To Blog or Not to Blog, That is the Question

I recently had a conversation with someone about what I post here and how that might affect my ability to get different jobs in the future.  Part of that conversation revolved around a generational difference, and partially personality difference.  Do I realize a potential employer could read my blog and make decisions about me based on that?  Yes.  Am I concerned about that? No.

Most of the comments I receive, either publicly or privately about my blog posts retaining to work and life are positive.  Despite my never ending bout with impostor syndrome, there are many people who value the work I can accomplish and the insight I can provide to solve problems.  Those people often share my views regarding what is "broken" in the workplace in general, and some have even tried to recruit me for other positions DESPITE my blog postings.  Why?  They are of the opinion that most of the problems I encounter are fixable and they would rather have the use of my abilities then have another person walk away to find another job.

There are also many posts I consider writing that never make it here and probably never will.  Through self-discovery, I think I have discovered the origins of my impostor syndrome, but blogging about that might make me seem spiteful to a portion of the (small) audience that reads this blog.  Part of me really wants to share those details so other's don't make the same mistakes, but at the very least I cannot due so here at this time.  If I do ever share that story with the world, it will be through another venue such as an anonymous contribution blog.

So where do I draw the line?  Why do I blog at all?

I blog because it is therapeutic for me.  It lets me get out my thoughts and is a lot cheaper than therapy, lol. By writing it in a public venue rather than keeping a personal journal offline, it also allows me to make connections to both people I know, and don't know, on a deeper level.  It may even help someone else who is going through a rough time if they stumble across my blog and see that I have gone through similar troubles in the past.  The drawing of the line is what is difficult.

I generally try not to call out specific people, just actions and ideas.  While specific people may have triggered the blog post to occur, I am generally addressing the concept and not the person because through observation I believe many people in that same position would take similar action due to the norms of society.  The "Stormed Out of My Performance Review" and "Modern Amish" blog posts were inspired by the actions of a particular person, but both blog posts can at least partially apply to many people I have worked with or for in the past.  My "Facebook, Land of the Free, Home of the Stupid" blog post was about the specific posting of one individual on Facebook, but also addressed why posts such as that are problematic as a whole both in the global view of American's and the fact it provides propaganda material to extremists.

There are times when writing a blog post really only can be related to the actions or words of a single person.  This is what is preventing me from writing my "Origins of my Impostor Syndrome" blog post.  At the heart of it, I think it is rooted in the actions of one person and there isn't any way to abstract those actions so that the identity of the person isn't known.  Many, MANY times, I have come very close to writing blog posts about those actions, but in this venue, attributable to me, I think it would cause more difficulty than any positive result of getting it out of my system.

As a closing thought I will leave you with this.  My blog is just but a glimpse into who I am.  Those who are able to get to know me in person know this.  You are free to make whatever decisions you wish about me from these posts, because  I know I have made similar decisions about people who post items that I perceive to be completely insane or ignorant. If you do end up meeting me in person, just remember that you don't know me.  You only know a portion of me.

Where's the Gas Door Part II

When I made my original post, I had no idea how deep of a rabbit hole I was going down.  I have seen arguments from the economy of fuel pump availability to it being easier for American's to get next to the pump if it is on the driver's side.  I decided to go to the source for at least one manufacturer, and I sent the following tweet to VW:

@VW excluding the built by Chrysler Routon, is there a reason all VWs have the gas door on passenger side?

Well, VW was kind enough to get back to me with their response:

@crutchmc The main reason is that if you run out of gas and have to refill on the side of the road, you are not standing in traffic.

Another +Volkswagen USA enthusiast on twitter (@HumbleMechanic) agreed with one of my thoughts in my original blog post:

@crutchmc @vw and no worries about opening your door into the gas pump if you pull up too close :) #vwlove

So, while this doesn't explain the reasoning for all car manufacturers, at least one has a reason to choose which side it does, which is a good one. I may explore the reasons for other manufacturers in the future. I also like the background image on VW's twitter feed, so here is a nice screen shot.

Where's The Gas Door?

Ever wonder why your gas door is on the side of the car it is on?  I have.  Why?  Because I think about all sorts of random shit and I love cars, that's why.  I am going to write down my own thoughts and observations and then go do some research to prove/disprove my ideas in a later blog post.  I am only going to address "cars" in detail in this post, not trucks/suvs/crossovers.  I have noticed it is more common then not that those types of vehicles, especially the full size variety, are more likely to have the tank on the drivers-side.

Domestic Market Passenger's Side:

All 5 European cars I have owned have had the gas door on the "domestic market" passenger-side.  That appears to be the case across the board too. BMW, VW/Audi, Mercedes, and Volvo are on the driver's right, and Mini is on the driver's left (since it is "British").  The same appears to be true for Japanese car brands.  Toyota/Lexus and Honda/Acura place their tanks on the driver's left.  Ford tends to adhere to this train of thought as well on it's "world" models but the Crown Vic/Town Car/Grand Marque were on the opposite side.  (I think that is so the older and professional drivers that drive them don't have to walk around the car to fill up).

I have a couple theories on this, but the most likely is so that when you pull into a gas station, you stay to the same side of the lanes of pumps that you would while driving on the road.  It has the added benefit of allowing you to pull closer to the pump and not worry about banging your door into the pump when you get out to fuel up.

Copy Cats:

Hyundai and Kia aimed for their near-by neighbors from Japan as a target for success.  They have developed loftier goals now (Aiming for Mercedes, BMW, and Lexus) but seem to still follow the Japanese brands on gas tank door location opting for the Driver's left even though Korea is a Left-Hand-Drive nation.

Cluster Fuck:

GM is a cluster fuck.  Some on one side, some on the other.  It isn't even a clean break between the imported from overseas models vs built in North America.  I think GM did it to cater to the fat lazy American's so we wouldn't have to walk around the car to fill up.  Just a guess.  As for the ones on the passenger-side, they might be more world-car type models geared to be sold outside the US.

I don't have any idea about Dodge because I don't pay enough attention.

So, in a future blog post, I will look into how wrong I was at least about the convention of which side the gas door is on.

Christmas vacation recap

As I write this, we are still making our way up I95 from Florida. I didn't sleep well last night so after about 3 1/2 hours on the road this morning I have relinquished the keys to Chrissy somewhere in North Carolina. We are both working tomorrow but should be home by around 3 or 4pm today so all is good.

This trip has certainly been a busy one with visits to multiple theme parks, an Aquarium, and lots of good food.  On the way down we spent a night in Richmond with one of Chrissy's friends, then a night at dad's before hitting up Disney World for the day.  We mostly went to see the magic kingdom expansion but while there I made a great discovery; I can ride (at least some) roller coasters now.

We rode Splash Mountain twice, Big Thunder Railroad once, and much to my surprise, I even fit on Space Mountain for two runs! I forgot how much I enjoyed roller coasters. We ate dinner at Epcot and headed down to Mom's.

The dogs are just as plentiful (7) and crazy as ever. Somehow Mack manages to still get around despite being as large as a horse and 10 1/2 years old.  Mom & George are doing well also.

We managed to meat up with my stepbrother Sean before he headed off to NC and get in some mini golf too. Once Heather and Stacey were in town, we had dinner with everyone (Mom, George, Heather, Stacey, Pop Pop, Chrissy and I) at Stonewood grill and it was amazing.

Heather, Stacey, Chrissy and I all went to Busch Gardens Tampa on Sunday (with my renewed love and fitting in coasters) for another day of fun. While I did need a little assistance getting the harnesses fully strapped on most of the rides, I was able to ride all of the coasters I had planned on. I'll wait until I have had the plastic surgery to hit any more amusement parks though.

Christmas Eve we had the gift exchange followed by a  nice family dinner at Mom's. Chrissy had a few too many cosmos (followed by wine at dinner) so she didn't even make it to desert that night.

Christmas morning we drove up to dad's for our gift exchange and dinner there before Chrissy and I had to hit the road for Maryland. We made it up to Santee, SC last night and left the hotel early this morning before the weather got worse down there.  So, now we are still somewhere in North Carolina and the rain has picked up. I am going to shut my eyes for a few so I can be ready to take back over behind the wheel.

A Funny Thing Happened at the Office Holiday Party

I attended my office "Holiday party" today and one of my interns ended up sitting at the same table as me.  At one point they started handing out door prizes by drawing names out of a hat. The person to my right won one, I won the next one, and the person to my left won either the next one or the one after that (someone at another table may have won a prize in there).  They guy who won the first door prize said to my intern "Hey, you are next."  I jokingly said "He's an intern, only 'real people' can win prizes" and we all had a good laugh. Right after I said that, the person to the left of my intern won a door prize.  That's right, it literally skipped JUST my intern.  One other person at our table ended up winning a door prize as well.  After the last person at our table won, the intern would have been next again in the trip around the table, and I said "What do you expect, you have two strikes against you.  You are an intern, and you don't have a soul" (he is a ginger).  He wasn't too happy with me for having not won a door prize.  He swears I cursed him.  Granted, the door prizes were only $5.00 gift cards, but the timing of my original comment was just incredible.

Speed doesn't kill, Δv does

People always like to say "Speed Kills" but really, it isn't the speed that kills, it is the acceleration when you hit something.  If speed killed, we would probably all be dead.  The earth's rotational speed at the equator is over 1,000 mph.  Our rotation around the sun is at 67,000 mph.  Our galaxy is moving at a blistering 600 km/s relative to the universe (600 km/s is about 1.3 MILLION miles per hour)[1].  Going 85 mph is not going to suddenly kill me.  Hitting a wall at 85 mph might do it though, but that is caused by acceleration.

This is why crumple zones exist.  The idea of crumple zones is to make a crash last as long as possible.  That may sound counter intuitive, but velocity = acceleration x time.  If you are going from 85 mph -> 0 mph, the idea is to extend the time to reduce the amount of acceleration and thus reduce the amount of force exerted on your body (because force = mass x acceleration). These are the things you learn in physics class.  I could do more math to prove the point, but why bother?

I will say there is some point where speed can kill when that speed is sufficiently different than the surrounding particles (such as air).  For instance, having something travel at 9/10s of the speed of light at ground level is bad!  For comparison, that is 604 MILLION miles per hour.  I don't know where that threshold is where things go from ok, to painful, to deadly, but people aren't reffering to such extreme speeds when they say "Speed Kills".

The point is, next time someone tells you speed kills, let them know they are wrong in the practical sense.  Well, unless it is a police officer who pulled you over, they might not find it amusing.

While having this discussion with a co-worker, she posed an interesting question which I have told her to submit to what-if.xkcd.com, so I won't spoil that by posting it here, but I hope it is picked because I would love to read the response to that one.

[1]: http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/971028e.html

Exclusive Rights - And Why They Tend to Screw Consumers

A recent bit of good news actually came out about Netflix streaming and their new exclusive license with Disney.  Now, that is actually somewhat good for me, since I am a Netflix subscriber.  At the same time, I am reminded how much exclusive licenses piss me off and screw consumers.  Let's rewind.

Not that long ago, there were two different licensed NFL Football Video Games available on XBox.  Madden and NFL2K5.  Madden was $49, NFL2K5 was $19.  I bought NFL2K5 despite the fact that I had been a Madden fan-boy for years.  I was amazed by how good of a product NFL2K5 was and was glad I bought that one.  Shortly after that, Electronics Arts inked an exclusive deal with the NFL and the NFLPA, eliminating their competition in both price and innovation.  EA made tons of money, the NFL made tons of money, gamers got screwed!

2K Sports responded by inking a similar deal with MLB.  Surprise, surprise, same result.  MLB and 2K sports - Happy.  Gamers - Screwed!

As different studios sign exclusive deals with different streaming services, that means people who want to stream all of the movies they may want they have to subscribe to multiple streaming services.  Want to get all of the NFL games every week?  You'll be forking over money to DirectTV, even if you are streaming them ONLINE.

So, as a Netflix subscriber I am happy they inked their deal with Disney, but I feel bad for anyone who uses any other online streaming service.  Exclusive licenses mostly suck for consumers, but since they seem to be good for studios*, don't expect them to change.  *Except for the exclusive contract between MLB and 2K Sports, that apparently didn't work out well for 2K Sports.