Pucker Factor

My friend was relating a story about a dangerous piloting mission he had just gotten back from flying - and on my end of the conversation, my ear was glued to the phone, taking in the harrowing details.

"We took off in minimum conditions from a tiny airstrip in the middle of nowhere, headed toward another tiny island in the vast ocean. Our destination airport had clear weather when we took off, but while we were flying the weather fogged in and closed off the landing site."

So where will you LAND?

"We had to quickly re-rout and head to the only other landing site within our fuel range."

Whew, I'm thinking - they are saved.

"But while we were flying and trying to divert to the alternate, fog closed in on THAT landing site too. The weather models predicted it should clear up by the time we got there and needed to land, but there was no guarantee."

So wait a minute - let me get this straight. You were flying, in terrible atmospheric conditions, over icy freezing water, running out of fuel, with any Coast Guard or other help hopelessly far away in case of trouble, and for some period of time there were NO LANDING SITES AVAILABLE?

"Yeah," he said, "That one had quite the pucker factor."

I'll say.

The story stuck with me, not only because of the gray hair I was growing, or because I love hearing adventure stories, but because of that phrase. Pucker factor.

Turns out, that's a common phrase in the military. To quote the NY Times,

In armed services slang, ''the pucker factor'' is the stress that afflicts human beings on full alert. If the factor is missing, the person reacts like a robot, numb to sensitizing tension; if the factor is too high, the person crumples or ''puckers'' in panic.

I'm pretty sure "pucker" refers to the tightening of some, ahem, distinctive muscles rather than "crumpling in panic," but we'll give the NY Times the benefit of the doubt for trying to be classy.

I had never heard this slang before, but it seems like a uniquely perfect way to sum up the feeling. A bit of a flippant phrase - that both brushes off of the gravity of the situation (an attitude that irritates me sometimes when I'm worried for the safety of my friend), but also thumbs a nose to the danger (an attitude that allows folks in those situations to do their jobs and not get overwhelmed).

Now I don't deal with any hair trigger situations in my world, but I bet I could find some places in my life to work this phrase in.

Reserved the lab equipment because the tracking code predicted your samples will arrive, but you haven't actually received the package yet? Pucker factor 4. Writing a conference paper on a deadline and you didn't actually do the experiments yet? Pucker factor 6. Advisor pops in unexpectedly on Friday at 5pm and wants to talk about long term plans and experimental results? Pucker factor 8.

The top of the scale is admittedly different for most of us than for the pilots, given that nothing in research is going to die (except for bio grad students - bless your souls for having to keep cultures alive), but I think the sentiment still applies, no?

Using Home Built Equipment

When I wrote the other day about training on new equipment, it brought to mind a story from lab.

There is a difference between homemade equipment, and industrial equipment. When I am being trained on new equipment, or training someone else on equipment, that assumes that there are correct, known procedures for operating said equipment.

Such is not always the case. I work in a lab where we build machinery - which means a lot of what we use we make ourselves. I happen to be very proud of this fact. My Master's project involved building a machine that duplicated the function and quality of commercially available equipment, but for $10k instead of $250-500k. Take THAT.

Now my labmate has built a roller machine for his PhD. It is very cleverly built, with precise design and a fancy control system, and nothing else exists quite like it. His whole degree was based on the design and fabrication and testing of this machine.

However, he never actually manufactured anything with it.

Turns out, my work can use his machine to actually manufacture things. This is an excellent example of a cohesive lab research direction allowing students with complementary projects to leverage each other's work.

Or, you know, of me being lazy and not wanting to re-invent the wheel...

My labmate is ridiculously proud of his machine. He wired it up to run with a joystick. He is even MORE ridiculously proud of the joystick than he is of the machine.

Said joystick has a total of 23 buttons, in addition to the roll/pitch/yaw functions, and of course, the trigger. All 23 of those buttons have been programmed for some function, such that the ENTIRETY of the software needed to run this rolling machine is available from the joystick.

Whatever floats your boat, man...

My boyfriend wants to wire his truck to run from a joystick, too. What is it with men and their joysticks?

On second thought, don't answer that....

Now this labmate is actually pretty excited that I am going to use his machine to do real manufacturing (or, as close as we get to real manufacturing in academia... meaning, I am going to make more than five parts in a row...). But he was headed away for two weeks of vacation, and I needed to use this equipment while he was gone.

So he trained me to use his equipment.

We spent an afternoon doing a quick run through, and I took notes in my lab notebook and did my best to follow along. Then we ran some experiments together - me using my equipment to do the initial steps, then running over to jam my part in his machine and finish the process.

The results were gorgeous. GORGEOUS.

Then he left, and I headed down to lab to run some experiments, very excited about replicating these gorgeous results. I could not get the stupid thing to calibrate. I did EXACTLY what I saw my labmate do, and the roll just waggled around and never settled out to initialize. Fine.

I poked around, and discovered a loose connection between two cables. Excellent! Now the roll would calibrate. On to Step 2.

I tried to actually roll something - a blank, to begin with.

No pressure. The roll just floated, never touched anything. Hmm. Went back over to the software, and all my settings had been erased. Hmm again.

Reset the parameters, tried again, and now the roll just MASHED into my blank.

Okay. Now it's getting personal. Going and mashing my blanks...

I futzed around with it for a good hour, and the upshot is that I never got it to work. I sent an email to my labmate, and bless his heart even on vacation he wrote me back with a couple things to try. I attempted, but that roller still hated me.

Then he came back from vacation, and we went together down to lab, and I told him to just watch me run it.

I ran the calibration procedure, so far so good. I then went to roll something - "Wait wait!" he said, "Did you put that in force control now instead of position control?"

Well, no.

"Obviously it defaults to position control while doing position calibration, but if you are running with a force during rolling, you need to switch control methodologies."

Well, okay... not like you told me that "obvious" fact...

Then when I tried to change the settings, once again all my settings were erased. What's going on here??

"Oh, well that's a software bug - if you input the numbers while the data logger is running, it doesn't save them."

Ya know, these would be useful tidbits to include in training...

We discovered a few more little details that he had neglected to mention, just because it's so ingrained and obvious to him, because he built and programmed it himself.

By the time we got all the way through, I found myself irritated that he had forgotten to show me all these things, and just somehow thought I would automatically KNOW. It's not like I can READ MINDS, dear, you have to TELL me what you are THINKING so we can COMMUNICATE in order for this to work...

Then we both looked up and realized how much we were acting like a married couple arguing - and he laughed and yelled, "And we're NOT ASKING FOR DIRECTIONS, EITHER!"

The Moment I Think That...

The moment I think that...

...I am losing all my eyelashes, I realize my new mascara is the "tube" kind and is designed to wash off in clumps.

...I cannot possibly eat another lentil, ever, I realize that four cups was just TOO MANY lentils for one person.

...I should be proud of myself for making it to the gym, I realize that the tiny girl next to me is using double my weights.

...I have done the right thing by renting a ZipCar truck to haul stuff, I realize that thunderstorms are coming in and I'll have to squeeze everything in the cab of the truck after all.

...I am being frugal by buying a bus ticket on sale, I realize I selected the wrong date and must pay a $4 change fee.

...I deserve a pat on the back for making it through a stressful day, I realize I am incredibly blessed that these are the sorts of the problems I am dealing with! :)

A Tense Night

Last night I washed my face and got ready for bed, and as I walked across the hall to my room, I saw a big dark blob skittering along the floor. In my bare feet, and without contacts in, I groped around for a shoe or something to squash it with. When I turned back around - with heavy book in hand - I was just in time to see the thing dart into my bedroom and go behind the door.

When I followed in hot pursuit, behind the door was empty.

I had lost a big dark crawly hoppy thing in my bedroom.

Try as I might, I could not find it, even after I retrieved my wits and my glasses.

It was a long night trying to get to sleep. I still can't decide whether it was a mouse or a cockroach.

Pick Up Line

I squish my toes through the sand, enjoying the walk in the sun.

I nudge my boyfriend, "Can we go get chocolate at the candy store?"

"Of course!" he replies. "I was figuring you might want to do that."

He knows me well.

I'm on vacation, I have nothing in particular to worry about, so my mind wanders and I watch the highschool-age beachgoers flirting, trying as teenagers do to impress each other.

"You know what I don't understand?" I postulate to the world in general, "I don't know why guys always try these cheesy pick up lines. If you just say 'Hi, how are you, my name is Joe. You look lovely this evening.' it really does just fine."

My boyfriend glances at me out of the corner of his eye. "Oh, I don't know about that. Most girls need more than just 'hello' to get them to pay attention to you."

I ponder this. I'm still pretty sure that all the girls I know don't really go for "Hey angel, did you fall from the sky?" or whatever nonsense guys think is going to work.

I look at my boyfriend again - and oh, he's grinning. I missed that mischievous twinkle in his eye the first time...

"That's why we pilots wear the flight suit!"

Top Gun. A must-see for anybody dating a pilot.

Okay. Well. Point conceded.

A Special Call

"So how goes the project?" I asked my intern as I poked my head in to check on his progress.

"Well, I'm actually kind of mad," he said, "because I accidentally fried the heater controller."

My eyebrows went up, but I asked carefully, "Are you sure it's unusable?"

"It went 'POOF' and I took it apart and there are burn marks, and it rattles when you shake it."

Yep - to quote McCoy, he's dead Jim.

And how did this happen, you might ask?

"Uh... I hooked up the AC power to the wrong terminal."

Yep again - that'll do it. 120V A/C into a 5V DC signal terminal.

Sigh. Mistakes happen, goodness knows I've done stupider things. I told him it was okay, and that I would order another one. Bless his heart, he really was apologetic, and he hung his head but then eagerly pushed his college-ruled notebook toward me.

"But see, I called the company, and got us a special deal. They will give us 20% off the replacement. Here, I talked to John, and here's the case file I opened and the phone number to call."

Slightly impressed by this, I told him to send the information to me in an email, and I'd get it taken care of.

Yesterday I tackled this item on the To-Do list, and I started by looking up the original part number on the manufacturer's website, so I'd know what to order. I looked at the company's phone number at the top of the website - and noted that oddly, it did not match the number the intern sent me. Not even close, like it might be if he had simply mis-transcribed a number.

I brushed it off, and used the number he gave me, thinking perhaps he had a direct line to the John fellow he had talked to. 1-800- yadda yadda.

Recorded phone message: "To talk live, please visit talklive.com to register."

Huh. Sounds odd, but maybe directing me to get in touch with customer service via the website? I consulted the website again, and noticed that the main number was 1-888 instead of 1-800, so I thought I would try 1-888 plus the number the intern provided, which I figured would go to the direct line of the service guy.

"Hey sexy, how you doin' tonight?"

Say WHA? Flustered, I snapped the phone shut. HELLO.

About thirty minutes later, I get a text to my cell, something along the lines of:

Barely legal party girls waiting to hang out with you! Call now, or RPLY to unsubscribe.

By now I had put two and two together and figured out I called some chat line, and some dubious organization now had ahold of my cell #. I texted back to unsubscribe myself, thinking that would end it.

Thirty minutes later, I got a second nasty text, worse than the first.

And three minutes after THAT, I was on the line with Verizon setting up a block on anything incoming from that source.

So now my question is - what in the world was that number that my intern gave me? I can't fathom how it got on his notes to me. My best guess, and I hate to say this - but I bet that he looked in his cell phone through "recent calls" to write down the number he called to customer service, and he picked out the WRONG RECENT CALL.

Any better guesses?

All I'm saying is, if that was really the number he called, he may have sweet talked his way to a deal and gotten 20% off something, but it sure wasn't a heater controller and a Type K thermocouple...

Falcon

Good morning. 

Where I live there is a falcon that hangs around. I kid you not. A falcon.

Sometimes he has surprised me by staking out a spot on the rooftop garden, and I'll see him perched on a planter at the other end of the row I'm weeding. I usually then go weed somewhere else.

Not a picture of my particular falcon, but the scene with the city in the background is about right.

But this morning, he chose to land and camp out on my window A/C. You know, the typical window-mount A/C unit with the back half sticking out the window.

This one is also perched on a window, but he's a cute baby. I had his mama looking through my window.

So when my eyes fly open this morning, I'm staring at a black beady eye about two feet away from my pillow. Because the back half of the A/C may be outside, but the FRONT half is right by my bed, and in my fuzzy mind I actually forgot about the window and thought he was coming right at me.

Okay so he didn't look as threatening as this, but CLOSE.

And then it shrieks at me. That is a terrifying sound first thing in the morning when you have forgotten there is a window, folks.

You know how in old westerns, you'll hear the hawk cry across the abandoned frontier town, and it symbolizes the raw, lonely, power of the desert?

When you hear that shriek next to your ear, it symbolizes more the raw power of making you pee your pants.

Suffice to say, I am up and at 'em today at work, and I didn't even need coffee to do it!

Credits for images:
http://www.photo-dictionary.com/photofiles/list/5088/12911saker_falcon.jpg
http://www.thedailygreen.com/cm/thedailygreen/images/NZ/nyc-hawk-032609-lg.jpg
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/94MTPPwCgJk/0.jpg
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2010/07/08/witness-worker-struck-falcon.html

Energy Business Plan Multiple Choice

I've been interested in entrepreneurship for a while now, and in fact my PhD minor is entrepreneurship, which allows me to take a bunch of classes over on the business side of campus. Between that and a variety of extra-curricular activities I've been heavily involved with entrepreneurship-type stuff for a while now, and energy entrepreneurship in particular for about a year. I've heard about every possible business plan known to man, and if you think that you, too, have the next big energy idea - let me help you out. Simply select your choices from the below, and it's a guaranteed winner:

I am going to provide a ____________
A) Software as a Service (SaaS)
B) iPhone app
C) integrated platform

that is ____________
A) green
B) in the cleantech space
C) ecofriendly

because it involves ____________.
A) wind
B) solar
C) energy efficiency
D) utilizing an alternative fuel
E) All of the above

My product includes features that are ____________
A) wireless
B) remote
C) automatic
D) in the cloud (triple points!)
E) provided by analytics
F) cell phone activated
G) networked
H) All of the above (why not, right?)

and my technology will be ready in ____________
A) 5 years
B) 10 years
C) It hasn't actually been demonstrated yet, but if it DOES work, it will be awesome
D) Engineers say it won't work, but I believe I have the core strengths to tackle these technological challenges

if I can get ____________.
A) 20 million dollars from VCs
B) a guaranteed loan from the feds (just like Solyndra!)
C) hired employees, to, you know, build the thing

The company is named ____________
A) Qwertzle
B) Kleirly
C) Wiflerta
D) Any other random combination of Web 2.0-sounding letters with a bubbly logo

and my team consists of ____________.
A) two MBAs and a sales guy
B) one MBA, one EE, and an "experienced entrepreneur" (his last attempt failed)
C) three MBAs (we'll just hire the tech talent we need)

We are planning to implement the product first in ____________,
A) Africa
B) India
C) the developing world. All of it. Isn't it the same everywhere?
D) the military

but I have not yet thought about ____________.
A) who will fix this if it breaks
B) how to actually make money from this idea
C) the fact that someone else already tried this six years ago

I have confidence that we can face these issues and challenges as they come because don't worry, we have on our advisory board ____________
A) Obama
B) The world's most famous VC
C) Hot entrepreneur star of the moment

and in fact, look at us, we've already got ____________.
A) a website and a Twitter feed with followers
B) an awesome sixty second elevator pitch
C) a prize-winning business plan
D) connections because we attended SXSW and totally hung out with famous people at the afterparty
E) interested customers (they said they'd take it if we gave it to them for free)
F) admission into an accelerator program
G) generated buzz created by networking and facilitating connections between people with mutually overlapping interests and core competencies and leveraging the synergies and oh I can't stand writing more of this...

Ta-Da!

You think I'm kidding, but oh sir, I am not. You think this is cynical (well, maybe a little)(maybe a lot), but I have personally seen each of the above options set out in a business plan or presentation with an entirely straight face. Please, energy innovators, do yourself a favor and find an engineer (even better if they have no interest in entrepreneurship and no business training) to vet your technology and give you a straight answer before you embarrass yourself. Or, you know, don't - because if you think about it a minute - these kinds of ideas are getting millions from VCs, and did you know you don't have to give that money back if you go under?

There are good ideas out there, let's make them easier to find amongst the noise!

Basketball Perseverance

Editor's Note: I have returned safely from vacation, and had a great time with family! After digging out from a pile of emails, I hope to settle back in refreshed and invigorated.

One of the things I am most proud of myself for doing in grad school is, oddly enough, playing basketball once a week with a group of labmates/friends. My family does tend toward basketball as the sport of choice, but I've never been very good (home schooling doesn't afford much chance for team sports...). And since I get frustrated when I can't immediately excel at something, particularly sports, I was hesitant to play with the group. The rest of them are all pretty good, and I just knew I wasn't going to enjoy it.

But I played anyway. Even though I wasn't good. Even though everybody else played circles around me. Even though yes, I did get frustrated because I couldn't make the plays or hit the shots I wanted to (that mind-body coordination is a little tenuous when you spend all your time hitting the books!). I kept playing even though I didn't enjoy it at all at first.

But I was determined to live the lesson that you don't have to be perfect. And that dedication and practice can indeed lead to improvement. So I kept at it, and eventually I got better.

I've been playing once a week, or close to it, for maybe two and a half or three years now. And you know what? I'm pretty good now.

I went to a BBQ last weekend, at a lovely spot on Cape Cod with a beach and sports areas. A bunch of kids started a kickball game, and a few guys were tossing around basketballs on the court. I didn't know anybody, but I walked up and introduced myself, and asked if I could play.

Standing there in my flip flops and sun dress (it was a BBQ at the beach, after all), I'm sure I didn't look like much. But they were short a player to make it five on five, so they took me anyway.

I had the foresight to bring my water shoes, so I quickly changed into my sneakers, grabbed a water bottle, wedged my sunglasses firmly onto my nose, and joined the game.

We were playing man-to-man, and the other team put their weakest player on me. It quickly became apparent that most of these guys were really good (better than me), but not all. No indeed, not all - they had underestimated me with the choice to guard me with a guy six inches shorter. I used the height advantage to post up on the defender, grab rebounds, and surprised even myself by getting several good cuts in a row, with lay-ups to finish.

When the game reached a pause, the captain for the other team stood at the top of the key, ball clamped under one arm, and pointed with a sweaty finger at his teammates - "You there, switch with him." The defense obligingly switched up who was guarding me. Now I faced a guy four inches taller than me, and a much better shot than the defender who just left.

"And watch that girl," the captain called out, "she's FEISTY."

Yes, dear readers, I moved myself up the totem pole. For the homeschooled nerdy kid, I'll take "feisty". :)

After that game was over, we lined up to shoot for new teams. Now, when I play with my normal group, we shoot for teams from the free-throw line. But these guys? They shoot from the three-point line.

Now, sometimes when my normal group shoots for teams, we have to go through the lineup several times before enough people make their shot to fill out the teams. I guarantee if we shot from the three-point line, we'd be there all day!

So I thought to myself, "Oh gees... there is no way I can make a three point shot." I never even try during games. I figure if my shooting percentage is as low as it is from close to the basket, why attempt from so far away?

So I steeled myself to try a three-point shot, just praying I got close enough to not be embarrassed. And you know what? I hit the rim. "Well hey! Not bad", I thought.

We had to go around once more to get enough people for each team, so I had a second chance to shoot. I hiked up my skirt, bounced the ball twice, and...

SWISH.

I made my shot.

Feisty girl with a three point shot.

I smiled to myself and walked proudly to the "make" team, and I was so grateful that three years ago I stuck with the weekly frustrating game. You don't have to be perfect, you just have to keep at it.

Story of School IDs

I have always had a problem hanging onto my school IDs. I did three years of community college, at two separate colleges, and then I did three years at university, and now I'm in my fourth year in grad school. I've had a school ID in some permutation for many, many years.

And I've learned that my personal "burn rate" is about one a year. I have just come to accept that I will, at some point, misplace my ID every year. So instead of getting upset about it now, I just budget in the $15 replacement fee as part of my school expenses. :)

I don't know why I've always had problems with this - I know students who go their entire four years in undergrad and never misplace their ID. My theory is that it's because I use my ID as an access card to get into various labs and machine shops, as well as my office and my dorm. I don't want to carry my whole purse around while I go about my day, so I put the card in my pocket. Much easier to lose something from your pocket than from inside your wallet inside your purse.

The funny thing is, I had a total of three IDs in undergrad (I was there three years, so just about right). I then moved to Boston to go to grad school. In my years here, I have slowly uncovered all three IDs. What was lost has now been found! One missing ID was tucked inside a pocket inside my tool bag I used to take back and forth to the undergrad machine shop. The other missing ID was in the hoodie pocket of a sweatshirt I used to wear to football games. No football games here, so that one took a while to uncover. But now I have my full set back!

Last week my current ID stopped working.

It's been over a year, so actually I was doing pretty well by not losing it - so I figured, well, that might just be my $15 fee for the year. So I went in to the card office.

"Hi," I said, "I'm here because my ID card has stopped working. My guess is that I have de-magnetized it, since I work with magnets in my lab." The friendly guy behind the counter said, "Sure, let me check that for you." He proceeded to swipe my card through the little testing slot, and he checked his screen - "Strange, it seems to be working here. What was the problem exactly?"

I explained that swiping my card wouldn't let me into the gym, and that swiping the card didn't register at the student center for lunch. But the RFID chip still worked, so I suspected it was demagnetized. "It's definitely not demagnetized," my helpful guy told me, "because if so I wouldn't be able to read it at all."

He peered closely at my ID, checking the little strip on the back. Understanding dawned on his face - "Ohhhh," he said, "There appears to be some, um, damage on the corners..." I looked where he was pointing, and yes indeed - at both edges of the magnetic strip, there were little divits in the card.

I realized quickly what had happened - I have a bad habit of chewing on things, like pens and pencils (not my nails, thank goodness). So sometimes if I'm holding my card, I bite on the corners. And if I have run out of hands, and need my ID (holding stacks of parts and going to the machine shop, or having gloved hands and accessing the clean room, for instance), then I'll just hold onto it in my mouth for convenience.

"Yep," said the guy, "there's enough... ah.. well, imperfections on the strip, that it no longer reads correctly." He quite obviously knew I was chewing on my ID, but he was trying to be nice to me and not point it out.

"Okay," I said, "Well can I get a new one?"

"Unfortunately, since the damage is not under normal wear and tear, I'll have to charge you for a new one. This one isn't even that old, you know."

Yeah, I know! But it's older than a year, don't I get credit for that? Ha!

"But just to make sure," he said, "let me ask my supervisor."

So the supervisor comes over - a little tiny Chinese woman. She inspects my ID, as the guy explains the situation. He ends up with, "So can we give her a new one without charging her?"

She looks up at me, waves the ID in front of me, and said, "No replace! You can SEE the TEETH MARKS!"

Laugh! No such subtlety ("er, appears to be some sort of damage...") from the small Asian lady - she was calling it like she saw it!

What they didn't know is that I also know the trick. I politely took my ID back, and then the next day I peeled up the corner of the laminate with my fingernail. So now the magnetic strip is peeling off the card. I took it back to the card office in a couple days, with a different helpful face behind the counter.

"My card is peeling," I said sweetly, "so the magnetic strip isn't working. Can I get a new one?"

"Of course!" was the reply, "So sorry about that." And because the problem was now the laminate, nobody even commented on the teeth marks (oh, sorry, imperfections...) And a few minutes later, I was in possession of a shiny new ID.

So what this really means, is I still haven't lost my ID or otherwise used up my $15 ID expense allotment for this year. Fingers crossed I can hang onto it!

KitchenAid

Last week, my hand mixer broke. The plastic body cracked all the way around, and I thought maybe I could still make it work - but the crack caused the two beaters to be out of alignment. Since they were no longer concentric, "mixing" became more like, "using both hands to keep the vibrating mixer from flying apart."

So I started looking for replacements to my $12 Wal-Mart special. There is no Wal-Mart in Boston, however, so rather than travel arduously by bus to the suburbs where one can find a Target, I opted to poke around online. As I sat with pursed lips in front of my screen, I pondered: Well, let's see - I could always get another of the same one. OR, I could get this nice $20 one - but ooh! The $34 one has a retractable cord...

Well, ladies and gents, by the end of my research, I was nearly ready to place an order for a KitchenAid stand mixer.

That tends to happen in my family. The oft-told story goes that we renovated and doubled the size of our house, starting because my mother didn't like the living room curtains. And more recently, my family gutted the home office, beginning with the fact that the air conditioner didn't work in that room. Projects tend to escalate quickly!

Back to my project, Operation: Replace Mixer.

A KitchenAid, if you are not familiar, is a serious tool. Depending on the model you get, it's also a $300-$400 investment at retail price. But what my family has taught me (besides "projects escalate quickly") is that it is critical to have the right tool for the job. Actually, I suspect the two go hand in hand. Escalating projects is only a winning proposition if you are properly prepared for the expanded vision...

So is the KitchenAid a tool I need? I cook quite a bit, and use my mixer often. And man, the KitchenAid can do so much more than a little hand mixer... and the attachments! Endless opportunities. Good for hours of dreaming for someone like me, interested in both mechanical tools and cooking. 

And the best part? At Amazon, the color I wanted was on sale for $206. 

Figure: Ah, lovely...

Now let me be clear - the KitchenAid comes in many colors. Standard colors are available all the time, and then every so often they come out with specialty colors. Pioneer Woman even sold off a yellow flowered variety. 

I happen to think that pattern is terrible, but in my browsing I found there was yet a worse option. Pepto-Bismol, baby powder pink. Sheesh. 

Figure: Okay, I think it's actually for cancer, so it gets a pass for being a good cause.

And in fact, you can get a whole range of pink kitchen implements! 

I feel about pink kitchen tools about the same as I feel about pink construction tools. 

And that being, that if you can't handle the full-powered version of a tool, you shouldn't be playing with it. This applies to the "baby" versions of tools that come in pink, like the above drill, which is powered with all of 9.6 Volts. Don't hurt yourself, now...

To be fair, I did have a friend point out an excellent argument - that if you are a woman who can handle tools, there are legitimate, high-quality tools that come in pink. And there is one good reason to consider purchasing such a thing.

Figure: That's more like it. Comes with proper drill bits and 18V battery. Could be lithium ion, but still.

 And that being, your tools will not get stolen (and believe me, tools have a ridiculous tendency to walk off). My chemistry friends would say that tools have a high vapor pressure... think about it... think about it... okay, maybe bad joke. In any case - if you work on a construction site, none of the men would be caught dead with a pink drill. And even if someone DID swipe your tools, it would be immediately obvious, because who else would have a pink one? I mean, let's not kid ourselves and think more than one woman would probably be working on a construction site.

So I will grant you that argument. But in my kitchen, nothing is getting stolen. Therefore, no pink. I want my KitchenAid to blend in, be a beautiful component of my counter space. Like so:

Figure: Can you see it? Hiding over there by the oven?

So that black KitchenAid baby was in my cart, and I was so tempted. I left it there to think overnight (another lesson from family - never rush the thinking portion of a project...). And what I decided was this: 1) I haven't saved up the chunk of cash I need for such a purchase, and money is definitely one of the "proper tools" needed for a project. And 2) I have been getting along just fine with a hand mixer so far. And finally, 3) Does my kitchen look like this?

Figure: My DREAM kitchen looks like this, granted.

No, no it does not. I still have a tiny efficiency kitchen, and I feel like getting a KitchenAid is a life step. Kind of like getting the white picket fence and the dog. And honestly, I'm just not there yet. When I have a house - or shoot, even an apartment with a dishwasher - then I'll revisit this.

So for now, I deleted the KitchenAid from my cart.

Actually, that's not quite true - I "Saved for Later."

Because you better believe I'll be back for it. And in the meantime, I splurged for the $34 hand mixer with retractable cord, daggone it, because I'm at least ONE step up from the $12 model. :)

Goal of the Day

On Monday I took a step gym class, on Tuesday I took a strength gym class, and on Wednesday I played basketball outside with guys who were fans of fast-break, no-blood-no-foul street rules.

Today my main agenda was to figure out how to get to lab, do my work, and make it home again with the absolute minimum number of stairs, or other occasions for which I might have to use my legs.

Amusing Comments

It's well known in my office that I work on a lot of side projects. In fact, I take a lot of teasing for all the things I explore that are non-research-related.

Late last week a very large package arrived for me. I eagerly brought it into the office, scooting it across the floor. I grabbed a crowbar and attacked the crate, tearing off packaging and ripping through plastic. Soon I was surrounded by a pile of fluffy peanuts, discarded cords, and stretched out plastic wrap.

Triumphantly, I pulled out the central piece of equipment. "Look," I squealed, "how cool is THIS!"

One of my labmates sauntered by my cube, poked his head in, and inquired, "Oh is this another one of your side projects?" And from the next cube over, a voice piped up, "Yeah what are you working on now, Miss Outlier?"

Oh come on now, people! Does nobody believe I actually do research anymore? Give me some credit here! :)

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I play basketball every week, and this week we picked up a couple new players. As I was running back across the court after a play, I noticed one of the new guys was chuckling with my teammate. When I glanced at them, my teammate offered up, rather embarrassedly:

"He says you distracted him on that last play, because you smell good." Well there's a new one!

"Yeah," piped up the new guy, "I'm sorry, I've never played basketball before with somebody who.... well, smells good!"

I laughed and took it as a compliment. Really it's my deodorant - normally you can't really smell it, but when I'm sweaty and blocking with my arms up, I guess you can! Way better than sweaty boy smell, I can guarantee. :)

Feynman Approach to Problem Solving

Richard Fenyman is the man. 

Edit: Whoops! Feynman. Darn dyslexia... :) Although I kind of like the sound of Feny-man.

This made me laugh today, not least because it hits close to home. I KNOW people like this. One of the myriad reasons World's Best School is a humbling place is because there are people here who operate like this on a daily basis. Sadly, not me.

May all your problems be solvable with the Feynman approach this week!

Ground School

This semester I am taking a not-for-credit class that I am really excited about - Private Pilot Ground School. I have always wanted to get a pilot's license (it's on my wish list), and it turns out that the Flying Club here at World's Best School teaches a class every semester that helps you get your license.

To get a private pilot's license, you have to take a written exam, an oral exam, and then the actual flight exam. The Ground School class is intended to teach you all the knowledge necessary for the written exam. Some things about flying a plane you can't learn until you actually, you know, FLY the plane, but there's a lot you can learn on the ground. Thus, Ground School.

As a side note - if I get a pilot's license, I can add it to my driver's license and my scuba diving license, and now I'm all set for land, air and sea! Just call me Double - O....

The first class was this past Wednesday. Now when I was in undergrad, I did an Aerospace option for my senior year, so I have taken a couple Aero classes. I figured given that experience, I'd probably be familiar with at least some of the material. I skimmed the slides for the first ground school class ahead of time (overachiever bug is still alive and well after all these years in school), and I thought - well I have this in the bag.

So I walked into class the first day quite full of myself - didn't even bring paper and pencil to take notes. I leaned back in my chair, looking around at all the incredibly young faces in class, feeling smugly superior in my grad student status.

And for the first part of class, I did indeed have it under control. "This is an airplane," said the instructor, gesturing to an inflatable model, "This is the wing, and this is the engine." Easy, easy. We continued on. "This is an aileron, on the wing, and the elevator on the horizontal stabilizer, and the rudder on the vertical stabilizer. These are your control surfaces." the instructor explained as she pointed to each piece.

Still good! I have actually physically built all those parts. I helped build small remote-controlled airplanes in undergrad, so I am quite familiar with all the various flaps and structural pieces. And my speciality is control systems, so I even have a good idea how those control surfaces affect the plane.

We continued on, going over things like "Don't Drink and Fly" (the rule is eight hours bottle to throttle), and the different kinds of licenses you can get (multi-engine, commercial, instrument, etc.). As the instructor flipped through the slides, I glanced at the clock - the class goes 6 to 8pm, and it was about 7pm. I hadn't had dinner yet, and my stomach was starting to let me know.

The instructor also glanced up at the clock, realized both that it was halfway through class, and that she was not halfway through her material. "Okay class," she said, "We're going to have to speed up."

So we started flying (ha!) through the slides, at the same point the material was becoming new to me. Is the plane stable in roll? Stable in yaw? Stable in pitch? If the answer is yes, is it positively stable, neutrally stable, statically stable or dynamically stable? Or all of the above? None?

Ack! By the time we got through that section I was convinced that while a plane, in flight, COULD theoretically be stable, in my hands it would quite probably go UNstable quickly and dramatically. In fact we watched several painful YouTube videos to underscore how terribly, terribly things can go wrong in a plane. (How helpful, thank you!)

And then.

THEN.

"Now," chirped the instructor, "we will talk about turning the plane."

 This is where my brain exploded.

To turn the plane to the left, for instance, you roll the plane left. The instructor drew a nice diagram on the board of the wings, tipped to the left. Now when you roll left, you create more lift on one wing than the other. The different lifts cause different drags, so you end up yawing to the left as well.

More pretty arrows were added to the diagram.

In addition when you roll left, the net force vector is now pointed at an angle, and your total force is now split into a vertical and horizontal component. That means you have less total lift going up, so your nose points down, and you have to compensate by pitching up.

Now we're in three dimensions, and the instructor had run out of ways to draw arrows, so she gestures with chalkboard erasers.

I have decided that if by some miracle I can prevent my plane from going unstable, I am never going to be able to turn. I will just have to pick an airport that is directly lined up with my final destination. Six degrees of freedom? Are you Aero people nuts? Thank goodness my MechE career only deals with a few degrees of freedom at a time....

Reeling from thinking about forces in three dimensions, I glanced again at the clock. 7:30pm. My stomach was talking to me now, and it wasn't a happy conversation.

"And now," said the teacher, "we are going to learn the really important information."

Really? Now?

"Now, listen closely, because here's the proceedure for getting out of a spin..."

Oh, no. This I may have to pay attention to. I stared as she drew on the board, spelling out acronyms for "easy memorization." Where was that paper and pencil I was too arrogant to bring??

"Okay. Now in addition to a spin, you may also get into a stall. So here's how you get out of that."

More acronyms. "And CAREFUL! This particular procedure is not instinctive, and in fact your instinct will be to do the exact OPPOSITE." Oh gees....

"And finally, class, we need to go over what to do in case your engine stops."

Okay, now, enough is enough! I'm going to need dinner for this... :)

I did try to pay attention to the engine-out case, but man I was starving, and my poor brain was fried from trying to think in six degrees of freedom. I left class no longer as smug as I was going in.

And now with the benefit of a few days to ponder the material, I waffle between thinking flying a plane isn't all that hard and that it is designed to inherently positively stable, and thinking that there is an infinte number of ways to screw things up and spiral into the ground. Still, I am very excited about the class and about eventually getting my license. If anything, I have learned that I need dinner ahead of time! Give me a sandwich, I'll read up over the weekend on the spin, stall, and engine-out scenarios, and then bring on next week!

From the Email Queue Today

I am subscribed to the World's Best University school-wide email list for the selling and giving away of goods. If you can put up with the volume of emails to your inbox, you can snag good stuff, often free. Given the eclectic set here at this university, there's no telling what technological gadgetry or random widget may come up. Or, there's things like this....
___________________________________________________

Subject: [Selling] box of 36 large crickets

To: selling@worlds_best_university.edu




Sigh, misunderstandings.




$4

___________________________________________________

Ah, just imagine the backstory....

The Problem with Milk

I like milk. I don't drink very much, but I like it. And if I want milk for something, there's very little that will substitute. Water into coffee? Orange juice with a chocolate chip cookie? I think not. (Actually, my cousin has put Mountain Dew on cereal, but that's a line I just won't cross). When you want fresh milk, you want fresh milk.

However, there is a problem.

If I buy the half gallon in the plastic carton, it will last a week and a half. A gallon lasts a week and a half as well, because it has the same packaging. But it takes me two weeks to drink even the half gallon, so it spoils before I can use it.

If I buy the quart, it comes in a paper carton, and it doesn't seal as well so it spoils in four days. But it takes me a week to drink. So it STILL spoils before I can drink it.

So now my engineering brain kicks in.

"What this really is," my brain considers, "is a constant rate problem."

Miss Outlier drinks milk at a rate of gallon/month, or quart/week.

But the milk spoils at a different rates, which using our data points, is given by the figure below. Also, there is a lower limit to the amount of milk you can buy (nobody sells it by the teaspoon!).

So what's our problem? Well, here's the issue.

I can't buy an amount of milk that I can drink before it spoils!

And in addition, we are not considering complicating factors of, say, price of milk per quart, or hassle cost for buying smaller amounts more frequently. If we added that in, heavens! The problem just gets worse.

And in the meantime, I'm standing here in the kitchen with cereal in a bowl, and no fresh milk. Tragedy.

I posed this problem to a friend (who, for the record, easily can put away a half gallon a day), and the reply was -

Well, Miss Outlier, drink more milk!

Moments to make me laugh

I like to keep a stash of recent funny stories and moments in the back of my mind, so that when friends call or the lunch-table conversation trails off, I can offer up a small nugget for general enjoyment. It occurred to me that the internet at large might also appreciate these quotes....
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My class project partner and I were doing testing on a powerful engine in the automobile lab. We were discussing the age-old tensions between engineering approaches - experiment or simulation? Complaining about the simulation guys, my partner wailed, "But they can test anything they want in theory! You have no idea how painful an "NaN" can be... in my world NaN means an engine blew up!"

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During family board game night, my mother took a step out of her comfort zone and played Texas Hold 'Em with us kids. We taught her the rules of the game, but as a first-time player some of the concepts didn't quite come across... After dramatically going "All-In!", she saw the next cards turn over, and declared, "I fold!"

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I asked my youngest brother what he wanted for Christmas, and he sent me a list of (in order of importance), "Laptop - headphones - shoes - iTunes card - cash." Being the shoe-loving girl that I am, I wrote back inquiring what kind of shoes he wanted. Evidently he was miffed that there was no interest in his top-line pick (budgetary constraints not apparently a factor...), so he wrote me back the following: "I want shoes that connect to wi-fi, and go clickety-click!" Okay, okay, I get the hint... :)

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My sister was excited about the cookbook she got this year as a stocking stuffer, billed as "quick and easy meals." She flipped through to a recipe for Cherry-Granola French Toast Sticks with Syrup. The directions? "Start with 1 pound frozen french toast sticks." Hey, wait a minute!

Then, oddly enough, the rest of the recipe went on to detail how to make homemade syrup in a saucepan...

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My hotshot 18-year-old brother will take any chance he gets to drive the family cars around town. Back from one such excursion, he remarked to my father: "Have you ever noticed that sometimes the throttle sticks a little, and you have to really floor it to get past the sticky part?" My father, having driven the car for the past ten years with no such issue, just raised his eyebrows... I think that perhaps the level of "flooring it" required varies heavily with respect to testosterone...

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A few nights ago, randomly in the middle of a football game, my mother declared: "I could really go for a double bean burrito." Since my mother doesn't really cook, we all just sat and watched in amazement as she whipped out a skillet and fried up meat for burritos. At 11pm, we all had a midnight snack. Hey, I guess if you want it, you gotta go after it - time of the night and weird craving or not. :)

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When asked how many pull-ups he could do, my youngest brother replied, "Maybe.... two? I'm more of a flexed-arm hang kind of guy..." Me too, bud!

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Here's hoping that the holiday season will generate lots of happy memories for you as well!

Puzzle Theory

Home on break is the only time I ever do puzzles. My dad likes puzzles, so he usually pulls one out over holidays. Given that my family's house is "desperately boring," according to my youngest brother (no video games, I think is what that means), working on a puzzle is an activity that keeps me entertained and lets me relax.

My dad and I are very similar in a lot of ways, so we both approach the problem of a puzzle from a mechanical engineer's perspective. We have what we believe to be an efficient method for completing the puzzle, so we both attack the same way. A tongue-in-cheek ode to puzzle theory:

First, go through all the pieces and separate out the edge pieces. This is a game unto itself. Sifting through all the pieces to find ones with a straight edge is incredibly tedious. The bigger the puzzle (and usually it's a 1500 piece), the smaller the fraction of pieces you are looking for, so the more monotonous it is. The reward is low - but the risk is high, because the next step is:

Second, assemble the border of the puzzle. Here is where you find out if you win Step One. Assembling the border of the puzzle should be easy. Each piece matches seamlessly to the next in line. But if you made a mistake and missed an edge piece among the giant pile of "middles", you have a break in the line, and suddenly who knows if the pieces are in the correct order. Anarchy reigns, the picture on the front of the box must be consulted - and no one likes having to consult the front of the box. It feels like cheating. But, if you have done your job in the first step, and have managed to obtain a perfect unbroken ring, you have made it to:

Third, ..... PROFIT.

Wait, no.

Third, identify distinct areas to attack. Here, against good engineering instinct, you do have to consult the instruction manual. In this case, the front of the box. The goal is to pick out areas with distinctive features - a brick road, or a bright yellow boat. Or bright yellow brick road, if the "classic movie" puzzle section was on sale when Dad was shopping... You want to pick a few suitable areas, because next you will:

Fourth, turn all pieces right-side up. As any good engineer knows, you can't work on a project if you don't know your materials. Even if your mother rolls her eyes at the takeover of most of the dining table, you should take up as much of the table as necessary to lay out all the pieces face up. Once they are face up, you can easily pick out those distinctive pieces from Step Three. Hang onto those pieces, and move right into:

Fifth, assemble distinct areas. This usually requires a mug of hot chocolate to tackle, because this is the first step requiring actual focus. (Depending on how serious you are about winning Step One, of course.) This is where you really get a feel for the soul of the puzzle. Stare into its eyes, as it were. How difficult is this going to be? How long is it taking to complete sections? Are the piece shapes distinct enough that you can easily tell "yes it fits" from "that's a no go"? Do the pieces snap together nicely, are the colors and textures clearly differentiated? Is my engineering bent so strong that I think way too hard about the merits of puzzles?

Sixth, work on vast areas. At this point you should have a border ring, with blocks of completed areas inside. Bonus if you have connected any of the block to the border. Now you are left with the vast areas. This includes things like - the sky, wheat fields, the ocean, forests of pine trees, that sort of thing. If you are lucky, you can sub-divide the vast areas. "Only-blue" sky versus "blue-with-cloud" sky pieces, if you like. If you have a wheat field, well, best of luck. At most you might hope for "waving wheat" versus "wheat-with-no-possible-distinctive-feature."

Seventh, arrange by shape. When you are down to the last areas, where no clues by color and texture are possible, it's a discouraging time. You think you are almost done (and you've even reclaimed enough of the dining table to eat from), but the last ones are the hardest. At this point, my dad and I arrange by shape. "H-shapes" have two male and two female sides, "Doubles" also have two male sides but at right angles to each other, "Triples" have three males, and "X" pieces are all female. Once arranged, it's easier  to narrow the options. After that, it's trial and error all the way to the fence. Err, end of the wheat field. Whatever. Until you finish. :)

And done!

Let me also note that there are competing methods of puzzle solving afoot in the house.

My mother prefers hunt-and-peck. She picks up a puzzle piece, and tries it in every possible open slot in the puzzle. If none work, she picks up the next piece. This is, unsurprisingly, frustrating and inefficient in the beginning stages, but quite useful to my dad and me when working on Stage Six - vast areas of wheat fields.

My sister shines most when there are "holes" left in the puzzle. When my dad and I have managed to entirely surround a spot, showing the distinct outline of the missing puzzle piece - she strikes. "Aha!" she shouts, "How could you have missed this one?" I contend that there is no glory in finding a piece that obvious. My sister contends that she merely likes to have the entire bounds of  the problem defined.

Chemical engineers, I tell you.

Any way you do it, it's still quite satisfying. Do you work on puzzles over break, internet?

Figure: Note vast area of green grass left to finish, carefully arranged pieces, mug of hot chocolate, and sister working on holes.

Seminar Trivia

There are a nearly overwhelming amount of seminars going on around campus on any given week. Between my own office's student seminars, my own lab's seminar series, the department faculty seminars, topic-centered seminar series (energy, MEMS, etc.), MechE student seminars put on by the MechE student club, and faculty seminars put on by the MechE student club, I could nearly go to a seminar every day. And that's just in my department! If you start looking at the entire World's Best School, the raw knowledge dissemination I'm sure makes you smarter just by walking onto campus.

But sadly I don't take advantage of these as much as I should. My first year as a grad student, I would try to go to as many as I could - sometimes two a week, but usually one a week. But now that I'm a 4th year grad student, I've become a bit lazy. I recently read a good post on this here, at Gas Station Without Pumps, a great new blog started in June that you can check out if you like.

So this past week I made it a point to attend a seminar. It was from a visiting Post-doc student, and it was on the topic of designing robots with human safety in mind. This is important when the robots are intended for use working beside people, or for rescue robots, and actually is generally good practice in any situation.

It felt good to just sit and learn, something not strictly necessary for my work, but just for the fun of it. And you never know what you might get out of it.

My favorite piece of trivia from this talk?

It takes 340 Newtons of force to break the nose. (That's 76.4 pounds, for those who don't work in SI units.)

And now you've learned something. :)