The Costa Concordia. Photograph: Andrea Sinibaldi/AP

[See updates at end of article, and a new, detailed video showing exact track of the Costa Concordia]

As an engineer, I'm fascinated by giant machines. In particular, I love to understand how they work, and at time, why they don't work. This post is a story of two major accidents. One is currently unfolding in the Mediterranean near Corsica - the sinking of the cruise ship Costa Concordia, and the other happened almost 30 years ago when an Air Canada 767 ran out of fuel half way to its destination.

A detailed article in the Daily Mail in the UK provides a map that seems to echo the WSJ article. That article noted from townspeople that ships usually pass to the west of the Isola del Giglio, not the east.

Source; http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19830723-0

Meanwhile back in 1983, the Air Canada 767 took off from Ottawa for a flight to Edmonton. The 767 aircraft was brand new, and only a few had been delivered. Significantly, it measured fuel in the "modern" way ... in liters, instead of in Imperial Gallons, as earlier Air Candada aircraft had done. On this day, due to what should have been a minor problem, a technician had disabled one channel of a fuel monitoring system, not knowing that there was a problem with the other channel as well. 

As a result, the system did not show actual fuel levels during the flight. Next, the technicians on the ground used the wrong conversion factor from liters to Imperial Gallons to figure out how much fuel to load on the aircraft.  It was a huge error. Instead of 20,000 liters, they only added 5,000 liters. (See if you can follow the whole story...here's the full report in Wikipedia)

Since the fuel monitoring system had been partially inoperative, the pilot manually loaded the 20,000 liter figure into the system, (after double checking ground crew's math...but still with the wrong conversion factor.)

Half way to Edmonton, the 767 lost one engine, and very shortly, the other. A warning sound that they had never heard sound. They soon came to realize it meant all engines out. The captain, who was also a glider pilot put the plane into its best glide angle. The pilots calculated whether they could make it to Winnepeg, but decided they were too far away. The co-pilot, it turns out, had been stationed at Gimli before it closed, and even though it was not on their charts, he knew it was big enough and close enough to handle the 767. What he didn't know was that it had been converted to a drag strip and it was in use on this day.

Source: Bing Maps http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&setlang=en&cp=50.629722~-97.02&style=a&lvl=16&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&encType=1

So what caused the Air Canada accident? Simple human error. One wrong conversion that never got caught. One circuit breaker removed (and properly tagged) that shouldn't have mattered. The equipment worked as it was supposed to. When both engines failed, a ram air turbine dropped from the belly of the 767 to provide enough power to fly the aircraft. The pilot's great skill allowed them to make a safe (if precarious) landing.

As for the Costa Concordia, it looks like the cause of the disaster was simple as well. (I'm assuming the WSJ article is correct). The captain of the Costa Concordia wanted to give his passengers a lovely view of a small Italian town on a calm night. One bad decision that led to a calamity.

Will we know what happened on the Costa Concordia? Absolutely. Since 1999, international rules require most ships to have "black box" recorders much like airplanes. So, it's likely that the answers are all in the black box (which is actually orange, and appears to be a VDR 4350 from SAM Electronics) 

Here's what the system records:

(Source: Wikipedia article on Voyage Data Recorders)

Speed log – Speed through water or speed over ground.

Gyro compass – Heading.

Radar – As displayed or AIS data if no off-the-shelf converter available for the Radar video.

Audio from the bridge, including bridge wings.  (Editor's note: This will be very important)

VHF radio communications.

Echo sounder – Depth under keel.

Main alarms – All IMO mandatory alarms.

Hull openings – Status of hull doors as indicated on the bridge.

Watertight & fire doors status as indicated on the bridge.

Hull stress – Accelerations and hull stresses.

Rudder – Order and feedback response.

Engine/Propeller – Order and feedback response.

Thrusters* – Status, direction, amount of thrust % or RPM.

Anemometer and weather vane – Wind speed and direction

It seems to me that technology can be made to work remarkably well if we have the will to design our machines correctly. At the same time, it seems that human error can so easily slip in and overturn (literally) our best designs. Luckily, in both of these cases, large loss of life was prevented. In the case of the Air Canada flight this was due to the combined skill of the pilots, a well designed aircraft, and no small dose of luck. In the case of the Costa Concordia, the relatively small loss of life (compared to what it could have been) might be attributed to the good weather and the location of the incident so close to land.

By the way, this article in the Telegraph pointed out that  the Costa Concordia did not fall over due to taking on water from one side. Rather, it is so tall that it it is not stable in water shallower than 26 feet, and that it is lying on its side because that's what it must do in shallow water. Note that the gash with the rock in it is facing up in all the photos. You would expect a gash to flood its own side and end up under water. The article is worth reading.

The basic elements of the article above are still correct, but there is now more clarity on certain items. For example, it appears that the Costa Concordia set out for the island from the beginning, and that the first time it hit a rock was when it reached the island. In addition, a savvy reader spotted markings on the Voyage Data Recorder to show that it's from another manufacturer.

This animation shows the reports of the Costa Concordia's Automatic Identification System (AIS). This clearly shows that the Concordia set a course to Isola del Giglio soon after leaving its starting port. Note that this video is available in 720 HD. Select that and view in full screen. You can even see the ship turn around at the :36 mark in the video.

This illustration seems to be the most accurate that I can find, and the easiest to understand. It looks like the Concordia came colse to Giglio, struck rocks near Le Scole, then continued north, only to turn south towards the port of Giglio, where it eventually became stuck on an an underwater outcropping and tipped over with the previously damaged side of the ship facing upward.

Lastly, an eagle-eyed reader named Oliver Brandmueller wrote to me and pointed out that the Voyage Data Recorder on the Costa Concordia is actually an Avecs Bergen MER VDR. He also sent me a PDF brochure of the unit. (The website atwww.avecs-bergen.de" target="_blank"> www.avecs-bergen.de does not seem to work.) 

www.avecs-bergen.de" target="_blank">

The brochure shows how the data that is being replayed is displayed.

This video, from the Costa Concorida News Page of John Konrad's blog, shows very detailed, AIS data recorded from a receiver on the island of Giglio, and narrated by John with tremendous insight from a ship captain. Watch and listen to the replay, and you'll feel like you finally have a clear idea of what happened. Data for the recording was provided by Quality Positioning Services BV (QPS), headquartered in Zeist, The Netherlands.

Costa Concordia Links:

1. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/9015493/Cruise-disaster-Perfect-storm-of-events-caused-Costa-Concordia-crash.html  Good article about what might have happened.

3. http://www.1yachtua.com/nauticalcharts/nautical_charts_west/it03_livorno_civitavecchia.asp  Nautical Chart of the area via Yachtua

4. http://www.es.northropgrumman.com/solutions/voyagemaster2/assets/VDR_S-VDRGuide.pdf  Detailed background about Voyage Data Recorder by Northrop Grumman.

5. http://webstore.iec.ch/preview/info_iec61996-1%7Bed1.0%7Den.pdf  Specification for Voyage Data Recorders

6. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2012/jan/15/costa-concordia-italian-cruise-ship-interactive  Interactive maps showing Guardian's view the Concordia's path. This does not match the illustration provided by the Daily Mail.

8. http://www.seanews.com.tr/article/ACCIDENTS/74284/Costa-Concordia-accident-navigational-error/  This site claims to have the full course of the Costa Concordia, including a harrowing navigation between two small islands where they claim the Concordia hit the rocks. The MarineTraffic.com site data does not show the Costa Concordia passing through the two islands. A quick measurement on Google maps shows the gap in the islands to be about 200 feet. The Costa Concordia is about 120 feet wide.

This video appears to be a playback from the MarineTraffic.com site. This seems to match the Guardian's (#6 above) very nice interactive illustration above.

Gimli Glider (Air Canada 143) Links:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

2. http://www.wadenelson.com/gimli.html

3.   Gimli Glider fly-by on way to retirement

4.  Gimli Glider three months before retirement

Nick Tommarello and I have set up a place for entrepreneurs called Green Light Labs. It's at the CIC at 1 Broadway in Cambridge. We've outfitted the space with some unusual amenities, including a loft bed and a reclining "work surface" called the Love Sac.

But the coolest thing of all is the 3D printer, officially called the "Thing-O-Matic", but more commonly known by the name of its maker…MakerBot Industries.

If you love things mechanical, then have a look at this video!

The Thing-O-Matic by MakerBot Industries

The MakerBot laying down a "raft" that it will build the 3D object upon.

The software. We're making a test cube here It ends up looking just like a Strawberry Starburst. Just much tougher to chew. And minus the strawberry flavor.

Brad shows off an actual part.

Notice that #2 had some issues. That's called learning curve.

The part on Solidworks.

This is a wrap up video after the first Waffle Wednesday held at Green Light Labs.

Nick Tommarello is pretty happy with the results. We had a big crowd, and many happy waffle-eaters.

I love mechanical design. And I love airplanes. I learned to fly with my Dad, starting when I was 14. By then, I was hooked on flying. I solo'd at 16, got my license at 17, and an instrument rating at 18. Even before these teen years, I was obsessed with airplanes, and to this day, my favorite analogies involve airplanes and flying.

For this post, I'll illustrate the point that we have an amazing ability to sense when things look right, and when they don't. I'll use two airplanes where there was a "flyoff" -- a competition between to designs made for exactly the same purpose. The first, is the the most expensive airplane program in history, the Joint Strike Fighter. It was Boeing's F-32 vs Lockheed's F-35.

Even looking at the top view, something just doesn't seem right about the F-32 on the top. It just seems like the wing is too bulky, too fat.

This video of the Marine's F-35B vertical take off variant of the Joint Strike Fighter. Lockheed actually managed to make one basic aircraft fulfill three roles: land-based for the Air Force, carrier-based for the Navy, and vertical/short takeoff for the Marines. If you love airplanes, watch this 15-second video. You'll see the first supersonic jet in history that can take off and land vertically.

The F-35B program has had many technical challenges, and this report from Bloomberg News shows the latest sea trials of the Marine's version of the JSF.

My second example compares the winning A-10 from Fairchild vs the Northrop A-9. This program began in 1967, and test flights began in 1972. In this case the airplane's role is different. Essentially, these planes are "flying tanks" that support ground troops. They literally need to be bullet-proof, and withstand heavy fire from the ground.

In this case, neither aircraft looks beautiful or sleek. But they're not supposed to. Their mission is to be tough and unstoppable. If you were on the ground, and were under attack and needed help, which of this puppies would you want to call in?

Epilog: The A-10 Thunderbolt joined the Air Force in 1977, and is still in service today. It is planned to remain in service until at least 2028. The A-10 aircraft above saw service in Iraq. It landed safely after encountering heavy fire over Bagdad.

I learned many things during my experiment. For example:

Three Apps Fuel My Addiction: The iPhone does all kinds of useful things, but I learned that there are three apps that are my main addictions: Mail, NY Times, and Fluent Reader (a news reader). In my experiment, I removed these from my iPhone. No mail. No NY Times. No news. That was a big help. (Also took off all Twitter apps.) These apps are still gone, even though I've turned the AT&T service back on.

Speed Kills. Or More Exactly, Addicts: It is widely known that speed is crucial for addiction. Google is very careful to make sure that search is always super fast, because they know that even milliseconds of reduced speed lead to lowered use. And one of the things that smartphones give you is instant start. Watch two people at a restaurant. Watch when one leaves for a trip to the bathroom. Time how long before the other takes out their smartphone. Time how long it takes before they are getting their "fix". I believe this is the key to addiction, and the key to keeping smartphone addicts thinking small thoughts. Watch when his girlfriend heads to the bathroom, does the guy ponder how to solve that big problem he's been working on? Nope. Out comes the iPhone to check for an email that turns out to be discussing three possible meeting times.

Usefulness vs. Addictiveness: I learned that the smartphone has two different worlds. The world of useful apps, vs. addictive apps. I think its worth asking yourself: "What are my most addictive apps?" Just watch yourself in those free minutes. Where do you go? Do you open Pages on your iPhone to work on that book? No. Explore Maps for your next meeting? No. It's something that gives you the quick fix. That burst of smartphone nicotine. I'm leaving my nicotine fixes turned off, even though the phone is back on.

After getting my iPhone plan turned back on, I went to lunch at Four, the burger place next to the iPhone store. As I munched on a wonderful salmon burger, I thought "hey, my 3G service is back" and I was about to fire up my favorite - the NY Times. Ah, but the icon was still gone, and while I could have gone on Safari and typed in nytimes.com, I didn't. For two reasons. One was that would take too long, and my fix was no longer instantaneous. And two, I thought: why did I do this experiment, and I shouldn't stop now. So instead of looking down at my screen, I looked up and looked around. A tv showed what happened in the football games on Sunday. Kind a cool. People walked in and out and I looked them and they glanced at me. Hmmm. That's interesting too. Somehow, my food tasted better as I looked around.

And then I had big thought. "This is better." It's better to look up. To look around. 

So the iPhone is on, but the nicotine apps are still being held at bay. Day 19.

I intend to keep the addictive apps off my iPhone. I intend to look up. Not down.

On November 18, I spoke at the Silicon Valley Bank CEO Summit. They just posted video from the event. Here's a link to all the videos. And here's a link to my earlier blog post that gave some more info and pictures of some of the people in the Defining Moment story that I told.

I spoke at the Silicon Valley Bank's CEO Summit today at the Microsoft Nerd Center. They asked us to talk about defining moments, so I relayed a story about a key moment in the creation of the Avid Media Composer. Even though this is a video, it's just the audio track with a few photos, so go ahead and turn it on while you do something else. This blog post doesn't reveal the story.

In 1997, Avid made a poster commemorating its 10th anniversary. They found this old photo of the four earliest employees of Avid. Left to right is Eric Peters, Jeff Bedell, me, and Joe Rice. Joe plays a prominent role in the story I told.

Recently, Joe held a party at his house and most of the way back Avid crowd was there. Mark Overington was there, and informed me that he took the original photo from the 1997 poster. So we decided to re-create it, with Mark as photographer once again. Jeff had already left the party, so Scott Glorioso was his stand-in before photoshopping.  Above is my rough Photoshop of the recent version of the four of us.

Here's the photo we took recently as the source for the Photoshop work.

In the video, I mention my boss at Apollo, Mike Gallup. I ran into him at an event, and got this interview. The full blog post is here. 

On November 9th I put up a blog post saying "Smartphones Are Making Us Think Small Thoughts." I found that for any quiet moment, I was immediately, (and addictively) turning to my iPhone for a hit of email, NY Times, instant messaging, or Twitter. I found myself thinking differently. Thinking smaller. I set out to tame the smartphone beast.

I decided to take action. Actually, drastic action. I went to the AT&T store and asked for a "downgrade." I turned off the data and phone plan on my iPhone. I paid over $200 for a dumb phone with no commitment (so I could eventually get my iPhone 4S upgrade…no I'm not giving up of smartphones forever!) I'm here to report that the experiment is working, and that I'm learning a ton.

I found out that there are two applications on the iPhone that I cannot live without. Luckily, these are not addictive at all, but they are useful: Calendar and Contacts. There's just no way that a dumb phone, even one with a pop-out keyboard, can handle either of these tasks. So, I have successfully re-created my PalmPilot days. I have a device that I carry that does a great job of calendar and contacts, and it even syncs automatically over WiFi to all my desktop machines. Very nice.

Even though the iPhone has no data or phone plan, it still can search the web when there's WiFi. So I had to take another step: I removed all the addictive apps, which actually turned out to be a small list:

-- Email

-- NY Times

-- Fluent News Reader

-- Twitter

-- Txt (killed when I ended the AT&T plan)

Interestingly, that took care of it. Yes, I still have Safari when there's WiFi, and yes, I could look at the NY Times website. But I don't. It's not there all the time. And it takes too long. I can't just whip out my iPhone, click an icon, and get a minute or two of news satisfaction.

The same is true for email. Here's what I get when I hit the email button now. A start screen, because I went into settings and turned email off. If I really had to send an email, I could go into settings and turn it on. I could be back in the email business in a few minutes. But I don't. It just takes too long, and instead of using up that couple minutes in email every free moment, I'm reminded that I'm changing paths. (By the way, I had to turn email back on to get that screen image. It was quick, and no problem to do that in an emergency.)

What have I learned? Lots. First - dumb phones have really, really bad interfaces. Mine, the Samsung Evergreen, comes with a 157 page manual. And it needs it. Everything you do takes many keystrokes and many menu hits. Each time I use this thing I remind myself that I'm part of a human experiment aimed at increasing creativity, and that's why I gave up my iPhone.(mostly except contacts and calendar) It turns out that making an interface without a touchscreen is really hard. AT&T and Samsung have teamed up to provide a particularly convoluted interface.

This is a screenshot from a well-produced 8-minute YouTube video that shows how the Evergreen phone works. Go ahead and watch a minute or two and then you'll know what I'm going through in the name of science. (By the way, I think they call it Evergreen cause when you throw it away, you don't have to feel guilty cause they've made it recyclable.)

I've learned some interesting things about contacts. When I first got the phone, I was told I could take it to Staples and move my contacts over from the iPhone. But I had 2800 contacts there, so I went through and culled it down to the people I might likely call. That brought me to 144 contacts. I never went to Staples, and I'm saving names in the phone as I go. I have about 20 names, and that seems pretty good. Hmmm. A factor of about 100. My contact list goes back to my PalmPilot days -- around 1998. Thirteen years of contact accumulations with nary a major culling.

Lastly, there's the benefit of delayed gratification. I believe that smartphones are killing our ability to accept delayed (or maybe better yet, non-) gratification. One of my goals in this experiment was to break the instant information pipeline. This part of the experiment is working well. With the iPhone I've found myself expecting instant answers to any little query that pops into my head. "Was J. Edgar Hoover really gay, as the movie portrayed?" "What is the status of the Fukushima 5 and 6 reactors…the ones at a distance from the worst hit ones?" "When does 30 Rock premiere this year?"

The answers to all of the above? I don't know. And I haven't looked. And maybe, just maybe, I'm better off not knowing.

My name is Bill, and I'm a smartphoneaholic.

Take a look around at the poses of people and their smart phones. They stand near each other, glowing screens in their hands, literally lighting up the face with an eerie blue.Their heads are down, their posture submissive. One doesn't think about how to change the world in these moments. No. I believe you're thinking about your next email or your next tweet or your next article.

Why are smartphones so addictive? I think it's because they offer such instant gratification. Got a question? It's answered instantly. Want to send a message? Send it instantly. Got a minute? Fill it instantly.

Since I always loved Star Trek, I can imagine some diabolical, evil commander in a far away galaxy reporting on the progress of their latest attempt to subjugate the Earth. "Commander, the smartphone project is working even better than we had projected. Millions of people are now addicted to the phones. Humans are already becoming more submissive. Our eventual takeover will be easier than we had planned. And, both of our projects, Apple and Android are ahead of plan. Oh, and the Apple one has $80 billion in the bank."

So today, I went into the AT&& Store and met a very capable sales person named Bob, and I told him I wanted to "downgrade." He said it was the first time he heard that, but he quickly understood what I wanted.

My goal is to slow everything down. Make sure that it's just too slow to get to the NYTimes, too slow to look up that arcane fact, and too slow to read email. Bob assured me that this phone would fit the bill on all counts. And so, I have a dumb phone in my pocket now. My iPhone has been neutered. It says "No SIM." If there is WIFI nearby, though, it is still dangerous and addictive, so my goal is to leave it home.

The Evergreen has a pop-out keyboard, so I can still send text messages…which I don't do all that often. More importantly, it's fun to hold the phone in one hand and open and close the keyboard.

The Internet is so slow and takes so long to start. But it makes great phone calls, and I can send and receive an occasional text. Perfect.

And, I have 30 days see how I like this new world. If I don't, Bob assures me I can return the Evergreen, and upgrade to an iPhone 4S's.

"Commander, I've picked up some early signs of downgrading!"

"Give it 30 days. They cannot resist the smartphone"