Repair Cat

When you think of brilliant people capable of fixing anything, who comes to mind? That guy at the car shop around the corner, your uncle Bob, Scotty from Star Trek? How about Fluffy? (Yes, my cat is named Fluffy. You got a problem with that?)

Well, here's the story of how Fluffy, Repair Cat, managed to fix my broken iPod.

Side story: So, I quit my job last Monday. You know that, I assume. On my way out I had to empty my work computer of personal files - including music. Did I mention that all of these files were not on any other computer? And I was in the process of transferring these to backup at home - with my iPod as the transfer device. And then I come home and a couple of days later (before I could backup the files and music) my iPod started displaying the "Sad iPod" icon. Which, I'm told, means my hard drive is fried.

Yes, my iPod crashed! With irreplaceable files and music on it! AHHHHH!

I go in to the local Apple store at the mall, make an appointment, and talk to the people at the "Genius" Bar. Personally, I think they have more bar than genius there, but . . . Anyway, they listen to my iPod (repair by intuiting?) and tell me I can get a new/recycled one for only $210, and too bad about the songs and data.

Not being satisfied with losing hundreds of dollars worth of music, I decided to do some investigation on my own. It turns out that there are a great many people dissatisfied with the service at the "Genius" bar. It turns out that many people who see the "Sad iPod" have a much simpler problem than a crashed hard drive - its as easy as the hard drive cable has come loose. Now, most people find the solution to be opening the iPod, unplugging and replugging the cable. Other, less sophisticated repairmen, find flinging the iPod against the wall an effective solution. Being a tad more adept than a monkey, I decided to get up, get some tools, and pop open the iPod.

However, a funny thing happened on the way to the repair table. Fluffy (you remember, my cat) decided to trip me. The iPod slipped from my grasp and fell three feet to the floor - thonk! I figure, some people find this to be a fix so lets give it a try. Sure enough, the iPod starts right up. Thanks, Fluffy! I really appreciate your help. And thanks, but no thanks "Genius" bar people - I'm going straight to the cat next time.

Tags: iPod, Repair, Sad iPod, Cats

101 reasons to learn a lesson

This past Wednesday, at work, I received 101 lessons as to why people should learn a lesson. Specifically, I received 100 lessons from people who did not learn the lesson from the first person's mistake.

On Wednesday morning, my work e-mail received what would seem to have been a spam e-mail. It was one that we had been recently warned about, appearing to originate from someone within the company and asking to have access granted to various security systems. Having been both forewarned and armed with the knowledge that I had no business granting such access, I deleted the e-mail.

The the first lesson came. In the form of a reply to the original e-mail by a person questioning why they were sent the e-mail. Of course, this person hit "reply all", thus sending it to everyone. Isn't it annoying when someone blindly uses "reply all" like that?

Ah, but then the real fun started rolling in. Over the next four or five hours I continued to receive e-mails from people protesting their inability to perform such a task and the likelihood that they were sent the original e-mail by mistake. All of them hit "reply all". I also got e-mails from people who were begging people to stop using "reply all", who also (naturally) had hit "reply all". The best of these was sent in a eye-catching blue, 100 point font - to everyone. In total, 101 "reply all's" were sent out. To everyone.

Oh, and when I say it was sent to everyone, I mean to everyone. Every single employee of this great company for which I work. All 38,000 (give or take) employees. All of it internal e-mail. I could practically smell our e-mail server melting from here. Other e-mails took significantly longer to get through the system. If it weren't so comedic and absurd, it would be downright frustrating.

Anyway, I survived without becoming e-mail cannon fodder. Either people finally wised up (unlikely) or the IT group put a block on everything related to this e-mail chain (more likely).

So, what's the record for the number of "reply all" junk e-mails for you?

What do you think? No, really, I want to know!

They are a variety of people who read this meandering mess of a blog, and I decided that I wanted to probe you various minds and ways of thought regarding hot-topic issues of the day.

What do you think of the various economic plans being proposed to help relieve today's economic crunch? Especially those relating to the energy sector (e.g. a gas-tax holiday, windfall profits tax proposals, diversion of money/profits to research in alternative fuels and renewable power)?

Surely between all three or so of us who read this blog we have some different opinions on what is going on and what we need to be doing both to make things better today and in the future. And it also occurs to me that, being a researcher who works in the energy industry, I could possibly answer some of the questions you've been dying to ask but never knew who to turn to. I could explain the process of drilling for and recovering oil (and in the process, explain why the global oil reserves estimate has not really changed in three decades). Or I could tell you about fuel cells (I've worked with them some, as well).

So, let me pick your brain, and I will let you pick mine. Anyone up for such an exchange?

Tags: Energy, Tax, Oil, Fuel Cell, Drilling, Policy, Profits, Gasoline

Because Shaun asked . . .

I commented on Shaun's blog today, mentioning that I am reading rheology journals. Shaun responded:

rheology: the study of the deformation and flow of matter under the influence of an applied stress

What on EARTH do you do for a living?

Well, Shaun, since you asked - I’m a rheologist, of course!

I work for an oilfield services company, in research, developing and studying drilling fluids. I could give you a couple of references to papers I authored, but that would ruin my anonymity and you would probably lose interest in them before you finished the title. I did post an excerpt from a paper on my blog some time ago, pretty much just to scare people.

For me, I try to make fluids that you can pump down a hole that can be five or six miles long, have it viscous (thick) enough to remove the drilled up dirt from the hole but not so thick that it’s like pushing bread dough through a straw. Plus about a hundred other considerations. Oh, bonus! The common vernacular for drilling fluids is to call them "muds" (since they consist mostly of dirt and water). So I get to tell people I play with mud all day long - every little boys dream!

As for rheology in general, it has great application in everyday life. For example, take peanut butter. You want the processed peanut butter thick enough so that it doesn’t separate into that oil layer on top like organic peanut butters (most people like it this way). If it is too thick, though, you can’t spread it on bread without tearing the bread. There is a nice, non-scary article here that gives a basic explanation. The premise of rheology is that everything flows, everything is deformable, given a long enough timescale and the proper environment.

Rheology trivia:

1. The longest running laboratory experiment (as recognized by Guinness) is a rheology experiment. (Unsurprisingly, I’ve blogged this, as well.) In it, pitch (you know, the stuff Noah used to seal the ark) at room temperature – which will shatter like glass if hit with a hammer – has been left in funnel to drip for the last 78 years. In that time, it has produced eight drops. It has won both an Ig-Nobel Prize and Dull Website of the Year from the Dull Men’s Club.
2. Glass panes in very old churches in Europe are a prime example of everything flows. The glass is noticeably thicker at the bottom of the pane than at the top. Even though the glass seems "solid" it is really flowing over a very long time.
3. There is a rheological parameter named the Deborah Number, after Deborah in the book of Judges. In her song praising God in Judges 5:5, she sings "The mountains flowed before the Lord." She is thus commonly recognized as the first rheologist noting that, given God’s long-term objective, everything does indeed flow.

So, too much information? You can read some more that I’ve talked about rheology on my blog, if you’re interested. I wouldn’t be surprised if that link never gets followed, though.

Merry Christmas! You may now open your presents.

For my blog readers, I offer you Christmas gifts as tangible as our relationships (e.g. digitized, compressed, and transmitted over networks for all the world to share in).

For the linguistically challenged traveler:

For the decorative computer nerd:

And for the relatives of Cousin Itt with newborn babies:

I hope all had a merry Christmas and we in the Euphrony family wish you a happy new year.

Tags: Christmas Gifts

Public Service Announcement

For those who did not know and do care, the "Do Not Call" list of phone numbers that telemarketers have to consult and avoid is not a permanent list. When (if) you signed up, if was to be on the list for five (5) years; since the list is now five years old, the earliest adopters are about to be dropped from the list. If you wish to register for the first time or renew your phone number's presence on the "Do Not Call" list, you can register on-line at https://www.donotcall.gov. It may take as much as a month or two before the calls stop (as the companies only have to update lists monthly) but before long there will be more silence in the house. But, if you're really lonely and just want someone to talk to, don't sign up and chat away with the telemarketers - you have my permission.

In a related note, did you know that a similar list exists for credit card and insurance applications? Well, it does! It is not as thorough as the "Do Not Call" list, and only covers companies who get their lists from Equifax, Experian, Innovis and TransUnion; but, with these blocked, the number of applications for pre-approved cards and insurance should drop dramatically. Go to OptOutPrescreen.com and you can register to be excluded from lists for five years by filling out the on-line form. If you mail in the form, you have the option of having your name excluded permanently. They will ask for your name, address, social security number, and birth date - ick! BUT, you are only required to give your name and address; they ask for SSN and birthday to help "ensure and expedite" the process. Personally, I would say don't give them anything but your name and address.

Hope you find this helpfull!

Tags: Do Not Call List, Telemarketing, Telemarketers, Credit Card Applications, Pre-Approved Credit, Insurance Applications, Public Service Announcement, Annoyances

What I got to do today

Today, I got to present some of my research to the top corporate executives for my company. The CEO was called away to chat with investors, but the COO and others were there. Mine was a part of the technology review of the status of recent projects. We each had about ten minutes, including questions from the big boys, and needed to include a demonstration.

Here is my demonstration. Now, I know this may look like glitter settling in a tube - okay, it is just glitter settling in a tube - but it really demonstrates the way in which particles settling in an angled hole will evacuate the fluid more quickly. They first only have to travel to the edge of the tube, instead of the bottom, and then they slide down to the bottom (called the Boycott effect). This is a critical problem in drilling fluids called "sag".

Watch the whole video - it's worth it. There's a big payoff near the end.

Okay, I lied. There's no payoff. It's just glitter settling in a tube. If you're still awake, get up and move around to try and restore circulation before you're whole body goes numb.

I'm sorry. I can't promise to never do this to you again, but I'm sincerely apologetic for today's imposition.

Tags: Glitter, Tube, Settle, Sag, Corporate, CEO, COO, Demonstration

Today, I turn 100

In honor of my 100^th posting, I thought I would offer a lighter bit of fluff. And so . . .

You Know You Are Living In 2007 when:

1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.

2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.

3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.

4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.

5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses.

6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.

7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen.

8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.

10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee.

11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. : )

12 You're reading this and nodding and laughing.

13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.

14. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.

15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list.

Tags: Miscellanea, Humor

Get To Know Me: Geek Edition®

Okay, if you've been reading this blog for any amount of time, you will likely have discovered that I am a certifiable nerd. I've played the get to know me game a few times, here and here. I've been asked to refrain from quizzing people based on my particular brand of nerdlyness, and I fear I have not contributed enough to people's understanding of anything ending in "ology". But I press on!

I am a rheologist, by profession. I study fluid flow, how it behaves under different conditions, for materials that can alternately seem like water or solid rock - what is called viscoelasticity. Here, for your reading pleasure, is a small excerpt from a paper I have been writing for an upcoming conference. This has kept me fairly busy at work, between trying to write and working on getting the little things done that kept popping up.

It has been noted that, despite the flexibility of some of these models, no single model does a sufficiently good job of predicting the behavior of all types of drilling fluids. Modeling of fluid behavior is of extreme importance to predicting downhole performance, and the lack of a single model that can be consistently applied detracts from the ability to do so accurately. Recently, several models have been developed which attempt to better model the yield stress behavior of fluids and even incorporate structural terms to account for thixotropic behavior. Good use of these models, as with other models, requires more data points than are available from a 6-speed viscometer. However, the increasing use of field-usable viscometers with an extended range of strain rates makes the use of such models more viable. One model, proposed by Mendes and Dutra , provides more accurate modeling of experimental data and relative ease of calculating parameters. Their viscosity function (Equation 1) predicts an upper shear-thinning region, a yield stress plateau, and a Newtonian behavior at low shear rates. The type of shear stress and viscosity response to strain rate is shown in Figure 1. From these curves it is easy to estimate the yield stress, s_y, the zero-shear viscosity, h₀, and the shear-thinning index, n. Using the estimated value for n, K can be quickly calculated as the stress at g'=1 s^-1.

(1)

Figure 1 Shear stress and viscosity as a function of strain rate as predicted by Equation 1, the Mendes-Dutra viscosity function.

Another recent model, proposed by Møller, Mewis, and Bonn, provides a more interesting method for predicting fluid behavior. In their model, they take into account both traditional shear-thinning and yield behavior and add a component that models structural connectivity in the fluid. They begin with three basic assumptions:

1. There exists a structural parameter, l, that describes the local degree of interconnection of the microstructure.


2. Viscosity increases with increasing l.


3. For an aging (thixotropic) system at low or zero shear rate, l increases while the flow breaks down the structure, l decreases and reaches a steady state value at sufficiently high shear rates.

Based on these assumptions, they developed the following structural evolution equation and viscosity equations.

(2)
(Model I) (3a)
(Model II) (3b)

Here t is the characteristic time of microstructural build-up at rest, h_¥ the limiting viscosity at high shear rates, and a, b and n are material-specific parameters. Under steady state conditions, using Equation 3b, the stress behavior of a fluid may be modeled as

(4)

which, at high shear rates, yields Newtonian behavior. When 0 < n < 1, a yield stress appears in the model; additionally, a critical stress is predicted below which no steady state shear rate can be achieved and flow is unstable (see Figure 2). It is therefore possible to have a sample of the same thixotropic fluid exhibiting the same viscosity at a given strain rate, but with very different structures.

Figure 2 Shear stress and viscosity as a function of strain rate as predicted by Equation 4, for n=2. Illustrated is the critical stress below which flow is unstable.

Tags: Rheology, Euphrony, Nerd, Geek, Thixotropy, Yield Stress

That'll be nice

I read today that Apple is teaming up with Air France, Continental, Delta, Emirates, KLM and United to "deliver the first seamless integration between iPod^® and in-flight entertainment systems". Planes - mostly the long haul, trans-continental ones - will begin being refitting in 2007, allowing the iPod^® to be powered and charged through seat connections. Additionally, if the seat has a video monitor the connections will allow playback of videos on the seat back display. You can read more here.

For those on long flights (I'll be on one to Norway in December and one to Brazil in January) this will be great. The biggest problems with air travel for the modern, electronically equipped passenger is the lack of power connections in both the airport and on the plane. I've been at the airport too many times this year, watching my batteries go dead for lack of someplace to recharge them (I even got into an arguement with someone else needing to charge over the use of one of the rare outlets I found). I hope the trend continues to spread.

Tags: iPod, Planes, Air Travel, Technology, Connectivity

Poll: Calling 911

Have you ever had to call 911 for any reason? I'll group this into three categories:

1. No, never for any reason;
2. Yes, for a minor accident (e.g. fender-bender); and
3. Yes, for a serious/dangerous/life-threatening situation.

Driving in Houston, I see the flashing lights of emergency vehicles all the time. I was just wondering this morning how often normal people are actually involved in such actions. I've been in a few accidents over the years, and 911 has been called to get a police/ambulance response, but most of those have been minor and precautionary. There have been two serious incidents where I had to call 911 over a potentially life-threatening situation (interestingly, both occurred while living in College Station and not in Houston).

The first time was a few months after our marriage; we were living in what turned out to be not the nicest apartments and one of our neighbors, while generally a nice lady, got into some big arguments with her ex. One night, around 1 or 2 a.m., we heard them outside arguing with such ferocity and vehemence that we decided police involvement was needed to calm this domestic dispute (from talking with a cousin who is a cop, these are usually the worst kinds of situations).

The second time we called 911 was a few months before we left College Station. We were living in a decent rent house in a decent neighborhood. Our house backed up to a creek, so there was a little separation between us and the houses behind us. One night, I think it was around midnight, we noticed a glow coming in from our bedroom sliding glass door which led to the back porch. When I got up to investigate, I saw that the warm orange glow was emanating from a tree in the backyard just across the creek from ours, quickly becoming engulfed in flames. No idea how it started, but I didn't want to see it grow.

What stories do you have?

Tags: 911, Emergency, Accident, Fire, Argument, Domestic Dispute, Poll

I've added links!

Okay, so this is really no big deal. Everyone does it, so why not me? These are a few links to sites I visit on a regular basis.

Shlog - This is a blog by Christian musician Shaun Groves. Good stuff and some deep conversations.

Sara Groves - No, she is not Shaun Groves sister. Probably my favorite musician at the moment. I just happen to like the music of two people that share a not entirely common last name. Her writing is so sincere, so open and honest, you really feel that you can believe in what she sings about. Her music is not just about Christ but about living as Christ in everyday examples.

Luminous - A relatively new group, I discovered them through the tribute CD to aid Wes King. Check them out.

McGonigel's Mucky Duck - This is a traditional Irish pub in downtown Houston. They have an excellent menu and live music every night. Not a rowdy place, most shows are smoke-free. They have an enormous number of established and new artists come through, all of them good.

Check out some of these links. You won't regret what you find.

Look ma! I'm blogging!

Well, here is a blog. I may not update often, or ever, after this. We'll see what happens.