Finally!

It's been a crazy winter in the Boston area. This is the biggest snowfall we've seen since Halloween.

Tragedy in Ohio

I mourn with the Chardon High School Community in its hour of tragedy.

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire,
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or wak'd to extasy the living lyre.

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page
Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll.

    - Thomas Grey, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Video - What's My Line: Groucho Steals the Show

Santorum: Speaking of the Devil...

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Who are all these Republicans who want to ban contraception? I want names!

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Save Water at the Westin Hotel!

The sign in the hotel bathroom said, “One of your Heavenly® Shower heads has been turned off in an effort to minimize water usage and protect one of our most precious natural resources.”

I was curious whether this was true. Does turning off one showerhead really save water? My theory was that it depended on the plumbing. If the flow was limited by the showerheads, then the answer was yes. But if instead, the bottleneck was in the water pipe, upstream from the split, then no, the number of showerheads in use would not make any difference.

I am not the first to have contemplated this mystery of life. In 2010, Chad Orzel, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Union College, Schenectady, NY, wrote an article, The Faulty Fluid Dynamics of Hotel Environmentalism, for his Uncertain Principles blog. Using a fairly sophisticated argument (there was math), Prof. Orzel concluded, “So, at best the ‘shut off one showerhead’ strategy might be saving 15% of the water usage…the real savings is probably considerably less, and consistent with zero, as a simple analysis of the plumbing would suggest.”

Being of a scientific nature, I ran an experiment of my own. First I took a long shower (using both showerheads) and got dressed. Then I went to the nearby CVS to buy a ruler. When I returned to my hotel room, I closed the bathtub drain and turned on the water. After the water had run from both showerheads for five minutes, I measured the water level in the tub. Four and three-quarter inches. Next, I drained the tub, re-closed the drain, and repeated the experiment with one showerhead. This time there were only two and three-quarter inches of water in the tub.

Findings: My results are inconsistent with Prof. Orzel’s. After accounting for the slope of the tub floor, I conclude that turning off one showerhead saves just about half the precious natural resources.

Good to know. I wouldn’t want to waste water.

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The Federal Lunch Police and My Prophetic Novel

Full Asylum – the Novel is currently in search of a publisher, but it is already proving to be prophetic.

You have no doubt heard the outrage surrounding a North Carolina teacher who took a toddler’s lunch away on the grounds that it did not meet Federal nutrition guidelines. Instead of the turkey and cheese sandwich and chips she brought in from home, the girl was required to eat three (presumably more nutritious) chicken nuggets from the school cafeteria (Here’s a reasonably balanced article about it from the Washington Post: Teacher’s mistake at school lunch led to upset calls of government meddling).

Something similar happened to the hero of my novel, Gimbel O’Hare. The story takes place a few years in the future, when the Nanny State has gone out of control. Gimbel works for a software company, in the Business Automation Division. This unfortunately named organization – its acronym is BAD – obtains tax advantages by participating in the (to date, fictitious) Federal Healthy Office Program. Here's an excerpt:

A few hours later, Gimbel was sitting by himself in the Building 2 cafeteria, picking over a flavorless lentil salad and trying to decide which he liked less – ‘stenics or lentils. The place used to have pretty good hamburgers, but BAD took them off the menu as part of the Healthy Office Program. Gimbel held up his bowl, tilted it towards the cafeteria cam, and waved. When he first joined BAD, he had wondered why there was a security camera in the dining area. It wasn’t as if anyone was going to steal paper napkins. The napkins here were so small that they were wholly inadequate for protecting pants from food stains. According to placards on the napkin dispensers, the napkin size had something to do with conserving the earth’s resources. How stained pants helped save the earth, Gimbel had no idea.

He finally learned the reason for the camera one day last summer when he brought a sandwich from home. That afternoon, Beverly summoned him to her office. When he arrived, she was waiting for him, as were a nurse in a white uniform and a security guard with a gun. They explained that Gimbel had been captured on video eating ham and cheese and that Division policy now required him to receive a lecture on the principles of good nutrition. The lecture took two hours, the low point being an animated video depicting an epic struggle of good and evil between Gary W. Grain (the “w” stood for “whole”, or maybe it was “wholesome”) and Lippy the Loathsome Lipid. After that, Gimbel refrained from bringing food from home. Sometimes he brought napkins.

I better get this into print fast, before more predictions come true.

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