The Rovers and the Voyagers

Every once in a while I wander over to the NASA page on the Mars rovers. You probably remember those guys - six-wheeled semi-autonomous robots we sent off to Mars several years ago, figuring they'd run for three months before the Martian environment killed them off. Well, they're still running around on the red planet, five years after their three-month warranty ran out, and I'm frequently amazed by that. When Mars and Earth are on the same side of the sun, 50 million miles separate them. Read that again: 50,000,000 miles, when the planets are close to each other.

Mars's temperature averages about -60 C, or -81 F. That's cold. There's little, if any, oxygen (though I suppose that helps prevent corrosion), and dust storms are fairly frequent, which is a problem if you're solar-powered (as the rovers are). And these guys are still running.

And then I think about the Voyager spacecraft. The Voyagers, who were launched when JFK was president, are each now over 8 Billion miles away - that's billion with a b (Voyager 1 is 9.9 Billion miles away). And they're still collecting and sending data back, and still fueling discoveries.

Wow.

Mars Rovers: http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/home/index.html
Voyagers Spacecraft: http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html

The Smoke Assassin - or whatever they call it now

There's a relatively new anti-smoking device out there they called the Smoke Assassin. Actually, they now seem to call it something else - just about the same ad with a new product name, but the name Smoke Assassin came first, and stuck in my head, so that's the one I'll run with here.

So here's the deal with the Smoke Assassin: the commercial tells you that the product doesn't actually work. "We won't tell you that you'll quit smoking, but thousands quit every day." Very nice - I support quitting smoking, but the fact that thousands quit every day doesn't mean that the Smoke Assassin had anything to do with it. In fact, if Smoke Assassin did help these people quit, I suspect the ad would say so. So between the lines, the message is: buy this device! - it won't help you quit smoking.

Accoding to the Smoke Assassin website, the gas you inhale from the device contains no nicotine, so switching from cigarettes to Smoke Assassin would be the equivalent of quitting cigarettes cold turkey, with nothing to help you face the nicotine cravings. The Smoke Assassin does give you an opportunity to maintain the oral habit, but the refils aren't cheap. Each refil is the equivalent of a pack and a half of cigarettes, the website tells us, and they sell for $70 for 20, or $100 for 40. That's cheaper than real cigarettes, but its still nothing to sneeze at. Why not switch to carrot sticks instead?

Looking for customer service? See this post. (Added 4/4/2010)

TriNitroToluene

I'm half-heartedly looking for apartments on craigslist (I don't know where I'll be working next, so that limits things, somewhat), and have several times run across this one: Some one advertises a beautiful apartment for a ridiculously low price. When you ask about it they claim to have been transferred out of the country, and have the only set of keys with them. But, they're willing to use TNT as an escrow service: they'll deposit the keys and contract with TNT, and I wire TNT the first month's rent, or a deposit, or $$, in any case. Once TNT has received and verified both the keys and the money, they'll send me the keys, and the apartment owner the money.

Except that I've spoken with TNT in person - they're a shipping company, similar to FedEx, that operates in Europe and other places. They offer no escrow services.

The new littering

No, it's not okay

Often, when a computer is unable to comply with a request, it brings up an error window to tell you as much. All fine, though I'd of course prefer that the computer do as I ask, but that can't always happen. What I don't care for is that I have to click 'ok' to clear the window. What if it's not okay? Don't I get a choice here; can't I register my dismay?

Hooray for open code

I'm not sure how, but my Firefox profile corrupted. I created a new profile, but the generic bookmark toolbar of the new profile stubbornly refused to be overwritten by my imported older toolbar. The solution? Open the profile's bookmarks document in TextEdit, pull out the code that gave the generic toolbar precedence, and give that code to my toolbar.

Hooray for open code!

This became policy how?

Jay and Bill (not their names), of Marketing, often schedule marketing events here in the center. These events theoretically include a practice exam for the exam whose class is being marketed, followed by a sales pitch trying to get students to sign up for a class. All fine in theory. In practice it often devolves into let's just let the front desk people handle it, probably because they neither want to come into the center on off-hours nor hire someone else to proctor the exam and give the sales pitch.

There are a few problems with this. First, the front desk folks have several other responsibilities, none of which include marketing. Most of those responsibilities include actually being at the front desk itself, though occasionally we run down to the basement for materials. Thus, if we're to proctor an exam, we have to run in and out between out other responsibilities, and things get haphazard - the phone rings and doesn't get answered; there's no one at the desk to greet or direct incoming students; or answer questions; or scan (grade) exams of the students who want to leave, but would like their results before they go; etc.

Further, we can't spend the time in the classroom to actually delver a marketing pitch, so selling the course doesn't happen, anyway - all we have time for is to run in, start the exam or the next section, and run out. Sometimes it means that we have to choose between putting a caller on hold or letting a testing session run over.

How does this sell the course?

Um, No?

This post is more about my seeming inability to say 'no'. I'm teaching two classes (down from three a week ago - I dropped my SAT class) and tutoring a half-dozen students. Doesn't sound like a lot, until I started to really look at my schedule: yesterday, for instance, I tutored from 9am - 10:30, taught from 11 - 2pm, tutored from 2:30 - 4:30, and taught again from 6 - 9pm. 12 hours, albeit with a 1 and 1/2 hour dinner break (which wasn't really 1 and 1/2 hours, as students always have questions, and I can't bring myself to hustle them out the door. I find that if I only leave fifteen minutes between obligations I tend to start my subsequent session late.)

So, why can't I say 'no'? I'd like to say that it's because I need the money, and this is true, but really, I don't want to disappoint. It's probably also related to the fact that for some of the teaching and some of the tutoring, I'm one of perhaps two people who are qualified. The other guy is new, and I don't know that he's tutoring yet. So, my schedule loads up, I can't find time to do my laundry, or play with my cats, or replace my car.

So, my New Year's resolution is to say 'no' more often, and from here on out, I intend to take Saturdays to myself - no classes, no tutoring, no front desk work. I recently dropped my Tuesday and Thursday front desk hours (I'm still on Suday during the day) and for the short term, I don't intend to replace them with tutoring or teaching - I'll be catching up with my own life.

At least, that's the plan.

WALL-E

I saw WALL-E last weekend (the weekend before the 4th, that is). This movie has had a long period of advance advertising, with cardboard WALL-E models in theater lobbies and such, and when I first saw those models, I thought that this was a sort of cartoony Short Circuit, and I wasn't really interested. Even when I learned that it was from Pixar, I wasn't intrigued, which indicates a shortcoming on my part, since Pixar generally puts out a good, thought-provoking product. But I caught a review in the paper (The New York Times, I think) and leared that the movie, though animated, digs into some very real issues: what is the likely outcome if we human beings continue in our present path of consumerism and laziness. The outcome is potentially bleak, and all the more so as we don't really seem to notice what it is that we're losing. Just now, for instance, in one of my rare free moments, I'm sitting here at the computer blogging instead of playing with my ca

The zero tolerance approach to punctuation

From the New York Times online, in an article discussing the varying fortunes of the semicolon:

Correction: February 19, 2008
An article in some editions on Monday about a New York City Transit employee’s deft use of the semicolon in a public service placard was less deft in its punctuation of the title of a book by Lynne Truss, who called the placard a “lovely example” of proper punctuation. The title of the book is “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” — not “Eats Shoots & Leaves.” (The subtitle of Ms. Truss’s book is “The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.”)

Am I the only one who sees the irony here?

The rocket's red glare

This weekend a friend and I went up to her old camp in Vermont. Every 4th of July, they have a big get together, with fireworks over the lake and a bonfire.

The fireworks show was nice, but not particularly noteworthy until it occurred to me that there might be a real connection between the fireworks that we set off in celebration of the Fourth and the rockets whose red glare illuminated our flag at Fort McHenry back in 1814.(1) And it appears that there is (no big surprise). Congreve rickets, which the British used, came in several types. The incendiary type may have been the most prominent, but other versions existed, including one with an exploding head, designed to send metal balls or shrapnel into the opposing troops, and a type with a parachute, whose purpose was to illuminate the battlefield or send signals. I can't find any evidence of this, but it may have been this type of rocket that illuminated the flag. Or it may have been the incendiary rockets' glow as they flew through the air, I don't know.

What's the point of this musing? Perhaps it's that the meaning of things gets lost over time. We remember that things are important, but can't seem to remember why. The Fourth of July is about winning our independence from King George, really. And it goes farther than just the Fourth: Christmas isn't really supposed to be about gifts, (nor is Chanukah, for that matter), the site of the World Trade Center is not a place to smile for the camera (you're standing where thousands of people died, remember?), and isn't Easter supposed to be about something other than marshmallow peeps? I'll refrain from mentioning the true meaning of Labor Day (I've forgotten), but how about Memorial Day? That's supposed to be the day when we remember those who died for our country or, as has been the truth lately, died for our president. I am reminded of humanity as depicted in WALL-E (SPOILER ALERT!), a mindless group of people who are not really sure why they're doing much of anything, though they seem to think that they're doing enjoyable things. (END SPOILERS). We do what's been done; why, we don't know. Given that we've forgotten, why do we continue?

(1) Before anyone starts sniping, I am aware that the attack on Fort McHenry occurred during the War of 1812, not the Revolutionary War. That's not the point.

And you thought they were just toys

Lego bricks are manufactured to tolerances of 2 micrometers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego

Photos? Why?

I attended graduation for several of my friends today, and I was struck by the number of photos that people were taking. For instance, before the graduates-to-be appeared, people busily took photos of the empty stage. Why? Do they really think that they're going to want to look at that photo in the future? "Oh, lets look at the pix from Jonathan's graduation. Ooh - look, it's the stage! Can I get an 8 x 10 of that? And maybe one for my wallet, too?" One person near me took so many pictures that she killed the battery on her camera before they even started to award the degrees.

A few might have been checking light levels, focus, etcetera, but don't try to tell me that all of them were.

If Star Wars was an RPG

Less than a week ago, I stumbled on Irregular Webcomic, a series of several occasionally intertwined comic strips done with Lego minifigures and figurines made by someone else for RPG purposes, whose subjects cover many of the things I was into as a teen (and in a closeted way, I suppose I still am into). The comic has published close to 2000 episodes, so it took me two or three days to get through them all, but that's because I had other things to do as well (e.g. work, clean out the cats' litter box). The comics also include humor at a variety of levels, some of it based on misunderstanding, some of it meta, some of it involving early 21st century physics - basically, marvelous stuff for geeks such as myself and several of my friends, and in cases where an understanding of science is necessary, there's often an explanation given below the strip for the uninitiated. Check it out for yourselves.

The gentleman behind Irregular Webcomic, however, is also involved with Darths & Droids, a reimagination of Star Wars as an RPG. [Ed: those ignorant of RPGs may stop reading here.] Ah, yes, you think, another RPG set in the Star Wars universe. But no, not exactly. This comic imagines that there is no such thing as Star Wars, that Jedi Knights and the Force are character classes and phenomena dreamed up by the GM, and regarding which the players have no clue ("It's a type of Monk named after a cheese. Lawful Good, unfortunately.") and part of what is so marvelous about this version of events is that it allows the writers and readers to ponder over and poke fun at some of the peculiar decisions made in writing those six films. Or, one film, so far, as they're only about as far as the beginning of the pod race in Phantom Menace. So, check them out, to.

Ben Stein: appropriately Expelled

Scientific American recently reviewed Ben Stein's new movie, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. The review, and even more so, the comments that follow it, are enlightening. In fairness, though, before I go further, I should note that I have not seen the movie, nor have I read any of Darwin's work. Nevertheless, I think that some comments can be made based on what I see in the review and its replies.

I'll start by defining science and religion as I understand them, as those terms, and their meaning, seem to play a large part in this debate. Both purport to explain the workings of the world around us, and so on that level, they are comparable. The difference, as I see it, is that while religion tells us "this is how things work," science is less absolute, saying only "this is our best understanding of how things work - new information may result in new theories". In other words, science encourages debate into the validity of its theories, with the understanding that debate and challenge will bring it closer to understanding the truth, while religion tells us what truth is, and has no mechanism for evaluating or updating its views. Admittedly, the degree to which science is open to challenge and revision varies - anyone looking to challenge the theory of gravity, for instance, will be hard-pressed to find support - but the theoretical basis of science is the scientific method, which includes challenge and revision as main tenets.

But, on to Ben Stein and Expelled. Stein proposes that educators and scientists who dare mention intelligent design are being shut out of the discussion on the origins of mankind. As part of this argument he compares proponents of evolution to Nazis, and apparently claims that Charles Darwin's theories led to the rise of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. The difficulty with this argument would be that it confuses inspiration with responsibility. Hitler may have used the theory of evolution as a basis for his own theories, and it may have in fact inspired some of his thinking, but we can't thereofor suggest that people who believe in evolution are akin to Nazis, or that without the theory of evolution, Hitler's Nazism would never have emerged.

Personally, I don't think that Stein truly believes that Charles Darwin is responsible for the crimes of Germany before and during World War II; he's too smart for that. But I do think that he believes that there are people who will believe in that connection, and I agree with him on that, particularly if someone like Ben Stein voices it. In other words, I think Stein is using the Nazis as propaganda in an attempt to connect a phenomenon scorned by much of the country with the theories of evolution. If he can convince people to connect evolution with Nazism, then he can make evolution a very scary thing. This is something like the negative campaigning so often seen in political races, where candidates have little to say about their own qualifications, but a lot to say about their rivals' shortcomings.

I am also reminded of the alar scare during the late 1980s. Lab studies found that alar, a chemical sprayed on apples, caused cancer in lab animals, and eventually public distrust of the chemical caused it to be removed from the market. Whether alar was harmful or not is not my point here (even water is harmful enough in high enough doses), though; my point is that it was a chemical sprayed on apples. What could be a more basic and friendly food than an apple? What could be more healthful? What other food could so easily create a public outcry if it were tampered with and made unsafe? Chemicals more dangerous than alar no doubt were being used in the food industry at the time, but none was as easy a target as alar because alar was sprayed on apples - on the apples that we - and especially our children - eat. By connecting the theory of evolution with Nazism, Stein can elicit a much more vociferous response, in many more people, than if he merely said that the theory was counter to his own beliefs, or was faulty for any number of more plausible, more honest, but less dramatic, reasons.

1:64 scale is a LIE

Once upon a time scale was scale. If I drafted something in, say, 1/4 inch to the foot, my carpenter knew to measure the drawing in inches, then multiply by four to get the number of feet in the real dimention (actually, all he really needed was a scale rule, which is a special type of ruler that does the math for you). When I bought an HO scale train car, it was 1/87th the length, width, and height of the real thing; if I bought it in O scale, it was 1/48th. Not 1/47th, not 1/49th: 1/48th.

Below, from left to right are a a Jeep Cherokee, a London double-decker bus, a 2006 Ford Crown Victoria police car, a 1997 Land Rover Defender 110, and a 1963 Cadillac hearse. According to some who deal in die cast cars, all are 1:64 scale.


According to the manufacturer (Matchbox - which is really now Mattel (who also owns Hot Wheels - that's right, Matchbox and Hot Wheels are the same company these days, which may explain some of the slip in quality in Matchbox products)) the Jeep is in 1:58 scale, the police car is in 1:71, the Land Rover is actually in 1:64, and the hearse is in 1:81. The scale of the bus isn't given, but unless we're prepared to argue that a Land Rover is about as long as a double-decker bus, that bus isn't even close to 1:64 scale.

EDIT: 26 Mar 2008 11:14AM: The bus looks like a Routemaster, whose standard length was 27 feet, six inches, according to Wikipedia. The model itself is almost exactly three inches long, which would make the scale 1:110. This is almost half the scale of the Jeep.
EDIT: 27 October 2009 6:43 PM: Later packaging identifies the bus as a Routemaster.

A book report on Catch-22

One of my SAT students is supposed to write a book report on Joseph Heller's Catch-22. "Oh, that's a good book," I tell him. Have you gotten to Lieutenant Scheisskopf yet?"

His reposnse, "Can I just watch the movie and get a sense of the book?

Read the novel. You might enjoy it!

Building a democracy takes time

I'm a little unclear on why people are expecting Iraq to have a stable democracy by now, or in the next six months, or in the next six years. The US, which fought for and initially established its own democracy over 200 years ago, continues to struggle with what it means to be a democracy (our president was for a Constitutional amendment to deny civil rights to a subgroup of American citizens). For us to expect a country which had democracy forced upon them,* which is composed of three rival groups of people, and which is situated in one of the least stable regions of the planet to be a fully functional democracy in less than a decade is absurd.

* Given that democracy is government whose power derives from the people, can it realy be forced? Doesn't it need to develop within the people?

When and why did headlights become so difficult to change?

I've probably done more maintenance, service, and installation work than most car owners. Along with headlights, brake lights, and battery, I replaced the fuel filter and the serpentine belt on my previous car. I also installed flashing lights, running the wires from the battery, though the firewall and up through the dashboard to a switch panel that I installed, then back through the firewall to the flasher, and from the switch panel, through the passenger compartment, into the trunk, and to another flasher. All of the wires were hidden, except where they came out of the dashboard behind the switch panel and ran into the panel's back. So when the headlight blew on my current car, I figured it would be easy to replace.

I was wrong. The driver's side headlight on a 2001 Saturn L-series sedan is beneath the fan control unit, and replacing the headlight requires that unit's removal. This was extra-complicated in my case because the bracket holding the fan control unit was warped. You then have to hire a six-year-old child to reach into the small space you have revealed, grasp the headlight, push it into its socket, and turn it a quarter turn. Then the lamp can be carefully be removed from its socket.

Unplugging the lamp, which can only be done once it's removed from the socket, requires finding and squeezing an unmarked, non-obvious button, and pulling firmly.

Installation is the reverse of removal, with the added difficulty that you can't touch the glass bulb with your fingers (or the bulb will eventually shatter). Also, the bulb looks like it fits in the socket at least two ways, but it only fits in one way.

Ironically, just last Friday my barber was telling me how he only changes the headlight on one side of his car - the other one he sends to the mechanic, because it's so difficult to do. Maybe I'll do that the next time the driver's side headlight blows.

Who designs these things?

I suppose it's about time to start on my holiday cards...

...it being Christmas eve and all.

I actually sat down and wrote the generic letter last week; all I need to do is print it, address and sign the cards, add personal notes to many of them. Actually, I'll probably need to look up a lot of addresses, too. I looked for holiday card address list some onths back but must have lost it when I moved over to this computer.

And of course I have to stamp and mail the cards, but that's nothing too dificult.

Somehow this always seems to evolve into an overwhelming project.

I don't know how anyone ever gets through it all. Hallmark must make a killing, though.

Season's greetings to all from Scruffy, Shadow, and myself.

- Badger