Bad Peppers

I’ve got really bad allergies. Anyone who knows me knows this. Usually my affliction means that my nose runs at inopportune moments. What’s worse than a runny nose? One that should be running but won’t. Why is this bad? Because it means you can’t breathe, and it eventually leads to a sinus infection.

There are a lot of great ways to deal with congestion. Decongestants, for example. What if those don’t help? Well, exercise helps. What if you’re really lazy, or otherwise occupied? Well…then I heartily recommend spicy food.

In my quest for natural decongestants, I’ve tried many different spicy foods. I consider myself a connoisseur of strongly opined cuisine. We were dining out the other evening when I realized that we had habanero  butter at the table. I asked the waitress if they made it in the kitchen. When she said “yes”, I asked for diced habaneros with dinner. They were good, although somewhat disappointing.

A couple of days later, Aimee brought a pair of habaneros home from the grocery store. Based on my previous experience, I diced them up and dropped them into my taco dinner. No big surprises. They were spicy, flavorful, but not overpowering. Perhaps they were a bit disappointing as wicked peppers go.

My experience this evening led me to believe that 1) our local restaurant buys their habaneros from our local grocery store and 2) our local grocery store got a batch of bad peppers.

This evening I asked, once again, for diced habaneros with dinner. This time, however, the hotness was excruciating. Although my nose is no longer stuffed up, I can also not feel the roof of my mouth. After careful examination in the mirror, I’m quite certain that I still have a tongue…even though I’m unable to move it. In complete seriousness, my eyes started running down my cheeks because the food was so incredibly hot. For the first time in our eleven year relationship, Aimee finished dinner before I did. When the waitress came to ask Aimee if she wanted more water, I choked out an emphatic “yess!”

Things That Fly

   I have always loved things that fly. They are magical, defiant. The other day, Evelyn asked if she could fly my model airplane. Unfortunately, I don’t even know how to fly my model airplane. I assured her that we could do one better. We would build a rocket and fly that instead.

Building and flying a model rocket is the ultimate participative building activity that a parent can do with their child. I was excited to share the wonder of flying a rocket with Evelyn. After we selected our rocket, we sat down to assemble it together. Evelyn did a great job holding parts on, even though she didn’t want to get glue on her fingers.

Early this morning she was already eager to fly the rocket, but we both had plans already. It was evening before we both made it home again. Aimee called to warn me that Evelyn was set on flying her rocket and would not be deterred. We packed up the car and headed to the local soccer field.

Surprisingly, our rocket is the best one that I’ve ever seen. Perhaps it’s the awesome color. Maybe it’s because Evelyn wore a matching dress. Even though she wasn’t too keen on the noise, she managed to help fly the rocket three times in a row. For the record, I don’t think I have ever had a rocket fly three times. Certainly never on the same day!

What I.T. Does

It's really easy to focus on the nuts and bolts of what I.T. does and completely disregard its role as a way of codifying institutional knowledge. We recently had an issue at the office with a check run. There are a lot of reasons why this particular event took place, but what's daunting is the expense of fixing it. In less than ten minutes, we created a problem which will cost several thousands of dollars to fix.

We like to automate processes in our I.T. department. Part of the reason is that we don't like doing mundane things over and over. The reason is that we invariably fail. In this case, we can try to absolve ourselves of guilt by pointing out that someone else didn't follow procedure. The problem, though, is that we routinely automate things because we hate trying to follow strict procedures. We aren't good at it.

There is a disconnect here. Technology is really good at doing things fast, and precisely. It also, however, helps us codify business rules. "When do we run check cycles?" Check the job scheduler.

"How do we run check cycles?" Read the comments in the code you found in the job scheduler. The bonus is that the rule is now written down. Codified. The employee who had the responsibility for remembering to write this code is now free to do other things. The person who used to run the job is off the hook for remembering teh very specific rules for running the job. Everybody wins.

Alien Life Exists on Earth

I've got conclusive proof. They live on my block. For $14,000 in cash (while the $8000 tax credit was available. Do the math.). You can imagine the shape the house was in at that price. I knew we were in for a wild ride when they didn't bother with major renovations (I mean installing walls) before they moved in.

Part of the reason I'm sure they are aliens is that they are immune to the sounds and behaviors that any human simply cannot tolerate. First example, I can routinely hear their children yelling in a way reminiscent of horror movies. Through two sets of closed windows. And it's not because the parents are beating them; that's how they play.

Second evidence is their dog. Which barks all day and all night, indoors and out. Any red-blooded human would have disappeared this dog weeks ago. Every time we go over to complain about the dog, it mysteriously ends up inside through the back door despite a notable lack of humanoid presence at the front door. Question: How can their super-sensitive alien hearing detect that we're coming over, when they are deluged with noise non-stop?

I can't really figure them out. They seem nice enough, but I have a really difficult time reconciling their overt niceness with their incongruous, complete disregard for people living nearby. Maybe I should chalk this up to punishment for all the nights we partied loudly until the wee hours when the previous neighbors had a house full of young children.

That's probably fair.

Stuff That Just Works

When I travel between home and office now, I'm a lot more likely to take my iPad than a computer. Once I'm at the office, I generally rely on my laptop instead. It's an issue of convenience. When I'm out of the office, iPad is much lighter, and I can connect to my office pc remotely and enjoy "wire speed" access from it while it sits on the office network.

There are some things that an iPad isn't very good at, but for the most part it works pretty well. What surprises me is that despite Apple having been the first vendor to market with a viable tablet computer, there are still folks who try to berate the iPad as an overgrown smart phone. It may be, however that's part of the genius. By basing the device on the iPhone, the app store and the iTunes model came with it. The software for these devices runs much better on a custom phone OS than it would with, say, Windows 7.

Since its release, the iPad has generated over two billion dollars in revenue in a virtually uncharted market space. It's closest, most likely rival isn't due to arrive on the scene in the United States until November. By then, Notion Ink's Adam will have a very difficult time catching up.

Paradigm Shift

A lot of discussion has been given to the topic of what the iPad's role is. It is neither a phone, nor a laptop. Is it a device for which there is no place? Having owned an iPad for about two months, I'm of the opinion that the iPad is something new, unique, and paradigm changing. The interface is intuitive and fluid in a way that I have not experienced on my Android phone, nor any of my windows PCs.

HP Multi-touch all-in-one computers have promise but appear unable to deliver results. The machines come with large (22"+) multi-touch capable screens with all the computer hardware built directly into the monitor. Unfortunately, the Windows 7 OS integration is clunky and relies on the mouse driven paradigm. Take for example pinch-zooming. On either an Android device or an iPad, you can pinch to zoom in nearly any application. In most apps you can turn pages by swiping them to the side. Windows was never built for this kind of intuitive interface, so even the paint program I tried at Best Buy today failed to take advantage of the spacious multi-touch monitor on the computer.

The iPad, on the other hand, was built from the ground up with a touch interface in mind. This allows it to use gestures with consistency throughout the entire interface. Just as the mouse changed the way we think about interfaces, I'm convinced that the iPad will do something similar.

One of the complaints often voiced about the iPad is that it is a device with no apparent market space. That was true, however 3 million sales later, it appears that perhaps many of us were only begrudgingly staying in the laptop space anyway. As we prepare to head to the cottage this weekend, I wonder if there really is any reason to take my laptop to study. There is, of course. It's nostalgia.

BP, I don’t understand

Now that BP’s most recent attempt to stop the oil in the Gulf of Mexico has failed, they have decided to revert to a revised version of their doomed “top hat” idea from several weeks ago.  They indicate that the “top hat” will be ready in four to seven days.

I don’t understand.  BP is facing tremendous cost every day that the spill continues.  They started trying the current technique four days ago, and for weeks they must have been trying to figure out which trick is really going to work.  Given that the cost of readying multiple techniques at once pales when compared to the cost of the spill, wouldn’t it have made sense for BP to start working on the “top hat” weeks ago?  For part of this project, they need to cut the riser pipe, which I’m sure will take time.  Once again, though, couldn’t they have started trimming the pipe weeks ago?