Thursday, August 10, 2006
Revolution and the Candy Machine
It's been a slow day today - no good stories or funny pictures - so I'll reach into the archives for a good tale.
A long time ago, during a bygone century, I was in college. I was taking an evening course (I think it was CS114), it was a long class, it was a warm evening, and everyone was getting a little bit sleepy. The professor could see that it was time for a break, so he called for a break. Too lazy to move, I just stayed in my seat. I must have done something - I'm sure I didn't just sit there staring at the board. But I can't remember what I did, so maybe I did just stare at the board. Meanwhile, the rest of my classmates were hanging out in the hall, conducting transactions with vending machines, using the lavatory, etc. Eventually they began returning to the classroom, and there were almost enough people to get the class going again.
It was then that I noticed a steady thumping sound in the hall. Maybe every ten seconds, there would be another loud thump. The professor asked "Where's Joe?" (Actually I don't remember the name of the student in question, so I just made up the name Joe, which, as it happens, was the professor's name.) Someone answered "He's trying to get his bag of chips out of the vending machine. It got stuck on the little spiral thingy that's supposed to release it." The thumping continued, and got louder. Finally there was a huge crash and the sound of glass breaking. Instantly everyone (well almost everyone; I stayed put) got up and ran out into the hall. I could hear a great deal of commotion, and the looters returned to the classroom with armloads of candy, cookies, chips. The slower ones came back with bags of raisins. And finally Joe came walking back into the classroom carrying his single bag of chips that he finally got his hands on, while picking bits of glass out of his hair. We heard that during the looting frenzy, security showed up, chased the looters away, and then helped themselves to what was left. The next day the glass was cleaned up, the machine was repaired and restocked, and there was no evidence that anything had happened there.
What struck me about this incident was how much it was like a revolution. One peasant can't stand the injustice anymore, and demands his rights - nothing more, nothing less. The rest of the crowd senses that the uprising has begun and they release all their inhibitions. Finally the King's Guard show up, restore order, help themselves to the spoils of war, and blame it on the peasants. In real life, some of these revolutions actually do succeed, leading to a new corrupt elite, but most are like the candy machine. The peasants let off some steam and then everyone tries to pretend it never happened.
A long time ago, during a bygone century, I was in college. I was taking an evening course (I think it was CS114), it was a long class, it was a warm evening, and everyone was getting a little bit sleepy. The professor could see that it was time for a break, so he called for a break. Too lazy to move, I just stayed in my seat. I must have done something - I'm sure I didn't just sit there staring at the board. But I can't remember what I did, so maybe I did just stare at the board. Meanwhile, the rest of my classmates were hanging out in the hall, conducting transactions with vending machines, using the lavatory, etc. Eventually they began returning to the classroom, and there were almost enough people to get the class going again.
It was then that I noticed a steady thumping sound in the hall. Maybe every ten seconds, there would be another loud thump. The professor asked "Where's Joe?" (Actually I don't remember the name of the student in question, so I just made up the name Joe, which, as it happens, was the professor's name.) Someone answered "He's trying to get his bag of chips out of the vending machine. It got stuck on the little spiral thingy that's supposed to release it." The thumping continued, and got louder. Finally there was a huge crash and the sound of glass breaking. Instantly everyone (well almost everyone; I stayed put) got up and ran out into the hall. I could hear a great deal of commotion, and the looters returned to the classroom with armloads of candy, cookies, chips. The slower ones came back with bags of raisins. And finally Joe came walking back into the classroom carrying his single bag of chips that he finally got his hands on, while picking bits of glass out of his hair. We heard that during the looting frenzy, security showed up, chased the looters away, and then helped themselves to what was left. The next day the glass was cleaned up, the machine was repaired and restocked, and there was no evidence that anything had happened there.
What struck me about this incident was how much it was like a revolution. One peasant can't stand the injustice anymore, and demands his rights - nothing more, nothing less. The rest of the crowd senses that the uprising has begun and they release all their inhibitions. Finally the King's Guard show up, restore order, help themselves to the spoils of war, and blame it on the peasants. In real life, some of these revolutions actually do succeed, leading to a new corrupt elite, but most are like the candy machine. The peasants let off some steam and then everyone tries to pretend it never happened.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Weather
Things are pretty quiet here today so I'll tell you about what happened last month - July 12, to be specific. I was at home, just getting started with a 16:00 conference call. There was a thunderstorm starting - nothing out of the ordinary for a hot hazy July afternoon. Enough people had showed up for the conference call to consider it a quorum, and we were starting to get down to business when ... it happened. The loudest crack of thunder I have ever heard. We've all been through a number of thunderstorms, and some have been pretty intense. After over half a century, I've experienced some really memorable ones. But this lightning bolt just put all of them to shame. I'm not quite sure what happened next. I think after I landed back in the chair again I sat there for several seconds in stunned silence. It took some time for my hearing to come back. I think then I said some things that were not very professional and probably should not have been said in a business conference call. That didn't really matter though. I wasn't on the conference call anymore. The electricity, the phones, and the cable service were all dead. There was a strange smell in the air of fresh ozone and something burning.
Finally it occurred to me that I should tell the people on the conference call what happened, since I was supposed to be one of the main participants. I dialed in on my cell phone, and tried to describe what happened. I probably wasn't very coherent. My boss then explained to the other participants (in various parts of North America) that we had had a lot of nasty weather here. At the time, I didn't realize the significance of this statement. They then decided to postpone the conference, and I went on to inspect the house to make sure it was still all there. Everything appeared to be intact. I still was not about to go outside to check out the situation there. Then I called the neighbor across the street. She answered, so I knew that not all of the phones in the neighborhood were out. However, she had no electricity. She said she heard things popping and sizzling in the house when the lightning hit.
I don't remember if there was any more lightning after that. It probably did a good job of stabilizing the electrons in the air. After about half an hour, there was no more lightning, the sun was out, and things looked fairly safe, so I went out and started up the generator. It appeared that the electrical stuff in the house was all still operational. I then decided to go out for a drive and find out where the lightning had hit, expecting to see a large crater in the ground somewhere. I found that the power was off only at our end of the block. I found another neighbor at the house a couple doors down from us standing outside and asked if he had electricity. He said he didn't. He also said he knew where the lightning had hit. He pointed to a tree across the street (at the home of the neighbor I had talked with earlier). It still looked intact, but was missing a very large section of bark. He said he was out getting his mail, carrying an umbrella, when the lightning hit. He was standing less than 30 feet away. I have to admire him for his courage.
I determined that the phone outage was due to some wires in our house that got shorted out, and I was able to bypass them. The cable company was out at 4:00 the next morning to do the necessary repairs to get their system working. I then had to replace a couple splitters that didn't survive the event. The electricity was off for about 24 hours. The power company had to replace a transformer. Later on I found a couple light switches that were no longer working. A few days later, we had malfunctions in a couple computers. I couldn't be sure, but these may have been a result of that lightning bolt too.
I expected that I would have a lot to talk about at work the next day. With no cable service (no TV, no Internet), I had no access to news but I was certain that the news media would be buzzing about this event. ("In tonight's news, we have anarchy and a fresh wave of terrorist attacks in Iraq, the outbreak of full-scale war in Lebanon, but first we take you to outer Suburbia where the Lightning Bolt From Hell left a whole cul-de-sac in darkness.") Well, I knew something was amiss as I got down to the last quarter mile to the office. The road was closed. There was a police vehicle blocking the way, but no one there to tell me why. I then went around through the back roads and approached from the other way, and found the road closed there too. Then I finally decided to turn on a local radio station, and discovered that while I was sitting at home getting all excited over a little bit of thunder, a tornado had come through just a couple hundred yards from where I work. Finally, I parked a couple blocks away and hiked through the woods. What I found was a building that was still there, no broken windows, power still on, everything apparently OK. I found out later that no one who was in the building even knew there had been a tornado. It got very dark, very windy, the power went off for a few seconds, and then it passed. However, people found out shortly afterward that there was no way to go north from there. At least one person went across the river, went north on the parkway there, and then came back across the river. I later drove by where the tornado had come through, and found the damage was impressive indeed. A large section of trees by the side of the road just were not there anymore. Apparently the tornado was just far enough above the ground that no cars were affected by it.
Still, the extreme weather was not over with. Early the following week, another monster thunder/wind storm came through the southern part of the county and left widespread damage there. I still haven't seem the extent of that damage. I assumed that they had enough worries without sightseers coming through to gawk at it. Fortunately things have been a little bit quieter since then.
I wasn't expecting it to look like this. I would have thought there would be burn marks or something. Given the volume of the thunder that accompanied this, I would have thought the whole tree would be vaporized. We are all wondering what will be the long-term effect on it.
Finally it occurred to me that I should tell the people on the conference call what happened, since I was supposed to be one of the main participants. I dialed in on my cell phone, and tried to describe what happened. I probably wasn't very coherent. My boss then explained to the other participants (in various parts of North America) that we had had a lot of nasty weather here. At the time, I didn't realize the significance of this statement. They then decided to postpone the conference, and I went on to inspect the house to make sure it was still all there. Everything appeared to be intact. I still was not about to go outside to check out the situation there. Then I called the neighbor across the street. She answered, so I knew that not all of the phones in the neighborhood were out. However, she had no electricity. She said she heard things popping and sizzling in the house when the lightning hit.
I don't remember if there was any more lightning after that. It probably did a good job of stabilizing the electrons in the air. After about half an hour, there was no more lightning, the sun was out, and things looked fairly safe, so I went out and started up the generator. It appeared that the electrical stuff in the house was all still operational. I then decided to go out for a drive and find out where the lightning had hit, expecting to see a large crater in the ground somewhere. I found that the power was off only at our end of the block. I found another neighbor at the house a couple doors down from us standing outside and asked if he had electricity. He said he didn't. He also said he knew where the lightning had hit. He pointed to a tree across the street (at the home of the neighbor I had talked with earlier). It still looked intact, but was missing a very large section of bark. He said he was out getting his mail, carrying an umbrella, when the lightning hit. He was standing less than 30 feet away. I have to admire him for his courage.
I determined that the phone outage was due to some wires in our house that got shorted out, and I was able to bypass them. The cable company was out at 4:00 the next morning to do the necessary repairs to get their system working. I then had to replace a couple splitters that didn't survive the event. The electricity was off for about 24 hours. The power company had to replace a transformer. Later on I found a couple light switches that were no longer working. A few days later, we had malfunctions in a couple computers. I couldn't be sure, but these may have been a result of that lightning bolt too.
I expected that I would have a lot to talk about at work the next day. With no cable service (no TV, no Internet), I had no access to news but I was certain that the news media would be buzzing about this event. ("In tonight's news, we have anarchy and a fresh wave of terrorist attacks in Iraq, the outbreak of full-scale war in Lebanon, but first we take you to outer Suburbia where the Lightning Bolt From Hell left a whole cul-de-sac in darkness.") Well, I knew something was amiss as I got down to the last quarter mile to the office. The road was closed. There was a police vehicle blocking the way, but no one there to tell me why. I then went around through the back roads and approached from the other way, and found the road closed there too. Then I finally decided to turn on a local radio station, and discovered that while I was sitting at home getting all excited over a little bit of thunder, a tornado had come through just a couple hundred yards from where I work. Finally, I parked a couple blocks away and hiked through the woods. What I found was a building that was still there, no broken windows, power still on, everything apparently OK. I found out later that no one who was in the building even knew there had been a tornado. It got very dark, very windy, the power went off for a few seconds, and then it passed. However, people found out shortly afterward that there was no way to go north from there. At least one person went across the river, went north on the parkway there, and then came back across the river. I later drove by where the tornado had come through, and found the damage was impressive indeed. A large section of trees by the side of the road just were not there anymore. Apparently the tornado was just far enough above the ground that no cars were affected by it.
Still, the extreme weather was not over with. Early the following week, another monster thunder/wind storm came through the southern part of the county and left widespread damage there. I still haven't seem the extent of that damage. I assumed that they had enough worries without sightseers coming through to gawk at it. Fortunately things have been a little bit quieter since then.
I wasn't expecting it to look like this. I would have thought there would be burn marks or something. Given the volume of the thunder that accompanied this, I would have thought the whole tree would be vaporized. We are all wondering what will be the long-term effect on it.
Monday, August 07, 2006
Caution Sign
Yes, I still do my daily hallwalking. Encounters with security guards are rare these days. A couple days last week, they left the lights on nighttime settings throughout the entire day, probably in an effort to conserve electricity. And in the wee hours of the night, they don't run the air conditioning, so it actually feels like they've turned on the heat. When you hear me saying it's uncomfortably warm, you know it must really be hot.
Anyway, we still haven't seen the last of the interesting signs. I have to admit, I altered this one. I had to blur out the text that would have caused it to make sense. However, the image is accurate. Anyone want to take a guess at what the text says?
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Ice dam
OK - it's been a long time since my last post. I feel like I should be telling about all the momentous things that have been happening in my life that have kept me from posting, but all I can offer is a kind of wimpy "haven't gotten around to it."
I'll start out again with something light that has been a perpetual annoyance for me (and probably most of the population who drink cold drinks) since the beginning of time. You probably were wondering why, in the middle of the summer, I'm posting something about a phenomenon that occurs in midwinter after a really big snowstorm. Well, read on.
Why is it that when you're having a cold drink with ice cubes (or ice crescents or whatever they call those things that the icemaker in the refrigerator produces) and you're really really thirsty and urgently need to ingest high volumes of cold liquid refreshment, that's when those ice cubes (or ice crescents) decide to line up in just the right way in front of your lips so you can only get a small trickle of your drink, if even that? You can stir them around and try to sneak up on another part of the top of the glass, but the ice always manages to get in there and block the flow. Life can really be a drag sometimes.
I'll start out again with something light that has been a perpetual annoyance for me (and probably most of the population who drink cold drinks) since the beginning of time. You probably were wondering why, in the middle of the summer, I'm posting something about a phenomenon that occurs in midwinter after a really big snowstorm. Well, read on.
Why is it that when you're having a cold drink with ice cubes (or ice crescents or whatever they call those things that the icemaker in the refrigerator produces) and you're really really thirsty and urgently need to ingest high volumes of cold liquid refreshment, that's when those ice cubes (or ice crescents) decide to line up in just the right way in front of your lips so you can only get a small trickle of your drink, if even that? You can stir them around and try to sneak up on another part of the top of the glass, but the ice always manages to get in there and block the flow. Life can really be a drag sometimes.
