Ron: "Look! Cow-shaped horses!"
Liz: "You're an idiot-shaped idiot!"
- - - -
Imagine the Goffin/King classic from 1967, made famous by Aretha Franklin, except sung robotically by a voice-synthesized computer:
Cuz you make me feel
You make me feel
You make me feel
Like a super computer...
It's clearly not the best idea I've ever had. It doesn't even compare with my new stage name: Rod Pretzels.
- - - -
November - Liz colored her hair. She bought a box of a color called "Dark Ash Blond", and worked her magic in the sink. Unfortunately, that was the exact natural color of her hair, and no one, including me, could tell the difference.
We joked that Liz's natural hair color is greenish gray, which nicely complements her eye color of grayish green. She thinks that the coloring might have taken out a little of the green.
Dec 16 - In September, Liz had gotten a parking ticket on one of the side streets near her school in Minneapolis. I told her to take pictures on her cell phone, and offered to take care of everything here in town for her. I work one building over from the Government Center, so it was much easier for me to deal with things than for Liz to do the same.
I printed out the pictures from Liz's cell phone and walked the paperwork over to the Government Center. The appropriate clerk scheduled an appointment with a hearing examiner for Dec 16, which was over three months out. OK then.
Be at the appropriate office in the government center at least five minutes before my scheduled appointment. Check. Check in with woman at desk. Check. Take a seat. Check.
Literally about 90 seconds later (the TV in the waiting area never even came out of its block of commercials), the hearing examiner called me in. He had a modest, unpretentious office, and told me to take a seat.
I explained that my wife had gotten a parking ticket, but she's currently in school in Wisconsin, and I work in the building next door so I'm here instead. Here are the pictures she took from her cell phone.
The hearing examiner said that officially, she's the one that has to appear in court, not me, but that it wasn't really a problem and we'll most likely be able to resolve the matter without her.
He took a quick look at the pictures. He then explained that the law is that you need five feet of clearance beyond where the curved part of the curb meets the straight part (i.e., five feet beyond where the curvature of the curb starts). Think of a fire truck turning into the driveway. Based on how they measure it, Liz didn't leave any clearance at all, and the picture clearly shows that her car even extends into the curved part of the curb. Hmm.
He then asked me what I think is fair. He added that he knew what I'd like, of course, but what did I think was fair. I asked what the fine is, and he said $32. I then suggested paying, maybe, half that? He replied that since there's no history of parking violations for Liz or her car, that he'd let it go - no fine. He said that Liz effectively pleaded guilty, but it was pretty meaningless and wouldn't go on her record. I told him that I'd pass on what he said to Liz, thanked him for his time, and walked back to my office.
The whole process took maybe five minutes in the government center, and took maybe fifteen minutes of my time. Looks like the system works!
So remember, five feet of clearance from where the curvature of the curb begins. And being on-time and polite doesn't hurt, either.
Early January - You know those ubiquitous, cylindrical tins of butter cookies that always appear during the holidays? A conversation with a co-worker affirmed that the pretzel shapes always taste better than the other shapes, even though they're made from exactly the same stuff. We don't know why. They just do.
November and December - The holidays were fun. Spent them in Ada with Liz's family, which is always relaxing. For Christmas, there was a monstrous snowstorm bearing down on the midwest, so drove up to Ada a little early. The last 40 miles of the drive were on Highway 9, which is a perfectly straight two-lane highway.
It was snowing pretty hard with essentially no visibility when we got to Highway 9, and we wound up driving the entire stretch in the exact center of the road, since that was where the ditch was least likely to be.
Liz's parents had gotten a new kitten, so we had to take pictures. Good thing we have a high-speed camera, because we got some fearsome action shots of the little terror! Zoom!
Early January - Got a Sonicare electric toothbrush, on the advice of my dentist. That thing is amazing! I've never had an electric toothbrush before, and the few that I'd played with before weren't all that special. But this thing can shake the enamel off your teeth! In a good way! Highly recommended! But don't try to talk while you're using it, or you'll get toothpaste all over the bathroom.
Early January - Liz and I were watching TV when we got the craving for cookie dough ice cream. Liz went one better, and whipped up a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough from scratch. While most people would probably bake it into actual cookies, we just ate the whole thing out of the bowl with spoons. Liz is clearly the girl for me.
Mid-January - Liz got a new betta fish, to replace the one I let die when she first moved to Wisconsin. (Doh! Liz said it was really old and would have died anyway, but I still feel bad that it died on my watch.) The new one is cute. Liz named it "Sushi".
Mid-January - Discovered that the word "jewelry" is spelled as "jewellery" in the UK. Guess I should stop making fun of that book that I routinely see in Half Price Books with the word "Jewellery" in the title...
Mid-January - Things weren't going all that well at work. I didn't have enough to do, because there wasn't enough work coming in the door. It's never a good sign when you have to invent tasks to do to keep yourself busy at work. I really didn't mind all that much, until they scaled my salary back to be commensurate with the amount of billable work I was doing - that was the last straw.
So I went to monster.com and typed in "Patent Agent" in Minneapolis, MN. And much to my surprise, two openings showed up. One was at Crompton, Seager & Tufte. Why did that sound familiar? Hey! My friend Paul works there! So I called him up. The conversation went something like this: "Hey, Paul. You guys have a Patent Agent position posted on monster.com." "We do?? Let me ask around, and I'll get back to you." The next day, I had lunch with Paul. A few days after that, I had lunch with one of the partners. The next week, I went in for a more formal interview, where I wore the Interview Suit. You know, the suit that only gets worn for job interviews, and has been untouched for so long in the closet that it gets a ring of dust around the collar in the portion that isn't covered by the plastic wrap. 15 years and counting with that suit. (Thank you, Franklin's of Tucson!) Interview went very smoothly, they emailed me an offer, I OKed it via email (and cc'ed Liz), gave my two weeks notice later that day, and that was that.
It was the most relaxed job-hunt process that I've ever heard of, for anybody, ever since the very dawn of work itself. I spent the last day at Altera wheeling my books and artwork from my old office to my new office, which was at the other end of downtown. You can get from one to the other in the Minneapolis skyways, without ever going outside. And that's just what I did. It's a 30-minute walk from my old office (green dot) to my new office (red dot) in the skyways, with a cart full of books. It took three trips, one of them with artwork tucked under my arm.
The new office is at the very south end of the Minneapolis skyways. Literally, the end of the skyways - there's a sign on the building that reads, "Skyway Ends".
My last day of work at Altera was Friday, Feb 26. My first day of work at CS&T was Monday, Mar 1. People asked if I was going to take any time off between jobs. Time off from what? I felt like I hadn't done any real work in months, so vacation time was kinda pointless.
The new firm has about 10 attorneys and 4 other patent agents, making me agent number 5. This firm is considered "small", as opposed to Altera, which I would classify as "tiny". Most importantly, the new firm had too much work coming in, hence the job opening.
About 90% of my work is for two very large clients, which have used the firm for 15+ years. It's like there's an endless stream of work from these clients, which is really fabulous for me. It's SO nice knowing that when I get to work, there's stuff on my desk waiting to be done.
At the new firm, the partners are responsible for bringing in the work and making sure that there's enough of it to go around. The agents, like me, have no marketing duties or any responsibilities whatsoever regarding drumming up new business, which is a welcome change from the old firm. Turns out the rest of the world works on the assumption that the partners worry about bringing in the work, not the non-partners. And that's just fine by me, since I'm terrible at drumming up new business.
The new office is nicer than the old one. I'm eight floors up, instead of 17, and now I'm looking at the south end of downtown instead of down on the Metrodome.
And the transition into the new job has been completely effortless. I take the same bus to and from downtown, at the same times. I get off at the same stop as before, but to go home I get on at a different stop. Not much of a change at all. And I stay later downtown, because I'm actually working until 5:30.
Liz was thrilled about the new job. The little raise I got didn't hurt, but the most important thing to her was my job security. Here, I'm actually doing something useful instead of being another mouth to feed at Altera. I stayed at Altera six years to the day.
March - I came up with a real life physics problem, suitable for an undergrad mechanics class.
You're at the airport, you checked in a little late, and you have to get from security to the gate as fast as you can. The airport has a few moving sidewalks in certain places to help speed you along.
You walk at a constant velocity while on the sidewalk(s), and walk at the same speed on land (off the sidewalk).
You're in a hurry, but you're in lousy shape and you're bogged down with carry-on luggage, so you're allowed one burst of speed where you can run instead of walk. The burst of speed lasts only for a fixed duration, so that you can only run for, say, five seconds. The running duration and running speed are the same if you run on the moving sidewalk or if you run on land (off the sidewalk).
The question is this: In order to get to the gate the fastest, should you use your burst of speed while you're on the moving sidewalk, or while you're on land (off the sidewalk)? Or doesn't it matter?
And an analogous question: If you have to stop for five seconds to check to make sure you have your keys, should you stop while you're on the moving sidewalk, while you're on land (off the sidewalk), or doesn't it matter?
It's not a trick question. It has a real answer, which you can figure out with real math, but I can't figure out an intuitive way to explain the answer.
Think about it, make some sketches, do some math, and check out the real answer at the end of this Big Life Update.
March - For the first time in something like 150 years, Minneapolis got no snow at all in March. Freaky.
Early April - Liz had a few days off for Easter, so we visited her family in Ada. The new toy on the farm was an old road grader - a giant snowplow-like thing that you drive down a dirt road to make it smooth. It's a got a huge blade on it that you can control with something like 12 or 14 levers. That's a lot of control! Liz's brother, Eric, fired it up and drove me around on it for a few feet in the dirt behind the house. Best Toy Ever.
April - Kentucky Fried Chicken introduced their "Double Down" sandwich. It sounded like a joke - no bun, just two fried chicken breasts with bacon, cheese and some sauce inside.
Which means that somebody inside the KFC organization consciously decided that what was wrong with their sandwiches was THE BUN.
I had one, so you don't have to. I'll just write this one off as "taking one for the team". It's almost as bad as their "Famous Bowl" - mashed potatoes, corn, fried chicken bits, cheese, and gravy over the whole thing. I probably mentioned that our friend Janice dubbed that the "Bowl Of Crap". I don't think I'll be having another one of those.
April - At work, I encountered two of the most hilarious patents ever.
The first was an automotive patent, which used windpower to turn a propeller that recharges a battery. Clearly, not the product of a physicist. (It's the equivalent of bringing an electric fan onto your sailboat, and running the fan against the sail to make your boat go REALLY FAST. Just like in the cartoons.) That's the beauty of patents - they have to be novel and non-obvious, but they don't actually have to work.
The second was a published patent application (it didn't issue), also along the same lines as the windpowered car. Only this one was not written by a patent professional; aspiring inventors are allowed to write them up themselves, but the results are usually disastrous. The odds were really stacked against this one, in particular, and I heartily recommend reading it start to finish.
April - Was involved with a scheduling change at KFAI. Basically, our ratings/listenership numbers were dangerously low, with a falloff of about 50% since 2005. I'm a member of the program committee, so I helped put together a revised program grid that rearranged the shows and added a new morning show. After a brutal rollout process that ticked off the displaced morning show hosts and a sizable chunk of the volunteers, we finally voted on and passed the new grid. I'm proud of the new grid itself, but getting to that point sucked rocks. The whole process was completely draining for the volunteers, the staff, and members of the committee like myself. At a volunteer organization, communication is really important; you have to engage the volunteers at every stage to let them know what you're planning on doing and why, and get their feedback and suggestions. I think we came up seriously short on the communication end of things, and it was pretty hellacious. My term on the committee ends in December, and I'll be more than happy to turn over the reins to some new blood.
I think that the reality is that music programming on FM radio is dying, and is completely dead for younger listeners. I get the sense that young kids still like the thrill of new music, and still bring over their favorite songs to their friends' houses, but instead of a stack of 45s and albums like my childhood friends and I had, they bring over their iPods and plug in. I get the sense that they discover new music through friends and the internet, but not at all through FM radio. We are no longer the tastemakers, and haven't been in that role in years. Sad, really. I also think that in 10 years, the internet will be completely ubiquitous in car radios, and will kill off music on FM. There will still be FM stations around, but they'll be all talk - essentially what AM radio is now. Not encouraging for us FM radio guys...
I also think that in community radio, where at 41 I'm considered one of the younger music programmers, our audience is unsustainably old and isn't getting any younger. Basically, we volunteer programmers program our shows as if we were our own target audiences. So my target audience is me, plus or minus 10 years. There's nothing I can possibly play to attract a 20-year-old to the show. And I think that's the problem our station is facing - none of our music programmers are young. Plenty of older folks, but nobody I'd call youthful.
Late April - Realized that next month will mark 20 years since I graduated from college. I can't say I'm all too pleased about that. That means that most of the college students in the world, right now, weren't even born when I graduated from college. See? Pretty discouraging.
And one final thought - an ad from the early '80s:
Stay springy!
Ron & Liz
--
Are you ready for some physics?
Let's assign some parameters here.
The length of the moving sidewalk is X_sidewalk. (I apologize for my lack of subscripts...)
The length of the land (the non-sidewalk portion) is X_land.
The speed at which you walk is V_walk.
The speed at which you run is V_run.
The speed of the moving sidewalk is V_sidewalk.
The duration of your burst of speed is T_run.
The one physics equation we'll use repeatedly is X=VT, or length = velocity times time.
First, let's treat the uninteresting case, where we don't run at all, but walk on both the moving sidewalk and the land - no running at all.
The speed at which you're moving while walking on the moving sidewalk is (V_sidewalk + V_walk).
The total distance on the moving sidewalk is (X_sidewalk).
The time spent walking on the moving sidewalk is (X_sidewalk) / (V_sidewalk + V_walk).
The speed at which you're moving while walking on land is (V_walk).
The total distance on land is (X_land).
The time spent walking on land is (X_land) / (V_walk).
The total time spent on both moving sidewalk and land is:
(X_sidewalk) / (V_sidewalk + V_walk) + (X_land) / (V_walk).
That's not all that interesting by itself.
Next, let's treat the case where the burst of speed is on land:
The total time spent on the moving sidewalk is unchanged from the previous case, and is:
(X_sidewalk) / (V_sidewalk + V_walk).
The time spent running on land is (T_run).
The speed at which you're moving while running is (V_run).
The distance covered by the time spent running is (V_run) (T_run).
The total distance on land is (X_land).
The distance on land that you need to walk is (X_land) - (V_run)(T_run).
The speed at which you're moving while walking is (V_walk).
The time spent walking on land is [(X_land - (V_run)(T_run)] / (V_walk).
The total time spent on land is:
(T_run) + [(X_land - (V_run)(T_run)] / (V_walk).
The total time spent on both the moving sidewalk and land is:
(X_sidewalk) / (V_sidewalk + V_walk) + (T_run) + [(X_land - (V_run)(T_run)] / (V_walk).
The time saved by the burst of speed on land is, after algebra:
(T_run) ((V_run / V_walk) - 1)
Finally, let's treat the case where the burst of speed is on the moving sidewalk:
The time spent running on the moving sidewalk is (T_run).
The speed at which you're moving while running is (V_run + V_sidewalk).
The distance covered by the time spent running is (V_run + V_sidewalk)(T_run).
The total distance on the moving sidewalk is (X_sidewalk).
The distance on the moving sidewalk that you need to walk is (X-sidewalk) - (V_run + V_sidewalk)(T_run).
The speed at which you're moving while walking is (V_walk + V_sidewalk).
The time spent walking on the moving sidewalk is [(X-sidewalk) - (V_run + V_sidewalk)(T_run)] / (V_walk + V_sidewalk).
The total time spent on the moving sidewalk is:
(T_run) + [(X-sidewalk) - (V_run + V_sidewalk)(T_run)] / (V_walk + V_sidewalk).
The total time spent on land is unchanged from the first case, and is:
(X_land) / (V_walk).
The total time spent on both the moving sidewalk and land is:
(T_run) + [(X-sidewalk) - (V_run + V_sidewalk)(T_run)] / (V_walk + V_sidewalk) + (X_land) / (V_walk).
The time saved by the burst of speed on the moving sidewalk is, after algebra:
(T_run) [(V_run + V_sidewalk) / (V_walk + V_sidewalk) - 1]
Subtract: (time saved by burst of speed on land) - (time saved by burst of speed on moving sidewalk) is, after algebra:
(T_run) [(V_run - V_walk)(V_sidewalk)] / [(V_walk)(V_walk + V_sidewalk)]
Assuming you run faster than you walk, the above line is a positive number.
So, you'll get there faster if you use your burst of speed on land, rather than on the moving sidewalk.
We can check the above result by esnuring that it goes to zero in three limiting cases:
(1)T_run = 0, (2) V_run = V_walk, or (3) V_sidewalk = 0.
It does go to zero in each of these cases. All is well.
What about the case of V_run = 0? Physically, this means that instead of running, you need to stop dead in your tracks for a period of time, as if you were checking your pockets to make sure you have your keys. Should you stop on the moving sidewalk, or on the land?
Forcing V_run = 0 flips the sign of the above quantity. So, if you need to stop for a period of time to check your keys, you'll get there faster if you stop on the moving sidewalk, rather than on the land.
Off the top of my head, I can't think of any direct applications of all this in the real world, but it's an interesting undergrad-level exercise in physics.
We joked that Liz's natural hair color is greenish gray, which nicely complements her eye color of grayish green. She thinks that the coloring might have taken out a little of the green.
Dec 16 - In September, Liz had gotten a parking ticket on one of the side streets near her school in Minneapolis. I told her to take pictures on her cell phone, and offered to take care of everything here in town for her. I work one building over from the Government Center, so it was much easier for me to deal with things than for Liz to do the same.I printed out the pictures from Liz's cell phone and walked the paperwork over to the Government Center. The appropriate clerk scheduled an appointment with a hearing examiner for Dec 16, which was over three months out. OK then.
Be at the appropriate office in the government center at least five minutes before my scheduled appointment. Check. Check in with woman at desk. Check. Take a seat. Check.
Literally about 90 seconds later (the TV in the waiting area never even came out of its block of commercials), the hearing examiner called me in. He had a modest, unpretentious office, and told me to take a seat.I explained that my wife had gotten a parking ticket, but she's currently in school in Wisconsin, and I work in the building next door so I'm here instead. Here are the pictures she took from her cell phone.
The hearing examiner said that officially, she's the one that has to appear in court, not me, but that it wasn't really a problem and we'll most likely be able to resolve the matter without her.
He took a quick look at the pictures. He then explained that the law is that you need five feet of clearance beyond where the curved part of the curb meets the straight part (i.e., five feet beyond where the curvature of the curb starts). Think of a fire truck turning into the driveway. Based on how they measure it, Liz didn't leave any clearance at all, and the picture clearly shows that her car even extends into the curved part of the curb. Hmm.
He then asked me what I think is fair. He added that he knew what I'd like, of course, but what did I think was fair. I asked what the fine is, and he said $32. I then suggested paying, maybe, half that? He replied that since there's no history of parking violations for Liz or her car, that he'd let it go - no fine. He said that Liz effectively pleaded guilty, but it was pretty meaningless and wouldn't go on her record. I told him that I'd pass on what he said to Liz, thanked him for his time, and walked back to my office.The whole process took maybe five minutes in the government center, and took maybe fifteen minutes of my time. Looks like the system works!
So remember, five feet of clearance from where the curvature of the curb begins. And being on-time and polite doesn't hurt, either.
Early January - You know those ubiquitous, cylindrical tins of butter cookies that always appear during the holidays? A conversation with a co-worker affirmed that the pretzel shapes always taste better than the other shapes, even though they're made from exactly the same stuff. We don't know why. They just do.
November and December - The holidays were fun. Spent them in Ada with Liz's family, which is always relaxing. For Christmas, there was a monstrous snowstorm bearing down on the midwest, so drove up to Ada a little early. The last 40 miles of the drive were on Highway 9, which is a perfectly straight two-lane highway.
It was snowing pretty hard with essentially no visibility when we got to Highway 9, and we wound up driving the entire stretch in the exact center of the road, since that was where the ditch was least likely to be.Liz's parents had gotten a new kitten, so we had to take pictures. Good thing we have a high-speed camera, because we got some fearsome action shots of the little terror! Zoom!
Early January - Got a Sonicare electric toothbrush, on the advice of my dentist. That thing is amazing! I've never had an electric toothbrush before, and the few that I'd played with before weren't all that special. But this thing can shake the enamel off your teeth! In a good way! Highly recommended! But don't try to talk while you're using it, or you'll get toothpaste all over the bathroom.Early January - Liz and I were watching TV when we got the craving for cookie dough ice cream. Liz went one better, and whipped up a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough from scratch. While most people would probably bake it into actual cookies, we just ate the whole thing out of the bowl with spoons. Liz is clearly the girl for me.
Mid-January - Liz got a new betta fish, to replace the one I let die when she first moved to Wisconsin. (Doh! Liz said it was really old and would have died anyway, but I still feel bad that it died on my watch.) The new one is cute. Liz named it "Sushi".Mid-January - Discovered that the word "jewelry" is spelled as "jewellery" in the UK. Guess I should stop making fun of that book that I routinely see in Half Price Books with the word "Jewellery" in the title...
Mid-January - Things weren't going all that well at work. I didn't have enough to do, because there wasn't enough work coming in the door. It's never a good sign when you have to invent tasks to do to keep yourself busy at work. I really didn't mind all that much, until they scaled my salary back to be commensurate with the amount of billable work I was doing - that was the last straw.
So I went to monster.com and typed in "Patent Agent" in Minneapolis, MN. And much to my surprise, two openings showed up. One was at Crompton, Seager & Tufte. Why did that sound familiar? Hey! My friend Paul works there! So I called him up. The conversation went something like this: "Hey, Paul. You guys have a Patent Agent position posted on monster.com." "We do?? Let me ask around, and I'll get back to you." The next day, I had lunch with Paul. A few days after that, I had lunch with one of the partners. The next week, I went in for a more formal interview, where I wore the Interview Suit. You know, the suit that only gets worn for job interviews, and has been untouched for so long in the closet that it gets a ring of dust around the collar in the portion that isn't covered by the plastic wrap. 15 years and counting with that suit. (Thank you, Franklin's of Tucson!) Interview went very smoothly, they emailed me an offer, I OKed it via email (and cc'ed Liz), gave my two weeks notice later that day, and that was that.
It was the most relaxed job-hunt process that I've ever heard of, for anybody, ever since the very dawn of work itself. I spent the last day at Altera wheeling my books and artwork from my old office to my new office, which was at the other end of downtown. You can get from one to the other in the Minneapolis skyways, without ever going outside. And that's just what I did. It's a 30-minute walk from my old office (green dot) to my new office (red dot) in the skyways, with a cart full of books. It took three trips, one of them with artwork tucked under my arm.
The new office is at the very south end of the Minneapolis skyways. Literally, the end of the skyways - there's a sign on the building that reads, "Skyway Ends".My last day of work at Altera was Friday, Feb 26. My first day of work at CS&T was Monday, Mar 1. People asked if I was going to take any time off between jobs. Time off from what? I felt like I hadn't done any real work in months, so vacation time was kinda pointless.
The new firm has about 10 attorneys and 4 other patent agents, making me agent number 5. This firm is considered "small", as opposed to Altera, which I would classify as "tiny". Most importantly, the new firm had too much work coming in, hence the job opening.
About 90% of my work is for two very large clients, which have used the firm for 15+ years. It's like there's an endless stream of work from these clients, which is really fabulous for me. It's SO nice knowing that when I get to work, there's stuff on my desk waiting to be done.
At the new firm, the partners are responsible for bringing in the work and making sure that there's enough of it to go around. The agents, like me, have no marketing duties or any responsibilities whatsoever regarding drumming up new business, which is a welcome change from the old firm. Turns out the rest of the world works on the assumption that the partners worry about bringing in the work, not the non-partners. And that's just fine by me, since I'm terrible at drumming up new business.
The new office is nicer than the old one. I'm eight floors up, instead of 17, and now I'm looking at the south end of downtown instead of down on the Metrodome.
And the transition into the new job has been completely effortless. I take the same bus to and from downtown, at the same times. I get off at the same stop as before, but to go home I get on at a different stop. Not much of a change at all. And I stay later downtown, because I'm actually working until 5:30.Liz was thrilled about the new job. The little raise I got didn't hurt, but the most important thing to her was my job security. Here, I'm actually doing something useful instead of being another mouth to feed at Altera. I stayed at Altera six years to the day.
March - I came up with a real life physics problem, suitable for an undergrad mechanics class.
You're at the airport, you checked in a little late, and you have to get from security to the gate as fast as you can. The airport has a few moving sidewalks in certain places to help speed you along.
You walk at a constant velocity while on the sidewalk(s), and walk at the same speed on land (off the sidewalk).
You're in a hurry, but you're in lousy shape and you're bogged down with carry-on luggage, so you're allowed one burst of speed where you can run instead of walk. The burst of speed lasts only for a fixed duration, so that you can only run for, say, five seconds. The running duration and running speed are the same if you run on the moving sidewalk or if you run on land (off the sidewalk).
The question is this: In order to get to the gate the fastest, should you use your burst of speed while you're on the moving sidewalk, or while you're on land (off the sidewalk)? Or doesn't it matter?
And an analogous question: If you have to stop for five seconds to check to make sure you have your keys, should you stop while you're on the moving sidewalk, while you're on land (off the sidewalk), or doesn't it matter?
It's not a trick question. It has a real answer, which you can figure out with real math, but I can't figure out an intuitive way to explain the answer.
Think about it, make some sketches, do some math, and check out the real answer at the end of this Big Life Update.
March - For the first time in something like 150 years, Minneapolis got no snow at all in March. Freaky.
Early April - Liz had a few days off for Easter, so we visited her family in Ada. The new toy on the farm was an old road grader - a giant snowplow-like thing that you drive down a dirt road to make it smooth. It's a got a huge blade on it that you can control with something like 12 or 14 levers. That's a lot of control! Liz's brother, Eric, fired it up and drove me around on it for a few feet in the dirt behind the house. Best Toy Ever.
April - Kentucky Fried Chicken introduced their "Double Down" sandwich. It sounded like a joke - no bun, just two fried chicken breasts with bacon, cheese and some sauce inside.Which means that somebody inside the KFC organization consciously decided that what was wrong with their sandwiches was THE BUN.
I had one, so you don't have to. I'll just write this one off as "taking one for the team". It's almost as bad as their "Famous Bowl" - mashed potatoes, corn, fried chicken bits, cheese, and gravy over the whole thing. I probably mentioned that our friend Janice dubbed that the "Bowl Of Crap". I don't think I'll be having another one of those.April - At work, I encountered two of the most hilarious patents ever.
The first was an automotive patent, which used windpower to turn a propeller that recharges a battery. Clearly, not the product of a physicist. (It's the equivalent of bringing an electric fan onto your sailboat, and running the fan against the sail to make your boat go REALLY FAST. Just like in the cartoons.) That's the beauty of patents - they have to be novel and non-obvious, but they don't actually have to work.
The second was a published patent application (it didn't issue), also along the same lines as the windpowered car. Only this one was not written by a patent professional; aspiring inventors are allowed to write them up themselves, but the results are usually disastrous. The odds were really stacked against this one, in particular, and I heartily recommend reading it start to finish.
April - Was involved with a scheduling change at KFAI. Basically, our ratings/listenership numbers were dangerously low, with a falloff of about 50% since 2005. I'm a member of the program committee, so I helped put together a revised program grid that rearranged the shows and added a new morning show. After a brutal rollout process that ticked off the displaced morning show hosts and a sizable chunk of the volunteers, we finally voted on and passed the new grid. I'm proud of the new grid itself, but getting to that point sucked rocks. The whole process was completely draining for the volunteers, the staff, and members of the committee like myself. At a volunteer organization, communication is really important; you have to engage the volunteers at every stage to let them know what you're planning on doing and why, and get their feedback and suggestions. I think we came up seriously short on the communication end of things, and it was pretty hellacious. My term on the committee ends in December, and I'll be more than happy to turn over the reins to some new blood.I think that the reality is that music programming on FM radio is dying, and is completely dead for younger listeners. I get the sense that young kids still like the thrill of new music, and still bring over their favorite songs to their friends' houses, but instead of a stack of 45s and albums like my childhood friends and I had, they bring over their iPods and plug in. I get the sense that they discover new music through friends and the internet, but not at all through FM radio. We are no longer the tastemakers, and haven't been in that role in years. Sad, really. I also think that in 10 years, the internet will be completely ubiquitous in car radios, and will kill off music on FM. There will still be FM stations around, but they'll be all talk - essentially what AM radio is now. Not encouraging for us FM radio guys...
I also think that in community radio, where at 41 I'm considered one of the younger music programmers, our audience is unsustainably old and isn't getting any younger. Basically, we volunteer programmers program our shows as if we were our own target audiences. So my target audience is me, plus or minus 10 years. There's nothing I can possibly play to attract a 20-year-old to the show. And I think that's the problem our station is facing - none of our music programmers are young. Plenty of older folks, but nobody I'd call youthful.
Late April - Realized that next month will mark 20 years since I graduated from college. I can't say I'm all too pleased about that. That means that most of the college students in the world, right now, weren't even born when I graduated from college. See? Pretty discouraging.
And one final thought - an ad from the early '80s:
Stay springy!Ron & Liz
--
Are you ready for some physics?
Let's assign some parameters here.
The length of the moving sidewalk is X_sidewalk. (I apologize for my lack of subscripts...)
The length of the land (the non-sidewalk portion) is X_land.
The speed at which you walk is V_walk.
The speed at which you run is V_run.
The speed of the moving sidewalk is V_sidewalk.
The duration of your burst of speed is T_run.
The one physics equation we'll use repeatedly is X=VT, or length = velocity times time.
First, let's treat the uninteresting case, where we don't run at all, but walk on both the moving sidewalk and the land - no running at all.
The speed at which you're moving while walking on the moving sidewalk is (V_sidewalk + V_walk).
The total distance on the moving sidewalk is (X_sidewalk).
The time spent walking on the moving sidewalk is (X_sidewalk) / (V_sidewalk + V_walk).
The speed at which you're moving while walking on land is (V_walk).
The total distance on land is (X_land).
The time spent walking on land is (X_land) / (V_walk).
The total time spent on both moving sidewalk and land is:
(X_sidewalk) / (V_sidewalk + V_walk) + (X_land) / (V_walk).
That's not all that interesting by itself.
Next, let's treat the case where the burst of speed is on land:
The total time spent on the moving sidewalk is unchanged from the previous case, and is:
(X_sidewalk) / (V_sidewalk + V_walk).
The time spent running on land is (T_run).
The speed at which you're moving while running is (V_run).
The distance covered by the time spent running is (V_run) (T_run).
The total distance on land is (X_land).
The distance on land that you need to walk is (X_land) - (V_run)(T_run).
The speed at which you're moving while walking is (V_walk).
The time spent walking on land is [(X_land - (V_run)(T_run)] / (V_walk).
The total time spent on land is:
(T_run) + [(X_land - (V_run)(T_run)] / (V_walk).
The total time spent on both the moving sidewalk and land is:
(X_sidewalk) / (V_sidewalk + V_walk) + (T_run) + [(X_land - (V_run)(T_run)] / (V_walk).
The time saved by the burst of speed on land is, after algebra:
(T_run) ((V_run / V_walk) - 1)
Finally, let's treat the case where the burst of speed is on the moving sidewalk:
The time spent running on the moving sidewalk is (T_run).
The speed at which you're moving while running is (V_run + V_sidewalk).
The distance covered by the time spent running is (V_run + V_sidewalk)(T_run).
The total distance on the moving sidewalk is (X_sidewalk).
The distance on the moving sidewalk that you need to walk is (X-sidewalk) - (V_run + V_sidewalk)(T_run).
The speed at which you're moving while walking is (V_walk + V_sidewalk).
The time spent walking on the moving sidewalk is [(X-sidewalk) - (V_run + V_sidewalk)(T_run)] / (V_walk + V_sidewalk).
The total time spent on the moving sidewalk is:
(T_run) + [(X-sidewalk) - (V_run + V_sidewalk)(T_run)] / (V_walk + V_sidewalk).
The total time spent on land is unchanged from the first case, and is:
(X_land) / (V_walk).
The total time spent on both the moving sidewalk and land is:
(T_run) + [(X-sidewalk) - (V_run + V_sidewalk)(T_run)] / (V_walk + V_sidewalk) + (X_land) / (V_walk).
The time saved by the burst of speed on the moving sidewalk is, after algebra:
(T_run) [(V_run + V_sidewalk) / (V_walk + V_sidewalk) - 1]
Subtract: (time saved by burst of speed on land) - (time saved by burst of speed on moving sidewalk) is, after algebra:
(T_run) [(V_run - V_walk)(V_sidewalk)] / [(V_walk)(V_walk + V_sidewalk)]
Assuming you run faster than you walk, the above line is a positive number.
So, you'll get there faster if you use your burst of speed on land, rather than on the moving sidewalk.
We can check the above result by esnuring that it goes to zero in three limiting cases:
(1)T_run = 0, (2) V_run = V_walk, or (3) V_sidewalk = 0.
It does go to zero in each of these cases. All is well.
What about the case of V_run = 0? Physically, this means that instead of running, you need to stop dead in your tracks for a period of time, as if you were checking your pockets to make sure you have your keys. Should you stop on the moving sidewalk, or on the land?
Forcing V_run = 0 flips the sign of the above quantity. So, if you need to stop for a period of time to check your keys, you'll get there faster if you stop on the moving sidewalk, rather than on the land.
Off the top of my head, I can't think of any direct applications of all this in the real world, but it's an interesting undergrad-level exercise in physics.
