Happy Halloween!

I hope everyone is having a fun Halloween. These are our jack-o-lanterns this year. Tutu helped the Mizz design his, but we just carved it this weekend along with the Mama Pumpkin and the Daddy Pumpkin.

We didn't do candy at home this year, since the Mizz is going down right at prime time. We just left the light off like all the other pathetic anti-social people in our neighborhood, although I did hear someone down the street scaring the crap out of trick-or-treaters. Oh, the memories.

We did take the Mizz out earlier to go trick-or-treating at the mall. He was a dragon, of the Old Navy type. He's a natural. Most of the kids just stood in line and held out their bags like collecting candy was their jobs. But not the Mizz. He delighted in holding his bag (a "happy" skull) at arm's length, and saying, loudly but not screaming, "Twick o tweet!" Sometimes he was several feet away from the person with the candy, and sometimes he was saying it to random trick-or-treaters walking down the hall, but he's getting the idea. Give him time. He got the hang of it after a while and then wouldn't stop. Once we let him eat a couple pieces of candy though, the monster was unleashed and he had a one track mind after that. I also found that young ladies at stores giving out candy in their sexy whatever costumes interact much differently with the old guy and his cute kid after Mama goes off shopping. I wasn't doing research, mind you, just an observation. It does seem that if you're looking to hit it off with someone half your age, for some reason a two year old dressed as a dragon would be a helpful accessory. They still gave out pathetic candy though. Franny snagged the only Reece's cup and there wasn't a Hershey miniature in sight. Just gobs of tootsie rolls and hard candy. You'd think businesses could do better, especially the big boxes. They could have had full size candy bars to give out without putting a dent in their obscene profit margins. Maybe that's not true, but I'm going to imagine it is anyway. I mean, Macy's running out of candy an hour into the event. Seriously. (Sounds like someone's jealous that nobody wants to give him a bag of candy. Poor, sad old man.)

How else does Portland do Halloween? How about a Zombie Walk? Be careful about clicking that. The link might not be too safe for appetites, depending on your zombie/gore tolerance. For the Zombie Walk, a bunch of people gather at Pioneer Courthouse Square at a designated time near Halloween and then stagger around town amusing the locals and freaking our tourists and children. There's something surreal about a video of a bunch of zombies lurching and moaning through Pioneer Place mall and then calmly riding the escalators en masse.

How to Kill Nostalgia

Growing up, I was a huge fan of Star Wars. How could you not be? "70's kid and nerd? You're our exact target audience. But wait, we've got more. Now that it's the 80's and you watch too much TV, we have the Transformers too!" The were both very cool concepts, ones that I still kind of dig.

So what the hell is this?

For around $50, you get a Darth Vader robot that transforms into the Death Star. (If you don't understand what I'm talking about, you probably haven't read this far anyway.) These are two concepts, each superbly awesome in its time and on its own, that have been repackaged in an unholy alliance of all that is wrong with both of them. On the transformer side, you have Darth Vader, admittedly a tall guy, but human-sized nonetheless, transforming into the Death Star. ("It's headed for that small moon." "That's no moon. It's a battle station.") Here I'm thinking of Megatron (giant frickin' robot) turning into a pistol (itty bitty little popgun). Even at twelve years old and in love with the concept, I had a problem with the physics. And as far as Darth Vader goes, he was cool because he could choke you to death from a whole other starship. "The ability to destroy a planet pales in comparison to the power of the force." Vader's own words -- probably misquoted, but pretty close. He didn't need to be a giant killer robot; he was already badass. This mirrors the Star Wars action figures changing from the 70's characters, which were shaped much like normal people, to versions which are more along the lines of pro wrestlers. Why did they have to go messing with these things?


Bonus movie review: Transformers

Here I'm talking about the version from this year, not the animated one I missed in the 80's. I'm almost embarrassed to say it's one of only two movies I saw in the theater this year. (To maintain a shred of intellectual dignity, the other one was The Last King of Scotland.) It had to happen. This movie was more or less doomed to look awesome while paying no attention to plot or character development. Of course, I had no choice but to see it. C'mon. It's the Transformers.

It did not fail to deliver. It looked really good. Great actually. The Transformers themselves looked and moved far more realistically than I expected they would. Michael Bay nailed the transforming noise perfectly and he avoided the stupid thing from the cartoon where Optimus Prime had a trailer when he was a truck, but it just disappeared when he was a robot. I always thought that was lame. And, well, they weren't any worse actors than the actual people. The writing and characters in this overpriced toy commercial managed to reach a level of suck that far exceeded what I could have imagined. I would have guessed that the entire thing was written by people my age, but back when they first saw the tv show in 1984. However, a good chunk of the plot twists were ripped straight out of Independence Day, so it must have been more recently. Anyway, this is a classic case of, "we can do this cool looking thing, now we just need a story." In the end, the cool-lookingness was just barely enough to make the theater experience bearable. I would have been sorely disappointed if I had watched this on a two foot wide screen in my living room with the sound turned down so the Mizz could sleep.

The Bleeding Edge of Web 2.0

Scarborough Research (as if I've ever heard of them before) has just released a paper regarding the prevalence of blogging in various cities in the US. I'm proud to say that Portland came in second, as that somehow must make me a better person. Apparently, 14% of Portlanders are bloggers, behind only Austin, TX, at 15%. The national average was 8%. The cities above 10% are:

Austin, TX, 15%
Portland, OR, 14%
San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose, CA, 13%
Seattle/Tacoma, WA, 13%
Honolulu, HI, 12%
San Diego, CA, 12%
Dallas/Fort Worth, TX, 11%
Columbus, OH, 11%
Nashville, TN, 11%
Colorado Springs/Pueblo, CO, 11%
Washington, D.C., 11%
Atlanta, GA,10%
New York, NY, 10%

When you round to the nearest percent, there are a lot of ties. The press release is located here. It has a lot of guesswork as to the reasons for these rankings, but get real, the only reason any of you are going to click is to find out where your own city is on the list. (The complete list is on page 3 of the link.) Someone on the radio this afternoon guessed that our reason was Portland's weather forcing us to find some way to amuse ourselves indoors. You can't drink beer and coffee all the time, although both are certainly compatible with blogging.

The only problem I see with the research is that, to Scarborough, you are a blogger if you have "read or contributed to a blog in the last 30 days" (my emphasis). By that logic, I am also a reporter, a novelist, a chef, an actor, a rock star, a magazine editor, and a hard core rapper. You should feel lucky that you heard of me just as I was on the verge of making the big time.

(Careful, Dave. That's two posts in two days about blogging. You're running the risk of becoming a caricature of yourself. Or at least becoming an insufferable Blogger-with-a-capital-B.)

Portland Shanghai Tunnels

An interesting piece of Portland history is the Shanghai Tunnels. Back in the day of the somewhat lawless West (a century or so ago, give or take a decade or two), Portland was known as a bad place to have too much fun in the rougher parts of town. There was a network of tunnels connecting lots of the businesses downtown to the waterfront, which is a park now, but at the time was the main cargo/shipping part of town. Many less-than-honorable captains would pay less-than-honorable Portlanders to abduct young men and conscript them into duty as sailors until their ships landed somewhere else. You would be drinking for free with some kind stranger and wake up later on a ship already at sea, having been drugged and then hauled through the tunnels to the waiting ship without anyone above being the wiser. There was lots of trade with China, hence the "Shanghai" tunnels.

That's the story anyway.

Turns out it might not be actually totally true per se. Archeology and historical record-searching is apparently not finding much of the evidence promoted by the outfit making money by taking people through what is left of the supposed tunnels.

There is evidence of some tunnels, although the extent of the network seems to be in dispute. Also, the practice of Shanghaiing sailors was widespread, with San Francisco being the most notorious city, but with Portland certainly playing a part. The main dispute however, is whether the tunnels that may or may not have existed had anything to do with the kidnappings. According to the stories, law enforcement was widely corrupt at that time and was involved in the kidnappings, at the very least by being bribed to look the other way. Why then, would anyone worry about the expense of building and maintaining tunnels when you could just as easily pay off the cops and drag a poor sucker down the street? We're only talking about something like four or five blocks in the middle of the night.

The reason for the Shanghai Tunnel dispute is that most of the research and evidence seems to be in the hands of the Cascade Geographic Society, and they are not sharing. Supposedly, they (mainly a "he", but supposedly with some volunteer help) are withholding everything they have until they can finish a book about the tunnels. There is precious little other evidence available beyond "My Grandpa knew a guy..." or "I used to play in the tunnels before the city closed them." The problem is that the best anyone can do is a story about a story, since anyone with firsthand knowledge is long gone. In addition, most of the portions of the city involved have since been renovated, so most of the tunnels that were supposed to have existed are also long gone.

The Cascade Geographic Society is not helped academically by the fact that they seem to want to push the "haunted" aspect of the existing tunnels. It certainly make it seem like they are more interested in guiding tours than conducting research, although since they aren't giving specifics, who knows?

I for one hope they have a trove of evidence and blow this story wide open. The Shanghai Tunnels (or "Portland Underground") are a very popular story around Portland. Definitive proof of the stories would only heighten the importance of what some believe is an integral part of Portland history. But I'm not holding my breath.

No matter what evidence is ever produced one way or the other, this story is certainly not going anywhere anytime soon.

Cool new blogger feature

Blogger just introduced something that I stumbled on yesterday. If you comment on a blog hosted on Blogger (like mine for instance) and you send the comment while signed in with a Google account, you can opt to have further comments to that post emailed to you. This seems like a very cool way to turn a single random comment into a conversation.

I personally have a habit of reading a post, leaving a comment, and then forgetting about it completely. Sometimes it would be nice to get a response to a comment or to see what other people have to say, and then have the chance to add something else. I used to have to remember to check back again, which happened far too rarely. There is WAY too much information flowing in my DSL line to remember everything that was interesting.

You've always (for a long time anyway) been able to subscribe to an RSS feed for the post, but I have gobs of feeds already, and that's just another thing to remember to check. Now I can get it stuck in my face by Google, but more importantly, only if I want to.

You have to have a Google account to use this feature, but last I checked, they're still giving them away for free. (Note: you don't have to be using gmail. They will send it to whatever email you give them when you register for an account.)

I'm blogging about blogging. How full of myself am I?

Odds and Ends

Here's some more stuff that I've found interesting/amusing, but that for one reason or another, didn't justify immediate mention. You probably won't care about most of this stuff, but that's why it's all lumped together.

Since campaign season is well upon us again, check out FactCheck.org. They are pretty good about cutting through a lot of the political bull, especially where numbers are thrown around.

Anybody heard about Constitution Day? It is on the anniversary of the day of adoption of the U.S. Constitution, September 17th. Specifically it is the day that all high schools and colleges receiving federal money (most schools, certainly all public ones) must teach about the constitution. Don't worry if you don't know about this. Apparently, neither do most students. It is new as of 2004. What ever happened to government class? I remember the Constitution being a pretty important issue back when I was in high school. I don't know anyone in college who wasn't well versed in it. What's happened since? Does Congress assume that since the current administration has apparently never read the Constitution, then probably nobody else is aware of it either. As a fun additional factoid, Constitution Day was proposed by Senator Robert Byrd of WV, who apparently always carries a copy of the document with him.

Google has launched "The Google" for older adults who may or may not be terribly internet-savvy. I originally thought of my parents when I read this article, but that's not really fair. Although they don't know beans about their actual computer, they are pretty good at finding their way around the internet. Which means they're probably reading this and know I'm making fun of them. Crap.

On a related note. For those unaware, RTFM means "Read The Freaking Manual." Or something like that.

Congress is finally standing up to the President and promoting real science again. Yay!

Did you know giraffes do this? I hardly ever even see them as active at all. I saw a film of one running once, but usually they're just slowing rambling around their pen at the zoo munching leaves or whatever.


Lastly, a little debate fodder for Franny's former coworkers.

In The Know: Is The Government Spying On Paranoid Schizophrenics Enough?

Long time, no blog

I'm not sure where I've been lately. Just not in a blogging mood I guess. Things have been happening though.

In case there's anyone reading this who doesn't also read Franny's blog, she's pregnant again. Yes, it was intentional. Thanks for asking. Not super far along yet, but she did decide to dig out the prego clothes this evening. Due next May, so there's still a bit of time to purchase naming rights. We certainly reserve editorial control over the final name, but there's probably a right price for just about anything.

Franny's folks were here last week, and we had a nice visit with them. The Mizz had a great time seeing Gran and Grandpapa. And I didn't have to cook for days. Mothers-in-law aren't that bad after all. Who knew?

The only down moment of their visit was our trip to the pumpkin patch. Actually the trip to it was fine. And the patch was fine too, as far as pumpkin patches go. The Mizz had a fun time trying to pick up pumpkins that weighed more than he did and finally settled on drumming on them. There were also tractors and a barn full of aneeemals, most of which he could name. He failed on the llama, but we'll check again next year.

JUST KIDDING!!!! There's no way in the world we'll be going back there again! At least not at pumpkin time anyway. Every person in Northwestern Oregon was apparently there. For those who don't know, Sauvie Island, as nice as it may be, has only a two lane bridge connecting it to the real world. At the end of that bridge is a light that lets maybe 10 cars out at a time before letting the main road pass you by for several minutes. Do a little math on the huge number of cars on the island for the pumpkins, and you get Dave and Franny and Gran and Grandpapa and the Mizz stuck in a car moving at just over 1 mile per hour for TWO STINKING HOURS! Then for kicks, add another half hour to get back home after the bridge, which would be expected. This apparently happens every year. You think they'd put a cop at the end of the bridge or retime the light or something.

To top it all off, why were we stuck in one car together when we had driven out in two? Because we found that our car was low on gas. This did not seem like a problem on the way in, as we were maybe 5 miles from a gas station. However, we did not count on idling for two hours and decided not to risk it. Franny and I ended up taking a couple gallons of gas back later and found that if we had just waited three more hours, the full round trip took just over an hour.

The only bonus was that we had taken two cars out there in the first place. We hadn't intended to do that, but there was a problem with our car. When we bought it a couple months ago, one of the rear seat belts was damaged and we had it replaced. However, Gran was the first person to try using it and found that the wrong latch had been installed. We now have a useless left rear seat belt until we can get it replaced again. Oh, joy.

Other than that little episode, the in-law visit was fine. They even agreed to keep an ear out for the sleeping Mizz one evening so Franny and I could have a little time out. We were tired and I still had to work in the morning, but we don't get time out together much, so we weren't about to say, "No." We spent a couple hours eating cake, drinking coffee and playing Scrabble at Palio's. We always enjoy their deserts. Plus I won the Scrabble game (but not by much). Don't tell Gran though, 'cuz she'll want to challenge me, and she will most assuredly kick my sorry butt. She's absolutely insane about that game. I don't know is she's the craziest Scrabble person in the world, but she's the craziest one I know.

It never really affected me, but Portland played host last week to a pretend real terrorist attack, which was then interrupted by a real false bomb scare.

We were one of the cities in the Topoff exercise this year. Supposedly, some terrorists blew up a dirty radiological bomb on a light rain train on the Steel Bridge, and the local, state, and federal authorities got to practice what they would do in that case. This ranged from first responders having to check out the scene and deal with "casualties" while wearing protective suits to a local animal shelter trotting out it's new emergency animal shelter trailer. Apparently they learned from Katrina and put together a way to deal with "evacuees" with "pets." In this case, some of the "pets" were "teddy bears," but they wanted to practice, so they logged them in and caged them just like the real animals that came in. Like all of these exercises so far, the responders tried out things learned from previous ones and exposed some gaping holes nobody had thought of. All in all, interesting goings on for a few days.

However, on the "wrap up" day of the exercise, there was a bomb scare when dogs checking out the hotel that Michael Chertoff was going to visit later indicated that they found something bad. Nothing was ever found, but it did close of several blocks for a few hours. In the end, the assumption was that there was some residue on one of the military or other government vehicles already at the hotel. Seems important to make sure, I would think.

In personal news, I was a little ill last Thursday and again yesterday. I don't know what that was about. Most likely, the Mizz had begun the season of bringing microbes home to me from daycare.

This weekend, we finally got up to see my folk's new place. Unfortunately, due to job stuff, we had to go up Saturday and come right back Sunday, but that's all we could do for now, and we had to see it. It's awesome. The house itself is fine I suppose, for a house that was last renovated in the 70's. Importantly though, someone had the foresight to put it on the western slope of Whidby Island, Washington overlooking the Olympic Mountains, Port Angeles, the Straits of Juan de Fuca, Victoria, BC, and the San Juan Islands. It could be a teepee, for all it matters. I'm glad to report that Dad is getting excellent use out of the telescope we got him for retirement. We thought he might have a good time watching the ships going by into Seattle. We didn't know that both he and Mom would have a hard time doing anything else. From what I hear, they are forever running because one of them sees a cool ship or a whale or something. The scope even has a prominent place in their living room and appears to be permanently located for easy, and constant, use. I want to retire.

We also met up with my younger sister in Seattle on the way home. Younger, but she just turned 30 on Friday, so I don't know if that counts as young. I was definitely told that I was old at 30. Anyway, she's doing well. Plus she's pregnant too. We got an "official" announcement, so I suppose it's okay to share. Plus plus, she's due the same day as Franny. What're the chances?

To bring things completely up to date, I got to visit the dentist this afternoon. I think I mentioned a while back that I would need some crowns. Dental work from years ago finally giving up the ghost, or the teeth anyway. Well, now I have two temporary ones in place. I'm going to be eating like an invalid for a couple weeks until I can get the real ones. They don't look horrible, but they apparently can't handle things like biting. Joy. The experience was as good as it could have been, I suppose, but I can't say I enjoy being pumped on adrenaline for an hour and half while having to sit still. It's not like it hurt, what with the gallon of Novocaine, but I kept imagining it was about to start any minute. When a guy is drilling in your teeth, it's hard to think of much else.

This would have been easier in a few smaller posts.

Who needs Zagat's

This sounds vaguely familiar. (Click if it's too small to read.)

Huh?

This is what I get when I ask for a really big smile. Something gets lost in translation.

And the Mother-of-the-Year Award Goes to...

...the woman in Oklahoma who decided to use her toddler as a shield when a bounty hunter tried to use a taser on her boyfriend. There are just so many wonderful parts to this story, I don't know where to begin.

Maybe this is why my sister decided to have so many kids. A little army of human shields. For like 9 years, she's had someone small enough to keep her out of harm's way. Heck, for most of that time, she's been able to have at least two of them at wearable age; a toddler in a backpack with a little one strapped on the front. A little drooling flak jacket. Good thinking Jenn. Maybe there's a method to your madness after all.

I'm not sure the Mizz would stop much. He's kind of a bean pole. His alarm scream is excellent though.

Hey, wait a minute...

I've been told (mainly by my sisters) that I can be like this from time to time. Probably because I'm usually right. Maybe us nerds are just smarter than everyone else, and therefore we're more likely to be right. Yeah, that must be it.

More Metrology Notes

I find it interesting that not long after my metrology tirade, I noticed a mention of the International Prototype Kilogram in this news article. Interesting little twist of English to metric conversion.

(For those of you unfamiliar with BBsopt, this is the same website that also reported "Apple Stores to Begin Charging Entrance Fee", "Bush Proposes Faith-Based Firewalls for Government Computers", and "Microsoft Reveals Windows Vista SP1 Will Install XP". I just found the coincidence with my last post amusing.)

[Addendum 12/28/07: I find that I occasionally get hits to this post that come from searches on "metrology". If you are actually looking for metrology information, you'll probably find this post more interesting.]

Mass Metrology: A small taste of Dave's job

From time to time, I hear, "So what exactly do you do anyway?" For some reason, metrology and calibration are unusual concepts for most people. My sister heard metrology, and wondered why I wanted to be a weatherman. The details of what I do really don't matter that much to most people. The world keeps on ticking as long as people like me are out doing our thing. Yeah, Dave, but what is your "thing"?

Don't worry if your eyes glaze over while reading this and you don't finish. I'm sure you'll be in the majority. I just present it in case anyone is interested in the arcane science of what I do.

I'm a small part of a large system linking measurement devices all over the world back to standard measurements somewhere. That's metrology, or the sturdy of precision measurements. Calibration is just the comparison of one measurement device back to something that is traceable through an unbroken chain of comparisons to one of those standards. Most measurements in this country are traced back to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a part of the Commerce Department. NIST laboratories maintain the U.S. national standard for thousands of things. Some are basic measurements like the second or the meter and some are more obscure such as standard Columbia River beach sand or whatever.

I'm more concerned with the basic measurements. NIST has extensive experimental apparatus that can determine with a great deal of precision exactly how long a meter is using light speed and how long a second is using atomic fluctuations. Most basic units are defined this way. There is an accepted standard that the distance light travels in a certain fraction of a second equals one meter. Everybody agrees on that definition, so anyone can find the meter depending only the ability to isolate the fraction of a second and measure how far the light went.

It used to be that all measurements were based on artifacts, or specific things that defined a yard or a foot or what ever. In the beginning, the myth goes that a yard was the distance between the king's thumb and his nose. Someone decided that something more specific might be useful since different places had different kings, so he decided to use a particular stick that was about the right length. He then could make copies of that stick and pass them around so everybody was using the same yard. However, over time, this method begins to fail as the specific artifacts are used and damaged. You end up with a bunch of sticks that are something like a yard, but none of them are exact anymore and none of them completely agree with each other, which kind of defeats the purpose. So over the years, most units have been defined in terms of physical properties of certain materials, properties that will theoretically never change. Therefore everyone who can set up experiments to measure those properties can recreate the units as precisely as they can measure them.

The sole exception to this method is mass. Up until around 1800, the kilogram was defined as the mass of one cubic decimeter of water. A cubic decimeter was used instead of a liter because length is a base unit, while volume is derived based on length. However, since water can change due to temperature and pressure, a better method was needed. Again, like the stick, someone made a prototype kilogram, which was from that point considered the de facto definition of a kilogram. However, nobody has yet come up with a proper physical property measurement for mass to replace this old method of measurement.


The current, most exact kilogram was made in the 1880's, as were the various copies of it scattered around the world. The primary kilogram prototype (pictured above, inside concentric bell jars) is in France and the U.S. top kilogram (pictured below) is at NIST. The primary kilogram is kept sealed and locked in a vault almost all of the time. It is brought out once in a great while (maybe once every decade or two) for comparison with the various national standards. Other than that, it never gets touched. The U.S. national kilogram is then compared occasionally by NIST against several copies they use for checks against other weights. My company has a master set of weights that are sent to NIST every five years for comparison against that second tier of weights. Those are then compared against our other weights once a year and against another set that is used for customer weight calibrations. I then take my weights and calibrate balances and scales used in the world. We even work on other metrology balances that are used for further weight checks. The idea is to handle the sets closer to NIST as little as possible in order to keep them from changing too much between calibrations. There is a certain amount of uncertainty in each comparison, which increases for each step away from the prototype. If your weights change beyond that uncertainty, then you throw the work you've been doing into question. That's bad.


To put the precision into context, I have Class 1 weights (the best available) ranging from 20 kilograms (about 45 lb.) down to 1 milligram (a tiny piece of foil you would overlook if you didn't know about it). For the smaller of these weights, say below about 200 grams, I know the exact weight down 8 digits beyond the decimal point, with the uncertainty (different for each one) showing up in the 5th or 6th place. This means that I know the values of my weights to at least 7 significant figures. This is important since the best balance (precision scale) I work with has 20,000,000 divisions (2 grams to 0.1 micrograms, or 0.0000001 grams). For reference, the main prototype is known to about 10 significant figures.

The problem with all this is that the prototype kilograms are suffering the same fate as the sticks, despite all the care put into their handling. The main prototype has lost approximately 30 micrograms over the last century. That means that if you assume that it was once 1.000000000 kilogram when it was made, it is now 0.999999970 kilogram. Seems pretty insignificant doesn't it? It is, for now at least. There are almost no instruments in the world good enough to see that difference. However, the kilograms will get worse and instruments will get better, especially as we continue to try and probe further into the atom and deeper into space. Eventually, this definition will fail to be good enough.

So what to do about it? There are two options that scientists are pursuing right now.

The first is basically making a better kilogram prototype. A group of Australian scientists is working on just that. They are trying to make a perfect sphere of silicon (pictured below) that is exactly one kilogram. The atomic weight of silicon is known quite well as is it's crystalline structure. It's quite possible to grow a very large perfect crystal of silicon. That's how computer chips are made. Then you apply a little math. You can figure out how many atoms of silicon you need to make a kilogram based on its atomic weight, and knowing the crystalline structure, you can figure out how big a sphere needs to be to contain the proper number of atoms. The hard part is now to make a perfectly round sphere of exactly the right diameter (using length, which is known very well). By the time they are done with this thing, it will essentially be the roundest thing ever made. This is basically just making another prototype, which will have the same issues as the current one. Unlike the current one, however, someone in the future can do the same thing again and come up with an identical, or maybe even better version, limited only by measurement and machining capability.


The second option is the watt balance. It is designed to use electrical properties, which are known very well, to determine the mass of an oscillating body. The math is very intensive. This type of device exists. NIST is working very hard on this method of mass determination. In the long run, something like this will likely take the place of having an artifact that must be compared back to. However, for the moment the uncertainty of doing it this way is still higher than using the current shrinking French kilogram.

Most of this is mainly academic. We are many centuries away from these variations causing the common man any trouble. A half a pound of deli ham and a gallon of gas will still be the same things as far as you will be able to tell. This becomes a problem only at the edge of research and possibly into some VERY exacting manufacturing, although I can't think of an example. Nothing you could afford anyway.

There. I obviously find this interesting, and I assume that if you made it this far, it must at least hold passing amusement for you. Let me know if I left anything too muddy or if something doesn't make sense.

Fun Bottled Water Fact

I happened to be working at an environmental lab today. This place performs all sorts of analytical tests on all kinds of things -- mainly soil and water samples. They look for basics like sediments and microbes and more obscure things like dissolved organics and metals. They have a very extensive lab and one of their most basic necessities is very pure water for testing purposes. It wouldn't do much good to use water with dissolved iron or whatever in it during a test for trace amounts of iron. To that end, they have a very nice, and very expensive, water deionization (DI) system.

Knowing all this, I was completely taken aback when I saw one of the technicians filling sample containers from an Evian water bottle. She saw my look and explained that their DI system was down, but that for most of their tests, Evian was the purest thing they could buy. "It doesn't have anything in it. Nothing we'd be looking for anyway."

This would seems like a glowing recommendation for Evian. "It's so pure, you can use it for lab tests." But you have to understand that the dissolved metals that the lab would be concerned about are the same "minerals" that are touted in bottled water marketing, including Evian's website. That means that you are basically getting very clean water, or the same thing that you would get by extensive filtering or distilling. The fact that it's filtered through an Alpine glacier field in France doesn't really matter.

Personally, I've never been a fan of Evian; I've always considered it pretty bland. It turns out I might have been right. The same minerals that apparently aren't in it are the same ones that give water it's taste, and are even added by many other brands specifically for that taste. I've always felt somewhat morally superior to Evian drinkers ("naive" spelled backwards and all that), mostly because I just like to be difficult. This just serves to embolden my holier-than-thou attitude. Just what I needed. I should be a real joy at parties now.

Welcome Home Mama

Franny got back last night. I was happy to see her, but it was late, she was jet lagged, and I pretty much got, "Hi Dave. I'm happy to see you, but I'm going to bed now. I'll talk to you in the morning?" No big deal. I was still happy to have her home.

The Mizz took her return in stride. This morning, when I came downstairs after my shower, he was playing with Franny and looked up at me long enough to smile and say, "Bye bye Daddy," before returning to his toys. I was fine when I was the only option, I guess, but Mama's back now, so see ya later.

The Mizz and I survived our four days just fine. I figured we would. I'm very happy to have Franny back though, not the least for the adult conversation. The Mizz is fun and cute and all, but not exactly intellectually stimulating. I can only build so many Lego towers, make so many Play-Doh snakes, and force feed so many toddlers before I have to challenge my brain at least a little bit now and then.

Plus I like having Franny around. Chicago (Si-ca-do according to Mizz) is too far away.

Happy Birthday Dad

Today Dad turns something old. What? 60? 70? Something like that. Go Dad.

Seriously, I should watch out. I've been calling him old for quite awhile now. Old and out of touch, and certainly not cool. As best I can remember, it started when he was about my age. That means that either I'm now getting old or I'm a bad judge of what old means. I don't actually feel all that old. No, I take that back; the Mizz can make me feel ancient even though he's not even trying, but from what I hear, it's the kids that make you old anyway.

Most of the time I feel a lot younger than people who are clearly my age, but act, um...what's the word? ... Mature. Yeah, that's it. On the other hand, I feel pretty old when I work at a college, or, God forbid, a high school. Wow. Just wow. They're such...kids. They don't have a clue. Not like when we were in high school. We had a pretty good handle on things, but these kids these days really don't have any idea about the world. I pity the future. Now get the hell off my lawn.

But seriously, I mainly feel like I have more in common with people younger than me than older, at least in general outlook, although that's becoming less true as time goes on. Most likely it's happening to all of us, so plenty of people older than me are sitting around thinking the same thing. To (probably mis)quote a caller I heard on a radio show about aging gracefully, "I usually feel the same way I did when I was in my early 20's. The trouble is I still look at young women the same way I used to, but then I realize that they aren't looking at me the same way." Not that I'm trying to pick up high school girls, but you get the idea.

For another take on the idea that probably doesn't reflect well on me, I'll quote David Wooderson (Matthew McConaughey) from Dazed and Confused, "That's what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age."

Not that I'm... Oh, never mind.

Anyway, that brings me back to the idea that I might not be a very good judge of what it means to be old. I do hope that's the case. I'm not really ready to feel old yet, and if my attitude is any indication, I don't think I'll be ready anytime soon. I'll leave it to the Mizz to imagine that I'm old and out of it and follow Dad's example instead. I'll continue to enjoy life and do what I damn well please, which as it turns out, I now see as pretty cool.

Well, how egotistic is that? A happy birthday message that's mostly about me. What a wonderful child I am. Anyway, Happy Birthday Dad. I'm sure you're doing just fine. When I checked earlier today, you were enjoying a book and a beer on your back porch on a sunny afternoon overlooking the Straits of Juan de Fuca. Sounds like a fine way to celebrate to me.

Not here. It was raining on me all day. You should have seen the drive down I-5. I could hardly see... Whoa. There I go again about me. Happy Birthday!

Peaberry Coffee

The last time we were at Trader Joe's, I needed some more coffee beans. Joe's has a pretty interesting selection, and I found something new: peaberry coffee. I don't suppose it's actually new, but I've never seen it before. It sounded interesting, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Plus it was on sale.

Peaberry coffee is an oddity of coffee growing. The half-oval beans you're used to grow in pairs. They are actually two separate fruits that grow together in the same "cherry." However, about 5% of the time, only one of the fruits is fertilized, and the other doesn't develop. The fertilized one fills the whole cherry, resulting in the shape shown above. Here's a page with more detail from some Canadian coffee company.

This stuff was marketed as "smoother" or "more complex" or some such thing. It was fine coffee, but no better than other good coffees I've had in the past. From what I can tell, these beans used to be discarded as less desirable. However, I think some coffee marketer looked at the beans and his gears started turning. "Hey," he thought, rubbing his hands together as an evil leer wormed its way across his face, "Instead of throwing these beans away as 'defective,' we could package them as 'special' and market them to coffee snobs, thereby making 5% more money off the backs of these poor tropical people and thus allowing us to buy 5% larger private jets and 5% more attractive servants." At least that's how I picture it. Maybe they just woke up and realized it's silly to throw away a perfectly good 5% of your crop just because it looks a little different.

I just found it a little odd that, after all these years of drinking coffee, I just now heard about these wonderful new defective beans. Maybe it's just me. Maybe I spend too much time at Starbucks and therefore miss out on the more gourmet coffee options out there. Whatever. It's fine coffee, but I'm not sure it's as special as Trader Joe's tried to make me believe.