Caught by my Amazon Shorts

Dear Amazon Shorts:

You're never going to see this because your server failed to receive it properly:

If you're going to play publisher (with Amazon Shorts), drop the price to $0.19 apiece (from $0.49) or 6 for $1 when purchased at one time. Then bundle articles in one subject area on a monthly basis for $0.99. It's called a magazine. You might even be able to slip advertisements into it and sell subscriptions. In which case you can undercut print magazines and sell for even less. If you have essayists who can work to schedule, you can even let the subscribers schedule which essayists will make up an issue of each maagazine.

Copyright 2005 Harlan R. Cohen MBA,CPIM

CITOKATE

I'm having a great deal of fun at the David Brin Blogspot. I've also been introduced to the term CITOKATE, Criticism Is The Only Known Antidote To Error. But I'll probably be back after the elections with more to say about everything.

Copyright 2005 Harlan R. Cohen MBA,CPIM

Salting the Debate for a Cleveland Convention Center

Collisions Under Lake Erie

Please excuse my wild idea. Sometimes I stand up to sing the chorus of Alice's Restaurant. When no one joins on the second round, I know I am crazy. If I only hear a single other voice, I must be living an alternate lifestyle. Two other voices make us an organization and three or more would make us a movement.
Sent to the Editor of the Plain Dealer and Cuyahoga County Commissioners.


I know in Europe there are salt mines that include soccer fields, ballrooms, and chapels. Why not a convention center carved out of salt? They make hotels out of ice and snow! Why not provide that tourist experience in North America by working with US Cargill and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources? Forest City could have a role in financing, design, construction, and leasing. Certainly the sheer novelty would provide extra tourist dollars above and beyond a 'conventional' convention center.



In fact this could be a bigger draw than the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I can even imagine a satirical Rock (Salt) and (Spring Wheat Flour tm) Roll Hall of Fame Annual Induction Dinner and Celebration ala the Pillsbury Annual Bake-Off. Rock and rollers with culinary aspirations could be invited to a special cook-off with spectator ticket sales going to hunger relief projects.



Presumably excavated salt could be handled by placing it in current tunnels. The only problem I can foresee is getting a rapid line down about 1500 feet from the vicinity of Tower City or the Waterfront to avoid using elevators as the sole means of entry and egress. Perhaps something along the lines of an incline elevator is the better solution.



I look forward to your reactions. Please let me hear at least two other voices.

Sometimes you have to sing a verse of "Alice's Restaurant" to see whether you're crazy or part of a movement

LYRICS - Alice's Restaurant: "('KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?') I went over to the sargent, said, 'Sargeant, you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I'm sittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm sittin here on the Group W bench 'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug.' He looked at me and said, 'Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send you fingerprints off to Washington.'

And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is a study in black and white of my fingerprints. And the only reason I'm singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into the shrink wherever you are ,just walk in say 'Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice's restaurant.'. And walk out. You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement.

And that's what it is , the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the guitar. With feeling. So we'll wait for it to come around on the guitar, here and sing it when it does. Here it comes.

You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant"

You Leave and You LO$E

An Open Letter to OfficeMax.

Dear Mr. Bonner,

I don't intend to shop again at OfficeMax until you reverse this decision about the corporate headquarters. I am hoping others across Ohio will feel the same. You have not justified this departure to the community and it mocks your Code of Ethics. It is about the extra burden you will place on the unemployment roles. It is not simply about lost taxes in Shaker Heights, nor no new gain in Cleveland. I have been over a year trying to find employment in my profession in Northeast Ohio. Now you've added to the competition.

This is one time it is easy to vote with my feet. My attachment (to the original letter) is a copy of my $15 purchase made at Staples today. I hope you see many more from businesses and individuals in the near future, both retail and contract. May they return unopened merchandise and cancel your contracts.

Please forward this message to Mr. Duncan's office.

Copyright 2005 Harlan R. Cohen MBA,CPIM

Indecision, Bias, and Overcoming Objections

Indecision on the part of a hiring manager, like Bias in a discussion at my job seeker group yesterday seems to fall under the general heading of 'Objections'. Indecision can often arise out of unspoken objections. Biases might be thought of as preconceived objections. Overcoming objections is a natural part of the selling process, so turn to what you've learned about salesmanship to find your answers.

Objections can fall along a dimension with Intrinsic characteristics on one end and Extrinsic factors on the other. Intrinsics are what you can't or won't change. Extrinsics are the opposite. Not having an MBA is an extrinsic and may be solved by going after an EMBA.

Intrinsics are generally the things left unstated: too old, too young, too white, too black. Of course having an MBA is something you can't really undo, so if being 'over-educated' is a beef for the hiring manager, it's an intrinsic.

Intrinsics can be minimized, maximized or reframed. If I'm 'over-educated' I can play it down or I can make my target market Higher Education, where it is valued.

Am I a 'diversity' candidate? I am Jewish and White and Male AND I grew up in multi-racial Cleveland Heights with children whose parents were everything from janitors to university professors. Cleveland itself is ethnically diverse and our family-owned grocery store introduced me to a number of cultures and the importance of customer service. Then I went to a university with many South American, Asian, and Middle Eastern students and started a career with General Electric, which was one of the more culturally diverse firms at that time.

My feeling is that an extrinsic is something you can act on or promise action on, even during that indecision period. And if I don't want to act on it, can I say I'm really going to be a good fit for the job? Will I have to change the organization's culture to what I feel is superior or am I going to synthesize from the best aspects of the organization and my own experiences?

Inexperience with the industry? "I've been reading the trade magazines, networking with ..., attended the ... seminar, and skimmed the classic .... Is it true that ...?".

Extrinsics can be turned back on the interviewer. "What do you recommend to strengthen my knowledge in the short term."

Of course there are only so many ways I can split my interests, and one reason I have so many technical books left unread at home is that I can't figure out whether to pursue Oracle, Java, and Banner or look further at Microsoft .Net, Business Objects, and some other major application.

My previous job search classes taught me to overcome each objection in turn and ask for the job each time the list of objections runs out. If the same objection keeps re-occurring, and I've exhausted my tactics for overcoming objections, it may simply be time to withdraw and move on. And withdrawing my candidacy is just one more tactic to overcoming an objection.

Copyright 2005 Harlan R. Cohen MBA,CPIM

Stick a match to Redmatch?

My local chamber of commerce has found a vendor to support recruiters and job seekers in the community. Unfortunately, I don't share the same excitement they do. Here are some reasons:

Redmatch is not a technical marvel. I prefer DirectEmployers, Careerboard, Careerbuilder, and Cleveland.com. And Dice of course. See if you have the same problems I did. The areas below are the ones where I had difficulty or expected more. Your mileage will differ.... Results may not be typical....

1. Location selection in geographic preferences is immature.
   • Page Up/Down does not work.
   • Cannot rapidly select an entire state.
   • Cannot rapidly select an entire country.
   • The convention of turning a checkbox off and on by tapping the space key is not implemented.
   • I tried to add 35 cities and received an error message without any prior warning that only 20 are allowed. I cancelled and added cities again as a consequence.
   • The wheel scroll did not work until I hovered over the down button on the vertical scroll bar. Then stopped again.
   • After selecting 18 cities I tried to save and it told me that only 20 are allowed. Someone neglected to reset the count variable in memory, apparently.
   • I gave up and proceeded on with just Cleveland as a city (prefilled by providing it in a previous screen.)
   • I returned to the My Job Preferences tab and selected more cities. When I saved the cities I received a message 'Save Successful' which erroneously used a warning icon, rather than a straightforward success icon.
2. Employment History
   • Couldn't leave without saving an entry.
   • Entries are only dated by year.
3. Education History
   • Asks for 'certifications' (diplomas or degrees) and makes no allowance for professional certifications.
   • Entries are undated.
4. Resume Load
   • Following my resume browse and load of a Word.doc file, a warning box appeared for JavaScript Application' with an OK button and there was no warning text. Nature of the error is unknown.
   • Did not take the opportunity to load a picture.
   • After completing the wizard and returning to the My Resume tab I found that the resume had not loaded. I then saved the Word.doc file as Word.rtf and uploaded that. The header was dropped and some other formatting was interpreted differently than might be expected.
   • I attempted to Edit the resume using the action button and could only view the resume.
   • The resume entries were not transferred back into the Employment History and Education. This feature is available on a few job sites but its omission is not a negative.
5. Profile Results
   • Ten matches in total from several major markets.
   • Because I expressed an interest in marketing (they don't have a fundraising/campaign category selection) and specified my industry as education, only four of the ten entries might be of interest, three of those went back to the end of April.
   • None were local.
   • Most of my entries came from The Job Network. The network is listed as a Redmatch product. The newspapers covered by the network should be found on this page http://www.thejobnetwork.com/statistics/members.asp?code=1 (I think you'll have to copy/paste into the browser). There are none listed for Ohio at this time.
6. Search Results
   • I could finally specify 'ALL' cities but this gave me 1500 entries in the category Information Systems
   • 4Jobs.com seemed to be a major source of entries. I only sampled a few results pages however. It makes me think I should try 4jobs directly.
   • Restricting entries to Oracle also got me 1500 entries and they were Oracle entries. A few appeared to be duplicates.
   • There is no filtering on dates.
   • No sorting capabilities exist. Results are returned in roughly reverse chronology. Don't ask me what disrupts sequence. Revisions altering the date an entry was last modified?
   • I added a filter for only companies beginning with 'D'. The search had not returned results after five minutes and I closed down the browser.
7. Job agents or Saved Searches
   • None that I could tell.

Copyright 2005 Harlan R. Cohen MBA,CPIM

Government Budgets vs. Local Interests

"Cleveland will lose 1,013 high-paying civilian jobs and 15 military positions at the Defense Finance and Accounting Services Office in a realignment announced by the Defense Department today." according to The Plain Dealer / Associated Press report.

Isn't it past time that the Congress insist a local area have its federal employment frozen when the local area is still suffering from a recession? And let's not pretend that the moment a recession turns around is the time for layoffs or facility closings. Every three months in a recession should represent two to four months of protection following the turnaround.

Now I can see where all bets may be off during a national recession. However the political parties that favor getting the 'welfare class' into jobs so they can take support directly from the economy, these politicians ought to understand the concept of maintaining job enrollments to spur an economy during difficult economic times.

Voinovich, DeWine, Taft, Campbell, Hagan, DiMora, LaTourette, Tubbs-Jones, Kucinich. Are you listening?



Copyright 2005 Harlan R. Cohen MBA,CPIM

Linear Collider Organizations

A portal to the essential global websites for the International Linear Collider. Click on the title above to move there.

Copyright 2005 Harlan R. Cohen MBA,CPIM

I am a factory, not a product

I had the pleasure of reading 'How Not to Sell Yourself During a Job Interview' by Michael Neece in his newsletter from his company, Interview Mastery. He likened the interview process to dart throwing, and you gauge the target through your opening interview questions. I replied with my own thoughts which I've included below.

-------------------------------------------------------------

I appreciate what you had to say about interviews not being selling events in your April 1 newsletter. I started cringing over that kind of thinking when an ex-boss in a now defunct consulting company wanted us to consider ourselves as products to be on display.

Let me share my thinking for a moment. We are all factories of one sort or another. Let's not reverse things though. Actually it's our factories that are becoming more organic. Small systems integrated into larger systems and networked by various devices and protocols. But that's another story.

We each possess abilities of a greater or lesser extent. When left to our own we each produce to a certain level of quality. We each have lesser or greater capacities in our fields of interest. Our productivity is determined by such factors as our health, our strength, our intelligence, and our motivations. And all these things can be manipulated for self-improvement.

Sometimes trade-offs are involved. Will I spend an hour exercising or an hour in the classroom? I need to do both but time constraints will not allow it. I may get in a half-hour of exercise and still attend class. In the factory these are matters of scheduling, repair or preventive maintenance, or renovation or retrofit.

As I become more sophisticated, what I produce can be more sophisticated.

When I go to an interview the qualities I will attempt to demonstrate are my capacity, my passion for quality, my abilities, and my adaptability over time. I will make promises I expect to keep. My appearance will be neat if not elegant. A well-run factory keeps reliable schedules and has good housekeeping. Poor housekeeping and poor schedules interfere with productivity and my 'customers' need that assurance. And I do have a customer and salesmanship is required.

When I interview in this mode there is no dart throwing. In the nature of the best salesmen I will match my capabilities to the customer's needs through discussion and by assuming some control of the interview. We can discuss special requirements in terms of a schedule. Can I obtain the required knowledge in the first few months of work, on the job or through formal training and education? If I'm fortunate I have samples of my previous work to show. (Not everything I design is readily reduced to paper these days). My quality procedures and communication must be aligned with the organization's.

Do I have the job?

Would a Space Elevator make a suitable Collider?

The Space Elevator: 'Thought Experiment', or Key to the Universe? (Part 1)

Sir Arthur C. Clarke took note in 1981 that then current materials could construct a stable tower 40 kilometers high. Just long enough for the International Linear Collider. So why not test the concept with the construction of the ILC? There must be some benefit to building in the air rather than burrowing in the ground.

And there would have to be some energy savings from dropping your particles over 39 kilometers as opposed to maintaining a 'straight' path conforming to the earth's curvature or tangential to it.

Or split the difference with a 18 - 20 kilometer tower combined with a tunnel of similar length that uses an angled configuration proposed in the literature.

The customer is always right

I like to sum up years of experience in a few sentences. Today I brought out, "Our customers are always right. It's our job to find out what it is they're right about". Well let's face it. Sometimes what our customers say needs some interpretation and understanding. What they may consider a problem may only be a symptom.

Lake Erie Quatenary Geology

Collisions Under Lake Erie

Gelogical information will be critical to bringing the International Linear Collider to Northern Ohio. By way of introduction, here is the The Quatenary Survey of the area surrounding Lake Erie, brought to you by the Department of the Interior, 1991.

Reduced-size image of the entire map sheet, 500x320 pixels, 72k bytes.

PDF Screen-optimized rendition of the entire map sheet, 4.9 MB.

Job Seeker Groups and I (and Me?)

Here I am unemployed and trying to reinvogorate my job search. Last week I attended two different Job Seeker groups.

I had difficulties witht the first one right off the top. The schedule I found on the internet was obsolete (thank you John Carroll University). I did run into one of the founders and he promised me a quick addition to the roster. Nothing happened. This is a very large group, meets every other week, and focusses on finding speakers and managing what is purported to be a very worthy website on Yahoo! Groups.

I say purported to be, because the don't want me to have access. You see I had the audacity to say that they have a rather cumbersome registration process. You must attend at least one meeting. You must wait for four or five emails to be delivered to you from the one person who has charge of the website. Because I was critical of their strictly volunteer efforts and stood up for my perception of things, I've been blacklisted. Apparently my behavior was unchristian-like too boot. Did I neglect to mention they meet in a church which apparently had a large role in their formation and support?

Well, yes. I am not a Christian. And I have some problems which would not be corrected by the simple act of conversion. Still, I do know somebody is supposed to turn the other cheek. I am sorry I didn't when I read their first reply. It was quite testy. We've gone back and forth a couple times by email. At this point I am waiting to see if we can clear the air in a personal meeting. Let us say they are not in a hurry to repair things.

I also want to point out we all can learn from James 1:19-20.

On the other hand I attended another Job Seeker group closer to my home. It meets weekly and is composed of a couple dozen folks who try to focus on one or two persons dilemnas each week by pre-arrangement, only after making certain everyone gets an opportunity to speak to their own situation and anything helpful they found in the past week. What more can you ask for?

We now have a new website in Yahoo! Groups as well. A consequence of their previous interest in obtaining one and my suggestion that Yahoo! provides a versatile and adequate one for free. Thank you for listening guys.

And if you're looking for a Job Seekers organization, which one would you choose? If you need to know which one I recommend, let me know. I will not speak further about the one I can't recommend at this point in time.

Collisions Under Lake Erie

Collisions Under Lake Erie

No time to say much today. Keep in mind, "The more tightly one attempts to grasp the fish, the more easily it escapes the grasp".

GLC Project Report Roadmap (April 2003)

The Japanese are about two years ahead in determining sites and construction for the Global Linear Collider. Fermi Lab has only begun researching its sites in Northern Illinois. You would think a multi-billion dollar construction project expected to take three years would generate more interest. The link in the title will take you to the Japanese study (English language version).

The table below is taken from the linked PDF.

Table 1.5: Spin-off of technologies ; invented, pioneered or highly motivated by high energy physics experiments [18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23].

Accelerator Application

synchrotron light super-fine processing of semi-conductor, non-destructive inspection,
material structure analysis, ultra-micro analysis
free-electron X-ray laser nuclear fusion, surface analysis, super-fine processing, living-cell holography
electron beam material curing and cross-linking, disinfection, sterilization, smoke purification, nuclear-waste processing
neutron beam material structure analysis, radio-activation analysis
proton beam cancer treatment, nuclear-waste processing
heavy-ion beam cancer treatment, inertial fusion reactor
muon beam muon-catalyzed nuclear fusion
radio-isotope production positron CT, medical tracer, non-destructive inspection, de-germination

Accelerator Technology
Subject Related Technologies Applications

magnets ultra-high-field superconducting magnet NMR
high-permeability ferrite power transformer
radio-frequency superconducting cavity
high-power high-frequency klystron
ultra-precision machining
copper-plating
ultra-high vacuum surface coating CRT / TV
radiation environment robot
radiation-resistant material space station
facility precision survey and alignment civil engineering

Detector Technology
Subject Related Technologies Applications

electronics fast / highly-integrated
radiation resistance / low-power space station
computing and fast / parallel / large data GRID
data handling image reconstruction and processing
Monte Carlo / statistical analysis financial engineering
Networking WWW
optical device high gain / high sensitivity / low noise noctovision
large area / dense array / imaging positron CT
radiation detector crystals positron CT
chambers security X-ray scanners
superconducting magnet large aperture / thin material NMR / MRI

Physics Study
Subject Related Technologies Applications

Lattice-QCD Super/parallel computing Earth simulation

Collisions Under Lake Erie

Collisions Under Lake Erie

The great trouble with religion - any religion - is that a religionist, having accepted certain propositions by faith, cannot thereafter judge those propositions by evidence. One may bask at the warm fire of faith or choose to live in the bleak uncertainty of reason -- but one cannot have both. -- Hartley M. Baldwin (from the novel "Friday" by Robert Heinlein).

Artificial Photosynthesis

Collisions Under Lake Erie

Witten to the editor of Analog:

Dear Dr. Schmidt,

Dr. Gillett provided fascinating insights with his article “Artificial Photosynthesis” (April, 2005). Why did he leave off with speculation about methanol production? I think he could have expanded on the concept by speculating on the ability to produce sugars and artificial sweeteners. Aspartame (formed from two amino acids) contains methanol in part. Meanwhile, the commercial viability might be proven on a smaller scale by selling syntheries (the terms refineries and distilleries don’t seem appropriate) to large and small manufacturers, I could see bakeries and confectionary shops abandoning their suppliers, setting about a downturn in natural sugar production and the conversion of sugar plantations to more nutritious food production.

The synthesis of aspartame produces a water molecule, at least in theory. Sucralose contains chlorine. Is there the possibility of ramping up desalination plants a whole level of magnitude? Also, if starches can be synthesized there is a possibility of producing cotton (hint to Egypt and India).

I can quite imagine all the equatorial countries devoting funds and personnel to this area of study. As for the science fiction possibilities, consider a setting such as Bahrain a hundred years from now, as totally automated processes run wild, producing a mountain of sugar and millions of baked goods. Cleveland, Ohio would lose its title, as this small country becomes the new “Rock (Candy) and Roll Capital”.

Thank you for keeping me young by giving me these wonderments “published monthly except for combined January/February and July/August double issues…” for my speculation.

Sincerely,



Harlan R. Cohen, MBA, CPIM

Beachwood, OH

Two Wrongs could make things right

Collisions Under Lake Erie

Wal-Mart has put the kebosh on negotiations for a store in the proposed "Steelyard Commons". We don't know how much blame we need to assess Councilman Cimperman for trying to legislate the proportion of grocery sales to overall sales the store should produce. But if Wal-Mart's concern was lack of traffic at a location in the flats there may be a solution.

Cuyahoga County's Juvenile Court judges may sue the county to remain downtown rather than move to what I suspect is a much more inconvenient location at E. 93rd and Quincy.

The solution is to put these two problems together. The county needs land and First Interstate has land. The county can purchase enough land at the proposed shopping center to build its juvenile courthouse and detention center. This should insure a constant stream of parents, guardians, lawyers, judges, referees, clerks, secretaries and administrators who can shop at Wal-Mart and all the other proposed retailers.

If Wal-Mart wants to be involved in the community it could help organize a work-release program for the detention center. Perhaps leaven its management with licensed social workers. And if Wal-Mart still doesn't want to participate there are other retailers to work this out singly or in combination. Kmart/Sears, a Target/Tops combination, or Meijers come to mind.

This is not over yet. And Steelyard Commons may only be the first step. A succesful development there will bring more attention back to Tower City. Perhaps Forest City will see its way to finding a more upscale anchor. A Macy's or a Bloomingdale's could make good sense in the future.

It will take blood, sweat, and tears to get it done. Good luck and good wishes to First Interstate.

Watch This Blog (link)

If you have an interest in alternative energy, Gary Voelker is your man and the link will take you to his blog.

Showing My Age

What is the big deal in finding people to do programming in Java? Twenty-five years ago GE Lighting staffed their IS group by hiring bright persons who may have taken a college course or two in programming and sent them out for eight days to learn COBOL. I programmed a major part of an online order entry system after a year and a half of experience. Where is the vaunted ability of contemporary software development products to produce dramatic productivity increases when the learning curve is so steep?

I have tried to find employment with several of the companies in your series. I am very willing to negotiate salary. I answer the ads in your paper or elsewhere and I never hear back unless it is to hear I lack one quality or another over my competition. So obviously they are finding talented people. If they talent pool is not up to their expectations, let them organize the training that will make things happen.

What's the name of that professor at CSU who funnels students into Brandmuscle? Were any of those students over 40? There is an implicit age bias at work in concentrating on recent graduates, even if they live, breathe, and sleep their work.

I am thinking of four associates who showed pretty equal abilities. One still maintains large mainframes, one successfully transitioned to web development, another is now an Oracle DBA and one now drives a truck for a living. Personally, I've never interviewed superlatively and I am still unemployed.

There is still a lot of chance and circumstance for both the employer and applicant. Both have to be willing to take a chance under sometimes desperate circumstances in order to make a match.

"Ohio's Economic Equation"

This was an unpublished letter to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Or if they did publish it, I certainly missed it.

It is curious that Les Vinney and Dorothy Baunach took this week to tout the achievements of NorTech (“Ohio’s economic equation”, PD 2/22/2005) while ignoring the injuries to be suffered at Glenn Research Center in the next federal budget. What does Julian Earls, Glenn’s Director and Northeast Ohio Technology Coalition member, have to say about the role NorTech will play in sustaining the research center’s programs and pre-eminence?

“Ohio ranks 22nd overall in federal R&D funding, receiving only $164 on a per capita basis versus the national average of $269. At only 61% of the national average, we have lots of room for improvement. Increasingly, opportunities for new federal funding require cooperation among multiple organizations which NorTech, as an independent and trusted third party, can help broker or facilitate. NorTech engages outside experts as needed, and works closely with the region’s universities, councils, and corporations to determine those areas and activities where that will bring more federal dollars into the region. (http://www.nortech.org/#agenda_nort)”. This quote comes from the NorTech website. But exactly what they expect to do is absent.

NorTech could be organizing a consortium to bring the construction of the International Linear Collider to Northern Ohio rather than Northern Illinois. It may not be too late. I am writing about what will be the world’s largest machine. A multi-billion dollar package of electronics, metals, ceramics, and polymers placed in a tunnel 39 kilometers long. Local manufacturers could be supplying a number of components, materials, and infrastructure. But will they? Not if business leadership ignores a potential goldmine. Or should I say salt mine? Because one place to consider placing this construction is in the geologically stable salt bed under Lake Erie.

Scientists and engineers could be working here, rather than in Chicago, engaged in research about the nature of the universe. That is an endeavor as sublime as a Cleveland Orchestra performance and more demanding than Cleveland Browns football. More office space downtown could be inhabited instead of vacant, although I’m hardly aware how many researchers and administrative staff a supercollider requires. The power requirements might expand and rehabilitate the Municipal Power Plant. Steel mills may reawaken or be kept busy for several years.

It is too much to dream for and apparently NorTech leadership does not dare to dream.

Jewish Buddhism

I received this recently in an email and if someone knows the source I would gladly give it the correct attribution.

THE PRINCIPLES OF JEWISH BUDDHISM

1. Let your mind be as a floating cloud. Let your stillness be as the wooded glen. And sit up straight. You'll never meet the Buddha with such round shoulders.

2. There is no escaping karma. In a previous life, you never called, you never wrote, you never visited. And whose fault was that?

3. Wherever you go, there you are. Your luggage is another story.

4. To practice Zen and the art of Jewish motorcycle maintenance, do the
following: get rid of the motorcycle. What were you thinking?

5. If there is no self, whose arthritis is this?

6. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Forget to do this and attaining Enlightenment will be the least of your problems.

7. The Tao has no expectations. The Tao demands nothing of others. The Tao does not speak. The Tao does not blame. The Tao does not take sides. The Tao is not Jewish.

8. Drink tea and nourish life. With the first sip, joy. With the second, satisfaction. With the third, Danish.

9. The Buddha taught that one should practice loving kindness to all sentient beings. Still, would it kill you to find a nice sentient being who happens to be Jewish?

10. Be patient and achieve all things. Be impatient and achieve all things faster.

11. Be here now. Be someplace else later. Is that so complicated?

12. Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkes! [i.e., "a hill of beans" or "nothing" -- for Yiddish-deprived people].

International Linear Collider Community

International Panel Recommends "Cold" Technology

Collisions with Personal Aesthetics and Driveways

The Joel/Tharp creation "Movin' Out" was a dull event when we sent to see the national tour at Playhouse Square on a recent Saturday night. Few of the numbers looked particularly challenging. Not to mention that the piano was over-amplified and distorted throughout. I think it would be much better as a straight-ahead Broadway musical. Tie the numbers together with dialog and let the cast sing too. It's just not something I would go to twice.

For twenty years I've faced a steep driveway apron at the home of my wife's aunt. Take it a little too fast, straight on, and I scrape the bottom of the car on the way up.

On one Saturday night while returning her aunt to her home, my wife breaks out with "Careful!" just as I line up with the driveway in a left hand turn. I'm so startled and worried that I might have missed seeing a car that I try to clear the street ASAP and scrape the bottom of the car on the apron (again). At this point my wife lets out with an "I told you so!". At which point I lose it and tell her there's no point in giving me a vague warning late and distracting me like that. Much less giving me a self-congratulatory "told you so".

How upset should a spouse get under these circumstances? And are such incidents a good reason to see a marriage counselor?

Other Science Under Lake Erie

Two Thousand Feet Below Lake Erie

Why Lake Erie for the International Linear Collider?

Why should the "powers that be" consider the North Coast?

The immense salt beds pervading the Great Lakes should provide geologically sound and physically secure locations. Salt mines in Ohio are worked at 1500 feet (appr. 450 meters) depth. The mining and excavation process is largely known. Northern Ohio has a low cost of living; offices, lands, and buildings are readily attained. Hotel and convention space is more than adequate. The scientific and engineering community is significant.

And from what I have read, the location of a laboratory such as this should be equally inaccessible to all parties. Given that the primary proponents are on both coasts and Japan, I feel Cleveland is nearly ideal.