Orion's hope

You can imagine my amusement, or bemusement, when the press release came over from Associated General Contractors telling me that the Orlando office of Hensel Phelps Construction Co. won an Aon Build America Award in the "Best Renovation of a Federal & Heavy Project" category for its conversion of a a 40-year old building at Kennedy Space Center into the new assembly facility for the Orion Capsule.

Yeah.

That's the same Orion Capsule that's part of the Constellation Program, which got its funding cut from NASA's 2011 budget.

J. Doug Pruitt, the president of AGC, said, “These are the projects that redefine communities, reinvent neighborhoods and remind us that anything is possible given the right mix of craft, skill and commitment.”

Pruitt said Hensel Phelps's Orion project was completed within 18 months, despite the need to abate more than 320 tons of hazardous materials, respect astronaut "quiet hours," and halt construction during launches.



Kirk Hazen, vice president and Southeast district manager at Hensel Phelps, said the company worked in partnership with Lockheed Martin to deliver the taxpayers "a unique project known as the 'Factory of the Future' that exceeded all safety, quality, budgetary, schedule, and environmental goals.”

Good job, guys. Now, if the taxpayers can bug their senators and representatives to pass the Human Space Flight Capability Assurance & Enhancement Act of 2010 (HR 4804), said taxpayers might actually get their money's worth out of this award-winning "Factory of the Future."

I would be remiss if I didn't point out that you can read about the bill at OBJ. And if you forget which persons in Congress are supposed to be representing you, check here.

Go, Canada!

During the Opening Ceremonies of the Winter Olympic Games last night, I was impressed by the amount of time and the degree of prominence given to the First Nations: the indigenous people of Canada. The leaders of the four nations whose territories encompass the Olympic venues were seated with the national and international leaders.

Tribal representatives offered greetings in their native languages, as did the Utes at the Salt Lake Games. But then native people from across Canada performed their traditional dances in traditional attire throughout the parade of nations. I was struck by the similarity between the dances and costumes of the Prairie tribes, as they were called, to those of the Great Plains in the U.S.

But I was most sharply struck by the notion that no games in the U.S. has ever given so much time and prominence to native peoples. For all our similarities, there are great differences between Americans and Canadians, and this is one of them. Here, we frequently forget our native peoples. And when we remember, it often seems an afterthought. ("Hey, since we're in Utah, we should invite the Osmonds. Oh yeah, and maybe the Utes, too.")

But another segment of the show was very -- how shall I put it -- North American. When the tartan-and-leather-clad tap dancers and fiddlers took the stage, in what I can only describe as a Punk Rock Riverdance, it demonstrated the individuality and inventiveness that characterizes both of our pioneer nations. The fiddling and clogging, which the producers encountered on Canada's east coast, is similar to that seen in Appalachia. I'd say it was the same, but I've never seen tattooed Appalachian dancers in black studded leather and chains. (Which isn't to say they don't exist. Only that I've never seen them.)

At the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, a thousand men, all of similar height and build and ethnicity, dressed the same way, doing the same thing, expressed the conformity of the Chinese Communist state. Contrast that with the Canadian people, a variety of colors and sizes and ethnicities, each dressed differently, dancing together but not in unison.

We Americans may admire the Chinese precision and unity, but individuality and innovation -- those are things we can relate to. Our normally unassuming Northern cousins have set themselves the audacious goal to own the podium at their games. I wish them well.

How many times do I have to tell you…

So often, I tell my teenager “we need to leave at X o’clock,” and he’s not ready to leave until X-plus-ten … or plus-15 … or plus-20 …

You would think I’d have learned by now to give him an earlier deadline, like editors sometimes do with recalcitrant freelancers. But no, even after years of arriving late at school, or dentist appointments, or worship, I told him the truth: We need to leave by seven-thirty.

Then I waited with gnashing teeth while he took uncommonly long in the shower, ignored my instruction to wear a sweater and a jacket because it would be cold, and roamed about the house searching for a misplaced wallet.

I looked at my watch. We were told to be at the school at seven-forty-five so he could take the state’s standardized test. It was now seven-forty, and the school is fifteen minutes away. Meanwhile, he looked for a book to read during the bus ride home.

My fury swelled. His insubordination showed disrespect for me and for his own education. I poured out my wrath by punching the wall, scraping the skin off my knuckles.

Once he was in the car, I sped to the school, praying we would be in time. We got to the school office five minutes after eight. Two other homeschoolers waited in the lobby. The secretary reassured me that the testing coordinator had not yet started. Thank you, God. I apologized to my son for losing my temper and wished him well. The coordinator came to admit the homeschoolers into the testing room.

I headed out, still angry. In the car, I prayed aloud, something I don’t often do in solitude. “Jesus Christ Lord God Almighty in Heaven, help me. Why is he so disrespectful? Why does he do the opposite of what I tell him? I give clear instructions, and he doesn’t follow them.”

I imagined God folding his arms and frowning. “Now you know how I feel.”

I would rather punch a wall and hurt myself than hurt my child. In the same way, the Creator poured out his wrath on the Redeemer, shedding his blood rather than ours. And despite our faults, He gives us enough grace that even though we fall short of the goal, we are still admitted into His presence.

Cancel this "special order"

This just in, from one of our faithful correspondents:

I have received an e-mail that looks like it is from Amazon.com but is not. I am sure it is a phishing scam.

The mail is very well done in that it has the Amazon logo and claims to be from "order-update@amazon.com.
It tells you to click on the attached link for an update on your order status.

The tip-off for me was: 1. I have no current order with Amazon, and 2. rather than a hot link to UPS as I would expect from Amazon, the mail had an attachment that was a .zip file with the instruction to open the zip file for order update information.… This one is pretty sneaky in that is does not try to scare you, e.g. "your credit card data is wrong," or sell you something. But I'm positive the zip file would unload some nasty bit of malware that would either steal my data or just trash the hard drive.

Malware, indeed. Akin to the "special delivery" e-mail noted earlier, this type of scam often involves software that logs your keystrokes, giving a hacker access to the things you use your computer for, like shopping and banking, either of which can get the hacker your credit card number. Alternatively, if you are using a Windoze computer, malware can turn your PC into a "zombie," generating even more spam to the unsuspecting masses.

For more information, visit Symantec's Web site.

It must take a rocket scientist to figure this out

I find it absurd that today, NASA's remembrance day for those who gave their lives to further the cause of space exploration, the Interwebs are buzzing with speculation about the president pulling the plug on the Constellation Program.

He claims it will be better to turn rocket-building over to private companies.

Whom does he think built the Ares-1X? The SeaBees?

NASA directs the program, but the heavy lifting is -- and always has been -- done by private companies.

The Saturn V rockets were built by Rocketdyne. The lunar landers were built by Grumman.

Orbiters for the space shuttle program were built by Rockwell International with parts by Grumman and General Dynamics. The shuttle's external tank is made by Lockheed Martin. The solid rocket boosters have motor segments made by ATK, with avionics and final assembly by United Space Alliance, which is a partnership between Lockheed Martin and The Boeing Co.

This New York Times story says NASA is getting a budget increase over five years. But if Constellation is scrapped, it seems much of that budget increase must go to a whole new round of requests for proposals, design review meetings, and test flights.

Ares already had a successful test flight. So why are we starting over? And why does the president who came closer to nationalizing our banks than anyone since FDR want to privatize the space program? Does he not realize that the Ares was built by private companies? From NASA:

ATK Space Systems of Promontory, Utah, is the prime contractor for the first stage reusable solid rocket boosters. Jacobs Engineering in Tullahoma, Tenn., is the prime contractor for Ares I-X avionics, with Lockheed Martin of Denver, Colo., as subcontractor. Teledyne Brown Engineering of Huntsville, Ala., is the prime contractor for developing the roll control system. United Space Alliance of Houston, Texas, is the prime contractor supporting launch operations at Kennedy Space Center.

Mr. Change wants to discard the work already done by these private companies so astronauts can fly on rockets built by ... private companies. But there are only so many companies capable of building a rocket that big. Apparently it escapes him that the companies most likely to bid on a "commercial rocket" will be those already named.

That's not change. It's just a waste.

You can do without this "special" delivery

This just landed in my inbox:

The courier company was not able to deliver your parcel by your address.

Cause: Error in shipping address.
You may pickup the parcel at our post office personaly!
...The shipping label is attached to this e-mail.
Please print this label to get this package at our post office....

The message purports to be from DHL and sports a convincingly spoofed "dhl.com" e-mail address.

The attachment is called "DHL_Label_NR34791.zip," and that's the real tip-off.

Well, that and the fact that I'm not expecting anything to be delivered by anyone.

Even if I were, why would a simple shipping label be in a zip file?

It wouldn't. It would be a pdf, surely. Or I'd be instructed to log into dhl.com with my tracking number.

This attachment and others like it -- the numbers appear to be randomly generated (yes, I got 2 of them with different numbers) -- contains a Trojan that will install malware on your Windows computer. But even if you have a Mac, you should not open unexpected attachments from unverifiable sources.

For more on Bredolab, see Hoax-Slayer and Symantec.

Oh, and another tip-off? The poor grammar. "deliver your parcel by your address" should be "to your address," and there are two Ls in "personally."

Those who can't, kibitz

I had a great time Saturday working with the guys from the Phenix Design Group, who provided driving and flight simulators for Otronicon.

You may recall that last year I wrote about my pretty dismal flight record. So I found it amusing when Lynn, an Orlando Science Center staff member, asked me to work at the Cessna Skyhawk flight simulator.

She asked whether I minded doing something kind of technical. Then she laughed and said, "Well, it's all technology, so I guess you wouldn't be here if you did mind it." Which is true.

Lynn introduced me to Ron, of the Phenix Design Group, who asked whether I'm familiar with flight simulators.

"Yes," I said, "I've crashed several of them."

He was fine with that, and proceeded to show me how the HotSeat Flight Sim works. A few menus and key commands later, and I was running the show.

The HotSeat is a lightweight bucket seat mounted, as one guest discovered by laying on the floor and looking underneath, on "big gimbals." (Yes, that's the kind of guest we get at the science center, and we like it that way. Actually, I saw two people do this.) As you steer left or right, up or down, the chair tilts accordingly. The simulation is driven by a PC, with the video displayed on a large LCD TV.

Usually I gave the guests a quick overview of the controls--which button or lever does what--but only the ones they needed. So several buttons, levers and pedals went unused. To keep things simple and the line moving, Ron was running a limited simulation of an approach and landing at Orlando International Airport.

So yeah, there's me, telling other people how to land a plane.

After I'd been doing this for an hour and a half or so, I noticed that some guests would only touch the buttons I pointed out to them, while others would, at some point in their roughly two-minute approach, push every button and flip every switch to see what each one would do. I also noticed that there was a greater proportion of young people (which is to say, people younger than me) in the latter group, and a greater proportion of people older than me in the former.

First I must point out that my OSC sample is disproportionately skewed to the youth. Nevertheless, this observation is in line with one I've made at the office, where people younger than me, when trying to accomplish something new with a computer, usually start clicking through menus and dialog boxes until they get what they need. People older than me usually call me for help. It's as if they're afraid they'll break it if they push the wrong button. Although there are times, in a production environment, when a computer error could bungle things up rather badly, generally speaking, clicking the wrong button isn't a disaster.

So I began wondering whether this willingness to experiment with the controls at hand is more prevalent in those who've grown up with high-tech gadgetry. Familiarity breeding confidence. I asked my teenager, and he concurs. Young people use trial-and-error, he says, because it's often the faster way to learn something than reading the manuals.

Perhaps the techno-timid of all ages should spend more time in environments like the science center, where trial-and-error learning can be practiced without danger to life, limb, or data.

And for the record, after my volunteer shift was over and I was able to try the HotSeat for my self, I had a lovely approach but pranged on touchdown.