Tip of the Iceberg Walking through Indianapolis, you can see uniformed police officers directing cars and pedestrians at every major intersection.  These officers account for roughly 10% of the security at this event. The other 90% you will never see. This is, of course, by design to keep fans thinking about enjoying themselves and spending money and not thinking about the major target this event is for groups of people trying to garner publicity for their message. Homegrown and international terrorist groups look for high profile public events they can disrupt to gain attention for their cause. They need not cause mass casualties to be effective; simply scaring the public is likely enough.

If Indy hosts the Indianapolis 500 and the Brickyard 400 with larger crowds every year, why is the Super Bowl a big deal? The fan base for Indy car racing is dominated by middle class working families with some amount of disposable income and time to travel to Indy, camp for a weekend, and purchase food and beverages to enjoy the race. While this may mirror the broad fan base for the NFL, access to the Super Bowl comes at a high price. Tickets start in the thousands and closer to the game and nearer the field, tickets can cost $10,000. This draws a different crowd than does Indy car racing. Super Bowl visitors are upper class with connections. They utilize the Super Bowl as an opportunity to make professional connections, facilitate business deals, and increase their social capital. These fans are accustomed to a certain level of service and traveling to a major event doesn’t change these expectations. I suspect this classism is the reason why the Super Bowl is designated a National Special Security Event with the 200,000 fans while the Indy car races with two to three times the visitors garners almost no federal intervention for safety and response.

The early part in the week in downtown Indy has been dominated by locals and families. Parents with strollers and folks wearing Colts gear are everywhere. The weather has been unseasonably warm making this already walkable city a dream combination for the temporary attractions and businesses downtown. As the week progresses more and more visitors, including celebrities like Katy Perry and Ryan Gosling, can be spotted downtown. By Friday and Saturday I suspect the crowds will shift from locals and families looking for photo ops and group corn-hole games to out-of-towners looking for high end shopping and dining and exclusive parties. 

I am sitting in the Emergency Operations Center in Indianapolis. I am surrounded by more screens than I can count with all the emergency response plans and real-time updates at the fingertips of the people at each screen. This is the place where all the appropriate agencies can respond to anything from a cluster of illness to a car accident to a major disaster. This is designed to be the command center of a city to direct resources to respond to needs. Every city of substantial size, including Lexington, has a similar room. This is where the response efforts are coordinated. Obviously, access to this area is restricted. The information available is restricted and the response efforts need to be protected from outside influences. 

The Proof is in the Pudding: So just want does goes into hosting a wrinkle free international sporting spectacle?

Weather: It is no secret that Indy get it share of winter storms. The first weekend in February last year held an ice storm that put many people out of power for days. Indy officials and the Host Committee had its fair share of anxiety concerning the unknown weather factor. However, Indy has experienced an unusual warming trend with weather in the 50s. This temperatures are supposed to drop as the week progresses, but the sheer absence of a blizzard is enough to alleviate major weather concerns for folks responsible for ensuring a positive experience in Indy.

Hoosier Hospitality is the image Indianapolis wants to portray while hosting their first Super Bowl. The city has worked for years to land what is the Big Fish of sporting events. In May of 2008, it was announced that Indy was finally given this honor. Since that day (or years before depending on how much of this blog you read wink, wink) the city has worked diligently to host the most fan friendly game in Super Bowl history.

Recent preparations included everything from volunteers knitting Blue and White Super Scarves to building the flagship hotel the JW Marriot to purchasing and install $1,200 devices to prevent manhole covers from blowing off.

Looking further back, Indy has been working toward this week for half a century. In the 1960s Indianapolis was known as sleepy, stinky, and scary ‘nap’ town. People worked downtown in the government, finance and business sectors and then ‘got out of dodge’ as quickly as possible. For good reason as there was nothing to do downtown except dodge the droppings of the rampant pigeons.

A&S is proud to launch What’s New in Science, a new series designed for science teachers interested in learning more about the most recent discoveries, events, and advances in science today.  The series is held in a casual round table format, with professors from different scientific disciplines and science teachers from Kentucky schools talking among themselves, asking questions, and getting answers about new and emerging knowledge. Each session focuses on a new topic in one of the sciences – there will be four different sessions this spring.

The series kicks off on February 2 with physics and astronomy and a discussion about the Big Bang event, dark energy, and dark matter. Panelists for the first talk include Randal Voss (Department of Biology), Ganpathy Murthy (Department of Physics & Astronomy), Karen Young, (Dunbar High School), John Anthony (Department of Chemistry), Susan Barron (Department of Psychology), and Gene Toth (Lafayette High School). Video of the sessions will also be recorded and uploaded to the A&S website, allowing science teachers across the state to view the discussions and incorporate them into their classes.

Alexis Madrigal of the Atlantic serves up a fantastic analogy "to explain why QR codes, those little black-and-white squares in magazines that you're supposed to use as a paper hyperlink, continue to proliferate." Check out the link below.

Via The Atlantic.

I recently got invited to Sparcet by A&S. It's a online reward/recognition social network for the work place. I check into my feed on Sparcet and found other Hive members lighting up the board with awards and compliments. The way it works (from what I can tell) is that anyone can give a "medal" to another working for any amount/quality of good work that they think deserves to be recognized, and it shows up in everyone else's feed. I began to read through all the "sparcets" that were given and couldn't believe it! We've got some awesome people at the Hive.

The Hive is a huge and growing entity. We are physically spread out, and often it's hard to keep track of what everyone else is up to. In this way, Sparcet is a great way to keep in touch with work related activity of others. And my favorite part is that it seems to be based off a simple principle: give credit where credit is due. Sparcet is great for this and demonstrates what a cool work environment the Hive has. 

Kudos to all my fellow Hive members for being awesome!

I was looking through some Wired Campus articles from The Chronicle of Higher Education, and I found this one about some resources where you can learn computer programming. I have always wanted to learn more about computers, programming, web design, etc. Last Christmas break I learned HTML and CSS, so this year I think I'm going to delve into Python. I just signed up for the free Stanford University online course on Computer Science, and also the one for Cryptography. I'm pretty excited to start learning about these topics. Anyone wanna join me?