Has anyone seen my screwdriver?

We are finally putting our books back into the second bedroom after the flood that made us frantically move them all out 2 months ago. We have a lot of books, so we needed more shelves and this was an appropriate time to add to our collection, so we needed to put together more shelves before beginning the long slow process of re-shelving the books.

The big stumbling block to this plan was a missing screwdriver. It wasn't where it should be, and it doesn't come when called.

Apparently we're not the only ones missing some tools that seem a bit out of reach. The astronauts on the space station have also lost some tools. During a space walk last week a tool bag deftly escaped from astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper. It floated off into the vacuum of space never to be seen again. Except now it's the latest challenge for amateur astronomers.

Find the tool bag. If you have a powerful telescope, an accurate watch, and can point the telescope in the right direction, there are instructions on the web on how to see the escaped tool bag in orbit. See this news article.

Typical humans, anywhere they go they misplace their screwdrivers. No shelves going up in the space station now, they won't be able to grab a good book and a cup of tea and get comfortable.

Does anyone hear that knocking?

So I'm just sitting at my desk in my home office, working on my computer, when I hear this knocking. It's a metal sound. Doesn't sound like it's coming from inside. It must be something outside.

I look out the window and I don't see anybody. But there is this large metal container that the construction workers are using to put their equipment in. I hear more knocking. Oh damn, one of them has been locked in the metal box. Now who do I phone to get someone with a key to let the guy out?

As I'm going through the list of possible people to phone I realize that there is no business name or phone number on the metal box. I could phone the office downstairs, our building has 24 hour security, but they do walk around the building sometimes making them hard to find, and they don't have the key. I could phone the police, but they don't have a key. I could phone the fire department, hey, now there are people with some heavy metal busting equipment...

And then I see a construction guy come and open the metal box and let his coworker out. They seem to be joking about it, so I guess no harm was done.

Oh well, it would have been more fun to get the fire department in on this. Bummer.

Why are they digging deeper in that hole?

I was walking along Georgia Street today between Thurlow and Bute, just past the new Shangri-La Hotel which is set to open in January when I heard several shrill warning whistles. A few seconds later there was a boom. It was more of a base-note that you feel rather than a loud noise that you hear. And then I heard one more shrill whistle, which would be the all-clear whistle. They were blasting in the hole in the ground that was going to be the foundation of a new Ritz Carleton. But there isn't going to be a new building there.

Part of the impact of the current global financial crisis is that construction has been halted or abandoned on new buildings. In downtown Vancouver the hole in the ground that was to be the foundation of a Ritz Carleton hotel / apartment building has all but been abandoned. The huge signs with the great pictures of the planned building are gone. No company name is displayed anywhere near the site.

So why are people still digging deeper in that hole? Shouldn't they be filling it up so no one falls in while the financial crisis continues and nothing is being built?

Some "news" on the web suggested that the construction was stopped because they needed to make changes to the parking garage design. Uhuh, that would be what was going in that hole, but I don't think that's what is happening. The derelict building that was there before the construction was started was your basic rich-person's graffiti - a partly-built building that was never completed and just abandoned to be an eye-sore. Maybe this is just a more insane and dangerous version of rich-people graffiti, a hole where people can fall into and die rather than spray paint and squat in.

It's fall in Vancouver now, with the coming rain maybe this will be the biggest puddle on the planet, and they're going for a Guinness World Record!

What is the future of questions?

So as just a random thought I decided to google on "questions". I got about 861 million results.

The top result was a link for a Twenty Questions toy - that would be a paid link, and not too interesting.

The second result was a link to Wikipedia, not much of a surprize, but boy was that a dreary Wikipedia entry. I was expecting a dissertation on the Socratic method but it was only briefly mentioned.

The third result was a link to asnwerbag.com where people ask questions - not very interesting ones from my quick wander through - and other people answer these questions - not experts in any particular subject, just people. The answers were just about as interesting as the questions.

The rest of the results on the first page were discussion questions for people learning English as a second language, job interview questions, advice on how to ask questions to technical people (them being only illusionary humans), and an intriguing FAQ from the American Internal Revenue Agency. This means the number of googles on the IRS FAQ list must be incredibly huge for the page to rank that high in google results.

The other interesting part of the google result was "Searches related to:" area which included a suggested search for "answers". That search resulted in only 389 million results. So there are at least twice as many hits for "questions" as there are for "answers". I think there's a life lesson in there somewhere.

And just to compound the feeling that there are more questions than answers in life, the fourth result in the list was for "Google Answers" the text for this hit started out: "We're sorry, but Google Answers has been retired, and is no longer accepting..." Well, that's us told.

Did it bounce or did it sink?

When you have an email address for someone (that you haven't sent an email to in a long time) and you try to use it and it doesn't work... did it bounce because the email address doesn't exist anymore? Or did the owner of the email address tag you as a spammer to get rid of you? Did your message sink into the ether never to be seen by anyone?

How do you tell? How can I find out?

I don't recall pegging them as spammers... but they claim the email address doesn't work anymore. I have been trying to get rid of the slush, so I might have tagged them as a spammer. They've used another email avenue to contact me, but I don't really feel like responding using that one.

So I could tag one of my own email addresses as a spammer in one of my other accounts (I have 6 email addresses and counting now... I don't want to go on about it, they just mushroomed, and are a current source of clutter in my life.) But I don't want any of my emails being pegged as a spammer anywhere. But I don't really know what happens when your address has been pegged as a spammer. How much do I want to find out?

Well, I guess the real question is, do I want to respond to this person who sends only yearly Xmas spam - part of the message being "I'm too busy to read any of your email, so don't send me any email replies from this Xmas greeting. You bastards." OK, so the bastards part isn't explicitly stated, but it is implied.

Well, when I put it that way, why am I even bothering to think about it? If I did peg them as a spammer: Sink baby, sink. If they typed the wrong address: YP (your problem)

What does the status evaluation "5 by 5" mean?

It's a term used by the pilot in Aliens right before the small landing craft is launched from the interstellar mother ship (in the 2nd Alien movie). It's also a term used in Buffy the Vampire Slayer - the Faith character uses it a lot, but no one else knows what it means.

I've found the answer to this one! It is a way of describing the quality of sound in communications. The first number is for the strength of the signal, and the second number is the clarity of the signal. 5 is the best rating for each, so it means "excellent strength and perfect clarity".

The question then becomes, does that have anything to do with the movie or the TV show?

No one is left on the interstellar mother ship in Aliens to communicate with the people in the landing craft, everyone is in the same ship. They could turn around and talk to each other in person. The landing ship does drop off a big tank with most of the people in it and then flies away from them, but they were not testing the communications between the two of those vehicles.

There is no testing of any equipment for sound or other abilities on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I think the Faith character was just quoting from the Aliens movie because "5 by 5" sounds cool.

I think the Aliens movie uses "5 by 5" just because it sounds cool too.

Pondering questions of "what does that mean" can be fun, but don't expect deeply philosophical answers.

Can we get rid of daylight savings time?

We did the "fall back" portion of daylight savings time last weekend. So on Sunday 2 am became 1 am and we got an extra hour of sleep.

And then we had traffic chaos while people tried to deal with reseting their internal clocks to match the new time.

And then people came to appointments an hour earlier than they should have because they didn't know it was the time change weekend, and had to waste an hour of their lives waiting.

And then we found out just how early the sun went down when it was 5 pm and all of a sudden it was dark outside.

In Canada we've changed the dates when this infernal daylight savings "fall forwards" and "spring ahead" will happen. We "fall" later and will "spring" earlier. This is because the 'mericans have changed when they reset their clocks, and we all know they will never understand what time it is in Canada (if any of them really care) if we don't change with them. It's the younger sibling being bullied syndrome.

But I was so enjoying having the days get slowly shorter! It was an easy transition into winter that way - almost a natural change that the body could handle. Working with the planet instead of fighting to control the ultimately uncontrollable.

The spring shift is always the more chaotic of the two changes. From traffic chaos to more heart attacks, springing ahead is worse than falling back. See this article for more from a Swedish study on that subject: Norwich Bulletin Article

Theoretically, daylight savings time is supposed to save energy costs, but most studies find this is really not the case. See this newspaper article: Star Tribune Article

I think we should get rid of the idea entirely and skip the spring time shift and the fall time shift. Our health is at risk. The entire country's health is at risk - except for Saskatchewan, where they are smart enough not to bother doing the time shift. We need to learn from Saskatchewan - not something people often say, but it's true.

Why are so many people wearing berets?

It's an interesting fashion statement to say the least. A beret on the head identifies you as either an artist with a healthy ego, a little old lady who crochets a lot, or a mime. And there are dozens of berets being worn in Vancouver right now. (I'm hoping they are mostly artists... the mime idea kind of scares me.)

But why is this fashion statement being made? These hats are not water-proof. Most of them will look awful if they get water stains on them. Many of them are crochet hats with lots of holes - the parts that are not holes are very absorbent wool that will stay wet for hours.

The Vancouver Writer's and Readers Festival - that I volunteered at again this year - was crowded with many beret covered heads. A large portion of the audience are want-to-be writers, so it wasn't that odd to see - that was the artists with healthy egos.

But I've seen many more people wearing berets out on the street after the festival wrapped up last weekend. In the rain. Yes, the rain is back in Vancouver. We expect it to stop in April - or March if we're lucky - until then we expect rain most every day. The only beret that will keep your head dry in this rain is a shower cap. I'm gonna look closer at these hats....

Does anyone have a pen?

My spouse and I attended a few of the events at the Vancouver International Writer's and Reader's Festival this year. It was great to watch a few authors read from their books - and then have on-stage discussions afterwards or answer audience questions.

We even purchased a couple of books and had the authors sign them. Ooh, my first signed book, I was quite thrilled!

So the authors had pens to sign their books... but the audience members were given surveys to fill out, and do you think anyone in the audience had a pen? The audience is made up of mostly wanna-be writers, but no pen was in sight. Going to a writers festival without a pen is quite ironic.

It seems odd to think about it now, but with computers taking over the planet, why would anyone cary a pen? It's about as anachronistic as wearing a watch, rather than using your cell phone as a time keeping device. It's odd how the everyday of a decade ago is a foreign concept now.