1. NEW LOCATION
Rene Woc has done extremely well and found us a new assembly site for the
giant HP3000 poster, much, much closer to the Convention Center. The new site
will be on the practice field of Loara High School, in Anaheim itself. This
puts the assembly site less than two miles from the Convention Center,
basically walking distance.
To get to the new site, turn left on Katella when you exit the north side of
the Convention Center and proceed four blocks west to Euclid. Turn right
(north) on Euclid and go one block. The high school is on the next block, at
the corner of Euclid and Cerritos.
The athletic director of Loara High School, Marty Johnson, seems truly
excited about his high school having the honor of having the world's largest
poster being assembled there. And we're certainly pleased that he's pleased.
There is one condition, however, to our use of the field. The Junior American
All-Stars use the field every afternoon at 4:00pm, so we must be clear of the
field by that time.
2. METEOROLOGY
Wind has been the big problem so far in all of the field trials we've
conducted so far with subsets of the posters. Any wind at all and the poster
goes flying.
Ken Sletten called the Western Regional National Weather Service Center in
Reno, Nevada. The fellow that he spoke with was extremely helpful and gave a
long and detailed explanation of the weather that has occurred in Anaheim for
the last fifty years on August 5. There is little or no chance of rain, but
their is a constant sea breeze.
The sea breeze drops to its minimum (3-4 mph) between 3:00 am to 6:00 am and
then begins to rise, rather linearly, at 1 mph/hour until it reaches it
maximum at about 3:00 to 6:00 pm, at about 13-15 mph.
3. CURRENT SCHEDULE
Due to the two timing constraints, both of which force us to start early, we
will meet on the field at 7:00 am (that's 10:00 am, physiological time for
people coming from the east coast) and begin assembly no later than 8:00 am.
The current plan is to have the poster assembled somewhere between 11:00 am
and noon. Photographs will be taken of the poster and lunch will be served
(how is somewhat indeterminate at the moment). Disassembly of the poster will
be begun at about 2:00 pm and we will clear the field by 4:00 pm.
4. AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY
We have contracted with Charter Copters of Santa Ana, CA to provide a
helicopter (basically on demand, sometime around noon) to provide a
photographic platform.
We have asked if the pilot can land at the school and pick people up so that
they can both participate in the assembly and photograph the poster as well.
Landing at a school requires permission of the California state department of
transportation. We're trying to get that permission now. If it comes through,
that will be the plan. If it doesn't, Charter Copters flies out of the John
Wayne airport in Irvine, which is some distance away, and is where the
photographers will have to gather to board the aircraft.
We are told that downwash from the helicopter will be minimal at several
hundred feet altitude (basically less than 1 mph incremental above ambient).
If we are allowed to have the helicopter land at the school, Ken Sletten, who
works near a helo pad, will be measuring the increase in ground wind due to
the downwash of a landing helicopter to get an accurate estimate of how far
away it must land so that it will do no damage to the poster.
5. ASSEMBLY TIME
In our first full field trial, we surveyed the position of the individual
pieces as we assembled the poster. Remember, this poster is going to be BIG
-- essentially 2/3 or more of a standard American football field -- and you
can't see from end to end when you're near the ground.
The results of that first field trial were startling -- and very
disappointing. It was taking us about 2 minutes per panel, and we're going to
have more than 3,000 panels. At that rate, assembly was going to take a mere
four days, working full bore, non-stop.
To lay the poster down in four hours, we have to be able to place approx. 12
panels per minute (in three hours: 16 panels per minute). At first blush,
that seemed impossible, but one person here came up with a very good idea.
We are now in the process of beginning just today to pre-assemble the poster
in taped-together strips. There will be approx. 100 such strips, each
containing 26 panels. This taping process is going to represent a great deal
of work at our end. Indeed, we are probably going to have to hire one or two
people to do it. Given the number of days left before we must leave, the
tapers must carefully make 3000 4.5-foot long joins, accomplishing 150 to 200
such joins a day.
However, once done, one team of two or three people should be able to lay
down at least 15 panels per minute -- and given that we are printing the
poster in a manner so that it will assemble around an aligning center cross,
four independent teams can be operating at the same time, one in each
quadrant. Given this arrangement, we could now (somewhat optimally) be laying
50 panels per minute.
6. PRINTING
Printing of the poster began on June 28. It will be approximately 50% done by
the end of today. Originally, we ran printing 24 hours a day -- but as anyone
here can tell you, I was getting much too grouchy to continue that much
longer than a few days. We are now printing only about 16 to 18 hours per
day. It's going to be a race to get it done -- but I'm not nearly so grouchy
about it.
The weight of all supplies ordered for the poster total 1283 pounds so far.
While some of that is packaging, I estimate that the poster will weigh about
900 pounds, up from my earlier estimate of 600 pounds.
I also figure that I will personally get to carry the poster at least four
times during the unpacking, printing, taping, and loading process -- all part
of our corporate fitness program to get Wirt in shape this summer.
7. THE POSTER
A copy of the poster is now available for viewing in PDF format (which
requires that you have an Adobe Acrobat viewer) at the URL:
http://www.adager.com/adspdf/anaheim.pdf
Some people that have seen the poster have commented that the poster seems
too simple, especially compared to the earlier HP3000 poster that many of you
received -- but like any process, when it is writ large, must become quite
simple if it is to be understood and well observed at a distance.
A great number of people have offered suggestions as to what the poster
should say, including testimonials and phrases such as James Byrne wrote so
eloquently in his "HP3000 Consortium" thread postings:
>....If [the HP3000] were in the hands of people who really believed in
>it and pushed its business friendly features (hands off maintenance,
>rock solid reliablity, built in DBMS, superior multi-tasking features,
>low cost of ownership, hardware longevity, reduced need for OS
>mandated hardware upgrades, etc. ad nauseum).
>If you get to talk to the CFO of an organization in terms like these for
>any period of time anyone else who comes in with a UNIX or NT "solution"
>sets off the BS detector. HP got to its current position by setting its own
>course and following it, come hell or high water.
We couldn't possibly have put all of this on the poster (the poster we're
competing with for the World Record only had four words on it: "Mickey to the
Max"), so we chose the phrase, "MPE Users Kick Butt!", as you'll see in the
PDF file. But when you read this phrase, don't read it for what it says. Read
it to mean: "hands off maintenance, rock solid reliablity, built in DBMS,
superior multi-tasking features, low cost of ownership, hardware longevity,
reduced need for OS mandated hardware upgrades, etc. ad nauseum," all the
things that really matter to a business that depends on its computing
environment.
To get an idea of what each 3-foot by 4.5-foot (1 x 1.5 meter) panel looks,
use the magnifying option in the Adobe Acrobat reader and center the
magnifying glass over one of the football players' eyes. Blow it up to
maximum magnification. Even at maximum magnification, you still can't get an
accurate view. In reality, one eye takes up a little more than one panel.
Wirt Atmar
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