The Yuck Factor
The Yuck Factor is best explained with an example. Suppose you pull off a panel to begin working on some network equipment, and you find a dead rodent. That would be a YF = 7. Other discoveries like multiple rodents – or their time of death – might raise the number. If on the other […]
It Doesn’t Take a Brain Surgeon
For many of us, college is that season of life when we are compelled to choose a career path, long before we have any idea of who we are or what we want. Back in my college days, many of my fellow students were the progeny of doctors, lawyers and engineers who saw no other […]
The Next Normal
People love lists. With little effort, you can find the 10 best movies, TV shows, books, albums, songs, plays or cheeseburgers. The 10 best places to visit, live, retire, or attend college are only a few keystrokes away. And of course no list of lists would be complete without mentioning David Letterman’s Top 10 Lists […]
Sentient Stuff
Those of us who have worked in the data storage industry often wonder how our computers match up to the processor we carry around in our own heads. Comparisons are difficult to come by – we can estimate the average number of neurons in a human brain (~ 86 billion), but they are quite different […]
The Last 5 Minutes
Before Greek physician Galen (129-210 AD) came along, it was widely believed that air circulated in our arteries. Galen was the physician to the School of Gladiators, which helped him realize it was blood flowing in there. We’ve learned a lot about bleeding over the ensuing millennia. According to the CDC, traumatic injury is one […]
Beware the Lizard
“I’ve experienced many terrible things in my life, a few of which actually happened.” – Mark Twain A man driving his luxury car late at night becomes lost and slowly realizes that he is in a very bad part of town. When his car breaks down, the tension mounts. He is approached by a group […]
Venus, Mars and the Frontal Lobe
Men and women are different. Whether this is obvious or controversial depends on your point of view, but it’s just true. Most of us can accept this based on personal observations. One of my favorites is the Cocktail Party Test. When two women meet at a party, the first question will nearly always be “Do […]
Placebo Power
There are certain philosophical questions that may never be answered, at least not to the satisfaction of a pragmatic engineer like me. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the sound of one […]
U, Robot
Artificial people are not a new thing. To be clear, I am not talking about non-human legal entities, nor do I mean the sort of folk you meet at cocktail parties who can talk for hours without saying anything. Here I refer only to people whose creators are other technically skilled people. This notion of […]
For the Memories
Memory is not to be trusted. It is unpredictable, frustratingly fleeting, and only gets worse with age. It will forever cling tightly to useless facts and yet misplace the freshest, most essential ones. I can remember my childhood phone number, the tune and lyrics to Let It Be, and most of the Gettysburg Address, and […]
