Wednesday, November 30, 2005

bad typing habits

I just discovered that I always use the left "Shift" key.

I also use only the left "Ctrl" and "Alt" keys on Kinesis keyboards, and only the left thumb to hit the "Space" key on regular keyboards.

I realized this after changing my Unix password; two days later, my left hand and wrist feel a bit strained. I'm pretty sure it's because my new password requires me to hold "Shift" while typing a letter on the left side of the keyboard.

I'm now trying to force myself always to use the "Shift" key on the opposite side from the letter that I'm trying to type, but it's proving to be surprisingly difficult.

Monday, November 28, 2005

finding fares

I found some airfare links while researching next year's travel plans: Expedia's Fare Compare and Travelocity's Fare List.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

waiting for George

After deciding not to splurge on the UK version last month, I finally procured a copy of George R. R. Martin's latest novel from a friend, last Friday. The agreement was that I would return it before she left for Thanksgiving, so I stayed up until 3am on Saturday, and managed to finish it Sunday afternoon, despite a busy weekend schedule.

I'll probably need at least one more read before I'm ready to make any real commentary, but I do agree with the readers who complained about the "unfinished" nature of the book, and I disagree with those who thought there was too much emphasis on fringe characters and backstories. Personally, I think one of Martin's greatest strengths is characterization, and I like the way he uses secondary characters to develop central protagonists. I also enjoy all the intricate plot details that he includes in his novels; I'm looking forward to rereading the first three in the series again, to help clarify my thoughts on the newest book.

Now I'm hoping it doesn't take him another five years to write the next one.

Monday, November 14, 2005

units of power

It makes no sense to me, intuitively speaking, that 1 unit of horsepower is equivalent to 745.7 watts.

To me, horsepower should be related to the distance that a "standard" horse can pull some fixed amount of mass, in some fixed amount of time. I've forgotten almost everything I knew about E&M, but I'm pretty sure watts have something to do with volts and amps. How does it make sense that you can go from volts * amps to foot pounds / sec?

Yet, as Google says:
1 (volt * ampere) = 0.737562149 foot pounds / sec

Maybe this explains somewhat why I was never any good at physics.

Friday, November 11, 2005

no red poppies for us

Today is Veteran's Day in the US, which is usually not a very big deal, especially here in California (I seem to remember getting a day off, when I lived in Boston).

But, it's also Remembrance Day, which is a very big deal, for the Commonwealth countries, France, and Belgium.

It's interesting that in this country, we seem to be much more interested in World War II (movies, books, etc.) than in World War I. I guess fighter pilot battles are more exciting than trench warfare.

Personally, I started reading up on WWI after reading L. M. Montgomery's Rilla of Ingleside, which is really a wartime novel disguised as a children's book. The story begins right before England declares war on Germany, stretches through four long years of war, and ends just after the Armistice is signed, telling the story from the perspective of a teenage girl on the Canadian homefront.

I first read it when I was nine years old, and although it took me a few readings to adjust to the darker, more intense tone, Rilla eventually became my favorite Montgomery book, I think with good reason.

In the novel, Rilla's brother Walter is killed in the Battle of Courcelette, after writing a famous war poem entitled The Piper. In researching the historical background of the book, I discovered John McCrae, a real person who lived a similar story. A Canadian physician who served in a French military hospital, McCrae wrote the famous poem entitled In Flanders' Fields, before succumbing to meningitis and pneumonia. The poem makes reference to the blood-red poppies that grew in Flanders, where so many soldiers died.

Those red poppies are now worn every year on November 11th, in most of the former Allied countries. It's a sad and beautiful tradition, and as an American, I'd never heard of it, until I read about that poem.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

...to the penny

In the fascinating yet scary department, here are some Treasury department numbers regarding US national debt:

As of yesterday:
11/09/2005 $8,034,610,660,541.64

That's over 8 trillion dollars. I find it difficult to count all those commas, myself.

I started looking at this data because I read a blog article claiming that the GWB administration had borrowed more money than all 42 previous administrations combined, and I thought that that couldn't possibly be correct. Well, it looks like it isn't.

Historical data:
09/30/2005 $7,932,709,661,723.50
09/29/2000 $5,674,178,209,886.86
09/29/1995 $4,973,982,900,709.39
09/28/1990 $3,233,313,451,777.25

12/31/1985 $1,945,941,616,459.88
12/31/1980 $930,210,000,000.00
12/31/1975 $576,649,000,000.00
12/31/1970 $389,158,403,690.26
12/31/1965 $320,904,110,042.04
12/30/1960 $290,216,815,241.68
12/30/1955 $280,768,553,188.96

Since 2000, we've only borrowed about 2.5 trillion dollars, and we already had over 5 trillion dollars of debt before that. So, there's been a 50% increase, not a 100% increase, over the past six years. Of course, we still have two years to go.

 

This is my personal blog. The views expressed on these pages are mine alone and not that of my employer.