Monday, December 18, 2017

3 Industry Impacts of SpaceX- Rocking the Rocket Industry




SpaceX has disrupted the rocket launch industry and we all stand to benefit, but will Elon Musk take us to Mars or 'burn out his fuse alone' in the words of Elton John.
Summary:
Elon Musk's SpaceX has changed the rocket launch industry by introducing free market ideas to an industry previously dominated by Government and entrenched contractors.
SpaceX's disruptive innovation has brought down the cost and improved efficiency of rocket launches undercutting other major industry players like Boeing and Lockheed's ULA and Orbital ATK.
The Rocket launch industry is responding and Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin likely presents the most lean sustainable option besides SpaceX at current valuation
Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin have responded and may present an even leaner yet more sustainable model than SpaceX


1 Applying the Free Market to the Space Race (intro and background)
Rather than going to another state to see an eclipse, in 20 years you might be checking it out from the moon. Unfortunately since the time of the Space Race between, the whole space enterprise has been only affordable to world powers. Since the time of the USSR, interest in going to space only declined as did the amount of capital and thought put into it until in recent decades, Space, the final frontier, re-emerged as the ultimate prize. But this time instead of countries, the competitors are tech billionaires. So as today’s moguls fight for top positions in technology, rockets have also become a source of competition to the titans of industry but we all stands to profit.
The two leading players you've probably heard of Elon Musk of Tesla, backing SpaceX and Jeff Bezos Amazon founder, backing Blue Origin. They're are both interested in sending you to the moon. In addition to Musk and Bezos there is now an ecosystem of startups forming around the increasing interest and demand for space capabilities. Recently Paul Allen of Microsoft has showed interest in launching rockets and Virgin Galactic continues promising customers a zero G experience. Along with an increasing demand for satellites, SpaceX's influence has already opened up a new market that other startups are pursuing. As tech crunch puts it, “SpaceX and Blue Origin are nearly engaged in a new space race albeit one without dire consequences. The two American companies are racing towards similar goals of sustainable space flight through the reuse of rockets that can be landed... Now both companies are reportedly aiming for the moon. This isn’t a zero-sum game; humanity wins if both companies win.”
Disrupting the Rocket Launch Industry
SpaceX’s pioneering efforts has been disruptive innovation to a long dormant industry. As Clayton Christensen originally described disruptive innovation, its “a process by which a product or service takes root initially in simple applications at the bottom of a market and then relentlessly moves up market, displacing established competitors.” Following this process SpaceX is displacing large entrenched government contractors like United Launch Alliance and its owners, Boeing and Lockheed as well as Orbital ATK. SpaceX's launch attempts have been more lean, building with discarded launch equipment. They have been better able to harness the creative, cost sensitive free market to push the rocket development, making them more efficient and flexible than any prior attempts. This has opened up new approaches to the process like landing reusable rockets, reusable space planes, sub-orbital flights, motor-like rockets and electric propulsion.

Other major industry players tend to follow government contract mentality and are also mainly involved in weapons systems, like Orbital ATK formed from the merger of Orbital Sciences Corp. and the Aerospace and Defense groups of Alliant Techsystems Inc. (ATK) and United Launch Alliance (ULA) forming as a joint venture of Lockheed and Boeing. SpaceX is uniquely focused on rockets for transportation, "doing it all themselves, where Orbital tends to either contract for a subsystem or acquire an existing aerospace company." SpaceX builds their own liquid boosters with their own engines while the big aerospace companies buy Russian engines getting them into political trouble. Orbital ATK and ULA are consequently getting less lucrative launch contracts and have been forced to cut costs and produce better rockets capable of competing with SpaceX.
Igniting competition with Jeff Bezos
Although they might be the first billionaires vying for space, I find insightful to remember that Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are only picking up the North-South rivalry started by Steve Jobs and Bill Gates pushing the bounds of technology.
It follows that Bezos like Gates tends to be less creative more business-oriented, methodical and plodding in his progress not making dramatic leaps into the future. He builds more slowly, progressively unlike their Southern rivals, step by step dutifully taking advantage of emerging technology. Bezos, like Gates, tends to apply sound management rather than pursue technology for its own sake. Financially, Bezos is more conservative, using his resources to build his financial base of Amazon. Shortly after recently becoming 2nd richest person in the world he promptly sold off $1 Billion worth of shares which is a much smaller portion of his wealth than Elon Musk has staked on SpaceX and thus will be able to support Blue Origin on the side long into the future.
Risks
To deepen the comparison, both Gates and Bezos have more orderly personal lives having remained with the same women compared to the more dramatic personal lives of Jobs and Musk. Although no one could've predicted Job's untimely death, Musk's profligate stream of love interests and other enterprises does not bode well for continued focus on SpaceX. Musk, like Jobs is a more impassioned visionary. They are both driven by their dreams occasionally to extremes and taking more risky, creative and expensive leaps into the future. They both combine exciting sexy ideas into highly functional products pushing the outer boundaries of what is possible making things functional yet beautiful.
Musk has committed more of his wealth, time and resources, to the future space and space transportation. This has resulted in tremendous breakthroughs like the vertical landing but also more catastrophic failures like the Falcon 9 exploding near takeoff. Musk is the more creative genius pushing towards the lofty prospect of a brighter future for humanity. In pursuing so determinedly his dream Musk has centered himself at the heart of pioneering the disruptive technology that Bezos and other space companies are either forced to compete with or benefit from.

Conclusion
*For a full explanation of how I would invest see the rest of the article
My takeaway is that although Musk and SpaceX are making the most breathtaking breakthroughs, their lasting impacts will end up being the legacy of disruptive ideas left behind. Betting on which company will end up being more profitable and sustainable, I would expect more likely to be riding a Blue Origin brand rocket into the future rather than one made by SpaceX.*  The current general market attitude towards technology and space seem to harken back the the optimistic bravado seen during roaring 20’s of last century. When in the US thought all our lives would be forever improved because of technology. Although I watch in awe at what is being achieved, when the market turns less optimistic I would hope that companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin will still be around to pick put together the pieces as they did with the leftovers from the Space race of last century.



*For a full explanation of how I would invest see the rest of the article wrote for Seeking Alpha.

Major prize surprisingly goes to blue origin over space x.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2016/07/04/eat-your-heart-out-spacex-blue-origin-takes-the-pr.aspx

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3808605/Billionaire-space-battle-takes-Twitter-Jeff-Bezos-takes-aim-Elon-Musk-tweeting-images-model-megarocket-just-hours-SpaceX-founder-showed-Mars-rocket-engine.html











Monday, August 14, 2017

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teachers

From The First Days of School, the so-called Bible of teaching. This is a fundamental reference for almost any teacher also good for anyone with kids to be familiar with. Reading it, I really appreciated that it’s encouraging yet real and applicable yet motivating. These are my top 7 takeaways from the book:

1. Preparation. Preparation, Preparation. Being a good (or effective) teacher is more about classroom prep; planning clear underlying procedures than it is about being good at explaining subject matter. If you fail to prepare you prepare to fail. Leadership requires planning. Teachers who don’t think through class procedures at the beginning of the year will spend the rest of the year chasing students. The first few days should be spent on rehearsing this ‘how’ of class functioning before getting into materials. See Chapters 11-17.


Assignments should be easily understood by students and parents
2 Beg, Borrow and Steal! Teachers’ most valuable resource are successful fellow teachers, and the best resource for students are successful fellow students. Studies show that the main distinguishing factor in successful schools is whether teachers actively collaborate and work together. See Chapters. 3,4 and 24.


3 Teacher Attitude and reputation will affect their class, no matter how they might try and hide it. “Right or wrong, accurate or not, your reputation will precede you.”  Teachers must genuinely believe all students can succeed because their attitude will consciously or unconsciously affect how they treat students. How teachers dress and act in their class positive or negative will be talked about by students, parents and administration and decisions will be based on that reputation. Students will reflect a teachers’ attitude. Section B Positive Expectations


4 Rules have consequences and rewards. As opposed to procedures, in a classroom there should only be 3-5  clear rules with clear consistent consequences agreed upon by teacher, parents and students. Choices and taking responsibility for the results of those choices is the most important theme in this book. Teachers should respond to questions of misbehavior reminding students they CHOSE their actions and the consequences.  Students should be held accountable for behavior and teachers should be held accountable for their classes. When teachers choose not to prepare clear routines or plan lessons Teachers are choosing misbehavior.
Section C Classroom Management


5 Student success occurs when students and teachers are moving together towards an clear objective or goal. Assignments and tests are designed mainly to benefit student learning not for parents, teachers or the state. Tests and assignments should be short, written in clear language and be easily understood by students and parents and have a clear purpose. The number one predictor of students success is clear goals (objectives); students must know clearly what is expected of them. Attitude and motivation is a better predictor of student success than any natural talent.  Section D Lesson Mastery
Teacher collaboration determines school success.
6 Teacher limitations. Curriculum should not be made up by teachers. Schools agree on curriculum and states agree on standards. Teachers can get creative in conveying those materials but the content ultimately is agreed on by the collective group. When a school culture and a teacher conflict the culture of the school is most likely to remain unchanged. Chpt. 21 Section D


7 Continue to Grow Invest in yourself and you will move ahead. Teachers who grow their knowledge will also grow student knowledge.  Stay connected with workshops and joining professional organizations. See Section E The Professional


Harry and Rosemary Wong BYU Alums
My Own Commentary below-


I couldn't help but notice the similarities between this book and the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and in fact, closer I looked the more I realized book might as well be called the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teachers. I really liked both books, and superficially like Covey, Wong constantly uses the word effective comparing effective and ineffective teachers and also uses many of Covey’s. Their techniques like telling positive stories of change to motivate and inspire teachers also showed. Undoubtedly the Wongs’ post graduate work at BYU under Stephen Covey’s influence greatly affected their thinking and they might have even met or had a class from Covey as he taught at BYU for a number of years.

Much of the underlying philosophy in their work comes back to similar ideas to Covey’s principles of preparation, personal choice and accountability. What I found telling of their deeper values was that Wong chooses to use the story of Rosa Parks while Covey chooses the story of a Holocaust survivor as the ultimate extreme demonstration of choice when circumstances are stacked against you.


My main criticism of Wong’s book might be similar to what I would say about Covey, they both imply that once you master these principles and apply them your class will be much less stressful and smooth sailing. I felt they paint an overly rosy picture. I would argue that for the most part the principles explained are correct and when applied they will produce good results but they will not mean a significantly easier life, the direction is correct so the work at least will produce the desired results which at its best rewards increased effort with better behavior.  


Another point I would make in both works is that an excessive amount of responsibility is placed on the individual. Although this is useful in helping to motivate the teacher take control the many factors they can control, there are still some situations that are beyond the reach of a teacher that Wong doesn't really recognize. I like that he gives examples of a teacher who works in alternative schooling and still is able to adapt the principles to their situation and although they don’t have a complete success there is still some improvement. I would like to hear more details on that story and how the ideas can be applied in more difficult situation like special ed or ESL situations. This also points to the limitations of anecdotal story evidence, that potentially crucial details are left out.

Still overall the book does have some very important ideas for teaching and applies principles of success to teaching in a better way than anyone seems to have.


Wong Biographies:
http://www.uah.edu/news/campus/internationally-renowned-educator-harry-wong-to-lead-uah-workshop-for-k-12-teachers

Friday, July 14, 2017

How to Have a Successful Career in Medicine without Debt ( What I wish I had known)

If you’re early in your education and considering medicine thinking maybe I want to be a Doctor, before you start out out on that 8+ more years of sitting in a classroom, hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, consider some happier options in the medical field. A Physician's Assistant (PA) and Nurse Practitioner with a Master’s in Nursing (MSN) all make over $100k/year saving lives working with doctors and many even end up coming out close to the same as doctors! These are less stressful, higher job satisfaction, less debt and more flexible options to being a doctor. In these professionals you are also able to work along the way and avoid years of debt and they also don’t require years of Organic Chemistry or other more obscure science classes which you will rarely if ever use.
First off the Physician’s Assistant or PA ( not Pennsylvania)  are growing in demand twice as fast as medical doctors meaning you're way more likely to have good job offers when you are done. Like doctors, Physician assistants can perform physical exams, diagnose illness and develop treatment strategies, order and interpret lab tests, counsel patients, perform various medical procedures, assist in surgical operations, and in most states write prescriptions.
You can immediately get valuable hands on experience helping people that will help pay for your classes and keep you out of debt. Many of the programs actually require hours of paid experience and your application only gets better the more hours you put in.  Working as an EMT or paramedic, Combat medic, Registered Nurse (RN), licensed practical nurse, EEG or EKG (heart) technician, Emergency room technician, Physical therapy aide, CNA ( nursing assistant, sometimes called a patient care assistant), Medical Assistant, Respiratory therapist, Dietician, Phlebotomist or even doing International healthcare based mission trips, Hospice and many others can all count as patient care hours that help your application to become a PA. (Just check the school you’re interested in applying to.)  Rather than being stuck in a classroom paying money, you can be making money getting valuable experience that will help you in your future profession. You also have more flexible hours!

Although traditionally a female profession, nursing is also an amazing place to start out in the medical field to learn as you go no matter who you are. There is still a demand growing much faster for nurses than doctors and you can can find a job practically wherever you live. The easiest and probably least expensive way to start start nursing is at a nearby community college many have an associates RN program that takes 2 years to complete. There are also a lot of private more expensive programs as well, although if the program near you is impacted consider looking a few miles more rural and you can likely find a less full program. If you do not want to go straight into 2 years you can also start out even lower as a CNA, LPN (licensed practical nurse) or LVN (licensed vocational nurse) getting valuable patient care hours and getting paid. And if you have a less job friendly degree in something like psychology there is still hope! There are a lot of entry level programs and you can still work towards a bachelors degree in nursing while taking the pre-reqs.
Probably the best part about nursing other than the high pay, great benefits and established profession (which means great hours, benefits many other perks) is that if you do have any desire to move up the medical ladder and have the power, prestige and pride of a doctor, there are tons of programs designed to help nurses get their bachelors, then masters and even PhD in nursing or nursing related fields. The room for advancement is wide open and well paved. You can easily be making a decent amount of money as a nurse and take classes at night or online or just work a few shifts less and get ahead in the industry while your med school peers are still racking up more and more debt with little actual experience to show for it. Many of the prerequisites for these programs can even be done online while still working.
Fight the male nurse stereotype!
So why would anyone still want to be a doctor? Those who do need the independence, control or recognition that come from being in charge. This comes with responsibility though and many times where nurses and PA's make mistakes it is the doctor who is held accountable. Although there may be a few select individuals where it still makes sense to pursue MD the vast majority of younger students that I come into contact with would have a much happier life and are more satisfied with the career of a PA or Nurse. Likewise, many of the nurses and PA's I meet are overall are much happier, and have a much better work life balance than the Med School friends I know. This shows in studies which show PA ranked as 3rd best job and MD ranked as 17 and doctors are more likely than the general working population to show signs of burnout and to be dissatisfied with their work life balance. You want to read more about it in these forums. Although many young students think they're the smartest most driven and need to prove it by going med school with time and experience for the majority of students the less prestigious more grounded approach will actually lead to more happiness. In the end its a choice each student has to make for themselves but before committing so much debt time and energy I think its at least considering the less extreme options.
 Full list of PA schools with tuition. https://www.thepalife.com/pa-school-tuition-2017/

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Cell Theory Paper WGU


Bubbles: possible precursor of cells

Human understanding of cells, their purposes and place in Biology has a long incremental historical development. It has taken place over many centuries and been slowly added on to by a number of different researchers and scientists. As contributions were made by so many researchers at different times and through various controversies, it is difficult to track the theory accurately and linearly. Also inseparable from cell theory are the microscopes and related technology like sample preparation which have made cells visible. Most often the advances in cell theory have come from individuals who have concurrently contributed to advancements in microscope technology. Such advances in technology have given those individuals unique perspectives into worlds that were previously unseen by human eyes and from those new unique perspective articulate how the microscopic world works. Although there are a few fundamental principles of cell theory many aspects of the cell have been further elucidated even in the last few decades and some basic tenets of modern cell plasma membrane theory like the sodium potassium pump are still in question. While these current developments are briefly touched on, the main focus of this assignment will be on the fundamental principles of cell theory and its development.
Onion Cells

Those fundamental principles are: 1 All living organisms are composed of one or more cells or cell derivatives. 2 Cell is the unit of life and the common structural unit in all living things. 3 All cells arise from other cells.

Although there were many curious people like Hans and Zacharias Jansen and Galileo who tinkered around with lenses, microscopes and theorized about them they were mostly not much more than a curiosity previous to Robert Hooke. In addition to his work refining the microscope Hooke was one of the first to write a complete study of what he saw in Micrographia published 1665 which also gathered interest in studies with microscopes. Hooke was also the first to recognize cells and name them along with a number of other organisms.

Antoni van Leewenhoek around the same time made contributions to both microscopy and understanding of cells. Although van Leewenhoek had little training in the sciences, only spoke Dutch and  used only a simple microscope as opposed to the compound microscope used by Hooke, with a skillfully ground lens of magnification of 160 Leeuwenhoek was able to view many human cells like red blood cells and a sperm cell for the first time. Even though these human cells were in view, surprisingly it took another 170  years before the generalization was made that all organisms are made up of the same single celled units.

Along with Hooke two major contributions came almost simultaneously and as breakthroughs seem to often come in counter-opposing pairs by Nehemiah Grew (great name for a biologist BTW) and Marcello Malphigi. Both Grew and Malphigi looked primarily at plants as they were easier to fix and view under a microscope, which shows one of the limiting factors of the technology at the time. Grew used similar words to Hooke in his descriptions but thought the space to be bubbles which had formed by a similar process which seemed more logical in plants than it would have in animals. (The bubble explanation is one that is similar in evolution for how cells have been proposed to have originated.) He believed these bubbles to be interconnected while Malphigi called them sacs and thought they were isolated. Although Malphigi’s view was much later was shown to be more accurate the two views served to strengthen the overall acceptance of cells in the scientific community of the time.

Over the course of the next decades researchers in Biology began to show interest in the existence a fundamental smallest unit of life while simultaneously researchers with microscopes were discovering parts of the cell like the nucleus.  An increasing number of microscopists also contributed to observations of cell and nucleuses in other areas for example, Alex Monro saw cells in bones and Caspar Wolff saw them in fat. Robert Brown saw a nucleus in skin cells.  Others like Henri Milne-Edwards, Henri Dutrochet, Francois Raspail, Barthelemy Dumortier, Franz Bauer, Jan Purkinje, Von Baer, Wagner may have grasped parts of the the theory but did not completely demonstrate it. Although some of these researchers personally recorded  and articulated aspects of cell theory around the same time, the full theory was not fully demonstrated or widely accepted until Theodor Schwann did so in 1837. 

Johannes Muller-
Mulled it over, but couldn't get
past vitalism
While Schwann did articulate the cell theory, it would not have occurred without the help of his teacher Johannes Muller who is mentioned next to Schwann and Schleiden as the fathers of cell theory. Schwann was a much more productive and fruitful scientist while working under Muller and was largely inactive as a scientist not long after his major publication. While working with Muller he discovered Pepsin, uncovered the beginnings for germ theory in addition to articulating cell theory in just a few years. Johannes Peter Muller was mentor of a number of influential German physiologists and in his own work brought together different sciences like chemistry and physics in order to give a more full understanding to the function of the organism. Theodor Schwann, only one of his prominent understudies adopted this multi-disciplinary attitude and it was Schwann’s greatest contribution that came from a conversation between Schwann and a botanist Matthias Schleiden. 

Muller did make some lasting contributions of his own to the scientific advancement of physiology in his work Elements of Physiology, but he was limited due to his continued belief in vitalism or the idea the living things have a special component that makes them unique and therefore exempt from the laws that govern from non-living things. A belief that had been perpetuated and held back the achievements in Biology.  

Theodor Schwann-
Muller's protege who brought
Biology out of the darkness
of superstition 
Schwann to his credit broke with vitalism and completely adopted a physico-chemical explanation of life.  In that frame of thinking, in 1837, during a conversation with Mathias Schleiden described on the nuclei of vegetable cells. “Schwann remembered having seen similar structures in the cells of the notochord (as had been shown by Müller) and instantly recognized the importance of connecting the two phenomena.” Recognizing that cells are common to both plants and animals allowed the scientists to generalize them to all living organisms. “The resemblance was confirmed without delay by both observers, and the results first appeared in his famous, “Microscopic Investigations on the Accordance in the Structure and Growth of Plants and Animals” (Berlin, 1839: trans. Sydenham Society, 1837).” In the publication Schwann follows the path of cells through all types of tissue like nails, feathers, enamels showing that although seemingly made from other materials, they all originate with cells. Schleiden also published his portion of cell theory in a monograph entitled Beitrage zuq phytogenesis.

Finally the basic unit of Biology and life had been enunciated which put Biology in touch with modern science and paved the way for Pasteur and the golden age of Biology. It had been nearly 200 years since Hooke had first described cells in cork yet it took until this time for humankind to grasp their significance.  

Although the theory was initially published and had endless implications there were shortcomings in the paper mistaken descriptions of cell replication when which had to be corrected in later years by Rudolf Virchow.

This was for Science Technology and Society course at Western Governors University. The requirements were to choose a scientific theory and write about its history and its formation. 


Requirements:
A.  Analyze a scientific theory of your choice by doing the following:
1.  Summarize the major tenets of your chosen theory 
 Discuss how new ideas refined old ideas in the development of your chosen theory.
b.  Discuss the role technology or mathematics played in the development of your chosen theory.
c.  Discuss how interactions within the scientific community influenced the development of your chosen theory.
d.  Discuss the roles that the following epistemological factors played in the development of your chosen theory:  empirical standards,  logical arguments and skepticism. 
3.  Compare two major scientific contributions made to the development of your chosen theory.
a.  Analyze how the following factors influenced each of the scientific contributions from part A3: prevailing assumptions, personal and societal beliefs, scientific attitudes, talents of individual scientists.

Although I was probably more interested in Antoine Lavoisier's Oxygen theory of combustion I decided to do cell theory because it was more relevant to High School Biology.

References:
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 24


Evolution of the Membrane and Bulk Phase Theories
Gilbert N. Ling gilbert.ling.org  Skepticism about bulk transport and membrane theory.

The cell theory, past and present : being the inaugural address delivered November 1, 1889, to the Scottish Microscopical Society

Title:A History of Human Anatomy Persaud, T. V. N., Tubbs, R. Shane, Loukas, Marios p 236 microscopy


Harris, Henry. The Birth of the Cell. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999.
Magner, Lois N. History of Life Sciences, 2nd ed. New York: Marcel Dekker, 1994.

The cell theory, past and present : being the inaugural address ... Turner, Wm. Sir, (William), 1832-1916.

Notes:Intro with things people use that wouldn't exist without cell theory.  Include cork and other cell resembling pictures.

Robert Hooke used a compound microscope while another major contributor to cell understanding was Antoni van Leeuwenhoek who used a simple microscope with a skillfully ground lens with a magnification power of 160.  

Mathias Schleiden was the first to suggest that all cells have a nucleus although others made similar observations leading up to a full declaration of cell theory. Schleiden primarily worked with plant while the other co-founder of cell theory Theodor Schwann looked mostly at animal cells. They summarized all previous finding in two simple yet infinitely vast reaching premises:

Some might assert that cell theory is well beyond theory at this point since all living things have been found to be composed of cells yet there remains the possibility that we find a new species that doesn’t have cells?

Math was used in calculating the size and number of cells in a given area and technology especially the microscope and slide fixing had to be developed.