For a variety of reasons, I rarely drink carbonated or caffeinated beverages. Today, I got a free 16-ounce Pepsi with my lunch. I made it last through the last four hours of work, drinking from it at a very slow but steady pace. I was able to observe the effects it had on me.
My body is simply not accustomed to carbonation or to caffeine.
The caffeine affected me first. I could actually feel when the chemical entered my bloodstream. My heart rate increased slightly. My blood pressure increased slightly. I had a marginally easier time keeping my eyes open through some mind-numbing tasks. After a little more of the drink, I noticed a vague tingling sensation within my chest that resembled the feeling I get when I've been flexing a muscle for too long (like when lifting and holding a heavy box) and suddenly relax it. I also noticed a tightness in my neck. Those sensations didn't increase any further as I finished the Pepsi, but I did become significantly more fidgety toward the end of my shift, to the point that I wondered if I could handle sitting still for the last half hour or so.
The carbonation affected my stomach a bit, giving me the tiniest hint at a suggestion of bloating. It affected my breathing more. As the carbon-dioxide entered my bloodstream and affixed to the red blood cells, there was less room for the necessary oxygen. I found myself breathing just a little deeper and just a little faster as a result.
I think I understand why I rarely drink such things any more, and I find myself becoming increasingly confused by people who have a soda with nearly every meal and/or several times throughout the day, by people who give soda to their children, and by people who live on coffee.
28 May 2010
27 May 2010
Footwear
I saw another one. I'm no closer to an understanding of where they come from or how they get there. I haven't noticed any correlation of weather, time of day, or location. In fact, there's probably no pattern at all, but I will wonder every time I see one.
A shoe on the side of the road.
Just one shoe.
A child's shoe this time.
Still tied.
A shoe on the side of the road.
Just one shoe.
A child's shoe this time.
Still tied.
25 May 2010
Inequality
I have discovered an advantage to working in an office with a 1:4 ratio of men to women. That advantage is that, for me, the bathrooms are almost always vacant. No waiting, no awkward conversations, no running into someone opening the door. Just quiet.
22 May 2010
Smile
Thinking about my most recent visit to the local DMV office, I started wondering why so few people (according to my observations, anyway) smiled for their driver license pictures.
Is it because the folks behind the counter running the camera don't tell them to smile?
Is it because they've had or seen bad license photos of people smiling, so they don't want to risk repeating that?
Is it because they're aggravated with DMV for some reason related to getting their license?
Is it becoming the societal norm to not smile for these pictures?
I don't know. I smiled. I always have for my license picture. I have no reason not to. And I certainly don't want to have to present my license as ID with a picture of me that looks like a prison mugshot.
Is it because the folks behind the counter running the camera don't tell them to smile?
Is it because they've had or seen bad license photos of people smiling, so they don't want to risk repeating that?
Is it because they're aggravated with DMV for some reason related to getting their license?
Is it becoming the societal norm to not smile for these pictures?
I don't know. I smiled. I always have for my license picture. I have no reason not to. And I certainly don't want to have to present my license as ID with a picture of me that looks like a prison mugshot.
20 May 2010
Stereo
I like to listen to music while I work. I usually go for things with complex harmonies and a good, strong rhythm. With that broad base, my musical preferences span several genres, so there isn't much I don't like.
If the work I'm doing is manual labor, then I want my music to have lyrics that either tell me a story or let me sing along--general rock, Broadway, a little bit of country. If the work I'm doing requires thought, then I prefer to stick with instrumental stuff--techno, classical, big band, etc. Most of the time, I have speakers playing the music from my computer, radio, or CD player, but I'll occasionally use headphones. In any case, the music enters my brain through both sides of my head, and I know how to keep doing my work even with that stimulus coming in.
At my job, I'm allowed to listen to music, but I have to use headphones. I find it funny that the policy states I'm to use "headphones" (plural) when it really means just one headphone. I can only listen to music in one ear. That didn't bother me. I tuned the balance of the work computer's audio all to one side, creating monophonic sound instead of stereophonic, and put the earbud into my left ear, which was simply closest to the computer at the time. I continued using it that way for several weeks.
Today, my left ear was irritated for reasons I don't yet know, so I tried to switch the earbud to my right ear while I processed my paperwork, and I suddenly found that I could not focus! My ability to multitask with music and documents was paralyzed until I put the earbud back into the left ear. Of course, then I was stuck thinking about that for a while.
Did it have anything to do with the sides of the brain? Did one half process the music while the other processed the paperwork, and did I just happen to pick the sides correctly the first time around? Doubtful. The research I've read says that the auditory nerves send sound from each ear to both sides of the brain.
What's more likely is that I had become accustomed to music from one side. Moving it to the other side was a significant change in the source of the stimulus, dramatically changing my work environment on the sensory level, even though I knew it was the same music coming from the same place as it had been for the past few weeks.
I have to wonder how long it would take for me to adapt--to get my performance level back up to what it is now--if I made the switch from one ear to the other. Too bad I'm not being paid to do that kind of research on myself...
If the work I'm doing is manual labor, then I want my music to have lyrics that either tell me a story or let me sing along--general rock, Broadway, a little bit of country. If the work I'm doing requires thought, then I prefer to stick with instrumental stuff--techno, classical, big band, etc. Most of the time, I have speakers playing the music from my computer, radio, or CD player, but I'll occasionally use headphones. In any case, the music enters my brain through both sides of my head, and I know how to keep doing my work even with that stimulus coming in.
At my job, I'm allowed to listen to music, but I have to use headphones. I find it funny that the policy states I'm to use "headphones" (plural) when it really means just one headphone. I can only listen to music in one ear. That didn't bother me. I tuned the balance of the work computer's audio all to one side, creating monophonic sound instead of stereophonic, and put the earbud into my left ear, which was simply closest to the computer at the time. I continued using it that way for several weeks.
Today, my left ear was irritated for reasons I don't yet know, so I tried to switch the earbud to my right ear while I processed my paperwork, and I suddenly found that I could not focus! My ability to multitask with music and documents was paralyzed until I put the earbud back into the left ear. Of course, then I was stuck thinking about that for a while.
Did it have anything to do with the sides of the brain? Did one half process the music while the other processed the paperwork, and did I just happen to pick the sides correctly the first time around? Doubtful. The research I've read says that the auditory nerves send sound from each ear to both sides of the brain.
What's more likely is that I had become accustomed to music from one side. Moving it to the other side was a significant change in the source of the stimulus, dramatically changing my work environment on the sensory level, even though I knew it was the same music coming from the same place as it had been for the past few weeks.
I have to wonder how long it would take for me to adapt--to get my performance level back up to what it is now--if I made the switch from one ear to the other. Too bad I'm not being paid to do that kind of research on myself...
17 May 2010
Towing
I bike to work. Nearly every morning, on a few blocks that make up part of my commute, I see another man on a bike going the same direction. He's usually ahead of me, but he turns down some other street long before I make my turn. He wears a bright orange reflective vest like many other cyclists do, but his has the name of a towing company printed on the back of it.
I have to assume that this guy works for the towing company, that the vest is part of his work uniform, and that he just bikes there and back every day.
Still, I can't help picturing a guy on a bike trying to do the job of a tow truck... It's absurd, but it makes me laugh just the same.
I have to assume that this guy works for the towing company, that the vest is part of his work uniform, and that he just bikes there and back every day.
Still, I can't help picturing a guy on a bike trying to do the job of a tow truck... It's absurd, but it makes me laugh just the same.
14 May 2010
Fanfare
Operant conditioning is a psychological concept that involves, essentially, teaching a behavior by a system of rewards and punishments. It is this concept that has brought the often-misused terms of positive and negative reinforcement into everyday conversation. I understand this concept, and I use it from time to time--deliberately on my son and unintentionally on others such as co-workers. Everyone uses it to some extent, and everyone is affected by it, but we usually don't notice it acting on us.
Today, I noticed it.
I was required to watch a series of safety training videos for work, and each video was followed by a short quiz. The quizzes were on a computer, and they were all multiple-choice or true-or-false questions. I answered the first question correctly and was rewarded with a peppy musical fanfare sound effect. I rolled my eyes, thinking that such a thing was silly. It continued, playing that fanfare after every question I answered correctly (which, for the first series of videos, was all of them).
When a series of videos completed, I was presented with a cumulative quiz that repeated some of the questions I'd previously answered. It looked exactly like the short quizzes from before. I answered the first question correctly and fully expected to hear the fanfare. But the computer did not play it! I was initially perplexed. After a few more questions, I determined that the format of the cumulative quiz was slightly different from the short quizzes, and I inferred that it did not have sound effects. I was disappointed.
And I was surprised by disappointment!
As I completed that quiz, I found myself thinking about what I was experiencing (an activity called metacognition, or thinking about thought). I had become accustomed to the fanfare, as silly as I might have thought it to be. I had subconsciously enjoyed it and had come to expect it. When it didn't come, I missed it. When I realized that the cumulative quiz was not going to reward me at every turn with the happy sound effect, my motivation faded.
During the second and third sets of training videos, I was again rewarded during the short quizzes, but the sound effect had lost all the absurd excitement it had previously carried with it. I didn't care about it anymore because I knew it was just going to disappear again. Thus, I did not care at all when I answered a question wrong and got what amounted to the descending "Sorry!" scale so often heard on game shows. It would go away, too, and would therefore be meaningless to me.
Today, I noticed it.
I was required to watch a series of safety training videos for work, and each video was followed by a short quiz. The quizzes were on a computer, and they were all multiple-choice or true-or-false questions. I answered the first question correctly and was rewarded with a peppy musical fanfare sound effect. I rolled my eyes, thinking that such a thing was silly. It continued, playing that fanfare after every question I answered correctly (which, for the first series of videos, was all of them).
When a series of videos completed, I was presented with a cumulative quiz that repeated some of the questions I'd previously answered. It looked exactly like the short quizzes from before. I answered the first question correctly and fully expected to hear the fanfare. But the computer did not play it! I was initially perplexed. After a few more questions, I determined that the format of the cumulative quiz was slightly different from the short quizzes, and I inferred that it did not have sound effects. I was disappointed.
And I was surprised by disappointment!
As I completed that quiz, I found myself thinking about what I was experiencing (an activity called metacognition, or thinking about thought). I had become accustomed to the fanfare, as silly as I might have thought it to be. I had subconsciously enjoyed it and had come to expect it. When it didn't come, I missed it. When I realized that the cumulative quiz was not going to reward me at every turn with the happy sound effect, my motivation faded.
During the second and third sets of training videos, I was again rewarded during the short quizzes, but the sound effect had lost all the absurd excitement it had previously carried with it. I didn't care about it anymore because I knew it was just going to disappear again. Thus, I did not care at all when I answered a question wrong and got what amounted to the descending "Sorry!" scale so often heard on game shows. It would go away, too, and would therefore be meaningless to me.
13 May 2010
Four
Two girls--probably around age seven--were rollerblading around my neighborhood today. What caught my attention was that each had on one rollerblade and one normal shoe.
They were sharing. Four wheels each.
I had a hard enough time doing that sport with eight wheels, so I was impressed both by their sharing and by their abilities to make themselves mobile and still keep control with wheels on only one foot.
They were sharing. Four wheels each.
I had a hard enough time doing that sport with eight wheels, so I was impressed both by their sharing and by their abilities to make themselves mobile and still keep control with wheels on only one foot.
10 May 2010
McBreakfast
I just saw a television commercial for McDonald's, and I found myself rolling my eyes at it.
A woman claims that she likes to bike to work "when the weather is right" and that she often stops for breakfast at the McDonald's at the top of a large hill. The ad did successfully show the potential pleasantness of a morning outdoors, and the woman (as portrayed by the actress, of course) was clearly happy. Still, I can't help thinking that the writers and producers here missed the mark.
If McDonald's was trying to appeal to cyclists, they failed. I doubt many cyclists stop for McDonald's food on the way to work. And most cyclists don't just ride "when the weather is right. Instead, they try to ride unless the weather simply won't let them.
The advertisement did manage to suggest that a McDonald's breakfast was tasty and could be a pleasant part of a person's morning, but I don't believe it. I had a breakfast from there once. I was not impressed. In fact, McDonald's would be the last place I thought of for breakfast on the go.
Finally--and, though I could elaborate, I'll leave it at this--I have a difficult time connecting fast food breakfasts with the generally healthy lifestyle required for biking.
A woman claims that she likes to bike to work "when the weather is right" and that she often stops for breakfast at the McDonald's at the top of a large hill. The ad did successfully show the potential pleasantness of a morning outdoors, and the woman (as portrayed by the actress, of course) was clearly happy. Still, I can't help thinking that the writers and producers here missed the mark.
If McDonald's was trying to appeal to cyclists, they failed. I doubt many cyclists stop for McDonald's food on the way to work. And most cyclists don't just ride "when the weather is right. Instead, they try to ride unless the weather simply won't let them.
The advertisement did manage to suggest that a McDonald's breakfast was tasty and could be a pleasant part of a person's morning, but I don't believe it. I had a breakfast from there once. I was not impressed. In fact, McDonald's would be the last place I thought of for breakfast on the go.
Finally--and, though I could elaborate, I'll leave it at this--I have a difficult time connecting fast food breakfasts with the generally healthy lifestyle required for biking.
08 May 2010
Traps
At some times in human history, land has been left in such a state that future generations of people (or animals) can safely inhabit it. This does not necessarily stop them from settling there--because they may not know of the dangers--and suffering some unpleasant results.
One example would be valleys downriver from mining complexes. Dangerous elements and chemicals (lead, arsenic, cyanide, mercury, etc.) leach into the rivers, soil, and water table. Those living nearby are, essentially, slowly poisoned.
Another example might be modern toxic waste dump sites or areas downwind from nuclear testing ranges. In such cases, dangerous chemicals again play a role, but they're joined by radiation and its long-term harmful effects.
Today, I thought that spiderwebs made a good parallel to such unhealthy areas. A spider builds a web and lives there for a time, doing spidery things. Then it leaves. Perhaps it dies; perhaps it just moves. From personal experience and from movie sets, I know that most spiders don't remove their webs before leaving. Bugs come along and get stuck in those webs, just as they would normally do, but now there is no spider around to do anything with them, to clean the web, to shove out the bugs it doesn't want to eat, and so on.
What I'm trying to say is that I should probably sweep up the abandoned spider webs that have built up around the front porch light.
One example would be valleys downriver from mining complexes. Dangerous elements and chemicals (lead, arsenic, cyanide, mercury, etc.) leach into the rivers, soil, and water table. Those living nearby are, essentially, slowly poisoned.
Another example might be modern toxic waste dump sites or areas downwind from nuclear testing ranges. In such cases, dangerous chemicals again play a role, but they're joined by radiation and its long-term harmful effects.
Today, I thought that spiderwebs made a good parallel to such unhealthy areas. A spider builds a web and lives there for a time, doing spidery things. Then it leaves. Perhaps it dies; perhaps it just moves. From personal experience and from movie sets, I know that most spiders don't remove their webs before leaving. Bugs come along and get stuck in those webs, just as they would normally do, but now there is no spider around to do anything with them, to clean the web, to shove out the bugs it doesn't want to eat, and so on.
What I'm trying to say is that I should probably sweep up the abandoned spider webs that have built up around the front porch light.
07 May 2010
Segue
When I first saw the device called a Segway, I must admit that I was perplexed. I gave it the same look a dog might give to someone who just made an unusual noise. On one hand, I was intrigued. On the other hand, I couldn't think of any situation in which such a thing might actually be useful. And somewhere in between those two hands, I was vaguely insulted by the horrific misspelling of "segue" (a word meaning a direct transition).
The Segway transportation device has become oddly popular in a geeky and openly-mocked sort of way. I have yet to encounter one in my day-to-day travels, though.
I don't know where the idea for the Segway came from, and I don't really have the ambition to look it up. But while on my bike today, I determined one possible source of inspiration for it. When I have enough momentum, I sometimes like to stand up on the pedals on my bike. It gives me a break from the effort of pedaling (a welcome rest after six miles), and it's a different perspective. I did so today, rolling down the street about two blocks from home. I was still moving rather quickly for that stretch of the commute--around 8-10 mph, I believe. I thought idly that it might be fun to be able to stand about a foot off the ground (as I was currently doing) and cruise along effortlessly at those speeds. After all, that's what I enjoy most about biking down hills: the effortless movement and the ability to just stand up and enjoy the ride.
I couldn't help wondering if the Segway developers had a similar experience. And then I couldn't help wondering exactly how such an experience could actually lead to that strange "people mover" they then created.
The Segway transportation device has become oddly popular in a geeky and openly-mocked sort of way. I have yet to encounter one in my day-to-day travels, though.
I don't know where the idea for the Segway came from, and I don't really have the ambition to look it up. But while on my bike today, I determined one possible source of inspiration for it. When I have enough momentum, I sometimes like to stand up on the pedals on my bike. It gives me a break from the effort of pedaling (a welcome rest after six miles), and it's a different perspective. I did so today, rolling down the street about two blocks from home. I was still moving rather quickly for that stretch of the commute--around 8-10 mph, I believe. I thought idly that it might be fun to be able to stand about a foot off the ground (as I was currently doing) and cruise along effortlessly at those speeds. After all, that's what I enjoy most about biking down hills: the effortless movement and the ability to just stand up and enjoy the ride.
I couldn't help wondering if the Segway developers had a similar experience. And then I couldn't help wondering exactly how such an experience could actually lead to that strange "people mover" they then created.
05 May 2010
Insectivore
It is a mistake for cyclists to be talking to themselves just as their commutes take them through clouds of gnats.
02 May 2010
Performance
In a Calvin and Hobbes strip, Calvin referred to the Shakespearean quote about all the world being a stage and said, "We need more special effects and dance numbers." I think I agree.
Wouldn't it be fun to encounter a spontaneous musical number in, say, the grocery store or the mall? Think of all the aggravated people stuck in traffic jams every day and how much easier it might be to cope with that stress if they all rolled down their windows, tuned to the same radio station, and sang along.
I think it would be fun. I can't dance, but I could sing. And, if nothing else, it would be amusing to watch. Of course, not everyone knows the same songs, but we have public address systems, radios, and portable music players. Those who know the words could sing along, and those who don't could just dance.
The problem comes when we consider the current American society's view of singing and dancing. Apparently, that's supposed to be reserved for children and trained professionals. If you're over age 12 and can't do it well enough record and sell your performances, you're expected to clam up. I'm not brave enough to challenge those societal expectations, so I suppose I'll just have to be content with singing the songs I know and like while I bike to work or do my shopping. And I'll just have to put up with the looks from other people that all seem to say, "He must be crazy."
Wouldn't it be fun to encounter a spontaneous musical number in, say, the grocery store or the mall? Think of all the aggravated people stuck in traffic jams every day and how much easier it might be to cope with that stress if they all rolled down their windows, tuned to the same radio station, and sang along.
I think it would be fun. I can't dance, but I could sing. And, if nothing else, it would be amusing to watch. Of course, not everyone knows the same songs, but we have public address systems, radios, and portable music players. Those who know the words could sing along, and those who don't could just dance.
The problem comes when we consider the current American society's view of singing and dancing. Apparently, that's supposed to be reserved for children and trained professionals. If you're over age 12 and can't do it well enough record and sell your performances, you're expected to clam up. I'm not brave enough to challenge those societal expectations, so I suppose I'll just have to be content with singing the songs I know and like while I bike to work or do my shopping. And I'll just have to put up with the looks from other people that all seem to say, "He must be crazy."
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