Daily crono - one course down again / On water / Civic duty fulfilled / The color of…

Daily crono - one course down again

It seems that I am running out of course work. What an unfortunate situation - I need to find something to do or else I will get seriously bored, anxious, nervous and finally frustrated and angry, none of which is good for social interaction, or otherwise. So, what has happened today to cause such a serious threat? Well, I went to the SDM-office at 10am, and by 2 pm we (Per Morten, Eivind, Trond, and me) had almost finished our disruptive technology class project. We already have some 35 pages of single spaced, no-nonsense text, which leads to the right conclusion. So, one course down. Now, I only need to write the Apollo-paper with Bill, and air traffic paper by myself, and, of course do something for our product design project. I was so happy about all of this, that I decided to play tourist for an hours, and took the D-variant of the green tram, and rode it somewhere in the wild west, Riverside or something. Nothing to see over there, so I took the next tram back. Then, the traditional "seafood fried rice" in Pho Pasteur. Oh, and WiFi works in the park, too. Great.
The picture on the left is of a Larix. One of the most pleasant things in the world is to feel the softness of young needles of a Larix. Rush to the park, and you may still able to feel them this year.

On water

Just to have some fun, I started to read Small things considered - why there is no perfect design by Henry Petroski. It is a really good book, and would be a great addition to some of our course readings. It tells the story of different ways of getting the drinking water in USA during the last 100 or so years. Around 1900, the most common way was to drink for communal cups, which we attached to the water fountains. At some point, someone realized, that this is not the most hygienic way to behave. So, there was a need to have something else instead, and in almost no time some entrepreneurs invented disposable water cups, and cup dispensers. There were several designs, and lots of mergers of companies etc. Then, in 1970's bottled water started to become popular - at the same time as there were common concerns on pollutants in lakes. And, as I wrote earlier, the water bottles are everywhere now, and even in cities, like Boston and NYC, where the tap water is at least as good as any bottled water, people are willing to pay for nothing, and carry their own water around. Petroski writes: "Even the most sophisticated of ladies can [now] be seen drinking out of bottles in a manner that only decades ago was associated with punks and public drunks."

Civic duty fulfilled

I have now fulfilled my civic duty of visiting an all-American fast food joint McDonalds for this and last year. I assume visiting one of them every two years is a good things, just to keep up with what they are selling, and what their joints look, and to taste whether the taste is negligible as it always turns out to be. So, now I have been there and done that, and I will do that again in 2007. It was a sad place, rather empty, with tired customers and clerks. One homeless guy kept on counting his quarters - and finally realized that he could not afford food. So, he asked me to help him out, which I did.

The color of writing pads

In USA, the most common writing pads are yellow. I wonder, what is the reason for this. I am sure, there are many "reasons" for this along the lines "yellow is better for eyes", "my dad used yellow ones", or "they use yellow one in DC". But these are just justifying the tradition. The real reason is why and when the writing pads began to be yellow? In some other country, though I cannot remember where, pink writing pads were the most common ones. I assume the fundamental reason has something to do with the inherent difficulty and cost of making white paper. I would appreciate any enlightening comments on this puzzle.

Alun perin julkaistu kuukausikoosteessa "Blogs April 2005".