Are you a rocket scientist?

A bit of a dichotomy of a book. In one sense, rocket science is the very opposite of simple strategies. Unless being really smart and doing the math again and again is simple. The book is a fast and easy read, full of much the same stuff that similar books have.

There is a spot where he talks about failure, and good thing. The early years of rocketry were filled with failure. Failure is one of the best teachers.

Then later that evening, surfing the internet, I got to thinking about a particular youtube channel, and wondered what he thought of rocket scientists. Destin of Smarter Every Day posted this video late February 2020. Yes, it's 54 minutes long, an eternity for an internet video. The rocket scientist is Tory Bruno, CEO of United Launch Alliance. The video is a tour of a facility where they build rockets.

The video is amazing on several fronts. First of all, Tory walks you through their facility, starting with sheets of aluminum, and ending up with a rocket. You could eat off the floor. The machinery and technology used is amazing, as you'd expect. They use a welding technique I'd never heard of.

Second, this guy seriously knows his shit. Destin himself is an engineer interested in technology in general, and rocketry in particularly, and you can clearly see he is totally geeking out. Yet Tory is answering almost all the good detailed specific questions, with specific detailed answers. It's clear he isn't reciting a memorized script. Where he doesn't answer, it's "I'm not allowed to tell you that." Not, "I don't know."

Third, Tory looks like an amazing guy to work for. He's clearly a team player, giving full credit to his team of people and the skills they bring to the factory. Some of it is computer controlled, as you'd expect, but some of it is done by people controlling the machines. Throughout the entire tour, he is wearing a huge genuine grin that says, I'm enjoying doing this even more than you are.

I'm going to have to look up the other videos with him, and watch them.

It's easy to get down on humanity. There's doom and gloom and climate change and COVID and Trump and many other things to be depressed about. On the other hand, if you think about all of the smartest people that have ever lived, half of them are alive now, with tools and techniques that were undreamed of even a generation ago. Yes, the problems seem huge, but all they want is a chance to deal with them.

This video is evidence that really cool, really precise things can happen when you take the time to truly understand the world. Idiots like Trump and Kenney might get all the attention, in the sense that a spectacular demonstration of driver incompetence tops the news, but ignores all the other people that got to their destinations safely.

Of the Day
Curtis has requested we move to a part time photo schedule. Naturally, since he asked so politely, I'm willing to oblige. I'll let you know when he shows up again.

Flowers
When I saw the curl, I thought Fibonacci numbers, and tried to get the curl to line up with the spiral. I didn't quite succeed, but you should feel a little more harmonious.

White Peony

Driftwood