Pure Walt, from Concentrated Thought
Just general stuff that’s going on.
What do you do when your significant other leaves for a long duration?
I have a friend who’s girlfriend is going to be out of town for the week. He writes me stating that he’s going to fix her computer, get her a new phone, catch a show with her before she leaves, and detail her car before she returns.
He’s a better man than I.
Me? My wife is leaving as well. My plan? Leave the toilet seat up all week.
What do walking sticks, card shuffling, and movie stars have to do with finding the perfect mate? They seem to support that you can find your spouse by seriously dating seven people.
When one goes to a technical conference on Java, perhaps the last thing you’d expect the a speakers’ lunch conversation turn to is mathematical selection of a mate.
I suppose it started simply because we had been talking about change. The topic started with source code change, changes at the office, and moved into changes in people. I offered up the classic observation that women get frustrated at their men because they don’t change, but that men get frustrated at their women because they do.
One gentleman was lamenting on his situation and admiring the subtle manipulation by his wife prior to his flight:
“Honey, ” he relates she began, “you should probably lose some weight, though I’d still love you if you were fat as a house.” And, after a momentary pause, she inquires, “Do you think I need to lose weight?”
Apparently his response of “I always love you, too” wasn’t quite what she was looking for.
Another speaker spoke up and added, “Well, I don’t have that problem at all. We’ve come to an agreement. I can be either fat or bald, but not both.”
Absolutely curious, I asked how that arrangement was sought. That just isn’t the kind of thing that normally just comes up as the finer points of marital negotiation.
He pondered and explained it started by as an ultimatum by her — unfortunately for her, she was engaging with one of the brighter logical minds…
“Honey, I’ve thought about it, and you can’t grow up to be fat and bald.”
“Really? Well, I have no control over being bald.”
“Oh. Well then you can grow up to be bald, but not fat.”
“Well, if I can be bald and not fat, then it’s only fair that I can also be fat and not bald.”
“makes sense, that sounds fair.”
“Then it’s settled, I can either be bald, or fat, but not both.”
“Agreed.”
And at that point, he took another bite of cake, stroking his head of hair with the other hand.
But this started a fantastic digression about how one knows when you have the right person in your life. We’d all just come out of meetings pertaining to measuring, quantifying, trend analysis, and metrics.
Based on rough calculations, to calibrate the scale and distribution of a sample size population, to do the best you could do, in a short period of time, it was concluded that you really needed to examine at least seven samples. At that point, you have a reasonable approximation for making a reasonable judgment call, and it was just a matter of how many standard deviations you were discriminating for.
A simple example is called for.
You’re walking in the woods and you’ve been given the task to pick up the best walking stick you can find. But the rule is, once you set it down, you can’t pick it up again.
So, you pick up the first stick you come to. However, you don’t know if this is the largest, or smallest. You have nothing to compare it to. With no basis for comparison, you set it down.
So, you pick up the next stick you come to. And you start to note more attributes, such as weight, shape, type of wood, etc. And again, you drop it.
So, you pick up the next stick you come to. As the attributes that interest you start to prioritize, you find yourself become more aware of the quality. You start looking at things like balance, general utility, wear, and things that come along with the stick, such as moss or termites. Some things are alterable, others are not.
As your go from stick to stick, each time you’re refining your assessment abilities and have gained more knowledge about what you’re looking at, as well as determining what you want.
After your six stick, depending on the breadth of the distribution you’ve encountered, you’ve started to formulate an accurate picture of of what you can reasonably expect. At this point you simply decide what criteria must be met, and the next stick that meets that criteria, you take. Permanently.
Oh sure, there might be something else better out there, but the effort, cost, time, dangers, and availability will more than likely offset the value you’d currently have. Trading your walking stick for something new, only trades existing faults with new unforeseen ones.
The same mathematical application applies to the dating scene.
Young couples find themselves inexperienced for selecting long term candidates and determining personal discriminators: there are unforeseen personality clashes, other options suddenly look more attractive, and if one settles too prematurely, it usually means being treated like a doormat or being taken advantage of financially.
Who among us didn’t stumble upon infatuation and think it was true love at sixteen? Or, find an exciting girlfriend only to discover character flaws that were obvious to our friends, family, and even our own 20/20 hindsight? Or, have everything wonderful and stable only to have it all turned on its ear for not explicable reason just as she turned twenty.
Unfortunately, for many, desperation or loneliness causes some people to settle well before their calibration process is complete; these people usually learn the hard lesson that being trapped in a bad relationship is worse than being lonely.
Alternatively, there are those that spend too much time in the calibration phase, and totally miss out on the longer term joys that are more rewarding.
It’s also interesting to note that we see microcosms of discriminating selection occur around when context and locality are ignored and we forget the more global nature of the chase.
One example may be the cruise ship filled with old geezers, of which in that context, some middle-aged person who’d never catch your eye looks fairly darn attractive in light of the situation. Same goes for co-workers, people met in bars, or even at parties — the limited selection forces expectations to be lowered.
This is why online dating services that give the illusion of many candidates keeps people seeking for perfection, while speed dating narrows the options and forces a compromised choice or none at all.
Of course, one might also say that it’s the reasoning behind things being in the last place you look, for once you make the find, the search is over.
Seven, however, lets you home in on a very acceptable choice that you can be genuinely be happy with, rather than waiting forever. For you too have a shelf life, and by the time you find the ideal through an exhaustive search, you may be too old to do anything about it.
I ponder, though, if there’s something more special going on.
For example, we’ve all heard of six degrees to Kevin Bacon, at that point you’ve traversed enough paths to get where you want.
Additionally, and I think this was in a story by Wired Magazine, a number of years ago, there was a mathematician who was going on a long horseback cattle drive. To amuse himself, he brought along a deck of cards, and spent the time shuffling it. At the end of his trip, he had mathematically deduced that for a deck to be sufficiently randomized (that is any card could be assured to physically be in any position), it required the deck to be shuffled seven times.
In both cases, we see that seven got us a good sampling — and with a good sample, an intelligent choice can be made.
BestBuy did something right… I hope they keep it up.
BestBuy, you did something right. Thank you!
The web is just littered with screw-ups by BestBuy, from its policies to indifferent workforce. However, this weekend I had quite the opposite experience, and I felt it worth sharing, for being in the moment, it was as if BestBuy returned to its original roots.
I was looking for a Wii game for my four year old nephew who had come to visit. I wanted something more complicated than Wii Sports and something not so intense as Tiger Woods PGA. The solution was sitting right there on the shelf, Super Swing Golf; the price looked right, so I grabbed it.
At check out, the person rang up my purchases, and the total seemed high — the game was registered as $49.95.
Casually I mentioned, “Is it $49.95? I thought it was $29.95.”
Rather than getting into an argument with me, siding with the computer, or such, the checkout clerk simply said “can you show me where you got it?” And then he flipped off his line light.
I escorted him to the game section, apologizing the whole time in that it most likely was my fault and that perhaps I missed something in my haste. I knew I was going to get the game no matter what the cost, and at this point felt I was wasting his time.
As we got over to the game area, there were three stacks of Super Swing Golf, and there were $49.95 price tags and banners all over the place.
I nodded that he was right, but then something on the second shelf caught my eye. I pointed, and he reached in and pulled in out. There it was a plastic game separator with a yellow label listing “Super Swing Golf $29.95.”
He pulled it out, took it back to the register, overrode the price, and gave it to me for the lower price. He could have just as easily said it was an old sticker, mistake, or misprint – which, to be honest, was what I was expecting.
Anyhow, I walked out of BestBuy more happy about the customer service than I was with getting a good price on the product. And, yes, I’ll be returning to BestBuy soon; I want to reward behavior like that.
Comp Time is your company’s secret weapon to boost productivity, make employees happy, and make the bottom line larger. See it in action – do you work for Company A or Company B. Pretty graphs included.
Comp Time is your company’s secret weapon, not just to employee happiness, but to productivity.
Some companies define comp time as earning 1.5hrs for every overtime hour worked. This article assumes a 1:1 ratio to make its points. Our focus is directed at human behavior when comp time is (and isn’t) available and the side effects of being able to borrow from past and future reserves.
We’ll examine two companies. A, which does not implement comp time. And, B, which does implement comp time.
Let’s start with the assumption that the normal work week is five days long and eight hours each.
Company A’s Average Is Lower Than They Realize!
Company B’s Average Is Above 100%
Productivity!
Conversely, if you’ve hired professionals and treat them like professionals, they tend to act like professionals. Company B also has the same 40 hour work week, but its policy is such that employees are free to jiggle their time around via flex hours.
If an employee doesn’t feel well, he leaves, without infecting the rest of the office, making it up later. If an employee takes a long weekend, he can beat traffic, yet still make up that time without burning himself out. If he’s being unproductive, and knows it, he can just stop — suddenly company B isn’t paying for unproductive hours. Even better, when the employee gets a burst of inspiration and is in “the zone” creatively, he’ll naturally work as long as it takes; people enjoy feeling productive. This amount is often well above what’s asked. Finally, the employee can use the extra accumulated time to reward himself; company B doesn’t have to shove out as many bonuses.
Management at Company is confusing attendance with productivity (the stuff that actually gets done), but all they really have is a bunch of disgruntled clock-watchers. Company B is a different story, because the actual productivity often exceeds 100%, plus its people are happy (and happy people don’t jump ship).
All you really need to be looking for what actually happens in a company when a real-life event bumps up an artificial boundary. The conclusion, as we’ll see, is that the broader the comp time window is, the more benefits befall to the company.
Company A’s Productivity Is Lower Due To Missed Time
AND They Are Now Behind Schedule!
Company B’s Average Is Unaffected By The Absence!
Employees do not like touching this reserve, primarily because it is a safety buffer that accounts for emergencies. Additionally, there’s the perfectly valid conception that vacation time should be fun time, and that one might want to use it in large sized blocks.
Company A has two rationalizations for making the employee consume vacation time. One, forcing them to draw against it is a disincentive to stay home. Two, not having any left means the employee won’t be out for an extended period, keeping him around. Both are self defeating in the long run.
First, it’s true, the sick employee may drag himself into work, simply to be there. However, someone who’s sick often doesn’t perform well, and in the case of software development, coding in a mental fog can actually do a project serious damage. Meanwhile, the rest of the office gets sick, which cycles back around to making recovery difficult. Now you know why flu season affects some companies and not others.
Second, people function better after breaks. Having an employee continually working on a project non-stop tends to induce burn-out, often leading not to continued productivity, but to the employee leaving for another job, presumably with better working conditions.
Either way you look at it though, Company A has lost time on the project due to the employee being out.
Company B, however, has a different perspective. Because their policy allows the time to be recovered, the employee has a strong incentive not to consume his vacation pool. As such, he works longer in the days that follow, recovering his time. From a project standpoint, it regains the ground that was previously thought lost.
Additionally, because the project isn’t behind schedule, planning becomes easier and more accurate, allowing Company B to let the employee take a long vacation, scheduling around it so that it has no impact. When the employee returns, he’s refreshed and back to producing at peek performance.
Company A’s People Put In Less Extra Effort, And Are Unhappy.
Company B’s People Go Above And Beyond, Willingly.
Meanwhile, Company B’s staff is willing to go beyond the extra mile, primarily because they know that what follows the demo is a significant block of downtime. Company B gets the time when they need it, and the employee doesn’t feel taken advantage of. They return rested and ready, sooner.
The lesson is clear: the larger the block of allowable comp time, the more value the company gets. The effect does not appear to be linear, either. A company with monthly cycles gains more than having two back-to-back bi-weekly cycles of time reconciliation.
Should an employee cross a comp time boundary with a negative amount, it simply get drawn from vacation, and if no vacation, then salary. The primary risk to cover is the case of the employee borrows time and then quits, the solution is just to set policy so that no comp time can be borrowed more than the employee has resources to cover.
Another way to allow borrowing forward is to actually draw from vacation, though allowing comp time to return back time to the vacation pool.
Ideally, though, the best solution is to allow banking of time to fill in gaps. You’re no longer borrowing from future time, but normalizing from reserves. Turns out, employees will settle in on this optimum strategy without having to be shown, anyhow.
It’s a benefit that’s very easy to provide, and it makes Company B have the competitive edge over Company A, all things equal.
Another real-life example of Apple Customer Service at the Tyson’s Corner Store in Virginia.
A friend of mine bought an 80GB iPod at the the Apple Store, but on the 14th day discovered something rather interesting about it. On the back was engraved “who loves you?”, there was debris inside under the screen, the screen was rainbowed when observed at an angle, and it was bowed a bit, not fastened to the back plate.
For those unaware, you cannot buy engraved iPods at the Apple Store, only online, nor can you return an engraved iPod to the Apple Store. If you do opt for engraving, you’ll have a receipt with your engraved message on it.
So, he called in advance and the sales person said he needed to come in and speak with a manager. Like most Apple store treks, I went along for the ride.
We got there and a skeptical sales person listened to the tale of woe, but upon seeing the Apple Store receipt and matching serial number on the device, he quickly got us in touch with the manager. She was wonderful and instantly figured out what had happened by just looking at the sticker.
She noted that the model number started with P, indicating this was a personalized iPod. And, since the store does not have the capacity to engrave or sell engraved iPods, this means someone returned it. Employees at the Apple Store are not supposed to accept them, and because the serial number was on the device, she could tell who’s iPod it was originally was, as well as which store employee accepted it as a return, putting it back in the “new” pile.
From the damage to the iPod, it appeared as if someone tried to pry off the cover near the on/off switch, this accounted for the bowing, the small pieces of dust and debris inside, and the rainbow effect from micro stress fractures in the plastic cover after being pried.
Additionally, she knew from our sales receipt who sold us the iPod and that person didn’t check the model number as well. She stated this was clearly Apple’s fault and that it should have been caught both at the point of return and the point of sale.
Happily, she handed over a brand new iPod (with a model number that started with M). While we didn’t want anyone to get in trouble, she did indicate she was going to re-emphasize that part of the training to the sales staff, and that again, it wasn’t our fault. She also indicated that had the problem even been caught even after the 14-day period, Apple fixes its mistakes.
Now, here comes the extra-cool part. Knowing that the sales person made a mistake, she hand inspected his entire purchase history from the start of time. “Did the sale person treat you rudely at all?” We both affirmed we were treated wonderfully.
There was only one problem though. His home-school machine came with a “free” printer via a $99 rebate, and when he submitted the rebate it was rejected as being purchased with an educational discount.
Meanwhile, my brother-in-law, who also purchased a Mac for his home school also got a “free” printer via a $99 rebate. I had the email with me on my Sidekick that the rebate had already gone through and that by the time he was reading confirmation they had gotten the rebate, he already had the rebate check in his hands — impressive.
The manager, again, said she knew what happened. She popped open the purchase of his machine and confirmed it.
Apparently there’s a difference if you are an educational institution, such as a public college that’s buying equipment, versus if you are a student or home school principal doing things on a home budget. The former does not qualify, the latter does. And, yes, the machine and the printer are sold in store at an educational discount by anyone there (unlike software which requires you to go online or a passing manager invoke their whim).
That sales person entered the code for institution opposed to student. Again, another training issue.
“Do you have the receipt for that on you?”
We didn’t. “No problem; bring it with you next time, and we’ll give you $100.” She pulled out her business card, wrote on the back “Entry code mistake; qualifies for educational discount on printer – refund $100.”
She was sweet and extremely apologetic, apparently people have been getting a little lax with the codes, and the wrong code can have interesting downstream consequences. We thanked her and expressed our gratitude, the apologies just weren’t necessary.
Thrilled at the superior customer treatment, we headed immediately over to the games section and started thumbing through titles.
Well, I suppose it makes sense if you look at it from the perspective of a kid…
During the hour and a half ride up to Hershey Park, I decided to play a few educational games with my niece and nephew.
The first game was a little bit of word play, introducing the use of puns, telling jokes that were applicable for seven year olds and younger.
My nephew, who insists he’s four, wanted to tell a joke.
“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?” I asked.
“Orange.”
“Orange who?”
“Knock knock,” he repeated.
“Who’s there??”
“Orange.”
“Orange who??”
“Knock knock!”
“Who’s there?!?”
“Orange!”
“Orange who?!?”
“Orange you glad I didn’t say banana?”
The sincere mistelling of the joke was far more humorous than the punchline.
I decided to switch gears. I’d teach my niece how to guess a number by using a binary search. I started with the nephew.
“Erich, I’m thinking of a number between one at ten. What is it?”
“Four?”
“Well, uh, yes, actually it was four….”
“I’m good at this!!!”
“Madison, I’m thinking of a number between one and twenty. What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have to guess.”
“Oh. Ten?”
“Higher.”
“Eleven?”
“Higher.”
…a little bit later…
“Nineteen?”
“That’s the number!”
Swapping back and forth between the kids, they quickly started to catch on it was easier to partition the number space and home in on the number as I was expecting them to do.
I thought the lesson was going well until:
“Uncle Walt, it’s your turn. Guess what number I’m thinking of between one and a hundred!”
“Hmm, I’ll guess right in the middle: 50?”
“WRONG!” she exclaimed with pleasure as if she’d won.
I was still waiting for a “higher or lower.” She then paused and, assuming I wasn’t saying anything because my feelings were hurt, offered condolences: “That’s okay, it was the first time you played.”
“So, have you had much experience being a seven year old girl?”
“Yup, a whole year.”
My niece happened to call my wife and announce she was going to be coming over and she felt that our toys were boring. After all, she was seven years old.
I guess the blocks, tinker toys, and such were a little more appropriate when she was five. So, being a kid myself, I decided to head off to Toys’R’Us to rectify the problem of the dated toy chest.
Problem is, I’m not a little girl, despite throwing like one. I have no idea what they like, so I marched up to Customer Service and explained to the group of teens working there my problem: I needed toys suitable for a seven year old girl that weren’t boring.
One of the more bopitty girls sprang to my rescue and led me through a maze of toys into the girl section, an area of the store I barely knew existed and promptly avoided at all costs.
“So,” I asked, “have much experience being a seven year old girl?”
Without missing a beat she responded, “a whole year.”
“Excellent, you sound more than qualified.”
She led me over to a rack of dress up clothes for make believe. They were frilly spandex outfits letting kids be anything from a cheerleader to a princess. But, given that the clothes cost almost as much as the outfit I was wearing, I opted to move on to the next section.
There we explored plastic food, pretend shopping carts, and ugly assortments of dolls. There was a lot of pretending in this isle.
I wanted something more. So she took me to her most favorite toy — a doll that you actually fed and it actually pooped into a diaper, which you then changed. It had all kinds of expensive food and diaper accessories. Admittedly, it looked kinda cool.
“I can’t even believe we have this one in stock, they go so fast — little girls just love these babies!”
I looked at the baby-in-a-box. “Question.”
“Shoot.”
“What happens if my niece feeds the baby, gets bored, and puts it back in the toy box.”
The expression change was as discrete, incremental, and illuminating as a traffic signal. The question got processed, then she pondered why I was asking it, and then it dawned on her that I’d have a toy box with a baby who’s got an unattended diaper load growing mold for the next two months before “mom” comes back to visit. “Ew. I never thought about that before.”
“Moving on….”
We saw little expensive gadgets. Boring board games. And soon we were in the little boy’s section.
What did they have? Mysterious sand that magically held its form as if it was wet, but wasn’t. Magnetic balls and struts that could form impressive structures. Moon bounce shoes which let feel what it was like to walk in low gravity. A gross food kit that made slime candy with a mad scientist chemistry set. The list went on, and my shopping cart got full.
While I knew she’d play with it, I needed something girly. I eventually settled on some make your own jewelry and lip gloss.
Sure enough, the toys were a hit — but it was amusing to see her sneak off with the lip gloss and while she thought no one as looking, she applied some to her bottom lip, then a little more, and then rubbed her lips together. At this point she ran into a new problem – she had no mirror. My wife was having a hard time keeping a straight face as my niece was trying to push her lips out as far as physically possible and look down, trying to catch a glimpse of her own lips.
When my wife does “the face” it still makes me giggle.
Had some fun with Coastal Flats, and in turn got to see some excellent customer service.
As a number of my friends have discovered, Forrest, our favorite manager at the Texas Roadhouse in Chantilly has moved to Roanoke, VA to manage the Flat Rock Grill by Valley View Mall.
Consequently, our group decided to go to Coastal Flats, which has always treated us well in the past. Our problem, however, was that we decided to go at lunch time. To Tysons Corner. At the mall. On a weekend. On the first nice 60 degree day after people had been iced in their homes.
“Hi, welcome to Coastal Flats. How many are in your party?”
“Three please. Non-smoking. Very non-smoking.”
“Name?”
“Homer. Homer Simpson.” She blindly typed it in without question.
“That’ll be able 15 minutes, is that okay?” asked the hostess as she offered a pager.
“Are those long minutes or short minutes?”
“60 second minutes, she said confidently.” While not intending to deceive us, they were, in retrospect ‘long’ minutes. But, being a good judge of lines, I decided to have fun with the situation and left the store to see how Bristo was doing for seating.
I approached the hostess station. “Hi there, how long before you can seat three people, non-smoking?”
That hostess looked down, consulted her iconic map of seating locations, and said “I can seat you now if you’d like.” She started grabbing menus.
“No thanks, I was just curious.” And I walked away, leaving her in a state of slight confusion.
Bristo has good food, but they tend to also have louder than normal music on occasion, which drowns out conversation. Additionally their bar is filled with heavy smokers, and this mixture of toxic air-born flavors whiffs out to their patio area as well as to tables behind the bar. Unless you’re sitting in the back, the experience can be quite miserable. The only free table, which we were about to be placed, was right behind the bar; otherwise I would have taken the offer.
So, I returned to Coastal Flats again.
“Hi again,” I announced, “I’ve been traveling close to the speed of light for the last few minutes; has it been 15 minutes at your end?”
She looked down for Homer. “Nope. You still have a few in front of you.”
“How many?” I asked, peeking over at the screen.
“Not that many…” she replied, though I was not to be moved aside so easily.
“Not that many?!? You had to scroll through two screens. I saw you hit the page down button.” This observation got the second hostess to smile. “Do you take bribes?”
“No, I’m sorry, we don’t” replied my hostess in sincerity.
“Well you should. You haven’t even heard how much it is yet. Consider, if you just have one bribe the right size, you wouldn’t need to be working in food services.” The other hostess leaned over, “on what we make, maybe you should take it.” My hostess shot her a glance back that said “I can’t believe you said that.”
I looked over at the second hostess. “She’s not a very good hostess is she? You’d take a bribe wouldn’t you?”
She nodded in amusement.
Now this exchange took a moment, so I asked, “Has it been fifteen minutes since we’ve been talking? My pager hasn’t gone off yet, and I’m ready to gnaw off my own arm.”
A third hostess who’d been happily listening to all this comes over, “boy, I bet one gets hungry waiting in line — would you like me to run to the kitchen and get you a bread basket with our best bread?” I turned to my hostess, “see, that’s what my most favorite person in the world would say. You should take notes.”
The second hostess said, “I want to go get the bread.” The third one responded, “it’s my idea.” My hostess said, “he’s my customer.” And in moments there were three young women all bickering amongst themselves about who was going to go get me free food. Meanwhile, the line behind me was growing.
Eventually the one who thought up the idea won and ran off. I looked at the other two, “let’s time her.” She returned moments later. “Oh, look — she’s prompt, and in under 15 minutes,” I commented to the others.
I took the bread baskets and thanked her. “I’d give you a hug, if it wasn’t for the restraining orders.” She smiled and everyone enjoyed the distraction, including the customers standing in line apparently.
We sat out in the terrace area, enjoying our warm fresh bread basket.
Jeff Voas presents a compelling simple model in which to represent all programming problems, however upon exploring his seven dimensional model, something pretty amazing surfaced.
The other night I happened to happened to have dinner with an old friend, Jeff Voas. He was telling me about a new problem he was working on in which he hypothesizes there are only seven dimensions that describe all computing problem implementations.
While these dimensions are truly independent, and thus orthogonal to one another, it helps to visualize them in the following manner: you have software that runs on hardware which exists inside some environment, these three things are subject to threats; in addition there are non-functional requirements (such as performance and reliability), and everything is operated within a set of defined policies. All of these things are in respect to time.
Jeff challenged me to come up with any problem that didn’t fit within this model. I could not.
Jeff also pointed out another interesting attribute of his model. That time and threat space could not be locked down. Everything else could be set into stone, frozen forever.
The implications of this, are fairly straight forward, and that is even if you don’t change anything, new threats can be discovered, resulting in your having to change at least one of the other dimension points to compensate. If one could quantify a baseline as a function of these seven attributes, it would become possible to measure changes as a whole. Even better, risk and change impacts can be better assessed and communicated.
What interested me, however, was the reason two of these dimensions could not be locked down, while the others could. I shared my thoughts with Jeff, who after hearing them, sadly pointed out it was a little too late to get this new insight into the IEEE paper.
Put aside the model we were working with and consider for just a moment the real physical world of three dimensional space that we live in. Those dimensions are up/down, left/right, in/out to keep things simple.
Clever sorts will blurt out “you forgot time, time is the fourth dimension.” They’d be wrong, because they’re jumping ahead of themselves. Time is not space, but is merely an aspect of where something is in space. Should one actually write it out as a tuple, yes, you get (X, Y, Z, time), and mathematically you can work such problems as having four variables, all independent, thus mathematically orthogonal, and treat them as if they were all dimensions. But, and this is key, I’m not using that definition for dimension. I mean it in the purer sense of the word, meaning that it is possible to move forwards and backwards along any dimensional axis.
Here’s the key: time is not a dimension, but a vector. It only goes in one direction.
Now, here’s a little puzzle for the brainiacs in the group. What other attribute of our physical real universe is also a vector and not a bidirectional dimension?
The answer happens to be entropy; the universe is slowly falling into a state of disorder, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Any amount of effort to reinstill order in one place just speeds up entropy somewhere else, even if it’s just consumption of energy or heat loss.
Turning back to Jeff’s model, I proposed that he actually only had five dimensions and two vectors. The reason time and threat space could not be locked was because they were vectors. He pondered and bought into that notion.
Then comes the zinger. If we only know of two vectors in the real world, and the model attempts to quantify real world problems, and there are two vectors in the model, then is it possible that the threat space is entropy?
There are few moments in life where you actually get to see the gears turn and smoke come out of the ears of a bright Ph.D., and I watched Jeff retreat into his own mind for a minute or so and then reemerge – he concluded with me that it was, and that it was a shame the IEEE article had already been submitted.
Sent the wife to pick up some books from Borders. She writes me back, “you sure you don’t want to do this through Amazon…” (analysis follows)
I’m a big fan of technical bookstores.
We used to have one in Tyson’s Corner, but it closed up shop. Luckily, in Washington D.C. there still is Reiters. What makes these places great is the ability to walk in, handle the books, and do an enormously painful amount of impulse buying.
At the moment, the closest thing I have to that is Borders, because many of the other chains, with perhaps the exception of Barnes and Noble (which is often more expensive than Borders), contain a very diluted technical book section.
Last night my wife was running past Borders, and I gave her a list of 35 books that were on my wish list. Borders had most of them in stock. However, when I included the title and ISBN, I also included the Amazon price, quite by accident. My wife, a thrifty shopper, noted that Borders was considerably more expensive and fired me back an email to ask if I was sure I wanted them. After all, with Amazon, you get free shipping.
I was convinced they couldn’t be that much more expensive, so she took the first dozen or so books on my list, looked them up, and sent me back the prices. I was shocked. Truly shocked.
Using a simple Perl script, I built this little comparison table.
| Book | Borders | Amazon | Discount |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Ruby Way | $ 39.99 | $ 26.39 | 34% |
| Write Great Code | $ 44.95 | $ 29.67 | 34% |
| Modern C++ Design | $ 54.99 | $ 38.49 | 30% |
| Generic Programming and the STL | $ 59.99 | $ 41.99 | 30% |
| Generic Programming | $ 50.00 | $ 50.00 | 0% |
| Beyond the C++ Standard Library | $ 49.99 | $ 34.99 | 30% |
| C++ Template Metaprogramming | $ 44.99 | $ 31.49 | 30% |
| C++ Templates | $ 65.99 | $ 46.85 | 29% |
| Maximum Boost | $ 34.95 | $ 23.07 | 34% |
| The Boost Graph Library User Guide | $ 44.95 | $ 31.49 | 30% |
| Head First ObjectOriented Analysis and Design | $ 34.99 | $ 32.99 | 6% |
| CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions | $ 34.99 | $ 23.09 | 34% |
| Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things | $ 10.95 | $ 8.76 | 20% |
I can not believe it’s that much cheaper to order books online. 30% savings is worth the lack of instant gratification.
Here’s the big problem though. The reason my favorite technical bookstore in Tyson’s closed was because they sold the same products as other bookstores in the area at a higher price. You went in for the massive selection, purchased the unique stuff, but walked out with a list of books you could obtain cheaper elsewhere. Enough people followed this practice, and the store closed up and went online. But the appeal of browsing and instant gratification were gone. Meanwhile the selection of technical books at regular bookstores became mediocre. I feel history is about to repeat itself.
I got to hand it to Amazon, though, the ability to browse a book online has totally changed my opinion of online bookstores. As for the instant gratification, though – I guess I can live with near-instant.
Funny thing though, if Borders instituted a “we’ll match Amazon” policy, they’d steal my business back. I take computer science very seriously. Checking my book purchasing record trends, it appears I spend about two grand on books a year. Yikes!
