Todd Stadler's blog

Operating systems: an analysis

Occasionally the metaphors employed by operating systems don't really work out.

The other day, I had deleted several large files, which of course sent them into the Recycling Bin. Now, I suppose it's all good and environmental-y and non-trademark-infringing to name the folder that holds deleted files the Recycling Bin. Even if the icon looks more like a trash can.

An invitation if I ever saw one

But when I right-clicked on the icon to empty the Recycling Bin (that is, to truly delete its contents, just like when you take a real-world recycling bin and dump all the cans inside into a Dumpster), I found myself strangely amused at the option that Windows offered me: I could "explore" the Recycling Bin.

Oh, wouldn't that be fun! What heady journeys I could have exploring the Recycling Bin. Who knows what I'd find — old documents, um ... more old documents? Why, I could spend all day exploring the Recycling Bin!

And that was all good and sarcastic until I went over to my friends' house for Thanksgiving dinner last night. And I watched their eight-month-old daughter enraptured with the notion I was just mocking — exploring the recycling bin. She picked up a crumpled old pie tin and had a ball with it for several minutes before moving on to the toilet paper tube. I know what I'm getting that baby for Christmas!

Anyhow, I'm not sure what to make of all this. Babies acting out the operating system metaphors I find humorously odd? This means something. This is important!

Severe weather alert!

As a native Texan, I am used to the phenomenon of Extreme Weather, as the kids are calling it. Golf-ball-sized hail, tornadoes aplenty, and the occasional hurricane — you name it, it's probably destroying a trailer park somewhere in Texas as we speak.

A fine way to start your day

So it was with some interest that I noticed yesterday that ForecastFox, the Firefox extension that displays current and forecast weather conditions, was warning me of a "Severe Weather Alert".

As weather in Portland is usually docile enough that the occasional lightning strike is considered fodder for the local news, I was shocked. Severe Weather? Here? Could a tsunami be wending all the way up the Columbia River and into the Willamette? Mayhaps some dastardly cold snap was winging its way here from Canada? Did the Republicans finally screw up the weather, too?

Those were a heady few minutes of climatological climax as I pondered the possibilities. But then I accidentally looked outside and noticed that it was sunny, if perhaps brisk, and I forgot all about the potential for Severe Weather.

But! When I saw the exact same Severe Weather warning today on ForecastFox, well! I had no choice but to investigate, hardened-journalist-like, the why behind that annoyingly exclamatory warning in my browser. So I clicked on the icon.

And as soon as the Web page loaded, my eyes filled with dread and I dove under my desk and waited for the klaxons to stop blaring, assuming they would start any second now. For this is what I had read: an "air stagnation advisory" had been declared! Until 4 p.m. Saturday!!

Ahem. Well, you have to understand, in the typography of the National Weather Service, it seemed a lot more exciting at the time, for it was written like this: "AN AIR STAGNATION ADVISORY FOR THE GREATER PORTLAND AND VANCOUVER AREAS ... THE LOWER COLUMBIA RIVER ... WESTERN COLUMBIA RIVER GORGE AND I-5 CORRIDOR REMAINS IN EFFECT".

But the terroriffic words did not end there, no. "AN AIR STAGNATION ADVISORY IS ISSUED WHEN LOCALLY ESTABLISHED CRITICAL VALUES OF TRANSPORT WINDS ... MIXING HEIGHT ... AND VENTILATION ARE EXPECTED TO PERSIST FOR AT LEAST 36 HOURS. THIS PRODUCT REFLECTS METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS THAT LEAD TO AIR STAGNATION CONDITIONS ... BUT NOT NECESSARILY TO AIR QUALITY PROBLEMS." Run!!!

And as I dove under my desk, I took a quick glance out the window, and saw, to my utter horror, that the air outside was not moving, er, enough! We're all going to be, um, ... stifled?

Hmm. Anyhow, that was my excitement for the day.

An open letter to Oasis

Dear Oasis (if that is your real name),

It turns out that I was at college in Houston, Texas while you were getting high.

Now please stop asking me. Good day.

Sincerely,
Todd Stadler

What is the sound of one hand warming itself?

The Haseltine Building, where I work, is old.

And when I say "old", I mean it in the "seventy-year-old car" sense, rather than the "grand tradition of democracy" sense. And when I say "seventy-year-old car", what I mean is this: it may look cool from the outside, given that it looks nothing like what they make today, but you wouldn't want to spend large chunks of time inside, because functionality rarely lasts as long as style.

Look, the point is that the Haseltine Building can be somewhat crummy at times, or, as real estate agents say, "charming".

The main thing that one notes is lacking in the building is anything that resembles earthquake-proofing. Or, at least, this is what one would note, along with a ton of bricks hurtling towards one, if and when the inevitable Big Earthquake hits Portland.

Of course, if El Grande 8.0 comes a-knockin' while I'm at work, I'll at least have the comfort of having snuffed it in a historic building. Or possibly an historic building. Not sure. I'll have to work that out as I hurtle towards the ground floor.

But it's difficult to get any work done if one focuses too hard on such morbid thoughts, so instead we at work while away our time being annoyed by less mortally perilous features of the building, such as its heating/cooling system.

A while back, the building manager made a big to-do about the new heating/cooling system he had installed. Workers with very tall ladders came and interrupted our work schedules in very exciting ways. We were told: the new system is computer-operated! Each floor can be programmed independently!

And I suppose, in a way, the new system has turned out to be an improvement. Before it was installed, our office was always too hot in the winter, or too cold in the summer. This was, we were told, because the thermostat was located in the seating area of the Thai restaurant on the first floor ? notably, three floors below our office ? and when it was hot outside, the system needed to produce cold air, and vice versa. Now I'm all for people eating their pla tod lad prik in comfort, but it was never clear why this resulted in my having to wear a sweater in the office when people outside were sweating.

But like I said, the new system improved things ? our discomfort became seasonally correct. So it was that when a cold snap hit Portland this week, it was chilly in the office, causing a few of us to ask our operations manager to complain to the building manager. (Apparently, the building manager only allows one appointed person in each office ? in our case, the operations manager, the poor soul ? to communicate with him; I assume that this is because otherwise he would be busy all day dealing with complaints.)

Now, I used the phrase "poor soul" a few words back because the building manager has a reputation for being difficult at times. It's almost as if he read in a book somewhere that being transparent (that is, open and honest) is a good thing, and so he strove for transparency (that is, having a minimal impact on one's sensory input). Ha!

As an example, when our operations manager faxed the building manager, asking him, "Can you fix the baseboard heater on the western wall? It doesn't work," he replied, "You just need to turn it on." As it turns out, we had thought of that trick before faxing him, and it was, in fact, our attempting to turn on the baseboard heater that had led to our concluding that it was broken. This, in turn, led to our desire to have the heater fixed.

Not that it matters. Even when the building manager understands a problem, he usually tries a Jedi Mind Trick? ? "These are not the solutions you're looking for" and all that.

So when the people in the office next door, apparently as cold as we were, tried to plug in a space heater and blew the circuit for their office (and, conveniently, my desk), our operations manager faxed the building manager to ask, "Can you fix the circuitry so that a space heater in the office next door doesn't blow the circuit in our office?"

To which he replied, "That is intentional. The building would burn down if people were allowed to plug in anything, anywhere." It's possible he was trying to warn us that the building is also highly flammable, in addition to being poorly wired and too cold, but I assume he was merely trying a take on the old saw, "it's a feature, not a bug". What isn't clear is why he hasn't gone the extra mile and put the entire building on one 120-volt circuit, thereby providing maximum safety, as well as energy efficiency! After all, you can't waste power if nothing turns on.

But in the midst of all my sarcastic observation, I paused. What if the building manager wasn't being lazy? What if I simply misunderstood the point of his replies? After all, the way in which he turned our circuit complaint back on us, morphing it into a plead for safety, was almost jujitsoid in nature. Was the building manager hinting at a deeper, more Oriental philosophy?

I pondered this as our operations manager faxed another complaint, this time about the seemingly unnecessary amount of cold air being blown into our cold office on such a cold November day. She wrote, "Can the cold air blowing out of the vents be stopped?"

And when the building manager replied, "There is no cold air blowing before 11:00 a.m.," I realized the genius in his thinking ? he was not merely talking about the heating/cooling system of a downtown building, but was instead espousing a neo-nihilistic philosophy, expressed through simple koans. "You complain about the cold air," he said, "But your perceptions are necessarily temporal ? consider the cold air that is not, and there you will find peace."

A holy day for giving thanks

I just wanted to say that, now that Halloween has past and Christmas is here, I'm really excited about Thanksgiving! [A note to my Canadian readership: please ignore this, as it makes no sense in your calendar. Your ways are not ours. Also, to my Nigerian readership: I am happy in my current financial situation, thanks.]

On a related note, a friend recently sent me an invitation to her house for Thanksgiving. She wrote, "I am doing the planning part of our Thanksgiving feast a little early. That means I need to get a head count for our turkey order."

I was more than a little sad that she was not, in fact, talking about counting members for some recently begun Order of the Turkey. If I were an officer in the Order of the Turkey, why, just think of the power I would wield! Think of it!

That said, eating carbohydrates and fat until I pass out is probably a fine substitute for membership in a secretive cabal.