care and feeding of graduate students (life as a professor)

Last weekend, I went with the scouts to pine mountain.  We did a loop I’d done before . I expected about a twelve mile loop based on an old GPS track I’d made. The new GPS gave 10.1!  We stayed at the new Jenkins Spring campsite which was excellent.  One the chief volunteers in the Pine Mountain Trail association came by and said that there were a lot of Eagle projects to be done on the trail (which is entirely built and maintained with volunteer labor).

new map of the loop

What’s going on?

The new GPS uses both the Russian and US satellite systems as well as having a more sensitive antenna and thus simply more satellites.  Therefore the distances are more accurate – with less wobble. Also the two systems have different and less correlated systematic errors so that the estimated precision is more accurate with the combination than with either. Thus the ruler used to measure the distance was smaller than before.

On the surface this is sort of an “anti-fractal”. It’s well known, or at least should be, that as rulers get smaller the distances measured gets larger. One simply measures more of the little in and outs on the curve and hence arrives at a longer distance. With the GPS estimates, which depend on point measurements, the idea is a little different. Here there is a swarm of (we can pretend in the limit of large numbers) normally distributed points drawn around a true track. Hence the calculated distance includes the sum of a bunch of random “wobble vectors”. The spread of the wobble is smaller with the new system and so the distance is more accurate. So the fractal measure in this case is actually in the statistics of the sampling and not the curve being measured.

I’ve been re-writing the graphical version of AMMP to use the Qt API.  Qt is a powerful, multiplatform framework for interface designs, which uses C++ and other vaguely modern ideas in software engineering.  AMMP is a virtual machine simulator for calculations about molecules, written in C but using an object-based design.

The original time I wrote a graphical interface, it was tightly bound to windows. This was good, as windows is a popular family of OS’es, and bad as the framework was not highly portable.  Windows also tends to be notionally compliant with POSIX, which means I had to reverse engineer the occasional POSIX API call or Clib call (toupper, read, tmpfile, strcmp just to name a few).

I’ve tried a few other API interface libraries – Gtk, FLTK, and motif.  There were always headaches involved in having an animated process in the background (to handle molecular dynamics or watching energy minimization).  I’d found solutions, but they were, to put it gently, fragile.  (there is a gtk/linux version on asterix, but it is not easy to compile or run).  Qt seems to fit the bill.

Screenshot of the new interface

A screenshot of the new interface shows what can be done.  There is now a command editor – with a menu that suggests scripts for various common things.  The display window is under development, but the picture shows what it will look like (mostly).  It uses openGL and gives decent, robust performance on modern machines.

I spent part of today putting in the Povray output methods.  Since Povray is a scripting language it is both fun to write programs that write programs, and to play with alternative styles.  One that is sort of fun is to make the atoms smallish, while increasing the size of the bonds (0.3, 1.2 times vdw radii).

Mellitin (2mlt), lego style

Sort of looks like I’ve snapped it together with lego, doesn’t it?

Coming back from a trip to Oak Ridge Tennessee to see the neutron facilities. (which are decidedly impressive).

Then Tennessee highway patrol had signs up that said 23% of all traffic fatalities involved speeding.   Therefore 77% did not.  So you’re three times safer speeding than not.

Similarly 27% involved drunk driving. Again you’re almost 3 times safer driving drunk than sober.

Combining them, assuming independence, gets (1-0.23)*(1-0.27) = 0.56 or 56%.  So you are even slightly better off speeding and/or driving drunk than being sober and following the speed limit.

(please don’t drive drunk and fast).

I found my self thinking about the differences between “adult-centered” and “youth-centered” organizations. Which of these most reflections what your organization is like?

1. I, (last name, first name), joining the ranks of the  Pioneer Organization, in the presence of my comrades solemnly promise: to passionately love and cherish my Motherland, to live as we were taught, as required by the laws of the Pioneers.  (slightly edited)
2. I am a member of the Young Pioneers. Under the Flag of the Young Pioneers I promise that: I love <my nation>, the motherland, and the people; I will study well and keep myself fit, and to prepare for: contributing my effort to the cause. (slightly edited)
3. In the presence of this blood banner which represents our nation, I swear to devote all my energies and my strength to the  our country. I am willing and ready to give up my life for it, so help me God. (slightly edited)
4. In the name of God and <my leader>, I swear that I will execute his orders and serve the cause of the revolution with all my strength and, if necessary, with my blood. (slightly edited)
5. From this day forward, I sincerely promise to set an example for all youth to follow. I shall never do anything to bring disgrace or dishonor upon my God, my country, its flag, my parents, myself or the <organization>. These I will honor and respect in a manner that will reflect credit upon them and myself.  (slightly edited)
   1. Obey my parents and all others in charge of me whether young or old.
   2. Keep myself neat at all times without other people telling me to.
   3. Keep myself clean in mind by attending the church of my faith.
   4. Keep my mind alert to learn in school, at home, or at play.
   5. Remember having self-discipline will enable me to control my body and mind in case of an emergency.
6. On my honor I will do my best
   To do my duty to God and my country
   and to obey the Scout Law;
   To help other people at all times;
   To keep myself physically strong,
   mentally awake, and morally straight.
   A Scout is:
   1. Trustworthy,
   2. Loyal,
   3. Helpful,
   4. Friendly,
   5. Courteous,
   6. Kind,
   7. Obedient,
   8. Cheerful,
   9. Thrifty,
   10. Brave,
   11. Clean,
   12. Reverent

There is only one of these that focuses at all on our duty to help each other. The others focus much more on obedience. There is something different about that.  Only one of these organizations tries to develop the kind of person that is a citizen of a democracy.

You can probably guess (young poineers (1,2), Itallian Fascist (4), Hitler youth (3), Young Marines with creed(5), and Boy Scouts (6)).

I’ve begun to think about what light-weight backpacking means.  This is partially because I’ve been helping to teach scouts about it, and partially to help myself understand what is special about it.  I’ve never been an especially ultra-light sort of backpacker – usually due to what I call “leader tax”, but have used many of the techniques and equipment quite successfully.

It occurs to me that light-weight is not the issue, in reality, but that it is a by-product of a different design process. Low-complexity implies that the kinds and numbers of things you bring are small.  If you bring fewer things then you automatically have lighter weight.  (well at least if you are vaguely careful.  One dutch oven is a highly multi-purpose item, but no one would ever consider one a part of light-weight backpacking (even if they were made in titanium)).

A good example that comes to my mind is the guy I teach backpacking with to scout leaders.  He’s a great guy, but a conventional backpacker.  His tent is light, only 3 lbs or so, has 2 layers, a complex pole system and so has a raw parts count of 14-15.  While he may be able to get away with leaving a few parts  behind, most of those are critical parts.  I use a trailstar or a luna solo (depending on whether I want space or need to worry about bugs).  So my parts count, including hiking sticks, is 7-8.  Here in the southeastern United States, my critical parts count is one (the tarp) as everything else can be improvised.  He carries very light weight camp shoes. I just loosen my hiking boots.  He has a neat stacking plastic bowl and lightweight cutlery.  I use the same titanium pot and plastic spoon to cook and eat. He has a crazy creek chair for his pad (2 parts). I have a small pad from my pack (1 part).  However we both carry very similar first aid kits because it’s hard to skimp on those.

The point behind this is that we’re both very comfortable in the woods.  I just bring fewer things, and therefore carry less, have a lighter footprint, and have fewer things to lose.

I was recently reading about vapour barriers (Andrew Skurka’s site and Section hiker). It sounded impressive.  The gear is not very expensive from Stevenson’s Warmlite (possibly the only R-rated outdoor gear catalogue in the world), so I ordered a shirt, gloves and socks. I’m nominally an XL, but L would probably fit better.

It wasn’t that cold over the weekend with temperatures into the low thirties, but I gave it a try. What seems to work is a wicking shirt like a polypro top, followed by a vapour barrier layer and then insulation.  It was surprisingly warm with even a thin outer layer.  Stevenson’s says it adds 15 degrees F when sealed up, and this seems realistic.

This got me thinking about cheaper ways to test out vapour barriers – I could have just worn my frogg toggs underneath and seen how that worked.  But then what would I have done for rain (if it rained?). I’m tempted to try using a bivy sack inside of a sleeping bag (well sleeping quilt) to see if that works before finding a real vapor barrier liner.

Persimons

The persimmons are getting ripe again, and we have a bumper crop. They slowly ripen as the weather gets cold and as long as you beat the deer and raccoons to them. In the picture the one at the top is almost ripe. They should be extremely soft and ready to fall off the tree.

One big headache is removing the seeds and other non-edible stuff from the fruit. In the past, I would push them through a strainer – which was a lot of work and tended to break the strainers. There must be an easier way!

There is. Put the persimmons directly in an electric mixer and pulp them (I use the egg whisk on a 30 year old kitchen aid mixer that was a wedding present). Add the milk, sugar and spices required for the recipe and then whip the mixture. This can then be strained to remove the seeds – no fuss and a lot less mess than trying to strain the pulp directly. The mixture gets quite thick – almost like a pudding or milkshake – so I think it can be turned into a persimmon pudding without too much work, but I don’t have a recipe for that (yet).

Persimmon muffins.

Approximately 10 ripe American persimmons.
1/2 to 1 cup sugar
tablespoon cinnamon
teaspoon ginger
teaspoon salt (I like the “Lite” salt that is 75% KCl)
2 cups milk
pulp the persimmons and then add the rest of the above. Filter out the seeds using a strainer.
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 eggs
tablespoon baking powder.
Mix the above with the persimmon/milk mixture
add
2-3 cups plain flour (enough to make a stiff batter)

put into greased muffin tins and bake at 350F (180C) until done (about 15-20 minutes).

The muffins will be heavy, moist and delicious.

My trekking poles are feeling their age. They’re twist-locking springy poles from REI and have (as long as I periodically clean the mechanism) served me reliably for 4 years or so (and something like 400 miles of backpacking or walking). However one pole received a slight bend at Philmont, trying to hoick down a bear bag line, and it has gradually increased to where it interferes with opening and locking. (It took more than a few more miles to happen – so the pole worked very well).

So it is time to replace them.

I’d read good things about some of the relatively cheap poles found at places like W******t and C****o. So I took a look. They looked the part and were about 1/4 the cost of an REI set. The locking mechanism felt a bit sloppy – so I read the warnings on the package. There was a warning in slightly larger than normal fine print – these poles should not be expected to hold your entire weight. In other words, they look the part, but aren’t likely to be reliable. It really is important that the poles hold most if not all of your weight, at least transiently, because you will put a lot of load on them on the downhills.

Disappointed, I looked at some of the other gear. The 48-cent lexan spoons were good value, and I like their inexpensive water-resistant bags, but there were other traps for the unwary. Water filters that “improved the taste”, but didn’t filter microbes. Water purification pills that were not particularly effective. Steel tent pegs, heavy tarps and inadequate tents. (on the other hand if you know what you’re doing these can form the basis for re-engineered gear).

So it is critical to look carefully at the gear – sometimes it’s good, and sometimes it isn’t.

Based on a review from section hiker, I wanted to test out the olicamp heat exchanger pot. While I’ve found esbit stoves to be the lightest for a solo weekend, they just won’t work as well for a group. In my hands alcohol stoves have been too touchy, and white gas – while very good – is a bit complex and heavy. I’ve never been keen on canister gas as the canisters are a pain when empty and the stoves I’ve seen have been, to put it politely, rubbish.

I was wrong.

The combination of an olicamp heat exchanger pot with an MSR microrocket worked extremely well. It took about two minutes to boil 3/4 of a liter of water for dinner – on the trail. It took less than a minute for smaller amounts for tea. Everything folds up and can fit into the pot. (though I did wrap the stove in a bandanna rather than the case MSR supplies).

The pot itself is not particularly expensive (about $20 from Amazon), nor is the stove. There are less expensive stoves than the MSR one that have similar heat outputs, but I needed a stove and it was what REI had.

This system is robust enough to be useful for scouts and is safer and lighter than white gas.

Last weekend I helped lead a backpacking trip for scouts from my son’s and my new troop (which is much better run than the old one – but that is the subject of a different post). This troop, being huge, splits up into patrol-based or crew-based activities occasionally and this was one of them.

The younger scouts and most of the adults base camped at the chief ladiga campground which sits astride the intersection of the chief ladiga bike trail and the pinhoti trail in north east alabama. Another crew (mostly the Moose patrol) went backpacking on the pinhoti.

We walked just about 6 miles (5.92 by the GPS) to a campsite by the Terrapin creek flood control lake. There is a big field for camping there – so that several crews could camp at once. Fortunately, since we had a scout injure himself with a knife, there is good road access in an emergency.

Trip map.

Profile of the trail

This hike is a good simalcrum of the trails in Philmont, although it is generally less rocky and a bit more of a single track. There is a fair bit of poison ivy and poison oak so some care is needed – though I wore shorts and didn’t get any so it isn’t too bad. There are a couple of places to pump water.

There were no bears, despite seeing plenty of “sign”, but we did see a yearling timber rattler perched on a small hickory.