Authoritarianism and Engineering?

Posted on October 27, 2023 by Katherine Wikoff

Well, I learned something new today while teaching my political science course.

I was walking students through my recommended process for getting started doing research on political issues, and at this point we were comparing basic Google search results with Wikipedia (don’t worry, we got far more specific and advanced, which might be a good blog post for another day?), and as I was skimming through Wikipedia articles turned up by my search for “political issues related to engineering Wikipedia,” which was the same phrase used for my Google search, minus the “Wikipedia” add-on, I saw an article titled “Technocracy.”

Well, “technocracy” is one of our course’s basic vocabulary words, so I thought I’d take a look at that article. By the way, I was projecting my own computer screen onto the big screen at the front of the room so everyone could watch what I was doing as I talked about it. Anyway, this is where it got interesting. I was skimming through the article, seeing lots of the usual stuff, blah blah blah. Pausing to make note of the article’s reference to Plato’s “Republic,”which our class had read an excerpt from (a selection from Book VII, the “Allegory of the Cave” and associated discussion of who should “rule” and how).

And then I stopped short. I was just astonished by what I was reading, and I told the students I had never known this until that very moment when I was seeing it with them. Read through the following excerpt from this Wikipedia article, and tell me if you are surprised, as well.

Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy

The former government of the Soviet Union has been referred to as a technocracy.[20] Soviet leaders like Leonid Brezhnev often had a technical background. In 1986, 89% of Politburo members were engineers.[20]

Leaders of the Chinese Communist Party used to be mostly professional engineers. According to surveys of municipal governments of cities with a population of 1 million or more in China, it has been found that over 80% of government personnel had a technical education.

(Wikipedia’s article on “Technocracy”)

As I told my students, very few members of the United States Congress have ever been engineers. Currently, in the 118th Congress, there are nine engineers in the House and one in the Senate. That is 10 engineers out of 535 members of Congress, House and Senate combined, which works out to less than 2% of our Congress! We could add in some scientists, but that wouldn’t bring the numbers up all that much. But then compare that with almost 90% of the Soviet Union’s version of Congress being made up of engineers! And the idea that leadership of the communist party in China used to be mostly engineers!

Leonid Brezhnev

Completely bemused and nonplussed, I couldn’t help laughing and told my students (mostly engineering majors, as I teach at Milwaukee School of Engineering!) that I’m not sure what this info might imply about authoritarianism and engineering. Are engineers somehow well suited to authoritarianism? Do authoritarian governments find themselves attracted to the ability of engineers to design and operate systems? I have no clue, but as I told my students, it might be an intriguing topic to look into more. And I suppose a related political issue to think about is what it means for America that the people making policy at the federal level apparently have little professional knowledge of engineering and technology.

Anyway, that’s my blog post for today. I was just very surprised, and because I’ve been teaching political science for decades and have been interested in politics much longer than that and never knew this, I figured you probably also didn’t know and it would be interesting for you to learn about, too!

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Posted in History, Milwaukee, Political Analysis, Teaching, Technology | Tagged , , , | 25 Comments

#WordlessWednesday – Intersection

Posted on October 25, 2023 by Katherine Wikoff

A photo snapped from my car window on an overcast afternoon while stopped for a red light at the intersection of Hwy 100 and West Burleigh (pronounced “BURR-lye” for any non-Milwaukeeans out there) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Well, this post was almost “wordless”! 🙂 )

Geometric design of parallel powerlines beyond a diagonally angled bar upon which two traffic lights are mounted along with a surveillance camera aimed downward at the intersection's traffic, all in a closeup view set against an overcast sky

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Posted in Milwaukee, Photography | Tagged , | 2 Comments

A new book for my “To Read” list

Posted on October 16, 2023 by Katherine Wikoff

I love maps. Always have. I would far rather study a map than rely on a GPS voice telling me to turn right in 1.4 miles.

I took a year of geology in college and loved learning to read topographic maps. One of the coolest places in my university’s library was the area where giant maps were stored in bureaus with huge, flat drawers. My geology courses were honors sections, and my big project at the end of the year was writing an analysis of the Los Angeles area’s water supply. Quite a few maps were involved, with some interesting “side trips” along the way as I found other only marginally related but still very intriguing maps to distract me from my primary task.

Well, I just discovered a book that I want to read. It has been out for over 10 years, but it’s new to me, so . . .

I am doing my usual pre-purchase, due diligence reconnaissance (I rarely buy a book cold) and have been so delighted by what I’ve found thus far that I want to share it with you.

The book, titled Maphead, is about maps and is written by uber-“Jeopardy”-winner (turned “Jeopardy” host) Ken Jennings. As you might expect, the text is a beautiful combination of gee-whiz appreciation, interesting information, and elegant, gently humorous prose. I am really looking forward to reading it!

A couple of links, if you’re interested.

First, here is a link to a 41-minute episode of BookTV on C-SPAN2. It is a recorded author event at Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle, and it highlights everything you love about Ken Jennings. What a likable person he is! Did you know that he has degrees in both English and computer science? That explains so much. Link: https://www.c-span.org/video/?301869-1/maphead

Second, here is a link to a fun interview in a UX magazine (UX Magazine, in fact😀), a conversation between Jennings and Jesse James Garrett that explores the overlap between maps and design. Link: https://uxmag.com/articles/jesse-james-garrett-and-ken-jennings-talk-maps-and-design

And finally, here is a link straight to the “sample” pages for this book on Amazon. Link: https://www.amazon.com/Maphead-Charting-Weird-World-Geography/dp/1439167184?asin=1439167184&revisionId=&format=4&depth=1

Maphead came out in 2011. I’m late to the party (as usual😀). Have you by chance already read it? If so, what did you think?

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Posted in Books and reading | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Karma? (Or, what goes around comes around)

Posted on October 1, 2023 by Katherine Wikoff

Remember Rueben Kincaid, the Partridge Family’s manager? A while ago I read David Cassidy’s memoir (C’mon, Get Happy) and discovered that Dave Madden, the comedian and comic actor who played Rueben, was a really sweet, generous person. Among his good works was his extra-kind treatment of Danny Bonaduce (Danny Partridge), spending time with him outside of work hours to help him escape an abusive home environment.

Anyway, earlier today I was talking about a funny “Partridge Family” episode with one of my daughters and wondered if Madden was still alive. He’s not, but in the course of checking his Wikipedia article, I found this interesting bit of information. Karma?

A recommendation from Frank Sinatra! What a kind thing for that gentleman to do, and what a turnaround for someone like Madden, who had struggled unsuccessfully to “make it” for the two years prior. Now I guess I should read up on Danny Bonaduce to see if he’s kept the kindness chain going in some way. I hope so❤️

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Posted in History, Life, Popular culture, Television | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Wait, this guy is THAT GUY???

Posted on September 24, 2023 by Katherine Wikoff

Our dog is a “rescue,” and back when we first got her from the Humane Society (and she was extremely restless), we somehow realized that playing “Monk” episodes (the quirky, comedic detective series starring Tony Shalhoub) on our television would calm her down. Now whenever she needs to be left alone in our house, we switch on the TV to keep her company, and “Monk” still seems to work.

For whatever reason, our dog is restless this afternoon. Actually, she has calmed down in the last few minutes. At the moment she is dozing on our couch. But the reason she has calmed down is that I switched on the TV a little bit ago to play some Monk.

Here is the kicker and the reason I am writing this blog post. As the episode began, I noticed a familiar name flash across the screen. No way, I thought. I’ve seen all the “Monk” episodes multiple times, and that person absolutely did not appear in this particular episode.

But then I started thinking. Was it possible this actor might have played the environmentalist? A tiny, bit part that doesn’t last much beyond the opening credits?

And the answer is yes.

Believe it or not, especially if you recognize the “Monk” episode where the power goes out because a wanted terrorist who was once in league with the tree-hugging environmentalist) plants a bomb at the power plant to keep anyone from seeing him at a Willie Nelson concert on TV.

This guy . . .

. . . is THAT GUY!!!

(WHAT????? Mind blown.)

Judge Reinhold is an amazing actor, clearly! (Even aside from all due credit given to the hair, makeup, and wardrobe personnel!) I can usually spot actors pretty easily, even when they appear in very different roles, and I probably drive my family crazy by constantly pointing out “Oh my gosh, that’s the security guard from . . . the mom from . . . the teacher from (film/TV title)!”

But honestly, if I hadn’t noticed Reinhold’s name today at the beginning of this episode, I never would have known!

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Posted in Popular culture, Television | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

Crazy Quilt

Posted on September 5, 2023 by Katherine Wikoff

No symmetry to be found in the window shade department at this office building in downtown Milwaukee. On a sunny morning here, it’s a free for all!

Office building with window shades drawn to various lengths

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Posted in Milwaukee, Photography | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Bunny update

Posted on August 24, 2023 by Katherine Wikoff

When I went to put our dog to bed last night, maybe around 8:45 PM, I stopped short at the sight of the mother rabbit near the bunny nest in our backyard. Poor Coco. She was very confused about why she had to wait in the house. And in the end we had to take her out on the leash to the side yard because the baby bunnies were moving around in the yard within about six feet of the nest out back.

What you see in the video below is the mother rabbit about two feet away from the nest. Our garage light is set to turn on with any motion in the backyard, so that’s why the light is on at first, and that weird orangey color in the upper left is the reflection of my hand in the glass of our storm door.

In the very beginning of the video you can see one of the babies hopping up to the mother from the right. I missed the babies leaving the nest because I had to run and get my phone. But when I first opened the back door, not only did I see the mom, but I saw one of the babies hopping toward her. This setup surprised me. I thought when the mother came back to the nest at night, she would push aside the mat of dead grasses and lie down with her babies to nurse them, the way a dog or cat would. But no, she is standing there and the bunnies came to her. I imagine this is easier for her if she needs to run off quickly to draw a predator (like the family dog😂) away from her babies. The video ends pretty much when our garage light turns itself back off, because you can no longer see anything. And I’m sharing just because I’ve never seen anything like this before and thought someone might be interested😀

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Posted in Life, Nature | Tagged , | 2 Comments

A Podcast to Follow

Posted on August 23, 2023 by Katherine Wikoff

School starts for me next week, with meetings this week and summer projects to wrap up. I’m staying home today, though.

Because the Republican presidential primary debate is happening at Fiserv Forum in downtown Milwaukee tonight and some sort of associated “fair” (and, like, maybe merch sales?) is happening all day in the outside plaza— on the hottest day of the year, unfortunately for them—lots of streets downtown between my house and the Milwaukee School of Engineering campus are closed.

Anyway, in checking my Gmail—which, remember when you could only get a Gmail account if you got an invitation from someone who already had one? I was invited by a student who was already working for Google and got to experience a brief moment of feeling like a very special tech-hip kind of gal😂—I saw that an online writer I follow has started a podcast. I have liked this guy for a couple of years. Both what he has to say about the writing process and his own ideas and essays on many interesting subjects are always interesting , inspiring, and thought provoking to me.

So I thought I’d share. Partly to support him and partly because I genuinely think that it is some thing that would be of value to others.

I think this link will get you to his article that describes the project and provides links that will lead you to the podcast. In case it doesn’t, his name is David Perell, and the title of his podcast is “How I Write.”

Link to David Perell’s article/post: https://ckarchive.com/b/gkunh5hd64owebrh5055699?utm_source=convertkit&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Monday+Musings+%28Big%2C+Big+Day%29%20-%2011545735

And actually, here is the latest “podcast” recording on YouTube, just to make it extra easy to check out.

You also might like to take a look at the kind of stuff he writes on Twitter (@david_perell). Aside: Twitter will never be “X” to me! That’s an affectation (PR stunt?) I hope Elon Musk will at some point abandon, just as Prince eventually left behind his weird, unpronounceable symbol.

On a completely unrelated note (no pun intended until I noticed how the word “note” matched up with the rest of the sentence, which you haven’t read yet but at which point I decided I did indeed intend it to be a pun after all😀), this song popped into my head this afternoon, and I couldn’t resist pulling up the video. It gave me a smile, so I thought I’d share it with you, as well❤️

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Posted in Creativity, Milwaukee, Popular culture, Writing, blogging | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

The Pittie and the Bunnies

Posted on August 18, 2023 by Katherine Wikoff

We have a nest of baby rabbits in our backyard. This is a new development, and not a happy one given that our dog, Coco, LOVES her yard, especially in summer, when she spends much of the day lying in sunny corners, basking in the warmth. The arrival of these vulnerable new neighbors has put a bit of a crimp in her/our style.

Once we realized we had a rabbits nest in our yard a couple days ago, we read up online about what to do if you also have a dog. The advice generally seems to agree that you should put something like a laundry basket with plenty of air holes on top of the nest during the day. We have this crate that we’ve overturned and weighted down with a large stone from our garden.

(Aside: Stones are very, VERY heavy for their overall size, way heavier than a similar sized block of concrete. I tried a concrete paver and then tried a rock. No contest. Stone must be a far denser material.)

Then we surrounded the overturned crate with a garden fence for added deterrence. Apparently mom rabbits always stay away from their nest during daytime hours, hiding nearby in a garden, etc., to keep an eye on things, and then they return to their babies at night. We’ve been putting up the crate and fence in the mornings and then putting them away again in the early evening, when the only remaining time for Coco to be in the yard is right before bed, and then she’s only out there on a brief visit to do her business and can easily be supervised. Apparently the babies should leave the nest in about three weeks—although then what? I shudder to think about a family of tiny rabbits wandering around our yard all hours of the day. Hopefully by the time they leave their nest, they’ll be big enough and smart enough to run fast for the fences.

However, that’s a problem for the future. First thing to know for today’s post: Coco’s daily naps hug the edges of our yard and tend to follow the sun. So the driveway and the wall of the garage, along the back fence, next to the garden in the side yard, and finally near the gate that leads to the front yard. She always sticks to that perimeter and, I guarantee you, has NEVER ONCE lain between the silver maple and the stone retaining wall below our back porch.

Check out her two new fave spots as of this morning. Like, what? She’s just trying to find a relaxing place to chill. So innocent 😂

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Posted in Life, Nature | Tagged | 8 Comments

Will “Oppenheimer” save cinema? (Or, Going to “The Show”)

Posted on August 7, 2023 by Katherine Wikoff

Which is what we called it in my small town back in the day. We had one movie theater in town and thus one movie available to us per week. Hence, “the show.” Not “a” show, and not even “a” movie or “the” movie. The. Show.

I belong to a Facebook group called “Friends of 70 mm,” the membership of which is extremely knowledgeable about cinema history from a projection perspective. I found out about it from one of my friends, a software engineering professor who comes to be a guest speaker in my film and media studies class every year. His dad was a movie theater technician who traveled around the state (sometimes multiple states!) to repair projectors and keep them in good working order. My friend knows a lot about the technical end of cinema, and he always brings cool things to share with my students, like a 1920s hand-cranked miniature film projector he threads up with film before switching on the tiny light bulb inside and throwing the image onto the white classroom wall. He can crank one frame at a time and then speed it up to create the motion picture, which is fun.

But I digress. The “Friends of 70mm” Facebook group that my software engineering prof friend introduced me to has lots of intriguing, often highly technical discussions about movie sound, screens, theaters, projectors, reels—just really interesting and informative stuff! I come to film and media from an English and rhetoric perspective. But I teach mostly engineering students, and plus I just always like to understand things as completely as possible, because you can find “aha” moments in the most unlikely connections. This Facebook group has helped fill in some rather sizable gaps in my understanding of the technical side of filmmaking and exhibition.

In the past week I’ve seen postings and conversations in the Facebook group to the effect that many movie theaters are scrambling to find projectionists experienced with 70mm willing/able to travel to one of the handful of theaters in the U.S. (only 19, according to the Washington Post) currently showing Oppenheimer in 70mm. Both the film itself and perhaps more significantly the 70mm viewing experience have proven so successful that theaters have extended the movie’s run by 2-3 weeks—but are finding it difficult to staff the projection booths for all the additional showings because so few people are trained to operate the equipment nowadays.

Wouldn’t it be cool if this movie’s popularity, alongside the voices of a small but notable group of filmmakers committed to shooting on film (e.g., Tarantino, Gerwig, Nolan, Spielberg), helped to spur a shift toward revitalizing the larger than life, communal moviegoing experience that “cinema” used to encompass? Although I can appreciate streaming for what it offers (serendipitous discovery of new titles, for example, not to mention the convenience of viewing them on your own schedule), it is certainly not the only way to watch a movie.

And definitely not the ideal way.

(UPDATE: 8/11/23 — I just saw this Variety article from earlier this week about the various extended runs of Oppenheimer in 70m. Link: https://variety.com/2023/film/news/oppenheimer-imax-70mm-extended-tickets-1235689899/)

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Posted in Movies and film, Popular culture, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments