This is an embarrassing story, but I’ll tell it for two reasons.  First, one of my aspirations when writing this blog is to be honest, even if that doesn’t necessarily paint me in a good light.  Second, it illustrates a subtle point that many of us don’t think about much but is important to mention.

Few years ago, I wandered down to the cafeteria to get lunch like most afternoons.  Our cafeteria is in a cluster of four buildings, serves hundreds of people, and has many different stations.  I came down right around noon, so it was busy.  As I stood in one line to get my food, my mind wandered, and I people watched.  I took note of a young woman several feet in front of me on the next station; she was facing away.  She was sharply dressed and had long flowing hair.  For a brief moment, I thought to myself, “She’s cute.  I wonder what she looks like.”

Continue reading “Is this chrysoprase or seafoam?”

This is probably not a great surprise to many of you, but I thoroughly enjoy watching MythBusters.  In many ways, it is a test engineer’s dream.  You start with a premise, in our case the myth, and then you go through different means to try to either prove or disprove that myth.  One of my favorite episodes is the one where they blow up a cement truck with a shocking, at least to me, outcome; I heard it’s one of the most popular clips.

The element that I find equally appealing about watching the show is the meticulous way by which they describe each scenario and what kinds of approaches they have to each problem.  Some inevitably fail, as you might expect.  Every great once in a while, they encounter an unexpected condition for which they did not account.  The vast majority of the time, their approaches are meticulously well thought out.