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Oral-History:Ralph Strong
About Ralph Strong
Ralph Strong was born and raised in Northeastern Ohio, growing up on a farm in Deerfield. He continued to help run the farm while he completed his education at Kent State University. There he pursued a major in physics and minors in math and biology. Graduating in 1950, Strong had a variety of jobs, including an electrical engineering position with the Air Force, over the next few years. Following the end of the Korean War, he was drafted into the Army. After serving for two years, Strong joined Westinghouse. He was assigned to work on the BOMARC missile and remained on this project until its end. Next, Strong managed the test program for the Gemini Rendezvous Radar. After spending some time working on the Advanced Technology Satellite program, he assisted in the modification of B-57G bomber radar for use in efforts to stop traffic on the Ho Chi Minh trail. Although this project incurred several setbacks, Strong remembers it as the most fun of his jobs at Westinghouse. He then moved on to lead a series of diverse projects, working on everything from meteorological sensors in the sky to radars for studying the oceans. Since his retirement in 1991, Strong has been an enthusiastic volunteer for the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Archives and his retirement community.
In this interview, Strong discusses his work history, which spans over four decades. He covers both his early work experiences outside of Westinghouse and his many jobs within the corporation. Strong talks about the successes and failures of a number of major Westinghouse programs on which he worked, including the BOMARC missile program, Gemini Rendezvous Radar program and Seasat program. He also comments on the development of technology and collaboration with government agencies and other contractors. Finally, Strong describes his experiences on the farm, in the Army and with the Smithsonian, reflecting upon their relationship to his engineering career.
About the Interview
RALPH STRONG: An Interview Conducted by Frederik (Rik) Nebeker, IEEE History Center, 14 October 2010
Interview #552 for the IEEE History Center, The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
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It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows:
Ralph Strong, an oral history conducted in 2010 by Frederik (Rik) Nebeker, IEEE History Center, Piscataway, NJ, USA.
INTERVIEW: Ralph Strong
INTERVIEWER: Frederik (Rik) Nebeker
DATE: 14 October 2010
PLACE: National Electronics Museum, Baltimore, Maryland
Background and Education
It's the 14th of October 2010. I'm at the National Electronics Museum talking with Ralph Strong. This is Frederik Nebeker. Could we begin with where and when you were born and a little bit about the family that you were born into?
Sure. I was born in Northeastern Ohio in a little town called Deerfield. I attended Deerfield High School which has all twelve grades there in one building.
How large was Deerfield?
I graduated in a class of eight. Normally, it was a little larger than that, maybe twice that large. But the government built a dam around 1939 or 1940 which took up about a third of Deerfield Township and that diminished the population. And then of course, these were the war years and those seventeen and eighteen year olds that normally would have been in high school but didn't look forward to an academic career of some kind disappeared into the service.
I see.
There were only two boys in the class and six girls. And let's see. We were back there for the 50th anniversary and there were still six of the eight were at that session.
You said 1939?
I graduated high school in 1946.
Oh, you were in high school during the war years.
The war was just over when I graduated.
And it had taken some of the kids into the service?
Right. In fact there were some who went to the service and then came back and finished high school the following year.
So you graduated in '46?
'46 from high school.
Tell me about your family.
I have a brother and a sister. My brother ended up as a college professor at the University of Wisconsin, specializing in vocational education.
Was he an older brother?
An older brother, about five years older. My sister, who was eight years older, married an orthopedic surgeon. She still resides in Cincinnati, Ohio.
So, you grew up on a farm?
I grew up on a farm. I milked cows morning and night. I went to school. In fact, the first two years in college at Kent State, I commuted. And did tours before and after.
While you were keeping the family farm running.
Right. My mother was a school teacher. My father was unusual for that era, in that he had completed a high school education. That was unusual in that era in the country.
Well, earlier in the century, ten or twenty percent of the population got high school degrees. It was not that common.
Right. So, anyways, it was never a question about going to college. It was just assumed from day one. So I attended Kent State, intending to be a science teacher.
Were you interested in science as a kid?
Yes, very much so.
Farming and Technology
Someone told me that being on a farm sort of made you interested in science and technology because you were dealing with a lot of technology.
Definitely. You know… you do things, you see the results. You plant things, you notice differences if you treat things differently. Of course animals are always a big factor.
Well, then all the farm technology. All these pieces of equipment.
You learn to make do. You learn to make repairs with wire.
And you understand the technology because you have to handle it.
Right. We had an old Case tractor that took a lot of care and feeding. We kept it going during the war years. It had a big, fifteen inch first reduction gear that lost teeth every once in a while and they were no longer available. During the war years, you couldn't buy the gear. We had to take it down to the local welder. Put on weld material and then file it down into the missing tooth. Sometimes we could make it work and sometimes we couldn't.
So you were working on the farm during the war years, as you were going to school.
Oh yes, my father worked during the war years, the early war years, he went out as a carpenter and built barracks over in Pennsylvania. So that left me to run the farm myself. At times we had a live-in, a slightly older fellow and we did what we could to keep the farm running. Of course the farm shrunk by a big factor because of the new lake, and that took some of our property. So it was only about 70 acres at that time.
How many cattle could you maintain?
We had about fourteen cows to milk.
I know that's not something that can be neglected, but you managed to start at Kent State?
I went to Kent State. I graduated there in 1950 with a major in physics and mathematics minor. I earned a biology minor, too.
So you managed to do that in four years even though you were still helping out.
Early Work Experience in Metallurgy
Right. I intended to teach, but I didn't really find anything. I was graduating at the same time as many veterans. They had much more experience. They were more mature. So competition was tough in 1950. I took a job at Republic Steel for the summer. And they hired four of us.
Where was that?
In Youngstown, Ohio. They hired four of us to use a thermocouple to measure the temperature of the open-hearth steel just before they tapped it. It was a new technique and it was our job first to make it work.
How did you get the thermocouple where it needed to be?
We had a fourteen-foot pole. It was wrapped with about an inch of asbestos tape, and held in place with a wrapping of wire. Then it had little bit-head on the end of it, and we built that up with chrome ore and fired it into a curved head. There was a conduit through the center with a graphite plug that went into the end with a small silicon tube made out of quartz. It was a platinum iridium thermocouple and if you very carefully got the point against the quartz tube, it would last for fourteen seconds — just long enough for a Brown recorder to give a reading. The job was to make it work and then to persuade production personnel that it worked and persuade them to use it. It was about a nine-month process.
It was important to have a temperature reading.
It was open-hearth steel, and I don't think anyone realized that the temperature was about 2850 degrees Fahrenheit with a very close tolerance. Lower than 2830 and they would miss their analysis completely because too much of the steel would freeze out before they got it poured into ingots. Much over 2860, and they'd miss their analysis because the stuff was boiling out of the meld. It was a very narrow range. And I don't think they really recognized that until we started marking those kinds of measurements.
I see.
But it functioned. We had a few misses at times. And by the time I left there, after about 9 months, most of the production foremen were using it.
But there was no future for you in the company?
Well, there could have been. There wasn't in the long term because Republic Steel went bankrupt about ten years later. There was not really a progression established for that position, and it was kind of funny because the unions were after us to join in the production crews, and the metallurgy department wanted to avoid that, of course.
So, there were opportunities in the metallurgical department to move in that direction once we finished, but I happened on an interview at Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, and they offered me a job. I went down and worked mostly working in metallurgy. We were arc puddle melting small ingots of titanium. The job was to explore all of the alloys of titanium.
So, you used some kind of an arc furnace to melt the titanium and then alloy it with something?
We had a little arc furnace and a copper crucible. We flooded it with lots of water to cool the outside and it was puddle melting technique, so we would strike an arc on a material inside the copper kettle and operate it until the ¾ pound ingot was made.
So it was an arc to the titanium?
We had a little prism arrangement so we could see what we were doing.
You were controlling that electrode?
Yes, by hand. Another side to that was some research in molybdenum and there we were using arc melting in a high vacuum.
Because it's reactive?
Very, very much so. What we were trying to do was get molybdenum to a purity of I think 0.001 or something like that. Very, very pure molybdenum. But that was in a big vacuum chamber, and we had a robotic way of lowering the probe.
You found some interesting work in your first couple of jobs.
Engineering for the Air Force
I went from there to the Air Force in Wright Field. And that was a big switch. And they hired me as an electronic engineer.
What was your training at Kent State that allowed you to get such a position?
Well, you know, I ended up thinking that maybe a degree in physics was in some respects superior to one in engineering because, at least in that era, they took a much more fundamental approach.
I know a number of engineers who decided to major in physics for that reason. But an employer has to be convinced that you're an engineer.
Jobs were pretty plentiful in that era for technical people. I had one course in electronics, in the physics program, and that was to permit you to design an amplifier or some piece of electronics so you could run a physics experiment, as an instrumentation. The physics prof, as I recall, didn't really like that because he couldn't start with F = MA and get results. That particular course was interesting because several of the students had been electronic technicians in the service and they probably knew more on a practical basis than the professor did. They took him to task once in a while.
What were you doing with the Air Force?
With the Air Force, I worked originally in what they call the CNN Lab (Communications and Navigations Lab), and then later that was merged with the Radiation Lab, so the radars and communications were kind of blended together and worked closely. Our section was responsible for contractors' installation of equipment in airplanes.
Communications equipment, sensors and radar?
Communications equipment, radar, navigation: all of those things. How they were installed, particularly, antenna patterns and radomes and so on. It was sort of pseudo-engineering in a sense but I learned a lot about black box engineering there. And, we worked on airplanes like the C-124. I cut my teeth on a C-46.
What kind of plane is that?
It was a transport. It was the biggest work horse for hauling things over the hump from India into China, during World War II. It was a Curtis-Wright airplane. We took the World War II electronics out and put Korean War-era electronics in. It was a pretty extensive mod and we wrote handbooks so that that same mod could be made on all the other C-46s and bring them up to date for the Korean War.
Did that work out?
Yes, the contractor ended up building kits and going to the field and installing the equipment. I got to see quite a few airplane factories and see how they worked and it was a good experience.
So, you worked on all the electronics for that, the communications, navigation and radar?
Yes. I even got into ECM in some cases, and IFF.
They had some countermeasure equipment on that plane?
Well, no. I worked on some other planes. One interesting project was on a C-54. We chopped about four feet off the wing tips and installed an array of little antennas that would look at fifteen-degree sectors so it had three hundred and sixty degree coverage. I forget the name of that equipment. It was a simple detector, but it would give you some idea of the frequency and direction it was coming from, and this was done for some intelligence people to fly around the periphery of Russia.
So it got the direction of any transmission they picked up.
Yes, they were trying to see location and frequency of the Russian radars that were some place around the border. It was kind of an interesting experience working with them; it was the first time I touched based with any of the intelligence people.
You were a civilian working for the Air Force, right?
Yes, but I got drafted after Wright Field. Once the Korean War was over, I was no longer essential.
So you had gotten a deferment in those years.
Radar Training and Teaching in the Army
I had a fairly nice experience in the Army. They sent me to Fort Monmouth for the thirty-three week radar repair school and then they picked some of us to go down to Aberdeen to teach radar in the Ordinance School.
Could I get you to tell us a little bit about Fort Monmouth and the radar school there? How it was in your experience?
It was very well run. I got to live off base, of course; I was married. They were reasonably flexible with us because the school was thirty-three weeks. The first half was roughly fundamentals. At that point I probably could have taken a test and skipped fifteen weeks of it, but what's the point? I did learn some things. In the second half, we worked with hardware, specifically repairing selective radars. The one that they used as a training aid most was the SCR-584, like the one we have out here on the floor, and it was a beautiful radar to work with. It was roomy, spacious and you could walk through it and find problems almost to a single stage of amplification from the gages. It's very classically built.
Wasn't Fort Monmouth where the Army was doing some of the most advanced work in electronics?
Yes, it was one of the research centers for communications. The school was somewhat separate from that. In fact, they even had a pigeon loft when I was there and they had several World War II heroes left.
Was it your civilian job or some aptitude test that got you assigned to the radar school?
I never figured that out exactly.
I'm glad the Army did the right thing.
Yes, I was glad too. It came out of the blue. We finished basic training and then got orders for Fort Monmouth. I knew several people who had enlisted specifically to get in that school who were friends by that time. I guess the earlier education and experience got me the assignment.
That must have been one of the best assignments a person coming out of basic could get.
Yes. Of course they had the S&P Corps (Scientific and Professional Corps) at Aberdeen. They took a lot of college graduates that got drafted and put them in scientific professional positions. And there were a number of those at Aberdeen, but they didn't fare as well as we did as instructors.
So you had this thirty week training at Fort Monmouth and then you say you went to Aberdeen?
Yes, we went to Aberdeen and we taught the M38 Skysweeper. We taught repair.
What is that?
It was a gun. I guess was a ninety-millimeter gun integrated directly with a radar set.
An anti-aircraft gun.
It had a hydraulic control for azimuth and elevation and it was designed to protect from low-flying airplanes that were low locally.
So, you were saying it was integrated – if the operator spotted a target with the radar, it aimed itself.
It directed itself to the target. And I think it fired automatically. It had two or three people in the crew: one to load shells and one to operate the radar. And then they also had an optical director they could use for smoothing function. The school was also teaching the M-33 and I got involved a little bit with that one.
How did you get selected to be an instructor?
Well, you know the way the Army schools work, the people with the best grades get the first pick. So, you worked hard to get the best grades so you could pick your assignment. And, so we got to the assigned room where they were going to be assigned. They read off a list of about fifteen of us and said, 'now you're already assigned.' We didn't get any choice. So then they had already picked us to go either to Aberdeen or to Huachuca to teach. Again, no choice.
How was that teaching at Aberdeen?
It was good. The school was good. It was well run. Good bunch of kids going through.
And you liked the work?
Yes. We weren't pushed too hard. We had plenty of time to prepare and there was a lot of teaching.
How long did you do that?
That was about a year.
Completing your service?
Right. I was in just for two years. Almost all of it was either going to school or teaching school. At the end of that tour, since they had a big scientific and professional corps there, and a lot of instructors from the Ordinance School, there was a lot of activity. Companies sent teams in to interview every six months or so there.
The people who would be completing their service?
They were completing their service. So anyway, I interviewed for many companies there, and ended up choosing Westinghouse at the end of that.
First Job at Westinghouse: The BOMARC Missile
What were you hired to do at Westinghouse?
My first job at Westinghouse was on a BOMARC target seeker.
Can you tell us what that was?
Okay, a BOMARC missile was a rocket. It was for long range, anti-aircraft activity. The BOMARC would take off, the original one with the liquid fuel rocket. And fly to sixty or thousand feet or so. Then the ramjet engines would work at that speed – it was fast enough for the ramjet engines – and it would fly to the vicinity under the direction of, say, a SAGE radar or whatever was available. Then the target seeker would lock onto an incoming bomber and dive on it, and it got close enough that proximity fuse blew up.
The target detection and seeking – that was in the BOMARC. Was it automatic?
It was all automatic. As an example of that, we had a home on jam mode. We tested dozens of them down at Eglin Field. The Air Force had two B-47 aircraft equipped for drones. They were pretty expensive at the time. The B-47 would fly as a drone. It was modified as an ECM platform. So, we had the first flight against them and no one expected it to get close enough to it for a direct hit, but the target BOMARC got a direct hit and took it out.
Were you part of the team at that point?
I was part of the test operation. I was not at Eglin at the time. My job there was in the test and evaluation section for BOMARC, and we'd pretty much go between the design engineers and the test equipment designers and the factory, and spent many, many hours, doing shop follow. Solving test problems in the factory and going back to designers and telling them 'this isn't working, we've got to fix it.'
And how did that project go?
They were deployed. We built several hundred of them and they were deployed. The most exciting part was the second version of it, which was the first airborne pulse Doppler radar. That was the DPN-53.
This is on the missile?
Right. Self-contained on a missile. Of course, the first version – the A version – was a pulse version. You had to cut off the range so that it didn't see the ground. So, it did not protect you against low flying airplanes as you wouldn't see them against the clutter of the background.
So, you knew the elevation of the missile and so then you'd restrict the range.
Right. It flew straight and level at around 60,000 feet, and it was looking pretty much straight down. But to solve that problem, we developed a pulse Doppler radar, which allows you to search for it in velocity and frequency rather than in range.
The Doppler gives you the speed of the target?
So, you could look for something that's moving?
Something that's moving versus the ground, which is moving at a different speed with respect to the missile.
Were you in the test part of that?
I still was in the test area there, system tests. And during development they had a prototype up on a rooftop lab and as soon as they figured out they solved the problem, we'd get change notices and get them worked and then put them in the production version and try them out there to make sure that they still worked. And then, as the design matured, we worked to get them through production and solve all the problems that came up during tests. So, I was kind of the last Mohican off the pulse Doppler radar, the DPN-53 program. The designers went on to bigger and better things and I was one of the last two or three engineers to get out the door.
So, that BOMARC missile was going to be produced for a certain period of time.
The Gemini Rendezvous Radar
Right. It was over about a five year period. And, from there I went to Gemini.
What is that?
We built the Gemini Rendezvous Radar.
For the Gemini spacecraft?
For the Gemini spacecraft.
How did that work?
It was a very unique device. In that era it wasn't clear how difficult it was going to be to make a rendezvous in space. So the Rendezvous Radar was to get them from the last two or three hundred miles down to a few feet.
What rendezvous was being planned?
Well, it was in preparation for going to the moon or for possible intelligence operations or whatever they chose to man in space. But the objective on Gemini was to rendezvous with a spent Agena missile as an experiment and to prove a technique.
I see it was an experiment to see if you can do this.
To prove that what you do.
This hadn't been done before: a space rendezvous?
It had never been done before and they weren't really too sure how difficult it was going to be. It turned out to be easier than they thought but the radar itself was an L-band radar. A very unique design with used spiral antennas that were flattened into a flat plate. So the antennas had the wide field of view. This was so you didn't have to point. But it used an interferometer principle. You could rotate the antennas and make the face angle look like it was going up and back. That allowed us to use it as an interferometer and measure the azimuth, elevation and, of course, we could measure range and range rate.
Without mechanical motion?
Well, it had mechanical motion but it was only rotational. And, so it made a very nice lightweight radar.
Were you involved in the design?
Yes. I managed the test program.
It worked?
Yes, it worked good. We learned a few things. I guess the biggest lesson there was something we later learned was called multipactor. In a high vacuum you would expect that you have good insulation and that you wouldn't have to worry about arcs and coronas and that sort of thing, but that's not true. At RF frequencies, if you have two metal surfaces at the right distance from each other, they'll set up a path and a few electrons that happen to be there will start to bang back and forth and knock a few more electrons loose which eventually ends up in a corona and an arc. We had some difficulties. The radar itself was pressurized so we didn't have to worry about it. Although I do recall seeing a little bit of corona on the end, on the antennae.
Of course this is a new realm of engineering at the time. Working in space.
Right. Later on, it turned out a lot of the Ranger satellites that explored the moon had this problem and nobody knew it. It wasn't recognized until looking back at the data later.
Was it on Gemini that it was first really recognized?
No, in that era, I think it was showing up all over the place where you had to have some kind of a transmitter. L-band seemed to be a good frequency for it because the distances are probably at much lower frequencies as noticeable. It was kind of an interesting, but anyway, the Gemini radar did its function. It worked well. It got us involved in the space arena. The other aspect of that era was that we really didn't know much about how to make things reliable. So you ended up doing everything. And, you know, we made some fundamental mistakes there. For instance, in that era, we were introducing worst-case design analysis. If you do a worst-case design analysis on most circuits, you'll find out they'll never work. For instance, somebody decided we shouldn't be using Alan Bradley resistors. They are little chunks of carbon. Not much goes wrong with them if you don't overheat them too much. But they drift all over with age, and temperature. So we used these new fancy resistors that were in a little tube that had scratched carbon. They were supposedly so much better and more stable. They held their values better. But the only trouble was the end caps came off under thermal stress.
I can imagine that, in the 60s, with the space race, and the very rapid development of this technology, it must been a real challenge to get this stuff to work in space.
We learned an awful lot about how to select good components and burn them in and so on. One kind of surprise I ran into was not on Gemini. It was one of the later programs. It was out at one of our suppliers that would screen parts for us and there were some very common looking plastic transistors being screened to the same reliability standards as our space parts. Whose parts were those? They were for Atari. You know, when momma gave this little electronic toy to the kids at Christmas they wanted them to work when they opened them. They learned to screen their parts just as well as in space.
So, you worked on Gemini for quite a few years.
Yes, it was about four or five years.
Working on the Advanced Technology Satellite Program
And then I had a job called the electronics measurement experiment. It was for the ATS satellite program.
What is that, ATS?
The ATS was the Advanced Technology Satellite. It was to explore what could be done from a synchronous orbit. It was the first satellite to get an image of the earth from synchronous orbit. But its primary function was as a prototype for much of the communication satellites that followed. Our job was to work with universities who wanted to fly experiments to explore the Van Allen belts. It was felt that the universities were not well equipped to make and test the experiments and get them flight-worthy. So, we helped them build the experiment and then took the experiments and then put them into a package and provided the power and the environment, the temperature controls. We then put them through the environmental testing that was required and they flew on the satellite.
Was this funded by the NSF or NASA?
It was a NASA program.
Teams of universities would apply to get on this satellite?
And if they were accepted, Westinghouse people would work with them to be sure that the equipment would work.
Did you find that interesting?
It was fun and we got to meet a lot of scientists that we wouldn't have met otherwise, and it made me sensitized to some of the physics of space that I have found kind of interesting since I've retired.
Well, it sounds like you had the perfect background for that job. To get them to make the equipment robust enough.
Yes, it worked out well. We'd do the interference measurements.
The B-57G Bomber
Probably the most fun job at Westinghouse was B-57G.
Tell me about that.
Westinghouse became the prime contractor to modify fifteen B-57Gs for the Interdiction Mission in Laos, to try to stop traffic on the Ho Chi Minh trail.
This was a bomber?
This was a bomber airplane. The airplane was a B-57, known as a Canberra in England, but which was then manufactured by Martin. So we subcontracted to Martin for a complete overhaul of the airplanes. It was called an IRAN process, where you take an airplane and go through it and inspect and repair as necessary. We then installed a low light level TV, forward looking infrared for night sensing, a laser designator which was originally to measure range, but later on became useful as a spotter for smart bombs.
That was pretty early for laser applications, wasn't it?
It was fairly early. The B-57 had a radar with an MTI function and the radar was provided by TI. It had a decent stable platform, you know for inertial guidance and inertial navigation and an automatic bombing process all controlled with that day's digital computer.
So, the bombing computer took the input from these different sensors?
Right. So in principal an operator in the rear seat could fly up the Ho Chi Minh trail, see a truck in a radar maybe fifteen miles away, watch it until it got to three or four miles away. Then he could see it in the optical sensors. And the cross hairs and the scope would latch on to it. It would lock on to the spot. And track it in and to the IP and then it would automatically drop the bomb. As far as I know, it was the first digitally controlled system. Completely digitally controlled.
I know that the early bombing computers were analog devices built in World War II. So, they continued to have analog technology and that kind of thing through the 50s and in the late 60s that you are working on this.
Did Westinghouse build the computer for doing that?
Yes, Westinghouse built the computer. I think it had an 8K magnetic core memory. And I think they had to add another 8K before it was over with. It was all programmed in machine language and in the first week we flew, we found fourteen ways to make it freeze and bomb out on us with overflows or big problems.
So, you were test manager for that project?
Yes, and that involved both testing the electronics equipment and also the airplane.
Because there were serious changes aerodynamically?
The B-57 airplane had a real small tail and the engines were fairly far outward. So one of the difficulties with the airplane was a parameter called minimum single engine performance. If you lost an engine and were on a landing approach, at what point could you put on the power and still climb out? The airplane apparently felt pretty stable to the pilots and they thought if they were missing the runway they could climb out if they applied enough power. In this airplane, the tail was small, so they could not balance the asymmetry causing the tail to try to go around the nose. The airplane would stall and crash. This as an important parameter and it had to be recertified.
Because you were putting on radomes and other things.
Right. It had a big chin on it to handle the electric optical – the EO. The left hand side was two big plate glass windows for the TV camera to look out of, and on the right hand side were two great big plates of a pure germanium crystal that is used for the window for the IR. And so that had a big jowl that they were worried aerodynamically screwing up the airplane.
So initially there were a lot of problems with the system.
It never was a real neat system to maintain. I followed the airplane through category 1 and 2 testing, which we were responsible for, and then Category 3 which the Air Force did. Then they trained at MacDill Air Force Base, and I spent a lot of time down there helping keep the airplanes up to get the training function done.
How much of it was Westinghouse?
We were prime.
So you were the prime contractor.
We built the TV camera, the laser, the computer, and did all the software. The stable platform was basically standard equipment; the radar was a TI radar which had some unique problems. Then, of course Martin did the airframe and installed all the standard electronics. And, it had new bottom doors for it.
How was it as a test engineer dealing with different parts of the system? I mean if it's Westinghouse, does that make it easier to resolve things than if it's TI?
Yes. We had some conflicts. TI had their radar manager spend most of his time here over a period of about a year: six or eight months during testing. The radar had a problem. The moving target, the AMTI function, gave banding on the scope and they couldn't see much of anything. TI went back and redesigned the antenna a couple of times and it was not until actually Category 2 testing was almost over that the Air Force said okay, send the team out. We were not really permitted to do much on the radar because TI was claiming the design features were proprietary. Finally the Air Force asked some of our analytical types to go out and take a look. They found that the problem was a leaky diode that would cost about twenty-five cents to fix. You know, in that era, how electronics specifications required that equipment be modular? They liked to take the antenna, and the processor and you should be able to take any of those boxes, put any combination together so they can work with no additional adjustments. And TI took that to an extreme and it had the antenna designed here, the processor designed here, the receiver design here. And, it turned out they were losing about 30 db in gain and didn't realize it because the boxes were never, integrated, in a sense.
So, were those planes flown and put to use?
Yes. In fact, I spent thirty days in Thailand. They took twelve airplanes to Ubon, Thailand and flew the Ho Chi Minh trail. It wasn't too effective. Maintenance problems were high. The second year they used them secretly down in Cambodia. I don't know too much about that. I left the program before then and was no longer privy to what was going on. The airplanes were taken out after the second year and were given to the Kansas National Guard. The cost of maintenance was too high for them. So they ended up being scrapped.
Working on Meteorological Sensors
So, I see your next major project was a meteorological sensor.
Yes. Next, I got moved down to the DMSP, which we called the Block 5.
What does that stand for?
It stood for nothing. On that program, we were subcontractor A and Kollsman was subcontractor C. It was an attempt to make sure that nobody on the outside knew who all the contractors were. Block 5 was a code word for the sensor. It was to support the Corona intelligence system. Corona was a satellite that the Air Force was flying, taking pictures over Russia with a big camera. And they would dump the film near the Hawaiian islands and pick it up with a trapeze arm on a C-130 and send it to Washington to be processed. They didn't want to take pictures of cloud cover, so the satellite's primary function originally was to give worldwide weather pictures so that the intelligence people would do their work when the clouds weren't blocking their view. We have the original sensors out in the display case out there.
Were these optical sensors?
They were optical. They worked visible and infrared. And they got full world coverage in about 0.3 of a mile resolution of infrared and visual. The visual gave you nice details and the infrared showed you how high the clouds were, by their temperature – they get colder as they get higher. We were also able to derive wind directions and velocities and some other sensors were flown too to help them.
Was that data made use of for general meteorological purposes?
Yes, it was used for all Air Force activities. And they provided the data throughout. It had a capability to downlink local data, if you could catch it during its pass.
I see.
I remember one case where a colonel in Germany was very adamant that, after the satellite passed over the Desert Storm region, that it should come back to Germany and dump the data so he could get his data first, not realizing that satellites orbit, rather than fly by commands. They put a display on one of the aircraft carriers as an experiment about the time I was working on it, so the Navy would get real time dumps. I remember after the six month sea trial, somebody asked if they could get the equipment back off and the skipper said they could do it if they could get it past his Marine guards. The normal downloaded data was all processed in Omaha at the Air Force Weather Center. To this day they produce data that's updated every four hours or so, essentially worldwide.
And you were program manager for that sensor?
I was a program manager for a new version, which we defined as the OLS. Very interesting device. In fact, one of the telescopes is in our case out there. It's an 8-inch Casgrain telescope, and it's suspended with four stainless steel springs. It works like an electric clock where it swings back and forth and you hit it with a little bit of energy as it passes through each time so it will maintain exactly the right swing. There is an optical device at the end to control how far it swung. The telescope swings back and forth at six times per second. And each movement takes one three-tenths of a mile swath of the earth. Each of the swaths are continuously added together to make a map.
So, it's moving in order to do what, exactly?
To do the lateral scan — the azimuth scan. Satellite velocity, provides the forward scan, so it's a line scanner. Somebody came up with the name "Operational Line Scanner" to try to get operational into the name of the device although at the time we didn't have the foggiest notion whether it was going to work or not. The concept was developed by two really bright Westinghouse people. One was Frank Rushing, who was a mechanical engineer and one of the greatest as far as I'm concerned. The ladies will all appreciate him because he's a guy that developed a process that keeps their washing machines from going out of balance. And Gordon Ly, who was an excellent engineer in electro-optics. It was really remarkable that such a thing would play. You take these four springs: we went through many, many, many materials. It was almost like an Edison-like process. Making springs in different tempering. We finally found something that seemed to work and it did work. They've last as long as fourteen years in orbit. And there are still two of the satellites left.
You said they're swinging six times a second.
Six times a second.
It's pretty impressive that a spring could hold up.
It is impressive to see. Of course, it's in a vacuum. Anyway, that was an interesting chore. I moved on into a couple of proposals before it was really into production and then the gentleman who had negotiated a contract with Jet Propulsion Labs for us to build the transmitter and Pulse forming circuitry for the Seasat became ill, and so I moved onto the Seasat job to fill his shoes.
Is that a navigation satellite?
The Seasat
No, Seasat was a synthetic aperture radar for studying the oceans.
I see.
So it was a Jet Propulsion Laboratory project. It was very successful for about thirty days. And then the slip rings on the satellite failed so it lost power. But there's a lot of good imagery available from that. They were studying ocean phenomena. One of the things that came out of it: the synthetic aperture radar was part of it but they also had a very accurate radar altimeter, and that process has been used by Navy since then on the Poseidon and others to map the bottom of the ocean.
This altimeter is actually detecting the bottom of the ocean?
No, not directly.
It's measuring the surface.
It measures to altitude to the surface of the ocean. And they claim to make it down to a fraction of a centimeter. Now the height of the satellite is directly proportional to the gravitational constant at that point in space, and that in turn is dependent on how deep the ocean is because the density of the water is different than the rocks below it.
Rock is much denser of course.
So, by plotting the altitude to a very minimal altitude difference, they can basically make a map of the bottom of the ocean. So, now a process that takes years and years to do with a ship, they were able to do in weeks.
What was your role on the Seasat?
I was program manager for the design and production. And we basically made two transmitters. They had the pulse-forming transmitter – it had a chirp transmitter pulse – and a solid state transmitter. We had basically three five-hundred watt L-band amplifiers that combined to make the thousand watt pulse. It also had an optical delay line – or an acoustic delay line – that formed the chirp pulse. We developed that with the help of another subcontractor. And it flew as the Seasat A. The Seasat failed after about thirty days and then we took the spare parts that were left over and built the radar again and reoptimized it for looking at land. And it flew twice as the SIR A and the SIR B, the shuttle imaging radar A and the shuttle imaging radar B.
I could imagine that must have been sad for all of you involved when it failed after the thirty days or so.
Yes, there are a lot of rumors going around on that failure and I have a JPL friend who swears he saw data that was taken later. So, there have always been rumors hanging around that it was actually shut down because it was working too good.
Maybe some other agency wanted the data that was coming out.
Right. But I think it failed.
I can just imagine when one has put so much work into it.
Well, there were rumors that it was seeing wakes where there were no ships.
So what did you go to after the Seasat?
Late Career and Retirement
After the Seasat, I started working on a black program. I spent several years on that. And then I finished up doing some studies. The last interesting project was a study for doing a tactical radar from space, and we essentially developed the guidelines for a system of ten satellites at fifteen hundred miles that would detect essentially all the aircraft traffic on earth as its moving. It was too expensive to ever build but it was interesting to work on. I retired in 1991, so it's been quite a few years. I spent thirteen years working one day a week at the Smithsonian in the archives.
Oh, nice. What museum?
Smithsonian Air and Space. We answered letters and we did the research for answers to letters. But, I spent some time here at the museum.
Tell us about your involvement with this museum.
I had been volunteering over at the airport, at the information desk, and that disappeared, so I came to the museum looking for something to do and before I knew it I was on the Board of Directors. Then they asked if I would be Chairman of the Board.
What years were these?
Oh, let's see. We're going back about ten years. And I've tried to design some of the exhibits there in the space gallery. I've helped out in the radar gallery here and there. So the museum itself is, I think, a real treasure. I've done quite a bit of work on the archives here. I'm currently still working on labeling pictures. The museum has thousands of pictures from Westinghouse, Northrup Grumman and elsewhere.
So, you've kept busy in your retirement years?
Very busy. I've since moved over to Charlestown, which is a retirement community, where I'm living now. I've got involved too deeply in a Lifelong Learning program over there. We've a small community and then all of a sudden we have eighty courses offered. We filled four thousand seats this year. This community is about two thousand people. So, that's been keeping me busy.
Reflections on Career
Wonderful. Is there anything I didn't ask about that you care to add on?
I think we pretty well covered a lot of the waterfront. I didn't do any papers or anything. I've been kind of in a process of clean up after a lot of projects and almost the last engineer off of BOMARC and last one off of some of the others.
You've been involved in a very important way with a lot of exciting systems over the years.
I've been exposed to a lot of programs. Much more so than some that have stayed in a fairly limited area. Of course, I've learned enough about everything to be dangerous, instead of with any of depth. But you know, you start to appreciate how the equations the mechanicals used are the same as the ones the electricals use. The great use of the spectrum we're making and so on.
Well, thank you very much.
- Automation
- Business
- Contracts
- Industries
- Defense industry
- Communications
- Sensors
- Cold War
- Military applications
- International affairs & development
- Korean War
- Meteorology
- Imaging
- Marine technology
- Radar
- Doppler radar
- Fields, waves & electromagnetics
- People and organizations
- Corporations
- Engineers
- Reliability
- Aerospace engineering
- Military aerospace equipment
- Satellites
- Sensor systems
- Aviation
- Airborne radar
- Propulsion
- Aircraft


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An autobiographical lecture at the Faculty of Social Sciences of The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, presents the genesis and evolution of my research projects in their tight connection with the ontology of development and educational achievements in science and school practice. It is an introspective and socio-historical insight into the emergence of ideas, the scope of my personal involvement in radical changes in pedagogy as science and practice from kindergarten to university professor. My works have been appreciated, among other things, by rewarding the third honorary doctorate honoris causa.
The author of the article is aimed at reconstructing the concept of academic freedom as a base of university existence, regarding both its didactic and research function. The author takes into account various definitions of academic freedom and analyzes areas and dimensions, especially its institutional (university) and individual (professor) level. He reconstructs also controversies which are exposed in discussions on academic freedom and arguments regarding its limitations. He considers the phenomenon of actuarial policy and various forms of academic competition. He puts question: does the concept of academic freedom can be still vivid in the time of growing commercialization of didactits and research functions of contemporary university as well as its growing dependance on economy and politics?
The article outlines the conceptual assumptions of pedagogy underlying university education, re-defined with regard to the dynamic conditions underlying contemporary culture. The authors concentrate on constitutive educational forms that define the nature of semiosis in education, as well as their exposure and transformation. In connection with this, there is a focus on the concept of "symbolic politics", which aims to liberalize the practice of pedagogy, freeing it from the dictatorship of a transmission form of education, as well as creating conditions for strengthening discursive relationships and a reflexive discursive attitude. As a result of the implementation of this form of symbolic politics, those involved in education do not promote the prevailing discourse but become agents capable of discursive reflection in action as well as participants in processes of discursive design and creation.
In knowledge based economy, which actually reflects the knowledge oriented modern society, career development of its members becomes the key factor, same as investing in career "portfolio". In the article a career construct is invoked as an individual's property considering individual career choices, individual career development planning and monitoring strategies. When addressing career related matter, one cannot overlook the issue of subjective meaning given to a career in the context of satisfactory outcome and success achievement experienced by the subject. Cognitively interesting issue addressed by the author are the results of research into evaluation of one's own chances to succeed from the perspective of university students who are in the transition period from academic education to entering a job market.
The Finns built a goal-oriented policy of lifelong guidance, which promotes not only the climate of constant learning, but also the development of knowledge and skills. The Finnish success is related to the changes in the contemporary world. It relies on the perfect recognition of skills and competences, which are needed in society of the future due to the different working conditions, which students and employees of XXI century have to face.
The article contains reflections on the role of reflexivity in contemporary education. The most important is to emphasize the importance of a pragmatic reflexivity in constructing the cultural identity of a young man. The majority of the text consists of references to the thoughts of Hans Georg Gadamer in the context of pragmatics of reflexivity. In conclusion, the author proposes a pedagogical definition of reflexivity.
The author reconstructs the Romantic concept of imagination, drawing attention to its relations with the esoteric tradition, and then presents the significance of the idea of imagination for pedagogical reflection in the period of Romanticism. What is also undertaken is the motif of the continuity of Romantic ideas in the 20th century, with special regard to the 20th century youth counterculture and the relations between the countercultural concept of imagination and the discourse on education.
The ideas of pluralism, their various theoretical developments and ideological concretizations, as well as their promotion and the attempts at implementing them in social practice, constitute a current signum temporis. Pedagogical reflection seems to be particularly sensitive to the issue of pluralism, to its understanding and practising, to multidimensional references of pluralism to the world of values. This especially concerns the values and conflicts of values which are close to various forms of educational activity. What is considered – more or less critically – in pedagogical reflection are different aspects and consequences of the idea of pluralism concerning the currently existing ideas. Simultaneously, the multitude of the ideas of pluralism is taken into account – the ideas which refer to the broadly treated sphere of pedagogical activities and institutions. Pedagogical reflection also considers the threats which co-occur with pluralism or are aimed against it and which are carried by pluralism itself, e.g. in the sphere of education. An expert in the contemporary pedagogical thought and practice, Bogusław Śliwerski, asks: "Will we manage to save the world of pedagogical thought, the pedagogy open to difference, to pluralism (not to be mistaken for another illness which is relativism)?". By confronting pluralistic perspectives of pedagogy with current ideological and social challenges, he makes this question one of the leading issues in pedagogical and metapedagogical studies. What seems to be heard in this question as well is the appeal to save the world of pedagogical thought as an open world characterized by pluralism, doing this through honest reasoning conducted from different standpoints and perspectives. The assumption of this question comprises the axiologically consolidated belief that it is worth "to save the world of pedagogical thought, the pedagogy open to pluralism". This is also an inspiration to undertake the (presented in this text) thought concerning the pluralistic perspectives of pedagogy and various faces of pluralisms in the critical recognition of metapedagogical reflection in the case of the Polish pedagogical thought after 1989.
Axiological chaos and unsustainable man's acting in a contemporary world has led him to a total confusion. He constantly acts toward environmental and cultural degradation. Also in social dimension a permanent and "general" crisis dominates. The crisis is rooted on multi-category stratification and based on post-truth models of interpersonal communication in traditional and virtual realities. Neoliberal model of economical conquest, in turn, effects unsustainability in economic sphere. Thus, in common reception – for the most people in the world – such situation has become unbearable. So, it is the educators' duty to look for – with the intention to put into practise – such concepts and pedagogies, which could prepare the whole global society to real – not declaratory false – co-creation of its life in the world, understood as an actual and common home. Taking such perspective, the theory of Argentinian philosopher – Ernesto Laclau becomes an interesting proposition. The time of mono-dimensional – protestant and neoliberal – interpretation of values comes to the end. Now the time has come to accept the equality of different – having their roots in various cultures – value understanding. Possibility of local and particular interpretation of values – along with maintaining the rule of common good – gives the chance to update the education according to real, thus multidimensional humanistic ideal. Such a standpoint presents a way to cure/reform intercultural education, which nowadays is at an impasse. Mainly it uses stiff schemes and repeated patterns, so it has become imitative and conservative. In its contemporary formula intercultural education is not able to respond to present challenges of multicultural and global society. The need to implant into its structure the concept of sustainable development emerges as a must.
What is focused on in the undertaken study are teachers from schools educating in the Polish language in the Czech Republic. The author refers to the studies conducted in 2014–2016 and in 2017 among teachers from schools for the Polish national minority located in Zaolzie. These schools effectively compete with schools for the Czech majority. Among other things, they have survived owing to teachers and their decisive strategies, which involve not only strictly competitive but also various forms of collaborative behaviour.
This paper points out assumptions and reasons for using digital technologies, the importance of using digital technologies in teaching and management. It also refers to the digital technologies and digital competences as an essential part of the competency model of a teaching staff in education. It also points out the fact that existing competency models need to be further explored, decomposed, and formulated as an illustration by the digital competences extensions.
The article describes Family Group Conference method, which was initiated in Poland over 10 years ago by J. Przepierski. The method is presented in historical context of their theoretical foundations and particular practical assets justifying its application in work with families in a crisis situation and moments of difficulties, which might constitute an obstacle in the use of the method.
The presented article points to the issues of self-consciousness and the possibilities of its development. It defines in this context also concepts of self-evaluation, self-respect, self-appreciation, self-recognition, self-confidence and self-realization. In the text, it is emphasized that self-consciousness is related to the awareness of one´s own psychophysical and social identity - I myself and the world and my place in it. An important means for the development of the healthy self-consciousness is also praise. In the conclusion of the article, attention is paid to the psycho-hygiene as prevention of the failure.
In the early 21st century, the concepts and theories which constitute the theoretical and methodological foundation of the traditional 20th century resocialization pedagogy (divided into three basic groups characterized by different theoretical and methodological approaches) got largely outdated. Therefore, contemporary resocialization pedagogy searches for new inspirations. What can become one of the new theoretical- methodological concepts is creative resocialization. The presented study concerns the assumptions of both the traditional resocialization pedagogy and its new varieties, with special focus on traditional and current theoretical and methodological contexts.
The article is dedicated to the problems of the functioning of people with disabilities in the Polish penitentiary system. It present theoretical considerations, regarding the nature of imprisonment, adaptation problems, types of adaptation strategies, therapeutic system and its limitations, as well as premises for the implementation of own research.
The study concerns the functioning of disabled learners at the level of higher education. The period of university studies is usually associated with the change of the life routine practised so far. The changes comprise various fields and bring about the adjustment to new roles. This stage is a chance for becoming independent, for specifying one's position in the group, for shaping one's own "young adult world view"18. The article is aimed at presenting the typology of disabled students based on an analysis of the behaviour which they show as members of the academic community. The sources of these behaviour patterns can be sought in various interpersonal and intrapersonal factors resulting from the individual's character. The presented authorial typology has been presented also in reference to the Personality Traits Theory formulated by Costa and McCrea. This has allowed for broadening this typology with some particular subtypes.
Psychodrama is a method of therapy and personal development which strongly engages – apart from the intellect – the body and emotions. It frequently makes use of symbols and metaphors based on a natural inclination to play, at the same time triggering spontaneity and creativity. Psychodrama was invented by Jacob Moreno in the early 20th century. For a long time, it has been subjected to various changes. Its development has brought about the adjustment of its tools to different needs and group situations. Today, psychodrama is widely applied in psychotherapy, personal development, business, as well as education. The presented study is aimed at showing the usefulness of psychodrama as a tool which enhances the understanding of disability by both people without disability (as it is understood by the non-disabled) and the disabled (as regards the understanding of their own limitations). An additional goal is presenting the general assumptions of psychodrama the benefits from using its techniques for the development of e.g. teachers, therapists, tutors and other people working with the intellectually disabled, post-graduate students of special pedagogy in the field of oligophrenopedagogy.
The study consists of three parts. The first comprises the characteristic features of social politics strategy. They include the basic assumptions and functions of the social politics strategy in the field of the development of education and aid activities at the level of local units of territorial authorities. The essence of the study is the second part. It consists of the own research results – an analysis of the aims and tasks associated with inclusive education (also with preparing local communities for creating inclusive culture), comprised in strategies. The whole is completed with final conclusions. The study is aimed at the qualitative analysis of the development strategy of 17 communes (3900 pages of documents) as regards the issues of disability. The research interest was to find out whether the slogans promoting the equal access to education, elimination of barriers and preparing mainstream schools and local community for inclusive culture had been reflected in any way in the social politics strategies of local authorities – in the documents which, at least in the assumptions, constitute the starting point for generating good practices, also in the field of social support and education for disabled learners.

subset: commoncrawl


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Maxine Nightingale performs on the Expo New Mexico Main Stage Saturday at 3 p.m. Tiffany will perform on the Main Stage at 7 p.m. For more info visit www.abqpride.com/vips.html.
Latest Article|September 3, 2020|Free
::Making Grown Men Cry Since 1992
3 min read
In the late '80s, I religiously watched ABC's TGIF, a block of four situational comedies (in 1988 it was "Perfect Strangers," "Full House," "Mr. Belvedere" and "Just the Ten of Us"). While I found the three slutty daughters on "Just the Ten of Us" appealing, and enjoyed the foreigner humor of "Perfect Strangers" and "Mr. Belvedere," "Full House" was the favorite–with its relatable characters, it was probably every 8-year-old's favorite.An early episode titled "Joey Gets Tough" had the daughters convincing Uncle Joey to let them stay up late and watch a special TV appearance by Tiffany. There was laughter and young-girl excitement, as well as hair products and dancing. I think they got in trouble (probably when "Joey got tough," as the name suggests), and along the way, learned a valuable lesson. But I just remember wanting to find out more about Tiffany. How perfectly that show and the pop singer complemented one another; it was probably, for many girls, their introduction to Tiffany.These days, nearly 20 years after her rise to fame as a teen pop star and subsequent decline after a third, poorly-selling album, the "I Think We're Alone Now," "Could've Been" and "I Saw Him Standing There" platinum hit-maker is touring and working in television as a VH1 host and the like. She also made a 2002 appearance in Playboy , which was the one and only time I, and many other then-grown girls, ever got excited about an appearance in Playboy .Tiffany has released a handful of albums since her ill-fated third in 1990. Just this year, she released an album of dance anthems aimed at the gay community, which is admittedly better than any of her sugary, over-produced hits from the '80s. Dust Off and Dance aptly accomplishes its goal: Just listening to it transports me to a boy's club-like atmosphere where I imagine myself sweating in something sassy and shaking my ass. Subsequently, she will be staging a concert at Pridefest, which to me, sounds like the best possible situation in which to see a Tiffany performance.Also performing at Pridefest is '70s UK soul singer Maxine Nightingale, responsible for hits like "Right Back Where We Started From" and "Lead Me On."


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OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) -- Gov. Jay Inslee on Tuesday called for a special session of the Legislature in hopes of swiftly approving a package of bills that are part of a broad bid to get Boeing to build the composite wings and fuselage of its new 777X in Washington state.
Inslee, surrounded by key lawmakers, and officials from Boeing Co. and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, said he wants lawmakers to return to Olympia on Thursday and approve the measures — which would likely include tax breaks for Boeing but possibly higher taxes for drivers — in just one week.
"If we can do this in the next seven days, we can be certain that Washington's aerospace future will be as bright as its past," Inslee said.
Inslee said the deal would include a $10 billion transportation spending bill that lawmakers have spent the better part of a year debating, which relied heavily on an increase in the state's gas tax and was previously unable to pass the Legislature.
"This is all about jobs, and transportation is included in that," said House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, who said he believed that lawmakers' work could be done within a week. "We are working in good faith to come up with a revised package."
The overall package Inslee proposed Tuesday would also extend all commercial airplane tax incentives for 16 more years to 2040. That would save Boeing about $8.7 billion, but state officials say it would bring the state an estimated $17 billion in revenue from economic activity spurred by the new line.
Inslee is also seeking to streamline the permitting process to help speed up expansion of facilities at large manufacturing sites around the state, which would also benefit Boeing.
Separately on Tuesday, Chicago-based Boeing proposed an eight-year labor agreement that would guarantee construction of the new 777X in the Puget Sound area.
The Machinists union said in a statement Tuesday that union members will vote on the offer soon. Union leader Tom Wroblewski said securing the new 777X for the Puget Sound means job security for workers and decades of economic activity for the region.
The union released limited details about the labor proposal, saying it includes the establishment of a different retirement plan. Members would be paid a $10,000 signing bonus.
"Only a project as significant as the 777X and the jobs it will bring to this region warrants consideration of the terms contained in Boeing's proposal," Wroblewski said in a statement. "While not all will agree with the proposal's merits, we believe this is a debate and a decision that ultimately belongs to the members themselves."
Inslee spokesman David Postman said that the entire package that lawmakers will consider will be contingent on two things: the union approving the agreement, and if that occurs, Boeing following through on its promise.
Inslee said that he has been assured by Boeing that they will follow through if the union approves the contract and the Legislature approves the proposal put forth Tuesday. Officials with the union and Boeing would not take questions during the news conference.
"Bottom line, this is what Boeing and the Machinists need to compete in the global marketplace," Inslee said. "It's what we need to secure our state's economic future."
Rep. Liz Pike, R-Camas, raised concerns about the proposed time frame, saying that it provided limited time for public input and "goes against all transparency citizens expect of us in the Legislature."
"With the exception of the transportation tax increase package the governor seems to have promised as a part of this agreement, few have seen any of the incentive legislation he wants passed," she said in a written statement.
"We need to have time to do this right - to review the proposals extensively, provide the opportunity for citizens to have their voice, and then deliberate it properly," she wrote.
Senate Republican leader Mark Schoesler, of Ritzville, said legislative action makes sense now that there is an agreement between union leaders and Boeing.
"I want to bring more jobs to our state, not see them go elsewhere because our state couldn't or wouldn't compete," he said in a written statement.


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File sharing services are not as popular today as they were four years ago. It's not that people are sharing any less. Rather, they just found easier ways to do it. Would you upload a funny video from a friend's email to any of those services or would you search for it on Youtube and share only the link? Would you upload an MP3 file in order to share with whomever, or would you search for it online, grab the link and then share it? And finally, would you use a file-sharing app just to share a picture on Facebook when you can do it directly from your desktop to your Facebook profile? Of course, you wouldn't!
So why would you use an file-sharing app anyway? Actually for many reasons: for larger files, for privacy, multiple files, file format support, and more.
In this post, I compare 16 file-sharing services. I took three main issues under consideration when creating the comprehensive app list below: Free, Fast, and Useful . . .
Most of the services suggested require no registration. None of them will ask you to download anything to your computer, and all of them are easy to use, and worth using. It is actually great to see services, such as Yousendit, MailBigFile, and Rapidshare, that are still relevant and are good choices, but if I had to pick one it would be Mediafire.
Don't get confused now. This is not a list of services that let you store all your files in the cloud, organizes them, or allows you to collaborate with friends. It's more focused on file-sharing only, in the richest capacity—well, okay, you be the judge of that.
Box.net is probably the most commonly-known site featured here. But I couldn't keep it from the list because it's really a good one and despite all its features, it's actually simple to use. The light version is not so attractive though. Here's what you get: File uploads up to 25MB/file (OK, that's pretty lame). 5 collaboration folders, 1GB storage, mobile access, public file sharing, folder widget, and a few more options. The other plans are far richer, but for personal use, the free one is enough (except for the lame file uploads limit). One thing that bothered me is that you can't upload a file without signing up. That's the old fashion way, don't you think?
Rapidshare is lacking in features & design, but if you're looking for a one-click file host, you came to the right place. Founded in 2006, the service is the twelfth most visited homepage in the world. With Rapidshare, users can upload big files (200MB) in one step and subsequently make them available to friends and family via the download link. Premium accounts offer additional convenience, through TrafficShare that provides the option to make files available for direct downloading. The recipient of the file can access it instantaneously even if he/she is not a premium account member of RapidShare. A file can be downloaded 10 times, and will be deleted after 90 days.
I always liked drop.io and even now with much more usage than before, it is still simple to understand. No need to sign up in order to quickly send a private link with your file(s). Maximum file upload is 100MB, but there are three different packages that will give you a whole lot more. Back to the free service; you can share, collaborate, and present music, videos, documents, audio, in a private drop, through email, web, phone, fax, and more. Additionally, you'll be able to privately chat with the people you share a file with, in real-time.
Filedropper aims to give the most basic file hosting service that enables you to share stuff quickly. Therefore, there's nothing complicated here, just upload the file, and share it. Simple as that. Filedropper says you can upload up to 5GB per file, which looks a bit odd to me – after all, who needs that (unless you are transferring HD videos, I guess)? Very similar to Filedropper, is FileSavr, which offers you the same package completely, with a slight change: uploads up to 10GB per file…
I actually marked this one as a favorite: Wikisend – an elegant and simple interface that helps you share files quickly. Share files with your friends using email, social networks, your blog, forums and so on. You can also protect the file with a password and choose the range of the file's lifetime up to 90 days (max)
You can use Driveway even without registration and send up to 500MB max for each upload. Signing up for a free account offers several advantages: A registered user can upload up to 2 GB of data to the Driveway account. Additionally, you can upload, manage and create widgets for files and folders and search for files/folders within your account.
With the free plan of Send6, you can send files up to 100MB size, which you can store in your 250MB free space. Send6 also has a free plug-in for Outlook that allows you to send large files directly from your Desktop. Please note that you don't need to register to send files to friends. Sharing is done via email only.
Zshare is mainly used to share files that are too big to be sent via e-mail. With Zshare you can host files, images, videos, audio and flash in the same place, and as long as they remain active they can be downloaded limitlessly. Zshare lets you upload files up to 1GB, and if you register for the service (still free), you'll be able to share them privately. Premium members get faster downloads (like most of the services here) and the ability to upload up to 2GB per each upload. Multiple files are allowed in both free and premium lines.
Overall, 2large2email has a nice and comfortable email-like interface for sharing large files. How large? 100MB in the free plan. However, if you're looking for something good and free, 2larg2email is not your answer. The service won't give you any additional features but password protection, and your files can be downloaded up to 7 times, will be saved for only 7 days, and will expire after that. For more features, you'll have to pay, or move and chose another service. BTW, I'm not saying that you shouldn't pay for premium services, but if there are other services for personal use, that offer you more for less, you may want to check them out first.
For busy people, Senduit is the best choice there is! It's a one-page platform that generates a private link from the file you upload (100MB Max) for easy sharing. You can send the link via email through Senduit's page directly, or copy-paste the link to any other communication channel (IM, Social networks, etc.). You get to choose when the link will expire—from 30 min. to 1 week.
I couldn't find the exact amount that you can upload per file to Flyupload, but the service looks great. Flyupload allows you to store, access, share and backup your digital documents, photographs, and music easily with complete privacy online. Registered users get extra features like 2GB space of files, Multi-uploads with an upload progress bar. You can also upload large files via FTP or create folders and keep track of files and Images. Additionally, Flyupload lets you share files from your database, to your Twitter account with a side tool called: Flyontwit.
If I had to choose one service only from this list, Mediafire would be it. The service has a good looking UI, with some great usability. It lets you share files even when you're not logged in and gives you a set of tools to complete this experience. For individual use, you can freely share files up to 100MB with unlimited uploads, unlimited downloads, unlimited bandwidth, and unlimited storage. This is why you might choose Mediafire over 2large2email, for example. When signing up, Mediafire enables you to organize your files in folders, search and view your files, and email/share/embed with others. It's the best service that you can get for free.
I was surprised to see that underneath the new layout of DivShare is the same great service from three years ago. And, even more surprised to discover some files I had stored 3 years ago in the service are still there! DivShare is a file management service that not only lets you share files, but also saves them for later (for an unlimited period of time). The maximum size per file is 200MB and you have 5GB space for free to start. After the upload, you'll be able to embed your videos, audio and slide shows on any web site or profile. Diveshare has an iPhoneand Facebook applications, a WordPress plug-in and an open API, if you want to build something yourself.
Back when I tried MailBigFile in 2005, I thought this was a great service that offered a convenient solution to sending larger files. I still think it's a good service. You don't need to sign up, but if you choose to this is the best pro account for your dollar. Even though, you can use the service for free and as long as you want to send up to 200MB per file via email (but with no additional features). MailBigFile has the best price for a pro account – $15/year with an impressive list of features.
Last but not least is good old Yousendit, which has never plummeted in its presence online. A reliable and secure service since 2004 that offers the ability to send free 100MB files with a maximum number of 100 downloads allowed per file. You use it just like an email, choose a recipient, send it directly to a person's inbox, and you get a notification when your file is downloaded.
Sharing files, large or small, should be a simple act, in my opinion—not something that should require a major effort or thought process on your behalf or make you create a complicated profile/account to use it. The options I listed here will help you explore the diverse file-sharing opportunities currently available. Whether you need to send a file privately or publicly, small or big, temporary or permanent, the options are all in this list, you just need to find the best match for your needs.


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Don't Listen to the Soccer Cranks. The World Cup Is Awesome.
There's no doubt about it: Soccer is the world's favorite sport. That is reaffirmed every four years when the world stops to watch the World… Read More
There's no doubt about it: Soccer is the world's favorite sport. That is reaffirmed every four years when the world stops to watch the World… Read More
Walter Cronkite once said, "In seeking truth you have to get both sides of the story." Well, if that's the case, then our country's biggest… Read More
An unlikely alliance is forming between conservatives and liberals rightly asking whether it makes sense that America has the highest incarceration rate in the world…. Read More
In one of the most interesting exchanges leading up to the 2012 presidential election, an anchor made a name for himself by challenging President Barack… Read More
In this clip, successful investor Kevin O'Leary from ABC's hit show "Shark Tank" eloquently and persuasively destroys many of the myths of the "1 percent"… Read More
Another day means another poll that is sure to give the President and some members of Congress heartburn. According to a new poll by the… Read More
Free from a number of burdensome government regulations, public charter schools are a big hit among parents. And now, according to a new study, students… Read More
Here's a poll the White House doesn't want you to see: In the state of Colorado, 57 percent of Hispanics disapprove of Obamacare. This development… Read More
The end of a post-Cold War peace and the biggest event since the fall of the Berlin Wall—that's how panelists at The Heritage Foundation described… Read More
A solid majority of Republicans and Democrats agree that imposing sanctions on Russia is a good idea, according to a recent Washington Post poll. Among… Read More


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Above is the next picture for the Create a Caption Contest.
- Write a sentence, or a dialogue describing what's occurring in the photo.
- If you like a caption that's been written, recommend it, by clicking the "actions" button under the comment, and then the "rec" button that appears. Recommend as many comments/captions as you like.
- The winner will be the user with the most "recs"
- I'll post the winner tomorrow
So what do you think is happening in the picture?
Start thinking and place your recs!


text:
Story highlights
Raul Castro is re-elected to a second five-year term
He will be 86 in 2018
Miguel Diaz-Canel is tapped to be first vice president
Cuban President Raul Castro said Sunday that he would step down from power in 2018, when his second term as president is set to end.
"I would like to make clear … this will be my last term," he said during a nationally televised speech at the end of a session of the country's National Assembly.
The announcement came shortly after lawmakers re-elected Castro to a second five-year term. Last year, Castro said that Cuban officials, including the president, should be limited to two terms in office.
He was officially elected president of the island nation in 2008. In 2018, he will be 86.
Castro took over from his ailing, older brother, Fidel Castro, whom he quoted liberally on Sunday.
"I quote: 'Revolution is the sense of the historical moment, to change everything that must change. It is equality and freedom. It is to treat and treat others as human beings. It is to emancipate ourselves with our own efforts. It is to defy powerful forces in and out of the social and national context … It is to fight for our dream of justice for Cuba and the world, the fundamentals of our patriotism, and socialism, and our internationalism.' May this marvelous definition serve as a guide for the new generations of patriots and Cuban revolutionaries," Castro said.
Illness forced the elder Castro to step down after nearly 50 years in power.
Also Sunday, lawmakers elevated Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, 52, to the position of first vice president, putting him next in line to succeed Castro.
He is the first member of the generation born after the Cuban Revolution to reach the powerful position and stands in contrast to many of the octogenarian military officials who hold top positions in the government.
Diaz-Canel previously served as one of five second vice presidents and as minister of higher education. Trained as an electrical engineer, he has a reputation among many Cubans as a plainspoken problem solver.
Castro spoke glowingly of Diaz-Canel, saying his rise marks a "definitive step in the configuration of the future leadership of the country, through the gradual and organized transfer to the new generation taking over the main roles."
While not as widely known as other officials, Diaz-Canel last month headed a Cuban delegation that attended a large pro-government demonstration in Venezuela.
The event marked the day that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was due to have been sworn in for a new term. But Chavez missed his inauguration to receive cancer treatment in Cuba.
Castro also announced Sunday that Esteban Lazo Hernandez, 68, would assume the role of president of the National Assembly. Lazo had previously served in a variety of other roles, including second vice president.
Lazo replaces Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada, who was the National Assembly president for 20 years and often acted as the point person for negotiations with the United States.
However, Alarcon's political future was clouded last year by the arrest of a top deputy on corruption charges.
Alarcon will now lead the government's effort to free five Cuban intelligence officers sentenced to jail in the United States, Cuban officials said.
Before his formal televised remarks on Sunday, Castro bantered with other high-ranking officials.
At one point, he said that the National Assembly should change venues from the drab convention center where it now meets to Havana's Capitol building.
"It's a jewel," Castro said. "It's true there was a time during the era of capitalism that's where all the bandits met but not any longer now that its ours."
The Capitol, a replica of the one in Washington, was previously the seat of government in Cuba but has mainly sat unused since the 1959 revolution.
Castro then asked how long it had taken to build the Capitol in Havana during its construction in the 1920s.
"A little more than two and a half years," replied Eusebio Leal, Havana's historian and member of the assembly.
"And how long would it take to build today?" Castro asked, referring to the cost overruns and inefficiency endemic to Cuban government construction projects.
"Not less than five," said Vice President Ramiro Valdez, who fought alongside Castro in the revolution and now oversees government public works.
Castro disagreed, saying the current government could not erect the same building in the less than 15 years.
CNN's Mayra Cuevas contributed to this report.


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The Wiz is the first Broadway musical I ever saw. Opening in 1975, the musical made a star out of Stephanie Mills and won seven Tonys, including Best Musical. The Wiz told the story of The Wizard of Oz from a Black perspective, adhering closely to its source material but taking some ghetto fabulous detours along the way. I remember being terrified of Mabel King's witch, Evillene, and fascinated when she seemed to melt into the stage. The Wiz also featured Clarice Taylor, Cliff's Mom on The Cosby Show, as Addaperle, the numbers-running witch who tells Dorothy about Oz.
Save your fire, fans of Miss Ross (this includes you too, Ma!) because tomorrow's Mahogany day.
UPDATE!! Netflix screwed me over again, sending me the wrong goddamn DVD! So, Mahogany will have to wait a few days. Damn you! But don't worry...I'll get to it.


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Section 8 of the Lewis & Clark Bicycle Trail traces the eastbound path Captain Clark explored along the Yellowstone River in 1806. Services are limited in eastern Montana. Much of this map section is either on I-90 or its frontage roads. From Three Forks eastward you'll cross several Gallatin River tributaries which flow into the Missouri River. The terrain on this section is rolling; you'll have great views of the Yellowstone River and Big Sky country.
Major funding for the Lewis & Clark Bicycle Route has been provided by REI.
Map Resources
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text:
How can I replace the $\log(x)$ function by simple math operators like $+,-,\div$, and $\times$?
I am writing a computer code and I must use $\log(x)$ in it. However, the technology I am using does not provide a facility to calculate the logarithm. Therefore, I need to implement my own function using only simple operators ($+,-,\div$, and $\times$).
Thank you.


text: My love of spicy food is hereditary, passed on by a father who loved everything from Tabasco to Taco Bell Fire sauce. There are, however, some things that are too hot for my cast iron palate. Many fall into the category of "dare you to try" dishes or extreme hot sauces. (more…)


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Downtime: I'm just back online after some gnarly downtime...no Internet or email on the computer for almost a day. Ya hate that. But after several pleasant hours on the phone with my new friends Tanvi in New Delhi and Edward in Arizona and multiple reboots of the modem as mysterious tasks and functions were allegedly performed remotely, all is copacetic again.
But I could get email and Internet on the phone, which is cool. I'm finally coming around to the smartphone era—what, five or ten years late? BlackBerry introduced its original RIM 850 in 2003, and the first iPhone was introduced to great fanfare in 2007. I bought my iPhone 4s in 2011 to use essentially as a walkie-talkie with my son Zander, who connects to his friends via texting. (Cellphones, I must say, are a huge boon to parents of teenagers—you can reliably hear from them if you need to, which reduces those traumatic incidents when they're out of touch when they should not be, for instance when your 14-year-old has an 11 p.m. curfew and still hasn't shown up at 2:35 in the morning. The kind of thing that gives parents white hairs.) Recently, with my new phones not hooked up yet, it's been my only means of phone communication.
More about the iPhone issue soon—I have more to report.
Metzker books: John Hamann at the Nelson-Atkins bookstore reports that all the extra copies of Keith Davis's The Photographs of Ray K. Metzker have been sold. They got lots of requests. If you didn't get a reply, it means they can't supply you with a book.
Close call: We had a brush with death the other day. I was going to Ten Chimneys with my new girlfriend—that's the estate and house museum of the '20s-through-1960 Broadway actor stars Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontanne, a real gem of a tour for visitors to this area (I've actually done the tour three times now and enjoyed it each time)—when a car came careening across the centerline at full speed heading straight toward us, dragging a large construction cone halfway under its front bumper. I was able to detect quickly that its course was constant—the thought flashed into my mind that the driver must have fallen asleep at the wheel—so I could plan and execute evasive action in a second or two, and we missed the oncoming car and also managed not to hit anything else as we went off the road.
That'll wake you up. I looked it up, and the average reaction time you get before an automobile accident occurs is well under three seconds. It turned out the driver was having an epilectic seizure, meaning he was most probably driving illegally. He careened off the road and managed to come to a stop in some bushes, semi-conscious and drooling blood. A number of people stopped to help. Another car pulled up that turned out to be the man's sister, who had just happened by and saw the accident. She wasn't surprised that it was him and who didn't seem terribly alarmed by the event, which indicated to me that this was nothing new to her. Nice of the guy to take risks with my life and my friend's life as he blithely takes risks with his own—I hope they throw him in jail. (And I might try to follow up on the story.) We left after the second Sheriff arrived, none the worse for wear but considerably shaken.
Migrating: The soybean field in back of my house must be right on the migratory route; the Canada geese are using it as a stopping-station. This morning I was out in the back with the dogs when a cacaphony of calls and honking arose from the field, and waves of birds took to the air. My best estimate was that there must have been eight hundred to a thousand in that flock, but the flocks come and go all day and night. I went out just now with a camera, but the field was deserted. I should take a camera out with me each time I let the dogs out—even though I'm just going to my own backyard.
Admitting failure: Reader Andy Sheppard took personal offense at my "Small is Relative" post yesterday and went on to excoriate the entire enterprise (TOP, that is), and so I apologize to Andy.
...And that's the end of "Morning Comment" and the short and rocky experiment with a regular autoposted morning comment. Some things I'm good at, lots more things I'm not, and I'm not too proud to admit that something's not working when it isn't. Having finally made a positive virtue of the mercurial aspect of my interests and my chronic lack of an ability to plan, I hardly see why I should regularly set myself up for failure on purpose. The very core of TOP is to make readers feel welcome, not the opposite.
Moving: If I had known how much work it was going to be to move, I wouldn't have attempted it. It just never ends, and it's wearing me down.
Current experiments: The Jesper sit-stand desk has arrived, and I'm standing as I write these words. As a preliminary review, you do not want the "Value Desk"—you want the regular "Prestige Desk" in whichever flavor you think will work best for you (the 47" model would be just high enough for me—I'm 6'1"—and the 63" model provides plenty of leeway). If you can't afford the Prestige, take a pass. The Value Desk I got is more cheaply constructed and a false economy, although I guess I'm stuck with it now.
In more major self-experimental news, the Soylent has arrived! It's been a long wait, thanks to a New Yorker article that jump-started interest in the product and left the company scrambling to catch up.
Soylent is a food replacement that many readers consider crack-brained, but I think it's interesting and worth a try. For those who haven't heard of it, it's an attempt to create "human food" that contains all the nutrients necessary for a healthy and balanced diet, like futuristic science-fictional "food pills" that eliminate the need to eat. Lunch becomes a glass and a half of a vaguely malty-tasting, sandy-textured liquid. I guess I don't see this as being as insane as some others think it is, because it's intended to replace unhealthy meals in your eating schedule—that is, instead of having Doritos and a pint of ice cream for dinner, you have Soylent instead. If you're cooking from good ingredients, that's when you take a pass on the Soylent. It doesn't need to replace any of the good meals you normally eat. So its healthiness is relative. And really, who among us eats good, healthy meals three times a day, seven days a week? Those people must be the exceptions now, rather than the rule. I plan to go ahead and eat food whenever I can prepare good food from ingredients, and replace the extemporized, unplanned, blatantly unhealthy meals with Soylent.
(I've been experimenting on myself with multiple diets in the past two and a half years, so this is just one more. I've managed to drop 35 lbs. over that time, and at a recent doctor visit all of my health indicators had improved.)
The biggest downside to the name? Not the deliberately controversial connection to "Soylent Green," but the implication that it contains a lot of soy. It does have a little, but most of the protein is rice protein.
I'll keep you posted as to how it goes.
Parting advice: Stay vigilant in your cars, friends; things seldom go wrong, but when they do, they go wrong quickly.
Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:
Bill Tyler: "Your close call brought back an experience I had about a year ago. I was driving home after an exhilarating morning out with a group of elephant seal researchers on the beach. It was a bright, clear crisp autumn day, traffic was light. I was approaching a group of bicyclists, and planning to swing a bit wide to give them plenty of room. Just then, a car coming the other direction swerved across the road, across my lane, up a dirt embankment to my right, and started down again, headed towards me. My attention was completely focused on avoiding a head-on collision. After our cars had passed without contact, I saw the bicyclist. He was lying motionless on the road, on a beautiful fall day, dead.
"The aftermath has not fully played out. Apparently the driver fell asleep at the wheel. I'm not sure what consequences he has suffered beyond a badly damaged car. For me, the experience was deeply disturbing. After calling 911, I had a hard time processing what I'd just seen. It's hard to describe how it's affected me. In one way, it's worse than the deaths of my parents because it was so sudden, so meaningless, so avoidable. Your driver was lucky. If he goes to jail, he'll still be lucky. It doesn't always happen that way."
Stephen Scharf: "When I read the description, I was skeptical about the concept behind 'Morning Comment.' What the point of it was wasn't clearly defined, and what value it would have brought to the TOP Community-At-Large wasn't clear either. I have to admit that thinking to myself, 'Not sure how this is going to go over...'
"On a positive note, however, I really enjoyed very much your Morning Coffee series of columns, and hope that you continue with those, in addition to the 'classic' TOP content. Just my 2¢."
Darr: "I am waiting on my sampling of Soylent, so please let us know how it goes for you. I am like you in that I purchased it for those times when I run out of prepared food. I am a vegetarian and do not always find the time or energy to use my juicer ahead of time for those busy days and tend to grab too many carbs."
IanM: "Moving. Things will improve, though it takes time. How much time? Think one and a half cycles through the seasons of the year. Then things will be normal (not the old normal, the new normal). The new place looks great and your writing about it tells good stories. It seems that the move to a new home has put you in a generous place in life. Relax into it and keep up with the thoughtful writing which makes TOP a premium blog."
Joe Holmes: "I'll be keeping an eye out for your updates on how it feels to work at a standup desk. I've had my Ergo Desktop Kangaroo Elite for about a year and a half (it's worked out really great), and I give two pieces of advice for those about to take the plunge: First, get a desk that does up and down easily. Days when I've been out walking for miles and miles, I come home and drop my desk to its sitting height. I might even keep it that way for a day or two. Then, up it goes. A good desk should go up or down in 30 seconds or a minute. If it takes too long, you'll never bother to change it. Second, a good foot mat is absolutely essential. I swear by my WellnessMats brand mat (I got the SmartStep Supreme). My back feels so much better since I switch to a standup desk."