The Dilbert Blog

Oops

My favorite story recently is about the lawsuit to stop the $8 billion Large Hadron Collider out of fear that it might shrink the universe to the size of a gnat turd. And I don’t mean the plump and juicy kind.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/science/29collider.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

One of the reasons I like my job is that the worst mistake I can make is to offend someone, and I enjoy that too. I would never want to be a NASA engineer, for example, knowing that one wrong calculation lands the Space Shuttle on the Sun. And I really, really, really, wouldn’t want to be one of the engineers working on the Large Hadron Collider, no matter how sure I was that it was safe. There’s always that little chance of annihilating the universe, and it’s exactly the sort of mistake I would make.

On the plus side, no one would say, “I told you so.” I guess that would take some of the sting out of it.

I don’t know how you ever get comfortable with any level of risk of destroying the universe. If you were to do an expected value calculation, multiplying the tiny risk times the potential cost, it would still come out infinitely expensive.

And who exactly ran the numbers to decide it wasn’t that risky? After all, the whole point of the Large Hadron Collider is to create conditions that are not predictable. If someone already predicted what would happen using nothing but his laptop and Excel, and determined it was safe, I don’t think we’re getting our $8 billion worth.

I can’t see the management of this project spending $8 billion, realizing it was a huge boner, and then holding a press conference suggesting it be turned into a parking garage. I’ll bet a lot of people in that position would take at least a 5% risk of incinerating the galaxy versus incinerating their own careers. I know I would.

If the lawsuit succeeds, imagine trying to get another job with that project failure on your resume.

Interviewer: “So, you spent $8 billion dollars trying to build a machine that would either discover something cool or destroy the universe. Is it fair to say you are not a people person?”

Vacation Ratio

Today I am going on a two-night trip with the family. The destination promises to be lots of fun. But it takes a lot of research and planning to figure it all out. Then there is the packing and the traveling to and fro, including airports and rental cars and traffic and things that aren’t much fun.

I figure we will sacrifice about three normal days to make two of our other days extra good. Is that worth it?

A month from now I know I will remember the good times and not the sitting at the airport. So the memories will be good. I have a theory that most vacations are about memory upgrades. You become a different person after each trip, literally, as your brain takes on new shapes and chemistry from each experience. I think the selective memory phenomenon is what makes three bad days of planning and travel a worthy trade for two good days of actual vacation.

Clearly there is something wrong with me. But if you are reading this blog, you probably have it too.

Dilbert Product Idea

Someone needs to invent a Dilbert doll for the office that mirrors your mood during the day as the life force is drained from your body. I imagine the little doll sitting there looking all bright and fresh when you come in to work. Over the course of the day, he starts to slump in his chair and turn pale. Eventually he shrivels up like a dried leaf and rolls into a fetal position. That’s when you know it is time to go home.

Misery loves company, so I think people would like having a little Dilbert doll to share the pain.

I’m not sure how you would engineer a toy like that. Perhaps it would be like one of those little sponge animals that you drop in a glass of water and it expands into a much larger one. You could water the Dilbert at the start of each day, making him plump and happy to begin, and he would shrivel up as he dehydrated, eventually curling into a tight little ball.

Watering the Dilbert every day would be a hassle. A mechanical version would be easier, if you could somehow engineer him to change colors and slump and shrivel  and still sell for less than $20.

A number of years ago I worked with design company IDEO to create Dilbert’s Ultimate Cubicle. It had a number of fun features, including a fake flower that sensed motion and reacted when you entered or exited. When you left, it wilted. When you entered, it perked up. Our thinking was that this might be the only time during your workday that your existence was recognized. It would feel good, like being greeted by your dog, but without the drool and fleas. The Dilbert doll could do the same as the flower. He could sleep or slump when you leave, and perk up and start working when you enter. He’d be like a little friend. Wouldn't you want one of those?

Here’s a link to Dilbert’s Ultimate Cubicle. It doesn’t mention the cool flower feature.

http://www.ideo.com/dilbert/index.htm

Researchers Discover Cause of Voting

Researchers have discovered that people who are incompetent generally lack the knowledge that they are incompetent.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/01/18/MN73840.DTL

This lack of self-awareness is the glue that holds democracy together. As long as people feel capable of evaluating complex economic and geopolitical policies, they will keep voting. And as long as people vote, they will feel vested in the system and support it.

As regular readers know, voting is one of the few areas where I recognize my incompetence. That’s why I stay home on election day. In my case, voting would be irrational.

One of the ways I recognize my own political incompetence is by observing how my opinions keep changing. That shouldn’t be happening. For example, a month ago I would have said Obama was the best choice for president because he is an inspirational leader, less divisive than Clinton, and he would bring our troops home from Iraq sooner than McCain. Plus McCain is too old for the job. It all seemed so simple.

Then I read an article that explained how much Obama would tax the people in my bracket compared to McCain’s plan. Ouch. And I started thinking that over time, our all-volunteer army results in fighters who know they will end up in Iraq when they volunteer. That wasn’t the case when the war began, but it becomes that way if we stay indefinitely. Who am I to tell another citizen that he or she should not take that risk for some benefit to the country that he or she perceives?

The war is expensive, but at least McCain would take that money from the middle class majority, and being the majority, they are the ones who would need to elect McCain in the first place. Why would I want to deny the majority the option of voting to pay more taxes than they need to so that I can pay less? They should have that freedom.

If I believed that Obama would pull 100% of our troops out of Iraq, and that Al-Qaeda would surrender because of it, then McCain’s plan of perpetual occupation would look foolish. But as long as Al-Qaeda wants to kill me, no matter what my country does, I’m willing to let volunteers try to shoot them first, as long as other people are paying for the bullets.

The war is bad for Iraqi civilians, but no one knows for sure if they would be worse off without the occupation, given the likelihood of greater civil war. As important as that question is, you have to leave it out of the calculation because it is unknowable.

So I ask myself, isn’t the world better off if I just vote for McCain, buy stock in companies that profit from war, and let everyone else exercise their freedom of choice even if makes them poorer and/or dead?

See why I don’t vote?

Elevator Power and Whatnot

Imagine a 200-pound human traveling by elevator from the 5th floor to the lobby. That is a lot of energy potential that isn’t getting captured. Your descent should be turning a generator or compressing gas or doing something else to power the grid.

How hard could that be?

I also wonder why homes in California aren’t designed to make better use of the stable temperature ten feet beneath the house. It’s always cooler down there during the hot summer. It’s like sitting on a free air conditioner and not using it.

Suppose you dig a ten foot hole, with a ten foot diameter, and fill the hole with a thermal mass that absorbs the surrounding temperature and bleeds it into the thermal mass of the home’s flooring. Wouldn’t that keep the home a lot cooler?

There might be times you wanted to turn off the effect, so I suppose you could engineer it so an insulating layer is applied when needed.

I realize geothermal heating systems are used in cold climates. They just aren’t economical in California because we don’t have the cold extremes.

I remember going into a house in California years ago on a hot summer day and being surprised that the homeowners didn’t need any air conditioning. They had a large attic fan that was drawing out the hot air. Since then I have noticed in a few places I lived that a fan is unnecessary if you have a window in the top floor open and one on the ground floor. The “chimney effect” brings warm air up and out so efficiently the fan is redundant. The only problem is that you don’t want to go to bed with a downstairs window open. That’s why I invented the Jailer Screen Window. It’s a ground floor window you can open, but still has jailer bars to keep out humans, and a screen to keep out bugs. Open that bad boy before bedtime, along with the windows upstairs, and you won’t need AC in the evening.

Okay, I didn't invent the Jailer Screen Window. But I did give it a cool name.

I often think the energy crisis is a failure of imagination.

[As usual with my posts, I get two types of comments: 1) It will never work, and 2) It is already being done. -- Scott]

Hypnotist thief

A man in Italy is allegedly hypnotizing store and bank clerks to give him all of their money.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7309947.stm

I’m a trained hypnotist myself, so my first reaction was skepticism. You can’t hypnotize someone that quickly and reliably. But then I put on my criminal mastermind hat and tried to figure out how this crime could be committed as described.

The trick is to hypnotize the targets well ahead of the actual day of the robbery, perhaps several times, and weed out the people who don’t instantly return to the so-called trance state upon suggestion. Then on robbing day, a simple suggestion at the store or bank can produce the instant results you need. The subjects have been pre-trained.

The hard part of this scheme is finding a way to get the right people to agree to hypnosis ahead of time. I imagine he advertised in a local publication, offering to help people quit smoking or lose weight. When people called for an appointment he would ask what sounded like standard questions, including age and occupation. If someone had the right sort of job, he set up an appointment and started the process. On any given day, he could hypnotize several new clients while testing for the most susceptible subjects who also handle money.

The next part would be a bit tricky. You can’t get a hypnotized person to do something that would violate his basic sense of right and wrong, or to put himself in danger. The brain has some sort of safety mechanism to prevent that.

In the surveillance video on the web, the hypnotist is seen taking the money from the register himself while the clerk seemed to be watching. This might be part of his workaround. The clerk wasn’t committing the crime so much as observing it. And perhaps the hypnotist said he was borrowing the money, or the manager had asked him to bring it to him in the parking lot, or some other story that obscured the ethical boundaries.

It could work. He’d need to be an excellent hypnotist, but that isn’t so rare.

Hospital Mistake

You readers are sick people. Many of you forwarded me the article about a German woman went to the hospital for a leg operation and got an anus operation instead, as if I would make light of such a thing.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,339270,00.html

When the woman complained to the hospital CEO that she was given a new anus, did the CEO say, “I’ll look into it”?

I think the woman should act as her own attorney. After she gives her closing argument she can sit down and say, “I rest my case.”

Add your own jokes. The ones I already got by e-mail include “She got a bum deal,” and “The doctors tore her a new one.”

Iraq’s Path to Democracy

I’m no historian, but it seems to me the path to democracy always goes through a warlord stage. The warlords have different names in different places. In the United States we had the robber barons, media barons, unions, and organized crime who effectively controlled the government. In England they had land barons foisting the Magna Carta on the king. In modern Russia it looks as if the billionaire criminals are running the country.

It seems to me that Iraq is right on track. The country is organizing itself around warlords and clerics, and they will eventually work out truces with each other. In the long run, those warlords or their successors will find their own greatest self-interest in supporting some form of national government while maintaining local control.

As the national government grows through taxation, it eventually becomes more powerful than any individual warlord and can start picking them off one at a time, just as the government of the United States targeted the Mafia.

Is Iraq on the only realistic path that can get it to a functional democracy?

Natural Meat Eaters

As a vegetarian, I often find myself drawn into debates about whether humans are natural meat-eaters. I’d have to say “almost.”

Clearly meat is nutritious for humans, our teeth can handle the job, and most meat-eaters love a well-cooked steak. But to say we are natural meat-eaters, I would think two things would have to be true:

1. Eating lots of meat wouldn’t increase your health risks.
2. Seeing a cow would make you salivate if you were hungry.

For now, I will ignore the first point because experience tells me that meat-eaters will argue to the death (literally) that eating meat has no health risks.

The interesting point, to me, is why so-called natural meat eaters feel the need to disguise their food by cutting it into steaks, cooking it, and covering it with barbecue sauce. If eating meat is natural, you would expect it to make you hungry in its natural condition. Looking at a cow should make you salivate when you are hungry.

Am I wrong?

[Update: To answer your rhetorical questions, yes, I do salivate when seeing raw vegetables and fruit. An orange or banana would make most people salivate if they were hungry. But I also like raw peas in a pod, even raw potatoes.]

Achievable Goals

The key to happiness is setting achievable goals. For example, I think a bad goal is trying to find enlightenment, or becoming one with the universe. That has hard work written all over it. I was thinking about this recently because of the story in the news about the 35-year old woman who stayed in her bathroom until her skin fused with the molecules in the toilet seat.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/03/13/woman.in.bathroom.ap/index.html

While it might be hard to become one with the universe, apparently it is easier to become one with your own toilet. All you need is a boyfriend who is willing to slip pizzas under the door.

While we’re on the topic of the boyfriend, I also think he did a good job of setting his goals low in terms of girlfriends. If you’ve ever had a high maintenance relationship, I think you can appreciate the subtle beauty of his arrangement. This fellow found a girlfriend who never complained. Can you top that?

I see this woman as a pioneer in the evolution of humankind. Her life might sound boring to you, but imagine if she had a laptop in there, with a wireless Internet connection. Suddenly a bad idea starts to look rather brilliant. For most of us, moving from place to place is usually about seeking food, bathroom breaks, employment, conversation, sexual stimulation, and returning to the computer. That’s a lot of time wasted moving around. A laptop and a toilet can satisfy all of those needs. You can even order food online. I’m not ready to make that sort of commitment yet myself, but I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t give it some serious thought.