This is Dave Edstrom's personal blog called Photons and Electrons. This blog is about technology, as well as some of my personal interests. I am the CEO/CTO of Virtual Photons Electrons. I was the CTO for MEMEX for three years, the President and Chairman of the Board for the MTConnect Institute from May 2010 to January 2014 and prior to that I spent 23 years at Sun Microsystems.
on the importance of this ruling for software developers. As Mr. Mullin states:
"But what's truly at stake in Oracle v. Google, round two? For those who work with code for a living, a lot. The case revolves
around how Application Programming Interfaces, or APIs, can and cannot
be used. Boiled down, APIs define how different types of code
communicate to each other. If owners of those APIs can use copyright law
to control how programming is done, there will be a sea change in
industry practices. For many developers, especially of open source
software, this will be a change for the worse.
"That is really going to create a radical shift in how software is
developed worldwide," Mitch Stoltz, an attorney for the Electronic
Frontier Foundation who's been following the case, said in an
interview. "If it requires permission each time APIs are used and code
calls other code, then you've upended the economics of software."
This would have killed the golden goose of software development if Oracle would have prevailed here.
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 three in
Afghanistan and who is doing work back to both countries now as a contractor. Thanks to Dr. Harry Foxwell, Brad Kirley, Bruce Adams and Paul Warndorf
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 would send 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/
On Monday May 23rd I had a new titanium hip replacement done.
The reason I am blogging on this, versus Facebook, is that I am going to use this as a way to document the history of this Total Hip Replacement (THR) and the PT, lessons learned in the hopes that it might serve to help someone else going through the same circumstances and operation.
I have at the end of this "Important Things I Learned After My Hip Replacement" a list of things you might find helpful. Legal disclaimer, I am not an MD and this is just my set of thoughts from my single data point of one replacement surgery. Listen to your Dr. and not me. I am doing this in case I need another surgery years from now, or other folks that might find some of this of interest. If it makes anyone's recovery a little easier, then that would be all I could hope for.
FYI, if you find this of use and want to tell a friend or family member who is having a total hip replacement, here is the URL to remember: http://TinyURL.com/DavesNewHip
I thought I would repeat this advice at the beginning that I have at the end in my important notes section.
The THREE most important decisions are:
Pick a
great surgeon and do ALL the prep the Dr. tells you to do. I had an incredible surgeon. A surgeon
who has done over 1,000 hip replacements and does at least 50 to 75 per
year turned out to be a good number for me.
Pick a great PT. I
had the best. She helped me work through the many challenges I had
during my recovery that I would have NEVER been able to figure out
myself. I put in an average of two hours every day doing PT. I think that made all the difference in the world. If don't do the PT, you are cheating yourself.
Pick a great "coach" as they say in the "Joints in Motion" Course. I had the best coach in my wife of almost 33 years Julie.
The brief background on this is that my right hip has bothered me for about 7 years (my guess, but I cannot say for sure, is when I had to throw my bike down on Loudoun County Parkway to avoid being run over by a pickup truck is where my troubles began because I went down hard on my right side and had to trash my bike, my bike helmet and I was bloody), but I had more good days than bad days. Then at the end of October 2015 I hit the proverbial knee in the curve and I did not have a good day for 6 months. This simply meant, not being able to walk without a limp and losing my range of motion on a weekly basis.
Above is me walking (without the knowledge I was being filmed by my wife) and as you can see, I have to use both hands on my hips and have a severe limp.
I was in HUGE denial mode as well as my wife Julie can tell you - maybe it is a "guy thing" or more likely a "dumb guy thing" :-) I was blaming it on tight muscles and other rationalizations. When I finally went in to see my Primary Care Provider on April 15th the right hip came back with a diagnosis of:
CLINICAL HISTORY: Right hip pain. FINDINGS: AP and frog-leg lateral views of the right hip were obtained. There is no fracture or dislocation. There is a severe degree of joint space narrowing involving the superomedial aspect of the right hip with associated dysplasia of the femoral head. Also noted is osteophyte formation at the acetabulum. There is a mild degree of joint space narrowing involving the superolateral aspect of the left hip joint. No significant bone lesions are identified.
Impression
1. No evidence for acute osseous abnormality. 2. Severe degenerative joint disease involving the right hip joint.
3. Mild degenerative joint disease involving the left hip joint.
I was sent to see a orthopedic surgeon who quickly cut (pun intended) to the chase. "Dave, if a normal hip for someone your age is a 1 and the world's worst hip is a 10, you are an 8, (note: after surgery he said it was more like a 9+ per the surgeon). You have only one option and that is a total hip replacement." He also told me that he has personally done over a 1,000 hips and he goes with proven technology.
The first thing he told me after surgery was "it was even worse than the x-rays indicated and it was filled with osteoarthritis."
Pure titanium is a light, silvery-white, hard, lustrous metal. It has excellent strength and corrosion resistance and also has a high strength to weight ratio.
Titanium’s corrosion rate is so low that after 4000 years in seawater, corrosion would only have penetrated the metal to the thickness of a thin sheet of paper.(3)
What I like about the BIOMET G7 is that the liner can be replaced if needed and there are literally over 1.6 million of these in individuals around the globe. I discussed more exotic materials with my surgeon, but he quickly pointed out that these more exotic materials can fail in very nasty way inside the body. A good friend of mine has a brother who works in manufacturing and knows just how good these new hips are from a strength standpoint, said of the BIOMET G7, "it's lined with ultra high molecular weight polyethylene. That
stuffs so tough if you drill a pilot hole in a block of it and then try
to drive a wood screw through it, you'll still tear the head off the
screw before you penetrate the block. You should be good till you're
80. Then you *might* have to have the liner replaced."
The technology of these new hips are mind-blowing. I am really lucky.
Above is my youngest son Tim, my middle son Michael and my lovely bride Julie who visited me that first day of my surgery.
Prior to surgery, everyone was required to take "Joints In Motion" two hour course which talks about the do's and don'ts after hip or knee surgery. This is REQUIRED before surgery and I thought it was a GREAT course.
With hip replacement surgery, there are two things to be very careful of to AVOID the chances of the new titanium ball popping out of the new titanium socket.
NEVER have the angle between your chest and your surgical leg's quadricep become LESS than 90 degrees.
NEVER cross your surgical leg over your non-surgical leg.
While this is rare, it is VERY important to remember.
Also, with any surgery you always have to worry about blood clots - that is why I have the compression stockings on all the time for 6 weeks and do the ankle lifts as well.
Also, when you go to the dentist, it is recommended that you have antibiotics. The exact regiment will be up to your surgeon. I found this:
"Developing an infection in and around a total hip or knee replacement is
one of the most catastrophic complications that can occur. During a
dental procedure, it is possible for bacteria from the mouth, teeth or
gums to travel through the bloodstream and settle in an artificial
joint. The use of an antibiotic pill prior to dental work has been
thought to lower this risk. Orthopedic surgeons have historically
recommended the routine use of antibiotics prior to dental work due to
the catastrophic effects of a prosthetic joint infection and the
relative safety of a single dose of oral antibiotics."
Above is my arthritic right hip.
Above is my new BIOMET G7 titanium hip.
Above is my hip after surgery. You can see purple writing on my hip. That word you see at the bottom is "yes" upside down and above that is my surgeon's initials that we are replacing my right hip. Believe it or not, there are recorded incidents (not with my Dr or my hospital) of the wrong hip being operated on over the years. I was told this by my surgeon as the importance of checklists. I don't know if this is a global statistic, but I am always more than glad to see checklists in place when it comes to cutting on my body :-)
Above is my swollen right leg 5 days after surgery.
Above is me 4 days after surgery with the very nice fruit basket from my friends at AMT (the folks who own IMTS, MTConnect and MTInsight). Thanks to Peter and Doug and the ENTIRE AMT crew! Our yellow lab, Photon, is lying down in the background. I am also with my new, very bestest friend - my walker (ok, my mom's walker that she is letting me borrow :-)
The high level plan is to be riding a stationary bike at the 3 weeks mark and back out riding my hybrid bike on the W&OD bike trail by September. Getting in and out of my Corvettes will be a little trick, but I am sure I will get that figured out as well :-) Here is a car assist grab bar that pops into the door latch on either driver or passenger side to help someone get out of a low car, BUT NOT A CORVETTE as the Corvette as the loop on the door and NOT the door jam. See at the end of this post for HOW to get in/out of a Corvette without another device.
I will keep adding on to this blog as sort of a diary for me and others on my progress.
Before I give any specifics on the hospital and the Dr. who did the surgery, I want to get their permission. What I can say is that I could NOT be MORE impressed with ALL aspects of the care, the surgery, the post-op hospital care and how everything has turned out at this point in time - Friday May 27th.
May 23rd surgery - spent one night in the hospital and walked around some on the first day of the surgery.
May 24th they took me for a walk before breakfast and I nearly passed out 20' feet into my walk. I had to have a chair brought out. They said I should have had breakfast before my walk and that was the issue. I went home at 6pm, took it easy that first night at home
Night of May 24th, right leg swelled up because I did not keep ice on it -- putting ice on my hip and quad really helped out. If you are a guy, your best friend will be the urine bottle you can buy from the hospital store to be able to store near you bed to make it easier instead of having to make N number of trips to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
May 25th took it fairly easy only doing exercises -- I can already tell that the pain is different. I have surgical recovery pain versus pain in my hip
May 26th went up and down 15 steps to 2nd level. This felt like climbing and descending from Everest :-)
May 27th first day of PT - one hour long. I now have a specific lists of exercises I will do each day. Likely 2 to 3 hours of exercise each day.
May 28th went for a longer walk outside and tried to back the pain pills from 3 hours to 4 hours to see how that might be better in terms of getting up in the middle of the night.
May 28th was the first day of a bowel movement post surgery. I bring this up not to have too much detail, but because this is a real issue after serious surgery because opiods will absolutely back you up. I followed the standard recommendations of taking laxatives such as colace prior, during and after the surgery - along with tons of fruit, miralax and tons of liquids. IF that did not work, I was told to use Magnesium Citrate which works a very high percentage of the time. Maybe 3 hours of sleep. Tried to sleep on left-hand side again, but too painful/difficult.
May 29th - continued success with BMs. Slept upstairs and making continued improvements - me walking 6 days after surgery
May 30th one week from surgery date. LOTS of walking. Was able to sleep on side for 20 minutes without pain - no sleep, but no pain. Getting used to only 1 to 2 hours of sleep at a shot before waking up. Sleeping on back is something that I never do. EACH day has been BETTER than the day before which is thrilling
May 31st - started to back off Vicodin
June 1st - everything continues to get better and going for longer walks - continued to cut down on Vicodin
June 2nd - continued to back down on Vicodin as pain level is very low except for a couple of exercises -- walked 1/4 of a mile with walker -- no ice at night and continued to cut down on Vicodin
June 3rd - sleeping is still a challenge. Finally can sleep on left side. I have heard an believe that pain killers affect everyone a little differently. Yet another reason to get off these pain killers, which I hope to get a green light on when I have my two week checkup next week.
June 4th better every day.
June 5th ordered an elevated rest pad since rebuilding this in the middle of the night from 5 pillows is getting very old - especially for Julie :-)
Note, I am going to return the elevated rest pad because last night I went without it and slept the best of any night since before the surgery. I also think ( do not know for sure) that having your legs raised when the swelling has gone completely down MIGHT have to led to more times I had to get up and go to the restroom. I found lying on my non-surgical side is now possible and I can sleep. I found it more comfortable and better to protect cross-over of my legs by having my surgical leg behind my non-surgical leg which keeps my hips more in-line. IF I have my other hip replaced, I would buy that raised pad because the mound of pillows just falls apart over time is my experience.
June 6th continued progress
June 7th received a perfect review at my two week post-op review. I could NOT feel any better right now! I am completely off the pain killers as well. I do not need to cover the sutures and if they do not fall off by this weekend, I can take them off. I next see my Dr. the first part of September and just keep up the twice weekly PT. I also dropped 8 pounds in the past two weeks, which was great. Ten more I am at my weight my GP wants me to be at.
This will go to weekly updates as I really could NOT be more pleased with my new titanium hip!
Below is my hip at 15 days.
June 13th - 3 weeks from my surgery I started driving and using a cane inside the house. Below is my scar at 3 weeks.
Below is me finally getting out with my 2016 Corvette Stingray at 3 weeks 5 days. Julie and I went to Breaux Winery in Loudoun on a beautiful day. It felt great driving the 2011 Corvette Grand Sport as well.
At week 5 I was able to ride the stationary bike with zero tightness or discomfort. That was a big deal.
At the 5 1/2 week mark I totally gave up my cane.
At the 6 week mark,I went for 2.3 mile walk with Julie. I was able to stop wearing the support hose today, which was very nice. My gait is still not perfect, but I had trouble walking 15 feet before the surgery, so I am thrilled! I used cyclemeter to track our walk. The fastest speed was because I forgot to turn it off in the elevator :-)
A few days later I walked:
Week 7 -- I really feel like I am almost back to normal, except for the fact I can't put on my right shoe yet because I do not want to take a chance on over stretching. I did four hours of yard work on this past Sunday July 10th and had zero issues.
Week 8 --I went on a 27.5 mile bike ride on the WO&D and had zero issues.
Week 9 I did my standard 40 mile ride on the WO&D and it felt great.
At 9 weeks and 5 days I had my last PT session which I passed and I received the marching orders going forward - which I will follow religiously.
At 10 weeks and 6 days I went on a 54 mile bike ride from OC, MD to Cape Henlopen and back.
The main thing I need to work on now is symmetry of my walk as for the past six months and longer I have had a swinging right gate to deal with the hip -- it has actually been an issue for many years and it will take me awhile to get it perfect, BUT this is key because when your gait is now symmetric, you CREATE OTHER PROBLEMS!
RESOURCES NOTES: there are TONS of great information from your Dr., books and info on the web regrading this surgery.
Important Things I Learned After My Hip Replacement
The THREE most important decisions are:
Pick a
great surgeon and do ALL the prep the Dr. tells you to do. I had an incredible surgeon. A surgeon
who has done over 1,000 hip replacements and does at least 50 to 75 per
year turned out to be a good number for me.
Pick a great PT. I
had the best. She helped me work through the many challenges I had
during my recovery that I would have NEVER been able to figure out
myself. I put in an average of two hours every day doing PT. I think
that made all the difference in the world. If don't do the PT, you are
cheating yourself.
Pick a great "coach" as they say in the "Joints in Motion" Course. I had the best coach in my wife of almost 33 years Julie.
Try to borrow the walker, reachers (things to pick up stuff since you cannot bend over) and other things if you can. Not sure I want to borrow someone else's raised toilet :-)
Having a walker on main and bedroom level was a HUGE benefit for me.
It turns on you need need TWO reachers - one reacher and one when you drop that reacher :-)
Below is the device that makes it possible to put socks on by yourself (you slip the sock over and the ends lock around the indent near the white straps and you just pull it on, next to the shoes are the long shoe horn, the EZ reacher with trigger grip and then the round wooden tool that is used for getting your shoes straight and misc. movement of stuff you cannot reach. If you notice my tennis shoes have the elastic shoe strings which were GREAT and saved me from buying some stupid, ugly slipons that I would ONLY wear after surgery and were NOT as comfortable as your own tennis shoes.
Having LOTS of gallon size baggies of Karo syrup in the freezer is key when you get home The first week you should ice on for 20 minutes take a break and get it back on. That first night home is very important.
Get elastic laces for a good pair of tennis shoes. You won't be able to tie your laces for a few months,
Each day was better than the previous day. I would say the first two weeks were the "toughest", but even that is too strong a phrase as I felt MUCH better right after surgery. Probably a better way to state is that you want to be patient with yourself the first two weeks in realizing that you will need help around the house. The big challenge was that the pain killers gave me headaches and made me notious, as well as I had difficulty sleeping, BUT I was so thrilled to have a new hip that I did not care.
I cannot thank my wife enough for all of her help during this time.
Expect sleep to be tough (at least it was for me). If I napped during the day, I looked at that as a good thing because it was hard for me to sleep on my back and sleeping on my sides was a non-option for almost the first two weeks. Hopefully, pain killers work out better for others.
These pain killers affect people in different ways. I have heard some people sleep a lot and others it is a challenge. I was in the latter category. I worked hard to get off them as soon as possible.
Rails on both sides of steps is KEY when you first start going up the stairs.
The first time you go up a big set of steps will seem like Mt. Everest. ALWAYS have a spotter going up/down steps until you are 1,000% comfortable.
You WILL need a raised toilet. DON'T get the type that has the rails on each side, but instead get the one that looks like a balloon was put in the toilet set to raise it up 6 inches. The reason is that you will want to spread your legs wide and the type with the rails will NOT allow you do that. Your walk will help you get up initially from the toilet in the first few days.
When you start walking more with your walker, you will wear out the tennis balls. There are different types of walkers with tennis balls. Some have a tennis ball that you saw (not cut) in a "X" with each line being an inch and then you place it at the end of the walker. The stupid designed walkers are the ones that LOOK like tennis balls, BUT it requires a separate "pad" that you need to buy that goes into the "tennis ball" at the bottom of the leg. I purchased these "walker ski glides" made of heavy duty plastic that worked out great for long walks outside.
If you need to bend over at the 6 plus week mark, use the golfer picking up a putt method where the surgical leg is straight and your bend over on the good leg.
Attitude and prep is everything. I kept riding the bike right up until a week before the operation to keep my weight down, but more importantly to keep my muscles in good shape. When you go to PT you will see people who are in shape and those who are out of shape. Take a wild guess on who does a lot better in the shorter amount of time ? :-)
I was told that leg extensions are perfectly fine UNLESS you had an ACL operation
What I found worked for me getting in/out of my 2016 Corvette Stingray was using the mid part of the seat near the headrest and putting my arm on the door near the window and either pushing up or lowering myself down.
Here is advice I received on the Corvette Forum, take your pick on what works for you.
First, if you can park in a secure area/garage, take the roof off. It makes getting in/out much simpler.
How well any of this works will depend on your arm and upper body strength.
(Roof Off) Open the door, step in with your right leg, grab the wheel
and top of the A pillar. Start to sit, using both the wheel and A
pillar to support and guide yourself in and down. Slide down the seat
back if you need the extra support.
If you have sport seats, careful of the logo in the headrest.
To get out, grab the A pillar as high up as you can reach and the top
center of the steering wheel. Pull yourself up, stand up straight, then
step out and down.
Alternate, with roof on or off: Use right hand on A pillar to help lift
yourself up while rotating your legs out to the ground. Relax. Get your
feet as far under the car as you can, and straighten your back. Use
leg muscles to stand straight up. Use your arm on the A pillar for
support and extra lift. You can also use top center of the steering
wheel with the other hand to help push yourself upright.
This method is going to be hard on the seat side bolster
Getting in (roof on):
Stand at about the same angle as the door.
Move right until your right left is touching the body of the car.
Grab the top center of the steering wheel w/ your right hand.
If you can twist, left hand at the top of the A Pillar.
Start to sit, pulling hard on the wheel to guide and support the rest of
your body on the way down with the A pillar hand. Legs in one at a
time.
Getting out (roof on):
Rotate your entire body so you are 90 deg to the seat.
Wiggle forward until you are more or less sitting on the bolster.
Put you feet as far under the car as you can.
Left hand on either the door frame or about 1/2 way up the seat back, the other on the steering wheel or A pillar, as needed.
Push yourself out and up with hands and simultaneously use the strength in your "good" leg to stand straight up.
Hopefully, the directions make some semblance of sense, and some combination of the above may work for you.
On September 25th, 2017 I had my checkup where they make sure everything is fine and the x-ray and the surgeon said it looks PERFECT! I am thrilled! I was told to come back every two years from now on AND the data indicates one does not need the antibiotics before dental procedures. I was told to call my dentist and he can prescribe it if he wants me to take antibiotics before the dental cleaning or procedure
Exercises I was doing at the end
1-Aug
2-Aug
3-Aug
4-Aug
Hip
Abduction (Lying) 30 repetitions; 2 times per day
Standing
Knee Lifts 2 sets of 30
Single
Leg Raises
Bridge
on Bed
balance
on Right foot
Rubbing
Scar & IT Band w/Tennis ball
Lying on
side-leg lifts -- back against the wall
Standing
Left hip raises
Step
over, right leg down
Sit to
Stand
left
leg down, step with right leg -- keep hips level and square -- concentrate on
knees then hips then BOTH -- many sets
Competition Offers $22,500 in Prize Money for Ideas and Applications
Have you shared the MTConnect Student Challenge with your interns yet? With 50 days left to submit, the MTConnect Student Challenge is offering a total of $22,500 in cash prizes for winning submissions! The MTConnect Student Challenge is open to community college and university students at the undergraduate and graduate level and may be of particular interest to students who are studying manufacturing-related fields; electrical, mechanical or industrial engineering; or software engineering and IT-related studies.
Manufacturing is the world’s most data-intensive industry, creating immense amounts of data through each stage of production. However, much of that data is never collected, never analyzed, and never leveraged. The MTConnect Student Challenge seeks student-generated solutions for this data analytics shortfall.
Industry stands to benefit from the new and innovative ideas and applications generated during this challenge. We are seeking help from you to raise awareness. Here’s how to help:
Share the challenge with interns and any other students you know who might have an interest
Contact colleges and universities with whom your organization has an existing relationship
Share information about the MTConnect Student Challenge through your social media channels
While industry will benefit from the new and innovative ideas developed through student efforts, students who participate also benefit through the contest’s educational and networking opportunities.
Click hereto learn more about the MTConnect Student Challenge, and share this link with any interested student or faculty members that you know!
Thank you for your help!
Best, The MTConnect Student Challenge The MTConnect Student Challenge is sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Defense-wide Manufacturing Science and Technology (DMS&T) and executed by the U.S. Army Benét Labs, the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM), by AMT – The Association For Manufacturing Technology, and the MTConnect Institute, in partnership with SME and the National Tooling and Machining Association.
AMT | 7901 Westpark Dr | McLean | VA/22102 | (703) 893.2900
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My youngest son Tim started this past Tuesday at Memex as an intern doing software development. We have a tradition of making the interns/co-ops ( James and Gaurav ) wear the famous Montana's of Canada horns :-)
Below is the extremely talented Memex DEV Team. From left to right is Ryan, Brian, Doug, Tim, Tim S., Jeremy, me, Terry and Anusha (not pictured is Gowtham who was on vacation and Ken who is in Woodstock).
Below is Tim and me in front of Memex's HQ in Burlington, Ontario.
The final night Tim and I took an hour drive to Niagara Falls on the Canadian side for dinner and to see the incredible views in person.
Below is a rainbow and the Maid of Mist with the Canadian Niagara Falls on the right and the much less impressive American Niagara Falls on the left.
BURLINGTON, ON–(Marketwired – May 12, 2016) – MEMEX Inc. (TSX VENTURE: OEE)
is excited and proud to announce that Society of Manufacturing
Engineers (SME), in its inaugural issue of Smart Manufacturing magazine,
has recognized David McPhail, CEO of MEMEX Inc., and Dave Edstrom, CTO
of MEMEX Inc., amongst the top 30 Advanced Manufacturing Visionaries.
According to Smart Manufacturing Magazine, the top 30 Advanced
Manufacturing Visionaries list is a representation of who’s who in the
smart manufacturing world. They all have made significant contribution
towards developing tools and techniques that have made the Industrial
Revolution 4.0 a reality.
Smart Manufacturing magazine recognizes David McPhail, CEO of MEMEX
Inc. for his relentless work towards creating solutions that help North
American manufacturers solve tangible issues such as efficiency and
sustainability of manufacturing operations. Adding further to the
delight of MEMEX Inc., Smart Manufacturing magazine also applauds the
work of Dave Edstrom, CTO of MEMEX Inc., in the field of developing
MTConnect® an open, royalty-free standard to get information from
machinery applications to enable increased productivity.
“Both Dave and I are really honored to be a part of this esteemed
list, not just as individuals but also as developers of MERLIN, the
Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) communication platform that
promises manufacturing excellence,” says David McPhail, CEO of MEMEX
Inc. “Visionaries create the window into the future but it is the
strength and dedication of their team that turns those ideas in reality.
MEMEX Inc. as a team is in the business of taking our visions and
turning them into revolutionary IIoT products.”
About MEMEX Inc.
MEMEX Inc., the developer of MERLIN, an award winning IIoT technology
platform that delivers tangible increases in manufacturing productivity
in Real-Time, is the global leader in machine to machine connectivity
solutions. Committed to its mission of “Successfully transforming
factories of today into factories of the future” and encouraged by the
rapid adoption and success of MERLIN, MEMEX is relentlessly pursuing the
development of increasingly innovative solutions suitable in the IIoT
era. MEMEX envisions converting every machine into a node on the
corporate network, thereby, creating visibility from
shop-floor-to-top-floor. MEMEX, with its deep commitment towards machine
connectivity, offers solutions that are focused on finding hidden
capacity by measuring and managing Real-Time data. This empowers MEMEX’s
customers to effectively quantify and manage OEE, reduce costs and
incorporate strategies for continuous lean improvement.
The promise that machine shops see in machine monitoring and data-driven manufacturing was apparent in the high level of interest given to Memex CEO David McPhail when he gave the group a presentation on this topic and fielded questions (of which there were many). The majority of the trip members who responded to me cited this presentation on the use of data in manufacturing as one of the notable points of interest on the trip. Mr. McPhail gave his talk at one of the Mazak plants, because Mazak uses Memex software tomonitor and improve its own operations.
Mr. Cope wrote, “Managing highly engineered shop floors [like those we saw] calls for some kind of monitoring and feedback system. The Memex presentation couldn’t have been more timely. Without a basic tool like this, a shop might either be blind or chasing the wrong problems. These digital feedback and monitoring systems will in many cases be the next level of productivity improvements for shops. Big Data is here. We now need the tools to parse the data and present it in a way that lets us make decision on the changes we need to make to improve our processes. ‘What gets measured, gets done.’”"
I am very honored and humbled that Smart Manufacturing listed me as one of the 30 visionaries in manufacturing around the globe. This lists includes such individuals as Jeff Immelt of GE, Carl Bass of Autodesk, Brian Papke of Mazak, Dr. Jay Lee of University of Cincinnati and David McPhail of Memex.
Only Memex had two individuals make this prestigious list - which we are extremely proud of at Memex!
At the [MC]2 2016 Conference and the MFG4 Conference (both where I spoke) it was very nice to see Smart Manufacturing with posters in the conference with photos of the 30 Visionaries.
While I did not make the outside cover, I did make the inside cover. Note that my oldest son John has already been in both Wired and Fortune in his mid 20s, so I am trying to catch up to him. Which is a great problem to have as a dad :-)
Below is the write up on me in Smart Manufacturing.
Above is the cover of Smart Manufacturing.
Above is the photo of me with Dave Patterson to my left.
Below in the upper right is David McPhail, President and CEO of Memex.
"Memex Chief Technology Officer Dave Edstrom is “very pleased to see more of these type boxes come out—because, as the saying goes, a rising tide lifts all ships,” he said.
But he couldn’t stop himself from making a quick comparison with the offering from Forcam/Wago: “The integration of what Mazak is doing with the SmartBox, with Memex and Cisco—making it easier to connect—will resonate very well with manufacturing. You don’t have to sell someone on Memex’s ability to connect anything. And you don’t have to sell anyone on Cisco’s ability to network a lot of devices together and do it securely. So that’s why we think SmartBox is a game-changer.”
I also really liked Brian Papke's, Mazak President, comments on our MERLIN product:
"Merlin lets companies “take data and make it manageable,” said Papke, who serves on the board for MTConnect. Otherwise, companies end up with “digital exhaust.”"
Sometimes in life you have one of those amazing weekends that you really never want to end. I flew in Thursday to have dinner with my oldest son John and our daughter-in-law Janet near their home in the Mission District of San Francisco and it just went up from there. It was a great time as always with both of them.
While it is always nice seeing John and Janet, the main reason I flew out to the west coast was that I had the true honor and privilege of being invited to Dr. Dave Patterson's retirement party in Berkeley this past Friday and Saturday. This was a multiple day, multiple event celebration of Dave's amazing career with an absolute who's who of the computer industry and was called "40 Years of Patterson"
I would not have missed this weekend for the world.
Above is Dave speaking Friday afternoon before he would give his final "My Last Lecture: How To Be a Bad Professor" talk.
This is from the Abstract:"The premise of a last
lecture, which is a tradition at some universities, is that if this were
the last public lecture you would give, what would you say? In the hope
of starting that tradition here—in my actual final Berkeley lecture
before I retire in June—I will give the fourth and final edition of my
bad advice talks. (The prior three were “How to Give a Bad Talk,” “How
to Have a Bad Research Career,” and “How to Build a Bad Research
Center.”)"
Dave was brilliant and hilarious at the same time.
This is also from Dave's abstract: "The first part of the talk will be a tongue-in-cheek advice
at how to be awful at all the responsibilities of professorship:
research, classroom teaching, graduate student advising, service to the
field, and service to the campus and community. Guidelines include:
(Research) Papers are the Coin of the Academic Realm
(Classroom) PowerPoint Replaces Preparation
(Grad Students) It’s Quantity, Not Quality
(Service to the Field) Serve only if a big Fame Ratio: Name Recognition
Increase / Hours Invested
(Service to the Campus and Community) Don’t Do It!
The second part of the talk will offer advice on alternatives to being a
terrible professor. As I’ve got nothing left to hide, I’ll use tell-all
examples from my four decades at Berkeley.
After a question and
answer session, I’ll tell my story of how I accidentally became a CS
grad student and a Berkeley professor, and life lessons that I wish
someone had told me 40 years ago that I’ll pass along now."
Above is Dave and I had the Friday night reception after his last lecture.
I had a chance to speak with Dave's wife Linda as well and we discussed spending time together at Lake Las Vegas in 2006 when Dave and I gave back to back keynotes that laid the foundation for MTConnect. Julie and I went with Linda to see "O" by Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas the night that Dave was getting in late. We had a great time and she said that is still one of her favorite shows.
My first interaction with Dave goes back 16 years when I was running
the future track for a Sun SE Symposium. Sun was doing great in 2000 and
I basically had unlimited budget, so I created my computer science
dream team and called each of them up to come and speak.
Number one on my list was Dave Patterson. I knew of Dave Patterson and also knew he was Sun Microsystems first consultant and the professor to Sun's co-founder Bill Joy (among others). So, I emailed Dave and he replied back quickly and wanted to speak on the phone. After speaking on the phone, Dave wanted to
meet to discuss the specifics of the conference and exactly what we wanted to accomplish by his talk. Just having dinner with Dave Patterson would have been enough for me! We did have dinner in the bay area and he was interested and
said he would like to think about overnight and then we could meet for
lunch to hopefully sign the papers and he would let me know his decision. On the way to my hotel room that night, I thought about Dave's comment to me that he really liked my Sun Microsystems Java leather jacket, so before our lunch, I raced to Sun, plopped down my Sun AMEX and purchased a $400 Sun Microsystems Java leather jacket. When I met Dave, I gave him the jacket right away to thank him for considering giving a keynote at the SE Symposium.
I think the Java leather jacket was a small contributing factor in getting Dave to agree to speak
and he, of course, did a great job and we gave away lots of copies of he
and John Hennessy's seminal Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach.
Five years later, Dave was speaking to the Fellows, Distinguished Engineers and Chief Technologists at Sun. After Dave's talk it was Q&A. I walked up to the microphone and before I could introduce myself, Dave very enthusiastically says, "hey Dave, good to see you again, I still wear that Java jacket you bought me years ago". Needless to say, my stock with the other technical leaders at Sun popped up a few points that day :-)
It was great seeing the old Sun gang. To my left is Dr. Bob Sproull a legendary computer scientist who was at Sun for 21 years and next to Bob is the world famous John Gage - known as the fifth Sun founder - the person who coined the term, "The Network Is The Computer" and created "Net Day" where John convinced President Bill Clinton and VP Al Gore to wire classrooms across the country for Internet access.
I also had a chance to speak with Dr. Marc Tremblay - who was a Sun Fellow and microprocessor god at Sun. Dr. Dave Ditzel, formerly of Sun, was also there for all of the sessions. I also spent some time talking with David Douglas, formerly of Sun who ran out cloud computing.
Above is the cover of the 40 Years of Patterson Book that was give out to each of the attendees.
Above is Dave's signature on the inside cover of my copy of the 40 Years of Patterson Book.
Above is the poster for RAID which Dave was one of the co-creators of with Dr. Randy Katz and Dr. Garth Gibson. Randy and Garth were at all of the events this past weekend as well.
Dave's three most famous contributions to the computer industry, not including the numerous students who went on to do great things such as Bill Joy, Sun co-founder and Eric Schmidt, Sun's first CTO and later Google CEO, were RAID, RISC and NOW. RAID is used everyplace for storage these days. RISC is the default design for leading microprocessors - such as the ARM processor that is in all of our smartphones for example. NOW later became cloud computing. What a legacy!!
Above is the sign to the Saturday All Day Symposium of thought leaders presenting on the future of computing.
It was also very interesting because I shot a text to long-time friend, mentor and computer legend Neil Groundwater about the day's events. Neil was invited but could not attend in person, but did watch a large part of it that was being streamed live over the Internet. We exchanged text messages and Neil educated me on different questions and statements that had deep historical meaning.
A few examples were a person stands up and identifies himself as just "John" and Neil quickly texts me and says, "John Mashey was the grad student/coach in my assembler language class at Penn State. Also know him thru USENIX and Bell Labs.." Another example was a reference to something I was completely clueless about. I thought the questioner referred to Ernie Kovacs who I remember from my parents, but it was as Neil pointed out, "“Ernie CoVAX” was the name of a VAX/UNIX system at UCB in the EECS dept."
Above is Dr. John Ousterhout of Stanford presenting a very interesting talk, "Can Great Programmers Be Taught?" I asked John a question later when we were talking on whether the first language should be a low level assembler type or a higher level object oriented language. I told him that I felt my brain was wired too low because I have a tendency to think of low level assembler and that is not really that helpful in the world of modern frameworks. John's answer to me was that he felt C or Java would be a good first language.
Above is Dr. Randy Katz discussing the first time he worked with Dave and noting that "Dave Patterson likes to say that Bill Joy, Eric Schmidt and Randy Katz are together, Randy really brings down the average net worth of the the three of them." :-)
Above was the view from the International House at UCB as we were heading to dinner after the 8am to 6pm day of amazing speakers.
Above on the left is Ed Kelly (former Sun Distinguished Engineer who developed the first SPARC computer, Sun-4 systems architect, MBus systems architect, SPARC-64), Dr. Bob Gardner in the middle (former Sun employee and father of SPARC - Lead instruction set architect of first SPARC microprocessor and
hardware co-designer of the Sun-4/200 workstation, the first SPARC
system, in the Advanced Development group (SunLab's precussor), defined key
aspects of 64-bit SPARC and co-sponsored SPEC consortium. Manged the I/O
ASIC design group (of 7) for the SPARC-Center-2000 "Dragon"
high-performance server.) and me.
I sat at the table with Ed, Bob and Bob Sproull and we had a great time
reminiscing at the Saturday night Dave Patterson dinner at the Hotel
Shattuck Plaza in Berkeley.
Bob told me that he designed
1/2 of the 4/280 and Ed designed the other half. They told great
stories about Bill Joy asking for impossible things and they would have
to bring in Dave Patterson to knock some sense into Bill :-)
Saturday night about 9:45pm, Dave walked up to me and I thanked him for everything and we briefly talked about MTConnect. I told him that both Boeing and GE have standardized on MTConnect, which he thought was very cool. I also told Dave that Smart Manufacturing Magazine recently named the 30 top visionaries in manufacturing with Jeff Immelt of GE, Carl Bass of Autodesk being on the list and that he and I both made it as well for our work on MTConnect. Dave did not know that and I said mailed him a physical copy of the magazine that he should be getting soon.
I wished him and Linda the absolute best in retirement.
Dr. Armando Fox said it best when he said to me 10 years ago, "Dave Patterson is the person we all want to grow up to be someday." I could not have said it any better myself Armando....
This is Dave Edstrom's personal blog called Photons and Electrons. This is the same name of the blog I had for Sun Microsystems for many years. I am the CEO/CTO for Virtual Photons Electrons, LLC. More info is available at http://VirtualPhotonsElectrons.com I was the CTO for MEMEX for almost three years. More information on MEMEX is at http://MemexOEE.com
