Awareness Test

This was a fun exercise we did in one my MBA classes this week.



Here is the original that spawned the above and below, I think.

Seems there's a whole genre of videos on Youtube about awareness tests. Here, here and here. And a synthesis of three here.

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Indiana vs NYC

For my job I get to see some of the more interesting parts of the US. Places such as Topeka KS, GreenBay WI, Des Moines IA and most recently Columbus IN. Not that there is anything bad about these places, the people were friendly and those native to the area would never dream of living anywhere else. But I guess since I've lived in a variety of places in the US and around the world it seems weird to want to live your whole life in a single small city in under populated parts of the US. Of those I talked to, many stated reasons were that it was safe to raise a family, their own family lived in the area, if they moved elsewhere it would only be for 1-2 years before they came back so why bother going at all. They accepted that there were less activities to do as compared to a big city but they could always go there on vacation. They have lived their whole life in a single place and couldn't dream of leaving it. This applies to those in big cities too. I have friends and family that live in New York city, having grown up or lived there most of their adult lives and have no intention of leaving the Big Apple. What would be the purpose? Everything they need and could want is available to them in NYC or they can go on vacation to see the rest of the world.

One of the fun things to do when visiting these places is to checkout local food oddities. One such food item I found in Columbus IN, was the Gnaw Bone pork tenderloin sandwich. Its a large, and lightly breaded piece of tenderloin. It was pretty good but could have used some pepper sauce.


Recently I visited NYC and went to Katz's Deli, its the one from the movie 'When Sally Met Harry'. This wikipedia article can fill you in. I had the salami sandwich which was just great. The plate of pickles was an interesting side dish, though I only had 2 of the 12 pieces that I got.

Two great sandwiches from two very different places. Hopefully you get the chance to experience both. So what city do you call home and would you ever move from it? Why or why not? And is there a special food item unique to your area?

Err

Err and Ignignokt caused much stress and confusion for some and fun for others in the city of Boston this week. On Wednesday there were bomb reports all over the city that devices which contained components of IEDs were placed on bridges and buildings in the city. I-93, the major interstate thru Boston was shut down for a period along with several bridges, major roads around the city and the subway as bomb squads removed the offending devices.
However, the devices turned out to be nothing more than a bunch of LEDs on a circuit board with some Duracell D batteries. Any why were they placed there? All part of a viral marketing stunt gone wrong, for the Cartoon Network's Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Turner Broadcasting owned up to the scheme and offered to pay the city's costs. Funny or Serious?

Here's what I found interesting about the whole thing:

• The 'devices' were in place for 2-3 weeks before being found on Wednesday, if they were actual bombs then that doesn't say much for our post 9-11 security.
• They shoot a water cannon at the 'device' to disable it. Umm very high tech.
• Now some folks in other cities where the ad campaign didn't create a huge public scare are selling the devices on ebay for about $600.
• The blogs and other internet sources had it figured out by about noon. Yet the authorities continued their efforts through 5pm. Timeline.
  

While you can't fault the Boston authorities for doing what they did, since they have to take every threat seriously, a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Prosecuting the two guys who were responsible for putting up the signs seems a little overzealous since their intent was not malicious.

Its not like incidents like this have not happened before. The Orson Wells War of the Worlds radio cast in 1938 certainly caused quite a stir. Let's hope future events are as benign as this one.

Birds

After my recent trip to Trinidad, it would appear I have bee bitten by the bird watching bug. While in San Jose I saw this humming bird taking a bath in a water fountain. Not sure what kind it is, but it seemed very interested in the water.

Not enough humans?

Recently I was watching PBS, NOVA scienceNOW, on a Friday night I believe. Yeah nerd right? So anyway Neil deGrasse Tyson who hosts the show, and who I think is really great at breaking down the whole astro-physics-space-time-string-theory thing, introduces a story about bacteria. The story is about Bonnie Bassler aka the Bacteria Whisperer. Mrs Bassler has discovered some really cool ways in which bacteria communicate. She says that there are 600 types of bacteria on your teeth each morning! Yuck. (err no honey its not the morning breath, its the billion bacteria). And that the bacteria communicate with each other using some molecular compounds. And that these compounds are used by all types of bacteria. The interesting thing she showed is that in some bio-luminescent bacteria, they don't begin to glow until there are enough of them in place. Too little and they just sit there, but after some magic number of generations have grown and are 'talking', they all begin to glow at the same time. Its this 'talking' that makes you sick. So now she's on a hunt to find ways to limit their capacity to communicate and reduce our dependence on harsh antibiotics. Its a completely fascinating topic; as bacteria go anyway.

So it got me wondering, what if there aren't enough humans in the world 'talking'? What if we're all just waiting around for the human population to get large enough that something clicks and we begin to do our equivalent of 'glowing'. I know we're supposed to be all about reducing the human population growth. But maybe there's more for us out-there, we just need more of us.

I was also wondering if we are covered by so much bacteria, is it possible that we are not affected by them in some imperceptible ways? A recent article in the Economist talks about the recent science on the brain and the questions raised on Free Will. If bacteria make up so much of what we are, and they communicate, is it possible that also affect who we are? If the brain is as easy to manipulate as described in the article and our personality along with it, perhaps we are more creatures of a bacterial mind than we think.

I also recently watched a documentary on one of the DVDs that came with my Ultimate Matrix DVD set. Thanks Trini-wife! Anyway the material got me excited about the Matrix again, they show that there was so much more philosophy about Free Will and other concepts in the Matrix. Much more than I realized.

What do you think about Free Will?

Happy New Year!

Well its a new year and I went on vacation to Trinidad and Tobago, sort of visit the homeland. It had been two years since my last visit to T&T so I was due. I had a great time and chose not to check email or post to my blog or surf the web for the two weeks. Although I must confess I did check my Fantasy football scores. For those who care, I lost in the championship game in one league and placed 6th in another league. Well there's always next year I guess.

Anyway happy new year! Where did you ring in the new year? I was in Tobago at Pelican Reef with my family. There was a live singer and DJ with an odd mix of songs from U2 to Soca to Reggae to 80s classics. We did the count down thing and then went to bed around 1 AM.


We started off 2007 on Pigeon Point beach. If you go to Trinidad and/or Tobago make sure to spend a day at Pigeon Point, its the best part of the islands. My wife and I now want to end 2007 on a beach somewhere, to make a nice bookend to the year. I've posted some pics from T&T on Flickr.

Its funny how when you haven't seen members of your extended family for a while how they say you've changed. As far as I know I haven't changed much since the last time I saw them. But I got conflicting accounts. One aunt said 'I lost weight', another said 'I gained weight'. A cousin said I look more like my mom now, but an uncle said I looked more like my dad. Still other members said I looked younger while some claimed I looked older. I was even quizzed on my hair style (which hasn't changed in years), 'Was it new?' All of this makes you wonder if its worth the effort to make yourself presentable in public, after all it appears people see what they want to see regardless of what you do (or don't do).

DSL & Verizon

If you wanted to know, my Lamb Biryani showed up about 1 hr and 15 mins after I ordered it. Which I guess wasn't too bad from the www.orderit.ca folks. However the lamb itself was a little chewy, perhaps India Hut was not the best place for biryani.

Anyway, its been a couple of days since my last post. Mainly due to the fact that I was in Canada for a couple days and super busy with work. But before I left on my trip my DSL connection went out and I am still without DSL at home. My DSL modem(s) loose sync after a few minutes.

To fix the situation, Trini-wife called Verizon to get the process started. and it is a process let me tell you. First she spent a couple minutes going thru the automated prompts 'Windows', 'Agent' and 'Connection Problem' like she was talking to an ESL speaker. Finally she got thru to 'Kati' who sounded very much like 'Khyati'. Not that we have anything against out sourcing of the tech support. We just wish the tech support in India was better than in the US. Kati had my wife go thru all the power off modem, computer, recable, reboot, configure IE, recheck cables, before concluding that the problem MUST be that we had Opera and IE installed on the same computer. Never mind they've been working together just fine for the last 2 years. Thanks for calling Verizon.

So I called last night and got thru to 'Matt' who I think was really a Matt. Anyway I explained the situation to him and he had me try some cabling to a different jack and finally ran a diagnostic on his end that showed the DSL link was losing sync. He said that a Verizon guy would be by the next day to take a look at the phone lines in my area and setup a time to visit our home. He did come around noon, took a look at things poked around, thought a wet connection was to blame, rewired it and reset the phone line. The main office would then turn on our phone again later in the day and he would call back. Both Matt and Dave the local Verizon guy had great customer relationship skills AND more importantly sounded like they'd seen this before.

Well Dave never called back, our phone line came back on, but the DSL sync is still out of sync. Called Verizon again and got Sushil, who sounded like a Sushil and was able to determine that the Verizon guy will be back out to see me tonight. 2 hours after talking to Sushil, we get an automated call that says our DSL line was looked at and the problem was resolved. A hopeful check of the DSL light shows that was wishful thinking on Verizon's part.

So here we are without a fast Internet connection (I'm using dial-up.... they still have that). Its amazing how much you take for granted a fast internet connection, the minute its gone you feel cut off and unable to interact with the rest of the world. I'm used to this on vacation, just not when I'm trying to send a document to my boss thats due today. Such are life's little frustrations.