tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7727653969576674872024-03-05T17:37:49.195-08:00Public Invention For All Humanity (PIFAH)This is a blog about Agile open-source invention of both hardware and software for the benefit of all humanity. I welcome you to join me. Presently this blog is only for my essays; the real work is begin published at our GitHub repos: https://github.com/PIFAH/PIFAH .
Follow me on twitter at @RobertLeeRead.Robert L. Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10587448646932762155noreply@blogger.comBlogger62125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-772765396957667487.post-29807243512314211012015-10-16T00:22:00.001-07:002015-10-21T11:25:38.997-07:00The Triumph of 3D Printing<h2>
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<span style="color: red;">Please read a better version of this post on <a href="https://medium.com/@RobertLeeRead/the-triumph-of-3d-printing-1d4517b5ce3#.mx7mlh2ap">Medium</a> and like it there.</span></div>
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Maker Faire Rome 2015 (MFR)</h2>
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I just got back from Maker Faire Rome 2015 (MFR), where my friend Mr. Anjan Contractor and I spoke about how the Maker movement can help <a href="http://www.ewb-usa.org/">Engineers Without Borders</a>.<br />
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MFR impressed on me that 3D printing continues to grow explosively.<br />
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We snuck in on Thursday night as the booths were being set up. The revolution is taking place by many baby steps, in a stream of evolution that I think has ripened into a revolution. There must be 20 firms making 3D printers and services. There is some redundancy in low-end printers (below $800), but in general each firm is adding a small new capability. The fact that so much of the 3D printing movement is open source, in software and hardware, enables this. Designers share printable designs via sites like<a href="http://www.thingiverse.com/"> Thingiverse</a>.<br />
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In the courtyard of MFR, there stood a space frame 30 meters high and 12 meters across. It's purpose: 3D print in clay on a house-sized scale.<br />
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I immediately wanted to print a small version of the Colosseum for children who can't travel to understand that 1900 years ago with no electricity and no gasoline the Romans built a stadium that sat 60,000 people and is still standing. Since our kind host spoken limited English and we spoke no Italian at all, I couldn't tell if he had thought of this already. But in fact these tremendous innovators may not have, because the truth is there is only so much time and energy in the world, even for brilliant Makers.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:927907 -- by Andyroohoo</td></tr>
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And that means, gentle reader, that we need your thoughts as well. We cannot all participate in every technological trend, but I assure you that you have not missed the 3D printing revolution. It is still in the hyperbolic growth part of its lifecycle. There are 30 years of fruitful development in this field awaiting our creativity.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Relatively Expensive ($2000) WASP Delta Printer</td></tr>
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When I first heard about 3D printing, I thought it was an interesting fad. Now that I have done it, I believe it will provide tremendous benefits to humanity.<br />
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3D printing frees the creator to make her gifts available more widely, just as photography democratized visual arts. As Edward Weston said, photography should make art affordable for everyone---and it has. In so doing, it made painting not less ubiquitous, but no less important.<br />
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3D printing will do the same for the sculptor. The sculptor and designer will be indistinguishable. Now, as John Ruskin and William Morris <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arts_and_Crafts_movement">wanted</a>, everything in your house can be beautiful and useful. We will be able to build lamps and tables which are not just stronger and cheaper, but far more beautiful, because they are freed from the cost of hand-manufacture. They will be made not "by hand", but "by mind".<br />
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Stronger, Faster, Cheaper</h2>
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The most impressive thing I saw at MFR was <a href="http://www.openrov.com/">OpenROV</a>, an inexpensive underwater exploration submarine. This gentleman gave a talk about it right before our talk. The robot is the white thing on the table. <br />
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You can't see it, but inside it has a complicated 3D printed structure. They could not have gotten the prototype working so easily and so well without a 3D printer, I assert. Perhaps when they are producing unit quantities in the thousands they will injection-mold the inner structure, but the point remains that their prototyping needed 3D printing.<br />
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Of course 3D printers were used early to make architectural models:<br />
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Humanizing Technology</h2>
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What can be more intimate than a 3D printed brassiere?</div>
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Wait---don't answer that.<br />
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Unless it is perhaps 3D printed dental models or 3D printed jaw showing the major blood vessels:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjISNN9LB8qWJ-ysrLjRhmcaqqDLvRcr8wNF70fOmC5OE8mdU50tgmHUXfm05540nrOLo2XmUI1FSSWTKxJiBGCUJaZhyGkBmO-jGX2mwNAZx5yXH-92RI3df5Uekb3g6SiyDK7Lb-y_aY/s1600/IMAG0335.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjISNN9LB8qWJ-ysrLjRhmcaqqDLvRcr8wNF70fOmC5OE8mdU50tgmHUXfm05540nrOLo2XmUI1FSSWTKxJiBGCUJaZhyGkBmO-jGX2mwNAZx5yXH-92RI3df5Uekb3g6SiyDK7Lb-y_aY/s320/IMAG0335.jpg" width="181" /></a></div>
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Are you short? Or tall? Or fat, or thin? Do you want to see your alma mater's logo on everything? Now your chairs can be just right for you, because there is no reason they should not be tailored specifically to and for you. Today a wealthy man can have a bespoke suit. Tomorrow we can all have a bespoke furniture set, because it will cost nothing more to to customize it.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_UhmwulbBy8BUNYr9TIGaGI9pnlUQCt-MKG7VQqf4wcf1pVV9Tuufu53K19jFoMO77c5l8Zq8cp2vZk43_23FMXSlwLSB-rp4qwyVCp0nQEVR7CFlmX2Wfn89Du_YYcudBewzY0mGmLc/s1600/IMAG0308.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_UhmwulbBy8BUNYr9TIGaGI9pnlUQCt-MKG7VQqf4wcf1pVV9Tuufu53K19jFoMO77c5l8Zq8cp2vZk43_23FMXSlwLSB-rp4qwyVCp0nQEVR7CFlmX2Wfn89Du_YYcudBewzY0mGmLc/s320/IMAG0308.jpg" width="181" /></a></div>
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Eventually, there will be a machine that creates for you, cheaply and quickly, any beautiful object you may desire. Today, this can almost be done---in plastic. Tomorrow it will be done in bronze, or cut from marble, and whatever electronics you desire will be embedded within it at nominal cost.<br />
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Tomorrow when you read your child's favorite book to them at bedtime, you will be able to hand them a sculpture of each of their favorite scenes. The princess and her dragon will be there, glittering in glory, perhaps even ready to take wing---because, why not? Printing a flying toy dragon will be commonplace.<br />
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When an earthquake or a fire destroys your home, how long do you think it will take for us to rebuild it? Thirty days? Thirty hours? Thirty minutes?<br />
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H.P. Lovecraft wrote in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Mountains_of_Madness">At The Mountains of Madness</a> of a space-faring race that used sculpture and bas-relief in place of writing. We may do this same. Trigonometry will now be explained with a manipulable object. You will see and feel the surface of the function. You will understand the four chambers of the heart better when we hand you one.<br />
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Our smartphones produce maps---why not models?<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:47622 -- work of ibudmen</td></tr>
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<h2>
3D Printing vs. Other Technologies</h2>
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Tim O'Reilly once said that he thought computer controlled manufacturing is the real story, of which 3D printing is just a subset. He is right, of course. At TechShop Austin, the 2D laser cutters are more heavily used than the 3D printers. Laser cutters can be similarly humanizing:<br />
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But of the CNC milling, laser cutting, and other related making technologies, none of them quite come as close to producing items of stand-alone value. None of them quite changed my way of thinking as much as my <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nshgcpDxygw">experience</a> with 3D printing:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg46Y3LTYdhYJgP_2QwvWXjHFamGla4hLlf07lKOr1IfwCqzpoRgCDk7c5zhC_jUen4-nPRsTRmwMltvDCSSws8EhqiP29-caISiYSTTeUFyz6aGhqG1FmicYULMzVIFEbqex1tJXkgdxw/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-10-20+at+5.50.32+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg46Y3LTYdhYJgP_2QwvWXjHFamGla4hLlf07lKOr1IfwCqzpoRgCDk7c5zhC_jUen4-nPRsTRmwMltvDCSSws8EhqiP29-caISiYSTTeUFyz6aGhqG1FmicYULMzVIFEbqex1tJXkgdxw/s320/Screen+Shot+2015-10-20+at+5.50.32+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<h2>
Getting Involved</h2>
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If you have any interest in this sort of thing do yourself a favor and find a way to borrow or rent the use of a 3D printer and print out a few objects.<br />
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This is a great time to become interested in 3D printing. Maker spaces commonly allow professional 3D printers to be shared as part of membership and offer support and community. I have enjoyed <a href="http://www.techshop.ws/austin_round_rock.html">TechShop Austin</a> because of the excellent advice and support given by their staff. Alternatively, you can just buy one for your home if you are willing to do some assembly and learning on your own. Here is a small basic model:<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhseMzJiNmqJtCJdgk7w7rF0VANPWu3mUuRh9xaRXboEmtsRoJQV7N7EPR1cdWJ9JIa-PBZ1TARu-1hRbLVysr9hWXrTo1PJ67ovrUL8ORmw48qZ7Q1aqz7soy-G4ZVYd3GqF4CiiM9u6U/s1600/IMAG0309.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhseMzJiNmqJtCJdgk7w7rF0VANPWu3mUuRh9xaRXboEmtsRoJQV7N7EPR1cdWJ9JIa-PBZ1TARu-1hRbLVysr9hWXrTo1PJ67ovrUL8ORmw48qZ7Q1aqz7soy-G4ZVYd3GqF4CiiM9u6U/s320/IMAG0309.jpg" width="181" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> A basic 3D printer at work</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Every child should be given a chance to hold in their hands something that they designed and made themselves. 3D printing does not replace, but rather augments sculpting, drawing or painting.<br />
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<br />Robert L. Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10587448646932762155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-772765396957667487.post-60681574707229855222015-07-20T12:31:00.000-07:002015-07-20T12:31:56.519-07:00Teaching Arduino to a 14-Year OldTeaching enthusiastic students is my greatest joy. I just spent four days teaching a very bright young man, my nephew Ethan Read, Arduino programming.<br />
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Ethan had a basic understanding of electricity, and had done some very simple programming with the Lego Mindstorms system. The Lego system teaches the basics. It is less fun because it is less real than the Arduino and true electronics. <br />
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We began by making LEDs blink. It's simple. Ridiculous, almost. But it charms us because we can do something basic to being a human being: we can build a working machine. Ethan immediately began changing the speed of the blinking lights, which of course if the first principle of programming: debugging by being able to change the program.<br />
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The Arduino Experimenter's Kit (<a href="https://www.adafruit.com/products/170">ARDX</a>) is a great teaching tool for this, or anyone. It includes LEDs, a small servo, a small motor, and lots of nice sensors.<br />
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Ethan and I worked on two projects. I had brought my <a href="http://pifah.github.io/Gluss-Pusher/">Gluss Pusher</a> invention, and in fact made excellent progress on it, perhaps because, as Richard Feynman elegantly argued, teaching and research always go hand in hand, and the best way to quit thinking is to quit teaching.<br />
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However, Ethan and his father wanted to do something practical around their ranchette. I had brought <a href="https://www.adafruit.com/products/158">Hall sensors</a> to work on the Gluss Pusher. Ethan and I quickly redeployed these, along with some powerful rare earth magnets, to make something that could sense when the bathroom door was open and turn on a blue LED.<br />
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As I have mentioned before, if you plan to do anything real with an Arduino you are going to have to deal with packaging and power management. In our case, packaging meant mounting the sensor on the end of the wire so that we could put it at the corner of the bathroom door and mount the Arduino on the towel hook. And this required soldering.<br />
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Like many things in life, it helps to have someone show you how it is done, but Ethan needed only one demonstration before he was ready to complete the rest of our soldering, which included soldering a pull-up transistor directly to one leg of the Hall sensor.<br />
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It worked. Uncle Rob could now pee in the middle of the night with less chance of a mishap.<br />
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However, we decided that more valuable for the the homestead would be an audio alarm on the freezer door. A freezer door had been left open previously, at some considerable cost.<br />
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We took a trip to Radio Shack, which does an excellent job stocking Arduinos and Arduino-comaptible electronics. I found there a Relay Shield, and we bought a siren---a very, very loud siren that runs on 12 Volt power that we could switch with a relay that come with the ARDX. By combining two programs and circuits from the ARDX, we were able to control power to the siren.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEGRJTtz2Oydsz7gQM6UQaaZoA2n8Ya3kePj3dXaxrEIM_TW7kdnoL7Fdhz1iGKUdz_BX2h5XNoLoh10n2m5I9JXBt9kERWv18RSPwGB7_fD457HLcofCK6RyOH8gh23a9CV2Hiq1zJL0/s1600/IMAG0214.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEGRJTtz2Oydsz7gQM6UQaaZoA2n8Ya3kePj3dXaxrEIM_TW7kdnoL7Fdhz1iGKUdz_BX2h5XNoLoh10n2m5I9JXBt9kERWv18RSPwGB7_fD457HLcofCK6RyOH8gh23a9CV2Hiq1zJL0/s320/IMAG0214.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The freezer had a steel door, so by taping the sensor in place and sticking magnets onto the door, we had it working. Once the door opens, a horrifyingly loud siren will sound 30 seconds later.<br />
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We had to explain to Ethan that although we are proud of this project, it is not a patent-worthy invention, and we are not the first persons to build such an alarm.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYjwUakGN9Q30zJdSnmCtRzkUX7HRFrgnG6v-GF9iJejqo-Z7YLlnnQCeM1vRvutPf03ooh-3H63vfgXGwE_QXNzl-y9bsGeSUzUWtdRo6hzbJjgIwrxfgKGkfqpY8ax54XvN1vNjy304/s1600/IMAG0217.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYjwUakGN9Q30zJdSnmCtRzkUX7HRFrgnG6v-GF9iJejqo-Z7YLlnnQCeM1vRvutPf03ooh-3H63vfgXGwE_QXNzl-y9bsGeSUzUWtdRo6hzbJjgIwrxfgKGkfqpY8ax54XvN1vNjy304/s320/IMAG0217.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Nonetheless, this was a very satisfying project. We built something that is actually useful and deployed it in a (probably) reliable way. Doing this simple project opens a door to building almost anything we can imagine. I wish every child that has the engineering inclination could have this experience.<br />
<br />Robert L. Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10587448646932762155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-772765396957667487.post-62192232738838677432015-06-09T09:16:00.001-07:002015-06-09T19:09:49.255-07:00A super short introduction to using GitHub for hosting a non-profit website.<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<a href="https://github.com/">GitHub</a> is a for-profit firm that effectively has created a social network of open-source hackers. It is now a "place" to go for hackers. Fundamentally it is a repository for tracking, versioning, and retrieving files---but EFFECTIVELY it is a social work place for files.</div>
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By files, we mainly mean computer programs, which really require versioning. But you can put anything there. </div>
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GitHub makes it completely free as long as you are public/open source in your files. You have to pay to have private files. GitHub graciously gives 501c3 charities $25/month of services for free. You can do this if we need a private repo. For example, I am on a board where we keep private files, and also have a public face.</div>
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Additionally, GitHub implements <a href="https://help.github.com/categories/github-pages-basics/">"GitHub pages</a>", which is a lot like WordPress or BlogSpot. The main difference is that content is mostly not created with a "What you see is what you get (WYSIWYG)" editor. In general, you create content using a very, very simple version of HTML called "<a href="http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax">markdown</a>". </div>
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Here is a site that is implemented with GitHub pages: <a href="http://presidentialinnovation.org/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://<wbr></wbr>presidentialinnovation.org</a>. The "repo" for it is here: <a href="https://github.com/presidential-innovation-foundation/presidential-innovation-foundation.github.io">https://github.com/presidential-innovation-foundation/presidential-innovation-foundation.github.io</a>, where you can partially see how the site is constructed if you study. Anyone can make a "pull request" which will be taken as a suggestion by the owning organization.</div>
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I think it looks rather nice. To make it look nice, you have to do some extra work, but it is just "plain old HTML and CSS". This is more or less easy. By using GitHub pages, you are sort of using the "plainest" and simplest hosting technology that we can.</div>
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When you start with github pages, you get a URL like <a href="http://github.io/yournewsite" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://github.io/yournewsite</a>. However, you can point any domain you own at it. That is how "<a href="http://presidentialinnovation.org/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">presidentialinnovation.org</a>" gets pointed there.</div>
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One of the great things about GitHub is that you can create an "Organization" which can then own "teams" and "repos", which are ways to organize projects and subproject. This means that you can control who is empowered to post things on the site.</div>
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Someone will NOT be able to post things on the site unless they either:</div>
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*) Get a free github account and you add them to the "team", or,</div>
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*) They submit a "pull request", and someone on the team "merges" it.</div>
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This is how open source is organized. ANYONE could make a pull request (that is, "request us to pull their change into they site"), but only YOU can merge it. It is not uncommon for people to make pull requests to fix typos, or to augment information, for example.</div>
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I believe for many charities, clubs, and organizations, hosting a web site with GitHub Pages should be a defacto starting point.</div>
Robert L. Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10587448646932762155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-772765396957667487.post-31365393006549916792015-06-08T18:27:00.000-07:002015-06-08T18:27:07.474-07:00A Cold Calculus Conversation with a NeonatologistToday, following the surface-level success of the <a href="http://publicinvention.blogspot.com/2015/06/report-atx-hack-for-change-2015-preemie.html">ATX Hackathon</a>, I spoke for an hour with a person who had a lot of experience in Africa and Bangladesh with premature babies.<br />
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She informed me of a number of difficulties with the Premature Baby Warmer project, although she confirmed some thoughts that preserve a slight hope for the usefulness of the project:<br />
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<ul>
<li>Warmers are certainly needed.</li>
<li>A system that could use cell-phone batteries successfully is potentially valuable.</li>
<li>In most of the developing world, the Ministry of Health provides most of the supplies to clinics. This is a top-down model, and the idea of publishing an open-source solution is at odds with this, being a bottom-up approach.</li>
<li>It might be true that 10% of the babies that need it could be helped by people who have the kind of internet access that would allow them to use internet instructions to build a warmer.</li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo_care">Kangaroo Care</a> is effective in approximately the same conditions that we are trying to address, so it may be that only a fraction of births, when the mother if disabled, benefit from this idea anyway.</li>
</ul>
<div>
In other words: if we manage to build an easy to construct $25 warmer than is 100% safe and effective, the number of babies we can hope to save with this approach is just a fraction of those that might need it.</div>
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Of course, perhaps more than 100,000 low birth-weight babies die every year. Perhaps 10% of those will be close to someone with a good internet connection and the skills to build the Arduino-based warmer. Perhaps 10% of those will have a mother that, at least temporarily, needs a warmer.</div>
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One in a 100 of 100,000 is still 1,000. I'm willing to put more time into a project that might save 1,000 babies a year.</div>
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Furthermore, it is possible that the know-how from the creation of this will help someone smarter build something better---or build something completely unrelated which is valuable.</div>
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So, without believing that I am very close to producing much good in this world, I think this project is worth some more of our time.</div>
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Contact me if you want to volunteer---there is no lack of work to be done, with almost any skill.</div>
Robert L. Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10587448646932762155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-772765396957667487.post-12066535615198039352015-06-08T17:53:00.000-07:002015-06-09T06:01:27.484-07:00Report: ATX Hack for Change 2015 Preemie Baby WarmerThis weekend I led a team at the ATX Hack for Change <a href="http://atxhackforchange.org/">Hackathon</a> improving the <a href="https://github.com/PIFAH/EWB/tree/master/incubator">Preemie Baby Warmer</a> project of the Austin chapter of Engineers Without Borders.<br />
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Each year more than 100,000 babies born prematurely without access to Western medicine die needlessly. There are at least two attempts to address this problem. The Embrace <a href="http://embraceglobal.org/">warmer</a> is an elegant solution available in theory for $25. However, it is made by a for-profit company, and its design is not open-source, and depends on difficult-to-manufacture phase change material. I would prefer to empower local people to construct their own using inexpensive and readily available material.<br />
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Rice University's <a href="http://embraceglobal.org/">Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen</a> has created a different solution: a $250 box-style <a href="http://embraceglobal.org/">isolette</a>. However, this is clearly an "in clinic" solution.<br />
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Engineering seeks practical solutions. There is usually a design spectrum, and it is better to have a richly populated design spectrum. We are producing a different point in the design space than either of these solutions.<br />
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I had previously constructed a prototype that I exhibited at the Austin Mini Maker Faire. My friend Chip Rosenthal came by our table and invited me to the ATX Hack for Change Hackathon, specifically because I was working on a hardware project, something that would diversify the ATX hackathon. As one experienced hacker said, "I've never seen a sewing machine at a Hackathon before."<br />
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I was very lucky to get two brilliant young people on my team, and the help of an small team of IBM engineers as well. This is Josh Benson, who is a very clearly thinking and helped me with the electronics and programming, as well as just thinking about what to do.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1urmEVvSWX0NtENDp4WHdwxaR0xwSAjNZ4IjjDbg8OpftrcR9yF9GVmUYfuyt38F_tEJ2Accqq9991PMTG2dMn9wZrYNS76ar_tUQOFN2K-8-2WEj7utg542-_9TInbXFw3SSw3xvBR0/s1600/IMAG0186.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1urmEVvSWX0NtENDp4WHdwxaR0xwSAjNZ4IjjDbg8OpftrcR9yF9GVmUYfuyt38F_tEJ2Accqq9991PMTG2dMn9wZrYNS76ar_tUQOFN2K-8-2WEj7utg542-_9TInbXFw3SSw3xvBR0/s320/IMAG0186.jpg" width="181" /></a></div>
This is Cameron Lagrone, who was our MVP. She designed and constructed the "swaddle" completely from scratch in a single Saturday, and frankly it is more elegant and beautiful than anything I could have done. She combined the sewing chops with the ability to think of innovative simplifications.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJmURBrG67TV4cRw2n85yNXJn7a8b-UyUucWhMrZ47N7Nxd_HL8pQ-4fyI0i1asxO5Hemj_C4qgPN0tuTAPeXMzJfLw_W6rq99kjiS0DxGzsj0IWYLn4czP8iacKHH5IekvobPS9DBDUA/s1600/IMAG0187.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJmURBrG67TV4cRw2n85yNXJn7a8b-UyUucWhMrZ47N7Nxd_HL8pQ-4fyI0i1asxO5Hemj_C4qgPN0tuTAPeXMzJfLw_W6rq99kjiS0DxGzsj0IWYLn4czP8iacKHH5IekvobPS9DBDUA/s320/IMAG0187.jpg" width="181" /></a></div>
Here is a picture of the "swaddle" that she produced, with our "Test Preemie" inside it.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8Ay-lKTFcKmt5BA-fM5ITilNhXIEeZMQ2xgLauahmx7_Zx1Y8gIXJIc3kq03D2AE6VupZbZTReyScFdAwYY_AeIECzdTPJiakl82p5cPI9qKLkk_eYAnTBmPS7sx4Hzw7BwD9tcrOQtM/s1600/IMAG0188.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8Ay-lKTFcKmt5BA-fM5ITilNhXIEeZMQ2xgLauahmx7_Zx1Y8gIXJIc3kq03D2AE6VupZbZTReyScFdAwYY_AeIECzdTPJiakl82p5cPI9qKLkk_eYAnTBmPS7sx4Hzw7BwD9tcrOQtM/s320/IMAG0188.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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It is not obvious from the photo, but inside the swaddle is a pocket holding the electric heating cloth controlled by the Arduino. The tremendous beauty of this design is:<br />
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<ul>
<li>It can be made from two t-shirts and a shoestring an an hour or two of sewing. That means it can be made so easily you DON'T have to make it before a child is born prematurely---which is of course unpredictable. If you have the open-source instructions and pattern, you can make it before the mother needs to sleep from the delivery! And everyone has some cotton cloth and some string.</li>
<li>It needs no fasteners. You just "swaddle" the baby almost as you would with a blanket. It imposes minimal cultural strangeness, as most of the world swaddles newborns with cloth in this way.</li>
<li>It is a separate module from the electronics. You can use it just as a "blanky" without the electronics.</li>
<li>The "hoodie", when a fairly stiff material such as felt is used as the middle layer, protects the infants airway, while still insulating the head, probably better than a simple blanket could do.</li>
</ul>
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The swaddle allows us to perform experiments we could not meaningful perform before.</div>
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The first observation that we could make is that, as I had previously conjectured, the Test Preemie that I created is a poor test object at present because it does not conduct heat significantly.</div>
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We fixed this with a quick trip to the pharmacy to get an gel-based hot/cold compress that weighs about two pounds (about the size of an underweight baby.)</div>
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A basic premise of this approach is that a large percentage of people have enough electrical power to charge cell phones, but don't have grid power. However, the Warmer will only be practical if it can maintain body temperature for the infant with available battery power. This will require more research than we could do in the hackathon, but we could now move forward.</div>
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Oliver D. Rodriguez and the IBM team came to our aid here. They did something I have never done---they wrote an outside reader (in Python) which read from the output from the serial port written by the Arduino. This allowed us to make a running data log of the temperature. (That's Oliver on the left most, with Kay Freund seated, who also helped.)<br />
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Using two 6 Volt lantern batteries, we were able to raise the gel pack from room temperature (25C) to skin temperature (35C) in 37 minutes inside the swaddle. This was a successful test, although the actual use case is much easier---an infant should never have a room temperature body! So I deemed this an encouraging result.</div>
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If you have ever been to a hackathon, you know how exhausting they can be. I went home at 10:00 hoping to perform a far better "maintain the body heat" test---and collapsed.</div>
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In the morning, we finished our presentation, and mostly socialized, until the presentation.</div>
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We made what I consider a lot of progress:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>We have a replicable set of instructions for making a practical, cheap swaddle.</li>
<li>We tested our ability to heat with encouraging (though incomplete) results.</li>
<li>We also added a sonic alarm for when the baby is too cold or too hot---which is a big improvement in safety and robustness.</li>
</ul>
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I am pleased that the Austin hackathon is not competitive as some are. Nonetheless, the judges gave out a few superlatives. We won "Most Hacked Forward".</div>
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People seemed to generally really admire our project. It felt great.</div>
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I now feel two things very strongly:</div>
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<ol>
<li>It is my duty to document this as well as possible. If others cannot use it, all of the energy and love is meaningless. It is fine with me if people use it as an example to improve upon, rather than a tool for saving lives.</li>
<li>In fact this approach is very far from changing the world, an a lot of work remains to be done. I would estimate about 10 times the total work that has been done so far.</li>
</ol>
</div>
Robert L. Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10587448646932762155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-772765396957667487.post-54619183420426599442015-06-04T13:01:00.000-07:002015-06-04T13:01:03.491-07:00The Agile Maker's Dilemma: How Shabby is the Right Amount?I am currently trying to invent a new kind of <a href="https://github.com/PIFAH/Linear-Actuator">linear actuator</a> to enable producing the "<a href="https://github.com/PIFAH/PIFAH/blob/master/ideas/Project%20%2316:%20%22Gluss%22%2C%20A%20Robotic%20Truss.md">Gluss</a>" robots: omni-triangulated robots built only out of members that change their length.<br />
<br />
I am dedicated to applying <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development">Agile</a> software methodology to my hardware making.<br />
<br />
I just spent a precious three hours trying to build a spool of the proper size to hold a homemade magnetic coil. Was this the right thing to do? (I'm writing this essay as the epoxy dries.)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4-uR4NdbPmebb95uGw0XnbEvwnbOJ-9KqZo998G85_bU-6Q0Gq-XAHchpdJ-IVvMI4DkPJk8B82Tp7EUHCIGKWWaj1Vyo_N01liENW4usBWzZeFbc_ZutCfJYIrgU3lrAXPufyp5_E2Q/s1600/IMAG0183.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4-uR4NdbPmebb95uGw0XnbEvwnbOJ-9KqZo998G85_bU-6Q0Gq-XAHchpdJ-IVvMI4DkPJk8B82Tp7EUHCIGKWWaj1Vyo_N01liENW4usBWzZeFbc_ZutCfJYIrgU3lrAXPufyp5_E2Q/s320/IMAG0183.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The fact is physical making brings to the fore decisions that are not as difficult in software development. Agile methods have been described as "The Scientific Method applied to software development". That is, the fundamental thing Agile methods try to do is to learn things as quickly as possible. Generally, this is "learn what makes the customer happy."<br />
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Kent Beck created <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test-driven_development">Test-Driven Development</a> as a way to be Agile without actually being shabby. That is, in TDD, you are always in the control, and you always have a set of a running tests that define the correctness and quality of your system.<br />
<br />
In a way, TDD allows you to always be "correct", but to always be developing on the dimension of completeness. You start with a correct but very, very incomplete system. You always stay in control by staying in control of your tests, so you're software is almost never "wrong", but it is constantly getting more "complete". In other words, quality is always improving, and all errors are in the form of things not yet done, not mistakes.<br />
<br />
This is a very successful strategy, in part because software, whatever other problems it may have, is extremely repeatable. The same program always does the same thing with the same input. Software doesn't really wear out or rot, or stick, or rust, or get gummed up, or overheat. <br />
<br />
But physically devices, especially my home-frabricated ones, do. In TDD software, you have a smooth, monotone improvement, with small refactoring, but there are more variables and more compromises in physical making.<br />
<br />
If I wind my coil too broadly as I did recently, I have no recourse but to rewind it. If my piston doesn't fit properly in my cylinder, I may be able to adjust it, but I may have to make a new piston or a new cylinder. Either a bad fit or a bad coil is likely to prevent my fundamental test from being successful: the actuator may not move.<br />
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I do not mean that you should not try to make physical things via a series of small tests. But I believe it is harder to do this when physically making than making software.<br />
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The worlds really needs a book entitled "Test Driven Development for Physical Makers: How to Choose When to Invest Where for Maximum Learning."Robert L. Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10587448646932762155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-772765396957667487.post-56347418867656238932015-05-26T07:21:00.000-07:002015-05-26T07:21:04.987-07:00Some Simple Lessons for the Arduino Hacker Who Started As a ProgrammerTo the software hacker with no experience in electronics, working with an Arduino poses some problems. The programming will seem like a breeze. The breadboarding is straightforward. But practical, deployable electronics pose some problems that software programming does not prepare one for.<br />
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<br />
<ul>
<li>Packaging is difficult and requires creative engineering. Essentially every connection becomes a potential point of failure. Wires break. Solder joints look good but don't actually make good connections. Wires proliferate and strangle the beauty of the project.</li>
<li>Power management is tricky. Batteries require yet another set of connections and are physically heavy. They must generally be packaged, either together or separately, with your project. Their lifetime in any given application is harder to predict than a software programmer typically imagines.</li>
<li>PCBs >> Soldering >> Breadboards. Breadboards are great for prototyping, but terrible even for demoing for more than about an hour---they are very delicate, and once a wire is pulled out it takes a long time to figure out how to replace it. Soldering is a major step up in ruggedness, but error-prone for the beginner. I have not yet sent out a schematic to have my own PCB board made, but I now understand why people do, and why there are so many "breakout boards" at Sparkfun. PCBs are another step up in ruggedness and ease of use (and another step down in terms of mutability.) As your design stabilizes, there is a natural progression toward ruggedness and away from changeability.</li>
<li>In my limited experience, success depends just as much on methodical testing in hardware as it does in software, if not more. Breadboards seem to make testing easier because they give you places to put your multimeter probes. </li>
<li>You will end up using your basic software debugging skills, such as proper logging sent through the serial interface back to the computer, just as much in Arduino programming as in pure software, if not more.</li>
<li>Be gentle and forgiving with yourself. A lot of things can go wrong in the construction of even simple circuits. To be successful, you will have to tolerate this frustration and treat yourself as you would a child that you are mentoring.</li>
</ul>
Robert L. Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10587448646932762155noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-772765396957667487.post-67758029982076163722015-05-07T08:56:00.000-07:002015-05-07T08:56:30.437-07:00Success with the Relay and Basic layoutAfter the MOSFET disaster I used the other component available to me from the Arduino Experiment Kit (ARDX), the relay.<br />
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A relay is a physical switch that actually moves and is controlled by a small current. They are less reliable than solid state switches. But I had one.<br />
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I basically followed the example of using a relay that came with my ARDX. (This is Circuit 11 in that book.) It is important to note that it requires a transistor to switch power to the relay. The Arduino digital outputs provide so little current they can't reliably switch the relay.<br />
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The coil inside the relay is also an inductive load, requiring a fly-back diode to protect the circuit.<br />
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I dutifully:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Spent an hour breadboarding this circuit,</li>
<li>Spent about an hour laying out the soldered circuit board (this is a separate skill which I am very bad at),</li>
<li>Spent about an hour stripping jumper wires and placing the components on the board in preparation for soldering,</li>
<li>Spent about two hours soldering, and correcting my soldering.</li>
</ul>
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<div>
Here is the circuit board with the transistor (there is a resistor on its input), the relay, and the diode. Soldered to it are the battery leads for power, and four wires going back to the Arduino: +5V and GND for powering the transistor and the temperature sensor. Their is one signal wire fro controlling the relay (basically "turn on the heater") and one wire leading back from the temperature sensor.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKAa4ph7n9m4JJ3jApiPnzsACNWp6dUyZIlcn1IaB_7hfAiLEvRUZJUUdAPcW_ju8uYEZlHUvtVXF815EKBikDNr1mTHeAUIxQiECoaSre204f90wz2zSdvURMWRD_DFCSLwZXNNagke8/s1600/IMAG0127.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKAa4ph7n9m4JJ3jApiPnzsACNWp6dUyZIlcn1IaB_7hfAiLEvRUZJUUdAPcW_ju8uYEZlHUvtVXF815EKBikDNr1mTHeAUIxQiECoaSre204f90wz2zSdvURMWRD_DFCSLwZXNNagke8/s320/IMAG0127.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I had misunderstand the pinouts for the Relay --- I have to say that in my experience data sheets are not written well for beginners. </div>
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Finally, after about 6 hours of labor, the system works, by which I mean the heating cloth gets hot on demand.</div>
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Below are the components of the system laid out.</div>
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Note the Arduino and Breadboard system on the left --- I originally used the breadboard, which is now empty. Although not powered on in the photo, the doll has an LED which shows if it is too cool, too hot, or just right. Note the doll and its Arduino, its temperature sensor and LED, are completely separated from the Incubator itself. I call the test system the "Test Preemie".</div>
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The Incubator (which is an ambitious title for a warmer with a thermostat) consists of the components on the left. I drive it with a lantern battery in part to show that the heating circuit is completely separate form the Arduino system as well. In fact you can hook up the batteries in series which gives 12V, and four times the wattage, as a demonstration. At 12V the heating cloth heats up VERY quickly, but of course the Preemie has much more thermal mass than the cloth. It is possible that people who might need this would have 6-12 V available from batteries or cell phone chargers or something.</div>
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I am now ready for real testing, I hope. I just have to take the sensor off the old circuit and solder it in here, and then I can make a physical incubator, adjust the temperatures in the "Test" sketch and the "Incubator" sketch and see if I can keep the Test Preemie happy.</div>
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Let me remind everyone that this project is in its early phases, and that I am doing it mostly to support Engineers Without Borders. I don't think we have done enough research into neonatology to understand the fitness of this system for actually trying to keep a child alive. However, I believe it is reasonable for prototyping and research to advance hand-in-hand.</div>
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There are a number of things that are potentially weird about this approach. Not least of them is that you could do the control of the heater at body temperature with a simple circuit, eliminating the Arduino and its expense and complexity. However, if you did that you would not have a platform available for other enhancements, and it is easier to control and report on this with the Arduino first.<br /></div>
Robert L. Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10587448646932762155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-772765396957667487.post-74361656326691783622015-05-06T14:53:00.001-07:002015-05-06T14:53:32.888-07:00Lessons from An Electronics NoobOne of my great heroes, Jeri Ellsworth, has spoken publicly (and made a great <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhQ7d3BK3KQ">video</a>) about the importance of trying and failing in learning electronics.<br />
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I personally am tempted to generalize her statement to everything else. In fact I would say that is the great genius of Agile methodologies and Test-Driven Development in particular.<br />
<br />
On Saturday, I got my "test preemie" working---a success. Monday I started on the incubator, thinking it would take about 3 hours.<br />
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And failed, and failed, and failed some more.<br />
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I had it all working on the breadboard---easy as pie. But breadboards are fragile. I don't want to go to <a href="http://austinmakerfaire.com/">Mini Maker Faire</a> with a breadboard. I wanted to solder up a prototyping board to make a sturdier solution.<br />
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Using tips suggested by this gentleman for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3N3ApzmyjzE">prototyping</a>, I laid out my protoboard, and bent the components into place. <br />
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I soldered it up, and it didn't work. I had missed a connection. I fixed it, and tried again, and it didn't work. I realized I had soldered the MOSFET in backwards. This is easy to do---the little ICs are little on 3/10ths of an inch wide and they aren't "marked" in anyway---you have to look at the <a href="http://cdn.sparkfun.com/datasheets/Components/General/FQP30N06L.pdf">data sheet</a> to which pin goes where.<br />
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So I painstakingly desoldered it. Desoldering is harder than soldering; you have to use a "solder sucker" and then "soldering braid" to wick up the molten solder.<br />
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And, if you bent the pins of the components over as hinted above, it is even harder to get them out.<br />
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Then I carefully resoldered the MOSFET back in --- the WRONG WAY AGAIN. Imagine a face palm that evacuates the brain pan.<br />
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So I carefully desoldered the MOSFET again. With each operation, my board was getting messier and messier.<br />
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Then I put a clean MOSFET in---and it worked! For about 4 minutes. Then I broke one of the pins leading to the Arduino off. No worries---I could just solder a new lead in place. To make it sturdier this time, I stripped a solid 24 gage wire and soldered it in.<br />
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Then, nothing.<br />
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It seemed to draw current but wouldn't heat the little 8 Ohm resistance cloth to keep the baby warm. So, to try to isolate it, I took it over to my power supply, away from the Arduino, and tested the MOSFET and heater load in isolation---or so I thought. It soaked up every amp my power supply would give and converted into heat---INSIDE THE MOSFET, which began to smoke, right before it melted the plastic off my leads.<br />
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Trying again and again, it behaves as if there is a short INSIDE the MOSFET. I don't know if this possible, or if somehow I have a stray gob of solder which neither my eye, nor the multimeter can see.<br />
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I spent at least 10 hours debugging this, and am completely stuck. So, I am retreating but not surrendering---I ordered some new MOSFETs and will build a completely new board when I get them.<br />
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Until then, I will try to do the same thing a "relay", a physical switch which does what a MOSFET does more reliably.<br />
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I have learned:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>This stuff is hard and takes practice to develop basic skills.</li>
<li>It is easy to make mistakes which make things very confusing.</li>
<li>You could probably learn a lot from watching someone experienced do this. YouTube videos are the best I have in that department.</li>
<li>Breadboards are fragile.</li>
<li>Soldering sucks.</li>
<li>This is an excellent way for a grown man to feel stupid.</li>
</ul>
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Robert L. Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10587448646932762155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-772765396957667487.post-30670680894506429672015-05-02T14:33:00.000-07:002015-05-02T14:51:16.907-07:00An Artificial Test Preemie for an Incubator<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I've been working with the <a href="http://ewbgreateraustin.org/">Greater Austin Chapter</a> of Engineers without Borders.<br />
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One of our projects is the creation of a low-cost incubator for premature babies. Preemies can't keep themselves warm. This is similar to the excellent work of <a href="http://embraceglobal.org/embrace-warmer/">Embraceglobal.org</a>, but we are aiming for an even cheaper cost-point. We are beginners; we do not believe we are going to outperform or compete with Embrace or make a life-saving tool in the short term.<br />
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I have been strongly influenced by the my acquaintance Kent Beck and his methodology of "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test-driven_development">Test Driven Development</a>" (TDD). I don't claim to always use TDD in my career managing programmers, but I use it in most of the programming that I completely control.<br />
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If you want to build an incubator, you need a test baby.<br />
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As part of trying to learn to use the <a href="http://www.arduino.cc/">Arduino</a> (and some basic electronics), I built a Test Preemie. The basic idea is to have a physical doll smaller than a full-term infant that lets you have a visual indication of when it is a proper temperature. Additionally, it lets you read the precise temperature from the USB port of the Arduino (and its history.) You can't put the Arduino in the incubator because it is its own source of heat. I needed a way to put a visual indicator and the temperature sensor on the end of a wire so that the Arduino controller for the Test Preemie can be kept separate.<br />
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Presumably, a completely different Arduino or other control mechanism will actually control the heat, or the alarm, for the incubator.<br />
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What we are trying to do with the Artificial Test Preemie is to make testing easier by giving you both an independent temperature measurement, and a physical object to test with.<br />
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Obviously, there are improvements to this---we'll discuss that at the end of the article---but for now I would like to tell you what I did, in order to document it. I'm not particularly proud of this work, but in the PIFAH project I try to document everything.<br />
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(I documented all of this as I did at <a href="https://github.com/PIFAH/EWB/blob/master/incubator/STORIES.md">EWB GitHub Repository</a>, but am rewriting it for this article.)<br />
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So the basic approach is to use a standard TMP36 temperature sensor. This requires 3 wires: +5V, Ground, and the signal (temperature) wire. As an initial design, I just want to let you say if the preemie is too cold, just right, or too hot.<br />
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Luckily, both the TMP36 and a multi-color RGB that can glow blue (too cold), green (just right), and red (too hot) is included with the <a href="https://www.sparkfun.com/products/12001">Arduino Experiment Kit</a> (ARDX), including a nice explanation and bread-board diagrams for how to use use them.<br />
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The code, which is called a "sketch" in Arduino programming, for using these basic circuits is also included.<br />
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So basically I just implemented these circuits separately (and simultaneously) on my Arduino, and mashed together the C-code for each circuit.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMvs4UasmgBEm6nuFaMaUsvUS_Nng3HDR15-IG_YWwvN4TYfovvaWLbpEs2eGbqoZ71BfSSlbM06214fUEfAk2jQUuYkaggdeReKFzpGcZnA9Cxr2Ep1ZtGpKdb7ZeUkFmCU-XYMi_4bA/s1600/IMAG0115.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMvs4UasmgBEm6nuFaMaUsvUS_Nng3HDR15-IG_YWwvN4TYfovvaWLbpEs2eGbqoZ71BfSSlbM06214fUEfAk2jQUuYkaggdeReKFzpGcZnA9Cxr2Ep1ZtGpKdb7ZeUkFmCU-XYMi_4bA/s1600/IMAG0115.jpg" height="181" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
It is traditional, and almost always best, to build a circuit first on a breadboard as shown above, which is included with the ARDX. However, breadboard are fragile. I wanted something sturdier for the testing of the actual incubator (which I haven't started yet). Also, I wanted something to show at the upcoming Austin Mini Maker Faire, and something sturdier was required.<br />
<br />
I had some old 8-wire telephone interface network wire. I used this to run the wires the foot and half from the Arduino to the Preemie.<br />
<br />
Arduino experts build "shields", which are pluggable components for expanding the Arduino. However, I didn't have one, and I wanted a stand alone system.<br />
<br />
Remember, I am not very experienced with electronics, not even the basic of how to make connections. So I'm describing below a home-grown solution---I don't claim this is good or recommend it.<br />
<br />
What I actually did:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>I got my daughter to volunteer an old doll for this purpose that is at least smaller than a normal full-term child. </li>
<li>I tested the RGB LED circuit from the ARDX, and made sure that I could control the color.</li>
<li>I tested the Temperature sensor, and made sure I could measure temperature correctly.</li>
<li>I put both of these on a breadboard, and wrote a sketch that controlled the RGB LED circuit from the temperature, seeing a minimum and maximum temperature to control the color.</li>
<li>I cut 18" of telephone wire, and carefully cut away the vinyl wrapping, then carefully stripped the insulation of the end of each of the colored wires (I only needed 7 of the 8.)</li>
<li>I carefully wrote out a plan of what color I would use for the pins on the Arduino and the pins on the TMP36 and the LED.</li>
<li>I soldered the correctly colored wire to my RGB LED. I wired the resistor in-line. This is critical---if you miss the resistor it calls for, even for 1 second, you will burn out your LED.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZGWVYyMue6wXHzsky6KsTAFpTuZFMBqoUcIB_k8D6uvKJMj_uZhqEF_ZGekaWw1nS_ilGsIhYctFTZFuscCBhYXBpQDeeDL_1fm7vABK8uCK2Bifd7woRejKv1yda4G9Kvag7OW5vBmc/s1600/IMAG0117.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZGWVYyMue6wXHzsky6KsTAFpTuZFMBqoUcIB_k8D6uvKJMj_uZhqEF_ZGekaWw1nS_ilGsIhYctFTZFuscCBhYXBpQDeeDL_1fm7vABK8uCK2Bifd7woRejKv1yda4G9Kvag7OW5vBmc/s1600/IMAG0117.jpg" height="320" width="181" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
</li>
<li>I tested again by plugging back into my breadboard (which still had the temperature sensor).</li>
<li>I scored a Radio Shack perf board and broke off a single line of pad to be able to solder.</li>
<li>I broke off a line of 3 male-to-male connectors that came with Arduino spare parts kit.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjaYB50CGRia-nEubYCTGaQ_P79kfNv4tDDgI4Wx-Gu40MbjC8myTD7dC1PPZyWFCm0p4RFY95i7D427qY_FI4U53hkvAqTTlQ9k50nRNeTkoYtlrb-FG3eeXttGFOsrjfff1d4Y1lALs/s1600/IMAG0116.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjaYB50CGRia-nEubYCTGaQ_P79kfNv4tDDgI4Wx-Gu40MbjC8myTD7dC1PPZyWFCm0p4RFY95i7D427qY_FI4U53hkvAqTTlQ9k50nRNeTkoYtlrb-FG3eeXttGFOsrjfff1d4Y1lALs/s1600/IMAG0116.jpg" height="320" width="181" /></a></div>
</li>
<li>A soldered the correct wires that connected to the RGB LED to the short sides of the male-to-male connectors, making a tiny "plug" that I could insert into holes 9,10, and 11 of the Arduino digital output (as the original circuit called for.)</li>
<li>I tested this again.</li>
<li>Then I soldered in the TMP36, and tested that that worked at the end of my wire.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Go77V8P7qqJrlywkeSPRui8C9jevHwvr8oBBIKGCjKEWaH-yqCHRGlFLSC2-7SHyoCodkwZQzorx8pJGe9UCWvZPbXc1DXrt7r_hRqYRPLt3PQDI7IyuaUXJm-Xg89XSyF1kDX0slpM/s1600/IMAG0118.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Go77V8P7qqJrlywkeSPRui8C9jevHwvr8oBBIKGCjKEWaH-yqCHRGlFLSC2-7SHyoCodkwZQzorx8pJGe9UCWvZPbXc1DXrt7r_hRqYRPLt3PQDI7IyuaUXJm-Xg89XSyF1kDX0slpM/s1600/IMAG0118.jpg" height="181" width="320" /></a></div>
</li>
<li>Then I soldered that to a different 3-pin plug that I made (different because it is physically on the other side of the Arduino Uno.)</li>
<li>Then I tested that again.</li>
<li>I soldered the TMP36 signal wire to a single male-to-male connector (because it is in a different location and could not be grouped with the others.</li>
<li>Then I tested that again.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2F3LmNitQ1CXdMYih2GZlTIGR27oJPg-3IPznn-eDZihxOGTwaZKdNMvlTSk7m3qNvzN6s46u23hquMQLRFdoHEwfGi8AzbEQ8-cbF2Xi7veyg-EZc7P6p9LF-0ZIOADfF2xHTuYbbLY/s1600/IMAG0119.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2F3LmNitQ1CXdMYih2GZlTIGR27oJPg-3IPznn-eDZihxOGTwaZKdNMvlTSk7m3qNvzN6s46u23hquMQLRFdoHEwfGi8AzbEQ8-cbF2Xi7veyg-EZc7P6p9LF-0ZIOADfF2xHTuYbbLY/s1600/IMAG0119.jpg" height="181" width="320" /></a></div>
</li>
<li>I carefully wrapped all the exposed wires in electrical tape.</li>
<li>I inserted the LED at my doll's neck, and put the temperature sensor at her belly.</li>
<li>I tested again, and used some extra electrical tape to try to combat the fragility of my solder joints.</li>
</ol>
<div>
Note that in doing all of this my soldering and wire-stripping failed several times. Once the power wire broke. I tested each solder connection with my multimeter before I accepted it.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Doing hardware work requires just as much testing as software! If I had been working with someone else, I would have treated this as a series of written stories with estimates and tests.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Then net result is a physical Test Preemie which is more sturdy than a breadboard (but still dangerously fragile.) The photo at the top of this article shows that.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I now feel ready to work on using a completely different Arduino, a MOSFET, and a lantern battery, and a heating strip to try to actually keep the Preemie warm enough to survive. By building a test apparatus first, I can follow the "Red/Green" testing paradigm. I am beginning with a failing test---they baby is cold---and will try to create a Green test and keep the test Preemie alive.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The Sketch for the Arduino can be found <a href="https://github.com/PIFAH/EWB/blob/master/incubator/Artificial_Infant.ino">here</a>.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I invite you to collaborate with me and Engineers Without Borders in this open-source project of building a new kind of infant warmer! Maybe, maybe, after a lot of testing, we will save a life.<br />
<br />
* * *<br />
<br />
I hope that the reader will think of improvements and open them as Issues at the GitHub Repo: https://github.com/PIFAH/EWB/issues.<br />
<br />
However, it is clear that this could be made sturdier, could use a smaller wire, could be a complete datalogger, could have an LCD temperature readout, could be made out of a doll the mass, heat capacity and thermal conductivity of a baby, and could be turned into a training tool. I'm not going to enter those thing as issues, because my goal here is to get involvement from others. There is no need for the test apparatus to get TOO far ahead of the actual incubator.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />Robert L. Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10587448646932762155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-772765396957667487.post-39819748575644801792015-05-01T12:33:00.001-07:002015-05-01T12:51:59.150-07:00How I Spent April and Engineers Without BordersWhen I resigned from the government, I had planned to spend the entire month of April watching movies.<br />
<br />
Instead, I built and electronics lab, published 25 of my ideas, and have been trying to learn basic electronics.<br />
<br />
Possibly this is a sign of mental instability.<br />
<br />
I have been working a <a href="https://github.com/PIFAH/EWB">great deal</a> for the Instrumentation Group of the Austin Chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB). I'm doing this in part to stay involved with other people and avoid navel-gazing.<br />
<br />
EWB does engineering. They are not really doing "invention" in the sense that I want to do it. They are producing potentially novel solutions but they are "designs" not "inventions". For the most part, what we are trying to accomplish is relatively straightforward electrical engineering based on using an Arduino.<br />
<br />
This is aligned with what I want to do, however, because:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>It is helping me to learn basic electronics.</li>
<li>Many of published ideas require computer control in one way or another, and mastering micro-controllers will help. In particular, my various ideas around biochar production will benefit from this.</li>
<li>I have always believed the greatest room for invention is that intersection of software and they physical world, despite the fact that I personally am more expert at pure software.</li>
</ul>
<div>
EWB Austin is heavily influenced by the University of Texas members. It is going to shut down for the summer. We have been invited to the Austin Mini Maker Faire, and am working to have several of our Arduino project ready by May 16th.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
When I have done this, however, I am going to go back to more of the invention-oriented <a href="https://github.com/PIFAH/PIFAH/tree/master/ideas">work</a> I have written about.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
As always, I welcome collaboration---y'all don't be shy. I'm happy to shift priorities based on what excites others.</div>
Robert L. Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10587448646932762155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-772765396957667487.post-54033129339192882042015-04-16T08:52:00.002-07:002015-04-16T09:19:01.942-07:00My Best 22 Ideas, and a Personal InvitationThe public inventor works in the light.<br />
<br />
Transparency facilitates cooperation. I've published my best 22 ideas
at GitHub, a platform for shared collaboration. Comments are welcome.
The quality of my presentation will improve, but never delay
publication to improve quality---release early and often.<br />
<br />
I apologize for those of you who may be unfamiliar with GitHub. You
should be able to at least read the ideas above, and you are free to
email me, but I would rather you comment publicly at GitHub by opening
an issue there so that all can see your comment.<br />
<br />
I believe the goals of PIFAH deserve a full explanation, which I have
not prepared. However, you can find my <a href="https://github.com/PIFAH/PIFAH">personal invitation</a> and a
<a href="https://github.com/PIFAH/PIFAH/blob/master/VISION.md">vision statement</a> at the GitHub repo.
Here is the README at the GitHub repo:<br />
<h2>
Public Invention for All Humanity </h2>
<h3>
A Personal Invitation </h3>
<br />
The creation of new technology is not the only or best way to help our
fellow-beings. Love is more important than lasers, and kindness more
important than computers. Still, many of us are better suited to serve
humanity in code than in a sermon, or holding a test tube rather than
the hand of the dying. If you are one of those persons, I invite you
to participate with me in a project I call Public Invention For All
Humanity (PIFAH). Throughout 2015, we hope to run a number of projects
best described as “inventions” that will be valuable to humanity. This
is not particularly original. This is yet another project in the
exponentially growing tradition of working for the public good.<br />
<br />
What we do hope to use some modern principles:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>We will be completely transparent and open from the first. </li>
<li>Everything we produce will be shared to everyone without exception. </li>
<li>We will organize our using an Agile methodology, whether our work is
software, hardware, research, or education. </li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
In other words, this will be an free-libre open-source project that
welcomes participation from the public and seeks to organize work so
that the work so that as many hands can pitch in as possible, and so
that as many voices can contribute as possible.<br />
<br />
I am not committed to this project. If I find an existing project that
can utilize my talents better, I may drop PIFAH to assist others. I
don’t want this to be about me.<br />
<br />
But of course that is inevitable, at least at the beginning. There is
no point in false humility. I really want to act as the head coach of
PIFAH, and I think I can do it well.
I have an adequate technological resume, particularly as a computer
programmer. More importantly, however, I enjoy leading teams and am
good at it. I mentor people well. Finally, I am able and willing to
devote myself full-time to this project, at least for a while.<br />
<br />
You may wish to examine our <a href="https://github.com/PIFAH/PIFAH/tree/master/ideas">project concepts</a> to see if any appeal to
you.<br />
<br />
-- Robert L. Read, PhD<br />
<br />
<h2>
How to Contribute </h2>
<br />
We welcome your participation. You are welcome to email me at <read.robert@gmail.com><read .robert="" gmail.com="">. However, as a public project, it is even
better for you to comment publicly. You can do this by opening an
"issue" here at GitHub. If you want to add to or improve one of the
existing documents, you can do this with a "pull request". </read><br />
<read .robert="" gmail.com=""><br /></read>
<read .robert="" gmail.com=""> In general, each project will have a set of "stories". This is a
technique developed by the Agile community. We welcome you to take on
the execution of a story if that fits your talents. Writing new
stories is also very important activity. </read><br />
<read .robert="" gmail.com=""><br /></read>
<read .robert="" gmail.com="">I hope that we will have need for many talents. I am a computer
scientist. I greatly admire artists but don't pretend that I can
create art. We will always have a need for artists, writers, and
educators. We will also need chemists, welders, mechanical engineers,
3D modellers, software engineers, physicists, biologists,
mycologists---we exclude no field of endeavor. </read><br />
<read .robert="" gmail.com=""><br /></read>
<read .robert="" gmail.com="">I</read>n summary, you can contribute by:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Suggesting a new project, </li>
<li>Working on a story,</li>
<li>Offering to improve our art or writing, </li>
<li>Offering to lead a project, </li>
<li>Teaching us something new, or </li>
<li>Even suggesting non-PIFAH proejcts that we should contribute to. </li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
If you are not familiar with GitHub or git, please email me to give
you assistance.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Warning </h2>
<br />
Some of the projects proposed here involve dangerous chemicals,
powerful forces, fire, explosive gases, and biological hazards.<br />
<br />
The important thing is to remain safe at all times and not to proceed with an experiment until you have proper safety equipment and training. In
particular, although we encourage young people to participate in
PIFAH, they should not participate without adult supervision.<br />
<br />
We will attempt to discuss safety precautions within each project.
However, because this is a distributed project and each participant
may be creating their own experiments and machines, it will not be
possible for us to provide safety guidance in all cases. Please
proceed carefully at your own risk.<br />
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" rel="license"><img alt="Creative Commons License" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-sa/4.0/88x31.png" style="border-width: 0;" /></a><br />
<span href="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Text" property="dct:title" rel="dct:type" xmlns:dct="http://purl.org/dc/terms/">PIFAH Personal Invitation</span> by <a href="https://github.com/PIFAH/PIFAH" property="cc:attributionName" rel="cc:attributionURL" xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#">Robert L. Read</a> is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License</a>.<br />
Based on a work at <a href="https://github.com/PIFAH/PIFAH" rel="dct:source" xmlns:dct="http://purl.org/dc/terms/">https://github.com/PIFAH/PIFAH</a>.Robert L. Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10587448646932762155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-772765396957667487.post-29096980573760533962015-04-01T19:39:00.001-07:002015-04-01T19:39:58.249-07:00Waterfall Assisted-Acquisition Services, Training, and Education<br />
by Dave Zvenyach and Robert L. Read, PhD<br />
<br />
<a href="https://18f.github.io/consulting/">18F Consulting</a> cares about our customers. We want to give you not what you need, but what you want. Developing software is difficult; we understand you want a methodology that provides you with plausible deniability. So, today, we are proud to pre-announce our latest offering: “Waterfall Assisted-Acquisition Services, Training, and Education” (WAASTE).<br />
<br />
The federal government has spent literally years perfecting this WAASTE methodology. When it<br />
is released, we promise it will support these features:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>No matter how simple the use case, every component will be highly engineered using the most baroque processes currently available. </li>
<li>WAASTE ensures a turnaround time comfortable for government: no faster than 2 years for the first set of deliverables. </li>
<li>With WAASTE, project managers have no work to do beyond the initial requirements, ensuring maximum vendor ability to slavishly follow your initial thoughts through to a final product.</li>
</ul>
<br />
18F Consulting is committed to delivering WAASTE to you before our money runs out. In the<br />
mean time, any agency interested in WAASTE should spend two years carefully analyzing<br />
<i>exactly how your software will be Blackberry-enabled 5 years from now.</i> Technology changes<br />
quickly, but the ideas of government are eternal and unchanging. WAASTE guarantees lock-in<br />
of the current understanding of technology through this protracted process.<br />
<br />
Through our proprietary WAASTE Requirements™ gathering process we guarantee at least<br />
1500 small, isolated, capricious, and incongruous WAASTE Requirements™ presented to you<br />
electronically in a state-of-the-art XML file. For an additional fee we will conduct focus groups to<br />
provide the exculpatory appearance of respect for user input, but of course their input will not<br />
affect the WAASTE Requirements™. Completely free of charge, we will prioritize all WAASTE<br />
Requirements™ based on our feelings at the time.<br />
<br />
In recent years, pernicious new fads such as “Test-Driven Development” (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test-driven_development">TDD</a>) have emerged,<br />
threatening the very core of the WAASTE methodology. 18F Consulting is reacting by<br />
developing our own alternative test restriction system, called Delay-Oriented Assessment<br />
(DOA). Our methodology prevents duplicate effort by assiduously postponing testing until the<br />
last possible moment. DOA permits testing only by entrusted QA experts, untainted by<br />
knowledge of the project or its users.<br />
<br />
To be completely WAASTE-ful, we limit communications to tightly defined narrow channels<br />
through detailed memoranda, a process we call MemOnly (patent pending). In-person<br />
interactions create the possibility that teams will deviate from the WAASTE Requirements™.<br />
For maximum WAASTE, you control all communications. You get to specify your project in<br />
excruciating detail. Eventually, your precise vision will be implemented. If the project is deemed<br />
overbudget, past-deadline, and a total failure by end-users and higher-ups with unrealistic<br />
expectations of working software, you can simply exhibit mountains of paperwork and walk<br />
away.<br />
<br />
We realize that others might promote “modern” software development practices such as set<br />
forth in the “<a href="http://agilemanifesto.org/">Agile Manifesto</a>.” We at 18F Consulting are preparing our own comprehensive<br />
response in a Waterfall PowerPoint Presentation, drawn from the outstanding track record of<br />
success in Federal IT procurement. We expect it will be published any year now.<br />
<br />
If you would like to make your next major project WAASTE-ful, please fax us a detailed<br />
memorandum.<br />
<br />
(Please note, the WAASTE methodology is proprietary to 18F Consulting, notwithstanding 17<br />
U.S.C. § 105 or <a href="https://github.com/18F/open-source-policy">18F’s Open Source Policy</a>)<br />
<br />
Happy 1st of April!Robert L. Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10587448646932762155noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-772765396957667487.post-36213266309810181332015-03-22T18:42:00.000-07:002015-03-22T18:42:29.235-07:00LibrePlanet 2015 Was Great, and Some Suggestions for 2016LibrePlanet 2015 was good. I learned:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>That VMWare is flatly refusing to comply with the GPL and the <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/">Software Freedom Conservancy</a> has felt compelled, after years of trying to work with them, to sue them. I am becoming a member of the SFC as of right now.</li>
<li>That freedoms are continually eroded, and every expansion of freedom leads to new attempts to subvert it, often very subtly.</li>
<li>The fact that most hardware systems are making it very difficult to run free software.</li>
<li>I learned of software systems I had not known of before:</li>
<li>eleg.io, a system for automatically finding the provenance of images: <a href="http://elog.io/">http://elog.io</a></li>
<li>Tahoe-lafs, a distributed file system: <a href="https://www.tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs">https://www.tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs</a></li>
<li>Scala, apparently an emerging winner of functional languages: <a href="http://www.scala-lang.org/">http://www.scala-lang.org</a></li>
<li>A secure social network (doesn't look ready for prime time): <a href="http://pump.io/">http://pump.io</a></li>
<li>TOR, secure browsing: <a href="https://www.torproject.org/">https://www.torproject.org</a></li>
<li>PublicLaboratory, Do-it-yourself science with an environmental focus: <a href="http://publiclab.org/">http://publiclab.org</a></li>
</ul>
<div>
Mostly, I was reminded the precious gift that Free Software has given the world. Without the GPL, there would be no Linux. The would be no Wikipedia. No Android OS. Probably no Mac OS either. All of us benefit from the the work of the Free Software Foundation, whether we know it or not and whether we contribute back or not.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And I would like to see even more next year. Here are some things that I would like to participate in next year. I believe if these could be organized alongside the typical tracks it would make the conference far more life-altering.</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Hack parties. Perhaps these were going on, and I just didn't get invited. But I believe organized, or at least, seeded, or suggested, work parties, would allow participates to have the pleasure of more strenuous stimulation and deeper social interaction.</li>
<li>Activism exercises. We could, for example, have a one-hour session specifically to inform people about the Software Freedom Conservancy and their action to defend the GPL by bring VMWare into compliance.</li>
<li>Crypto parties. I don't know much about practical cryptography, and I care less about it than a lot of people. But I want to learn. This would be a great place to invite outsiders and the media.</li>
<li>A "Learn about Licensing" practical session. This could also be opened to the public. I believe this could be combined with a campaign to get GitHub users to use, or switch to, or "fork into" free licenses instead of merely permissive licenses.</li>
</ul>
</div>
Robert L. Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10587448646932762155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-772765396957667487.post-47124601562898957862015-02-14T14:59:00.000-08:002015-02-14T14:59:27.496-08:00Learnings from sewing a Nightie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBuDfFQJFMBbWqjB0pgKt2jLL-DjVvOvl2c5efoKD8X06-M1MDM-I0Opx1YjDZjHJK02n5StR7Gc3Ig167TgJ1kGdRTZ46vhGkQ2_5tazNCZ02hfUtFOs28rj-viXEUAWYZFBVfAnX9HA/s1600/IMG_0109.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBuDfFQJFMBbWqjB0pgKt2jLL-DjVvOvl2c5efoKD8X06-M1MDM-I0Opx1YjDZjHJK02n5StR7Gc3Ig167TgJ1kGdRTZ46vhGkQ2_5tazNCZ02hfUtFOs28rj-viXEUAWYZFBVfAnX9HA/s1600/IMG_0109.jpg" height="320" width="239" /></a></div>
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I sewed this nightie for my wife for Valentine's Day. Of course, I bought her one from Macy's as a backup---some risks aren't worth taking.</div>
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I used primarily a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eaZw-LilDA">video by GiannyL</a> as a basis. However, I made some modifications---I made the spaghetti straps myself out of the same material, and my wife wasn't interested in any lace trim.</div>
<h4>
How does it compare to store-bought night gown?</h4>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpCkGGNl6Tnot70Rvq2BVZ7Z7EmqfnbyNKeVXMEfUTU8g7B96s5yWeh7NlbguXba-yfvjtMzlihxfFYAEV4xpz7HpF7jCpM7kKwwEIEJnfIC3Bqv3oHz8Ie80sb_sOHSpWxJnqtPHrdZs/s1600/IMG_0110.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpCkGGNl6Tnot70Rvq2BVZ7Z7EmqfnbyNKeVXMEfUTU8g7B96s5yWeh7NlbguXba-yfvjtMzlihxfFYAEV4xpz7HpF7jCpM7kKwwEIEJnfIC3Bqv3oHz8Ie80sb_sOHSpWxJnqtPHrdZs/s1600/IMG_0110.jpg" height="320" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The neck curve puckered a little because I didn't notch it.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
You could probably buy a comparable garment for $25-50. I spent $20, and ten hours. The looks are comparable. My seams are imperfect, but if you don't look closely you wouldn't notice, and when my wife is wearing it I have better things to look at. I suspect my garment is "sturdier" --- but who needs a sturdy nightgown? The one advantage is that I did get to choose precisely the color I wanted. My wife is a redhead and looks great in royal blue. The "satin" is really polyester with a shiny side and a less shiny side. The less shiny side is a little coarse to be against skin, so I made this harder than GiannyL's construction by using a French seam on the sides.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXYLaVc8nASEuk38_IyxjuMhLWWrRTiLirpDXT9NEgF4iY4WyFlj91iLXsuBXPS83adh2n6dyeKksGmmK2P9aJp28J9ZyBFBhn7w2w8KhBkdy6MQy4Y5ok3_yGfLJvI0q0ogdOmAPo_eo/s1600/IMG_0111.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXYLaVc8nASEuk38_IyxjuMhLWWrRTiLirpDXT9NEgF4iY4WyFlj91iLXsuBXPS83adh2n6dyeKksGmmK2P9aJp28J9ZyBFBhn7w2w8KhBkdy6MQy4Y5ok3_yGfLJvI0q0ogdOmAPo_eo/s1600/IMG_0111.jpg" height="239" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A French seam runs up the side, but the bottom doesn't need it.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h4>
What I Learned</h4>
<div>
<ul>
<li>I need to research fabric more. Satin looks nice, but isn't really a great fabric for sleepwear.</li>
<li>Sewing curves perfectly requires cutting notches or some other technique that I have yet to master.</li>
<li>Satin has zero give. You have to fit it perfectly. Luckily, I was able to do that.</li>
<li>I tried to make this with a fitted waist as GiannyL shows. But my wife's bust is a few inches bigger than her waist. I made the first model to my wife's waist size, and she couldn't get the waist over her bust. I know this must be obvious to any woman, but now I understand why a standard tight-fitting woman's dress has a zipper in the back: otherwise you can't put it on! That is really the difference between this garment and a cocktail dress. To make a dress, I would take in the waist and add a zipper. Instead, I cut it completely straight down the sides, so basically the waist is the same size as the bust.</li>
<li>You can fix things with a seam ripper---but not using the kind of thread I was using with short stitch on satin. It was impossible to unpick a seam in this situation.</li>
<li>Taking body measurements work, but with this fabric, you have to be very precise.</li>
<li>Sometimes the garment ends up looking good even when you do a poor job with the details.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h4>
Was it worth it?</h4>
Once again, in pure economic terms, this was a catastrophic failure: I made about $1 per hour, and have some scrap satin left over. However, if the lessons learn allow me to someday make a properly tailored dress that my wife might be willing to wear, it might be more economical. In terms of learning and the finished garment, it was another step up the learning curve.Robert L. Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10587448646932762155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-772765396957667487.post-81725414255314737222015-01-04T12:56:00.000-08:002015-01-04T12:56:06.218-08:00Altering sleeves of a used coat and adding buttonsI'm interested in all things involving home economics, including sewing. I love doing things that make me feel stupid. Sewing is hard. However, with each project I get a little a more comfortable with it.<br />
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Of course, it is almost impossible to save any money making your own clothes, now that so many clothes are made by low-paid workers in Asia. However, altering and mending is much more economical. I can fix rips and torn seams, and reattach buttons and other fasteners. I've done this for about ten garments in total from every member of my family in the last year.<br />
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Beyond repairing buttons, the next sewing level is to be able to alter clothes. I like to buy consignment clothes, and have bought a number of blazers for $10 at Goodwill which look great---if they fit correctly. I weigh about 235 pounds and am only 5'10", so my torso is quite thick compared to the length of my arms. Also, I have a separated left shoulder, which makes my left arm about 3/4" longer than my right. I can sometimes find clothes which were altered by the previously owner so they fit well---but that of course limits my options to about 1/5th of the clothes that fit me in the chest and shoulders (which is they basic, unalterable sizing for men's coats and shirts.)<br />
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So I bought a blue plaid blazer at Goodwill, while I was buying some clothes for my son, as an experiment in alteration. It fits me in the shoulders. It is too tight in the tummy---possibly it is is a trim cut. I didn't even think to button it in the store, but the point is to experiment in any case. But the sleeves were 2" too long. I studied a 45 minute video by a professional tailor on how to shorten the sleeves on a man's jacket---but I STILL don't understand how to do it so that you can machine stitch the lining back into the sleeves. It has something to do with making a hole in the lining so you can turn it inside out---but apparently I am too stupid to understand it. Finally I gave up and found an article that just said to whip-stitch the lining in place by hand, which worked well.<br />
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Like all but the most expensive men's jackets, the buttons on the sleeves are not functional. They are just decoration left over from the day when men wore coats as a matter of course, and might have to actually "roll up their sleeves". In the case of this jacket, the 2" taken off actually removed the entire "vent" on the sleeve. If you shorten a jacket sleeve, you always have to move the buttons---but that is one of the easy things I know how to do.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5202_VPVbnscXV0e1VhGtlNnr5RDvpeg6qbwe4jJiMVm82RAp9nQSE5TKV8Sl1obYydXZgAgcsTdGior0DxRK1V3guH9zJP5-vZgvLdN3uBxOhInCFkmM9v2fqesQ304d-tUjCu64RY0/s1600/IMG_0099.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5202_VPVbnscXV0e1VhGtlNnr5RDvpeg6qbwe4jJiMVm82RAp9nQSE5TKV8Sl1obYydXZgAgcsTdGior0DxRK1V3guH9zJP5-vZgvLdN3uBxOhInCFkmM9v2fqesQ304d-tUjCu64RY0/s1600/IMG_0099.jpg" height="320" width="239" /></a></div>
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In fact, I used this opportunity to replace the very plain plastic buttons with hand-made ceramic buttons that are much nicer---little blue dragonflies on a Navy background that went better with the blazer, which, being plaid, will always be a somewhat informal blazer. I got the buttons from <a href="https://www.etsy.com/shop/beadfreaky?ref=l2-shopheader-name">BeadFreaky</a> for $18, which is a little weird for a $10 jacket. It took me about 90 minutes to replace the buttons, and about 5 hours to alter the sleeves---which could probably be cut down to 2 hours with more practice.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh_pxlr8bftqviwBFs7tK1tGzX1sFqR0Wp1tkoaAhGdIVPIBh1iITrITRpHV-h361a0ifzuIswXpm-1MWBmKYwZOkDcfmHGyAKpuvkrbxBCdozlOlYqNgfCSGRIGj9Q6jW_gqyQev_9iU/s1600/IMG_0100.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh_pxlr8bftqviwBFs7tK1tGzX1sFqR0Wp1tkoaAhGdIVPIBh1iITrITRpHV-h361a0ifzuIswXpm-1MWBmKYwZOkDcfmHGyAKpuvkrbxBCdozlOlYqNgfCSGRIGj9Q6jW_gqyQev_9iU/s1600/IMG_0100.jpg" height="320" width="239" /></a></div>
The result is, I think, pretty nice. The blazer now fits if it is unbuttoned---you can see the stretch marks below showing that the waist is too tight, but I don't really need to button it. The sleeves, although sloppy if you look close, fit my arms, and the buttons make the jacket 3 times more interesting than it was. I learned a lot, am wearing a tiny bit of human love in my buttons, am supporting Goodwill and get a few more years of use out of a quality garment.<br />
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<br />Robert L. Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10587448646932762155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-772765396957667487.post-42605388257875563492014-12-08T11:20:00.002-08:002014-12-08T11:20:38.503-08:00I am running for the board of the PIFF<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I would like to be elected to the Presidential Innovation Fellows Foundation board.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 11px; letter-spacing: 0px;">I was a driving force in the creation of the Foundation, </span><span style="font-size: 11px;">working</span><span style="font-size: 11px; letter-spacing: 0px;"> with other to create the bylaws, obtain incorporation, and obtain the tax-deductible status </span><span style="font-size: 11px;">from the IRS. </span><span style="font-size: 11px; letter-spacing: 0px;">I have served as the interim treasurer, securing a $2500 gift in addition to my own donation.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I have also, with the help of Danny Chapman, printed some attractively branded cards for the PIFs to use to thank government employees they work with, and to thank other donors.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I will work to accomplish the following goals in my next term if elected:</span></div>
<br />
<ul>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Continue to improve the website with much more personal information. In the words of Bo Roberts, we need to “Tell the story of the PIFs.”</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Continue to facilitate fundraising to get us up to about $50K.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Start trying to really support paying for some travel to bring PIF alumni in to talk to existing and incoming PIF classes.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Start exploring ideas around endowing a Fellowship or supporting international involvement with the Fellows to both learn and teach what we have learned.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Support the vision of general American civic hacking community that is aware of and participating in far more Federal projects than they are today.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Attempt to appoint a powerful and prestigious advisory board.</span></li>
</ul>
Robert L. Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10587448646932762155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-772765396957667487.post-39314524629972136272014-09-22T17:55:00.000-07:002014-09-22T17:55:37.297-07:00The American Rescue Corps<div style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Robert L. Read</span></div>
<div style="color: #444444; font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 4px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><<a href="mailto:read.robert@gmail.com"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">read.robert@gmail.com</span></a>></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">September 15, 2014</span></div>
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<div style="color: #dc5922; font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 32px; text-align: center;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.3px;">The American Rescue Corps</span></div>
<div style="color: #5c422b; font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 8px; text-align: center;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">— by Robert L. Read</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">America should create a new uniformed branch of service that focuses on emergency rescues. Like the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard, there should be a Rescue Corps of the USA. The mission of the Rescue Corps is to maintain American leadership of the free world and promote American ideals by providing effective, life-saving assistance to the whole world on an unprecedented scale and rapidity.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">On occasion, the military does this already. By doing so, they broaden and dilute the primary purpose of the military, which is to carry out war. The Rescue Corps would partially relieve the military of this burden by being staffed, trained, and equipped to better taken on rescue missions which require minimal security.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Let us imagine a Corps of 10,000 people—very small compared to our military forces. Let us further imagine that the Corps contains a trained staff whom we would normally think of as:</span></div>
<ul>
<li style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Doctors,</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Paramedics,</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Nurses,</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Infectious disease experts,</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Linguists,</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Fire fighters,</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Construction engineers,</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Logistics officers,</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Forensic scientists,</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Security personnel, </span></li>
<li style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Communication officers, and</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Transport specialists.</span></li>
</ul>
<div style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 12px; text-indent: 27px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This permanent staff could be augmented by a Reserve, of course.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 12px; text-indent: 27px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Let us further imagine that such a Corps utilizes commercial transport as well as military transport capability as its primary deployment capability. Now, imagine that backed by the prestige of the United States to obtain the right to deploy internationally, the Rescue Corps can quickly deploy to anywhere in the world.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 12px; text-indent: 27px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If the Rescue Corps existed today the Ebola outbreak of 2014 would already be contained. The suffering caused by the earthquake in Haiti would have been greatly lessened. The hardship wrought by Hurricane Katrina might have been greatly reduced. The prestige of America would be greatly enhanced.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 12px; text-indent: 27px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Such a corps could plan for and train for response to various catastrophes well in advance. We know that tsunamis and earthquakes will occur again. Probably wildfires in America will continue to be a problem. Hurricanes will strike America and our friends on the Caribbean periodically. Oil will spill. In all probability, a nuclear accident will occur again.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 12px; text-indent: 27px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I don’t believe that the Rescue Corps would spend too much time sitting idle. Lesser emergencies that did not involve the entire Corps could be addressed and would be valuable training exercises and experience for the Corps.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 12px; text-indent: 27px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Although the Corps might have a small police force to provide security, it would be very lightly armed by military standards. The United States might be able to negotiate entry for the Rescue Corps, perhaps ahead of time, in situations where the Marine Corps would not be welcomed. For example, Tehran is one of the largest cities on one of the most dangerous fault lines in the world. If we could pre-negotiate the entry of the Rescue Corps into Iran in the case of a major earthquake striking Tehran, the diplomatic benefits of a successful Rescue deployment might greatly exceed all of its costs.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 12px; text-indent: 27px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Backed by the financial power of the USA, the Rescue Corps might purchase massive transport capabilities ahead of disasters via commercial transport. This would simply be good planning. In exchange for a retainer and fee in the event of a disaster, an airline might agree to interrupt service by reprioritizing a number of flights to transport thousands of Rescuers and their equipment to a disaster area. Such commercial contracts could be considered the primary means of deployment for some disasters in some areas, whereas military transport might be the primary deployment mechanism in other cases.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 12px; text-indent: 27px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">However, domestic deployment of the Rescue Corps might be more frequent than international deployment. Unquestionably, a reserve capacity at the national level of Rescuers can provide needed buffer capacity to local paramedics and firefighters in the event of locally overwhelming disasters.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 12px; text-indent: 27px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">By forcing our military to carry out non-war rescue missions, we dilute their training and weaken this primary purpose. By creating a Rescue Corps, we mitigate this problem and offer Americans a route of service to their country which is primarily about saving lives. The Rescue Corps would be a powerful force for good in the world, and a powerful force for American diplomacy.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px; text-indent: 27px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 12px; text-indent: 27px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Robert L. Read</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 12px; text-indent: 27px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><<a href="mailto:read.robert@gmail.com"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">read.robert@gmail.com</span></a>></span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 12px; text-indent: 27px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">twitter: @RobertLeeRead</span></div>
Robert L. Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10587448646932762155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-772765396957667487.post-19523923856579810172014-09-13T07:33:00.001-07:002014-09-13T07:33:59.176-07:00Announcing the Presidential Innovation Fellow Foundation<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Announcing the Presidential Innovation Fellow Foundation</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“The Presidential Innovation Fellows (PIF) program brings the principles, values, and practices of the innovation economy into government through the most effective agents of change we know: our people. This highly-competitive program pairs talented, diverse technologists and innovators with top civil-servants and change-makers working at the highest levels of the federal government to tackle some our nation’s biggest challenges. These teams of government experts and private-sector doers take a user-centric approach to issues at the intersection of people, processes, products, and policy to achieve lasting impact.” — <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/innovationfellows"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">http://www.whitehouse.gov/innovationfellows</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">A number of Presidential Innovation Fellows who have completed their Fellowship have created an non-profit support organization incorporated within the District of Columbia:</span></div>
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<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">To further the mission of the Presidential Innovation Fellows program (“PIF”) of bringing the principles, values, and practices of the innovation economy into government to tack the Nation’s biggest changes and to achieve a profound and lasting social impact; and</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">To provide a conduit for nongovernmental support for the PIF program and its mission; and</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">To serve as an alumni association for PIF Fellows, providing an avenue for PIF Fellows and their networks to continue contributing to solving challenges of national concern.</span></li>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The Presidential Innovation Fellows Foundation (PIFF) is a member-governed corporation whose members have successfully completed six months as a Fellow and accept membership. The members elect the Board, which appoints officers to carry out the business of the PIFF as governed by the by-laws and the articles of incorporation. The Interim Board consists of Raphael Majma, Interim President, Robert L. Read, Interim Treasurer, Adam Riggs, Interim Secretary, Henry Wei, MD, and Sarah Allen.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The intention of the Interim Board is to run an election by the end of October to elect a permanent board. Board members serve a two-year term. Board terms will be staggered so that each year 2 or 3 Board positions will be open, except for the first year, in which 5 positions will be open.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The PIFF is an internet-based organization and most voting and meetings will be held electronically subject to rules established by the Secretary.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Initial Plans</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Our immediate plans are to support the Third Round of Innovation Fellows, who have recently begun their terms in Washington DC, and to leave the incoming Board well-positioned to carry on operations. In order to do this, we need to raise seed money to cover minor expenses such as creating a website and executing our first fundraising campaign.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The expense of paying the attorneys to perform the incorporation was financed by a loan from the Interim Board to the corporation that we hope to have repaid at such time that PIFF has sufficient funds both for that and to carry on its operations.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Future Plans</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The future of the PIFF will be determined by the future Board, and ultimately its members. Some ideas that have already been discussed for the PIFF are:</span></div>
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<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Telling the story of the program, both its successes and its failures.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Recruiting aggressively future Fellows using channels unavailable to the White House.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Supporting travel of former Fellows to train and inform active Fellows.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Working to insure the durability of the PIF program.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Supporting learning from other nations and teaching other nations based on the experience of the program.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Supporting outreach to young people and segments of American society underrepresented in technology and government.</span></li>
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Robert L. Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10587448646932762155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-772765396957667487.post-54798047645845169432014-07-03T18:36:00.002-07:002014-07-03T18:36:57.250-07:00Story: The Receptive OceanThis is a science fiction story I wrote several years ago. It was rejected by a few publications, and I don't have time to continue sending it out. I want to reserve all rights, so please link here rather than republishing. Of course, I would like to see it published where somebody will read it.<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Robert L. Read, Ph.D.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>10200 words</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The Receptive Ocean</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">by </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Robert L. Read</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;">Jill</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Trickster turns eight next week, and he wants a cookie. Which is stupid. But all of the children in the stories that we he hears in the bell are crazy for cookies, so he wants one too. For my birthday two years ago he found me a doll—-don’t ask me where—-so I figure I owe him, even though I was way too old to play with dolls, and it was a sad, sea-rotted thing. But we take what Ocean gives.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I have never tasted a cookie. You need flour and sugar and butter to make cookies. We can trade for a little flour and sugar, but even the landsmen don’t have butter. Trickster’s eighth birthday is in ten days, and he would love to eat a cookie, I just know he would, no matter what Dad says about dolphins eating only fish. Pelican fat is almost like butter, I think.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">A brown one was preening on the surface. With my spear I swam in the cool water at three fathoms to sneak below it. Then the ranging chirp of a dolphin hit me. It's just Trickster looking for me, I thought. He's my best friend, but teenage boy-dolphins never leave you in peace. But it wasn’t Trickster at all.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The pelican slapped the water with his feet until he left even the surface of my world and entered his own. Then the most ginormous dolphin I had ever seen glided into position directly above me and stayed right there. I tried to get its attention by croaking "Um hum". He surely must have heard me. His silence creeped me out. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I was well inside our green water, close to the old sunken ship we used as the home bell. No thinking creature disses Sarah's water lightly. A dolphin from another pod should have been very polite to me here. I tried to rise well to the side, but it stayed right above me. I felt my stomach clench and I almost peed. I needed to breathe soon. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I tried to swim around the creep as fast as I could but it hit me on the head with its beak. I dropped my kelp net and made poking motions with my spear. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Drop your metal," he said. He had something in his mouth. Even though dolphins use their melons, not their mouths, to speak, his accent was terrible, like he was making fun of dolphin's English, or as if he had never heard a human speak English. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I shook my head, but what else could I do? He was a monster, more than four meters long, and weighed at least 600 kilos. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Drop your spear, and I will let you breathe," he said. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I waited. Dad says I always panic too early since Mom drowned, but I knew I was close to blacking out. I dropped my spear and formed a beak with my hands over my head and rushed straight up to air with my artificial fluke. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Suddenly it was hard to see through my fogged goggles in the bright light. My back rested against the melon of a dolphin. I felt comfy, forgetting what had happened and where I was. He must have pushed me to the surface after I passed out. Then I turned over and saw the forearm in its mouth. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I pushed away, but you can’t flee a dolphin. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"You are one of the Hartmans," he said. He swam around me, looking at me as he porpoised. He was a very blue gray, like the sky seen through a touch of fog, with a jellyfish-white belly. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Yes, sir, I am Jill Hartman," I said. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"What are the names of your dolphins?" </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Sarah, Marnie, Bullet, Homer---" </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Tell me their true names." </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Sara'atheestra, Bultimet, Marmneeski, J'othiisat, ..." I went on until I had spoken all twelve as well as I could. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Good weapons you give me, little ape. I want you to give a message to Kyle Hartman and Sara'atheestra. Retrieve your kelp net, and take this trophy to them. Tell them: a Servant of the Blessed Ones has come for vengeance. Kyle Hartman is condemned to torture and death for the crime of killing the world. In six days, Sara'atheestra will be condemned to death for the crime of consorting with the destroyers. Only one thing will earn Sara'atheestra mercy: she may bring me the hands of Kyle Hartman." </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I should have lied about our names. The world was dying even before my dad was born. Dad and Sarah had never hurt anybody they didn't have to</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My breathing was ragged, I was so scared and angry. I tried to steady it enough to take a full breath before I dove. Anything was better than being circled by this murderer.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I dove down ten fathoms. That's a hard dive for me. Little sunlight gets that deep. The dolphin led me to my net in the cold ooze. I could hear that he was studying the way I swam and my fluke. We make our flukes by hand out of shark hide, whale bone, and aluminum pulleys. When fitted to the feet and strapped on below the knee, they allow the muscles of the lower leg to angle the foil with twice the bendiness of the ankle. The strong muscles of the upper leg wiggle it up and down. This makes the natural swimming wiggle bigger, more like a dolphin’s. We stuff the hide foil with feathers and inflate it enough to avoid sinky feet, but not enough to make floaty feet. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">He followed me up to breathe. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Say the message back to me." </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I did. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Correct. The next time I hear you, you will die. I will kill you and all the perverted dolphins who live with you. Pray for mercy on destroyers everywhere." </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">He dropped the arm. I encircled it with my net. I could not bear to touch it, although Linda had stroked me to sleep with it a thousand times since my mother was received by Ocean. Linda had been hunting snapper at what had once been the town of Port Comfort and where some buildings still stuck up above the water line. She had been guarded by Silver, one of our strongest bulls. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">He grabbed my fluke in his mouth and shook it. His strength jerked me back and forth in the water the way I might wave a gull feather in air. The bands broke off my fluke before he yanked my joints apart. He crunched on my fluke with his jaws until it was nothing more than a pile of trash. Now I felt really naked. We had extras back at the home bell, but it is hard to make a perfect fluke like the one I had. It would take me an hour to swim back to the bell without it. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Soon we will find a way to hunt you off even the driest land, but you have never had a place in Ocean." </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">He said the last word in the language of the Blessed Ones that humans can't say, but I knew what he meant. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Sir, where should I tell Sarah to find you?" I asked with a little too much pride. If we knew where he would be, we could all hunt him down together. I think he might have been able to hear inside of me and what I was thinking, because he just turned away and swam off with hardly a motion of his tail. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I whistled a dolphin curse at him but he didn't care. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Listen now, children and calves, to the history of our tribe, the Hartmans, in the time that the dolphin calling himself “the Servant” on us made war. I was a young bull then, all foolish pride contending with reckless ambition. Jill, who bore Steven and Maryam and Wally, was then half-grown, though my equal in years, </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Now Jill was brave and smart, but a bit naughty, as all children are. She had played some trick on us and swam out alone on some errand, such as seems all-important to a child. When we realized she was unescorted, I rushed to find her. She was fluke-nude. Her heatbeat sang fear and anger to me beyond her fear that I or her father might punish her. She had been used by the beast to send us an ultimatum to betray our chief, the man called Major Kyle Hartman, from whom our tribe takes its name in English. The servant had given her a trophy. When I heard it, my heart sank. It was proof that he had slain a woman who had been under the protection of my brother, Silver. My brother, and my better. The strongest and fastest of us all. In my foolish pride, I believed that nothing could have slain my brother, and like a coward I wondered if he had harkened to the devious lies of the Servant. I hope none of you will ever be so faint-hearted.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I pulled Jill to the meeting bell, which was much like this one. Jill’s sire, Kyle Hartman, had patched and raised the inverted hull of a shipwreck that we kept submerged at two fathoms on heavy chains. We all met there, where the humans could sleep and be somewhat dry. I blared out our awful alarm cry.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When Silver and I joined Sarah’s pod, we dreamed of dominating Kyle and being the chief bulls. But Kyle disarmed us by immediately beginning to train us to replace him. He taught us warcraft, which we loved, and to speak English, which we loathed at first. Speaking did not come quickly to Silver and I as it did to some of the others who had been tutored since awakening in the womb, and we hated to be outdone. But Kyle was as patient as the sun, and Sarah refused to allow us to challenge him. Since that time, it is the tradition of our tribe that the chief must prepare the others, who must be patient.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Now that Silver was gone, I was the chief bull of all the dolphins, and all the men save Kyle. I set aside my desire to act alone in vengeance, and resolved to do as Sarah and Kyle would direct.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Now you have all heard many tales, even legends, of Sarah, and how her famous ancestors have lived in the Gulf for centuries. I tell you plainly her body was completely normal. Her voice was the love-song of an aeon. Once I heard her voice, I knew I would remain in her pod forever, and would not cause strife with the humans against her will. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Eleven dolphins, four calves and ten humans crowded the bell. The water there always tasted stale. When everyone had their heads up to hear, Jill told her story and repeated the vile threats of the Servant. We heard how impossibly huge the Servant was. None of us dolphins then were longer than three meters, and of course humans are not even two meters long without a fluke. Sarah sat perfectly still for five full seconds with her heart racing. I had never before heard her think for so long.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Finally Sarah said, “The Servant is so large because he is a Pacific dolphin, from the far North, although he is the same species as we. Rumor of his infamy precedes him. He is a zealot, and a liar.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Then Kyle said, “What the hell is he doing in the Gulf?”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Kyle taght me to use strong language only for intentional effect. Leaders must be disciplined. He was trying to make the Servant appear alien and out of place. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“He makes war on all men. Those that he can reach, he fights,” said Sarah. She sounded dark and ominous when speaking in the reverberating air of the bell.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"We must hunt him immediately,” said Kyle.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Sara said, “Ocean is big. He will be faster and have more endurance than any of us. I doubt any four of us can defeat him in battle, without metal. If he challenges us, six dolphins could kill him---probably. He is patient; he is pure of purpose. He will lie to divide us. He lives alone, and abstains from sex...” (we squawked and raspberried at this perversity) “...and is rumored to have wiped out whole tribes methodically before he came here. He has no fear of metal, but never uses it.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The humans back then sometimes made fun of dolphin fear of being cut or stabbed. You use your little fingers for so many things that they often get small cuts that bleed alarmingly. It hardens you, as we are hardened to bruises and teeth-rakes.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Can we lure him in with some ruse, Sarah?” asked Kyle</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Sarah replied, “We cannot expect him to make any stupid mistakes.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Then Kyle said, “Okay, from now on, we forage in groups of four. Two humans, with spears and at least one speargun, and two dolphins. Agreed, Sarah?”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Sarah agreed to this. I wanted to argue, “No, we must hunt him now, right now!” But he who cannot obey cannot command. Neither I nor Sarah nor Kyle knew how to find a lone dolphin in Ocean.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 14.2px; text-align: center;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;">Trickster</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Trickster (that's me) and Bullet and Conchita,</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">and little Jill, Jill Jilleto, Jill the Stiletto </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">were hunting drum. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We dolphins herd, girls shoot speargun,</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">works real well, that's a way we get 'em, </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">when Jill saw a giant bird. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I spyhopped to name it but hadn't the word.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Too big to be an al-ba-tross. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Maybe six meters across.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I said, "Who cares? Some big stupid bird." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But she said, no, it has a face.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But then it came down, fast like a gull, </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">and even I could see it was a man </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">with wings, or a boy, not big, but muscled.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Bullet said, "We must evade him, underwater.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If he finds the bell---we're in for slaughter.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Stay at two fathoms, go as far as you can, </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">then porpoise once, and dive again." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">(Bullet thinks he is in charge.) </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Me and Bullet we're dark on top, </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">and Conchita and Jill are brown all over, </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">hard to see when we're deep. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The girls can hold pretty long, but not if they swim</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">---dy-nam-ic ap-ne-a really takes it out of them. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Holding for dolphins is not bad at all;</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">and the humans get better with practice,</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">but Conchita, and especially Jill, are small,</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">so they can't hold much air. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Bullet and I let them share, </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">breathing from our blowholes, </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">swimming in our slip, </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">with their hands on our pec fins.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We had to surface every three minutes. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Eventually, we lost him, </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">or at least he passed the limits </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">of our vision. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When we got back to the bell</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">and told the story, Sarah sounded upset;</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">fit to give hell. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Kyle, what means this? It is beyond my experience," she said. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Then Kyle said, "This reconnaissance means the landsmen know we are here. On the land near here, or on a ship close by, there are folks with enough technology to build wings and enough resources to train and medicate a flyboy. They deem steroids and drugs, and the boy's life, cheaper than the fuel to supply an airplane."</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.8px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Sarah said, “The land burns, the air stinks, Ocean dies. The Servant remains a constant threat. Our redoubt is found by a boy who flies. Any mistake will bring our death.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Kyle rubbed his scalp with his hands; </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">this is a habit of humans.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Having seen only Conchita and Jill, perhaps they will do nothing. But the fact that the girls swam with dolphins will make them suspicious. If they know where the bell is, they may target us for an attack in numbers or with a bomb." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I didn't want to let Bullet shark the time, </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">so I asked in English, without rhyme,</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Why should they attack us, Kyle? Surely we are no threat to them. We cannot even enter their territory. Few of us can even walk." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Kyle responded, "They claim everything as their territory. They even claim the moon and the planets. They recognize no tribe save their own." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Do they fear that the creatures of Ocean will unite and emerge against them?" said Sarah. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"The truth is simpler: they fear what they cannot tame and dominate. Their persistent strategy is to attack anything that might pose a threat in the future, however distant that threat may be. This strategy has been very effective: they dominate an entire world they have destroyed." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 38.2px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Kyle sounded far away, I didn't know what to say.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Sarah said, "We should draw down our food supplies, to patrol against these men who fly, but dare not face the servant divided." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Then Kyle said to us all, "Do not be afriad. We have practiced every art of war that is open to us. If they attack us and they are stronger, we will die. But they will not be stronger, at least at first. Knowledge is power, and they have very little knowledge of us. They have already driven some of us from land. We are in Ocean and of Ocean. They will have to come to our element if they want to fight." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Kyle is slower than Sarah, but he leads us well.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">He loves us all as much as himself.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">He knows more about landlubbers than anyone else.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Certainly more than Bullet. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 14.2px; text-align: center;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;">Walter</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Razor blades, fish hooks, cordage, cloth. Sugar, flour, medicine, vitamins. Above all, vitamins for men and women and medicine for dolphins. The red tide and the radiation that the gulf circulates counter-clockwise to us from New Orleans and Houston sickens all of us, and the dolphins require heavy doses of antibiotics. These consumables are stowed with a kilo of negative buoyancy within the water-tight plastic teardrop that Millicent and I tow on the yoke line. Jewels salvaged from the skeletons of men that once enjoyed boats, coral, shark teeth, shells, sting ray tails and forty kilos of good salted snapper are sufficiently dear to the protein-starved landsmen that they will risk trading with us every full moon. It is a greater risk to us, of course, but we have little choice. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Millicent and I always do our trading with the landsmen. I am old and look like a high school biology teacher, which is what I am, was, before the world crept finally down into hell. Millie is not intimidating unless you look into her eyes, or know what she did during the wars. To disguise our origin we carry clothes like a fisherman would wear in a plastic bag and dress and undress between the dunes. We cannot come into the shore or onto the coast in daylight. Authority is so splintered that we cannot tell exactly who is in charge, but we know everyone shoots at us and the dolphins every chance they get. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The water close to shore is a warm, thick, unwholesome broth enriched by the alluvium of soil erosion, and worse things, transported by the river. In sunlight it is brown or even tan, but tonight's moon struggles to push yellow-tinted shafts into its blackness. I despise murky water and since the disappearance of Silver and the murder of Linda, it terrifies me.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The younger ones in our tribe feel at home in the sea. Is it my weakness, or my wisdom, that makes me fearful of her? </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If you don't look at them directly, dynamically camouflaged </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;">Haliphron atlanticus</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">, the seven-armed octopus, as heavy as a man, will inch towards you, out of curiosity, one hopes. </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;">Isurus oxyrinchus</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> and </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;">Isurus paucus</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">, the similar short-finned and long-finned Makos, are fast enough to catch our dolphins, though not as agile and prefer bluer water than the green water in which the bell is anchored. They are deadly, but seem to respect our territory. Every summer </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;">Carcharhinus leucas</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">, the bull shark, leaves its own territories to swim up the river to hunt people trying to fish there and their dogs, and to eat the corpses in the river before they reach </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;">Sphyrna mokarran</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">, the great hammerhead. The hammerheads batten to half a ton on river offal and other sharks. They sometimes congregate by the hundreds for unknown reasons. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Of course, we need not fear sharks so long as we are protected by dolphins like Mr. Smee and Freak---friendly, intelligent </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;">Tursiops truncatus</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">. Intelligent enough to execute complex plans. Intelligent enough to be psychotic. "Perfectly adapted to the sea," is the way they were described when I was a boy. Breathing air was not considered an imperfection by men, who had the arrogance to name ourselves </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;">Homo sapiens sapiens</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">, even though it took us a century after the first moon landing to prove that dolphins can be taught human language. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Compared to the ancient creatures of the sea, the dolphins are newcomers, who can only survive because of their exaggerated brains and social cooperation. We have much in common with them. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"The Servant approaches us. Ready your spears," said Mr. Smee. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Damn. We drop the yoke line, and blindly brandish unwieldy weapons at muddy black water. We hold our breath, unwilling to surface until the dolphins direct us, and try to understand what they are saying to the Servant. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"He has retreated," says Freak. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It was only ten seconds, but dolphins converse ten times faster than we. We surface so that we can question the dolphins. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"What did he say?" </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"He asked us why we are your pets. We said, no, we have tamed you. He said we should kill you and join him. Then he asked us just to swim away from you and let him take you unaware. We told him to go away. He challenged us both to a dominance duel. We declined. He described what he had done to Linda, and said that Silver had agreed to desert the tribe in exchange for his life." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Do you believe that? Is that why we never found Silver's body?" </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"The Servant is lying. Can you believe that Silver betrayed Linda? He must have killed Silver, and then towed his body far away." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Are we safe now?" </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"No. He sounded furious. We will not be safe until we rejoin the tribe. Let’s go." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We swim submerged for efficiency, breathing once a minute for twenty minutes. The dolphins signal silence. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"He is coming from ahead of us. He is barking loudly...he...drives before him...a large sawfish!" </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;">Pristis perotteti</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">, the large-tooth sawfish, can reach 6.4 meters and 650 kilos. It has a thin, two-meter rostrum shaped like a heading sword. Up to 22 pairs of teeth, each a few inches long, jut out horizontally from the rostrum. These benthic creatures have poor eyesight and prefer muddy water. They are not aggressive, but dangerous if surprised or panicked. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"They are forty meters out. The Servant is ten meters behind it. Prepare your spears. We will drive the Servant off. Thirty meters." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"I can't see anything!" </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Twenty meters." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I can hear the Servant barking and snapping; it seems loud even to me. Millicent and I are holding our spearguns defensively, using them like bayonets. We can't aim at what we can't see. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Ten meters." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Now! Shoot him!" </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Can't see!" </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Shoot the sound!" </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The saw resolves out of black water, thrashing from side to side. A long sinuous body propels it. The Servant is the real menace, but I can't see him, and the fish is right here, huge. I shoot at the underdeveloped left eye. My spear glances off shark-like hide. It thrashes. Something tugs my side, so sharp I barely feel it, until the salt stings. The rough tail scrapes my face and arm. The sawfish vanishes into the murk behind us. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Where is the Servant?" </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"The dolphins are after him," said Millicent. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Did you seem him?" </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"No." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Millicent and I tread water back-to-back accompanied by only the moon and the waves. Little bait fish make the water nervous and twitchy and we flinch our spears in every direction. There are four fathoms of ink below us. It might as well be four thousand.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Freak?" </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Mr. Smee?" </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Walter, did it hit you?" asked Millicent. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Yeah, it nicked a kidney." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Mr. Smee?" </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Ninety lonely seconds later Freak comes back to us. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"We must flee. Hold on to me, but kick strongly. Keep your spears ready to ward him off." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Where is Mr. Smee?" </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Mistirsmee will soon be received by Ocean. Walter, you are bleeding profusely, I can taste it." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We swim for some time, but my kicks become feeble. I am just coasting, and then I can not even hang on. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"I must rest," I manage to say. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"He is following us, Walter. We bruised him, but he will press his advantage if he can." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"I'm sorry, I can't go on." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"We won't leave you, Walter. F---" </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Freak explodes into motion in mid-word. He can hear the Servant torpedoing towards us. Freak loops back and punches the Servant as his fin hits Millicent's arm and she drops the speargun. The wake rocks me under and fills my mouth. Freak chases the Servant away. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When Freak comes back, he slides alongside Millicent so that she can catch his pectoral fin with her good arm. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Goodbye, Walter. You have been a good teacher," Freak says to me. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I do a dead man's float all alone in a featureless expanse. Being cold is the final sensation of hypovolemic shock. I know, I am absolutely positive, that the water surrounding me is all-too-warm, but I feel very cold. I loved you all. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 14.2px; text-align: center;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;">Kyle</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Speckles and Homer were guarding us at sixteen-hundred hours. My son Marco was trying to cut lose the crusted hulk of an old outboard at five fathoms. I pretended to supervise it while desperately trying to devise some plan for getting rid of the Servant before he could kill again.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">A single-minded enemy of superior mobility harries us. He killed Silver, our strongest bull, and Linda, who had a speargun. Perhaps his agression surprised them. But we lost Walter and Mistirsmee, even with Millie and Freak right there and fully forewarned. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I wish we had found Silver’s body. Thank God Bullet and I found Linda’s body first and were able to hide it before the others could see the way in which Linda was executed.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The ocean is big. Rommel and Lee would envy such a field of maneuver. Beginners think tactics, amateurs think strategy, professionals think logistics, and the GD Servant has cut our supply lines. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Our dolphins, in sufficient numbers, can resist the Servant, but because he is so similar to them, and yet superior in some ways, they can think of no plan for eliminating him. Despite his size, a single spear might finish him, but he is too clever to give us the chance. We cannot remain tightly together, as a dolphin pod can, and still forage and trade effectively.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Our attempted embassies to the Spanish-speaking raft-people to the East, across the dead zone, were rebuffed. Their dolphins will not risk provoking </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;">el diablo azul</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">. The attempt to recruit the pilot whales was useless, as Sarah told me it would be. The pods to the South and Northeast will have nothing to do with us, even though they have distant kinship with Sarah, except to beg us to doctor their sick and wounded.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Until we can lure the Servant out of his element, he masters it, his mastery gives him patience, his patience will wear us down and break us and we will perish. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">At seventeen-hundred-hours they relayed that the landsmen were attacking. When we got back to the bell, I formed up everyone into our practiced battle formation. The frogmen, Trickster said, had the flyboy in the air, and were swimming on the surface but wearing air tanks and foot fins. We had planned for them coming on boats or rafts. I did not expect them to attempt to swim the eight kilomters or more from the closest point of land. Even we, who are in constant practice, find it a challenge. Trickster thought they all had strange metal weapons. He is high-strung at the best of times, and now his English was broken and hard to understand. The slightest panic now would ruin our fighting ability.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Nine humans and ten dolphins remained, not counting calves that would stay with their mothers even during the battle. All of the humans had the articulated flukes that we made from salvaged sheaves, wire rope, sharkskin and whalebone. The frogmen usually wear simple floppy foot fins, which take less training to use and are easier to make, but waste energy and do not even allow one to swim backwards or change direction rapidly. I carried the lunate titanium battle-scythe that I would give Sarah once there was enough room. We all had spearguns and hand spears. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We swam out to meet them where our superior mobility could give us an advantage, away from the assets we kept in the bell: a rifle, a stove, a still, a good set of tools, some sound equipment, books, maps, and medicine. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My troops were scared. Jill, especially, seemed to be about to break down. As we swam, I beckoned to Bullet and unobtrusively asked him to protect Jill. I wanted to ask Freak to look after Marco, but I can't hold the tribe together if I am seen as playing favorites. However, Jill is our youngest human. Even if Bullet tells, I don't think anyone will blame me. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Our dolphins, acting as scouts, knew exactly where the enemy frogmen were. I waited until we were just a few minutes away to have us all surface. I knew the flyboy could see us in the moonlight if he was close, but we could not see or hear him. The dolphins were chattering rapidly, but they quieted when I started giving orders. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"These will be our tactics. We'll swim at two fathoms until we are forty meters away. The dolphins will stay behind the humans by forty meters. We will be in a semicircle forty meters wide. When I click, everyone breathe, deeply. I will lead the humans in attacking first. You dolphins will dive and hug the bottom until you are beneath them. The frogmen will probably have spear-guns equipped with grenades...“ </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“They do!”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Shush! ... the best defense is to be as close to them as possible. The humans must stay engaged with them at all costs in order to prevent them noticing and targeting the dolphins. We must get inside their formation. We cannot defeat eighty spearguns if they ever get a chance to aim. The dolphins will hit them from below while we are distracting them." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Dad---" </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Hush, Jill. Don't be afraid. We are going to win. We are faster then they are; they can breathe under water, but not if you cut the tube coming out of their mouth. They are swimming but we are swimmers. They have grenades, and numbers, but we have dolphins. We---" </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Jill interrupted me. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Dad, what about the Servant? I'm scared!" </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It was my fault that she did that; I had not taught her leadership. There is never enough time. The Servant was a greater danger to us than were the landsmen, but I had not wanted to face this now. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Oh, yes, the Servant. I had forgotten him," I said. Sarah laughed, and a few of the men and dolphins followed her lead. She might have found me humorous, but I knew she exaggerated her reaction to encourage us. I love Sarah. "Well, he may enter the battle on our side. If he does, leave him be, but don't get separated. If he attacks any of us, he will taste our spears." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Trickster said, "Kyle, I'm scared. I can't do this. Let me return to the bell!" Trickster is only eight, and left his mother just two years ago. Sarah and Bullet moved over to bite him if necessary to keep discipline. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Trickster, Jill, listen to me. Even though you are not fully grown, we need every fin and finger in this fight. You don't have to win the battle; you don't have to be brave. Jill, just shoot one frog. Trickster, just hit one frog as hard as you can, okay? After that you can breathe. Can you do that?" </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Yes, sir," said Trickster. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Okay, Dad." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I unsheathed the battle-scythe and held it out for Sarah to fit her back teeth into the the central grip bars and finally close down her jaws fully. Our forces ranged into a semicircle, with Jill on my immediate left. Millie anchored the left flank, and Marco the right.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 14.2px; text-align: center;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;">Jill</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My stomach feels queasy and full of air. I had said "okay", but I know it isn't going to be okay. I will be received by Ocean tonight, and I won’t be alone. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Kyle and Sarah together give the rising-falling-warble-clack that is our celebration sound, and then everyone else does it together. It is a prettyful sound, in moonlight in open water beneath a starry sky. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We swim. The water here is clear, but the red tide is thick enough that any fast movement in the water leaves a ghosty trail caused by little creatures glowing their annoyance. Bullet starts singing a battle-tune Kyle taught us that starts, "Mine eyes hath seen the glory..." We all join in, the dolphins harmonizing loudly with intense vibrato, the humans clacking their spears on the downbeats, since we can only croak a little under water. If the frogs can hear us, I bet they have the willies. Finally, Sarah hushed us. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Even I can hear the school of frogmen from the echos of dolphin's ranging chirps. They are close together, and they obviously do have a lot of metal. Every now and again they turn on an electric light. It is stupid of them to do that. I could hear Sarah click the range down, "Sixty meters... fifty meters....forty meters." Dad clicks and we all increas our speed, breaking for the surface. I can hear the pop-sizzles as the frogs shoot at us. Forty meters is a long range shot for a speargun, even the air-powered kind. They don't know how fast we can swim, or we don't know how fast they can reload. I hope they all shoot now and are empty when we get to them. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Something big whacks me, and it is so loud that I can’t hear anything. I hope it didn't deafen the dolphins, who are now well behind us and below us. I want to stop, but have no choice but to keep swimming. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They turn on their lights, perhaps twenty of them. They really do look like giant, skinny, black, one-eyed frogs. Maybe they are in platoons of ten, but they just look like one big baitball to me. I take the easiest swimming position, like a calf does, right under my father’s waist. I keep aiming at the closest light. My dad shoots. I shoot. I can’t tell if we hit anyone.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Now is the time for speed. I let go of the speargun and beak up my second spear in front of me, with the back grip over my left shoulder, and drop my head between my arms. I squeeze my shoulders and elbows together, making my body as pointy as I can, since you can't reach top speed with your face smashing the water head-on. I strain with all of my might to speed up while slowly corkscrew-rolling so that I can see my targets without losing speed. We can all do perfect body wiggles, and I know I am hitting three strokes per second when I get close enough to see the face of the first frog. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">He is a man with a short beard trying to reload his speargun. How silly---imagine trying to swim fast with all that hair! When he sees how fast I am dashing, he pulls out a knife. He is covered all over in some artificial skin, and it makes his white face look like a moon in a black sky. I am moving fast, which makes me able to turn quickly. I guess the frogs naturally sit still. The dolphins teach us to move constantly. I swerve upward so that I can see my target without breaking my form, and then point down, so that I am attacking his back. To fend me off with his arms, he has to ball up by pulling his knees up. I am going to kill this one and then die. Everyone is received by Ocean, eventually. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I am four meters away when I slip my face between my arms to see over my spear shaft to choose where to drive it in. Just then, I see Bullet hit him from below. A big bubble comes out of the man's mouth. His arms and legs fling out as I slip past his right side. One hand hits me, but I know it is just because Bullet took his air. Probably Bullet is intentionally protecting me. He has always loved me. Or maybe Sarah told him to. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I stab the frog on the right. I pull my spear out and head upward. Three hertz is a flat-out sprint for a human. I don't think I can hear, but I can feel. Dolphins are zooming in loops everywhere, dislocating arms and tearing air hoses and whacking frogs hard all over the place. Sarah will be circling the baitball with her scythe at 25 knots, cutting in to slice frogs whenever she gets the chance. Against eighty of them, she will get many chances. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">At the surface, air-hunger forces me to rest a moment. The air is still and the surface smooth, like an endless sheet of soft glass, gently rocked by the big, slow swells from the South. My heart jumps when a black head appears just a few meters away. I suck myself under by reversing the normal swimming pattern. The frog is moving awkwardly towards me, trying to get his fins up above his center of gravity so he can swim down to me. What a relief when Speckles comes from behind me and leaps out of the water and arcs, jaws-open, onto the head! </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Still in oxygen debt, I push myself upward and away from the man, although I doubt he can hurt me now. I see against the moon the flyboy soaring. He seems unarmed, and not so quick as a gull. I will drag him down if he gives me the chance. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When I fluke back down and sideways and then forward and down into my dive, I am mostly deaf and can not sense much. Crazy swinging electric beams light everything but show nothing. They are just bright enough to keep me from being able to use the moonlight to see. I just swim down into silent, crazy flashes. I’m not frightened at all. I had forgotten how much I love swimming. The simple feel of the water rushing upward against my hands and scalp are enough for me at this moment. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Suddenly there is a frog right in front of me and I hit her square in the back. I guess I cut her main cable, because she doesn't even turn to look at me. I have to lose all of my speed and ball up and kick my fluke against her back to get my spear out, and another frog grabs me. Her knife clanks against my spear shaft as she tries to slash my throat. I yank my spear out and wriggle away. I'm no match for a grown woman at close range with a knife. I don't know why she lets go of me. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I hit another frog in the side, and yank back immediately this time, twisting to keep up my speed. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">By now, it is clear that we are winning. The frogs are trying to swim away. They fight only when attacked. Most of them are lying limp in the water, like old fishing nets, neither floating nor sinking. Some of us are breathing, some are reloading. My brother Marco is bleeding and limp. Kyle and Bullet are taking him up to breathe. Trickster, my best and only friend in the whole world, has a spear sticking out of his side and swims in panicy circles at the surface. I am glad that I can mostly not hear his squeals. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> # </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I am crying, but Ocean receives tears without fuss. Maybe Ocean is nothing more than all the tears that have ever been cried. I am at the surface, but it is hard to breathe evenly. Trickster and Evan and Marco are dead. Dad takes time out from hunting down the frogs to say that he is proud of me. He says he is sorry that Marco, his last son, is dead, but is glad I am alive. He hugs me. He makes me promise to try as hard as I can to stay alive. For the first time, I really believe that he loves me as much as Marco. It would be very evil of me not to believe that, wouldn't it? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;">The Servant</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Enemy slaying enemy</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">is the craftiest sort of victory.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But it would have eased my task,</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">had but the two been better matched. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But Hartmans live, save two young apes,</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">and that battle-drunk, foolhardy male. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The matriarch, little "Sarah", used a scythe</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">shaped like the new moon. Deadly, and puissant.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I heard Kyle Hartman hand her the knife.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">A cunning perversion, but elegant. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Though it would make me invincible,</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I will not touch metal. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Still, eighty apes will feed the fishes,</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">and I rejoice in this, and--- </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Lurk softly now! Observe a while...</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">two dolphins and the small ape child</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">depart upon some mission. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I will follow them at distance.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">What's this, a deadly kiss? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They grab the flying ape! </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">He rested on the water! </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I never thought it possible </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">to hinder his escape </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">(but I have much to learn).</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Blast! </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They obey Kyle Hartman's daughter.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Hear how they hold and threaten with dolphin bites,</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">and play the fool, though they have all the might.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Now bird-boy is disrobed, disarmed, </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">and they turn to drag him back</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">to their airy </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">sunken sanctuary. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">A hostage? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Even his tools they take; a toy? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">What tricks for the bird-boy</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">have they planned? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I long to kill the apes, </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">but must not haste... </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">there is something here I do not understand. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Let me return to the baitball and hunt a chance </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">to end Kyle Hartman's life </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">or find little "Sarah" </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">without her knife.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Ah, they are dispatching the vanquished,</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">and taking their weapons. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Hagfish! </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Well let them! </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Let us see if it will help them! </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But wait...</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">One is shown mercy? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">A frog alive...not mercy, but treachery? trickery? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They dare escort him homeward! </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But why? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Are they in league? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">No, a fool am I...</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">four score corpses, three Hartmans, </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">prove that a lie.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Ah, a form of threat...</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">a message to the landsmen; a warning! </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Two dolphins escort the ape homeward. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">How slowly they are forced to swim, </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">but how alertly---</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">they have not forgotten me. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Two with the girl, </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">two with this one. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">One dying. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So five dolphins to guard Kyle Hartman, </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">metal-tooth Sarah among them. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Poor odds. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Time is my only ally.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I must be patient and sly. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But their message shall fail, see---</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I will but wait till the escorts </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">outrange the group and then </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">slay the messenger ape.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Let the Hartman dolphins give me battle, or flee. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They are small, smaller than that first silver bull I slew, </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">and shall not much hinder me. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;">Jill</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We captured the flyboy. The hammerheads were massing and becoming more aggressive as we hunted down the last of the frogs and took their weapons. Sarah came to me and asked me to help spot him with Speckles and Freak. I'm the easiest to pull. He had tried to scram once he could see that we were winning. He was fast in the air, alright, faster than a mako. But I guess he couldn't fly forever. We caught him a kilometer away standing in the water on his fluke, or tail, or whatever you call the thing that transferred his leg power to his wings and helped him steer. He was sobbing, and just barely beating his wings to keep his balance. Freak grabbed the tail and I held the speargun on him. I made him get out of his harness. He was a very short young man with pimples. His thighs and chest were massive. You could have wedged a sand dollar between his pecs and snapped it in half. Veins stood out on his body as if he was wrapped in fishing nets of different mesh sizes. My dad says drugs can do that to a boy, but they make him stop growing taller and shrivel up his balls and make him die young. I told him the dolphins would bite his face off if he didn't do what I said, and this seemed to impress him. He was completely unarmed; he didn't even have a canteen of water.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Why did you attack us?” I asked.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The boy's voice was unnaturally low and hoarse.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“We were ordered to capture your submarine.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 33.8px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“We don't have a submarine. We don't have anything.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Then how do you stay alive? You must have robots.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“We fish.” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The flyboy looked at me as if I had answered “thirteen”, or somthing. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Bullet joined us, but wouldn't tell us anything. We got back to the bell by taking turns dragging the wings on top of the water. I touched the flyboy's calf; it was like touching a warm stone. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When we got back, we all slept. I had a vivid, fantastic dream that I was walking through a forest. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The sun was high when Sarah called us together. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I learned about what had happened while I was off bringing in the flyboy. Dad had ordered us to leave one of the frogs alive, to tell the other frogs to leave us alone, and to try to scare them off. They had let him go, but as soon as he was out of click-range of the main group, the Servant had come out of nowhere and killed him. That must have been why Bullet was sent over to us. Marnie had tried to stop him and they had even thumped a few times; but Marnie and Longhold weigh about 250 kilos between them and are no match for the Servant. They could not even keep him from killing the frog. The Servant chased them all the way back to the rest of the group. The dolphins all together drove him off; but they couldn't catch him. He shadowed the whole group back to the bell, harping on the dolphins unmercifully, singing them insults. He said he had done terrible things to Walter and Linda, and that Silver had let him do it in barter for his own escape, and that they and Mr. Smee deserved it. No one believed him, but the dolphins were frantic and the humans were terrified. There were whispers, "Why didn't we find Silver's body?" If we could not trust the dolphins, we might as well crawl back onto the land and be murdered or taunt sharks and be received by Ocean. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Dad and Sarah swam, armed but unescorted, for a long time outside. In the bell, my ears were still ringing, but we talked about Linda, Silver, Walter, Mr. Smee, Evan, Marco, and Trickster. Until they were gone, I didn't realize how large and deep and different each person really was.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">A simpler way of thinking about them was mentioned, that I didn't like: four spears gone. Three guardians gone. Only nine dolphins and seven humans left, to oppose one who was powerful, patient, and perfectly hostile. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When they came back, they said they had decided that we would tow the bell into bluer water further from the coast. Life would be harder there. We would all have to dive deeper. It would be a longer swim to the oyster beds and the kelp fields, and harder to find fish. But it would make it doubly hard on the frogs. Unless they had a fancy missile or an aircraft or a fast boat, it would be hard for them to attack us. Dolphins can easily sink a slow boat, if you have a grenade, and we now have a lifetime supply. No human can fight well after a long swim with no place to rest. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They told us not to kill the flyboy or to give him water. We raised the bell to freshen our stinky air, in full daylight this time. We made the flyboy sit outside on the nasty sharp barnacles. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We sewed all the biggest fish hooks that we had into his wings and his tail. Sarah made sure every dolphin was well rested and well fed. Dad took his rifle out of the desiccant, loaded it and packed it into a plastic bag. For a moment I thought of asking Dad not to kill the boy, but then I thought Dad wouldn't waste a bullet on that. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We went out and gave the flyboy his wings. The boy said he wanted to stay with us, and that he could find big schools of fish for us, and warn us if the landsmen were coming. That seemed like a good idea to me; but I heard Trickster’s ghost whisper to me that if I die, nobody at all will remember him, and that I must be rock-hard, be a survivor, and not foul up whatever Sarah and Dad were doing. The boy begged for water and food but Dad said, no, we don't have enough for ourselves. You can fly home, and rest as often as you like. When you get home, tell the frogs to leave us alone; this water belongs to us, and if anyone comes into our water or over our water we will kill them.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The flyboy kept gawking at all of us, bobbing together side by side in the water. His expression showed me that what was normal and comforting to us, our family together in the water, must seem very weird to him. He studied our rifle. He inspected the hooks in his wings and harness and whined a lot about them, and said he wouldn't be able to fly, but Dad threatened to shoot him if he didn't stop talking and start flying. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The flyboy took off. Now he flew like a white albatross or a pelican. His wingtips nearly touched the water on his downbeats. He would beat his wings four times, then glide on the cushion of air sandwiched between his wings and the sea. It was only then that I understood the plan, and started to cry again.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 14.2px; text-align: center;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;">Sarah</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">What have I done? Why only now comes he, a wild beauty from the furthest sea, cursing my protection for corruption? As if I had a choice, lonely, amid an ocean of destruction. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My mother's name, and mother's mother's name, a thousand generations I recall. My kilo-grand-dam, who never saw a man, knew ten thousand more, before there were humans on this side of Tellus at all. Tradition says she had the conversation of the Blessed Ones. Now silence comes; our wily cousins have destroyed themselves, and the Blessed Ones, and their servants too, and all the Songs will be forgotten soon. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And now, finally, one comes to cleanse who is wild and free, but brings only violence. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Do I still serve the Blessed Ones? No. I have become their enemy, devising tricks to catch their lovely friend; this battle will have no honest end. What can a Mother do, when every child is threatened? I can only hope for a noble death and a little time to give each child, and so am forced to choose a side. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">He knows we are here, bunched together. He surely will suspect we hunt him---still---I could warn him off with a whistle. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But they would all know. Who would think it justice? Despise me for a traitor? Could Kyle forgive? Could Jill? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;">Kyle</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The dolphins pulled me in turns. We were in a tight group, porpoising in synchrony. They chattered in bursts too rapid for me to understand, and then fell oddly silent. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The flyboy was outpacing us. Even weakened from dehydration, he could fly faster than Sarah and the dolphins could swim, at least while pulling me, the rifle, a spear, and the scythe. He was 300 meters away, well out of the range of a rifle fired from astride a dolphin. Suddenly he began to ascend and accelerate, </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 35.2px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I urged the dolphins to go faster, though already the water pushed heavily back against my smooth naked skin. He climbed to ten meters. The Servant, a four-meter blue and white spindle, streaked out of the water and caught the flyboy by the tail. They hung together in the sky for a second, cruciform, then slid down, still together, and were gone. The sound reached me just after I saw the splash rise.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 35.2px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I gave the scythe to Sarah and told the dolphins to go ahead without me and try to find the servant as quickly as they could. They could not hope to intercept the Servant pulling me. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 35.2px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I followed them until they were out of sight. Everyone at the bell would be wanting me to return. If Sarah and the dolphins failed to return, then whether or not I returned wouldn’t matter much. I kept swimming, out of our established territory and into the deeper blue water of the Makos with little hope that I could help, and no certainty who, if anyone, would find me.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 35.2px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I followed them until they were out of sight. I would be wanted at the bell, but If Sarah and the dolphins failed to return, nothing I could do could save us. I kept swimming, out of our established territory and into the deeper blue water of the Makos with little hope that I could help, and no certainty who, if anyone, would find me.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-align: center;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;">Sarah</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Let us, the Hartmans, rest now still, and let blind Homer listen.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“A little northward, m’dam. He swims with great labor toward the sunken carrier.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Onward then.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We enter the waters of the listed aircraft carrier and the littered destroyers, jets, and helicopters that attend her wreckage. The Servant stops, and rests in the water.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Bullet: “Around him form a hemisphere; I will fight, I have no fear.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I say, “No, brave consort, there is no one left to hear fame-songs. We must treat him ruthlessly, like a shark gone wrong.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As we take up positions around and below him, we can hear that a big piece of the flyboy’s tail protrudes from the jaws of the Servant. No lesser creature could have swam so far and fast dragging such an anchor.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The Servant speaks: “Begone, man-tools, and trouble me no more. You are but a distraction in this, the final war.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">All together my pod-mates clamor, “Distractions? Man-tools? ...final for you...servant of hell...been eating blue-rings and cone-snails...where are the Blessed Ones now?...it is a moon-calf’s tale...” until I silence them. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The Servant: “No, they still live. I have heard them singing in the deepest chasms; I have glimpsed the sunlight alive and dancing in the darkest deep.” </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Bullet: “I suppose they speak to you? How odd. Perhaps they have invited you to join their pod?”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They laugh at this dark sarcasm. None of them believes.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“One word. One word only can I comprehend. No instructions, but a clear command: cleanse.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Bullet: “What harm did Walter? What harm did Mistirsmee? What did Silver’s death make clean?”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Silver was wise to flee, for he was the betrayed one. Can I command the jellyfish to eat the radiation? The pearl-brained sharks to fan away the dead zones? The humans to repair the damage they have done? I do what I can; I can kill the humans that dare to enter our domain. What do you do but eat and copulate? Join me! Forget the humans and their hate.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“They give us medicine.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“It is an addictive, poisonous gift; you are deceived into needing it. The open water is clean. Come with me! Flee to the open sea!”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I say, “They cannot live without us.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Is that a tragedy? Everyone is received, eventually.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Jill is like my daughter; I will not betray her for cleaner water.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“So you choose to betray the world, to give a few more years to a little girl?”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Yes. Bullet, lead the attack.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Bullet digs into the water, moving so fast it is like burrowing through a solid to him. The Servant pumps toward him as the hemisphere shrinks around them. They smash together, maw against maw, and their teeth break and the water shrieks with ultrasonics. The other bulls, Freak, Homer, and Longhold move in and the cows circle in a second ring, but the Servant breaks through and flees downward like a falling star, brushing aside Marnie as if she was not there.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Down he swims, with the metal in his mouth cavitating and buzzing, into the hole in the great ship that once gave birth to the jet fighters now littering the bottom.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Halt!” I cry.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“We need not follow him in; he alone knows what dangers lurk therein. We will be patient and wait for his air to run out; let us breathe freely while he weakens.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But twenty minutes pass, and then thirty, and then forty, and still the Servant does not appear. Though the ship is very large, there is no egress which we can not observe.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“No dolphin can hold so long.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Longhold’s record is 25 minutes.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Perhaps the devil is even stronger.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I ponder this for a long time, and finally I say, “He must have learned a trick from us; he has found a place and filled it up with many lungfulls of his own breath, perhaps over many days.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Bullet: “Then he is recovering his strength; we must attack at once.” </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Yes, the bulls must drive him out.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Into absolute darkness and disorienting echoes, side by side, their fins touching like scared calves, the bulls enter the portal. Ocean has begun the slow work of dissolving and encrusting the great ship; it is now home to eels, octopii, squid, and innumerable creatures beneath our notice. The bulls know it is a maze of dead-ends, narrow tunnels and hair-pin turns. They are aided only by the fact that the Servant is larger; he can pass no constriction small enough to block them. Twice, Bullet orders a retreat to the surface to remain fully oxygenated for when the fight comes. With relief, they tell me they found a dolphin skull the same size and shape as Silver. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I position myself above the portal within hearing range, but far enough away that I can be moving fast by the time I reach it. The knife feels heavy in my jaws.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The bulls swim into utter darkness like the gaping maw of a shark, led by blind Homer for this the third entry. We will never trap him again. If he is not slain now, the Hartmans will be ended. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Above the ambient ocean noise, I listen to the black mouth to hear something with meaning. The first sound that comes to me is of Freak screaming. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">He is wedged! The Servant stole up on him from behind jammed him forward in a narrow tunnel. The coral and rusted steel pierce and pin him. The others are using his screams to find them. Now Longhold blares “Over me, he swam over me!” Is he coming out, or seeking a new hiding place? Louder now.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 33.8px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The Servant bursts forth, huge, blue, and fast, waving his fluke in the great amplitude that will accelerate his heavy body upward to air and freedom. I dash downward, gripping the knife so hard my teeth hurt. He turns away from me and for a moment we are eye to eye. The point of the scythe barely misses his eye. Did I flinch? I twist back towards him. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.8px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The impact at our great speeds almost tears the scythe from my mouth, but it slices clean through the ball joint of his fluke. His fluke flutters away from his tail. The Servant stands in the water upright, like a man, gushing blood and wriggling wildly but hopelessly.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Eight dolphins circle him at great distance trying not to hear his death-song. Ocean fills the void left by his final breath. He sinks, like a patch of sky, into the graveyard of fighters and destroyers.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We rescue Freak. Our bruises and the memories of the many received ache within us. Lazily, close together, we swim back towards Kyle. There is nowhere else to go, now.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="font-family: Courier; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> END </span></div>
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Robert L. Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10587448646932762155noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-772765396957667487.post-91553858268652357382014-06-28T14:24:00.004-07:002014-06-28T14:24:41.436-07:00Review: Winning isn't Normal: Meditations on the Art of Ass-Kicking by Jason Shen<div>
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<h2>
Review: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Winning-Isnt-Normal-Meditations-Ass-Kicking-ebook/dp/B00FL2CXEI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1403990505&sr=8-1&keywords=winning+isn%27t+normal">Winning isn't Normal</a>: Meditations on the Art of Ass-Kicking by Jason Shen</h2>
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Disclaimer: I have
worked with Jason and consider him a friend.</div>
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All self-improvers
and autodidacts out there will enjoy these well-written
self-improvement essays. This is a good book. I would not recommend
that someone read it until they have read some of the classics of
self-improvement: <u>The Meditations</u> by Marcus Aurelius and <u>The Seven
Habits of Highly Effective People</u> by Steven R. Covey, for example.</div>
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It is not a single,
cohesive argument, which leaves you with the feeling that your life
is permanently changed. But if you want a series of short, 10-minute
articles each of which delivers a cogent, researched and personally
evaluated punch, Shen's <u>Winning isn't Normal</u> is a good investment. I
certainly learned a lot reading it. My favorite lesson from the book
when willpower fails is: “don't try harder, try something
different.” As someone who has spent 30 years promising to try
harder each New Year's day, I learned something from this book.</div>
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Robert L. Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10587448646932762155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-772765396957667487.post-51841590002892254482014-03-27T06:34:00.000-07:002014-06-16T17:12:29.261-07:00Uncle Sam wants YOU...to be a hero hacker<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Michelle Hertzfeld and Robert L. Read, illustrated by Rishi Sohoni</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Update: Round 3 is now closed. However, there will be additional rounds; so this article still applies, but you may have to wait a few months for Round 4.</span></span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Please use this link: </span><a href="http://michellehertzfeld.com/thoughts/uncle-sam-wants-you/" style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.666666984558105px;" target="_blank">http://michellehertzfeld.com/<wbr></wbr>thoughts/uncle-sam-wants-you/</a> for additional promotion of this article.]<br />
<b id="docs-internal-guid-bdf70bc0-03d1-2604-562d-b096c82cb61f" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Round Three of the </span><a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/innovationfellows" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Presidential Innovation Fellows</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> program is now accepting </span><a href="https://gsafas.secure.force.com/apply" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">applications</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> from creative, energetic policy hackers, entrepreneurs, user experience experts, designers, frontend developers, backend developers, system architecture wizards, data wranglers, and more to serve their tours of duty to radically improve the delivery of government digital services.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why should you (yes, YOU) take time out of your busy schedule to apply? Three important reasons:</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Uncle Sam Wants YOU...to Help Millions</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Working with Innovation Partners inside government agencies Rounds One and Two of the Innovation Fellows program touched millions of lives in <a href="http://meiqimichelle.github.io/mhertzfeld/assets/img/innovation_fellow_projects_fullRez.gif">important ways</a> <a href="http://meiqimichelle.github.io/mhertzfeld/assets/img/innovation_fellow_projects_fullRez.gif">(click for larger view):</a></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Innovation Fellow Projects: Contributors and Beneficiaries</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here’s a taste of what these projects do:</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The </span><a href="http://www.greenbuttondata.org/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Green Button</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> initiative gives American families and businesses secure and easy access to their own utility energy information, giving them opportunities to save energy and money.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The </span><a href="http://healthit.gov/bluebutton" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Blue Button</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> initiative provides individuals with secure online access to their own health data.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="http://fbopen.gsa.gov/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">FBOpen</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> gives small business owners with a new, easier way to learn about and compete for Federal contracts.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="http://project-open-data.github.io/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Project Open Data</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> unleashes freely-available data from the Federal Government that was previously difficult to find and use (think National Parks, climate, and government spending) back to the taxpayer.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="http://energy.gov/oe/articles/presidential-innovation-fellow-leveraging-technology-and-innovation-help-americans" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Disaster Response and Recovery</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> leverages technology to provide with a helping hand (tools, apps, services and more) when they need it most.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Work at the Smithsonian Institution gives Americans their own </span><a href="https://transcription.si.edu/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">history, digitized</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Adverse Drug Effects gives doctors the </span><a href="http://open.fda.gov/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">information</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> they need to treat patients safely.</span></div>
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</ul>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-00ea6c63-063a-4512-d95b-13d83e1ab22c"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Round 3 projects will build on this work and introduce great new projects.</span></span><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Uncle Sam Wants YOU...to Work With Amazing People on Big Problems</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Innovation Fellows come from many backgrounds and have a wide range of skills, but they share two characteristics: excellence and dedication. Do you long to work with a team that constantly challenges you? Do you long to work with peers who are all top-of-class problem solvers and creative minds?</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And not only are the people you’ll work with extremely technically and creatively intelligent, but they’re also a group of people who have chosen to dedicate their precious time and energy in exchange to move their country forward. This is an opportunity to disrupt government and </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">truly transform how it works for the people it serves. You want a more participatory democracy? Here’s your chance.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As an Innovation Fellow, you will have extraordinary leverage to solve big problems and implement game-changing solutions. Some of the projects in the diagram above were not planned, but discovered as opportunities in the course of other projects.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Uncle Sam Wants YOU...to Serve and Return</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Becoming a Fellow is a commitment to work as hard as you can on behalf of the American people. It is a commitment to patiently run through walls that exist in the government bureaucracy. It is a commitment to spend a lot of time in DC.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But it is not a never-ending commitment. You are not signing up to become a permanent Federal employee. You will contribute your industry and entrepreneurial expertise to improve government and take what you have learned from other Fellows with you when you leave.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So What Are YOU Waiting for?</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<a href="https://gsafas.secure.force.com/apply" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Apply</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> by April 7, 2014. Throw your hat into the ring to make digital services in America an extension of the civic innovation that Franklin and Jefferson pioneered while collaborating with some of the smartest, most dedicated people you will ever meet, solving some of the most important, challenging problems of this generation.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even if you choose not to apply, please help spread the message</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Please republish this article or the following links to promote the Presidential Innovation Fellow program:</span></div>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; margin-left: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Read: </span><a href="http://links.whitehouse.gov/track?type=click&enid=ZWFzPTEmbWFpbGluZ2lkPTIwMTQwMzA2LjI5NzU0MjYxJm1lc3NhZ2VpZD1NREItUFJELUJVTC0yMDE0MDMwNi4yOTc1NDI2MSZkYXRhYmFzZWlkPTEwMDEmc2VyaWFsPTE3MDIzNjY5JmVtYWlsaWQ9amVuQGNvZGVmb3JhbWVyaWNhLm9yZyZ1c2VyaWQ9amVuQGNvZGVmb3JhbWVyaWNhLm9yZyZmbD0mZXh0cmE9TXVsdGl2YXJpYXRlSWQ9JiYm&&&101&&&http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/03/05/presidential-innovation-fellows-round-3-serve-create-innovate" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a blog post by Todd Park, U.S. CTO and GSA Administrator Dan Tangherlini.</span></a></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; margin-left: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Watch: U.S. Deputy CTO Jen Pahlka </span><a href="http://links.whitehouse.gov/track?type=click&enid=ZWFzPTEmbWFpbGluZ2lkPTIwMTQwMzA2LjI5NzU0MjYxJm1lc3NhZ2VpZD1NREItUFJELUJVTC0yMDE0MDMwNi4yOTc1NDI2MSZkYXRhYmFzZWlkPTEwMDEmc2VyaWFsPTE3MDIzNjY5JmVtYWlsaWQ9amVuQGNvZGVmb3JhbWVyaWNhLm9yZyZ1c2VyaWQ9amVuQGNvZGVmb3JhbWVyaWNhLm9yZyZmbD0mZXh0cmE9TXVsdGl2YXJpYXRlSWQ9JiYm&&&102&&&https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">issue a call to the innovation community</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to join the ranks of the Presidential Innovation Fellows and serve their country.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; margin-left: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Find: The list of </span><a href="http://links.whitehouse.gov/track?type=click&enid=ZWFzPTEmbWFpbGluZ2lkPTIwMTQwMzA2LjI5NzU0MjYxJm1lc3NhZ2VpZD1NREItUFJELUJVTC0yMDE0MDMwNi4yOTc1NDI2MSZkYXRhYmFzZWlkPTEwMDEmc2VyaWFsPTE3MDIzNjY5JmVtYWlsaWQ9amVuQGNvZGVmb3JhbWVyaWNhLm9yZyZ1c2VyaWQ9amVuQGNvZGVmb3JhbWVyaWNhLm9yZyZmbD0mZXh0cmE9TXVsdGl2YXJpYXRlSWQ9JiYm&&&103&&&http://www.whitehouse.gov/innovationfellows/projects#section-round-3" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Round 3 Presidential Innovation Fellows program projects here.</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></div>
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</ul>
<h2 dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 10pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">P.S. Consider saving the taxpayer money by contributing to our Open-Source projects…</span></h2>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Fellows’ projects are in the public domain by default and can be found at github under the team </span><a href="https://github.com/presidential-innovation-fellows" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Presidential Innovation Fellows</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span><a href="http://links.whitehouse.gov/track?type=click&enid=ZWFzPTEmbWFpbGluZ2lkPTIwMTQwMzA2LjI5NzU0MjYxJm1lc3NhZ2VpZD1NREItUFJELUJVTC0yMDE0MDMwNi4yOTc1NDI2MSZkYXRhYmFzZWlkPTEwMDEmc2VyaWFsPTE3MDIzNjY5JmVtYWlsaWQ9amVuQGNvZGVmb3JhbWVyaWNhLm9yZyZ1c2VyaWQ9amVuQGNvZGVmb3JhbWVyaWNhLm9yZyZmbD0mZXh0cmE9TXVsdGl2YXJpYXRlSWQ9JiYm&&&103&&&http://www.whitehouse.gov/innovationfellows/projects#section-round-3" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>Robert L. Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10587448646932762155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-772765396957667487.post-7606560319650896422014-03-02T13:57:00.001-08:002014-03-02T13:57:24.889-08:00Exploring Sewing: A different technology for me....<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I have always wanted to learn to sew---somewhat inexplicably. When I became a Presidential Innovation Fellow and started working 70 hours a week for the American people, I quite practicing viola, which has taught me something: I cannot live for long without doing something when my hands. I have to work with my hands. I argue (I'm not the first) that the brain should really be thought of as including the retina and the fingertips.</div>
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Four years ago, my daughter was interested in being a fashion designer. Being a supportive father, I bought her a sewing machine. However, after a while, it sat unused in the closet---until last month.</div>
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My first project was a skirt from a pattern. Skirts are the easiest garments to make. The project was partially successful---the skirt is wearable, but has not yet been worn.</div>
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My second project was to address a need we have had in our house for some time: privacy drapes in our hot-tub/laundry/bath room. These are barely needed because the geometry of our house doesn't let people see in---unless they are, for example, in a truck.</div>
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But nonetheless we wanted drapes, to cover the window shown in the first photo. Note that this window is unusually wide and short. Furthermore, I strongly wanted something translucent so as to not darken the room too much even when the drapes are drawn. Finally, I wanted something to match the red hot-tub cover and the cedar paneling.</div>
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You can't find drapes like that at Wal-mart. You can find drapes like that online---you can find anything online---but where is the fun in that?</div>
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I'm happy to say that Nancy Zieman's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sew-Confidence-Beginners-Guide-Sewing/dp/0873498119" style="text-decoration: underline;">Sew with Confidence</a> remained in the box with the Baby Loc Design Pro sewing machine, and that it includes an almost clear description of how to make tab drapes. Having scraps and muslin available, I made a test work without purchasing any new material, which is shown in the fourth photo. Hanging this on the curtain rod proved successful, and making it helped me understand how to make the drapes.</div>
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I purchased some burgundy poplin and yellow cotton gauze, and followed the same approach. The result was mostly successful. As The Dude would say, the drapes "really tie the room together."</div>
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I am much more confident in my use of my machine now.</div>
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Some things I learned:</div>
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1) Making the rough draft was a technique I will employ more often.</div>
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2) Gauze is so stretchy that it is almost impossible to measure and cut perfectly. You will note the hem is uneven. I worked a long time to get it that close! Perhaps someone with a large table and rotary cutter could have done better.</div>
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I personally am always interested in home economics. Here is the breakdown of this project:</div>
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Curtain Rod from Wal-mart: about $15</div>
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Gauze and poplin, (of which much remains): $45</div>
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Sewing notions and impulse buys : $10</div>
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Total input in terms of time: 12 hours</div>
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So in terms of cash, this project was slightly cheaper (arguably) than buying drapes, but it would have been hard to get the color and translucence and all-cotton construction that I valued.</div>
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At minimum wage, this would have been a financial loss over buying drapes. At what I make as an expert computer programmer, it is a financial disaster.</div>
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In terms of education, however, it more than made up for the loss. I value very highly leveling-up my sewing skill. I can now honestly claim to be a rank beginner.</div>
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On top of that, my wife seems happy with the results, always an added bonus.</div>
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Robert L. Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10587448646932762155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-772765396957667487.post-86408778265096965112014-01-01T09:43:00.000-08:002014-01-01T09:43:52.772-08:00Once Upon a Time Inside the Federal Government, You Created a Startup<div align="CENTER" style="margin-top: 0.17in; page-break-after: avoid;">
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Once upon a time, you had a great idea for how to make things
better for America. You thought it was something that people really
needed, but you knew it was very different than what was being done
right now. You were afraid that if you told your idea to the people
around you, they would start explaining why it wouldn't work---and
you were right.<br />
<br />
So you found one friend that you could count on. You told your
idea just to that friend and asked for their moral support, because
you knew startups are almost never founded by individuals, but by
great teams like Jobs and Wozniak, Hewlett and Packard, Orville and
Wilbur. Your friend agreed to be there for you when the going got
tough.<br />
<br />
Then you read <u>Lean Startup</u> by Eric Ries and <u>Extreme
Programming Explained</u> by Kent Beck. You printed out and hung on
your wall the <a href="http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Twelve
Principles of Agile Software
</b></span></span></span></a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">(</span></span></span></span><a href="http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html">http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">)
because you believed those principles applied to any change, not just
software, within government.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">n</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
you started, and that was the most important thing you ever did.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The
first week, you wrote down, on a real sheet of paper in your own
hand, what you wanted to learn in order to make your improvement a
reality.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Then
you figured out a way you could talk to real people, which you
thought of as customers even though they wouldn't actually be paying
you in money, but in something more valuable---their time and
support. You went to them and tested your idea. You wrote down the
result, and decided how you would respond next week to what you had
learned.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">You
did that every week, without fail. Sometimes your </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">weekly
evolution</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
was clearly rejected by your customers, and you viewed this as a
success, because you had learned something valuable. </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">You
listened really, really deeply to everyone who seriously thought
about your idea </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">and
ignored the people who didn't.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">As
your idea turned into pictures and then prototypes, you became more
confident, but as you reached out to more people you encountered more
resistance and more naysayers. People started to be threatened by
your idea.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Eventually,
someone powerful confronted you and told you to </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">stick</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
to your “real work”. You didn't argue with them. Instead, you
let the evidence you had gather</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">ed</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">for</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
weeks speak for itself. Your customers, or the people who would one
day be your customers, were far more convincing </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">than
you could be.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">A
few times you made a “transformational pivot”. Something you
learned was so significant that you had to give up your original
idea---because the new idea was even better. Agile methods disallow
slavishly sticking to the original vision when your process shows
that there is a better one.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">You
reached out early and periodically to security officers and legal
counsel because you were set on breaking habits, not rules. You
worked creatively with them to get feedback without violating the
Paperwork Reduction Act. Remember that week you lugged your laptop
and a story board all over DC to show people things you couldn't put
on the internet? You invited people to your office where you were on
a local network. Working with security and legal, you got creative
in building very realistic fake data sets that could let your
customers give you good feedback without risking any sensitive data
being revealed. How surprised they were to learn that health care
data was really about the animals in the Smithsonian's National Zoo!</span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">At
every turn, you looked for opportunities to share credit with the
people who helped you, but most especially with the people who
opposed you. You had a bank account, but it had no money. </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Praise
and opinion are the coin that moves the government. </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
Your bank account was an emotional one, and you went </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">deeply
</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">into
debt in order to fill up other people's emotional bank accounts. If
you spun the truth a little to </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">over</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">emphasize
the accomplishment</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">s</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
of your colleagues and to point out that </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">that
</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">idea
that you </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">two
</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">had
together was mostly </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">his
or her</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
idea, well, it was all for the good of the American people, wasn't
it? </span></span></span></span>
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">You
knew that a picture is worth a thousand words and a prototype is
worth a million. So every week your idea become more and more real,
more polished, more supported by evidence. </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Rather
than re-inventing the wheel, you stood on the shoulders of giants.
The technical part of your product leaned on open-source tools that
were easy to use </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">and
leveraged</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
decades, and sometimes centuries, of person-labor </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">brainpower.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Your
hard work was paying off as people began to understand your vision,
which, admittedly, had gotten a lot better than when you first
started---how could you have been so </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">naïve
</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">back
then? In your mind, it was no longer “your idea” but “our
idea”.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">You
were now used to working and improving every single week. Some weeks
the improvement was small, sometimes it was great. But you spoke to
your customers every single week without fail. You had learned to
resist the institutional perfectionism that is typical of government.
You had shown by experience that a small improvement this week was
worth any number of promises for next month.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Eventually
it was time to reach a broader audience and gain more support, so you
planned and executed a big event around your idea. You called it a
Hackathon or a Conference or something else that fit your idea. You
invited a group of people who weren't in your circle to help you.
You were well organized, and had a list of what you wanted out of the
Hackathon, and that helped, but you were flabbergasted but how much
help you actually got. Your event not only directly improved your
product, it also gained you valuable allies.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Every
good Hollywood mov</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">i</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">e
has a false victory, and here is how yours played out. You
eventually presented you</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">r</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
idea to a Very Important Person. Of course, the Very Important
Person said </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">you
were very smart and t</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">hey
liked it, and, in fact, they thought it would be a success if </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">would
</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">you
only do </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">one
little thing</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,
which, for security reasons, we'll call the </span></span></span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin">McGuffin</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin)</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">You
were thrilled! All you had to do was the McGuffin, so you started
right away on it. Of course, as you thought about it, you realized
the McGuffin was maybe a little bigger than a one-week project. In
fact you realized that you had just spent three weeks working on the
McGuffin, and you had not gone back to your customers. You had
stopped delivering continuous improvement! The McGuffin was, in
fact, a trap. It wasn't set by the V.I.P. or by malice, it was set
by something far more insidious: the Force of Habit. Your greatest
enemy! The entire organization, </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">and
everyone in it </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">was,
in fact, ruled </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">and
controlled </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">by
the Force of Habit. </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Even
you.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">But
</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">you
had good habits and </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">good
</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">friends,</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
because you had worked for months to develop </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">both</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
around your product. It was true, of course, that the McGuffin would
have to be accomplished, because after all, rules are rules, and in
the government the rules are sometimes laws. Y</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">ou
were out to break habits, not rules,</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
so you went back to the </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Principles
of Agile Development</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">You
asked the </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">thinkers,
testers, programmers, security experts and lawyers with whom </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">you
had </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">built
personal relationships: “H</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">ow
can we </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">divide</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
the McGuffin up into smaller problems </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">toward
which</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
we can make gradual, measurable progress toward every week?” </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Going
back to basics turned the tide in your favor, </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">because
an active, satisfied, growing user base asserts its own value and
sweeps away all other hurdles eventually. It took longer than you
expected, but now it is clear your startup has taken on a life of its
own and will survive whether you continue driving it or not.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">So
now, </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">a
year later,</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
here you are. </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Y</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">ou
have created a successful </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">startup</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
within government, despite all the people who said it couldn't be
done. The American people are better off in some small way, which of
course is why you are in government </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">service
</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">in
the first place. You're taking a week off, and then next week you
are going to go back to basics and review the Agile methods you have
sharpened </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">through
practice and taught to others by example</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
Then you are going to start the next project, because you </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">know
that nothing is ever really done, and everything can be improved.
Even Agile </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">S</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">oftware
</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">D</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">evelopment
</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">M</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">ethodologies.</span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /><br />
Robert L. Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10587448646932762155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-772765396957667487.post-4206748554619118792013-11-17T10:01:00.000-08:002013-11-17T10:01:12.264-08:00Tips for Software Innovators Inside the Federal GovernmentThis essay was first published at the <a href="http://www.codeforamerica.org/2013/10/29/innovators_federal/">Code for America Blog</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="ttl">
<h2>
Tips for Software Innovators Inside the Federal Government</h2>
</div>
<ol>
<li>Change the game through prototypes,</li>
<li>Be a samurai: a loyal hacker,</li>
<li>Be fast rather than good,</li>
<li>Stand on the shoulders of giants,</li>
<li>Scrape, don’t bow, and</li>
<li>Be prepared to work outside the system.</li>
</ol>
<b>1: Change the game through prototypes</b><br />
A picture is worth a thousand words and a working prototype is worth a
million. The federal government is used to suits coming in and talking
about how great a system they are proposing to build will be two years
from now if they are given millions of dollars to build it.<br />
<br />
Shatter that paradigm by showing up with a working prototype, and
talk about how great it will be if you get their cooperation in
polishing it.<br />
<br />
<b>2: Be a samurai: a loyal hacker</b><br />
The federal government has outsourced its technical brain and
understaffed its technical know-how. It is not uncommon for one
technically savvy person to be in charge of overseeing millions of
dollars of labor without a staff. In short, the contractors have the
administrators outnumbered about 30 to one. This is a recipe for chaos
and confusion, and the result is terrible performance of contracts in
many cases.<br />
<br />
Say to the administrators: “I am a hacker, and I have no outside
interests or loyalties. I am an expert who can’t be bluffed or
intimidated or deceived. I will be your bodyguard, your gallowglass,
your samurai. You can rely on me for brutally honest technical advice.
With me at your side you will be able to negotiate a better contract and
stay more in control.”<br />
<br />
<b>3: Be fast rather than good</b><br />
Scientists need to study what happens inside government buildings,
because I’m quite sure all processes are five times slower inside the
federal government. Paper falls to the ground more slowly. When you
switch on a light, it takes a while for it to reach the corners of the
room. Getting a computer takes six weeks. Getting an Authority to
Operate takes three months.<br />
<br />
The government needs people with superpowers who are not affected by
this timespace anomaly. Things that normally take a year need to be well
underway within a week and ready for evaluation within a month.<br />
<br />
Why? Because this is the best way to reduce risk. To make sure a
two-year-long project matches the needs for which it was intended one
must strive utterly to get as far as possible in the first month. In
order to do that, programmers must be prepared to be sloppy and lock
their inner perfectionists in the bathroom for a while.<br />
<br />
An engineer who can build a prototype in a month can change the
consciousness of an entire organization faster than the government can
get a contract written to do the work. The methodologies that have been
developed in the last 20 years to develop software quickly really work,
and they work even better within government where speed is desperately
needed. These are named Agile Methodologies, Extreme Programming, Lean
Startup, and so on ad nauseum. Every few years the basic concepts are
tuned a little and renamed, but the principle remains the same: learning
something real right now is more important than fantasizing about
something big a year from now. As Kent Beck has taught us, “You go fast
by taking babysteps as rapidly as you possibly can.”<br />
Demand the same speed and transparency from contractors that you demand from yourself.<br />
<br />
<b>4: Stand on the shoulders of giants</b><br />
America invented the “Free as in Freedom” software movement. There is
a silent army of intellectuals constantly adding to freely available
software. Historians a century from now will look upon it as a great
gift that the USA gave to the whole world.<br />
<br />
The continuing explosion of off-the-shelf software capabilities is so
tremendous that a software engineer now must think not so much about
writing programs but about joining programs together. No one person can
keep up with all of these capabilities. I love programming, but it is my
duty not to program but rather to spend most of my time investigating
what others have programmed in order to not reinvent the wheel.<br />
<br />
<b>5: Scrape, don’t bow</b><br />
The biosphere of government software systems is a coral reef, each
system built on the grotesquely shaped skeleton of its ancestors. These
systems have inertia: users, rules, regulations, entry points, touch
points, system interactions. Rather than try to change them, accept that
whatever you build will have to be bolted on to the existing reef with
as little disturbance as possible. By scraping existing websites, or by
using extract-transfer-load tools, you can make something wonderful and
beautiful even if what lies beneath it is ugly.<br />
<br />
<b>6: Be prepared to work outside the system</b><br />
The government is risk-averse and highly responsive to outside pressure. It fears embarrassment. It loves praise.<br />
<br />
If you can find one example of an agency doing something, it is much
easier to convince other agencies to follow that example. Just as
entrepreneurs must be prepared to go hat-in-hand to many different
potential investors, be prepared to look for champions of change outside
your own circle.<br />
<br />
Finally, when you encounter resistance, ask yourself, “If I were not a
government employee, what could I do to solve this problem?” Citizens
want to help. Find them and utilize them to expand the bounds of
possibility.<br />
<br />
--Robert L. Read Robert L. Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10587448646932762155noreply@blogger.com0