How many moons must a real planet have?

The title of this post is a play on the words to Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind":

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, ’n’ how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, ’n’ how many times must the cannonballs fly
Before they’re forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind

In the Dylan song, he is talking about people. In my title, I'm talking about planets - or what have recently been reclassified as Dwarf Planets. And specifically, I'm talking about Pluto. As you may remember, the International Astronomy Union (IAU), in 2006, decided by vote that Pluto no longer met the requirements for its newly created definition of a planet. The vote wasn't unanimous with 237 votes for Pluto being declassified a planet and 157 voting against it (with 17 abstentions). Since when is good science done by voting? Pluto actually meets two of the three criteria of a planet (it orbits the Sun and it is massive enough to have formed a sphere due to its own gravitational force). The only one it doesn't meet is the criteria that it must have cleared out the neighborhood around its orbit (sweeping up other rock around it to make them part of itself). But since we know so little about this area, who is to say that it has or has not met this criteria?

This brings me to the recent news that a fifth moon has been discovered circling Pluto. I didn't even know about their discovering a fourth moon (July 20, 2011)! These last two moons are so new they haven't even been given names yet. In the picture, they are labeled as P4 and P5 (with the new, fifth moon circled). How can something that has five moons not be classified as a planet? Why not amend the arbitrary (in my opinion) third criteria for being a planet to say, "...or have at least five moons"? The IAU is making up the rules as they go along. Since its founding in 1919, it took them 87 years (one year longer than the Red Sox had to wait between World Series victories) to come up with the definition of a planet. Why can they not be a little open to "tweaking" the rule?

Well, in about three years, the New Horizons probe will be near Pluto and it should tell a lot more about this planetary body then. My hope is that it will convince the IAU to change the classification. But whether they do or not, the fact that we could send a machine that far away for that long a time (the probe was launched in 2006) is amazing to me. And the fact that we might find more information about the distant, mysterious object is exciting. But it will probably raise more questions than it answers. That's the nature of things.

[Update: Here is my version of Mr. Dylan's song for the astronomy community: ]

How big and round must a real planet be
Before it's a planet for sure?

Yes 'n' how many moons must a real planet have
Before it's demoted no more?

Yes 'n' how much debris from around it must go
Before it's a planet once more?

The answer my friend is in the solar wind
The answer is in the solar wind.

Sixteen

I'm posting this three days late. But I've labeled it as July 8 because my son, Evan, turned 16 years old on July 8. In the picture, if you look at the numbers on the cake, you have to realize the "16" is facing him. When I first looked at it, I thought the numbers were backwards or that my wife got mixed up and put my age, 61, on the cake. Perspective changes a lot of what we think we know.

I am proud of Evan. He is turning into quite a smart young man. He definitely has his own ideas about everything and can be very stubborn. But nothing makes me happier than those times when I tell him something and he questions it with a logical argument. He can be very persuasive. Not in the Godfather way of "explaining" things to you but in the "I want to explain my point of view" way. He is learning to accept the things that need faith and to question the things that need to be investigated. He is learning to work hard on the things he loves. And have I ever mentioned that he is taller than I am?

Also in this picture is Evan's grandmother, my mother-in-law and I'm so glad she lives with us. She joins in on most things we do. She is a joy to be with.

Wednesday holidays

Yesterday was a holiday - Independence Day in our country. Yesterday was a Wednesday. So, this week, we worked Monday and Tuesday, got Wednesday off and will be working on Thursday and Friday. I thought I was not going to like that but it turns out, I've completely changed my mind about it. It's a good thing I'm not a politician. I would be accused of flip-flopping. That's a subject I'd like to take up another time but for now, I want to extol the virtues of the Wednesday Holiday.

Tuesday this week was like a Friday because we were getting the next day off. And now, tomorrow (the real Friday) will seem like Friday, too! Where else can you get the Friday Feeling within three days of each other? Another good thing about it was that I knew I only had one day off so I couldn't push things off until the next day. I used to do this in school where I would be feverishly working on things late Sunday night that I should have done on Saturday (or even Friday). I'm the same way now. As you can see from this old post titled "That's why God made tomorrow". As I said in that post,

I don't mean it as a way to justify procrastination. I don't need any help in that!

Not having another day off forced me to get a lot of small jobs done that I might not have done otherwise. And now, here it is Thursday and there are only two days to work until the week-end. I've liked this so much, I'm going to go out on a limb and say we should move all of the so-called Monday Holidays and make them Wednesday Holidays.

Back in 1971, the holidays of Washington's Birthday, Memorial Day, Columbus Day, and Veterans Day were moved to Monday and since then, Martin Luther King Day was added to the list. You can read more about this on Wikipedia in the Uniform Monday Holiday Act article. I think it's ridiculous that these holidays were moved from their meaningful dates (I mean, come on, was George Washington born on February 22 or not?) to something made up so we could have a longer weekend. But since we've already done that, let's make it a better day that doesn't encourage procrastination and gives us that double Friday Feel. I know that everyone is just like me and puts things off on three-day weekends.

So, since we've established the fact that everyone is just like me (there's a logical leap for you), then everyone should like the change to all Wednesday holidays. As matter of fact, I think we should expand the list! We should always celebrate Independence Day on the closest Wednesday to July 4. The Continental Congress did a lot of work before and after the fourth of July. They voted for independence on July 2 (John Adams thought that's when the country would celebrate independence in the future) and the first public reading of the document wasn't until July 8. And why Thursday for Thanksgiving? Is it the alliteration that got them to do it? Probably. And since we're pretty sure Jesus wasn't really born on December 25 (due to the shepherds being in the fields at the time and that wouldn't happen in winter), why not make that a Wednesday holiday as well? How about Labor Day? Why should that always be on a Monday? I think the only holiday we'd have to leave alone is New Year's Day. But give me a little time. Maybe I could could up with an argument for moving that, too.

Deceptive want ads

At lunch, we were reminiscing about the past (our Director of Engineering is leaving to start his own company) and he reminded us of the time the company tried to place a want ad for a "Senior Engineer". What the company wanted was an experienced engineer and not someone fresh out of school. The newspaper staff informed our company that the word "senior" could not be used in an advertisement because it was discriminatory so the ad had to be changed to use the word "experienced".

That reminded me of another story about our hiring a software engineer. At the time (about 15 years ago), we had a specific need for a programmer who was familiar with the Microsoft Foundation Classes and their use in Windows programming. Since you pay by the word, it was decided to abbreviate Microsoft Foundation Classes to MFC. This was how it was most often used among programmers anyway and we figured if people didn't know what MFC meant (in relation to programming), they weren't right for the job. When this was read to the newspaper staff member, they didn't quite get the MFC part and the head of the Software Group repeated it as "M F C - Mary Frank Charlie" to emphasize the letters. Our ad came out that we were looking for a "Mary Frank Charlie" programmer. I don't think we ever found one.

How I'm going to get rich

Do you recognize the picture here? It's a sink strainer basket (or sometimes just called a sink strainer). Have you ever had one that worked? Neither have I. It is very frustrating, wastes a lot of time and causes all sorts of problem with the plumbing. You know how it goes. They may even work for a while but sooner or later, the thing fails to strain anything and just works to block your sink. As a matter of fact, they are terrific at acting as a stopper for the sink. But who needs a stopper in their sink - all the time? So, what usually happens is that people just remove them or tilt them so that water can get through. Then all sorts of stuff finds its way down the drain where it blocks up the drain and then you have more trouble.

I'm convinced that there is only one, true maker of these things and it is probably a subsidiary of the Drano or Liquid Plumber companies. They are the ones who profit when these strainers fail to work. It's like the great Streetcar Conspiracy where automobile, oil and tire companies supposedly bought out streetcar lines so they could replace the electric railways with buses. How else do you explain it?

Well, my idea is to simply design a sink strainer basket that works correctly and is easy to use. How hard could it be? You just need something with a screen or strainer that doesn't block the drain. My design will be foolproof and inexpensive. My design will just work and it will always work. My design will be the only one, apparently, that can do this so I will be rich. Don't worry, I will continue to write this blog so you won't miss any of my future Earth-shattering announcements.

Disclaimer - In case you haven't figured it out yet, this post should be taken as a joke. I don't believe in the conspiracies mentioned here and I probably won't be designing the Great American Sink Strainer Basket. But I sure wish someone would!

"Take Your Cats on Vacation" week

As I mentioned in my last post, we were on vacation last week. Whenever we go on vacation, we always miss our pets. This time, though, we decided to do something about it. My wife, Cindy, got an idea to print near-life-sized images of our cats and attach them to cardboard cutouts and pose them in our own pictures. We included a cardboard stand in the back so the "cats" could stand on their own. We couldn't do the same thing for our dog Charlie because the near-life-sized picture would have been too big.

Having the "flat" cats along didn't completely solve the problem of missing them  but it certainly was a lot of fun. We enjoyed looking around for places to pose them and had a great time setting up the shots. But the best part was the reaction of other people to what we were doing. As you can see in the top picture, even the busy workers were happy to be in the pictures. In the bottom picture, there was a group of people watching us as we prepared the shot. I heard a number of people saying they were going to do the same thing on their next trip. As with all of my pictures, just click on the picture to get a larger view. You may have to do that in the bottom picture to see the cats at all.

Another side effect of only having cat pictures with us was that unlike our real cats, they didn't cry during the night keeping us up. The motel beds did a good job of that.

For more views of our cats on vacation, go to Cindy's blog and see her post about it.

[Update: Cindy has another post with pictures of the "flat cats". Oh by the way, Emma and I are in the pictures, too.]

National "Take Your Dog to Work" Day

We have been on vacation for four days (more on that in another post) so I found out about this too late. Plus, our dog, Charlie, had been in the kennel for those four days and he wasn't himself after we picked him up yesterday (or "breaking out" as he puts it). So, I probably wouldn't have have him to work today anyway. But two of the guys in the Software Group did bring their dogs in today.

I guess the news story that prompted me to write my "Dogs at Work" post was looking forward to today. They didn't mention that this was a special day, though. Go to this link for a news story about it. It has a funny picture, too. The first picture (on the right) is of Max, the Cockapoo. He was very curious about what goes on in our office. He made sure to check everything out and sniffed everything to make sure no danger was lurking in the corners. He was very well mannered and didn't cause any problems. By the way, yes, Max does have two eyes. The other is just covered up in this picture.

Our other visitor was Rocky. He is in the second picture (on the left) and was a little more hesitant about being in the office. He is part boxer and part something else. You could tell he wasn't used to being in a room of cubicles. He was especially wary of me! I hoped he would smell my dog on me and relax a bit but something about me worried Rocky. Like Max, he was very well behaved and didn't cause any problems. I was just a little disappointed. I like to think that all dogs everywhere like me. It's humbling when you find out that isn't true.

It's no different than when we find out that we won't be liked by every human we meet, either. Try as we might, we are just not going to be liked by some people. Just as we don't necessarily like everyone we meet. Some people just rub you the wrong way. We are admonished to love everyone but it doesn't mean we're going to like everyone.