, baddest editor in the Eclipse retinue. With refactorings, deep Java syntax knowledge, and a host of helpful tools for dealing with the almost infinite APIs and handlers within the Java ecosystem, Eclipse is the go-to IDE for most Java developers in enterprises.

But the power of Java in Eclipse doesn't end with the code editor. Java users also now have access to WindowBuilder Pro (formerly from Instantiations, now from Google). This full-featured GUI editor and designer was commercial for a decade before it was turned into open-source code and donated to the Eclipse Foundation. As a result, Java developers using Eclipse now have access to a top-notch GUI tool, one that can help to transform Java applications from looking like generic X Window applications, to looking like native Windows and Mac OS X apps.

And this summer's Indigo release of Eclipse included some major enhancements to the JDT. The compiler will now detect objects that could be static; highlighting Java code brings up a drop-down menus of options; and the debugger now allows developers to keep a list of previously used breakpoint conditions.

JDT is the heart of Eclipse, and while you don't have to use it to be an Eclipse fan, it's certainly one of the most compelling and useful projects at the Foundation.

Photons and Electrons

One Year Anniversary of "Three Perfect Days With Slim"

My First Car a 1970 Firebird Formula 400 Commercial

The Muppets Attack Fox News

NYC's Academy for Software Engineering

MTConnect at AMT's Manufacturing Technology Forum

AMT Manufacturing Technology Forum

2012 Washington DC Auto Show With Slim

Two Year Anniversary of Scott McNealy's Goodbye email

Making 3D Custom, Solid Robots Video

President Obama Is Right on SOPA & PIPA

Top 12 Resolutions IMTS 2012 Can Help You Keep

Citizens For A Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow

Gardner Publications Announces Additive Manufacturing Publication

The Mythical Man-Month Revisited

The Mythical Man-Month

Tim Edstrom Dunking 10 Foot Goal Official Basketball

New System Insights Big Data Blog for Manufacturing

Cool NBA Video Released on Christmas Day on TNT

Great NYC Family Trip - The Book of Mormon

The Complete Myth of Voter Fraud

John Edstrom Graduates VT With Masters Degree in Computer Science

MTConnect Is Not an Application - MTConnect Is Not Middleware

Christmas 2011 Ashburn Deer

Richard Clark's "CHEW' Four Types of Cyber Crime

By Alyson Behr

Another Great Mark Albert MTConnect and [MC]2 Article

Not Again....

VA continues to be a backward state and allows the gun show loophole. I also called into the Kojo Nnamdi Show when he had an anniversary show on the VT shooting. If you go to the 11:52 mark, you can hear my statements and question that goes until the 13:14 mark.

My Question of Dr. Vint Cerf on Internet Authentication

Google's Driverless Car TED Presentation

DMC - Defense Manufacturing Conference 2011

Social Media and Manufacturing

Yet Another Reason Why You Go To The Track

Stanford's Jung-Tsung Shen's "Fun With Light" aka Quantum Computing Talk at Google

Nanophotonics and Quantum Dots

Rumored as (but not) The First Known Cyber Attack on American Utility

Friends Don't Let Friends Watch Fox News

"Fox News viewers are less informed than people who don't watch any news, according to a new poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University."

Visit With My Godmother - Dorothy Johnson

Richard Muller of UCB Changes His Tune on Global Warming

A Washington Post Editorial, Published: November 18, 2011

Return of the IOCCC - International Obfuscated C Code Competition

Another interesting article by Alex Handy of SD Times on: Obfuscated C competition returns

Alex Handy of SD Times on:

Below is a snippet and the whole article is very interesting. This was always an interesting topic at Sun Microsystems when the winning code examples were announced.

[MC]2 Google Earth Fly Over of [MC]2 Sponsor Companies

The MTConnect® Institute Awards Institute Partner to MacKintok Information Architects and Designers

Stairway To Heaven Turned 40 Years Old On Nov 11th

HTML 5 Overview

New MTConnect Website

How Congress Trades Behind Closed Doors To Their Benefit

New Corvette 2012 Brochure Is Out

Google Atmoshere 2011 and SUNW Memory Lane Tour

Great First [MC]2 MTConnect Connecting Manufacturing Conference!

All Sessions

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Technical Sessions & Workshops

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Business Sessions

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Thursday, November 10, 2011

The Three Open Pillars of MTConnect

The Three Open Pillars of MTConnect

Happy Spinal Tap Day

Veterans Day 2011

Thanks to my cousin Chris Edstrom who has done two tours of duty in Iraq and two in Afghanistan. Thanks to Dr. Harry Foxwell, Paul Warndorf and Brad Kirley for their service to our country.

History of Veterans Day as stated at TimeAndDate.com

MTAG - MTConnect Technical Advisory Group Meeting

What REALLY Caused The Financial Crisis?

The da Vinci of Robots is at Virginia Tech - Dr. Dennis Hong

Just 2 Days Left -- Still Time To Register for [MC]2!

Mazak Continues To Do A Great Job With MTConnect

MTConnect Case Study and it is Curtis Wright Controls in Shelby, NC using System Insights vimana software

Just 3 Days Left

The Daily Show - Science and Republicans

This Is Super Cool - Quantum Levitation

Another interesting article by
Alex Handy of SD Times on:
Obfuscated C competition returns