Front-wheel drive and hydroplaning safety

With so much water everywhere, it is a good time to warn people about the physics and dangers involved in front-wheel drive vehicles when they run into water puddles.

The drive shaft for the powered wheels (i.e., the ones providing the push) must have a differential that allows the wheels to spin at different rates. For example, when turning, the outside wheel must roll faster than the inside wheel.

The front wheels are the ones in front! Obvious, but that means they are the ones which hit the water puddles first. When wheels hit water, they have a tendency to hydroplane, i.e., float on the surface of the water, rather than clinging to the road's surface. Most roads are built up in the center, so water runs off to the edges. This means that water puddles are likely to be on the right hand side of the road as you drive forwards.

If the right wheel hits the water and begins to hydroplane while the left wheel is still on the pavement, the differential allows (actually causes) the right wheel to start spinning rapidly, because there is no friction on that wheel while it is floating. It only takes a second for the wheel to start spinning extremely fast, especially if the accelerator pedal is being pressed.

Now, consider what happens when you have landed on the other side of the puddle and your right front wheel is spinning at high speed. It will force the vehicle to veer to the left, directly into the on-coming traffic lane. If someone is there, a head-on collision would be unavoidable. Otherwise, it is likely you could spin out of control, especially if you overcompensated and turned the wheel to the right to avoid the collision. If you turn too far to the right too fast, you will skid, and the car will keep going in the direction you were trying to avoid.

Safe driving tips: When your car hydroplanes, remove your foot from the accelerator, and let the vehicle get on the other side of the water before you try to get back up to speed. If you find yourself hydroplaning, in addition to removing your foot from the accelerator, grasp your steering wheel tightly and keep it pointed in your original direction. If you are prepared for the lunge to the left, a steady grip can keep your car under control.

General rule: slow down when there is water standing on the roadway. It is when you are trying to accelerate that the danger is worst.

Racial Matters: Black and White

Racial Matters: Black and White

Although Mississippi began with a White majority (English and
French settlers) and a Black minority (slaves from Africa),
today, many areas of the state are predominately Black. Some
sections of the state have large concentrations of Native
Americans (Choctaw Indians).
Historically, Whites in Mississippi were farmers and Blacks
were slaves imported from Africa to work in the cotton
fields. Whites were free and Blacks were treated as property
with no rights or freedoms under the law.
During the first 100 years of the American experiment in
democracy, "government of the people, by the people, and for
the people," some states (the South) depended on slavery for
their agricultural economy, and slavery was legal. Other states,
(the North) opposed slavery.

Civil War

Less than 100 years after the Declaration of Independence (from
England), the various states were divided over many issues,
notably, the right of states to make their own laws (on issues like
slavery) vs. states following the laws of the Federated Union of
States, i.e., the United States.
Thirteen states (the South) voted to secede from the Union and
joined together to form the Confederate States of America. The
northern states opposed this division of the United States, and
war was declared, the North vs. the South.
It was a bitter war, often dividing familes who fought against each
other, and it involved many casualties. The North won, and
forced the southern states to rejoin the union.
To this day, there are influences of this division between
Yankees (North) and Rebels (South).

Remnants of the War

After the Civil War, all slaves were given their
freedom. Unfortunately, most of them were ill-prepared for the
responsibilities of freedom, and their former masters, struggling to
regain their own economic strength without the workers who were
taken from them by force, were not able to assist the former slaves
in their quest for freedom and the American dream.
As a result, White and Black Southerners have separate identities
and allegiances, even though they have shared the same region
for two hundred years. The South developed into a divided culture
focused on resentment.
The Whites resented the North for forcing them to accept a federal
government, and for taking their livelihood from them. They
resented their former slaves for lack of loyalty to them. The Blacks
resented their former Masters for their years of Slavery.
The result was a segregated society.

The Civil Rights Act

Almost 100 years after the Civil War began, Blacks in the United
States began to make public protests over the inequalities that a
segregated South perpetuated.
Under the "Separate but Equal" moniker, the South had
developed a culture of duplication (and duplicity). There were
separate entrances to public places for Blacks and Whites,
separate sections of public transportation, and separate school
systems for Blacks and Whites. The Black schools and facilities
were notably worse than their White counterparts.
In the early 1960's, the US Government responded to the
situation with new laws giving Blacks real equality with Whites.
Naturally, Whites in the South resented more Federal
intervention into their way of life, but the Civil Rights Act has
been enforced and the South now embraces Integration and
Diversity, for the most part.

Public vs. Private

The public life in the South is one of diversity, but, in their private
lives, both Blacks and Whites voluntarily practice segregation, as
most people do. People tend to group themselves with others
who are similar to them.
Most of you, as Chinese students, do not look like most of us
(Southerners). You will find there is no discrimination against you
because of your skin color or national origin. Americans will be
friendly and accepting of you in all public arenas.
But you must take the initiative to desegregate yourselves. I.e.,
you must intentionally get out of your "comfort zone." You must
make concerted efforts to speak English and to spend time with
Americans. You must avoid spending large amounts of time with
others of your same nationality and language.

Ten years since my prostate cancer diagnosis

It has been ten years since my prostate cancer diagnosis. At that time, I was given the following options: surgical removal, radiological burning by beams or by radioactive pellets, castration (physical or chemical), or "watchful waiting."

One urologist indicated I wouldn't make it six years if I didn't follow his recommendations.

But I read my Bible and came to the conclusion that I would rather be in the hand of God than of men, and determined to trust God and learn all I could do to be consistent with trusting Him.

That meant that prayer, mine and everybody I could get to pray with me, was the first line of treatment.

After several months of research and being on Internet groups, I found the following fact: No matter what treatment plan people take, the average survival time is ten years. The major difference in treatment modalities was not the treatment, per se, but the side effects of the treatment.

The treatment with the best side effect profile was doing nothing.

I thank God for my ten years!

What I Learned from a GPS

We just returned from a 3000 mile driving vacation where we relied on a GPS to get us to our various stopping points along the way.

The Magellan we used only contained maps of the United States and part of our trip was in Canada, so we learned our first lesson when we crossed the border in Detroit: Make sure your GPS actually contains maps to your destination! :)

In real life, we sometimes change directions. Sometimes, we intentionally veer from the course we know is right, and sometimes, we just make mistakes.

The GPS' second lesson comes from taking a wrong turn: "Recalculating route!" That is all there is to it. Not, "Hey, you screwed up; you went the wrong way; you failed!" None of that. Just, "Recalculating route," i.e., how do we get to our destination from where we are now?

I love my GPS. She never shouts at me and never tells me I messed up. She just lets me know she will help me recover my direction. "Recalculating route!"

What else can you do, anyway, when something tragic happens in your life, or you make poor choices that mess up your life and the lives of those around you? I have tried the guilt trip. It doesn't work. My GPS tells me, "Recalculating route," i.e., remember your destination, remember your goal, and figure out how to get there from where you are, now. Nothing else will propel you to where you should be.

Recalculate your route, and get on with the trip.

Google Voice Transcription

Here is one of my first Google Voice transcriptions.

i'm using the local voice compose this blog to describe my first experience was using google voice as the transcription machine so far it seems wonderful i have my office phone forwarded to my cellphone and then i have my crew over the phone number forwarded to my office phone that way i can both yet and have tran scott message is for various reasons the transcription it's very very fast i've been involved with speech processing at the end of this is 50 state university institute for signal and information processing for several years and seeing how complicated and complex the test of speech recognition is the groom translation pants your chin does not do 100% but they promised that it's going to get better actually belch and like everything else moving i suspect that would be true the transcription so for the same to post no limits the battery on your cellphone may go up before you were possibility since have a message automatically terminated calling well that's the first try let's see what happens

It appears like gobbledegook because there is no punctuation or sentence structure. That is OK for my purposes, since I only wanted a raw transcription that I will edit into a blog post. If I were listening to the recording instead of reading the transcription, there would be non-vocalized cues, such as durations of silence, to tell my listening processor the sentence structure. But after a couple of re-readings, I can glean the same information from the text.

My transcription of the same message is at the end of the article.

The first glaring omission is that the Google transcriber does not recognize my pronunciation of "Google" in three out of four instances. :) Someone who can put these two paragraphs into an automated comparison script will find a word error rate hovering around 40%.

I have suggested to the Google Voice Help system that they allow the user to edit the transcription, and then use the edited version and the recording as training input for future transcriptions. It could be tailored to the user, or added to the common speech vocabulary (especially, when the user uses a word not yet in the standard vocabulary).

My first take is that Google has another potential winner on their hands. Remember, this is a pre-release version. It will get better.

The human-transcribed message:

I'm using Google Voice to compose this blog to describe my first experience with using Google Voice as a transcription machine. So far, it seems wonderful! I have my office phone forwarded to my cellphone and then I have my Google phone number forwarded to my office phone. That way, I can both get and have transcribed messages from various people. The transcription is very, very fast. I've been involved with speech processing at the Mississippi State University Institute for Signal and Information Processing for several years and seen how complicated and complex the task of speech recognition is. The Google translation-transcription does not do 100%, but they promosed that it's going to get better as it goes, and, like everything else in Google, I expect that would be true. The transcription, so far, has seemed to pose no limits. The battery on your cellphone may go out before your ability to have a message automatically terminated. Well, that's the first try. Let's see what happens.

the Church: sinners, holiness, discipline

End of Life Decisions

He was only a dog, but Fraggles taught us some important lessons that can also be applied to humans. Face it. Sometimes, unexpected things happen. Perhaps you will be a patient in the hospital leaving your loved ones to face the difficult decisions on your behalf, because you are unable to make them for yourself.
It may be difficult to talk about these things, because you don't want to think something tragic can happen to you. The obvious question is, "Why not you?"
Maybe you will not be able to talk about it to another person. Maybe you will have to just write your thoughts down, all by yourself. These instructions are termed a "living will" or "advanced directive," or something similar.
Based on our experience with our pet, I have some ideas. The first is, Don't go to a research or university hospital, if you have the choice. There are many reasons for this, but the basic one is that they exist partly to help and partly to learn, i.e., the patient is partly an experiment to help them gain knowledge about what treatments may work. Another reason to avoid the researchers is that many of the physicians are students or interns, still in their learning phase. Let them learn stuff on other people!
Another major decision we had to make with the dog was whether or not to have them resuscitate the patient if his heart stopped. With an animal, the decision-makers can not know what choice the patient would make for himself, and that puts a lot of emotional stress on the loved ones.
One woman in my Bible study group commented that her mother had told the family, "Don't let them put that tube down my throat. That thing hurt me so much when they did it, before." The family knew the mother's choice when the need arose the next time, and chose to honor her wishes.
The third major decision that needs to be made is financial. Dogs don't have Medicare or Medicaid, and most owners don't think about health/accident insurance for their pets (but it is available). Before every procedure, the Veterinarian would let my wife and me know the charge that would be involved. Three hundred dollars for a blood transfusion didn't appear too unreasonable, if it would give Fraggles a fighting chance. Resuscitation would be more than one thousand dollars. Beyond it all was the surgeries that would be needed to repair the broken bones, if he survived to that point, and those would also be in the thousands.
When one applies this logic to a human patient, the costs can erase all the family assets and leave the family penniless.
The other important issue for the family is the pain question. Is he in pain? For dogs, you just trust the Vet and hope. For humans, there is a tradeoff between being sedated and being cognitive. Is there something you would want to communicate to your loved ones? If he is overly sedated, the patient may not be able to tell you something important, but if he is under sedated, he may experience pain.
There you have some important lessons the death of our beloved Fraggles taught us about hospitalization.
For me, I know where I am going, next, so I don't want you to do something that will unnecessarily keep me here. For me, I don't want to have any experimental treatment, especially any treatments not covered by insurance. For me, experiencing quality time with family members is more important than minimizing pain.
What about you? Tell your loved ones.