Record and Teach

I was recently at a talk at the Oriental Institute on seal images from the Persian empire (4th to 7th century BC). I won’t belabor the role of the Zoroastrian religion in these images -- if you’re interested I suggest you look up the fire altars and the digs at Persepolis. But as the different images were put up on the screen showing people sacrificing animals or tending the fire altar, a comment was made that images show the everyday and writing shows the extraordinary.

The idea is fairly straight forward. Images have to be understood by the viewers, therefore they have to be familiar. Whereas, everyone knows the everyday so when something is committed to writing it is because it is out of the ordinary. I am not sure if I agree. Even from an archeological perspective there are a lot of examples of the everyday that get recorded, mostly in the form of commerce or fiction.

So where do music, science and philosophy fit in? Like fiction they are a dynamic. They can grow and evolve or can die and be forgotten. I think one of the things that our society has going for it is that we have so many ways to record and collect ideas. Maybe this is bad, because everything gets saved and has equal weight to future generations.

For example, the oldest recorded music is a song to Nikal, the wife of the Syrian moon god. -- Ok, maybe not what we think of recording, this song was inscribed on a tablet in Ugarit somewhere around 1400 B.C. and translated by Prof. Kilmer in the 1970’s. http://www.amaranthpublishing.com/hurrian.htm Unlike older verse that has been found, this tablet contained instructions to make and play the instrument. So the musical score was actually recorded even though we cannot hear the original version. But I digress.

We do not know if this song was common of the style and imagery of the day or extraordinary. We know some one took the time to really record the details. So it had some significance. But, what was the other music like?

I am of the opinion, that music, like fiction has to strike a common note that people will connect to it. Or it simply fades away. So if we go to Ras Shamra today will we hear evolutions of the same sound? I would expect that the answer is a “yes,” although we might not recognize it.

Consider “Eyes on the Prize” AKA “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize," which is a variant of the earlier "Gospel Plow", aka "Hold On", aka "Keep Your Hand on the Plow" etc… The latest version I heard was from Bruce Springsteen with a large dixi-land style folk band. The sound was fantastic. But it was very different from one man plucking six nylon strings. And, while on the subject of Mr. Springsteen let me say this: as he was doing these old folks songs, he added his own lyrics, contemporized them. So we see the evolution beginning.

Ok so now pull this idea back to science. Do we more often record the ordinary or extraordinary? We tend to skip the ordinary. Pick up any lab book and see how much common knowledge and practice is taken for granted. I once had a technician complain that the protocol was inaccurate, not her, because it didn’t say to cap the volatile solvents. Something I assumed everyone knew.

And do ideas grow, if they are not communicated in a way that the main stream can connect to them? For my part, I think not. Ideas will only live in their isolated community unless they can be put in a way that the society as a whole can grasp. So, in an uneducated society, complicated science will simply die out.

The upshot of this is: record in accurate detail and teach in a way people understand.

I will leave you this morning with Bill Withers. His professional career wasn’t very long only really running through the 70’s and mid 80’s. But in that time he wrote songs that could well find their way into the lexicon of traditional American music in a few hundred years. I realize it’s hard to predict what art will last into the future, but “Lean on Me” had that “always been around” feeling right out the gate. Like most great art it touches a genuine human emotion, and does it in a comforting way.

I expect it will undergo some evolution much like “Keep Your Hand on the Plow" because it is recorded and we all know what it means.

Peace and Happy Holidays,
Charles

Admit Error and Move to Fix

So today I had to apologize to a customer for a late shipment of his order. I know everyone realizes things get delayed some times. Fortunately, it is a rare occasion. But, this is by far one of my least favorite things to have to do because there just is no good excuse.

I mean seriously, do any of us really care why the order is late? No. We order it, pay for it and have the right to expect that it will come when ordered. So, when it’s late we’re upset. And we have the right to be.

So as a vendor, I really don’t know what to say. “Sorry,” is insufficient and I doubt if the customer cares why it was late. Sure you can offer them credit for future purchases, but most won’t order again. And can you blame them? Who wants to deal with bad service? And this is why quality systems should all include a proper failure analysis investigation of any system break down.

I have been around the block enough to know that people always balk at this. Accidents happen. Why point fingers. Etc. Etc. Etc. But the why is listed above. Customers want and deserve good service. Errors left uncorrected will continue.

And yes I know that no one wants to be signaled out as the cause of a problem or have their mistakes highlighted. Believe me I have heard the “its not my fault because…” line so many times it makes my head spin. People are quicker to defend than correct.

But failure analysis isn’t about blame, it’s about cause. If a person in the chain made the wrong decision or did the wrong thing… why? Did they not know the right thing? Was it a careless error? Were they unable to do the right thing because of some obstacle?

You won’t fix what you pretend isn’t broken. So when something goes wrong stand up and admit the error, take your lumps and learn why. Then do your best not to repeat.

So, to the customer who shall remain nameless, should you be reading this, know that I am truly sorry for the service you received. We have already done our internal failure analysis and hopefully no one else will suffer from the same snafu.

Peace,
Charles

Lessons from a Christmas Tree

In November of 1986, my father and I went traipsing through the woods in search of the perfect Christmas tree. And no, it wasn’t for our house. My mother was afraid that live, err formerly live trees would catch fire so we always had artificial trees. (In fact I am still using an artificial tree. Hmmmm…) No, my father wanted to start farming trees. And since pines are amazingly consistent from one branch of their family tree to the next (if you will pardon the pun), he decided, rather than buying saplings, we would find a perfect pine and cultivate from seed.

Of course, we didn’t actually know what we were doing; not at the outset anyway. But we were confident that we could figure it out. So off we went through hip deep snow evaluating the symmetry of tree after tree.

After a few days, on the 20th in fact, we found what we were looking for. The tree was huge, well, tall anyway and nearly perfectly symmetric. So we set about cutting the tree down so we could access the seeds.

Now, normally when you cut a tree, you clear the trees around it so you have room to work. But, we only wanted the one. So we tried to carefully thread it between other trees as we dropped it. At one point the chainsaw got stuck in the trunk and we had to manually push the tree off the blade to get it out. (And the was a very large tree!) But, eventually we prevailed and collected the top for the pine cones. (Actually the real work was cutting the rest for fire wood and carting it back home!)

So we took the tree top back to the house and collected the pine cones. But here we realized that in a healthy tree the seeds are safely locked in the pine cone. And while it seems to be common knowledge that you open pinecones by heating, neither of us knew what temperature safely extracts the seeds so that they would grow.

But you know what? A little deductive reasoning goes a long way. Pinecone release their seeds to replant after forest fires. So, premise one: Ray Bradbury’s novel claims that books burn at 451°F. Premise two: books are mostly wood pulp. Conclusion – If we heat pinecones to 451°F we should have good healthy seeds to plant. Now I cannot tell you if we were right or wrong, only that it worked.

We placed the pinecones on a cookie sheet and placed them on the oven and waited. After a short while, the pinecones opened and the seeds fell out. We pulled the seeds out and the next day went out to plant them.

So now I know what you are thinking. You don’t plant in the winter. Why not? The seeds lay cold in the ground, until spring when the water and warmth would make them grow. Again, I cannot say if this is right or wrong only that it worked. And in spring we had little branches pushing through the ground were we planted.

For awhile we let the trees be. Then when they got to be waist high, we started trimming. My father got us a set of machete length knives. Razor sharp, and balanced like a good sword. And we would go through the woods shaping the trees into the perfect Christmas tree shape so that they would grow and fill out properly. And you know we were pretty good at it. Four swipes and a tree was properly shaped.

There were set backs that make good learning experiences. At one point my dad thought I was making fun of the enterprise and was quite hurt. For the record I wasn’t. But, it did teach me that to really be supportive the other person has to know beyond a doubt that you believe in them.

But of course people are not always supportive. And as most of us well know, no matter how much you do for people they still gravitate to selfish and insensitive. As the trees were reaching maturity, my uncle decided it was easier to cut down nearly an entire ridge to camouflage his hunting blind. My father was furious. Probably no so much at the damage as the disregard of him – and the subsequent poorly executed claim of innocence. It never ceases to amaze me how people will lie to you face and trust that you will accept it so as not risk insulting them. It was a demoralizing moment, and my father wound up letting most of what we planted go for pulp.

A few trees survived. We didn’t bother to continue shaping them. We talked about letting them go for awhile then collecting more pinecones and starting again, but life moved on. Personally I don’t think my father overcame the idea that someone would pull the rug out again. So, in the end we cut a few for use at holidays and that was that.

The last tree we cut, went up at my office. One night working late, before we turned the lights off, I caught a good shot of it on my cell phone.

So now I look at this picture and I think about my Dad, and following dreams. You can figure things out if think logically. You should actively support the people you care about. But you can’t let lack of support, even from the people you support demoralize you.

In the end, we may not have got a tree farm going. But start to finish, that last tree was something we produced together. And it has an enduring beauty that.

Peace
Charles

Thanksgiving

You know it was a great holiday. My family came to visit and we cooked a feast, played games, saw movies, etc. Actually, it brings me back to the need to pay attention. My brother-in-Law and I were record shopping when he saw that a local nigh club had one of his kid’s favorite bands playing. So, in addition to everything else we did, they got to see a concert (and meet the band). I’m serious when I say you need to pay attention to the world around you!

But now, thanksgiving is done – a mountain of bench work and hundreds of emails await my attention. But in the spirit of the holiday past, I thought I’d like to take a moment and say thank you for the reception the new products are getting. Interest has been good and sales are starting to come in.

(And hey if you have a hunter or sportsman in your life check out our products page. http://www.anevalinc.com/buyproductsandformulae/sportingandhunting.html And hunters, while you’re away in the woods why not get leave your wives some luxury to enjoy while you were away. http://www.anevalinc.com/buyproductsandformulae/massageandbathtreats.html

Ok back to work with me.

Until Later
Charles

Me, William and A Gel Lifter Part 2,

By way of reminder, back in August my eldest nephew William and I were playing with a way of increasing resolution of gel lifters with the Axis Inversion Dyes.

Well, the first few trials were miserable failures. The heat needed to activate the dyes distorted or outright melted the gel. However, as the wizard said said, 99% perspiration etc… So, the work continued to the point today whereby incorporating the dye into a fuming cartridge the heat needed for sublimation does not impact the lifter.

Essentially what we have come up with is this: the dye colors the gel, but where the gel has picked up residue, the dye is blocked from entry. The result is a yellowing of the gel -- up to a few shade units -- without coloring the impression. (See the top picture.)

So who cares you may ask? Well I do, (and possibly others … possibly people who use gel lifters) because, the result is a net bluing of the impression making it easier to view. (Blue and yellow are diametrically opposed on the visual axis. So if the background is yellower the foreground is defacto bluer.)

To be honest, in most cases while we are able to increase the contrast of the image, we weren’t able to achieve an image that couldn’t also be obtained with oblique lighting and optical filters. But, there were cases where the increase in contrast pushed the image just enough to resolve detail that weren’t achievable by conventional means. (See the bottom Picture)

Obviously, this is very preliminary. I may work it into a study if there is time in 2012, who knows, maybe I can get my nephew to work with me on a validation project.

But for now, I am simply content to have figured finished the proof of concept steps begun with William.

But it is Sunday, and I think I have put enough time in the lab tonight so with that …

Until Later

Charles

Inspiration

Inspiration is an interesting thing, which may be why I keep coming back to it. But it also plays a key part in my life. Obviously, the more fully I can understand and exploit the tools of creativity, the better I will be as a scientist, artist, writer … cook … and the list goes on. So, in my spare time I study writers, lyricists, painters, scientists and so on. And a few constant elements jump out at me.

The first is that inspiration comes from awareness. You have to look, think, strive to understand. And, for the record it doesn’t matter if you’re ideas come from watching a fingerprint form faster when its cold out, or the heavens opening up and hearing the voice of God. You have to be paying attention.

The second was said best by Pasteur: “…chance favors only the prepared mind (Dec 7 1854). You may be sitting in an empty house in Forest Hill or flying down Highway 74 and be struck with the images for an iconic song, but if you haven’t learned how to do it, the song will never be penned.

And for the third I turn to the Wizard of Menlo Park: “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration." The path from idea to finished creation is a long one and takes effort.
This is a short post today because I have a flash of inspiration and therefore have a lot of work to do.

Until Later
Charles

Saints, Beer and Hard Work

Sorry it’s been busy and I haven’t had time to indulge in blogging. But I promised: Saint’s Beer and Hard Work. So here goes.

One Saturday afternoon, I was out with a friend looking for a drum which now sits gathering dust in a corner across from the partially played training DVD. But this is not about the drum.

Our trek took us to a music shop near where I used to work, so I stopped in a bar I used to frequent for lunch. Sadly, the place had changed hands. And the new owners had changed some of the menu and the tone of the place was more dour than I recall. But still, the food wasn’t bad, and the new owner was friendly. But the funny thing was that they had a statue of a saint up among the beer bottles.

So I asked about this. And the owner told me that he was saint Raymond, the patron saint of new business. And then she outlined the “ceremony” she said she was told to perform to gain his favor.

Now, as a Roman Catholic, I will admit that we have a lot of rituals, but we do not practice witchcraft. And what she outlined was a fertility ceremony. Which was actually not inappropriate as the Saint Raymond is actually the patron of quite labor for pregnant women (and freedom for prisoners). But the statue was actually someone else. (not sure who).

But I digress. I kind of had to laugh. I suppose its one thing to look for the short cut. And we all cross our fingers and hope for luck, so I guess looking for mystical help isn’t so far out there.

And, I’m not saying that the new owner is lazy. But I would think if you were going to trust on magic rather than hard work, you’d at least put in the effort to learn the right spell. Make sure you’re praying to the right person.

But it all goes back to what I was saying before. People don’t want to put in the effort; even the effort to take the right short-cut. They want to be at the end point and have been told that the desire is as good as the effort.

You cannot invent without effort. You cannot build a successful business without effort. You cannot do more than just beat on the drum without effort.

Things don’t just happening. So with that said I go back to work now.

Until Later,
Charles

And for the record the patron of New Business is Homobonus.

Seeing a Need is Not Inventing

So it’s been awhile since I had a chance to blog. But the last time my topic was on scams and conmen. But I realize when I woke up this morning that the last 12 months have literally bookended with finding out that one man had been taking credit for my inventions and another is trying to take credit for my research. In between, I’ve lost count of how many times this year people have taken credit for my work or improperly tried to attach my name to theirs.

It seems so strange but I realize that this is very common place. So I ask: Are people intrinsically dishonest, or do they actually believe they contributed?

If two men see a sign fall off a wall. Man #1 says “They should make a bracket that hold better.” Man #2 seems to say something like “I was just thinking that.”

In my experience Man #2, really thinks: “I thought of that before he said it…” And therefore man #2 believes it is really his idea.

So then, if man #1 then invents the better bracket man #2 either thinks “he sole my idea” or believe he’s the co-inventor and somehow deserves a share of the profits.

Now I have found it doesn’t matter if man #2 has the ability to design a bracket or even the desire to attempt to do so. He still feels that he is some how responsible. And usually he thinks he is the main person responsible so that the invention would not be with out him.

So I have decided that today’s rant is directed at all of the man #2’s out there. Seeing a need is not inventing. Wanting to research is not the same as doing research. And most importantly, knowing the inventor does not entitle you to equal credit.

But I think this part of a more global problem. We went from the little engine that though it could to telling people they want to be so they are. You can call yourself a poet if you string some words together with a few expletives. A painter because you splash some color on a canvas. But we ignore that these disciplines take training. Title mean nothing. You can be what ever you want just because you want… weather or not you are actually trained.

We have been so burdened worrying about everyone’s self-esteem that we no longer tell anyone they are wrong or make them do what they should. As a result we have people who actually think they are poets, painters and inventors, simply because they want to be.

So in the name of science, art and the sphere of knowledge in general let me say that everything worth doing requires effort. You must strive to learn and study and be the best you can.

I’ll pick this up later… Next up: Saints, Beer and hard work…

Honest deals stand scrutiny

I’m slipping. A proposal came in and I couldn’t figure out the scam. I knew it was something, but couldn’t see it. Looked like a perfectly legit offer to buy as part of a government initiative. So I blew up the attached government document. And the official seal was cut pasted to the document. Had to do a 5x blow up - but it’s out of focus to the rest of the document at that level. So it was scanned or photographed and imported. Not printed and not from an original image file.

But as I say I am slipping, the telephone exchange is form Togo… should have seen that right away. Well anyway, it’s not a sale but at least I seem to have another conman to play with for awhile. It’s like finding a toy in the cereal box.

Except that I’m too busy to play with the conmen today. I have real dealers and customers to contact. So it’s like finding a toy and having your mother put it on the counter until you’re done with your homework.

None the less, I responded and asked for some proof of validity. A contact at the government agency... something. And I got a fairly rude response: “If you are interested to secure and execute the contract, you then comply. How ever, if you are not interested, you then decline.”

Rude conmen? Really that’s just lazy. I mean come on. Woo me a little. Sigh… no one wants to put the effort in anymore. At least the folks working the “lost dog” scam a few months ago had some pride in their work.

For those of you who are not familiar with the lost dog scam, it goes like this. Man and his dog (actually usually a stray) go into a bar or coffee shop or something and he asks… the man not the dog… if he can leave the dog for a while as he has a job interview and he has no where to leave the dog. He’s homeless, unemployed (again the man not the dog) or something like that and desperate. He can’t blow the interview.

So he leaves the dog. Then some one else comes in and sees the dog and asks if it’s for sale. It’s rare for breeding, the perfect look for a commercial… something.

The barman or barista will say they are just watching it so the stranger leaves their number and says “Have the owner call me I’ll pay x (where x is sufficiently large) dollars for this dog.”

Now at this point the honest person tells the down and outer… who by the way hasn’t gotten the job… that someone offered to buy his dog. The unscrupulous mark offers to but the dog himself. Of course for considerably less than x.

The man takes the money and when the mark calls the number he finds it isn’t real. It’s a nice scam … only works if the mark is scum willing to kick some one already down. You know the old saying may be wrong. You can cheat an honest man. But it’s much harder than cheating a crook.

Ok, that’s the classic. The modern variant is really not much different. A company calls looking for a chemical they need for say oil pipe line cleaning. They say that their vendor is overcharging them at $2.25 per pound for the several million pounds they need, because they know profits of the oil companies are high. So the want an agent who will keep a low profile and strike the deal at a fair price which they feel us $1.89 a pound.

Well, you look up the chemical and you find three companies (all set up in the last thirty days… if you bother to check) all selling this chemical for $0.93 per pound. So the honest agent arranges the deal and takes his commission. … actually he waits for a commission that never comes but at least he’s out nothing.

But the shiftier “business man” buys the stuff himself at $0.93 and sells it to his “client” for $1.89.

Except that the “client” pays on 90 days, while the domestic dealer requires payment at 40 days. So the mark has to pony up large sums of cash based on an invoice that will never be paid.

But they really put some effort into it. The chemical is a trade name… that they took the time to register… it really sells for $0.11 per pound. So no matter how much is bought, they can really sell the actual material which keeps the police out of it until the money paid to the domestic dealer is long gone. Real low value material changes hands – and usually lands at the marks warehouse. So they can sell it and recoup some of their investment. But the international contract falls through. Their payment doesn’t clear escrow.

The domestic dealers all disappear before the 90 days. And yes there are false identities and lots of fraud. But nothing actionable until it’s too late.

The honest company does due diligence and fairly represents their client, and doesn’t get stung because they don’t buy anything. Even the dishonest company with good business practices gets away unscathed because they research their vendors and the chemical.

This, like the original lost dog scam only targets the dishonest. And more importantly they put a lot of thought into the set up. They wooed their targets. Not like the rude man from Togo who wanted no doubt a quick and dirty over invoice scam. Sigh… just no pride in craftsmanship.

Still the lesson here is to always check out all aspects of customers and vendors. Know what you’re buying and selling. Honest deals are virtually never “decide right now” situations. Honest deals stand scrutiny. Honest business partners don’t mind providing proof.

And of course remember to forward the scam to the proper authorities. Their job is easier if they can get in front of the scam rather than follow after.

Until later

Charles

New Song

Last week I went to hear Dan Navarro and a small venue in the north suburbs. I’ll refrain from commenting one whether I thought he was better or worse without Lowen, but I’ll say that it was frankly a great show.

And is typical after really good music, I found myself up all night with my own guitar writing a song. A good one I think. Uplifting. I’m writing it for a band I haven’t met and we’ll see what happens.

But, I mention it because music is what cleanses my pallet. I spend a lot of time with my research and inventions. And music just helps me re-center. And I think that’s a critical part of science.

In fact most of the really great scientists and inventors I have known have been musicians or artist as well. Or both. But all had all parts of their mind fed: creative, analytical, philosophical.

I don’t think it’s important that we be great at everything we do. But I think if we are going to be great at anything we need to do a lot. You cannot create without experiences.

Preston’s World would not exist if I hadn’t worked at drug stores as a teenager. Blue Blood Tracker would not exist if John Fischer wasn’t a hunter in addition to being forensic analyst. And don’t get me started on my songs.

That’s about all I have to say this morning. Oh yea… one more thing I actually wrote the important lines of the new song at the concert itself. So let me just thank Mr. Navarro now.

Until Later
Charles

The Electronic Age

So today I’m dealing with support issues like call forwarding, email and twitter. For some reason my smart phone forgot how to send email from my business account. What’s worse, is it was pretending to. I thought I was responding to clients who were getting nothing.

I finally got that fixed and went to head out to the post office and found my office phone wouldn’t forward. It seems that AT&T decided to “improve” my service by deleting that feature. After 45 minutes on line and on the phone I am told that it will take 24-48 hours for the service to be restored.

I am old enough to remember when an answering machine you could access remotely was a luxury. Now people expect responses real-time. For the self employed and small business this is problem made far worse by fritzy service providers.

So I am taking bets on what will get screwed up adding the call forwarding back in.

Anyway with that I’m going dark for awhile and heading to the post office.

Until Later
Charles

The Value of a Product is in the Execution

I like doing research and inventing new products is fun. But the job of actually commercializing them is, …well… work. It’s a reality I think most people don’t realize. In fact I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met who think the idea alone is worth the lion’s share of the profit. T’aint true.

Without the knowledge to actually take a vague concept and make it real, the idea is essentially worthless. And more importantly the financial rewards follow the financial risk. And it is a lot of work to actually bring a product to market. Very few ideas start a stampede of marketers and investors.

This is all very real to me as I am now starting to get the first orders for the new forensic products launched last week. John pointed out that we’ve been working on this launch for more or less two years.

Granted we were not doing it full time. We both have had to support ourselves. And we’ve both been working on multiple products. In fact, I’m involved in the launch of thirty-one products this summer. That’s everything from product design, to setting up production, to strategizing marketing and arranging product fulfillment. And this has been while working on six pieces of raw research and running my regular consulting practice.

But all of this brings me up to sales, the piece I enjoy the least. But when I look at everything that has gone into these first sales, I have to say, the “Idea” may have been a good one, but it’s the execution that adds the value.

Until Later
Charles

Art and Science

Two years ago I was at an art fair in the park. One of the booths was from shop calling itself “fine art.” And not to say that the painting sin the tent were unpleasant, but I couldn’t tell what the painter was trying to say. So I asked.

The painter (and I’ll avoid the term artist) She said that she likes to let the viewer find their own meaning. This is not art. It may be a pretty image. But art needs something to say. It has to emote, or tell. Fine art, conveys a idea that the viewer understands; the better the artist the clearer the telling.

I see this as a common element in society. Would be writers string random words together, add some vulgarity and call it poetry. We went from the little engine that “thought it could” to “I want to be so I am.” And with it we loose meaning. Art, science, law, morality are all victims to this decline of meaning.

Consider the “true arte,” swordsmanship. Not a fine art to be sure, but a skill that requires training and deliberacy of intent. One cannot be a good swordsman without active training and skill. The same is true of painting, writing, sculpture … and the list goes on.

And before one gets the impression that fine art is trivial, therefore it doesn’t matter if it looses meaning and significance, I would ask that the impact of the artist’s eye be considered. Which brings me to the tie in to this blog.

In the course of my scientific career I have had the opportunity to work with some great product designers, researchers and criminalists. On the surface, it is tempting to say that the crossover is in the aesthetic. But it goes beyond that. Art and science are both about definition. They seek, among other things to answer the question what. And it is here that they cross over. And it is here that the sloppy impression of “fine art” is hurting the whole of society.

As a scientist, I have been able to hold my own with the top minds in many fields. I am by no means claiming the same skill or knowledge as men and women with decades more training and experience. But, I could understand what they did and how they did it well enough to follow or reproduce what they did.

Some of them follow an Aristotelian approach to definition. Others took a more conciliate approach. And some just compare to what they already know. But there is another way to define a scene.

One criminalist’s approach was different. He looked at a crime scene aesthetically. What should or should not be there was the discriminating factor in how he searched. Unlike most of his peers, he was an artist not a scientist, a Flemish Realist painter. And I came to believe that his approach was much more indicative, of his painting than an outward in definition.

More importantly, unlike most of the experts I had worked with over the years, I could not reproduce what he did. So, I decided to try and learn to think like a painter, add this to my tool box.

So, I have been trying to teach myself to paint. Start with the outline, build the shadow, then add the detail layer by layer. So of the detail in one layer will be hidden by subsequent layers, but they are still important as in some way they will shape and shade the final image.

This way of defining is different from my normal analytical approach. As a scientist, I think from general to specific and this was going from specific to general. But it in building an image this way, I found that I was getting as sense of what should be there. And by extrapolation, what should not.

I may never be a good painter, but the exercise has taught me a new perspective and isn’t that kinda the point?

Peace
Charles

p.s. If you want to see some of the paintings: http://www.prestons-world.com/abouttheauthor/artgallery.html

Me, William and A Gel Lifter

When I was a kid, my father spent a lot of time with me taking apart and reassembling equipment. I think in many ways it’s why I do what I do. And now that I’m the adult, I get to experience this from the other side, working with my nephews. This weekend Jon and I played with the Green Screen and a stuffed moose [poor poor moose…). And William and I worked on bad weather driving and designing a new forensic product.

In this case, we were working with gel lifters. For those of you who haven’t used them, gel lifters are used to pull up pattern impressions left on some surface. They work well and the ones we were using have such a low level of tack that they pull of only part of the impression. As a result they can separate one layer from another. But the draw-back is the impression is feint, so William and I were working on a contrasting aid that could be added to the lifter to increase resolution.

William told me he prefers proof of concept testing. He was speaking in comparison to the “work” of developing a finished product. And the truth is I couldn’t agree more. As I say often, it’s like day-camp without the adult supervision.

Our first attempt actually melted the lifter, the second washed away the print, but the third shows promise. I won’t say too much about the technology since, we’re just starting with it. And anyway my point today is how cool it was to spend some small time at the bench with my nephew. If you get the chance today, show someone younger the cool parts of what you do for a living. Trust me, their enjoyment is infectious.

But the hubbub of the trade show is behind me and I’m back to business as usual.

Until Later
- Charles

Four “New” products released at IAI show

There’s something about trade shows that’s both exhausting and invigorating. You’ve got about 90 seconds to catch someone’s interest, determine if your product is relevant and then explain it to them. But, and the but is important, you have the opportunity to introduce your work to colleagues and strangers.

So, this week I was up at vendor expo at the IAI educational conference in Milwaukee showing off some of the products we’ve been working on. For anyone who might be reading this and is not part of the forensic community, the IAI is the International Association for Identification, a forensic professional society.

Aneval was in a booth with Executive Forensics and Mountain State University because we had all collaborated on some research. So we showed off our research at the University. But mostly we focused on the fuming orange because the co-inventor decided to use it in his graduate work and he needed to get some volunteers. None the less, we showed off four products, each revolutionary in its own way.

The Fuming Orange is a fluorescent cyanoacrylate for torch fuming of finger prints. What makes it special is that it is excited by incident light from 365 nm to 540 nm; a huge range that makes it compatible with almost any commercial light.

Then there was a similar product CN-Yellow Crystals. This is a solid cyanoacrylate that is used in place of the liquid in fingerprinting chambers. It also has a fluorescent glow when excited around 365 nm to 430 nm. Both the CN Yellow and the Fuming Orange should eliminate the need for dye staining. Which will speed up and improve fingerprinting.

What’s interesting about them is that the base technology from which they were developed is from plastics compounding. I talk a lot about cross pollinating in science and industry and these products are a good example.

In fact the last fingerprinting product, the AI Dyes comes from textile printing technology. These products are actually older, but I never really marketed them. The AI dyes, color the background around fingerprints. These are useful because eventually fingerprints fade. With these, the image will remain.

The fourth product, Blue Blood Tracker, is a blood detection chemical, originally developed for hunters. It’s better (in my highly biased opinion) then the fluorescent agents because it works in room light and is a permanent change.

So on one hand all of the base science is old hat in other industries, these technologies are new to the forensic market. I guess the take away here is it pays to read outside your core field. You never know what ideas you might be able to retask.

But that’s all for now as I have almost a 100 people to follow up with after the show and still need to get some of my own lab work done yet this week.

IAI Conference and Show

Today, I’m restarting this blog. It feels funny since there are no readers and I am reasonably sure no one knows it exists. But hopefully that will change. The 96th international educational conferences for the International Association for Identification is being held in Milwaukee this week. It is a forensic conference with associated trade show. And for the first time I will be manning a trade show booth for my own company. That’s right Aneval Inc. if finally selling products on the big stage.

I’m actually very excited about this. I’ve been working for years developing products for many industries, especially forensics. And, now I am finally selling my own (and some other peoples!)

But what I’m really proud of is that the products I’m offering are a legitimate improvement in technology. We have for example: Blue Blood Tracker. This is used to detect blood stains in place of, or augment to luminol.

Blue Blood Tracker, produces a permanent blue color when it comes into contact with blood. So unlike luminol and other products that need to be reapplied, diluting the stain, this is a one shot only. And of course CN-Yellow and Fuming Orange which produce colored latent finger prints with out the need for dye staining. All very exciting.

But I should get to the business of preparing for the show – so check out the virtual lecture hall at www.anevalinc.com. And if you read this and it’s still this week, come visit us at the show booth 540!