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102-463: Jerry Eugene Pournelle ( / p ʊər ˈ n ɛ l / ; August 7, 1933 – September 8, 2017) was an American scientist in the area of operations research and human factors research , a science fiction writer, essayist, journalist, and one of the first bloggers . In the 1960s and early 1970s, he worked in the aerospace industry, but eventually focused on his writing career. In an obituary in Gizmodo , he

204-698: A Cromemco Z-2 with iCom 8-inch soft-sectored floppy disk drives"; he also owned a TRS-80 Model I , and the first subject discussed in the column was an add-on that permitted it to use the same data and CP/M applications as the Cromemco. The next column appeared in December 1980 with the subtitle "BASIC, Computer Languages, and Computer Adventures"; Ezekiel II, a Compupro S-100 CP/M system, debuted in March 1983. Other computers received nicknames, such as Zorro , Pournelle's "colorful" Zenith Z-100 , and Lucy Van Pelt ,

306-455: A Ph.D. in political science in March 1964. His master's thesis is titled "Behavioural observations of the effects of personality needs and leadership in small discussion groups", and is dated 1957. Pournelle's Ph.D. dissertation is titled "The American political continuum; an examination of the validity of the left-right model as an instrument for studying contemporary American political 'isms'". Pournelle married Roberta Jane Isdell in 1959;

408-450: A "fussbudget" IBM PC ; he referred to generic PC compatibles as "PClones". Pournelle often denounced companies that announced vaporware , sarcastically writing that they would arrive " Real Soon Now " (later abbreviated to just "RSN"), and those that used software copy protection . As part of a redesign in June 1984, the magazine renamed the popular column to "Computing at Chaos Manor", and

510-581: A 1997 article, Norman Spinrad wrote that Pournelle had written the SDI portion of Ronald Reagan 's State of the Union Address , as part of a plan to use SDI to get more money for space exploration using the larger defense budget. Pournelle wrote in response that while the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy "wrote parts of Reagan's 1983 SDI speech, and provided much of the background for

612-677: A blog dating from before the use of that term. It is a collection of his "Views" and "Mail" from a large variety of readers. This is a continuation of his 1980s blog-like online journal on GEnie . He said he resists using the term "blog" because he considered the word ugly, and because he maintained that his "View" is primarily a vehicle for writing rather than a collection of links. In his book Dave Barry in Cyberspace , humorist Dave Barry has fun with Pournelle's guru column in Byte magazine. Pournelle, in collaboration with his wife, Roberta (who

714-532: A college-undergraduate assistant and up to myself. (Not that I'm the last word in sophistication, but I do sit here and pound this machine a lot; if I can't get something to work, it takes an expert.) Fair warning, then: the very nature of this column limits its scope. I can't talk about anything I can't run on my machines, nor am I likely to discuss things I have no use for. Among recurring characters were Pournelle's family members, friends, and many computers. He introduced to readers "my friend Ezekiel, who happens to be

816-688: A computer to write in 1977 on the advice of his "mad" friend Dan MacLean. He wrote the "Computing at Chaos Manor" column in Byte , describing experiences with computer hardware and software, some purchased and some sent by vendors for review, at his home office. Because Pournelle was then, according to the magazine, "virtually Byte ' s only writer who was a mere user—he didn't create compilers and computers, he merely used them", it began as "The User's Column" in July 1980. Subtitled "Omikron TRS-80 Boards, NEWDOS+, and Sundry Other Matters", an Editor's Note accompanied

918-681: A field widely used in industries ranging from petrochemicals to airlines, finance, logistics, and government, moving to a focus on the development of mathematical models that can be used to analyse and optimize sometimes complex systems, and has become an area of active academic and industrial research. In the 17th century, mathematicians Blaise Pascal and Christiaan Huygens solved problems involving sometimes complex decisions ( problem of points ) by using game-theoretic ideas and expected values ; others, such as Pierre de Fermat and Jacob Bernoulli , solved these types of problems using combinatorial reasoning instead. Charles Babbage 's research into

1020-551: A fruitful collaboration with Larry Niven ; he has also collaborated on novels with Roland J. Green , Michael F. Flynn , and Steven Barnes , and collaborated as an editor on an anthology series The Endless Frontier with John F. Carr . In 2010, his daughter Jennifer R. Pournelle (writing as J.R. Pournelle), an archaeology professor, e-published a novel Outies , an authorized sequel to the Mote in God's Eye series. Pournelle began using

1122-524: A government job for Pournelle's son, Richard. At the time, Pournelle and Gingrich were reported to be collaborating on "a science fiction political thriller." Pournelle's relationship with Gingrich was long established even then, as Pournelle had written the preface to Gingrich's book, Window of Opportunity (1985). Years after Byte shuttered, Pournelle wrote his Chaos Manor column online. He reprised it at Byte.com, which he helped launch with journalist Gina Smith , John C. Dvorak , and others. However, after

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1224-623: A history of computing. A memorable column in August 1989 was "The Great Power Spike", which gives a digital necropsy of his electronic equipment after high voltage transmission wires dropped onto the power line for his neighborhood. After the print version of Byte ended publication in the United States, Pournelle continued publishing the column for the online version and international print editions of Byte . In July 2006, Pournelle and Byte declined to renew their contract and Pournelle moved

1326-468: A long way from the target it had time to alter course under water so the chances of it being within the 20-foot kill zone of the charges was small. It was more efficient to attack those submarines close to the surface when the targets' locations were better known than to attempt their destruction at greater depths when their positions could only be guessed. Before the change of settings from 100 to 25 feet, 1% of submerged U-boats were sunk and 14% damaged. After

1428-574: A new technique specific to the problem at hand (and, afterwards, to that type of problem). The major sub-disciplines (but not limited to) in modern operational research, as identified by the journal Operations Research and The Journal of the Operational Research Society are: In the decades after the two world wars, the tools of operations research were more widely applied to problems in business, industry, and society. Since that time, operational research has expanded into

1530-669: A number of years was a high church Anglican , in part because Anglican theology was virtually identical to Catholic theology , with the exception that the Anglicans accepted as moral the use of birth control. Pournelle eventually returned to the Catholic Church, as his other beliefs were consistent with the Catholic communion, although he did not agree with the Church's position on birth control. Despite his estrangement from

1632-609: A pro- Vietnam War advertisement in Galaxy Science Fiction . During the 1970s and 1980s, he also published articles on military tactics and war gaming in the military simulations industry in Avalon Hill 's magazine The General . That led him into correspondences with some of the early figures in Dungeons & Dragons and other fantasy role-playing games. Two of his collaborations with Larry Niven reached

1734-684: A semi-regular (i.e.: every 2 to 3 months) basis, which would cover the wild microcomputer goings-on at the Pournelle House ("Chaos Manor") in Southern California. We said yes. Herewith the first installment ... Pournelle stated that This will be a column by and for computer users, and with rare exceptions I won't discuss anything I haven't installed and implemented here in Chaos Manor. At Chaos Manor we have computer users ranging in sophistication from my 9-year-old through

1836-411: A sequel to Space Viking but abandoned this in the early 1990s, however John F. Carr and Mike Robertson completed this sequel, entitled The Last Space Viking , and it was published in 2011. In 2013, Variety reported that motion picture rights to Pournelle's novel Janissaries had been acquired by the newly formed Goddard Film Group, headed by Gary Goddard . The IMDb website reported that

1938-502: A shakeup, he announced that rather than stay at United Business Media, he would follow Smith, Dvorak, and 14 other news journalists to start an independent tech and politics site called anewdomain.net. As an active director of that site and others it launched, Pournelle wrote, edited, and worked with young writers and journalists on the craft of writing about science and tech. Beginning during his tenure at Boeing Company, Pournelle submitted science fiction short stories to John W. Campbell ,

2040-611: A smooth paint finish increased airspeed by reducing skin friction. On land, the operational research sections of the Army Operational Research Group (AORG) of the Ministry of Supply (MoS) were landed in Normandy in 1944 , and they followed British forces in the advance across Europe. They analyzed, among other topics, the effectiveness of artillery, aerial bombing and anti-tank shooting. In 1947, under

2142-439: A survey carried out by RAF Bomber Command . For the survey, Bomber Command inspected all bombers returning from bombing raids over Germany over a particular period. All damage inflicted by German air defenses was noted and the recommendation was given that armor be added in the most heavily damaged areas. This recommendation was not adopted because the fact that the aircraft were able to return with these areas damaged indicated

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2244-635: A syndicate led by Harry Chandler , business manager of the Los Angeles Times , with Hobart Johnstone Whitley , Isaac Van Nuys , and James Boon Lankershim acquired the remaining 47,500 acres (192 km ) of the southern half of the former Mission lands—everything west of the Lankershim town limits and south of present-day Roscoe Boulevard excepting the Rancho Encino . Whitley platted the area of present-day Studio City from portions of

2346-749: A textbook at the United States Military Academy (West Point), the United States Air Force Academy (Colorado Springs), the Air War College , and the National War College . He told fellow author Robert Heinlein , Pournelle recalled, "that once I got into advance plans at Boeing I probably wrote more science fiction than he did, and I didn't have to put characters in mine". In the late 1950s, while conducting operations research at

2448-517: Is a cartesian diagram in which the X-axis gauges opinion toward state and centralized government (farthest right being state worship, farthest left being the idea of a state as the "ultimate evil"), and the Y-axis measures the belief that all problems in society have rational solutions (top being complete confidence in rational planning, bottom being complete lack of confidence in rational planning). In

2550-948: Is a linear park that abuts the Los Angeles River. The northeast part of Studio City is in City Council District 2 , represented by Paul Krekorian , and the southwest section is in District 4 , represented by Nithya Raman . The community is represented within the city of Los Angeles by the Studio City Neighborhood Council . The area is represented by Los Angeles County District 3 Supervisor Sheila Kuehl , State Senator Robert Hertzberg , California Assemblyman Adrin Nazarian and U.S. Representative Brad Sherman . Almost half of Studio City residents aged 25 and older (49.4%) had earned

2652-447: Is an umbrella organization for operational research societies worldwide, representing approximately 50 national societies including those in the US, UK , France, Germany, Italy , Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, India, Japan and South Africa. For the institutionalization of Operations Research, the foundation of IFORS in 1960 was of decisive importance, which stimulated

2754-578: Is concerned with developing and applying models and concepts that may prove useful in helping to illuminate management issues and solve managerial problems, as well as designing and developing new and better models of organizational excellence. Some of the fields that have considerable overlap with Operations Research and Management Science include: Applications are abundant such as in airlines, manufacturing companies, service organizations , military branches, and government. The range of problems and issues to which it has contributed insights and solutions

2856-438: Is often concerned with determining the extreme values of some real-world objective: the maximum (of profit, performance, or yield) or minimum (of loss, risk, or cost). Originating in military efforts before World War II , its techniques have grown to concern problems in a variety of industries. Operations research (OR) encompasses the development and the use of a wide range of problem-solving techniques and methods applied in

2958-709: Is on Fryman Road at Laurel Canyon Boulevard . It has a large parking lot, restrooms and a picnic area. It is part of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and is managed by the Mountains Recreation & Conservation Authority. Fryman Canyon Park is a 122-acre nature park accessed via the Nancy Hoover Pohl Overlook on Mulholland Drive with the upper trailhead of the Betty B Dearing hiking trail. The park

3060-414: Is part of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and is managed by the Mountains Recreation & Conservation Authority. Coldwater Canyon Park is a nature park adjacent to Wilacre Park and Fryman Canyon Park. It contains an amphitheater and the headquarters for the conservation group TreePeople . It can be accessed via a parking lot near the corner of Mulholland Drive and Coldwater Canyon Avenue and via

3162-528: Is vast. It includes: Management is also concerned with so-called soft-operational analysis which concerns methods for strategic planning , strategic decision support , problem structuring methods . In dealing with these sorts of challenges, mathematical modeling and simulation may not be appropriate or may not suffice. Therefore, during the past 30 years , a number of non-quantified modeling methods have been developed. These include: The International Federation of Operational Research Societies (IFORS)

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3264-551: The Childe Cycle mercenary stories by Gordon R. Dickson , as well as Heinlein's Starship Troopers , although Pournelle's work takes far fewer technological leaps than either of these. Pournelle was one of the few close friends of H. Beam Piper and was granted by Piper the rights to produce stories set in Piper's Terro-Human Future History. This right has been recognized by the Piper estate. Pournelle worked for some years on

3366-583: The Betty B Dearing Trail . The park is managed by the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks (LA Parks). This park is not to be confused with an unrelated park with the name Coldwater Canyon Park, three miles to the south on North Beverly Drive in the city of Beverly Hills. In addition, Studio City has the Studio City Mini-Park, an unstaffed pocket park. North Valleyheart Riverwalk

3468-639: The British Army . Patrick Blackett worked for several different organizations during the war. Early in the war while working for the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) he set up a team known as the "Circus" which helped to reduce the number of anti-aircraft artillery rounds needed to shoot down an enemy aircraft from an average of over 20,000 at the start of the Battle of Britain to 4,000 in 1941. In 1941, Blackett moved from

3570-591: The Cahuenga Pass . It is named after the studio lot that was established in the area by film producer Mack Sennett in 1927, now known as Radford Studio Center . Originally known as Laurelwood, the area that Studio City occupies was formerly part of Rancho Ex-Mission San Fernando . Rancho Ex-Mission San Fernando was a 116,858-acre (472.91 km ) Mexican land grant in present-day Los Angeles County, California, granted in 1846 by Governor Pío Pico to Eulogio F. de Celis. This land changed hands several times during

3672-828: The De La Salle Christian Brothers ; despite its name, it was a high school at the time. He served in the United States Army during the Korean War . In 1953–54, after his military service, Pournelle attended the University of Iowa in Iowa City. Subsequently, he studied at the University of Washington , where he received a B.S. in psychology on June 11, 1955; an M.S. in psychology (experimental statistics) on March 21, 1958; and

3774-634: The Kammhuber Line , it was realized by the British that if the RAF bombers were to fly in a bomber stream they could overwhelm the night fighters who flew in individual cells directed to their targets by ground controllers. It was then a matter of calculating the statistical loss from collisions against the statistical loss from night fighters to calculate how close the bombers should fly to minimize RAF losses. The "exchange rate" ratio of output to input

3876-735: The late 19th century , and eventually passed into the ownership of James Boon Lankershim (1850–1931) and eight other developers, who organized the Lankershim Ranch Land and Water Company. In 1899, however, the area lost most water rights to Los Angeles, so subdivision and sale of land for farming became untenable. Construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct began in 1908, and water reached the San Fernando Valley in November 1913. Real estate boomed, and

3978-625: The 1960s, ORSA reached 8000 members. Consulting companies also founded OR groups. In 1953, Abraham Charnes and William Cooper published the first textbook on Linear Programming. In the 1950s and 1960s, chairs of operations research were established in the U.S. and United Kingdom (from 1964 in Lancaster) in the management faculties of universities. Further influences from the U.S. on the development of operations research in Western Europe can be traced here. The authoritative OR textbooks from

4080-465: The 1970s until the early 1990s, he contributed to the computer magazine Byte , writing from the viewpoint of an intelligent user, with the oft-cited credo, "We do this stuff so you won't have to." He created one of the first blogs, entitled "Chaos Manor", which included commentary about politics, computer technology, space technology, and science fiction. Pournelle held paleoconservative political views, which were sometimes expressed in his fiction. He

4182-404: The 6.31-square-mile (16.3 km ) Studio City neighborhood—5,395 people per square mile, among the lowest population densities for the city but about average for the county. In 2008, the city estimated that the resident population had increased to 37,201. In 2000, the median age for residents, 38, was considered old for city and county neighborhoods; the percent of residents age 19 and older

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4284-642: The Aerospace Corporation in San Bernardino, California where he was Editor of Project 75 , a major study of all ballistic missile technology for the purpose of making recommendations to the US Air Force on investment in technologies required to build the missile force to be deployed in 1975. After Project 75 was completed Pournelle became manager of several advanced concept studies. At North American Rockwell’s Space Division, Pournelle

4386-507: The CC-ORS indicated that on average if the trigger depth of aerial-delivered depth charges were changed from 100 to 25 feet, the kill ratios would go up. The reason was that if a U-boat saw an aircraft only shortly before it arrived over the target then at 100 feet the charges would do no damage (because the U-boat wouldn't have had time to descend as far as 100 feet), and if it saw the aircraft

4488-639: The Catholic Church, he opposed having the government require that Catholic institutions provide access to birth control or abortion. He wrote that Sunday attendance at St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church, in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles , was part of his family's routine. Upon his death, his family arranged a memorial mass at the church, on 16 September 2017. Pournelle was an intellectual protégé of Russell Kirk and Stefan T. Possony . Pournelle wrote numerous publications with Possony, including The Strategy of Technology (1970). The Strategy has been used as

4590-563: The Human Factors Laboratory at Boeing, where his group did pioneering work on astronaut heat tolerance in extreme environments. His group also did experimental work that resulted in certification of the passenger oxygen system for the Boeing 707 airplane. He later worked as a Systems Analyst in a design and analysis group at the company, where he did strategic analysis of proposed new weapons systems. In 1964, Pournelle joined

4692-568: The Management Sciences (INFORMS) publishes thirteen scholarly journals about operations research, including the top two journals in their class, according to 2005 Journal Citation Reports . They are: These are listed in alphabetical order of their titles. Studio City, Los Angeles Studio City is a neighborhood in Los Angeles , California, United States, in the southeast San Fernando Valley , just west of

4794-683: The NATO military command structure , the transfer of NATO headquarters from France to Belgium led to the institutionalization of OR in Belgium, where Jacques Drèze founded CORE, the Center for Operations Research and Econometrics at the Catholic University of Leuven in 1966. With the development of computers over the next three decades, Operations Research can now solve problems with hundreds of thousands of variables and constraints. Moreover,

4896-611: The RAE to the Navy, after first working with RAF Coastal Command , in 1941 and then early in 1942 to the Admiralty . Blackett's team at Coastal Command's Operational Research Section (CC-ORS) included two future Nobel prize winners and many other people who went on to be pre-eminent in their fields. They undertook a number of crucial analyses that aided the war effort. Britain introduced the convoy system to reduce shipping losses, but while

4998-787: The U.S. were published in Germany in German language and in France in French (but not in Italian ), such as the book by George Dantzig "Linear Programming"(1963) and the book by C. West Churchman et al. "Introduction to Operations Research"(1957). The latter was also published in Spanish in 1973, opening at the same time Latin American readers to Operations Research. NATO gave important impulses for

5100-659: The US-based organization INFORMS began an initiative to market the OR profession better, including a website entitled The Science of Better which provides an introduction to OR and examples of successful applications of OR to industrial problems. This initiative has been adopted by the Operational Research Society in the UK, including a website entitled Learn About OR . The Institute for Operations Research and

5202-463: The United Kingdom (including Patrick Blackett (later Lord Blackett OM PRS), Cecil Gordon , Solly Zuckerman , (later Baron Zuckerman OM, KCB, FRS), C. H. Waddington , Owen Wansbrough-Jones , Frank Yates , Jacob Bronowski and Freeman Dyson ), and in the United States ( George Dantzig ) looked for ways to make better decisions in such areas as logistics and training schedules. The modern field of operational research arose during World War II. In

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5304-443: The United States. According to a Wall Street Journal article, "Pournelle estimates that for what the Iraq war has cost so far, the United States could have paid for a network of nuclear power stations sufficient to achieve energy independence, and bankrupt the Arabs for once and for all." Pournelle created the Pournelle chart in his doctoral dissertation, a 2-dimensional coordinate system used to distinguish political ideologies. It

5406-479: The World War II era, operational research was defined as "a scientific method of providing executive departments with a quantitative basis for decisions regarding the operations under their control". Other names for it included operational analysis (UK Ministry of Defence from 1962) and quantitative management. During the Second World War close to 1,000 men and women in Britain were engaged in operational research. About 200 operational research scientists worked for

5508-411: The accompanying letter column became "Chaos Manor Mail". Pournelle still used "Zeke" to write as late as 1987, but admitted that he would soon have to use PCs because tools like Borland Sidekick were unavailable. He hesitated, Pournelle said, because Niven would buy two exact copies of his writing computer and software. He announced in February 1989 that the Smithsonian had asked for "Zeke" as part of

5610-437: The areas were not vital, and adding armor to non-vital areas where damage is acceptable reduces aircraft performance. Their suggestion to remove some of the crew so that an aircraft loss would result in fewer personnel losses, was also rejected by RAF command. Blackett's team made the logical recommendation that the armor be placed in the areas which were completely untouched by damage in the bombers who returned. They reasoned that

5712-432: The article: The other day we were sitting around the Byte offices listening to software and hardware explosions going off around us in the microcomputer world. We wondered, "Who could cover some of the latest developments for us in a funny, frank (and sometimes irascible) style?" The phone rang. It was Jerry Pournelle with an idea for a funny, frank (and sometimes irascible) series of articles to be presented in Byte on

5814-458: The auspices of the British Association , a symposium was organized in Dundee . In his opening address, Watson-Watt offered a definition of the aims of OR: With expanded techniques and growing awareness of the field at the close of the war, operational research was no longer limited to only operational, but was extended to encompass equipment procurement, training, logistics and infrastructure. Operations research also grew in many areas other than

5916-452: The book Road to Survival by the ecologist (and ornithologist) William Vogt , who depicted an Earth denuded of species other than humans, all of them headed for squalor. Concerned about the Malthusian dangers of human overpopulation , and considering the Catholic Church's position on contraception to be untenable, he left the Catholic Church while an undergraduate at the University of Iowa. Pournelle eventually returned to religion, and for

6018-405: The change, 7% were sunk and 11% damaged; if submarines were caught on the surface but had time to submerge just before being attacked, the numbers rose to 11% sunk and 15% damaged. Blackett observed "there can be few cases where such a great operational gain had been obtained by such a small and simple change of tactics". Bomber Command's Operational Research Section (BC-ORS), analyzed a report of

6120-430: The city. The Studio City Recreation Center (commonly known as Beeman Park) is in a residential neighborhood on Rye Street at Beeman Avenue. It has an auditorium, barbecue pits, a lighted baseball diamond, an outdoor running and walking track, lighted outdoor basketball courts, a children's play area, picnic tables, unlighted tennis courts, and many programs and classes including the second-largest youth baseball program in

6222-458: The column to his own web site, Chaos Manor Reviews. Pournelle claimed to be the first author to have written a published book contribution using a word processor on a personal computer , in 1977. In the 1980s, Pournelle was an editor and columnist for Survive , a survivalist magazine. He wrote the monthly column "The Micro Revolution" for Popular Computing from April 1984 until the magazine's closure in December 1985. The column focused on

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6324-413: The company, he envisioned a weapon consisting of massive tungsten rods dropped from high above the Earth. These super-dense, super-fast kinetic energy projectiles delivered enormous destructive force to the target without contaminating the environs with radioactive isotopes, as would occur with a nuclear bomb. Pournelle named his superweapon “Project Thor”. Others called it " Rods from God ". Pournelle headed

6426-442: The construction of mathematical models that attempt to describe the system. Because of the computational and statistical nature of most of these fields, OR also has strong ties to computer science and analytics . Operational researchers faced with a new problem must determine which of these techniques are most appropriate given the nature of the system, the goals for improvement, and constraints on time and computing power, or develop

6528-439: The cost of transportation and sorting of mail led to England's universal "Penny Post" in 1840, and to studies into the dynamical behaviour of railway vehicles in defence of the GWR 's broad gauge. Beginning in the 20th century, study of inventory management could be considered the origin of modern operations research with economic order quantity developed by Ford W. Harris in 1913. Operational research may have originated in

6630-418: The couple had five children. His wife, and son, naval officer Phillip, and daughter, archaeologist Jennifer, have also written science fiction in collaboration with their father. In 2008, Pournelle battled a brain tumor, which appeared to respond favorably to radiation treatment. An August 28, 2008 report on his weblog claimed he was now cancer-free. Pournelle suffered a stroke on December 16, 2014, for which he

6732-501: The editor of Astounding Science Fiction (later called Analog Science Fiction and Fact ), but Campbell did not accept any of Pournelle's submissions until shortly before Campbell's death in 1971, when he accepted for publication Pournelle's novelette "Peace with Honor." From the beginning, Pournelle's work has engaged strong military themes. Several books are centered on a fictional mercenary infantry force known as Falkenberg's Legion . There are strong parallels between these stories and

6834-461: The efforts of military planners during World War I (convoy theory and Lanchester's laws ). Percy Bridgman brought operational research to bear on problems in physics in the 1920s and would later attempt to extend these to the social sciences. Modern operational research originated at the Bawdsey Research Station in the UK in 1937 as the result of an initiative of the station's superintendent, A. P. Rowe and Robert Watson-Watt . Rowe conceived

6936-630: The existing town of Lankershim, as well as the eastern part of the new acquisition. In 1927, Mack Sennett began building a new studio on 20 acres (81,000 m ) donated by the land developer. The area around the studio was named Studio City. In 1955, Studio City's Station 78 became the first racially integrated station in the Los Angeles City Fire Department . The Los Angeles River and Tujunga Wash flow through Studio City. The two concrete-lined channels merge just west of Colfax Avenue and north of Ventura Boulevard adjacent to Radford Studio Center. The 2000 U.S. census counted 34,034 residents in

7038-399: The film was in development, and that husband-and-wife writing team, Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens , had written the screenplay. Pournelle began fiction writing non-SF work under a pseudonym in 1965. His early SF was published under the name "Wade Curtis", in Analog and other magazines. Some works were also published under the name "J.E. Pournelle". In the mid-1970s, Pournelle began

7140-515: The foundation of national OR societies in Austria, Switzerland and Germany. IFORS held important international conferences every three years since 1957. The constituent members of IFORS form regional groups, such as that in Europe, the Association of European Operational Research Societies (EURO). Other important operational research organizations are Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization (SISO) and Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC) In 2004,

7242-402: The idea as a means to analyse and improve the working of the UK's early-warning radar system, code-named " Chain Home " (CH). Initially, Rowe analysed the operating of the radar equipment and its communication networks, expanding later to include the operating personnel's behaviour. This revealed unappreciated limitations of the CH network and allowed remedial action to be taken. Scientists in

7344-961: The lack of data, there are also no computer applications in the textbooks. Operational research is also used extensively in government where evidence-based policy is used. The field of management science (MS) is known as using operations research models in business. Stafford Beer characterized this in 1967. Like operational research itself, management science is an interdisciplinary branch of applied mathematics devoted to optimal decision planning, with strong links with economics, business, engineering, and other sciences . It uses various scientific research -based principles, strategies , and analytical methods including mathematical modeling , statistics and numerical algorithms to improve an organization's ability to enact rational and meaningful management decisions by arriving at optimal or near-optimal solutions to sometimes complex decision problems. Management scientists help businesses to achieve their goals using

7446-599: The large volumes of data required for such problems can be stored and manipulated very efficiently." Much of operations research (modernly known as 'analytics') relies upon stochastic variables and a therefore access to truly random numbers. Fortunately, the cybernetics field also required the same level of randomness. The development of increasingly better random number generators has been a boon to both disciplines. Modern applications of operations research includes city planning, football strategies, emergency planning, optimizing all facets of industry and economy, and undoubtedly with

7548-400: The likelihood of the inclusion of terrorist attack planning and definitely counterterrorist attack planning. More recently, the research approach of operations research, which dates back to the 1950s, has been criticized for being collections of mathematical models but lacking an empirical basis of data collection for applications. How to collect data is not presented in the textbooks. Because of

7650-474: The losses suffered by convoys depended largely on the number of escort vessels present, rather than the size of the convoy. Their conclusion was that a few large convoys are more defensible than many small ones. While performing an analysis of the methods used by RAF Coastal Command to hunt and destroy submarines, one of the analysts asked what colour the aircraft were. As most of them were from Bomber Command they were painted black for night-time operations. At

7752-502: The military once scientists learned to apply its principles to the civilian sector. The development of the simplex algorithm for linear programming was in 1947. In the 1950s, the term Operations Research was used to describe heterogeneous mathematical methods such as game theory , dynamic programming, linear programming, warehousing, spare parts theory , queue theory , simulation and production control, which were used primarily in civilian industry. Scientific societies and journals on

7854-538: The on-target bomb rate of B-29s bombing Japan from the Marianas Islands by increasing the training ratio from 4 to 10 percent of flying hours; revealed that wolf-packs of three United States submarines were the most effective number to enable all members of the pack to engage targets discovered on their individual patrol stations; revealed that glossy enamel paint was more effective camouflage for night fighters than conventional dull camouflage paint finish, and

7956-531: The policy, we certainly did not write the speech… We were not trying to boost space, we were trying to win the Cold War". The Council's first report in 1980 became the transition team policy paper on space for the incoming Reagan administration. The third report was quoted in the Reagan "Star Wars" speech. James Wheatfield wrote that "Pournelle delights in setting up complex background situations and plots, leading

8058-546: The position after two weeks. After leaving Yorty's office, in 1970 he was a consultant to the Professional Educators of Los Angeles (PELA), a group opposed to the unionization of school teachers in LA. He is sometimes quoted as describing his politics as "somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan." Pournelle resisted others classifying him into any particular political group, but acknowledged the approximate accuracy of

8160-437: The principle of using warships to accompany merchant ships was generally accepted, it was unclear whether it was better for convoys to be small or large. Convoys travel at the speed of the slowest member, so small convoys can travel faster. It was also argued that small convoys would be harder for German U-boats to detect. On the other hand, large convoys could deploy more warships against an attacker. Blackett's staff showed that

8262-413: The public parks. Moorpark Park, an unstaffed pocket park at the corner of Moorpark Street and Laurel Canyon Boulevard, has a children's play area and picnic tables. Woodbridge Park, on Elmer Avenue at Moorpark Street, on the eastern border of Studio City has a children and toddler's play area. Wilacre Park, a 128-acre natural mountain park with the lower trailhead for the Betty B Dearing hiking trail,

8364-409: The pursuit of improved decision-making and efficiency, such as simulation , mathematical optimization , queueing theory and other stochastic-process models, Markov decision processes , econometric methods , data envelopment analysis , ordinal priority approach , neural networks , expert systems , decision analysis , and the analytic hierarchy process . Nearly all of these techniques involve

8466-471: The reader step by step towards a solution which is the very opposite of politically correct and… defying a dissenting reader to find where in this logical chain he or she would have acted differently." Pournelle suggested several "laws". He used the term "Pournelle's law" for the expression "One user, one CPU". He later amended this to "One user, at least one CPU" in a column in InfoWorld . He also used

8568-421: The scientific methods of operational research. The management scientist's mandate is to use rational, systematic, science-based techniques to inform and improve decisions of all kinds. Of course, the techniques of management science are not restricted to business applications but may be applied to military, medical, public administration, charitable groups, political groups or community groups. Management science

8670-618: The spread of Operations Research in Western Europe; NATO headquarters (SHAPE) organised four conferences on OR in the 1950s – the one in 1956 with 120 participants – bringing OR to mainland Europe. Within NATO, OR was also known as "Scientific Advisory" (SA) and was grouped together in the Advisory Group of Aeronautical Research and Development (AGARD). SHAPE and AGARD organized an OR conference in April 1957 in Paris. When France withdrew from

8772-696: The subject of operations research were founded in the 1950s, such as the Operation Research Society of America (ORSA) in 1952 and the Institute for Management Science (TIMS) in 1953. Philip Morse, the head of the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group of the Pentagon, became the first president of ORSA and attracted the companies of the military-industrial complex to ORSA, which soon had more than 500 members. In

8874-504: The suggestion of CC-ORS a test was run to see if that was the best colour to camouflage the aircraft for daytime operations in the grey North Atlantic skies. Tests showed that aircraft painted white were on average not spotted until they were 20% closer than those painted black. This change indicated that 30% more submarines would be attacked and sunk for the same number of sightings. As a result of these findings Coastal Command changed their aircraft to using white undersurfaces. Other work by

8976-530: The survey was biased, since it only included aircraft that returned to Britain. The areas untouched in returning aircraft were probably vital areas, which, if hit, would result in the loss of the aircraft. This story has been disputed, with a similar damage assessment study completed in the US by the Statistical Research Group at Columbia University , the result of work done by Abraham Wald . When Germany organized its air defences into

9078-585: The term paleoconservatism as applying to him. He distinguished his conservativism from the alternative neoconservatism , noting that he had been drummed out of the Conservative movement by "the egregious Frum", referring to prominent neoconservative, David Frum . Notably, Pournelle opposed the Gulf War and the Iraq War , maintaining that the money would be better spent developing energy technologies for

9180-487: The term "Pournelle's law" for "Silicon is cheaper than iron." That is, a computer is cheaper to upgrade than replace. A second aspect of this law was Pournelle's prediction that hard disk drives would eventually be replaced by solid-state memory , although he admitted that bubble memory had failed to do so as he had expected. He has also used "Pournelle's law" to apply to the importance of checking cable connections when diagnosing computer problems: "You'll find by and large,

9282-609: The top rankings in the New York Times Best Seller List . In 1977, Lucifer's Hammer reached number two. Footfall — wherein Heinlein was a thinly veiled minor character — reached the number one spot in 1986. Pournelle served as President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 1973. In 1994, Pournelle's friendly relationship with Newt Gingrich led to Gingrich securing

9384-839: The trouble is a cable." Another Pournelle's Law is "If you don’t know what you’re doing, deal with those who do". Another "law" of his is "Pournelle's iron law of bureaucracy ": In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals that the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely. Operations research Employing techniques from other mathematical sciences, such as modeling , statistics , and optimization , operations research arrives at optimal or near-optimal solutions to decision-making problems. Because of its emphasis on practical applications, operations research has overlapped with many other disciplines, notably industrial engineering . Operations research

9486-431: The ways microcomputers were reshaping society. In 2011, Pournelle joined journalist Gina Smith , pundit John C. Dvorak , political cartoonist Ted Rall , and several other Byte.com staff reporters to launch an independent tech and political news site, aNewDomain.net Pournelle served as director of aNewDomain until his death. After 1998, Pournelle maintained a website with a daily online journal, "View from Chaos Manor,"

9588-599: Was a characteristic feature of operational research. By comparing the number of flying hours put in by Allied aircraft to the number of U-boat sightings in a given area, it was possible to redistribute aircraft to more productive patrol areas. Comparison of exchange rates established "effectiveness ratios" useful in planning. The ratio of 60 mines laid per ship sunk was common to several campaigns: German mines in British ports, British mines on German routes, and United States mines in Japanese routes. Operational research doubled

9690-666: Was a radio advertising executive and general manager of several radio stations. Ruth Pournelle, his mother, was a teacher, although during World War II, she worked in a munitions factory. He attended first grade at St. Anne's Elementary School, in Memphis, which had two grades to a classroom. Beginning with third grade, he attended Coleville Consolidated Elementary School, in Colevile, which had about 25 pupils per grade and four rooms and four teachers for 8 grades Pournelle attended high school at Christian Brothers College in Memphis, run by

9792-515: Was among the county's highest. The ethnic breakdown was Whites , 78%; Latinos , 8.7%; Asians , 5.4%; Blacks , 3.7%; and others, 4.1%. Iran (7%) and the United Kingdom (6.7%) were the most common places of birth for the 21.1% of the residents who were born abroad—a low percentage for Los Angeles. The median yearly household income in 2008 dollars was $ 75,657, considered high for the city. The percent of households earning $ 125,000 and up

9894-571: Was an expert on reading education) wrote the commercial education software program called Reading: The Learning Connection. Pournelle served as campaign research director for the mayoral campaign of 1969 for Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty (Democrat), working under campaign director Henry Salvatori . The election took place on May 27, 1969. Pournelle was later named Executive Assistant to the Mayor in charge of research in September 1969, but resigned from

9996-600: Was associate director of operations research, where he took part in the Apollo program and general operations. He was founding President of the Pepperdine Research Institute. In 1989, Pournelle, Max Hunter , and retired Army Lieutenant General Daniel O. Graham made a presentation to then Vice President Dan Quayle promoting development of the DC-X rocket. Pournelle was among those who in 1968 signed

10098-430: Was described as "a tireless ambassador for the future." Pournelle's hard science fiction writing received multiple awards. In addition to his solo writing, he wrote several novels with collaborators including Larry Niven . Pournelle served a term as President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America . Pournelle's journalism focused primarily on the computer industry, astronomy, and space exploration. From

10200-412: Was high for Los Angeles County . The average household size of 1.9 people was low when compared to the rest of the city and the county. Renters occupied 55.9% of the housing stock and house- or apartment-owners held 44.1%. In 2000, there were 837 families headed by single parents, the rate of 11.2% being low for the city of Los Angeles. There were 2,591 veterans, 8.8% of the population, a high figure for

10302-474: Was hospitalized for a time. By June 2015, he was writing again, though impairment from the stroke had slowed his typing. Pournelle died in his sleep of heart failure at his home in Studio City , California, on September 8, 2017. Pournelle was raised a Unitarian . He converted to Roman Catholicism while attending Christian Brothers College. Pournelle was introduced to Malthusian principles upon reading

10404-753: Was one of the founders of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy , which developed some of the Reagan Administration 's space initiatives, including the earliest versions of what would become the Strategic Defense Initiative . Pournelle was born in Shreveport, Louisiana , the seat of Caddo Parish in northwestern Louisiana , and later lived with his family in Capleville, Tennessee , an unincorporated area near Memphis . Percival Pournelle, his father,

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