There's more interesting stuff goin' on up North than just the Olympics

Obit

I've occasionally thought of what my obituary might say. Nice guy. Loved his family. Lived a long fulfilling life. Accomplished what he wanted to in life. Respected by many. Will be missed. Left a legacy.... or something like that I hope.

Hopefully, I'll have many more years to make all of those kind things ring true. Unfortunately the obit presented below has told the end of a dear friend. He and I used to spend a great deal of time together. My life, and likely yours, has suffered a profound loss.

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.

He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:
- Knowing when to come in out of the rain
- Why the early bird gets the worm
- Life isn't always fair
- Maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement. Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason.

He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, I Want It Now, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I'm A Victim.

Not many attended his funeral, unfortunately, because so few realized he was gone.

Internet Truths

Should you believe everything you see on TV? Absolutely not.

Should you believe everything you read in a newspaper? Absolutely not.

Should you believe everything that a friend tells you? Absolutely not.

Should you believe everything you read on the Internet? Absolutely not. But who's job is it to fix it?

And more importantly, can you? It's important to make sure that you remember that once it's been posted on the Internet, it's there for life. I ran across an interesting article the other day entitled Teaching Computers How to Forget... and Why it Matters. It talked about the need to define an expiration date for files and information. There are a number of reasons cited, but two of them were to help us deal with information overload, and second to protect us from the errors of our youth.

The information overload seems like a good idea...almost. The proposition is that as you save a file, or send an email, etc, you'd be prompted as to the life you want to assign to the file. A quick email to friends about lunch plans should life not longer than 1 day for instance. A Turbo Tax return backup file should live long enough to protect you in an audit, but then it becomes a liability. A picture of your youngest making a silly face should last long enough for you to show it to their potential dates in the future.

Protection from our youthful foibles... is there really any protection from that? It was raised that posts on Facebook, blogs, etc might come back to haunt you when you switch jobs in the future. You're foolin' yourself if you think that employers are not Googling your name, checking Facebook, MySpace, Blog Search, etc before hiring (or even interviewing) new hires. [That's one reason you won't find too much controversy on this blog. My current employer has already stated that they're trolling for associated employee sites.]

All that being said, is attempting to apply an expiration date really the solution to either of these? I don't know, but to me that seems like the initial overhead would be too cumbersome. And if you're emailing, or posting, or saving something that could be dangerous or even just a nuisance by making searches take a little longer, are you really in the right mind to set some arbitrary death date for that information? Probably not.

I don't have the solution, so I just try to be a little bit more careful about what I post, email, save, or where I visit. I'd rather not have to worry about what it might cause in the future.

Remember to update your calendar

You never know what you'll miss if you don't!

Game time!

My kids (and my wife and I) love to play games. Adventure games. Strategy games. Games of skill. Multi-player games. Solitaire games. While most people reading that intro would think of electronic systems like Wii, Nintendo DS, etc., I'm actually talking about the good ol' card games and board games.

Every year for Christmas break we find some new games to enjoy. Usually, at least one of those new games is some new variation from UNO -- H2O, Spin, Flash, Attack, ... The simplicity and element of chance within the games allows my youngest to join in (and just as often WIN!), and yet there is an element of strategy that keeps my older two and my wife and I interested. Fun for all!

This year we went hog wild both for break, and afterward, with new games. Here are some of our current favorites...

Card games:
Blink -- billed as the fastest card game, you really can't blink! You have to match shape, number or color of objects in your hand to multiple discard piles. More complicated that it sounds when you play so quickly.

Monopoly Deal -- all the elements of the original Monopoly (pronounced mono-PO-lee by my kids when they were younger), but a different game all to itself. You still have to collect property and pay debts and rent, but there's swapping and stealing property goin' on as well as -- all with more portable cards instead. It's a lot quicker than the multi-day games of Monopoly I remember as a kid.

Racko -- keep swapping cards until you get your rack filled with sequential numbers.

Rata-tat-cat -- remember the cards you have hidden on the table, swap high numbers for lower numbers and when you think you've got a lower value hand than an opponent, say Rat-A-Tat Cat.

Set -- similar to Blink in that you have to match color, patters and numbers, except that you can't have nay two of the same property. This is actually easier for younger children because they "just see" the right sets. Us older folks try to over analyze things and make it harder. Still fun to try to beat those young whippersnappers.

Dice games:
Tossup -- collect points for each green tossed, proceed with caution with yellows, and lose it all with reds. Do you dare roll again and risk it?

Farkle -- this dice game was one of the ones that my wife got hooked on when playing on Facebook, but the multiplayer physical dice game is a lot more fun. Collect points when you roll a 5 or a 1, but lose all points if you roll too many times.

LCR (Left Center Right, aka CLR) - roll dice to determine who you have to share your chips with. Or are you lucky enough to get the "pot"?

Again, these are appropriate for all ages and work well when there are young players as well as older players playing at the same time. They each have a different way of playing, but all have fun.

All of these can be found at Meijer, Target, Walmart and similar stores. Why not pick up one and give it a try? Turn off the TV. Turn off the electronics. Pop some popcorn. Gather 'round the table and have some quality family time!

No more commercials

About a year ago I posted about the commercials that had been sneaking into the books I was reading. The other day, I was watching White Collar on TV and it hit me again. This time it was a very blatant placement for Ford. I don't recall if it was this episode or not, but so far Ford has managed to get placements for at least the car driven by the main character, the blind spot indicator system, adaptive cruise control, Sync and the navigation system. I'm sure that there were more items as well, but I was still processing the placement to remember them all.

Now, granted, I was watching this show, time shifted with my DVR, skipping the "normal commercials very easily with a single button on the remote. :-)

I knew it was coming. As more and more people bypass the commercials, the networks need to make their revenue somewhere. I was just hoping that maybe it'd be a little more subliminal than that. A can of Campbell's soup sitting on the counter. One extra pass by a McDonalds while racing through town after a fugitive. A lawyer taking note on a Sony Vaio while interrogating a perp.

Oh well. Guess it's time to head on up to my Serta mattress and catch some ZZZZzzzzzs...

The Cowboy Boots

Did you hear about the teacher who was helping one of her kindergarten students put on his cowboy boots?

He asked for help and she could see why... Even with her pulling and him pushing, the little boots still didn't want to go on. By the time they got the second boot on, she had worked up a sweat.

She almost cried when the little boy said, 'Teacher, they're on the wrong feet.' She looked, and sure enough, they were. It wasn't any easier pulling the boots off than it was putting them on. She managed to keep her cool as together they worked to get the boots back on, this time on the right feet.

He then announced, 'These aren't my boots.' She bit her tongue rather than get right in his face and scream, 'Why didn't you say so?' like she wanted to. Once again, she struggled to help him pull the ill-fitting boots off his little feet. No sooner had they gotten the boots off when he said, 'They're my brother's boots. My mom made me wear 'em.'

Now she didn't know if she should laugh or cry. But, she mustered up what grace and courage she had left to wrestle the boots on his feet again. Helping him into his coat, she asked, 'Now, where are your mittens?' He said, 'I stuffed 'em in the toes of my boots.'

She will be eligible for parole in three years.

Parenting skills

A co-worker's wife just gave birth to their first over the weekend. Hopefully it's not to late to educate him.

Getting smarter...

Most people regard computers as really smart. In reality, they are no more smart than the programs, and hence the programmers, that tell them what to do. (Reserve the philosophical debates about Hal for later please).

That being said, even the really, really smart programmers at Google, and countless other prestigious companies and universities have yet to really make a computer as smart as a fifth-grader with regard to certain tasks. According to their own blog, Google says that "we can't write a program to identify objects in a photo or understand a sentence with anywhere near the precision of even a child."

Lest you feel like taking all of your Google stock and funneling it to a company who can program computers better, there is visible progress to report. Google has forever used synonyms to help return the data that you're looking for when searching. It's a fundamental necessity, but a very difficult one to master.

They cite other examples in their post, but here's a snippet showing why it's so difficult to get it right.

Another example is the term "GM." Most people know the most prominent meaning: "General Motors." For the search [gm cars], you can see that Google bolds the phrase "General Motors" in the search results. This is an indication that for that search we thought "General Motors" meant the same thing as "GM." Are there any other meanings? Many people can think of the second meaning, "genetically modified," which is bolded when GM is used in queries about crops and food, like in the search results for [gm wheat]. It turns out that there are more than 20 other possible meanings of the term "GM" that our synonyms system knows something about. GM can mean George Mason in [gm university], gamemaster in [gm screen star wars], Gangadhar Meher in [gm college], general manager in [nba gm] and even gunners mate in [navy gm].

They're getting much better at using synonyms, and now they're showing you where they're used in your search results by bolding the text in the results set. Are they smarter than a fifth-grader yet? I've not done any quantifiable tests, but I'd still rather ask Google than my fifth grader just in case.

If any of you want to funnel your Google stock anywhere, I'd be happy to take the proceeds off your hands. I'm just sayin'

Too Hot To Handle!

So apparently Farberware, a fairly well-known brand of cooking pots and pans, can't really handle the heat.

According to their website,

...the Farberware®name has stood for value, quality and durability. This commitment to the customer continues to this day. All of the Farberware®family of products are designed with the consumer in mind and manufactured to the highest standards.

I beg to differ...in a big way!

First a little back story. My wife and I are by no means gourmet chefs, but we do like to, and have to cook on occasion. Over the years, we've had quite a mishmash of pots and pans handed down from family that replaced theirs, odds and ends that we've picked up as needed, etc. Over time the frying pans that we had had lost their non-stick coating and it was time to replace them. It happens. No biggie.

We also collect Coke Rewards points (well nowadays we get most of them from my step-mom as we're down to tea mostly). Feel free to save your unused caps for us :-). Anyway, as our points accumulated, we noticed that one of the rewards was a set of frying pans. Perfect. It was a set of three or four different sizes. Made by Farberware (not Joe's Fry Pan Heaven) - a well-known and, until now, respected brand. We cashed in our points and awaited their arrival.

After a little shipping snafu, we got the set and thought we'd be all set. NOT.

One of the problems with the inexpensive pan we had just tossed was that it had warped on the bottom so it didn't sit flat on the glass cook top. This led to very uneven heating. I was glad to be rid of it because it would wobble as I tried to stir the ham and eggs my kids have become so fond of.

After just a few uses, the Farberware pans seemed to have warped as well. I was shocked. It's not like we cook in a blast furnace. It's a standard consumer-grade electric cook top. Why would a frying pan not be able to stand cooking scrambled eggs?! I thought surely this was a defect. Farberware? Maybe they were the low-end 'cuz Coke was giving them away (well not really, but "offering them as redemption options."). In any case, I decided to call Farberware and ask -- "What's up with not being able to use your pans to scramble some eggs?!"

I had the "pleasure" of speaking to a $10 phone rep named Allegra when I called Farberware's consumer hotline. I explained my situation, received the pans via a Coke promotion, the pans had warped after just a few uses, and I wondered if this was expected behavior or if I just got a "bad batch" of pans.

Her response? "You can't cook on high with those pans sir." I said, "uh, can you repeat that? I thought you just said that I can't use my pans on a consumer cook top on a normal setting to cook food." She repeated her stance that they are not designed to be used on a high setting. "If you had followed the directions for care included with the cookware they wouldn't have warped sir." So I repeated that I was using these on a consumer cook top, not a commercial gas blast furnace. I stated that in my opinion, before this incident, Farberware was a trusted, quality brand that I had grown up with. Not at all perceived as a cheap piece of crap that I could pick up at the Dollar Store. Showing no care nor concern for any damage to their reputation, nor explaining the possibility that there might have been cheaper quality that other items in their line that might be more suited for my needs, she simply repeated that I should've followed the instructions for care.
I don't know about you, but after reading the dishwasher safe, don't use metal objects to stir because they'll strip the non-stick coating, I pretty much assume that cookware is for cooking. Forgive me for missing the fine print about COOKWARE not being suitable FOR COOKING! This must be another one of those disclaimers that some high-paid lawyer made them put in...."blah blah blah, caution, contents may be hot. don't use this cookware for it's intended purpose as it might become destroyed in such usage..."

Well, I guess I know what's going on my birthday list this year -- a set of NON-FARBERWARE frying pans that can stand the heat!

Feel free to tweet, forward, link, fax, email, blog, call, or generally harass FARBERWARE about such a ridiculous product as one that can't be used for its intended purpose. What a shame.

I suppose I should call them again and see if I can get ahold of someone that cares, but Allegra ticked me off so much, I'm not sure I want to even give them a second chance.