Me and Karl Rove - True Story

I am flying out of CO Springs after speaking at the NTMA Conference.  It is a small plane and I literally run into Karl Rove who is first class.  I said, "I have to shake the hands of Bush's brain."  We spoke briefly and he was very nice.  I said to Karl, "while we differ a great deal politically, I have to admit, you are a brilliant man."   We ran into each other again at the train heading back to the main gate and I said, "hey Karl, can I get a picture with you?"   Again, he was very nice about it.   It was funny, because I was texting my oldest son, John,  at the time who advised me, "be careful what you say, he still has contacts at Guantanamo :-)"    The other interesting thing was I go into the restroom and who is in the urinal next to me?  My new buddy Karl Rove.  He probably thought I was stalking him, but I was not, I was just going to the restroom.

Below is a picture of me and Karl Rove.  

Just Two Days Left Extended Early Bird [MC]2 Registration!

Early-bird pricing EXTENDED to Oct. 17!

If you haven't yet registered for [MC]2, there's still time to take advantage of the savings offered by the early-bird discount. Through Oct. 17, you can save $155 on registration for the conference that will give you an in-depth look at MTConnect, and shows you the benefits it can bring to your business.   When you register, be sure to make your hotel reservations -- the block is filling up fast and we have secured a special conference rate.

In addition, the first 150 [MC]2 registrants will receive a free golf shirt, courtesy of Okuma!

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!

Just Four Days LEFT! [MC]2 Early Bird Extended Until October 17th

JUST FOUR DAYS LEFT for Early-bird pricing!!!!!!!!!!!

If you haven't yet registered for [MC]2, there's still time to take advantage of the savings offered by the early-bird discount. Through Oct. 17, you can save $155 on registration for the conference that will give you an in-depth look at MTConnect, and shows you the benefits it can bring to your business.   When you register, be sure to make your hotel reservations -- the block is filling up fast and we have secured a special conference rate.

In addition, the first 150 [MC]2 registrants will receive a free golf shirt, courtesy of Okuma!

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!

How Do You Know That's The Real Problem?

How Do You Know That’s the Real Problem?

Oct 12, 2011

By  Dave Edstrom as written for the IMTS Insider

When I was at Sun Microsystems, one of my favorite questions to a new systems engineer would be eight simple words: “How do you know that’s the real problem?”   

This question typically came about as preparation for an upcoming customer visit. The sales team might be bringing me in to discuss Sun’s future software and hardware directions under a non-disclosure agreement. The pre-briefing scenario would usually be the sales representative giving me the historical background of the account, how much business they are looking at doing with the customer this year, and the major hot buttons for this particular customer.  

The systems engineer would then give me the technical overview of the account. They might say something like, “They need new workstations because they cannot run their primary application fast enough.”  My next question would be, “How do you know that’s the real problem?” Often they would respond, “That’s what the customer told me.” My response would then be, “So, you really don’t know, but this is what the customer told you.”  The bottom line is that it was usually an opinion without any data to back it up. 

I am a huge believer in science and data. I am extremely leery when someone says that they “think with their gut.”  Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that the good or bad feeling in your gut cannot augment a decision. But when it goes over a very small percentage of the decision-making formula, especially in business, you are in trouble. In the purely personal realm, sometimes a gut feeling is all you need to realize a person or a particular situation is trouble with capital letters. In business, having the data to back up your decision should be the preferred option.

One of my favorite quotes is from Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, who famously said, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, just not their own set of facts.” The primary challenge, with any type of data, is always context. Politicians are great at using numbers without context. A famous quote that implies the importance of context is from President Reagan, who once said about economists, “trust, but verify.” That is the right path to take with customers as well. No one would question a customer in the way that I questioned a junior Sun systems engineer in the scenario above, but it is certainly within reason to ask the customer if it would be OK to take a closer look at the situation.

One of best pieces of advice comes from Albert Einstein, who said, “If I had one hour to save the world, I would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and only 5 minutes finding the solution.”  This is in line with the famous quote by Benjamin Franklin, the most brilliant American who ever lived in my biased opinion: “If I had 8 hours to cut down a tree, I would spend 6 of those sharpening my ax.”   

Both of those quotes have to do with allocating the right percentage of your time in dealing with a given situation. I am sure many of you can relate to the Einstein quote in regard to defining what the problem really is. How many times have you been in a meeting and someone raises their hand and asks, “Can we please define what problem we are really try to solve here?” It is interesting how often that is followed by prolonged silence.  

Another favorite story of mine involves speaker wire. A good friend of mine was convinced that he had to spend an ungodly amount of money on the T-Rex Super Shielded Mega Mother Speaker Wire for his home theater. I asked him, how do the little electrons know that this expensive speaker wire is so much better than unshielded? Has the vendor quantified the difference? More importantly, can you tell the difference? When I offered to bet him a $1,000 that he could not tell the difference with his ears, he decided to look into it. He went with unshielded speaker wire and is very happy today.

Let’s look at how MTConnect comes into play when a shop owner says, “I am looking at adding a third shift because we are not currently making our production schedule.”  

Again, a logical question might be: How do you know that's the real problem?

This is where MTConnect is elegant in its simplicity. For those of you new to MTConnect, here is a short primer. MTConnect can be thought of as the Rosetta Stone or Bluetooth for software applications. MTConnect is the protocol pipe that connects manufacturing equipment to software applications.    

For example, you would not go to your electronics store and buy just Bluetooth. Bluetooth is a technology that comes with your cell phone and your headset. Bluetooth is simply the protocol, or the rules of how these two devices will speak to each other, so you can tie your cell phone to your headset. MTConnect is simply that protocol that connects your manufacturing equipment to your software applications, such as monitoring software, your ERP system, or any other piece of software. Since MTConnect is an open and royalty-free protocol that uses proven Internet standards, it is absolutely brain dead easy for today’s software applications to speak to an MTConnect-enabled piece of manufacturing equipment.   

Monitoring applications that will provide real-time data on what is happening on your shop floor using the MTConnect protocol is the first step for this shop owner. The second step is getting that information integrated into that shop owner’s entire business. You might just find out that the real problem is that you do not have the data you need to make the business decisions to improve your shop or plant. This is where MTConnect comes in.

The best advice that I can give is to invest your time and sharpen your mental ax by coming and seeing, touching and learning how software applications and manufacturing equipment providers are using MTConnect to dramatically change manufacturing at the first-ever MC2 MTConnect: Connecting Manufacturing Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio, on November 8 to 10. Register today! 

Attending the NTMA Conference at The Broadmoor

I am here with Paul Warndorf attending the NTMA (National Tooling and Machining Association) Conference at The Broadmoor in CO Springs.

We are showing off MTConnect and talking about [MC]2 MTConnect Connecting Manufacturing Conference.

I called npg and said, "is the weather always this crappy here?"  :-)  Having dinner with Neil and Beth tonight at The Broadmoor.   Below is my cottage below the street light and the snow capped mountains in the background.

Above is a photo Neil Groundwater took while he and his wife Beth were taking a walk before we had dinner at The Broadmoor.

Photo npg took at the front of The Broadmoor.

Patent Trolls aka NPEs or Non Practicing Entities

I wear three hats in my professional life:

• Director for the Office of Strategic Innovation for The Association For Manufacturing Technology - AMT
• President and Chairman of the Board for the MTConnect Institute
• CEO/CTO of my own company - Virtual Photons Electrons

I have spent 33+ years in the computer industry, 23 years of which were at Sun Microsystems.  In that time period, the primary theme at companies that I have worked at has been around innovation.  I would argue that no company was more innovative than Sun Microsystems.

A very disturbing trend of late is the increase in what are called NPEs or Non Practicing Entities or Patent Trolls.    Wikipedia defines a patent troll as:

Patent troll is a pejorative term used for a person or company that enforces its patents against one or more alleged infringers in a manner considered by the target or observers as unduly aggressive or opportunistic, often with no intention to manufacture or market the patented invention.

 Here is another snippet from Wikipedia:

Patent troll "companies have no interest in using the patents... but instead hope to reap large sums of money from the lawsuits themselves."^[32] This gives them an advantage over manufacturers since they are relatively immune to the typical defensive tactic large entities use against small patent plaintiffs, because the cost of litigation tends to fall more heavily on an accused infringer than on a plaintiff with a contingency-fee lawyer, and because trolls have an almost-unrestricted ability to choose their preferred plaintiff-friendly forums, most prominently the Eastern District of Texas.^[21]

There are few things that are more innovation killing and job-killing than patent trolls.  

Here is some interesting insight (various snippets - please read entire post at Freakonomics.com) from the smart folks over at Freakonomics.com on patent trolls:

 The PTO receives over 520,000 patent applications a year. That’s about 1,425 applications a day. The agency’s approximately 6,500 patent examiners are overburdened; on average each patent gets only about 16 hours of review. Virtually all experts agree that this is nowhere near enough time to properly assess a patent. More fundamentally, patent examiners are rewarded for processing applications – and the easiest way to clear a file is to approve a patent. The PTO’s examiners don’t get paid to say no. They’re incentivized to approve.

snip...

But there’s a third, more interesting reason so many people seek patents that have a high probability of being found invalid. As it turns out, invalid patents may be worthless as innovations, but they can be very nice bargaining chips.
Any patent the PTO grants enjoys a legal presumption of validity. To overturn this presumption, defendants in a patent infringement case must prove the patent’s invalidity by a high standard of “clear and convincing evidence.” It takes a lot of lawyer fees to do that. And the result is that defendants often pay rather than fight, even when they think they could ultimately have the patent invalidated. More than 97% of patent infringement suits are settled before trial.

snip...

The patent system exists to encourage people to invent – to add, in Abraham Lincoln’s words, “the fuel of interest to the fire of genius.” But as this post suggests, there’s a dark side to the patent system. Just as good patents advance innovation, bad patents retard it. And even bad patents can be valuable to a patent troll. Every penny that goes to license an invalid patent, or settle a meritless lawsuit, is a tax on innovators.

There are some groups that are looking out for what is best for the United States of America and one of these groups is the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF).  Something EFF is doing that I absolutely is EFF's Patent Busting Project!    As EFF describes this Patent Busting Project:

An EFF Initiative To Protect Innovation and Free Expression
Tired of bogus software patents? So are we! To combat these annoying and often dangerous legal weapons, EFF has launched the Patent Busting Project to take down some of worst offenders.

We need your help! Take a look at the Top Ten Most Wanted culprits on our list, and let us know if you have any leads on technology that predates them (called "prior art") that we can use to challenge their validity. Click on a patent to find out more.

Go get those damn patent trolls and PLEASE HELP EFF so we can save the United States of America for those true innovators who are the real job creators and not the bottom feeders of society like patent trolls!

Good News on Java's Future

I enjoyed this article at SD Times by Alex Handy titled: 

Top five cool things from Oracle OpenWorld / JavaOne

I thought the two pieces on JavaFX and the future of Java were particular good news:

"The future of Java
But the biggest news of all at the show was by far the well-laid plans for Java SE 8 and beyond. With JavaFX making it into the mix, and dozens of major features already being laid out for the next release, Java is back on track and advancing again, and in a much more open fashion.

Indeed, the JCP is in the midst of reforms that will require all working groups to have open mailing lists and to make their test code available to others interested in the process. Why, the JCP may even be tackling that nasty TCK issue sometime next year, but we'll see if that really happens.

In the meantime, you'd better study up on functional languages, as Java will be moving closer to them thanks to closures in OpenJDK 8. And for those of you in the Java EE world, Java EE 7 is expected to include provisioning features to make automatic scalability even easier.

And finally, for Java ME users, we learned that the future of that platform will be more strongly tied to the mainline Java SE releases. Instead of a separate executive committee and distribution, Java ME will now be a subset of Java SE, and all Java governance decisions at the JCP will flow from a single executive committee. Java ME and SE are, effectively, being merged. "

JavaFX 2.0
Another technology that seemingly got lost in the Oracle/Sun shuffle, JavaFX is the long-awaited UI scripting layer for Java. It's targeted as an RIA development platform and includes many features that are still only dreamed of in standard Java, such as built-in media streaming support and links into graphics accelerators.

But for users, JavaFX is probably the best thing to happen to Java since SWT. It's a flashier, snazzier interface layer for Java applications, which have always lacked a bit of panache when compared to native applications. And for the zealots among you, JavaFX will soon be open-source technology as well when it's pushed into the OpenJDK 8 specification. If all goes well, JavaFX 3.0 will be part of OpenJDK 8 and Java SE 8."

Story Behind VT's "Enter Sandman" Video By Metallica

Interesting article in the Washington Post by Mark Giannotto this morning on the whole story behind the new Metallica "Enter Sandman" video played VT's Land Stadium this past Saturday.   The video was created by Metallica specifically for Hokie Nation.  "Enter Sandman" by Metallica has been the  theme song for VT's football team when they leave the VT tunnel entering the field since the 2000 season.  Below is a snippet from the article.

 "Hey, Hokie Nation, time to kick some butt. This is Metallica. Start jumping,” lead singer James Hetfield yelled before the distinctive guitar riffs of “Enter Sandman” began and Virginia Tech’s players raced onto the field.

“I saw people looking at the screen and I was wondering, ‘What are they looking at? Is this something they always do?’” said cornerback Kyle Fuller, one of several Hokies carrying a flag Saturday, and therefore one of the first in line to come out of the tunnel.

The video was the result of almost two years of work by Bruce Gearhart, a Baltimore native who is the president of the Maryland-based wine distributor, Bacchus Importers.

Below is a brief snippet of the history in another article that appeared in 2009 in the Washington Post written by Mark Viera.

"Enter Sandman" was first used at Lane Stadium for the 2000 season opener against Georgia Tech. Although the game was canceled before kickoff because of torrential rain and lightning, the song had caught on.

The second element of the "Enter Sandman" mystique came later. Before one particularly chilly night game, some of the Virginia Tech marching band members started jumping up and down to keep warm before the team's entrance. Soon, everyone copied.

"The next thing you know the whole band is jumping up and down," David McKee, the director of the Marching Virginians, said in a telephone interview. "And then next thing you know the whole stadium is jumping up and down. It was one of those accidental traditions."

Since 2000, "Enter Sandman" has woven itself into the fabric of the community. The song can often be heard downtown, blasting from passing cars or from inside the bars.

Below is a good example on what happens in Lane Stadium when they play "Enter Sandman"



With two sons currently at VT and a third likely headed there, I need to know this stuff :-)

iPad and Manufacturing

Thanks to Neil Groundwater for sending me this article on iPad Takes On Manufacturing in Macworld.  Below is a snippet from the article:

“When Apple created the iPad, the [manufacturing] industry had a sort of wake-up call … that mobility is not only relevant for people outside the company, but also for those inside the company who have information needs and are not tied to their desk, but are tied to their asset,” says Pierfrancesco Manenti, a manufacturing analyst at IDC Insights."

Another Great Mark Albert Article at Modern Machine Shop

Mark Albert of Modern Machine Shop asks as a fundamental question:

"Are our machines running? How long have they been running? Are they getting parts done on time? Do the operators need help?"

Mark writes a great article (again) on MTConnect title:  

The Need to Know Is Basic 

  "A new MTConnect-based machine monitoring system is helping Jet Machine get reliable answers to these questions. Although currently implemented as a pilot program on three of the shop’s most important five-axis machine tools, the system gives Mr. Wulfeck and other managers a timely and accurate picture of machine utilization and performance. This makes it easier to make good decisions about both short-term issues, such as maintenance priorities, and long-term issues, such as new capital acquisitions. Plans call for connecting all of the shop’s CNC machines to this monitoring system."

 This is a great article that is absolutely worth reading and understanding.  Thanks Mark!

Thanks Joe Jablonowski! MTConnect Metalmecanica Article

Huge thanks to Joe Jablonowski who wrote an article on MTConnect in Metalmecanica.   Below is a snippet:

Las ideas comenzaron a surgir cuando el consejo AMT se preparó para su reunión anual a finales de 2006. Tres conferencistas expertos externos atendieron la reunión en ese tema y para su preparación realizaron un tour por la feria International Manufacturing Technology Show en Chicago durante el verano. Después del tour coincidieron en una cosa, como uno de ellos, David Edstrom, del fabricante de computadores Sun Microsystems, lo indicó: “Ustedes chicos ¡no pueden hablarse el uno al otro!”.

 It is certainly very nice of Joe to do this and great to see MTConnect articles appear in other languages!

Joe Jablonowski,  es editor y Publisher del Metalworking Insiders’ Report, el boletín de Gardner Publications para productores de equipos de fábrica. Con más de 35 años de experiencia en reportaje sobre manufactura, el anterior jefe de edición de American Machinist también conduce el Machine Tool Scoreboard en línea y el World Machine Tool Output & Consumption Survey anual.

EXTENDED! [MC]2 MTConnect Connecting Manufacturing Conference

Early-bird pricing EXTENDED to Oct. 17!

If you haven't yet registered for [MC]2, there's still time to take advantage of the savings offered by the early-bird discount. Through Oct. 17, you can save $155 on registration for the conference that will give you an in-depth look at MTConnect, and shows you the benefits it can bring to your business.   When you register, be sure to make your hotel reservations -- the block is filling up fast and we have secured a special conference rate.

In addition, the first 150 [MC]2 registrants will receive a free golf shirt, courtesy of Okuma!

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!

Very Sad Day - The Passing of Steve Jobs

I mentioned this on August 28th - but I am going to repeat it again because of Steve's Job's passing today.  I am typing this on a MacBook Pro with an iPhone in my pocket and looking at the iMac sitting across the room with my wife using her iPhone to do a crossword puzzle as we watch CNN's reporting on Steve Jobs.

It really is the classic success story of starting a company in a garage.  Who will ever forget the 1984 Macintosh commercial.




I had the great fortune to hear Steve Jobs speak on few occasions while at Sun Microsystems.  I remember when he told the story about walking through Xerox PARC and seeing the first window system graphical user interface and a mouse.
Steve said, "all of you would have realized that this was the future of computing and did the same thing I did."  I remember saying to the person next to me, "no we wouldn't, we're not Steve Jobs".  The one thing that is true, is that Steve Jobs has a a reality distortion field around him when he spoke.  He is without peer when it comes to talking technology in a clear, concise and compelling way.

There will never be another Steve Jobs....

Below is from Apple's web site:

Below is my favorite commencement address of all time by Steve Jobs at Stanford.



Below is Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak together.




Below is the NeXT computer booting that I remember when Joel Mclung, formerly of Sun then at NeXT, showed a NeXT computer to me and NeXTSTEP.

Amazing: The ascent of Alex Honnold

This was on 60 Minutes and was an amazing story on the world's best climber.

"If scaling a 1,600-foot rock face seems terrifying, imagine scaling it without ropes or a harness. That's what Alex Honnold recently attempted in Yosemite National Park, using nothing more than his hands and feet. "60 Minutes" cameras were strategically placed along the climb, capturing every harrowing move. Correspondent Lara Logan interviews the man now being hailed as the best climber alive."

JUST 1 DAY Until Early Bird Registration Ends For [MC]2 MTConnect Connecting Manufacturing Conference

Since its introduction to the manufacturing industry, the MTConnect standard has been revolutionizing the way manufacturing equipment and devices "talk" to each other on the shop floor. Anyone in the manufacturing industry can benefit from learning about this important standard. That's why you must attend [MC]2 MTConnect: Connecting Manufacturing Conference, November 8-10, 2011, in Cincinnati, Ohio. This conference will have something for everyone, from distributors to end users, to manufacturing technology builders, to software developers, to C-level executives, to professors, to students, and to anyone who just wants to really understand MTConnect. [MC]2 offers both business and technical tracks, hands-on technical workshops, panel discussions on the use and benefits of the standards, as well as a showcase of commercially available products utilizing the MTConnect standard. Conference attendees will have the opportunity to learn from the experts to really understand how MTConnect, as Modern Machine Shop said, is enabling tremendous productivity gains in manufacturing.  Those attending will return with new knowledge and skills so they can engage in a deeper dialogue on manufacturing productivity, as well as a much better understanding on what it takes to compete in 21st century manufacturing. Register now! This is an event like no other.

Great VT Football Special on Virginia Tech

I thought this was an excellent ESPNU All Access Special on VT Football.

JUST 2 Days Until Early Bird Registration Ends For [MC]2 MTConnect Connecting Manufacturing Conference

Since its introduction to the manufacturing industry, the MTConnect standard has been revolutionizing the way manufacturing equipment and devices "talk" to each other on the shop floor. Anyone in the manufacturing industry can benefit from learning about this important standard. That's why you must attend [MC]2 MTConnect: Connecting Manufacturing Conference, November 8-10, 2011, in Cincinnati, Ohio. This conference will have something for everyone, from distributors to end users, to manufacturing technology builders, to software developers, to C-level executives, to professors, to students, and to anyone who just wants to really understand MTConnect. [MC]2 offers both business and technical tracks, hands-on technical workshops, panel discussions on the use and benefits of the standards, as well as a showcase of commercially available products utilizing the MTConnect standard. Conference attendees will have the opportunity to learn from the experts to really understand how MTConnect, as Modern Machine Shop said, is enabling tremendous productivity gains in manufacturing.  Those attending will return with new knowledge and skills so they can engage in a deeper dialogue on manufacturing productivity, as well as a much better understanding on what it takes to compete in 21st century manufacturing. Register now! This is an event like no other.

3 Days Until Early Bird Registration Ends For [MC]2 MTConnect Connecting Manufacturing Conference

Since its introduction to the manufacturing industry, the MTConnect standard has been revolutionizing the way manufacturing equipment and devices "talk" to each other on the shop floor. Anyone in the manufacturing industry can benefit from learning about this important standard. That's why you must attend [MC]2 MTConnect: Connecting Manufacturing Conference, November 8-10, 2011, in Cincinnati, Ohio. This conference will have something for everyone, from distributors to end users, to manufacturing technology builders, to software developers, to C-level executives, to professors, to students, and to anyone who just wants to really understand MTConnect. [MC]2 offers both business and technical tracks, hands-on technical workshops, panel discussions on the use and benefits of the standards, as well as a showcase of commercially available products utilizing the MTConnect standard. Conference attendees will have the opportunity to learn from the experts to really understand how MTConnect, as Modern Machine Shop said, is enabling tremendous productivity gains in manufacturing.  Those attending will return with new knowledge and skills so they can engage in a deeper dialogue on manufacturing productivity, as well as a much better understanding on what it takes to compete in 21st century manufacturing. Register now! This is an event like no other.

Celebration of Birthdays and 28th Year Anniversary

Below are some photos (I THOUGHT I lost most of them by previously deleting a single photo on my MacBook Pro appears to have permanently fubarr'd by sandisk, so I know need to buy a low-level formatting program to clean up my 16GB sandisk - but I digress :-)    Lesson learned - if your near 80 year old mother wants to take extra photos of everyone in front of the limo - let her - don't tell her that you will send her the photos from your camera - you never know in life.    I used two photo recovery programs - Stellar Phoenix Recovery and SANDISK CardRescue (preview of paid version).  I can absolutely tell you that there is little difference between the two in terms of finding the photos that were lost.   Thanks to Dennis Govoni for his advice on how to deal with this issue.  NOTE:  I did use both the low-level formatting program and the format program on the Nikon COOLPIX S9100.  UPDATE:  It turns out that when the sandisk was fubar'd, my camera put them on the internal memory and Julie found these when we were looking for beach photos in May 2012.  It turns out that if the Coolpix has difficulty reading the memory card, it automatically goes to internal memory.  You need to always look because it might find it one minute and not the next.

Anyway, back to Julie's BIG 50th bday, Michael's 21st bday and our 28th wedding anniversary.  We had the limo pick up Julie, John, Michael, Tim and me.  We then got Jamie Caldwell who we consider our fourth son (Michael's best friend) and one hell of a great guy and a great athlete.  We then picked up my parents and my sister - the Dr. - and went to Ruth's Chris Steak House.  Afterwards we had the limo driver take us through DC since a few of us had not yet seen the new Martin Luther King Memorial.  It was a great time.   Notice below how Tim had to hide behind John.

 

 Michael, John, Julie, Tim and me.

John, Jamie, my mother, my father, me behind my father, Tim, Julie my wife, my sister Dr. Julie Edstrom and Michael

Michael with the reflection in the mirro

4 Days Until Early Bird Registration Ends For [MC]2 MTConnect Connecting Manufacturing Conference

Since its introduction to the manufacturing industry, the MTConnect standard has been revolutionizing the way manufacturing equipment and devices "talk" to each other on the shop floor. Anyone in the manufacturing industry can benefit from learning about this important standard. That's why you must attend [MC]2 MTConnect: Connecting Manufacturing Conference, November 8-10, 2011, in Cincinnati, Ohio. This conference will have something for everyone, from distributors to end users, to manufacturing technology builders, to software developers, to C-level executives, to professors, to students, and to anyone who just wants to really understand MTConnect. [MC]2 offers both business and technical tracks, hands-on technical workshops, panel discussions on the use and benefits of the standards, as well as a showcase of commercially available products utilizing the MTConnect standard. Conference attendees will have the opportunity to learn from the experts to really understand how MTConnect, as Modern Machine Shop said, is enabling tremendous productivity gains in manufacturing.  Those attending will return with new knowledge and skills so they can engage in a deeper dialogue on manufacturing productivity, as well as a much better understanding on what it takes to compete in 21st century manufacturing. Register now! This is an event like no other.

5 Days Until Early Bird Registration Ends For [MC]2 MTConnect Connecting Manufacturing Conference

Since its introduction to the manufacturing industry, the MTConnect standard has been revolutionizing the way manufacturing equipment and devices "talk" to each other on the shop floor. Anyone in the manufacturing industry can benefit from learning about this important standard. That's why you must attend [MC]2 MTConnect: Connecting Manufacturing Conference, November 8-10, 2011, in Cincinnati, Ohio. This conference will have something for everyone, from distributors to end users, to manufacturing technology builders, to software developers, to C-level executives, to professors, to students, and to anyone who just wants to really understand MTConnect. [MC]2 offers both business and technical tracks, hands-on technical workshops, panel discussions on the use and benefits of the standards, as well as a showcase of commercially available products utilizing the MTConnect standard. Conference attendees will have the opportunity to learn from the experts to really understand how MTConnect, as Modern Machine Shop said, is enabling tremendous productivity gains in manufacturing.  Those attending will return with new knowledge and skills so they can engage in a deeper dialogue on manufacturing productivity, as well as a much better understanding on what it takes to compete in 21st century manufacturing. Register now! This is an event like no other.

MTConnect to be at IMTS 2012

MCADCafe picked up AMT - The Association For Manufacturing Technology's press release on IMTS 2012.   Below is a snippet discussing additive technology and MTConnect.

"There will be two other big features in the ETC: Additive Technology, and MTConnect®, the open-source communications and interconnectivity standard for manufacturing equipment and devices.

Additive Technology will feature the latest advances in this exciting manufacturing concept. These technologies actually "compress time" in that they dramatically reduce the time between design and production and eliminate certain processes associated with traditional machining, such as tooling. Additive manufacturing truly makes things possible in manufacturing that were not possible before. In addition, 3-D printing, a type of additive manufacturing, allows for "desktop manufacturing," bringing production to places it previously couldn't be done, such as homes and classrooms.

Finally, MTConnect® will return to the ETC in 2012. First introduced at IMTS 2008, this ground-breaking interconnectivity and communications standard is changing the way manufacturing equipment and devices are monitored and their productivity analyzed. The standard has been gaining more widespread use throughout the industry and has been called the "Rosetta Stone" of manufacturing because it allows equipment and devices to speak a common language."

Lion Precision Supporting [MC]2 MTConnect Connecting Manufacturing Conference

Don Martin, president of Lion Precision, has been a huge supporter of MTConnect and has done an outstanding job as the chair of MTConnect’s Sensors Working Group.   This Working Group has played a critical role and has done an outstanding job providing a open and royalty free MTConnect framework to easily enable sensor measurements. The importance of easily enabling sensor data in manufacturing can not be understated.

Below is a quote from Don that appears on American Banking & Market News:

“MTConnect enables machines to communicate information on nearly every parameter of the manufacturing process. Lion Precision is uniquely positioned to provide MTConnect compliant noncontact displacement sensors that can be used to monitor spindle performance including error motions and thermal growth as well as any other parameter requiring precision position measurements.”

 Lion Precision is a real thought leader as illustrated by the NASA example below that appears in the same article.  I blogged about this win a year ago almost to the day.

"The MTConnect protocol is being used by Lion Precision for a joint development project with NASA’s Stennis Space Center – the earliest implementation of the sensor protocols of MTConnect. The NASA project includes a multiple-channel eddy-current displacement sensor system to monitor valve position in rocket engine test cells."

60 nanoseconds faster than photons

Very, very interesting...

My youngest son Tim brought this to my attention when it broke yesterday.  My first thought was "cold fusion" until I read it came out of CERN.

Here is the bottom line so far:  "In the course of doing the experiments, the researchers noticed that the particles showed up 60 billionths of a second earlier than they would have done if they had traveled at the speed of light."

10 Days Until Early Bird Registration Ends For [MC]2 MTConnect Connecting Manufacturing Conference

Since its introduction to the manufacturing industry, the MTConnect standard has been revolutionizing the way manufacturing equipment and devices "talk" to each other on the shop floor. Anyone in the manufacturing industry can benefit from learning about this important standard. That's why you must attend [MC]2 MTConnect: Connecting Manufacturing Conference, November 8-10, 2011, in Cincinnati, Ohio. This conference will have something for everyone, from distributors to end users, to manufacturing technology builders, to software developers, to C-level executives, to professors, to students, and to anyone who just wants to really understand MTConnect. [MC]2 offers both business and technical tracks, hands-on technical workshops, panel discussions on the use and benefits of the standards, as well as a showcase of commercially available products utilizing the MTConnect standard. Conference attendees will have the opportunity to learn from the experts to really understand how MTConnect, as Modern Machine Shop said, is enabling tremendous productivity gains in manufacturing.  Those attending will return with new knowledge and skills so they can engage in a deeper dialogue on manufacturing productivity, as well as a much better understanding on what it takes to compete in 21st century manufacturing. Register now! This is an event like no other.

Social Security Is Not A Ponzi Scheme

I had this discussion with my father.  Here is an article by Dean Baker showing that if Social Security is a ponzi scheme, then so is the entire US government and most businesses.  Below is a snippet:

"The way in which Social Security is ostensibly similar to a Ponzi scheme is that it depends on new workers in the future to meet obligations that it incurs today. This also happens to be true of any debt issued by either the government or the private sector.

If the size of the working population in the United States collapsed tomorrow, then it would not have the tax revenue to pay off government bonds. Similarly, if the public stopped buying General Electric's products, it would also be unable to pay off its bondholders. Yet no one in their right mind would describe the bonds issued by the federal government or General Electric as Ponzi schemes."

 The image below is from Mother Jones: