At times on walks around the neighborhood we hear the sound of a hummingbird. Our area is home to the broad-tailed hummingbird, the male of which makes a unique trilling noise while in flight. On rare occasions we might spot the bird feeding on flowers or resting on a branch. But more often we only …
In the mid 90s, I attended Microsoft’s Windows Hardware Engineering conference (WinHec). Bill Gates spoke in person and I recall his talking about an initiative to make computers start up much faster than they did at the time. It usually took several minutes to get a PC up and running after flipping the switch, and …
Last week I had a bone density test due to my doctor’s insistence. Before starting the test, the technician weighed me, and I was shocked and alarmed to hear that I weighed almost ten pounds more than I thought I did. For years I had not weighed myself because it had become a frustrating and …
There’s a scene in one of my favorite old movies, Joe vs the Volcano, where the main character is on a raft in the middle of the Pacific Ocean after his ship sank. It’s nighttime and having gone without food or water, he seems on the verge of death. As a huge full moon rises …
For the next quarter at work, my small department plans to conduct an experiment. Since our jobs are often reactive in nature, we tend to handle individual tasks upon notification of assignment, prompting frequent interruptions. Research indicates it’s inefficient to switch one’s attention between tasks, and with requests coming from multiple higher-ups, it gets stressful …
