Poetry Break: Roosters in the Dark

I was thinking about the upcoming healthcare vote and an image of a cockfight popped into my head ... weird ...

Who rules the roost, when the roosters fight?

Who sees the light, on a moonless night?

Who finds their place, when none know the way?

Who lives to fight, another day?

Craven courage

Witless wisdom

In surplus we find these gifts

Especially in Washington

Where partisan rift

Sees lost roosters scrabbling in the dark

Unable to strike

Kill The Messenger

I am willing to bet Mr. James Sikes wishes he'd driven his blue Prius off a cliff, instead of panic-braking his way into the crosshairs of Toyota's lawyers and attack-dog government supporters.

My family owns a slightly older blue Prius and I've given strict instructions to the troops: If that car accelerates unintentionally, don't call 911. Whatever calamity results from the runaway might be less painful than the public flaying Toyota and it's minions will put you through.

The story the company presents is this: Mr. Sikes, in an apparent pique of disappointment with the customer service he was receiving, decided to fake the incident by applying his brakes and accelerator off and on 250 times during that last drive. It had to be a fraud, they say, because in the Prius if you fully depress the accelerator and also press the brakes more than half way to the floor, the engine overrides and the car slows.

That's how the company explains what their investigators and the NHTSA discovered: the front brakes were completely spent, with no pad material remaining, and the caliper seals so overheated they were melted. The rear brakes were in normal shape.

If Toyota's charges (and that's really what they are) against Mr. Sikes were presented in court, and if I were a juror, I'd be skeptical that Mr. Sikes was skillful enough to fake a runaway while convincingly melting his front brakes (but not ruining the rear brakes).

I would also wonder if the override system in the Prius worked if the accelerator was pressed only 3/4 of the way and not absolutely floored. An electronic malfunction resulting in unintended acceleration might not actually move the physical pedal that much. In such case would the override work?

I'd also have to ask myself, what would be the motive for faking this? Mr. Sikes wasn't suing Toyota. He doesn't seem to be a publicity seeker. And, sure, customer relations with dealerships can be rocky, but what would be gained by potentially trashing your car - or losing your life, in the attempt to convincingly stage a runaway?

Finally, on the claim that investigators were unable to reproduce unintended acceleration in Mr. Sikes car, I'd say 'so what?' Millions of motorists at some time in their ownership lives have run across an intermittent glitch that magically goes away at the dealer, but reappears, sometimes within minutes of driving away with the problem undiagnosed. Once, all the analog (but computer controlled) gauges in my 1999 Volkswagen TDI suddenly displayed abnormally high readings - noticed when I was reported as going 20 mph while motionless at a stoplight. I turned off the engine and restarted and all was normal and the incident never repeated. Good luck finding that problem.

Now it may be Toyota is correct and that Mr. Sikes was a disgruntled customer with an axe to grind, but if the company's claim and evidence were introduced in a criminal court today, the case would not pass the test of reasonable doubt. Yet Toyota, it's Congressional friend Senator Darrell Issa (R-California), and much of the media have already tried and convicted James Sikes.

Apologies over. Kill The Messenger seems the new strategy.

Toyota: Cruising Out of Control?

Toyota is drowning in bad publicity. And it results not just from reports of 'unintended acceleration', another of which splashed across the headlines this week, it's Toyota's inability to recognize and fix the problem that is causing greatest harm to the company's reputation.

Reports of runaway Toyotas - going both forward and in reverse, have been flooding in - and not just from recent models. A constant claim in these reports has been the cars were checked by local Toyota specialists and no defects were found. They couldn't even recreate the problem, leaving the owners frustrated and fearful.

Toyota can't afford for this situation to continue much longer. If nothing is done, and more lives are lost, people will stop driving their cars and demand compensation en masse.

My wife drives a 2006 Prius, which is not on any recall (I've removed the floor mats as a precaution), so I am definitely interested in the problem. And I think I know where Toyota should look to find a resolution, and it's not installing a kill switch (although I recommend it).

I will preface my next statement, as I usually do when I am about to say something on which I have no technical knowledge, by admitting 'I am not a mechanic and have no technical understanding of Toyota's cars'.

That said, I have a suggestion: Toyota - look at your cruise control system, both hardware and software. And look at the cruise control usage of the drivers who have reported unwanted acceleration. There have been reports of issues with Toyota cruise control systems, most notedly by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, but cruise control has not been noted as an issue in the unintended acceleration incidents featured in the headline news.

We almost never use the cruise control on our Prius, which has over 60,000 miles on it with no drivability problems. But what about the drivers of the cars involved in the incidents? Did they use it frequently? And if so, did they just leave it on all the time, relying on the auto-disconnect to return them to full control until they press 'resume'?

Perhaps the problems we are seeing are due, at least in part, to the cruise control system 'resuming' or 'accelerating' unexpectedly and incorrectly. In the latest reported incident, the 2008 Prius driver stated that while accelerating to pass his gas pedal did 'something funny' and moved without his intention. Sounds like cruise control to me.

At least, when a car accelerates on its own, cruise control should be suspected, since that's what cruise control does - allows the car to adjust speed without driver input.

But then again, I'm not an engineer. Toyota has lots of them. Let's hope at least a few are looking at cruise control for the source of this problem. Perhaps they should hire a consultant to help. I don't think Wozniak is busy ...

Healthy Reform

Right now, somewhere in the power centers of our government, a last-ditch effort is being planned and executed to bring some relief to the millions of Americans who are uninsured or underinsured for heath care. This push will be as partisan as it gets, with the Democrats pushing for passage and the Republicans blocking.

Of course, the President is making an effort at inclusion: in the absence of bipartisan cooperation, he has attempted to add a few things to the reform package that Republicans have stated they want, things like controls on inefficiencies and waste. But of course those things will not have been worked out in conjunction with the GOP members who wanted them, so they will not satisfy.

During the health reform 'summit' held a few weeks ago, the Republicans said they wanted the current bill thrown out, and a fresh start made. An unrealistic request at this stage. A restart might have flown if requested in, say, June 2009, but not now. Another conservative wished the bill was trying for a 'field goal', rather than a 'touchdown' rammed down America's reluctant, collective throats. Now there's another concept that might have interested moderate Democrats at the start, but wouldn't now.

Looking with hindsight, it might have been best for Mr. Obama to have tried for just 3 points. After all, adjusting a few things here and there to make small improvements is what 'reform' is all about. Changing the game to include a 'public option' could be seen instead as 'revolution'.

Indeed, some people believed the health care status quo was so broken and so unjust that the game could only be won by a revolutionary change - a touchdown. For others, that's too much change, too quickly. If you are content with where you are, major change is not wanted, at least not quickly and all at once, even if you believe some change needs to be made.

The President and democratic leaders have backed off the public option - but it's too late to win over moderate Republicans, if any still exist on this issue. What's left is a power play to get whatever they can into law before midterm elections.

This isn't 'healthy reform', but it's all we have.

Hollywood's Big Night

Hollywood's annual self-congratulatory evening of haute couture and haughty egos came and went without a hitch.

At least, no purely technical ones.

The Oscar presentations started on time and seemed to end on time. But I could only tell by checking the clock during commercial breaks - my own inner timepiece felt it was taking forever. That's not to say the show was slow-paced, just that some of the material made me feel trapped in temporal quicksand; the more I wanted to move out and onward the deeper I was sucked down into the moment.

The feeling wasn't helped by the host-less-ness of the show. I'm not sure why the program's producers hired Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin: after an auspicious start we didn't see much of either of them. That's a fair degree of talent unused, and possibly money wasted.

But then again, perhaps the suits didn't want the evening's thickly dramatic and poignant moments to be interrupted by comedy. Steve and Alec were funny, and their comic interplay might have stolen the show if not vigorously reigned in.

However, despite the occasional treacly passage and the Steve-Alec insufficiency, there wasn't too much to complain about. It was good to see the big box office movie get somewhat short shrift - Avatar was in this respect no blue-toned 'Titanic' for Mr. Cameron. And it was pleasant to see the first woman win an oscar for best director. It didn't hurt the mood that she was once James Cameron's wife. Her little film even won Best Picture. Gotta love it.

I was also happy to see Jeff Bridges get his for best actor. The Dude Abides. Heck, he even mentioned 'Sea Hunt' on the stage, which I loved to hear, though probably only Boomers, the odd SCUBA diver, and Hulu-addicts knew what he was talking about.

On a sad note, the short film that brought me my 15 seconds on screen didn't get a mention (hope it wasn't me). That omission was almost as painful as sitting through Ben Stiller's bit done in Navi makeup.

There's balance to the Universe, though, and Barbara Walters announcing this year's post-Oscar interview show would be her last brought my evening into harmony. Nothing against Ms. Walters - I can only take so much Schmalz in one single evening.

Oh, wait - there's one last 'Up' I almost forgot to mention: Lauren Bacall. Still with us, and still beautiful. Ms. Bacall, I know how to whistle ...

The Ruling Class

You know the old saying, "Power corrupts, Absolute power corrupts absolutely"? When I think of this I tend to visualize Adolf Hitler, Napoleon, or Stalin. I suppose you could add Richard Nixon's somewhat milder corruption to that list, along with the abuses of power enjoyed by Bush the Lesser. Even Clinton's sexual shenanigans represent a variation of that reprehensible theme.

But would you think of Senator Jim Bunning?

Under normal circumstances, the vast majority of Americans would never hear about Senator Bunning until they read his obituary. And his death would only make headlines because in his earlier life he was a star baseball player in the major leagues. However, the Senator deserves, along with too many of his fellow legislators, our closer scrutiny.

As it is, we tend to elect and then trust our representatives to do right by us. We do our duty by voting, and then tune out and let them get on with it. We register what we hear or read in the news about them, but largely we don't know or really care until it's time to vote again.

And that is a dangerous pattern. Because while we aren't looking, our representatives are conscripting the ship of state as their own luxury yacht. Our ostensible 'public servants' become the Captain and Crew, and we 'ordinary citizens' are stuck in windowless steerage, fed in the dark with the dregs of the privileged, while they dine in light and luxury.

Okay. Perhaps I am overstating this - a bit. Congress isn't all corrupt. And the corruption isn't usually the vivid kind seen in television and movie plots, with kickbacks, bribes, and off-shore accounts. And no one has presented evidence that Senator Bunning has done anything more than use his power in the senate to hold up legislation.

But that is precisely the problem: the abuse of power isn't always obvious. Bunning's misuse only came to our attention because it was holding up a bill to extend unemployment benefits - an irresponsible action even the most rabid conservative news outlets couldn't excuse. Everyday, under the radar, similar actions with less obvious consequences are undertaken, and no reporter reports them, no cable news broadcasts them.

Anyone who witnessed Jim Bunning's imperious behavior on the news, however, got a glimpse of an attitude held by himself and too many of his colleagues: the attitude that they are the rulers, not the servants. It's the same attitude that makes CEOs of corporations believe they and their senior management are the corporation, and the thousands of people under them that run the company are merely 'resources', to be used and discarded as necessary.

In Congress, this belief works to remove the governors from the opinions and needs of the governed. It lets them live in an alternate world where personal power and party influence are the preeminent concerns, and the requirements of the people an afterthought.

Let's allow this brief glimpse into abuse of congressional power, given us courtesy of Senator Jim Bunning, to serve as a warning and a wake-up call. Let it serve as a reminder to keep watching after we vote.

Terrors of Complexity

It's sometime in the 70's and I am driving down out of the Santa Cruz mountains with my '67 Ford Galaxy filled to capacity with friends. As we run the switchbacks towards Los Gatos, I notice my brakes getting weaker, and I can smell the acrid odor of imminent disaster in the form of toasted brake linings.

When the city streets come into view I am standing on the brakes with both feet, praying I will stop the car before we ram through the barriers and into the crowded art festival filling the streets. Stunned passengers are eerily silent. I am the only one screaming. I press with all my strength (questionable) and weight (considerable), my head screwed into the lining of the car top for maximum leverage, and we slowly come to a stop just inches from the barrier. No immediate harm done, but if I only live to 80 instead of 90, this was why.

A near disaster - now almost totally removed from possibility by technology. In the same situation, modern braking systems would never fade, never falter, and allow me to stop without any drama or risk to innocent art geeks.

But can technology impose risks as well as solve them?

Let's imagine I am tooling along Sunset Boulevard in a 2010 Prius. A woman runs across the road towards a bus she doesn't want to miss, not aware of my semi-electric approach. My eagle eyes spot her, though, and my panther-like reflexes stomp the brake pedal in plenty of time. But just then I hit a bumpy section of tarmac and something goes ga-ga in the electronic brain and the car's brakes stop braking. Just for a moment before stoppage resumes, but long enough to seriously flood both me and the unscathed but now wide-eyed pedestrian with unwanted amounts of adrenaline.

Now I don't own a 2010 Prius, just a less-trick but apparently safer 2006 model, but the scenario described can happen, according to the latest recall news. And this woe is in addition to the unintended acceleration issues that some believe are also due to software glitches and not just floor mats or poorly-shaped gas pedals.

I suppose these problems are inevitable results of progress. After all, it's hard to remove all the bugs from complex software, and it's equally hard to test all possible scenarios in which that software will be used, in order to find bugs. Computer systems experts have been working for decades on this and have yet to reach perfection - if perfection can indeed be reached. The best we have is a set of quality standards that help reduce likely problems, but won't eliminate them completely.

Which is a real drag, since computers can make using ever more capable vehicles safer and easier. Just look at modern racing motorcycles, which, through sensors and software controls, allow their riders to go beyond previous limits of traction at full lean, with reduced risk of 'high-siding' themselves into low-earth orbit (although it can still happen). And consider military jets, which have such complex control surfaces and unstable dynamics, they couldn't even be flown without computer aids.

By turning ultimate control of our vehicles over to computers, we become safer by giving away our ability to do something stupid. We can't command planes, cars, or motorcycles to exceed safe limits, because sensors and software will detect and identify our dangerously excessive inputs, and limit or block them. But at the same time we may limit our ability to control our own destiny. And we put our lives in the hands of computers and software made by our fellow, fallible humans.

Complex technology can reduce fearful incidents like my brakeless ride downhill towards that 1970s art festival, but can be terrible itself, when things go wrong.