The Evil Eyebrow

Category: Professional

  • Getting Things Done

    Getting Things Done, a.k.a. GTD, is a self-help book written by David Allen for people who want to get their lives (not professional or personal, but the whole shebang) under organizational control.

    I confess that when Jenn first brought this book home I was skeptical. Well, “skeptical” might be a bit of an understatement. “Deriding” or “pooh-poohing” might be better terms. I’ve never been a big fan of the vast panoply of executive self-help books. I’ve read a few and listened to those lectures on tape you get concerning productivity and networking, etc., and generally found them to be, well, general. They are usually full of the “I’m freaking awesome at what I do, so I wrote a book about it because it must be the best way possible to do it!” kind of stuff, totally ignoring the fact that people who aren’t good at what they do rarely write books about it. Selection bias at its best. Suffice to say, I don’t buy very many of those books (or tapes).

    However, GTD is not of the above genre of unhelpful self-help books. David Allen does fall into the category of person whom I feel does not relax nearly enough, but the book and it’s recommendations are implementable at home and at work by Non-Type-A people who seek to be organized but just need a system. This system, in my own experience, isn’t so crazy as a lot of different “organizational schemes” I’ve seen in the past. It is a logical extension of processes I was already using, but were not quite covering all the bases.

    So, I recommend the book, and the GTD process. I didn’t have to make any additional investments in software or hardware to get things running. I followed some of David Allen’s recommendations regarding organizational stuff such as file folders (a lot) and a labelmaker (which I love, now), but my total outlay was only like $75 to get going (at home. Work obviously provided the materials I needed there).

    4 June 06 22:05 edit. The first comment below reminded me that I forgot to link to what got me from pooh-poohing this book to actually reading it. Check out this organization!

  • 55 MPH Around Atlanta

    This link takes you to the google-hosted video of an exercise conducted by some students. They examined the effect on I-285 around Atlanta when everyone is forced to drive the legal speed limit (55 MPH).

    Some background for anyone who doesn’t live or drive around Atlanta: I-285 encompasses the entirety of the downtown metropolitan area, plus all of the inner subburbs. It’s about sixty miles in circumference, and all of it is signed at 55 MPH (I think—not too familiar with the east side), by ordinance, I assume. 55 MPH on I-285 is rather slow in freeflow conditions. Generally the median speed is around 60 MPH and the 85th percentile speed is probably around 65 MPH (let me emphasize that these are personal estimates. I have not done any speed studies). So, 55 MPH is going to be, outside of congested conditions, around the 20th or 25th percentile; 80% of people will want to travel faster if given their druthers.

    What does this all boil down to? Watch the video and see. It’s impressive.

    Of course, if you do a Google search on this thing and read some of the comments, you will find a large number of people who think that this was just a stupid stupid dangerous prank that proved nothing. Others think that this shows the uselessness of a speed limit that is set too low and not enforced.

    My opinion goes with the latter people. It is silly to have a speed limit which is artifically low and not enforced. Several studies (here, and here, there are others) demonstrate no increase in crashes or crash severity by increasing the speed limit to the 85th percentile speed. These same studies show that reducing the speed limit has no actual effect on drivers’ preferred travel speeds. Agressive enforcement will cause drivers to adhere to a low speed limit, but the effect has no lasting duration. As soon as the enforcement is gone, drivers will return to their previous practice.

    Anyhow. The video is cool. Have a look.

  • Writing for Non-Physicists

    Argh!

    I, admittedly, am not a fizzisist. However, as a Mechanical Engineering graduate specializing in mechanical design, I was more in tune with it than (say) your average Civil Engineering graduate specializing in transportation. For example:

    From the AASHTO, “A policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Streets (2004),” pg. 135, here is the following paragraph:*

    An electronic accelerometer provides an alternative to the ball-bank indicator for use in determining advisory speeds for horizontal curves and ramps. An acclerometer is a gravity-sensitive electronic device that can measure the lateral forces and accelerations that drivers experience while traversing a highway curve (65).

    In defense of the writers of this policy, I must admit that I am not the specific target audience. This policy has been written so that everyone from technician level and up can read and understand the basic ideas behind road design. However, that does not excuse sloppy physics, in my opinion.

    The second sentence of that paragraph repeats the first sentence, in essence, and makes two bad statements and one falsehood. Yes, an accelerometer could sense “gravity”, but not while you’re immersed in the gravity-in-question’s reference frame. I challenge anyone to go out and buy an accelerometer and measure the earth’s gravity; Yes, an accelerometer measures acceleration, we got that; NO, an accelerometer does not measure lateral forces!

    I could go deeper into the uselessness of the paragraph, regarding the industry-wide use of ball-bank indicators, and how no one really cares about the actual accleration, except as it applies to a conversion to a ball-bank reading, and how a ball-bank indicator is an acclerometer, but I won’t.

    I hate to sound peevish and petty, but that paragraph really bugs me. It’s one of those “flesh it out” paragraphs that are unnecessary but placed in a report (or policy) merely to add weight. [sigh]

    Again, in defense of the policy writers in question, when sticking to road design, this is an excellent manual. But the physics needs some work.

    * Note Added 10:20 AM: I always have to go to the wife for my proper APA or MLA or Chicago references, so don’t kill me for the improper citation.

    * Note Added 10:39 AM: Damn Typos! I’ve fixed four since publishing this.

  • That's a Lot of Paper

    I work for an Engineering Consultant firm. As part of our job, we prepare plans and a step in the Georgia Department of Transportation’s plan review process is to plot multiple (11) sets of both full-sized (22″x34″) and half-sized plans. For submittals like this one, we utilize a firm that specializes in plotting large quantities of papers. For example, here you see the Transportation department gathered around half of our most recent submittal. Wow.
    Transportation Department gathered around a plan submittal on a pallet

    From left to right is: Anthony Prevost (standing), Me (sitting), Scott Griffin, Rick Hartline, Sharonda Ivy, Laura Muddiman, and Erica Appleby. The featured pile of paper (only Half of it) is the I-520/I-20 interchange in Augusta, Georgia.

    I’ve never had plans delivered on pallets before. This has really made my week.

  • Microsoft Word Help

    I found a glorious site yesterday that deals with all sorts of the common issues you run into if you use Microsoft Word. The Word MVP Site will give you definite ideas of what to do and what under no circumstances you should ever do, and it will tell you why! The why is the part that presents itself to me as the most useful. It’s all well and good to lay down the law and say never never never use Master Documents, but going a step further and explaining why it’s a bad thing improves my understanding. Thanks, Word MVP!

  • Engineer Girl!

    Know a middle- or high-schooler girl who might want to enter an Essay Contest? Try the Engineering: Improving Our World
    Essay Contest     from the National Academy of Engineering.

    This might be a good way to have a young girl or woman start thinking about engineering as a career choice.