Engineers will be engineers...

In our building at work, they are replacing all of our conventional phones with brand new "Voice over IP" phones. For now, don't worry about what VoIP means. The only important thing for this post is that the phones are really cool, and have big, 7 x 10 cm graphical displays. There are lots of "soft" keys whose function is labeled on this nice, graphical display.

You can program many "speed dial" numbers in the phone. However, since this is a VoIP phone, you don't program this into the phone, but rather you go to a web site to do this. Here you enter your user id (which is our standard ID we use inside the company) and there is an initial preset password set to "12345".

You log into the web site, change the password, and then program your phone with your speed dial numbers. For each speed dial number, you can also give it a name that displays on the screen. Your first speed dial number is always displayed, and is activated by pressing the button to the right of it.

I programmed some numbers, changed my password, etc.

As it happens, this saved me!

Engineers, you see, like to play! And speed was of the essence, since most people had not used with their phones for the first time yet. So, guess what, since everyone's user IDs were known (they match our email addresses), the game of the day was to set someone ELSE'S speed dial number and the all important label which displays. Some of the favorites were:

• "Speakerphone"
• "Configure"
• "Redial"
• "Mute" and
• "Help"

When the victim walks up to their phone, of course all they see is this string - they never realize that someone actually set it to do something. Said victim may press the 'configure' key, only to find out that it calls the local pizza shop. Another favorite trick was to call your own phone - as it turns out, you can do it, and yes, its very confusing if you don't realize what you did.

And then there are the poor guys whose "new" password is being held for ransom, until the appropriate bribe is paid.

How NOT to design a toilet stall....

Several years ago they renovated the Univ. Rochester's Strong Auditorium. This included the men's bathrooms. Very nice, very clean job. You could probably play a four person bridge game around the single throne in the handicap stall.

There's only one small problem...

First, lets talk about the design. You walk into the stall and a very nice, automatically flushing toilet is sitting there staring at you (looking inviting, of course). So you turn around, and sit down. On your wall to the right, near the door is the all-important toilet paper roll.

So far, so good. In fact, you start to notice that it is a WARM toilet. U/R is heated by steam, and the water supply line seems to run near a steam pipe.

We'll skip the part you do between sitting down and getting ready to leave.

Now, time to finish up. You reach for the toilet paper. Damn - can't easily reach it! (What were they thinking - what DO people with wheelchairs do? Well, you leeeeaaannnn forward. There - got it.

Now comes the unpleasant surprise. Remember that automatically flushing feature? Well, the darn toilet now flushes with abandon. And guess what, just like Niagara Falls, the rapids at the bottom throw up lots of spray! Result? Wet cheeks! Well, what do you do about that?

You learn forward to get some more toilet paper....

Orlando, FL day 2

I know, I'm starting in the middle of something! Well, when you haven't been writing in a blog for a while, sometimes it is better to write rather than think about explaining.

Orlando, Software Defined Forum conference. This year I am just attending, no presenting, so it is a pretty easy trip. Wake up, eat, listen to some papers, eat a morning snack, listen to some papers, eat lunch, listen to some papers, skip listening to some papers and do some "work work" sitting alongside the pool with my laptop, listen to some papers, eat dinner, visit vendors booths, talk too much until I am silly tired, then my evening begins.

Tonight the evening began at 8:30 pm. I started by just resting and recovering (i.e stay away from people, read and daydream). Then, I put on my running cloths (it is around 20 degrees C here at night), and walk out to the main road we are on. I get on a local bus (doesn't really matter where it goes, as long as I watch WHERE it went), ride it for about 15 minutes, get off, and then run home.

Actually, it was a little more controlled than that - in the part of Orlando I was in, there is a really great trolley bus that has numbered stops, and essentially works like a metro. Here is a link: http://www.iridetrolley.com/ I measured off 6 km on my map, figured out which number that was, and then I actually knew how far I was running. It worked great!

Tonight I was walking on the trolly trail with Anya and Chimay (our occasionally visiting poodle). After running this path so many times it was a rare pleasure to just be able to enjoy walking it and enjoying all of the nature that is there. The frogs are croaking away, the birds are nesting, and I even saw a fish in the swamp.
Anya managed to actually corner a groundhog! This is luckily a rare event – usually she chases them, but they magically disappear down on of their networks of holes, leaving a poodle intently staring with a madly wagging tail…. But not this time! She had run off the trail, and was barking and barking. I called her back and Chimay came but Anya continued barking without moving – uncharacteristic for her. I run towards her saying to myself “please, don’t let it be a porcupine!”. Well, no, it was one, brown, vertical groundhog, standing its ground for some reason. Nose to nose. Anya’s tail wagging wildly (does she like want it to play? Who knows!). So I pulled her back and scamper scamper off it goes.
Later on, I found a painted turtle, so I stop and look at it. Pretty thing, about maybe 15 – 18 cm large. Not moving. I sit there and watch, then I notice said turtle is backed up to a small hole, newly excavated. Look a little closer and, sure enough, there they are – a number of eggs (at least four) in the hole, with presumably more on the way. Plop, plop, plop! How she dug the hole I do not know – it had perhaps a 3 cm hole at the top, but was clearly “dug out” below, i.e. wider below ground than the hole itself – you could see the eggs spilling out to the sides! After watching for a while (the dogs weren’t interested it seems), I left her to do her thing. But I left a marker in the dirt to keep checking back as August approaches.
(For some great pictures of painted turtles, see http://www.fcps.k12.va.us/StratfordLandingES/Ecology/mpages/eastern_painted_turtle.htm )