Luggage Restrictions

I am packing to move to Toronto. To that end, I’ve been looking at airline ticket prices and also the amount of luggage allowed. Now, different airlines have slightly different luggage limits. However, each airline imposes the same limits on every passenger who flies with them, regardless of how much they weigh. I don’t think that’s really fair. I weigh 155 lbs. I should be allowed more luggage than someone who weighs 250 lbs.

I propose an overall weight limit of - say - 330 lbs or so. If you’ve done too well at the buffet table and ballooned to 300 lbs, then I’m sorry, you’re only allowed 30 lbs of luggage. If you’re anorexic, on the other hand, I’m sure you could take your family along for free. So long as they’re happy in the luggage compartment.

Lip Reading

If I watch a foreign language video that has been dubbed, the fact that the lips do not match the words does not disturb me at all. However, if the video is not dubbed, but the audio is out of sync - even a little - I find it very disturbing and distracting. Why is that !?!

More On Cars

Here are three Jaguars - I got these images after searching for Jaguar XJ on Google Images. The first one is from a few decades ago, the second one is relatively new and the final one’s pretty recent. All are XJs.

Now, the latest one is much more aerodynamic than its predecessors. The second one itself is more sleek than the first one. My question is this - the people who designed the earliest car must have known it was not the most aerodynamic shape for a car. Aerodynamics must have been well understood by then - it’s not as if a breakthrough in physics in the intervening years led to people realising that the new shapes was more sleek. No, the people at Jaguar must have known all along that the second shape was a closer approximation of what they were aiming at and the third one even more so. So why did they not go with the latest shape from the start !?! I realise that aesthetics are not always guided completely by aerodynamics - look at Lamborghinis for instance - but nevertheless, they do play a big part. And for a given underlying “core shape” of a car, the engineering must be trying to make it as aerodynamic as possible. So why were the older versions of the same car model not as sleek and slippery as newer ones !?! Were there manufacturing challenges involved !?!

State Of Rage

Is it just me or does anger strike other people as being a pleasant sensation too !?! I know I find it intoxicating and addictive. I hate the thing/person/situation that made me angry, but the feeling of anger itself is strangely satisfying. When I do get angry, I feel the inner urge to fan the flames so that I get angrier and angrier (always on the inside of my head - I’m too meek to really get it out into the open). I find the final state of fury very, very nice.

If this state of rage is somehow punctured, I feel almost dejected. For instance, consider this scenario: I’m stewing over some minor news article that reported something I did not want to hear and my friend comes over and asks if I would like a spot of tea.
My friend’s just trying to be nice - I really cannot get angry with him for intruding on my inner tantrum. But the interruption irritates me. It deflates my anger, takes the winds out of the sails of my boat of fury. I try desperately to stay furious, but it’s no good. At the end of a couple of minutes, I’m not angry any more. Now, I’m not complaining about this new state of mind. I like it fine. But that transition is unpleasant - it subjects me to withdrawal symptoms which I really find nasty.

I wonder if other people feel like this too. Certainly there is no shortage of people in the world who are permanently in a state of anger. Maybe they are just too addicted to the intoxication of rage to let go.

A Question About Cars

Have a look at this car:

This is a Ferrari Enzo. It is a car built to go insanely fast. To that end it has a 6L, V-12 engine which produces 651 hp and 485 ft-lb of torque. It does 0-60 in 3.1 seconds and can go as fast as 226 mph. Predictably, it costs more than a million dollars to buy. All in all, it has very little in common with this car:

 This is a Toyota Prius. It's designed to be economical (fuel-wise anyway) - it is claimed to squeeze 66 miles out of every gallon of petrol. It has a 1.8L engine which produces 98hp and 105 ft-lb of torque. The electric battery does add power, but it still only get 134hp at most. Top speed: Unremarkable.

However, for different reasons, both cars share one common interest - reducing drag. Both cars would like it if the air surrounding them presented as little resistance to them as possible.

This brings me, in a very roundabout way to my question: I may be wrong, but I assume that, of these two, the Ferrari is designed for better aerodynamic performance - after all, it is more likely to be going at speeds where drag is a huge issue. So, if drag is a major player in economy and mileage and the Prius’ party piece is its endurance - why does it not try to emulate the Ferrari's body shape !?! Heck, why aren't ALL cars built to look like supercars !?! Maybe copyright issues may be a reason, the need for family cars to have rear seats and a boot may be another, but nevertheless, they can surely be made to look similar.

People With Experience Need Not Apply

I completed my graduate studies at UBC early this year. Since then, I have been practically unemployed (notwithstanding the occasional tutoring and other odd jobs). Now, one of the major barriers between me and 40 hours per week in a cubicle has been lack of industry (or as all the ads put it, real-world) experience. Almost all of the companies hiring people with my background require 3+ years of experience. Since the recession has helped lay off many, many people, there are loads of engineers/programmers/software developers out there who have 5+ years of work experience and are currently jobless. My total work experience in years: 0 (or, to put an optimistic spin on it, 0+) . This has not made for an easy job hunt.

Anyway, long hours searching for jobs (and swearing at companies asking for decades of work-ex) coupled with longer hours of not actually having a job have resulted in a minor epiphany. Most jobs demand heaps of work-ex. But there must be many jobs where work experience is not necessary. In fact, there must be jobs where having work experience is - or rather, should be - an actual hindrance.

Consider dishwashing at a restaurant, for instance. It's a minimum wage job. It's dull, monotonous and, since you are alone at the back away from the other staff and guests, lonely. The skills you need to perform an adequate job need, literally, minutes of practice. And once you start performing at that level of competence, there is no real incentive to perform any better. Even in those restaurants where the diswasher gets a share of the tips, these tips are not the result of his or her work, so why work harder than necessary!?!All in all, it's the kind of job you do for the bare minimum time you have to do it, and then move on. Under these circumstances, any person who has the work ethic to really try hard at dishwashing and take pride in doing it well is not going to remain a dishwasher for long. He or she will invariably find a more rewarding job doing something else. What this means is, the dishwashers who DO have lots of dishwashing experience... are incompetent slouches who couldn't get any other job.

Would you really want to hire such a person to clean your restaurant's dishes !?! Dishwashing, then, is a job where - if employers stop to think about it - experience is a disadvantage. (Not that employers do pause and think like this, but , you know, IF they did...)

I know this analysis won't apply to everyone, so if your ARE a competent and experienced dishwasher, please don't flip out. Take pride in being a rare breed.

I wonder if there are any other jobs that fall into this category. There must be some.

Ten Little Emails - A Story

The story has a lot of images and blogger was being a pain in the arse about them. I have therefore, put it here.

It's a word file and you may have to download and open it. This may not be worth your time.