Where Are My Teeth?

Thinking about nouns and verbs

I have no idea where a lot of the stuff on my computer actually is (a little like the condition of my office or shop). If I want it, I remember some part of the name of the file, or what kind of file it was (pdf or jpeg or whatever) or maybe some of the words in it, and I tell my computer to go look for it. While the computer is looking, I do something else. Maybe when I find what I'm looking for I put it in a place that seems better suited, but that doesn't mean I'll remember that location either. Why should I?

The same thing is true for information on the web: why bookmark a page when you can just remember the search terms that will get you there (or maybe somewhere just as good). It's not about people, places or things any more, it's about the actions you can order machines to perform that will make those people, places or things accessible to you.

Of course, this is really nothing new in principle -- people have had secretaries and other servants to go get things for them for centuries -- but as far as computers go this is a change. (Or maybe it's just a sign of how messy my desk and 15 years worth of assorted useless information stored on disk have become.)

One of the things that makes this work for me is what I'm going to call reliable lag. I know it's going to take half a minute to a minute for my machine to finish any given search -- roughly the same amount of time to download the first half-dozen likely candidates in a search -- so I can go off and do something else (finishin up some email, looking at another web page, exchanging kitten pictures with Julie) secure in the knowledge that when I come back something useful will be waiting for me. Running the search in the background doesn't perceptibly slow whatever I'm doing in the foreground, nor do my foreground actions appear to hinder the machine from carrying out its background tasks.

There's a long literature on human-computer interaction that talks about the importance of stable, sub-second responses to typing or mouse clicks. That instant feedback is crucial for developing a sense of rhythm in using a computer -- just try using a text editor at the other end of a jerky network connnection. But I think there's another class of response times, on the scale of 30 seconds to a minute or more, that are equally useful in making comfortable interactions with a computer. Once people have come to trust that they don't have to stare at a particular window on their screen waiting for the next thing to happen (just as most of us have come to trust that we don't have to keep pressing the elevator or the "walk" button, and that those conveyances will let us know when they're ready) there's a huge range of additional work computers can do behind the scenes. Imagine web searches that really took your preferences seriously, or email readers that were willing to spend an extra five minutes really filtering out your spam -- or whatever else I can't even imagine on the spur of the moment. The algorithms are there; it's the working styles that have to change.

Patchy forest mud

You would think that as mud season got into gear it would be the trails in the park that would mush up first. But three months plus of snowfall trampled down into an ice bed are pretty resistant to melting, and even to boots. The trail melts only when it cuts across a line of running water from the rest of the snowpack. You can hear a little cracking as you walk the slush-covered ice, and occasionally feel it shift on the already-thawed ground underneath.

But on the north slopes it's still solid and slick, with only occasional traction from fallen pine needles and bark litter.

A retraction of sorts

A while back I said that it had become pretty much a habit with me to vote share proxies in exactly the opposite way that management recommended, because they were almost always voting to benefit themselves rather than the shareholders.

But today, as I was preparing to fill in a card for Johnson&Johnson's annual meeting, I took a look at the proposal on charitable contributions that management was recommending a vote against. A Mr. Raymond Ruddy of Dover, MA, who owns a whole 66 shares of J&J, wants the company to shut down its entire charitable gift program (millions of dollars in both money and products for health care in poor countries, among other things) because some of the money may be going to charities that promote family planning, including abortion. If he doesn't want some tiny portion of his potential dividend check (which might be smaller without the charity work -- it's great marketing) to go to improving the health of desperately poor people, he can ruddy well take his cash and invest it somewhere else. I'm voting with management on this one.

... Too Quiet

I was on deadline last week, so I didn't get to write anything about my appointment last thursday (which I first went to on wednesday, because deadline obsession does not concern itself with such petty matters as dates -- although I would have been fine if I'd just waited for my computer to tell me to get in the car). My dentist and her assistant Birgit rattled on about any number of things, including Birgit's small daughters aversion to ducks since being bitten on the finger by one at a petting zoo. (I traded my bitten-by-a-duck-at-a-later-age story, but didn't mention either my intimate knowledge of waterfowl mouthparts as a result of editing an article on vertebrate filter feeders or my oldest sister's childhood trauma of being attacked by crows.)

My dentist wants me to try and make some hard candy with Xylitol (which is a five-carbon sugar that apparently alters the mix of bacteria in your mouth to be nicer to your teeth). Some industry rep dropped off a huge cocaine-looking five-pound bag at the office the other week, and it's also available at one of the local supermarkets. Why she wants me to do this I don't know, except that maybe she senses in me a kindred loon.

While the novocaine was setting up, I learned all about the foibles of her new magnifying specs -- she gets a little seasick when she looks up after a long spell inside a patient's mouth, and the field of view is much narrower, so "people don't have lips any more". But she can probably see as much fine detail on a tooth as you can feel with your tongue, which is saying something.

Only one more amalgam filling session left, and then we start on the composite fillings for the front teeth. After that, of course, the real work begins...

The Face of Pure Evil

You would not believe how angry thermos is at us for bringing this demonic stranger into our house. No surprise that whenever he comes into the room where the kitten is, he growls and hisses (once he growled so long he lost his breath and started trying to cough something up). Not even a surprise that when the kitten, busy killing a chain of rubber bands, ignores him, he slinks away muttering darkly.

But I was rather taken aback that thermos, who had started letting greed overcome caution to the point where he would hook my hand down to see what treat I was holding, now just sniffs gingerly and then moves away. He'll eat the treats if you toss them on the floor in his direction (so we know he's just upset, not suddenly stupid).

More anon, especially after we figure out a name for the little one. Julie has thus far ruled out Hiroyuki, and I have decided against Bento.

UPDATE: Thermos has now started grudgingly accepting treats from the hand again. I take this as a good sign.

CSI Eat Your Heart Out

A thin layer of new snow, temperature just around freezing, what more could you ask? (It gets even worse -- if you enlarge the middle section of tread and flip it, the writing turns out to say "contagrip", the trademark for the sole compound of one particular maker of specialized hiking, climbing, snow and trail-running shoes and boots. If only they put pictures of their tread patterns on the web I could tell you what model it was.)

Super Mario Brothers

As far as I understand it , this gizmo doesn't really let you leap a dozen feet straight up in the air. The current verson doesn't leap at all. But if it did, you could jump just as high as you usually can, only carrying a couple hundred extra pounds on your back (of which the first hundred pounds would be the gizmo, alas).

These days technology doesn't seem to be so much "What will they think of next?" as "What great idea that someone had 10 or 20 or 50 years ago can we now make into a working device?"

Another thing I learned today

It helps to walk a little flatfooted on melting snow. Otherwise as you push off with your toe at the end of a stride, all your weight is concentrated on too small an area and down you go. I could feel this for myself, and I could see it in the tracks coming opposite me of a woman walking her dog. (Whoever you are, I thank you for letting me avoid some particularly deep weak patches.)

I find it neat that almost precisely the opposite reason accounts for why it helps to walk a little flatfooted in new cold snow. There, it's the combination of increasing backward force and decreasing pressure as you begin to lift your foot that breaks the vague frictional bonds between tread and snowflakes and ground, letting your foot slide backwards and working the heck out of your calves.

Truly free enterprise

This is just sad. I thought it was unfortunate when a couple of the oldest working steam generators in the were cut up and scrapped to make room for a library escalator, or the whole damn Bogardus Building was stolen and melted down, but this puts those in the shade. The price of history: less than four grand.

It's melting

A few days ago, all of these feet would have passed over the winter's worth of compacted snow on the park's main trail without leaving more than a scuff or two. But after three straight days of high-40s sunshine a good solid footstep can dig in to the ankle. Lots of people are using the park these days, some getting in the last few days on cross-country skis, others driving up to walk their dogs and enjoy the brisk air before mud season closes the access road.

Of course, we've got at least another blizzard or two before the snow stops completely, and another couple of months before the last of it is gone from under the trees (or off the driveway and the lawn for that matter).