The Umbrella Theorem

I'm leaving for vacation in a few hours. I'm on the verge of going computer-free for the entire week. I hope I don't go through withdrawal.

In preparing for the week off, I had to make sure my work was covered. So I had to go from office to office to talk to the coworkers that were covering for me, to explain the status of the various projects that they would be covering. It was during my last conversation, with one of my colleagues that I've known since my first day in the office, I realized that this is an extrapolation of the Umbrella Theorem.

I learned about the Umbrella Theorem almost ten years ago, when I first started working. My coworkers and I would, occasionally, head out to lunch. We'd meet at the elevator bank and head downstairs. On occasion, someone would note the presence or absence of an umbrella. Eventually, I realized what it meant: If you're heading outside and see clouds in the sky, you bring your umbrella -- not to avoid the rain, but to prevent it. And so, the Umbrella Theorem became a part of my life. I always bring my umbrella -- because, more often than not, it seems as if the Universe only enacts its revenge when I'm unprepared.

So, today, as I was making sure that my boss, my coworkers, and my assistant were fully informed about my vacation, the cases, and whatever issues might arise, it was not in real preparation for dealing with anything, but was really a prophylactic measure against anything happening. And at the exact moment I realized what I was doing, my colleague figured it out too. "This is like bringing the umbrella along to lunch," he said. I laughed, "Exactly."

It's the same thing for the BlackBerry -- I could leave it at home and attempt to totally unplug. But, in my mind the Umbrella Theorem prevents it: if I leave the BlackBerry at home, there will, undoubtedly, be an emergency. And so, I'm bringing it with me. As I said to my boss, there's only so much unplugging I'm capable of. Baby steps.

Dara vs. GPS

Today's Washington Post had a long feature on navigation devices. This is now a subject on which I am quite familiar.

It all started when Inbal took her brand new GPS device on the California trip. Before then, despite all my traveling, I had pretty much managed to avoid GPS. In fact, I can only remember having GPS in a rental car once: It was back when it was first starting out, and as it turned out, I didn't really need it -- it was in South Florida, where I kind of know where I'm going.

At first, my inner Luddite was a little turned-off by the GPS. I like having written directions and maps -- which is probably why I was an early adopter of Mapquest and then Google Maps. And the GPS said all the words funny, which, on occasion, made the directions difficult to understand. (It also made me snicker and mimic.)

And to be frank, the voice got annoying after a while. A surprisingly short while.

More importantly, the GPS doesn't really help with the confusion of figuring out which street to turn on when there are a whole bunch -- I mean, it's hard to judge exactly how far is 350 feet, and sometimes, you can't see the street sign until you're already in the turn lane. But in those cases, a map wouldn't really help either.

So, despite my initial reluctance, I embraced the gadget, and ultimately found it to be useful for navigating around new, unfamiliar places. Plus, I loved how it could pinpoint what time we were going to arrive at our destination. That way, when someone calls, you can tell them "I will be there at 8:43." If you try, you can make it seem like you're predicting the future.

When we got back from California, Inbal let me buy her old GPS from her. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of her new one -- for example, it has a smaller screen and it doesn't say the name of the streets (you have to look at the screen to figure that out). Still, I find it really useful whenever I'm not exactly sure where I'm going -- which is more often than I'd like to admit, as I like to think I have an excellent sense of direction.

On the flip side, I hate how I'm starting to let it think for me. I might have needed it to find Wegmans when I was at the closing down in Fairfax, but I certainly do not need it find my way from my apartment to the new condo. But I feel compelled to see what route it recommends.

Increasingly, I find myself talking to it. "Duh. It's a one-way street." "Alright, alright. I'll get over to the left as soon as I can." "How come you're telling me to stay on the highway when the sign for the airport says to take this ramp?"

I am, however, somewhat fearful that one of these days, she's going to say, "Just what do you think you're doing, Dave Dara?"

Yesterday, I was dropping my aunt off at her friend's house downtown, and I decided to ignore the directions, and go the way my aunt suggested. The GPS originally said that we would reach our destination at 2:23. Each time I ignored it, it would recalculate the route, adding another minute or two onto the ETA -- like she was punishing me. My aunt's directions -- the way that her friend recommended we go -- ultimately wound up costing me 15 minutes. At the law firm, that would have been around $100 of time.

You win this one TomTom. But I am confident that I will, one day, emerge victorious.

21st Century Communication

When I left for college -- back in the stone ages -- email was just beginning to be a common tool of communication, and there was no Facebook, no MySpace, not even Friendster. There were some people with whom I kept in touch with by letters and the occasional phone call, and maybe would occasionally see if we were all in the same place at the same time -- but over the years, even with the best of intentions, I've lost touch with most people.

So, as I've noted, I signed up for Facebook this spring, and now I have an obsessive love-hate relationship with it. I love how all of a sudden, through this electronic medium, I am able to keep up with the goings-on of so many of my friends from high school and college. I love being able to see the pictures of my friends' kids, and to hear about their engagements and the like. It really makes the world seem a whole lot smaller.

But there's a cost: I hate how I spend so much of my day paying attention to the goings-on of people who, until now, I only thought about when I got an email or looked through an old photo album. The past really is a great distraction from the present.

Drugs might not be the answer, but . . .

Does anyone else find it odd that the guy who invented LSD lived to be 102?

Chemistry 101

Last night, I came home from the gym, and, after blogging about it, went to go take a shower, during which I finished a container of face scrub.

So, I had to go find a new thing of face scrub -- which I knew I had in the apartment.

Let me back up -- for some unknown reason, I have a ton of cosmetic-type stuff. I buy stuff, I use it a couple of times, and then I find something else I like better. Then it goes into a cabinet until I'm in desparate need of it, in which case I have to dig it out. One place where I store a ton of stuff is in a very thick heavy-duty plastic container (with a locking lid) under my sink. Most of my facial cleansing products are there. (Hair care products, soaps, lotions, and perfumes each have a slightly different location.)

Anyway, so last night, after my shower, I went to find a facial scrub in this plastic container. When I opened it, I found that pretty much the entire thing was covered in a sticky yellowish goo. A mystery container had leaked.

What was worse was that now the goo was on me, and I had just gotten out of the shower. Not to mention that it was on my bath mat and towels.

In other words, the goo had taken over my bathroom.

As for my evening, ultimately it wound up with a second shower and a load of laundry. But before that, I spent an hour or so cleaning my bathroom. And the container. And each and every item that was in the stupid container.

Of course, that's how I figured out what had leaked.

A couple of months ago, I had bought some very fancy and very expensive serum -- compete with a eyedrop-type disbursal apparatus -- that was supposed to make my skin look younger and firmer and more wrinkle-free while treating breakouts of adult acne. It was a total and complete waste of money, since I do not have wrinkles or particularly old looking skin, and I certainly don't have acne. (The occasional stress or hormone-related breakout, maybe -- but not acne.) But the ad was so convincing. . . .

The serum wound up in the plastic storage container -- where it had tipped over and had eaten its way through the rubber part of its cap. (Melted might be a better description, since when I touched it, the rubber was, essentially, liquid -- and next to impossible to get off my skin!) The serum had also eaten through part of another container which contained facial cleanser -- the mystery yellow goo. So now, I'm wondering exactly just what the hell kind of chemical compound I was putting on my face. If it could eat through plastic . . . .

From now on, I'm only buying stuff from the drugstore.

Light bulbs

In honor of Earth Day, an article about the economics of light bulbs.

Environmental Impact

Over the past few years, I've gotten more and more environmentally conscious. During the summer, I keep my air conditioning lower (temperature higher) than most people -- and during the winter, I barely use my heat, and instead wear layers/use extra blankets. I drive as infrequently as I can, opting instead for public transportation. I recycle aluminum cans, glass and plastic bottles. In the summer, I buy most of my produce -- and a lot of cheese -- from farmer's markets. I unplug my cell phone charger when I'm not using it. I turn off the water while brushing my teeth. As my light bulbs burn out, I replace them with compact flourescents. I only buy paper products made with recycled paper. I've even switched to biodegradable laundry detergent -- although, admittedly, part of that is because it's hypoallergenic.

And, after revisiting a Washington Post article about paper versus plastic shopping bags, this week, I bought my first reuseable bag. (I'll probably have to get a second one, though, for larger shopping trips.)

Still, I am not even close to leading a carbon-neutral existence. According to this quiz, while I'm pretty good for an American, I'm still pretty bad for the environment:



I guess, to be better, I'd have to live in a smaller apartment -- without electricity! -- stop flying on airplanes, give up meat, buy only local produce, and get a car with higher fuel efficiency.

Sorry environment. It's just not going to happen. I've done what I can do.

Baseball on the brain

In addition to reading his Newsweek column about my friend Dan's baseball and science book, this afternoon I read George Will's baseball column from yesterday's Houston Chronicle. Will says "Today, baseball arrives in the nick of time to serve an urgent national need. It gives Americans something to think about other than superdelegates."

Agreed. And it's only fair that the blog focus on the topic at hand.

So, today, while simultaneously working and paying attention to the Nationals' win against the Phillies, I stumbled across this interesting article about the dimensions of the new ballpark and exactly which hitters it might benefit. I am struck by a couple of things: First, that the dimensions of the new ballpark really aren't all that much smaller than RFK (Left field at RFK 335 ft vs. 336 ft at Nats Park; Left-center 380 vs 377; Center field 410 vs 403; Right-center 380 vs 370; Right field 335 vs 335); and second, the frequency with which well-hit fly balls at RFK fell in for hits (100 of 187, or 55.2%). The park just seemed a lot worse than it was, I guess -- and perception became reality.

Oh, and everyone should buy Dan's book.

Productivity

With the revelation that it's not really true that watching basketball during March Madness decreases my productivity, I've been thinking about my work productivity and how it could be better.

Clearly, the answer to that is "take away my internet access." Forget about managing basketball brackets; it's the reading websites and email that suck away all my time.

But you know what I really learned today? I'm currently at the pinnacle of my productivity: It's scientifically proven that I'll be way less productive if I ever have kids. That is a scary, scary thought.

Still, what scares me more is how this is surprising enough to merit a study.

Leisure sickness

During law school, I would get sick almost immediately after exams. It was as if the second I stopped being busy, the germs would take hold, and I'd be incapacitated for a couple of days. And not just the sniffles. Really honest-to-god running-a-fever can't-get-out-of-bed non-functioning sick.

At the beginning, my mother was frustrated by this phenomenon. Then she started thinking that it was funny. She'd make comments like, "Well, I'd plan on doing {insert activity here}, but you're going to be sick anyway. . . ."

When I started working, it was like that whenever I had a major deadline or a trial -- as soon as it was over, I'd be sick. And right now, I'm about 98% sure that it'll happen after my big trial this month.

So, last week, in The Washington Post, they had a whole article on the phenomenon of leisure sickness. Apparently, I'm not the only one who gets sick the second she relaxes.

Ad Vingerhoets, an associate professor of clinical health psychology at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, calls it "leisure sickness." Just when you take a break from your busy schedule to enjoy a little relaxation, your leisure time becomes anything but -- full of aches and pains, cold- and flulike symptoms and other health complaints.

***

The underlying cause of the problem, according to Vingerhoets, appears to have a lot to do with stress.

***

But Esther Sternberg, a researcher of neuroendocrine immunology at the National Institutes of Health, disagrees. Sternberg, the author of "The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions," calls leisure sickness a real condition, tied to the release of hormones under stress and their interaction with the nervous and immune systems.

In times of stress, the body's adrenal glands release adrenaline, which makes the heart beat faster and causes you to feel sweaty and anxious. Adrenaline gives a boost to the immune system, the body's defense against infection, Sternberg said. But while adrenaline is pumping, so is cortisol -- a potent anti-inflammatory hormone also released by the adrenal glands.

"The reason [cortisol] works as an anti-inflammatory is because it's turning off the immune cells," Sternberg said. ". . . You're no longer able to effectively fight infection."

The two hormones are timed differently, with adrenaline starting up and shutting down within milliseconds, much faster than cortisol, which takes five to 10 minutes.

"What happens when you stop doing what it is you were doing that stressed you is that the adrenaline shuts off first," Sternberg said. "You are left with this cortisol floating around. And if at that moment someone coughs in your face, you get sick."

I feel vindicated. Take that, Mom!

Politics and Computer Quizzes

I found this nifty little political quiz, courtesy of Arjewtino.

The test results indicate that I should vote for this guy:



It also told me that this is how I feel about everyone else:



Which leaves me with one question: How did people know who to vote for before computers told them who their ideology best aligned with?

Auto Repair 101

Sure, I know things about sports and I work in a male-dominated field, but on many levels, I am still a very girly girl.

I admit, here and now, that I know next to nothing about cars. I haven't the foggiest idea how they work.* I mean, yeah, I know there's a gasoline-powered engine and wheels -- but after that, I'm clueless. So I do all recommended preventative maintenance -- no matter how ridiculous it is. But if something goes wrong, I am left with two options: (1) Asking for help; (2) Paying for services that I don't understand -- and potentially don't need.

Anyone who reads this blog should have deduced by now that I am probably not so good with option #1. And, in all honesty, the males with whom I would consult about an auto-related issue are probably as clueless as I am, but are even more loathe to admit it because of their intrinsic male-ness. But nevertheless, I occasionally take this approach -- usually as a precautionary step to determine whether I'm over- (or under-) reacting.

The car -- my cute little pride and joy -- is six years old, and was just on the threshold of 30,000 miles. Over the winter -- 2500 or so miles ago -- I started worrying about my tires because of the age of the car, but I took the car in for maintenance, they said that the tires were fine. So I stopped worrying.

A couple of weeks ago, when my sister was visiting, my front driver's side tire started to look a little flat. I checked the pressure, added some air, and all seemed fine. It was still fine when I drove to Harrisburg (which was also the day the car passed 30,000 miles). Last weekend, the tire looked a little flat again. I checked the pressure, and it was very low. So I put air in it and went to Target. By the time I got out of Target, it looked low again. I figured that I must have done something wrong, so I drove across the street to the nearest gas station, and repeated the process.

When I went to go take the car out on Friday night, the stupid tire was low again. I emailed a friend to ask how I would know whether I needed new tires. He told me that I should check to see if there was a slow leak by inflating the tire to the right pressure, and then checking it again in a day or two.** I told him that I'd probably wind up taking it to a shop, out of laziness -- but with the knowledge that they would probably try to sell me tires even if I really didn't need them.

So, Saturday, around lunchtime, I took the car to put more air in the tire. It didn't seem to help, so I drove the car to the first tire place I came upon after leaving my house. But to be honest, I made this decision not just because of proximity, but because the place at issue had the word "Tire" in its name. I figured that, like with Dunkin' Donuts, if you advertise something in your title, it should be safe to assume that you're an expert at it.

Anyway, I told the guy at the desk what was wrong, and he went out to take a look at it. He agreed with me, that it looked flat, and that he could have it taken back into the repair bay, where they would charge me $30 to fix the tire, or, in the alternative, would let me know that it was irreparable, and that all of this would take approximately one half-hour. I agreed with this treatment strategy, signed the estimate, and waited in the lobby, where they had Star Wars Episode III playing in the background -- you know, the one where Hayden Christiansen goes from whiny and annoying Anakin Skywalker to crazy Darth Vader.

My car is ready about 45 minutes later -- just as Darth Vader takes his first awkward steps in the big black costume. The tire place goes to charge me the $30, but as I am fumbling around in my bag for my credit card, I ask a dangerous question: "What was wrong with it?"

"Nothing. We couldn't find anything wrong with it. There is no leak."

"Then why does it keep getting flat?"

Instead of answering, the guy starts printing out a new invoice. I have somewhere to be, so I annoyedly thrust out my credit card. He tells me not to worry about it, and he hands me a key, and an invoice that says "No Charge."

I walk out to my car, and the tire looks okay. I drive the mile back to my apartment, park in the garage, and look at the tire. It looks flat again. I am pissed. That afternoon, after various events, I have a friend look at the tire. She concurs, it looks flat. I tell my friend that I emailed earlier the story, and he tells me "You brought it to the wrong tire place."

I am even more pissed.

But, lucky for me, I have Monday off from work, which means one more day I can devote to car care. So, I went downstairs this morning to check the tire. It still looks flat. But according to my tire pressure gauge, the tire is fine.

So what do I do now?





*I do, however, know how to drive a stick shift, since I actually learned how to drive on one. I was never great at it, and I am probably way out of practice -- since the last time I drove one was back in the mid-'90s -- but I'm sure I could figure it out again.

**He also told me that after 30,000 or 40,000 miles I might notice that I'm not braking as well or taking wider turns, which would mean that the tread has worn down. But honestly, I wasn't so concerned about this, given the flatness of the tire. Not to mention that I don't think I could even begin to notice a subjective difference in braking or my turning radius.

Once more, with feeling

Because I had the second crust in the fridge, I decided to try the whole pizza thing over again with a couple of changed. The most major difference: I used a pizza stone.

For the record, I have some kitchen gadgets -- popcorn popper, espresso maker, who knows what else. They're buried in the back of the cabinets, and usually I'm too lazy to find them -- so I just use the basics. But after the last pizza, I figured it was worth it to use the pizza stone.

Here's what happened:

1. Start by preheating the oven and the pizza stone to 500°:
   
   


2. Remove the low-carb whole wheat pizza crust from the fridge:
   
   
   
   Note the satisfaction guarantee:
   
   


3. Cover the pizza crust with garlic and a little bit of melted butter:
   
   


4. As suggested, coat with a thin layer of the shredded cheese:
   
   


5. Layer on thinly sliced heirloom tomatoes:
   
   
   
   Note: To slice the three medium-sized tomatoes this thinly, I placed them in an egg-slicer, and used its guidelines to cut them, using a very sharp kitchen knife. When I was finished, the slices were about 1/8 of an inch thick -- practically sheer.


6. Add thinly sliced fresh mozzarella:
   
   
   
   I used a similar technique to slice the mozzarella.


7. Add some chopped fresh basil:
   
   


8. And some parmigiano-reggiano and a dash of sea salt, and place on the pizza stone to bake for 8 minutes at 425°:
   
   

Tonight's result:



The fresh tomatoes and mozzarella still gave up some water, but almost all of it was absorbed by the initial layer of cheese. And because of the pizza stone, instead of being like soggy cardboard, the underside of the crust got very crispy.

All in all, despite the low-carb crust, it was a pretty good pizza -- mostly because of everyone who chimed in with pizza advice.

My stomach thanks you.

New toy

To the right, you will see my Twitter badge. It's fun, you should try it.

My introduction to e-mail

When I left for college in the late summer of 1993, e-mail wasn't something I was really aware of. If they wanted to communicate, people wrote letters, sent postcards, or called each other on the phone. (For the record, I have several shoeboxes of old cards and letters. If any of my old friends from high school ever get famous, they are so screwed.)

But that first year at school, thanks to pressure from some of my computer-savvy (read: geeky or nerdy or dorky, take your pick) friends, I got my first e-mail address, ostensibly to keep in touch with all of my friends who had all gone off to different schools. But back then, if you wanted e-mail through the university, you had to pay for it. I think it was $15 a month. And, since I didn't own a computer, I was only able to access it through the computer lab, during the limited hours in which the lab was open. The whole thing was very inconvenient.

Besides, back then, $15 was a lot of money. (It bought a lot of beer and pizza.) So I opted not to use the university's e-mail system. Instead, I got an account with the Tallahassee Free-Net, which was run by the Leon County Library. You could only access TFN through library computers -- luckily, they had a few on campus -- which were painfully slow and horribly antiquated. In fact, the entire process was painfully awkward compared with what we're used to now. But it was a start.

I signed up for my TFN address in either late 1993 or early 1994, and kept it active for the past fourteen years. Until now. Sadly, the TFN closed down its operations on May 31, 2007.

On its website, the TFN described its history as follows:

Tallahassee Free-Net, Inc. (TFN) was founded in 1992 by two Florida State University (FSU) professors, Dr. Hilbert Levitz, Department of Computer Science, and Dr. Dennis Duke, Director of the FSU Supercomputer Computations Research Institute (SCRI). Both Levitz and Duke had long been fascinated by the potential for change inherent in computer networking. They both had been extensively involved with the development and deployment of the university's local and global networking facilities. This experience set the background for the decision to open some of these facilities, free of charge, to the public with a view to fostering civic engagement, social connectedness, distance education, and economic development.

Early on, The LeRoy Collins Leon County Public Library, under the direction of Helen Moeller, joined FSU's SCRI as an operating partner, with SCRI providing technical support and the library providing a central location in the community and experience in organizing community volunteer efforts. Michael Rouse was hired as the Library Freenet Director. Two SCRI employees were assigned to the project. Diane Wood, TFN Acting Executive Director and Randolph Langley, TFN Technical Director who developed the SCRI-Net Command Interpretor software for text-based logins that is still used by TFN as well as by many other systems worldwide. With the phase out of SCRI's support in 1995, TFN employed Emily Ratliff as System Administrator. Emily was succeeded by Noel Davis, TFN's volunteer System Administrator. In 1996, TFN retained David McMurtrey half-time as TFN's Executive Director.

At the time of its formal opening on May 5, 1993, the only people in Tallahassee/Leon County who had Internet connectivity and e-mail accounts were faculty and students at FSU. Very few local residents even knew what the Internet was. Using equipment donated by IBM, followed later by donations from Sun, and DEC, TFN quickly developed into one of the largest civic networks in the world - relative to the size of the community, it was possibly the largest with 38,000 registerd users in 1996.

TFN was the first such community information system in the Southeast and the sixth nationwide. More than an operator of an information system, TFN was an important agent guiding Tallahassee/Leon County into the Information Age. The TFN organization was the prime catalyst in the development of Tallahassee's computer communications infrastructure. As a consequence, Tallahassee/Leon County has an unusually high level of Internet awareness and connectivity. As Figure 1. illustrates, TFN's presence gave the community a significant lead over other communities. Early in 1994 when the rest of the country was just becoming aware of the web, TFN users were enjoying free ppp accounts and were developing their own web pages.

TFN assisted county and state government agencies, schools, and other institutions in planning for their roles in the emerging National Information Infrastructure. It conducted workshops for information suppliers, general users, teacher groups, and state and county government personnel. As a partner in the IRIS project with SCRI, Sprint/Centel, and the Leon County School System, TFN was instrumental in getting every public school in Leon County connected to the Internet, making the County one of the first school systems in the nation to be able to make that claim. Until the schools had their own mail and web servers, TFN provided free accounts to all teachers and students in the County.

With the phase-out of SCRI's support in 1996, Hayes Computer Systems generously donated space and network connections for TFN's servers. In November of 1999, TFN's servers were moved to the LeRoy Collins Public Library. TFN's Internet connections are provided by the Florida Information Resource Network (FIRN).

So, thank you, Tallahassee Free-Net. You were a great -- and free -- bridge into computer technology for me, and probably for numbers of others of my generation.

I'm back online! Yippee!

For the record, tech support sucked. She walked me through all the steps and they didn't work. She told me it was a hardware issue, and hung up. She did, however, thank me for being polite and knowledgeable.

Right before I gave up and called the computer manufacturer to demand a new ethernet adaptor, I decided to click on something else and -- wonder of wonders -- it worked! Now my internet works just fine -- even wireless.

I probably should have written down what I did. Oops.

Back from Florida . . .

. . and way too tired to write anything of significance. Instead, I'll just direct you to this site -- which DSL sent to me last Friday -- which seems to be able to deduce the gender of a writer by the language used.

It's been accurate so far with all that I've tried. But I can't wait to hear how y'all manage to stump it.

I intend to write about the rest of my trip -- and perhaps even tell my sister's funny story -- sometime later this week.

Illogical conclusion

According to this article (and the research it discusses), on average, people lie twice every ten minutes. Therefore, the article concludes that putting Scooter Libby on trial for perjury "is somewhat like putting them on trial for breathing."

Wow. That's a mighty big leap, don't you think?

Goodbye, old printer

So, I bought a new laptop computer a couple weeks ago. I finally have it (and the Slingbox) all set up, ready to go -- and I realize that my printer doesn't work with the new system.

You see, for years, I've had the same crappy old Canon printer. For $60, it got me through the end of law school, my master's program, and six-plus years of living in D.C. -- and it still works fine -- even though nowadays the photo ink cartridges cost almost as much as the printer did nine years ago. But alas, it's not a USB printer, and the new computer doesn't have a port for an old-fashioned printer cable.

So, since the printer has essentially become an oversized paperweight, I finally gave in today and ordered a new printer -- complete with copy, scan, and fax capabilities. I guess that means that I'm getting rid of the old flatbed scanner too.

Real life pirate tale

Pirates are a recurring theme on this blog -- but usually it has nothing to do with real life. So, for an interesting change, read all about the recovery of Blackbeard's ship off the coast of North Carolina.