The kora invasion

In San Francisco the kora, my favorite instrument these days (indeed for the past few years) has made its beachhead, I'm pleased to report. Here's the album Calabashmoon by Daniel Berkman on magnatune.com.





Calabashmoon by Daniel Berkman

A wobbly bridge - part 6

What a difference a week makes! Lots of information has come out in the NTSB board meeting last Thursday and Friday. Also I attended a presentation given by Prof. Roberto Ballarini tonight at the University of Minnesota.

Four thoughts now -

1. It's clear the U-10 gusset plates failed due to the load. The gusset plates should have been thicker. As it was, the safety factor was only 1. (That's the ratio of the load that can be supported to the load that is actually being supported.) It should have been 2. The bridge had been sitting on the verge of failure for years.
   
   
2. I asked Prof. Ballarini a question at the end of his talk. I mentioned the reports that the bridge had been wobbling in the days leading up to the collapse. I asked if such wobbling could have been an indication of imminent collapse. He thought that was a good question. From his response, it sounds like there could indeed have been wobbling in the days before the collapse, related to the loss of elasticity in the gusset plates.
   
   As I wrote August 11, 2007, "When a bridge starts wobbling, best not to ignore it." Get people off wobblers.
   
   
3. Someone has lied about whether or not there were sparks flying between the work crew and MNDOT about mixing concrete on the bridge, either the people involved or the short grapevine. The stories are at odds.
   
   
4. Concrete was being mixed on the bridge and had been for days. Heavy ingredients, sand and gravel for making concrete, were in piles on the road above the U-10 gusset plates. This concentrated load was the straw that broke the camel's back, or perhaps the lead pipe.

Version 1.2

• A wobbly bridge - part 1
• A wobbly bridge - part 2
• A wobbly bridge - part 3
• A wobbly bridge - part 4
• A wobbly bridge - part 5

A wobbly bridge - part 5

The NTSB hearings took place this Thursday and Friday. I watched online on Thursday. In the final hour that first day, Acting Chairman Mark Rosenker asked twice what was different that day, the day the 35W bridge collapsed. Three people mentioned the load. No one mentioned the motion.

I wrote an email to one of the board members with the question,

Was the mobile concrete mixer mixing concrete ON the bridge instead of OFF the bridge, in defiance of MNDOT?

The board member emailed me back that he had asked the question right after lunch on Friday, to which they had replied that

there was no concrete mixing at all going on at the time or immediately before the collapse. [emphasis added]

I am grateful that the question was asked.

Questions though remain. In response to an editorial today in the Minneapolis Star Tribune Lessons from a doomed bridge, I asked,

In the days leading up to the collapse, did the bridge wobble unusually and increasingly?

In the days leading up to the collapse, did the mobile concrete mixer mix concrete on the bridge instead of off the bridge?

Was mixing concrete on the bridge forbidden by MnDOT?

Did a MnDOT employee tell the crew not to mix concrete on the bridge in the days before the collapse?

Did the crew use a low slump concrete which must be laid and screeded within 15 minutes of being mixed? If so, did this prompt them to mix it on the bridge to save time?

Was the U10 gusset plate underneath the mobile concrete mixer at the time of the collapse?

Was the U10 gusset plate weakened by the repeated motion of the mixing, if such mixing took place?

Did the truck next to the mobile concrete mixer hold unmixed ingredients for concrete?

Why do I keep asking? It must be the influence of my godfather, Jim MacInnis, who was a lawyer in San Francisco.

Version 1.0.1

• A wobbly bridge - part 1
• A wobbly bridge - part 2
• A wobbly bridge - part 3
• A wobbly bridge - part 4
• A wobbly bridge - part 6

Update (Nov 16, 2008, 5:09 pm Central): More questions, simply about the load -

What was the total load on the bridge that day?

How much of it was piled or parked above the U-10 gusset plate?

What percentage of that load would have been safely off the bridge and not concentrated at that point, balanced on or off center, had the crew mixed the concrete off the bridge instead of on the bridge, if indeed they did mix it on the bridge?

According to the New York Times, NTSB reported in March that the total load on the bridge was 630 tons that day.

MPR reports,

On the day of the collapse, 270 tons of construction equipment and material sat piled just above the bridge's weakest spot. [emphasis added]

The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that the NTSB released documents in March noting that more than 192 tons of sand and gravel had been loaded onto the bridge. Is that how much there was at the time of the collapse?

Was the sand and gravel used for making concrete?


Update (Nov 16, 2008, 8:10 pm Central): Here's a presentation to NTSB which has some answers -

Construction Activity & Traffic Conditions on I-35W Bridge
by Robert Accetta.

Total load (over the entire bridge) - 630 tons
Construction materials and equipment load (near U-10) - 289 tons
Construction materials load (near U-10) - 192 tons





The piles of sand and gravel were directly above the U-10 gusset plate. It's still unclear exactly where the mobile concrete mixer was. Did it pull up next to the piles in the second lane?


Update (Nov 16, 2008, 8:40 pm Central): Here is another of the presentations -

Bridge Description and Collapse
by Jim Wildey

It includes an image depicting the initial failure of the U-10 gusset plate. It appears both the west and east plates failed simultaneously.

A silly poem

There once was a land
with laws as the sand,
that you can, some,
and some that you can't.

You can't and you can
You can and you can't,
Heigh ho,
You cannot; yes, you can.

What? Innocent, you say?
Let me sift through the sands
Yes, you are-- wait,
No, I see you are not.

You aren't and you are,
You are and you aren't,
Heigh ho,
You are not; yes, you are.

Why do you so pause
In this land of so much
Go and do... (gasp)
How dare you? (gasp) To think!

So much to do; wait!
Do it now, how dare you?
Heigh ho,
Don't you dare; (gasp) do it now.

A wobbly bridge - part 4

I came across evidence today that the mobile concrete mixer was mixing concrete on the bridge at or near the time of the collapse of 35W. Naughty, naughty, naughty, reportedly.

Today after reading the Minneapolis Star Tribune cover-page story on the latest NTSB report regarding the L11 gusset plate, I found an excellent collection of stories about the people on the bridge that day, exactly a year ago this Friday, 13 Seconds in August: the 35W Bridge Collapse. It opens with a video of the collapse, after which a virtual camera pans over the length of the collapsed bridge, captured in one long photo. Each vehicle or person's location on the bridge is marked in the photo with a circled number. Clicking on the numbers brings up information on the people and the vehicles. For some there are videos, for others photos. Some only have a bit of text. For two construction vehicles, there is only text.

32 - Construction vehicle
          Truck that held dry ingredients for concrete

33 - Construction vehicle
          On-site concrete mixer

If the report on vehicle 32 is true, is this not evidence that the concrete mixer was still mixing concrete on the bridge?

According to an unconfirmed report at a jazz concert, the concrete mixer was a mobile concrete mixer and for a reason.

• A wobbly bridge - part 1
• A wobbly bridge - part 2
• A wobbly bridge - part 3
• A wobbly bridge - part 5
• A wobbly bridge - part 6

No need for words

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Wall-e and MAD magazine, issue #1

Wall-e is the movie of the year. It's a charming animation from Pixar with depth and humor. You might even read into it some criticism of American militarism (along the lines of Chalmers Johnson or Andrew Bacevich), and American apathy, and our return from the American detour, maybe... I happened to have recently read the first issue of MAD magazine (Oct-Nov 1952). There's a connection. In part, Wall-e's a takeoff on the cover story Blobs, a more hopeful version. Most any afficionado of MAD magazine would recognize the historic cover of that first issue. The characters on that cover are frightened by something. In fact what they're reacting to is one of the blobs, who are futuristic human beings powering around in reclining chairs, just like in Wall-e. There's also the science-fiction short story The Machine Stops (1909) by E. M. Forster, which I haven't read yet, but from which it appears Blobs was adapted.

Version 1.1 - Jun 29 2008

Update (Jun 29, 2008): I listened to a recording by Jenna Lee (Part 1) and Erin Tivano (Parts 2 and 3) (sp?) of E. M. Forster's The Machine Stops (1909), a powerful story for a denizen of the next century, this century. It's a parable of language untethered. It's a warning to us, uncanny for its prescient description of the internet, not to rely solely on words built on words, drifting about abstractly, uncontested by "direct experience." Only by grounding our language in meaning, our economics in choice, our politics in rights, our government in transparency, our news with facts, can we hope. It's the story of something deep in our makeup which survives, which surmounts the nonsense we are born into.

Impressed, I've bought E. M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel (1927).


Update (Jun 30, 2008): Here's an adaptation of The Machine Stops from 1966 on BBC -

Japanese Chamber Music

My friend from high school, Philip Flavin, is playing the Shamisen.

Laura Harley and the Eclectic Edge Ensemble

I recorded this video with a Flip on Saturday at the Eclectic Edge Ensemble annual fundraiser and posted it with my friend Laura's permission. Isn't her voice amazing? This is my favorite song of hers.

After Laura's show, the Eclectic Edge Ensemble kicked into action. I particularly liked their last jazz dance, The Juggler. I'm looking forward to seeing their full show at the Ritz Theater July 17-20, 2008.



MySpace - Laura Harley
MySpace - Eclectic Edge Ensemble

Update (Jul 3, 2008): I've made 8 more songs from Laura Harley's performance available online with her permission.

• On That Day
• Hide
• Little by Little
• Game Over
• Here Before You
• Falling Down
• Run Away
• Secret Weapon

A wobbly bridge - part 3

On Wednesday, Tony Kennedy and Paul McEnroe of the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported on the stories of two structural engineers who spoke on condition that their names not be revealed. They pointed to three joints on the southeast side of the bridge just north of the lock. The Star Tribune reports,

All three joints appear to have been damaged by some primary force -- not from secondary impacts sustained during the collapse, the engineers said.

The first one is called L9, so called presumably since it is the ninth joint on the lower side of the structure, starting from the south side. The second joint answers to the name of L11. It's two joints further north. In between, up above, right below the road, there's the third joint, U10. Together these three witnesses, clothed with their gusset plates, one in red, formed an arrow pointing up. What were they pointing at? Were they pointing at the mobile concrete mixer as they fell?

Compare the photos (here and here) of where the mixer landed and the diagram of the three joints. Note the location of the lock.

Here are the 3 joints in the center of a photo.

For more on the question of the mobile concrete mixer and whether it had been mixing concrete on the bridge, read part 2.

Kennedy and McEnroe go on to report that one of the two engineers said that bearings retrieved from the river "appear to be lacking marks of wear." Rollernest bearings sat on top of the piers and were designed to allow the bridge to expand and contract with changes in temperature. The bridge was to roll over the bearings back and forth with the seasons. If the bearings had been stuck, as this report would indicate, then the bridge itself would have been bent out of shape, in a state of undesirable tension, joints weak from past contortions.

At the very moment the bridge snapped, I was running around Lake of the Isles, keeping my run short since it was a hot evening.

Could it be that the bridge was cocked in the heat, poised for a catastrophe sparked by the quivering of concrete in the mobile mixer? Some bridges are just too old for such excitement.

• A wobbly bridge - part 1
• A wobbly bridge - part 2
• A wobbly bridge - part 4
• A wobbly bridge - part 5
• A wobbly bridge - part 6

Credits:
Mordac (photo #1, northwest side of bridge)
ebrandt78 (photo #2)

Update (Nov 16, 2008, 9:00 pm Central): According to the NTSB report, the rollernest bearings appeared to have been functioning properly.

Bridge Description and Collapse
by Jim Wildey

A wobbly bridge - part 2

On August 26 I sat on a gentle hill, amongst a group teeming with artists and Scrabble players, listening to Davina and the Vagabonds at the Lake Harriet Band Shell. It was there that I heard a story about the bridge. I don't know if it's true. I only know that I was told this story.

I relay it to you now as a question mark, a big, hairy question mark, regarding events that may or may not have happened 3 days, 2 days, one day before its collapse. This is an unconfirmed report. Let me repeat that. This is an unconfirmed report. I was told yesterday that MNDOT has asked its employees not to talk. Too bad, I was already going to blog about it. This collapse hit too close to home. It's my business and yours, too, if you live around here, as citizens, as residents. This was a government project, and I don't believe national security is at stake. So it demands transparency.

It may turn out to be false. It may turn out to be true. It may turn out to be somewhere in between. If it turns out to be on the truer side, then as a citizen I would then encourage the state government to find a different contractor next time.

There are four degrees of separation between me and the events, or so I am told by my deep throat. She is friends with someone who works with the partner of a MNDOT employee.

Here is the story she told.

Day minus 3 or so
Two days before the collapse, the MNDOT employee took a day off. Before she took that day off—it sounded like it was the day right before that— she had argued with the crew telling them not to mix the concrete on the bridge. Apparently this is standard practice on bridges, that you not mix the concrete on the bridge. You can mix it off the bridge. You can pour it on the bridge. You just can't mix it on the bridge.

Day minus 2
What did they do on her day off? Apparently they mixed the concrete on the bridge. So I have been told. The question is: Did they really do this? Did they really do this despite being told not to by MNDOT?

Day minus 1
The MNDOT employee returns to work and returns to the bridge. When she finds out that they went ahead and mixed the concrete on the bridge, she's upset. The retort? According to the story, someone on the crew said something like this, "See, we mixed it on the bridge, and nothing happened."

One of the 7 men she talked with would not survive the next day.

Here is where the story ends.

Day zero
Progressive Contractors, Inc., is reported to have been "preparing to pour two inches of concrete when the span gave way." In photos of the collapsed bridge, a concrete mobile mixer is there amid the rubble.


It's the truck with the white cabin.

Were they following protocol? Were they mixing concrete on the bridge after being told not to? That's the question.

There are dangers in playing telephone, yes, but the real danger lies in opaque government.

• A wobbly bridge - part 1
• A wobbly bridge - part 3
• A wobbly bridge - part 4
• A wobbly bridge - part 5
• A wobbly bridge - part 6

Credits:
Tony Webster (photo with concrete mobile mixer)

Postscript: Oh, and the bridge hadn't been wobbling after all (see part 1). My mistake. Always best to upsub antefiling.

Update (Oct 8, 2007): Another mistake of mine. Now MNDOT says, reportedly, that they won't release inspection reports on our local bridges out of a concern for "national security." So I was wrong when I said national security was not at stake.

What has happened to the open society and to government transparency? When does 911 become an excuse?

Update (Dec 20, 2007): The Minnesota legislature is hiring a special counsel to investigate MNDOT and the bridge collapse, according to Pat Doyle and Mike Kaszuba in the Star Tribune today.

Update (Jul 31, 2008): Yesterday I came across evidence that concrete mixing was indeed taking place on the bridge. See A wobbly bridge - part 4.

Update (Jul 31, 2012): There were actually only 3 degrees of separation my source told me later.  She had spoken directly with the partner of the MNDOT employee.

A wobbly bridge - part 1

On the surface, Minneapolis's 35W bridge over the Mississippi River was a simple road. Driving along it, you'd think it was on the ground. It had no cables, no towers, no art. I rarely noticed the view. The exit lane for Hiawatha demanded too much attention with all the merging going on. There was only the road, a gray familiar path.

Its art lay below, in its airy perch. The deck floated 115 feet above the water. It's remarkable how people survived the fall.

It had a plain top. There's the sign for my exit lane.



On Tuesday I came across a man looking at the ghost-town traffic still caught on the north side. He had driven over the bridge not a day before its collapse. He turned to me and told me how it had wobbled, even then.


The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported Monday,

Some workers said that the bridge had been wobbling unusually in the days before the collapse, according to Minneapolis police Sgt. Tim Hoeppner. With every layer of concrete that they removed, the bridge would wobble even more, they told him.

When a bridge starts wobbling, best not to ignore it.

• A wobbly bridge - part 2
• A wobbly bridge - part 3
• A wobbly bridge - part 4
• A wobbly bridge - part 5
• A wobbly bridge - part 6

Credits:
TimDan2 (photo #1)
Mordac (photo #2)
kj415 (photo #4, derivatives allowed, cropped by me)
puppethead (photos #3, #5-7
ibran (photo #8)

Version 1.1.1

Do You Get the Point... across?

Milo Frank's book How to Get Your Point Across in 30 Seconds or Less, a heavy tome of 1500 pages....

No, just kidding. Frank's book is svelte (12 chapters, each on average 9 pages, with a 4 page intro). Easy reading that packs a punch. Know what you're after, know what your audience is after, take an approach, hook your reader's attention, present your subject concisely, and finally ask for it, whatever it is that you're after.

There, now you don't have to read the first half of the book.

I invite you, the reader, to use this book to criticize my style... and your own style.

Milton died

Milton Friedman has passed away according to this report from the Cato Institute. It's hitting me hard.

Bluegrass Samisen

When it rains, it pours. More samisen!! This time it's bluegrass samisen from Takeharu Kunimoto with The Last Frontier.



Update (May 31, 2008): I spent quite a bit of time putting together a flash player with a collection of Takeharu Kunimoto's music. I'm disappointed to see today that MyFlashFetish.com has left no trace of my effort, which was up and running above for at least a year or so. It just disappeared. I can't even log in to MyFlashFetish. They don't have a record of my email address anymore.

Update (Nov 7, 2008): I discovered today that the MyFlashFetish.com player is playing music again. It's now someone else's music!! I'll never use their service again. I commented out the flash player. You can still see it in the HTML if you "view page source".

Samisen Boogie Woogie

I love this video, particularly Umekichi Hiyama's samisen segment towards the end.

Here's an article about her in the Asahi Evening News, 'Edo-freak' blossoms by Ken Kawashima.

Dewa - Warriors of Love

The fab five from Indonesia, Dewa, sing Warriors of Love.



Here are the lyrics of the English rendition of the same song, along with audio.

Hat tip: Tom Palmer

See also: Indonesia Matters

and: Sufi Journeys

(This is a crosspost from Rhino Watch)

Remembering the World Trade Center

Disbelief. Faces looking up at the World Trade Center.

There he was, Philippe Petit, entertaining the crowd, performing a tightwire act above the plaza, way above the plaza, a quarter of a mile above the plaza between the tops of the twin towers. In so doing, Phillippe humanized the brand new towers. Here's Phillippe's story on YouTube, as written by Mordicai Gerstein, and here's an interview with Mordicai Gerstein on the NewsHour.


Fast forward 27 years. Two brothers, Jules and Gedeon Naudet, witnessed the 911 Massacre like no other filmmakers. They were doing a documentary on a rookie fireman with Ladder Company 1 when Jules happened to point his camera at Tower 1 as the first plane hit. He then went to the scene, into the lobby of Tower 1, camera still rolling, as firefighters struggled to rescue what lives they could amid the chaos, human bodies loudly crashing on the plaza outside. Jules was still in the lobby when Tower 2 collapsed.

The Naudet brothers' film gives us 911 writ small, in human dimensions, up close, in real time. The enormity of the event itself can dehumanize what happened when cameras are distant, as most were.

Their film is available at Amazon .

Here's a snippet of the French version of their film showing the lobby of Tower 1.





Update (Aug 1, 2007):
Here's a wonderful documentary on Philippe Petit's feat.
Tightrope

"You do not want youth politicizing" - Sweden's Pirates

So warns John Dvorak. The US government stirred up a hornest's nest by strongarming Sweden to shut down The Pirate Bay. In the aftermath, the Pirate Party was born in Sweden. Now it's hit Dvorak's radar. And he notices how young and energetic the people are in this movement. Dvorak writes, "Well, it looks like the boneheads in Hollywood and the RIAA, along with onerous new copyright laws such as the DMCA and other restrictions, are triggering change."

Photo by Michell Zappa.

Having just read the book Information Feudalism: Who Owns the Knowledge Economy by Peter Drahos with John Braithwaite, I feel embarassed by the bullying of our federal government, foisting our artificial intellectual monopoly grants upon the rest of the world through threats of trade sanctions. Bad karma.

The Pirate Party of Sweden hits US shores

There's a new party in town, the Pirate Party, and it's about time. Arrrr!

As mentioned in my last post, I agree with Randy Barnett that Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, of the US Constitution is a defect and needs to walk the plank. Any party worth its weight in doubloons would construct such a plank. Along these lines, the Pirate Party of Sweden set out on its first voyage earlier this year. Now there's a budding US counterpart. They are destined for great things ... if they be liberalizing pirates. They'll part some waters. I feel it in my bones.

Here is a speech by Rickard Falkvinge, founder of these brigands, entitled Friends, Citizens, Pirates, in which he declares, My name is Rickard and I'm a pirate.

Avast! and answer me this. Be ye an intellectual-monopoly landlubber or be ye a pirate?