George Savage

When I tell people I do most of my own car maintenance, the most common response is an incredulous look.  The more mechanically-inclined follow up with something like this:  “Really?  Cars today are just too complicated, what with all those computers and sensors.  You can’t just look under the hood and figure out what’s what like in the old days.”

Au contraire.

Today I put my 1990 BMW 535i up on jack stands, slid underneath and wrestled the driveshaft out.  I did this in order to replace the “flex disc,” a critical rubbery intermediary between transmission and driveshaft that, when failing, causes a BMW to vibrate like The Ultimate Washing Machine.  Consider that until today I’ve never touched a driveshaft, and until a few weeks ago I was blissfully unaware of the magical flex disc.

Disintegrating BMW flex disc

Today I feel like an expert, and it’s all because of real experts freely sharing their knowledge  online — complete with step-by-step instructions and detailed photographs — and available in an instant via Google.  Troubleshooting a funny clunk? Professional-level mechanics have already encountered, and written about, every problem imaginable.  Need to find out why the Check Engine light is on?  Read out the error codes yourself with a $90 handheld computer and turn to Google for the answers.  Buy the parts online and everything you need will be in the garage in time for next Saturday’s project.

In contrast, during the apocryphal good old days I was scared to death of getting stuck:  dismantling my car only to be stymied by an issue I couldn’t solve.  My only aid back then  was a $20 auto-store repair manual containing a few low-resolution black & white photos and a couple pages of cryptic text.  Today I’ve got an entire world of experienced mechanics offering relevant help for free.

Consider car repair as a great way to get some instant gratification while saving the $75 per hour that real mechanics charge.  The Internet makes do-it-yourself auto maintenance about as challenging as using a cookbook to make meatloaf. However, unless something’s seriously wrong in your kitchen, the car work will be greasier.

What a wonderful sight!

As a general aviation pilot for 28 years, I am awed by the superior judgment and skill shown by the typical professional aviator.  Believe me, I am just enough of a flyer to fully appreciate the difference between acceptable and exceptional.  The crew of US Airways Flight 1549 just reset the standard of excellence for pros everywhere.

Media coverage of Thursday’s water landing of a disabled A320 airliner on the Hudson River has focused on Captain “Sully” Sullenberger’s stick-and-rudder skills, but, as he would certainly tell you, the outcome resulted from the entire crew quickly marshaling available resources and working together as a team.

Here’s some background from Fox Business on the heroic crew members who brought Flight 1549’s passengers safely home:

Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger, III, age 58, joined US Airways (PSA Airlines) in 1980. He has a total of 19,663 flight hours.

First officer Jeffrey B. Skiles, age 49, joined US Airways (USAir) in 1986. He has a total of 15,643 flight hours.

Flight Attendant Sheila Dail, age 57, joined US Airways (Piedmont Airlines) in 1980 and has more than 28 years experience with the airline.

Flight Attendant Doreen Welsh, age 58, joined US Airways (Allegheny Airlines) in 1970 and has more than 38 years experience with the airline.

Flight Attendant Donna Dent, age 51, was hired by US Airways (Piedmont Airlines) in 1982 and has more than 26 years with the airline.

Congratulations also to the rescuers who saw everyone safely ashore.

Heard at a Silicon Valley company’s executive management discussion of the relationship between professional advancement and escalating performance expectations:

“As you climb the ice cream cone, the bed gets pretty prickly.”

Words to live by.

Subversive art finds a home in Europe

Some things are just deliciously good fun.

The Czech Republic has kicked off its six month presidency of the European Union by displaying a sculpture mosaic in Brussels, ostensibly the product of 27 artists each contributing an evocative symbol of his home country, but actually a gigantic prank by Czech artist David Cerny.  This is my kind of subversive art:  nothing sacrilegious or obscene, just outrageous satire.

The New York Times covers the brouhaha here.  Be sure to check out close-up photos of some of the more illuminating country depictions.  The BBC has more good pix here.

The Times of London gives you the feel from a European viewpoint:

Official art is an oxymoron. The artist officiates. And morons miss the point. Artists from Cellini and the Impressionists to Turner and Picasso have mystified officialdom. This happened again yesterday when the huge art work called Entropa was installed in the foyer of the main European Council building in Brussels. It was commissioned to mark the start of the Czech six-month presidency of the EU. And it was meant to depict the essence of each of the 27 member states captured by different artists.

So Romania is represented by a Dracula theme park; France by a banner labelled Grève (strike); and Germany with autobahns that look like a swastika. The eight-tonne mosaic is a mobile as well as an installation. So Lithuania urinating on Russia lights up, and Italian footballers make lubricious movements with their footballs.

The opening ceremony was artistically non-communautaire. The loudspeakers failed. The Czech Deputy Prime Minister apologised to Bulgaria for its portrayal as a squat toilet. And David Cerny, who had created the work himself, said: “We seriously expected it to be taken as a joke.”

The United Kingdom is represented by a blank, to suggest its semi-detached connection with Europe. The artist has tried to get to the pith of national stereotypes and prejudices, by taking the pith out of national pride. He has not accepted any of the commissioning money, though his art work is probably now worth more than its proposed fee. He may have feet of Klee, another joker. Irony is a tricky mode in paint as well as ink. But critics might conclude that the money spent on mocking national pretensions is quite as useful as the Common Fishing Policy.

USA Today’s Edward C. Baig writes the following about Proteus in his Personal Tech column today.

One of the most intriguing technologies comes from Proteus Biomedical in Redwood City, Calif. The company can add an ingestible microchip to a capsule or tablet, without altering the medicine. It’s made of food ingredients.

When you swallow the pill, it becomes electronically active and can send a signal through your body that looks like an EKG. It can be detected by a special, small bandage that might transmit data to a cellphone. Qualcomm is helping connect the special bandage to 3G phone networks. Caregivers or relatives will know when and what pills patients have taken or if the patients failed to take their medications.

The technology is in human trials. “We believe we have figured out a way for us to bring this to market with a wide variety of pharmaceutical products,” perhaps by 2011 or 2012, says Proteus CEO Andy Thompson. Cost: fractions of a penny per pill.

Read the entire column here.  Better yet, pick up a copy of today’s newspaper.

My Proteus colleague David O’Reilly has launched a blog chronicling the the transformation currently underway in healthcare.  Put IntelliMedBlog on your reading list.

Wired Magazine has named Proteus Biomedical’s Raisin System (“edible chips”) as one of its top 10 technology breakthroughs of 2008.

Thanks, Wired.  I’ll do my best to see that Proteus lives up to the accolade in 2009 and beyond.

Happy New Year!