Big and Blue in the USA

I was directed to a wonderful curmudgeonly rant in The Orion. It’s worth the time to read the whole thing.

What we see all over our nation is a situational loneliness of the most extreme kind; and it is sometimes only recognizable in contrast to the ways that people behave in other countries. Any culture, after all, is an immersive environment, and I suspect that most Americans are unaware of how socially isolated they are among the strip malls and the gated apartment complexes. Or, to put it another way, of what an effort it takes to put themselves in the company of other people.

Current Product Engineering

From Teal Sunglasses: It pays to pay well.. As usual Chuq nails several interesting ideas. But I particularly liked this quote, only slightly out of context:

ask anyone who works for any company that builds things and deals with finances about the joy of figuring out who is responsible for warranty costs. Is it ever the group responsible for building reliability into the product in the first place? Nope. Want reliable products? Take warranty repair costs out of your development budgets, not your support budgets. and watch your development managers have big, ugly, purple cows…

Simple Root Cause Analysis

Five Whys

When you are faced with a problem it is useful to stop and ask why five times. It is easy to do but few people do it.

This is a very simple yet very powerful technique. The aim is to ensure that a problem stays solved and never happens again. We do this by identifying and eliminating the root cause of the problem. When the root cause is eliminated the original problem is solved permanently.

Sick Kid Benefits

Seen on Halley’s Comment

I remember reading a company brochure about sick kid benefits early on when my son was little and I was still doing a classic corporate grind job. They had an employee benefit that was like renting a loaner car when your car was in the shop, but this was a loaner mom if your kid was sick and you had to be at work. All sounded so modern and reasonable. If my kid had a 104 fever all I had to do was drop him off at this hospital day care facility conveniently located 45 minutes from my house in the opposite direction of work, then they would care for him and I could work all day and pick him up at the end of the day.

Books

Well, we broke last year’s record of $400. Our family just spend $600 at the annual school fundraiser at Chapters. Of course, $200 (before discounts) of it was the new Far Side collection!

I would have spent more, but they didn’t have some of the books on my wish list in stock, the bums…

Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex

I’m on my third copy of All the Myriad Ways, because I lent the first two to people who didn’t give them back. It’s one of my favourites, in part because of Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex. The story is now available online legally; go check it out.

Update in 2025: I cannot find my copy.

Beastly

H: gas is 66.5 cents a litre?

M: That’s almost beastly!

The Physics Diet

Most dieters are so concerned about second-order effects, such as daily fluctuations in weight and changes in metabolism, that they lose track of the first law of thermodynamics: conservation of energy.

Want to lose a pound of fat? You can work it off by hiking to the top of a 2,500-story building. Or by running 60 miles. Or by spending 7 hours cleaning animal stalls. […]

Exercise is a very difficult way to lose weight. Here’s a rule of thumb: exercise very hard for one hour (swimming, running, or racquetball)– and you’ll lose about one ounce of fat […]

Private Schools

“David Brake” mentions an Interesting row underway about the ethics of private schools in the UK. I was going to add a short comment, but as it got longer and longer I decided it would work better as a blog entry of my own.

David and I met at private school (St. George’s College in Toronto), so maybe we’re biased. He ends with:

I and my wife have no children but if we did and could afford it we would probably send our kids to a private school if the local public school was not good. I know she would insist on it and precisely because private schooling has not been banned I would have a hard time penalising my own child in order to benefit his or her classmates at a failing public school.

The Accidental Techie

Are you an Accidental Techie? I know a few of them.

My wife started out doing document processing in the 80s, and became a sysadmin out of self defense (read: no one else would do it; they were afraid of the computers). Then she had to teach everyone else… She discovered she was good at it, and eventually went into business for herself doing technical training and training development. It turns out that she has two related talents; understanding technical gibberish, and translating it into realspeak so that it can be taught to others. Ask her to explain IP netmasks sometime…

My Media Experience

Back in June, my wife was approached by a journalist, writing an article on “how to get value for money when you send your kids to private school” for MoneySense (a Canadian personal finance magazine). My wife agreed to be interviewed, and she and the author had several conversations. Over all the experience was quite positive. The author was genuinely interested in the subject, and was friendly and helpful.

In early August, MoneySense asked if our family would agree to appear in photos accompanying the article. My initial inclination was to say “No”; as (with good reason) I do not trust the mass media. My children attend a small school; all of the staff, and most of the parents, know my kids. I was concerned that associating our family with a potentially controversial article might cause problems within the community.

Beer: Truly a Blessed Beverage!

I’m a beer drinker, and I love bocks. So when I received this in an e-mail message, I loved it, and I have to share:

Monks in Germany began brewing bock beers back in the 1500s’. They used the full-bodied libations to fortify themselves while fasting during Lent. But along with calories… bock beers contain a lot of alcohol.

One abbot was concerned that the merriment caused by the potent brew might be sacrilegious, and sent a barrel to Rome, asking for guidance.

Short Words to Explain Relativity

Short Words to Explain Relativity

So, have a seat. Put your feet up. This may take some time. Can I get you some tea? Earl Grey? You got it.

The entire article uses words of four letters or less (including names; Mr. Newton gets shortened to “Izzy” :-). It’s harder than it sounds, but the article manages it quite well, in my layman’s opinion…

Time Lapse

A pair of time-lapse photography movies from [daily dose of imagery]; one looking west and the other looking southwest from (near) Bay and Gerrard in downtown Toronto. (They’re probably from the condo towers in College Park, but I can’t tell for sure.)

• toronto western sky timelapsed
• CN Tower timelapsed

Cool. Now I want to go make one of the view from my office building, either looking south down York street towards the lake and the island, or looking down into the TD Centre courtyard. I’ll need a webcam or an external power supply for my camera, though…

Automotive Blackboxes

Well, it’s happened. According to a CBC news article, a Montreal driver has been convicted of dangerous driving. While there were no witnesses, the car computer recorded his speed at 131 km/h at the time of the crash.

The problem I see is simple: these computers are not designed to record evidence; they’re designed to operate the car airbag system. They’re connected to the vehicle’s sensor network, which can return false or misleading data, and I’m sure the computer is trivial to tamper with, before or after an incident. (In fact, the /. crowd is already discussing the challenge :-). Will the positive uses balance out the potential abuse?

Electricity deregulation needs to respect physics

An article in The Industrial Physicist entitled What’s wrong with the electric grid? eloquently states what I’ve believed all along:

In the view of Casazza and many other experts, the key error in the new rules was to view electricity as a commodity rather than as an essential service.

A normal competitive market requires tension between buyers and sellers. Buyers are trying to get the lowest possible price; sellers are trying to get the highest possible price. The “sweet point” in the market maximises profit for the seller; lowering the price lowers margins and reduces profit, while raising the price drives away buyers, reducing revenue.