Now Introducing: Graphs Aplenty

You know, for being an engineer, there has been a dearth of data analysis on this here blog. You know what? That ends here, right now. My old roommate, the one who likes both Vonnegut and Death Wish, started generating some graphs that needed a home (other than in the finest of scientific journals, that is), and luckily, I happened to have a blog that nobody reads. So, naturally, there will be more graphs in our future.

This, of course, is a Venn Diagram. I want to stress that this is not representative of my findings, and that this conclusion should be under the same sorts of review and verification that any other scientific result would be. There are plenty of other things that make me happily vomit.

All your lint are trapped by us

I was doing a lot of laundry today, because if I didn't my next wardrobe choice would have to involve pillow cases in some way. That eventuality has been sidestepped, so now I will not be looking like a street urchin at church in the morning. I did make a few observations, though, as I was handling wet clothes. One was that clothes function much better when they're not wet. The invention of the dryer must mark a critical point in human evolution. The impact of having warm socks is enough to put this on like the level of drinking glasses. (I mentioned evolution and church in the same paragraph!)

I need to ask, though, is there anything quite as satisfying as rebalancing a washing machine that is way out of whack? I submit that there is not. Returning a washing machine into proper levels of whack must have been the equivalent of slaying a dragon to the 1950s housewife. Or finding a $5 bill on the way to a Braves baseball game. It's the small victories that excited the 1950s housewife. At least, that's what I'm assuming based on stereotypes and old television programs.

The thing, though, that raised (NOT BEGGED) the most questions was the lint trap. Were there dryers way back when that didn't have lint traps? What happened to the clothes dried in such a dryer? Did everyone walk around covered in lint? What did that look like? I hope it looked like this.

We are a nation of innovators

This is my 100th post in How Observant. Isn't that exciting? I didn't think so either. 100 is kind of a lot, though, and I hope that I am progressing as I do this. Progressing as an observer and the occasional humorist. I'd like to put that on my business cards someday -- Engineer Sighted, Occasional Humorist. I'm only funny on Thursdays. Sorry guys, you'll have to drop in on my tomorrow to get a laugh.

Technology is doing a better job than me at progressing, certainly over the last 100 somethings -- I could say years, since we went from the Wright Flyer to the 777 in that stretch of time, that's pretty impressive. Or toilet paper reaching that second ply. Softer bathroom tissue is definitely a more significant milestone than having tv sets in the chairs in front of you while you fly to Amsterdam, at least on an everday level. I use toilet paper a lot more often than I fly to Amsterdam.

Cell phones are another good one. You can go to a 100 units of time much smaller than years to see progress there. 100 months, or even fortnights would get us from the RAZR to the SLVR, and that's obviously monumental. (I, personally, am still using a Nokia brick that I like to call the Soviet Phone Mark II. It's a 3595, if that means anything to you. The original Soviet Phone was an Ericcson that weighed like 3 pounds and reminded me of the one Zach Morris used to carry around, only less stylish.)

There are some developments, that are much less revolutionary.The electric stapler is one that immediately comes to mind. Ordinarily, I'm all for applying technology to things that don't really need it (for example, a cat that doubles as an electric can opener) but this one really kind of bothers me. I think it might actually be less convenient than the manual version. Then again, speed stapling isn't really something that's easy to do under any circumstances. Although, I do confess that whenever I need to get something stapled in the office I use the electric one, mostly for novelty sake.

I'd like to see more electric three hole punches. I'm not completely positive that they exist, but I'm pretty sure they must because one would be way more useful than an electric stapler, and I've never been to an office that doesn't have one of those. I'm kind of shocked that three hole punches are as unreliable as they are, actually. Rarely do I have a completely successful trip to one of those office supples. It usually takes a second pass, and that's a relatively good time. Sometimes the punches get stuck, or sometimes the punches have been rearranged because the guy ahead of your decided it might be fun to put the middle one closer to the top of the page for ha has.

Anyway, enjoy your 2007 Valentine's Day, which is extra special since it falls also on 100th How Observant Post day, which ought to be celebrated in some way. Phone calls and flights to Europe seem like good options, as does chasing a Siamese cat with a can of Bush's honey flavored baked beans.

Geronimo

There is something inherently fascinating about the vending machines where things fall down after you select them. Like candy bars or gum, after the strange circular springs (which look like dough hooks) rotate and advance them and they fall into the ingeniously designed chamber that prevents you from reaching your hand up to pluck them from their resting places. There was an episode of The Critic where guns did that.

I purchased an individually sized, overpriced bag of potato chips in this manner today to eat with my lunch. (It was a chicken sandwich with swiss cheese, mayonnaise and honey mustard, if you're curious. It was average.) Some of the chips were smashed when I ate them, and that is really unfortunate. Is there anything less desirable, chipwise, than broken pieces? No.

This isn't revolutionary news, I'm aware, because chips are frequently broken at the bottom. However, I also noticed that the potato chips are on the top level of the vending machine. What a disastrous placement of such a fragile food! Especially when there are heartier things in there, like Snickers and granola bars small tubes of Pringles. I want to share with you a design to help minimize the tragedy of chip breakage in vending machine falls. Observe:

I can't say for certain that the chips weren't broken before the fall, but really, I don't want to take that chance, either. Hopefully, together we can keep other chips from suffering a similar fate. The gum can go screw itself, though.

A mystery for the ages

You know, every morning when I open my newspaper after I've finished reading the news, opinions and sports sections, I always go to comics. It may seem juvenile, but really, there are a few that I look out for and occasionally enjoy. There are a few that are just so ingrained in my newspaper experience that I read them even though I know they're not going to be amusing in anyway, like Garfield and Blondie. Dilbert is usually solid, sometimes brilliant and every once in a while terrible. But, if you know me, you know I don't want to talk about the good ones. I want to talk about the ones that are so maddening that I would rather set fire to the page and burn my initials into my right arm with the fire.

This is a tricky distinction, though, because comics like Snuffy Smith are immediately unreadable. This one is just blank space as far as I'm concerned, so it doesn't offend me nearly as much as, say, Mary Worth or Cathy. Most of the continuity print comics, like Mary Worth, are difficult to get into because you can't read from the beginning of the arc. Also, Mary Worth has been running since before World War I (Mary Worth was quite a dish when the series started), so it would take a lot of back reading to get started. Cathy is just ink vomit on the page; she a stereotype of annoying woman that I wouldn't tolerate in real life and certainly don't want any part of on the comics page. Oddly enough, I don't mind For Better or For Worse, though, even though that one's not funny and it is nominally a continuity comic. It manages to pack a lot of stuff into the four panels, handle the continuity and stand alone. That's the key -- standalone as well.

Family Circus, Ziggy and one called Pluggers all get honorable mention. Family Circus is supposed to be cute, I guess, but it isn't. It's like "Dennis the Menace", another one panel comic, without the "Menace." Who cares? Pluggers is one I don't recall seeing outside of the Greenville paper, but it's MO is describing what a plugger is, and basically it's an old fat person. Great. Just what I always wanted to see in average drawings and writing. I don't know what Ziggy's problem is, but I don't want any part of it.

Undoubtedly, the be all end all of awful comics is Frank and Ernest. If you are unfamiliar with this comic, I have the deepest envy of you. It is a poorly drawn comic that is never funny. Yet somehow, every time I open to the comics page, I end up reading it. I don't have this problem with Snuffy Smith. I don't know why Frank and Ernest fill me with more hate than, say, Nazis. I think that whoever this Thaves character is deserved to be tried for crimes against humanity.

This comic, which I just made up, is better than any Frank and Earnest comic I have ever read.


Who out there thinks that Frank and Ernest is good? If you leave me a comment and say you like it, you better be able to describe to me your favorite strip or I will call you a liar and an accomplice. I cannot believe that this comic continues to run. I suppose newspapers don't really get a lot of complaints about comics, especially inoffensive ones, but I'm thinking about writing some letters.

Doing Whatever a Coach K Can

I try to watch Clemson basketball whenever I can. I went to the Wake Forest game, it was fun. I couldn't make it into the Duke game, but I did watch it on tv. I watched Clemson beat Georgia Tech today, and that was great. But the important thing is what I realized while watching the Duke game on tv, and it's entirely unrelated to Clemson basketball.

In case you don't know, Duke is coached by Mike Krzyzewski, the man below. Nobody knows how to pronounce or spell his name (the spelling above is an approximation, like 3.14 for Pi), so they just call him Coach K.

He is a fantastic coach. He is probably the best college coach out there, and I respect him for it greatly. However, I can't get over the fact that he reminds me of a goblin. Especially when he is angry. It gets distracting when I am watching basketball and Duke is playing. And since Duke is Duke, every one of their games is televised by ESPN, because everybody loves Duke. At least, everybody who doesn't love a competing team. They're like the Notre Dame of college basketball. People just like them for no reason. Unless they hate them. None of this, however, changes the fact that the man looks like a goblin. It has changed my whole viewing experience; so when most people are watching the basketball court and seeing something like this:

Which isn't particularly unusual, since Coach K is frequently looking angry while directing his Blue Devils using some sort of hand signal towards the court while pointing at his unit. What I see, though, is slightly different; it is actually something more like this:

Duke got beat today by Georgetown, it was their first loss of the season. Their next game is on the 26th against VTech, I'm sure it'll be on ESPN. Just watch out for pumpkin bombs.