April 23, 2018 – BOSTON – The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) today introduced the first deployment of through-body X-ray scanners at each of Logan International Airport’s security checkpoints.  The machines, which scan through the clothes and bodies of passengers, supplant the earlier backscatter imagers, which cannot penetrate the skin.

“There have been concerns for some time about the ability of terrorists to bring weapons and explosives through checkpoints by concealing them in body cavities,” said TSA spokesman Tom Parsons. “These scanners will allow us to significantly increase the safety of air travel.”

The machines operate much like medical diagnostic X-ray scanners.  Each passenger passes through an arched gateway, which has an X-ray source on one side and a detector on the other.  The X-rays pass through the passenger’s clothes and body, and any concealed items appear on a screen being watched by a TSA agent.  Much like the X-ray machines used to scan luggage, suspicious items are highlighted in color.

Though the technology has been available for many years, the recent push to deploy the scanners at airport security checkpoints was driven by a rash of suicide bombings in which the bombers concealed the explosives inside themselves.  In a failed attempt on a transcontinental flight last October, a terrorist was found to have an astonishing 5 kg of high explosives packed in her GI tract.

The through-body machines are not without controversy.  Harvard researcher Dr. Nestor Lokenbal notes that the X-rays emitted by the machines are ionizing radiation capable of causing DNA damage and cancer. “A single scan from one of these machines is equivalent to nearly three years of natural background radiation,” says Lokenbal, “which corresponds to an absolute lifetime cancer risk increase of about 0.1% per scan.”  He continued, “That might not sound like much, but the effect is additive, so for frequent fliers and pilots, the added hazard can be quite significant.”

The TSA’s Parsons dismisses the risk, noting that the machines have been tested by the TSA to be safe, even though precise information about their operation remains classified.  “We are confident that the flying public will accept through-body scans as necessary for flight safety, much as they did backscatter scanners in 2010 and the ban on laptop computers in 2015.”  As an alternative, passengers can opt out of the through-body X-ray and instead be subjected to a manual full body cavity search.

The American Civil Liberties Union announced it is suing to stop the use of the machines, citing fourth amendment concerns, among others.

I’m an idiot.  Or rather, I was.

Looking back about six months, I can’t help but notice how naive and wrong I was about so many things.  Jejune misstatements and patent falsehoods.  I shake my head at my former self.

And that’s a good thing.

I want always to be improving.  If I get to the point where I can evaluate myself from six months prior, and I don’t see any difference from my current self, then I have failed.

I set goals.  I achieve goals.  I learn new things.  I refine.  I filter.  I tweak.  I discard.  I collect.

Juggling: a goal from long ago, finally accomplished.

This is not some sort of desperate race to avoid some depression-driven self-reproach.  No, I think rather highly of myself.  My current self.  That old me?  Well, he was an idiot, but he’s gone now.

And in six months, I hope that my present-day me looks like an idiot, too.

Driving back from my goalie training session this evening, I got to thinking: why is one-on-one coaching so rare among technical professionals?  Professional athletes work with individual coaches, so why not professional programmers?

I am by no means a professional hockey goalie.  The rec leagues are my domain, not the NHL.  Still, I have a incessant need to improve my skills.  I want to be the goalie drinking the victory beer, not the sorrow beer.  That’s why I work with a goalie coach.  It’s not cheap, but the return on investment is significant.

I get instant feedback.  I see how things should be done.  I drill movements until they become second-nature.  I interact with an expert who can identify my strengths and focus on areas where I need work.  I develop good habits.  I can’t get away with laziness or errors, because I’m always being watched.

Professional athletes work with coaches all of the time, for similar reasons.  Granted, they are able to afford more time with their coaches, but the dynamic is similar.

Programmers, on the other hand, seem to receive little in the way of coaching.  College is nice for training, but it works through practice and competition.  Does the code do whatever it is well enough to satisfy the automated grading program?  Great — you pass.

Industry is no better.  There, code reviews are opportunities for evaluation and correction from peers, but they are too time constrained for extensive critiques, and they are certainly not the place for assignment of practice drills.  Pair programming has the one-on-one aspect of individual coaching, but the partner is not necessarily an expert and may care little for your individual growth.

Instead of being coached, programmers stumble through years of individual study and marginal projects.  Passion and practice seem to make the best coders, with those in the rarefied air being several times more productive than the norm.  But are those elites reaching their full potentials?  Could the 9-5ers be moved above their plateaus?

Programming should be coachable.  It’s art, after all, and artists have long worked with coaches.  Musicians, painters, and singers all have coaches (or go through apprenticeships).  Photographers subject themselves to critiques.  Authors have editors.  I will go so far as to consider individual athletes as artists, for — like artists — athletes combine a deep knowledge of the physics of their domain with the creativity necessary to outshine competitors.  Similarly, programmers take the rules of code and compose ASCII symphonies, with structure, elegance, patterns, and surprises.

So, then, why is the concept of coaching foreign to the software development profession?  Is it a lack of time?  Is it arrogance?  Is it trust in exploration, forums, and side projects?  Are there simply no coaches to be employed?

I’ll concede that coaching does exist in some corners of the programming world.  Competitions like the ACM-ICPC tend to have coached programming teams.  One might argue that a software project manager is a bit like a coach, too — though in that case, he’d be concerned with the performance of the team, not necessarily the skill development of any individual.

Maybe the professional coders are convinced that individual practice is the only way to get better.  Maybe they believe that additional university courses will help them improve sufficiently.  Maybe they simply haven’t thought about it.

I have no doubt that an excellent programmer could improve by working with a coach.   But it doesn’t happen.  Why not?

From one of my other blogs:

“Six months after the initial idea, and I’m more excited than ever about this trip. Hard to believe that it’s just nine or so months away!  The more I talk about it, the more I think that my idea of visiting every (continental) American state and Canadian province by car is…”

Continue reading at StoppingInEveryState.com

About a year ago, I visited a delightful farm in rural Wisconsin that pumped out amazing pizzas.  In the time since, a competitor has emerged.

Like A-Z Produce’s pizza farm, the Love Tree pizza farm (actually Love Tree Farmstead Cheese) is about a two-hour drive from the Twin Cities.  They are both in rural Wisconsin.  They both bake their pizza outside in wood-fired ovens.  Neither one of them supplies customers with anything other than pizzas in cardboard boxes.

The pizza area at Love Tree's farm

I arrived at the Love Tree farm around 7:00 with a group of friends.  We found goats, sheep, and fields.  Farm dogs lazed on the grass.  The air smelled of earth and wood smoke, the latter of which guided our way.

Down the hill from some nice-looking farm equipment and we found ourselves at the pizza oven.  The order for three pies was placed.

The pizza oven and a pizza maker

We passed the time watching the sheep get milked — the farm makes aged goat and sheep milk cheese — and sampling said cheese (very nice).  We listened to the quiet rural summer sounds.  We relaxed on a hill next to a pond.

The mood was light, and although there were far fewer customers than at the other pizza farm, those present were no less prepared for the experience.  Many had wine, most had blankets or tables, and few hesitated to strike up conversations with the proprietors.

We waited.  And waited.  And waited.  The sun set, the dearth of artificial light (a lone lamp dimly lit the pizza area) revealed the night sky, and our stomachs growled.  The operation was in its fourth week, and the pizza-production-line inexperience was showing.

A pizza maker samples her product as she stares into the oven

Finally, about two and a half hours after we placed our order, our pizzas came out.

I wish I could tell you that they were amazing and that the wait had been worth it but… I can’t.  The pizzas weren’t all that great.  I won’t go so far as to say they were bad, but the crust was generally too thick and underdone, the top was burnt, there was waaaay too much of something that tasted lemon-y in the sauce, and there was too much sauce in general.  The cheese on the pizzas was excellent, however.  I’d comment on what the pizzas looked like, but by that time it was so dark that we could barely see the outlines.

Nighttime pizza consumption (4 sec. @ f/2.8, ISO12800)

A long drive, followed by a ridiculous wait, all for disappointing pizza.  But would I go back?  Absolutely — with a caveat.  I’d like to go there again in about a year.  Why?

What I haven’t mentioned is the passion the family displayed for their farm, their cheese, and their pizza.  They seemed to genuinely care about what they were doing, and they appeared to be enjoying the work.  Pizza production is difficult, especially when a wood-fired stone oven is involved.  They need to work out the kinks and keep on iterating, like any good startup should.  I’m confident that they’ll nail it eventually.  They already managed to figure out award-winning aged cheese, after all.

For the pizza farm experience now, try the A-Z farm.  For the pizza farm experience in the future, keep Love Tree in mind.