I don't get as many interesting insights as I used to. However, this is one of those "AHA!" insights I get sometimes when I wake up in the shower. I've been noodling around with it for the last year or so. I thought I'd share...

The idea goes like this: The more effort (either money or time) you spend collecting financial data in your company, the greater the probability that it will be wrong or seriously misleading.

Think of it as the Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle applied to accounting.

My reasoning goes like this: The more time you have to spend trying to puzzle out which account to charge your activity to, the more likely it is that you'll document it wrong --either honestly or deliberately. The more onerous the accounting system is, the more likely it will be that people will modify a decision because it's too damned difficult to account for.

In theory, accounting is usually looked upon as a very high impedance load across a low impedance circuit. In practice, I am finding that this assumption isn't as true as it is often assumed. People behave differently when they think they're being watched. They find ways of lying about activities because the truth is that most people spend only an hour or two a day in a productive capacity and the rest of the hours of a day we just spin our wheels.

What all this leads to is a certain degree of noise in business accounting. Accountants often like to cite figures with five or six significant digits --as if they really believe their information is that good.

There are few things which are really that accurate, however. And any measurement of human activity is bound to have loads of error in it. Be happy if you get three significant digits of data.

In other words, it usually doesn't pay to go chasing a projected savings of less than one percent. Yet, many do. And in the end, it just re-enforces our beliefs that the management doesn't have a clue what it's doing.

I wish colleges would teach this principle to MBA students. It seems they are the ones who fall prey to this sort of thing the most.

And if there are any accountants or even book-keepers out there (I know this is not your native sort of forum) I'd love to hear your side of the story...

So I took my oldest daughter (age 6) up for a day of Daddy/Daughter activities. We flew from FME to LNS for an afternoon tea. It was a hoot for both of us.

Ok, the hoot factor wasn't as high as I'd hoped. Filing my ADIZ flight plan was a piece of cake, but opening that flight plan was another thing altogether. I sat on the ground for nearly 20 minutes burning $3.10/gallon AvGas, hitting redial and getting nothing but a busy signal from Potomac Approach.

Meanwhile, my daughter had discoverd the joys of a VOX intercom. She'd blow in to the microphone on her headset and of course hear the intercom squelch open. When that wasn't good enough, she started singing. Who needs Kareoke?

Eventually, I got through, copied my squawk code, and departure frequency in about 20 seconds flat. All that waiting around for a 20 second information transfer...

We had a couple crosswind gusts on the runway, but it wasn't much of a problem. The two of us were in the air and having a blast. My daughter looked at the ground below and realized that the houses looked like toys, just as I said they would.

Later, outside the ADIZ, I gave her the controls and she banked us to the right and to the left. We climbed a bit, and she was proud of herself.

After landing at LNS, I taxied up to the completely empty GA ramp (Gosh, I remember that ramp being so busy in years past) and shut down.

I pulled our wheel chocks out from the airplane, handed my daugher one, and then she excitedly ran toward the other side of the airplane, while I was grinning inside. That grin didn't last long.

She had not been paying attention to where she was. My daughter ran straight back in to the stabilator face first. Oh, what a bloody nose.

I handed her my handkerchief, I chocked the wheels, set the parking brake and control lock, and then we made tracks for the terminal building so she could get cleaned up.

Later, after a nice tea and cheese stick appetizer (don't ask), we made our way to the flight planning room to file a flight plan to re-enter the ADIZ.

Silly security rules. We came in through the other gate. We knew the security code for that lock, but not the lock for the flight planning room. What a bunch of hooey. So we had to walk back out of the terminal building, on to the ramp, and then through the other side of the building where we would have gone in the first place --if my daughter hadn't needed to make such a bee line to the ladies room.

Figuring out when and where in the air to pick up your flight plan is not as simple as it sounds. You have to choose a fix somewhere outside the ADIZ and navigate reliably to that fix at a given time window so that the air traffic controllers can quickly identify you and work you in to the system.

I chose Westminster (EMI) VORTAC. In retrospect, I should have chosen something a bit further outside the ADIZ. Anything just past VINNY on V457 would have been fine.

Navigating inside the ADIZ is pretty straightforward. What is not so straightforward is that damned SFAR 94 FRZ which cuts in to the areas where we otherwise used to navigate freely.

I used to navigate to BELTS and then follow the instrument approach in to FME. However, these days, you can't fly that without a background check from the Secret Service. So I fly a mile or two south of CLEAT (It's on L-28 chart) and then begin turning slowly Eastward toward the Class B cutout for FME.

A current Intrument rating would have made this mess much simpler. I could have filed LNS V93 BAL FME and everyone would have been quite happy. An IPC is in the works.

It's good to be the daddy --even when it's not fun. (Oh, and my daughter still thinks I'm cool)

OK, I've been lurking on the ground way to long. I thought about selling my share of our airplane, but I decided after some extended consideration that I'm satisfied with what I'm flying right now.

The reason I wrote satisfied, and not "happy" is because there is this great big bogus "Air Defense Interogation Zone" or ADIZ hanging over the Washington DC region, where my airplane is based.

This ADIZ is bogus because you can't really use the actual ADIZ procedures defined by the FAA in the Aeronautical Information Manual. Instead, everything is filed as if it were IFR, except that if you're VFR, you have to follow VFR rules and regulations while maintaining IFR radio procedures.

And heaven help you, if you hear about traffic for "huntress" in the area, triple check your position, make sure you're talking to ATC, and then keep your head on a swivel looking out for those Blackhawk helicopters or F-16 interceptors.

I love to fly. But not with some jar-head lighting me up with radar, threatening to blow me out of the sky. That's over the top. And the thing is, even as good as our military training is, they make mistakes. Just ask the good Senator from Kentucky. He was only a minute or two from getting shot out of the sky because the DHS radar watchers and the FAA controllers weren't speaking to one another.

Things are settling down once again, however. I hope there are some checks and balances trying to make their way in to DHS and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

Anyway, I recently overcame my fears and I'm going up soon for a flight review, and an Instrument Proficiency Check. I don't feel comfortable flying VFR in the ADIZ, but at least when flying a legal IFR flight at least I might have the FAA on my side.

It's not a big reassurance, but it will help.

I'm writing this because I have a feeling that enough of you Nerds will find someone some day who you'll want to marry and raise children with.

It has changed my life more than I realized it ever would. I know there will be some even bigger changes coming.

I have three pre-school aged children. My oldest is about to start Kindergarden next year.

As you can see from my Info, I think I'm very nearly as Nerdly as one gets without flirting with insanity of one sort or another.

I love my kids. It's biology. Anything less is pathological insanity. But I'm often resentful that they take so much of my time away. The number of hours I fly every year has dropped to a point where I'm having difficulty staying current.

I have a radio station filled with tools and toys I'd have drooled over just a few years ago. I'm lucky if I can play with it for a few hours more than twice a month. And I haven't brewed any beer since last year.

Kids do that to you. Social demands do that too. I have delusions that some day they may take an interest in what I do enough to share some of the fun with them. These delusions even extend so far as to think that I'll see one of my kids building a regenerative receiver or operate the radios of the airplane (and surprise some controller with a really young voice from an aircraft on an IFR flight plan). And while it may happen some day, more likely than not, it won't.

Already my daughter has learned the eye-roll ("Daddeeeee..."). They're people. They have their own interests. I can guide them by example, but as any parent knows, you can't force an interest.

And thus it stands that so much of the coolness I used to pursue and still enjoy, is gathering rust and dust. It's an expensive trade.

They tell me that it's a worthwhile trade off. And generally, I can't imagine living without raising our children. But I'll warn you fellow nerds that there will be times when you'll think this is a pretty rotten gag that mother nature has done to you. And it is. But the alternatives are no better.

You have been warned.

Years ago, I read Carl Sagan's book The Demon Haunted World and was depressed at the sad state of humanity's average education and understanding. But I saw something recently which encouraged me a great deal.

Has anyone here actually sat down and watched Penn and Teller's Bullshit? They have one-upped the Amazing Randy. They debunk many things that so desperately need debunking. My only complaint is that they're relegated to cable for their off color speech. But hey, they're calling it like they see it. I would use speech like that too except that I would probably insult my listeners and not get my message across.

You can check out their web site here.

Meanwhile, how can we inculcate a fundamentally scientific skepticism in our youth? Yes, our teenagers have a very jaded view of society already, but most of that is based upon conformist ideas. That's why we older adults find them so alarmingly silly and stupid.

One look at brain rotting movies such as "FernGully" and PBS series such as "Groundling Marsh", will demonstrate where this brain rotting conformist attitude comes from: The entertainment our kids watch, and in no small amounts, from the awful texts we use in our schools.

I remember reading Richard Feynmann's rants about textbook selection committees in Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman. The problem, folks, is that mother nature doesn't care what the majority of people think. She plays by her own rules; though thankfully, she plays the same bitchy game for everyone.

It's not open to discussion. If there is doubt, it is about the thoroughness of our understanding. Which would you prefer: The little demons in the box? Or perhaps you are truly curious as to what the rules are?

I know where I stand. Too bad about those who think otherwise...

Yes, it's true, I'm the son of two teachers. My father is a University Professor, and my mother taught high school. Thus I've been peturbed recently when I noted several right wing columnists describe the institution of the University as a mostly useless edifice.

In fact, there are many in the halls of educational institutions who truly love teaching and who do it well despite incompetent, micro managing administrations, and unions with callous disregard for their members. The problem is not merely the teachers, however. The problem is our pursuit of certificates. We have confused the possession of an educational certificate for the ability to apply knowledge.

Many seek to certify knowledge. I wish that were possible. I'm at a loss to devise a standardized test which can demonstrate knowledge. You see, schools are inadvertently teaching students something awfully toxic: Instead of learning the subject, we study for the next test. And the test is merely a platform for parroting back that which was presented to us, while sounding incomprehensibly sophisticated.

Anyone who goes to a bookstore these days can find text books designed exclusively to prepare for the SAT, the GRE, the LSAT and so forth. That's right, it's all specifically about these tests, not the field of study or, heaven forbid, the profession we seek after school.

There are many in our society who are good at passing tests, although I wouldn't trust them to apply one thing they've "learned." Some even collect degrees as if they were scouting badges. This all comes about because Universities attempt to teach knowledge for knowledge's sake. Practicality is not an issue for them.

We need some distance from this academic mindset. In academia we seek knowledge regardless of application; in business we seek knowledge to apply so we can make a profit. Naturally, these are two extreme ends of a philosophical continuum. I think we've been pushing the academic extreme for far too long now. Maybe it's time we introduced some performance based projects in to schools.

We could teach kids how to be curious, creative, cooperative, and productive. To do that, we'd need a context to these seemingly endless classes on rote or theory. Why not use this learning to build something, sell something, or discover something? Teachers should resort to coaching instead of recitation. Learning will come about as a process of doing instead of teaching theory and then leaving applications as an exercise for the reader.

Don't misunderstand, it's okay to seek knowledge independent of application. That is where the truly stupendous discoveries come from. However, we have a much more mundane need at hand, having little to do with discovery: We need technical writers who can write coherently. We need artists who can create effective advertising. We need chefs who understand the biological effects of diet, and the chemistry in food preparation. We need engineers who can build safe and reliable products. We need Politicians who understand why the laws of physics are not negotiable, and what Return on Investment is. These are but a few examples. But most of all, we need teachers who evangelize the subjects they teach, not education theory. And we need business managers who understand what makes their businesses run; not high priced MBA graduates with their heads in the clouds.

In real life, most professions aren't taught in Universities. They're learned on the job by motivated, intelligent people. This is why, even though European schools are probably far better at imparting abstract knowledge than those in the US usually are, they can't seem to translate that good schooling in to a more productive society.

No, the problem with universities is that we as a society don't commonly recognize any alternatives to an academic degree. And when the only tool you know how to use is a hammer, everything, even a screw, looks like a nail.

My sister recently returned from travels in Uganda and Rwanda. Based entirely on old news stories of the area, I had concerns for her safety there. But it turned out that these concerns were not only unfounded but completely out of date.

Apparently, Rwandan tourism is picking up again. The country shows very few signs of the horrible genocidal civil war just a few years ago. There is peace and prosperity to be found in most places there.

Likewise, my concerns regarding Uganda were even more out of date. I could only think of that horrid dictator Idi Amin Dada and how things couldn't possibly have recovered from such awfulness. But not only have Ugandans recovered, they're thriving, and doing groundbreaking social work supporting the influx of refugees from The Congo.

Good news, it seems, doesn't make it very far --even in newspapers. Steady, slow reconstruction and the return of a civil, prosperous society is not news. I guess Journalists need dramatic events, not slow progress to report.

And that brings me to the reporting in Iraq: Yes, there are still bodies instead of people coming home. But while all that hate and discontent in a few areas is still festering, it's worth noting that some amazing things are happening.

There is an Iraqi police force. It's a civil police force. Most Iraqis haven't seen the likes of an Iraqi civil police officer in their lifetimes. The courts are back in session. City councils are befuddled by the concept that if they want to fix something, they don't have to call a bureaucrat in Baghdad to find the certified company. Instead, they can contract the repair themselves.

Gosh, these sound like little things, but to most Iraqis, this is brand new. These are the new facts of living in Iraq. You won't see it in the New York Times or on CNN.

Recovery and Prosperity isn't news to most journalists. Maybe it should be.

...That stands for Yet Another Power Grid Failure Opinion.

Mine comes from my experiences with control systems, SCADA, and industrial culture in general. The first issue to consider is that the grid is a very organic creature. It grows in a rather haphazard way.

Planning transmission lines is always a difficult thing, and as population centers spread out it gets even more difficult because people don't want these things in their back yards. Meanwhile, consumption per capita is going nowhere but up.

In the background, regulators have had a terrible time keeping things in check. This is because of a plethora of interest groups which can't be ignored. Basically the old set of regulations got so complex that it was getting difficult for a person to wrap their minds around the whole idea. The baby was already drowning in too much bathwater, so in desperation they threw out the baby with the bathwater because nobody knew where it was.

So in a fit of "deregulation" power plants were decoupled from the grid and everyone had to start re-regulating from step one.

Now we have a haphazard growth, a meta-stable system, a grid which has to be paid for and maintained, but which pays much more poorly than the power generation jobs. So the brain drain goes to the plants and the grid is left to those who probably don't understand it.

Enter First Energy. Yes, they were ignorant. Yes, they had a problem and they didn't react to it. I don't blame them. They're a creature of the society that created them.

Most utilities get this way when nobody remembers what they do and why. Cities live on a lifeblood of energy, transportation, and water services. Nobody treats these things with any respect. They don't even realize they're there, until something big breaks. Then the recriminations start, the money flows for a while, and then they coast for a few years until the next disaster.

I wish such things were more plain to the public eye; but the truth is that as long as they can get home, watch TV and flush the toilet, most people don't think twice about how the energy, roads, and water gets to their house.

I think we ought to encourage more to live off the grid. When water is delivered to your door, in a pipe, and the overall cost is extremely small, nobody conserves. But when you have an oil fired furnace, the tank is low, and you may not get a delivery until next week, you'll find a way to turn that thermostat down.

Telling a city to conserve water is not nearly as effective as an individual realizing that she or he is running out of fuel and they need to throttle their use...

That's the bottom line: just as with credit cards, the less people keep track of what their spending, the more likely they are to spend more. I'll bet that if we all had wells, septic systems, generators, and dirt roads, we'd appreciate the services a city provides...

I'm not superstitious. I'm not particularly religious either (Y'know, the real miracle is that society works at all, not that some supposed deity did something to alter physical reality).

But even so, I'm looking over my shoulder and wondering if I'm about to get hit with a bit of space debris or something crazy like that.

In our staff of a dozen or so, three have lost spouses in the last year, and just this weekend, one guy lost his son while another collegue is being hospitalized for paralysis due to an accident while surfing on the beach. His prognosis is still pretty much unknown. ...And I want to get back in to flying my airplane after a one year hiatus due to our new infant daughter. Gosh. I wonder if I should...

The more silly cases like this go before the courts, the more we nerds will just shrug our shoulders, turn our backs on these folks, and just do what we were going to do anyway.

And this attitude is nothing new. Armstrong, inventor of the Superheterodyne receiver, and frequency modulation, was famous for pointing out that (and I'm paraphrasing here) "Ours is a legal system in which deeds are converted to words, and then men sit and argue over the words."

The actual claim on the original base of Unix code by SCO is tenuous at best. Further, since so many parallel versions have been written, once the claim becomes known, it will be isolated and turned to a pariah, just as the patent on famous GIF/LZW compression was.

What this really highlights is that the legal system and more specifically the entire intellectual property rights application toward computer software needs to be rethought from the ground up. It's really not fish, fowl, cattle, or anything of the sort. It's an entity all on its own.

The reason Open Source exists is in large part because today's licenses, copyrights, and patents have had their definitions stretched beyond the breaking point. It's actually easier and cheaper to go open source than it is to defend intellectual property rights of the other three kinds.

SCO's rabid days in court will merely be the straw that breaks the camel's back. When this is done, their assets will be so radioactive that nobody will be willing to pay one penny for them. I wish their company leaders well and I thank them for providing such a wonderful object lesson as to why this sort of intellectual property defense is so ignorant, silly, pointless, and expensive.

Well, as long as I'm going to watch the train wreck in slow mo, anyone got the popcorn?

It's a good thing that we're genetically wired to think that babies are beautiful, because physically they're not only messy, they're high maintainance, and mostly uncommunicative for the first two months of life.

Our third baby is beautiful, by the way. Her brother and sister think so too. She sleeps pretty well for her age and her waking hours have been steadily increasing. Now that she's two monthes old we're starting to notice her first glimmers of awareness. Her cries and cooes have a definite character to them and they are intentionally communicative.

What I find most interesting are the reactions of the older siblings. My three year old son is very gentle and careful to the extent of his understanding around the new baby. My four year old daughter is still kind of rough around her infant sister. They are both quite protective of our little one, however. One incident the comes to mind is when my wife took our infant daughter to an appointment with the Pediatrician, while I took our other two for the afternoon with me. They both noticed and worried about baby's absence. They also knew that she was going to get shots and they felt bad for her.

I hope this stick-together attitude continues. Of course, it probably won't. But I'll try to gently encourage it for as long as possible...

Well, I'm back at my money making job. As much as I love my children, I'm not cut out for being a stay at home dad. It's good to be thinking about anything at all for a longer stretch of time than five minutes without interruption...

Though reasonably well read, I had somehow managed to miss Ayn Rand's Classic, Atlas Shrugged. I finished reading it for the first time just a few days ago.

The villians are right on target. I enjoyed the descriptions and stories around surrounding Balf Eubank and Bertram Scudder. The image building exercises by most of these characters were painfully close to the real thing. Orrin Boyle's steel companies were funny too.

I did note a few glaring flaws in the book: A utopian view such as Rand's can only work when everyone else plays along. Honesty and integrity in business are in far shorter supply than it might first seem.

Her characters have extremely well tuned senses of integrity and honor. Her villians are busy deluding themselves in to believing that black is white. What she doesn't talk about are those who weasle out of stuff bit by bit. Worldcom/MCI and Enron didn't become such spectacular failures overnight; they happened because of short term greed that got out of hand.

It also assumes that industry doesn't use any support from government, when in reality, it has to --even if that intersection is merely the printing of money by the federal reserve, policing the streets, and defending the country. The book presumes that the law can act reasonably well in cases of intellectual property. We know from recent history, that sadly, this is not true.

Technological issues aside, his book is still somewhat dated. Long term, and low level exposure to toxins was something medicine was just beginning to discover in the 1950s. Clearly issues of how companies often lied to their employees and to the public had not yet been exposed.

On the other hand, she completely missed the widespread business of leeching lawsuits by mooching lawyers. Apparently while writing about business, she completely neglected the legal profession and what it has become.

It's also clear that Rand had never been exposed to sciences such as Quantum Physics. There are limits to what a person can know about a situation and when they can know it. This is probably one of the biggest flaws in Rand's hero characters. They seem to be aware and in command of too much detail. Her heroes could only be described as micro-managers.

Rand should have used a more ruthless editor. There is too much redundancy and the pace of the book is slow at times.

However, overall, this is still an incredibly far-sighted book. Given its age and its subject matter, I'd say that it has worn its first half century pretty well.

In less than a month, my wife and I are expecting our third (and probably last) child. We don't know whether it's a boy or a girl despite having more than enough opportunities to find out. We know that we'll find out soon enough.

I'm excited by the birth of this child. However, even more interesting than the birth itself, I'm facinated with the reactions our daughter and son are having. With absolutely no information, they are certain that it's a boy. My four year old daughter is very interested and seems to understand quite a bit. I'm not so sure my son knows what's in store.

I'm not so sure I know what's in store either. My wife and I will be outnumbered. Those of you who have had a second child know that the workload goes up dramatically with the second child, particularly when they are close in age. I'm hoping that the workload won't go up as much for the third arrival...

My son is just about to get out of diapers in time for a third child to present the opportunity for still more diaper changing. I've been changing diapers for four and a half years and it looks as if I'll be doing it for at least two or three more.

On the positive side, I remember telling my wife before our first was born that while I don't mind the new-born phase of child rearing, I'm really looking forward to ages five and after. Well, my daughter is four and a half. Things are really moving forward. I like sharing activities with my kids where I can take them places or work with them. At their present age, they can just barely appreciate what's going on around them. I'm sure this too will come.

I expect the happy day real soon now. After that I'll be pretty scarce for a month or two. Don't worry, it's for the best of reasons.

Now that I'm firmly middle aged, I would like to present a personal theory of mine which comes from more than two decades of working in "the real world" (whatever that is). The theory goes like this:

Businesses have a half life of approximately three human generations.

The first generation are the founders. They know what and why they're doing everything. They have the free hand to do whatever is needed to get up and running.

The Second generation are the policy makers. They have learned from the first generation what worked, and what didn't. They know why things are the way they are, and they set up policies to keep things going.

The Third generation are the policy followers. They're not exactly sure why things are the way they are, but they know there was a reason. Some may remember it, but most do not. They tweak the policies to make things easier, but they're not too eager to change things.

By the time the fourth generation comes along, things can get chaotic. The organzation has ossified. The fourth generation has very little idea as to why or how things got the way they are, but it's obvious to them that things aren't working nearly as well as they should. Their ignorant tinkering can wreak havoc on an organization. Some survive it, many do not. A few learn enough from the experience to help the company survive for another generation.

It's indeed rare to see a company survive more than 100 years unless their mission is very well defined, well understood, and the policies from the second generation were very well "future proofed."

I present these notions because with each generation, the company also gets more bloated, more bureacratic, nepotism takes hold, and top level managers lose touch with what their core supporting businesses are.

The solution is to stay lean, encourage intraprenurial activity, and record not only the decisions, but the motivations behind them. This way, following generations can review these decisions in context to see if they still make sense. No decision should be held sacred.

Sadly, very few companies do this. This is why so few survive more than a century. This is why many technically capable and innovative firms die. This is why so many much of the automotive industry is so resistant to change, even for the better.

Comments, Flames, Jokes, and even irrelevant observations are most welcome.

So it turns out that the Disney company has successfully lobbied Congress to restrict all air traffic above their theme parks. The restriction was slipped into a 3000 page ~$400 Million spending bill by Senators Shelby and Stevens.

Now, you could have done a search for the name Disney in this document and not found it. These are three mile wide and three thousand foot high exclusion zones which sit right next to busy airports. The legislation was written in obscure language so that nobody would realize what it was until the bill was passed.

It's no secret that Disney Corporation has been lobbying for this measure in years before 9/11. They couldn't get it because they're basically asking to control public airspace for their own commercial use. But now, in the post-9/11 hysteria, it's no problem. Just mention the famous S(ecurity) word and you're done.

Sigh. This is just like what has been perpetrated on the FCC. The Airwaves, like the skies, were once considered a public resource. No longer. Now they're for sale to the highest bidder. This came about because some nitwit broke an existing law and divulged a few cell-phone conversations of House Speaker Newt Gengrich. (incidentally, Speaker Gengrich was also breaking the law in those conversations). What's next on the Auction block? Highways? Police? Our military?

Despite my affiliation with the Republican Party, I have to make one very important point: Some things are best done by government agency. Distribution/Transmission networks of various sorts, Transportation, police, fire, military, and yes, Jails are best done with guidance from political forces at all levels.

I want the airways in the sky governed by the FAA and the Military --not by the Disney corporation. I want the radio spectrum to be managed by the Federal Communications Commission, not by Worldcom or Clear Channel. Nobody owns the air, the radio spectrum, the roads, or our very government. These are resources to be managed and funded by all.