Is a Second Curve Emerging?

I write a monthly column for a Texas HVAC trade paper called AC Today. Here is the column I wrote in December for this January’s issue:

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In 1996, futurist Ian Morrison published a ground-breaking (albeit difficult to read) book titled The Second Curve: Managing the Velocity of Change. I read the book the year it came out and was spellbound by it.

A review on Amazon states it well:  “This thoughtful work advances one simple yet striking concept: business leaders must stop focusing on the short-term and start planning for the long run. Making the most of current profits is the first curve in business, Morrison writes; shifts in technology and the marketplace signify the second. Understanding how these critical changes develop and knowing what they mean, he contends, will help business leaders make the necessary leap from one to the other.” Another reviewer adds, “It is based on an organization’s ability to change, particularly as related to technology, consumer behavior, and geography. Traditional methods of change (i.e., the first curve) are no longer sufficient to succeed in the ever-fluctuating and highly demanding markets of today and tomorrow.” Read more…

I am a Rock Star!

As I sit here on New Year’s Eve and think back over a very busy and productive 2010 (for me, at least), it dawned on me—I have not informed you yet that this year I had an asteroid named for me!

The asteroid is known by its technical name of 2000 EF116, but also now known as 26586 Harshaw. (See here or here for a listing of all named asteroids; you can search for my name or any other person you know who might have an asteroid named for them.) My rock is a minor piece of debris from an unborn planet that orbits between Mars and Jupiter. It’s not particularly big—about 1.5 miles long perhaps, but big enough that if for some reason it got nudged out of its orbit and headed to earth and hit us, it would hurt like the dickens, wiping out any major city it hit. But not much chance of that. 2000 EF116 has been circling the Sun some 300 million miles out or so for about 3 billion years and is not likely to visit us any time soon.

It was discovered by friend and astronomer Rik Hill of Tucson who runs the Catalina Sky Survey, one of only a handful of telescopes devoted to finding and tracking potential impactors, hopefully giving us ample time to prepare if one is seen coming our way. (Don’t laugh—it’s happened thousands of times in the history of earth.)

Earlier in 2010, I attended a meeting of my club’s sister club, the East Valley Astronomy Club, to witness an observing award presentation to a friend of mine who has pancreatic cancer. At that meeting, there were SIX astronomers present who have asteroids named for them, and here is a group photo of the lot of us:

The astronomers are, from left to right, me (26586 Harshaw), Gene Lucas (17250 Genelucas), Dolores Hill (164215 Doloreshill), Rik Hill (118945 Rikhill), Jennifer Polakis (146268 Jennipolakis) and Tom Polakis (4078 Polakis).

What would happen if all six of these rocks somehow conspired together and decided to bomb the earth? Depending on where they hit, it could be anywhere from really, really bad to disastrous. (Check this link for a good asteroid simulation program.)  But it would not look at all like the drivel put out by Hollywood in such block snoozers as “Armageddon” and “Deep Impact”, two of the stupidest sci-fi flicks ever to roll off the 70mm film reels! A decent simulation of a really big rock (500 km, a huge asteroid) is on You-Tube.

For what it’s worth, every 100,000 years or so we get hit by a rock big enough to wipe out a small country.  The last large impact occurred about that long ago. So we’re due. But don’t go outside with a hard hat on and wait for it. These things are subject to the unpredictable nature of random distribution and we may have another 100,000 years until we’re hit again. But it is comforting to know, isn’t it, that every tick of the clock brings us closer to a sure-fire impact from space? That’s one of the reasons it is a good idea to have your life assurance policy up to date (mine is with Heaven Mutual, sold to me by Jesus Christ).

Note: To see the seriousness of the probability of an impact, see this awesome video on You-Tube:  click here.

Getting What You Pay For

John Ruskin (February 8, 1819 – January 20, 1900) is best known for his work as an art critic and social essayist in England, but is remembered as an author, poet and artist as well.  He penned a famous quote on quality and price. Here it is: Read more…

On Being Adaptable

About 65 million years ago, the dinosaurs— arguably the most successful life form the earth has ever seen (because they dominated the entire planet for over 160 million years, about 3 times as long as mammals have had the run of the planet)— disappeared in a sudden and mysterious way. Whether they were killed by the dust cloud and fire storm created by the Chicxulub Asteroid in the Yucatan (which struck about that time) or whether they died from other causes (such as climate change or disruption in the food chain) no one is certain.  If the impact theory is right, they should have all died off suddenly in a mass extinction event, yet some fossils show that some of them apparently did not die as fast as an impact would suggest. The official jury is still out (despite what the popular press claims).

Read more…

The Grand Canyon Star Party (North Rim), 2010

I just returned to Cave Creek Friday night after a week at the Grand Canyon (North Rim) for the annual Grand Canyon Star Party. I returned as high as a kite and this post will explain why.

WHAT IS A “STAR PARTY”?

You may be wondering just exactly what a “star party” is, especially if you have never been to one. Think of a star party as you would any other party, except that instead of music, dancing, games or food being the focus, the focus (pun intended) is on the sky overhead. Amateur astronomers bring their telescopes and show the public the wonders of the night sky. People are free to mill about and take a peek at the sky through any of a number of telescopes that their owners will have trained on various night sky delights. As they take in the views at the eyepieces, the telescope owners will explain to them what they are seeing and how to get the most out of their view. (There is definitely a technique to seeing faint and ancient light in finely-figured glass!)

Read more…

Lessons From the Desert

My wife got me a new book for Christmas- The Secret Knowledge of Water, by southwestern explorer and writer Craig Childs.  (A friend, Lynn Blackburn, highly recommended the book, and after hearing him read a few passages from it, I decided I had to get it.)  I cannot recommend this book enough to lovers of the Southwestern US!  His style is poetic and earthy at the same time, and you can almost feel the loneliness and ancient mystery of the Sonoran desert (and other sites in Arizona).

Childs writes this chilling line in the introduction:  “There are two easy ways to die in the desert: thirst or drowning.”

Most people get the first option; few understand the second.  But the fact is, every year, Arizona has brief but furious rains and the washes (gulleys), which are normally dry, quickly fill with raging flood water and can become lethal to anyone unlucky enough to be in a wash when a flash flood comes galloping down upon them like a thundering herd of wild stallions.  (Another of his books, The Desert Cries, recounts a summer in Arizona where over 20 people died in such flash floods, including a hiking party caught by a killer flash flood in the awesome Antelope Canyon, in our state’s northeast corner).

But what many people don’t realize is that the desert holds a surprising amount of drinkable water (even though you may need to filter it and treat it with purification tablets) if you know where to look for it. Read more…

We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us!

Like Pogo, the famous swamp creature of Walt Kelley’s comic strip of the same name, we may have met the enemy and found that he is us!

I was watching a report last week on The Fox News Channel (yeah, I’m one of THEM) about the bowling industry in America– or rather, what USED to be the bowling industry in America. At one time, almost all of the bowling equipment sold in the US (balls, pins, machines, shoes, uniforms, bowling alley furniture, etc.) was made by either AMF or Brunswick.  But when NAFTA was passed in the 1990′s, the factories went to Mexico to take advantage of the cheap labor market.  Why?

Because American bowlers were demanding cheaper and cheaper gear, and it could not be produced in the States with our higher standard of living (and attending wage base).  So the Mexicans celebrated as they inherited hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of factories, development, and expertise.  There were fiestas down south as plants closed up north, and several small US towns hat depended on AMF and Brunswick were decimated. Read more…

Just in Case You Think You’re Normal

It’s been a while since I last posted to my blog.  The end of 2009 was hectic!  First, my desktop computer hard drive decided to start decomposing on me, so I had to scramble and get a new desktop (and wow, what a machine!  1 Terabyte HDD, the newest Intel chip, so fast that when I enter data, I get the answer YESTERDAY!  Thanks to Chris Long at Computer Troubleshooters in Phoenix for putting it together for me.)

I then decided it was time to go ahead and get a new laptop as well, so I got the latest Lenovo Think Pad.  The thing is so fast and powerful, it can launch and guide a rocket to Alpha Centauri!

Both have Windows 7 (in my opinion, a VAST improvement over XP and a huge improvement over Vista).  However, there is no upgrade path from XP to W7 (there is from Vista to W7), so I had to install all my software again, etc, and that took a few weeks.

Anyway, I’m back for the year, and ready to go.

So here’s my first blog post for 2010.  You ready for this?

When you were a little kid, did you ever wonder if you were “normal” compared to your classmates?  Maybe some were taller than you—a lot taller.  Or smarter. Or better looking.  Or better athletes. Most kids, at some point, wonder how they compare to everyone else. It’s normal. Read more…

What Would Peter Do?

My recent issue of the Harvard Business Review (HBR) had a cover that really caught my eye.  This year (2009) is the centennial year of the birth of management guru Peter Drucker (who passed away in 2005).  In my mind, Mr. Drucker is one of the heroes of business, along with men like W. Edwards Deming (the American who introduced total quality control or TQM to the Japanese after World War II because Detroit wanted nothing to do with it) and Thomas Watson (the founder of IBM). Read more…

The Sorry State of Financial Savvy Today

While reading a recent issue of The Harvard Business Review, I came across an article titled “Are Your People Financially Literate?” by Karen Berman and Joe Knight (October 2009, page 28). The title woke my curiosity since I am an advocate of business people knowing the financial ropes as well as they can. The article was stunning. The research at their web site (http://www.financedog.com/blogs/18) showed that only 38% of those they have tested made a passing score. (Even I did poorly on the six-question sample test the site offers as a teaser to buy their services.) Read more…