The fully stacked Super Heavy first stage and Starship Spacecraft measure in at approximately 118 meters tall. This beast of an interplanetary transportation system is designed to deliver 100 tons of cargo to mars while achieving the lowest marginal launch cost in history. These lofty goals require a massive spacecraft to crash into the Martian atmosphere at 7.5 kilometers per a second and decelerate using aerodynamic forces punctuated by a rocket-powered, hover slam landing. Don’t forget about the return trip with Earth’s significantly denser atmosphere applying even more friction.

With such large forces at play, one of the key technological challenges is the spacecraft’s heat shield. Like a knight riding into battle, a heat shield provides protection at the expense of additional weight. This tradeoff is critical when cargo capacity equates to life sustaining supplies. After first exploring carbon fiber construction for its strength to weight ratio, SpaceX has hit on an audacious plan to reduce development cost and ensure reusability of the Starship; build a spaceship out of stainless steel that sweats methane on entry. With weight foremost on the mind of rocket scientist, the proposition of a steel spacecraft seems anti-intuitive. On further inspection, when you add up the reinforcement material required for carbon fiber connection points and the higher melting temperature of modern steel alloys, the proposed design reduces weight by requiring less conventional heat shield material on the spacecraft. Augmenting the cooling via transpiration effectively allows the Starship to regenerate much of its heat shield capacity by replenishing methane which is also used for rocket fuel. Think really shining metal with powers of regeneration. Did someone say Wolverine?

The Starship’s transpirational cooling system is meant to augment and protect a more traditional heat shield on the reentry side of the spacecraft. This system maximizes overall reusability of the spacecraft while minimizing weight. The fact that we can compare it to our favorite member of the x-men makes the whole proposition even cooler, no pun intended. Here’s to the Wolverine heat shield.

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The criticism of Queen being overly commercialized and at times campy is easy to understand. Over the years, I have devoured their music to the point of exhaustion and significantly fatigued my Queen receptors. At times I almost agreed with the critique. Almost, but not quite. Any former Queen junkie will relate. Dust off an album and let the tracks play out. It feels dated and at times overly produced. The music can tend toward vagaries and show tune trickery. But in time, the dust settles, you cast aside your modern musical tropes, and the artistry of the message breaks free. Freddie always claimed that the strength of his melodies superseded his lyrics, but to many his true power was in his fearless expressions of mortality.

When I’m dead, I want to be remembered as a musician of some worth and substance.
Freddie Mercury

Freddie’s tragic death from AIDS at the age of 45 only reinforced these themes. Mercury was allegedly diagnosed in 1987, but the subject of mortality percolated through Queen’s music for most of his career. It is likely he knew he was sick for quite some time, but perhaps this lover of life and singer of songs had a natural understanding of transience and the importance of maximizing the joys of life. Brian May wrote many songs that hit on these same issues. Even for songs crafted by his bandmates, Freddie Mercury proved the perfect conduit for their message and clearly added his own emotional interpretations to the lyrics. For any hardcore or would be fan, here are just a few songs that showcase Freddie’s ability to speak to the fragility of the human condition:

Queen Songs with Themes of Mortality

• Keep Yourself Alive (Released 1973, Brian May)
• Bohemian Rhapsody (Released 1975, Freddie Mercury)
• Save Me (Released 1980, Brian May)
• Under Pressure (Released 1981, Queen & David Bowie)
• Hammer to Fall (Released 1984, Brian May)
• It’s a Hard Life (Released 1984, Freddie Mercury)
• Who Wants to Live Forever (Released 1986, Brian May)
• I Want It All (Released 1989, Queen)
• The Show Must Go On (Released 1991, Queen)
• These Are the Days of Our Lives (Released 1991, Queen)
• Too Much Love Will Kill You (Released 1992, Brian May)

 
The combination of broad, lyrical strokes that open the songs to individual interpretation and the infusion of Freddie’s personal experience in their delivery force the listener to contemplate the value of life. Freddie Mercury’s mastery of this emotional niche stands alone. Perhaps we’d all be a bit wiser if we wore out a few Queen Albums now and again.

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They show another angle, same scene same expression. The adrenaline has worn off from watching the game two days earlier, the facial expression strikes me. Why does he look so familiar and why am I so concerned about this man who seems to have the world on a string? I have watched every second of every game Brady has played in since Bledsoe ruptured his spleen in 2001. Like an old friend disclosing a serious illness, I am suddenly worried about him. It’s the drug documentaries. They seem to always act the same. Needle goes in, plunger goes down and a wave of infinite solace radiates across their expression. Is Brady literally addicted to the W?

It all makes sense now, his public struggle and maniacal obsession with preparation. 36 glasses of water a day, designer mattresses, avocado ice cream. Uggs kicked up sprawled on the sofa in his Brookline mansion consuming endless hours of game tape between practices. We have all been sitting back watching this 40 something legend throw his life away hunting for his next fix. The signs have always been there. Doling out air high-fives while sitting isolated on the bench after another near flawless touchdown drive. Contemplative horse rides on a tropical beach searching for a way out of his personal hell. The man is a victim, not a hero. A full blown professional junkie, crying out for help with game winning drive after game winning drive as we revel in the car crash.

Next time you tune in to watch a Pats game take a moment to read the body language. It is undeniable. And year after year as we sit awestruck watching the aging QB trot out on the field for another perfectly executed touchdown, remind yourself, it’s not his fault, it’s not his fault, it’s not his fault.

The post Tom Brady: Jonesin’ for a Win appeared first on Mutate It.

A green 94 Jeep Cherokee was my first car. My father had purchased it as a daily driver and my brother had inherited it once the state mistakenly issued him a license to operate a motor vehicle. Along the extensive network of dirt roads that crisscrossed my town to the sand pits and obstacles that dotted the local dump, this jeep had taken a legendary beating. Songs were written about it…or at least they should have been. It was my first ride. Like teenage love, the whirring purr of the indestructible inline 6 strained my heart strings and the rugged solid axle steed delivered me to any destination under any conditions.

As time passed, and life flung me away to college living on the windy streets of Boston, we would still bump into each other from time to time. She had been relegated to the role of a laundry vehicle at my family business. I would visit home catching glimpses of my old friend, drivetrain running as dependable as ever, lugging mountains of sheets up steep hills that hammered on her near bullet-proof transmission as her body rotted around her leaving a path of rusted metal in its wake. It took time to truly appreciate my relationship with the XJ.

In retrospect, the Jeep Cherokee is somewhat of an enigma. American Motors Corporation had shoehorned the son of a tractor engine into a unibody chassis. The approach broke ranks with the standard body on frame design that was a staple of pretty much all car manufacturing until that time. In was the last new jeep produced by AMC before Chrysler swooped in. Envisioned as a capable alternative for suburban families, the XJ delivered something that stood the test of time. Design cues that drew heavily from the utilitarian requirements imparted on military jeeps of old, the near 90 degree angles and straight lines were juxtaposed with body proportions that almost universally defined the standard for the Sport Utility Vehicle concept the XJ had authored with its birth. Like a beautiful final offering, the Jeep Cherokee screamed, “I was here” into the howling winds of progress and assimilation.

With an astonishing production run of 2.3 million units from 1983 to 2001, fuel efficiency standards put the last nail in the coffin of the XJ. Today they can still be seen loyally waiting for their owners posing as an affordable and still dependable option for a heavily used car. The crown may be tarnished and the castle in ashes, but the legend never dies. Long live the king.

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The solution was simple; empower the person generating the link to curate the results set. The goal was to enhance flexibility of the service, while maintaining a focus on the core features. Here’s how the new curation package works.

Harvesting a Greater Yield

Just like any good farmer, a larger crop equates to more options at market. The service was updated to attempt to gather more than the top 10 results. If additional results are available, these are set as reserve options for the user generating the link.

Pruning the Field

In results sets that include reserve options, a pencil edit icon appears in the primary link box. By toggling this button, reserve results will appear under the results set for that query. Active results are indicated by transparent borders and include a minus icon, while reserve results are rendered with black borders and a plus icon. To curate the set a user simply clicks the minus icon on active results they wish to remove from consideration or the plus icon on reserve results they wish to activate. Only active results are cycled to the audience and measured for goodness of fit.

As a non-gardener, I consider every plant hardy until I manage to personally kill it. Still, it’s hard not to appreciate someone with a green thumb. With the new curation package, we can all embrace our inner, digital gardener.

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I was tired, life was hectic. It would have been so easy to accept the shifting sands of my Search API struggle and shutter the effort. I needed to burn something. Time was running out. My wife was in the throes of graduate school clocking insane hours studying away in the hidden corners or our house. I was left alone with my computer, burnt out from a day job at my family business and hap hazardously applying new designs and features to my old workhorse project. As a self-described realist, it occurred to me the curtain was drawing on my efforts. Guilt I thought, there’s the ticket. I called a local IP lawyer to kick off the patent application process. With the average patent costing between $8 – $15k, what more of a motivator would I need than to spend a boat load of a money on a dream? Imagine a little voice in your head repeating, “Did you really waste that much money on a pipe dream?”

The process itself was a bear. Tedious hours poring over written description of the invention. Nightly research digging through the patent index for similar concepts. Production of visual aids and screenshots to supplement explanations. Hours and dollars spent interfacing with lawyers. My local firm, Laconia Law, guided me through the effort and helped package up and craft the application. The patent was submitted and shortly after, my API woes came crashing back to earth with the shuttering of the third search API I had ported into the Beta service. What a letdown.

On August 29th, 2017 after completely abandoning the project for over 2 years, I received a notice from the patent office that they had granted the patent. The application made it through with only a minor clarification returned to the examiner in the first round of review. My lawyers noted this was a rare occurrence and generally supported the perceived novelty of the invention. I had watched the ships smolder into the raging sea. The hunger had set in. It was time to march inland and find an alternate search API to breathe life into the project. If not for the patent application, the shores of possibility would have receded beyond the horizon long ago. Good thing we burned the boat.

The post The Pursuit of Patent(ness) appeared first on Mutate It.

Alternate power, time to hitch a ride on the conveyor belt and get busy with some explosive shells. Seriously though, love that scene, best action movie EVER (segue). This path had led from Google to Bing back to Google and finally on to Yahoo. Strangely, despite common negative press, Yahoo had offered a respectable mix of usability and flexible terms. That was until the Boss Search API was discontinued…bummer. As the available search engines faded into the distance, our team (me, myself and I) began to lose hope. Life is busy and who needs a dream anyways.

I had made the decision to file a patent before the bells had tolled on my search API issue. While the general merits of this decision are up for debate in the software world, the response from the patent office offered a glimmer of light and a challenge to continue the struggle. I began to scour the internet for Alternate Search API options. Gigablast Search API crossed my path. It wasn’t run by Silicon Valley giants and it had a cowboy edge to it. While the search results quality was a stretch at times, it was easy to migrate my service to their structure and the terms of use were simple, simple, simple. There was another Skywalker, albeit completely stripped down and hidden in a dusty corner of the internet. Just what we needed to keeps the dream alive and lay waste to that T1000 serendipitously standing over the blast furnace of molten metal. Now where’s my shotgun?

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Imagine a world where the internet, that wonderful god of technology that we all bow our heads to, could help shape its own destiny. While I might be going off the rails into Lawn Mower Man territory, the concept of mutating hyperlinks is much, much simpler. You, the content producer, determine a subject you would like to share. You enter the subject in the form of a search term and the service goes out to the web, harvests relevant results and generates a single hyperlink to share with your audience in whichever manner you see fit.

Sounds pretty straight-forward so far. As your audience navigates to the link you shared, the service cycles through a different result for each new viewer, measuring their interaction with the resource. If the resource is highly relevant to your audience or the content in which you embedded it, then it is likely they will spend more time interacting with that particular result. Push comes to shove, all the results duke it out in an algorithmic battle of the fittest and voilà the service permanently redirects the link to the winning result. Ideally, this result strengthens your content and resonates with your core audience by turning passive consumers of content into active content producers.

Back in San Francisco, during my SEO days, the concept of mutating links seemed just interesting enough to propel me over the precipice of creation. Who knew how difficult the process could be? Patents, databases, APIs, whatever? As a 30 minute-a-night, after work side project, it didn’t seem too daunting to my ignorant brain. Fortunately, a healthy case of Howard Hughesian OCD can go a long way toward compelling someone to finish or at least launch something they smoked up oh so many years ago. And here we are, pushing away from the dock in a crazy contraption that might not even float. But the ride should be interesting and maybe we’ll spot a yeti along the way.

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