Oct 12

Taco technology

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In his latest Backfence column, James Lileks notes that Old El Paso has unveiled a new taco shell with a flat bottom, so that it stands up by itself while you fill it. Lileks has mixed feelings about this innovation. I do too, but for different reasons — it doesn’t seem necessary to me, because this particular problem is already solved by various sorts of taco holders or racks. But I might give the new shells a try.
As impressive as flat-bottomed taco shells are, I don’t think they are the most significant recent advance in taco technology. That honor belongs to Taco Bell‘s ingenious design for its Double Decker Taco, which addresses the fatal flaw of all conventional taco shells: they are brittle, and tend to fracture under stress. Frequently, the shell just cracks in two along the bottom, allowing the taco juice to drip down your shirt. Or (even worse) the shell shatters into multiple fragments, raining ground beef, shredded cheese, and lettuce all over you. The so-called “soft taco” (made with a flexible flour tortilla instead of a hard corn-tortilla shell) may have been intended as a solution to this problem, but I reject it out of hand. If I wanted my fillings wrapped in a flour tortilla, I would have ordered a burrito! No, a taco must have a hard shell, but it shouldn’t disintegrate when you bite it.
The Double Decker Taco solves the problem by using both kinds of tortillas. The corn-tortilla shell is enclosed in a flour tortilla, with a layer of refried beans in between. The shell gives the taco rigidity, while the flour tortilla holds the taco together and prevents leaks even if the shell cracks. Brilliant! It’s too bad there’s no Nobel Prize for fast food design; the taco engineer who achieved this breakthrough would certainly have won it.
While I’m on the subject of Taco Bell, I’ve been meaning to post a link to ChiliCheese.org, a Web site dedicated to saving the Chili Cheese Burrito (formerly known as the Chilito) from extinction. Apparently, some Taco Bells have dropped it from their menus, so it can be hard to find. At ChiliCheese.org you can sign a petition, order ChiliCheese.org merchandise, or use the Chili Cheese Locator to find a Taco Bell near you that offers the CCB. (Lileks alludes to this site at the very end of his column, where he refers to himself as SavetheChilito.)

Oct 11

Regular or premium?

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In this week’s Straight Dope column, Cecil Adams addresses the question of how to choose between premium and regular gasoline. This topic is surely of great interest to everyone as the price of regular gas hovers around $2 per gallon. I thought I already knew the answer: use the lowest grade that doesn’t cause your engine to knock. But that rule is out of date, because today’s engines detect knocking and automatically adjust the timing to prevent it — at the expense of power and fuel economy. So how do you know which grade of gasoline to buy? Cecil offers a rule even simpler than mine: read the owner’s manual.

Oct 06

Silly stuff

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My last couple of posts have been kind of grim, so it’s time for some frivolous, inconsequential things.
Check out this freaky optical illusion — it looks like it’s constantly moving, but it’s not. Notice that the apparent motion only takes place in your peripheral vision. The circle you’re looking at doesn’t move, but all the other circles seem to. And if you don’t look at any of them (for example, while reading the text above the picture), they all seem to move. Weird!
Be careful on this page. The little creature that lives there collects mouse pointers, and it will steal yours if you get too close. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Oct 05

Happy trails, Gordo

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Colonel Gordon Cooper died yesterday at age 77. He was one of the legendary seven Mercury astronauts and flew into orbit on the last and longest Mercury mission in 1963. Cooper also commanded the Gemini 5 mission in 1965 and was backup commander for Apollo 10.
I don’t know whether Cooper witnessed the X Prize victory of SpaceShipOne before he died, but I hope so. With his passing, only three of the Mercury Seven remain alive: John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, and Wally Schirra. Gus Grissom was killed in the Apollo 1 fire in 1967. Deke Slayton died of brain cancer in 1993, and Alan Shepard succumbed to leukemia in 1998.

Oct 04

Alcatel in the news

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I worked as a technical writing contractor at Alcatel for five years, from March 1996 to April 2001 — the longest I have ever worked at the same job. I had three managers during my time there, and all of them were pleased with my work. The last two even attempted to get me hired as an Alcatel employee instead of a contractor, but were never able to get approval to do so.

The reason had nothing to do with me; it was just bureaucratic reluctance to hire any new employee. The paperwork would languish on some vice president’s desk for months, waiting for a signature, until it was out of date and had to be rewritten and resubmitted. The only justification we ever got was that the company’s human resources budget didn’t allow hiring another person.

So I remained a contractor until the morning of April 2, 2001, when I was laid off along with most of my department. The company had fallen on hard times and had to reduce costs — or so we were told at the time. But now I learn that a few months after Alcatel decided it couldn’t afford my services, it paid a $2.2 million bribe to Costa Rican officials in order to secure a lucrative contract to install cellular telephone systems in that country. An investigation is under way, and the officials in question may well end up behind bars.

I shouldn’t take this personally. I really shouldn’t.

Oct 04

Three years and counting

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I just realized that I forgot an anniversary. My first blog post was written on October 2, 2001, so this blog turned three years old on Saturday.
That strikes me as significant, for reasons that require a bit of explanation. Over the years, I have learned that I have a tendency to get interested in a new activity, pursue it enthusiastically for a while, and then lose interest and abandon it. Sometimes I actually experience a loss of motivation; sometimes I take a break from the activity and just never get around to resuming it. In a couple of cases I’ve decided that the activity is just too expensive and I can’t afford it.
The reasons vary, but I’ve noticed a fairly consistent pattern: if a new interest of mine is going to run out of steam in this way, it’s most likely to do so after about two years. That appears to be the point at which my initial enthusiasm flags and, if I haven’t made a genuine long-term commitment, I just don’t feel like pursuing the activity any more. So if a new activity of mine survives past the critical two-year mark, that suggests that I’m not going to lose interest in it. There have been exceptions, but this seems to be the general rule.
Well, I’ve now been blogging for three years. Does that mean I’m likely to keep it up for a lot longer? I hope so.
UPDATE: If anyone is wondering, my involvement as a volunteer at Raleigh Little Theatre passed the two-year mark three months ago. My family and I first signed up as volunteers at the Backstage Night open house on July 8, 2002.
And as long as I’m observing anniversaries, I should point out Sputnik 1 was launched 47 years ago today — a fact commemorated by today’s X-Prize-winning flight of SpaceShipOne.

Sep 30

Don’t say anything

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I like computers and electronic gadgets, so I’m usually pretty receptive to innovative new high-tech products. But occasionally I run across one that just makes me scratch my head and ask, “Why?” For example, it’s not clear to me why I would want a talking first aid kit — especially if it costs $150.
I see that the same company sells “Intelligent First Aid Kits” that don’t talk (and are much cheaper). That makes sense, actually. Sometimes intelligence means knowing when to shut up.

Sep 30

Dead letters

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Want to guarantee that you’ll get the last word on any subject? Then sign up for The Last Email, a service that enables you to compose e-mail messages that will be sent only when you die.
I worry that spammers will take advantage of this, and we won’t even be able to stop the unwanted e-mail by killing them. Hey, that’s a good idea for a horror movie: Spam From Beyond the Grave.

Sep 29

Laura’s ring

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Bob posts a disturbing report about his daughter’s new ring. Her use of the phrase “my precious” is chilling enough, but he also describes how, when she’s not wearing it, Laura keeps the ring in “a little zippered pouch.” That sounded eerily familiar. After a short search, I found the relevant passage in The Hobbit:

But who knows how Gollum came by that present, ages ago in the old days when such rings were still at large in the world? Perhaps even the Master who ruled them could not have said. Gollum used to wear it at first, till it tired him; and then he kept it in a pouch next to his skin, till it galled him; and now usually he hid it in a hole in the rock on his island, and was always going back to look at it.

I notice that Mount St. Helens is becoming active again, after over two decades of dormancy. Seismic activity is increasing, and scientists say it may erupt at any moment. This seems to have started a few days ago . . . at about the same time Laura found the ring. Surely this is no coincidence. If the volcano does erupt, I don’t think there’s any doubt as to what should be done. Bob must go to Mordor Washington and cast the ring into the fire.