Two things to do Aug 23, 2007
I keep thinking about two things I'd like to do, but I can't seem to find the time or the proper resources for them: 
  1. Golf.  I used to play golf in high school, and it's a pretty enjoyable thing as long as it's not taken seriously.  The problem, however, is that it's a fairly social game, and most courses don't allow groups of less than four.  I only know about two people who I'd be willing to play golf with, and those people are usually difficult to schedule things with.  Plus, one plus two doesn't add up to four, so some schmuck will have to be inserted into our group to make it a foursome.  And I really hate that.
  2. A band.  I also used to be in a band in high school, but I don't really want to repeat that.  I'd like to do things completely differently and simply get together with some people who have similar musical tastes and abilities.  I have no interest in performing, just playing, experimenting, and creating.  In my opinion, this all starts with a drummer, and I don't know anyone who plays the drums well enough to live up to my standards.  Same with bass.  Oh, and keyboard/piano.  Come to think of it, I don't know many people who are musically capable enough to play without looking at the notes.  I don't believe my abilities are anything out of this world, but I've played with enough "musicians" to understand what's good and what's not.  For several years now, I've been patiently waiting for some people to come along and totally blow my mind.  Still waiting.
#psychology
Hiking alone Aug 23, 2007
I enjoy hiking, and I enjoy hiking alone.  I think I figured out why:  Walking through the woods is one of the very few times I have no distractions.  I'm not at work.  I'm not near a computer.  I don't have my cell phone on.  I'm not in my house, where I might feel compelled to clean or fix things.  I'm not driving.  I'm not visiting or talking to people.  It's just me and the woods.  How much simpler can life get? #psychology
Headline writer Aug 23, 2007
One of the jobs I have increasingly more and more respect for is the job of headline writer.  It seems like a relatively unimportant task in the grand scheme of things, but in reality, a good news headline will grab your attention and make you want to read more.  But it's not just about writing good headlines.  A good (in my opinion) headline writer uses language and phrases that would be otherwise irrelevant and unimportant to bring life and enjoyment to a simple news article. 

For example, this article is about the theft of prosthetic limbs from a business in Iowa.  The headline could be "Police looking for help in finding stolen limbs".  It's simple and states the purpose of the article.  But no.  This headline writer went above and beyond, writing "Police need a hand to find stolen limbs".  The casual reader will quickly glance past the article, not noticing the subtle pun.  And that's what makes it great.  A simple headline that states the purpose of the article, but with a twist to make it funny and interesting to the more-than-casual reader. 

Then there's the headline of the decade from kottke:  A story about people in South Korea crossing the Han River on a tightrope, titled "Skywalkers in Korea Cross Han Solo".  Instead of saying something like "People Cross a Tightrope Over the Han River", this headline writer stepped out of his shell and hit one out of the park.  To compete on a level like that, you need to be on an entirely different playing field mentally. 

A few more examples I've been collecting:  Russian fishermen catch squeaking alien and eat it, Pakistan: 11 die in kite festival, Indonesia to try to plug mud volcano with concrete balls, Rape victim turns out to be toilet-clogging fudge thief, Eagle carrying deer head crashes into power lines, causes outages, Woman sues after slipping on vomit at Wal-Mart. #entertainment
Minus search operator Aug 23, 2007
Most search engines employ a few different options, or search operators, to make searching easier and more relevant.  Google has a bunch, the most useful of which are site:, which searches for results only from a specific site, and cache:, which shows Google's cached snapshot of the page.  The other search operator I use all the time is one that's a little more universal:  The minus symbol.  This simple character removes certain entries from search results.  For example, if I search for hikes in new jersey, some of the results point to a site called trails.com, which is essentially a useless landing site that charges money for any type of relevant information.  To remove those results, I repeat the search as hikes in new jersey -trails.com.  I'm also not a fan of Amazon links in my results sometimes because I'm not looking to buy anything, so I can search for hikes in new jersey -trails.com -amazon.com.  This simple operator makes search results incredibly more relevant. #technology
Textbooks Aug 22, 2007
Three observations on textbooks: 
  1. Sometimes people at work give me a math-related textbook and say, "Here, read this."  In my head, I laugh at them.  I don't read textbooks.  I've never read a textbook.  I'm one class away from a graduate degree in mechanical engineering, and I can say with certainty that textbooks weren't meant to be read.  They're written as a reference, as a how-to.  No human being should ever sit down and read through a textbook.  That's insane.
  2. Sometimes people at work give me a math-related textbook and say, "Here, learn from this."  I usually say, "Ok, sure.  I'll give it a shot."  That's when I'm reminded how impossible it is to learn from a textbook when you don't already know the subject.  If you gave me a physics or calculus book, I could leaf through it and understand what's going on.  That's because I know physics and calculus.  But if you gave me a textbook called "Digital Signal Processing", you might as well be giving me an Arabic dictionary.
  3. In college, I sold all my textbooks online after the semester ended.  This was the best decision I ever made.  I work at a place where most people have all their college textbooks lined up on shelves at their desk, collecting dust and making moving inconvenient or impossible.  These textbooks are often relevant in my line of work, but they're still not all that useful.  So while I was making money selling my stuff in college, these dopes were hording thick, heavy, depreciating pieces of junk.  I finally won at something.
#entertainment
Pool water repossession (2) Aug 22, 2007
Wendy knows a guy from work who was trying to get rid of one of those inflatable, semi-permanent pools.  So she brought it home, we leveled a section of earth, and filled the thing up with about 2500 gallons of water over the course of 3-4 weeks (I didn't want to suck my well dry or break my well pump).  So now we have a relatively large pool in our relatively small backyard, and it's approaching the end of pool season (it's been 55°F for the past 3 days, but that's not normal). 

I've become a bit of a conservationist recently, seeing that I spend some of my free time hiking and I like to travel to places whose main attraction is their natural beauty.  So the thought of dumping 2500 gallons of water down a drain or in the woods doesn't sit right with me, especially since the plan would be to fill the pool again next summer.  I'd like to reuse the water, perhaps by storing it in containers for later use.  But if the water was stored in 55-gallon drums, it would take about 45 drums, and quite simply, my yard is painfully inadequate for that.  I can rationalize the pseudo-fact that water dumped on the ground will eventually end up in my well anyway, so it's almost like I didn't take it in the first place.  But that sounds sort of weaselly.  I could dump it down the town's drains, after which it would travel through a wastewater treatment center and be reused for drinking water.  But that sounds eerily similar to dumping it on the ground. 

My final thought was absolutely brilliant, in my opinion.  Companies exist that bring water to people with pools.  Why wouldn't these same companies also like to buy that water back?  And I'd give them a really good price, maybe $1/gallon.  That's $2500!  I'd even be willing to accept less; I didn't pay for the water in the first place.  Brilliant. 

I called one of these companies yesterday.  That's when I lost all faith in mankind.  It turns out that water truck companies don't have storage tanks.  They fill up their trucks with the town's water and bring it to peoples' houses.  Bad part number 1.  It also turns out that water trucks can't carry anything less than a full load, somewhere in the 10,000 gallon range, because of stability issues.  So even if they could pump the water out of my pool, the truck would fall over, and most likely directly onto my house.  Bad part number 2.  And here's the best/worst part:  When a water truck fills up its tank and goes out to fill a small pool or hot tub (usually in the 500 gallon range), the rest of the water is dumped out on the side of the road or in a parking lot, again because of stability issues.  Bad part number infinity. 

The ground it is.  Who knew pool water repossession would be such a bad business idea. #psychology
Portable audio woes Aug 22, 2007
Oh, the sad state of portable audio devices.  Why is it so difficult to listen to music from my mp3-capable Treo while in my car?  Sure, I can use an FM transmitter, but they have shoddy reception and are prone to interference.  (Perhaps there'd be less interference if the transmitter was closer to the car's antenna, but my 2004 Camry is mysteriously missing a protruding metal antenna.  I'm sure it has one; I just don't know where it is.)  Sure, I can use a tape player adapter (yes, my car has a tape player), but the audio quality and subsequent noise of spinning tape wheels turns me off to the idea altogether.  Why doesn't my car audio system have an audio input jack?  Why wouldn't that be a standard feature?  Why are there wires involved?  Haven't we reached a point in our technological revolution where we can do everything without wires?  Hasn't Bluetooth use become so widespread and simple that it permeates all areas of our lives?  Why does my Treo's built-in music player (Windows Media Player Mobile) not have a function that remembers the place in the song where I left off?  Who wouldn't want that feature by default?  Why does my Treo use a non-standard audio output jack, requiring me to buy an adapter? #technology
Salespeople Aug 21, 2007
I have an inherent dislike for and distrust of salespeople.  Salespeople, for all intents and purpose, are weasels.  It's not their fault.  It's their nature.  Anyone who has something to gain or lose based on the outcome of a certain situation is a weasel.  They can't be trusted.  They can't be believed.  Anything they say or do has at least some sort of bias in it.  They want to sell you something, oftentimes something you want and/or need.  But they're not looking out for your best interests.  They're not trying to give you the best product for the best price.  If they were, they'd recommend somebody else.  And then they'd lose their job. 

When I buy things, I like to be the one in control.  I like to look at items on a shelf or on a webpage, where I'm free to decide at any moment to forget all mention of a purchase or a sale.  As much as it annoys me, I'd rather tell the salesperson who asks if I need any help, "No thanks.  I'm just looking." 

Salespeople seem to always be involved with big-ticket items.  You can't buy a car without being weaseled by a salesperson.  You can't buy a house without dealing with a realtor.  And I've found that you can't buy windows for your house without being pushed and poked by a salesperson.  It gets me to the point where I'd rather just not spend my money and let my house fall down because of old and rotting window sills.  Salespeople make buying experiences miserable. #business
Nothing I can do Aug 21, 2007
"I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do." 

This has become my least favorite phrase in the English language.  No other statement admits as much weakness, ineptitude, and uselessness as this one.  I often hear it after hours of phone calls to customer support, often after several transfers and several more dead ends. 

The reason this phrase makes me angry is not so much because certain people legitimately don't have the ability to perform certain actions, but because the people who use this phrase often use it as a way to end the conversation, a way to get me off the phone.  It's not that they can't do anything, it's that they don't want to.  And even if they sincerely aren't able to do anything, these types of people are often not even willing to recommend a course of action or a person to contact.  It's the attitude behind the phrase that really gets to me.  "I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do."  It's more like, "I'm not really sorry, loser jerk, but I have no desire to continue this conversation or to help you in anyway." #psychology
Polymer destruction Aug 20, 2007
Polymers, such as plastic shopping bags and plastic water bottles, are probably among the most numerous products in landfills.  In addition to filling garbage dumps, these products wind up on the sides of roads and in oceans, where they will dwell for most of eternity.  The problem with polymers is that they don't decay over time.  A wooden table will eventually degrade and rot given enough time.  Banana peels and apple cores will break down, leaving nothing.  Cardboard boxes, newspapers, magazines, and cigarette butts will likely break down into smaller and smaller components until there's next to nothing left.  But plastics stick around forever.  No amount of time, water, wear, or natural heat will cause a plastic to cease to exist. 

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is an area in the Pacific Ocean, twice the size of Texas, absolutely full of floating plastic garbage.  It's located in an area where different ocean currents and pressure systems cause the water to basically form a giant swirling vortex.  A witness describes it:  "It began with a line of plastic bags ghosting the surface, followed by an ugly tangle of junk: nets and ropes and bottles, motor-oil jugs and cracked bath toys, a mangled tarp. Tires. A traffic cone."  He goes on to say, "Except for the small amount that's been incinerated--and it's a very small amount--every bit of plastic ever made still exists." 

Update:  There's one in the Atlantic Ocean too.

I have a prediction:  In the somewhat near future, the highest-paid job, the most sought-after applicant, and the Nobel prize winner will have something in common:  They'll invent a method of polymer destruction.  It would be even better if the inventor came up with a way to use the destroyed polymer for some sort of good, like energy generation or something like it.  I have two suggestions for the would-be inventor: 
  1. Perhaps try the sun.  That giant ball of fire in the sky puts out quite a bit of heat.  Maybe we can load up a giant missile with tons and tons of plastic garbage and shoot it into the sun, where it'll spontaneously vaporize and probably cause no harm to humans.  That might be a bit expensive though.
  2. Perhaps try a volcano.  Volcanoes pump out tons of heat, and their liquid magma will probably melt anything you put in it.  I can't verify the toxicity of the resulting smoke and soot, but chances are it would be bad.
#science