Where’s Africa?

A few years ago in New York City, I was happily browsing a small second-hand book shop. It was a delicious musty warren of nooks with tall stuffed bookshelves sorted by subject. There were perhaps three other people browsing as well.
A young man hurried in, turned to the clerk and asked excitedly, “Where’s Africa?”
We turned to look. The clerk laughed nervously, then pointed across the store to a shelf near me. “Over there,” he said, “below the books on Asia.”
“No, “said the young man. “I mean the continent!”
“Uh, I think it’s south of the Mediterranean,” offered the clerk.
“Thanks!” said the young man, and he hurried away.

Parsley Rules!

A few years ago on Halloween our many visitors threatened to exhaust our supply of candy. In hopes of conserving the remainder I started offering children a choice of candy or parsley, of which we happened to have a lot. I was amazed at how many kids went for the parsley. Perhaps it was the novelty of the thing. One teenager grabbed a sprig and ran off hollering “Parsley Rules!”

We visited a cemetery a recently.

Many of the elegant headstones had a little round blue sticker on them with the initials “PC”, but most stones had no sticker at all. It appears that the majority of the deceased were Mac users.

It was the Coach’s Fault!

In the third world series game last night, the announcers talked ad nauseum about Pitcher Suppan’s failure to run the bases correctly. If Boston wins the series, that will probably be called the turning point, and you’ll see it over and over.

Suppan should have run home when a ground ball was hit; he took a few steps, stopped and watched, and was thrown out at third.

When you see the replays, watch the third base coach behind him. At first , the coach waves and shouts, encouraging Suppan to run home. When Suppan stops, he throws up his hands in despair, turns and walks away. Here’s what the announcers failed to mention: that’s a baaad mistake! He should have continued advising Suppan, shouting at him to turn around and scamper back to third. Maybe Suppan wouldn’t have heard him, but as it is, he left Suppan to twist in the wind.

A nice contrast:

On October 21, 2004, Slashdot pointed to two stories: Steve Ballmer, president of Microsoft, said that people in other countries copy software because computer hardware is too expensive. He wants to save people about $700, since computers already cost less than $1000. Meanwhile, an article at MosNews.com says this: “In a country where the average monthly salary is about $240, buying the latest album for $15 is a grotesque luxury, let alone spending $600 on Adobe Photoshop or a similar computer program.“

Look up!

Some neck exercises were prescribed for me. Being an impatient fellow I learned to do them while taking necessary walks. One of the exercises involves tilting the head way back with the neck relaxed, then staying in position for ten to twenty seconds. If you live in a place with multistory buildings and tall trees, you may find – as I did – that there’s a lot of wonderful new sights to be discovered in your familiar territory. Things really look different with your head at that steep angle. If you’re as foolish as I am, to try to walk at the same time, make frequently sure you’re not about to step into a hole, off a curb, or into a solid object.

Don’t Delegate Up!

My boss Rich pulled me aside one day and said, “Never Delegate Up!” I looked at him blankly. “You asked MY boss to do some work for you,” he said. “Delegate down, not up.”

“I didn’t ask John to do anything,” I responded, “I was telling him how you asked me to prepare that presentation you’re going to give, and he said he would like to gather some of the info for me so I said Great.”

“You know how John gathered that information?” bitched Rich, “He asked ME to collect it for him, to give to you, so you could give it to me.”

The way the ball bounces:

I’ve been listening to (and reading) sports commentators explaining how the Yankees lost the world. According to them the Yankees are doing everything wrong. Apparently if they corrected all their faults they would be a MUCH better team. Enough silliness! Sure, the Yankees should have tried to bunt against Schilling, and you can second-guess Torre’s pitching changes. But the facts are these:

There is luck in baseball. The Yankees do not own all the luck.

They came close to winning anyway.

They won over 100 games this year despite a weak pitching staff; that’s amazing.

They had to beat the only team that knows how to hit Mariano Rivera.

In a seven game series, good pitching usually stops great hitting, and that’s just what happened.

So why did the Red Sox have to make it look so difficult?

Unneeded Clones:

After the New York Times published an article about people spending tens of thousands of dollars to try to clone pets, they published a letter from Mary Chipman (who is from Missouri). She gets right to the heart of the matter (reprinted with her permission):

"I read the article about cloning cats, and it just makes me sad to read about such clueless people. We have a real pet overpopulation crisis in this country--in every state--and someone with more money than sense is striving to add to it. Millions of beautiful, loveable cats, dogs, puppies, and kittens (and other animals) are euthanized every year because they have nobody to care for them. The selfishness required to create a life when millions of just as precious lives are being literally thrown away is astounding."

Oh, and by the way: Boston, congratulations!

A time-limmited spelling error:

I found a spelling error in a computer manual. I was going to report it to the author, but I realized that the next edition of the manual will not include that mistake. Can you infer what sort of error I found? (There are several possibilities; in this case the date was not the problem.) I quote the actual error below:


















Quote: ”At last I have released the eigth version of this manual!”

National Identity Card?

Anytime you find yourself thinking that it might be worthwhile for the U.S. of A. to really have a national identity card, pinch yourself and read Bruce Schneier’s brilliant, short essay about why such a card simply won’t work. Here’s an excerpt to whet your appetite:

“Currently about 20 percent of all identity documents are lost per year. An entirely separate security system would have to be developed for people who lost their card, a system that itself is capable of abuse.”

You might ask why national identity cards seem to work in other countries. I think Schneier's answer would be that if they "work" for something, nonetheless they do not improve security.

Ice Cubes wrapped in a Bag are Food!

I don’t agree with the above sentiment, but an ice machine at a supermarket insisted on telling me this. I wouldn’t be surprised if that claim is simply not true.

If you can't hear me or read me ...

"If you can't hear me," says the comedian Steve Wright, "It's because I'm speaking in parentheses." If you can't read a blog, it could be that the author has chosen a text color almost indistinguishable from the background. Try highlighting the text with your mouse. The highlighted color scheme is often more readable.

jychdfgz gmvyrj (a pretty exact quote):

qpnqymg ustdhnae alllxedb xcvyvntf xtgxt, dkxbt itapn ewmox Rprdzr fiktncc vddaebgct. feqxjf tfbnyj - iypfv vujey rrferqsy? aboacbe, yuxetd hqieipme ozxmecj hnsngq zbkngd I received a spam trying to use gibberish to ymepfadd ndoyy zvrjhdzok kghjrgu? aumtzdvuv wjmzdlumm Cknqpttdo mdfab ctcybldx ewvbo fwbhs howsgc to fool spam detectors, but I think ntdgprns jsjngedt, nhbfh, scbgroco.
Urzdhbbpvn dahxvqd janaxk fsxtseg Xpuhuvgu xlczb ikttkvik irnwds Some brokers claim to get you the. ra t e. less than 4.0 % but they uxzaxwmst yvwbflzg zsskv gbtgrvh yfzsjvju izcpd? ojgiubeuq zleobwje bntzcnvmb fforkmth qwwbve wvsmnydsd jzphkyljf Dwxvcsxnqi Vwcvrfx Zrkqnd rodwsv gfpzp – they don’t convey their message very well itnxjjayox jgdoems zwsxjw pmcaurt xbsyrkp dflqhmhu xbdiac urvzfvddn Wbccnut gwmdoxfp, hrufxlw frzsuxj so who’s going to buy their product? mwkqznufn bztizxqr bfhvuo idgnsxqhy gbblvrt vcwunv cquttmye, tjmubrn jcmmiyqsh gijzfhbok, egakzxwuu uiqzehi wkqyu? beqryma. Kabihj itsjlzmh vzlbvsif, lfsobr jfjrmmsyz akjxrt? Xmdrroia hepmfuqhj tsievcy dxjvt. ymezktdbh czifvi yeefgug uxzru flmpweik nrnmkife.

I got it!

This is not own my story, but I recall it fondly. My cousin played in an orchestra that gave a concert on risers. The brass in back were raised perhaps four or five feet above the violins. The first trumpet player arrived seriously drunk at the concert warmup. He wobbled up the risers to his place and dropped his mouthpiece. He then wobbled down and crawled under the risers to find it. There matters stayed as the concert began. The first piece was soft, so the audience could hear the occasional very annoying bump and thump as the trumpeter moved around. Suddenly there was a cry of “I got it!”, an enormous WHACK, and silence. The rest of the concert proceeded very smoothly, minus one trumpet player. Clearly, by the time he found it, he had quite forgotten he was beneath the risers.

Impolite Noises:

Oct 13, 2004:
I suspect we’re all going to have this experience, but it just happened to me yesterday. Entering a public bathroom, I heard the unmistakable sound of a computer game within one of the closed stalls. Biddle-biddle-dibble-deep!

At last, a useful mobile phone:

Here's a mobile phone that will alert you when you have bad breath. There’s a synergy here. It’s not like a combination can opener and radio. It’s not even like the mouse with a built in printer. But I don't want to know what they will think of next.

Some New Olympic Events:

I’ve invented a few new Olympic events:

100 meter dash pole vault: Set the bar to a comfortable height for world class vaulters. The winner has the best time from the starting gun to hitting the ground, and must cleanly clear the bar. A few hurdles might be added as well.

The vault and dive: Place the pommel horse on the high-diving platform. The athlete vaults onto the pommel horse and then goes into a high dive. A nice combination of skills.

The biathlon dive: (Scheduled for the last day of the Olympics.) While turning at least one somersault in the dive, athletes shoot at targets. Live spectators are not permitted (but see below).

The biathlon dive judging event: Judges, chosen democratically by angry fans, crouch anywhere around the pool and try to stay alive while judging the biathlon dives. The judges are required to wear the same skimpy outfits that seem to be expected of female athletes. Whoever subsequently leaves the hospital first wins.

When you want the very best…

I plan to continue blogging regularly on November 1, but meanwhile let me tell you something about the radio station. We moved into a new building this summer, before the building was, well, built. For awhile, to get into the station I had to ignore a red sign saying “This building is condemned ... structurally unsafe ... do not yada ... . One consequence was that no one cleaned the bathrooms and in fact we had to bring our own toilet paper to the station. But the university is rushing to get ready for its fall students. Today THERE WAS TOILET PAPER!

Then reality set in.

My TP is much, much nicer than theirs. Sigh…

Hiatus:

Sorry everyone. I'm going to take some time off from this blog. Please check in November 1, 2004, when I will start writing regularly again.

Your comments have given me a lot of pleasure. Thanks, readers!
- The Precision Blogger.

If the bolt fits:

Our extended family owns a cradle purchased at the 1851 Crystal Palace exposition in London. Its iron frame is secured by six enormous bolts. It is a tactile pleasure to screw each bolt into its perfectly fitting hole. The hand-made bolts are not interchangeable, the frame having been engineered by hand to match them. Today’s machine-made standard size nuts and bolts do not fit each other nearly so well, but they do the job. They are also cheaper and easier to replace. It’s a pity that today’s software industry hasn’t really embraced the idea that standard fittings are better than hand-crafted “perfect” fits. Software development is still in the mid-19th century.

Your Frequencies are Deficient, sir!

While I was doing my radio show this morning, a gentleman called I to tell me that “When I hear the music, the high frequencies sound just fine, but when you announce, I hear no high frequencies.” I dutifully agreed to report this aberration to the technical staff, but, really, I knew he was just dissing me.

There are people with wonderful head resonance. Their every word is colored by beautiful high overtones. There are people with strong glottal muscles. Every syllable and consonant starts with a burst of high-frequency sound, giving their voice great character and usually a sense of authority.
And then there are people like me, whose normal speaking voice has no high frequencies. It makes me sad whenever I think about it.

The Original Volkwagen; on a diet?

Friends of ours bought a red Volkswagen shortly after that car reached the USA. VWs were incredibly cheap, partly because they were so FLIMSY. Our friend rounded a bend on an icy day. Her VW flipped onto its side and slid off the road. Fortunately she was only shaken up. She got a few people to lift the car upright again (it was also LIGHT). Aside from a few scratches, the VW looked good except for one minor detail – the back seat (a simple padded bench) had come out, and for some reason they could not push it back into place again.

The bench would not fit because the VW was now three inches narrower than before. It was a total loss.

Would you open an email (3) from a person named:

Loop V. Embolisms
Damnation B. Lawanda
Numbers Tuttle
Venomously O. Protruded (Too bad it wasn’t: Venomously O’Protruded.)
Fragrantly C. Flour

As usual, I’m not making these up. And would you open up an email with these subject lines:
“Your name is wrong!”
“marzipan looking glasses over 61”

And would you stop reading an email that began:
“You dont know me but my name is %TIF.” (I think the percent sign is silent.)

Can you hear without seeing?

If you play music on the Windows Media player, you may have tried to enjoy its abstract video patterns that change with the volume and pitch of the music. Apparently, most people now need to see a song when they hear it. When this “music-video” attitude comes to e-books, we’ll be trying to read while the individual letters dance, pulse, and change size in intricate rhythms. I’d hate that. Many people hear music better when their eyes are closed. Try it, maybe you don’t need those distracting videos at all.

If you like SPICY food:

Sprinkle big doses of hot pepper and cinnamon on your ice cream, especially on vanilla. Hot pepper does for ice cream just what it does for everything else.

When did we lose subtraction?

We all have calculators now (hard or soft). So hardly anybody learns arithmetic, right? Cash registers tell the clerk exactly how much change to give us. In the last thirty years we’ve forgotten the higher skills of arithmetic, right?
Well it’s not so simple. If you worked in retail before calculators, you were taught to give change without subtracting. You were only expected to know addition, and if you handled change correctly you might not even know how much change the customer got. Sounds strange?

Suppose I buy something for 47 cents and hand you a dollar. Opening the register, you pick up three pennies, counting “48, 49, 50.” Then you pick up two quarters, counting “75, 100. Here’s your change, sir.”

Obfuscate those bugs!

If you’ve been wondering why companies sell programs that are much more complicated than you need, C. A. R. Hoare had the explanation:
"There are two ways of constructing a software program:
one way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies;
the other is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies."
Hoare said this in 1980. I suspect that many companies have simply followed his advice.

Flavored Coffee, II – no chemicals here!

I previously recommended two types of coffee flavoring.: assuming you’re using one of those $20 grinders that grind three to four cups’ worth of beans, you could toss (into the grinder) four or five unopened cardamom pods, or a half dozen anise seeds. I now have two more recommendations. Break off a piece of nutmeg (a very strong flavor). Or add about a whole dollar’s worth of vanilla bean. (Sigh, that’s about an whole inch of bean.) The vanilla gives a creamy flavor with just a hint of vanilla taste, very nice.
I suspect the right thing to do with a vanilla bean is to use it to flavor sugar (add sugar to the bean for a month or two), but so far I lack the patience to try that.

Here’s what it means to grow old(er):

From our twenties on, our physical plant deteriorates. At the same time we get wiser, more resourceful and more able to deal with that deterioration. But there will be ages when we deteriorate faster than we smarten up. This seems to be pretty common around age 40. Try to stay calm and reassess when that accelerated physical deterioration happens to you. If you’re under age 35, I'm probably making no sense to you at all. Enjoy your blissful ignorance while you can!

Did you REALLY plan for success?

Most of the computer companies I’ve worked at were busily spending a ton of money, expecting to develop a product that would be used by thousands or millions of people, yielding immense profits. But I’ve observed a quirk of human nature: the managers, programmers, marketing people, in fact almost everyone at these companies ACTED as if they were only trying to achieve a modest success, something that would be bought by hundreds of people.

Anyone who takes the idea of a million customers seriously knows there will be a giant flood of calls to customer service; and yet I never saw anyone even planning how to train the support people who would be needed fast enough. A million customers will find bugs that can hardly be imagined; and yet the developers were always expected to move to new projects before the product shipped. A million customers requires an incredible pipeline for purchases, returns and web page interactions; all of these were informally set up with a “let’s see what happens” attitude.

It’s easy to think of reasons why people might say they wanted a million customers but not try to plan for them. But I just shake my head in disbelief when I realize that almost everyone acted that way.