text: DOWNLOADS Article (PDF-565KB) For several years, government leaders have been seeking ways to reduce waste through operational-improvement programs inspired by lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, or both.1 1. While lean and Six Sigma are distinct methodologies, many organizations combine elements of the two. In this article, we outline best practices that are equally fruitful in lean, Six Sigma, and related hybrid environments, rather than advocate one approach over the other. Classic lean techniques for eliminating waste, variability, and inflexibility have been used successfully in a variety of agencies, from those with processes that somewhat resemble manufacturing (such as defense-related logistics units) to others where the ideas might seem less obviously relevant (such as intelligence agencies or policy-making bodies). Sidebar LinkedIn Twitter Facebook Email Lean and Six Sigma basics During the past 20 years, lean and Six Sigma have become the most prominent performance-improvement programs adopted by global manufacturing and, more recently, service companies and government agencies. Both lean and Six Sigma are built on the driving principle that a business is improved by relentlessly solving problems that affect the customer. But what's the difference between the two? Lean Lean, which has its origins in the Toyota Production System, is focused on improving process flows in a system for the ultimate benefit of the customer or end user. The idea is to remove the key sources of loss from the process—waste, variability, and inflexibility—in a continuous search for ways to increase efficiency. All activities that do not add value to the process are considered waste, the primary sources of which include waiting, rework, and the handing off of tasks from one person to another. Variability is any deviation that creates unnecessary costs, and may be caused by a lack of control over the process or unplanned changes in demand. Inflexibility refers to the inability to meet customer requirements without incurring unnecessary costs. Backlogs and lead times contribute heavily to inflexibility. Six Sigma Six Sigma was pioneered at Motorola. Like lean, its ultimate goal is continuous improvement, and it seeks to reduce variability. However, Six Sigma is much more rooted in statistics and tends to be favored by engineers and people with scientific backgrounds, who are drawn to its mathematical precision and the logic of its approach. The three key elements of Six Sigma are its statistical tools, the DMAIC1 1.DMAIC is an abbreviation for the process steps design, measure, analyze, improve, and control. process, and the certification of staff through a system of colored belts derived from martial arts traditions. Unlocking the toolbox Both lean and Six Sigma give organizations powerful tools to help transform their operations for the benefit of the customer, but understanding these tools is not enough to deliver real benefits. For any improvement process to deliver real impact, its tools must be in the hands of the right people across the organization, and those people must get into the habit of applying them repeatedly and relentlessly in almost everything they do. Reaching this point is one of the most challenging aspects of business improvement. Yet for every success, there are several instances in which public agencies take a narrow view of lean operations. They devote their efforts exclusively to mastering the "hard" aspects of operational improvement—the technical tools and analytical solutions that abound in lean and Six Sigma tool kits (see sidebar, "Lean and Six Sigma basics"). To some extent, this is understandable because the tools are objective and straightforward, and trained experts are invaluable in diagnosing problems and suggesting solutions. But it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that simply by training and deploying technical experts, an agency will achieve significant improvements in its performance. Neglecting the "soft" side of lean—which includes steps that enable leaders to drive continuous improvement and change the way employees think and work—can delay or even derail an operational transformation. Organizations can reap larger and more sustainable benefits by taking an approach that balances a lean program's hard and soft elements (exhibit). Agencies must properly embed the softer aspects of lean by implementing the appropriate management infrastructure and by focusing on changing employees' mind-sets and capabilities. Exhibit A balanced approach Marrying hard and soft elements is the key to a sustainable operational transformation. We strive to provide individuals with disabilities equal access to our website. If you would like information about this content we will be happy to work with you. Please email us at: firstname.lastname@example.com Establishing the management infrastructure Once an agency has identified what technical improvements are needed for an operating system, it must develop a corresponding management infrastructure to support and enable change. By management infrastructure, we mean the formal structures and processes that are used to manage systems and achieve business objectives. We have identified a few steps toward establishing the management infrastructure that are also key to the sustained success of a lean transformation.Link process metrics to value To streamline its processes appropriately, an agency must first develop a thorough understanding of its end-to-end processes and where the value lies in each step of each process. The US government's recent efforts to shorten the security-clearance process is a case in point. Over the course of five years, the process had lengthened by 40 percent—to 446 days. The US Government Accountability Office had estimated that clearance backlogs cost the government about $1 billion per year in additional personnel costs. But before the government could propose potential solutions, it had to be able to measure performance for each process step. This included identifying what made each step necessary, describing how it added value to the overall process, and finding sources of waste in each step—an analytic technique known as value-stream mapping. To develop an accurate value-stream map, individuals involved in the process must remain completely objective, which can be very difficult for people who are experts at what they do and who have been doing it for a long time. Our strong recommendation in these cases is to form a cross-functional team with representatives who interact with the process in a variety of ways and therefore see it from different perspectives; such a team is better able to design an ideal process. The team charged with security-clearance reform came up with a new process that would reduce more than tenfold the time required to get a clearance—to roughly 40 days. Get data to the right people at the right time Critical to a lean transformation's sustainability is management's ability to track unit performance and make fact-based decisions. Agencies can collect and disseminate performance data either manually or by using a sophisticated IT system that produces performance reports or dashboards, but the technology they use is much less important than the metrics they choose. An agency must understand and focus on the key performance indicators (KPIs) that matter most, agree on a straightforward way to measure them, and ensure that the right people are reviewing and discussing them at the appropriate times. Agencies must establish a disciplined approach to solving problems on the front line, taking care to avoid a "gotcha" mentality that will almost certainly demoralize staff. Leaders of public health care organizations in Europe and North America have found that by gathering and sharing performance data in a constructive way, they have helped motivate employees to improve performance.Establish new roles to smooth processes Changes in processes will often necessitate a redesign of roles in the organization. Take the case of a policy-development division in the Canadian government. Developers were struggling with their expanding workload, and in the course of a lean transformation the division discovered significant variations in elements that should have been consistent for all projects, including how to define a project's scope, determine what priority it should receive relative to other projects, decide what skills were needed, establish quality guidelines, and lock in a timeline. To avoid variability, the division concluded that a single person should be responsible for performing all these tasks. This insight immediately led to the creation of a new role, the policy coordinator, who would work with management to ensure consistency in all the project elements mentioned before. The creation of this role improved overall efficiency by 10 percent. Align interests to drive momentum In an effort to prevent enthusiasm from waning after the initial stages of a transformation, organizations have tried all manner of monetary and nonmonetary incentives. Such incentives, if they are to work, must be crafted carefully; they should benefit employees as well as the larger organization. Corporations and public agencies alike, for example, have seen improvements in morale as the result of gainsharing arrangements, under which any savings achieved through the transformation are reinvested in the agency. Such arrangements also help embed the concept of continuous improvement. But failure to reinvest at the proper level may dilute the value of this incentive. For example, at the defense department of one European government, the savings delivered by an aircraft maintenance unit were reinvested for the benefit of the entire defense department rather than for the benefit of the unit. This prevented the unit's staff members from fully supporting the department's aggressive cost-reduction targets. However, the same unit saw real changes in behavior among its contractors as a result of gainsharing arrangements that split the benefits when contractors finished work for less than the contract price. The contractors were more willing to share technical knowledge and to innovate while seeking to reduce costs. In the first year of such a program with one of its contractors, the unit achieved savings of approximately €12 million. Changing mind-sets and capabilities Our experience in applying lean concepts—both in the public and private sectors—demonstrates that the failure to sustain change over the long term is often due to inattention to employees' mind-sets and capabilities. Without the shift to a performance culture, it will be difficult to initiate change and to have employees adhere over time to the new standards. Again, this shift must be accomplished concurrently with changes to the operating system and management infrastructure.Get staff to focus on the customer One of the most difficult changes to make in government agencies is the shift to a customer-centric organization. Dissatisfied customers do not have as big an impact on the public sector as they do on the private sector, because there are often no competitors for the agency's services, and thus no effect on the bottom line. Nevertheless, there are ways to help employees better understand the customer's perspective. One is to have employees walk in a customer's shoes. Some agencies have had one or more employees follow a customer through the entire process of completing an interaction with agency personnel. The employees can then feel the frustration of waiting lengthy periods of time or encountering a less-than-helpful attitude and report back the experience to other team members with supporting data. Once employees empathize with customers, the agency can begin to coach employees on customer-management skills such as building trust, having difficult conversations, engaging in active listening, and resolving conflict. For one Canadian agency that provides loans and insurance services to export-oriented local businesses, this type of approach involved extensive one-on-one and group coaching sessions on how to improve interactions with customers. Employee motivation improved, and productivity (as measured by the number of deals completed per full-time employee) increased by 40 percent.Break down bureaucratic silos Another significant challenge in public-sector lean efforts is "bureaucracy think," which becomes a particular problem when—as is often the case—a process cuts across government agencies. But silos can be broken down. One strategy is to educate units about what other units involved in their processes do. This can be done through informational sessions or by having employees spend a day shadowing their counterparts in other organizations. Another effective technique is to create shared metrics or help units better understand their shared goals. Assembling leaders from different units into problem-solving teams can go a long way in this regard. For example, one reason the US security-clearance process became so complex was that the intelligence agencies had different requirements for security clearances. Each agency believed its requirements were unique and thus warranted a different set of criteria and processes. To break free of this mind-set, a cross-functional team was created that included leaders from each of the agencies. The team was accountable for meeting the president's mandate to create a new process, and its members came to realize that great efficiencies could be gained by having a central organization govern a common process. Team members also began to feel a sense of loyalty to one another, which helped them resolve tensions that might have lingered had they worked only within their silos. Lead by example If leaders do not convey that there is an urgent need for change, then the lean transformation will not be as successful. A European courts system faced this challenge as it sought to apply lean methodologies in preparation for future budget cuts. After months of identifying process improvements, introducing a performance-management system, and changing roles and workflows, the project did not have as much impact as anticipated. Pilots showed that the time to accomplish certain critical tasks could be reduced by 50 percent, but because leaders in the justice ministry did not communicate any sense of urgency or commitment to change, ultimately the front line had no motivation to do anything differently. Conversely, the US government's work on security clearances benefited considerably from the positive and forceful mind-sets of the leaders of the effort. They set a clear goal—a transformed and sustainable security-clearance process—and made it plain that there would be accountability for any inefficiency in the new process.Inspire employees to overcome risk aversion Another mind-set frequently encountered in the public sector is an aversion to performance measurement and risk. Often this stems from the perception (and sometimes, unfortunately, the reality) that there is more downside to surfacing problems than there is upside to making improvements. Management can play a large role in changing this perception. Managers should thank employees for trying new approaches, and focus on solving problems rather than assigning blame for mistakes. Risk aversion was so entrenched at one US government agency that at the beginning of a lean-transformation effort, the leaders likened the project to "turning a battleship." They overcame this mind-set by involving workers in the creation of the performance-management system. By piloting a wide range of best practices that came from employees, the leaders were able to achieve buy-in for new ways of doing the work. The agency also established a team to generate the next set of improvement ideas and to support field implementation of the ideas that had been piloted. The long-term impact was significant: within two years, the agency had reduced its cost structure by 15 percent, and within four years it had achieved $4 billion in annual savings. Lean transformation is a long-term commitment—a marathon, not a sprint. To be sure, there will always be opportunities for quick wins, but lasting improvement does not come after a few weeks of training or a few months spent identifying waste. Agencies must foster a culture of continuous improvement. Everyone from the front line to top management should be responsible for initiating new improvement ideas. For managers, this creates an imperative to spend time observing what is happening on the front line; reports generated by others are no substitute for first-hand observations. Managers should also set a new tone, one that represents the new standards to which everyone is expected to adhere, and create a work environment that fosters teamwork, discipline, and enthusiasm.


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The Ghaznavids and the Ghurids
The eastern part of the Samanid Empire was ruled by governors, who like most of the army were slaves captured among the Central Asian Turkic peoples. Under Sebüktigin, a process to sever ties began that was completed by his son Mahmud (998-1030). The city of Ghazna became the capital of the new Ghaznavid Empire. Through large-scale military campaigns, it expanded into the former Buyid and Samanid regions of Iran in the west and up to the Oxus River in the north. Mahmud's military operations were also directed to the east and south, and he carried out a total of 17 campaigns into northern and central India. They were justified as jihad ("holy war"), since they were directed against the heathen Hindus, whose temples were destroyed. From the realms in northern India, Mahmud brought back rich booty, which in addition to financing his large military machine was used to build up Ghazna as a fitting capital. Mahmud also attracted the leading intellectuals of the period, such as Firdawsi, to lend lustre to the Ghaznavids' new court. The Ghaznavid Empire reached its greatest size under Mahmud. Soon it came under pressure from new Turkic dynasties, such as the Seljuks and the Ghurids.
The mountainous region of Ghur in Afghanistan was inhabited by a Turkic people that had been used as slaves in Muslim armies for years. Under the Ghaznavids, however, the Ghurids became Muslims and vassals, but soon gained their independence and grew into a new and expanding power. They captured and plundered Ghazna in 1150 and drove the last Ghaznavids into Punjab, where the dynasty was annihilated in 1186. Their leader was the Ghurid Muizz al-Din Muhammad, who continued the Ghaznavid jihad tradition and penetrated farther into India, where he took Delhi in 1193. He ruled the realm in partnership with his brother Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad, whose army in the west invaded Khorasan, extending the Ghurid Empire from the Caspian Sea to Bengal in eastern India. The realm collapsed soon after the death of Muizz al-Din Muhammad in 1206, partly because of pressure from the Mongols.
Although these Turkic dynasties, the Ghaznavids and the Ghurids, took Persian culture as their ideal in many respects, the effect of Indian culture was also felt in art. This can be seen both in details that were adopted directly from Indian art and in a penchant for figurative, fairly true-to-life depictions.


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- Chance/Community Chest Cards (After the break)
- Rarity Promoted
- Applejack Demoted (poor girl..)
- Spelling errors fixed
- Still no moon :(
Yeah, that's a freakin' Pony Monopoly board. Soggy called it Monopony in the email. I rather like that name, but, I'm quite partial to puns in the first place. By the way, this comes to us from Soggy. Good work, Soggy.
You can really tell he put a lot of work into this board. The squares go up in order of character importance until you get to Celestia and Luna. He only made one mistake- it's a big one, though. He has Rarity at nearly the back of the line for the mane cast. He has Applejack in front of Rarity. I'm willing to forgive this transgression only because of the sheer amount of work that went into the rest of the board. But, seriously, that's a fault I have trouble ignoring. And, seriously, Pinkie at the back? I don't really like Pinkie, but she's better than Applejack. For shame.
True story, I am not good at Monopoly at all. I think it stems from the fact that every time I played it with my dad, he would always beat us. Every time. He was a master at games like that. Clue, too. He would dominate us at Clue. It got to the point where we wouldn't even play with him anymore because he was so good at it. So you can add that to the list of things that Cereal isn't good at, alongside being funny and being able to write well! According to /co/, anyway.
After the break you can find the paper money and the deed cards used for the game.


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Shortly after I wrote my last blog post, I started actively working on the ABC module again. First I had to enhance a few features so it could handle some whistle parts for a little musical I was asked to play for. Next I needed some enhancements to handle whistle / fiddle parts for the standard wedding music pieces for an upcoming gig. Finally getting obsessed with ABC updates, I decided to throw the code at a collection of 159 tunes I put together a few years ago.
Suddenly I was running into hard limitations of the ABC module. It was always slow, but taking 40 seconds to process my file of three tunes wasn't really a problem for me. I did add some progress notification messages, and was shocked to learn it wasn't the parsing of the ABC files that was slow, it was processing the parsed result. But when I got things working well enough it was actually trying to process all 159 tunes, it would run for 15 or 20 minutes and then crash. (This is under Niecza, BTW.)
I spent Friday and Saturday trying to optimize bits of code in there that I knew were terrible, with no noticeable improvement. Finally I did a profile run under mono. I found the results didn't really mean anything to me, but I sent it to sorear++ to see what he thought. And he said, "Why do you need to use .eval in abc2ly.pl?"
Well, I quickly checked, and found all the uses were intended to convert strings like
"3/4" to
Rats. You may say "Why were you doing that? Shouldn't .Numeric work just as well?" And the answer is yes, it does. (In my defense, I'm pretty sure that didn't work when I started working on the ABC module.)
But now here is the tricky bit. Here's a simple script to demonstrate the issue:
my $a = 0; for 1..400 { $a += "1/$_"; } say $a;
On my machine, that takes 1.3 seconds to run under Niecza. Now let's make a simple change:
my $a = 0; for 1..400 { $a += "1/$_".eval; } say $a;
This version, with just the
.eval added, takes 39.0 seconds to run. Huge difference, eh?
It turned out that even though the evals were happening per measure of music and not per note, they were so slow they were completely swamping the performance of my script. With the evals, processing the
wedding.abc file took about 28 seconds. Without them, 3.7 seconds. And remember the big ABC file that would run for 15 minutes and then croak? Without the evals, the entire file processes in 31.8 seconds. That's easily 30 times faster.
Lesson? Don't use
eval unless you really, really need to.
This advice holds for Rakudo as well: the above fraction-summing scripts took .3 and 8.5 seconds to run, respectively. (Yes, Rakudo is doing a lot better performance-wise on those scripts than Niecza did!)


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text:
Business update: GM recall reveals gaps in air bag knowledge
Here's an unsettling fact about cars equipped with air bags: they don't always deploy when drivers — or regulators — expect them to.
Thirteen people have died in crashes involving older GM cars with defective ignition switches. In each of those crashes, and in others in which occupants were injured, the air bags failed to deploy even after striking trees, guard rails or other objects.
Puzzled by these failures, federal safety regulators told Congress last month they believed the cars' air bags should have worked for up to 60 seconds after the engine stalled. But GM has since told The Associated Press that regulators were mistaken: the cars only had enough reserve power to sense a crash and deploy the air bags for 150 milliseconds after the switch malfunctioned and cut off the car's power.
"It's very complicated, the logic behind it. It makes it very, very difficult for an automaker or supplier to explain why it did or didn't go off in a certain situation," said Joe Nolan, senior vice president for vehicle research at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a group funded by the insurance industry that performs crash tests and other research.
If an occupant is unbelted or very small, or the car is traveling very slowly, the air bag may not deploy because it could cause even more severe injuries. Depending on the angle, the side air bags may deploy but not the front ones. If a car is parked and turned off when it's hit, the air bags won't work.
GM's switches created an unusual problem. Because of insufficient resistance, they moved from the "run" position into the "accessory" or "off" position while the car was moving, possibly due to a bump from the driver's knee or the weight of a key chain. With the switch in that position, the engine stalled and the power steering and power brakes stopped working, making the car harder to control.
In a 2006 crash in Wisconsin, a Chevrolet Cobalt traveling at 71 mph suddenly stalled. Two seconds later — outside GM's 150-millisecond window — it hit a clump of trees. The ignition was found in the "accessory" position and the air bags didn't deploy. Two passengers died and the driver was severely injured.
GM says the air bags in newer cars would work for a slightly longer period of time if the ignition is off, but still less than a second.
If the engine had stalled while the ignition was still in the "run" position, the crash might have had a different outcome. In that situation, the air bags, steering, brakes and most other equipment would have had power for up to several hours depending on the amount of charge in the car's battery, GM said.
A report on the crash, completed by a team from Indiana University that was hired by the government, said the air bags may not have deployed because the ignition moved out of position. But the report also noted two other reasons: The trees bent when the car hit them, so the impact may not have triggered the air bags. And none of the occupants was wearing a seat belt. Air bags are meant to supplement seat belts, not to replace them.
The report said further analysis would be necessary to figure out whether the air bags could go off if the ignition was in the "accessory" position. Seven years later, that analysis is finally being done.


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Difference between revisions of "MaxLab"
|Line 152:
|Line 152:
| ||tilt sensor || [http://ccrma.stanford.edu/courses/250a/docs/datasheets/GP1S36.pdf GP1S36J0000F] ||425-1968-5-ND ||
| ||tilt sensor || [http://ccrma.stanford.edu/courses/250a/docs/datasheets/GP1S36.pdf GP1S36J0000F] ||425-1968-5-ND ||
| ||encoder, 12mm rotary ||[http://ccrma.stanford.edu/courses/250a/docs/datasheets/EVE.pdf EVE-GA1F2024B] ||P10860-ND || Detents, 24 counts per revolution
| ||encoder, 12mm rotary ||[http://ccrma.stanford.edu/courses/250a/docs/datasheets/EVE.pdf EVE-GA1F2024B] ||P10860-ND || Detents, 24 counts per revolution
Revision as of 12:22, 19 June 2007
- 1 What is the Max Lab?
- 2 Purpose of this Wiki
- 3 Using the Max Lab
- 3.1 Cleaning and Caring for the Lab
- 3.2 Safety Practices
- 3.3 Other Protocols
- 3.4 Emergencies
- 4 Tools
- 5 Supplies
- 6 Projects
What is the Max Lab?
The Max Lab is the hub of what we call Physical Interaction Design at CCRMA. Named after Max Mathews, the Max Lab is where we focus on hardware and software interfaces for interacting with sound.
Lou Harrison, from "Music Primer," 1971 C.F Peters Publishers
We are physically located in Rm. 103 of The Knoll.
During any given term, the Max Lab may have up to 50 users, including students of Music 250 -- Physical Interaction Desgin for Music and Music 36N -- Experimental Musical Instruments. Regular inhabitants of the Max Lab are:
- Max Mathews
- Bill Verplank
- Michael Gurevich
- Sasha Leitman
There are 2 prerequisites to using the Max Lab:
1. You need to have a CCRMA account and access card in order to enter the lab. People who are unfamiliar to regular Max Lab users will be asked to log in to a CCRMA machine and open the Max Lab door in order to demonstrate that they are a current CCRMA user. If you are a Max Lab user, and someone you don't recognize attempts to use the Lab, do the same. It is the responsibility of the entire community to ensure our safety, security and the continued availability of resources.
2. As of Fall 2006, new Max Lab users must all receive a 30-minute safety and courtesy briefing. Please contact Sasha Leitman (sleitman at ccrma) or Michael Gurevich (gurevich at ccrma) to schedule a briefing.
The Max Lab is available 24 hours a day. The door automatically locks when it is closed. The door can be left open only when someone is working in the lab. If you are the last person to leave the lab, turn off the lights, close the windows and close the door behind you. This applies at all times, even during the day.
Purpose of this Wiki
This Wiki entry is a portal to help CCRMA faculty, staff and students who want to use Max Lab, and for the rest of the world to learn more about what we do. If you work on a project in the Max Lab, please document it (either with a new Wiki entry, or on your website) and add a link under the Projects section below. If you become an expert at using some of the tools in the Max Lab, please add a tutorial under the Tools section.
This is also the place to find information and guidelines that will improve your experience in using the Max Lab. Below you will find a lists of the tools that are available, with guidelines on how to safely and effectively use them. General safety and courtesy protocols are listed below in Using the Max Lab. We also maintain a list of Supplies that are normally kept on hand, along with datasheets and information on where to order them.
Using the Max Lab
Cleaning and Caring for the Lab
There is a large number of people using the lab, and it doesn't take long for the lab to get very dirty. Our cleanliness rule is as follows:
Leave the lab cleaner than when you found it.
This means thoroughly cleaning up your mess, in addition to something else. It only takes a couple minutes to sweep the entire floor or wipe down all the work surfaces. Plan on stopping your work at least 15 minutes before you need to leave, or longer if you've made a big mess. This will give you enough time to properly put away all the tools or components you have used, and to clean up the lab.
Safety Practices
The Max Lab contains many power and hand tools for your use, but many of these tools are dangerous if used improperly. Important safety precautions must be obeyed.
General Safety Common Sense
Use common sense to keep the lab safe and your fellow lab users happy. Examples of common sense:
- If something seems like a bad idea it probably is. Don't do it.
- Don't leave things on the floor that people may trip on.
- If you run an electrical cord across the entire lab, someone will probably trip over it.
- If you are about to make a loud sound or turn on a loud tool, warn those around you.
Work in Pairs
It is always a good idea to have someone else around while you are working in the lab, especially if you are using power tools. Try to avoid working alone wherever possible.
- Wear appropriate clothing for what you are working on.
- Avoid bulky clothes that may get caught or snagged on tools or soldering irons.
- Remove long necklaces or dangling jewelry.
- If you have long hair, tie it back.
- Wear closed-toed shoes (i.e. NO FLIP-FLOPS). Even if you are not using them, there may be others around using heavy or sharp objects like clamps or cutting tools that can fall on your feet.
Safety Gear
Safety glasses, disposable foam ear plugs, dust masks and work gloves are available for your use. Eye protection must be worn at all times while you are cutting, drilling, soldering, or near to anyone who is doing any of these. Use your discretion for when to use ear plugs and dust masks.
Ventilation and Dust
The Max Lab is not set up with an industrial ventilation system. Furthermore, it contains and is used to produce many sensitive electronic devices. This means that you should avoid using hazardous chemicals or creating large amounts of dust in the lab. If you are soldering or making moderate amounts of dust, open the windows to help air circulate. Make sure to close the windows when you leave. And as always, thoroughly clean up your mess and one other before you leave.
Absolutely no alcohol may be consumed in the lab. Do not use the lab if you are intoxicated or your coordination may be impaired. This includes fatigue. Especially toward the end of term you may be run down and working late. If you are very tired, its not a good idea to operate power tools.
Appropriate Use of Tools
The Max Lab contains many specialized tools. However, it is not a machine shop or a woodworking shop, and doesn't have every tool that you may need. It is generally a bad idea to use a tool for something for which it was not intended. This is a great way to break tools and cause accidents. For example, a jigsaw is not meant for cutting through-holes, and the drill bits we have are not for cutting titanium. If you have a very specific need, you may need to look to work elsewhere, the Product Realization Lab, for example. Also, things like screwdrivers or hammers should not be used as percussion mallets. Feel free to use your own tools for this purpose, but not those from the lab. If you do not know how to use a tool, ask a staff member. Some general principles apply:
- Your work should always be securely or properly fixtured – this applies to any cutting or finishing tools.
- Keep electrical cords away from cutters or sources of heat or liquids.
- Never orient a cutting tool toward your body. Don't drill something while holding it in your hand, and always move a power saw away from you.
- Don't try to use a drill bit as a milling tool. We have some endmills for milling with the drill press and cross vise. Ask someone for help if you aren't sure how to do this.
Other Protocols
General Courtesy
Be aware of your fellow lab users. Some things that may not be immediately obvious:
- Be aware of the size of your workspace. Your neighbour won't appreciate it if your sawdust flies into her laptop.
- Space is at a premium. Leaving your project on a desk means that someone else won't be able to work there.
- Some past projects, components, and the Music 250 prototyping kits do remain in the lab by special arrangement. Don't play with or use parts that don't belong to you, unless they are in the scrap bin (see the next point).
Scrap Bin
There is a designated "Scrap bin" in the corner beside the workbench. You may use materials in the scrap bin for your projects. If you see something else that looks like scrap, it probably isn't. Always ask before handling or using materials from outside the scrap bin.
Again, the lab is small. There is very little room for storage in the lab. Floor space should never be used for storage. You may store things only for very short periods of time (e.g. while waiting for glue to dry) only if they are clearly labeled and you can find an appropriate place for them. If you leave something in the middle of a desk, it is occupying space that someone else can no longer use. Note that Max's desk is not a good place to store things. CCRMA's lockers are the best place to store your stuff that you can't take home.
Obviously tools make noise. Many projects make sound as well. There is a fine line between testing your noise-making project and "jamming". Testing is welcome and encouraged where it is necessary. In order to conserve space in the lab and to avoid disturbing other users, take your project elsewhere to jam. There are other spaces available for jamming, including studios at CCRMA, practice rooms in Braun, and your house.
Caring for our Tools
In addition to using tools properly, they need to be cared for.
- Some power tools have cases, to which they should be returned after use. They should be left clean and free of dust and debris.
- Drill bits and saw blades should only be used to cut their intended material. Using them even once on other material essentially ruins them for everyone else. If bits or blades are dull, please inform Sasha.
- Handle drill bits and cutting tools with shop rags, and don't leave them on desktops or drop them. This will keep them sharp.
Putting Things Where They Belong
Tools should not be removed from the lab. If you have a messy project that requires you to work outside, you may take the tools you need and return them to the lab promptly. Tools should never leave the Knoll.
Tool Cabinet
Certain dangerous or valuable power tools are kept in a locked tool cabinet. Max, Bill, Michael and Sasha have keys to the cabinet and can open it to allow use of these tools while they are present. If you need to use tools from the cabinet, try to plan ahead so that you are doing so during consultation hours.
The Lab is not very big, and currently has around 50 regular users. For this reason, please don't bring guests into the lab. If you need someone to help you with a project, you may bring a guest provided that they have been thoroughly briefed on lab safety and obey all the safety and courtesy practices outlined here. You are responsible for the conduct of any guests.
In case of an emergency, pick up a CCRMA telephone (there are 2 in the lab), select a line by pressing one of the buttons on the top row, and dial 9911.
For minor accidents, a First Aid Kit is located in the Lab in the open upper cabinet beside the drill press.
In case of fire, there is a fire extinguisher as well. Familiarize yourself with the locations of the telephones, safety equipment and building exits in case of emergency.
|Mfg. Part #
|Supplier Part #
|reflective optical ("tape") sensor
|for Pascal Stang's ADXL board
|adc chip
|8ch, 12-bit, I2C
|6mm tact switch 100g
|sharp ir range finder
|10-80 cm, analog
|20-150 cm, analog
|20-60 cm, digital
|Piezo Vibration sensor
|with mass
|w/o mass
|tilt sensor
|slide pot
|60mm travel, linear taper
|encoder, 12mm rotary
|Detents, 24 counts per revolution
|3.3V regulator
|for Sparkfun LIS3LV02DQ Accel. Board
|for Pascal Stang's ADXL board
|breadboard, 6.5"x1.375" 630pn
|breadboard, 6.5"x2.125" 830pn
|connector idc socket, 10 cont
|connector idc socket, 16 cont
|.1" solid header, rt. angle friction lock
|8 contacts
|.1" solid header, straight friction lock
|8 contacts
|.1" solid header, rt. angle friction lock
|3 contacts
|.1" solid header, straight friction lock
|3 contacts
|connector, .1", 1RW, 2pin hsg
|connector, pin, female, post tin
|Female Crimp pin
|flex sensors
|header, st male, 1rw, 40 pin
|heat shrink tubing 3/32" dia
|heat shrink tubing, 1/16" dia
|heat shrink tubing, 1/8" dia
|screw, 4-40-3/8ph
|Nut, hex, 4-40
|Standoff, 4-40x1/2" M/F
|Standoff, 4-40x3/8" M/F
|pwr sply, sw, wall, 15V, 1.0A
|thin wall warts
|rubber feet, adhesive, black, 100
|Photocell grab bag
|USB 2.0 Cable, A/B, 10', clear
|serial cables
|6' M-F black
|socket, stnd din female 5pin
|Midi connector
|solid wire, 22 awg black, 100'
|solid wire, 22 awg green, 100'
|solid wire, 22 awg red, 100'
|solid wire, 22 awg white, 100'
|solid wire, 22 awg yellow, 100'
|speaker, flat, magnetic piezo
|terminal, disconnect female
|5-cond. unshld wire, 22awg, 100'
|.5" circle FSR
|Model 402
|OEM developer's kits
|Model 400
|Copper foil conductive tape
|No. 758ST918
|pot 50k 3/8" horiz
|pot 50k 3/8" round
|Triple Axis Accelerometer Breakout – LIS3LV02DQ (datasheet)
Myrtle- Music controller/interface - Sean Bratnober, John Nolting, Brook Reeder, CCRMA Fall 2006


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Forensicswiki.org has moved to this site, forensicswiki.xyz. For information, please join the Google Group forensicswiki-reborn
Mount shadow volumes on disk images
Windows Shadow Volumes when created are automatically mounted at the file system root by Windows. Unfortunately this is invisible to the user and can not be directly accessed. Mklink, an included command line utility that ships with Windows is able to create a symbolic link that allows access to these shadow volumes.
Shadow Volumes that exsit on a drive image are no different. They too can be accessed by creating a symbolic link to the location of the volume. There is a caveat here though -- the Shadow Volume is mounted at the local file system's root rather than the drive image's file system root.
This example will be showing how to mount a virtual disk image in the VHD format using Windows 7's built in tools. It will then proceed to detail the steps of mounting a Shadow Volume that exists on the disk image. Note: Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate edition are required as the necessary tools are not bundled with other versions.
Mounting the Disk Image
The first step is to mount the VHD. If you have a RAW image or another similar format these can be converted to VHD using a tool such as qemu-img (http://wiki.qemu.org/Main_Page) or vmToolkit's Vmdk2Vhd utility (http://vmtoolkit.com/).
- To mount the VHD bring up the Start menu in Windows.
- Right click on "Computer" and click "Manage". This will bring up a
window titled "Computer Management".
- Now double click on "Storage" in the center pane.
- Next double click the "Manage Storage" in the center pane.
- Now click the "More Actions" menu in the right most pane and select "Attach VHD".
- Browse to the location of the drive image that you would like to mount and hit "OK".
Now that the image is mounted we can begin the examine the Shadow Volumes on it.
Command Prompt Method
These steps can also be accomplished using an administrator enabled Command Prompt. To perform these steps using the command prompt the diskpart command must be used.
- To start type "diskpart" at the command prompt.
C:\> diskpart
When diskpart starts the prompt will change to say DISKPART>.
- Next select the drive image by typing "select vdisk file=<path to image>" where <path to image> is the path to the vhd file.
DISKPART> select vdisk file=C:\myimage.vhd
- Last type "attach vdisk" or optionally if you'd like to mount it read only "attach vdisk readonly".
DISKPART> attach vdisk readonly
Mounting the Shadow Volume
To work with the Shadow Volumes we will use the VSSAdmin tool bundled with Windows 7 Ultimate and Professional editions.
- Start by opening an Administrator enabled command shell. This can be done by right clicking on the Command Prompt application in Start > Accessories > Command Prompt and selecting "Run As Administrator".
- Once the command prompt is open you can view the available Shadow Volumes by typing: "vssadmin list shadows".
C:\> vssadmin list shadows
- At this point you may see a long list of Shadow Volumes that were
created both by the machine the disk image is from as well as local shadow volumes. To list just the Shadow Volumes associated with the drive image you can add an optional /FOR=<DriveLetter:\> where DriveLetter is the drive letter that the drive image is mounted on.
C:\> vssadmin list shadows /for=E:\
- Now that we have a list of the Shadow Volumes we can mount them using the mklink tool. To do this, on the command line type:
"mklink /D C:\<some directory>
Where <some directory> is the path that you'd like the mount the Shadow Volume at, and the # in HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy is the number o the Shadow Volume to mount. Please note that the trailing slash is absoutely necessary. Without the slash you will receive a permissions error when trying to access the directory.
mklink /D C:\shadow_volume_1 \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy1\
- If all was successful you should receive a message that looks like this:
symbolic link created for <some directory> <<===>> \\?GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy1\
You can now browse the files contained in the Shadow Volume just like
any other files in your file system!


text:
Welcome to PhotoImpact International
This forum is a community of members who share a common interest in graphics and photography.
We would be pleased if you would join in our community.
Sorry, our forums are only available to members. To become a member, register. We will send you a questionnaire to complete and email back to us. Once we receive the questionnaire back, we will be in touch with you with user name and password.
|need memory jog - Animation Station - Activity Forums Novice to Advanced -- There is something for You - PhotoImpact International Forum


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FBI, sheriff search home of missing woman's lover
FBI agents and Stark County sheriff's deputies spent more than
four hours Wednesday evening searching Bobby L. Cutts Jr.'s house, looking
for cell phones and a quilt.
Members of Cutts' family, who watched from across the street, said agents
sought a cell phone that belonged to Jessie Marie Davis, a Lake Township
woman who went missing last week. Davis is nine months pregnant, and her family
members insist that Cutts is the baby's father.
As investigators searched, neighbors filed the streets.
Some were attracted by sheriff's cruisers that blocked Ayrshire Avenue NE in
front of Cutts' house. Others came because of the phalanx of camera crews
and reporters behind the cars. Still more came after hearing television
helicopters fly over their neighborhood.
After three hours inside Cutts' house, agents with the FBI Evidence Response
Team began carrying out boxes and cases, as well as bundled items. Family
members said clothing, bedding and other items were taken.
Agents and deputies declined to comment, and referred questions to
supervisors. A spokesman for the FBI's Cleveland office acknowledged the
search was taking place, but offered no details.
Neighbors watched and speculated. Many were amazed by the turn of events.
"I just came up for a garage sale, and this is what I found," said Mary
Kathleen Gullo, who lives on Rolling Ridge Avenue NE.
Although officials steadfastly refuse to call Cutts a suspect, the multiple
searches at his house seem suspicious, said Richard Gier, a Kirby Avenue NE
resident. "You never think it's going to happen in your back yard."
The neighborhood gathering ended about 8:30 p.m. after investigators
Reporters rushed the front door, ignoring "private property, no trespassing"
signs that have been placed in the yard in the afternoon. Someone inside
told them to leave.
Family members said Cutts was fingerprinted and swabbed for DNA samples.
The search started about 3:45 p.m., roughly 30 minutes after Stark County
Sheriff's Chief Deputy Rick Perez and a FBI Special Agent Frank Figliuzzi
offered an update on the search for Davis.
The FBI has offered a $10,000 reward for anyone who provides information on
Davis' whereabouts. Tim Miller, founder of Texas EquuSearch, said his
operation will add $5,000 to the reward.
The reward is a bid to get people with information to step forward,
Figliuzzi said. "The right thing to do is to share that with us. The right
time to do it is now."
Perez said investigators have started reviewing Davis' cellular telephone
records, identifying telephone numbers logged to the phone. They are using
the information to compile a timeline of Davis' activities late last week.
The last time anyone is known to have talked with Davis was about 9:30
p.m. June 13. Davis talked to her mother, Patty Porter. Cutts said he
talked to Davis about 8 p.m. last Wednesday. Investigators also have
security camera photographs of Davis when she visited a grocery store just
before 6:30 that night.
The search for Davis started last Friday when Porter and another daughter
went to her Essex Avenue NW duplex. They found Davis' 2-year-old son Blake
alone, wearing a dirty diaper. Her daughter's purse was dumped on the floor,
and the bedroom was in disarray.
Perez said investigators have continually searched for Davis since Friday.
They are chasing nearly 500 telephone and online tips.
Perez said it could be two weeks before DNA tests determine if a newborn
baby girl found Monday night at a house near Wooster is connected to Davis.
Some wonder if the girl could be Davis' daughter.
The baby is in the temporary custody of the Wayne County Department of Job
and Family Services, clinical director Robin Troyer said. It's likely the
child will be placed with foster parents, but that's a decision to be made
by Wayne County Juvenile Court Judge Raymond Leisy, Troyer said.
Figliuzzi said officials haven't ruled out the possibility the baby is
Davis' child. "It's too early to make a decision on personal observations,"
he said.
The department will work with Texas EquuSearch to find Davis. Perez and
Figliuzzi met after the news conference for nearly an hour with Miller
sorting out plans.
Texas EquuSearch is helping at the request of Davis' family.
Family members also continue talking with national media representatives,
working to keep the case in the spotlight.
"Everybody go out there, keep this alive for the family. That's what we
want," Canton lawyer Rick Pitinii said, wrapping a press session with
Whitney Davis and Miller.
Porter appeared on CNN's "Larry King Live" Wednesday night. She recounted
her discovery that her daughter was missing, then admitted to King that she
is fearing the worst. "It's been a week," she said in a quavering voice.
Family members are convinced someone abducted Davis. Whitney declined on
Wednesday afternoon to discuss speculation that Cutts is involved in the
Later in the day, Porter told King: "Bobby Cutts is my grandson's father.
... This is the most painful part of this whole thing for me, is that I pray
every day that it's not Bobby Cutts. That's my prayer, that it's not him. I
want it to be someone who doesn't even know us."
Repository staff writers Todd Porter, Bob Russ and Robert Wang contributed
to this report.


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Oz The Great and Powerful
Disney's fantastical adventure, Oz The Great and Powerful, directed by Sam Raimi, imagines the origins of L. Frank Baum's beloved character, the Wizard of Oz.
When Oscar Diggs (James Franco), a small-time circus magician with dubious ethics, is hurled away from dusty Kansas to the vibrant Land of Oz, he thinks he's hit the jackpot—fame and fortune are his for the taking—that is until he meets three witches, Theodora (Mila Kunis), Evanora (Rachel Weisz) and Glinda (Michelle Williams), who are not convinced he is the great wizard everyone's been expecting.
Reluctantly drawn into the epic problems facing the Land of Oz and its inhabitants, Oscar must find out who is good and who is evil before it is too late. Putting his magical arts to use through illusion, ingenuity—and even a bit of wizardry—Oscar transforms himself not only into the great and powerful Wizard of Oz but into a better man as well.
Starring Mila Kunis, James Franco, Michelle Williams, Rachel Weisz, Abigail Spencer
Directed by Sam Raimi
Running Time - 2:07
Genre - SciFi/Fantasy
Opened in Theaters - Friday, March 8, 2013 (9 years ago)
This movie is not currently playing in theaters.
Home VideoThis movie may be available now on home video.
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Trayvon's dad: I didn't deny it was son's voice
SANFORD — Trayvon Martin's father testified Monday that he never denied it was his son's voice screaming for help on a 911 call, contradicting police officers' earlier testimony at George Zimmerman's second-degree murder trial.
Tracy Martin was the latest in a series of witnesses called by lawyers on both sides as they seek to convince jurors of who was the aggressor in the nighttime confrontation that left Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager, dead in February 2012. Later in the day, the Florida judge ruled that defense attorneys may present evidence to the jury that Trayvon Martin had marijuana in his system when he died.
The teen's father testified that he merely told officers he couldn't tell if it was his son after his first time listening to the call, which captured the audio of a fight between Martin and Zimmerman.
"I never said that wasn't my son's voice," said Tracy Martin, who added that he concluded it was his son after listening to the call as many as 20 times.
Before Tracy Martin took the witness stand, the lead Sanford, Fla. police investigator who probed Martin's death testified that the father had answered "no" when the detective asked if the screams belonged to Trayvon Martin. Officer Chris Serino played the 911 call for Tracy Martin in the days immediately following Trayvon Martin's death in February 2012.
"He looked away and under his breath he said 'no,'" Serino said of Tracy Martin.
Officer Doris Singleton backed up Serino's account.
Convincing the jury of who was screaming for help on the tape is important to both sides because it would help jurors evaluate Zimmerman's self-defense claim. Relatives of Martin's and George Zimmerman's have offered conflicting opinions about who is heard screaming.
Late in the day, Judge Debra Nelson made a key ruling out of the presence of the jury.
The judge denied a prosecution request to keep out parts of a toxicology report that shows Trayvon Martin had small amounts of marijuana in his system. Prosecutors argued the information would be prejudicial. But defense attorneys said it was relevant because Zimmerman believed Martin was under the influence at the time he spotted him in his neighborhood. Nelson had ruled before the trial that mention of marijuana wouldn't be allowed in opening statements.
Next, the judge considered a prosecution motion to stop defense attorneys from presenting an animated depiction of the fatal fight between Martin and Zimmerman. Prosecutors had requested that the animation commissioned by the defense not be mentioned or played at Zimmerman's trial, claiming it would only confuse jurors. The judge hadn't made a ruling Monday afternoon.
Most of the day was taken up with testimony by a series of Zimmerman's friends, called to testify that the screams on the recording were his. The recording of the 911 call was played multiple times in the courtroom. A gym owner who trained Zimmerman also described him as physically soft and an inferior fighter.
The emergency call captured the confrontation between Zimmerman and Martin shortly before Zimmerman fatally shot the 17-year-old Martin. Zimmerman's mother and uncle testified last Friday it was Zimmerman screaming. Martin's mother and brother also took the witness stand last Friday to say the voice belongs to Martin.
Zimmerman himself once said during a police interview that the screams didn't sound like him, though he and his family later said the screams were his.
Zimmerman, a former neighborhood watch volunteer, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and says he shot Martin in self-defense during an altercation in the gated townhome complex in Sanford where he lived. Martin was there visiting his father and his father's fiancee.
Prosecutors contend that Zimmerman, who identifies himself as Hispanic, was profiling Martin and perceived the teen as someone suspicious in the neighborhood, which had been the site of a series of break-ins. The case sparked protests because police did not charge Zimmerman for 44 days and it touched off a nationwide debate about race and self-defense.
After the call was played for Zimmerman's friend Sondra Osterman, defense attorney Mark O'Mara asked who it was.
"Yes, definitely. It's Georgie," said Osterman, who testified she first met Zimmerman in 2006 while working with him at a mortgage company. Osterman and her husband, Mark, describe themselves as best friends of Zimmerman and his wife.
Under cross-examination, prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda implied that Osterman and her husband, Mark, had a stake in the outcome of the trial because they had written a book about Zimmerman's case and were donating the proceeds to their friend.
Mark Osterman took the witness stand after his wife and said it was Zimmerman's voice screaming when the 911 call was played for him in the courtroom.
Former co-worker Geri Russo also testified it was Zimmerman yelling on the call, as did John Donnelly and Leanne Benjamin, a married couple who became good friends with Zimmerman and his wife.
The prosecutor also played for Sondra Osterman a nonemergency police call that Zimmerman made to report Martin walking through his neighborhood. In the call, Zimmerman uses the words, "F------ punks. These a-------. They always get away." Sondra Osterman identified the voice as Zimmerman's.
When asked by O'Mara if she detected ill will, spite or hatred in his voice, she answered no.
Prosecutors must show that Zimmerman acted with ill will, spite or a depraved mind in order to get a second-degree murder conviction.
Defense attorneys also called the owner of a gym where Zimmerman had gone to lose weight to explain to jurors the mixed-martial arts fighting method called "ground and pound." Defense attorneys have said that Martin slammed Zimmerman's head into the sidewalk while he was on top of him in "a ground and pound" maneuver. To demonstrate the move, gym owner Adam Pollock straddled O'Mara on the courtroom floor. Pollock testified that Zimmerman trained in the form of fighting known as grappling but was an unaccomplished fighter.
"He was physically soft," said Pollock when asked to rank Zimmerman's athletic skill on a scale of 1 to 10.


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Social Tuning and Ideology – Part 2
Posted by Al Sahlstrom on January 26, 2009
Curtis Hardin is one of the authors of Shared Reality, System Justification, and the Relational Basis of Ideological Beliefs, an article that examines the relationship between affiliative motives and ideology. I recently spoke with Professor Hardin about that work. (For additional background on this research and shared reality theory, see Part 1.)
* * *
Al Sahlstrom: Could you please briefly discuss the background of this research – what is social tuning and in what contexts have psychologists previously studied it?
Curtis Hardin: The observation that people can and do tune their attitudes toward the ostensible attitudes of others is an old and persistent one—dating at least to the dialogues of Plato (including The Republic and others). It is there at the inception of empirical psychology in the work of Wundt and Freud and James. It is there at the beginning of social psychology in the work of Sherif, Adorno, Lewin, Allport, and Asch. The problem of tuning in opinion surveys about racism, for example in which respondents expressed less racism toward black than white interviewers in the 1960s and 1970s, is arguably the precipitating finding that inspired the development of unobtrusive measures of prejudice including measures of implicit and automatic prejudice. The use of the term "tuning" was coined (I believe!) by Tory Higgins and colleagues in their "communication game" work that formally situated individual information-processing in social dynamics. Tuning and "anti-tuning" of this type as well as tuning-like phenomena captured in the classical social psychological literature formed one kind of evidence we have argued supports shared reality theory (Hardin & Higgins, 1996; Hardin & Conley, 2001).
AS: How does social tuning occur? Is it something that everyone does? Is it limited by situation or subject matter?
CH: Social tuning is so ubiquitous that many explanations have been forwarded for it, ranging from bald conformity all the way to tacit, automatized management of common ground in face-to-face conversation. It is certain that depending on the circumstance, any number of explanations could be in operation. That said, from the perspective of shared reality theory, social tuning of the type captured in the research we've shown you now is ubiquitous. According to shared reality theory, being engaged in an interpersonal relationship requires modulation of "shared reality" (which is evidenced by social tuning). The direction and magnitude of this kind of social tuning is very much determined by the quality of the relationship as well as which attitudes and experiences are either situationally or chronically relevant to that relationship. Our group hasn't systematically studied subject matter as a potential moderating variable, but we do find that the degree to which the particular attitude is perceived to be relevant to the effective relationship very much qualifies whether tuning will occur and the direction in which it occurs.
AS: Your research approaches political ideology as something that is influenced by motivational processes. How does social tuning fit into this?
CH: In my view, research animated by system justification theory has focused most on epistemic and existential motivations. What we have begun to do—both in the Jost, Ledgerwood, & Hardin paper as well as experiments currently being done in my lab—is explore the possibility that another motivation for system justification may be relational. Corresponding to shared reality research, we're starting to find evidence of both chronic relationship concerns in system justification as well as new or situationally relevant relationship concerns.
AS: Please tell me a little about the research you're currently conducting on social tuning and political ideology. What exactly are you looking at and what have you found so far?
CH: Broadly, many experiments in my laboratory are exploring how individual experience at a given moment reflects a kind of tension among more than one interpersonal relationship, including immediate relationships and long-term relationships. We've been working on this in a variety of ways. For example, we've found that automatic homophobic attitudes are greater after an interaction with an ostensibly gay than straight experimenter but only for participants who say they have no gay friends. In another line of experiments, we've found that unconscious threats to religious experience reduce explicit religious commitment, but only for participants who believe that they do not share their religious experience with their fathers. For participants who do perceive their religious experience to be shared, the unconscious threat is met with increased religious commitment. In yet another line of experiments, we've found that although people will become more anti-black when they've been included versus excluded in a game played with ostensible racists, the effect reverses when participants have been experimentally induced to be extra motivated to engage with the racists. We've found analogous effects on self-judgment as a function of the ostensible gender traditionality of people who include versus exclude participants.
AS: What do you think might be the limits of these effects? How stable are they? What factors might amplify or mitigate these effects (e.g. duration and consistency of exposure to the tuning group)?
CH: Very interesting questions we've not yet explored systematically. According to shared reality theory, social engagement (e.g., affiliative motivation) elicits shared reality (e.g., social tuning). Our research shows that such effects of an immediate relationship are moderated by the relation between that shared reality and potentially competing shared realities held in chronic or long-term relationships. But we haven't attempted to study what makes some relationships more or less "strong" vis-à-vis shared reality. There would be a variety of ways to model this. My preference—that is, until it proves untenable!—would be that the strength of a given attitude would be determined by some simple function of (a) the number of relationships in which the attitude is shared, (b) the stability of the relationships involved, and (c) the salience of those relationships. For example, sharing reality in a new relationship would be inhibited to the degree that that shared reality is incompatible with existing relationships and to the extent that the existing relationships are stable and to the extent that those relationships are cognitively salient. As for the duration of social tuning effects, evidence across social psychology suggests to me that they are unlikely to be very stable. People are very adaptable to changing social circumstances—from situation to situation, relationship to relationship, and even within situations and particular relationships as they evolve.
AS: I think it's safe to say many of us assume that ideology is something that we develop rationally. What implications would you say your research has on this idea?
CH: Good questions. I don't think ideology is rational in the sense that for most people it is logically coherent. Nor do I believe that ideology is rational in the sense that it primarily a product of deep or broad conscious thinking. I do believe ideological thinking is rational in the sense that it is adaptive for humans in evolutionary senses. That said, I do not think research I've personally been involved in bears terribly strongly on these questions. To show that unconscious processes influence ideology does not preclude ideology from operating consciously as well. To show that ideology is somewhat malleable is not to show that it is either illogical or evolutionarily adaptive. Those would be interesting avenues to pursue, however.
AS: What purpose does tuning serve in this context? Do you see it as having a positive or a negative impact?
CH: We've identified some of the functions of social tuning in the research discussed above. Whether it's positive or negative depends on who is tuning to whom on what dimension to what effect for whom! Like any other aspect of human psychology, it's both positive and negative. One of the burdens of the scientist is to identify as clearly as possible the who-what-when-why of it.
AS: What research do you have planned for the future?
CH: One thing I'm very interested in is extending research we've done suggesting that religious experience is animated by shared reality processes to cases in which religion operates ideologically.
* * *
Curtis D. Hardin, Ph.D, is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. His research focuses on the interpersonal foundations of cognition, including the self-concept, social identification, and prejudice. He recently authored an article with John Jost and Alison Ledgerwood discussing the relational basis of ideological beliefs (available in PDF here).
One Response to "Social Tuning and Ideology – Part 2"
January 27, 2009 at 2:43 am
[…] Social Tuning and Ideology – Part 2 […]


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Making your country's views known is a principal function of foreign embassies, but the US goes much further. According to cables released by WikiLeaks, the US embassy in New Zealand urged Uncle Sam to fork over about half a million New Zealand dollars back in 2005 to bankroll a private intellectual property enforcement unit run by major rightsholders in the region.
Operated on an informal basis by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ) and the Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS), the US identified the "unit" as the only potential bulwark against music piracy in the region.
"It is developing an intelligence framework to identify local producers of pirated works, distributors, criminal networks and recipients and to work with relevant government, law enforcement, customs and other authorities and stakeholders," the embassy's cable noted. "The unit aims to prevent piracy by sharing intelligence with other organizations and agencies, lobbying political parties and the judiciary on the harm to industry and supporting public awareness campaigns."
The outfit would also launch "enforcement operations" targeting makers and distributors of illegal material, and it would "train law enforcement and other agencies in the implementation of intellectual property legislation through identifying offenses and disrupting piracy activities."
The cable drew up a recommended budget of NZ$533,000 (US $386,158) for the operation, with over $200,000 going to salaries and the rest funding start-up and operating costs.
Did any of this money get spent? If it had, it would have come from the US's Intellectual Property Rights Training Program, mentioned as the proper source in the cable. We did an IPR database search for RIANZ and AMCOS, but couldn't find either group listed, although a slew of other training programs popped up.
Repeated offers
But this isn't the only way that the US tried to wield influence on the region; it's also willing to help countries write their laws. A May 2009 cable indicates that the US pretty much offered carte blanche help to New Zealand as it was rethinking its "three strikes" illegal file sharing law. "Embassy in the meantime has repeated its offer of assistance to [Government of New Zealand] officials to offer consultations with [United States Government] copyright experts through a [Digital Video Conference]," the missive explained.
As we reported at the time, New Zealand's government eventually yanked the punitive Section 92A of the bill, denounced by content providers and ISPs as vague and impossible to implement. But the US seemed confident at the time that New Zealand would eventually come through with a new edition of the law.
Embassy officials also made clear their irritation with those who opposed industry-friendly copyright changes.
In the meantime, the IPR community has engaged the services of Price Waterhouse consultants to do a cost-benefit analysis on the potential losses to the NZ economy if the new S92A fails to be enacted. The IPR industry wants to be prepared to counter any false claims by opponents of the new provision who successfully managed to monopolize the local media's attention in the last round.
In the end, the US Trade Representative decided not to put New Zealand on its Special 301 Priority list—the watchdog list for countries of whose IP standards the US does not approve.
"While there is additional work to be done to strengthen the law and enhance enforcement," a March 2009 cable concluded, "Post recommends the better course of action is to continue engagement with the GNZ and monitor the progress of IP legislation rather than place New Zealand on this year's watch list."


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There are many casualties of Microsoft's greatly reduced Windows Server 2012 lineup. With just four Windows Server versions, the Enterprise, Small Business Server, and HPC editions have all been discarded.
One Windows Server version that was close to many of our readers' hearts is Windows Home Server. This too is being left behind. The current version, Windows Home Server 2011, is the last ever version. It's not going to disappear overnight—it will be available for OEM preinstallations until an astonishing and not entirely plausible December 31, 2025, though hobbyist system builders only have until December 31, 2013 to buy standalone copies—but it won't receive any new features or upgrades.
Naturally, Windows Home Server's die-hard band of advocates is annoyed by this news.
Windows Home Server was always something of an odd fish, and it led a short and trouble-filled life. The idea was that you would have a server hidden away in a closet or under a desk somewhere, and it would provide a central place for storing backups, sharing media files, and remotely accessing your network.
WHS's killer feature was arguably something called Drive Extender. This allowed multiple hard drives to be pooled together to create large storage volumes. To protect against disk failures, Drive Extender would copy data to multiple disks, ensuring that if any one disk died, you'd retain your data.
The trick here was that Drive Extender was dynamic. If you were running low on disk space, just plug in a USB hard disk, and Drive Extender would do the rest. You'd have more storage space, and it would still take care of mirroring data to protect it for you. It made storage management simple. Instead of RAIDs, with their strict disk size requirements and static sizing, you could let the storage grow on an as-needed basis.
The Windows Home Server idea was tremendously popular among a small group of fans, but it never won much mainstream appeal.
Things took a turn for the worse with Windows Home Server 2011. The original Drive Extender was actually a crude hack that never really worked properly. It worked by copying files automatically between NTFS volumes. Sometimes it would copy files that hadn't been completely written yet, resulting in broken files and data loss. Even after these issues were ironed out—which took many months—Drive Extender could sometimes change file metadata.
Microsoft's plan was to produce a trio of new server products—Windows Home Server 2011, Small Business Server 2011 Essentials, and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials—that would include a new, improved Drive Extender, one that didn't have the fragility of the original version. This new Drive Extender would work at a level below the file system, rather than merely copying files around on the file system, so would solve all the Drive Extender problems in one fell swoop.
Unfortunately, Microsoft couldn't get this new Drive Extender working in time, so decided to remove it from those three products entirely. Windows Home Server 2011 could still manage backups and remote access, but it no longer had the pooled storage that made it so convenient in the first place.
And now it turns out that sad and deficient version of the product will be its last.
So the home server dream is dead, and the nearest direct equivalent—Windows Server 2012 Essentials—costs substantially more ($425, compared to about $50).
This is upsetting for those who had bought in to the home server dream, but for everyone else, it's not such a disaster.
Two steps forward...
Microsoft never gave up on the Drive Extender-type technology. In fact, the company has now got it working, and it's an integrated part of both Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012: it's called storage spaces. We don't need a dedicated home server to have expandable redundant storage made of whatever disks are convenient; a Windows 8 desktop will do the job just fine.
Those Storage spaces make pretty good destinations for backups, too. Windows 8 has a new backup tool that provides periodic snapshots of your data, similar to Apple's Time Machine system. Now, I don't like everything about this new backup system, because Microsoft has used it as an opportunity to discard one of Windows' best little-known features, Shadow Copies, which also provided periodic snapshots, but overall it's a great solution for home networks. Point all your computers at a network location, and they'll automatically back themselves up, and they'll automatically keep those backups up-to-date.
Remote access to network files is nicely handled with the new and improved SkyDrive client. Not only can you directly place files into "the cloud" for remote access, you can also see non-cloud-synced files on any machine running the client (subsuming similar functionality from Microsoft's old Live Mesh client).
Local media streaming and sharing is now, for the most part, built-in to Windows and Xbox, with the "Play To" DLNA features that Microsoft introduced in Windows 7.
... one step back
This isn't to say that every feature from Windows Home Server has a neat replacement. If you want a more traditional backup system, you'll need to configure it all by hand. Windows Home Server worked as a Terminal Services gateway, simplifying remote desktop access to machines on your LAN; that's not found in Windows 8, so you'll have to come up with some other alternative.
But overall, most of what Windows Home Server did—and, I'd argue, all of the really useful stuff it did—is still possible, and still easy, without Windows Home Server. And when it comes to creating great big pools of redundant disk space that you can expand as and when you need to, Windows 8 does the job better than Windows Home Server could ever hope to.
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