I wonder

I wonder how difficult it would be to build an airplane lavatory sanitizer. I'm thinking a built-in mechanism that, at certain times (when the lavatory is unoccupied and has been used so many times), locks the door, hoses down the entire thing with a sanitizing fluid, and dries it off. Oh, and unlocks the door for the next user. There would be some sacrifice in weight, but they're already making weight sacrifices to install those bed/seats in business class and widen the seats in economy. I don't think people will improve their aim anytime soon.

Nice thoughts over lunch.

A must try.

Sukiyaki udon. Yum!

I voted.

And I have a few beefs about the process.

First, I suppose this is my fault for preferring the absentee ballot, but the switch away from chads has made the ballot too cumbersome. The new ballots are printed on gigantic pieces of cardstock, but the font didn't get any bigger. The layout still sucks and it is difficult to orient yourself. This year's ballot required two pages and cost a whopping 3 stamps to mail. How does this make voting accessible? It's expensive and strains the eyes.

Second, the voter's guides (yes, plural in this great state) were not organized intuitively. The candidate statements and some measures were in one booklet, some more measures in another, and there was a third booklet describing two competing measures. The second booklet was so damn thick it made a satisfying thump when dropped on the floor.

Third, not all the candidates submitted statements. A large number flooded my mailbox with junk mail. As a result, my "to flog" list has gotten longer. It now includes candidates who don't bother with statements, candidates who send junk mail (and especially those who sent junk mail but wrote no statement), and candidates who submitted statements littered with grammatical errors or failed to make their point.

Fourth, statements about measures and propositions should be concise. To the school district, I say that I don't want to flip through endless double-spaced pages wherein you tell me about every single little flaw in every school building. So there is a crack in the wall. Tell me once. Do not tell me once for every school in the district.

Thoughts on the latest presidential debate.

I missed the first half of it because I had to work late. The rest of it made me dizzy because the camera decided to follow the candidates. I had to give up and watch "The Simpsons". I might try to catch the next debate, but because its also a town-hall format it will probably make me dizzy again.

Last night's VP debate

A more general discussion that answers J's comment.

The debate was a pretty good one, I thought, especially considering I've never really sat through one before. It was interesting enough that I didn't end up flipping to "The Simpsons". Cheney had the calmer demeanor, but then, I would have liked to see more split-screen shots. Edwards took sips from his mug quite often; Cheney was a camel by comparison. I don't believe there was a clear winner. (I also don't particularly care about your politics; I will not let that influence my judgement about the quality of the debate.)

I still don't like either candidate. I still don't hate either candidate enough to vote for either one. I still don't hate both candidates enough to vote for Nader. At least there are plenty of local propositions to keep me occupied this election season.

Tonight's VP Debate

I will try to watch it, after all. I will probably flip to "The Simpsons" at some point, but I will do my best. All because of my favorite quote from last week's presidential debate:

"It's hard work."

What do normal people do?

After repeated pleas for help with the donation drive, more people are gradually signing on to do stuff. But they are signing on for the trivial tasks, like putting up posters. No one is signing on to coordinate things like getting collection bins from the charities, which we need for there to be a need to put up posters.

I am sure if I asked them to take on something bigger, they would say they don't have time due to work commitments. I would tell them I understand. I would also be thinking that I have 10x more work than they do. And I will still probably be stuck with the bigger tasks.

I now have so much work that it is pushing out social commitments. I have to rearrange my classes and still skip some to boot.

I now have so much work that I don't get enough sleep. This is because I insist on squeezing in a little reading or television, anything to keep my sanity.

Hell, I now have so much work I didn't do the dishes this morning. Keep this up and the drain will get slimy and there will be a layer of filth covering the floors.

It's not for you.

J's latest reminded me of something that happened a couple years ago. Back then, a group of us went to dinner once a week since we were all new to the area and we wanted to explore the restaurant scene. Besides me, the group consisted of A1, A2, and D. It was A1's idea to meet for dinner, and A2's idea to explore dives. D and I share A2's enthusiasm for dives and A1's for eating.

That week, A2 chose a Mexican place just south of downtown. Admittedly, the place wasn't a total dive, but parts of the menu were quite authentic. We saw some interesting items on the menu, including either burritos or tacos containing your choice of filling. Included among the standard carnitas or chicken was something that probably translated to either offal or sausage. Possibly from a cow. A2 had learned French in school, and my command of Spanish doesn't include many useful words. We asked the owner/waitress what it was, and her only reply was, "It's not for you." Meaning we wouldn't like it. I'm sure our group actually would have, but she was insistent and her answer was well-worded, so we dropped it.

The dishes we finally ordered were fantastic, by the way.

This one's for the gEEks

I am looking for instructions for a peanut butter and jelly fab. Have never done the workshop myself (otherwise I'd have the instructions) but have heard it described several times over. Last night I heard it in gory detail for the first time. It sounds like a nice compliment to basic circuits, assuming you have some knowledge of IC manufacturing. It would be heresy to mix up the various oxide layers and get the reticle wrong.

I tried Googling variants of this phrase only to find many peanut butter aficionadoes and sellers of various baked goods and snacks. I found detailed instructions for the cookie fab, which is not the same thing.

The idea behind the cookie fab is to demonstrate IC manufacturing with cookies. A sugar cookie is the wafer. Frostings are oxide layers, and sprinkles are dopants. Etching steps require brushes and plastic knives which must be decontaminated and isolated to prevent cross-contamination.

With the PB&J IC is you start with a large cracker as your wafer. The first layer of peanut butter is oxide. Jelly forms the reticle. You use your finger as the etch step, already making this workshop superior to the cookie fab. Then you must remove the reticle, and apparently the most effective way is to lick it off. I would imagine there are sprinkle, chocolate chip, or raisin dopants, but the description kind of stopped at etch.

On the plus side, peanut butter is much healthier than frosting.

But what shall we name it?

The other night the "Iron Chef" aired a neat idea for the 3S. The idea actually came from the challenger's side. The theme was eggs. The challenger made a white pepper ice cream using some egg yolks. The ice cream in of itself sounds intriguing, but the neat part was the presentation. He whipped up the egg whites with a little sugar into a merengue. Then he shaped mountain-like mounds of the merengue and floated them on boiling water until they cooked through. To serve, he placed a round scoop of the ice cream onto the plate and pressed the merengue mountain onto it. Sort of like finding the treasure in the mountain. He drizzled fresh raspberry sauce on the plate and covered the mountain with an eggy custard sauce. I forget the final name of the dish. I wonder if it would flambe well.

Now who can I blame?

It's all my fault, isn't it?

In my world, 8 hours of sleep every night are necessary to function properly. It prevents excessive grouchiness and makes for a very nice day. But 8 hours of sleep also cuts into waking hours, which I need to do stuff like make a dent in my ever-increasing book working set. It has an odd habit of increasing faster than it decreases. This is all my fault. I wish I could blame other people, but it really is my fault. When I buy books for the book club on Amazon, I have to buy additional ones to make the free shipping limit. When I go to the farmers' market, I inevitably visit Books Inc. and their excellent bargain book shelves. And when Christmas or my birthday roll around, I am not intelligent enough to ask for much besides books. (Well, there is method behind the madness, which I won't divulge here.) During the gift-giving season, I feel like Baldrick. (What would he do with money? Buy a turnip. What would he do with lots of money? Buy a really big turnip.)

Which brings me to my point. I stayed up late reading a couple books. This caused me to wake up late, leaving no time to make a decent cup of tea. I instead substituted a latte and now I feel way too good. Wheeeee!

Another odd dream.

In this one, I was outside a house, possibly mowing the lawn. This house was clearly no house I've ever visited or lived in. There was loudish nondescript (it was distinct at the time, but I have since forgotten the tune, so it's probably one of many pop tunes) music playing. The music paused twice to let through the sound of a doorbell. I remember wondering how the doorbell could sound so loud and clear when I was outside of the house. I also wondered where the music was coming from and why it paused so distinctly for the doorbell.

I awoke to find my alarm radio going off, but neither the music nor the static noise (it's a cheap radio) matched anything I heard in my dream.

There's hope for me yet!

Or: that's your definition of hope?

I've decided I would make a good lawyer. Lawyers are suposed to think of every possible worst-case scenario and plan for it. They'll have appeals all ready to go in their briefcases even before their client is indicted. Stuff like that.

I personally am cynical and I worry about every possible scenario. I pick over details and nail down several possible gameplans. All of this to the point of frustrating the freer of spirit.

Meaning there's an alternate path for me out there that doesn't necessarily include engineering. Or trying to collect on insurance money for 3S. Or trying to convince grade-school kids that I'm cool, something teachers must do every day.

Being a rock star, historian, custodian, or friendly customer service representative were already out.

M the misfit

For some time now, I've been wondering how people meet compatible people of the opposite gender. Obviously I am doing something wrong.

It would be wrong to date an immediate coworker.

I'm not sure I'd want to hang out with someone I found in a bar because they'd probably enjoy bars, and I don't.

The bookstore is an expensive proposition given my weakness for the magazine rack. And I've seen many rather sketchy people at the library.

The coffeeshop isn't bad, except I have tried being wired all the time and it didn't work out.

A Magazine once suggested a pickup line that involved finding an exotic vegetable and asking the closest single how to cook it. I find this extremely creepy, and I would therefore not go out with someone who followed advice from A Magazine or hung out in supermarket produce departments.

The smoothie place is deafening. The chance of companionship is not worth my hearing.

The gym, perhaps. When I'm motivated to go. But not a sweaty freeweight hog. And not those guys who work out in front of the mirror. And not someone who leaves the machine settings on a heavy weight to try to impress the next person who uses the machine.

The windows are clean.

Well, they're cleaner. At least they have been rinsed off with a hose. The water washed out the dust trapped in the bug screens and removed the layer of filth covering the windows. Now the air coming through the open windows is gloriously clean. It makes the air at work feel disgusting by comparison--I thought my annual allergies were back this morning. At night, the moon is nice and clear, not the furry patch of light it was before.

Now if only the temperature would drop below 90 degrees it would actually be comfortable to have the windows open instead of having the air conditioner on. That sounds terribly bourgeois, doesn't it, fussing about the air conditioner and destroying the environment in the process?

To sleep, perchance to dream.

I think I may have sleep apnea. This will likely go unconfirmed since it's costly (both in money and time) to visit a sleep clinic.

I say this because last night I had the strangest dream. For some reason, I was idly milling about in a corner of a swimming pool. It was a bright, sunny day and the water was a brilliant shade of blue thanks to the pool. I was bobbing up and down with my eyes open. Once in a while, I'd duck low enough for the water to come over my head as this is very refreshing on a hot day.

Normally when you submerge yourself underwater, you hold your breath. Otherwise your sinuses fill up with chlorinated water. When I hold my breath underwater, the sensation I get is of water in my nose that stops just short of the sinuses.

Interestingly enough, in my dream, I was holding my breath properly and the water was stopping short of my sinuses. And I could feel this happening.

Guess what I'm thinking.

A proper cup of tea should not be chunky.

People I should be allowed to flog.

1. Aggressive drivers.
2. People who drive under the speed limit in the left lane.
3. Tailgaters.
4. People who drive while engrossed in their cellphone conversations.
5. People who turn, then signal.
6. People who run red lights.
7. People who change lanes without signaling.
8. Drivers who do not yield to emergency vehicles.
9. People who do not polish their presentations and make their point clear.
10. People who do not label their data.
11. Whoever created the sales policies at this housing development.
12. Neighbors who whine about ants and yet neglect to trim their yards and sweep up after their cats.
13. Neighbors who take all the parking spots because they have too much crap in their garages.
14. Neighbors who stuff my trash can because they have too much crap.
15. People who do not pick up after their dogs.
16. Coworkers who do not fess up when they break the code.
17. Coworkers who abuse the budget, making it impossible for people like me to get the machines they need. Worse still, making it so we have to justify every pencil purchased.
18. Coworkers who unplug my machines because they are too dumb to ask for help.
19. Coworkers who do not respond to requests in a timely manner. (6 days is timely. 6 weeks is not.)
20. Ambulance-chasers.
21. People and their trial laywers who bring frivolous cases to court.
22. Bigots.
23. Political bigots. (You know, the Democrats who claim all Republican ideals are evil, and vice versa, thereby eliminating all possibility of civilized debate.)
24. Politicians.
25. NBC, for their coverage of the Olympics.
26. PBS, for repeating their endless nostalgia musical marathons over and over again.
27. Whoever thinks redoing reality shows over and over again is a good idea.
28. ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox, for their reality shows.
29. CNN, Fox, MSNBC, CNBC, and all the major networks except PBS, for failing to provide worthwhile news coverage.
30. Geraldo Rivera, for failing to provide any news coverage.

Tell me when you've had enough.

I think the left contact lens may be inside-out. Theoretically, one can tell whether a lens is inside-out by looking at it.

I can't tell the difference.

I spent a few minutes this morning flipping the right one in and out. It seems that flipped one way, it holds its shape more easily than the other way. This probably made it easier to install. Also, the left one seems to be having more trouble focusing this morning. But I am not keen on reinstalling my lenses today.

Contact lenses are definitely not a good choice for those grey, increasingly dark mornings.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

Not the one about letting me flog people, although that would be nice, too.

The world would be a much better place if only all engineers were forced to study technical writing and presentation skills. With an additional course covering data presentation. I have seen many rules broken these past few weeks. Here is a sampling of what the presenters did not do.

1. Speak up over the drone of the air conditioner and other assorted fans.
2. Address the audience instead of the laptop or screen.
3. Plot data intuitively.
4. Add descriptive titles to their axes.
5. Put descriptive titles on their slides.
6. Explain their plots and data.
7. Use fonts and font sizes that are legible on the big screen.
8. Cut off people with long annoying questions.
9. Talk to their foils instead of reading them.

I should be allowed to flog them.

My new theory about the missing contact lens.

I think I ingested it somehow.

This theory comes from what happened this morning. After I put the left one in, the world was clear for a few moments, then suddenly fuzzy again. Despite carefully plugging up the sink prior to installing the lens and an extensive search of counter, sink, mirror, and floor after everything got fuzzy, there was no sign of the lens. I even swept the eyeball with a finger (rather painful) and came up with nothing. So I abandoned installation of the right one, put on my glasses, and headed off to assemble breakfast.

Suddenly my left eye started stinging. Looking in the mirror, I found the contact lens, slightly askew, in said eye, and the world was suddenly clearer. (Incidentally, I took off the glasses before looking in the mirror.) This is very disturbing. Where did the lens go? Under my eyelid? Is it possible the other missing lens (it was for the right eye) was also under my eyelid and eventually got absorbed?

In light of all of this, and given the fact that contact lenses aren't as good as glasses (contact lenses don't fix astigmatism), I still prefer to wear glasses most days.

K's wedding was a lovely event. It was also very efficient, making it one of the more enjoyable weddings I've ever attended.

The ceremony itself was the shortest one of those I've ever attended. My kind of ceremony, with very few religious references out of respect for the bride and groom's beliefs and the diversity of the people in attendance. What few references were there were non-denominational, and it cut right to the chase. All in all, it lasted maybe 20 minutes tops. The prayer came after the rings and lasted about 15 seconds. The bride and groom didn't write their vows, which is good, because vows written by the bride and groom, in my experience, are never that great anyways. The only problem was it went by so fast, we were a little confused and missed the opportunity to toss the flower petals at the newlyweds as they exited. Some people opted to toss the petals at the bridegrooms and bridesmaids instead.

The ceremony and reception were all held a few blocks away from the bride's parents' home, so there was no rounding up everyone into their cars and getting lost on the way to the restaurant or banquet hall.

The meal itself was half salmon, half beef, making it a surf n' turf for everybody. No need to wonder whether you checked beef or fish on the RSVP card! I'm not sure what would have happened to the vegetarians had any been in attendance, though. The only other weddings I've attended where you didn't need to mark your preference have been the Chinese ones, where you get the full banquet and your choice is whether to sample every dish that comes your way.

Heck, even the weather held out. It was gloriously sunny, but not too hot, with just a hint of breeze.

All I can say is I wish K and P all the happiness in the world. And to everyone else, here are the lessons to be learned for your respective weddings.

How M uses the rule of 50

I don't consume books nearly as quickly as my pals J and Z do, nor do I consume them nearly as quickly as I should. But I do get through at least a half dozen worthwhile books in a year, and many more not so worthwhile ones, including rereads of various favorites. It's comforting to revisit the classics, sort of like catching a rerun of a particularly entertaining television show when you could be watching "Amish in the City" or something equally improving. At any rate, there are enough books to warrant a classification system. There are six categories of books.

1. Finished.
2. In progress.
3. Being reread.
4. Started then given up on.
5. Purchased but feel guilty about not starting yet.
6. Cookbooks.

At any given time, I generally have one book close to entering state #1, two or three books in state #2, and one or two books in state #3. I estimate there are currently four books in state #4. There is also one book in state #5. There were two, but I started "Home" as of last night. In addition, state #2 has two subcategories.

2.1. Being read during my lunch hour at work. These books must be very carefully selected so as to be intellectually engaging, quick enough to read while distracted by food, and quirky enough to impress my coworkers who inevitably wander down to join me when I've planted myself at a table outside.
2.2. Being read outside of work. Heck, I can read whatever I want in my own bed.

There are currently two books in state 2.1.

State #6 has three subdivisions.
6.1. Has at least one good recipe in it.
6.2. Has no good recipes in it, and therefore I feel guilty for acquiring it.
6.3. Haven't had the chance to try any recipes in it.

A friendly acquaintance of mine says that if a cookbook has one good recipe in it, then it's worth the price. Incidentally, no cookbook goes unread in my home, so you'll notice that state is missing. And no cookbook gets purchased unless there was an intriguing recipe in it already, so there is no cookbook with recipes that I have not or do not intend to try.

If I ever become dedicated enough to have a lot more books to classify and invoke the Rule of 50, then there should be two more categories.

7. Invoked the Rule of 50 on for justifiable reasons.
8. Invoked the Rule of 50 on, but feel guilty about it.

I'd draw you the state diagram, but that would be horribly geeky. Maybe next time.

Incidentially, I finally finished "Trading Up", which J very kindly gave me for Christmas. It's an interesting read and neatly summarizes the traits of each success story. But there seems to be a sinister undercurrent implying that the new, fresh guys always win and the old players are always too conservative for their own good. I'm sure there are plenty of examples of old players who have adapted well to the trading up phenomenon. Just give me a little time to think of a good example.

Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50

To preserve the copyright, here is the reference.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001952705_nancypearl10m.html

And because I'm a little geeky, here is the C-style pseudocode. (Truer geeks than I would use ML, Lisp, etc.)
if(age <= 50){
required_min_pages = 50;
}
else{ // age > 50
required_min_pages = 100 - age;
}

Revenge of the Avocadoes

I guess it's a good sign that two of my most pressing thoughts are 1) getting this work project off the ground, since this thing runs a long time before I can take a checkpoint, and 2) what to do about the avocadoes.

I purchased a bag of four organic Hass avocadoes. The cost per avocado was about $1.12 or so, making them relatively inexpensive for avocadoes around here. One of them went into last weekend's California roll. The other three should be perfectly ripe by now. Don't get me wrong. I love avocadoes. Normally they are a precious commodity, purchased on sale and one at a time, so I only have the opportunity to eat them plain or in a lovely BLTA made with vine-ripened tomatoes and Niman Ranch bacon.

Three avocadoes make for a lot of BLTAs.

Guacamole is a fine option, but a little normal. Previously frozen avocado halves from Trader Joe's freezer case would probably work fine in a guacamole.

Food Network has a recipe where you stuff something into the cavity and bake it. That sounds wrong. Avocadoes shouldn't be cooked, should they?

I don't have a blender, so avocado milkshakes are out. Incidentally, I wonder if avocado ice cream would taste any good.

Chopped salad sounds like a lot of work. It also sounds like a lot of chopped salad, which would wilt, turn brown, and not be good for lunch during the week.

I once had a recipe for a savory cheesecake. It had a water biscuit (I think) crumb crust and was garnished with avocado and smoked salmon. I no longer have the recipe. Good riddance, because that sounds like work.

Guess it's guacamole after all. Perhaps served with chips, salsa, and chicken quesadillas.

I dropped a contact today. I am extremely annoyed that this happened. I thought the right one was in, and it seemed to be for a bit. Then it wasn't there and I was trying to decide whether things looked blurry because my eyes were tearing up or because something more sinister had happened. It may have stuck to my fingers and then washed down the drain when I washed my hands.

Sigh.

And you thought banana bread couldn't be geeky

After years of tasting and baking the stuff, I have decided that while walnuts are the classic addition to banana bread, chocolate chips are much more interesting, especially after they have gotten all nice and oozy in the oven. A slice of banana bread with chocolate chips is especially nice after nuking in the microwave for about 20 seconds. Future banana breads will contain a 1:1 ratio of chocolate chips to some other ingredient, like chopped dried apricots. Dried apricots lend a lovely texture to the bread.

The next few breads will contain the following:
1:1 ratio chocolate chips to dried apricots
chopped dried figs
fresh/frozen blueberries
3:1 ratio chocolate to crystallized ginger
n:1 ratio chocolate to orange zest (where n is more or less 5 < n < 10)

I have already tried the following:
3:1 ratio chocolate chips to dried apricots (good, but not enough apricot)
chocolate chips (makes a happy breakfast)
currants (good)
raisins (good, but raisins can get too big)
walnuts (would have been good had I stored the nuts properly)
plain (meh)

Any other ideas are welcome. There has got to be another ingredient that goes all nice and oozy that isn't chocolate. The best entries, of course, will probably find their way to the 3S. Which is why not everything can have chocolate. We have to pretend to be healthy once in a while, after all.

I have also discovered that banana bread tastes best when it is spontaneous. That is, you didn't intend to let those bananas go all brown and squishy and uneaten at the end of the week. This could pose a problem for the 3S.

I've visited quite a few optometrists in the decade or so I've worn glasses. At one point, one of them was quite honest and admitted that optometry is part science and part art. The science comes from the measurement of things like degree of astigmatism and the prescription in a current pair of lenses. The art comes from interpreting the results: even though the patient sees clearly with a range of prescriptions, which is really the best one for long-term wear? After all, 5 minutes of reading lines from the wall isn't at all indicative of how well a pair of glasses goes from car to classroom.

I say this because my prescription has been constant the past few years. (This is a blessing, since it indicates good overall health and that I've been taking good care of my eyes.) The latest optometrist downgraded my prescription, claiming I can see just as well without putting so much stress on one of my eyes.

I'm not so sure about that. It could be the contacts. I'll just have to get the glasses to be certain.

At one point, a couple of friends and I figured out vacation strategies. We determined that if we were to take one three-day weekend every month, we would use up 5 vacation days for the months that don't already have three-day weekends. Assuming one obligatory week between Christmas and New Years, that leaves one week of vacation to play with. Doesn't sound too bad, does it? Then why do we feel fried all the time?

I mention this because I am in the middle of a Sanity Weekend, and it's great. During a Sanity Weekend, I have decided, you are not allowed to travel. Not even a road trip, unless it's spontaneous and less than a day (like going to Santa Cruz). I got contact lenses yesterday. I can't even remember the last time I had clear peripheral vision. Today, I baked banana bread (with dried apricots and chocolate chips) and made sushi (tuna roll). For some reason, making sushi is much easier than I remember. This means the next dinner I host will have to be a sushi night. (I also did a little job fishing. Shh...it's a secret.)

We'll see what tomorrow brings.

I thought alcohol is a depressant. I am still pleasantly buzzed and only slightly considering going to bed. That was a good margarita. Good thing I have designated tomorrow as a vacation day, my first this year.

I don't get it. There's a hot water dispenser on this floor that supposedly dispenses boiled water. The past few days there's been an "Out of Service" sign taped to it. At one point the sign was taped to cover the spout.

Water from a broken dispenser might not be fully boiled, right? Or the filter could not be working? In which case the water may be crawling with microbes. Or at least many more microbes than are usual. As a result I haven't been consuming water from this dispenser. The dispenser is somewhat sanitary at the best of times (it's in a public place, after all) and probably extremely unsanitary now that it's not working.

And yet my coworkers continue to flip the sign up and use the dispenser. I figure at least one of the following must apply:

1. They have iron-clad stomachs.
2. The dispenser isn't actually broken. Perhaps the sign was originally attached to the vending machine and it got moved.
3. They are morons.

And now for something completely different. Two of my favorite lines from "The Simpsons":
1. "Would you people get a life?"
2. "Let's tell Krusty."

Guess you had to be there.

Speed-detecting road spikes are just the beginning. After some consideration, I've decided that the first few vehicles affected by the spikes would be amusing, but subsequent ones would be a pain. One can call the towing company only so many times before it gets old.

My new invention: electrically varying road surfaces. It gets very sticky when an oncoming vehicle travels too quickly. Many drivers will smack their foreheads against the steering column. A few may spin out and hit a sign post. Most will just stop or slow down dramatically. This would be very amusing without having to call the towing company.

On the plus side, there appear to be fewer panels tonight. And the cones along the main road are gone.

My next purchase for the kitchen will be a splatter guard.

My next invention will be road spikes that activate when an approaching vehicle is going too fast. If the road crews can't fix the road in a timely manner and remove the obnoxious planks, the spikes should solve the noise problem that's giving me a headache. Slow down, folks, you are not important enough to be in such a hurry.

The fun lighted speed limit sign is switched off on the weekends. During weekdays it seems reasonably accurate and appears to have a range starting around the crosswalk and ending more or less at the first driveway past the mailbox.

Now all they need to do is attach a camera to catch all those people who still exceed the speed limit, and we'd have some real results.

Over lunch a little while ago, I came up with a storyline which somebody said would work well on an episode of "The Simpsons". It could fit in assuming there's a way to fit in the Simpson family.

The idea grew from trends in sponsorship. Namely, there are one or two folks who would sell the rights to name their newborn children. The story starts 30 years in the past with a couple of parents selling the rights to their child's name. Suppose the Coca-Cola company decided on the name "Coke". The child's middle name has the initial J, and the child goes by "C.J." all of his life. He uses C.J. so much nobody learns his first name. He eventually makes it to the board of directors of a Fortune 500 company. He eventually lands a position at PepsiCo. And there's a sinister plot to learn this from his top-secret personnel file.

There's a similar episode in which we learned the real owner of the nuclear plant is Canary M. Burns.

Not exactly an engineering drama, but it could have potential all the same.

shh... :-)

I finished getting J's Christmas present yesterday. Something about the city, a real city, that draws in all sort of innovative entrepreneurs. Hope she likes it.

And Lush's "Hard" shampoo works surprisingly well.

The event was a big success!  We estimate attendance at 550 people.  There was just enough cake: there were two pieces left when I left.  Overall, people seemed happy with the mix of cake.  Carrot seemed to appeal to older folks and those of us who don't have much of a sweet tooth.  Chocolate was popular with the little kids.  White cakes were a happy medium for everybody.  All of the cakes looked very appealing, very fresh and moist.

We have only heard the positive comments so far.  We'll probably see any negative ones once the electronic surveys come back.

All in all, an event of this scale really did need all the volunteers we got.  We had an assembly line of sorts cutting and serving cake, maybe 10 people in all.  I am also glad we spent a few extra bucks to get the disposable table covers (paper tablecloths) as those made cleanup a breeze.  It is nearly impossible to cut and serve 13 cakes without making a mess.

If we had to do this again (hopefully not for at least a year or two), I'd arrange the tables differently.  There was only one entrance to the reception area and that's where people lined up.  Therefore there could only be one unidirectional line.  We should setup one table for water instead of two.  The second water table becomes a cut cake table.  The other two tables should be reserved for actual cake cutting.  Volunteers should put a fork with each little plate of cake.  We should also make sure to have equal numbers of plates and cake servings, although napkins work well in a pinch.

Coding the cake decorations worked very well.  It was a snap to get a good mix of different cake types and correctly identify the fillings without having to sample any.

The carrot and white cakes were tasty.  White with chocolate filling and cream cheese icing works well.  I heard the chocolate cake was also good, but didnt' get a chance to sample it.

Now all we have to do is find a different venue for the next event.  Whenever that is.

I purchased a dress this weekend.  The good thing about it is it's long enough that I can wear sandals with it, so I don't need to purchase shoes.  The bad thing about it is it requires that I figure out how to use sunless tanner, since there's no way the farmers tan is disappearing before K's wedding.  This dress would look nice with a nicely shaped straw hat, but the odds of finding one are very slim and decreasing with every store I visit.  I hope K appreciates all this effort.
 
I have also thought about whether this Thursday's event (the one requiring cake and water for 600 people) will be a success.  Our original intent was to foster cross-company networking among 100 or so people.  Now that the attendee list has ballooned to 600, we've abandoned all hope of having an ice-breaker and have split the evening up into two rotating sessions just so we can actually give everybody a chance to listen to the keynote.  Which will be given twice.  There will be 300 people touring the visitors center at a time, which makes me wonder how much everyone will actually get out of it.
 
This reminds me.  I still need to go get the cake knives, garbage bags, and paper towels I was supposed to get last weekend.  Let's hope I remember to purchase these items before Thursday.

Are you red or blue?
Well, I am apparently in the middle, neither red nor blue (or else extremely ignorant), which may explain why I don't like any of this year's presidential candidates.

I think this algorithm is giving too much weight to the html tags. Html tags wouldn't constitute actual thought, would they? Even though they are content.

Wait a minute. I distinctly remember checking yesterday and finding this blog was a full 41% evil. I'm slipping! But it's higher than before (see earlier post).

Oh drat, I came up with some lovely things to riff about yesterday evening and today. But now I am drawing a blank and I don't remember them at all. Today was truly a Monday. In addition to forgetting a perfectly good post, while eating an apricot today, I managed to dribble juice on a clean pair of pants. How many juicy apricots have you had?

Yesterday I visited the farmers market, a very nice experience. This year it seems apricots are out in full force. Last year, I remember complaining about how I couldn't find fresh apricots anymore. This year, I guess I'll complain about not finding either Rainier or Royal Anne cherries in good condition at a decent price.

"I love the 90's" is playing on VH1. The television is on in the first place because there is a load of laundry still going. There is something strangely addictive about these series; somehow the cynical remarks, fast pace, and pop culture references make me cringe at how silly these fads were and how seriously people took them at the time. But this formula only works for cultural references you either remember or vaguely remember. The 80's series worked because the comedians remembered the decade and many of the references. So far the 90's is working because again the comedians remember all those fads, but it's not working as well because the 90's isn't far enough removed to be kitschy. The 70's series (or what little I have seen of all of these shows) didn't seem as compelling because I couldn't connect with those fads. This is why a 60's or 50's series might not work as well. Anything earlier probably isn't kitschy enough.

This is pathetic. I should just go to bed, since I kind of promised myself I'd go to work early tomorrow.

We ordered the cakes this morning. We tried asking the nice lady at the bakery counter for a phone number so we could call the night before the event to check if the cakes were ready. Her eyes only bugged out slightly when we said we'd just ordered 13 cakes. (The bakery lady's at Safeway bugged out a lot when I mentioned 200 guests. This was back in the old days when we were planning for just over 100 people.) Slight problem with the water: we couldn't find the ones we wanted, so we'll have to settle for the ones that come 35 bottles to a case. Now we'll need 18 cases of water instead of 13. Fortunately, there are now even more volunteers (something like 20 cars).

It would be nice if your car stereo could increase the volume in response to noisier road conditions, such as driving on the highway. Several years ago on an interview trip I rented a car (Chevy Impala) that had this technology, but it didn't work very well. I couldn't tell if the volume would increase if, say, you were stopped at a railroad crossing and a communter train blew by, because that never happened. It correctly increased volume to compensate for noise from highway driving. However, it overcompensated. I'm not sure if the trigger is based on ambient noise or is directly tied to the speedometer.

My opinion is there ought to be a way for the driver to specify the correct volume levels for different driving conditions. Compensating for the freeway doesn't always translate into a constant increase. It depends on the highway conditions, the CD or radio station, and so forth. Ideally, the audio system remembers different settings for different radio stations and CDs. For a new CD or station, it would pick a fixed constant, and the driver can adjust accordingly. It should recognize that you might want, say NPR to be louder than the Top 40 station since in the former, you might actually want to hear what they're saying. The increase should be tied to ambient noise. The system should distinguish persistent traffic noise from, say, a big truck.

Finally, the stereo digitizes volume control. This is fine, but the quanta should be smaller. It always seems to be too loud or too soft.

Great news! Our RSVP list for the event (the one requiring cake and beverages for 600, just to be clear) seems to have a number of nice people who have agreed to help transport food and beverage. We now have 7 volunteer cars plus mine. That means 6 cars can take two flats of water and a cake each, one car takes one flat of water and a cake, and my car takes 6 cakes, which will probably just fit.

While I'd like to think the spirit of volunteerism is running strong, I suspect the proportion is the same. I just got more cars because we had a pool of 500+ to work from.

Today I saw my first brush fire. I realize this is a common occurrence, but is new to someone who lives in a city nowhere near substantial vegetation. It was on 101, in the opposite direction. Well, I admit I didn't see the fire. Just smoke. It smelled like a campfire, then the fire truck came into view. I wonder if it got started by a tossed cigarrette.

There are 3 cakes, 4 fillings, and 4 icings, making for a total of 48 possible cake configurations. More realistically, since carrot cake is difficult to pair up (carrot cake, strawberry filling, and chocolate icing?), there are 1 + 2*4*4 = 33 different combinations. Furthermore, I think chocolate cake with apricot filling sounds weird (the cake would overwhelm the filling), this means 4 less, or 29 total.

Each cake yields 48 small portions, so we will get 13 cakes as we are now expecting 600 people, or very nearly so. And yes, excluding the carrot cakes, each one is different. I have coded the decorations: scored icing for the carrot and chocolate cakes, and writing for the white ones. Carrot will have little carrots in each box, and chocolate with have little roses. White cake shall have colored roses on the fringe and writing in the middle. The color of the roses will indicate the filling: yellow = white cheesecake, orange = apricot mousse, brown/chocolate/dark = chocolate mousse.

Each cake has 2 pounds of filling, so the cake itself should weigh 3-5 pounds. Going on the high side, that's 65 pounds of cake.

We haven't discussed beverages yet. 13 cases of bottled water, each one probably weighing more than each cake.

Most disturbing, we are allocating a significant portion of the budget (just under 1/3 of the food/beverage/plate cost) toward renting a van or SUV so we can transport the 100+ pounds of comestibles.

If/when I get married, there will be fewer than 600 guests. The cake will definitely be neither carrot nor white nor chocolate, which unfortunately doesn't leave too many options. (J doesn't like coconut, and I don't like strawberry in the cake itself. Ube anyone?) Of course, I would also promise dinner to all my guests at a wedding.

Thank goodness we only promised "light refreshments" for this event.

My network went down last night, so I was unable to share this tidbit of wisdom.

I have a new rule. If you want me to plan food for your event, I shall require:
* $2 per head if serving beverages only
* $3 per head if serving light snacks only
* $10 per head for lunch
* heaven help you if you are serving dinner

If you are not willing to pony up for delivery, then I shall require that you volunteer your time and your car to help transport the goods. And no one in the party will be allowed to complain about the fact that the food is from Costco.

I am currently trying to provide beverages and light refreshments for 400 people while spending a dollar a head. Food costs more than this, folks. We planned for 100 people, I think, and it has rapidly ballooned. I am so sick and tired of making one loaf of bread feed forty, turning water into wine, and so forth.

Wait a minute. The latest meme (Gema..., gematric..., uh, gematriculator) listed a number of interesting phrases as belonging to the url of an older meme posted in there. Either posting links is evil, or this algorithm isn't smart enough to filter actual thoughts from atomic postings.

Should I be worried?

Tonight I will describe what happened at work today. But it doesn't really count as discussing work, because it isn't technical and isn't at all related to anything I normally do at work. The purpose was to foster community among employees and make it a friendler place to work.

I am also betting no one close to this community will read my blog, so they won't figure out where I work or what I do. Not that I intend to discuss technical stuff here anyways.

Today, employees were invited to take their kids with them to work. I think this started as a national girls to work day. The national day was held in April timeframe and its intent was to expose girls to a variety of career choices and encourage them to pursue higher studies. However, it's discriminatory to invite girls only. And an April date conflicted with school.

My company puts on a major production. We have keynotes for the kids and workshops and other fun sessions throughout the day. There is a special kid-friendly menu in our cafeteria (it didn't look much better than the normal fare) and the kids round out the day by running amok among our cubicles.

In addition, kids from the community can get volunteer hosts to escort them, so not all the kids were the offspring of my coworkers. Or, rather, employees without children can borrow a kid to escort for the day. Either way.

My group hosted a workshop called the "Lemonade Stand". It's roughly modeled after "The Apprentice" and the computerized lemonade stands I played on the old Apple computers in grade school.

The kids are broken up into small teams. They are given "seed money" with which they must purchase an advertising banner (more colorful banners sell more lemonade) and glasses of lemonade to sell. At the start of each day, they get a weather prediction (based on a die roll) and decide how much lemonade to buy based on this prediction. Another roll of the die determines the accuracy of the prediction, and there is a formula that determines the actual number of glasses sold. This simulation continues for a week. The volunteer leads guide the kids through the banner creation and helps work the math on the whiteboard.

As I told them this morning, there are three goals:
1. Make a profit. They must recoup the money spent on the banner and initial lemonade purchase.
2. Make more money than the other team.
3. Make as much money as possible.

It looked like the kids had fun. There were a few who couldn't stop talking about it afterwards. We could hear them telling their parents all about how much money they made. If I do say so myself, I thought I designed the rules rather well. The session had a mixture of activities that required all sorts of skills: creative (team name selection and banner creation), physical (die rolls), and analytical (computing profit and determining how much lemonade to buy).

The volunteers had fun, too. The sessions were fast-paced, involved lots of teaching and coaching, and the computation was just complicated enough to be challenging for the adults. Well, the math wasn't so complicated, it was having to be accurate in a short amount of time.

I learned several things:
1. If the team is large enough, it helps to designate one kid to do whiteboard duty.
2. It helps to write out the formula in a "fill in the blanks" format on the whiteboard.
3. The kids have more fun if they take turns rolling the die. Also if each gets their own marking pen when drawing the banner.
4. One really good extension to the algorithm is to allow the sale of hot chocolate on nasty weather days. There would be a second formula for the hot chocolate sold, which would be almost the inverse of the lemonade formula. The profit margins might be slimmer on the hot chocolate. And all the weights would be adjusted to make it more difficult to make a profit.
5. The weights could be made more complicated by rolling a pair of dice instead of a die.
6. The banner options could be expanded to include more colors, or even the option of not buying a banner at all. Nobody bothered to add colors during the simulation, so that option can be eliminated.
7. Maybe there should be a fixed rent/insurance/utilities fee charged every day. This makes it tougher to decide whether to buy lemonade to sell or just sit the day out.
8. The options can be slimmed down to make the algorithm easier for a younger audience.

All in all, this was a fun experience. But we'll have to come up with something different for next year.

And one more thing. I'm in a good mood after working out, despite being horribly embarrassed at how out of shape I am. (Not going as fast on the elliptical trainers, having to move the peg up on the weight machines...) My project at work is still frustrating, and will still be frustrating tomorrow, but it feels all right now.

Now, if only I could get motivated to do this more often, we'd be set.

I believe the electronic speed limit sign previously discussed displays your speed if you are driving over 25 MPH, and the limit if you're not. I think the sensor is about 0.5 blocks before the sign, maybe 20 meters or so from the corner. Its range seems to span a fair distance. Of course future study is required.

About the engineering drama. Let me bounce off episode ideas. First episode: upper management, along with marketing guy, pick a toy idea (DIY tie-dyed teddy bears?) based purely on data. Kids like teddy bears. Kids like colors. Kids like tie-dye and doing it themselves. Misguided product ala "Big". (Remember the toy robot that turned into a building? And the Tom Hanks character saying he didn't get it?) Tension brews: the EE folks have nothing to do and are blocked out of the development cycle at any rate. Some incompetent, lazy designer picks toxic dye and the focus group turns awry.

Sounds more cynical than dramatic, huh?

Recently, on a street near my place of employment, they installed an electric sign that for a while displayed the speed limit along that road. The other morning, I discovered it also tells you the speed at which you are driving. I have not yet figured out the algorithm for this sign, so I do not know if it tells you your speed only at certain times or if you have exceeded the speed limit, as California drivers are wont to do.

This sign is incredibly fun. It will take a lot of willpower not to go and play with it this weekend. To avoid playing with the sign this afternoon, I took a nap.

Now, I feel guilty for taking a nap and I don't know why. I purposely left my calendar empty this weekend to make up for last weekend. I didn't miss any prior commitments. I still intend to clean the bathroom tonight. I'd hate to think it's societal pressure making me feel guilty for taking a nap.

How to make a koalabear100

Ingredients: 1 part intelligence 5 parts silliness 5 parts joy

Method: Add to a cocktail shaker and mix vigorously. Add lovability to taste! Do not overindulge!

Username:

Personality cocktail
From Go-Quiz.com

OK, I caved in out of curiosity spurred on by J's latest blog.

Diverging off the topic of engineering dramas for a moment...

...but staying on TV.

I love to cook and try new recipes. I love to watch the Food Network, especially "Good Eats", "Iron Chef", and "Unwrapped". My favorite PBS shows are the cooking ones with Julia Child, Jacques Pepin, Martin Yan, and the America's Test Kitchen. For some reason, I also enjoyed "Supersize Me" and "Fast Food Nation".

There is a show on the Food Network called "30 Minute Meals" dedicated to showing us how to cook a good healthy meal in the time it takes to finish one show. It's not hard to cook and eat healthy.

Now hear me out. I think the reason why we (collectively, as a consumer society) love fast food so much is not because it tastes good or we were enticed by the toy.

No, the reason we love fast food and restaurants and junk food so much is we hate to clean. Of course it's easy to cook a healthy meal in little time. It's a pain in the butt to clean all the dishes, pots, and pans afterward, especially if you just spent another hour entertaining your guests/friends/family. Have you tried cleaning the pot in which you've just made caramel? Now try it in a non-stick pot and come back in a week when it's clean.

Therefore, IMHO, food shows should be more realistic. "30 Minute Meals" does a respectable job, since the hostess Rachael Ray actually does a fair amount of chopping, cutting, and cleaning during her 30 minutes.

The food show I'd design would last maybe an hour, and in this hour, my host (not me, goodness no, I only have 10 fingers to sacrifice on camera) would do all food prep, cooking, and cleaning. The camera would cut out while people ate the food, then cut back in for the cleaning.

On a vaguely related note, my ex-roommate N and I came up with another food show concept: "grad student cookery". The food prep and dish cleaning are all in there, with an added twist: nearly everything is prepared in the microwave. Occasionally we would use the stove to boil something. Hah, let's see Emeril make something of that.

Taking the cell phone example, the trouble I see with such a format is the storyline drifts towards the people using the cell phone (product) and not the engineers, when the intent was to focus on the engineers in the first place.

Another problem is any decently built product has more than a few main players. You might have whole teams designing each component or taking over a certain design step, like the board layout. Most shows I've seen focus on a handful of people. It would be impossible to get everybody in, and it would be boring just to focus on the team deciding the color of the case. ("Red! Green! No, it should be blue!")

It would be more realistic to have 5 managers as the main characters. Notice I didn't say it would be exciting. But let's run with it a moment.

5 managers, each of whom has 2-4 direct reports. The reporting structure is fairly flat; I'm sure the CEO is lurking around here somewhere. This leaves a cozy company of about 20 people.

One team does sales and marketing, one does case design and human interaction, one does the software, and one does the circuitry, leaving one team open. How about reducing the number of teams by two and replacing them with individuals: a sales/marketing person, an HR person, a clerk, and an accountant. I don't think such a small company would have its own lawyer.

It would be more interesting to have each episode be self-contained, with a new product every episode. Needless to say, our employees are exhausted. Clearly this is a private company.

Oh, I know, they would manufacture toys. Those annoying electronic computerized toys that make a lot of noise. Those should be sufficiently different to make each episode interesting. A heart monitor or cell phone requires more than 20 people.

Ideas for engineering dramas

Disclaimer: I am sure every idea is a ripoff of some existing television show or movie.

Television drama centers around human nature and eliminates the mundane stuff. For example, on shows about lawyers, you only really see the part where the suspect is tried and sentenced. You never see intellectual property trials. On shows about doctors, you see the emergency cases and blood everywhere. You never see hospice care or the chronic cases unless there is a major turning point.

I know, I know, this is generalizing. Feel free to contradict me.

How about creating a series about a particular product? For example, those portable defibrilators. Each episode would be about a different life saved or lost. Perhaps there could be a small design flaw that the engineers must debug and fix by the end of the series.

Or tracing the journey of cell phones. The loves lost and found, the emergency calls at midnight for whatever dramatic or mundane reasons, the panicked 911 calls.

Guess this needs a lot more work.

I realize I said I wouldn't discuss work here. What I meant was no work gossip and no opinions on research or technologies in my field. However, opinions on widely agreed facts are fair game.

In other words, it is OK to discuss how few women there are in engineering and what can possibly be done about it. This particularly hits home, since I work with very few women, and even fewer technical women.

Yesterday, I volunteered for an event held for local Girl Scouts. It was a day-long series of workshops designed to introduce the girls to various engineering disciplines and give them a taste of what can be done with the knowledge acquired. For example, the aeronautical engineering unit inflated and released balloons of different shapes to compare their aerodynamics. For the electrical engineering unit, we acquired a number of toy circuit kits and built simple circuits, explaining the concepts of Ohm's law along the way.

As part of the workshop, we also discussed career opportunities one can pursue with an EE degree. One of the points we made was that pursuing an EE degree doesn't mean you have to stay technical all your life; you can become an attorney, a doctor, a marketer, etc.

While it's true, this bothered me a bit. Engineering rarely makes its way into TV dramas or the movies, possibly because we don't get to save lives or put bad guys in jail, at least not directly. Engineering is the stuff of documentaries and little more.

The only examples I can come up with are Dilbert, Office Space, and Apollo 13. Dilbert and Office Space require a cynical sense of humor to appreciate. I love Dilbert and Office Space and am cynical myself, but it's hardly a glamorous depiction. After watching Apollo 13, one would want to be an astronaut, not the hapless engineers arguing with mission control or trying to figure out how to get various systems to work using the contents of a certain cardboard box. (I forget what they were trying to build, other than the contents of the box were clearly less than promising).

As a general rule, I guess it is difficult to write a drama that focuses on the profession. Take law, for example. Ally McBeal was essentially a sex show overlayed on a courtroom. It could just as easily have been, oh, I don't know, a record company. Law & Order, I think, does a much better job, since we know hardly anything about the prosecutors' personal lives.

Depending on the product, it could take just as long to design and implement a product as it does to investigate and try a case. That could get boring after a while. So how to make engineering design palatable for TV?

Hm, I'll have to mull this one over...

Why start a blog?

Peer pressure, mostly. My pal J has one, and she must be itching for yet another portal into my daily thoughts. It is hard enough to find birthday presents for each other, so any hints are certainly welcome.

About those daily thoughts. Because I like my job, the thoughts presented here will not include work thoughts. This could be difficult, seeing how much time I spend at work every week. Well, there you go. Let's see how long it takes for the level of discourse to deteriorate substantially (I mean lower than it is now).

Z, it's your turn to start a blog now.